Chapter 9
Jean wakes up with a cricked neck. He rubs at his gritty eyes, blinking against the bright sun shining through the blanket surrounding them. Snow had fallen during the night, making the ceiling bough. Jean's top half is contorted between two tree trunks in a way that would've been almost impossible to fall asleep in. That, combined with the terribly sore neck and the way his brain feels raw, like chunks of himself had been scooped out and smashed, tells Jean that he'd dreamt last night. But he didn't remember the dreams or waking up.
He'd slept through the whole night, something that was becoming less and less common the longer he was a Scout. Whether it was simple exhaustion or Marian's snuffing out the bad theory, Jean gladly takes it.
He sits up to stretch his neck. It takes a second for his sleep muddled brain to place the lump curved half over his legs as Marian. When he does, his ears burn bright red.
She sleeps with her head cushioned against Jean's shin, one arm thrown over him, and her knees pressed against his thigh.
He buzzes with panic. He'd shared sleeping space with women before. There's no personal space in the military, especially during active missions.
But this is the first time he's woken up to a woman wrapped around him. And she's warm and soft and terribly distracting.
It's just because of the cold, Jean tells himself. And it makes sense to use each other's body heat. It's not like they had spare blankets or clothes or tools to make fire. No, those were somewhere in Buckwald's saddlebags, and heaven knows where he is.
And heaven knows when Marian will wake up.
The only thing that could make this situation worse would be if she woke up and the two of them had to acknowledge she'd used him as a pillow all night long.
Calling upon every ounce of strength and dexterity he possesses, Jean carefully pulls his leg out from under her. Her head lolls onto the ground. She groans and her black brows furrow. Jean freezes, silently willing her to please not wake up. Her grip tightens around his calf. Jean winces and gradually wiggles his leg free.
Marian curls into a ball, burying her face against the polka-dotted scarf. Her back rises and falls with gentle breaths that make the tail of her braid sway. She could be sleeping in a bed, not a freezing cold forest in the middle of nowhere. Jean swallows, then reaches for his ODM gear. He might as well try and get it working while she slept.
The smell of pine, snow, and oil wakes Marian. Keeping her eyes closed, she basks in the soft fabric against her cheek, the warmth radiating from beside her, and the soft glow of sunlight shining through her eyelids. There's gentle scrapes and metal tings and the quiet shh of cord rubbing against cord.
She feels good. Hungry, but still better than she had in days. (It's chilly, but she's not shivering. There's no wood creaks reminding her one wrong move and they'll be crushed. The smell of dirt isn't overwhelming, and her mind doesn't hum with guilt's sickly melody singing you were centimeters away from doing something wrong.)
(Kind of wrong. Maybe just a smidge wrong.)
Marian scowls and forces herself awake before that argument can overwhelm her again. It'd been bad enough the night before last, when the thought that she was wronging Jean and Pierce had mixed with the memory of the heat that spread from Jean's hands, the way his burnished gold eyes had blazed in the setting sun and pinned her like a burning arrow, how his deepened, solemn voice had sent sparks popping up and down her body.
No. That combo of emotions hadn't exactly been calming.
"Finally. I thought you were going to sleep all day," Jean's voice sounds from beside her. He sits with his legs crossed, fiddling with the innards of his sword hilts. Late morning light shines through their blanket tent. His eyes shine keenly beneath the rays. Although his under eyes are a little puffy and red, the dreadful bruise-colored circles are gone.
"Aw," Marian coos, "My raccoon is gone!"
Jean twitches. Her grin grows.
"I liked you better when you were asleep."
"Glad to see your grumpy raccoon attitude remains intact," she says, sitting up and stretching. His left foot is beside her, and she's glad to see that the swelling is down. It's the size of a plum instead of as big as her fist. Still, the broken ankle would only get worse after another day of almost non-stop movement.
"I'm going to find sticks. You stay here," is all she says before crawling out of their tent. Jean stares after her, wondering if she's finally lost it. Marian slithers back into the tent in the time it takes Jean to put his ODM gear away and take a drink of water. She ignores his quirked brow and lays out a bundle of sticks beside Jean's foot.
She grabs some of their extra pairs of socks and tears them, then she rewraps Jean's foot like she had before. Together, they pull his boot on. Cold sweat breaks out across his forehead as the bones jostle.
"Try to keep your foot flat and your leg straight. I'm going to splint it."
Jean nods as Marian holds two sticks against either side of his ankle, then winds the socks around the sticks and his leg, all the way from calf and ankle until he feels like a stuffed sausage.
"This should keep it still. Hopefully, it'll help it hurt less and heal," she says, tying the last knot of the sock-wrap.
"Thank you," he says while cautiously testing the new splint. Marian nods and swipes the flask. She takes a swig, then offers Jean the last swallow.
"We've got a long way to go," she says as she packs their bag.
"Tell me about it."
After an hour of walking, Marian stills from her position under Jean's arm.
"Marian?"
She'd been silently bemoaning her aching back. Silently because she didn't want Jean to feel guilty about using her as a human-crutch. Bemoaning because holy hell is he heavy. Not only is Jean a solid head taller than her, he's broad shouldered and fighting fit. Marian's strong, but she takes after her mama—built like a blade of grass and cursed with a boyish figure long after her peers had filled out.
That's what she felt like, a blade of grass squished beneath a raccoon's paws.
And there's no reason for it.
"I'm such an idiot!" Marian says as she leans Jean against a tree. He watches her stomp into a thicket of frost-crusted trees and bushes. Rustles and muffled curses come from the trees.
"Not that I disagree with the statement, but what are you talking about?" Jean says.
"A walking-stick!"
"I'm pretty sure it's too cold for bugs to be out."
"No!" Marian says, stumbling out of the thicket with a big stick in her hands. "A crutch!"
The stick is thick and crooked on one end. She holds it up against Jean's side. It's fifteen centimeters short of his armpit, so he'll have to stoop, but the crooked end creates a nice rest for his underarm. Jean takes a few steps forward, using the crutch to take the weight off his injured foot. He wobbles a bit, but the crutch works almost as well as Marian at compensating for his injury.
"Thank God. My back was seconds away from breaking."
"Hey!"
"Good golly, I wish someone hadn't led us this far away from the road. Then I wouldn't be stuck climbing over freezing cold rocks," Marian says from in front of Jean. They're climbing down into a bouldered ravine. There must've been water on it recently because there was ice in the crevasses and atop the ground. They were heading south, where Jean estimated the road from Rossen to the Scout's base was.
"I'm pretty sure you led the way when we were escaping Rossen," he says, grunting as his foot slips on a patch of ice.
"'Go east,' he said. 'It'll lead us to the forest,' he said."
"It did lead us to the forest!"
"But not the road."
"I'd like to see you dodge titans on an open road. It doesn't work. Trust me."
Marian finally maneuavers her way to the top of the closest boulder. She crouches at the top, scanning the rest of the ravine for the easiest path. She shifts forward just a smidge, then disappears over the boulder's other side with a yelp. She stays where she's fallen, glaring at the sky and silently asking the universe why.
"Watch for ice," Jean quips as he climbs around the slick boulder. Marian's eyes slide to his, and they're dampened by so much apathy, he can't fight the smile that blossoms across his wind-bitten face.
"Noted," she gripes and shifts to stand. Marian's hand lands in a patch of snow and prickly plants. She reaches for the next handhold but stops at the purple staining her hands. It almost looks like she's eaten a blueberry...
No, not a blueberry. A juniper berry.
The plant she'd grabbed is a juniper, and bundles of small, purple berries hang from the prickly branches. The juniper shrub weaves in and out of the boulders' shadows.
Food. It's food.
Laughing, Marian grabs a handful and tosses them in her mouth. Her stomach growls more, but she takes the time to suck the juices off her fingers, savoring the taste of something that isn't worms or pickles.
"What's so funny?" Jean asks, peaking around a boulder. His ears sizzle red at the sight of Marian with her fingers still in her mouth.
"Food!" Marian cries. She grabs another handful of berries and shoves them against Jean's chest until he takes them.
"You're sure they're safe?"
"They're juniper berries. Good for the heart and an anti-fungal agent."
"How do you know this stuff?"
"That they're safe to eat or that they're good for the heart?"
"Both," Jean says, then pops the berries in his mouth. The taste is strong, like someone had turned the way pine trees smell into a taste, but the food settles his aching stomach. Resting his crutch against a boulder, he crouches beside Marian. The two of them work on plucking berries, eating their fill and tossing as many as they can in their bag.
"I like to read. Especially about how our bodies work."
"So, medical books? Like for doctors?"
Marian hums around a mouthful of berries. She audibly swallows.
"Yeah. Fredericksburg has a doctor. He's ancient and can barely hold a pencil, but he's really nice. He lets me borrow all of his books, answers any of my questions, shows me his equipment. He taught me how to do stitches once when I was twelve. Daddy lost it when he found out."
"Why would your dad care? Knowing how to do stitches seems like a useful skill for someone living on a ranch."
"'The only thing a Klien needs to know how to stitch is a horse!'" Marian says with a gruff voice, clearly imitating her father.
"I don't imagine there's much of a difference between stitching humans and horses."
She snorts. "One complains a lot more about it than the other. Besides, the stitching wasn't what Daddy was really upset about."
"Yeah?" Jean asks, then swallows so many berries that, for a moment, he's worried about choking.
"He's scared I want to do something with my life other than shovel horse shit and get kicked by 500-kilogram mammals all day."
"Do you?"
Marian drags her eyes away from the next group of berries to meet Jean's gaze. Purple berry juice stains the corner of her mouth. His hand twitches, like it's going to wipe the stain away, before Jean gives it a firm absolutely not.
"Sometimes," she says softly, like it's a confession. "But what I want doesn't always matter that much."
Duty. That's what she means.
Jean knows something about that.
The two of them drift from berry patch to berry patch, continuing down the ravine and filling up their bag between happy munches.
"So, why'd you join the Scouts?" Marian asks. She stands at the base of the boulder Jean's climbing down, reaching up to steady him and his lame leg.
"I didn't want to. Not at first," he says, wincing as he's forced to put his full weight on his left foot. "I wanted to be in the Military Police."
Jean steps down to the next foothold, only to slip on ice and stumble the rest of the way down. He crashes into Marian, who falls backwards until her shoulder-blades hit the boulder behind them. Jean catches himself on the boulder, barely avoiding colliding with her again.
Their breaths turn to mist in the cold and mingle together. Their chests heave, mere centimeters from touching. Jean's arms are so close to her head, he can feel the heat radiating from her.
"What changed your mind?" Marian asks, holding his gaze through thick lashes. Jean swallows, captured in her earthy gaze and how the sun makes her freckles stand out even more.
"You'd be a better one."
"...if I got an order from someone who saw things like I do, no matter how tough it was, I'd do my damnedest to carry it out."
"There's things that matter a lot more than what I want," Jean says, voice heavy.
Marian nods. She knows exactly what he's talking about. The same steady thread guides her, and even if there's lines tied off to it, lines that lead through twists and turns, hills and valleys, thundering rain and blazing sun, things they can only imagine— the two of them follow that steady thread, regardless of whether they'd placed it there with their own hands or not.
Marian glances at the arms that cage her in. Jean takes the hint and steps away. He grabs his crutch and leans against it, waiting as Marian picks out their path. He examines the scattered piles of snow, noting that it hadn't melted even though the midday sun is long gone.
He sees a divot in the closest snow heap. It's a big oval with four smaller ovals at the top. Jean takes a closer look, noting the small gouges above the four ovals.
It's a paw print. A wolf's paw print.
Jean narrows his eyes and scans their surroundings. There are so many shadows and places to hide inside this maze of boulders. With their gray and brown pelts, it would be very difficult to see them, especially before they got too close.
"This way!" Marian says. She stands between two boulders, waiting for Jean to follow with a dimpled smile. An answering grin rises despite the fear roiling in his gut. He follows her, deciding not to mention the print. It had snowed on and off for the past two days. For all he knows, the print is days old, and there is nothing to worry about.