A/N – I'm so sorry for updating this story so late! I've been very busy with my exams and thesis, and whenever I found the time something always came up. :c Buuuut it's summer vacation now, so lots and lots of time to write about our lovely Levi. :D Enjoy! (If there are any mistakes, please do tell me. My English is still improving, I hope haha, and I usually write this stuff in the middle of the night – it's 2 am right now x_x - and don't beta it … c: )
Levi was startled awake by a familiar sound; thundering hooves. He sat still and looked over the leaves of the branch he was sitting on, his senses spiked by the sudden surge of adrenaline. The pain in his ribs and head momentarily forgotten, he leaned over and tried to locate the horses. The sun was already setting which meant that he had "rested" for quite a while.
A horse suddenly flew by, just under the branch he was sitting on. It took him quite by surprise, which he also found quite surprising. He lightly shook his head to clear his thoughts and to remember the rider he'd seen. It had obviously been wearing a green coat, but he had failed to see an emblem. It could as easily be an ambush as it could be the Recon Corps. The adrenaline from before started to wear out and he felt himself become heavy. After a while of contemplating his next move, he decided it would be best to descend from the tree and go after the individual.
He crawled, rather clumsily, out of the tree and quickly made way towards the bushes. He squatted and concealed himself enough to be hidden from a direct line of sight from further down the stony path and observed his surroundings. When he was certain there was no direct threat he got up. He soon regretted the sudden, somewhat too fast, movement as his vision faded and he had to grab the trunk near him for support. His kidnapper had really gotten him good.
Levi took a moment but not much later he moved on.
Just half an hour later he found the horse, without its rider. He silently crept closer and sighed with relief that is was a horse that belonged to the Recon Corps. He looked around and noticed a group of people standing at the border of the forest, one of the people being the person he'd really wanted to avoid seeing. The spectacled woman who he was referring to quickly noticed his presence and spontaneously waved in his direction.
"Captain!" Hange shouted as she ran over, the other soldiers following close behind.
Levi tried to stand straight and look authoritative, but something deep down said that he was doing a horrible job at it.
"What happened? Are you okay, sir?" Hange exclaimed when she'd arrived.
Not expecting that to be the very first thing she'd say to him, Levi just shrugged. He wasn't used to Hange being considerably responsible and professional. Glad as he was with her, probably momentarily, professional attitude, he knew that just shrugging would probably not make up for her burning curiosity.
Against his expectations Hange nodded and ordered a soldier to get his horse. "We brought your horse along for your convenience." She said. Then she leaned a bit closer and winked, "We wouldn't want you riding with me, would we?"
Levi rolled his eyes and wiped his forehead. He felt dirty and sweaty and apparently also bloody as his hand came back stained with dried blood.
He took over his horse from the soldier and mounted it. He was determined not to show any weakness as he thought of his injuries as only being minor. But those minor injuries were surely giving him quite a hard time of not having a rather pained expression.
He rode towards Hange, who was also mounting her horse.
"I need to see Erwin as soon as possible when we arrive back at the base. This is supposed to be strictly confidential and I trust that you will not talk to anyone about this until further notice. Do you understand?"
Hange looked up and smiled, "Of course, captain. But I do think you'll need to see a doctor first, because you look like shit." And with that she took off.
/)/)/)/)/)/)/)/)/)/)
The ride back to base was probably one of the most annoying and painful rides Levi had ever had to endure. Hange had been babbling about the titans and her studies around it the whole way. He had to deal with those fuckers outside the walls, he did not want to hear about them for three hours inside the walls. His ribs that had been increasing in pain made it sufficiently harder to stay on his horse. He'd dealt with some pain before, but this time he had definitely broken quite a few.
When they arrived back at headquarters it was already dark, any other person would've probably not found that relieving, but Levi did. He paced as quickly as he could towards Erwin's office and left the search party to look after his horse.
He ignored the looks that were occasionally thrown his way by guards and barged into Erwin's office. The blonde commander who had been pacing to and fro in his office was startled by the sudden intrusion.
"Levi." Erwin sighed in relief as he grabbed a chair at the sight of his captain and motioned him to sit down.
Levi closed the door behind him and gratefully sat down in the comfortable cushioned chair.
"You really loo-" Erwin began.
Levi tiredly raised his hand, "Do not even start."
"How curious I may be of your recent adventure, Levi, I'm also worried about your current state. I must ask you to go see one of the doctors."
"There's no time for that, Erwin. My 'recent adventure', was not really what you can call a happy adventure." Levi groaned as he changed position, but hastily continued his explanation to avoid any unnecessary comments that may come his way. "I can't put my finger on it, but there's something not right about this whole ordeal. This man … I have a feeling I've met him before, but I can't recognize his face. He wants to know some things, but he never told me about what. Also, this recruit that had broken into my office earlier was present when they interrogated me. His name is Dan, do you have his admission papers? This also has something to do with this father, apparently."
Erwin nodded, "I think I do have the admission papers lying around here. But with only his first name it's almost impossible to find them. I'll look into that later. As you were saying about that recruit … There's one recruit who's given me a strange feeling, he does not operate and act like the other recruits, which is why I wanted to look into him earlier. But with you disappearing and suddenly everyone that needs my attention, I never got to it."
"There's something going on, Erwin. At first I thought it wasn't that serious, but this guy looked very certain of his goal." Levi paused for a moment to catch his breath, "I wonder though, how did I get away so easily? There were no carts nearby when I jumped out, and yet I was the one they so desperately needed? I just can't wrap my head around it …"
Erwin looked compassionately at his captain, shoving his questions aside for a moment, "Maybe you can't wrap your head around it because you need to rest. If you don't want to see a doctor, that is fine. You can go in the morning, but you really need to rest if we want to think about it tomorrow."
Levi knew he probably wouldn't be able to sleep, but he nodded anyway as he wouldn't mind a quick rest. He slowly got up and tried to remain silent, and much to his satisfaction he succeeded.
"I'll see you in the morning, commander." Levi said as he walked towards the door.
Erwin nodded and leaned back in his chair when Levi had gone. He then got up and rummaged through the admission papers, determined to find out what it was with this recruit Adelbert, and maybe if he was lucky he could find this Dan too. Adelbert was one of the first names of his neatly stacked files, at times like this he was glad that he put so much time in ordering them alphabetically. He thoroughly read it through but he found nothing out of the ordinary, everything was how it should be in any other admission paper.
He cursed silently, there had to be something. As fast as his thoughts were racing he jumped out of his chair and called a guard from the hallway.
"I want you to stay near captain Levi's room. Don't stand still and be obvious, I just need someone to keep an eye on him and the surroundings tonight." He ordered. The guard nodded a little hesitantly, but stalked off to where Levi had gone not too long ago.
Satisfied that someone was keeping an eye on his captain, he sat back down, leaned back and let his thoughts wander off to try and put every piece of information he'd gotten in order.
/)/)/)/)/)/)/)/)/)/)
Levi barely got to his room when the wave of exhaustion hit him. His breathing hadn't improved and it was way too shallow. He knew he should see a doctor, but right now he couldn't care less and all he wanted to do was to lay in his bed. He wanted to hit himself for being so weak, he needed to think about what happened, but he just couldn't get his thoughts straight. He knew he was probably still covered in blood, and as compulsive as he is with his cleanliness, he first wanted to clean himself before going to bed. With some newfound energy he managed to change into his pajamas and wash most of the dirt and blood off.
Gratefully he crawled into bed, but as hard as he tried, he was unable to find the sleep he was longing for.
A/N – I wasn't really sure when to end this chapter, but I hope this is not too bad. I'm still getting back into the whole writing stuff, so please excuse me if the chapter is a bit lame. Please review, I always love reading them! :D