The first sensation was a hammer striking the inside of Hange Zoë’s skull, followed swiftly by the dry, desolate landscape of the Sahara desert inside her mouth. Her eyelids felt like lead weights, each blink a monumental effort. Slowly, through the haze of a truly epic hangover, she registered an unfamiliar ceiling. Not the scarred plaster of her own apartment, nor the sterile white of the Survey Corps infirmary. This was... soft.

Sunlight, filtered through delicate floral curtains, painted stripes across a wall adorned with framed pressed flowers and what looked like a watercolor of a particularly fluffy cat. The air smelled faintly of lavender and something else – vanilla, maybe? Definitely not the usual blend of stale coffee, old parchment, and whatever unidentifiable chemicals she’d been experimenting with yesterday.

She lay still, trying to piece together the fragments of the previous night. A party. Whose? Erwin’s, probably. Or Hanji’s own chaotic celebration of some new, bizarre theory. There had been... shots. Many, many shots. A terrible, wonderful idea at the time. Then, a blur of laughter, loud music, and a sudden, sharp dip into oblivion.

Her hand reached out, expecting the coarse weave of her own blanket. Instead, her fingers brushed against something impossibly soft and silky. She pulled her arm back, confused. She opened her eyes properly, forcing them to focus.

She was indeed in a bed. A very neat, very feminine bed. The sheets were a pale sage green, the duvet a plush cream. On the bedside table, instead of her usual pile of scientific journals and half-eaten snacks, sat a small, elegant lamp, a teacup with a delicate floral pattern, and a stack of books with titles about gardening and ancient folklore. A small, intricately carved wooden bird sat next to them and then she saw her,a girl laying next to her in the bed,sleeping peacefully. Wait she slept with this girl?

“Oh,” Hange mumbled, her voice a raspy whisper. “Oh dear.”