Chapter 34: Wedding Band Confession
The rain started as a fine mist, blurring the world beyond the Challenger’s windows into a smear of halogen lights and dark, wet pavement. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of sweat, damp leather, and the sharp, coppery tinge of blood. The roar of the engine had settled into a steady, distance-eating hum. For a long while, no one spoke. The only sounds were the rhythmic thump of the wipers and Aria’s shallow, uneven breathing from the backseat.
She was lying with her head in Mikasa’s lap, a space blanket tangled around her legs. Levi was twisted around in the front passenger seat, his hand reaching back, his fingers just brushing the top of her head. His knuckles were split and swollen. He hadn’t looked away from her since they’d merged onto the highway.
Armin broke the silence, his voice hoarse from tension. “Falco, Gabi. Signal status.”
“We’re ghosted,” Gabi’s voice came through the car’s speakers, crisp and efficient. “The daemon piggybacked their own purge to scramble all vehicle logs and nearby traffic cams for a five-mile radius. They’re blind.”
“For now,” Levi said, not turning. His thumb stroked a slow arc on Aria’s temple.
“We need to get off the road,” Eren stated, his eyes fixed on the mirror, watching for any headlights that held too steady. “They’ll have eyes in the air soon.”
“Agreed.” Armin was already typing on his laptop, the screen casting a blue glow on his exhausted face. “Sasha, Connie. What’s your ETA to the rendezvous?”
“Two hours, if this traffic ever breaks,” Connie’s voice crackled. “Jean’s driving like he’s being chased by ghosts.”
“I’m driving to not become a ghost, thank you very much,” Jean shot back.
In the back, Aria stirred. Her eyelids fluttered open, focusing slowly on Levi’s face above her. She tried a smile. It was a weak, tremulous thing. “Hey.”
The single word, so normal, so small, hit Levi in the chest. He didn’t smile back. His gaze just intensified, as if he were memorizing the exact shade of her irises in the gloomy light.
The comms channel was still open.
“Aria? You alive back there?” Connie asked.
“Barely,” she mumbled, her voice raspy. She shifted, wincing, and pushed herself up to sit. Mikasa helped her, a firm hand on her back. Aria leaned against the window, closing her eyes against a wave of nausea. The drugs were receding, leaving a pounding headache and a metallic taste in her mouth.
“What the hell was that about a ‘package’?” Jean’s voice came through, sharper now. “Back in the garage. The agent said ‘package secure.’ They were talking about you.”
Aria opened her eyes, meeting Levi’s. A silent communication passed between them, heavy and dark. The lie was wearing thin, its edges frayed by gunfire and nets of electricity.
Before either could formulate an answer, a new, furious voice erupted over the comms.
“Can someone please explain to me what in the actual fuck just happened?!” It was Xavier. He must have patched in from whatever safehouse he was holed up in. “I’ve been listening to this channel for an hour hearing gunshots and screaming and… Aria? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Xav,” Aria said, too quickly. She pulled the space blanket tighter around her shoulders.
“Fine? You sound like you just gargled glass! And since when do you go on field ops? Since when do any of you do… whatever that was? Destroying property? Grand theft auto? Shooting people?!”
“They shot first,” Eren growled.
“Not the point, Yeager!”
There was a tense pause. Levi finally turned to face forward, his profile a sharp cut against the passing streetlights. “We had intel on a Chronos facility. We neutralized it.”
“‘Neutralized’?” Xavier’s incredulity was palpable. “You blew it up! Falco’s been gleefully telling me about data-corrosive daemons for the last twenty minutes! And Aria was in there? Since when have you two been married?”
The question, so blunt and sudden, seemed to hang in the air of the car. Connie choked on a sip of what sounded like soda. Sasha gasped, “Wait, what?”
Levi’s jaw tightened. “Since five months ago.”
Silence on the comms. Then, a chorus of overlapping voices.
“Five MONTHS?” Jean yelled.
“You got married and didn’t tell anyone?” Connie squawked.
“Congratulations,” Mikasa said quietly, from the backseat, a rare, soft smile touching her lips.
“And you told no one?” Jean pressed, his tone caught between betrayal and disbelief.
Aria leaned her head back against the cold window. The vibration of the car traveled through her skull. She felt raw, scraped hollow. The facade of the peppy, pink-obsessed girl was miles away, buried under concrete and fear. “Didn’t really have the time,” she murmured, her voice carrying clearly over the open channel. “With a newborn and being hunted for sport.”
The moment the word ‘newborn’ left her lips, a different kind of silence descended. It was instant and absolute. Not the shocked silence of the marriage revelation, but a dead, cold quiet. In the car, Eren’s eyes snapped to the rearview mirror, wide. Armin’s typing stopped. Mikasa’s hand went still on Aria’s back.
On the comms, you could hear a pin drop.
Xavier’s voice broke it, laced with pure confusion. “A… newborn? What are you talking about? Who has a newborn?”
Aria froze, realizing her mistake. Her drugged, exhausted brain had slipped. She closed her eyes, a wave of cold dread washing over her.
Levi turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto hers in the reflection of the windshield. A silent command. Stop.
Jean, in his car two hours away, recovered first. “Uh, yeah. Right. The… the newborn. The… mission details. Code for the… the core. The oscillator core. It was a newborn system. Brand new.” He was stumbling, his usually sharp wit failing him utterly.
“That’s the dumbest code name I’ve ever heard,” Connie said, his voice strained.
“Shut up, Connie!” Sasha hissed.
Xavier wasn’t buying it. “That makes no sense. Aria, what did you mean? Who has a baby?”
Armin cut in, his Commander voice sliding into place, smooth and authoritative. “Xavier, it’s been a high-stress op. Terminology gets mixed. Aria’s recovering from sedation. We need to focus on exfil and security. Everyone, switch to encrypted channel Gamma for debrief. Now.”
The comms clicked off, the abrupt silence leaving a ringing in their ears.
Inside the Challenger, the air was stifling. Eren glanced at Levi. “He’s gonna figure it out.”
“He doesn’t need to figure it out,” Levi said, his voice low and final. “It’s not his to figure out.”
Aria drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She felt Mikasa’s concerned gaze but couldn’t meet it. She looked out at the endless, rainy highway. The secret, which had felt like a fragile, precious bird held cupped in their hands, now felt like a bomb with a fraying wire. Xavier knew they were married. He’d heard the word ‘newborn’. He was a scout, and a Reyes. He wouldn’t stop until he had answers.
Levi’s phone, resting in the cup holder, lit up with a call. The screen showed a simple, dreaded name: XAVIER.
Levi stared at it. The phone buzzed against the plastic, a persistent, angry insect.
He didn’t reach for it.
Aria watched the screen until it went dark. Then, quietly, she spoke to the rain-streaked window. “He’s my brother.”
“He’s also a liability,” Levi said, the words devoid of malice, simply factual. “His concern is predictable. Predictable is traceable.”
“He just wants to know I’m okay,” she whispered.
“Knowing about Leo,” Levi said, the name a soft, dangerous thing in the quiet car, “is the opposite of keeping you okay. It’s keeping him in danger.”
The phone lit up again. XAVIER.
This time, Aria reached for it. Levi’s hand shot out, covering hers. His skin was cold. He didn’t look at her, his eyes on the dark road ahead. “Not yet.”
She didn’t pull her hand away. She left it there, under his, feeling the solid weight of his decision. The car sped on, a lone metal capsule hurtling through the American night, carrying a marriage, a child, and a secret that had just grown a new, jagged crack. Outside, the rain fell harder, sheeting across the windshield, obscuring everything.
Outside, the rain fell harder, sheeting across the windshield, obscuring everything.
The phone finally stopped buzzing. The silence it left behind was brittle. Levi slowly retracted his hand from Aria’s, his fingers leaving a faint imprint of cold on her skin. He watched the road, his profile unreadable in the gloom. The tension in the car was a physical thing, thick enough to taste.
Armin broke it, his voice carefully neutral. “We need a destination.”
“Somewhere they won’t look,” Eren muttered, his hands flexing on the wheel. “A motel off a county road. Somewhere with cash only and no cameras, which is pretty much nowhere.”
“I have a list,” Armin said, already scrolling. “Pre-vetted. Falco scrubbed their digital footprints six months ago.”
“He was twelve six months ago,” Mikasa stated flatly from the back, her hand now resting protectively on Aria’s ankle.
“He was a prodigy at twelve,” Armin countered. “He’s a menace at eighteen. The point is, they’re clean.”
Aria leaned forward, her body protesting. The drug hangover throbbed behind her eyes. “Any of them have a bathtub? A deep one. With those jets.”
Levi glanced at her, a flicker of something softening the granite of his expression. “Priorities.”
“Hydromassage is a priority,” she breathed, letting her head thump against the headrest. “My everything feels like it’s been through a trash compactor.”
“Leo’s safe. He’s with Sasha.” Eren said it softly, his eyes finding hers in the rearview mirror. “She’d probably eat anyone who threatened him.”
Aria laughed a little bit. It was a wet, choked sound that caught in her raw throat. The image of Sasha, fiercely protective with a maybe-a-little-too-literal glint in her eye, was painfully comforting. “She would. She’d use fancy mustard, too.”
“Hopefully Connie and Jean keep their mouths shut,” Levi said, his gaze returning to the hypnotic swipe of the wipers. “If Xavier finds out about him in the middle of this mess, he’ll go insane.”
“He’s already halfway there,” Aria sighed. She picked up the silent phone, turning it over in her hands. “He’s my big brother. He’s supposed to lose his mind over this stuff.”
“His mind is his to lose. Leo’s safety isn’t.” Levi’s tone allowed no argument. It was the voice of a man who had calculated every variable, every human fault line. “Connie can’t keep a secret to save his life, and Jean thinks he’s being clever by talking in circles. They’ll slip.”
The car sluiced through a deep puddle, sending a spray of water up the side. The sudden noise made Aria flinch. A fine tremor started in her hands, a familiar precursor crawling up her nerves. She clamped them together, pressing them between her knees.
Mikasa felt the subtle vibration. “Aria.”
“I’m fine,” Aria said too quickly, the words clipped. She closed her eyes, focusing on the catalog of physical details: the scratch of the wool blanket, the smell of Eren’s leather dash cleaner, the steady, solid presence of Mikasa’s hand. Grounding. It was a technique, a flimsy dam against a rising tide.
Levi was already moving. He reached into the glove compartment, his movements economical. He pulled out a small, hard case and passed it back to Mikasa without a word.
Mikasa opened it. Inside, nestled in foam, was a single syringe and a small vial of clear liquid. Aria’s rescue meds. For when the shaking wouldn’t stop, for when the world narrowed to a pinprick of terror.
“Not yet,” Aria whispered, seeing it. She hated the stuff. It plunged her into a muffled, cotton-wool silence where she could still feel the panic but couldn’t reach it. It was better than a seizure in a speeding car, but not by much.
“Your call,” Levi said, but his shoulders were wire-tight. He watched her through the mirror, a sentinel assessing a crumbling wall.
Armin, sensing the shift, spoke with deliberate calm. “The nearest safe house is a ninety-minute drive. A hunting cabin outside Zanesville. Owned by a shell corporation Falco set up for a fake outdoor brand. No digital footprint, septic tank, well water.”
“Does it have a bathtub?” Aria asked, a desperate grab for normalcy.
“It has a metal trough out back for skinning deer,” Eren offered, a grim joke in his voice.
“Great. I’ll bring my pink loofah.”
Levi’s phone lit up a third time. XAVIER. The screen glowed in the dark cup holder, a persistent, accusing eye.
This time, Levi picked it up. He didn’t answer. He held the power button until the screen went black, then removed the battery with a precise twist of his fingers. He dropped both pieces into the cup holder with a final, plastic clatter.
“He’ll track the last ping,” Armin noted quietly.
“He’ll find it at a cell tower outside Binghamton,” Levi replied. “We haven’t been there for hours. Let him chase ghosts.”
The finality of the act—the dead phone, the severed line—should have felt like a relief. Instead, it made the car feel smaller. Aria watched the pieces, a cold knot forming in her stomach. She had just let her brother be cut loose, set adrift in his worry. For Leo. Always for Leo.
Her own breathing hitched, a sharp intake that scraped her lungs. The tremor in her hands spread to her arms.
“Aria,” Mikasa said again, her voice firm.
“I know,” Aria gasped, squeezing her eyes shut. The dam was splintering. The sounds of the car—the wet road, the blower motor—morphed into the whine of the oscillator, the crackle of the net-gun. The smell of leather became the scent of ozone and her own burning hair.
She felt the cool plastic of the syringe case pressed into her palm. Mikasa’s hand was steady around hers. “Look at me.”
Aria forced her eyes open. Mikasa’s face was calm, an anchor in the swirling disorientation. Beyond her, through the window, a brightly lit truck stop blurring past offered a snapshot of impossible normalcy: a family stepping into the rain, laughing under a shared umbrella.
“Breathe with me,” Mikasa instructed, her own breaths deep and measured.
Aria tried to follow, the air shuddering in her chest. Levi had turned fully in his seat now, his arm draped over the headrest, watching her. His expression was stripped bare of its usual icy control, revealing only a devastating, unwavering focus. On her. He didn’t speak. He just was there, a fixed point in her unraveling universe.
Slowly, the truck stop lights faded into the rain-streaked dark. The oscillator’s whine receded, replaced by the Challenger’s steady growl. Her breathing began to synchronize with Mikasa’s, the jagged edges smoothing into something survivable.
She released the syringe case, pushing it back toward Mikasa. “Not yet,” she repeated, her voice steadier.
Levi gave a single, shallow nod. He turned back around, but his posture remained alert, tuned to her frequency.
“Zanesville it is,” Eren said into the quiet, his voice softer than before. He punched the location into the dashboard GPS. A new, calm female voice began directing them east.
The crisis had passed, for now. They were a car full of ghosts and soldiers, fleeing through an anonymous American night, holding a secret that felt heavier with every mile. The wipers beat a steady rhythm against the storm, clearing just enough window to see the road ahead, and nothing more.
The wipers beat a steady rhythm against the storm, clearing just enough window to see the road ahead, and nothing more.
Aria’s breathing had evened out, but a strange hollowness settled behind her eyes. The world outside the window seemed to pulse with the wiper blades, each pass a jarring click-thump that echoed in the base of her skull. The dark shapes of trees blurred into a solid wall of nothing. Her fingers, still tucked between her knees, began to twitch with a mind of their own.
A faint, tinny hum started in her ears. It wasn't the car. It was the ghost of the oscillator, a feedback loop screeching deep in her neural pathways. She tried to swallow, but her throat had sealed shut. A flash of blue net-lightning arced across her vision, searing away the rainy night.
“Levi.” Her voice was a dry rasp.
He was watching her in the rearview mirror. He saw the way her gaze had gone fixed and distant, the slight tremble in her chin that had nothing to do with cold. He saw the second her pupils dilated, swallowing the gray of her irises.
“Eren, pull over.” Levi’s voice was flat, absolute.
“What? Here? It’s a fucking highway—”
“Now. The shoulder. Go.”
Eren swore but didn’t argue. He flicked the turn signal and guided the Challenger onto the wet gravel of the shoulder, the tires crunching in protest. They came to a stop under the sickly yellow glow of a mile marker light.
“What’s happening?” Mikasa asked, her body coiling.
“MIKASA. SWITCH WITH ME.” Levi grunted, already unbuckling his seatbelt and pulling on the door handle. The cold, rain-spattered wind whipped into the car.
Aria’s head lolled back against the seat. “S’kay. ‘M fine.” The words were thick, the consonants mushy.
Levi pulled the passenger seat forward, his movements efficient but rushed. He ducked into the space between the seats, his face level with hers in the back. Her eyes were glazing over, losing their focus on him.
“NOW MIKASA.” Levi said again, his voice low but brooking no argument.
Mikasa scrambled out her door, the rain immediately soaking her hair. She ran around the trunk as Levi slid into the backseat beside Aria, replacing Mikasa. Mikasa got into the front passenger seat, her breath clouding the window.
“Nooooo, ‘m fine,” Aria protested, a weak slur. She tried to turn her head towards him, but the movement was stiff, unnatural.
Levi’s hands came up, but they didn’t grab or restrain. He cupped her face, his thumbs on her temples. His touch was dry and warm against her clammy skin. “No you’re not.” His voice dropped, shedding all its hardness, becoming a quiet rumble meant only for her. “You’re about to have a seizure. Mikasa move. Now.”
He said the last part over his shoulder, but his eyes never left Aria’s. Mikasa was already moving, climbing into the front. Levi shifted, blocking Aria from hitting the door or the seat in front of her. He created a space of him around her.
“Look at me,” he murmured. “Just here.”
The hum in her ears became a roar. The world folded. Her body went rigid, a violent arch lifting her hips off the seat. A guttural sound, choked and awful, tore from her throat. Her spine bent like a drawn bow, her head pressing back into his supportive hand.
Levi held her face, his other arm bracing across her shoulders. “I’m here,” he said, a steady chant against the storm of it. “You’re safe. It’s passing. I’m right here.”
Her muscles locked, tremors running through her like live wires. Her teeth ground together, a horrible grating sound. Flecks of foam appeared at the corner of her mouth. He wiped them away with his thumb, his movements gentle, continuous.
“Just breathe through it. Let it go. I’ve got you.”
Eren stared straight ahead, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He couldn’t watch. Armin had turned in his seat, his face pale, watching with a strategist’s helpless horror. Mikasa’s hand was pressed flat against the dashboard, as if steadying the car itself.
The seizure crashed through her in waves, each peak a little lower than the last. The rigid arch softened into violent, uncontrolled shaking. Levi gathered her in, pulling her onto his lap, tucking her head against his chest. He smoothed her sweat-damp hair back from her forehead.
“Almost done,” he whispered into her hair. “Almost over.”
The shaking subsided into fine, helpless tremors. The awful tension drained from her limbs, leaving her boneless and limp against him. A low, pained whimper escaped her lips. She was conscious now, but trapped in the wreckage of her own nervous system, disoriented and frail.
He rocked her slightly, a minimal swaying motion. “You’re okay. You’re with me. In the car. It’s raining.” He named the facts of the world, rebuilding it piece by piece for her. “Eren’s driving. Armin’s navigating. Mikasa’s up front.”
Her fingers, clumsy and weak, clutched at the fabric of his shirt. She buried her face in his neck, her breathing ragged and wet. The whimper turned into a quiet, broken sob of sheer, unadulterated humiliation and fear.
“Shhh,” he breathed, his hand a steady pressure on the back of her head. “Don’t. It’s just your body. It’s just chemistry. It doesn’t mean anything.” He kept rocking. The rain hammered the roof. No one in the car spoke.
After a few minutes, her sobs quieted to hiccups. The trembling in her hands was still there, but softer now, a fading echo. She didn’t let go of his shirt.
Levi looked up, his gaze meeting Eren’s in the rearview. His eyes were dark, exhausted pools. “Drive.”
Eren nodded once, put the car in gear, and pulled back onto the highway. The signal click was deafening in the quiet.
“The cabin,” Levi said, his voice rough but returning to its usual clipped tone. “Is there a bath? A real one.”
Armin, shaken, checked his laptop. “Yes. It has… an old porcelain tub.”
“Good.” Levi adjusted his hold on Aria, settling her more comfortably against him. He didn’t try to move her back to the seat. She was plastered against him, her fingers twisted in his shirt like anchor lines. “We need hot water. And quiet.”
Her voice was a muffled, shattered thing against his collarbone. “Sorry.”
“Stop,” he said, no anger in it. Just a simple, firm erasure.
They drove in silence for another twenty miles. The only sounds were the tires on wet pavement, the heater blowing, and Aria’s gradually slowing breaths. Levi’s phone, its battery still removed, sat in the cup holder like a dead thing.
Jean’s voice, hesitant, finally broke the silence over the comms channel they’d switched to. “Hey. Uh. Status? Xavier is… he’s losing it over here. He’s trying to track your last ping.”
Levi looked at the top of Aria’s head. He felt her breath, warm through his shirt. He thought of Leo, safe with Sasha, probably sleeping in a crib surrounded by plush, ridiculous pink toys.
“Tell him she’s fine,” Levi said, his voice low. “Tell him we had car trouble. A flat. We’ll call when we’re settled.”
“He won’t buy that,” Connie chimed in.
“He doesn’t have to buy it,” Levi replied, his fingers threading gently through Aria’s hair. “He just has to wait.” He paused, then added, “Is the baby still asleep?”
“Out like a light,” Sasha’s voice came through, hushed and careful. “He had sweet potato puree. It’s everywhere. Like a tiny orange bomb went off.”
Aria made a small sound that was almost a laugh. It was a wet, broken thing, but it was there. Levi felt it against his chest.
“Good,” he said. It was the only word that mattered.