Hopefully this comes out faster than the last chapter. Sorry 14 got delayed for so long, but I'll try not to take so much time between updates. As usual drop a review. Let us begin.
That Day in Trost
"Jean before we start this I want you to know that I wanted no part in what happened to him. I didn't want to do it, I just.." Annie tried to say but Jean cut her off lightly.
"If that's what you want me to believe, then tell me everything about it. I want to know since Armin's avoided it by saying he didn't have Bert's memories of it. Reiners back in Marley or dead, so your the only one who can tell me this. Your the only one left who knows what happened to Marco. Please Annie." He added the last part, a hint of pleading in it. Something she'd never heard him do for anyone, although the tone was like how he talked near Mikasa when he wasn't showing off or arguing with Eren.
Annie looked at Jean with tired eyes, trying not to relive all of it, probably the hardest choice she ever made in her life. Because it cost the life of someone so innocent to all of it, a victim of circumstance. But in the end it still begins to latch onto her mind, every unpleasant detail coming back to light. Sighing with a heavy weight falling back to her shoulders and heart, she gestured for him to sit. He took a seat on the edge of her bed and she sat next to him. Neither looked at the other when Annie finally began.
"It was just after Eren plugged up the hole in Trost, when we were still clearing out the city. I was sent to look for stragglers and Titan positions when I came upon Reiner pinning down Marco from behind while Bertoldt was watching, unsure what to do. I asked him what was going on and Reiner...he told me that Marco had overheard him and Bertoldt discussing the plan.
I yelled at them both, calling them pieces of shit for talking about that out loud, for letting someone hear it. I knew that if that were to ever happen that both of them would have to kill whoever was listening, and...Macro, he asked what I was doing there. He asked me to help him, that Reiner was acting crazy, and Reiner.." She flinched and Jean's stare hardened as he looked from the floor to her, and saw that her face was cringed in pain. Whatever she was about to tell him was what happened, and she had a part in it. Even if she didn't want one during it.
"Go on..." He urged as he swallowed and she flinched again as she too swallowed hard before she continued.
"Reiner ordered me to take Marcos gear off, Bert had said a Titan was approaching us so...Reiner wanted to leave Marco to be eaten. But..I refused." At this Jean's eyes scrunch in confusion. She looks at the floor to avoid looking at him and went on. "I told him I wanted no part in it, that it was their fault and they should bear that. Reiner told me that I had to be the one, he started questioning my loyalty because I saved Connie in the armory from that Titan by risking my life. He demanded to know if I was starting to "feel compassion for this evil race." His own race that he didn't want to accept was innocent, that he'd been lied to his whole life about.
He threatened me and then my father...and I had to choose. If he or Bert saw that I wasn't really with them, they might've went further or faster with the plan. They could've killed me and taken my power, and no one would know anything. No plan to get Eren to use the Founding Titan, no one to help fight back when it came to it. It would ruin everything for everyone here on Paradise, so I had two options. Keep up the act and avoid being under suspicion by them...but it meant dooming Marco. I'm so sorry Jean, I never wanted to hurt him.
The only thing that kept me through it was telling myself that it would be worth it in the end. That I would find the Founding Titan and exterminate Marley for all the hell they've put us through. Taht I would make his death mean something, because even when we were all gathered before we took back the armory he said that..he didn't want his death to be meaningless, even though he knew it would come someday. So...I took Marcos gear. I was crying and telling him that I was sorry, and he knew what I'd chosen. I had to stare into his face as he saw I wasn't a friend anymore, I'd crushed his last hope and.." her voice broke as she openly began to cry, her tears dropping to the floor.
As angry as he was at her for choosing the evil that brought them to this point, Jean couldn't help but find himself pitying her. It was the same feeling he and everyone else had when they thought they killed Reiner. He understood her, but he wasn't sure if he was ready to forgive her, or if he ever could. Marco had been his best friend in the 104th, someone so pure happy, a friend to them all, innocent. He didn't deserve to die, not like that. Jean was brought from his thoughts as Annie began to sound angry then, but an anger at the feeling of being powerless. He saw that dangerous glint in her eyes, the same one she had on the 57th when she had appeared to have killed Reiner. The same one she had in Stohess when he, Armin and the rest tried capturing her.
"We ran and watched it happen from the roof, I was crying and...so was Bert. But I don't think it was as bad as me, he just knew he did something bad, but it's what he felt he had to do. But Reiner...he wasn't even in his right fucking state of mind. He went back to his little fantasy world believing he was a soldier and asked in horror why Marco was being eaten. Why the person he condemned to death was dying and he couldn't even remember the reason for it happening. I never wanted to kill him any harder than that moment, not when he still was trying to pretend he wasn't attached to any of you before he ordered the attack on Trost to happen.
Not when I held him in my hand on the 57th, but in that moment in Trost, I wanted to tear him to pieces. I wanted to devour him, make him feel every bit of horrible pain that he just forced me to bear because he fucked up. He was talking about the plan when he should've kept his damn mouth shut, he forced me to strip and leave Marco for dead! HE STAINED MY HANDS WITH MORE INNOCENT BLOOD THAN I ALREADY HAD ON THEM!!" Annie finished with a yell of rage and emotion that put the one she gave Mikasa to shame. Her pupils shook and dilated before finally going still and wide as she realized that she finally confessed the greatest of her sins aloud for the first time.
Then she started crying again, heavier this time, and Jean couldn't help but put an arm around the girls shoulder after a moment of deliberation. Her frame was shaking bad, but he wouldn't push her any further into detail over this. He's gotten what he's craved to know since Trost, since they captured her months ago in Stohess. Since he discovered with the others that memories were retained when the power of a shifter was transferred to it's next holder. Armin wouldn't give him answers, Reiner was gone, and Eren wouldn't use the power to tell him because he probably wasn't so sure he even wanted to know. So that left Annie, who was still sobbing on her bed with his arm around her shoulder. He grimaced and let out a deep sigh before trying to calm her down.
"Hey...Annie. There's no use beating yourself up over it now, what's done...is done. If what your saying is true, then you didn't want to do it. You just had to, just like we've all had to do hard things. We didn't have a choice in this life, yourself included. But I can, I see why you did it. I don't know if I'll ever fully forgive you for it, he was my best friend, and a friend to you too from how hard this is affecting you. But...I understand. I won't bother you anymore about it, and I'll answer anyone who asks about is so that you won't have to. But can I ask one last thing before with leave?" She wipes her nose on her sleeve and gives him a shaky nod.
"With you while mission, everything changing so much from how it was before, are you still set on doing whatever it takes in making sure that their deaths mean something? Everyone who's died because of those fucks across the ocean, will you make their lives and their sacrifices mean something? Even if we don't win, are you going to fight like the rest of us?" Jean asks her, looking for eye contact as he tries to keep himself together. Slowly Annie raised her head and closed her eyes, nodding at the wall for a moment. Then she opens them and turns to face him, and he can see that fire in her eyes. The same one that Jaegers had since training, one that grew ever since Stohess and even more after retaking his hometown. The fire that burns despite the cold, the rain of despair, the winds of hopelessness.
The desire to fight for freedom.
"I am, and I will make them count for something. I won't stop fighting until I exterminate them from this world, every last one Marleyean. The true devils of the world, not us. They deserve to be wiped from existence for the evil that they are. And I will help you and everyone else do it, till my last dying breath."
Jean stood up from her bed and Annie rose as well to show him out. He turns and placed a hand on her shoulder as he leaves, and sees that she's looking at him with a less shaky frame. He can see that she's telling the truth, and feels glad knowing that fact. Just like Eren, she wouldn't be stopped. It would truly take death or her curse in order to stop her. And even then the fight would continue until they lost and were all dead, or until they won their freedom. He bids her a goodnight and leaves to his own room.
Two minutes later She heard a knock on her door, and knowing who it would be merely called out from her bed. "Come in." The door cracked slowly to a good sized opening, and Eren slid in quietly. He saw her just laying in her bed and joined her. He lay beside her and wrapped an arm around her, and she took in into her own tightly. Gently he asked her "Are you alright? Do you want to talk, or just want to rest?"
She thinks to herself quietly before finally telling him "Rest I think, I'm alright. Just a little tired from today. Speaking of which.." Annie trailed off and turned her body to face his. His face was concerned but that went away as she leaned her face closer to meet his lips. "That's for the hug, now why don't we pick up where we left off?" She whispered and Eren obliged as he let her cuddle into him. The shifter couple held each other closer in a tight embrace, away from their troubles for the night.