Chapter Text
The scent of blood lingered faintly in the air. Your usually sterile medical ward was crawling with the dying and the dead, and despite your attempts at a brave face, morale was hanging by a thread that was quickly thinning.
The last expedition had been disastrous. The mortality rate sat at a brutal 65%. The Scouts had been devastated — again.
“Time of death, 17:37,” you murmur to the nurse at the bedside, your voice low but final. “You can take your break now, Eliza. Thank you.” She offers you a tired, sad smile before stepping away.
The ward, though full, was emptying in all the worst ways. These soldiers were barely more than children — most hadn’t even seen twenty — and yet they were dying for nothing more than the faintest hope that life might exist outside the Walls.
And in moments like this, you couldn’t imagine how it could ever be worth it.
Sighing regretfully, you jot down the remainder of the information regarding the poor boy into your chart. It’s a bleak routine you have memorised by this point - name, age, squad captain, time of death, cause of death.
You’re not sure you spelt his name right.
You doubt anyone will correct it.
You drop his file onto a side table and gently close his still-warm eyes, taking a moment to murmur a soft blessing over his body. This life hadn’t been good to him, but maybe the next one would be. Next, you covered his tired, bloodstained body with a large cloth, and your heart pangs at the realisation that this will be the last time his body sees light until it’s cremated with the other soldiers.
“Klaus,” you beckon over. Klaus was a tall, lanky teenager who, unfortunately, had the grim title of ‘death runner’. His job was to inform the victims’ families of their losses through the post, and you don’t doubt that his role had taken its toll on him. In fact, he often had to travel with bodyguards to prevent grieving relatives from attacking him. It sounded unrealistic, but you’d seen the haunted look in his eyes any time he had to leave base.
“Matron,” he greets dully, eyes already flicking to his notepad. “More names?”
You give him a sympathetic nod, patting his shoulder. “I know. There’s…a lot, today. I’ve a couple more names to add.” he reaches for his notepad containing his grim to-do lists filled with the names of the dead, and you continue. “John Barsnov. Lukas Bauer. Hilda Lehmann. L-E-H-M-A-N-N, yeah. And Frank Jung.”
“You’re spoiling me, Matron, honestly,” Klaus attempts to joke, and you crack a small smile, if only to cheer him up ever-so-slightly.
You don’t chat for long. There are too many dead for that. Instead, you engross yourself in the usual routine of cleaning up what’s left of the day’s casualties. Every so often, you find little trinkets in their pockets while searching for identification. A heart locket with a pretty young lady pictured inside. A letter from a loving mother. A crushed daisy chain. Pocket Bibles. You find plenty, and feel the usual sense of guilt you get when you have to place said trinkets with their files instead of with the bodies they belong to. It’s just policy, you remind yourself. They might be flammable and make the cremation more complicated.
But still…that didn’t help the guilt.
You were almost finished up for the shift, mere minutes away from your break, when something strange happened. You had just finished preparing the dead as best you could and were carrying their files back to your office when you heard loud screams. Now, screams, you were used to. Part of the job description, basically. But these weren’t pained screams - no, these were hollow. Terrified. You glance around to find the source, and you quickly pinpoint a soldier with bandages covering her eyes. Or at least, where her eyes used to be. One quick glance at her chart told you all you needed to know - she had blinded herself after watching her boyfriend die during the expedition earlier that day.
“What’s wrong?” You ask the nurses already by her bedside, attempting to calm her down.
Only screams followed your question, and shaking hands pointed warily in your direction. “TITAN!!” She screams. “I can smell it from here! Oh, oh, my God…Help- HELP!!” she sobs.
You blink, confused, and you can tell you’re not alone in your confusion. The nurses comforting her look just as baffled as you, but continue with a practised confidence.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Ruby soothes. “There are no titans here. I promise. You’re just pointing at the Matron.”
This, however, does nothing to calm the poor girl down. You recognise the symptoms almost immediately - PTSD-induced flashbacks. You take a step forward to try to calmly introduce yourself, and she screams louder. “IT- IT- IT’S COMING CLOSER, I CAN SMELL IT, SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!!"
Deciding this is a situation you’d rather not deal with right now, you send apologetic glances to the other three nurses calming her down, and Ruby mouths back that you leaving is ‘probably for the better’.
Shaking your head to clear it, you walk away, back to your office. But you can’t help but dryly remark to yourself that there was an ominous presence nearby, one that you had grown to recognise over the years - Levi Ackerman. Humanity’s Strongest Soldier, The Unkillable Captain, and the world’s biggest dick, it would seem. He point-blank refused to be treated by anyone, instead choosing to pilfer through the medical supplies and fix himself up. You didn’t know if it was some kind of aversion to touch, or simply just an urge to maintain his aura of scariness- whatever it was, it annoyed you, because he always left the supply room arranged differently than it was before. Spotless and perfectly organised, sure, but confusing and time-consuming as a working nurse with a cartload of casualties.
Worst part?
Erwin allowed it.
Either way, you recognised the usual dark cloud over his head. Thankfully, none of his team, other than one, were too badly scraped up, and were recovering in the minor injuries department. He himself had a large gash on his arm, currently leaking blood. Sighing, you pack the rest of the files away and walk over to him.
“Captain, you can’t do that one-handed,” you tell him pointedly. “Let me help.”
He cast you a sideways glance. “Save the concern for someone who’s dying, Matron.”
In response, you raise an eyebrow and click your tongue. “Seriously. It’ll end up looking like Pyxis did it on a mid-week bender.”
Levi’s expression doesn’t change, nor does he look at you. “I said I’ve got it.”
Deciding to leave the man be before he decides to experiment on you with a fan with no cover, you shrug non-committally and leave him to it. It’s your day off tomorrow, anyway, and as much as you care about your younger nurses, you’re more than confident that they can fix the world’s most organised disorder that he leaves behind each time.
Well, either way, the night nurses had just arrived, ready to clock in just as you go on break. You greet each with a sombre bow of your head, knowing that many of them lost friends today. After briefly running through the lay of the land with them, you waved them goodbye and headed into the break room, collapsing into your lumpy armchair.
You’ve been in this job nearly ten years, you remind yourself. If only nineteen-year-old you could see yourself now. Despite all the hardships you’d had to overcome to get here, you were the best of the best at what you did. In fact, you were almost eerily good at your job. Then again, you’d been studying the human body ever since you were eleven, having joined a field medical programme that claimed to provide education, food, housing, and eventually, a job. It had seemed too good to be true back then, had felt like lies to the scrawny, dazed orphan girl with amnesia and nightmares. Who would take her? Yet you took the leap, showed surprisingly quiet prowess, and flew through the course. And sure enough, here you were, nearly twenty years later, head of the medical unit of the Scouts.
It had never been easy - You had only been Head for a few years, and it was rather draining, you had to admit. And, if you were honest with yourself, there were probably others with more qualifications for the role than you. But Erwin seemed to like you. You did your job well. Besides, it paid well, and you got to keep updated with the affairs of the Scouts.
Glancing at the clock, you breathed a sigh of relief. An hour of complete peace. Despite your hopes of making yourself something quick to eat, you couldn’t help the exhaustion that overcame you. Your eyes slowly slid shut.
-
Your sleep is short-lived. Barely even twenty minutes into your slumber, you’re awoken by frantic shaking.
“I’m up, I’m up…” you hoarsely manage, blearily opening your eyes. “The hell’s wrong now?”
Ruby’s face bobs into your vision. “Matron, we- you need to see this.” She’s pale, shocked, even. Immediately, you get a bad feeling about this. If Ruby, one of your most accomplished nurses, is shocked by whatever this is, then it can’t be good.
You hoist yourself up, following after her despite the exhaustion that presses hard into your bones. She leads you through the ward, stopping at the end of a curtained-off bed. Stepping past the curtain, your jaw drops.
Organs are practically spilling out of this man’s chest. The bedsheets are covered in his blood, and the gash exposing his innards probably can’t even be considered a gash. It looks like he’s had the front part of his body bitten clean off, which probably is what happened.
None of that is what surprises you. You’ve seen organs before. No, what frightens you is the fact that the man is sitting up, loudly demanding to be let out.
“God damn you all!” He exclaims. “I am perfectly fine. I don’t need clucked and cooed over. I am a grown ass man!!”
…yeah.
There is literally no reason for this man to be breathing. If the blood loss wasn’t enough to finish him off, then the hypothermia from the wind and rain outside that he had to be carried back in from should be.
“He was comatose and nearly flatlining three minutes ago,” Ruby whispers to you.
Then, all of a sudden, the man chokes on his own blood, which has made a sickening appearance, bubbling out of his mouth. He grasps at the air for help, and you and Ruby rush into action — but it’s too late. Your medical wonder is gone.
You gawp at the man, then at Ruby, then at the man again. “The hell was that??” You exclaim. “He should have been dead. That- I- impossible.”
“That’s what I thought!!” Ruby anxiously responds. “He was brought in nearly completely brain dead.”
You grab the soldier’s chart and begin investigating him, telling Ruby to send for Hange. You flip through, but nothing notable catches your eye. That’s alright. Charts didn’t mean everything. You have something better - someone who just so happened to be head of his squad.
“Ackerman,” you say, striding into the medical supplies closet. He looks up accusingly from a box of bandages that he appears to be organising from longest to shortest.
“What?” He asks, giving you a dirty look.
You point at him. “Noah Schmidt. He was on your squad, I believe.”
The Captain’s face darkens. “Was?”
You wince, realising your distaste. Your disbelief has left you perhaps a lot less tactful than you usually would be. “I…yes. I’m sorry for your loss.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but eventually speaks up. “It’s fine. What about him?”
“He…was comatose when he was brought in,” you begin, fidgeting a little under his intense glare. “Nearly braindead. Not even two minutes ago, he was up, exclaiming about being fine and needing to be let out. He didn’t seem to notice the fact that his organs were on his lap. He just kept demanding to be let out of the ward. Eventually, he…well. He’s gone, now. But that man shouldn’t have been able to do that. He should’ve been dead even before he came into our care, as much as it must hurt to hear it.”
Levi just watches you. “What’s the point you’re making here? He’s dead. There’s nothing more to it.”
You scoff, indignant. “Do you not understand? That man, according to his chart, was completely average. He lived a completely normal life, well, as normal a life as you can get in the Scouts. Unless his chart is missing something, Noah Schmidt was a medical miracle. Adrenaline is powerful, but it’s not powerful enough to make a man block out the fact that his intestines aren’t in his body anymore. I need to know if you have any information on him. Anything out of the ordinary that might’ve slipped past his chart.”
The man sighs, already done with this conversation. “I didn’t know him well. I only recently picked him out. As far as I’m aware, he was completely normal. Skilled, but otherwise average.”
“..Right. Thank you anyway, Captain, and please refrain from reorganising my cupboards,” you respond, giving him a quick dip of your chin in thanks.
When you get back to Noah’s bedside, Hange is already inspecting his body. You’d met them years and years ago, and had grown closer and closer with them ever since. They were one of your closest friends - through thick and thin, Hange had been there. They were reliable in a way that many people weren’t.
“Are we sure he wasn’t just high off adrenaline and hallucinating being okay?” They ask you, frantically jotting the facts of the case down in their worn-out notebook.
You shake your head. “Was just telling the Captain that it’s not nearly powerful enough for that. Adrenaline makes you more aware of your surroundings and changes in your body. Even most gunshot victims have some kind of awareness.”
“Still,” Hange muses. “Your nurse said he was in a coma? Perhaps after waking up, he confused his dream state with the real world.”
“That’s a fairly reasonable explanation, I suppose,” you answer. “Even so. He didn’t notice the fact that he had no innards. Surely, surely, you’d notice that, right? Besides, I’ve never seen that level of hallucination in the entirety of my time here. People generally notice something being slightly off, and it snaps them out of it pretty quickly, but…I guess it’s not really a one-size-fits-all type of thing. We’ll probably never know what happened. Maybe he was just an anomaly.”
“You don’t mind if I take his in body for inspection?” The Section Commander asks.
“We’ll need to reach out to the family, make sure we’ve got consent,” you tell them. “But most families say yes. S’pose it just depends. Thanks for coming out, Hange. I know it’s late.”
They give you an uplifting smile. “Don’t worry about it, Matron. I was up anyway. Hey, you seen Levi anywhere?”
You roll your eyes. “Yes. He’s currently being a little freak and setting my nurses up for failure in the supply closet.”
“Who’s a little freak?” A dry voice asks from behind you, and you freeze. You blink at Hange, and they grin at you, amused.
Turning around, you offer the Captain an awkward smile. “Uhm. Nurse Eliza. She forgot to…sign off on someone’s discharge from the ward.”
Levi raises an appraising eyebrow at you, before shifting his gaze to the man lying on the blood-soaked fabric of the cot. “A real shame,” he mutters.
Hange gestures towards the bandage on his arm. In fairness, it’s impressively well done considering he only had one arm to work with. “What happened here?” They ask.
“Caught it on a tree branch,” he responds. “Wasn’t paying attention.”
“Oh,” Hange hums in recognition. “Anyway, I’ve been looking for you!! You said you’d help me look through those files for Erwin.”
“What files?” You ask. Generally, you were allowed access to more sensitive information - your position provided you with a lot of trust and respect from Erwin.
Hange opens their mouth, but Levi doesn't give them a chance to say anything. “None of your business.”
You frown. “What? But-”
“No buts. Direct orders from Erwin. Besides, don’t you have patients to get back to, Matron?” He asks coldly.
You narrow your eyes at him, before waving a small goodbye to Hange, who smiles sympathetically at you. Back to your break you go, hoping you can make the most of what little time you have left, having spent most of it investigating Noah Schmidt.
Behind you, Hange and Levi stand over Noah’s bedside.
“You need to be more careful around her,” he hisses. “You know what Erwin knows. She can’t find out yet.”
Hange’s lips twitch downwards, unpleased. “I don’t like hiding things from her. She’s not a bad person, Levi, I promise.”
“It’s not about what kind of person she is. I’m sure she’s an absolute card, but until we know more about what happened, you can’t tell her what’s going on. Just keep on finding out what you can. Everything you can discover about her is important,” he presses.
The ward is still quiet. A clock ticks. Two pairs of footsteps move towards the door. A soldier softly groans in pain, followed by a nurse gently soothing them. It’s the picture of post-expedition numbness, a kind of ache that only throbs harder with each new death. It can’t be described in words on a page, or through language, but everyone can feel it—a heavy blanket of an emotion no one wants to talk about. It’s in the stillness after the action that pain really comes to life. The dust settles, the sun goes down, but pain isn’t the type of thing that leaves a person. It always stays, and people just get strong enough to bear it.
-
Your break was over in what felt like an unfair amount of time. Despite your best efforts, you hadn’t managed to get back to sleep, too peeved off at Captain Dickhead’s exclusion of you to get some shuteye before the next part of your shift started. Besides, you had felt an all-too-familiar grumbling in your stomach that you would NOT like to have to deal with later on, so you made yourself a plate of buttery toast and a cup of tea.
It was nice, besides the fact that you didn’t get the chance to finish it. No, you were pulled out from your warm bubble of twice-cooked bread and milky leaf juice by another nurse to help her with a particularly complicated set of sutures. And you hadn’t been able to find the time to get back to your meal, either, repeatedly being called on again and again for this, that and the other. You lost track of how many pained yet relieved people you discharged and how many you sent to the basement to be chilled before their cremations with the other losses.
Eventually, after another gruelling two hours of sewing people up and praying that organ regrowth was a real thing in humans, your shift was finally over. Now, you sit cross-legged in the breakroom, absentmindedly munching on your cold, slightly soggy toast, flipping through a mildly boring book. You don’t take the words in properly, too tired to even care anymore. You flip back a few pages and shove the bookmark back in, deciding you’ll make an attempt to read it tomorrow. Sighing, you stand and wash your dishes, cringing when you notice the dishes of someone who didn’t quite know what a sponge was, before heading back through the chilly night to your barracks.
The members of the medical division thankfully had their own set of barracks. They were underfunded, yes, and the hot water was more lukewarm than anything else, but it was home, and had been for years, in your case. You yawn, leaning your head on either side of your shoulders, attempting to loosen up a tad. You trudge through the fairly clean hallways to your room in Block B.
You come close to making it inside, beyond ready to collapse face-first-still-clothed onto your bed for the night, when you feel a tap on your shoulder. Jumping, you turn around and stand face-to-face with the Commander of the Survey Corps.
Erwin smiles at you. “Evening, Matron.”
You manage a weary smile back. “Hey, Commander. Sorry, you scared me there.”
“Ah, apologies,” he responds, a little amused. “I didn’t mean to make you jump. Would you mind coming to my office in the morning?”
You raise an eyebrow, slightly interested. “Sure. What time?”
He informs you that you should be there by six. “And you may wish to bring a notepad,” he advises.
“Is this about my contract?” You ask, too tired to want to discuss legalities right now. “Listen, I know I need to renew it, I just haven’t had the time-”
“In a way, yes, it is about your contract,” Erwin answers musingly, adjusting his jacket. “But not to worry. We’ll sort that out tomorrow, yes? In the meantime, please get some sleep. You’re receiving some big news tomorrow, and I want you in your top form. Have you had dinner yet?”
Blinking at him slightly in anticipation, you return, “Yeah, I had toast a little while ago.”
The Commander tuts. “Go eat something in the mess hall. They should still be serving now.”
“S’alright, Erwin, honest,” you shrug, feeling exhaustion weigh into your bones like a second skin. “I’m a bit tired. I don’t think I can be bothered to go there and back.”
He frowns at you, but doesn’t comment on it. You’re beckoned into your room with a command to sleep well, and you don’t need to be told twice, kicking off your boots at the door and pausing only to let down your hair from where it’s been giving you a throbbing headache from your bun all day.
Sighing, you quickly shower and head to bed, a thrill going up inside you at the thought of falling asleep. God, how old are you, being excited to go to bed?
Sure enough, falling asleep takes you no time at all. You haven't been dreaming lately—perhaps your mind is too weary these days. Maybe you’re losing your imagination. Maybe it’s neither of those and you’re reading too much into it, but either way, the adventures that lined your slumber each night as a teenager are gone. You don’t mind. They weren’t particularly nice dreams.
Morning comes, and you groan into your pillow as the sunlight cracks through your curtains and smack dab into your eyes. You think that you’d rather die than get up just yet, but you have a meeting to get to, and you’d rather not be late.
Yawning and scratching your side where the label of your shirt itches against you, you push yourself out of the haven of your bed and stumble towards your shower. The water sprays ice onto you, and you wince, holding out hope that it'll heat up more. It doesn’t, but you don’t mind too much, glad to be woken up a tad.
Having checked the time, your fears of being late are soothed. It’s half five, which is already later than normal for you. Usually, you rise with the sun at around five for work, but it would appear that yesterday tired you out enough to wake up later. You trudge to the cafeteria for breakfast, absentmindedly smoothing down the bun in your hair as you go.
Breakfast is simple, as normal. You don’t eat much in the mornings anymore, usually too rushed off your feet to have the time for a proper meal. However, today, you take full advantage of your day off and indulge in porridge with a little drizzle of honey, and two cups of tea. You expect the negotiations over your contract to take a while, especially if what Erwin said was true and things would be a little different than normal, so you want to load up on energy from the caffeine while you can.
The minutes tick by a little too quickly for your liking. Soon enough, it’s ten to six, and you decide to wrap things up in the breakfast hall as others begin to trickle in. You begin your journey to Erwin’s office, dreading how today is going to play out. Erwin’s always been kind to you, and he’s never given you a reason to dislike him, but damn, does he drive a hard bargain. You always find yourself bound by another one of his legal loopholes. For example, the last time you renewed your contract, four years ago, you thought you were signing up for five days of work and two days off. Erwin, the bastard, managed to give you five days of work in ward, one day filing and filling in paperwork, and one day off. It was admirable in the worst way possible. You only hoped it didn’t happen this time around.
You tap your knuckles against his office door twice, and the gesture is received with a “Come in” from the Commander. You push open the door and smile amicably.
“Morning, Comma-” you cut yourself off in surprise when you spot the Captain in the room as well, leaning against the wall with crossed arms and eyes that were glaring at nothing in particular. That's…seriously unusual. Erwin was a stickler for confidentiality, so why the hell was Ackerman here..?
Erwin smiles back at you. “Good morning. Please, take a seat. We have much to discuss.”
You pull out a chair and sit down, eyeing Levi suspiciously. The Commander, of course, notices, and smiles again, amused. “Let's begin. Now, I trust you and Levi know each other?”
You shrug under his expectant gaze. “Sure,” you respond. Levi mutters something you can't quite hear.
Erwin hums, resting his head where his fingers are laced together. “Mm. Matron, how would you feel about switching departments?”
It takes a moment for the question to set in, and you blink at him, brows furrowed. “Excuse me? What do you mean?”
“He wants you to join my squad, dumbass,” Levi speaks up, fixing you under his intense glare.
“I…I'm not ODM trained,” you reply dumbly. What were they playing at? You couldn't join Levi Squad. That was reserved for elite soldiers, and you hadn't set foot outside the walls once.
“We want to test out a…merging of groups, if you will,” the Commander informs you. “We'll place one elite medic in each squad to assist with immediate first aid on the field. This should help to lower the workload for nurses in the ward, and will, in turn, reduce the mortality rate. You just so happen to be our best nurse, and Levi just so happens to be our best soldier. You'll be our experiment, and if all goes well, then we'll look into expanding the project. What do you say?”
This feels a little surreal. Erwin Smith must be dumber than he looks - no way in hell are you risking death on the regular. No amount of wage increase or respect from the higher-ups would ever change your mind.
“You get two extra days off a week,” He informs you, slowly pushing the contract towards you.
You sign your name without hesitation. “Hell yes.”