Holy shit, wobbly legs alert! Zoë staggered through corridors like the worst kind of drunk, using the walls to support her along the way. Obviously, it was unwise to add sexual excitement to the aftereffects of getting poisoned, but holy shit, she was still reeling from the heady sensation. But how could bodily satisfaction feel so unsatisfying? Forced to walk out of that room when there was more, so much more she wanted to do with Levi now their interests were aligned, she ruefully felt like she had to say goodbye to something good before it had properly started.

… sexy, tightass, hard-to-get Captain Levi, obviously not little everywhere. Zoë smacked her lips at the memory - and then had to hastily save her glasses when they left the bridge of her nose in a precarious downward slide. Her poor glasses that were bent out of shape and so dirty, even she took notice. Zoë stopped to clean them with one of her puffy sleeves. Of fucking course, adding injury to insult, these people had given her another dress to wear. A flouncy dress with quite some decolletage. No surprise there, given the type of establishment they were in and the profession of the woman who had lent it to her.

Maria, who was leading the way, glanced back over her shoulders to see what was keeping her. Her deepening scowls were something to behold. But why exactly was she so pissed off? Zoë would not let herself be rushed just because Maria was fretting about delivering her posthaste. Whoever "Mother" was, Levi had a major bone to pick with her and Zoë naturally, was on his side by default.

They stood in a dark corridor with black velvet tapestry, flickering oil lamps creating a gloomy atmosphere. Despite her unsteady gait, Zoë had taken note of their progress through the house. Maria was trying to fool her by walking in circles on different floors. A trick for beginners. Zoë's sense of direction was very good, at least if she paid attention to where she was going. Several doors they passed were locked, Maria carried the keys on a chain around her neck - not a big issue, Zoë expected Levi knew how to pick locks. Expertly, most likely.

"Hurry up!" Maria hissed impatiently.

"No, I need to clean my glasses," Zoë replied, rubbing a particularly greasy, obstinate stain extra hard.

"No you don't," Maria contradicted her and hurried back to grab Zoë's hand.

Mistake.

"Don't touch me," Zoë looked down at the girl now murderously glaring up at her from the floor, where Zoë's defensive move had swiftly put her. "If it's so damn urgent, stop walking in circles and just bring me there already."

Maria bit her lip and pushed herself upright. Very strange, in this light, she strongly reminded Zoë of someone. Who? She hardly ever bothered to remember names of people she met. But in this case, it was not just someone. But someone who had left an impression… ah.

"Do you know Isabel Magnolia by any chance?" Zoë asked the girl.

"None of your business," Maria's face turned red with anger.

Definitely a strong likeness! They had to be related. A sister maybe? Or cousins?

"She was so talented with animals," Zoë said, feeling a little sad at the memory of Levi's excited red-head friend who had died way too early.

"She also trusted that scumbag and look what happened to her," Maria pressed out. "Are you just as stupid?"

That scumbag… did she mean tightass Levi? Someone was holding a grudge it seemed. A misplaced grudge.

"She died," Zoë shrugged, "honorably. Which makes not much of a difference when you consider the outcome, but I know she died feeling useful. That's better than most deaths."

"You don't know that!" Maria now looked like she wanted to attack her, all coiled up, her teeth showing. Fierce little creature.

"I happen to know all too well," Zoë sighed and put her glasses back on her nose. A much better view. Levi would be proud of her. Or not. "Once you decide humanity's future is worth it, dying for the cause is a good end."

Not dying, in general, was preferable. But to anyone who joined the Survey Corps, dying was the default.

"You are just as stupid," Maria turned and continued walking down the corridor briskly, her hands balled into tight fists. "I don't understand what people see in him. But they all end up dead."

He really had a special talent for making people hate him, didn't he.

"In case you mean Levi, he had nothing to do with Isabel's death," Zoë mentioned casually.

"Oh yeah?! How do you know, were you there?!" Maria swiveled back around to face her.

"I was," Zoë agreed. "Though not in the same squad. It was a bad day. It rained and we lost all visibility. Too many died."

Maria just stared at her.

"Isabel might have worshiped Levi," Zoë told her, "but it was her decision to join the Survey Corps and ride out to fight Titans. We all do it because we want to. Nobody forces us. We die because we choose to put our lives on the line."

Maria still stared, like she didn't understand a single word that was coming out of Zoë's mouth. She remembered what Levi had said about people living in the Underground, only a few getting the chance to come out occasionally to work certain jobs above-grounds before they were sent back down.

"Have you ever been outside Wall Sina?"

The girl shook her head a fraction.

"You know there are two much bigger walls further out?"

Maria shrugged like it didn't concern her.

"And a vast land outside wall Maria? It's full of Titans."

"I've heard those stories," Maria pulled a disgusted face. "Monsters that eat humans? I don't believe in such fairy tales."

Zoë laughed. "Blessed be the ignorant," she quoted from a prayer and shook her head in mild amusement.

"He will kill you too," Maria snuffed. "Don't fall for his tricks."

"What tricks might that be?" Zoë grinned at the girl. Who had spent more than one night in Levi's bed, mind you, trying to 'entice' him. Maybe she was too young to understand that there were people who just inspired loyalty. Someone like Levi was alluring and infuriating because he didn't give a damn about what people thought of him. His trick was that he used absolutely no tricks.

"I guess it's too late!" Maria exclaimed and stomped away again. "You're already in his trap."

"He kept Isabel's necklace," Zoë informed Maria. "He carries it with him in a small pouch." Not that this was something that a private person like Levi would talk about. But she had seen him touch the little pouch in his pocket. And she had seen him take the necklace out once, to look at it. The sadness on his face…

Maria didn't stop this time but her overall posture became less rigid.

"Ask him," Zoë suggested. "He might give it to you. As a memory. I know he made graves for his friends, but they're far away from here, you won't be able to go there easily."

Maria remained silent but stopped leading her in circles. Soon, she knocked at a heavy wooden door. A huge, bald man opened. His tattooed arms were as thick as Zoë's thighs and his head was the size of a medium-sized beer barrel. Charming fellow. Zoë fluttered her eyelids at him and he showed her a row of impressive, yellow teeth in response.

"Mother is waiting," he growled, his voice so deep it reverberated in Zoë's intestines.

A woman who had to be Mother was lounging on a red divan, skillfully peeling an apple with a tiny silver knife. When the tower of a guard stepped aside to let them in, she put apple and knife on the small table before her and sat up straight, pulling the dark blue shawl tighter around her shoulders. She had raven-black hair, slightly slanted dark eyes in a heart shaped face and lips so red it looked like she had just sucked blood from somebody's throat.

"I am delighted," she smiled, her voice deep and pleasant.

Hard to say how old she was. There were fine lines in her face, speaking of maturity, but with the open hair that cascaded down her back like water, she looked youthful and fresh. The blue dress she wore was cut low but not too low and seemed to hug her shapely body almost tenderly.

But the most interesting part of her was her perfume. Zoë had smelled it before. In a room above a tavern on Erwin's birthday.

"Interesting," she murmured, "how do you know Commander Erwin?"

Mother's pearly laughter bubbled through the room. "So it's true! You are a woman with brains, Zoë Hange. I like that. I like that very much. Why don't you take a seat and we talk?"

Intrigued, Zoë did as suggested.

###

"I'm a bloody, fucking idiot," Levi seethed.

He picked up gravel from the street and began hurling it through a hole in a window on the opposite side of the alley.

"I should have resisted," he continued bitterly. "Even if she's…"

Completely, inexplicably irresistible, he finished in his head and shuddered. Dirty Hanji! Who had a nose like a bird's beak, hair that could serve as a bird's nest and lips… lips…

His next stone was off by half a mile, ricocheting off the wall.

"Fuck," Levi groaned and threw up his hand in frustration.

The mere thought of her lying on that large bed looking a little frail and vulnerable but with dirty words coming out of her mouth made him grow hard again and he shifted uncomfortably to alleviate the chafing misery in his trousers.

"I can't think of anything but being naked with her," he admitted to his conversational partner. "When the only thing I should worry about is how to protect her from the lunatics down here."

The cat that lounged on a barrel next to him blinked lazily at the string of swear words coming out of his mouth next, curled up its tail around its body and put its head on its paws to sleep.

Thinking of very unpleasant things was an old trick to diminish rampant cockstands. But in the current case, it did not help. It was a frigging disaster! Thinking of garbage brought his thoughts back to her on top of him after falling down, a hard, trained body that was still unmistakably a woman's. Thinking of dust and dirt only made him remember the previous night during which he had been worried sick for her lying there in the filth of one of his former hideouts, then the relief he had felt when she hadn't died, the distracting tenderness that had flooded him at the sight of her eyes opening. And that damn smell of her… Levi groaned. Was it stuck in his nose?

Lust would have been one thing, a man in possession of at least one hand knew how to deal with it - but this, this… it was so much worse.

Exasperated, Levi threw all stones at the window at once, pointlessly satisfied when it shattered. He knew of his darned protective streak, but that usually didn't mean his brain was affected like this. What now?

Already, it was clear that it would end badly. He had broken his promise not to go anywhere the second Maria had whisked Hanji away. Feeling trapped and suffocating in that brothel, he had fled the premise through a window. It was the smell that made him remember things he had fought hard to forget. It lingered in the air even when customers were as scarce as they were right now. It made him sick and his heart hurt.

While Hanji had recovered in the morning, he had tried to get through to Xandra to threaten or more preferably, kill her, but her whores had quite skillfully known how to keep him away. Half of the girls in that house were trained as assassins, he guessed. Good on was nothing more pitiful than whores who could not protect themselves. And still, how he hated to be around them. He couldn't stand how their beauty was always already fading as soon as it blossomed. He hated how coarse and hard they had to become because even the slightest tendency for softness led to endless suffering.

He hated that he couldn't help them, just like he had not been able to help his mother.

He hated how his mother's love for him had made her vulnerable. How his mother had wanted to buy him better food and better clothes, and how she had worked longer hours because of it, had agreed to things that hurt her because it paid better. Every time she had sent him out of the room, he had known he would find her crying afterwards, but only in secret so he wouldn't see.

"Maybe I'm just fucking useless," he grumbled and kicked the barrel. The cat shot up, hissed at him angrily and jumped off, disappearing around the corner, tail held high.

He could have pushed and risked more in order to get to Xandra, but he had held back because Hanji needed him. Or did she? By poisoning Hanji, they had made her untouchable for a while because dead leverage was no leverage at all. As a fully recovered leverage was no leverage at all. He just needed to find out what kind of poison she had been given. A poison that required the intake of several doses of antidote over days… strange.

He knew exactly who would be able to help him find out though.

Levi straightened at the faint sound of footsteps.

"Found out anything useful?" he asked the girl that was stepping out of the shadows. Their previous guide, who had answered his summons delivered via a small boy surprisingly fast, sported three braids today but had only the one skirt in her possession, it seemed.

Esmelda just looked at him sullenly. "I found out who you are," she challenged him. "Chika is abuzz with the news."

"Yeah, fine," he shrugged. "Doesn't change anything. Found what I'm looking for?"

"I think you're not paying me enough."

"You think?"

"Working for you is risky," she declared, a finger in the air for emphasis. "My price has gone up."

"If you know who I am," Levi said and took a step towards her meaning to intimidate, "you should know that haggling with me is pointless."

She looked slightly unsettled, but squared her shoulders and put her chin forward. "Are you looking to form a gang again?"

Levi snorted. What, a gang of reeking ragamuffins? "No."

"They say you have come to clean the place up."

"All the mops in the world would not suffice," Levi mumbled. The thought oddly pleased him though. Clean everything up. Leave for good, knowing it was clean.

"My bro said not to get involved with you. That people who follow you turn up dead."

"He's not wrong."

"I don't mind," Esmelda claimed. "As long as the money is right."

Levi shook his head at her. "That's the kind of thinking that will get you killed before your twelfth birthday."

"I'm not that stupid!"

"... or make you an extremely rich crime kingpin that lives slightly longer."

"I'd like to be a kingpin," Esmelda nodded solemnly. "At least for a bit."

"Okay," Levi said, "in that case, I will give you another shilling and you tell me what happened to the people the MP arrested last night."

"It was so easy to find out," the girl rejoiced, her dirty hand closing tightly over the piece of money Levi drew from his pocket. "The MP keep them locked up in their headquarters."

"And they are where these days…?"

"You know nothing," Esmelda chided him, "completely useless, how is it possible people fear you that much?"

"As future kingpin, I'll let you in on a secret: act scary and most people will be scared."

"Huh," she seemed impressed. "So you didn't actually kill people?"

"Well…," Levi sighed. "Some needed to be killed. But let's hope you'll have people to do this kind of thing for you once you're kingpin."

"Will you help me?" Esmelda looked excited at the thought.

"Nah," Levi looked up to the cave ceiling. "I won't stay here for more than a few days."

"You want me to show you where the HQs are?"

"Yes," Levi said.

"Are you going to kill someone?"

"I'll try not to," he mumbled but his hand went to his knife routinely, finding it in its usual place. Yes, sometimes, people had to be killed. He just hoped that today at least, it would be people who deserved it.

###

"My name is Xandra," the woman otherwise known as Mother said and waved to her massive bodyguard to bring refreshments. Zoë grinned when he carefully carried a tea tray over to them. It was tiny in his huge hands and looked ridiculous, like a toy set for little girls.

"I won't drink anything," Zoë declined.

"I see," Xandra smiled and took the cup from her bodyguard's hand instead, sipped from it and held it out to Zoë. "It's safe. And delicious. An expensive tea. Levi would like it too."

Cautiously, Zoë took the cup. It was filigrane china with little red roses and… hearts? How cheesy.

"Has Levi told you about me?" Xandra asked, accepting another cup from the giant's massive paws.

"Not exactly," Zoë admitted. It was something she wasn't happy about, Levi's stubborn silence when it came to his life in the Underground. She had been used for putting pressure on him twice and poisoned once so far, which gave her a right to understand what was going on here, didn't it?

"He blames me for what happened to his mother."

Oh. Would there be more information forthcoming? Zoë fidgeted with the delicate cup as she waited with bated breath.

"She died in poverty, from a disease that would have been caught soon enough had she not been banned from all brothels," Xandra continued soberly.

"And you are to blame for that?"

"In a way. I told our Madame that Olympia had a son hidden away in the cupboard. She chased her out and made sure she was burnt goods. Rules are rules."

Not nice.

"He told me to kill you. I think he was right."

"But can you do it?"

The challenge was softly uttered, the eyes still friendly and calm. Yeah, could she? Zoë had been trained to kill Titans, humanity's enemies. But kill a human? One she didn't even know? She contemplated this for a while, feeling no great urge to try. In fact, she was much too curious to learn more for the moment.

"It is hard to kill," Mother sighed. "Yet gets easier with time. Levi cried when he killed his first. And got hit so hard afterwards that he never cried again. He had a tough teacher."

Zoë didn't particularly like the familiarity with which Xandra talked about Levi, as if she had always been a part of his life, when Levi clearly didn't value her in the least. And she didn't like that this woman knew how to tempt her with secret knowledge.

"You should have asked me why I told the Madame about Levi in the cupboard," Xandra said, "instead of just assuming I am a vile person."

"Was Levi's mother very beautiful? A rival of yours that you wanted to get rid of? Maybe you were jealous."

"Ah," Mother smiled a small, sad smile. "You understand human weaknesses well. But jealousy is pointless and I made sure never to succumb to it a long while ago. But yes, Olympia was very beautiful. She was beautiful and kind, helpful and hopeful. The kind to suffer horribly in this hell hole."

Zoë took a sip of tea. Strong, bitter, with a hint of sweetness. If it had not been jealousy, had it been about power? If she wasn't mistaken, what had happened last night at the gambling event was Xandra's doing. If Xandra dared to take on Renzo like this, she held a lot of power too. Had Levi's mother just been a stepping stone on her way up?

"I am not used to puzzling out women's intentions," Zoë admitted since this seemed a dead end. "I've been around men for too long. Most of them are straightforward and very simple. I need a little help."

Xandra laughed her pearly little laugh. "That is indeed true, you do need my help. In about three minutes, you will desperately need a new dose of the antidote."

The snake.

"I want you to listen to me," Xandra explained gently. "And I mean listen and then do exactly what I tell you to do. Don't hold it against me, but Levi would already have moved to kill me without a moment of hesitation if I didn't hold you and your life hostage. Even like this I'm taking a high risk - he might sacrifice you. I know what he is."

Zoë felt a little twinge in the heart region. Would she mind if that was true? A little bit. She'd be disappointed. No, hurt. Okay, she would mind a lot. She had come to think that she meant something to Levi, but that was silly. Revenge was such a strong motivator. And this was about his mother whom he had obviously loved very much.

"I won't betray Levi," Zoë said stubbornly anyway. "Whatever he chooses to do."

"Ah," Xandra said and put down her cup with a soft clink. "Don't be stupid, Zoë Hange."

She trusted that scumbag and look what happened to her, Maria's voice echoed in Zoë's head all of a sudden, are you stupid? Don't fall for his tricks.

A spell of dizziness hit her so hard, she dropped the pretty cup. She heard it shatter on the table and felt shards fall against her clothing and shoes. The world was turned on its head. Her stomach clenched and bile rose in her throat.

"It was quite clever how Levi outsmarted Lebov and managed to get out of here with Commander Erwin's help. But you see, there's an unspoken rule here in the underground. You cannot just leave. Especially not if you're someone like Levi," Zoë heard Xandra's calm voice somewhere in the distance.

It was a little hard to concentrate. Maybe she would just throw up all over the pretty furniture.

"You know, Levi is special," Xandra continued, just as someone tilted Zoë's head back roughly - it was the huge oaf with no hair - and poured some liquid down her throat, making sure she swallowed.

It tasted… it tasted familiar. Coughing and gagging, Zoë jerked her head back down and spat some of the concoction on her sleeve. She needed a clear head to figure this out. Later.

"Feeling better?" Xandra smiled after Zoë had stopped coughing.

Zoë managed a nod, not more. Hanging on to the content of her stomach was still a challenge for a while.

"I hope we understand each other now," Mother said and gestured for a new cup.

No, they did not. Not in the least. But Zoë nodded in agreement, making her timid face. All her life before she had joined the military, people had looked at her and had seen a plain, unattractive girl of the nobility who had one sole use. Get married off to someone suitable who didn't care too much about looks, bear many children to ensure the nobility was numerous enough to continue their rule over the rabble in the outer wall areas. Don't speak up, don't think. Do as you're told.

But she had run from that life at the first possible chance and had never looked back. Mother had grabbed the wrong woman hostage. Whatever she was planning to do, Zoë would fight her at every turn.

"It wasn't me who drove his mother underground," Xandra continued her musings, "I refuse to take blame for her sad life."

So she had lived on the outside first?

"You are wondering where she came from? I never managed to find out. But I know they would have killed her and her unborn child if they had found out about her pregnancy. And she knew that too."

"They?"

Just a faint smile instead of an answer.

"So he really is the bastard child of one of the princes?!" Zoë blurted out.

Xandra laughed again, this time more loudly. "You read too many romance stories, Zoë Hange. I do not know who the father is. Olympia never told me. But she did not have to. Levi is special not because of him - but because of her."

Special. Yes, Zoë agreed with that label. He was indeed special. She nodded her agreement.

"Oh, I think he is far more valuable than you can ever know," Xandra suddenly looked much more serious. And calculating. And Zoë became ten degrees more wary.

"And I'm not even sure Commander Erwin knows what he snatched away," Xandra continued, "though he is a cold, calculating bastard. But I digress. Levi left this house half an hour ago. Looks like he is going back to that Church Demon. Not what I had planned."

"He's hardly a demon," Zoë thought of Renzo and had to chuckle at the memory of that silly hat he had worn. "Actually, he's quite refined."

"I don't mean the Artist," Xandra waved an impatient hand through the air. "I mean that woman. Annika."

Annika…? Zoë's smile froze.

"Annika will hand Levi over to Renzo Church because she hates Levi. He broke her. Thoroughly. And she's not a woman ever to forget."

Did Zoë want to know more about what had happened between Levi and Annika? Well, of course she did, she was always curious. But then again… maybe not right now. She was quite certain she wouldn't like one bit of it.

"You won't get rid of him once he attaches himself to you," Xandra explained. "But if he manages to break away despite all he's programmed to do… many other things break too. Valuable things."

A few things fell into place in Zoë's head at that moment.

"Your betrayal of his mother wasn't about his mother at all."

Xandra smiled that infuriating smile of hers again. But it was confirmation.

"You did it to make sure someone… they? They couldn't get their hands on Levi."

"Very good," Xandra nodded, looking pleased. "They couldn't and they can't. That is why I need you. If Renzo gets his hands on him this time, he will make extra sure not to lose him again. He is worth an astronomical sum."

"To whom? And why?" Those were the two obvious questions, but somehow, Zoë doubted she would receive an honest answer.

"He is what you might call an experiment," Xandra just said. "And experiments are meant to be controlled."

She would have to live with this cryptic answer, Zoë knew. Fine, she would puzzle it out for herself. They. Experiments. Something Levi was programmed to do… sounded pretty outlandish, but then again, there were Titans in the world, so...

"But what is in it for you?" she posted what was going to be her last question.

Xandra paused a while, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I loved Olympia. Maybe it was enough love to extend to her son. Will that suffice? And now, let us talk business. This is what I need you to do…"