Hey everyone, next chapter for you. It's about to get sad :( hope you enjoy

Jean and Armin burst through the doors of Resus barely a few minutes after Levi calls them over and everything is pulsing with tense activity. One of the people who was presumably bought in from the accident is surrounded by doctors while the other is about to be moved on to the adjacent bed.

"On my count," Levi tells the paramedics holding the stretcher the second person is strapped to. "One, two, three."

Levi and the paramedics heave the stretcher onto the bed and Jean takes a deep breath as he pulls on a pair of gloves. Out of everywhere in this whole fucking hospital Resus is, by far, the worst place to end up. Trost's high crime and drug rate makes it very rare for someone to make it out of there unscathed. Each and every doctor working there tries their damn hardest but, as Levi always says when the death tally rises, you can't win them all.

"What have we got?" Jean asks, preparing himself for a fight to keep whoever this person is alive.

"Twenty-eight year old male," Levi says undoing some of the straps attaching the man to the stretcher. "Brought in from an RTC with his wife. He was the one driving."

"Where's she?" Armin asks.

"Over there," Levi replies nodding to the other bed. "Hanji and co. will deal with her, we need to sort him out."

"What's he got?" Jean asks.

"Concussion, possible neck break, collapsed lung and god only knows what other internal injuries," Levi replies.

"Right," Jean pulls a small torch out of his scrubs pocket to check how responsive the man's pupils are but as soon as he looks down at the man's face properly for the first time his heart all but stops.

Marco...

He should have looked at just who it was beforehand but seeing Marco lying there, face covered in blood, makes Jean's stomach drop.

He hasn't seen Marco is weeks. He's been putting it off, making excuses about working because he didn't want to have to deal with questions about his love life and whether he's taking care of himself among everything else. He never even imagined that he would see Marco lying on a stretcher in the grips of death. All he can do is stare down at him, breath still in his throat and unsure of what he's supposed to do.

"Kirschtein!" Levi barks, snapping Jean back to the real world. "Wake up and fucking do something."

"Yeah..." Jean says, still a little dazed, "sorry."

"The fuck is wrong with you?"

Jean has no idea how to answer that. How do you even explain that you can't process the fact that your ex-boyfriend and best friend is lying, dying, on a table in front of you and you don't even know where to begin to start fixing him or if your hands will stop shaking long enough to be able to. If he doesn't pull it together then Marco is going to die but he just can't seem to shake off the shock.

"I... I don't know if I can assist on this one," Jean stammers, still unable to look away from Marco's blood covered face.

"Why the fuck not?"

Jean opens his mouth to answer but a high pitched whine cuts him off.

"Dr Ackerman he's crashing," Armin says.

"Shit!" Levi mutters before glaring up at Jean. "So why can't you assist? I need all hands on deck here or we lose him."

"I... I know him," Jean replies. The heart monitor is drilling into his brain and making his blood run cold.

"Not good enough," Levi says.

"What?"

"We are understaffed today and I need you on this guy or he dies," Levi says. "If you help out them we can at least give him a fighting chance. You know him so you want to keep him alive right?"

"Of course I do," Jean cries. That much should be obvious.

"Then get to it."

"But..."

"Kirschtein I'm sorry but we're short-staffed," Levi says firmly but with a hint of sympathy. "We need you, I can't take no for an answer."

"Okay," Jean says trying to harden his resolve to be able to separate the Marco he knows and has a history with and the Marco on the table in front of him.

"I'm sorry," Levi says. "Try not to freeze up okay?"

"Okay," Jean says. He grits his teeth and links his fingers together, placing his hands in the centre of Marco's chest. "Starting CPR." He focuses his attention on Marco, blocking out everything else so that he can think properly. "Come on," he whispers more to Marco than to anyone else.

The heart monitor continues to whine and Jean only takes a step away from Marco when Levi places defibrillator patches on Marco's chest. "Shocking two hundred. Clear!"

Marco's body jolts with the shock and Jean's heart clenches. This can't be happening... not to Marco. Marco's pure, he's nice and he's too good for an ending like this. Please, give me some kind of miracle. He prays to every god he can think of and it still doesn't feel like enough as he begins compressions again.

Jean's arms begin to tire but he pushes through it, his sole focus bringing Marco back so that they can laugh and joke again like they used to. The screech of the heart monitor, refusing to change is almost taunting him and there is nothing more that he can do except continue. He can't stop. If he stops then it's over but it doesn't seem to be helping either way.

Please... bring him back.

After four, five, six shocks and no change Levi steps back. "Okay I think we can all agree we're fighting a losing battle here. Let's call it."

"No," Jean says, his voice shaking with unshed tears as he continues to practically pound Marco's chest. He can't just give up like this. Not now...

"Kirschtein give it up," Levi says. "He's gone."

"No..." Jean says again.

A gentle hand find his shoulder and Jean finally falters. "Jean," Armin's soft voice cuts through the buzzing in Jean's ears. "Please... we need to call it."

"No..."

"We have to," Armin says. "I'm sorry, it's over."

Jean's breath sighs out a shaky exhale. "Okay..."

Levi looks at the clock on the wall. "Time of death: eleven, seventeen."

The fight goes out of Jean completely and he falls to his knees next to Marco's body. His head is spinning and he feels sick, lost unsure of what he's supposed to do. He feels a hand grip his shoulder, not as gentle as Armin's but still comforting.

"I'm sorry," Levi tells him.

Levi gives his shoulder a squeeze before his hand is gone and Jean is left kneeling on the cold hard floor. After a moment he feels a gentle hand on his and looks up to see Armin kneeling beside him. He doesn't stop to think, he just pulls Armin into a tight hug as the tears begin to fall from his eyes. Armin stiffens in his arms for a second, unsure of how to react, but eventually hugs Jean back and lets him sob into his neck.