The wait is always the worst part. It's the part in between the decision to act and meeting face first with the inevitable. A limbo of tortuous anticipation for what is so far away and so immediate at the same time. This is a yearning torment Floch knows too well.

It's a sensation in every moment that's supposed to take the fear away from the impending fate. You feel it in the spoonful of schnapps they distributed among the scouts before mounting, you feel it in the second after your vocal cords fail and you can't scream at the beast titan anymore, you feel it when your heart clenches as you see a rain of shrapnel barreling towards you at ungodly speeds.

You can't do much more than duck and wait. Wait to die, wait to live, wait to continue when you open your eyes, wherever and whenever that is. You wait to find out, you just wait.

Similarly, Floch is currently in the waiting room of Ehrmich's military hospital beside Mikasa as they wait for a doctor to see their injuries in a training accident, caused by a sparring with the Ackerman girl sitting to his right.

It's nothing too serious, less so for Mikasa. Floch managed to place a strong powered kick which she blocked but at the cost of her wrist getting bruised and a small fracture on her hand. Floch got out of that sparring with a breakage on his collarbone and bruised ribs.

It wouldn't usually warrant a medical leave to the interior, but commander Hange Zoé insisted they take time off from the Scouts' continuous expedition outside the walls. Not leaving out any room for protest and shipping them off to wall Sina, something which Floch found idiotic considering the trip in carriage hurt a lot more than what it would've if he just recovered on a bed in the barracks.

Moreover he hates waiting, he wants this to be over with. To face the jolt of pain that'll inevitably make him groan and his eyes prickle with tears, he can't bear the anticipation between this moment in the waiting chair and that pain. He shifts subconsciously in frustration, making Mikasa turn to him.

"Are you scared? Don't worry, they say Dr. Farmhart is very competent despite her age." She said neutrally, in her own way of reassurance.

Floch scowled "I am not scared. I just don't like us wasting time here when we could just take a couple of days without returning to the interior. It's completely unnecessary for us to have come so far from the camp for injuries this insignificant." His glare bore holes into the sling in his arm.

Mikasa looked at him without betraying anything in her expression "You're fidgeting like a child. Do you wish me to hold your hand?"

"Shut up! I'm not Jaeger for you to mother me!"

Before the two scouts could bicker more and Mikasa could unknowingly humiliate Floch any further, the door to the office of military police physician Ellie Farmhart, with a plaque that confirmed it so, opened.

Both of them turned to see a fair-skinned woman with raven hair popping out of the room with a paper list. The girl who indeed didn't look much older than them read what was written on her list and looked up at the legionnaires.

"Mr. Forster, Miss Ackerman? Please come in." She said in a soft, professional voice before walking back inside.

Floch muttered a curse under his breath and grumbled about his time being wasted here as they got up and followed the physician inside.

As they stepped inside Farmhart's office, the girl, now clad in a white coat embroidered with the unicorn emblem of the military police, was standing beside a patient's examination table. She lowered her clipboard and took a better look at them both, her gray eyes lingered on Floch's sling for a moment before she motioned for them to sit.

"Scouts, I see. The file they gave me says Ackerman, you're a first lieutenant, and you Forster, second lieutenant." She paused and looked up, her face adopting a questioning expression "Is the document correct, are those your ranks?"

They both nodded, eliciting an interested acceptance from Farmhart.

"Ages?" She uncapped a fountain pen and flipped to a new sheet on her clipboard, ready to write down their medical information. "And your date of birth too."

"17, February 10th." Mikasa said.

"16, October 8th." Floch complemented.

Farmhart gathered their blood type, weight, height, known allergies and past wounds or illnesses. She curiously noted how evenly matched the two were, with Floch being slightly taller and heavier, she scribbled down Mikasa's cracked ribs at the hand of a pure titan two years ago and Floch's concussion during the operation to retake Maria.

"Now, let's address your current injuries."

She chose to treat Mikasa's hand and wrist first, delicately probing around the swollen and damaged area, asking questions and evaluating for pain. Sending her off to a chair in front of her desk with a wrist immobilizer, an anti-inflammatory balm and two of her fingers bandaged together to prevent movement.

Mikasa thanked the young physician and nodded when Farmhart saluted her, for she was actually her superior officer.

Floch found himself now as the sole object of the MP's attention as she examined his sling. A makeshift thing commander Hange had made for him back on the outside. He held his gaze to the gray eyes neutrally eyeing him up, putting on an impatient front, which wasn't truly all feigned, he wanted to get back to the field now. But the rapid heartbeat that drummed his chest spoke of the anxiousness that plagued him.

Farmhart cut open his shirt with a pair of surgical scissors to remove the sling and check on his ribs while at it. Floch's breath hitched the moment her touch, even if gentle, made contact with his skin above the damaged areas, wincing in pain with every slight movement.

"I'll tell you that just by looking at first glance, you'll be incapacitated from physical activities for at least two and a half weeks." She said after retracting her hands and reaching for her clipboard again to jot down her observations.

Floch frowned. "Not happening. Recruitment is barely looking up enough to keep our supply routes running and most of the new batch of scouts are greenhorns. I cannot fuck around doing nothing for so long."

"Do you wish to end your military career as a Second Lieutenant, Forster? We have the same rank." She responded unemotionally. "For me personally, the hierarchy isn't that important. But it'd be a shame to see a war hero such as yourself never be able to use Omni-directional equipment again for being stubborn in titanless times."

His red-colored brows furrowed deeper. "...do what you have to."

Over the course of an hour Farmhart created a properly bandaged and stitched sling to keep his arm immobilized and his collarbone adjusted. She offered him a small dose of an opiate to relieve the pain seeing his gritted teeth and curled feet dangling from the examination table.

The part of Floch's brain that was stubborn and hardwired to present himself as impervious to pain, as was the case with most males, stupidly refused at first and tried to appear nonchalant. But that attitude didn't last long and he grumbled something about efficiency, disguising his plea for relief from the thunks of pain he felt, making Farmhart's lips quirk up in the smallest of grins.

Between the numbing effects of the painkiller and the dissociation of the hour spent enduring the sensations, Floch never noticed Mikasa stood beside him again. Whatever conversation she had with Farmhart went unheard, because the first thing he heard his comrade say was:

"Are you good to walk or should I carry you?"

"W-what?" He regained his bearing and asked indignantly, as if he had been asked to enter a titan's maw and he misheard.

"You'll have to be moved to a bed, can you walk yourself or should I bring you there." Mikasa shrugged.

"You will not carry me. I'll walk." Came the utter refusal accompanied by a venomous glare.

Floch hopped down from the examination table and immediately stumbled to his right. His jumbled and annoyed mind processed late that he had not gained a proper balance and was now falling straight into Farmhart's quick thinking-reaction embrace.

"Are you alright Floch?!" Mikasa exclaimed with her senses now on alert, having noticed a second too late that Floch was struggling to stand.

Farmhart who had dropped her pen and clipboard at the spontaneous sight of a scout considerably larger than her falling into her was now pressed face-first into his shoulder. Her first thoughts as a medic and a soldier were how to better support his weight and to not put pressure on his bandaged arm.

Under her alert and trained professionalism though, there was a part of her that was reacting to the feel of his muscles and the whiff of his scent she caught by the collision. But none of that took priority. She propped him up with the help of Mikasa who hung his left arm around her shoulders to support him.

Together they brought him to a wing where there were several beds for the patients. Mostly Garrison soldiers with broken or fractured limbs. Mikasa had looked anodyne for the most part, maybe a little concerned along the way, but by the time they assigned him a bed she had no patience for his protests and literally tucked him in. By force.

By the time both girls managed to convince Floch that this wasn't an emasculating humiliation but literally doctor's orders, he only grumbled under his breath. Floch wasn't an irrational person. He understood the importance of an efficient and well-ordered recovery if he was to return to his duties outside the walls, but being manhandled and tucked into a bed bruised his ego in a way it might never recover.

Farmhart left to continue with her scheduled examinations and duties for the day and left the scouts to do nothing. At least Floch, Mikasa apparently chose to since she stayed on a chair by his bed.

Floch raised an eyebrow. "...what are you doing?"

"Making time pass and keeping an eye on you." She replied without missing a beat.

"You've got days of paid leave to explore Ehrmich, hell maybe you could even squeeze yourself a trip to Mithras."

"Indulging myself in the interior's luxury doesn't quite interest me, I've got no one to share the good things with."

Floch huffed amusedly, not surprised at all. "Right, everything sucks without Jaeger and…Arlert for you." He forced himself to not sneer at the pronunciation of Armin's name. "Still, even walking the streets or wandering about thinking about them is better than just rotting on a hospital chair, this is just plain time wasting."

"Perhaps you're right." She said, not moving from her seat.

"I mean, you could at least bring some stupid knick knack. Eren has an ever-deepening stick up his ass lately but if you get him something that appeals to his old cocky persona like…I don't know, a dagger or something, he might even smirk and tell you it's nice. Arlert will be happy with a leatherback book."

"...You think so?" Mikasa pondered the idea, the thought of gifting Eren with a blade instantly making her hear him out and consider it.

"Don't know for sure, they're your friends, not mine. But if I had to choose on what to bring to a guy that used to be obsessed with charging face first into a fight and an insufferable and pretentious guy who's useless off the strategy table, I'd go with that." He shrugged.

Mikasa frowned at the jab at Armin. She knew how much Floch despised her friend, these backhanded comments uncharacteristic of his blunt and frank approach to most things told her that much. The times she had asked for a reason he replied with a sarcastic comment along the lines of a successful decapitation he would rather avoid.

"Perhaps I will bring them a couple of gifts from the interior…will you really be fine on your own?"

"Boredom is my only threat here Mikasa, go shop around." He waved her off and leaned back onto his bed.

Mikasa looked at the redhead for a long moment before sighing and getting up from her seat. "Ellie will probably come check on you before I'm back."

"...Ellie huh." Floch echoed, only now realizing he hadn't actually caught her first name and had referred to her by last name or 'doctor'.

"I can call her by her name, I'm her superior. But you on the other hand?" Mikasa cracked a rare smirk that only showed whenever she remembered she could tease people. Floch scoffed and shook his head at her retreating form, letting the embers of the Ackerman humor linger before thinking about what he would do to alleviate the bedridden time and their consequences on his scout mind.

Farmhart-Ellie, had said at least two weeks incapacitated. That can't mean bedridden, right? His thoughts pleaded with the reality of his hurt ribs and inwardly cursed his habit of taking up Mikasa's offers of sparring.

His lips blew a bored raspberry as he peered into the confined nothingness of the high ceiling, the stone heights of the patient's wing was the limit of his world in his current state, him and every soul recovering or dying in these beds. A couple of high-ceilinged windows in between the stone let in a sliver of natural light that told him the day was halfway to its end, but knowing the sun would set in the horizon and rise again and he'd still be miserably stuck here was little motivation to care about the hour.

He sardonically thought this arrangement reminded him of being atop the walls from his time in the Garrison. The sun and its warmth could grace him and give him a semblance of a routine and path, but if he never moved from his position, due to both his orders and an impossibility to do so (lest he was consumed by a 5-meter class) then the sun and its passage be damned.

As he drowned out the ambience of those who were active in their recovery, chatting, playing chess, yelling inarticulately due to head trauma or mental trauma that ran deeper than physical damage, Floch's mind went on an epic journey with a myriad of stops as the hours ticked by. He wondered if the tea a nurse served him contained any more opiates for how numb and dissociated he was.

Galloping horses both in memory and somewhere nearby the hospital grounds. The antiseptic scent of his bed's white covers. A blonde commander that should have lived. The question of what crimes his kin could have committed overseas to warrant titanization. Ellie Farmhart. Green, the sight of death in a green meadow stained by red, littered with green capes and filled with the remnants of green smoke. The Jaeger family and their powers. The now clear embarrassment of falling straight into Mikasa and Ellie Farmhart's arms when weak and numb. Eldia.

In hindsight, he should have asked Mikasa to bring him a book too.

Floch stopped paying attention to time altogether. He failed to conciliate much sleep, his short naps being nothing but a continuation of his already spiraling thoughts with a little more immersion in the memories. This was also why he hated so much the idea of staying put for so long with no ODM training, no subtle tips and talks with Captain Levi, no writing epic bullshit in the letters to his parents back in Karanes.

Just waiting. Waiting for his stupid ribs and collarbone to heal, dreading the loss of rhythm for when he returns to airborne drills. Waiting for the time to pass and not die of boredom, dreading the voices of Sandra, Gordon and Marlowe to echo in his mind again.

When Ellie Farmhart's boots hitting the cobblestone of the patient's wing were heard he didn't perk up. She found Floch staring at the ceiling with dull and listless eyes, the look of someone whose thoughts raced frantically but was impotent to do anything regarding them and was resigned to helplessness.

"Are you still alive, Forster?"

"Mostly."

Ellie glanced over at her patient with two fingers on her chin. Only after a moment of prolonged inexpressiveness did his hazel eyes move to meet hers.

"How are you holding up? Any sensation of pain worse than how it was before?" She asked.

He shook his head "Nah, exactly the same. Maybe the occasional jolt of pain when I stir from a snooze." He instinctively shrugged and felt one of those mentioned jolts. He tried to mask it, but the facial expression was all too noticeable for Ellie, who found herself subconsciously grinning at Floch's backfiring bravado for the second time today.

"I believe I said you should avoid sudden movements or placing pressure on that side. That includes motion from muscle memory." She couldn't help teasing the stranger from the scouts, not getting disappointed by the scowl on his face.

"I remember what you said."

"Then you're willingly dismissing medical orders for your own sake. How very Survey Corps of you."

"Yeah yeah, laugh at the fodder who paved the way for the retaking of Maria. It must be so much better to extort rich folks and collect bribes."

Ellie arched a brow "I don't participate in such affairs. I'm a medical MP, do note the red cross below the unicorn. If the white coat from earlier in my office was not enough."

"You must have had a test run at the duties of a normal MP, you transferred to the medical divisions afterwards. Otherwise that emblem on your shoulders would be the standard of the military with the swords over a silver shield, not affiliated to any branch." Floch scoffed.

Ellie was inwardly impressed by Floch's deduction capacities. She had his background on file so her knowing he was a transfer from Garrison to Survey Corps was nothing more than a read. But he was spot on about her career just by looking at a crest.

"I can see why you're alive when you transferred just before a mission with a casualty rate higher than 90%." She had to hand it to him.

His eyes darkened. "...I ducked and trusted my horse had enough muscle on him to keep me from getting ground into red dust. That's all it took."

The curiosity over why no one else in the entire legion thought of ducking their heads plagued Ellie, but she was not about to voice something so insensitive and cruel to someone with those eyes. Eyes like…Annie's.

"Be it as it may, you're here. You had enough sense that leaked into the adrenaline of a charge and eluded projectiles coming at you with deadly speeds. It is commendable."

"That battle-fever was the desired effect on us, the point. None of us were supposed to survive that charge, as long as Captain Levi could use the offering to slice down a path…we were supposed to scream like suicidal madmen. I was…nevermind." He stopped abruptly before he voiced his most pathetic thoughts that appeared every time he was left to them. He shook his head and resurfaced from the depths he had sunk to in the hours of silence here in this bed.

Ellie picked up on Floch's pivot on his words and retreat back to safety. She knew it was a cue to drop the subject and keep up the professionalism. But she had to know. For better or for worse, Erwin Smith was a legend among the people of the walls, his final charge that meant every refugee from wall Maria could return home, a habitable, devoid of titans home, was an evermore glorious epic tale.

It wasn't every day you got to converse with a brutally honest and jaded survivor of that event.

"...what was that like? Riding full speed ahead and screaming while staring down death I mean."

Floch regarded her with a complicated look that spoke of his hollering memories of that particular moment.

"You wanna know the truth?"

Ellie nodded and Floch sighed. He closed his eyes and retold his exact train of thought during that instant.

"Shit."

"Pardon?"

"That's it really." He shrugged "I've given that memory endless turns and visits. Added a lot of weight to it. More so considering I saw commander Erwin get torn to bits in front of me while my friends and I passed by the first row of bodies, even more so considering that was the last time I saw all my friends for the last time.

…but at that moment, I didn't think of how I rode a different man than who I was before mounting, or any other dramatization of the slaughter. I just thought Shit."

Ellie was fascinated and mortified as she heard the detailed experience of a damned man. One who came back and had no qualms about talking about how the rope of a noose itches.

"...I knew it wasn't as glorious as they painted it in the distributed propaganda, but this is…strong."

"Yeah, I've told a lot of bullshit about that day. I get the importance of our people's morale and the fire it brings in recruits' hearts that still choose the scouts despite none but nine coming back from that operation. But I assure you, you think of nothing but fear, dread and regret when death is lunging at you."

"And you choose to stay in the Survey Corps?"

"Sometimes I believe in the romantic and patriotic bullshit I spout." Floch shrugged again, conveniently skipping mentioning the Scouts focus on the potential encounter with unknown and foreign forces, hailing from the same places Zeke Jaeger and the warrior unit came from. The very reason for the Survey corps to be stationed on the southern coasts, where he and Mikasa got injured.

Ellie bit her cheek in thought. Her curiosity wasn't satiated as Floch answered her questions about that mythical day in the shortly conscious Eldian history.

This patient in front of her awoke more intrigue than he laid to rest when he indulged her questioning. From the medical appointment to this brief talk which had turned insanely deep in such a short exchange. Seriously, Ellie had just sat beside him minutes ago.

Floch had seemed like a childish person to her at first. His relationship with Mikasa seemed like an awkward mix between a sibling dynamic and a complete lack of trust from an outsider's perspective. She had a few thoughts about the quiet Ackerman girl, but regardless of if they were accurate or not, she knew Forster was the one that caused more trouble and made a bigger show about it.

But now? When catching him alone and enveloped by his thoughts, he didn't remind her of Hitch, he reminded her of Annie.

"' 'Shit' huh? Then… I'm sure as shit glad someone survived. it's good that someone can ground us and tell us how it really was." She said softly, looking up to meet his gaze.

Floch was caught so off-guard by the absurd comment and the incompetent swearing, he laughed after the baffled moment of silence.

"It's not like 'shit' is the default for when you await imminent death! It's just what I thought!" He said between chuckles.

Ellie felt her face tingle with a mild blush, embarrassed by Floch's more outgoing side catching on to her poor use of swear words. Contrary to popular belief in the Military Police, Ellie used to be quite a colorful speaker back in her hometown, but as she grew and got used to military life, the rust was evident.

"Whatever. It is good that you're alive Forster, so try to stay like that and make sure that injury heals correctly. Remember, no sudden movements so you can go back to dancing with comically bad odds like you scouts do." She stood up from her stool beside his bed and made to turn around to continue her work.

"Hey wait!" Floch quickly said, sitting up fully and again inducing pain on himself.

"Yes?"

"...could you maybe bring me a book or something to not lose my mind? Whenever you're free and around of course." Floch said, unusually bashful given he had completely missed mentioning it to Mikasa.

Ellie's lips quirked up a third time in amusement at his plights.

"Sure, I'll come back in a few hours when my medical guard is over."

"Thanks…I'll be waiting for you."

The best collabs are those that are unpaid passion projects (We're gonna starve)

All the credits to KN_237k for creating Ellie's character and her backstory! I had been following her artwork for this pairing for a while now when we coincidentally said on twitter that a fanfic should be written. And since no one did, we took it upon ourselves.

This story will follow canon events, but obviously it will play out differently now that we established first contact with Ellie and Floch, the pillar of the Jaegerist movement before Marley's survey fleets even arrive in Paradis.

So yeah, I'd personally recommend you stay for what we'll have to offer. I'm excited to give Floch such an alternate route that will be directly in conflict with the man he is.

Also, did you notice AOT's anime ended a year ago? Damn. Hopes for an AOE may have died long ago, but it doesn't mean we can't go forward with new projects that exploit untouched territory that Yams didn't delve much into.

Until next time.

(P.s: I had wanted to put this out by Floch's birthday in the 8th of october, but college told me to shut the fuck up lmfao. I'll try to not take too long to update)