There is a baby by the new secretary's desk.

Levi Ackerman cannot remember the last time he saw a baby in person. His boss keeps showing him pictures of his ever-growing brood — an unruly-looking mob of blond children with wild bespectacled eyes — but he has thankfully managed to avoid having to encounter the brats in real life. The same cannot be said for the occupant of the playpen five feet in front of him, who is currently sucking her thumb and sleeping peacefully.

For now, Levi thinks. Soon she'll be screaming and shitting and doing whatever else it is that babies do.

"I'm so sorry," his secretary says as she steps into the waiting room from his office, her eyes wide as she sees her boss standing there, glaring at her child. "Hana has a fever but I can't find anyone to watch her."

"Is that yours, Mikasa?" he asks, annoyance and mild disgust creeping into his tone.

A frown darkens Mikasa's features for a second before disappearing into the placid non-expression she usually wears. "She's my daughter, yes."

Levi snorts. "I wasn't aware you had one. A kid, that is." He watches the muscles in his secretary's jaw tighten, release, tighten, release.

"I showed you a picture of her last week," Mikasa finally says. If Levi acknowledges her words, she cannot tell.

"Is she contagious?" he asks, wrinkling his nose.

"No, but—"

He ends the conversation the way he has ended every conversation they have had since she started working there: by walking away when there is so much more left to be said.

Making tea is not one of Mikasa's duties but, like clockwork, she brings Levi a steaming cup of Earl Grey with the tiniest splash of almond milk and one Splenda at ten-thirty and two-thirty, then one more at five if he is working late. He prefers when she brings him his tea in the evening; she gets ready to go home while the tea steeps and brings it to him with her coat on, a crimson scarf nestled between the collar of her pea coat and the pale curve of her jawline. It is comforting, somehow, to be reminded of the fact that Mikasa has a life outside of this office when it feels like he lives here. (He hopes he has not seen the pillow and blanket he has stashed in his desk. She has already seen his toiletries case, but hopefully has come to the correct though erroneous conclusion that he keeps it in his top right drawer because he is fastidious about his personal hygiene.)

One day two months after Mikasa starts working for him, she brings him his five o'clock tea wearing her usual coat and scarf with the addition of a red and black plaid hunting cap, her dark hair covered by the thick earflaps. The sight is so ridiculous that he smiles at her for a moment instead of giving her his usual curt nod and grunt.

After she leaves, he puts his head down, hitting his forehead against the desk. He may as well have just exposed his belly and told her to go in for the kill. His previous secretaries have never seen him smile.

"You can't bring her back here," the daycare owner tells her. "She screams and cries all day for you." She glares at Mikasa, her narrowed gaze saying everything her lips do not: You must have done this to her.

"I thought she was getting better," Mikasa replies, her mouth pursing with worry. Hana whimpers in her arms, her green eyes red-rimmed and teary.

"It comes and goes, but lately it's been worse than ever. It's disturbing the other children. I'm sorry, but I can't keep her around when she's this disruptive."

Mikasa cannot think of anything else to say, so she bids the woman goodbye and walks to her car, her breath coming out in short huffs of vapor as she walks. Hana chatters happily to herself as she rests her head against her mother's shoulder, poking at the earflap of her hat with one mittened hand. It has been like this since Mikasa started working for Levi: Hana is her usual bubbly self in the morning, then quiet on the car ride to daycare, then a shrieking banshee until her mother comes to retrieve her again at five-thirty.

Hana has never screamed like that for Mikasa. Not once.

That night, after Mikasa finishes wiping spaghetti sauce from Hana's chubby cheeks, the baby says her first real word after months of babbling gibberish: "Dada."

Mikasa inhales sharply, her eyes watering at the sound of the two syllables. "Good girl!" she chirps. She hopes that Hana is too young to detect the quaver in her voice. "Can you say Mama? Maaa-maaa?"

"Dada!" Hana yells, her mouth stretched into a gummy smile. "Dada! Dada!"

"Yes, Hana," Mikasa replies, picking up her child and holding her close. "Dada's coming home soon."

She sits tautly, spine ramrod-straight in her chair as she waits for Levi to arrive at work the next day. Hana sits on the floor next to her desk, stacking blocks and then knocking them over, alerting her mother to what she has done by squealing and babbling delightedly. Mikasa sighs and hopes that she will still have a job by five o'clock.

Levi is a difficult boss, utterly exacting to the point where he is cruel more often than not, prizing the quality of his work over anything as inconsequential as manners or tact. He has gone through three secretaries in two years. But he recognizes her when she does well and coaches her — if barking at her counts as coaching, but his words are helpful even when they are flung at her with utter contempt — and her paychecks seem much higher than the salary he initially quoted for her, so she stays. In a few months she will be able to move herself and Hana to a nicer apartment in a better neighborhood. If she stays for a year, she will be able to buy a new car, one that doesn't rattle ominously when she drives it faster than fifty miles per hour.

The money and the prestige are worth the hassle of spending eight hours a day with this petty tyrant, this Napoleon. He can be so unpleasant it is easy to forget that his standards, punishing though they are, are the reason he's the best. Levi Ackerman can negotiate contracts with suppliers and subsidiaries, can persuade even the most intractable clients to do multimillion-dollar business with Smith and Company. In the boardroom his brusqueness comes off as cool confidence, his crudeness as straight-shooting directness. He berates investors with facts and figures until they cannot help but acquiesce to whatever plan he proposes, and then they thank him for the privilege.

Mikasa got to see him in action once. She left the boardroom ready to follow Levi to the ends of the earth, even as she was disgusted at how he treated a room full of CEOs like they were idiots.

She is so lost in her thoughts that she does not notice Levi emerging from the door of his private office; he has been in there since before she arrived, apparently. "What is that?" he asks, pointing at the scattered blocks on the floor. Hana looks up at him and smiles, then offers him a block in one small outstretched hand. Levi narrows his eyes at her.

"Hana was having separation anxiety at daycare. Yesterday she was asked not to come back. I'll get her in a new place soon, but until then I need to bring her here. I'm sorry." Her words come out rushed even as her gaze is steady, unwavering, directed at the cold steel of his eyes.

His response is terse, as usual: "Find someone to watch her until you find a new daycare."

At that Mikasa's resolve breaks and her eyes flicker down to her hands, which rest against the top of her desk. "I don't have anyone to watch her," she mumbles.

"Dad not in the picture?"

"Pardon me?"

"Why doesn't her dad step in?" Levi asks slowly, as though she cannot comprehend his words.

She hesitates, then trots out the line she has rehearsed so many times in the bathroom mirror: "Hana's father is out of the country."

"Military?"

Another pause, shorter this time. "Personal reasons."

"While you're working and taking care of the kid on your own? Sounds like a real asshole," he scoffs.

Levi walks away from her then, back into his office. He doesn't hear her say, "I know he is, but I still love him."

As Levi is preparing to leave the office one night, two hours after he initially intended, something catches his eye as he walks by Mikasa's empty desk. It is a photograph encased in plastic, a grinning Mikasa (a novel sight — at best she will curve her lips at him, reserving the show of her teeth for the baby) cradling Hana in her arms. Sitting next to them, with one arm draped lightly over her shoulders, is the father. He's a young looking guy, younger-seeming than Mikasa even, with a deep tan and green eyes that sparkle with mischief, even captured on celluloid and trapped in lucite. The guy is smiling, but Levi can detect a slight strain around the corners of his mouth.

Or maybe not. Maybe he is projecting. He already hates the guy for not doing right by his girlfriend (he assumes; he has not seen a ring on the secretary's finger) and his child. Mikasa had said the guy was abroad due to "personal reasons," but he tries to think of something that would necessitate such a long absence — family issues, for sure, but why would she not say that? — and comes up empty. Maybe a drug problem, but he's not sure why someone would skip the country to go to rehab when he's got a baby to take care of.

No, he decides. He definitely hates this guy.

Levi picks up the picture to get a better look. It is heavier than it looks and clinks as he lifts it: the picture is a keychain, attached to a heavy ring of keys. He inspects them, silver and brass topped with color-coded rings of plastic. His lips purse into a small smile; of course Mikasa organizes her keys.

But these look like house keys, and it has been a frigid winter. The thought of the secretary and the baby, pale and shivering from the cold, makes his guts twist in a curiously unfamiliar way. After he slips the keys into the right front pocket of his trousers, scowling a bit when he notices how they deform his slim silhouette with their bulk, Levi goes back into his office and pulls up the company's intranet so he can search for Mikasa's contact information.

As the cursor of his mouse hovers over a box in which he is supposed to input her last name, he realizes he doesn't actually know it. So he just types "Mikasa" in the box where her first name goes (first misspelling it as Melissa for some reason, then Mikassa) and prays that Erwin has paid the IT guys enough to make the damn thing actually work. After a few interminable seconds, a pop-up window appears.

One result found: ACKERMAN, MIKASA

Levi snorts. "Go fucking figure." He wonders whether anyone has suggested that her hiring was the result of nepotism, or whether Erwin hires employees who can understand that two people sharing a last name does not a relation make. He wonders whether his subordinates would even have the balls to speak about him in such a way amongst themselves, let alone to his face.

He reads through the file, which has her personnel photo (again, a smile with teeth; perhaps she only reserves them for people who are not him), her cell phone number, and her address.

Sighing deeply, he picks up the phone that sits on his desk and punches in her number.

"Levi?" she asks before he can say hello. She sounds confused, perhaps a little perturbed. He barely speaks to her unless it is absolutely necessary; a phone call after hours is unheard of.

"Yeah, it's me. I think you left your keys here."

"Oh thank god," she sighs. "I thought I dropped them. I'll run right back to the office and grab them."

"No, don't trouble yourself," he says gruffly, shaking his head. "I'll drop them off for you."

"You sure? I don't live in, uh, such a great neighborhood. A guy dressed like you is going to get mugged." Through the phone, Levi can hear the faint tinny whine of an ambulance siren.

"Don't worry about me. I can handle myself," he tells her, then hangs up without saying goodbye.

Fifteen minutes later, Levi realizes Mikasa was being diplomatic when she said she didn't live in such a great neighborhood. The streetlights that aren't broken are either dim or flickering. Ghosts of abandoned brick-front factories line the streets before the landscape shifts to squat clapboard houses, rusted siding, shattered windows, broken concrete. Each corner, it seems, is marked by at least one figure in black: men snugly bundled into hoodies, women shivering in short dresses and thin stockings. Levi can imagine the overlapping low patter of their pitches: Want weed? Want coke? Want Percs? Benzos? Oxies? Want a date? Wanna have some fun? I got what you want. I got what you need.

Levi knows it all too well. He is older, but not so far removed from his wayward impoverished youth that he can forget these things. That same knowledge makes him clench his hands around the steering wheel of his car as he cruises toward Mikasa's street. He wonders whether his tires will get slashed or whether his windows will be broken or whether the sleek black sedan will simply not be there once he has returned Mikasa's keys.

His GPS soon announces that he has arrived at his destination: a crumbling tan brick building with a faded sign that may have said "TROST ARMS" in a past life. Judging from the intercom and the rows upon rows of buzzers next to the door, Mikasa has to buzz him in. Levi stands there for a moment, his finger hovering over the buzzer labeled "M. ACKERMAN, 104" when he realizes the front door has been propped open with a cinderblock. Before he goes in the building, he fumbles around in his coat pocket for his key fob, then arms his car alarm for the fifth time.

The combination of smells in the building — mildew, heavily spiced food, the piercing smell of bleach, the muzzy sweetness of faded stale cigarette smoke, and, beneath it all, the smell of dozens of living bodies crammed on top of one another — takes him back for a moment to every shitty apartment he's ever lived in, every dimly lit hall he ran down because it was too unsafe to go outside. Levi's breath stops dead in his lungs and he involuntarily hunches over, bracing himself as the memories overwhelm him: being yelled at by Mrs. Church for playing basketball in the lobby, the fights and fucking he could hear through the thin walls, the girl in 6A who let him kiss her once, the sad skinny frill of tinsel around the apartment door each Christmas. (Of course, his mom's interchangeable boyfriend of the moment always had enough money for a couple of cases of piss beer and, when he was seven, a mistletoe belt buckle which he could tell was terribly distasteful even then, but they would never allow him the extravagance of a single strand of icicle lights.)

He stands up straight, tries to swallow away the lump that has formed in his throat. That Levi is dead. That Levi is dead for a very good reason, he tells himself.

Mikasa's door is at the end of the hall on the first floor. It is easy to spot: she is crouched outside of it, trying to pick the lock with what looks to be a small screwdriver. Hana crawls around on the floor, occasionally lifting one pudgy hand to tug at her mother's clothing. She lets out a whine, unused to being ignored by her mother for so long.

"Hana, stop," Mikasa scolds her, eliciting a louder cry from the baby.

"You know you don't need to do that," Levi says as he walks up to them.

Mikasa jumps at the sound of his voice, then puts the screwdriver in her purse before she looks up and acknowledges his presence. "I got a little impatient," she admits with a shrug.

Levi lifts one corner of his mouth at her. She is tenacious; he will give her that. He reaches into his pocket and produces her keys, then hands them to her. Mikasa gathers her things and gets up, then picks up Hana, who looks to be on the verge of tears.

"What's wrong, Hana Banahna?" she coos. Hana starts to whimper; Levi turns away and frowns, not sure how he will react if the little brat starts to cry. Mikasa holds the baby close and takes a deep whiff. "Someone needs a diaper change," she says with a grimace. She unlocks the door and goes in, then waits for Levi to follow. "You can hang out in the living room. I'll be five minutes."

Levi nods and waits for Mikasa to leave the room before he wrinkles his nose in disgust. Until now he has managed to avoid the more unpleasant biological aspects of the child who still takes up residence in his office. Mikasa claims that Hana's new daycare will only take her for three days each week and no more, and he cannot bring himself to turn the girl away. It seems almost Dickensian and although he has never considered himself a good person, he also would not like to think himself an unfeeling monster who throws fatherless children into the street. He has managed to ignore the baby thus far, but once in a while she fixes him with those curious green eyes of hers and just stares at him. Most of all, he does not like that passers-by are encouraged to visit and visitors are persuaded to stay when they see the chubby-cheeked little girl quietly stacking her blocks, knocking them over, and stacking them again.

Levi flops down on a threadbare couch covered with an afghan, shades of red yarn gnarled together to form a light quilt. Mikasa's living room is cozy, despite its small size and its hallmarks of low-rent living: cracks in the walls, a brown water stain on the ceiling, worn carpet coming loose in the corners of the room. The walls are covered in pictures of beaches and mountains and deserts that she has cut out of magazines. Above the small television there is a framed picture of a red-faced newborn Hana swaddled in a receiving blanket, her eyes clenched shut and mouth stretched open in what Levi imagines is a mighty squall. Next to it is a picture of a younger Mikasa with her arm around Hana's father, his posture always slightly straighter than hers even when he is leaning into her embrace. It is a home, at least, though not much of one.

He gently chides himself: as though he could think that his sterile condominium is more of a home than this place, even if it is a dump. Mikasa's apartment is cramped and in disrepair, but warm. Levi can feel that people truly live there. In comparison his apartment feels like a laboratory, a museum exhibit of a home, all immaculate flat surfaces and right angles. No charm, no life whatsoever.

Mikasa walks in the living room, her short hair tucked away from her face with a headband. She has changed as well, swapping out her no-nonsense black pants and white shirt (her usual ensemble as well as his, but both of them have chosen not to point that out) for a pair of dark jeans and an oversized pink t-shirt whose drooping neckline highlights the protruding ridge of her clavicle. When he looks back at her face, he notices for the first time how sharp her cheekbones are. He realizes she usually conceals them behind her dark curtain of hair. He wonders what else she has been hiding.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" she asks him.

Levi wants to say yes, but his lips cannot form the word, as if they simply don't know how. "I can't impose on you like that."

"I insist. To thank you for bringing me my keys." She looks down at him and smiles. He takes up nearly the entire loveseat, which makes her smile a bit; she's always found that particular piece of furniture a bit cramped, but has never been able to afford a replacement.

Levi shrugs. "Fine."

"You're not a vegetarian, right?"

"No."

"Food allergies?"

"None."

"Food preferences?"

"None."

Mikasa twists her mouth as she thinks for a moment. "How does curry sound?"

Levi wrinkles his nose. "You make curry?"

"Japanese curry. It's relatively mild. I was thinking chicken, a few vegetables, some rice. Should be done in half an hour or so. Make yourself at home."

Levi hopes he doesn't freeze up too long before he says, "Sounds good." Mikasa nods at him, then walks out of the living room. "Is my car still going to be here when I'm done eating?" he calls after her.

She pokes her head back in. "It should be. Hey, I just put Hana down for a nap. If you hear her crying, would you mind bringing her out to the living room? Just open her toy chest for her and she should be able to entertain herself. There are some DVDs in the cabinet under the TV, too."

"Okay," he says, but he is thinking, "I am not dealing with your shitty fucking brat, even for a free meal."

Sure enough, after ten minutes he can hear the baby whimpering. Levi remembers a snatch of information from a source he can no longer remember that said that babies should cry a bit, that they need to learn to soothe themselves. So he pulls out his iPad and starts swiping through his emails, pulling up a Powerpoint presentation he needs to finish about the pros and cons of acquiring a software company run by one of Erwin's insufferable business school buddies. Still, despite how much Levi cannot stand Nile (the prick, he adds mentally every time he thinks of the man's name), the man has managed to stumble his way into relative profitability, with the possibility for a revenue explosion once his company starts expanding their offerings to mobile platforms. Whether he likes it or not, he needs Nile Dawk, and he needs Nile Dawk to think he needs Smith.

Levi finishes two slides, arranging graphs and charts to show the current revenue streams of Dawktech, before Hana's wails grow louder. He frowns and places his iPad on the rickety coffee table, then goes out to the hall to check on the baby. There are two darkened doorways before him: he chooses the right, which leads to a cramped bathroom, a stall shower, toilet, and microscopic sink nearly overlapping in the closet-sized space.

He walks to the room on the left and flicks on the light, and a pained groan escapes his lips before he can think to stifle it. Mikasa and Hana share a bedroom, if it can even be called that: she sleeps on a caving-in twin mattress propped up on splintering wooden pallets. It is made neatly, a dark quilt spread over it, but the bed's disrepair is evident even beneath the blanket. Sitting next to it is a stained and faded crib containing a frowning Hana. When she sees Levi, she whines wordlessly, thrusting her chubby little arms in the air.

"You wanna go up?" Levi asks tentatively, unsure what to do with this tiny person.

"Uh!" Hana repeats. "Uh!" Levi scowls, then walks over to the playpen and gathers the little girl in his arms. Hana wraps one arm around his neck and rests her head against his hard chest, placing the thumb of her free hand in her mouth. When Levi tries to deposit her on the floor in the living room, she whines and clutches at him, nearly strangling him with one little limb.

"Goddammit," he mutters. "I have work to do." Hana responds by sighing and settling against his chest, sucking away at her thumb. "Just, um, be cool and shut up." Thankfully, the baby obliges as Levi starts to work, watching him as he plots graphs and calculates projected profits. Hana simply lies there, thumb in mouth, watching the screen intently. Levi tries not to acknowledge the scent of her hair, the artificial sweetness of lingering baby shampoo doing more to irritate something in him. When Hana shifts and rests her back against the curve of his right arm, he does not do anything to move her. She is warm and heavy and somehow familiar against his chest.

When Mikasa calls for dinner, he is almost disappointed. Almost.

She cooks like she works: simply and effectively. The curry isn't much, Levi thinks, compared to the sumptuous dinners he's had on Smith money, trying to woo Nile (that prick), but it is warm and it is filling and it is surprisingly flavorful. When he clears his plate he puts down his fork, wincing a little as it clatters against the side of his plate, and takes another scoop of rice and two more of the curry. Perhaps he is being a bit too eager, but he cannot remember the last time he ate a home-cooked meal that hadn't been pre-portioned and packaged and delivered to his doorstep first.

As they eat, Mikasa asks Levi how his presentation is going and he tries to give her the sanitized version for Hana's sake; he only calls Nile a prick twice.

Mikasa chuckles. "He is a prick."

"When did you ever meet him?" Levi asks, his mouth full of half-chewed chicken and carrot.

"He called for you today when you were meeting with Erwin. He bitched at me when I said you'd have to get back to him tomorrow."

Levi lets out a little "Hm" sound, a single snicker, the closest thing Mikasa has heard to his laughter. "Sounds like Nile."

They don't say anything else for the rest of the meal, but this is enough for them. It is more conversation than either of them has had in a long time.

After they finish eating, Levi offers to wash the dishes in his own way: without speaking, he clears the table and brings the dirty dishes to the sink, then gets to work, a hot pink sponge gripped between his fingers. Mikasa wipes Hana's face and highchair, both liberally splattered with curry sauce, then puts her on the floor so she can crawl around or, as she has been doing more frequently as of late, grabbing the closest available surface to help her stand. While Hana scoots across the linoleum, chattering happily to herself (Mikasa thinks she hears a few "Dada"s, but tells herself Hana is just babbling), Mikasa busies herself with the leftovers, scraping them into a plastic container.

The presence of her boss next to her, scrubbing plates and forks in his shirtsleeves, should be strange, she thinks. This should be awkward. This should feel wrong. But it does not. Levi's shirt is too white, too crisp, blinding in the dim yellowed room, but he seems to fit here somehow, fit beside her as they work in tandem.

Mikasa swallows thickly, as if trying to make the thought disappear down her throat. He is just being polite, she tells herself. Nothing more. You are not so starved for compassion that you cannot recognize basic politeness in others.

But I am, she thinks.

When she finishes putting the food away, Levi looks over at her and sticks out one wet hand, his fingers coated in a rime of soap bubbles. "I'll take those." Mikasa smiles (partially in gratitude, partially at the sight of him doing something as mundane as her dishes) and nods her thanks without quite meeting his eyes.

Mikasa picks up Hana from the floor, then takes her to their room to put on her pajamas. When they come out, Levi is by the front door, putting on his coat.

"Were you going to slip out?" Mikasa asks with a smirk. Hana rests in her arms in pink footed pajamas, her eyes already half closed.

"I thought about it," he replies. "But no." She chuckles. "Thanks for dinner."

"You're welcome. Thanks for bringing back my keys."

Levi grunts his response, then opens the door. He pauses then, his hand on the knob, one foot on the threshold.

"Did you forget something?" Mikasa offers, one eyebrow cocked.

"Move out of here," he blurts, turning toward her.

Mikasa is taken off guard for a moment, her mouth opening and closing silently as she tries to come up with a reply, thrown by the pleading look in his eyes. After a few moments she says, "I'm trying. I can't afford it yet."

"I'll pay for it. I'll pay for whatever."

She shakes her head. "No. I can't pay you back."

"I'm not asking you to. Just don't live here anymore. Please. Not in this building, not in this neighborhood. Don't raise Hana here. You both deserve better."

Mikasa looks away from him. "No, please…"

"Look at me," Levi snaps. After a moment, she obeys him. "I insist."

He does not leave until Mikasa gives her assent, silently nodding with her mouth drawn into a thin line of resignation.

The next day, Levi emails her a list of links to apartment listings, all of which seem to charge an exorbitant amount of money for rent. The subject of the email reads: "Pick One."

For six weeks Mikasa's life is a haze of apartment listings, open houses, then packing her belongings into boxes once she secures a two-bedroom on the twelfth floor of a downtown high-rise. Levi offers her the services of a moving company, which she declines; she does not want anyone else to see her shabby little home, to move her few dilapidated pieces of fourth-hand furniture. Mikasa has decided to leave it all behind, the little pallet bed, the couch with the worn arms, the kitchen table held together with duct tape and hope. She wants to burn it all, but figures the next occupant of Apartment 104 will probably need it as much as she did.

Besides, she reminds herself, Levi has taken care of everything. When she went to visit the apartment after she got the keys from the rental company, she found that the entire place had been furnished: a plush sectional sofa in the living room, a crib and a small bed in Hana's room, and the nicest king-sized bed she has ever seen in her bedroom.

"Leviiiiiii," she whined, gritting her teeth in exasperation even as a frisson of excitement shot through her body, crescendoing to a wave, to giddy laughter spilling from her mouth, to her legs pumping as she ran towards the bed and flung herself on it, whooping as she flew through the air and landed softly on the pillowtop mattress.

Mikasa buys frames for her magazine cutouts, for the pictures of herself and Hana and Eren. She drives her little rickety car to Ikea and buys new silverware, a lamp for her bedside table, flower pots and Gerbera daisies for the small terrace just off the living room. On her twelfth night in the apartment, she fills up the enormous bathtub with steaming hot water and soaks until her fingers and toes become wrinkled. That night, as she drifts off, her muscles relaxed and supple from the long soak, she decides she will never again live in a home without a bathtub.

It all seems too rich for her blood, these little niceties. She starts feeling anxious, convinced she has made a huge mistake and spent all of her money; that she will be out on the street in weeks. After spending what seems like an exorbitant amount of money on odds and ends she didn't realize she needed — sponges, hand towels, a bath mat, a rare splurge on a pine-scented candle — she checks her bank balance on her phone as she sits in the parking lot of the store, Hana starting to fuss in the backseat. After factoring in the money she expected to spend on furniture, on a security deposit, on rent for the next six months (which Levi has also decided to pay), she realizes she has so much left over that she immediately drives to an electronics store and buys a massive flatscreen television for the living room and an iPad for Hana.

Still, the baby comes to work with her week in and week out, and even when Mikasa's head is down she can feel the laser focus of Levi's gaze upon her and Hana. Each day her dread grows heavier. Each day the click of her heels in the marble-tiled lobby of Smith and Company starts to sound more and more like gunshots. But the hammer does not drop. Mikasa keeps going to work, Hana keeps watch beside her desk, and Levi says nothing.

When she finally brings up the nerve to ask him whether he minds the baby's presence, Levi shrugs and emits a noncommittal grunt. But when Mikasa excuses herself to go to the bathroom later that day, asking him to keep an eye on her child for a few minutes, she comes back to find him kneeling on the floor next to Hana, stacking blocks so she can knock them down.

On the last Friday of each month, Levi likes to treat the entire department to lunch. But that is all he does: he has Mikasa decide what to order (within his parameters, although his only qualifier is that the food be "not shit"), phone it in, give the cashier his credit card number, and pick it up. It is not the most distasteful thing Levi has made her do during her tenure as his secretary; tech acquisition is Smith's smallest department, and Levi is too much of a health nut to burden Mikasa with boxes upon boxes of grease-dripping pizza.

But today is different, because Hana is here. For now her appearances are limited to Tuesdays and Thursdays, owing to the new day care's schedule (at least this is what she tells Levi), but there has been an outbreak of head lice amongst the children. Mikasa prefers to put this burden on Levi rather than keep her daughter in day care and spend her nights scrubbing Hana's scalp and checking for nits.

She keeps expecting this great reckoning, for Levi to blow up at her for having Hana around. But it never comes. She knows she saw him on the floor next to the baby, but it feels like a dream even though she saw it with her own two eyes. Still, she does not discount the possibility that she may have been hallucinating.

After Mikasa puts in the lunch order — the equivalent of a full-sized salad bar, the leftovers from which Levi will gruffly suggest she take home as though she is still scraping together meals of chicken curry and rice in her falling-apart kitchen — she wonders who is going to watch Hana when she is gone. She picks up Hana and goes over to the adjacent offices, but Mike's secretary is out on maternity leave and Hanji's entire department is at a conference. Sighing, she takes Hana back to Levi's office and starts the interminable task of getting her bundled up to go outside, made more difficult by the baby resisting her mother at every turn.

"Come on," Mikasa says through gritted teeth as Hana removes her right arm from the sleeve of her coat for the third time. The baby whines in response. Each successive attempt leads to louder noises from her, crescendoing to a shrieking wail that causes Levi to open his door and see what is going on.

"I'm sorry," Mikasa blurts out before her boss can say anything. "There's no one to watch Hana while I pick up lunch, but she doesn't want to go."

"Why didn't you ask me?" he replies immediately. He sounds a little firmer than usual.

She stops struggling with Hana for a moment; the baby takes that opportunity to wriggle out of her little coat and rip her hat from her head, revealing a staticky cloud of soft black hair. "You would watch Hana?" Mikasa asks in disbelief.

"Why not? I've watched her before," he says.

Mikasa frowns. She does not want to think about her former home or the fact that Levi was there, washing dishes in her sink. (Suddenly, she understands the appearance of a dishwasher in her apartment between the day she got her keys and the day she moved in. For some reason she assumed it was the landlord's handiwork.) "Are you sure?"

"I think I can handle a baby for twenty minutes without killing or maiming it."

"You think? Hana may be better off alone, then," she replies with a smirk.

"Funny," he says sarcastically, motioning for Mikasa to pass the baby to him.

She sighs and tries to remember if there's anyone else in the building, on the street, in the universe who will take Hana. "It's really no problem. I know you're busy."

Levi frowns, annoyed at Mikasa's hemming and hawing. "Look, she likes me and she'll most likely be unscathed by the time you get back. She's not screaming now."

Mikasa sighs. "You're right." Levi makes a little noise somewhere between a scoff and a grunt that seems to say, "I know," but she chooses to ignore it. She discards Hana's outerwear and hands the baby off to him. Hana grins and starts to play with Levi's tie, twisting it in her little hands.

"You don't mind that she's doing that?" Mikasa asks, her brow furrowing into a look of deep concern as Hana yanks on the tie. Levi, to his credit, simply loosens the knot at his throat and lets the baby pull on the long strip of silk.

"It's just a tie," he replies. Mikasa looks at him in disbelief — she has heard him muttering to himself hours after spilling tea on one of them — and leaves.

"All right, I've got work to do," Levi grumbles, settling down in his chair. He shifts Hana in his arms so she is sitting on his lap, then pulls the end of his tie from beneath his collar so she can mangle his neckwear without garotting him. She seems to take to that rather well, chewing on the narrow end of it for a few moments before scrunching the material in her hands.

He thinks it rather convenient that this is his least favorite tie. If it had been the solid green silk or the black with silver ribbon stripes, Hana would probably be whining in the backseat of Mikasa's car, forever banned from entering his office. He is not proud of his temper, has mostly controlled it, but the thought of a hundred-and-fifty-dollar tie meeting its demise at the hands of this grubby little thing is too much for him to bear.

Hana sits on his lap for a little while, babbling away as Levi composes an email, then spends a few minutes browsing online for a pair of shoes to go with a suit he has recently purchased. He tells himself it was the fine broguing on the shoes and not Hana's excited laugh that makes him take a closer look at a pair of brown captoe oxfords.

After a few minutes, Hana starts to get restless, fidgeting beneath Levi's grip. He tries to hold her still, drapes one arm over her to try to keep her seated, but she squirms out from under him and turns herself around, steadying herself against his chest so she can pull herself up, standing on his thighs and leaning her hands against his shoulders.

"Hi," Levi says tentatively.

"Hi!" Hana repeats.

"Can I help you?" he asks.

The baby giggles and says something incomprehensible, then reaches up and squeezes Levi's nose.

"Can you not?" His voice comes out muffled, nasal. Hana laughs in response. Before he can remember to compose himself, he's chuckling along with her as she pinches his nostrils. Her hands smell a little bit like the lotion Mikasa uses.

Not that he would notice that.

"Dada," the baby says, turning her attention to Levi's cheeks, pressing her hands into his skin.

"You talking to me?" Levi asks, raising one eyebrow at the child whose nose rests mere inches from his. "I'm Levi. Leeee-viiii."

"Dada!" Hana squeals. "Dada!"

He shushes her, holding her to his chest and rocking her back and forth. He is not sure if he is comforting her or himself. "Don't let Mommy hear."