Levi sat by his boyfriend's bed, stroking his dark hair. He wished he could see Eren's turquoise coloured eyes again without a nurse having to pry his eyelids open. The bags under Levi's eyes grew darker and heavier the longer he went without sleep, and they were already dark and purple. He just wanted Eren to wake up, to see the glisten in his eyes again, to see his wide white smile.
Every so often, Eren would murmur something, as if he was about to wake up, but the doctor said it was the trauma of the crash, causing him to experience vivid hallucinations and dreams while in the coma. Judging from what Eren murmured in his state, he seemed to be trapped in a mental dystopia, a world where monsters reign over humans with fear and destruction. He'd said the words 'titan' and 'walls' many times, and the names of Levi and his childhood friends Mikasa, Annie and Armin, as if they were all there with him. One night, shortly after the car crash four weeks before, one of the nurses noted him calling out for his mother, Kalura, who died in the crash.
Levi spared a moment to look out upon the town of Shiganshina, where Levi and Eren and all of their friends had lived all of their lives. It was close to the main city of Trost, a few miles north. The sun was high in the summer sky, with only a few wispy clouds gently floating past the sky. He saw a silver convertible pull into the hospital lot, with three people inside. Levi stood and went to the window to watch Annie, Armin and Mikasa step out of the car. Levi was six floors up from them, but he could make them out fairly clearly; even if he couldn't see them, the almost-matching blond of Annie and Armin's hair was a dead giveaway. Levi decided to clear the place up a little; he wouldn't let anyone in to clean and insisted he do it himself.
Annie and Mikasa entered Eren's room quietly, as if Eren was simply sleeping instead of in a deep coma. A nurse followed them to check Eren's pulse and check and edit his chart. Once she'd left, Mikasa crept over to Levi and put her good arm around him, as the other hung in a bandaged sling by her chest, from the crash. Annie stayed by the door, as if she was guarding it. Annie had always been rather cool and aloof, but had the sweetest laugh. Now she stood, quiet and pained, only moving to look over at the other three in the room every so often. It often crossed Levi's mind that Annie blamed herself for the accident, because she couldn't protect Kalura. Armin, Levi and even Mikasa had tried so many times to explain that Kalura's death was not Annie's fault, that it was the way Kalura's car had been hit, but Annie had insisted it was her fault and she would never stop trying to make it up to Eren and Mikasa.
Levi's eyes drifted from Eren's comatose form to Mikasa. He couldn't imagine what she was feeling, if she'd been able to feel anything yet. This was essentially the third parent she'd lost, as her birth parents had been killed in a failed mugging when she was nine. She was raised by Kalura and Grisha as if she'd been their own daughter. Now she was dead too.
Armin pushed his blond hair behind his ear and put his phone to it. The receptionist on the other end picked up and asked Armin for his details. "Officer Armin Arlert, badge number Charlie Tango 4532" he said into the phone. "I'm calling for Officer Reiner Braun, about Kalura Yeager's husband."
"I'll patch you through, Officer Arlert."
There was a brief disconnection Armin waited through, when a husky voice answered. "Armin," he said. "What can I do for you?"
"Reiner," he said in a friendly tone, "I need a favour. All the info you have on the Yeager case."
"Armin, those are classified. I can't-"
"I didn't want to bring this up, but remember what happened in Trost. Give me the information and we're even."
Armin could hear Reiner's sharp breathing. He knew Armin would bring it up, but being reminded of someone who'd ranked beneath him in the Academy saved him from the Silver Rose killer. His face darkened on the other side of the phone. "Alright, Arlert. We don't know a lot, but there's a couple of leads to Grisha. There's a testing facility outside of the Giant Forest, a fair distance from Trost, called Tokeyano Industries. That's all we really know, nobody's been able to get in."
Armin had heard of Tokeyano. About three years ago, they'd been accused of ungodly conduct in their facilities, but the case dropped because there was no evidence. "I might check it out for you, keep you posted. This doesn't leave us, Reiner."
"Got you, Armin. Talk later." Detective Reiner Braun, Vice, hung up the phone on his junior and grit his teeth. He'd given away delicate information. Something that could have given him away, because Arlert called in a favour. He picked up the phone again and punched in a number. "Get me Bertholdt."
