Risk: Chapter Thirty-Six

They'd made it back later that day, and business returned just as usual.

Time at the infirmary passed by rather slowly, the clock ticking by as the nurses all waited patiently for the soldiers to return from being over the walls.

Well, most of them were patient; Rose still hadn't gotten used to this part, the sitting around, biding her time until the injured showed up at their door, wondering just who would be coming back. And since the last time Lily almost got herself killed, Rose was on absolute high-alert, waiting for some type of signal from her twin that she was alright.

Before going over the walls, Rose and Lily opted on practicing their abilities. Rose was sick and tired of the portal showing up at unexpected times, and finally she wanted to gain some control over its appearance. So, at Levi's behest, and Hange's excited eagerness, the girls got to work. First, they did their usual embrace. That worked, as to be expected. They would hop to the other side, allow the portal to close, then do it all over again.

Then they decided to see if a weaker link between them would allow the portal to show itself, like just holding hands. At first, it was a failure, but with some determination, the girls managed to create a portal just like before, though initially a little wonky. They didn't go through the first one, lest it take them to some strange time period other than the one visioned before them. They tried several times until it was a more clear picture, and only then did they leap through, then back again.

Lastly, Rose insisted on trying on her own. It was her ability, after all, and she needed to hone it in. Lily stayed close by, just in case Rose couldn't get back to them. Rose couldn't do it at first, but mustering as much willpower as she could, she managed to create one – making sure Lily wasn't cheating by touching her anywhere. Lily would hop on through with her, then Rose attempted again, forming the portal a little faster the second time. They did this several times until Rose felt she'd mastered the ability to some degree for the day – and exhaustion was also tearing her down.

"Can you stand?" Lily asked, knelt down beside her sister but not reaching out to help her up.

"I… I think so," Rose said, pushing against the dying grass beneath her to stand on her lead-filled legs. She immediately collapsed again, too weak to even try. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay –Captain!" Lily called to her Captain on the cliff above, who instantly rode down to meet them. "She's too tired to stand up, I think."

"I'm sorry," Rose said again, feeling defeated. She felt their work may be all for naught if this is how she felt after a few hops through time.

"Don't bother saying that," he told her, reaching down to pick her up and help her onto his horse.

He sidled up next, and she wrapped her weak arms around his waist, trying her best to hold on tightly. His horse trotted at a steady pace, for which she was grateful; if they raced through these woods at all, she thought she might get too dizzy and fall right off.

At headquarters, the trainees were still gone, off prepping for the upcoming expedition, no doubt. Rose was glad for that; she didn't want to be seen this way. Levi assisted her down, then half-carried her inside, straight to his office and onto his usually unused bed.

Rose closed her eyes as soon as her eyes hit the pillow, the previous exhaustion taking hold and pulling her down into a deep sleep.

"Can you get more bandages?" Kara asked, yanking Rose from her reverie.

Rose shook her head a bit, then quickly nodded at Kara's question. "Yes, I'll be right back."

"And do actually come back this time, dear," Kara joked, a smirk on her lips as she continued to take care of the rest of the clinic.

"Right – sorry about that, by the way."

Since the incident with Lily, rumor had spread quickly that there was a time traveler amongst them, and who it happened to be. The journalists had even come to talk to her when she'd returned to this timeline, but Levi immediately ran them off the front porch, threateningly. "The last thing you need is some big headline about you." And he was right.

Still, people approached her and asked her about her home time period, what it was like, what the people were like, what she did for a living. She simply said that she was studying to be a nurse, and that she had a lot of friends who were nice enough to her. She kept her answers brief, as she didn't know still how much she was allowed to tell to how many people; what if it corrupted the space-time continuum? Or something along those lines?

She had no proof that this could happen, other than movies, but she had to take any resource she could get.

At the market, she went straight toward the booth holding the medical supplies she needed, using the clinic money that Kara gave her from the till to pay for her purchases. As she headed back to the infirmary, people were quickly growing excited, buzzing with some news.

"What's going on?" Rose asked a passersby.

"The Scouts are back," the other person said, a bright smile on their face.

Rose's heart leapt; who of her friends would she be seeing again? She just had to wait a little longer, and her answer would be revealed to her.


"Another titan shifter?" Rose inquired as she prepared dinner for everyone. Squad Levi, and most of Hange's squad, had returned unharmed. They suffered just a couple of casualties, but mostly just some with minor injuries.

That was probably the best outcome they could hope for, to be honest.

"That's what it looks like," Armin answered as he wiped the tables and chairs for everyone to sit down.

"What did it look like?"

"It was so strange: it had hands except where its thumbs should be it had sharp sword-like pinchers. It almost looked like a spider, it had not two legs but four, and it moved so fast because of all those legs. It also would dig under ground to avoid us, using those pinchers as shovels to get underground, like an animal burrowing in the dirt. But it was so fast once it was underneath us too – it would start in one location then be several yards away in just a matter of seconds."

"But it didn't attack you?"

"No – it was like it was watching us, studying us as we tried to attack it. It was… bizarre, to say the least."

That was definitely the word for it.

"At least you managed to capture it."

"Thanks to Eren," Armin said. "And the fact that it seemed to have grown tired after digging around for awhile."

Just as dinner was being prepared, Hange entered headquarters, followed by Lily. Lily looked as white as a ghost, and like she was about to be sick.

Rose stopped serving food and approached her sister. "What's wrong?"

"You're not going to believe me even if I told you," Lily said in a hushed voice.

Hange was whispering to Levi in the corner of the room now, and Rose glanced to them both, as if they had to answers she sought, before returning her gaze to Lily. "Try me."

"Come on," Lily said, leading the way back outside and just out on the front stoop.

"Lily, what –"

"It's this new titan shifter. We figured out why he was able to move so fast underground." Lily crossed her arms over her chest, as if she was trying to protect herself from the truth. "Quite frankly, if I hadn't gone with you to your timeline, to the hospital, I wouldn't have been able to…"

"Lily, what are you talking about?" Rose inquired almost desperately. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Rose, it's Jake," Lily finally said, blue meeting blue, like oceans crashing into one another. "The shifter is Jake."


"Absolutely not," Levi stated, all four adults in his office now.

"He's not talking to any of you, but he'll probably talk to me," Rose offered.

"And if he doesn't? Then he could go apeshit just at seeing you and kill us all," Levi said, grey eyes narrowed at her. "The answer is no."

"That's –" Rose was about to call out how that was bullshit, or say how it wasn't fair, but Hange interrupted her.

"I say let her," Hange chimed in, hands lifting up in a shrug as if it wasn't a big deal. "His hands are chained up, he can't transform. What's the worst that can happen at this point? He continue with the silent treatment?"

Levi leaned against his desk, clearly thinking of every scenario. She knew that he was thinking of the worst case, his deep-down fear of danger coming to her probably bubbling at the forefront. Finally, with a relenting sigh, he nodded once, looking to Rose through the fringe of his hair. "You will have thirty minutes. That's it. Then you're out of there, no matter what."

"Alright, no matter what," she promised.

Down at the courthouse, they were authorized clearance to see Jake down in the dungeon of a jail. They walked to the last cell, the hoards of guards at the ready as Rose approached the bars. A guard stopped her as she seemed to have drawn too close. "This is the safest distance, ma'am."

"Right, sorry," she muttered, her eyes landing on Jake's chained up body then.

He was shirtless, wearing a pair of brown pants and no shoes. He looked up as soon as he heard her voice, and his brown eyes – once seeming so bright and innocent – widened at the sight of her. "Rose," he breathed.

"He spoke," Hange whispered behind her, but she ignored them.

"Hey, Jake," she said meekly, offering a small smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes.

"What are you doing here?" He seemed truly surprised by her presence in the dungeon, as if she didn't belong in such a dingy place. "Didn't you hear? I'm kind of the enemy right now."

"Jake…" She couldn't tell if he was making a joke or not, but either way now wasn't the time to do so. "Jake, what's going on – is that even your name?"

He chuckled. "Believe it or not, I have been stupid enough to walk around with my real name. My mistake, oh well." He shrugged, causing the chains on arms and wrists to jangle. "As far as what's going on: it's a long story."

"We… we have time," she said, folding her hands in front of her, trying to appear as patient as possible, though she was feeling rather anxious and eager. "Start from the beginning."

"Truth be told, I've always known that you were a time traveler. Even before you started jumping through time periods, I knew." He paused, as if waiting for her to ask how, but she didn't, so he continued. "You see, I'm one, too. There's quite a few of us where I'm from – it's actually impossibly rare to find them anywhere else. So when I… sensed it from you, I started hanging around you." He swallowed, as if the words he had tried to form just tried to choke him, then went on. "I was supposed to kill you a long time, Rose. But I… I watched you with Tim – with everyone you met. You treated everyone with such hospitality and kindness, even the homeless you greeted with a free meal."

Her face flushed; that last bit she had been doing in secret, as if her boss ever found out, she would absolutely lose her job. She would pay for the meal later, of course, with a little bit of her tips for the night or some of her paycheck, but still she knew she would get into lots of trouble.

"I've never seen anyone as selfless as you. And it was then that I decided: I would just have to wait and see, see if it was truly necessary to kill you. Then the homecoming dance came, and I made another solid vow to go through what I was supposed to do – only… that night, you looked so innately human, something I hadn't seen in such a long time, I still couldn't bring myself to do it."

Rose realized then, she was shaking a little. Probably at the reality that she was supposed to be long dead by now. She steadied herself, tried to control it, as she listened on.

"I would come back and forth between here and there, reporting that I had, in fact, killed you at last. It worked, for some time. And I thought all was well – but then I met your sister, and knew things were worse than I thought, and I'd let them get out of control."

Now, finding her voice, she asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"The 'Heart of Titan'. I know all about it. Where I'm from, Marley – we know all about it, how it works, and what chaos it can create if in the wrong hands."

"How do you know if it's in the right hands or not?"

"We don't. So we just… kill one of the owners."

Rose remembered her father, her real father, and how he was eaten by a titan right after he'd died. "So… there is a way to bring the other twin back from the dead, after they do the same to a civilian?"

"So you're figuring it out," Jake said instead, shifting a bit under his restraints. "But it's too dangerous a power to possess, so we kill the older twin. Because we don't know what their soul will be like once they've died and come back."

Rose didn't say anything, but she averted her gaze, as if her eyes would reveal the truth.

It seemed that action was enough to do just that. "You have… died." She didn't answer, which was confirmation enough. "Rose, you have to be careful from here on out, do you understand? You could be a lot more powerful than you probably think, and it could be dangerous."

"What does that mean?" both her and Hange asked at the same time.

"I don't know exactly, just that the one that comes back from the dead – typically the older twin – has unequivocable power. So just… be careful."

Rose wanted to ask more, as she had plenty more questions flowing through head, but Levi called times up, taking hold of wrist and pulling her away from Jake's cell.

"Rose! One more thing!"

They stopped just before the staircase leading up to the courthouse, and Rose turned around to face the direction of Jake's prison cell.

"I love you – and I'm sorry."

Though those weren't the words she wanted to hear, she knew he meant them.