Chapter 10: First Contact
The twitch became a secret. For days, nothing followed it. The phantom pains returned with a vengeance, now punctuated by a new, maddening sensation: occasional, lightning-fast zaps that shot from her spine to her toes like misfired cables. Klaus, the head physician, called them paresthesias. “Miswired impulses,” he’d said, peering at her charts. “The nerves are waking up, but they’re confused. It’s a good sign, soldier.”
It didn’t feel good. It felt like her body was a haunted house, full of sudden, inexplicable bangs and flashes.
Levi’s evening reports grew longer. He no longer lingered by the door. He’d pull the chair to her bedside, sit with one ankle propped on the opposite knee, and deliver his briefings with the dry cadence of a field manual. He told her about the new recruits, their clumsiness, their bravado. He described the endless meetings with Erwin and Hange, the logistics of the upcoming expedition. It was a stream of mundane, vital details, a lifeline to the world outside the infirmary’s sterile bubble.
One evening, he arrived with a small, cloth-wrapped package. He set it on her bedside table without comment and began his usual routine of scrutinizing the room for dust.
“What is it?” Sage asked, eyeing the parcel.
“Open it and find out. It’s not going to bite.”
She unwrapped the coarse linen. Inside was a smooth, river-worn stone, grey and flat, about the size of her palm. It was cool to the touch, its surface veined with white.
“A rock,” she stated, baffled.
“An observation,” he corrected, finally turning from the window. “You keep trying to move your feet by staring at them. You’re thinking about it too hard. It’s like a sneeze. If you wait for it, it won’t come.” He nodded at the stone. “Put that on your stomach. Focus on keeping it balanced. Your body will handle the rest.”
It seemed absurd. But she’d spent weeks staring at her feet until her vision blurred. She placed the stone on her abdomen, just below her ribs. She breathed, and it rose and fell with her.
“Now what?”
“Now shut up and balance it.”
He resumed his cleaning, wiping down the already-spotless surface of her table. Sage lay there, concentrating on the weight of the stone. She tried to isolate her core, to keep the plateau of her stomach perfectly level. Minutes ticked by. Her back began to ache from the unnatural stillness. A zap fired down her left leg, making her knee jerk involuntarily.
The stone wobbled, but didn’t fall.
“Good,” Levi said, without looking. He was folding the linen wrapper into a perfect square.
“What was?”
“You didn’t try to stop the jerk. You let it happen. Your body corrected for it.” He placed the folded linen next to the teacup. “That’s the work. Not the forcing. The correcting.”
The rock became part of their routine. She’d balance it for increasingly long periods, through the zaps and the itches and the deep, frustrating urge to just make something happen. Levi would work silently around her, or simply watch with those analytical grey eyes, noting every minute tremor in her legs, every flicker of a muscle group trying to fire.
A week after the rock appeared, Petra brought in a new contraption: a wooden frame with a suspended leather sling. “It’s for supported standing,” she explained brightly. “We’ll get your blood flowing, remind your bones what vertical feels like.”
The process was humiliating. It took Levi and Petra together to lift her from the bed, her body a boneless, heavy thing, and settle her into the sling. It cradled her under her arms, taking most of her weight. Her legs dangled, brushing the floorboards. A pathetic, puppet-like version of standing.
The first time, she vomited. The shift in blood pressure, the terrifying, unfamiliar sensation of being upright, the sheer psychological shock of it—her stomach rebelled. Levi held a basin without a word, his expression impassive. When she was done, sweating and shaking, he wiped her mouth with a damp cloth as matter-of-factly as he’d wipe a spill.
“Again tomorrow,” was all he said.
Tomorrow came. And the next day. The vomiting stopped. The dizziness receded. Her feet, pale and alien, rested on the cool wood. She would stare at them, willing contact.
One afternoon, during a standing session, Levi was adjusting the strap on the sling. His hand, firm and sure, brushed against the outside of her right thigh as he checked the tension. It was a clinical touch. A facilitator’s touch.
A bolt of sensation, bright and clear, shot through the fog.
Sage gasped. The sound was sharp, punched out of her.
Levi froze. His fingers went still against her leg. “What?”
“I can feel your hand.” The words were a whisper, disbelieving.
His fingers twitched against her thigh as if burned. He didn’t pull away. He looked from her face to where his hand made contact with the thin fabric of her infirmary trousers. The air in the room tightened, grew thin.
“Where?” His voice was low, careful.
“There. Your fingers. It’s… it’s pressure. It’s warm.” It was a distant signal, muffled as if heard through a thick wall, but it was real. Not a phantom. Not a zap. A consistent, locatable presence.
In the dim afternoon light filtering through the high window, they both looked down at her feet.
Her right foot shifted.
It wasn’t a jerk. It was a deliberate, agonizingly slow flexion. The toes curled downward, the arch of her foot tightening. Then, with a visible tremor that ran through the entire limb, the foot pressed downward, the heel lifting slightly off the floorboard. The muscles in her calf corded, tight and unfamiliar.
It held for three seconds. Four.
The foot went slack, settling back with a soft thud.
Silence roared in the room. Sage was crying, but she didn’t know when it had started. The tears were silent, streaming down her face as she stared at the proof lying on the floor. Levi’s hand was still on her leg. His grip had tightened, his knuckles white.
He slowly released her. He took a step back, his gaze fixed on her foot. His face was a mask of intense, unreadable concentration. He crouched down, eye-level with her knees.
“Do it again,” he said, but the command was quiet, almost reverent.
She tried. She gathered every shred of will, every memory of the sensation of his hand, the feeling of pressure, of warmth, of connection. Nothing happened. The foot lay inert.
“It’s gone,” she choked out, despair flooding back.
“It’s not gone.” He rose. His movements were precise, controlled, but there was a new energy thrumming beneath them. He went to the door, opened it, and called down the hall. “Petra. Now.”
When Petra arrived, breathless, he pointed at Sage’s foot. “She stood. She felt it. She pressed down.”
Petra’s eyes went wide. She rushed over, her professional calm evaporating. “Sage? Can you show me?”
But the moment had passed. The pathway had closed. Sage shook her head, frustration boiling over. “I can’t. It was just once.”
Levi intercepted Petra’s sympathetic look with a sharp gesture. “Don’t. It happened. That’s data.” He turned to Sage, his grey eyes capturing hers. “You have the map now. You just have to find the path again. That’s all.”
That night, he didn’t stay. He left after his usual cleaning ritual, but the atmosphere was charged. The room felt different. The stone on her stomach felt less like a dead weight and more like a compass.
She waited until the her room was sunk in the deep quiet of midnight. The lantern light from the corridor painted a dim stripe across her blanket. She pushed the covers off her legs. She stared at her right foot. She didn’t command it. She remembered the feeling—the warm pressure of his hand, the solidity of the floor, the simple, impossible intention of pushing down.
She thought of the rabbit. Of Goren’s tears. Of Levi’s silent, unwavering presence in the dark.
Her toe twitched.
Then, with a grit of her teeth and a shudder that racked her whole body, her foot flexed. The heel rose. It hovered, trembling violently, for a heartbeat.
It was a newborn fawn’s leg, shaky and weak. It was a mountain moved.
She let it fall. Exhaustion swallowed her whole, but it was a clean exhaustion. The good kind.
In the morning, next to her teacup, she found a single, fresh green leaf, placed carefully on the folded linen. It smelled of sunlight and open air. She didn’t need to ask where it came from. She held it to her nose, closed her eyes, and for the first time in months, thought not of what was lost, but of what might still be found.
The stone became her anchor. Each day, she balanced it on her stomach, then her chest, learning the subtle map of muscles required to keep it steady. The zaps and phantom fires gradually receded, replaced by a returning tapestry of sensation: the scratch of wool blankets, the cool drip of bathwater, the deep, honest ache of a muscle worked to fatigue.
Levi’s reports grew mundane, almost domestic. He complained about the cost of black tea. He described, with surgical precision, the idiocy of a recruit who’d tried to polish gear with cooking grease. These ordinary grievances were a gift, building a floor of normalcy beneath her.
A month after the leaf, Sage woke to a complete silence in her own body. Not the void of numbness, but a quiet, humming awareness. She wiggled the toes of her right foot, then her left. The sheets rustled. She felt the pressure of the mattress along the entire length of her calves, her thighs. It was overwhelming. She burst into tears, and this time, they were pure relief.
That afternoon, when Levi arrived, she didn’t wait for his report. “I can feel everything,” she announced, her voice thick. “It’s all just… there.”
He stopped in the doorway, his eyes scanning her face. He gave a single, slow nod. “Good. Then we’re done with that rock.” He walked to the bed, his movements deliberate. “Standing’s next. Not in the sling. For real.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs. “Now?”
“Is there a better time?” He positioned the wooden chair beside her bed, its back facing her. “Use this for support. I’m not carrying you.”
The challenge in his voice steadied her. She pushed the blankets back, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold under her bare feet. The sensation was so vivid, so ordinary, it stole her breath. She curled her toes against the wood grain, savoring the bite of it.
“Feet flat,” he instructed, standing a few feet away, arms loosely at his sides. “Weight even. Use your legs, not your arms. The chair is a guide, not a crutch.”
She gripped the top of the chair back, her knuckles whitening. She took a deep breath, engaging the muscles in her abdomen and thighs the way she’d learned from balancing the stone. She pushed down through her heels.
Her body rose an inch before buckling. Her knees gave way with a terrifying, liquid weakness. She collapsed back onto the mattress with a gasp, frustration hot in her throat.
“Again,” Levi said, his tone devoid of judgment.
“They’re like straw.”
“They’re like muscles that haven’t been used in months. Which is what they are. Again.”
She tried again. And again. The fifth attempt, she managed to get mostly upright, her body trembling violently, her arms taking most of her weight through the chair. She held it for a count of three before her legs simply dissolved.
“This is impossible,” she panted, sweat dampening her temples.
“It’s physics.” He hadn’t moved an inch to help her. “Your brain knows the theory. Your body has to relearn the practice. You’re forcing it. You’re trying to win a battle. It’s not a battle. It’s a conversation.”
“A really frustrating one.”
“Most are.” He finally stepped closer, not touching her, but observing the angle of her ankles. “Don’t think about standing. Think about the pressure in the soles of your feet. Tell me what you feel.”
She closed her eyes, focusing past the tremor in her thighs. “The wood. It’s… grainy. Cool. I can feel my heel bone, the ball of my foot.”
“Good. That’s your foundation. Now, just shift the pressure. From the heels to the balls. Back and forth. Don’t try to lift.”
She did. It was a minute, rocking motion. The muscles in her calves and shins fired in small, manageable bursts. She opened her eyes. Levi was watching the small movement with an intensity that mirrored her own.
“Now, let the chair take a little less,” he murmured. “Just a little. Let your legs hear the weight.”
She eased her death-grip on the chair. Her body swayed. Panic flared, but his voice cut through it. “You’re fine. Correct it.” She did, a slight adjustment in her hip. The swaying steadied. She was holding her own weight, her legs singing with the strain of it, but holding.
“Look at that,” he said, and his voice held a trace of something dry, almost approving. “You’re standing.”
She was. It was precarious, trembling, and the most difficult thing she had ever done. A laugh, shaky and triumphant, escaped her. Her eyes met his, and for a fleeting second, something flickered in his grey gaze—a reflection of her own hard-won victory, quiet and unsurprised.
Then her quadriceps quit. Her knees buckled. She started to crumple.
He moved then, not to catch her, but to guide her fall. His hands were on her waist, his body a solid barrier beside the chair, easing her controlled descent back onto the bed. His grip was firm, impersonal, and lasted only as long as necessary.
She landed softly, breathing hard, a wide, uncontrollable grin spreading across her face. Her legs felt like cooked noodles, and they throbbed with a beautiful, real pain.
Levi straightened up, brushing a non-existent wrinkle from his sleeve. “Five seconds. Disgraceful.” But he turned to the small side table and poured a cup of tea from the pot he’d brought earlier. He handed it to her, his fingers brushing hers. “Tomorrow, we’ll try for six.”
The next morning, the phantom pains were gone. In their place was a deep, pervasive soreness that felt earned. Sage lay in bed, flexing and pointing her feet beneath the blanket, watching the fabric shift with a quiet fascination that hadn’t dimmed overnight. She could feel the pull in her calves, the stretch in her shins. It was a mundane miracle.
When Levi entered, he carried two cups of tea. He set one on her table and took the chair, sipping his own. He didn’t ask about her legs. He just waited, his gaze resting on the blanket where her feet moved.
“Can you bring me a new book?” she asked, breaking the comfortable silence. “Something non-fiction. Something to do with ghosts or graveyards or something like that.”
“Ghosts?” Levi deadpanned, one eyebrow barely lifting.
“What? I like dead things. They interest me.” She shrugged, a smile playing on her lips.
“Yeah. As long as you aren’t the dead thing, I’ll entertain that as much as you want.” He said it flatly, already rising and heading for the door of her room. “No promises on the selection. The library’s mostly military history and bad philosophy.”
The door clicked shut behind him. Sage laughed softly to the empty room, the sound strange and welcome. He hadn’t questioned her morbid curiosity, hadn’t psychoanalyzed it. He’d just accepted it as a practical request, like more tea or a cleaner blanket. It felt like a form of respect.
Her standing sessions became the anchor of her days. Levi was a relentless, minimalist coach. He banned the supportive sling. “You’re not a sack of potatoes,” he’d stated, kicking the wooden frame into a corner. It was just her, the chair, and the trembling defiance of her own body.
She’d grip the chair back, breathe, and push up. Her legs would shake, muscles firing in chaotic, uncoordinated bursts. Levi would circle her, his eyes missing nothing. “Your right knee is buckling inward. Correct it.” Or, “You’re holding your breath. You’ll pass out. Then I’ll have to mop the floor.”
On the seventh day, she held for ten seconds. On the tenth, she let go of the chair for two. She wobbled violently, the world tilting, before her hands shot back to clutch the wood. A sound escaped her—a sharp, triumphant bark.
“Don’t get cocky,” Levi muttered from where he leaned against the wall. But she saw the slight, approving tilt of his head before he looked away.
The ghost book arrived two days later. It was a thick, weathered volume with a cracked leather spine titled “A Survey of Surface Burial Customs & Folklore.” It smelled of dust and old paper. A plain bookmark of stiff linen was inserted about halfway through.
She opened it that night. Pressed between the pages on a chapter about ossuaries was a single, dried forget-me-not, its blue faded to a soft grey. She touched the fragile petals, then looked at the bookmark. On it, in small, precise script that was unmistakably his, was a note: Page 127. Reminds me of your tactics. Unorthodox, but it worked.
She turned to page 127. The chapter detailed a pre-Wall culture that used “sky burial,” leaving their dead on high platforms for carrion birds. It was brutal, efficient, and returned the body to the cycle of life with zero waste. She laughed, a real, full-throated sound that echoed in the quiet room. He’d compared her to a scavenger cult. It was the highest compliment he could have given.
Progress was not a straight line. Some mornings, her legs felt like they were filled with wet sand. She’d manage only a few seconds before collapsing back, swearing viciously at her own limbs. Levi would listen to the torrent of frustration, then simply say, “Done?” When she’d nod, flushed and angry, he’d continue. “Good. The body has off days. It’s not a machine. Try again tomorrow.”
One afternoon, Petra brought in a pair of modified crutches, their tops padded with soft leather. “For the in-between stage,” she explained. “When you can stand but walking’s still a negotiation.”
Sage looked at them with a mixture of longing and hatred. They were a declaration of partial victory, permanent.
Levi took them from Petra. “I’ll handle it.” Once Petra left, he leaned them against the wall, out of reach. “Not yet. You’ll use them when you can take three steps without them. Using them now is a concession. You’re not ready to concede.”
“What if I need to get to the bathroom by myself?” she shot back, feeling childish.
“Then you’ll build the strength to get there without them.” His logic was infuriating and impeccable. “Convenience is the enemy of recovery. It lets you accept limitations.”
She wanted to argue, but the memory of her foot pressing into the floor, unaided, silenced her. He was building something different here, not just mobility, but a specific kind of resilience. It was brutal. She hated it. She trusted it completely.
Three weeks after her first stand, she managed it. Levi had positioned the chair at the foot of the bed. “To the window and back,” he said. The window was four steps away.
The first step was a controlled fall. She shoved off from the chair, lurching forward, her right leg swinging stiffly. Her foot slapped the floorboards, her knee almost giving way. She gasped, arms windmilling.
Levi didn’t move. “Find your balance.”
She teetered, then settled her weight. The second step was smoother. The third was almost graceful. She touched the sun-warmed wall by the window, her heart hammering against her ribs. Turning was a clumsy, shuffling pivot. The return journey felt longer, every muscle screaming in protest.
Her hand connected with the chair back. She clung to it, sweat dripping from her chin, her entire body trembling with effort. She had done it.
“Four steps,” Levi said. He walked over to the crutches and picked them up. He held them out to her. “These are yours now. Don’t get dependent on them.”
She took them, the cool wood familiar and foreign in her hands. She fitted them under her arms, adjusting the height. She took a tentative step, then another, the crutches absorbing her weight with a soft thump-thump on the floor. It was faster. It was easier. It felt, momentarily, like cheating.
“Satisfied?” he asked, watching her navigate the small space.
“No,” she said, and she meant it. She looked from the crutches in her hands to the empty space between the chair and the window. “I want to walk that without these.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. It was gone in a blink. “Obviously.” He gathered her empty teacup and the book on burial customs from her table. “The expedition’s in two weeks. Mobilization orders are being cut.”
The statement landed like a physical blow. The world, the real world of Titans and missions and death, came crashing back through the infirmary window. Her recovery, this private, grueling war, had been its own universe. Now that universe was about to collide with his.
“You’re going,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“It’s my job.” He headed for the door, then paused. He didn’t look back. “Yours is here. Walk to the mess hall by the time we leave. That’s your objective.”
The door closed. Sage stood, supported by the crutches, in the sudden silence. The distance to the mess hall was a thousand miles. The expedition beyond the Wall was a nightmare waiting to happen. He had given her a goal and a timeline, the same way Erwin gave him one. It was a thread of connection, taut and vital.
She looked down at her legs, then at the crutches. She let them fall to the floor with a clatter that echoed in the sterile room. She gripped the chair, and pushed herself upright. She took one wobbling, unaided step into the empty space he’d left behind.