Enchanting
By Holly-Batali

Author's Note: Wow, there was a great response to the last chapter! Way to BE guys, you're awesome! To clarify-Petra's hospital room number. The 3 is just because I needed a number for the floor, and it's for the 3 walls. The 57 is what's important, and it's a nod to the 57th Expedition Beyond the Walls, which is when (in canon verse) Petra died. Kudos to RedAmaranth for guessing! :D

Disclaimer: I own nothing Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan belongs to Hajime Isayama. Enchanted lyrics are property of Owl City.

Chapter 11

"There I was again tonight, same old tired lonely place."

The damn clock on the wall was driving Levi slowly insane. It ticked down steadily with that same hollow noise, and if he had to listen to it much longer he'd shoot it. It made him wish that he still carried his gun with him… almost. That would certainly get him banned from the hospital and even Erwin would have trouble getting him out of that one.

Levi sighed through his nose heavily, running a hand through his hair as he glanced at the still form of Petra on the hospital bed. It had been three days, and she still hadn't woken up. As much as he hated to admit it, the lack of Petra throughout his day was affecting him. Coffee that he made or bought tasted bitter and disgusting; conversations with other people were irritating and boring. He had even crashed on the couch at her apartment last night when he went to visit Hanji; they had eaten takeout and bitched about annoying college students and hospital staff, then they had a few beers and Levi had taken over the couch, not wanting to go back home to face Erwin, who had been switching back and forth between pity and gentle 'you need to do something with yourself'. It had been fraying Levi's nerves worse than the damn clock.

As much as he hated to admit it, Petra had wormed her way into his daily routine so deeply that he couldn't even function like he used to, and he both loved and hated it.

What the hell does that even mean? He wondered tiredly. He'd given up trying to find coffee that tasted good, deciding that he'd been spoiled beyond repair or recall by Petra's god-sent brew. He'd been wondering about that lately, what Petra meant to him. Obviously she was more than a stranger now; he couldn't give her up like coffee, he was too invested in whatever the hell relationship the two of them had.

They were friends, he was fairly certain. Friends went out for pizza and coffee, they cleaned each other's apartments when the other was sick and helped each other study (and by each other, he meant he corrected her dumbass mistakes). He was pretty sure that friends stayed with each other during visiting hours in the hospital, too, and felt comfortable in each other's homes.

Levi didn't know what it was like to have a home, to have a place to let his guard down, not until he moved in with Erwin. He had never had someone to open the door for him, to turn their back to him and feel so comfortable in his presence. Erwin had given him that, given him the spare bedroom and the spare key to his home.

He had been grateful to Erwin, even though he hadn't been very good at showing it though. The period of adjustment to domestic life had been anything but smooth; Levi had lashed out almost daily, snarling and swearing. There had been a lot of slamming doors, too. That was mostly because Levi was still testing the boundaries of his newfound freedom, baiting Erwin to come after him and tear open the door. To his credit, Erwin never entered Levi's room without permission. If he had (though he didn't know it), Levi would have left.

It was that patience that allowed Levi to adjust, to accept the new life that Erwin had offered to him. For the first time in a lifetime, Levi had a home.

A house was not a home. A home was when Levi opened the front door, smelled burning toast, and had to rescue the kitchen and yell at Erwin. Home was getting a call saying, "Levi, I forgot my lecture notes by the computer; could you maybe bring them over? Please?" Home was beating Erwin at every first-person shooter video game that they owned and then going out for Indian food to spare the kitchen further trauma.

Lately, Levi had been arguing with Erwin, had been reverting to their original pattern. His home was becoming a house again, and he had been quietly panicking. He couldn't go back to the way he'd been, he wouldn't. But he didn't know how to stop it from happening, he couldn't pick up the pieces quickly enough.

And then, in the middle of the breakdown, home had come back in new pieces, repairing the damage done by harsh words and slammed doors; it had saved Levi without even trying.

Home had become an apartment full of body parts and leftover pizza. Home had become mugs of hazelnut coffee and witty comebacks. It was the smell of coffee, mint shampoo, and library books.

Home was Erwin. But now, home had also become Petra. Her smile, her laugh, her touch, everything that was Petra Ral had become Levi's home.

Levi reached over to Petra and ran his fingers gently through her hair, being careful not to disturb the bandages wrapped around her head. I won't lose that, he vowed to himself. I won't lose her.

He picked up a book, a criminal justice case study that he'd snagged from Hanji and Petra's apartment on the way over here. There were notes in the margins in Petra's neat handwriting, underlining key concepts and evidences. It made him smirk when he found one that said L said to study this for test. So she had listened to him.

An hour later, when Levi was mostly done with the book, a soft knock sounded on the doorframe. Levi's eyes snapped up to the intruder, widening slightly in surprise as he saw Erwin hovering in the doorway. He was still in his dress clothes and carrying a briefcase; he must have just finished up at work.

"Can I come in?" He was doing it again, Levi realized; Erwin had reverted to that nervous state where he had to ask permission to enter a room that wasn't even Levi's. He could feel the bits of home crumbling again, and this time Petra wasn't able to stick the pieces back in place—this thought made Levi irrationally upset, and he shook it from his mind.

"Fine," he said, giving Erwin permission to enter Petra's hospital room. Erwin nodded his thanks with a tight smile and walked in, sliding into the chair next to Levi's; Hanji had set up the chair there the night before when she visited and then didn't put it back. Levi didn't bother to replace it in its spot by the window; moving it made it feel like no one else would come to see Petra.

Erwin set his briefcase down with a quiet sigh, clasping his hands awkwardly in his lap. In the three days that Petra had been hospitalized, Levi hadn't spoken to Erwin. He came home when visiting hours ended and holed up in his room, sleeping and reading. By the time Erwin woke up in the morning, Levi was gone, out getting breakfast with Hanji or Gunter, Auruo, and Erd. Last night, he hadn't gone home at all, staying with Hanji instead (who was taking this whole thing even worse than he was). Levi didn't know what Erwin thought of all this; truthfully, Levi didn't want their relationship at home to deteriorate more than it already had when there was no one to pick up the pieces. He felt like his whole home would crumble around him if were anywhere but by Petra's side. He would never tell Erwin as much; he didn't fully understand it himself. He just knew where he needed to be.

"Erd Gin told me about what happened," Erwin said at last. "He, Bossard, and Shulz were with her—Bossard in particular seems rather distraught."

"I know," Levi said simply. He didn't need Erwin to tell him what had happened; he'd gotten the play-by-play. He kept his eyes on the page he was reading; Erwin didn't seem too keen to look him in the eye, and Levi felt very much the same.

"…I was surprised, honestly," Erwin continued, staring somewhat awkwardly at the sheets over Petra's legs. "I've never seen you take such an interest in someone before. I didn't realize you were so close."

Yeah, me neither, Levi thought absently.

"She's a good student." It was obvious that Erwin didn't quite know what to say, and Levi wondered why he was even there in the first place. "Hard worker. She gets good grades in the class, she's very talented. She'll do well when she graduates."

"…Why are you here?" Levi asked, marking his page and setting aside the book to look Erwin in the eye.

Erwin paused, and then sighed heavily, looking up to meet Levi's eyes. "I'm sorry."

Whatever Levi had been expecting, it wasn't that. He was expecting disappointment, frustration, maybe irritation. "…For what?"

Erwin sighed again, slouching in his chair, a weary look in his eyes. "I've been… pressuring you too much, haven't I?" He looked Levi in the eye and went on without waiting for an answer. "I worry that you won't ever be more than a data entry specialist, that you won't push yourself; because you could be anything, Levi! You're brilliant, you're driven, you could go anywhere! But you don't seem to want to, and that just… I've always known very clearly what I wanted to do, and I think I pushed that mindset onto you without considering how you felt about that. I'm sorry."

Levi was at a loss for words; Erwin never apologized. He did what he thought was right and dealt with the consequences, but he never admitted to doing something wrong. It had been a point of contention and struggle between the two of them since they had met. He didn't know what to say to this bomb that Erwin had just dropped. Was this a good thing, or would it make things worse? It was an unprecedented event, and Levi didn't quite know how to categorize it.

Erwin continued on, his gaze flitting back to the sheets. "It's not that I'm angry about it; it's just that you have so much potential, and you have a second chance that you never thought you'd get. Having that chance, I thought that maybe… I don't know, maybe that you'd just shoot off and get a degree, a steady job, everything you couldn't have because of the gang, and I just… I should have asked and I didn't."

Levi's throat tightened; every argument, every fight—they could have avoided this. The fleeting thought that Petra would have been able to tell him that, to fix it, crossed his mind. "I didn't know what I wanted," he confessed quietly. He hated talking about his feelings, but if there was ever a time when he needed to, it was now. Almost without thought, his hand reached for Petra's, gently grasping it for reassurance. "I just… it was better. Even though I wasn't doing anything, it was better because I could just focus on who I was. I've never been able to do that."

He ran his free hand through his hair, frustrated, avoiding Erwin's eyes. "I had something constant, I had a home. I didn't want to change anything, because that would change too." He felt like an idiot, saying such stupid things, but he felt like if he didn't say it then, he'd never get it out of his system. He glanced over at Erwin, who looked completely floored; which wasn't too much of a surprise, Levi figured, since that was the most he'd ever talked about his feelings.

"Levi, I—"

"Don't think I want some chick-flick shit going on here," Levi warned sternly, sliding a half-hearted glare at his roommate. "You try to hug me and I will end you."

Erwin's eyes lost their surprise and softened marginally, a small smile on his face. "Duly noted."

Levi could feel pieces shifting back into place; just a few pieces of debris here and there, barely noticeable. But it was a step in the right direction, and that was enough for him. His eyes softened a bare fraction as he absently ran his thumb over Petra's hand. It's something.

Erwin left a few minutes later, after dragging a promise from Levi that he would come home for dinner that night. Levi scoffed at him, called him a sentimental old woman, and promised that yes, he would be home for a no-doubt toxic meal.

Leaving a little emotionally lighter than he'd arrived, Erwin closed the door softly behind him, taking one last glance at Levi, who was reading the case study Erwin had assigned a few weeks previously, running a hand absent-mindedly through Petra's ginger blonde hair. The older man wondered if Levi even realized he was doing it.

"Is he still in there?" Erwin turned to see the new arrival down the hallway.

"I don't think we've met?" He asked in confusion, staring. The woman in the hallway was walking towards him with a small smile, hands in her pockets. He hadn't seen her before, but she seemed to recognize him.

"I'm Hanji," she introduced herself, coming to stand next to him; she was a good six inches shorter than him, but seemed anything but intimidating. "Hanji Zoe. I'm Petra's roommate."

"Oh, I see," Erwin held out his free hand for a handshake. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Zoe."

Hanji barked a laugh, giving him a firm handshake. "Just Hanji. Are you here to see Petra? She's your student, right?"

"Yes," he affirmed. "I came to see her and Levi; they seem to be a packaged deal these days."

Hanji grinned, her eyes shining behind square-rimmed glasses. As happy as she looked, she looked equally tired, dark circles under her eyes and skin that looked just a little too pale (though it was hard to tell, as Erwin had no frame of reference for this woman).

"Would you like to go downstairs for coffee? You look like you might need some," Erwin asked boldly. Hanji looked fit to collapse, and he'd rather avoid something like that. She looked like she was running on fumes and little else.

"That sounds great," Hanji acquiesced, practically snatching his arm and heading back down the hallway to the elevator. "The coffee here is God-awful compared to Petra baby's, but it's pumped with caffeine!"

Erwin was taken aback by Hanji's forwardness and simply allowed himself to be pulled along by this crazy woman with the dark brown ponytail. They caught the elevator and Hanji let go, putting her hand back in her hoodie pocket to join the other; she didn't seem embarrassed by her actions, she continued to hum off-key, bright eyes glancing around the elevator. They reached the ground floor and Hanji grabbed his sleeve again, tugging him towards the cafeteria and chatting all the while. "I tried to get Levi to drink some coffee here, but he's been boycotting all coffee that isn't Petra's. We've both been spoiled rotten by her and her godlike coffee," Hanji laughed. "She really does make the best. She should charge for that stuff… Ah! Here we are." She let go of Erwin's sleeve and jogged to the end of the line in the cafeteria, leaving Erwin to catch up.

They ordered their drinks (a triple shot espresso for Hanji, straight black for Erwin) and waited off to the side for the barista to mix up their orders. "It's weird seeing Levi so quiet," Hanji said, grabbing Erwin's attention. "I've gotten used to him sassing me and teasing Petra, I don't know quite what to do with him when he's this subdued."

"I didn't realize he was so close to the two of you," Erwin admitted. "Admittedly, we haven't been speaking much lately." It felt good to just tell Hanji what was happening; they didn't know each other well enough to judge each other, and there was a kind of liberation in that that was loosening his tongue beyond the normal level.

"He and Petra met almost two months ago, now," Hanji revealed. "She went to your office for help on a paper and found Levi instead." Erwin vaguely recalled that day, seeing Petra and Levi huddled over her paper in the hallway, Levi gesturing grandly, a spark in his eyes that Erwin hadn't seen in a long time. "He came over for coffee a few days later and the two of them gradually started to spend more and more time together." The barista called their names and they collected their coffees with polite thanks. Hanji led them over to a tall table with stools by the window, sitting down with a soft sigh.

She took a deep drink and looked Erwin in the eye. "I didn't actually meet him until about two weeks ago, when we all went out for pizza. He was really comfortable with Petra; from what she'd told me about him, I was expecting someone a little more prickly."

"He usually is," Erwin confirmed. "It took a few weeks before he'd say a single word to me."

Hanji raised her eyebrows. "Really now? That must have been awkward, you two being roommates."

Erwin smiled slightly. "That was quite a while before we roomed together. I met him when I was on the force."

"You were a cop?" Hanji asked, curiosity lighting up her eyes like Christmas lights.

"I was," Erwin confirmed, taking a sip of his coffee. It really was awful, but he could already feel the caffeine buzzing in his veins. "I was with the NSA for a time before that, and then I was injured in the line of duty and retired to the local gang task force."

"How old are you?" Hanji asked forwardly, tilting her had in curiosity. Erwin was quickly learning that things like tact and social niceties meant nothing to Hanji, not in the face of curiosity.

"Thirty-seven."

"That's awfully young for a government agent turned cop turned professor!"

"I suppose it is," he agreed with a small smile.

"So Levi was a gang-banger, huh. I suppose that isn't too much of a surprise."

"…I never said he was—"

"It wasn't hard to figure out," Hanji said with a grin. "How long has he been out?"

"Three years, almost," Erwin revealed. He'd never talked about this with anyone before; no one had ever gotten close enough to Levi to ask.

"Hmm." Hanji hummed curiously, taking another drink. "How did the two of you meet?"

Erwin's mind flashed back to those earliest days of his friendship with Levi, who had been a rail-thin too-pale twenty-one year old kid, who glared with enough ice to freeze a man where he stood and would sooner slit your throat than speak to you. He should have just arrested him, but he took him in instead; wore him down slowly, convinced him that there was more for him, that he could be anything. He gave him a choice. It had taken months; with the information Levi revealed to the police, they were able to crush the crime ring from the inside, crippling it beyond repair. It was that choice that had allowed Levi to leave the streets—the courts had granted clemency for his help and he and Erwin had moved to a new town for a fresh start, with Erwin teaching and Levi figuring out what he wanted to do with his life.

"He was on the streets; he was so smart, he could do so much better," Erwin revealed quietly. "I just paved the way for him to make the choice on his own."

Hanji 'hm'd again, and Erwin felt like she saw everything that he wasn't saying, like she simply knew without him having to say a word. He got that feeling sometimes with Levi, and he found the familiarity comforting.

"When we all went out for pizza," Hanji started, drawing Erwin out of his thoughts. "Levi was the last to arrive. He walked in, saw where we were sitting, and just honed right in on Petra. He walked over, sat down right next to her, and didn't leave her side all night. I thought maybe he was just nervous about interacting with the rest of us, but he fit in just fine, made friends real easily." Hanji glanced blankly out the window. "Petra had told me a little bit about him before we actually met, made him sound a whole lot nicer than he probably thinks he is, but that's just how Petra is. I've seen him a few times on campus, though, before we met. He never talked with anyone, just sort of shouldered his way through the masses to get out of there as quickly as he could. He obviously wasn't a people person; but he seemed totally at ease with Petra."

"I've never seen him actively seek out someone's company like this," Erwin agreed. "It takes a long time before Levi fully lets his guard down around someone, but he had no reservations about visiting Petra. They seem very close."

"They do," Hanji agreed. "I think, once Petra gets better—and I have full faith that she will—that those two will just get closer."

Erwin smiled at her, taking another drink. Hanji grinned in return, downing the rest of her espresso in a single gulp. "Aaah!" she exclaimed. "That hit the spot! I feel alive again! I haven't slept in days, not since Petra's accident."

Erwin started in surprise, setting down his mug. "You haven't slept in three days? How are you functioning?"

"Caffeine." Hanji said simply. "A metric crap-ton of caffeine. And science."

Science? "I… see."

She snorted, smirking at him. "No you don't."

"I don't," he admitted. "Are you a scientist?"

Her eyes lit up with an almost-maniacal passion. "Yes! I'm finishing up school this semester and then I'm off to grad school! It's so exciting!"

She was younger than he had originally though, in that case. "What do you study?" Even as he was asking, Erwin had a feeling he was going to regret that simple question.

Hanji's eyes lit up, a crazed grin spreading across her face. Erwin was already regretting asking.

This interaction is on of my absolute favorites from this story. Just sayin'.