Revised Author's Note i. hey there! i just wanted to welcome you to the fic that has pretty much been my baby for the last year and a half or so. it was my first and tbh it's kind of a relic to how crappy i used to be. i have to say, i've improved a lot as a writer since i first published this, not to mention learned a crap ton more about the canon and the order of events and about babies in general. however, what's written is what's written, and i'm too lazy to completely overhaul the fic. anyway obligatory disclaimer: i don't own the show or characters blah blah blah.

anyway. i promise you it's not a bad fic. reviews! throw them at me! i'm begging you! idc if the chapter's old or not! if that's your style do it! they help my fragile ego. have a great day!

Word Count: 1,719

Dawn broke beautifully that day. The colors changed from inky black to midnight blue to a warm, glowing orange that lingered for a few minutes, then finally allowed the sky to clear.

Hange marvelled at the bright orb known as the sun slowly making its way up from the horizon. She was normally a late sleeper, but for some reason, today was different. She sat up in bed and stared out her window, waiting for dawn to come to an end. Yet, even when it did, she still stared out into the horizon as if expecting something more to happen. But of course, nothing did.

After a few minutes of waiting, Hange grew bored and therefore stretched and got out of bed. She wasn't sure what to do with this newfound spare time, but she was sure she'd find something to do. After all, science always called.

She lazily made her way out of her room, down the stairs into the main hall, nonchalantly opened the door to the courtyard of the Recon Corps headquarters, and, having long grown tired of looking at the sky, looked down.

She wasn't sure what to expect, but it sure wasn't a baby. It was in a basket, neatly wrapped in some sort of towel or coarse blanket, peacefully sleeping. Now curious, she picked it up. It looked oddly familiar, but not quite like anyone she knew. No, it looked more like a mix of two of her friends, but she couldn't quite place which ones.

There appeared to be no note, no nothing indicating its purpose on the Recon Corps' doorstep, but one could never be too careful, so Hange checked the folds of the blanket, and, lo and behold, not too far inside, she found an envelope.

She shifted the baby, still sleeping, to her right arm, delicately held the letter in her mouth, and picked up the basket with her leg, not even paying a second thought to how clumsy of a manner she was carrying everything. Hange then proceeded to hop into headquarters on one foot.

She hopped down the hall into what passed as the living room, then plopped down on a couch. Amazingly, the baby had slept through the entire thing. She spat the envelope out as she kicked the basket off her leg; meanwhile, she took the baby in her two hands and held it up to the light that shone in through the window, as though trying to decipher some light-sensitive code.

"You are one heavy sleeper," she decided, then gave the baby a light toss, allowing it to fall a few centimeters before deftly catching it.

About half a second later, Hange reconsidered her statement as the baby's eyes shot open, and it began screaming.

"Shit," she said, panicking now as she got up, and the envelope fluttered to the ground. She began to gently rock the child, humming it a random tune from her distant childhood. However, the baby seemed unimpressed and continued wailing.

Hange could hear the grumbles and footsteps of her fellow corps members and began to panic even more. She didn't know whose child she was holding; hell, she didn't even know its gender. What would they think if they saw her singing to an unidentified baby?

Levi was the first to enter the room, with his usual dark circles under his eyes signifying that his insomnia had kept him awake to hear them first and looking sarcastically at Hange as she held the crying baby.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Well, uh, it's a baby," Hange replied, somewhat embarrassed, partially because she had just had the perfect opportunity to sass her comrade, and also because she just realized how stupid she sounded.

"It looks more like a sack of bloody shit wrapped in a towel to me. Get rid of it immediately; it's kidnapping if you just found it off the side of the road, which, knowing you, I'm guessing you did," Levi said.

"I don't think that's an option," Hange said in return, rocking the baby gently in her arms. She stared intently at it for a few moments, and strangely enough, the child calmed down. It stared at her with large, golden orbs of eyes, intelligence reflecting in them.

"Why not?" he flatly asked.

Hange motioned to the basket a meter or so away and the letter lying at her feet. "It was left on the doorstep in a basket. The letter was hidden in the folds of the blanket. Clearly, it was meant for us. Or maybe not us-us, but the Corps in general." Her eyes suddenly had a very dangerous gleam in them. "This kid might be important! You know, for science!"

Levi sighed and picked up the envelope containing the letter. On the back was a single, very neatly written, cursive word.

Levi.

The man in question began to show mild interest, though his eyes betrayed his true shock by widening almost imperceptibly. He flipped it over again. The sealed side was blank.

It was at this time that several cadets tread heavily into the room, grumbling about the rude wake up call and rubbing sleep from their eyes. Hange recognized their faces, vaguely, but she couldn't really place their names at the moment.

A bald boy flopped against the doorframe as another rather tall boy with a face that somewhat resembled a horse stretched and yawned. Neither one of them looked like they wanted to be up at the crack of dawn, but their curiosity (and the obnoxious crying) must have gotten the better of them. Christa was the only other cadet that Hange actually knew the name of who was entering, her eyes alert and curious as she stood behind one of the couches.

"Hello, you shitty little brats," Levi said, beginning to open the letter up. He didn't look at them.

The three of them eyed him wearily. Christa glanced from Levi to Hange, back to Levi and back to Hange again before something clicked in her mind, and she softly gasped, for she finally noticed the baby nestled in her arms. Looks must have been deceiving on her: though she looked wide awake, her brain clearly wasn't all there yet.

"Oh my, whose is that?" she asked, seemingly gliding over to Hange and gently taking (read: prying) the child from her.

"It's a mystery," Hange replied, surrendering it.

Christa unwrapped the part of the blanket keeping the child's head warm to find more than a few wisps of slightly curled, black hair growing. It clearly wasn't born yesterday. She looked into their amber eyes and thought they looked just the slightest bit familiar. In fact, the entire structure of its face had bits and pieces that looked familiar. She just wasn't quite sure where the familiarity was coming from.

The bald boy flopped, almost comedically so, pounding his head against the wall in frustration and exhaustion. "Can I go back to beeeed?" he whined. Tall boy nodded in agreement.

Levi glanced up from the letter he'd only just begun reading, looking at the two boys with a very weary and jaded grey eye. "You can. But you may not. You're up now. Go clean the kitchen."

Baldie groaned and pretty much passed out on the spot. Tall Horse Boy sighed and began dragging him away. He threw an exhausted look at Christa and Hange and said, "You guys'd better figure out what to do with that thing. I'm not losing any more sleep than I have to." With that, he trudged away, bald boy in tow.

Christa carefully sat down on the couch next to the captain. She looked up at Hange. "Should I check for its gender?" she asked.

Hange nodded. "That would be a good idea." She thought of how that should have been the first thing she had done rather than toss it up, but whatever.

Christa discreetly unwrapped the child and looked at it. "It's a girl." She rewrapped the child, albeit quite messily.

Levi turned over the letter in his hand. The back was blank, so he read the front again. He said nothing, merely grunting instead.

"Eh? What is it?" Hange asked, leaning dangerously close to him. "Does it have any answers?"

Levi carefully folded the letter back up and put it in his jacket pocket. "It has answers, I suppose you could call them. But I need time right now." With that, Levi pushed the mad scientist out of his personal bubble and got up and left the room, assumedly to his private quarters.

Christa and Hange exchanged confused glances, then looked at the girl still cradled in former's arms. The child yawned, and shuffled around in her snug little cocoon to get more comfortable. A gentle sunbeam landed on Christa, some its light reflecting onto the baby's face and allowing Hange to see it clearly for the first time that day.

Realization slapped Hange in the face as she could finally remember one of the people the child reminded her of. "Hey, Christa, remember Petra? The pretty ginger on Levi's squad? The one he was engaged to?"

Christa nodded. "I hadn't known they were engaged, but continue, Hange."

Hange picked up the girl and held it very close to her face. The baby stared into into Hange's hazel eyes as Hange stared intensely back. Then, all of a sudden, she turned it around and held it uncomfortably close to Christa's face. "See those eyes? Those golden-amber eyes? They look almost exactly like Petra's."

Christa slowly leaned away from the baby, feeling rather awkward. "What are you saying? That Petra came back to life and had a child? She's been dead for nearly a month now. Even if she had come back, less than a month isn't nearly enough time to allow a baby to grow and develop, let alone appear to be as old as this one."

Hange leaned back and stood up straight, snuggling the baby close to her chest. Her glasses gleamed in the brightening room. "Well, I have a hypothesis…" she began.