Disclaimer: I do not own, wish i did.

Chapter 5: Things to be Certain of

The kid turned out to be severely dehydrated Hange determined the moment she finished pinching the skin on his knuckles. Normally, she explained, the skin snapped right back into place, but in the case of severe dehydration it retained its pressed shape. She shoved them out of the way and pulled an aluminum water bottle out of her purse. With care she lifted his scruffy head and poured the water down his opened throat, being careful not to drown him.

"There should be an IV in the med cabinet," she said. Numbly, Levi got to his feat and retrieved the equipment, unspooled it, and pushed the capped needle into her waiting hand. There was coldness in his stomach as he looked down at the boy. He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have shouted at him like that. He could only imagine what the kid had gone through to get here alive and what he would soon be going through when he woke up later. This world would be strange to him, beeping and blinking with modern technology. The communication issues he would have... Levi didn't want to even think about that. There was no way this was going to be easy. On anyone.

"Shouldn't we get him into a bed or something?" Levi asked quietly.

"We can worry about that later," Hange answered. Her tone was chilly. Still angry at him, he figured, though she would get over it soon enough. She uncapped the needle with a pop, as Levi raised the IV bag, and slipped it under the skin of the boy's forearm.

Soon the boy was laying in a shitty bed-on-wheels with the long needle up his arm behind a couple closed curtains, the only privacy Hange was willing to offer him. Hange had also been the one to change him into a paper-thin scrub, a task Levi certainly didn't fight her for. But he was the one to fold the boy's filthy clothes, the dirk-streaked, patched-and-repatched things that they were. They were old too, not just in age, but in style; the sewn patterns, the technique. The university classes he had taken on ancient civilizations were jumping up out of the recesses of his mind, prodding at him to look closer, to find the date. His rough estimate was two thousand years ago, the same date as the ruins, but he couldn't be sure.

Erwin called his name, pulling him back from the brink of unconsciousness some hours later. Levi was sitting in a chair at the edge of the boy's bed, head in his hands, ragged clothes folded into perfect squares on his lap.

"Is it morning already?" Levi asked, looking around to see if any of the lab workers had come in yet.

"No," Erwin answered. "It's two in the morning. You should go back to your apartment. Get some sleep. I'll drive you if your too tired."

"I was just thinking about that," Levi said. "I was thinking I should stay here for the time being."

"You were just nodding off," corrected Erwin with an amused smile.

"Even still," Levi slurred, sleep-drunk. "My apartment is too far away from the sight, and too expensive. I've always thought that. I'd rather just stay in the lab. There's a couple bunk rooms that aren't being used."

"Most people avoid living in their place of work."

"Don't be ridiculous. This lab was built for the workaholic. Why else would we have the bunkrooms. Showers. kitchen. Tell me I'm wrong." He said. "Didn't think so. Besides, the dig sight isn't what I'm interested in anymore. Well, It's not the most interesting thing anyways."

"The boy."

"The boy," confirmed Levi. "He's the key to unlocking the secrets of Shiganshina."

That caught Erwin unawares. "I thought you didn't want to assume these ruins were Shiganshina," he said carefully.

"It's Shiganshina," said Levi. "I know it is. Just like I know that boy is the key to it."

"And how do you know that," Erwin asked.

"I don't know," answered Levi, before shaking his head. "Nevermind. I'm tired. Forget I said anything. Well, don't forget I said anything about moving in here. I was serious about that. But forget the rest."

"Do you need help finding your room or..."

"Oh don't patronize me," Levi said as he pushed himself to his feet, joints cracking loudly. He placed the boy's clothes on the chair and smoothed down the material. "I'm taking the nearest room. I'll take a janitorial closet if I have to. Actually, that doesn't sound too bad."

"Then go already. You're talking nonsense," said Erwin with a chuckle. "I'll watch over him until Hange gets back."

"Wake me if he even so much as stirs."

"Of course."

Levi stumbled off to bed then, sparing one last look at the sleeping boy before he went. He didn't move at all except for his eyes, which flicked about underneath his lids, following the images put forth by his unconscious mind. Levi wondered what he was dreaming about; perhaps his life before being crystallized. His old life. A life filled with people and places that existed thousands of years in the past. Or perhaps a nightmare, featuring Levi himself and Erwin and the strange, alien laboratory. There was no way of knowing.

But when Levi's head hit the pillow (in the nearest bunkroom, just as he had said) sleep was a certain thing.

-0-

The next morning Levi forced himself to shower before going in to check on the boy. If he neglected to do it right away as he always did, he would get caught up in the lab and neglect a shower until the sun went down again. He wasn't going down that road, he thought with a shudder. As for breakfast, he snagged a couple pears from the fridge and munched on one as he made his way down the hall.

He pulled his lanyard out of his shirt and swiped the keycard to unlock the metal door. It honked at him, flashing a green light, and slid down. As he cleared the door it slid back up behind him and clicked into its latch.

Hange was already there despite the early hour, fiddling with a testy little monitor that didn't appear to want to work right. There were many of them in fact, monitors, all different sizes, peeking out from behind the white curtains, which were flung out and draped over mountains of medical and scientific equipment alike. The makeshift hospital room looked close to bursting.

"Hange," Levi grunted. "Don't tell me he's somewhere in the middle of that."

"What? It's all necessary. I promise," she assured, pulling the curtain open to reveal an area that looked more like a storage unit than it did a hospice. There was a cleared path to his bed, and thankfully she had not piled any of the equipment onto the bed with him, but Levi wanted it all gone just the same.

"He can't wake up like that. It'll freak him out."

"I don't think there is any way of avoiding that," she said, matter-of-fact. Levi didn't know how to respond to that. She wasn't wrong.

"I'm not going to argue. Get. . .this," Levi said, sweeping his hand out. "out of here."

"Are you ordering me around in my own laboratory, Levi?" she asked darkly.

"He's my discovery. I don't care where he happens to be," Levi said. "Now I want this equipment out of here. You can study him later once he's adjusted a bit. Until then I don't want any modern technology within the confines of his. . .curtains."

Grudgingly, Hange moved to obey him, pouting as she went. Levi did make an exception for the IV, but everything else was gone from behind the curtains by the time Erwin arrived.

"Levi," he greeted. "You're up earlier than I expected."

"Can it," Levi spat, hefting the last of the monitors into his arms. "I've decided no one's allowed past the curtains until further notice."

"Just like you decided you were living here from now on? You really ought to stop making important life decisions when you're half asleep."

"Ha ha," Levi grunted humorlessly.

Erwin motioned for Hange to come over to him. "What's wrong with him?" he asked.

She simply shrugged. "You know he gets ornery after a bad night's sleep."

"Levi," started Erwin.

"No," Levi answered primly. "He's my responsibility."

Erwin kneaded his brow. "Why, because you found him? Because you released him? Because you shook him up a bit, for god's sakes? You could have been a perfect gentleman and It wouldn't have changed the fact that he's two thousand years away from home."

"I don't feel guilty. It's not that."

"Then what?"

"Don't worry about it," Levi grunted. "It's just something I know I need to do."

"You just know," Erwin repeated. Levi rolled his eyes. "Fine then. He's your responsibility."