Breaking Point

A/N: Wow, it's been a while since I wrote a fic. Honestly though, I couldn't help myself! I love these two way too much.

A little AU I suppose, seeing as I totally made up Hanji's family background and I'm not at all sure if I used the timelines correctly. I wanted to show Hanji's vulnerable side and Levi's reaction to it so characters may be a little OOC. It probably would have been better if I tried writing some fluff first whoops.

Constructive criticism appreciated! (hehe, but please take note of all I said in the previous paragraph up there).

Dedicated to the Levihan Crying Corner.

I hope you enjoy!

The room fell into a hushed murmur when she entered the dining hall. It was the first time in days anyone had seen her, even Levi had stayed away. She walked with a limp and had on new glasses that didn't quite match her. Or perhaps the eye bags heavier than Levi's etched on her face made everything about her strange. She carried with her an armful of notebooks and folders, flyaway papers straying and floating across the room. She didn't even notice. She didn't notice anything, not the fact that everyone was staring, not the fact that she was wearing her jacket backwards, and not even the fact that she was too quiet.

Although she remained oblivious, it didn't mean Levi couldn't see it all.

She sat far away from everyone else at one of the tables further at the back of the room. She sat against the wall and unceremoniously dumped all her notes piled up from the past years onto the table. One by one, she picked up the scraps of paper and began ripping them apart. Her eyes were staring at something far off, as if she didn't even realize she was wasting away all she had worked for.

"What's she doing?!" Petra exclaimed worriedly from the other end of the room, exchanging glances with everyone seated around her. She was still considered a newbie in the Survey Corps but she fought like she's been surviving for decades. The honey eyed girl was very fond of Hanji, they had been friends the moment Petra joined the Survey Corps. She had never seen the Titan fanatic like this before─ no one had.

From the next table over, Erwin shot Levi a pointed look. Levi sighed and stood up, his chair scraping noisily against the wooden floor as he did so. "She's making a fucking mess, that's what she's doing." Levi responded to the younger girl's query.

"Damn it, Shitty Glasses."

Levi was about to make his way towards the gloomy woman when suddenly, something that sounded like a fight erupted outside the hall.

"You can't be here! You will be kicked out of training, mark my words, girl!" one of the guards from outside yelled.

"I don't give a fuck!" an unfamiliar voice responded. "You can't stop me!"

Two loud bangs later, the doors to dining hall were thrown open. Despite not having any gear on them, almost every single person in the room immediately went for a defensive stance.

Standing before them was a short girl wearing a jacket much like theirs- except the insignia adorned on it were swords that represented she was still in training. Behind her were the crumpled bodies of the supposed guards who were stationed at the gates of the Survey Corps headquarters. Brown cropped hair, eyes that seemed to be permanently narrowed, a confident posture despite her lack of height- no one in the room had seen this girl before yet something was still familiar about her.

Commander Erwin slammed his palms on the table and rose from his seat, glaring at the girl head on. "I don't─"

The trainee outright ignored him, walking away towards the emptier part of the room were only Hanji sat. The Survey Corps members nearest started standing up, ready to tackle and restrain the girl when she suddenly ran for the brunette Squad Leader.

She pulled Hanji up by the shoulders and kneed her in the gut and on her bad leg, making the scientist hunch over. Not a sound escaped the woman's mouth but everyone could tell she was in pain. The trainee moved on to punching her repeatedly, simultaneously saying words that you could barely make out.

"You…soldier…couldn't…couldn't even save them!" She wasn't able to throw her last punch for none other than Levi had roughly shoved her away into the waiting arms of the other members.

She didn't struggle against them. "You failed them, Onee-chan! You were always a failure! I can't believe I didn't see it before!"

"I know…"

Levi whipped around at the sound of words escaping the scientist's lips. She had reached for another piece of paper from the table and continued tearing it apart. "I know…I know…I know…" she said again and again.

Hanji hailed from a tiny farming town at the edges of Wall Maria. It was a small and quaint place, all bright green grass and rich brown soil as far as the eye could see. A patch of life in between the dark mining sites. Everything here was routine. Wake up in the early moments of dawn, then work until the late afternoons with a few breaks in between, have some family bonding over dinner, and do it all over again the next day. The little farming community held nothing in the eyes of the eccentric scientist.

At least, that's what she believed until the Titans took it away.

She stayed crouching in front of the dissipating body of a Titan she slaughtered brutally; it's been a while since she acted so violently towards the creatures she so loved. Hanji balanced carefully on her good leg, her right practically lying limp at her side. She stared at the acidic remains of what had been the Titan's stomach. 'Empty.'

The scientist stayed so long that she was sure the troops had already moved on, leaving her behind. Maybe they even thought she was dead.

Her parents died romantically. Hanji wasn't surprised. They did everything romantically, so in love with each other even if they'd been together for decades. Both of them were exhausted, out of gas, and only her father had a single blade left to defend him. Wrapped in each other's arms, a Titan ripped their torsos away from the lower halves of their bodies. The blade fell uselessly to the ground. Their screams so mixed up, you couldn't even tell them apart.

Hanji was so close, so close. But everything happened at a planting ground, bare of any trees or high structures. With her leg feeling like it was going to get ripped off, there wasn't anything she could do. She was supposed to protect them. It was practically genocide, not the "taking back the wall expedition" crap the government was giving them, everyone knew that. Even the pseudo-soldiers themselves.

When the Titan devoured her parents, something in her snapped. Hanji threw her goggles away from her face and charged at the beast, killing it with one swipe. She hoped she would find them once the Titan died away. It must've hurt, boiling away with the remains of a Titan. But Hanji couldn't imagine a pain worse than losing them.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry." she sobbed. "I failed you again."

The distant roars of the Titans roaming around didn't excite her, they didn't even anger her. She was numb. What was the point now? All her life, Hanji had been working to prove her parents wrong. Climbing the high trees behind her home just to get a glimpse of the world beyond the walls, choosing to enlist instead of getting her own farm or delving into trading like all the other kids, choosing to serve for the Survey Corps even if she was more than capable to join the Military Police, refusing to return home even when she was given leave─ she left them to become a soldier. A soldier who couldn't even defend them.

If a Titan came at her now, Hanji would have let it take her, if only to give back to her parents what they sacrificed. But no, something much smaller and a lot more terrifying than a Titan loomed over her figure.

"What are you doing, Four-Eyes? This is no time to test if taking a shit beside a dead Titan would do anything." Corporal Levi didn't wait for an answer. He pulled his wailing comrade to her feet and already had enough mind to drag her away. That was until she cried out in pain, struggling free from his grasp.

She fell on all fours, sobbing in front of the Titan. This time, Levi really took the time to analyze the situation the other Squad Leader was in. Her white pants ruined by a seeping red stain that looked like her own blood, goggles missing, hair free from its usual ponytail─ 'Shitty Glasses is in a shittier state than usual.'

"Shut your trap, stupid woman. If you want a fucking Titan so bad, don't just sit there and cry. Get up."

She didn't cease her sobbing.

Levi stared for a moment, uncertain of what exactly happened here. He scowled, there was no time for this now. In a beat, he yanked the taller woman by her hair and pulled her up until they were eye-to-eye. "We have no time to wait for you to finish whining about a Titan you couldn't poke and prod at. It's dead. You'll be dead too if we don't leave right now─"

"Then go!" Hanji screamed in frustration, pushing the Corporal away from her. Levi didn't lose his footing and watched her carefully as she continued her crazy outburst. "You're wrong! You're so wrong! Everyone is wrong! I was wrong.

Leave me here! Nobody needs a researcher. I can't believe I was stupid enough to- Go! Just go and kill! KILL THEM ALL! LEAVE! LEAVE ME─"

She didn't see his fist flying towards her face. There was a crack and Hanji fell back, knocked out in an instant. Levi bunched her up in his arms before her body could hit the ground. Her mind may have been racing, but she was too physically exhausted to put up much of a fight.

The apathetic Corporal threw Hanji over his shoulder and held onto her by the legs. He made his way back to the troops situated in the next town over easily, as if he was carrying nothing at all.

"You call yourself a soldier and you couldn't…you couldn't even save them!"

The words rang loud in her ears, an endless cycle of echoes. At some point, the punching stopped and Xia was pulled away from her. The dusty notes were pried away from her fingertips as well. It seemed like everything was being taken away from her. Why couldn't they just take her life too?

Hanji had always secretly prided herself in being able to smile even through the worst situations. Being in the Survey Corps tended to land you in unthinkable and unimaginable situations. She didn't cry during her first mission as a new recruit- even when the friends she spent three years with were picked off by monstrous fingers, eaten away before they could even scream. She wasn't afraid of the Titans, she wanted to study them for heaven's sake. Hanji didn't know if there was something wrong with the way her brain worked, she was always just thankful that it kept her somewhat sane. She hated seeing people break down. What did they expect? Didn't they know what they were getting themselves into?

But everyone had a breaking point. Hanji had just been lying to herself all along.

"I know…" cried Hanji weakly for about a hundredth time. Suddenly, something new was thrust into her arms. A warmth. It was a different kind of warm than those rare hot baths. It was a different kind of warm from a Titan's touch. This kind of warm made her stomach do 500 back flips in a row. This warmth made her want to sing. This kind of warm spread throughout her whole body, making every muscle relax and making every bone stop chattering. This warmth made her want to break it down into molecules just so she could figure out the reason it could make her feel like she did now.

Hanji had only experienced Levi's hug once before, and it was brief and fleeting. This spoke of promises, of repairing the damage. It spoke the language of forever, something Hanji never believed existed before.

She let herself slump against the Lance Corporal and his arms only wound around her tighter. Hanji closed her eyes as strings of words continued to fly from her lips.

"I know…"

"I'm sorry…"

"Tighter."

"Don't let me go."

Finally, Levi spoke.

"Stop thinking, Bloody Specs."

For once, Hanji followed his orders.

The Titan Enthusiast had never spent much time on her mattress in her own room. She much preferred the hard wood of her lab table or the cold floor of any corridor. When she's lucky, she gets to enjoy the spartan clean sheets of the Lance Corporal as well, especially after a particularly long series of lab tests that could stretch out for days. Her own bed had always felt foreign and somewhat lacking, but she had never been more thankful for anything else since this moment.

Her body was sore and aching. Hanji refused to move a muscle and didn't even try to open her eyes. She knew she was in her room though. Her room always smelled like Windex.

"Ever plan on waking up, Four-Eyes?"

"Mmm, not really."

Even talking hurt.

"Trust me, Specs, you'll want to see this."

"I'm tired, Levi." Hanji whined childishly.

"Onee-chan, save me!"

The scientist was startled enough to open up her eyes and even push herself up by her elbows. Hanji stared at the scene before her and couldn't decide whether to laugh or to get angry.

"Now when I remove my hand from your mouth, brat, I want you to apologize." The Corporal said menacingly from his place behind Hanji's younger sister, a gloved hand clamped over the girl's mouth. He had the trainee tied up tightly onto a chair from shoulders to ankles and a scrap of cloth that was probably used to gag her to keep her quiet hung loose around her neck.

"Really, Levi? Gloves?" Hanji's mouth stretched into a smile as she took in Levi attire. He looked like he was ready to clean the whole headquarters again.

"She's related to you, Shitty Glasses. I can't be too careful."

He then removed his hand from her mouth which only resulted into earsplitting screeches. Levi sighed while Hanji laughed, her sides already starting to hurt. Lazily, the Corporal knocked out the kid with one punch and moved to drag her by the chair out of Hanji's room.

"Thanks for trying, Levi." Hanji said earnestly, flashing him one of her brightest smiles.

Already at her door, Levi looked back. He stared at the taller woman for a moment before rolling his eyes and slamming the door shut behind him.

"Levi! You forgot to give me a goodbye kiss!"