They got up and began walking to the school. Their skin was pale, more so than usual. Their lips held a blue tint to them from the long cold night. Their feet had gone numb and the tips of their noses felt as if they had frozen. Their fingers were stiff along with their joints. Their clothes had dust and dirt, and TJ's shirt had dried blood. Their hair had tangles throughout with no brush to fix it.

They dragged their feet as they walked the exhaustion hadn't quite set in consciously, but their bodies were involuntarily slowing down. When they reached the school they realized they were really early since there were no cars in the parking lot yet. They sat down on the sidewalk and Alex started feeling dizzy from the lack of sleep.

TJ noticed she wasn't feeling well and told her to lay down. He let her lay her head down in his lap. He laid his backpack down under her so that she wasn't lying on the hard ground. He told her to close her eyes and try to sleep.

"I don't need to sleep, I'll be okay. It's just a headache." she insisted.

"You should still close your eyes," he told her. "It will help get rid of your headache," he said.

She nodded and closed her eyes and just what TJ hoped would happen happened, she fell asleep. He sat there keeping a lookout for any cars that looked familiar. He finally saw one and felt as relief washed over him.

"Why did we leave so early," Eren asked for the third time this morning.

"Because I want to try and activity with the class, but I have to get it ready ahead of time," he explained again rolling his eyes.

"But it's so early," Eren groaned before something caught his eye. "Hey isn't that TJ and Alex?" He asked as they pulled into the driveway. They pulled into the parking spot and got out and headed over to the kids. When Eren noticed the blood on TJ's shirt and the huge bandages on his face that looked like they had been stained red he started to run.

"Are you okay?" Eren asked running up to them.

TJ put his finger up to his mouth really quickly silencing Eren before whispering. "Sorry, Alex is sleeping," he said running his hand over her head, "can we whisper so we don't wake her. This is the first time she's slept in close to 24 hours."

Eren nodded and he crouched down next to them and Levi joined him doing the same. "What happened?" Levi asked quietly.

"My mom found out I was gay," TJ mumbled. "I kinda got kicked out, and then Alex refused to stay there so she lied and said she was gay and got kicked out as well," he explained.

"So your mom did this?" Levi asked pointing to his face. HIs tone sounded pissed and his face seemed to match it.

"She didn't mean too," TJ said looking down. 'Why am I still defending her?' he asked himself. "She was trying to cut my hair," he said biting his lip, "she missed and cut me," he whispered. "It doesn't matter I'm fine," he said changing the subject not wanting to think about how his mother hurt him or why he keeps defending her.

"It looks really bad," Eren said, "Are you sure you okay?" He asked looking at it he noticed that a lot of blood had seeped through the bandages.

"Yeah I'm fine," he said, but in truth, he felt a little light headed. He couldn't tell if it was from lack of sleep, blood loss, the stress, or a mixture of all of those. All he knew was that he felt dizzy.

"I'm going to call Hanji just to be sure," Levi said pulling out his phone and walking a few steps away to call her. After getting on the phone with her she had him ask him a few questions.

"How long since the cut was initially opened," he asked

"It was around eleven," he said.

"Almost seven and a half hours," he said back to Hanji.

"Is it still bleeding?" He asked.

TJ shrugged. "I don't know," he said.

Levi repeated it back to Hanji and she told him to leave it alone until she got there and that she was on her way before she hung up the phone to drive.

"You have been out all night alone," Eren asked.

"Yeah," TJ said nodding slightly.

"Why didn't you call us?" He asked.

"I was going to, but we both left our phones at the house," he sighed. "We only managed to grab our backpacks because they were by the door. We didn't even think to grab our jackets," he added.

"Shit," Eren said. That's when he noticed that their skin was really pale and their lips were a slightly blue. Eren took off his jacket not caring what the kids might see, it wasn't important right now. He handed his jacket to TJ and Levi followed his lead and took his off laying it over Alex. "We should get you inside and get you warmed up," Eren said before walking over to Levi.

"I'll grab Alex and carry her in," Eren told Levi, "you help TJ in, he looks like he will collapse at any moment," he said before walking back over to them.

Eren leaned down, "I'm gunna try and take her in without waking her," he told TJ and he nodded. When Eren picked up Alex TJ went to stand and Levi helped him up. He guided him through the doors.

They made it inside the class and Alex had woken up while Eren was carrying her and she felt a little embarrassed. "Sorry about that," she mumbled and Eren set her down and let her walk in.

They all got in the class and the kids took a seat at some of the chairs while Levi went to the car to grab something. Eren was looking through his desk for the first aid kit he kept in there knowing Hanji would need it. He also turned on the heater in the room just in case the jackets weren't enough.

Their teeth were chattering and they kept as much of themselves wrapped in the blanket as possible. Levi returned and he had a brush and some wipes to clean them up. He asked if they wanted to clean up now or later and Alex said now, but when she opened the jacket a little bit to reach for the brush she felt the cold air hit her arm and decided to wait for a little while.

"Do you want me to do it for you?" Levi suggested after seeing her try to reach for the brush.

She hesitated for a moment then nodded. Levi picked up the brush and gently started to brush her hair. He made sure that he wasn't tugging her hair too hard trying to get through the tangles and that he was doing it as gently as possible. Eren had asked TJ the same thing and had helped him with his hair. After they got the kids' hair fixed Hanji had arrived panting in the doorway from running at unimaginable speeds to get to the classroom from the parking lot.

She caught her breath and walked over to TJ sitting down in front of him and getting uncomfortably close to his face for his liking. "I'm going to remove the bandages now," she said before looking at him, "this will hurt," she said looking at the types of band-aids placed over his wound. She tried to pull it off as painless as possible, and even though TJ made no noise while she was removing it she could tell he was in immense pain. She finished pulling both of them off and saw that they had caused the wound to reopen.

"He's not going to need stitches is he?" Alex asked seeing all the dried blood caked on his face mixed with the new blood that had just started to drip again.

"No," Hanji said, "if I keep pressure on it it should stop the bleeding and then I can do what I need to make sure that it doesn't get infected," she said.

"Is it going to leave a scar?" Alex asked reluctantly knowing she probably wasn't going to like her answer.

"I'm afraid so," Hanji mumbled, "It's too deep, and I didn't get to it soon enough," she said and Alex nodded with a blank aimless stare.

"Alex," TJ said getting her attention. "I'll be okay," he said giving her a little smile even though by doing so he was in pain. Making any expression was sure to cause him pain and everyone could tell because of how he winced slightly. The cut was placed on his cheek so anytime he moved his mouth pain was sure to come.

Hanji helped patch up TJ's face by putting the appropriate bandaging on it so that if he were to remove it it wouldn't rip open his wound again. She had also disinfected it and cleaned it which that alone caused a great deal of pain since the cleanser was alcohol based. She wanted to stay and make sure that they were okay, but Levi and Eren wanted to talk to them alone.

"Do you guys have anywhere to go?' Levi asked.

They both shook their heads keeping their eyes on the ground.

"Well, I know this may be weird, but at this point, I think it's the best option right now," Eren started before looking at Levi and Levi nodded continuing on with what Eren was getting at.

"Why don't you guys stay with us?" Levi asked.

"We can't do that," TJ said, "we don't want to cause you guys any more trouble than we already have," he insisted.

"But you wouldn't be causing us any trouble," Levi said.

"Yeah, we would be happy to have you, we want to make sure you guys are safe," Eren said in agreement.

"But, but," TJ studdered at first. 'Was it really okay to live with them?' Alex looked up at TJ and TJ nodded. "Okay, but you can kick us out at any time, just please let us know the second you guys want us to leave," TJ said as a sort of condition.

"Okay," Levi said, "but I can pretty much guarantee that you won't be a burden, so you don't have to worry about that," he said. "I will warn you though there is only one extra room with one bed, but the bed is a king so-," Levi was starting to say, but Alex cut in.

"Honestly we will take anything," she said gratefully. "Thank you both so much," she said.

"Yes thank you," TJ said too.

"I'm going to call Erwin," Levi said pulling out his phone.

"Call Erwin about what?" Erwin had said from the doorway.

"Oh," Levi said putting away his phone, "there you are," he walked over to him and explained what had happened and Erwin understood. Levi then asked Erwin a question it was hard to hear, and all Eren heard Levi say was, "I know this is extremely short notice but," before his voice lowered to a whisper.

They talked for a little bit longer when Erwin went quiet. Erwin seemed to think a moment before nodding, "Okay, you have until Monday," before leaving without another word.

Levi walked back over with a smile. "Alright guys we're leaving," he announced.

"What about school?" Alex asked.

"I asked Erwin if we all could ditch today, you two need some rest and some care, and we are going to help you get settled into the house, but he insisted that you guys take the rest of the week off, and he said if you needed us to then we can stay home as well. We have until Monday, but honestly, if you guys need more time than that he will let you have as much time as you need," Levi said.

"Thank you," Alex said, "but I think Monday is enough time," she said with a little smile. "And yeah if you guys wouldn't mind we would love the company," she said.

Levi nodded. He walked up to the whiteboard before scribbling down a note for the students saying that he is absent because of an injury and that Eren had a family emergency to take care off and that they would have a sub until Monday. He left the sub some instructions on the board to follow while the sub is there. Erwin was calling up a sub right now, but until the sub arrived Erwin would be watching Levi's first class.

They headed out to the car and were about to get in it as a car pulled up.

Alex moved behind Levi glaring and TJ froze in his place with a blank emotionless stare. They both watched as the person got out of the car.