Late Night Confessions

"Falco. Falco. Wake up," Gabi Braun whispered while shaking Falco Grice's body. Falco's eyes opened slightly, and his head slowly turned. When Falco saw that was Gabi waking him up, Falco sat up, and while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes looked around to see if anything was out of the ordinary. However, everyone from the soldiers of Paradis to the Warriors of Marley were sleeping soundly, with empty bowls of stew strewn about and the last embers of the fire in the middle of the camp dying.

"Huh? Gabi? What's going on?" Gabi looked away, blushing while twiddling her thumbs together. If Falco had been fully awake, he would've realized that this was Gabi's usual tick when she was nervous about something.

"I…I want to talk to you."

"Isn't it a little too early to be discussing strategy, Gabi?" Falco whispered before emitting a yawn.

"It's not about strategy."

"OK, did you have a nightmare?"

"I'm not some baby, Falco."

"Oh. What, you have to go to the bathroom or something?"

"No, doofus. I…just come with me, OK?" Gabi whispered as loud as she could before grabbing Falco's hand. Before Falco could figure out what was going on, Gabi dragged him away from the camp, with nobody else seeming to notice that the two youngest members of this new Alliance were walking away. After walking several feet in awkward silence, Gabi stopped and turned to Falco with a serious look on her face. Falco looked concerned, with the cool night air having woken Falco up.

"Uhhh…Gabi?

"Sit." Falco did what he was told, sitting criss-cross applesauce in the moist grass, the floor of the Earth still drying up from the rainstorm that had happened the previous evening. Gabi began twiddling her thumbs again before taking a couple of deep breaths and looking up at Falco, who was still confused as to why he was even out here.

"Falco…do you remember what you told me when we were hiding in that abandoned building with Colt?" Gabi asked. Falco, in his still fuzzy from sleep mind, closed his eyes so that he could remember what Gabi was talking about. After several moments, that felt like a lifetime to Gabi, his memories of that day resurfaced, causing Falco's face to go from confused to guilty.

"Oh…yeah. Look, Gabi, I never meant to help Eren, I just thought-" Falco explained, remembering that he had confessed to inadvertently helping Eren with his attack on Liberio by helping Eren mail letters to his allies. However, before he could ramble on any longer, Gabi put a hand up, indicating that Falco should stop before he went on a tangent and let Gabi talk again.

"Falco, you don't have to apologize. Eren completely took advantage of you to destroy Liberio, and I do not blame you one bit. But, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about," Gabi admitted as Falco raised an eyebrow and let out a light yawn, which did not stop Gabi as she continued talking.

"Falco, I wanted to talk about when you said that you loved me. You told me you wanted to marry me and live a good life with me," Gabi admitted once again, causing Falco's face to explode into a red blush. So much had gone on since the confession between Falco turning into a Titan, eating the former Jaw Titan holder Porco Galliard, almost getting eaten by a Titan by one of the soldiers, and even starting an uneasy Alliance with the Paradis soldiers. With all of that, Falco had genuinely forgotten about his confession to Gabi, and after taking several deeps breath and calming down the blushing, Falco looked up at a nervous-looking Gabi and nodded.

"Yeah, I said that."

"And you meant all of that?"

"Every word." Gabi's eyes widened after Falco's admission. However, tears began forming around Gabi's eyes, confusing Falco as he got up, making his way to move over next to her.

"Why?" Falco stopped in his tracks, looking down at Gabi as a couple of tears escaped her eyes and started sliding down her cheeks.

"Why what?"

"Why do you like me?" Falco raised an eyebrow at Gabi's question, but he continued walking over to Gabi, sitting down next to her while stroking her brown hair to try and calm her down.

"What do you mean?" Falco asked before Gabi suddenly and sharply turned her head to face Falco, causing Falco to nearly jump away from the surprise. Tears were falling out of Gabi's eyes more and more as she struggled to keep whines and cries in her mouth so that she didn't wake anyone up.

"Just…what is there to even like about me!? I…I roped you into coming to Paradis, I fell for all the lies Marley told me hook, line, and sinker, I came here wanting to kill every single person on this island for God's sake! I…I'm awful, just…an awful person! Why…just…why would you even like me!?" Gabi exclaimed, still trying to be as quiet as she could manage to prevent their discussion from being interrupted. Falco looked at Gabi with empathy in his eyes, seeing just how all the confidence and bravado that Gabi usually has in her voice and on her face was completely gone. All that confidence and bravado was now replaced with a lot of sorrow and remorse that Falco, as someone who had looked up to Gabi in the past, never thought he'd see. Falco had never thought that he would see Gabi in this vulnerable state, and all he could do was lean in and give her a gentle hug.

"Falco…?" Gabi whispered, not entirely sure what was going on, but calmed down considerably once Falco started stroking her back. Gabi blushed once again as she buried her face into Falco's chest, nuzzling her face into Falco's shirt, causing some tears and mucus to stain the shirt. But he didn't really care about any of that, all Falco really cared about right now was making sure Gabi felt better.

"Gabi, you're not an awful person. You made plenty of mistakes, but so have all of us. What matters now is we're trying to make things better, and the fact you're helping us shows just how much you've grown in such a short period."

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts, Gabi. You're surrounded by people who are your allies and want to help. Please don't feel like you're all alone in this, we've all done bad things we're trying to atone for. And…you want to know the main reason that I love you?"

"…what's that?"

"It's because you never give up no matter how bad things are. I remember when you first came to the Warrior Program, and nobody liked you because of your pro-Marleyan beliefs, and they bullied you so hard that even I thought you were going to quit. And you didn't let that stop you from becoming one of the top candidates in our unit. And even when Liberio got completely destroyed and we lost two of our best friends, you still wanted to help us by going after Eren himself. Gabi, I want you to stop giving up on yourself because I think you're amazing," Falco finished. Gabi just looked at Falco with disbelief on her face, tears still pouring from her eyes, never in a million years imagining that Falco could be so good with words like that. Gabi didn't know what to say, her brain was too frazzled to try, so she decided to do the next best thing; lean forward and kiss Falco on the cheek.

"Thanks so much, Falco, and can I be honest with you too? I like you too, and I have for…a long while now," Gabi mumbled, her blush growing with every word that came out of her mouth. Falco looked at Gabi with his mouth agape as he rubbed his hand over the spot that Gabi had kissed. Falco soon regained his bearings and returned the kiss in kind by kissing Gabi on the cheek, pressing his lips on a trail of tears that were still falling down her cheek. Gabi looked at Falco and smiled at him before Falco rose from his seat and brushed his pants to remove some grass and dirt.

"Come on Gabi, let's get back to the camp. We need to get some sleep before tomorrow," Falco said. Gabi looked up at Falco and nodded, pulling herself up. Before Falco could start walking away, Gabi grabbed Falco's hand, and when Falco turned around to face Gabi, Gabi was turned away with her face somehow becoming even redder thanks to her blush growing.

"Falco, when we get back, do you mind if I…sleep with you?" Gabi mumbled. Falco started blushing as well, his face matching the red hue of his new girlfriend. Falco simply nodded at her, causing Gabi to smile for the first time since they came to Paradis Island before the two continued their trek back to the camp.

Back at the Camp…

When they got back to the camp, one of their superiors, Pieck Finger, was looking on at what the two young Warriors in Training walking back to their tent from the top of her Titan. Pieck couldn't help but smile, as the two young Warriors in Training reminded her of how she and Porco Galliard, a fellow Warrior, had developed their relationship. Porco had confessed to her in a forest during a camping trip when they were younger and had been dating up until his death.

Being reminded of his death, Pieck started to shake, feeling cold without the usual protective arm around the back of her neck from her boyfriend. Pieck continued looking on as Falco helped Gabi lay down, fondly smiling as she looked up, hoping Porco was enjoying the scene in front of him as well.

'I hope those two get to spend their lives together, like I wanted for us, Porco,' Pieck thought to herself before trying to go back to sleep. But, the memories of her relationship with Porco made it harder for Pieck to fall asleep, as she couldn't help but feel miserable that the life with Porco she had wanted wasn't going to happen. But, at least she could hope that Falco and Gabi didn't have to suffer the same fate, and as Pieck tried to go back to sleep, she continued praying for Gabi and Falco to survive this war and live their lives together as long as they possibly could.