So begins yet another chapter. Enjoy.

Sunlight streamed in through the window gloriously. It gently caressed Levi from sleep naturally, allowing his mind to wake up slowly. It filled Levi's closed eyelids with a rich and vibrant red. It certainly wasn't the worst way to wake up….except…An irritating sound was ruining Levi's slow rousal from sleep. Well, aside from Sasha's real snores. (Which turned out to be more obnoxious than the fake ones.)

The patter was grating on his half awake mind, already. It was a rhythmic tapping sort of noise. Quite loud, and quite persistent. He rolled over face down and put his pillow over his head and groaned. The rapping continued. "….fuck it." He threw the pillow off his head and sat up. He glanced at his shelf.

The clock read 6:15 a.m.

Levi groaned "oh my god…."

The rapping continued to pound. It was someone knocking on the front door.

'Maybe the stock truck?' He wondered at first, but then. 'No. That couldn't be it. Fucker shows up at 5 a.m. on the dot…' He grunted once and sat up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He made a feeble attempt at a stretch, but had to stop midway. "…Fuck…" It was unbelievable how badly his body hurt. He noticed that there were blood stains on his sheets and pillow from his numerous cuts. "…FUCK…" He sighed.

I can't deal with this right now.

He got up and carefully stepped over the giant, snoring burrito at his feet and started down the stairs towards the front door of the shop.

The knocking grew a bit more rapid.

"I'm coming, I'm coming…jesus…" Levi rubbed his eye as he reached the stair landing. He looked out across the shop to see who could be making that ungodly noise that early in the fucking morning.

The figure stood at the front door, blatantly ignoring the idiotic 'Closed' sign.

"Oh…no." He almost turned around and went back upstairs, but a squeal that he could hear through the glass of the door, told him that he'd already been spotted.

The knocking finally stopped, replaced by a bunch of chattering (yelling) that he couldn't quite understand. The figure outside was animated for it being 6 in the morning.

'So much energy.' He thought, grimly. His aching muscles told him to go lie down. This was not going to be pleasant, but he squared his shoulders (and his jaw) and walked around the counter. He muttered a string of expletives under his breath as he reached the front of the shop and unlocked the door.

As soon as the lock clicked the bolt away from the slot, the door flew open. The ball of energy came surging into the shop, sweeping him into a massive bear hug. "Levi!" It cried. "I have GREAT NEWS!"

Fucking Hanji

"Yes. Yes. It's me, and that's wonderful. Now, let me go before you kill me."

Hanji gave him one more squeeze that added additional pain to his already aching ribs and released him, beaming. "Levi! Good morning! You're in skivvies, haha!"

"Yes. It is morning." He frowned. "What are you doing here?"

"Hmm?" She was no longer paying attention and had stepped back, her eyes darted all around his body clearly inspecting the various scratches and cuts; the rising sun glinting on her thick glasses. "Ah, you know, you look terrible." She ended in a very matter of fact tone.

"Wow, thanks. I haven't looked in the mirror yet, today, but that's the fucking look I was going for. " His eye-brow twitched. "…and I feel worse than I probably look, so please, Hanji…go away. I need sleep." He was being rude. Flat out rude. He knew it. He also knew she didn't care, nor was she likely listening.

Turns out, it was both. Hanji wasn't listening to him at all. She grabbed both his arms and examined all the cuts and bruises, ignoring his look of discomfort at his personal bubble being invaded. "These look horrible, Levi!"

"I'm aware."

"How did all these get here?"

"Long story." He said flatly, as he looked out the window and scowled. Debris was scattered about on the lawn outside, blown every which way from the storm. He'd have to clean all that up before he opened the store…goody...

"Uh-huh?" Hanji looked at him with blatantly expectant expectation. Her bushy hair seemed to bristle even more with excitement.

Levi just looked back at her.

"You gonna share with the claaaass?" She wheedled.

"No."

"Come on, Levi! This is some major story material right here. You didn't just get these in bed, plus I know they're fresh, so you got 'em all last night." She examined the particularly deep cut on his wrist. "Sheesh, what were you doing? Arm wrestling a thorn bush?" She gasped in mock amazement. "Did you LOSE?"

He jerked his arm away from her. "Yep." Levi gestured outside. "So, I'd like to get some sleep so I can back to it. Maybe win this time." He held the door open.

Hanji was not phased, as usual. She man handled him out of the way and pulled the door closed. "Fine, but really, Levi." She straitened her glasses on her nose with one finger. "At least, let me patch you up!"

"Hanji, I can take care of myself."

She grinned back at him. "-right, and that bang up job proves it!" She nodded at his wrist, which after his swiping it away from her, had reopened and was leaking blood.

He winced, but stood his ground. "Hanji, what could you possibly know about treating wounds?"

"Well, I am a doctor, you know!" She went to grab his arm, but he jerked it out of her reach.

"You know you aren't thatkind of doctor. A PhD in smelly fish biology a medical degree does NOT make."

She waved her hand dismissively. "Bah, details."

"Hanji…I'm not a fish."

She grinned again. "I know what I'm doing. It won't hurt, just let me treat them." She got a glint in her eye, and continued. "Besides, I know you can't reach all the cuts, Levi. What about the ones you can't disinfect?" Her grin now looked on par with the Cheshire Cat's.

His eyes narrowed. She had an entirely valid point, after all…Damn it all, she knew him incredibly well, and could strike easily where he was weak. 'Screw Hanji, anyway.'

She looked back at him, smug, knowing she'd won.

Levi sighed. Too tired to keep anything else up. "Yeah, sure whatever."

She squealed in glee and Levi winced.

He hissed at her through his teeth. "Keep it down, fucking four-eyes!" He pointed at the stairwell. "Idiots are trying to sleep upstairs."

Her reply was almost a whisper. "You have company?" She looked awestruck, but took his arm anyway, and led him over to a chair by the counter.

"I'll explain while you patch me up, or whatever." Levi answered. He plopped in the chair and rolled his head on his stiff neck.

Hanji disappeared behind the counter. "Don't spare any details!" He heard her voice coming from underneath. Dangerously near his precious flask nest.

"What are you doing?" He glared at the top of her bushy ponytail, which was all he could see of her as she rummaged in the shelves.

"Don't you have a first aid kit down here?" She peeked out over the counter. "Cuz, this doesn't count!" She waggled her arm over her head. In her hand, sloshed a precious bottle of Jose Cuervo Especial.

Levi sat bolt upright. His bloodshot eyes were wide, and he bared his teeth a bit of a snarl. "Cut that shit out!" He spoke with a venomous tone that would have scared most other people away, tail tucked between their legs. That tequila was special, it was a main constitute of his emergency stash.

Entirely unfazed, Hanji just waved him off with her other hand. "Fine, fine, touchy!" She placed it back in its nest near the rest of its emergency brethren. "Someone's on the rag." She rummaged further.

Levi sat and sulked.

"Aha!" The little white box with antiseptic and bandages was pulled out with a flourish. Hanji practically bounced over to him and started cleaning the various cuts. "Now, like I said-" Her voice took on that creepy tone she got whenever she dissected a live fish. She stuck a cotton ball full of stinging solution right in one of his biggest cuts. "Tell me about your guests."

He hissed through his teeth again in pain, and just glared at her.

"I'm doing you a favor, it's only fair." She grinned wider. "You said you would, now, spare no details, Levi."

The job Hanji did was admittedly good. His cuts were all dirt and sand free. The large one on his wrist in particular was well attended to. She'd had to use tweezers to get out half the splinters that had turned out to be in it. (He did not care to ever repeat that painful procedure again) Then, after a vigorous cleaning, she'd used several strips of tape to mock-suture it closed. It hadn't taken nearly as long as Levi thought that it would. This was especially odd, since, he had let her tend to any scratch or cut that she desired. (As much as he hated to admit it, she was actually very good at first aid.)

As she'd attended the cuts, he'd told her about the night before.

He conveniently left out the pier and strange savior incident, as he wasn't even positive that it hadn't been a dream.

Of course she'd grilled him for details. She'd asked why he'd been outside in the middle of the night. He's said the lightning strike and subsequent thunder had awoken him. Luckily, she'd bought it. Though with a very skeptical face. She'd asked what had become of the tent, and he'd told her about them having to abandon it. She'd asked about the cuts on his head, and he'd said it was the branches and promptly redirected the conversation.

Hanji could be somewhat in tune with things that made other people blatantly uncomfortable; though upon discovery, usually, this prodded her forward into further wheedling. In this case, however, she was uncharacteristically lenient, and just let it go without any trouble.

When the last bandage had been applied, Levi was feeling decidedly less annoyed with her. Perhaps even fond. "Thank-you." He remarked with a slight wince, as the last bandage was placed on a particularly bad cut on his cheek.

"Anytime, conpadre!" She beamed back at him. "Call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me-"

"STOP." Forget the fondness. She was such a dork.

"Oh!" She froze. "I forgot! I can't believe I didn't tell you this yet!" She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Yanno, the whole reason why I came over in the first place, since it's really important-"

"Hanji. Get to the point, please." Levi brought her out of her tangent.

"Right, so, I called you this morning, to make sure you were ok after that massive storm."

Levi raised an eyebrow. His phone. It'd probably said it was disconnected or no longer in service. "Ok? So I didn't answer. Your point?"

She just looked at him with an unreadable expression.

He gave in. "I admit it, ok? Yeah. I lost my phone. So what?"

"That's just it, the call DID get answered."

Levi's stomach dropped. "What?" That was impossible.

"Yeah, I knew it wasn't you, though. I figured someone took your phone. How long have you known it was missing?"

Levi wasn't sure how to go about this. "A day or so." He answered carefully.

"Well, clearly someone found it, but it was really weird…the way they answered, I mean." She fidgeted with her glasses a bit. "Honestly the guy acted like he barely knew how to use a phone. After a ton of rings, I heard a weird humming noise and then a voice say 'Hello?'. Then there was a bunch of talking in the background that I couldn't quite decipher. Then I said 'Levi?', cuz you know, you could have had the T.V. on or something. I don't know what you do at 5 a.m…" She trailed off, looking at him expectantly.

He didn't want to indulge the open ended statement. "You called me at 5?" Levi just frowned at her. "I know I have insomnia, but really? That's just annoying. Jesus, Hanji, don't fucking call people that early; you're like a little kid." He then shook his head. "Nevermind your pissant calls...that's just great, someone has my phone..." He sighed. "Ok...Then what happened?" He played it bored in tone and expression, but inside he was freaking out.

HOW?!

How could someone have his phone? It fell in the sound. It was probably on the bottom covered in a layer of mud. This was impossible.

Hanji either didn't notice his turmoil, or didn't care. "Right, right, so this voice answers in a very matter of fact way 'I'm not Levi. I'm Eren.' You should have heard them, Levi! This guy sounded almost offended. I'm wondering if some Amish kid picked up your phone, or something-" She was smiling again, coming up with theories was what she did best.

"So, you came over to bother me at 6a.m. ...because you think some Amish kid has my phone?" He interjected.

"Nah! It's way cooler! I had Erwin put a chip in your phone before he gifted it to you. So I was able to triangulate its location after that weird call-"

"You what? " He exclaimed. Levi was in complete disbelief on one hand, but on the other...this was Hanji. He should have expected her to do something creepy like that to everyone she knew.

"-It was for a past experiment that fell through." She waved her hand dismissively.

"Hanji-" Levi's tone was dark.

She interrupted him before he could unleash his tirade. "Anywho. I traced its location." She got that manic gleam in her eyes back once more, ignoring the fact that he was pissed. "It's on an uninhabited sand spit island in the middle of the sound. You know the one, a half mile from here?" She indicated the direction with her thumb. "The one with the oysters on the west side that can scrape up a kayak."

The microchip took a wayside in importance. "That's impossible."

"I know! That's what I thought. So I tried a different receptor, but, I got the same result! Its true! All the signals are coming from there."

"So some guy (possibly insane, maybe Amish, probably a hermit) has my phone on some god forsaken, tiny-ass, uninhabited, island in the middle of the fucking sound?" He rubbed his sore temples a bit under the gauze. "That's just rich."

"I thought about checking it out on my way over here, since the bridge is out...but I figured I should stop and see you first." Hanji said with a smile.

"The bridge?"

"The storm gave it a whipping. So, they need to do repairs, which is a real shame since it's the only way on and off the island" She paused. "...if you travel by car that is" She finished with a wink.

"Hanji, you didn't..." He just stared.

"Yep. I just took ol' Blue out here."

Levi glanced out the window. Sure enough, her kayak was perched out on the shore. How did he miss that before? He let his eyes become half lidded in annoyance. "Hanji, you shouldn't do that alone. Especially at 5 in the morning."

"I know." She looked at her feet. "But Levi, I was really worried about you. Plus, I had to tell you: We investigate tomorrow, got it?" Her head snapped up. She grabbed him in a hug. "Erwin told me this morning, he's gonna get some landscapers to fix up the place, since he figured the storm would mess it up!"

"Mmmrph-!" Levi's protests were muffled by her military jacket. (Hanji loved the military surplus stores with a passion) He tried to wiggle to get free, but she just hugged tighter.

"So, he's gonna close the shop for a few days while that happens! We can investigate! It'll be an adventure, like we used to do when we were in high school!" She finally let him go. (and allowed him to wheeze in some air and glare at her)"Oh, by the way, did you get taller?" She inquired, while adjusting her jacket. "Hugging you felt different, today."

What? Idiot. "What?...No, four eyes. That's moronic." He took a breath to tell her exactly were to go, but before any sound came out, she spoke up.

"I'm going to get some things ready for the investigation, and you need your rest."

"What investigation? You aren't serious-"

"We're going tomorrow!" She checked her phone. "Geez! Look at the time!" She turned and walked briskly towards the front door. "I'll be back tomorrow at the same time! Be ready, Levi! Pack lunch and water! Oh, and when you inevitably dust off your kayak and clean every cranny, give it some love. I'm sure it misses you as much as we all do."

Before he could protest, she gave him a quick salute and shut the door.

He slumped down against the counter and reached for the nearest bottle in his emergency stash. "...goddammit..."

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