Nothing changed Levi, he’s always been like this—broody—not so much the forgetful part. But you loved him anyway, and that was enough for him.
It started with the little things, until Levi forgot to shut off the sink one night, ruining the kitchen floorboards.
CW: Post-war Levi x fem!reader, angst, memory and cognitive decline, major character death
A/N: I cried while I wrote this. Happy late Valentine's Day XOXO ~2.2k words
It started with the little things. A forgetfulness masked by old age, and yet it always felt like something more.
Levi Ackerman was anything if not prideful, and yet the confusion that dazed him at times forced him to tell you, his beautiful wife, that he was struggling with something deep, so much so that you urged him to visit the doctor.
He hated doctors. He had enough of them after the Battle of Heaven and Earth. Prodding, pestering, painfully pricking at him to ensure he remained alive until adequate care could arrive. Who would’ve known it’d take weeks?
And so, Levi hated doctors—but he loved you, his wife, so much that he’d bear through another annoying visit. If anything to soothe your mind that this is just him in his old age, that this is nothing more than another bumpy hill before he’d get better.
He saw it all his mind, you’d wheel him to the doctor’s office, just so that they’d tell him the war changed him, and that many war veterans face mental struggles. Then they’d charge an arm and a leg for the “prognosis”. You’d happily give payment if it meant Levi’s just fine—as fine as Levi Ackerman could be, but fine was good.
Nothing changed Levi, he’s always been like this—broody—not so much the forgetful part. But you loved him anyway, and that was enough for him.
It started with the little things, until Levi forgot to shut off the sink one night, ruining the kitchen floorboards.
You’d seen Levi swing through trees to face the ugliest of titans, seen him fight through despite the pains in his body, and yet that first harrowing face of forgetfulness stuck with you.
The doctor’s appointment was moved up from next month to next week.
You wheeled him to the office, hands on the push handles subtly shifting every now and then to pull the graying bangs from his forehead to behind his ear. His hair is getting long, you think. It’s time for a haircut and he hasn’t even mentioned it.
The doctor says that war changed Levi. That many war veterans face many mental illnesses—and yet Levi’s is a strange and unique one, one that the doctor’s heard of but very, very rarely. As if done with the novelty of being “unique”, Levi scoffs at the doctor, limping from the examination table back to his wheelchair.
“Well then, your job is to cure this right?” The doctor’s face is blank and expressionless.
The walk back to your home is silent, more silent than you think you can bear. Your hands on Levi’s push handles stay put, no longer casting them towards his hair for loving caresses. You don’t want to impose on his boundaries after a conversation like this—Levi wishes you would.
Dinner is eaten silently, deep contemplation overtakes the both of you.
“Screw what the doctor said,” he utters.
“I said screw what the doctor said, I just won’t forget. I can’t imagine it can be so difficult.” For some reason, it felt like the easiest solution in the world. You beam at him and the hopeful look in your eyes make him feel warm.
Of course, you think, Levi won’t let you down. Levi who's survived it all would fight this too, and things will be as normal as they can be.
“What’s with the shit eating grin,” Levi asks you one afternoon. You had just come back from the local market.
“I brought you this journal,” and you shove the bound papers into his lap.
“You can write everything you remember, the ladies at the market told me it helps with memory loss.”
Levi’s reluctance to let anybody know his illness was debilitating, your friends would definitely care if something were going on. But Levi’s image has already been impacted once—he didn’t want to add another smear to the already imperfect painting.
And so, Levi writes, albeit only in the evenings and when you are fast asleep. He writes of his mother, his friends, his squad, Hange and Erwin.
Your name, the day he met you, a cheeky soldier with a death wish, as he likes to say. He writes about the day he told he you he loved you and first kissed you, the day he married you. He wrote about it while it was still fresh in his mind, where he willed for it to remain, where he begged for it to remain, for the rest of his life.
Levi forgets your birthday.
It’s a good thing others didn’t, because neighbors and friends arrived to give you well wishes. He kisses you at the end of the night and you smile at him, and you forget about him forgetting.
Levi forgets about the chicken in the oven.
Fortunately, you arrive on time to salvage dinner, some of the skin burned, but digestible. He apologizes, face red in embarrassment. You tell him it’s nothing.
Every morning you inspect the journal while Levi rests, warm with the memories that still persist. Levi’s fighting, you think to yourself, everything will be alright.
Things remain in limbo for a while, with you picking up the pieces of Levi’s forgetting mind and putting them in their place. It remains like that for a while, you reminding Levi of the things he’s supposed to be doing.
Suddenly, so suddenly, you come home one morning to find Levi struggling to stand, finding support in the nearby table.
“Levi,” you exclaim, “what the hell are you doing?”
He seems almost startled by you, but he clenches his jaw in defiance.
“Where the hell is everybody? We need to stop Eren, and I’m just sitting here doing nothing.”
Suddenly, so suddenly, it’s like you’ve woken up and are facing reality for the first time.
The tears slip from your eyes, the hands by your side clenching and unclenching into fists. Levi looks at you with a stern expression, calling your name, but you ignore him as you walk away. You hide in your bedroom.
Levi talks of titans for two days straight, washes the same dishes several times, asks you where Hange and Erwin were, before finally snapping back into reality.
You’re crumpled on your bed and he sinks there with you, head falling into your shoulder. He’s silent in quiet horror, you’re silent in quiet loneliness. He apologizes over and over. You tell him it’s okay.
The frayed edges of Levi’s mind begin to tear at the seams, the gaps in his mind no longer something he can conceal. He wills himself to write. Where there was once lengthy journal entries, now repetitive sentences covered the pages.
We are living in year 86x. The war has ended.
Erwin Smith is dead. Hange Zoe is dead.
Levi forgets your anniversary, Levi forgets to bathe, Levi forgets the route home when he steps out to buy…something—he can’t remember what he was supposed to buy.
To avoid your pained gaze, Levi’s wheelchair permanently lives near the window in the corner of the living room. Away from disturbing you, away from being near you.
Things remain like this for a while. You wait—for what, you don’t really know. You watch Levi scramble day in and day out, until he finally stills, hands in his lap, staring outside the window.
After months, you inspect his journal, wanting to feel hope, wanting to remind yourself that Levi’s fighting, that he’s trying.
The last journal entry was weeks ago. All that remain are scribbles. Levi remembers the routine, but does’t remember what he’s supposed to do.
The doctor says there’s nothing left to do, and so you watch your husband implode. And oh you wouldn’t wish this on your worst enemy. To watch the man that loves you forget you. To watch as the man you love forgets everything.
Levi’s exhaustion is apparent from where he sits. He holds his teacup, fingers feeling weird where they were. Why does he hold teacups like this?
But only when he forgets your name does your own world implode, the bits and pieces of your self floating, with nobody to piece you together.
He doesn’t sleep in your bedroom anymore, only married people do that. In Levi’s mind, he’s respecting you, an unmarried woman, and so his permanent spot by the window also becomes the spot where he sleeps.
The doctor gives him a couple of more weeks, but it’s months of confusion, months of gazing into nothing, grasping at far away memories.
Where’s Furlan and Isabel?
You remind Levi that they’re gone, but that they’re waiting for him. Wherever they are.
You wait. For what, you don’t know.
It’s months of self hatred, before for a moment, Levi finds relief; clarity.
You catch him staring at you one evening, when you’re cleaning the dishes of tonight’s dinner.
“You remind me of someone I used to love,” Levi tells you.
Your heart catches, blood freezing, before you smile, a shaky breath escaping you.
“Yeah,” you respond, “used to?”
Levi stays silent. You’ve long gotten used to the silence and the quiet contemplation, but for some reason you are compelled to look at him.
You are used to his lost gaze, used to the permanent furrowed brows that are always deep in thought. Is it your lover trying to remember you? The fighter in him, still combatting the destruction of his mind?
You look at him like a teacher looks at their student, the answer at the tip of their tongue, the knowledge in the deepest part of their mind, waiting to be brought out.
You are used to the defeated glance of despair, the quiet confusion that tells you help me.
You are not used to, however, the look that now graced Levi’s face.
Recognition. It startles you. It startles him.
He calls your name and your breath hitches. You can’t help the tears that slip. He says your name, over and over again and you walk over from the kitchen counter to his spot by the window, toppling over his wheelchair in an embrace. Your face falls into the crook of his neck as he wraps his arms around you.
“You married me,” he says quietly, “why?”
You’re quiet, not trusting your voice to not fall and break down, but force yourself to speak anyway.
“I love you,” you say, voice hoarse, “that’s why.”
Neither of you say anything else. His face falls into your shoulder and he breathes you in—you smell familiar, look familiar too. Perhaps Erwin and Hange can tell him later who you are and why you’re embracing him. You’re just too warm to let go right now. All he knows is that you’re his wife—his beautiful wife.
For the first time in a long time, Levi wheels himself into your shared bedroom and sleeps next to you. For the first time in a long time, things feel normal.
That chilly evening, Levi left your world.
It wasn’t his world anymore, no—hadn’t been his world in a long time. His permanently furrowed brows have relaxed, and finally his face appeared peaceful. You were glad. Even if you sobbed quietly for him to come back, you were glad.
All that was left was to wait.
Your gray hair swayed with the breeze one fateful morning. Something clicked within you, something about the peace that morning made you smile an all knowing smile. What’s with the shit-eating grin, you could almost hear Levi ask you.
That night, neighbors and former comrades surrounded you, their children in another room to spare them the pain and grief that came with death. You were glad that they didn’t have to see you. At a young age you had been a witness to countless deaths at the hands of titans and the world, let them salvage their innocence for a bit longer.
You were in delirium. You were drifting, memories and glimpses of your life flashing before you, it all felt so real. Your parents, the scouts, the war. The most prominent moments though were the ones with Levi. It was then you realized that you had almost forgotten what he looked like before his injuries. You had almost forgotten what he sounded like before illness overtook him.
Captain Levi Ackerman. A symbol of hope.
Levi. Just Levi. The man you had fallen in love with.
You smiled fondly as you felt the tendrils of your mortality begin to blur; the feeling of peace filled you, it felt like falling into a deep sleep. And the peace continued to lull you, leading you to nothing and infinity all at the same time.
You wandered, away from the cries of the world, and suddenly, a silence.
Then, you saw him. Your face broke out into a beaming smile.
“Levi,” you called out to your lover, your feet moving automatically to reach him.
There he was, his vision clear, his limbs intact, not a single layer of exhaustion on him. His face broke out in a small smile and he called out to you; you felt whole again.
There he was. Waiting for you.
