"Do you still love her?"

The question never left Erwin's mind. 

It was probably already 1 o'clock in the morning, and the blond was still sitting by the desk of his temporary office, thumbing through documents. Yet, while his hand was focused on scribbling down on the paper that he was going to be sending to the General before the council meeting, his trail of thoughts have been relentlessly drifting back to a certain woman. 

"... Pardon?"

Marie chuckled at his reaction. She was sitting beside the blond, the both of them having been engaged into a friendly chat on their usual table in the bar. It was a local holiday and they were closed so there weren't any customers, but she had still welcomed both Erwin and Nile inside. The latter had excused himself earlier because he remembered Instructor Koch had given him an errand to bring enlistment files from the Garrison department building, leaving only Erwin and Marie in the bar. 

"I said," the girl repeated with one of her trademark sweet smiles, "I like you, Erwin."

The blond stared at the girl with an unreadable expression, her sudden confession catching him off-guard. She didn't seem like lying. 

As Erwin stared at her emerald-green eyes, he was suddenly drowning in his thoughts at a forked pathway: one that led to his childhood dream and uncertainties of death in the Survey Corps, while the other pointed to a stable life within the walls with his first love. 

For a second, Erwin hesitated. 

Only for a second. 

"I'm honored." He finally found his voice back, looking at Marie. "But I cannot accept your feelings."

However, as much as how Erwin fancied the ginger woman sitting beside him, he could not allow himself to be sidetracked from his dream. Because to him, his dream took precedence above everything else - even his own life. Building emotional relationships while on this trip to death's door was a curse he could not afford for anyone to endure.

Erwin knew he wasn't the man who could give her the happy life she deserved. Marie was a good woman, just not for him. 

It seemed his response was something Marie had expected, since she only gave him a melancholic smile. 

Then, she leaned forward to kiss him. 

Erwin stiffened as the ginger softly pressed her lips on his cheek, right at the corner of his lips. A mush of surprise flooded in his mind in that brief contact, and it felt forever until Marie pulled back. 

Erwin had let go of his pen and ran a frustrated hand through his messy blond locks, sighing for the umpteenth time that hour as he shut his eyes in thought. 

He was not supposed to be acting like this. He had left those vulnerable emotions in the past, shutting down any emotional distractions and relationships; it was a hindrance he no longer wished to allow to take over him. 

But as Isanna walked down those stairs with that dress, while ginger locks framed her face the night before, Erwin found himself questioning his feelings once again. For a short, impulsive moment, he actually saw Marie in Isanna's disguise - a thought Erwin hated himself for having. 

Isanna was different, and she could never be Marie. 

Erwin knew that. 

A brief memory of Isanna's pained expression while she stared at him flashed in his mind. 

The blond released another sigh, inwardly cursing himself for his mistake. She was never meant to look like that. Her eyes were never meant to look at him with hurt - Erwin had made sure of that ever since they were kids. 

How ironic that he was now the cause of it. 

• 

The morning sun peered over the city of Mitras, teeming with buzzes of civilian chatters across the streets, shops and daily businesses going over their usual routine. A carriage pulled by a horse softly trotted down the asphalt ground in a normal pace, and a few meters behind the ride was a lone figure with studious eyes glued on it. 

Isanna had been following the carriage ever since she caught a glimpse of Nicholas Lovof ride on it earlier when he had stepped out of the gates of his estate. She followed his carriage until it eventually stopped in front of an unguarded entrance that led deeper below the ground, the steps becoming more dim as it stretched below, and it took the girl a few seconds to realize that it was actually an entrance to the Underground City. 

Why are there no guards? 

The carriage door opened, and as if having heard her, a man with greying hair of old age stepped out of the shadows below the steps of the entrance and stood beside the carriage door; he turned back to the direction where he came from - and Isanna saw it. She saw them. 

The underground trio they were soon going to catch in a few days. 

Isanna's brows quirked up in interest at the conversation they seemed to be having, but because she was at a considerable distance across the street hidden beneath the shadows of the alleyway, she couldn't make out their words. 

Discretely, the girl peeked to her left and right, before casually walking a few steps away from the carriage. When she was finally a few meters away, she dashed across the street and through a dark alley, rounding the corner and stealthily crept nearer in a slight crouch in the slither of space between the shed that housed the underground entrance and the wall of the building next to it, making sure Lovof and the other man couldn't see her. 

 "There are two things I'll have you do for me."

Isanna paused and stayed in her position as she heard Lovof's gruff voice. 

He really did have a mysterious rendezvous, just as Erwin had suspected. The girl shook her head at the unnecessary thoughts that followed after the said blond flashed in her mind; she needed to focus on the current task at hand.

"First, you'll obtain a certain document which is in the possession of Erwin Smith." 

"And secondly," Isanna heard him pause and order his next line with a venomous tone laced with fury in his voice, "to kill the Survey Corps' squad leader, Erwin Smith. Those are your jobs."

The raven's hands automatically balled in fists, her eyes narrowing into sharp slits at Nicholas' order to kill, but managed to quell her boiling blood. In a few minutes, she heard the sound of a door carriage slamming shut followed by the galloping of horse hooves, and then, the distant echoing of footsteps fading below the underground entrance.

After checking to make sure that the coast was clear, Isanna finally stepped out of the shadows, throwing a side glance at the steps that led deep below. 

She needed to let Erwin know of Nicholas' plan.

•

Isanna stood in front of the door to Erwin's temporary office, her mind debating whether she should wait until later evening to relay to him what she had heard after tailing Nicholas Lovof, or if she should just suck it up and tell him now. 

She shut her eyes, thoughts going back to what had transpired between them the night before. Should she enter now, no doubt she would have to face a suffocating tension with her best friend - and it was a tension she didn't like to have between them. 

He probably thinks I'm such a weirdo for getting so worked up over it, Isanna mutely sighed in irritation at herself, or worse, he could have caught on to my feelings already. 

That second thought was not pleasing to her mind. Not at all. She had worked so hard for years to mask it, and she wouldn't allow one night of emotional outburst to ruin the relationship she already had with him. 

If she avoided him now, Erwin's suspicions would only grow. 

Fuck it, Isanna thought, pushing the door open with a scraping scratch against the floor. She was going to do this. 

Unfortunately, the girl's resolve went flying out the window the moment her eyes landed on Erwin. 

Actually, no; she didn't want to do this. 

Isanna swallowed a lump in the back of her throat when the blond's attention moved from the papers on his desk to her figure under the doorway. The place was evidently smaller than his office back at Wall Maria. A bed was leaning against the left wall, and to the right wall was his desk facing it, with a wooden chair to match.

Upon landing his gaze on her, Erwin's brow arched at the thought that the girl had come to find him first before he could. Flashbacks from the night before replayed in his memory, like a preview of an episode, but he forced himself to keep a straight face as he acknowledged her. 

"Is there anything you need?"

The raven slowly closed the door behind and collected her thoughts. Just be quick and concise, she told herself, before she began to relay what she had eavesdropped earlier that day from Nicholas Lovof's encounter with the underground trio they were supposed to capture.

After finishing her report, she saw the way Erwin's gaze become more focused and she could tell he was already hatching some plan to counter the nobleman's schemes. As expected of that mind of his. 

"Is that all?" He asked. 

Isanna curtly nodded. "That's it."

For a few agonizing seconds, the two of them remained staring, seemingly gauging the other, as if waiting for either side to bring up what had happened the night before; with Isanna standing in front of the door, while Erwin was sitting on his chair. 

Isanna finally cleared her throat and broke eye contact. "I'll dismiss myself."

The girl turned around and twisted the doorknob open, with the door already about a quarter from opening when a hand suddenly shot past over her head and shut the door close with a bang, a thudding rattle echoing inside the room. 

Isanna immediately tensed, feeling a hard chest pressing behind her back while her widened eyes stared at her hand clutching the doorknob, her mind still processing the situation. 

"Turn around."

His deep voice reached her ears and it took everything she had not to flinch at the close proximity, his breath fanning over the back of her neck. With her stomach constricting in restrained nervousness, Isanna slowly turned around and craned her neck at Erwin.

Too close, she thought with her breath hitching at the back of her throat. The girl waited with curious eyes as her dark irises peered through the blond's blue hues, the dreaded silence and tension only thickening as seconds ticked by. 

The hand that had been resting against the hard surface of the door and hovering above Isanna's head slowly lowered until Erwin brought it back to his side, his face softening as he stared at her. 

"I'm sorry," he finally said, "for what happened last night." 

Isanna blinked at him, his sudden apology taking her off guard as her mind tried to absorb it. 

"And I'm sorry," Erwin continued, "for leaving you outside after that."

She remembered how he wordlessly walked past her and entered in the building alone, leaving her with an unanswered question that had been bugging both Isanna and Erwin ever since. 

"Do you still love her?"

Erwin gauged the girl's silent demeanor at his apology, before he lifted a hand and tucked a few strands behind her ear. 

"I don't," he muttered, looking into her eyes, "I don't love her anymore."

She was doubtful. "Lying doesn't suit you."

"Have I ever lied to you?"

Isanna pressed her lips firmly together at his words, her lungs heaving out what probably was a sigh of relief, as if a thorn had finally been plucked from inside. No, he had never lied to her. Not even once. 

"I," she paused, the words caught up in her throat, "I'm not.. her."

Something flashed through the blond's eyes, an emotion she could not decipher. Softly, like a mother's gentle caress, Erwin then grasped her chin and steadied his eyes on her own. 

"You don't have to be."

His words were drowned in a husked tone, barely audible, not louder than a whisper. 

Isanna felt her skin tense up when he slowly - agonizingly, like he was torturing her - slid his thumb across her bottom lip, the man's eyes focusing intently on them with thousands of emotions swirling through his hungry gaze - desirous, even, as if planning to do something with her lips, and he was doing all he could to contain himself. 

But to her surprise, he retracted his hand and released her chin, taking a step back.

Blinking at him, Isanna watched as Erwin swiftly turned around and walked back to his seat - like nothing happened. 

"After the council meeting," he broke the silence, not daring to look at the girl as his hands traced the stash of papers across his desk, "we'll proceed with the initial plan and apprehend the trio."

Isanna took a moment to register. "Um.. okay."

Erwin finally looked at her and gave the girl a smile. "Good work, you're dismissed."

"We're," she paused as the blond's expectant look held her gaze, unsure of whether to continue, ".. we're good now, right?"

Isanna caught the way Erwin's eyes softened at her question. "Yes, we're good."

She visibly sighed and nodded at him with a smile of her own, before she exited the room and closed the door behind her with a soft thud. 

When he was once left alone with the silence, Erwin returned his steady eyes at the mess of papers. He lifted his right hand and stared at it with a slight frown, clenching his fist tightly before he shut his eyes.