Chapter Text
10th November, 14:26
"What's the situation with the fake ropes?" Hange asked.
They were holed up in the library during free time as it was raining. Usually Hange wouldn't be deterred, but there was no need to risk anyone catching an early winter cold and use up any medicine supplies before they left.
"I'm the traitor."
"Levi-" Erwin tried to interject, but the elder boy held up his hand, silencing him.
"Huh?" Was all Hange managed to say.
"I'm Papa's source. It's me."
They understood the meaning of the words. The logic behind him saying it, however, was beyond them.
"What do you mean?" They asked quietly.
"Let me explain," Erwin cut in, and filled them in.
They started to relax as he went into the finer details of Levi's confession. They had been thrown entirely off base for a second, thinking their whole life and understanding of their best friend had been mistaken. Of course Levi wasn't actually an enemy. The issue had been that they misinterpreted the spy to be a traitor, as opposed to a neutral source that could be utilised both ways.
"Years of work," they muttered in awe. "I can't believe you let me waste my time in here looking for a way to break the trackers when you've already got it all planned. Did you remove those pages?"
"No, the books have always been that way. And it's your own fault for finding out about the trackers in the first place. I was planning to tell you about my position right after you two went to the gate. But then someone-" he glared at them, "left Eren's key there, and Papa found out that someone else knew about the secret. And he didn't even know you'd been to the gate until he noticed you acting weird. He just thought Eren dropped it. I had to save face with him and try and guide you along at the same time because you had the insane idea of bringing three-dozen other kids with you."
This again, Hange thought with irritation.
"So you were too busy covering our mistakes to tell us, fine. But you're seriously against bringing everyone like you said before, aren't you?" They asked him coldly.
"Yeah. But if you're really that set on it, it's not like I can convince you to change your mind. May as well help you and make sure your plan works, rather than leave it half-baked."
Hange frowned. Though they were beyond bored of this argument, they hadn't expected Levi to give in, stubborn as he was - as they all were, to be honest. Changing his mind wasn't an easy feat.
"That's not like you."
"Do you think he's lying?" Erwin asked.
He's not a liar, Hange almost said, before remembering that Levi had, in fact, been lying about this particular thing for years. Though it was in good faith, so they could forgive him for that. And they refused to believe the older boy would actually choose to save himself along with those who were fully capable of surviving independently and leave the rest of their younger siblings to die.
"No. I'm glad we don't have to disagree on this moving forward. Welcome to the light side, shorty!"
Levi rolled his eyes.
Privately, Hange did find it unsettling that he'd not only been the spy, but had been for a long time before Hange and Erwin had gone to the gate. He must have hated trying to figure it all out by himself. And rarely did they curse their curious mind, but they couldn't ignore the fact that they had nothing of value to contribute now, excluding the information they had to report today, because Levi had already done their work on the trackers for them.
They imagined several ways he could have gone about experimenting, if the books in the library truly had been useless, but none of them were pleasant to think about.
"You've known about our siblings getting eaten the whole time, right?" They asked in a low voice. No one was in the library - they were positioned near the balcony again to watch the door - but they couldn't help being careful. Moblit and Miche would be arriving soon.
"Yeah."
"That must have been really painful."
Levi stared through them. Hange tried their best to think of something else to say, anything related to the escape or a different question about information that Levi might have, but they couldn't hold themself back anymore. They had to ask.
"Hey... what kinds of experiments did you conduct to figure out the trackers? Because you couldn't have tested the one on yourself. The placement of it's too awkward, even with a mirror."
In the corner of their vision, they saw Erwin stiffen up. They were surprised he hadn't thought about it yet.
"Wouldn't one of our siblings get sent off early if their alarm went off?"
Briefly, they heard a commotion just outside the door, several children laughing and screaming as they chased each other down the hallway. Other than that, it was quiet. Hange received no verbal answer.
"Never mind. What's done is done, however you managed it," they continued, and then they stepped towards Levi and gripped his hand with as much force as they could muster. "But there's no need for any more sacrifice of any kind, because we're going to save everyone. So don't ever do something like that again. Understand?"
The boy, to his credit, did not flinch in their grasp, though he was fully alert now. He even gave them a slight upturn of his lips, which surprised them.
"Yeah. I promise I won't do that." He linked their free hands briefly as if to shake on it, and they stepped back from one another.
"Good. I wonder if the other two will show up soon."
"I'll go get them." Levi was down the ladder and out the door without another word.
Hange turned to Erwin. "Are you alright? You look pale."
"Ate too quickly at lunch," he dismissed with a sheepish smile. Indeed, he'd been sitting against a bookcase with his arms more hugging his stomach than folded over it throughout their conversation. "What do you think?"
"About Levi?" They asked, and he nodded. "What I just told you both. He's fine. He'll be a strong ally."
"Alright."
Levi came back soon enough with Moblit and Miche in tow.
"Sorry. Toddlers were being a nightmare," Moblit explained, and they all sat down at one of the corner tables.
"It's okay! Did you bring it?" They asked him.
Moblit took out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and spread it out over the table.
"A map of the ground floor?" Erwin frowned. "Or some of it, at least."
"Every day around eight in the evening, Papa disappears. He'll go into this hallway, so he could only be going to the washroom or his office, but if you look in those rooms you won't always find him. There must be another place he's going in the hallway, but the entrances aren't visible."
"A secret room?"
Hange nodded.
"We were counting the steps between the washroom and Papa's office," Moblit added. "There's about ten steps between the babies' room and the office, but the washroom in the babies' room only takes up half the width of that. There's a bit in between, and it might not just be an empty space closed off by walls."
"Ah, that's what you were doing earlier," Erwin realised. "Did you know, Levi?"
"Sort of. Papa has to make his reports somewhere in the orphanage, but I didn't bother looking for the exact location." That surprised them, especially considering he'd had a long time to figure this sort of thing out.
"He makes reports?"
"Well, yeah. He's gotta check in with headquarters. It's every evening, at that time when he disappears."
"Headquarters?" Moblit echoed.
"It's probably where they passed the babies and Brother Reiner through," Erwin reasoned. Hange guessed mentioning that Levi was a spy probably wasn't in their immediate plans.
"Let's go there," Miche stood up. "Papa and Brother Reiner have their hands full right now."
"His office will be locked."
"We'll go get the key, then. The younger kids knock stuff out his pockets all the time."
"It's a pointless risk, Miche," Levi cut in. "All that's in there is a means of communication or direct passage to the bad guys. It's not like we can ask whoever's on the other side where our siblings are." Hange was promptly reminded of the lie they were still sticking by, and felt uneasy. "The only information you'll get is what Papa might do with you if he catches you."
"Why are you deciding this?" Miche flared his nose.
Levi glowered back.
"It's an action not worth taking," Erwin spoke up. "While it could be useful, there's more to lose than gain. And we don't know exactly where the entrances are, so we won't be able to break into them anyway."
"Fine."
"Uh, we need to prepare dinner," Moblit said hesitantly.
Miche sighed and walked out of the library, and the shorter boy glanced back at the three of them with an apologetic smile before following him.
Hange felt a bit bad for them, but it was difficult to plan properly when Moblit and Miche didn't yet know the truth about their siblings, nor Levi being a spy. Hange wasn't sure the two of them would be as understanding of their elder brother's position as Erwin and themself were.
"It'll be like that for as long as you refuse to tell them the truth," Levi commented as if reading their mind.
"Not yet," Erwin said. "Right now, our next step is to try and investigate the outside world and prepare for surviving out there."
"True. I've been looking inside this place for six years. We have plenty of information about what's within the walls, so focusing on what's beyond them is important."
"Six?" Hange repeated faintly, and Levi looked away from them.
They thought Erwin had meant two or three when he'd said years. How... how had Levi managed to hide this from them this whole time? They prided themself on being able to read him better than anyone else, Erwin included, so they didn't understand how he'd gone undetected for this long. Were they really so socially obtuse that they missed all the signs, or did they just take that to be part of his personality?
"I figured," Erwin broke the silence. "Considering when we were little you were the one to lead us to the gate for the first time. You made us curious about the rules of the orphanage whilst gathering information about it at the same time, am I right?"
Hange's heart dropped. He had done that. They remembered. He really had known for that long.
Bless him. They couldn't imagine having to harbour so many truths to themself for six years. They put effort into keeping a neutral gaze even as their eyes burned with sympathy for him.
"Yeah. And I have a lot," Levi spoke quickly. "I think with everything we have, it'll be possible to escape via the wall."
"In that case, we've already completed the very first step by stowing away a rope for climbing it," the other boy declared. "Next is to get away from the orphanage entirely, and finally, to find a means of survival in which we can be self-reliant."
"We need to know the area surrounding the estates for that. It's a forest up to the wall, but there could be a desert or sea beyond it, for all we know."
"I'm pretty sure I saw more trees on the other side of the wall," Hange chipped in before Erwin could speak again. "The forest continues."
"Pretty sure doesn't cut it. Check again with these." From his pocket, Levi withdrew... binoculars?
"No way! I've always wanted to try these out. Will they work with my glasses on?"
"Figure it out yourself."
They turned the binoculars over in their hands with fascination. The contraptions Levi had in his possession always amazed them. They knew now, of course, how'd he'd gotten this item, along with the many others. They were glad he was so practical and got items innocent in isolation, yet useful in the context of escaping the orphanage.
"Maybe we can try them out tomorrow. What can we focus on for tonight?" They asked aloud.
"Something useful that you've probably not bothered to learn before." Levi slid out of his seat and made a round of the attic floor, grabbing several books from various shelves before returning. Hange and Erwin both peered at the covers as he set some down at the table.
"Outdoor living... oh, this is where you've been learning all that stuff you bang on about."
"Surviving in the wilderness isn't just stuff," Levi scoffed, halfway up climbing another bookcase in one of the far corners and taking another book from the top shelf. "And I don't bang on about it."
"You do. Well, it's useful now," they shrugged.
"It was always useful," he countered as he sat back down, adding the last book to the array on the table. "This'll be full of the basics. Water purifying, primitive medicine, wild animals, et cetera."
"I'm surprised these are allowed in the library," Erwin commented.
"It'd look suspicious if it wasn't. There's loads of nonfiction books in here, and even several fiction stories that touch on nomadic lifestyles. If a kid was curious about that, why wouldn't there be a book to help them learn that in greater detail? Besides, this wouldn't be enough on its own to help us live after escaping."
"What would be, then?" Hange frowned as they browsed the contents of the books.
"Specialist subject books on agriculture, cooking, stuff like that. A lot of domestic adulthood skills on top of figuring out how to do it all without installed plumbing or power. Don't bother with all that right now, though." Hange must have looked as daunted as they felt. "That's not stuff all of us needs to be an expert in. One person memorising each thing would be fine. But this survival stuff is something we all need to know. So get reading."
It was a long couple of hours, but Hange managed to get through at least one of the survival books with brief note-taking by the time the clock chimed for five o'clock. They sighed loudly and stretched as Levi put each book back exactly where he'd found them.
"We're going to have to grab supplies for all this stuff as well, aren't we?" They groaned.
"Unless you already have stuff hidden away," Erwin tacked on.
"Not enough for a large group," Levi replied, and the three of them descended the attic and left for the dining hall. "And I'm not disclosing my spots out loud. Find your own."
"I wasn't asking," Hange muttered.
When they opened the door to the dining hall, Sasha and Mina ran straight out, both laughing, and Nanaba stood in the middle of the room halfway through yelling at them, cutlery and napkins clasped to her chest.
Bit by bit, they sensed that something wasn't quite right. Furlan was a similar state of frenzy with plates in his arms. The table hadn't even been set yet. Why were they running so late?
"Where are Moblit and Miche?" They dreaded to ask.
"I'd love to know," Nanaba spat out, rushing around the tables and setting the cutlery out.
Frozen to the spot, Hange watched Erwin march straight into the kitchen, and their heart beat faster as he came back out with a strained smile.
"Gelgar and Nifa are finishing up dinner."
Shoot. They couldn't believe Moblit and Miche. They'd skived their kitchen duties, and the only explanation they could come up with was that the two of them were trying to get into Papa's secret room. How could they be so reckless?
"Those idiots," Levi seethed.
As if on cue, footsteps came up behind them, and they turned to find the two boys in question approaching the dining hall.
"There you are!" Hange exclaimed with a sigh. We were wor-"
"Where were you?" Levi hissed, stepping right under Miche's chin and craning his head up at him.
Miche, unexpectedly, met his glare with an equal ferocity.
"Let's do this after dinner," Erwin spoke loudly.
Hange managed to turn to him, and saw Thomas peering out from behind his leg. They couldn't argue here when the younger ones were watching. They might tell Papa if they thought there was a fight happening.
Dinner was tense. It was easy to tell that the boys had indeed been doing their own investigating; Miche's posture was stiff, and Moblit refused to look at any of them. Hange busied themself with cutting the younger children's food and trying to convince Floch to eat his vegetables, but the distraction didn't stop their hands from shaking ever so slightly from the trepidation of the upcoming conversation.
When it was finally over, they cleared up the plates as slowly as they could, waiting for Papa and the other children to clear out so the five of them could talk.
"We went to Papa's secret room," Miche disclosed as soon as they had all sat down again. Hell.
"How?" Erwin's brows furrowed - from frustration or confusion, they did not know.
"Moblit picked the lock."
"What?" Hange couldn't help from exclaiming. "Moblit, what?"
"I saw Levi do it once," Moblit whispered, shaking. The aforementioned boy glared daggers at him.
"Has everyone seen Levi lock-picking except for me?"
"There's a book in the library that explains how to do it in more detail."
"You could've given me that one," they hissed at Levi.
"Shut up," he said back, and turned his attention back to Moblit. "Did you pick into the actual room as well?"
"No," the timid boy answered. "The secret room was behind the bookcase in his office and led down to a basement. The... what was probably a communication mechanism was hidden behind another bookcase. It moved by itself when we got near enough to it."
"Did you pick it closed on the way out? Did Papa notice you'd been in there?"
"I don't think so."
"You don't think so," Levi scowled. "Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if he'd caught you?"
"What would have happened?" Miche raised his voice all of a sudden. "Tell us. Would we be killed?"
The room went silent.
"That's a bi-" Erwin started.
"Just because we aren't as clever as you doesn't mean we can't tell you're keeping stuff from us. You said you barely saw Eren leave and couldn't tell if he was safe, but also that the people who took him were bad. How can you know that, Erwin? I can smell a lie as bad as that."
"You haven't said no. You really think we'd be killed?" Moblit asked.
Hange closed their eyes.
"What happened to our siblings?" Miche demanded. "There's files of all of them down there, and no record of addresses that they were sent to. Just a marked date that they were sent away. That's not natural."
"Even if they were being sold off, Papa would have records of a fake address. If... If Papa knew we found out the secret, he could just send us away early. But if you think we'd be killed... Then, were our siblings...?" He couldn't finish his thought.
They exhaled shakily. It was time to tell the truth. "Yeah."
A few seconds of silence followed their admission.
"I told you when they said they were going to save them it was a lie," Miche said with gritted teeth. "They still don't trust us at all."
Moblit looked crestfallen.
"I'm sorry, I - I just thou-" They tried.
"Just tell us the truth, Hange," Moblit pleaded. "Please."
They couldn't. Erwin did.
There were many reasons why they should have told the two boys the truth sooner, but what would have been made immediately clear was Levi's position as the spy. The horrified expressions on both Moblit and Miche's faces demonstrated how people naturally reacted when they first found out the secret. They never wanted to see those faces again. Yet they would have to, because they needed to tell the rest of the children as well. Awful.
"A facility where we get eaten by giants?" Moblit summarised shakily.
Hange found they'd lost the ability to look at anyone, and fiddled with the tablecloth.
"And Levi knew the whole time," Miche stated. "You knew what would happen to Eren." If Levi responded, it was a silent gesture. "And then you two thought it would be fine to trick us into going into a world full of people who want us dead."
Neither Hange nor Erwin answered him.
A fully vocal huff made its way out of Miche's throat, and then the legs of a chair screeched, and Hange looked up just in time to see Levi clatter backwards onto the floor.
"Levi!" Erwin stood up, but Miche pulled back his raised fist and punched him square in the face, causing him to stumble backwards into the table and chair next to him and land awkwardly on the floor.
Before they'd even noticed, Miche had leaned over the table and grabbed them by the collar, pulling them towards him. They closed their eyes once more as they saw his free hand pulling back again.
"Miche, please stop!" Moblit yelled, and Hange felt him pulling backwards on their shoulder. "Stop this! It doesn't do anything. Put them down."
Slowly, Hange felt the fingers on their collar release. They collapsed onto the table and rested their forehead on their palms, their throat tightening.
"You are so incredibly stupid sometimes, Erwin," Miche spat out.
"I just didn't want you to worry," Hange choked out, partly muffled by the table.
"We understand that, but if we had been caught, we would be dead!" Moblit's voice wavered, and Hange sobbed then. "Are we that much of a burden? We're only a year younger than you, and you're hiding the truth from us like we're toddlers who can't handle it! Are we so weak and useless to you after all this time?" He croaked.
"Aren't families supposed to get through issues together?" Miche whispered, though everyone heard him clearly. "Have some faith that we won't ruin everything for you."
He left abruptly, as did Moblit.
Hange wiped their eyes and sat up to check on the other two boys. Erwin had returned to his seat, rubbing his scrunched up face, whereas Levi sat on the floor against the wall, an arm flung over his knee with a downcast gaze.
"I was wrong to keep it from them," Hange apologised quietly. "I should have spoken up."
"We were both wrong," Erwin murmured. "It was cruel, and dangerous. I didn't anticipate that they would both take action themselves, and that impulsively."
"You're the one who said you'd deal with any consequences of lying to people," Levi reminded him.
Hange stood up. "I'm going to apologise. We need to be honest and upfront with others if we're all gonna escape together."
They left the dining hall and slipped out the side door, where Miche typically went on the rare occasions he needed to cool off. Sure enough, he was standing a fair bit away from the door, facing the forest. Moblit sat cross-legged on the floor beside him.
It occurred to Hange that whilst the two often hung out in different groups to one another, they seemed very familiar now. It was probably because Hange hardly spent time with Moblit anymore, and he had no one else around his age to turn to. It saddened them further, and solidified their need to resolve this immediately.
"Miche. Moblit." Moblit turned around swiftly when they announced themself, but Miche stayed put. "I owe you more than saying sorry, but that's all I've got. I should've had faith in your ability to handle the truth about the orphanage and outside world. I've broken your trust twice now, even though you believed in us. It's not fair on you."
"Me too, for the exact same reasons," Erwin added from behind them, walking up to the group and illuminating them with the lantern in his hand. "I misjudged your capabilities. You're correct. At the end of the day, we're siblings, and we need to work through this together with absolute belief in one another."
Miche huffed. "I didn't mean to punch you as well. Are you alright?"
"I'll be fine. I deserve much worse than a punch."
"No, I lost my head. My fault."
"Sorry for acting on our own and not listening to you," Moblit said softly, fidgeting with his sleeves. "That could've gone awfully and blown the whole escape. I knew you must have had a reason for not telling us everything. I didn't consider it enough."
"It's our fault for not explaining how dangerous it was," Erwin assured him. "Because of that, we did the opposite of protecting you from harm, just as we did when we kept the full truth from you. I should have considered that before making a decision. It won't happen again. Come, Levi."
Hange hadn't noticed him standing in the doorway until Erwin shone the lantern in his direction. His face looked terribly swollen. He had definitely come off worse from Miche's fist, being significantly shorter and skinnier than Erwin.
"Fine," he mumbled, and approached them. "I'll cover for you guys if you mess up in front of Papa anyway. And... I'm sorry for all the other things I did as a spy."
Moblit smiled and Miche nodded in response.
Hange clasped their hands together. "Okay! Now that we've aired all that muck out, let me ask again. You're free to say no, and we'll carry on as is, but we'd very much like for you to join us. Are you guys willing to help us with our escape?"
"Of course," Moblit answered.
"Yup," Miche tilted his head at Levi. "I'm not sorry about you, but it was too rough. You and Erwin, come to the infirmary."
Levi shrugged, but followed suit as they all filed back into the building.
Hange was immensely grateful that nothing awful had come out of Moblit and Miche's investigation. They hated that they'd broken their siblings' trust like that, but at least now they had learned how they needed to approach the escape with the other children. The silver lining was that it was better that they messed up with the oldest kids as opposed to the younger ones, when convincing them to believe them and stay quiet would be much more difficult a task.