7: Hanji to Erwin

She sat in her chair down in her laboratory watching the experiment deep in thoughts. A vast amount of glass tubes served as connection for two large flasks with different struts, filters and cooling units in-between. In the first flask a dark red liquid was slowly simmering, light pink steam ascending into the equipment, gradually losing its colour before eventually dropping down into the second jar as clear liquid.
It would take at least another half hour until she would be able to examine the distillate; therefore she had enough time left to brood over a few things. On top of her completely dumped desk – about which Levi complained every single time he dropped by – laid her notepad and writing utensils. Hanji thought for another moment then reached for the later.
She always wrote down her findings, but also her thoughts just as well as theories, sometimes even sketchy drawings or schemata if they popped into her mind. She wrote down everything not matter how absurd or meaningless it might have been. She did not want those things to get lost should anything happen to her.
But perhaps it was time to make sure that the right people would get her notes, just in case. Lost in thought again she doodled a few lines on the piece of paper before starting to write.

Erwin,

I bet, you're surprised to get a letter from me, aren't you? Don't worry, I won't bore you with endless goodbyes or declare my forgotten love for you. No, I just want to ask a favour.
Underneath my bed, at the back corner close to the wall you will find a loose floor board (and before you ask, yes, I did loosen it myself). Once you have lifted it, you will see a chest lying underneath.
It contains all of my thoughts, theories and ideas. Some are quite abstract and some are not very likely. But perhaps there will be one among these that will provide a little food for thought or even help you on the way and I don't want them to get lost.
I know how much you granted me since you entrusted the research team to me and I know how I do insist on my way now and then or have reached my or your limits. I can only hope to at least have helped a little bit.
Apart from you I will only leave one other letter to Moblit about this hiding place, I think, he will be the one most likely to go on with what I was doing in case you should be looking for a successor. If the chest will not be in its place, he probably has it.
And I guess he will be the one with the best chances of getting the information of my mazy notes, if you should not be able to.
If you don't have the time or nerves to work through them, please, Erwin, at least take a closer look at the two topmost sheets. They should be about my research on Eren and a few speculations about the nature and origin of his shifting abilities.
Until now I never spoke about them, because I'm anything but certain, but if I am right, things might get dangerous very quickly, there might be more people like him.
But I guess that's not news to you, is it?
Anyway, I swore to myself not to, but I get the feeling I still should, so here we go:
Thank you, Erwin. Thank you for letting me research the way I thought was right and not the way the protocol dictated, for listening to my theories and not condemning them at once and especially for catching some test subjects for me.
It seems the time has come for me to apply myself to the next big question and find out what follows death. I will dutifully report to you, when the time has come.

Hanji

She stopped several times to rethink her words. When she was finally done, there was a little outline of her bed in the upper corner of the sheet drawn with just a few basic lines and looking a little like a treasure map with a cross marking the chest.
It made her smile about herself, just before she hurriedly put aside the letter, because her experiment made a whistling sound and somewhere yellow steam was leaking all of a sudden.