The Injury Conundrum

A Big Problem

 When Eren awoke again, he immediately noticed two things.

One, he was certainly not in the barracks, because holy fuck, his head was laying on one of the softest pillows he'd ever felt, the blanket draped across him actually felt warm, and, best of all, he hadn't awoken with a back aching like he'd suddenly become fifty years older.

Two, his head was pounding while his eyes felt crusty and sore, a feeling he hadn't felt since the refugee camps. It took him a second to piece together exactly why he felt as if he'd been crying for hours, and what could have happened to make him feel this way before the previous day's events came rushing back to him.

He shot up, eyes wide as he remembered how he'd broken down over something as stupid as throwing up on Armin's shoes, and while Eren knew exactly why he'd been so upset, it must have looked really fucking pathetic to Armin.

"Shit..." Eren moaned as he lowered his heads into his hands. He'd wanted to make them feel better, not worse!

And after Annie had covered for him so nicely too...

"Hey, sleeping beauty, you done yet?"

Speaking of Annie, she was sitting cross-legged where Armin had been last night, and while the area looked clean, Eren wasn't sure whether he should inform her that he had puked all over the area in front of her last night.

He decided against it, more for his own sanity than her's

"Uhm...yeah, I'm up." Eren responded, slowly lifting his head from his hands. "What are you doing here?"

Annie uncrossed her legs as she used the arms of the chair to pull her up to her feet. "Waiting for you to wake up. I thought that much was obvious."

Ok, rude.

"Yeah, I get that, but why you specifically? Where's Mikasa and Armin?"

"They've still got training for today, but you better thank your lucky stars that it was me."

"Why?" Eren asked. "No offense, but it's not like we're best friends or anything."

"None taken." She responded as she reached into the drawer of the nightstand next to her and pulled out a thermometer. "Mrs. Servott is out for today, so she told us that someone had to stay with you and take your temp every few hours."

Eren paled as he heard this. Holy shit, yeah, that could have been really bad.

"Yeah, I don't think you need me to tell you why that could've been bad."

"So you've just been, what, writing down fake temperatures?"

She gave an amused huff before shrugging and saying, "Basically."

"Huh."

The more Eren thought about it, the more it made sense. Due to their shared interest and abilities, anything that threatened to have Eren discovered would be a massive and unnecessary risk for her as well, considering the fact that she probably had many of the same weird features that he possessed.

That would make it extremely easy for anyone trying to find other shifters, so it was probably in her best interest to make sure that he stayed undiscovered.

Eren decided to file that information away for later.

"So are you going to tell me what was up with the little stunt you pulled at dinner yesterday?" Asked Annie, breaking the silence.

"Uh, I guess I was sick?" Eren offered.

"Nope, not a possibility."

"Well, uhhhhh...wait, does that mean we can't get sick?"