Marco had a pleasant dream.
He couldn't quite recall what it was about, but Jean was there. They were somewhere else, a place he'd never seen before, and even though he couldn't remember anything about what it looked like, it felt like a very happy, carefree place. Marco was still himself, even if he dressed a little differently, and Jean was still himself, although something about him seemed somewhat different, too.
Marco's chest was filled with anxiety but it floated away when Jean looked at him and held out his hand. When his palm met Jean's, when his fingers closed around his hand, he felt himself being pulled forward, as if he were being lifted from the dream.
The more he tried the recall it, the farther away it became and the closer it brought him to waking. His fingers began to slip from Jean's grasp and, with it, he lost his grip on that peaceful feeling. Instinctively, he reached out.
"Oh, you're awake."
It wasn't Jean's voice. It was a young woman; a nurse.
He tried to reach out again.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," she said softly, then mercifully continued. "The doctor did his best to treat your wounds. The titan that caught you grazed the right side of your chest and face. The bandages on your chest will need to be replaced frequently due to the size of the wound, but the bleeding isn't heavy enough to be life-threatening. You will likely have a bit of facial scarring, but luckily, your right eye received no significant damage."
He didn't want to look down.
"Your right arm was missing when you arrived, so there was nothing we could do."
It was no wonder he couldn't reach him... Even in his dreams, a part of him understood why it was impossible. It felt like it was still there, but even while he was asleep, he was acutely aware of what was missing.
The nurse bowed her head politely when he didn't respond and continued about her business in the room, picking up some things from a nearby table, pulling a cart along behind her. There were white curtains on either side of him and he could hear the agonized moans of another patient behind the curtain to his left. He couldn't help wondering what happened to them but tried not to think about it, telling himself that it was enough that they were alive, whoever they were.
Those thoughts led to other, more grave thoughts.
What happened to the rest of his squad? Were they safe?
He reached up to shield his face as a sob made it past his lips, but it only became louder when he was only able to lift one hand. The nurse must not have been as composed as she tried to act because all of the noise he was suddenly making made her stop and nervously cast her eyes to the floor. She was surprised just to see him awake and the first thing he did was cry. He didn't even know what his first words should be, was so overcome by the revelations that consciousness brought that he couldn't find words to ask the things he wanted to know most.
Even though it made her visibly uncomfortable to stay while he cried, she did. He was grateful for that.
By the time his sobs had subsided, so had her formalities. She came over to the left side of the bed where he could see her clearly from his unbandaged eye. "There was someone here for you earlier," she said. "I believe it was the same man who brought you here. Although, he looked about your age, so... Maybe I should say 'boy'?"
Marco's eyes grew wide and his teeth clenched when it made his right eye sting. "Wha... What did..." It hurt to speak, but he forced himself to do it. "What did he look like?"
Her expression became soft as she folded her hands in front of herself. "That's an easy one to answer. He had an odd look that I wouldn't easily forget. He had a really unusual hairstyle – the top was blond, but the bottom was brown. Don't see that very often."
Jean.
There was no one else who could fit that description. Jean was alright.
During that moment when it felt like the walls were going to come crumbling down around him, weakening him, about to destroy his foundation, the knowledge that Jean was alright kept him grounded. It was almost too much, knowing that Jean had even returned to see him when he was in such a miserable condition. The nurse held a steadying hand against his shoulder as he was overcome by a fresh wave of tears, and assured him of what a good friend he had watching out for him.
Knowing Jean, he wouldn't have wanted him to know that he was there. Marco still wasn't sure how long he had been unconscious, but the nurse informed him that Jean had stayed by his side for a long time and talked to him quietly, even if he knew that he might not hear the things he had to say.
Marco wanted to know what it was he talked about while he was asleep, but she looked aside with a curious quirk of her lips and chose not to answer. Apparently it was something interesting, but not something that she felt at the liberty of repeating herself.
He wanted to see him. He wanted to talk with Jean and find out what he said so he could distract himself from everything else.
The nurse removed her hand from his shoulder and told him that she had to go check on some other patients and asked if there was anything he might need before she left. He couldn't think of anything that wasn't an unreasonable, unrealistic request, so he let her go.
After she left, he closed his eyes and brought his left hand to his chest to blindly check the damage for himself, moving his fingers slowly and shakily over the bandages, pressing here and there to see what hurt the most. As she said, it felt like his whole side had been gouged by the titan's teeth, but it must have missed anything vital if it wasn't a threat to his life. The doctor had been liberal with the anesthetic because he was sure he would've been feeling a horrific amount of pain from such a large wound without an equally large dose of something to numb his senses.
The titan had approached him so quickly, like it came right from nowhere. He noticed it only a second too late and that was when...
That was when Jean grabbed his hand.
Jean was the one who pulled him away. If he'd come any later, there was no doubt that he would have suffered a much worse fate. He couldn't remember much about what happened, but he remembered the warmth of Jean's hand in his own, remembered the way his heart stopped when he saw the look of devastation on Jean's face. Everything else that came after that was missing, blank pages in his memory written by the backs of his eyelids.
The more he tried to recall what happened, the harder it was to separate himself from the memory of the titan's jaws descending upon him. He closed his fingers tightly around his right shoulder, making the pain bleed bright enough through the anesthetics to distract himself.
Doing so forced him back into the deep end of the unconscious.
He spent a long time there, curled up in a place where he had both of his arms and was completely uninjured. Even if he was aware that it wasn't real, the comfort he felt there was.
"I'm sorry,"he heard a voice say from far away.
"For what?" he wanted to ask. "I'm okay like this. Just don't let go of my hand."
His lips formed a frown on their own, forced upon him by the persistence of consciousness. Realizing that he was awake once again, he debated whether he should open his eyes. First, he tested his left hand, squeezing lightly to find that the hand he held was indeed real beneath his touch.
"I'm sorry..."
"For what?" he asked, opening his left eye to look up at him.
Jean looked surprised to see him awake. Hastily, he rubbed the evidence of tears off his face and kept his other hand around Marco's. He looked down for a moment, then brought his eyes back up to Marco's face, looking at him firmly, even if there was a slight quiver in his lips. "I'm sorry I- I couldn't get there faster."
That? That was what he was sorry for?
Did he even realize what might've happened if he hadn't been there at all?
Marco squeezed his hand and shook his head weakly, feeling tears sliding down the side of his face. "You did more than enough."
Jean gripped his hand so tightly that Marco could feel his nails digging into the back of his hand. He put his other hand over it and slowly tried to relax his hold as he took a deep breath to calm himself. "But now... Now you won't be able to return to the squad like this. You realize that, don't you?"
"You'll just have to do my half of the work," Marco replied, trying to smile.
Jean balked at his sense of humor but let out a laugh after his momentary pause. "Man, maybe you can come back to the squad after all if you're already feeling well enough to joke like that."
"If I don't joke around, I'm afraid I'm going to start crying." Then he remembered that he was already crying, even if his tears were coming out on their own. "Crying harder," he corrected, finding it easier to laugh despite everything else.
"Marco... I'm sorry. Really. I know how badly you wanted to join the military police..."
Just like the nurse said, he was fortunate to have someone like Jean watching out for him. He was often hot-tempered and arrogant and insensitive but he was also the bravest and most honest person Marco had ever known. He knew that Jean was right, that he wouldn't be able to return to the squad, that he would probably never join the military police now, but those were the farthest worries from his mind.
At the moment, he was just grateful to be alive and that his friend was there by his side.
"I'm okay like this," he said, squeezing his hand. "Just don't let go of my hand."
"Marco..." His name came softly from his lips. Jean lifted his chin and tilted his head back and took a loud breath, like he was trying to force his tears back. When he looked back down at Marco, his eyes were still ringed with red, but it looked like he had a much stronger grip on his composure. "Okay," he said, his voice steady and firm. "I'll sit here and hold your hand for as long as I can; until the doctors force me to get the hell out. I'm going to keep holding on, I promise. No matter where I go from now on, I'll always come back for you."
He already told him that he'd done enough. To hear him say something like that went beyond his hopes.
More tears spilled down Marco cheeks, because he knew that even if his future looked more frightening and uncertain than ever, he knew that he could believe in a promise made by Jean.