"I..." My throat felt dry. "I.."
"Jean!" Armin's voice cracked through my trance. "Is it working?"
"Is what working?" The Marco in front of me asked, turning its head towards where Armin was.
"...Yes..." I breathed, pressing my hand to my face as I tried to talk all of this in. "It's Marco.. Right here.. Right in front of me.."
"What?" Marco blinked. "What's going on?"
Armin smiled, looking at his readings on the screen. "This is unbelievable! I can't believe it's working!" For a moment, he sounded happier about it then I did.
"Marco.. There are... There are so many things that I want to tell you.." I exhaled, a smile cracking on my face. "I never got a chance to..."
"Is that what all the yelling is about?" Marco questioned, his eyebrows bent in confusion. "You can tell me anything you know."
I turned to Armin, who was watching me now with a bewildered look in his eyes. I could tell that he couldn't wait to use this himself.
There was a side of me that was ready to give up the seat and let the blond do his thing , but I was also feeling selfish. I wanted to talk to him, I had so much to tell him. Hell, I had years worth of conversation to have with this man, I couldn't just give it up without having said much of anything to him.
Armin's face changed into a warm smile. "I understand, don't worry." He murmured. "I'll be back every so often to check on you, alright?" I nodded, a sense of relief washing over me.
Once I heard Armin leave, my eyes locked on to the brown pair in front of me. He was the first one to break the gaze, taking his hand and rubbing the back of his neck with it. "What's with that look on your face, Jean? You're acting like this is the first time you've seen me or something."
"Oh," I blinked. "I just..." Would he believe me if I told him he had died? "It just feels like it's been forever..."
"Hah, what do you mean?" He laughed. "We saw each other the other day, remember? You almost got eaten by that titan."
"Marco..." His eyes met mine again. "Titans don't exist anymore..."
His eyes widened slightly. "What.. What do you mean...?"
"There's... So much I have to tell you." I realized, thinking about everything that had gone on in the time since Marco's death. "I... Don't even know where to start."
"Is this a joke..? I mean, if something as serious as titans not existing anymore happened, how on earth would I not know about that?" Marco heaved. "You're freaking me out, you don't look healthy at all either."
"Hey," I cut him off. "You gotta believe me, alright? I know it sounds...impossible, but you've got to believe me." He took in a breath and then nodded. "Alright.. First off.. You're not going to remember any of this because you've been-" Should I say it? Should I tell him he's been dead this whole time? "-Comatose." I blurted. Yeah, that fit better. I would believe that more then someone telling me I was dead.
"Coma...tose...?"
"Yeah... That day when we had to distract all of those titans.. When my gear stopped working, you got hurt pretty badly by a titan... You've been comatose ever since."
"...So...That's why..." Marco blinked, looking down in thought. "I..can't remember ever being hurt by a titan, it's all kind of a blur, but..I guess I have to believe you.."
"I'm.. Sorry Marco," I sighed. His face seemed pained for a moment.
"Ah,"He huffed. "At least I'm not dead, right?" Hearing him say that felt like a knife to the heart. "Anyway, what else did I miss out on?"
"Um..." I thought back on everything that had happened. "we found out a lot of stuff about the titans. It allowed us to take back all of our territory with in the walls, and little by little, we were able to take out the titants.
"Eren helped out out tremendously. If it weren't for him..." I moved passed the thought. "Ah, well after the recon corps had led missions to hunt the titans outside of the walls, they had taken out enough titans to let people actually live outside.
"A few years passed and the recons corps had claimed it safe enough to destroy the walls-
"-Destroy the walls!?" Marco exclaimed. "Why on earth would they do that? What if the titans came back?"
"Because..." I felt stumped for a moment. There was so much that he didn't know. "... It wasn't safe, I'll leave it at that. " Marco looked confused but I wasn't going to explain that to him ." Any way, that took quite a few years to accomplish, but once it was done, there was only one titan left..." I trailed off looking down.
"Was that... " Marco blinked. "...Eren?"
I closed my eyes and sighed. "He was executed on behalf of the human race. His death had brought a bout the victory of mankind in the war against the titans."
Marco looked down, twiddling his fingers. "Wow...I mean... It makes sense but... Eren..."
"It was his idea..." I mumbled. "Corporal Levi, Mikasa.. Armin, the whole scouting legion had fought to keep him alive... They wanted to use him as a defense mechanism in the case that titans came about again, but after Corporal Levi died... It was almost impossible to keep the case out of the court room." Marco' lower lip twitched, his eyes trailing downward as his mind took all of the information in. "Armin was doing a good job in keeping Eren, but after neither side could come to an agreement, Eren suggested an execution."
"That's.. incredible.." Marco breathed. "I mean, not that it had to happen, but willingly giving up your life like that... I can't believe that I missed-"
In the blink of an eye, Marco's image in front of me just vanished, the same way the image on a tv screen would. It took only two seconds for me to realize that I wasn't even talking to Marco. I was just talking to myself this entire time, and it left an empty feeling inside me just thinking about it.
Eren, Levi, and all of the other soldiers that I watched die in front of me. All of those deaths, and I just couldn't get over Marco's. Why was it so hard?
"Sorry Jean. " Armin's voice cut through my thoughts like a saw blade. "The machine's running low on energy, I'm going to refuel it, and work on making copies." He said as he began to pull the cords off of my head. "You'll be able to come back tomorrow to help me some more, right?" He offered.
"Yeah..." I mumbled. "I'll be back."
And that's exactly what I did.
For the next five months.
It only took Armin about a month or two to get the machines all up and running, and after word got out, people were offering millions to buy his technology. Not surprising at all, Armin didn't bite. Instead, he decided to open the business up himself, allowing a certain amount of people to come in after having a mental examination, and a few test gos.
It was amazing how many people were lining up to come see a vision of their loved ones. When I thought about it, I just got angry. Not one person was seeing exactly who they wanted. It was all just an image that their brain had recorded. It probably didn't even act like the real person would've.
Still.
I came back.
Day after day I came back. I was probably addicted to this , if it was possible. I couldn't stop. I knew it was stupid, and in a way, it was incredibly insulting to Marco for me doing this. I couldn't accept his death, so I was selfishly pretending that it never happened.
Oddly enough, the image of Marco I saw every time seemed to age just a little bit more each time I came to see him. His cheeks had lost the slight baby fat it had and his eyes seemed to have gotten thinner, while his posture itself was just older looking. Regardless, he was still Marco. It still made me unbelievably happy to see him and to talk to him.
"Jean, I never asked you this, but what did you do after for the past twenty years?"
"Hah?" I coughed, tilting my head to the side to his question. "What do you think I did? I was a part of the scouting legion, and just made my way up in the ranks, same as everyone else that didn't die."
There was a big grin that appeared on Marco's face after hearing that. "So.. you were leading people then right? You became a leader?"
"I..." I lost my breath for a moment as I thought about the squads I had been a part of, and all of the missions I had carried out as the captain. "Yeah... I did." Marco let out a laugh as he seemed to be extremely happy about that fact. "I did it for you, Marco." My voice was soft, my brain slightly disconnecting itself from this conversation. I looked up at the freckled man in front of me, my gaze locking onto his. This wasn't really Marco.. This was just what my brain wanted to hear from him. Its how I wanted to see him react.. Would he have been that proud of me? Or was I just fooling myself?
"Jean.." Marco breathed. ".. I can-" His voice cut off, snapping my attention onto his image. It was twitching, beginning to fade away, but then coming back in weird proportions.
"What...?" I breathed, turning towards the machine to my right. Sparks were flickering along the wires that were connected to me, the readings on the screen were completely frozen. I didn't even have enough time to pull on the wires and detach them from myself. I got maybe a total of three off before the rest of the sparks shot up them and burnt the small parts of my skin that were underneath. "Ah! Son of a bitch!" I yelped, looking for the power key. I pulled the wires out of the machine, and then gave up on looking for a power switch. I took the cord right out of the socket and let the machine die down. "What the hell was that...?" I mumbled.
"I don't know, it didn't look good. " My eyes widened as I turned around and saw a perplexed Marco standing next to me.
Marco.
Was standing right next to me.
Staring at the machine that fooled me into thinking he was still alive in some way.
"Jean, are you alright?" He blinked turning his gaze to me.
"I.." I shook my head. I was seeing things, right? This must just be an after effect. " You.. shouldn't... be there..." I mumbled to myself.
A/N:
Reviews are so much appreciated! I haven't written much in a while but please, Let me know if you'd like to give me constructive criticism!
