Levi woke to a pillow wet with tears. He blearily looked out of the window and jumped out of bed when he saw that the sun was already on its way to noon.

'Shit' he mumbled as he wiped his eyes and hurriedly rolled out of bed.

He hissed a list of curse words as he felt pain shooting up his leg when he put his weight on his left leg.

Right, I hurt my ankle yesterday when I had to save that stupid Ackerman girl.

He pulled on his clothing, taking care with the buttons on his shirt then with practiced movements strapped himself into the 3D Manoeuvre Gear harness. Each soldier eventually figured out their own way of doing it quickly, but for Levi, anything to do with the 3DMG was practically second nature. As a street rat he and his friends had stolen a set each and used it to steal and escape. He smiled as he remembered how it had felt the first time he had taken flight through the woods - he had never felt so free in his life.

He managed to walk down to the mess hall without limping too much. As he opened the door, he found Hanji poring over her notes. She turned to see who had entered, her glasses reflecting the light.

'Oh, Levi. You're finally up' she said.

'Why didn't you wake me?' grumbled Levi.

'Well I knocked and got no response so I poked my head round the door but you looked so scary that I left' she laughed 'who knows, you probably sleep with a knife under your pillow or something!'

Nngh if she came in when I was asleep she probably saw me… crying. He grimaced at the thought as he made himself a cup of coffee. He sat down on the other end of the table, as far away from Hanji as possible.

'Levi' she said quietly 'I'm sorry about your squad.'

He grunted and she returned to reading her notes. At least she truly understood comrades' deaths, if anyone understood what it was like losing people in your squad expedition after expedition it was Hanji. But… she didn't know what it was like to lose the one person in this life that meant everything. Wait, just the one person? No… There's another…

Taking a pencil and notepad from his breast pocket, he wrote a few lines before carefully tearing the page out and sliding it down the table to Hanji.

'Huh? What's this?' she said squinting at the words written in Levi's scrawled handwriting. For a cravat-wearing neat freak he had really crappy penmanship.

'It's an address, stupid.'

He rolled his eyes with a sigh. He could hardly believe he was even doing this, but he had to. He had to protect the one thing he had left.

'And what will I find at this address?'

'Not what,' he said carefully 'but, who.'

'Fine, then who will I find there?' said Hanji sighing exasperatedly as she took a sip from her coffee cup.'

'My son.'

Hanji's reaction was priceless. She half choked and half spat out her coffee all over her notes and was seized with spluttering coughs for a good minute. As she struggled to breathe Levi made no attempt to help her and continued to take sips from his coffee.

'My notes!' she wailed once she managed to catch her breath. 'You had better not have been taking the piss or I just ruined about twelve pages of notes for a shitty joke.'

'It's no joke' he said taking a careful sip from his cup.

'B-but, who's the mother?!' she said 'When did Corporal Levi find time to knock someone up?'

'Petra Ral of the Special Operations Squad, Survey Corps. Killed in action.' he said without emotion as he set down the cup to disguise the trembling that had started when he said her name.

Hanji gasped, her hand covering her mouth in shock.

'Levi…' she said 'I'm so sorry.'

'Shut up' he said slamming his hand on the table.

He couldn't take the look of pity in her eyes. Those stupid eyes through those fucking glasses. All because Corporal Levi, humanity's most powerful soldier, Petra's 'reluctant hero' hadn't just lost his squad, but the woman he loved, the mother of his child. He started to speak, like he was telling a story. It was strange, it like telling someone else's story.

'She couldn't face going home - traditional values in little villages' He snorted 'so in the last few months she hid with some friends of mine from the old days. She wanted to stay and fight for as long as possible, and remarkably her stomach didn't show until she was about four months pregnant by which time winter was coming so it was easier to hide under layers of clothing and the winter cloak. She gave birth the day we got back from the 53rd expedition beyond the walls.'

Hanji looked at him in total shock and wonder.

'So… when she missed that expedition and you said she was on her two-week annual leave…'

'In reality she had been on leave for a few months,' he said smirking 'You remember when she had to be put on leave after she broke her ankle from an accident with her horse?'

'So that was fake…' she said with realisation 'then the squad were in on it too.'

'Naturally.' He said with a sigh 'I wasn't going to keep something like that from them. And they all turned out to be surprisingly convincing actors. Then we were fortunate enough to not have to be called for an expedition until the 53rd so we performed our normal duties without her and as long as our tasks were getting done our superiors wouldn't' ever look too closely to see who was actually doing them.'

'Shit,' she breathed 'you're a genius. Are you seriously telling me that no one outside Special Ops knew about all this?'

He shrugged nonchalantly.

'Damn, Levi. This is insane.' she muttered, shaking her head 'What else are you hiding from us?'

'We all have our secrets, don't we, Zoe?' he said giving her a knowing look.

There was a brief pause as he held her gaze and she looked at him in shock, clearly trying to figure out if he was bluffing or truly knew her 'secret'.

'So what, you need a babysitter?' she said hastily.

'If… if I die… I need you to go and tell the people looking after my son.' said Levi, looking at the table 'Besides you and I there is no one in the military who know about Ethan. If you don't tell them, I guess they'd realise eventually but they don't tend to keep up with military stuff and I'd like him to know.'

'Ethan, huh? But why them? Why not Petra's father?'

'He doesn't even know that he has a grandson yet.'

'What?! You're insane.'

'I'm going to see him today, I'll tell him then' Levi said determinedly 'I'll go as soon as I pack up her things.'

He downed the rest of his coffee and stood to leave. As he passed Hanji, a hand grabbed his arm.

'Levi, wait' she said as she stood and turned to him 'I'll do it.'

It was then that he realised how good a friend Zoe Hanji could be, and had been over the years. For all her eccentric behaviour, she had a good heart and he had a habit of overlooking that sometimes.

'Thanks' he muttered as she walked to the door.

With her hand on the handle she turned, the light reflected off her glasses flashing.

'You know, I should have seen that things had changed.' She said slowly, as if she was realising something for the first time. 'You have something you want to go back to now. You never used to have that, you used to do the craziest things, not giving a shit that you might hurt because the only thing you had was your need to defeat the titans - that's what drove you. With this kid in the picture, you have something you want to make it back for. You'll never give your full 100% because part of you will hold back, knowing that that kid is waiting for his daddy to come home… Damn you, Levi.'

She looked at him with a face full of betrayal, hurt and disappointment before she left. As the door closed behind her he numbly stared at the space where Hanji had stood. It wasn't hard to understand her reaction. The military training was designed to break you down and remake you, to make you follow their rules. Relationships were discouraged because it took your focus away from the fight, but it didn't mean that you no longer desired, it just meant that it was buried deep inside. Levi had even seen Erwin looking longingly at families as they passed in their carriage.

Levi wasn't like them; he hadn't been subjected to the three years of training – Hanji, who had graduated top of her class, had always hated him for that. Instead, Erwin had plucked him from the streets and he had joined the Survey Corps but not before being broken and remade, Erwin style. Still, maybe he hadn't been remade the way the other had. After all, he had let himself want Petra, and he had let her want him.

He had everything that everyone in the Survey Corps secretly wanted – a chance at a normal life, with a family, with someone who would give a damn if you died or not. Something worth living for other than destroying titans. He had everything they wanted and were forbidden from having. Of all people, of course it would be Corporal Levi who would get what he wanted and now humanity's strongest soldier had something real to live for when they needed him most.

He sighed as his sat down, lost in thought. Was Ethan their undoing? Had they let their son become a distraction?

'Petra… What am I supposed to do?' he mumbled as he looked longingly at the place she had sat and spoken to him in his dream.