"What's going to happen to Marco?" Eren asks the next morning as he shoves his clothes into his suitcase. His eyes are swollen from crying so much. He can't even see straight.
"His parents must have been called," Armin says sadly. "He won't do jail time for that—just probation, I guess." He bites his lip and clenches his fist. "It's so unfair."
"He wouldn't do that," Eren insists. "I know he wouldn't. Drugs, kidnapping—none of it. He's like Jesus, but if Jesus had freckles."
Armin nods, staring out their window, lost in his thoughts.
Everyone's silent as they traipse onto the bus for the flight home. Jean slumps in the seat across from Eren and Mikasa.
"How are you doing?" Armin asks Jean sympathetically, from across the aisle. Annie leans her head against the window.
"They've confiscated his phone, so I can't even text him," Jean mutters, shaking his device as if that'll somehow magically make a text from Marco appear. "He's innocent. Someone set him up."
"They must have," Mikasa agrees, rubbing her throat as if it's still killing her. "But who?" Her voice sounds hoarse.
Armin frowns.
"If I find them, I'll send my fist through their face," Eren vows. What kind of asshole would do something so horrible to Marco?
"I'll help you," Jean mutters. "I can't believe I'm saying that, but I will." He slumps lower in his seat. "I can't believe this. They're going to expel him, aren't they?"
"Yeah," Mikasa says, studying her shoes.
Eren doesn't want to imagine Wall Academy without Marco's encouragements or his chirpy attitude in the morning. As annoying as Eren's always pretended he found it, he'll miss it.
"He'll probably have to repeat a grade," Armin whispers. "Unless his parents homeschool him. And no academy is going to want a student who was kicked out for possessing a hard drug."
"Not helping, Armin," Jean snaps, covering his eyes with his arm. He sniffles, as if he's crying, and dammit, Eren actually feels for Jean too. Losing someone you care about—even if they're still alive—it sucks. Especially when it's not fair.
"I've been such an idiot," Jean mutters, leaning forward.
"How so?" Eren asks.
Jean snorts. "You should be the one saying 'yeah, I know,' Jaeger. I've been an arrogant, selfish ass."
Don't know if I can disagree. Although Eren remembers how it feels to be kicked when you're already down, the bruises it leaves that never quite heal. "What happened wasn't because of you. Unless you planted the drugs, which we know you didn't."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Jean still shudders. "I feel like I—failed somehow. Like I should have see that someone snuck something into his suitcase—"
"Do you have any idea who?" Eren demands. He will find this person.
"No. Literally everyone from our class has been in and out of our room, plus chaperones, plus staff." Jean scowls.
The implication hits Eren. No. It wasn't someone from our class. They're his friends—and even the ones he doesn't know as well, like Samuel or Thomas Wagner—they're nice. They would never do this.
But Mikasa's eyes narrow as if she agrees. Stop it! he wants to shout at her. Not everyone's hiding an evil side!
Aren't they?
Eren bites his lip. Blood fills his mouth. Shit. He has to stop doing that.
Don't you deserve it? You couldn't save your father. You couldn't free your mother—she's still lingering. And you can't help your friends.
The bus hits a pothole, jostling them, but the thoughts leave burns in Eren's mind.
"I should have been smarter," Jean says again.
"M-Marco wouldn't hold that against you," Eren stammers. "He wouldn't want you thinking in that way—"
"It doesn't matter." Jean punches the seat. A sob rips from his mouth. "He's a far better person than I am. It should have happened to me instead."
That, I can't disagree with. But Eren says nothing.
"I think I'm in love with him," Jean mumbles.
"What?" Eren's jaw drops.
Mikasa scowls at Eren. Was that not the right response?
"And now I feel like it's too late—and I can't stand it." Jean covers his face again.
"He'll get his phone back eventually," Mikasa manages. "You should text him then."
"Wait what?" Eren asks again as a light rain begins to fall. "Does—"
"Eren, everyone knows that Marco is gay, except you." Jean snorts. Armin shrugs as if to agree.
"I didn't mean that," Eren retorts, heart pounding. "I meant—you're actually trusting me with this? You're telling me?"
"Of course you're making this all about you," Jean snaps. "Unless you're warning me—"
"No, that's not it at all!" Eren cries out. He leans forward, stretching out his hand. "I'm going to prove that Marco's innocent."
Jean scoffs.
"For real," Eren insists. "I'm not letting them get away with it. Kidnappers be damned." His life has been a series of unhappy endings. If he can secure one for someone else—even Jean—he will.
"I thought you liked Mikasa," Armin puts in.
Jean swallows, running his hand through his hand. "I did, and no offense, Mikasa—"
She rolls her eyes as if to say none taken.
"—but like… I just—Marco—I never felt that way for anyone, not a guy, not a girl. Maybe I'm bi. Maybe it doesn't matter. But I do like him as more than just a friend and I want him to know that, but not over the phone like a piece of shit deadbeat." Jean meets Armin's eyes. "How did you tell Annie that you liked her?"
"I told him," Annie says listlessly.
"In person," Armin confirms.
"Jean, Marco wouldn't reject you," Eren says. "No matter what."
"In fact, he'll probably be thrilled," Mikasa comments.
"Guys," hisses Christa, appearing behind them. "Look." She points ahead of them, and Eren peers ahead to see Hange asleep on Levi's head.
The plane ride home feels agonizingly long, and the cold weather slaps them as soon as they disembark. Erwin does about seven head counts before they board another bus to Wall Academy.
"You're not going back to your dorm," Hange tells Mikasa.
"Why not?" Mikasa yelps, pulling out her scarf and wrapping it around her face. The scarf Eren gave her, the one his mom gave him.
Hange's hand lands on Mikasa's forehead. "You need to go to the nurse's clinic. You're burning up, sweetheart."
Mikasa's face falls. Eren's heart leaps. "Can I go with her? I won't stay long—but—"
"You can stay until normal quiet hours, at which point you better be back in your dorm," Hange allows. "And, Eren, we'll have extra security at the academy. Don't worry."
I'm more worried about proving Marco's innocence, Eren thinks, surveying the dejected faces of his classmates. One of you. One of you.
Can he put aside his feelings for them? Would he even want to?
And shouldn't you be more concerned about the fact that whoever killed your family might be after you?
Eren watches Levi drag a suitcase. Let them come, he thinks, curling his fist. I'll take them down, too.
Hange walks them to the clinic, the sky indigo and streaked with orange. Gray snow lies crumpled on the ground, melting and seeping between the cobblestone cracks.
Eren waits while the nurse takes Mikasa's temperature and feels her tonsils. "Sore throat?"
"Uh-huh," Mikasa gargles from behind a thermometer.
"We'll do a blood test."
Mikasa cringes.
"Do I need to hold your hand?" Eren jokes.
The nurse pulls the thermometer out of her mouth and Mikasa tugs her scarf over her face. She nods.
"You'll be spending the night here, not in the dorm," the nurse tells her. Mikasa's eyes fill with tears.
"Hey, Mikasa, you get an extra-long vacation," Eren says, trying to cheer her up as the nurse leads them to a room lined with beds with rainbow covers. "Don't be sad. Any of us would want to sleep in or—"
"I don't like doing nothing," Mikasa snaps as she lowers herself down.
"You're not. You're sick and your body's trying to get better."
"Yeah, but—" Mikasa's voice catches. "I did nothing when those men came to kill my parents. I froze. I promised I'd never do nothing again, that I'd always keep going—"
"Mikasa!" Eren grabs her in a hug, her head warm, too warm, against his. He never meant to imply that when he told Mikasa to fight. "You need to rest, too, okay?" he says into her hair. It smells like vanilla. "You're too—too hard on yourself. I'd give anything to be half as action-oriented as you."
She shakes her head.
I'd give anything to be as brave as you, Eren thinks. Losing her parents—twice. And still—still she hasn't given up on anyone, on the world, on having a family, loving people. He can't quite force the words out, so he holds her close. So what if I get sick? She's worth it.
The nurse arrives back to tell Eren it's time for him to leave. "Text me," he tells Mikasa. "I'll send you funny gifs."
She nods, yawning. "Thanks."
He's barely back at his dorm before Mikasa texts him. I have mono.
"How is Mikasa?" Armin demands the moment he steps inside.
"Sick. She has mono," Eren repeats, texting back. Get some sleep!
"Poor Mikasa," says Bertolt with a frown. "Mono's no fun."
"Sasha will smuggle her ice cream," Connie promises, grabbing his phone to text his girlfriend.
"Don't you get that from kissing?" asks Reiner, tossing a baseball up and catching it.
"You can also get it from sharing food and drinks. It's spread through saliva," Armin reports.
Connie laughs. "Besides, we know she wasn't kissing anyone. There's only one person Mikasa wants to kiss and he's oblivious." He glares pointedly at Eren.
Eren flushes. Mikasa wants to kiss me? He pictures her in his mind, her small mouth and her sweet smile. "Really?" he hisses to Armin.
Armin looks at him like he's an idiot.
I'm a fool. He wants to kiss her, too. But—she deserves better.
"How are you feeling, brat?"
Mikasa cracks her eyes open, light burning them. Her throat feels like someone dumped scalding water down it, and her head pounds. "I'm—okay," she croaks out as she sits up.
Levi raises his eyebrows. "You don't look it." He gestures to the math sheets he's left on the foot of her bed. "I'll give you an extension. Get to those when you're feeling better."
Mikasa rubs her eyes. "I thought you didn't give extensions."
"I'm making an exception."
"Did they catch whoever tried to kidnap Eren?" Mikasa fumbles for her water glass.
Levi shakes his head. "Not yet."
Water scratches her tonsils. Mikasa cringes.
"Drink up, or you'll end up in the hospital, and Jaeger won't be able to visit you," Levi warns.
She glares at him. "Why do you care whether or not I wind up in the hospital?" Her face feels like it's burning. She'd rather dump the water over her head.
"You haven't wondered about the fact that we have the same last name?" Levi asks, cocking his head.
Mikasa sets the cup down. Thoughts whirl—is he really—how—why—and she leans forward. "Are you saying we're related?"
Levi shrugs. "Distantly."
"Distantly," Mikasa repeats.
Your family's dead. She remembers her father's laughter, his smile as he read to her every night, but she can never remember it before another image, the one with blood streaming down his chest, eclipses it. Her mother—the axe—
I still have family beside the Jaegers? "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she rasps.
Levi flinches. "Like I said. We're… second cousins, third cousins, maybe add a removed in there somewhere—I don't know how that sh-stuff works."
"Do you have—are there more relatives out there?" Mikasa demands.
Levi's gaze softens. He shakes his head. "Just me."
"Oh." Mikasa leans back. No wonder no one ever came. Not that she wanted them to. With Eren and Carla and Grisha, she had a family.
"My mother died when I was young. I was raised by my uncle… until things happened. He's gone now, too." Levi's eyes take on a faraway look.
She can't help it. So what if she's rude? She's curious. "Where did you go then?"
Levi clears his throat. "I was more like your bratty friend. I ran away and lived on the streets, and that's not a topic I'm going to discuss further with you."
That's why you're so protective of Eren… well, that, and whatever you're assigned to protect him from. "Are orphaned kids an Ackerman trait?" Mikasa asks.
Levi smirks. "Hannes seems like he's good to you, even if he's kind of an airhead, right? And the Jaegers were—"
"Wonderful," Mikasa cuts in. Tears fill her eyes. Carla… still alive? She has to be, or Eren would tell her.
"Sorry," Levi says with a grimace. "Drink." He gestures to the water glass.
Mikasa scowls, but she obeys. It feels like needles stabbing her throat as it goes down.
"Do you need ibuprofen?" Levi asks.
Mikasa nods.
He darts out of the room and comes back with two round orange pills. "Here."
Mikasa gulps the pills. Please work. "Eren—you're protecting him, aren't you? Because you're not really a teacher."
"Yes, I am a teacher, and I have been for years, thank you," Levi snaps. "Erwin recruited me from—a bad place I was in."
"But you're protecting Eren."
"And you know that how?" Levi rolls his eyes. "Never mind. I shouldn't be surprised."
His dismissive attitude rankles her. "But you are."
"Give it a rest, Ackerman."
"I want to make sure Eren will be safe," Mikasa shoots back. "He's the—he's my family, he's my friend, he saved me from those men who killed my parents, he told me I deserved to live, he's all I've had for so, so long. Him and Armin." Tears well in her eyes.
"Eren will be safe. I promise you that," Levi vows. "Look, I will tell you that I have some… experience… with protection and law enforcement and that stuff. I did that for awhile before returning to teach with Erwin. But never repeat that."
Mikasa nods. For some reason, she believes him, and it rifles her beliefs on what should be—she shouldn't trust easily, she should be wary of this relative who didn't even bother to tell her they were related. "Is Erwin okay? With the abduction attempt—is the board—"
Levi stiffens. "That, I won't be discussing. And it seems like you're feeling better, which means you can do trigonometry homework. And I need to wash my hands." He nods at her.
I'll take that as a no. Erwin isn't okay.
Annie steps out of the shower and changes into her clothes. She met Armin in his dorm room earlier. I shouldn't be doing this. Poor Armin. He deserves so much better than her.
She can't change what happened with Marco. None of them can. But when she's with Armin, when he looks at her and she can see he believes she's a good person, she can almost believe it herself. And she needs that elixir to keep going. He's keeping her alive.
She steps out of her room, hair wet. The cold strikes her. She sucks in her breath.
"So," says Ymir, leaning against the wall.
Annie stiffens. She knows, too.
She can't say anything. She'd be under just as much suspicion. But Annie doesn't want to threaten Ymir. Please, don't make me.
Make you? Don't you have any control over yourself?
She could laugh. I wonder what that would be like. She's her father's puppet doll, even when she refuses to talk to him. She can't cut the strings after all. And she'll have to apologize to him soon, or Zeke will rant at her. Probably tonight.
"Which one of you ratted me out?" Ymir asks.
"Huh?" Annie blinks. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb." Ymir crosses her arms, towering over Annie. "One of you contacted my old group, and—"
"I didn't!" Annie insists. "And I don't know—"
"What I'm talking about?" Ymir mocks. "Poor Marco, really, Annie. That was cruel."
Annie twists her ring over and over again. She yanks out her phone, texting Bertolt. Did you or your lover-boy tell Zeke about Ymir?
Of course not, Bertolt replies.
Not even in his other mind? she asks. Ymir waits silently.
No. Honest.
The texts keep coming: Also why did you call him my lover-boy?
That's not fair, Annie.
Don't joke about stuff like that.
He likes Christa.
Sure he does, Annie thinks. She won't respond. Let him stew about it for a while. Reiner couldn't be more obvious if he tried, but Bertolt rivals Eren in obliviousness.
"They didn't," Annie reports. Although Zeke still could have figured it out on his own… she wouldn't put it past him.
"You're all liars," Ymir shoots back, her voice cracking.
"What do they want?" Annie asks.
"Oh, so you're admitting it now?" Ymir smirks. "I could be recording this. I could take this all straight to your lover-boy and tell him exactly what you are."
Annie flinches. Bile surges up her throat. I don't want to be a what.
I want to be a human. A person.
So do you, don't you, Ymir?
"But I'm not." Ymir shows Annie her blank phone. She sniffs. "They want me to come back. Or they'll go to the police."
"Huh?" Annie gapes. If Ymir gets caught—
"For killing your friend." Even in the night, Annie sees that Ymir's face is ashen.
Marcel. "He wasn't my friend. He was Reiner's. And Bertolt's. Mostly Reiner's." His first love? Annie's often wondered.
"Guys?" calls a soft voice from across the courtyard. Christa shivers outside her room. "Can I talk to you, and Sasha?"
Ymir shrugs and storms across the courtyard. Annie follows. She could vomit.
"What's wrong, Christa?" Ymir asks instantly, as Christa shuts the door behind them. The room is warm, and Annie melts onto the floor. She touches her hair. Stiff, some strands almost frozen.
Sasha offers Pringles to everyone. Annie takes two.
"I'm worried about Erwin. I heard Petra and Oruo talking—they think he'll be fired!" Christa cries, biting her nails.
"Not surprising. Heads do tend to roll when one of your students almost gets abducted and another gets arrested for possessing/smuggling methamphetamine," Ymir responds. She drops onto her bed, covered with a threadbare gray-blue coverlet. Her entire side of the room is sparse, with hardly any decorations, in sharp contrast to Christa's.
"It's still not his fault," Sasha retorts.
"But I don't think that's the main reason," Christa says. "I think… the board wants to fire him. Because he knows there's some shady work going on."
Annie stiffens. Fear prickles in her fingertips.
"Shady?" Sasha questions. "Like what?"
"Like some embezzlement… well, mishandling funds?" Christa offers.
"How would you know that?" Annie demands. Not drugs, not Zeke, not her.
"Because…" Christa lowers her head. "Christa Lenz isn't my real name."
What? Annie gapes at her.
"It's Historia Reiss," Christa says, meeting Ymir's eyes.
"As in Rod Reiss?" Sasha gasps. "The co-chair of the board?"
Christa nods, burying her face in her knees.
"I thought he lost all his family in a fire a few years ago," Annie says carefully.
"He did… all his legitimate family. My mother was his secretary. I'm his illegitimate love child." Christa's shoulders shudder, and there's a bitter tinge to her last three words.
Historia's.
"So?" Ymir asks. "You're still his kid."
"He won't acknowledge me. Before he sent me here he told me to change my name. I chose Christa Lenz because it was a character I read about in a book, long ago." Christa shakes her head. "But I really think he's embezzling. The Reisses—they're not as rich as they used to be. I heard him talking on the phone. But suddenly over winter break he had more again, and—"
Or he's working with Zeke.
Nah, Annie decides. Zeke hates Rod Reiss.
"And I know he hates Erwin, and he was drunk and saying how Erwin's onto him and he needs to get rid of him."
"What?" Sasha yelps. "And you're just telling us this now?"
"I want him to love me!" Christa shouts.
Annie's blood congeals. Me, too, Christa. Historia.
"No matter what, your father will always be on your side," he told her.
What if I'm not sure I'm on your side anymore, Dad?
"What can we do?" Ymir asks.
"I can't let him just—he's not—he already pushed to expel Eren and Mikasa earlier, especially Eren. He hated Grisha Jaeger, too."
"Are you suggesting he had something to do with that car accident?" demands Ymir. "Because I know it was suspicious—"
He didn't, Annie thinks. If only he did.
"I don't know." Christa looks miserable. Tears stream down her face. "But after seeing Marco arrested—when we all know he didn't do anything—I can't—can't let that happen to Erwin. I mean, I know he wouldn't be arrested, but if he's fired—he'll lose his reputation—and—it's not right."
"And you want to be a good person," Ymir mocks.
"Yes, I do!" Christa cries. "Is that so wrong?"
Ymir swallows. She shakes her head.
You and me—we'll never be good people, will we? Annie thinks. But oh, how she wants to be.
"So…" Sasha says around a mouthful of Pringles. "What can we do?"
"We have to turn him in," Christa says. "I have to get evidence." She sets her jaw.
"Do we call you Historia now?" asks Sasha, munching away.
"If you want to."
"I do," declares Ymir, getting up and putting her arm around Christa. "I like your real name."
Thanks for reading! Up next week: Ymir gives Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt an ultimatum, and Historia decides to take action.