First of all, thank you for being interested in the story! Actually, I based this little fic on a dream, which involved the kitchen scene with Mikasa confronting Levi and the man shaking her off, while Sasha happened to be there, looking on. It was Mikasa's sadness which really stuck to me from that dream, and Levi might appear cruel to her, but I hope you can understand and forgive him…

Chapter 03: Dream

'Does your leg still hurt?'

'It's not as bad as it used to be.'

She looked at him with a dubious frown. Not wanting to appear weak, he would deny the severity of his condition. She knew it, because she would have done the exact same.

'I think you should rest up,' she advised. He only scoffed at her concern, then reached out an arm to pull her onto his lap. She was careful not to put her full weight on him.

'Well, you might've crippled me for a lifetime with your stupid reckless bullshit,' he said quite lightly. 'So I expect you to make up for it.'

'How?' she asked, feeling suspicious.

'By being nice and obedient.' He ran his fingers up her bare thighs, sending goose bumps all over her body. 'And doing all the hard work while I just lay back and enjoy.'

'You're really a sadist,' she told him, laughing in spite of herself.

'No, I'm actually a masochist,' he said, hauling her up without much effort and laying her down on the bed.

'Oh, and what's that supposed to mean, Lance Corporal?' she asked with a challenging smile. She didn't expect the man to suddenly look so serious. She had become so accustomed to that other, carefree face he kept on showing her from time to time. But after all, that was only a mask, too. A beautiful illusion.

'That's because I'm chasing an impossible dream,' he told her in a hushed voice. 'And no matter how fucked-up the world we're living in, I don't want to give up on that one, small dream.'

At first, Mikasa logically thought that he was talking about the Titan threat, and his wish to get the world rid of them. But soon she found that it was something else the man had in mind. Something she never expected. Rivaille leaned close to her, whispering one word in her ear.

'You.'

A

Erwin seemed worked-up when Rivaille entered his office.

"I haven't been here for more than a couple of hours, but I'm already hearing some awful gossip about what came to pass during my absence. I want these rumours to be cleared up now, before they spread to the public."

"It's my shit, Erwin. It was me who tripped and fell. I can deal with it," Rivaille told him in a dead voice as he came to take a seat opposite the man. "You have nothing to worry about."

"I do have, because I care about my soldiers," Erwin replied heatedly.

"You're not even Commander anymore."

Erwin's expression froze, and Rivaille could immediately detect the hurt in his eyes that his words caused. He might as well have thrown to Erwin's head that he was a dead man.

"You are right about that," Erwin said stiffly, "but that doesn't make me any less responsible for the members of the Scouting Legion. Most of the soldiers might have been forced to grow up too soon, but they are still only children. Having an affair with a minor is unpardonable, Rivaille. The military does have sanctions for such an unacceptable conduct, and while it stands far from me to report you immediately, I still can't turn a blind eye on it. So I would advise you that from now on-"

"Stop lecturing me, Erwin," Levi interrupted him. "I fucking don't care if you throw me before a court martial. That's what I deserve, anyway."

Erwin's expression was both stern and astonished. He thought that now in front of him was a whole different person than the comrade he used to know.

"You won't serve humanity by putting yourself to jail, or worst, to the gallows."

"Tell me all about it," Rivaille said with an unusually light, sarcastic undertone, before adding in a dead serious voice, "I'm done with serving humanity. You faced the pigs up close, the ones our soldiers were dying for."

"Yes, but the world we live in is changing," Erwin tried to argue with him.

"But humans never change. There'll always be pigs among them. I'm not playing the role of willing sacrifice anymore. I want to live by my own free will, and not to follow whatever stupid order comes from above. Don't even try to force your standards on me, Erwin. Just because you were too much of a coward to take the woman you loved, it doesn't mean I have to give up on 'her'."

Erwin bore the insults in silence, but deep inside, those words had made aching marks. Yet, he shouldn't have been questioning the Lance Corporal's heart. He knew him enough to understand, and he could sincerely feel for his friend's desperation. He could see now why he was acting so passionate. And he was aware of an obstacle even more serious: he had read all the reports; he was already well acquainted with the part of the rumour which held the most potential to shatter every hope, every dream.

"Even if she is your own kin?" Erwin quietly put the question.

The determination never dulled from the sharp silver eyes.

A

Mikasa woke up to a headache, and an unpleasant surge at the back of her neck. She sprang up quickly, covering her mouth with a hand as she dashed down the corridor towards the nearest bathroom.

Nausea overcame her, and she vomited into the toilet bowl, feeling awful and weak. Maybe she shouldn't have drunk so much the previous night. Maybe she shouldn't have drunk at all. She was beginning to remember the ugly scene she had made in front of everyone.

Once her stomach calmed down, having nothing more to be emptied, she gathered herself up to rinse her mouth. Through the sound of running water, she couldn't hear the approaching footsteps, and only noticed the short woman's presence once she glimpsed her reflection in the oval mirror on the wall.

"Are you feeling all right?" Rico asked with concern in her pale eyes.

"I'm fine," Mikasa replied, wiping the cold water from her face with the back of her hand. She didn't need people to feel sorry for her. She didn't want to feel any weaker than she already did.

A

It was still early in the morning, too early for breakfast to be served, and she wasn't hungry anyway. Ignoring her sickness, she decided to go out running into the forest. The air was fresh, the grass under her feet wet with morning dew. She drank in a huge lungful of the cold air, before breaking into a run.

A dense haze was rising from the roots of the trees, making it difficult for her to make out the path she was treading on. The air was moist, the ground slippery under her feet. Her breath came out in a thick white cloud.

Her heart was beating hard against her chest. She was becoming tired much earlier than she normally would. Something was wrong with her body. Her foot caught on a root, and she collapsed, not even feeling her body hitting the ground. She had already lost consciousness…

A

Rivaille sprang down from the tree branch, lifting out the raven-haired girl from the cold mist. Her face was pale, her lips tinted red. Her beauty made his heart ache. He held her close, wrapping his cloak around her body. He wanted to be with her, for a bit longer, in a moment so perfect as if in a dream.

Ever since last night, he had been so worried about her health that he couldn't even catch a wink of sleep. At that moment, too, he was aware that he couldn't allow himself to hesitate for too long. He must take her back to the castle; to safety and warmth.

"I've made a mistake when I sopped watching you from afar, and first took you in my arms like this, selfishly thinking that just by having you, I could wash away all the guilt and be a better person," he silently confessed. "That I can have a life out of this misery, and be free – to feel; to love. But that might only remain a dream, forever out of reach…"

A

"…any result of the blood test?"

"Patience, Rivaille. I need time to do that, and you need it to be authentic. A hundred percent reliable."

"Well, I wish I could just live in ignorance of the facts, but guess it's too late."

From the haze of her sleep, Mikasa could hear hushed voices speaking nearby. She faintly recognized them as belonging to Commander Hanji and the Lance Corporal. She struggled to sit up, but her head felt dizzy.

"Stop overdoing things, brat," a cold voice scolded her, arms pushing her shoulders back on the pillows. "Seriously, what were you thinking, going out alone into the woods, in such a goddamn weather? You could've killed yourself!"

Mikasa laughed faintly. She couldn't see the man's expression, but Rivaille was genuinely concerned.

"Lance Corporal, I think you should let her rest, and lecture her later," Hanji advised, to which he clicked his tongue in irritation, leaving her bedside. Mikasa realized that she was in the infirmary, Hanji beaming down on her, a steaming bowl in her hand.

"Hanji." Rivaille returned, looking unusually flustered. "Get down to work, now. I can do that." He took the bowl from Hanji's hand and sat back beside Mikasa's bed.

The scientist shook her head, but gave in. "I'll be in my lab, then."

She left the two of them in tense silence. Mikasa gathered enough strength to sit up. Rivaille dipped the spoon into the thick soup, blew on it softly, then held it out towards Mikasa's mouth. She glared back at him in disgust.

"I can feed myself," she said coldly.

Rivaille dropped the spoon back into the soup, and pushed the bowl onto her lap. Mikasa began eating cautiously, feeling uncomfortable under the sharp silver gaze.

"Aren't you supposed to be busy?" she asked with her mouth full of bread, hoping to repulse him enough to leave her alone. But her effort was to no avail whatsoever. "Working your ass off, instead of babysitting me?"

She was deliberately using words she knew the man would tell her, and at least it seemed to be stirring something inside him. Rivaille's thin eyebrows scrunched together.

'Now you're pissed off,' Mikasa thought with satisfaction, finishing her soup with a loud slurp.

"Okay, fuck, it won't work." The Lance Corporal sprang up from his seat and began pacing the room. "Even if you'd kept on acting like a nasty little piece of shit, I'd still-"

"Excuse me, but you were the one who started it all off, hiding and acting like a cold-hearted asshole, while in fact you just didn't have the balls to tell the truth to my face! No – I had to track your ass down to finally see how things are now," Mikasa cut him off in utter indignation, not minding her language at all. "I never expected you to take responsibility for me, but at least you could've treated me as if I were a human being, and not horse-shit on the sole of your boots."

Rivaille looked back at her thoughtfully before making a reply, "You know, the thing about shit is that even if you manage to scrape it off, the smell still lingers. And I know it's probably the worst parallel I could come up with, but that pretty much describes how I'm feeling right now."

Mikasa blinked back at him in confusion, trying to figure out what the man had meant by saying that, and not liking at all where her thoughts were leading her.

"So you think I'm a clingy, persistent bitch, who would do anything just to make life hell for you? You don't know shit about me. I never told anyone about our secret, but somehow everyone seems to know, and if they intend to make a scandal of it, you can put all the blame on me, for all I care."

"That's not what I meant to say," Rivaille snapped irritably.

"Then what?" she challenged him. This hadn't been the first time they had a row, but in the end, they always managed to laugh it all off. But this time, only the bitterness remained.

"Hanji said a couple of days…" Rivaille murmured, as if to himself, then turned to speak directly to her, "Can you wait for a day or two, until I can tell you?"

"And what makes you sure I'd still be interested, huh?" Mikasa retorted, folding her arms in defiance.

The Lance Corporal finally gave up, and began walking away, but he turned back from the doorway.

"Because you still keep calling my name in your sleep," Rivaille said in a quiet voice, before leaving her alone again.