Broken Hearts, Severed Limbs (Levi x OC x Erwin)

|7| The Wonders of a Titan

"What should we start with?" Hange asked.

"Taking caution measures?" Moblit suggested.

Hange pointed at him. "No," She wasn't expecting anything less from Moblit. "We already got that covered," Moblit frowned and Hange turned at Nathalie who started suggesting.

"We see how they perform without sunlight. I need to make sure my theory's correct," Nathalie pushed her glasses further up her nose and Hange nodded.

"Let's get to work,"

Nathalie kept checking on the both through the entire day. Her theory was simple. Since the titans seemed to have less energy in the night, that could only mean one thing. They photosynthesised to produce glucose, or else, energy. Without the light of the sun, photosynthesising is impossible, and thus, having energy during the night was also impossible for the titans. But unlike the titans, plants have lots of space beneath their tissue where they store glucose. The titans had no such space inside their bodies and thus they were specifically weak during the night.

But what they said about titans not needing to eat humans sounded somewhat wrong. If they were indeed photosynthesising, then they needed more than just sunlight and water and carbon dioxide to do that. Plants have roots that draw whatever minerals they need. Titans didn't have any roots, so they obtained such elements by eating humans.

But no one -apart from Nathalie and Hange- really cared about why titans eat humans. The people just liked to blame it on the titans' appetite, but it looked more like an obsession. At least, it felt like it. Nathalie smiled up at Sawney who was half asleep and thus proving her theories. She scribbled her last assumptions on her notebook and she left it beside her lantern with her pen trapped on the inside before she took off her glasses and rubbed her aching eyes. She was sure a headache was about to take over, and she was exhausted, but she couldn't go to sleep just yet. She had to stay and see.

Hange had let Nathalie keep an eye at Sawney for the night whilst she stayed in Beane's tent and saw something way more interesting. Beane seemed more energetic even after all those hours that it had stayed away from the sun.

"My, my, someone's certainly the night-owl, huh?" Hange checked on her pocket watch once more and she chuckled. The earliest hours of the morning had finally kicked in. "You're going to wear me out. Oh well, this wouldn't be my first time to spend a night like this in the name of science,"

"Tsk,"

Hange knew of only one person who made that sound. She immediately turned around and stood on her feet. "Levi?!"

"What are you doing? Waiting to be its bedtime snack?" Levi said with that same look of indifference on his face.

"Aw, Beane would never eat me, isn't that right, darling?" Hange laughed as she stood up and turned at Levi.

"Where's, Nat. I'm here to pick her up," Levi said, and even though he still had that same look on his face, Hange chuckled.

"Oh! Right, follow me,"

Hange walked out of the tent with Levi following from behind. It wasn't rare having Levi there after all those nights and days and hours that Nathalie and Hange had spent working together on their research. Levi would always pass by when it happened to be late enough in the night to take Nathalie back to the Special Ops Headquarters. A building that wasn't much far away, and there were no dangers in the streets that Nathalie couldn't fight off, but Levi insisted on coming to pick her up no matter how many times Nathalie let him know that it wasn't necessary.

"Ah, both Nathalie and Sawney sleeping, this is honestly so cute," Hange teased as they entered the other tent where both Nathalie and Sawney had fallen asleep. Levi sighed realising he'd have to wake her. "Right, I'll leave her up to you," Hange said patting a hand on Levi's shoulder before exiting the tent. "Goodnight, Captain Levi,"