One: Faith
Maybe Jean should've wiped his faith in humanity on the back of Connie's shirt. Maybe he should've given up and joined the Military Police- he would be proud, he would be safe. But when he remembers the way Marco gave him faith, the way Marco had always given it to him up until the moment he died, Jean knows he made the right choice. He wasn't wrong, and he will never be. He does have faith. In Marco.
Always.
Two: Follower
Jean isn't a follower. He doesn't give his trust to others. He doesn't ever go somewhere because someone else was. He thought maybe if kept saying the Survey Corps was stupid, was a joke, then maybe he'd believe it. Maybe Marco would believe it. It didn't matter though. Jean knew, ever since the moment Marco grinned at him and said he was going to those Scout Regiment bastards, that he probably wasn't going to end up in the Military Police anyway. He was going to the Survey Corps, going to die with a bunch of reckless idiots. He didn't mind though. He knew he didn't. Maybe Jean could be a follower this time.
To follow Marco.
Three: Home
Mikasa didn't mind all this moving around. She didn't mourn for Shinganshina like Eren mourned, or break like Armin when she watched her home crush beneath the feet of a titan. She didn't stay up every night in training like Sasha because the surroundings were unfamiliar. She was always home, always where she belonged, when she was with Eren. And home was the only place she ever needed.
Four: Waiting
Ymir didn't care, really. She didn't care if she had to fight a thousand titans by herself, didn't care if she had every limb ripped out of its socket, didn't care if every drop of her blood had come gushing out from her skin. To have Christa- no, Historia- hold her like that and tell Ymir her name was worth anything she could have done. And even if Historia didn't love her back, even if Ymir never knew her true name, even if she had to live a life time without seeing those beautiful eyes ever again, Ymir would have waited. She would always wait for Christa.
She would wait a thousand lifetimes.
Five: Bad Person
Bertholdt was a bad person.
He was a bad person for many different reasons.
Bertholdt was a bad person because he loved Annie, who was also a bad person. Annie and Bertholdt were bad people because they killed lots of good people. But Annie was a good person to Bertholdt and Bertholdt was a good person to Annie and so when their lips were close together and they whispered to the other in the starkness of the night, Bertholdt felt better about everything. He could live with being a bad person, as long as he had Annie.
But then she chose the Military Police. And then they caught her.
And everything went to pieces.
Six: Believe
Believe in yourself, or believe in the survey corps and me. I don't know... I never have. I can believe in my own abilities, or the choices of the companions I trust. But no one ever knows how it will turn out.
When Levi told Eren that he didn't know if he made the right choices, he was lying. He know Petra was the right choice. When he looked at those strawberry blonde strands aglow with sunlight, those warm brown eyes, that brightening smile, he knew what he believed in.
Even when he flew into the forest and saw the blood of his comrades on the grass, even when he saw the trickle of red staining her cheeks and the dull glass of her eyes, he knew he still believed.
So when he cleans the blood from his glinting blades or slashes through flesh and smoke and blood or counts the casualties of his soilders, he knows he still, and always will believe.
He will believe in his choice.
His choice to love.
Seven: Weak
She wanted to be treated like a human too. She was weak, she got swept up with the flow, without Bertholdt. She was a coward and a sinner and just so, so weak.
She couldn't help it. All she wanted was to be safe. She wanted to be accepted, but she couldn't contain herself. She let herself win over.
Annie hated being weak.
Eight: Fall and Fly
Its a long way to fall, Jean first thinks when he looks over the side of Wall Rose in with a cadet seal on his chest and military blades in his hands. He thinks that maybe he will never have to think about falling again, after he has joined the military police in three years. He will be soaring in riches and pride.
But Jean soon discovers that he feels that he only truly soars in his 3dMG, the wild tattoo of his heartbeat, with the wind whipping in his hair and the pounding drumming of thrill rushing in his ears. When he flies, he feels alive.
And he soars in battle. He never knew this, and it makes a part of him sick, to think that he is like Jaegar in his bloodlust and heart. He realizes that he cannot soar forever.
A gust of wind hits him as he flies, reality harsh and cold and making him realize how different he has become. When he braves the cold and looks down, he sees what is left of his best friend, his Marco. He does not see the smile curve Marcos lips, or see the fire in his eyes. Instead, there is death and blood. He stops soaring.
He falls.
He falls that long way and when he hits the bottom he breaks and shatters into hopeless, helpless fragments.
But then small words come back to him, Marco's words, and he finds himself wanting to fly again as those words find the shattered pieces and meld them back together. And Jean finds himself standing up and pledging for Marco. He pledges to the Wings of Freedom, that pick him up and help him soar again.
Only this time, he cannot fall because he does not soar alone. He soars with the seal on his chest and a blade in his hand. He soars, truly soars, with his best friend in his heart.
He will not fall again.
Nine: Fight
If you can't fight, you can't win!
Eren still believes that. He believes it just as much as when he met Mikasa, when he manuevers through the air in his gear, when he wears his Survey Corps uniform. He believes it when he picks himself up from the shingled roof in Trost, and jumps inside the titans mouth to save Armin. He believes it when he inches himself into the shaft peircing his chest and wills himself to change.
Fight... Fight... Fight...
So when Mikasa turns to him and says that he has to fight Annie, he knows he will, because he has to win this one. If not for himself, then for all of his comrades. Fight...Fight...Fight...
Win.
Ten: Comrades
Levi couldn't have friends.
He had learned this from his days on the streets with all the gangs and thieves and bums. He had learned this when he saw the way soilders lost their lives so easily outside the walls; a slight turn, the wrong angle, the smallest hesitation. He saw their friends grieving for them after wards, saw the pain in that grief, and promised himself to never become like that. He would never give himself to personal bonds, to friendship, to that weakness that just destroyed you once death has broken it, like it breaks everything.
But then Erwin assigns him a squad, and for the first time Levi can feel a familiarity, an affection even, for these soilders who so passionately commit themselves to him and humanity. He sees the heroes in them that they cannot see themselves, and sees the the dedication and love that they hold in their hearts. He finds himself friends in these soilders, he finds himself love in that girl with the strawberry blonde hair and big soft eyes.
Even that cold dread that he felt when he stepped into the forest clearing where his squad lay could not break the bonds of that friendship. It was only when their bodies were tossed out as Titan bait and he saw that burst of caramel hair that he realized that he shouldn't ever have even believed in friends, that he really did make the wrong choices, that death had taken his friends and placed them in an unreachable place. He didn't have friends anymore. And he didn't want friends anymore, he didn't want anymore loss.
He doesn't have time though, to grieve because he always had to be a soldier first, and a friend second. Humanity's strongest could not be weak again.
And he nearly refuses the idea of a new squad. His friends were not replaceable, were not simply pieces in the board that could be switched with young soilders from the 104th Trainees. It will not be the same, and he does not want it to be the same since it will be too much for him. But for Erwin, and Levi's devotion to him, agrees to have this new squad.
This squad doesn't laugh like Petra and the rest of them, this squad doesn't have the same quirky spark behind their eyes when they talk. Levi knows that these kids will never be like his friends, but he doesn't expect them to be either. He has excepted that he does not have friends, not anymore. This squad, the second squad Levi, are not friends, but something else.
They are his comrades, and that is good enough for him.