About a month and a half had passed since Armin and Jean had been 'together'. In that month and a half, Jean had continued his usual philandering, proceeding to bed several more willing students.

For Armin, on the other hand, he'd ended up contracting some kind of illness that refused to go away.

It was during one morning that he was kneeling in front of the toilet, the oatmeal and orange juice he had for breakfast failing to keep down. His unpleasant lurching didn't go unnoticed by his roommate.

"Armin?" He heard Eren ask through the bathroom door, after knocking. "You all right?"

Armin groaned before answering. "No...I don't think I can go to school today either."

He could then hear Eren make a weird noise, most likely out of shock from hearing this; if Armin couldn't go to school, something was terribly wrong.

...

After Eren left for school, Armin managed to get back to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen. Once there, he rummaged around for anything that could be used to deal with his nausea.

This sudden yet gradual sickness baffled him; he couldn't blame it on any kind of flu bug or anything like that. No one else around him had gotten it. It couldn't be food poisoning, either; he always made sure anything he ate was clean, fresh, and/or properly cooked.

In the end, Armin just dug out a bottle of ginger ale and a few crackers, before heading off to bed once more.

He felt like he didn't sleep all that long when Eren came home later that day after school. As a result, he remained in bed with his eyes closed when Eren came to check on him.

It wasn't skipping a day of school itself that was the problem; Armin could practically miss an entire year or two of school and still be top of the class academically. It was the fact that he had to skip it at all.

...

The next day, Armin was forced to schedule an appointment with Doctor Hanji, whether he wanted to or not (he didn't want to, but Eren and Mikasa were persistent. They wore him down until he complied with their wishes). Now, he sat in the waiting room as he watched several other people there with their own medical ailments.

He did so until a nurse showed up and announced his name. Then it was an embarrassing walk to the doctor's office. Once there, he had to wait for the doctor herself to show up.

The longer he waited, the more nervous he became. Armin could feel another bout of nausea creeping up on him by the time she did show up.

"Need something?" She asked him, as though she could predict his illness. All that Armin could really do was nod and be handed the nearby trashcan, which he promptly vomited into.

He really hoped that the doctor could figure out what the problem was. He didn't know how much more he could take.

...

Once the checkup was over and done with, Armin was curled up in the fetal position when he got home. In his hand was a paper with the results of what he'd tested positive for.

Weirdly enough, Doctor Hanji had suggested a pregnancy test, of all things. Despite not really understanding why, he did so.

After he got home and looked over the results, he realized why; the only thing on the list Armin tested positive for was pregnancy.

He stayed in that same position after Eren and Mikasa came home. When they asked him how his doctor's appointment went, Armin just pointed to the paper he'd now set on his bed.

Impossible as it may have been, Armin knew there was only one person who could be the father.

...

Telling Eren and Mikasa who fathered Armin's child turned out to be a very bad idea.

"I'm gonna kill that horny horse-faced bastard!" Was what Eren had shouted when Armin told them both the story. Mikasa didn't look all that pleased either.

The next few minutes went by in a blur; before too long, they were all at Jean's apartment (he didn't live very far away).

Armin was told to stay in the car as the other two 'sorted things out', which sounded like code word for 'killed Jean and buried him in a shallow grave'.

When far too much time seemed to have passed, Armin got out of the car and reached Jean's apartment with shaking legs. Sure enough, upon reaching the others, Armin saw Eren tightly holding Jean in a chokehold.

"I'm gonna make you regret ever touching him, you horse's ass!" Eren growled at him. Jean couldn't answer; he looked as though he were on the verge of passing out. As this was all happening, Mikasa stood by and watched. Neither of them seemed to have noticed he came in.

"Eren!" He cried out. "Let him go. If you're going to kill him, at least have him know why before you do."

Looking up at Armin for a few moments, Eren reluctantly let go. Right away, Jean took several gasps of air, as the color returned to his face.

"What the..." Here he coughed a few times. "What the fuck is wrong with you guys?!"

"You talk as though you don't know what you did," Mikasa said to him in a deadpan voice.

"Because I don't! The fuck is going on?!"

Jean tried to stand up, but Eren just pushed him back down with his foot. He then stomped down onto his stomach, causing him to shout out in more pain.

To try and get Eren to stop, Armin pulled him away and helped Jean to his feet.

"I can explain," he said to him while brushing him off, a strangely hollowed warmth to his voice. "Let's go someplace else, though. I don't want the other two to try and murder you while we're talking."

...

Even for a high school senior, Jean's room was extremely messy. Armin was having a hard time finding a place to sit down before Jean cleared off a spot directly across from him. Armin didn't want to step on the clothes he'd shoved to the floor, but did anyway.

"So," Jean muttered as he crossed his arms in a slightly petulant manner, "what is so damn important that I ended up nearly getting killed over it?"

Taking a deep breath, Armin started to explain why he was even here in the first place. "Well, I..." But he was quickly silenced when Jean looked behind him.

"Hang on." He glared at the door with an intensity that could scare anybody. "Jaeger, I can see your feet. Piss off and wait in the living room or something." Armin took a peek himself; sure enough, Eren's feet were visible under the door. He clearly didn't like not being able to wail on Jean at this moment. Once he did leave, Armin went on.

"Well, earlier today I went to the doctor, since I wasn't really feeling all that well, and..."

He paused, causing Jean to try and get him to tell him already.

"So...What does you being sick have to do with me, specifically?" Armin reached out to unfold Jean's arms and held his hands.

"Jean, I..." He quick glanced away for a few seconds and took a deep breath to steady himself. "I'm having a baby, Jean. Your baby. That's why I'm telling you."

No response. Armin went on. "Before you say anything about how we used a condom -and we did-, they're not a hundred percent effective. So...

"I'm telling you this because I figured you had a right to know, since it's yours. You don't have to be there for me or the baby. You can be as involved as you'd like. I just...At this point, you do whatever you want. If you want to keep doing what you've been doing, that's fine..." Armin stopped, looking as if he were about to cry. He could feel himself shaking, wringing his hands and feeling utterly terrified now. Still, he waited for Jean to say or do anything, anything at all.

He still jumped a bit when Jean began moving closer to him, and wrapping his arms around him, while resting his head on his shoulder. This reaction wasn't what Armin would expect in a million lifetimes; the way Jean was rubbing his back now, though, made it definitely real.

Armin also would never expect what happened next; Jean leaning in and whispering into his ear very surprising words, even if they weren't teenagers:

"Marry me."

The sudden request caught Armin completely off guard. "W-What?"

Jean grinned a little, as he pulled back and rested a hand onto Armin's face. "Yeah. Isn't that the best thing to do in the case of an unplanned pregnancy? You marry me, move in with me, and we can prepare for the baby together." To be honest, Armin didn't actually think this was a good idea. He made sure Jean knew this.

"Jean, you and I... That can't be an option for us. I mean, we're both in high school, neither of us has a job, we can barely support ourselves-"

"When you say it like that," Jean said while frowning, pulling away from Armin now, "You're making it sound like we're a couple of kids."

"We are a couple of kids!" Now Armin really was crying. "If we don't have the means to care for ourselves, how can we raise a child?" Both of them were quiet now. Armin wiped away any tears with his thumb, while sniffling.

"I'm sorry, Jean."

He didn't respond, but Armin could see Jean's cheeks getting all red and splotchy. His face was turned away now, trying to conceal the hurt that could be seen clearly in his eyes. Everything else about him was shaking, presumably from a painful mix of rage and sadness.

In a moment of poor thinking, Armin just figured it was due to not being good with rejection.

"Jean-"

"Get out," he told him suddenly, crossing his arms again. "Just...Get out." But as he said this, Armin could hear a bit of wavering in his voice, like it were about to break. His lower lip was trembling, even when he tried to get it to stop.

Not wishing to incur any potential wrath Jean might have been feeling, Armin slowly got to his feet, then left the room to rejoin the other two.