Soooo yea...another LeviHan thingamajig involving their adorable love child that I would give anything to see come to life XD
"What do you want, brat? Can't you see that I'm really busy?" Levi glared at the child without turning his head, a look that she had never quite become accustomed to. The candle light was casting shadows on the hard angles of the Corporal's face and put a darkness over his tired but sharp eyes.
"Well...I..." The flustered six-year-old mashed her tiny fingers together and looked to the side as she felt the intensity of her father's annoyance.
"For god's sake, Elizabeth, what is it?" Levi huffed, continuing to work on the load of paperwork Erwin had pushed onto him earlier that day.
"I was just wondering where Mommy is?" The rush of words flew out of the child's mouth as her inky black eyes flicked up to not quite meet her father's slate black ones.
Upon this question, the Corporal's irritated tenseness melted with the knowledge that she didn't want him specifically to do stop his work and do something. "Yea, she's probably out messing with Fry and Mobi." Levi frowned as the two names of Hanji's Titans left his mouth. The scientist woman had barely managed to get him to use them, and only because she made a point about making Titans more "Liz friendly". And also because Levi just didn't really want to have constant arguments about the whole Titan pet thing.
A small frown formed on Liz's face when her father mentioned her mommy's pets. She knew that she wasn't really allowed to go to her when she was around Fry and Mobi, since it was a big girl place.
However, it was in the moments that she slowly moved from her father's office and to the den that Liz decided she was a big girl who could go to big girl places.
Balling her little fists and furrowing her delicate brow, the little girl bounded as quietly as she could to the front entrance and snatched up her shoes before creeping out of the heavy, oak door and into the darkening, chilly evening.
The chirp of grasshoppers and cicadas was very present in the air, and although there was lack of light, the atmosphere of the evening was friendly. Every once in a while, the blip of a firefly's light would catch Liz's eye as she picked her way down the deserted, quiet road leading to the main headquarters, where she had been many times before. Though the road itself was very much traveled, the woods and shrubbery that surrounded it were mostly untouched. As a result, some of the native tall grasses spread somewhat into the gravely path and snatched at Liz's skirt.
Several times the girl fell when she missed a pothole or rather large stone in the road, and had to pick herself up and dust off her dress. Whenever her mom was there when she fell on the road or made some other visual mistake, the scientist would frown a little and say that she had her eyes. Liz didn't quite understand, since her mom's eyes were brown and her's were black, like Daddy's.
After a some more walking, stumbling, and righting herself again, Liz came to the big hill that overlooked the Survey Corps headquarters and training area. Even from there, the excited yelps and squeals of a certain Titan scientist could be heard from the "big girl area".
With a confident "big girl" smile, Liz kicked off with a start and sprinted down the hill, looking at the road extra hard so as not to fall at her speed. With every thump from her feet hitting the ground and with every gust of breeze, the girl felt lighter and happier. However, a thought and a question were still lingering in her head, and seemed to diminish the joy of running full speed down an enormous hill.
Once she reached the main building, Liz kept to the shadows to avoid grownups who wouldn't let her go see Mommy, who's voice was starting to become intelligible along with a few other, more panicked voices. Following the sound, it didn't take long for the girl to find her way to Fry and Mobi's place. A sudden thought occured to Liz, that she would get to see Mommy's pets for the first time, as well. A couple of times, she had heard her daddy call them 'titans', and so she supposed that's what they were, whatever that meant.
A ball of nerves and fascination well up in her stomach as Liz rounded the last building and laid eyes on the sight before her.
The sun had finally disappeared under the walls, and so the only light besides remnants in the dusty sky came from huge torches lining the dirt-paved lot. The flickering flames cast frightening shadows on the two monsters amidst a jumble of metal stakes and wood posts and thick cords of wire. The things looked like giant naked people, but something was weird with their faces and their skin was really pale and thin looking. One was smaller than the other, and had dark brown hair. The bigger one had almost white-blonde hair and a huge grin with sharp teeth. It was snapping at Liz's mother with less and less energy.
The titans - Fry and Mobi - were the most frightening looking things Liz had ever seen, and her whole body recoiled at their sight - a reaction that some part of her felt as an primal instinct as a human being.
However, Mommy looked perfectly relaxed, if a bit excitable. Her liquid brown eyes laughed with her shaking shoulders as the big titan snapped repeatedly at her. She was fearless in front of Fry and Mobi. So with that in mind, Liz steeled her tiny body and walked forward, wanting to feel as natural as her mother looked.
"Mommy!" The girl called out, trying to raise her voice over the commotion of the other soldiers that were shouting various "be careful"s and "watch out, Squad Leader"s. Liz was about to call again when suddenly several heads turned her way, slowly bringing to mind that a six-year-old child was in the vicinity of two captive and relatively large predators of humanity.
"Ma'am!" Several shocked voices were directed at the mad Titan scientist, who was still cheering and taunting the two captive Titans with a huge toothy grin.
"Squad Leader!"
More laughing and shouting.
"Hanji!"
Still laughing, Hanji finally turned her head with inquisitive eyes, and then adjusted her gaze down about fifty degrees. It took her no time at all to abandon her Titans and jog over to her daughter, her face instantly contorting into a concerned and worried expression.
"Liz! What are you doing here?! This is no place for little girls!" Hanji knelt down next to Liz, her boots crunching on the gravelly earth. At her mother's harsh-sounding voice, tears welled up in Liz's eyes.
Hanji furrowed her brow in sympathy and wiped the tears away with her thumb before pulling her daughter into a tight hug, for comfort but also to shield her eyes from Fry and Mobi, who's eyes were now trained with savage interest on the mother and daughter.
Turning her head to look at her squad, Hanji flashed an sheepish smile. "Alright, everyone, I suppose we should throw up the tents for the night and call it a day? After all, you've all been working so hard all day and those two are losing energy pretty quickly."
The crew all saluted with a collective "Yes, ma'am!" before going to work. Some of them couldn't help but smile a little, because no one had ever really gotten used to the idea of Hanji's dropping Titans so easily, even if only for her daughter.
.
.
.
A few hallways and a cup of fruit juice later, Hanji sat her daughter down in the dining hall of the Survey Corps main building. The coarse wooden chair dwarfed the girl who held her juice in two hands near her chest, sipping distractedly. Hanji's eyes burned holes into the table for a moment before turning back to Liz.
"Listen-"
"I'm sorry for going to see you with Fry and Mobi! I just kinda wanned to..." Liz's cheeks got pinker.
Hanji sat and waited for an answer, now utterly confused. When nothing else came, she prompted, "You wanted to see them?"
"No! Well, kinda, but not really." Liz pretended to fiddle with her cup and swished the juice around.
"...Well, okay." Hanji cursed herself for being able to interact better with mindless man-eaters than her own daughter. "What else?"
Liz set her cup down and mashed her fingers together in an flustered manner. A small whine escaped her before her head shot up to look Hanji in the eyes.
"Why doesn't Daddy love me?" Instantly, Hanji put her hands on her daughter's tiny shoulders and squeezed assuringly.
"What are you saying? Daddy does love you! And I do, too!"
"Then-then why doesn't he ever like to talk to me or look at me or play with me? The other kids' parents pick them up from school, too."
Hanji stopped squeezing and reached a hand up to rustle her daughter's long mop of her father's hair and frowned a little, her glasses glinting in the soft candlelight of the dining hall. So the time had come. Too soon, in her opinion.
"You know, Liz, how Mommy has a really different job than most other mommies and so does Daddy?"
The girl looked intently at Hanji's thoughtful gaze.
"Well, in Daddy's job, he's lost a lot of his special people. A lot. More than you can count on your fingers."
"Special people?"
"People that he loves very dearly. People like you and me."
Liz couldn't even imagine a world without her mommy, or even her daddy for that matter.
"Some of his special people are long gone, and some have left recently; however, they all still make him hurt. They make him hurt a lot, girly."
"Why did Daddy lose his other special people? And why are they hurting him?" Liz wanted to find these 'special people' and yell at them for hurting her daddy.
Hanji contemplated for a moment about how to tell a six-year-old girl that these people were eaten by giant, monstrous humanoid creatures who ate just to kill people? She had hoped that she wouldn't have to resort to tear down her precious Titans.
"Well, these people spent too much time fighting Fry and Mobi's kind, and they ended up having to leave this world. When they left, Daddy missed them very much, and still misses them. You know how that feels, right? Like the time you had to spend those couple of days with the Hudsons while me and Daddy were outside the walls?"
Liz nodded vigorously and understood that she didn't actually have to go beat Daddy's special people up.
Hanji breathed.
"In Daddy's job, this happens a lot, and sometimes it makes him feel scared." Hanji couldn't help but laugh at the look Liz gave her. "Yes, Daddy gets scared sometimes. Hard to believe right?"
"He gets scared that he'll lose Mommy too, and even you. When he gets scared like that, he shuts people out and doesn't want to love them, because he thinks that he'll lose them too." Hanji smiled. "He doesn't not love you, girly. He just doesn't want to care if he loses you, even though he still would." Liz looked freaked out.
"WHICH won't happen because you're going to stay away from Fry and Mobi until you're a big girl, right?"
"R-right!" The girl hesitated for a moment before speaking again. "So, how do you know all this?"
Hanji smiled. "Because I've know Daddy for a very long time." The scientist looked around dramatically before leaning in to whisper to her daughter, "And, Daddy just has a scary face most of the time."
Liz erupted into giggles just as Hanji was alerted to a heavy set of boot-clad footsteps thudding down the hallway beyond the dining hall. They got louder and louder by the second, and before Hanji could even react, a dark and rather short figure emerged from the dimness of the corridor and into the slightly brighter dining hall.
"-And that's why you should never go near Fry and Mobi ever! Ever ever ever ever ever!" Hanji said loudly upon her husband's arrival while vigorously rubbing and patting her daughter's head, which received a strange look from both parties.
Levi just stood there, his eyes wider than his normal 'Levi-look' before returning to their usual stoic set position. His breathing was a little irregular, and those footsteps had obviously been his. He had been sprinting everywhere.
"Where...where the hell have you been?"
"Levi, I've already talked to her, so it's fine-"
"You can't just sneak off like that I thought you might have died or something." He didn't yell, but his flustered tone said it all. Hanji smirked and strode over to the Corporal, wrapping her arms around his back and patting him roughly. So as not to let their daughter overhear, Levi whispered with tone to the scientist woman.
"She asked me where you were and I told her and I really wasn't thinking about it so-"
"Yea, I know." Hanji then looked back at Liz, who had taken her juice cup back from the table, and smiled. Upon seeing this, Liz bounded over to her father, juice in hand.
With big, round, inky black eyes, the girl stared happily up at her daddy and grinned with as many teeth as she had.
"It's okay, Daddy, 'cuz I don' even like Fry and Mobi so I'll stay forever."
So, I kind of left Elizabeth's physical description open, since I didn't really want to go into what she would look like or whatever and so you could kind of put your own image of her into your head.
We'll see about that whole 'not liking Titans' thing in another eight years, Levi. You poor soul XD
Sorry for botching the ending OTL I just kind of wrote this because I needed a dumping yard for my feels XD