Chapter Text
9th November, 10:10
"I think we should move onto team formations now," Hange said as the three of them hung up the washing the following morning.
"I agree," Erwin said. "Do you have something specific in mind?"
"In Brother Reiner's game, the younger ones all split up into their own little groups, even though we taught them in two large groups. If it comes naturally to them, we should work with it and form smaller teams that have a mix of kids who are both physically and mentally able. Having diverse groups will better ensure they can look after each other during the escape in case we can't guide them all at once."
"Who do you plan on leading the teams?" Levi asked. "Because I'm not playing today."
Hange sighed.
"Don't look at me like that. Papa's gonna catch on if he doesn't see me sitting back at the tree like usual any time soon."
"It's fine. We need more than just the three of us for this anyway. If Erwin stays seeker - and I think that would be best - then me, Moblit and Miche can split anyone who wants to play today into three this time. We can divide into four tomorrow if you're able to join."
Levi shrugged in response.
"In that case, I have a couple dozen potential running formations you should memorise," Erwin told them.
"Now?" Hange asked.
"Is that a problem?"
"No," they scoffed. "How would I be able to get perfect scores if I couldn't remember some running patterns?" They hesitated for a moment. "Maybe a few hours isn't enough time for Moblit and Miche to process it, but I think we need to tell them after free time. Especially if they're going to help with the kids' training."
"They'd be able to do so without learning the truth. It's a game, after all, and everyone wants to get better at It. They'd take it seriously enough."
"Why can't we tell them?" They asked, growing increasingly frustrated. "Everyone needs to know if they're gonna run away, and it'll look weird if we keep running off without them all the time. The sooner they know, the more help we can have, and the faster we can progress with preparing the escape. I don't understand why you're so against this."
Erwin stayed quiet for a moment. "I think we should exercise caution for the time being."
"Why?" They huffed.
"We've seen a few of the things Papa has done in an attempt to throw us off the idea of escaping over these last few days," he said carefully. "He's blindsided us several times, and they've all been overt displays of control over our situation. He's chosen to give us information that shows us how severely we're at a disadvantage."
"Okay," they said slowly.
"Imagine how much he hasn't told us. Or, better yet, the things that are going on behind our backs that we can't even see, and won't be able to simply because he won't show us that. There could be things going on at this orphanage that we still don't know about."
"Get to the point," Levi muttered, to Hange's relief.
"We initially assumed Brother Reiner was brought in to spy on us, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. Though he seems interested in the eldest children, he might have only explicitly interacted with us yesterday for the purpose of gathering information, and I'm not sure he got it."
"He mentioned the titans when he caught me," Hange remembered.
"What?" Levi stilled.
"Well, not directly. But I was with Marco and Armin, and he asked if I saw what happened at the gate, and said that he wouldn't eat me yet," they recounted. "And then he caught us."
"That's insane."
"Reckless, to let the other children hear such a thing," Erwin agreed. "Thank you, Hange. I think that solidifies my theory that he didn't participate to gather information for Papa. That's far too on the nose. I think he has his own motivations for finding out who the ones that know the truth are."
"What would that even be?" Levi asked.
"He said he was on our side, too," Hange added.
"Likely story. Any other obviously important information?"
"I just remembered it!" They sputtered in defence. "I didn't really think about exactly what he meant, just that it was crazy he even said it out loud!"
"Anyways," Erwin continued, "Brother Reiner's focus has mostly been on looking after the youngest whilst Papa's been away doing something else, which I'm also curious about, but that's not my point."
"Any chance you could tell us your point before I'm shipped off?" Levi muttered dryly, and Hange whacked him on the shoulder.
"Having a spy is a perfect idea for gathering information about our plan. But Brother Reiner isn't a spy, and Papa hasn't been listening in on our conversations either. We've been caref-"
"Wait!" Hange burst out. "What if there's listening mechanisms? If they have trackers on us, surely they'd have other technology to spy on us." They were suddenly very, very terrified.
"There aren't," Erwin assured them. "I checked the first morning after Eren left."
"Oh, good. Good. Thanks," they breathed a sigh of relief.
They couldn't believe they hadn't thought about it to begin with, or even when they became aware of the tracking devices. Everything would have been ruined if that were the case. They'd probably all be dead.
"Neither Brother Reiner nor Papa are directly spying on us," he continued, "and they aren't using any equipment to watch or listen in on us either. Yet everything Papa's done seems to have been a direct countermeasure to what we were planning or discussing. Why do you think that is?" Erwin stopped talking, and Hange realised he was waiting for an answer.
"I don't know," they said. They could probably work it out if they thought about it, but Erwin was really dragging this along, and he clearly already knew, so they'd rather he'd just said it already.
"What do you think, Levi?"
Levi and Erwin exchanged a look that went on long enough that Hange started to feel uncomfortable. Worried that Levi was about to snap at Erwin for taking so long, they opened their mouth to break the silence. Before they could say anything, however, Levi glanced away and sighed.
"There's still a spy. If it's not Brother or Papa, then it has to be one of the kids."
"What? Who?" Hange asked.
It got quiet again. They started to feel a bit sick.
"I don't know," Erwin said.
"You don't know?"
"It makes sense for Papa to have his own personal method of watching us, and this would be far more discrete," Levi said. "That's how he likes to do things. Whatever his plans for preventing our escape are, he seems extremely confident, even if he hasn't appeared to do anything drastic yet. If he's getting information from someone else at the orphanage, that makes it a breeze for him to plan a counterattack when the day comes."
"It's just a theory, really," Erwin added. "I didn't think about it until Brother Reiner turned up. If he was brought in to watch all of the children, and one of them is the spy, they could easily be telling him information instead of Papa, so we wouldn't be suspicious of them."
"That can't be true," Hange said faintly.
"Also, given Brother's watching all the children, if we told any of them the secret, he'd be able to tell by watching their behaviour. Even if we told anyone before he turned up, I'm sure he's read our personal files. The ones that are supposedly given to potential adoptive families."
"And if we happen to tell the spy, they'd have even more information, and Papa could crack down on us quicker," Levi added.
"That too."
"Moblit and Miche aren't spies," Hange argued. "They can't be."
"They could be," Levi said.
"Don't be ridiculous. We've grown up with them. They're only a year under us."
"Doesn't matter. It could be anyone, Hange."
"It's no-"
"It doesn't matter," Erwin said loudly, "because if they aren't and we tell them, Brother would still be able to tell, and they'll be targeted for information. Then we might have multiple spies on our hands. So, just for now, I don't think we should tell anyone else. I agree with you, Hange, that they will need to know eventually. If they aren't spies."
"They're not."
"Well, someone is," Levi said nonchalantly.
"Shut up, Levi," they hissed.
"You're going to get nowhere just blindly believing in people."
"I don't care. I'm not gonna go around accusing one of our siblings of being a traitor. There's no way there's a kid here that knows what's happening and is happy to stop us from preventing our own deaths!"
"Oi, keep your voice down."
"They might not necessarily have to know that," Erwin reasoned. "They might just have been asked to spy without knowing the reason why we'd want to leave. But finding out the source will be easy enough. We can just feed them false information. If one of them takes the bait and Papa acts upon the information we've given them, we'll have our answer."
"And if it's neither of them?" Hange asked.
"Then we can have full confidence in them joining us, provided they can keep up pretences. Either way, I plan on convincing the traitor to join our side instead of working against us. Perhaps feed false information to Papa, if they agree."
"Yeah. Taking Papa's pawn out of his control wouldn't be impossible," Levi mused.
Hange nodded vigorously. They still hated the idea that a spy amongst the kids could even exist, but if they were discovered early and defected to their side, it wouldn't be an issue, and they wouldn't need to leave them behind, either.
"How's the research going?" Erwin asked Hange.
They sighed. "Not much better than the night before. I'm starting to regain a basic understanding of all of that stuff, but finding any mechanisms close to what makes up the trackers is gonna be a bust. There's even pages ripped out of some of them."
"Really? That's interesting."
"Yeah. Of course, some of the kids' books are worn and a few are missing pages, but they're replaced pretty often, and this is the sort of stuff toddlers wouldn't be able to access, since it's on the attic level. It seems intentional."
"If that's true, then you won't be getting anything out of the library," Levi told them. "No point wasting your time there when they've removed all the stuff you need."
"I still can't give up, though. We can't leave without getting rid of the trackers."
"Perhaps it would be worth looking into cutting them out after all, then," Erwin said. "We can search the infirmary one day for medical supplies, too."
"Yeah. We all know basic first aid anyway, but I can look further into the medical books so we can be efficient about it," they responded.
"Let us do it tomorrow," he decided. "Tonight we'll tell Miche and Moblit about the escape. I'll set up the bait information before bed, and we'll have our answer by tomorrow afternoon. Then we can spend our free time in the library and get through those books in a single night, and plan the bulk of the escape in the next few days. It would benefit us to leave as soon as next week, if possible."
"Huh?"
"Why rush?" Levi asked. "We have over a month before another person is shipped." You, Hange thought, not just another person.
"Papa will be thinking the same. Quite honestly, I think he already knows the three of us are involved. The moment Levi joined us at the wall the day we told him, Papa would have noticed he wasn't sitting by the tree, and he would have checked the compass."
"That's not for certain," Levi said, though rather uncertainly.
Hange didn't want to believe it either, but they knew the chances of them still being under the radar were slim now. Especially if there was a spy. Which there wasn't. They didn't want to believe that part. At least, not consciously.
"Why hasn't he done anything then?" They wondered.
"He doesn't need to," Erwin replied. "The logical thing for us to think is that we have until Levi is shipped, and that we're going to spend the next six weeks planning as thoroughly as possible. He's letting us think that, too, by not pressuring us too much. If we're going to win, we can't let him control the timeline. We need to be completely unpredictable, and this is a good way to do that. And it benefits us to leave before winter sets in."
"And if rushing it causes us to fail?" Levi asked.
"We won't rush," Erwin said firmly. "I'll have plenty of time to plan, and when more people are in on the escape plan, the quicker preparations will move along. I can make sure I have a plan for a winter setting too, but it might not be as efficient."
The shorter boy tutted. "Fine."
9th November, 13:49
By free time, Hange was already sick of trying to figure out who the traitor was. They'd been telling themself that one of the younger kids must have been doing it accidentally, but it wasn't helping their guilt. They hated distrusting people. It was too far out of their comfort zone.
All of their siblings were so sweet. Yet there was no denying that many of them were also very smart. Smart enough for something like this.
"What's Armin's average at?" Levi asked as they kicked a football between them.
Hange despised that they'd worked it out already, even though Armin didn't even have an official weekly average yet. "203."
"That's ridiculously high for a four-year-old. Better than me at that age. Erwin, too."
Previously, Hange had prided themself on being the only child to ever score over 200 on their first test at the orphanage. It wasn't shocking that Armin had managed to do the same. He'd been trying to study since the age of three, when, at the same time, his siblings of a similar age were still getting the hang of walking steadily and speaking comprehensible sentences.
They considered it remarkable. And suspicious.
"He can barely run a few metres without keeling over, but he was still one of the last five remaining in the It game against Brother Reiner," Levi continued. "Also, he and Marco are always trailing after you and Erwin."
"Shut up!" They snapped at him. "Keep your horrible thoughts to yourself."
"Even if you don't like it, you have to think about it," he scowled. "We're not doing this for fun."
Hange ignored him and walked off towards Erwin. They waved him down, and he broke away from a conversation with Moblit, Nanaba and Miche to join them.
"About telling Moblit and Miche..."
"Have you changed your mind?" Erwin asked. "I don't mind delaying it another day. We can start with the library tonight instead."
"No, it's fine."
"Okay. If you want, we could test them before telli-"
"Enough about the spy," they said exasperatedly. "I just wondered if... maybe we didn't tell them the exact truth. Just for now. I know Moblit would get pretty stressed about it, and I thought about what you said with the others showing their emotions on their faces."
"Right. Miche would be scared too," he acknowledged. "He'll be mad later if we tell them the full truth eventually, but that doesn't matter until later. We'll deal with that when the time comes. We can tell them an abridged version for now so that they understand we still need to leave, regardless of the reasoning."
"Yeah. I just wanna ease them into it. It was a lot to just... to know everything at once." They shook themself off and straightened up. "Now that's out of the way, how about a game of It?"
Following their earlier conversation, Levi had apparently decided there was no point in sitting by the tree in the pretence that everything was normal, and so they decided to switch up their previous plans. This time, Levi was It and took a small group of children with him, aiming to teach them how to overcome some of the tricks they'd learned to pull against the seeker last time. Hange, Erwin, Moblit and Miche all took their own groups of runners, and they each practised a few formations of splitting their groups until each child was left on their own to survive the last ten minutes of the game.
Once more, Armin had been one of the last remaining, and was seemingly only caught because Mikasa managed to guess where he'd been hiding and caught up to him when he made a run for it. But Hange didn't want to suspect him, nor anyone else, for that matter. They resolved to firmly ignore any thoughts regarding the escape until the evening, when it came time to inform Moblit and Miche.
The three eldest children entered the library as a trio after dinner. The younger two boys were already waiting at one of the corner tables in the attic.
"What's this about?" Moblit asked as Levi climbed up the gaps of a bookcase and perched precariously on top of it so he could overlook the balcony and the front door. "You shouldn't be up there."
"That'll be the least of your worries soon enough," Levi muttered, and Moblit went quiet.
Erwin sighed and sat across from them; Hange followed suit.
"We have something important to tell you," Erwin started. "Recently we discovered that our siblings aren't all being fostered or adopted by loving homes. Instead, they've been sent off to bad people."
"What do you mean bad people?" Miche asked when Erwin paused.
"People that... aren't going to treat them nicely. Abuse them, in a way." Hange felt sick hearing him say it.
"That's not funny, Erwin."
"It's not a joke," they butted in.
Miche stared impassively at them before looking back at Erwin. "Please don't tell me you've made up another one of these conspiracies based on nothing. We're too old for this."
"None of our siblings have contacted us," Erwin continued. "They haven't been able to. There's a large gate in front of the orphanage that we're not allowed near, as well as the area beyond the fence. It's because we'd be able to see where people went if we looked through it. But we've never been given a clear reason why."
"Safety is a clear reason." Miche raked a hand through his hair. "Maybe they don't know who to send the letters to."
"They could ask their new parents. But they can't. They didn't go to nice families that let them live happily."
"Erwin."
Erwin didn't respond.
Miche turned sharply towards Hange. "Please don't tell me you believe this too."
Hange couldn't speak, and stared down at the table.
"They never went to real families," Levi spoke up from the bookcase. "That's not a lie."
Miche stared at the eldest boy with wide eyes and his mouth agape. Levi had never joined in on instigating a lie or pretended to go along with a story before, ever the party pooper, claiming stringing along Miche wasn't fun when it was so easy. Hange imagined Miche wouldn't believe that he'd changed his mind now.
Miche stood to his full height, towering over the rest of those at the table. "Papa wouldn't allow it. He looks after us. He spends all his time doing that."
"He sells us," Erwin corrected.
"Take that back!" His nostrils flared. "You better admit that's a lie. That's a disgusting thing to say."
"This is why you've been so distant lately, isn't it, Hange?" Moblit asked quietly.
They realised two things simultaneously; that he'd been silent up until that point, and that they'd specifically avoided looking at him the entire time.
"Moblit," Miche said through gritted teeth.
"I believe them. This is too much for a joke. Hange wouldn't agree to do this. None of them would. You know that," he exhaled shakily.
"Sit down, Miche," Erwin requested.
Miche did so without another word, stiff as a board.
"The night you went to give Eren his necklace," Moblit continued. "When you broke the rules and went to the gate. You didn't say a thing to anyone about it afterwards. You usually wouldn't care about getting caught breaking the rules like that, but Erwin asked us not to mention that you two had even gone there in the first place."
Miche's eyes went wide. Hange glanced at Erwin, but he didn't indicate otherwise.
"All three of you have been disappearing on the rest of us, and you hardly smile anymore when you're not talking to the youngest kids. It's been difficult to even-" Moblit took another breath, his eyes welling up, "to even ask what's been bothering you. A-and this entire time, it's been this horrible thing, ha-hasn't it?"
"Oh, Moblit," Hange whispered, and rushed to his side before the first sob had even left his mouth.
They felt awful. Moblit had been hovering around them the whole time, concerned out of his mind for them, but instead of sharing everything with him like they always did, they'd kept him out of it. Hell, they'd even had the nerve to suspect he was capable of betraying them.
They hadn't noticed how he'd felt at all, and it was honestly poor behaviour, even from them. They knew better. Moblit wasn't capable of fake tears. He always hated whenever one of the other kids called him a crybaby. Hange understood him better than most others at the orphanage did, and knew full well that he was smart enough to be helping with some of the stuff they'd been mulling over too. It was counterproductive to have kept him in the dark for this long.
"I'm so sorry," they murmured into the younger boy's forehead, surprised to hear the hoarseness in their voice. "So sorry, Moblit."
"Hange," he whispered. "Did you see when Eren got taken away by the bad people?"
Hange closed their eyes and stayed quiet. They couldn't lie to him, not now.
"Yes," Erwin did it for them.
Miche stood upright again to speak. "You watched him go? Is he okay?"
"We didn't make it in time. Hardly saw him getting taken away."
"We need to get out of here," Hange managed to add. "To save him, and to stop anyone else from getting taken."
"If you need further convincing, here's a chart of all our test scores, and the order in which our siblings were sent out," Erwin slid the open notepad across the table for Moblit and Miche to look at. "From the age of five, the child with the lowest score is sent out. By twelve, we're shipped off regardless."
"Eren, Tomas, Nac..." Moblit wiped the tears from his eyes. "Yeah, there's a pattern. Why, though?"
"They don't want children that are smart enough to be able to escape," Erwin fibbed smoothly. "I'm not sure what happened to Keith or the other twelve-year-olds. They might have been sent elsewhere."
"Please help us," Hange pleaded. "We'll all escape together, and save everyone else."
It rolled off their tongue so easily after Erwin had set up the scene. They hated themself for it, that they were still lying even after a week of obscuring the truth hadn't done anyone any favours. It would only get worse, too. They'd have to explain a plan of action for finding the other children, and that would waste precious time they needed to spend on the escape itself.
"Of course!" Moblit answered.
Miche sniffed loudly and hummed in agreement, rocking lightly on the balls of his feet. "You know where they are?"
"We might have an idea," Erwin said. "We'll leave it for tomorrow, though. Thanks for joining us. I'll catch up with both of you in a bit. Separately, though. We don't want Papa suspecting anything."
Hange watched both of them walk out. Moblit was a little calmer now, but Miche was more wound up than he'd been when he initially walked in. He was scared for his siblings - the ones that were already gone. They felt sick.
"What the hell is wrong with you two?" Levi leapt down from the bookcase, and Hange startled. They'd somehow forgotten he was there. "We don't know if they're okay, we'll go save them. Pushovers. What's lying gonna do?"
Hange agreed, having changed their mind the second false promises had left their mouth. It was a bad idea in the first place, but they really didn't want to be the one to break the real truth to Moblit and Miche just after lying to their faces.
"They might have disagreed if we asked them to venture into a world where they might need to fight for their lives every day," Erwin answered him with his usual disposition. "We're against people who want us dead, along with any of those unthinking titans that might potentially be around. That went about as smoothly as it could have."
"Keep telling yourself that, eyebrows. If they aren't traitors, excessive lying is just cruel. Especially if they find out by accident later and aren't prepared to run or fight."
"They aren't traitors," Hange declared.
"And how would you know, four-eyes?"
"Moblit is my sibling. He wouldn't do that. I'm sure Erwin feels the same about Miche. Moblit isn't the sort to pretend everything's okay here and let us all get eaten in the end."
"You could say that about anyone. Someone's the traitor."
"He is my little brother," Hange spat, and that was the end of that. "What if I started accusing Furlan or Isabel?"
"It could be. I'm watching them all." It was quite possibly the least convincing lie they'd ever heard come out of Levi's mouth.
"Listen," Erwin interrupted with furrowed eyebrows. "I will tell them individually of the plan we have tonight. There's no need for this. We'll know by tomorrow."
"What's the plan, then?" Levi asked. "You haven't even said what you're gonna do yet." Hange stood up and paced the attic, furious that they were still bothering with this stupid test of loyalty.
"I'll tell each of them that a rope has been hidden either in the bathroom ceiling or under the floorboards of my bed. I'll put some in both places, of course, but if it goes missing from one location or the other, we'll know who our spy is. Is that all right with you?"
"Fine."
"Hange?"
"Do what you want," they muttered. "When I'm proven right, I'll rub it in both your faces."
With that, they turned on their heel and left to prepare for bed.
They spent their shower attempting to wash away the guilt of knowing Erwin was about to lie to Moblit and Miche yet again. Even though the fake rope was less significant than the falsehood of their earlier discussion, it was continuing to mistrust them despite bringing them to their side that they hated.
By bedtime, they had managed to let it go, and spent the first night in a while talking to Moblit in their dormitory almost as carefree as they used to. As they rambled about brain development, memory capacity in children, muscle strength, endurance, dozens of tag formations and how they could be effective for both physical and mental strategies, Moblit spurred them on with his input on how the forest's environment impacted their games.
He also shared some of his own memories and experiences of the house, which Hange found just as fascinating - having spent every day growing up together, they'd never really thought to ask him about things that had happened to him, assuming they both experienced everything the same. He seemed to be at the development stage where some memories had just started to fragment, but not all. From their observations, they could sense a pattern in what types of memories from what ages were being compartmentalised first. They'd certainly be using Miche as another test subject later to see if his brain was any similar.
It should have been a nice end to the night, compared to the past few days. However, an hour after the dormitory had settled down to sleep, Hange heard someone get out of bed and cross by their own. They opened their eyes, facing into the dormitory. Light poured into the room briefly before the door clicked shut, but they had good enough hearing and instinct to know whose bed was unoccupied. Nausea settled in their stomach, and their limbs were heavy as they put on their glasses and slippers.
They followed the figure all the way to Brother Reiner's door.
"Ah, there you are, Moblit. I was waiting up for you," Brother said when he opened the door, and Moblit slipped in as it swung shut behind him.
Hange wanted to scream. This wasn't happening. They were dreaming. The Moblit they knew couldn't possibly be Papa's source. He was too old to be ignorant of what he was doing, which was their current theory for the motivations of the spy. Unless... Unless he hadn't known of the consequences. If he was as worried about them as he'd said, he could have been reporting their strange behaviour to Papa or Brother, thinking there was something wrong with them and they needed help. No, no, no, no.
"Now, then, go ahead and tell me wha-" Brother Reiner's voice became more muffled as he moved away from the locked door. The keyhole was blocked, so Hange had no chance of seeing in either.
"About that," Moblit's voice was clearer and closer to the door. "It's... There's nothing to worry about anymore, actually. Thanks for looking out for me, though."
"Of course. It's important to talk your worries out, both so that the weight is lifted off your shoulders and others can aid you in finding a solution. I can see you've been down, and I hear you aren't usually so withdrawn."
"Yeah, but I'm okay now!"
Hange cupped their mouth to hold in their relief. Of course he wouldn't. He would never, could never.
"Thanks again."
Their joy was short-lived.
"If you're okay now, that means something happened, right?"
Silence.
"Hange told you everything? That's a shame. It might skew your perception of things."
Hange listened to Brother Reiner's heavy footsteps moving closer towards them - and Moblit.
"Who else knows? Erwin, Levi, and...? If you talk to me, I'll let you go, no problem."
They were suddenly paralysed with the fear that Brother would give too much information to Moblit, and mention the titans, or that their siblings had been killed. They couldn't deal with this right now.
It sickened them that Brother's voice still sounded so protective and comforting, like he genuinely cared about helping Moblit. They didn't know how the adults did it, when it took Hange so much work to keep a straight face and lie for a cause more important than anything. These adults - no, these devils - working with titans did it with such ease, and no remorse for the children they were killing in their conflict. They couldn't understand the cruelty of it all, no matter how hard they tried.
"Please stop!" They heard Moblit cry out, and he took a step closer towards the door. While Hange had been thinking, he hadn't spoken a word, and it had been still behind the door for a length of time that stretched well beyond natural. "I don't know what you're talking about. Hange and I had - we had an argument, but we made up today, so everything's alright now. That's all."
Hange felt a surge of pride within their chest. Never had they heard Moblit be so assertive whilst defending himself. He was the type to steer clear of antagonising people and back down from conflicts, even if it meant he got pushed about by Gelgar, Levi or anyone else that liked to get on people's nerves every so often. But finally, he'd fought back for once, managing to save face both by lying and maintaining supposed innocence.
"Ah," Brother Reiner spoke quietly. They couldn't hear him properly again. "My... standing. I... ise. "I di... et in your face and sp..."
And then Hange heard footsteps and rushed as soundlessly as they could around the corner of the hallway and back into their dormitory. They heard a faint goodbye as they went to sit down on their bed, and within half a minute, Moblit was opening and closing their door with practised silence. He jumped when he saw them waiting for him, and they smiled.
"Hange," he whispered hoarsely. Even in the minimal light, they could see how badly he was shaking and the way his eyes swam.
"Thank you, Moblit," they murmured into his ear, and embraced him. He buried his head into their shoulder to muffle his cries as he wept. "I'm sorry you had to do that. I'm so proud of you. It sounded really tough."
They stood there long enough for Moblit to calm down, waiting until he stopped making any sound. No more words were spoken between them as Hange led the younger boy to bed, the only noise being a small exhale from Moblit's nose as they tucked him in. Once they were sure he was asleep, they walked a lap around each of the beds and checked upon all the children. All safe and sleeping soundly.
They had to protect them. They had to get them all out.