Levi wasn't able to determine who had caused more damage. Him with his blades or her with with her own fists. She had beaten Erd's back until both it and her fists were black and blue, bloody, and sore.

The girl had fought it out until the very end, and the scouts had started worrying if they would need to resort to sedation to bring her inside the hospital. That proved not to be a concern, though. When the small hospital had come into view, all resistance drained out of her, and the girl became uncharacteristically cooperative.

That hadn't gone unnoticed by Levi.

Even as the girl was laying in the hospital bed without resisting, Levi hadn't let up suspicion. He didn't buy it for a second. Nobody does a full one-eighty that quickly for no reason. The rest of Levi's squad were convinced, though. Well, it wasn't that they had been convinced that there was nothing off about this girl, it was more along the lines of they didn't have any reason in the first place to think that there was more to this than met the eye.

Erd was off getting ice for his back, and Günter and Auruo weren't even in the hospital because they thought the girl was low-key enough for just Levi and Petra to handle. Everyone had already come to the conclusion she probably had a mental disorder and had decided to go outside the Wall like any normal crazy person would.

Everyone, that is, except Levi.

"Can you stop watching me like that? I didn't grow a second head or anything the last time I checked," the girl stated from the hospital bed, not at all blind to Levi's consistent analyzing stare. The Corporal's eyes narrowed.

"No, but you were outside the Wall last time I checked. Willingly, I might add. I would think my staring would be the least of your worries if I were you." The girl became noticeably irritated at Levi's unmasked, judgemental tone. He continued, regardless.

"But I'm not you. I have a healthy level of insanity. You, on the other hand, are padded cell in an asylum level of insanity." Almost rising to the bait, the girl had sat up, mouth half opened to argue that she was of perfectly sound mind, but Petra jumped in before anything got too out of hand.

"Woah, Levi, don't be that harsh! We need to start basic here, okay? We can discuss her… er, health later." Petra gave a tentative glance toward the girl on the hospital bed, face clearly showing her belief that mental instability was probably not too far off the mark in this scenario. She could predict the girl either being easily provoked into a fit of rage or having a meltdown. Best tread carefully. Petra softly pulled up a chair to the bedside.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" she asked calmly, yet noticeably slower than how she was speaking before.

Oh, great. She thinks I'm out of my mind, too! This just couldn't get any worse even if I tried! The girl grimaced slightly at the thought. It's okay, it'll be over soon. then I won't have to deal with this anymore.

"It's Arika. Arika Welsch. And I'm not crazy, I swear it."

"If you're not crazy, then you're inhumanly stupid. Take your pick, it doesn't make a difference to us how you managed to get yourself almost eaten," Levi drawled in a monotone.

"I wasn't going to be eaten," Arika said confidently but then faltered. Some memory had snagged her attention, causing her to look distracted and speak uncertainly. "I would've been just fine without you people butting in."

"You would've been long dead if we didn't show up," he persisted.

"I've made it this long without any damn human's help, thank you very much," Arika grumbled to herself. She hadn't meant for the others to hear her frustrated statement, but with Petra sitting right next to her made it impossible.

"Wait, how long are you talking about? How long were you out there?" Petra asked as she got a sinking feeling in her stomach. What had unsettled her was Arika's casual use of the word "human" to describe her or Levi. They either had a severe mental case on their hands… Or could it be possible the girl had been separated from humanity for so long that she had started talking like that?

Arika gave a sideways glance at Petra and turned her head away again. "A while. A long while," she responded with finality, not willing to give any further details.

Petra looked over to Levi who was leaning forward more in his chair, still persistent despite having hit a dead end. "Fine. How about family? If you won't speak for yourself we can always track down someone else to speak for you, and I'm sure they'll be absolutely overjoyed to hear about your little Wall escapade." Levi didn't think this would magically get her to speak up, but he hadn't expected Arika to start laughing.

"Oh, good luck trying! That won't help you one bit, you'd get absolutely nowhere," Arika sneered at him.

How is that any different from now, Levi thought with frustration at hitting another dead end. "Well, you'll be staying here until we do get somewhere, so you need to start answering questions some time."

"Well, I'm done answering to you, so you can go ahead and try your luck again tomorrow," Arika said, resolutely looking him in the eyes. Levi's eyes darkened, but he got up from his chair without arguing.

As he and Petra were startinging to leave the hospital wing, he stopped and turned back around to face Arika. Unsheathing one of his blades, he pointed it at her to emphasize his seriousness. "Fine. But you will be here to answer questions tomorrow. No exceptions, and don't even think about making a run for it," the Corporal said coldly.

Arika scoffed and acted insulted. "I wouldn't dream of it! I won't leave this spot!" Her eyes said another thing entirely, challenging Levi in a stare-down. The stare-down was quickly broken by the angered Head Nurse.

"Levi! What have I told you about waving around swords in my hospital?!" Normally, anybody that spoke to Levi with that tone would get his or her ass kicked. The Head Nurse, however, was the one person that always managed to get away with calling Levi on his shit.

Levi's right arm holding the sword was slowly lowered, but that didn't stop the Head Nurse from unceremoniously throwing him out of the hospital. Petra, of course, had tried to straighten out the misunderstanding Levi had created. That didn't change the Head Nurse's position on the subject.

Petra returned to where her Corporal was leaning outside the doorway of the hospital with her head hung low. "No luck, we're banned for a week. Again. Now we can't even come question her tomorrow."

"There'd be no point in coming here tomorrow anyway," Levi replied, staring down at the blade he still hadn't put away.

Petra looked at him, puzzled. "But you said that you wanted to—"

"I know what I said," Levi cut her off, "But there's no point in trying to question somebody if they aren't there to be questioned."

Petra sat there for a second before she pieced together what Levi was saying. "So you think she's going to make a break for it?"

Levi nodded in her direction before returning to gaze at the blade he was holding. It was still stained with blood. Arika's blood. He hadn't disposed of the blade or moved to clean it for some odd reason, but it perfectly proved what he had been mulling over.

"Not just think, I know she's going to." Levi lifted the blade up for Petra to see.

"Nobody with this determination would just stay put because they were told to. You heard her, too. She has no intention of staying here."

Sliding down the wall to sit at its base, Petra put her head in her hands. Her fingers wove into her hair like they usually do when she felt backed into a corner. "What do we do then? We aren't even allowed to go back in there to move her to a different location where we could monitor her," she said brokenly, looking up to Levi.

"There's only one thing we can do. If Arika's going to try to break out, then we've got to beat her to it. We need to act first." Finally pushing himself off the wall, Levi sheathed his sword and started walking off to find the rest of his squad.

"We need to break in."

~*~*~*~*~*AoT*~*~*~*~*~

It was at some odd hour of the night that Arika finally cracked her eye open. She had been patiently pretending to sleep for several hours, waiting and listening. All of the other patients were snoring, sound asleep, and the nurses had left to patrol a different part of the hospital. This was her chance. Soundlessly slipping out of the hospital bed, Arika quickly tip-toed to peek out of the curtains shutting her out from the rest of the patients. There wasn't anybody in sight. Time to move.

Reaching back to grab the bedsheets, Arika tied it to form a makeshift bag. At the same time, she reached under the pillow her head had just been resting on. She pulled out her own burlap sack with her belongings that she had successfully been able to hide when she first arrived at the hospital. Arika would drop dead before she'd let anyone get their hands on its contents. Pulling the key to her freedom out from the sack, she carefully looked over the compass she always carried around.

This would guide her back to him no matter how far humans took her away.

With all the stealth she could muster, Arika moved around the room like a ghost collecting any supplies she thought would be useful.

Taking all of the untouched food off of other patients trays and grabbing any medical bandages she came across, some part of her felt a little relieved. She wouldn't have to worry about food for a while, and having medicine was a luxury that she would only stumble across from time to time. At least there was one positive thing that would come out of this.

Humans might be terrible, but at least their food and medicine is good. After all these years, Arika's opinion on humans had never changed. They might be interesting to watch from afar, but they were all destructive beasts at their core. She had her reasons, and it would take a miracle worker to make her think any differently.

Shoving one last thing into the bag, a spare set of clothes, she was ready to leave. It had taken her less than a minute, but she was already getting antsy at the thought the somebody could walk in and bust her at any moment.

Scanning the room again for good measure, Arika slowly backed away to the door out of the hospital wing. She had memorized the way she had been carried in here. After this door she needed to go left, take a staircase down, go straight, and leave through the back door on the right side at the end of the hall. Easy enough.

It suddenly became not as easy when the door handle Arika had so quietly been turning refused to turn all the way. Locked. Dammit. Crouching down on the ground, Arika shuffled through her burlap sack until she pulled out a curved lock pick. She had become fairly skilled at picking locks to get into abandoned houses in Wall Maria, but it was still an unappreciated time consumer when every wasted second counted against her. Inserting the pick carefully, Arika moved it until she heard the tell-tale click of success.

Grinning to herself, Arika threw her bags back over her shoulder but kept the pick at hand. She'd be needing it again if any other doors were locked. Triumphantly, Arika turned the doorknob and swiftly pushed the door open.

At the same time, a scream surged up and died in her throat.

"Good evening. Couldn't sleep, I take it?" Levi was sitting in a chair right outside of the door, smirking. He had his legs crossed and was leisurely cleaning a blade with what might have once been a white rag that had been stained red.

When she felt like she was no longer at risk of screaming and accidentally waking the whole ward, Arika moved a hand away from her mouth. "What are you doing here?! How did you get in here?!" she spilled out in a rushed whisper.

Levi impassively held up a small metal lock pick. "I got in the same way you got out. I'd be lying if I said I haven't had my fair share of robberies and break ins," Levi said in a casual tone as if they were discussing the weather, "And while we are on the subject of lying, I do believe you had promised me that you weren't going to leave that spot." Levi's tone had quickly darkened and he was now standing, pointing at her accusingly with the blade he had been cleaning. "Care to explain that to me, Miss Welsch?"

Arika immediately started backpedaling, no longer caring if she was at risk of waking other patients. "You're fucking crazy if you think I'm staying here," she hissed at the man who was taking two steps forward for every one she took back.

"No," Levi scoffed as he closed in on her, "We've already established that you are the crazy one. And you are also the one that is going to be staying right here."

"I'd like to see you try to make me, short stuff. I'm going back and there's nothing you can do to stop me," Arika snapped as her eyes finally locked on the window not far behind her. Levi saw where she was looking.

"Don't do it. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but I'll still win in the end," Levi said warningly. He was too little, too late though because Arika had already picked up speed. Both made a mad dash for the window, but it was ultimately Arika who reached it first. In a shower of glass, Arika jumped and smashed through the window.

Levi braked right before he, too, flew out the window. His eyes narrowed but beside that made no move to follow her. "Guess it's the hard way then."

It didn't matter to Levi either way. He had planned for everything.

It wasn't that far of a drop, but Arika had a jarring impact and the stinging cuts from the glass didn't help one bit when she rolled out of her fall. Rolling over with a pained grunt, she had stretched her hand out toward the bags that had fallen several feet away from her when a boot came down to rest on top of her precious belongings.

"Well, what'd ya know? The fucker was actually right about this one! Good call, Levi!" Auruo shouted up toward where the Corporal was standing at the shattered window directly above them. There was a soft crunch of glass as Levi deftly jumped out of the window and scaled down the wall with his 3-D Maneuvering Gear.

"I wasn't sure if she'd go so far as to jump out the windows, but I guess it was good to have you guys staking out down here anyway."

Arika was struggling to sit up and had to fight through her disoriented vision to make out a fuzzy version of Levi making his way toward her. A sense of urgency flooded through her and she managed to force herself to her feet, but no sooner had she turned to flee did she run straight into a wall of bodies. Erd, Günter, and Auruo had made a human barricade to stop Arika from taking another step. With a jolt, Arika felt herself jerked backwards as Levi yanked her to face him. She was about to fight back against him went Petra latched onto her, pinning her arms to her sides.

Arika's vision and hearing cleared up in time to watch Levi raise up a blade and say, "I told you. I win in the end either way."

With that, the hilt of his sword came down and everything was consumed in dark unconsciousness.


A/N (TheHeart'sCompass): Hey, everybody! Thanks for reading and sorry for the wait! My Life apparently has an agenda of its own and has prevented me from writing :/ Okay, well if you like this chapter and want more make sure to review, favorite, and follow! And if you like this style of writing go ahead and check out my story, The Blessing and Curse that is Hope, by going to my profile! See ya next chapter! Have a SUPERMEGAFOXYAWESOMEHOT day! XD

A/N (Butterfly Chibi): I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, and we would love to know your opinion. Chapter 3 will be a little while longer so Compass can work on her stories. :D R&R Please check out her story it's awesome~! X3 I love reading it and I'm sure you will as well. Until next time guys~! :)