My Dearest Levi,

Where am I supposed to begin when there's so much I want to say, but when words fail to describe how I feel about any of it? I guess I'll have to do my best.

It's been a month, three weeks, and a day since you've been gone now. 52 days, 1,248 hours, 74,880 minutes, and counting. It's been the longest, hardest month and three weeks of my life, and I miss you more dearly than I ever thought I could.

The last morning I saw you, it wasn't really you. I'd woken from a nightmare and immediately searched the empty side of the bed for your presence, for your comfort, only to find cold sheets and loneliness. Ha, I know, I sound so dramatic, but I know you've found yourself in the same situation at least once. And I'm sorry for ever putting you in that place.

I got up. Had breakfast. Avoided the morning news, like usual, and waited for the sun to come up before I left. You were there. You were still breathing, but you were otherwise still. They were keeping you comfortable - no IVs, no oxygen, nothing hooked to you but the tiny sensor to monitor your vitals. Your oxygen levels were low, and the nurse had long since silenced the warning beep of the machine. Your heart rate was steady, but slow. It was only a matter of days, they told me. They said they weren't even sure you were aware of my presence anymore, but I stayed just in case. I told you stories, reminiscing about Charlotte and Peter. About our wedding. Our honeymoon. Our marriage as a whole - our lives together, and how I wouldn't give it or you up for the entire damn galaxy, or more. I don't remember how many times I told you I love you, but it was a lot. More than I can count on both my fingers and toes ten times. And I meant it every, single, time. I sang you songs, though my voice is nothing like it used to be. Though I'm sure if you were here, you'd argue that it's better than yours. But that didn't matter to either of us.

I held your hand the entire day, kissed your forehead on occasion, your knuckles, even your lips a few times just to try and preserve the feeling of them. There were times you would react in the subtlest of ways - pulling in a deeper breath, or your fingers twitching the tiniest bit. A few times I kissed you because I bore a futile hope that you might open your eyes so I could see them one last time.

More than anything, I watched you. Watched you breathe, slowly, and shallower each time. On rare occasions, your eyes would flick beneath their lids. I marveled at the way your lashes rested delicately against your pale cheeks, at the curve of your lips, the softness of your skin, the strength of your jaw, your silky black hair as it was feathered out over the pillow, the hollows of your cheeks...everything I adored about you.

But everything else was what lied beneath the surface. Your strength, as you overcame your addiction; your creativity; your heart and all of the love you bore despite only having just a few people to give it to. So many things that I could fill up a hundred pages just listing them...

Reluctantly that evening, I left. I can't say I didn't know it would be the last time I'd see you while your heart was still beating, but I can't say I did, either. I knew it would be soon, and all I could do was hope you were at peace no matter when it happened.

That night I somehow slept better. I dreamt solely of you. Of us, back at the lake. It was peaceful. When I woke up, I found tears to be trailing down my cheeks, but I got up and ventured back to you as always.

When I arrived, a nurse was posted outside your door, waiting for me to show up so I wouldn't walk in to find you that way without warning. As soon as I saw her grief-stricken face, I knew. I approached her, and she nodded solemnly when I said, "He's gone, isn't he?" We hugged. She told me if I needed anything, all I should do was ask. All I wanted was to see you just one last time, to know you were at peace - know there was truth to what my dream portrayed.

You passed at about four in the morning. They said it was very gradual, each and every one of your heartbeats further and further apart than the last, until it simply silenced for good.

I sat by your side and held your hand again. It was cool - cooler than normal, but that was to be expected. I didn't speak as I normally would have. I just sat with you in the quiet of the room, missing the slow rising and falling of your chest. The sensor monitoring your vitals was gone and the screen was black. Your cheeks were sunken in. Your eyes. You looked so small, lying there like a porcelain doll. I say 'you', but I know it wasn't truly you, but a beautiful shell of the amazing, wonderful, talented, complicated person you had been.

I won't tell you I didn't cry. I did. I bawled like a baby for losing you, because even though you lived nearly ten years longer than expected after both relapses and the diseases your poor body carried, I wasn't nearly finished loving you. But mostly I cried because finally, finally you are at peace. After such a long life of suffering, after every horrible thing you went through whether it was something you had no control over or something you chose and then later overcame because of the good still residing in your heart, you could be at peace. Your soul could move on to wherever it was going, finally released of all of that negativity and suffering I tried my damndest to save you from.

And I hope I helped. Despite my own insecurities and issues, I hope I managed to keep you as happy as possible, even if at times I know things were much, much harder on both of us. I hope to you, everything was worth it in spite of all the shit we went through. Because it was to me. It means absolutely everything.

The house has been oddly quieter since your passing despite the fact that you hadn't been here for even longer than that. Quieter, yet somehow less lonely. Like you're here with me at times, watching.

It's much too big for only one person, though. It took a lot of thought and it felt weird to be making such a big decision without you, but I've decided to move out. I'll rent it out to make some more money so I'll be well off when I finally retire for good. I want to let another couple move in, another family, to be able to grow and live here and make it their home like we made it ours. I want to give it to someone who will take care of it the way we - or, really, you - took care of it. I want them to make memories here as wonderful as ours. Because there are so, so many. So many that I can't even count or think of them all. So many that outweigh all the bad.

When we first moved in being one of them, when we barely had enough furniture to fill it up and how we had to continuously and gradually buy more and more until it truly started to feel like home and not this awkward, empty house with old, tattered furniture, the material on the couches faded and worn and the wood of the tables much the same way. Despite that, it was exciting, wasn't it? First house. First house together. And somehow the only house we managed to stay in for the rest of your life, to raise Charlotte in.

I remember setting up your work room, sticking that tiny desk my mom had in the garage in the giant room upstairs - the giant room that's the smallest of the three. But I was so excited for you. So excited for you to have a proper place to work on your commissions, every line you etched onto every piece of paper making it one step closer to being permanently engrained onto someone's skin, changing their lives forever. I never said it, but I admire your work more than anything. And I'm so proud of what you did with it while you had your time.

Sometimes I walk down the hallway and expect to see you sitting there, sketching away. I always admired that, despite the abundance of technology that we have these days, you still preferred old-fashioned pencil and paper. I can't help but be reminded of your preference for it simply as I sit here and scrawl on my own paper. (I can't help but prefer it, too.)

It's a bittersweet feeling to see the empty desk. To know of the boxes of your sketchbooks stacked in the closet. To simply see your art around the house, in the books as I slowly flip through them, to see it on my own skin every day. And I can't help but admit it hurts to know there won't be anything new...

But that's okay. I'll wear it proudly until the day comes when I'll join you. I'll decorate my new apartment with it, to remember you every day (not that I wouldn't anyway). I'll give it to Charlotte so she can keep a piece of you, too. To Peter, as well. Even Mikasa asked for a few pieces.

And this is how I want you to know you truly did have an influence on the world - one that was so profound and absolutely beautiful that so many people could hardly fathom because of your talent. Despite what you might have thought, or what you might think now, your life had purpose. Meaning. You weren't wasted - not at all. I don't know what force threw off the balance of the universe centered around you, what with all of the terrible things it forced you through, but you took that and turned it into something absolutely breathtaking.

Thank you for that, Levi. Thank you for being such an inspiring and strong person. Thank you for walking into my life and changing it for the better...for giving me something to hope for, something to believe in and keep me going day by day, something to love and hold close. For giving me a home to come back to every night and a blissful cloud to wake up to every morning. It was by no means perfect, but that's precisely what I adore about it.

Thank you, my love, for absolutely everything. I love you so much. Rest in paradise. ♥

-Eren

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It's so ironic how a week ago when I posted the last chapter, I used a Linkin Park song as inspiration and even used the name of said song to title the chapter, and ironic how right in the middle of the week between updates, their beloved lead singer passed away, especially considering what these two chapters contain.

Though it wasn't on purpose, Chester and Levi have similar stories, yet they ended in vastly different ways. And I wish with more than I have that Chester's ended more similarly to Levi's.

Anyway, thank you guys so, so much for sticking with me through so many chapters of this story. It's surreal that I finished Crack of Sunlight and now the bonus chapters are done, too. Thank you for so many reads and comments and all your support, it truly means the world.

And if any of you ever feel bad in such a way that you're thinking about hurting yourself or even taking your own life, or doing something very damaging like trying drugs or anything that will ultimately hurt you despite its ability to take away your immediate pain, please reach out. Call the suicide hotline. Call any hotline you need. Tell someone close to you. Please, try to fight through your own mind long enough to get help. Message me, I promise I will always, always respond and do my absolute best to help you. It's okay to feel weak. It's okay. People do care, I promise. I care. I do. Reach out. I'm serious. There's hope.

"Remember you're loved, and you always will be." ♥

Thank you. ♥