Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Three months later.

The nightmare was getting worse.

This time it attacked like a gunshot, ripping Marco from his bed and sending him bolt upright with a sharp breath. As the room swam into view, warm and dusty as it always was, he tried to stop his heart pounding quite so much whilst the panic of the dream clung to him like cellophane. The images in his sleep-addled mind began to fade like ghosts as he sucked in breath after godly breath, squeezing his eyes shut tightly with every blink to get rid of them faster. After a few seconds, whatever fear had been pressing like ice against his veins slowly, slowly, began to thaw.

It was one of those rare days when Trost was blessed with sunshine. The rays filtered in through the gaps in blinds and curtains of the houses in nameless streets, warming their grey brick skins and promising a morning they hadn’t seen for the past few weeks. The light that was coming through the dusty and grimed windows cast a simple glow around the bedroom, as though Marco was waking up into a sepia photograph. There’d been a storm, and now it had blown over the city gave its familiar sighs. Marco, as his eyes adjusted and came into focus, tried his best to match them.

Once reality set in, he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and groaned, flopping back onto the bed with an agonised creak. Dreams had always evaded him, turning to soup in his mind before he had the chance to really remember them, but this one was different. He’d known it would come. It had danced at the edge of his mind for so long, jostling for position, that it had only taken a few weeks and his guard to drop and it was forming a repetitive, orderly queue in his subconscious. He crushed his hand to his head again and shuddered out a breath. That time he had felt the grit of the street beneath his hands. He had heard the shouts, seen the rushing blue lights and felt the…

His hand dropped from his face.

The cold steel of the blade as it plunged into him.

Out of habit, he drifted his hand down to his stomach, his fingers probing and testing the tender flesh he found there. No blood. No gaping wound. Nothing but scar tissue and slightly chilled skin under his fingers. He sighed in relief and actually dared to look down at the small pink mark left on his body. The scar didn’t hurt so much anymore, but the muscle was still weak. He had to take things slowly, the nurse had reminded him, but it had been a month since he’d stepped foot in the clinic to be checked over and he’d be damned if he was going back anytime soon.

He reached out, searching for a someone to fill the space against his side, but found nothing. He turned over to look in the corner. Months before, there had been a stack of fruit crates acting as a makeshift chest of drawers. They were now gone, and in its place was an equally weather-beaten but nonetheless well-loved cot. That, too, was empty.

A small alarm went off in his head. It had to be late. Had he slept in again, after all the promises he’d made?

With a sleepy frown and a jaw-cracking yawn, he got up. Throwing the covers aside and rocking onto his heels with a deep groan, he almost immediately had to stop himself from falling over Batman. The cat tangled himself between Marco’s ankles and mewled inquiringly, gazing up at him with his lamp-yellow eyes. “M’fine, Bats,” Marco mumbled, reaching down to tickle him behind his ears. He winced as the movement tugged the scar on his stomach. Batman looked at him reproachfully as he straightened up, clutching his torso. “Go on, shoo,” he instructed, giving Batman a gentle push with his foot. Batman gave him another cold look, and with a flick of his tail he was gone, snaking around the gap in Marco’s bedroom door without a second glance.

“Fickle,” Marco called after him, but the word stuck in his throat. He coughed to clear it, and padded to the door himself.

Every day, he went through the same routine. Most mornings, he would wake up to an empty bed. Every morning, he would wonder if he’d actually just hallucinated the last few months. And every morning, with an edge of panic, he would go to his door and hope against hope that he would see what he saw every time. Today, he was the same; he even had to pause and take a breath, for goodness’ sake. He wanted to blame the nightmare. The nightmare was a good excuse to be nervous. Of course it was.

He stepped through the door and peered out, blinking owlishly in the light that was now unabashedly streaming through the large windows of his apartment. The large windowpanes, rusted from lack of use and ready to fall apart at a moment’s notice, connected and hinged like the bones of a well-worn skeleton, the light from outside breaking apart upon hitting them and casting thick stripes across the floor and sofa. In between a particularly bright beam of light, an easel was propped up. And behind it-

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

Marco’s stomach, as always, settled.

Jean was an early riser; whilst Marco was happy to sleep in on his days off and make every minute count, Jean was out of bed and showered before his second alarm. It was one of the many things Marco had since gotten used to since Jean had moved into the apartment, but getting up early was worth it just to walk in and see him framed in the sunlight. He hadn’t even turned around; he was still drawing his brush against the canvas, blotting out chunks of colour inch by inch as he worked. Marco made his way over, making sure that his footfalls were loud enough for Jean to hear to keep from startling him, and when he was sure Jean knew he was there he put his arms around the skinny waist and squeezed. “Morning,” he mumbled, resting his head against the prominent bone of Jean’s shoulder. “Where’s Claudine?”

“Armin stopped by. He wanted to take her to the park.”

“Oh.” Marco frowned at the blazing sunlight coming from the windows and buried his face in Jean’s shoulders to hide from the glare. “Did I sleep in late?”

“It’s ten o clock,” Jean said, “so not bad.” Marco felt Jean’s free hand drift down and cover on of his, the cold palm soon warming under his slight fever. He felt more than saw Jean frown at the feeling. “You’re burning up again.”

“It’s the new pills. The nurse said they might have side effects.” 

 Jean made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, but Marco felt him lean against him, the paintbrush dropping to his side for a moment as he surveyed his handiwork. It was a cityscape, but all in varying shades of purple and blue. The chunks of tower block and warehouses stretched across the canvas like sleeping giants, and there was something stunning about them that Marco couldn’t put his finger on. Jean had never painted the city before; he had always looked up, painting galaxies or animals that didn’t exist. Now he painted them often, but with always just a hint of the fantastic in them. Marco leaned in close and brushed his lips against the side of Jean’s neck, smiling at the tremor that passed through Jean’s entire body. “It’s beautiful,” he mumbled against the skin.

Jean swallowed painfully. “O-oh?” he all but squeaked.

Marco chuckled. “Uh huh. Just,” he kissed a spot on his neck, “like,” he moved to just behind Jean’s ear, “you.” He finished with a gentle tug at Jean’s earlobe, a spot he’d found a week ago that made Jean’s knees buckle.

As predicted, Jean let out a small whine that had nothing to do with pain, and his grip on Marco’s hand tightened. “I never should have told you about that,” he complained, though his voice wasn’t as hard as it could have been.

“Mmm, I’d have found out anyway.” Marco nuzzled a spot between Jean’s shoulder blades and felt them relax under his touch. He was sure he heard a sigh of relief come from Jean too, and squeezed his waist in reassurance. Jean still had a long way to go; he was still a little nervous, especially when Marco snuck up on him or gave too much attention all at once. Marco didn’t mind – he was patient. He would take whatever Jean was willing to give, and bottle up the memory with a smile and a kiss. It was for this reason that he moved his head back to its place on Jean’s shoulder and asked, “would you like to kiss me now?”

Jean made a flustered noise that also sounded like a “yes” and turned his head to catch Marco’s lips with his own. It was soft, fleeting, but it was a grounding for the both of them. When Jean pulled away, he made a face. “Morning breath,” he complained, batting Marco away.

“You love it,” Marco grinned.

“No, Marco, I love you and there’s a big difference.”

It hurt Marco to grin as wide as he did, leaning in for another kiss which Jean gratefully offered. That was new, too. The word ‘Love’ hadn’t ever been spoken until after the accident. It was shunted to the side and replaced by looks or actions or secretive smiles. Their interlinked hands, swinging together, had meant love. Marco, fixing the observatory, meant love. Jean, giving away his most treasured books like pieces of his soul, meant love. There were so many things they had done, so many times they had danced around the subject, and now it fell from Marco’s lips like rainwater. Jean was different – Jean was careful with his words, placing them in the space between Marco’s neck and shoulder or leaving them to be found on notes he scribbled and stuck in books or Marco’s work desk. Marco loved them anyway, collecting them like talismans and Jean’s smiles like gold.

Once they drew away for breath, Jean raised his brush back up to the canvas. Marco loosened his grip on Jean and slipped away, heading to the breakfast bar in search of coffee. “Do you want anything?” he called over his shoulder.

“Juice,” Jean answered.

“Coming up.” There was a pause as Marco rooted around in the fridge for the offending carton (extra pulp, orange and passionfruit) but when Jean cleared his throat, he turned back. Jean wasn’t looking at the painting anymore. He was looking, with a small frown, at Marco. “Everything okay?”

When Jean set his paintbrush down on his palette, Marco knew that everything was not okay. Nothing stopped Jean painting. Except, apparently, him. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Jean was biting his lip now, the way he always did when he was worried about saying something. “You… you yelled, just before you woke up.” His arms came up to fold across his chest, his concern threatening to split him. “Nightmares again?”

Marco watched him for a moment, and then went back to filtering the coffee and finding glasses for the juice. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah.” A pause. “You know, thinking about what happened… mulling it over in your head… it’s perfectly normal.”

Marco scoffed, turning his back to Jean to pour out the juice at the back counter. He didn’t want to show how badly his hands were shaking. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry you had to hear that. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”

“I’ll worry about it if I want to.” Jean’s words were a little spiked now, and Marco’s resolve wilted along with it. “I never said you weren’t fine, but the therapist said-”

“-that things take time, I know,” Marco finished for him, turning back with the full glass and a paper-thin smile on his smile. “But it’s okay. I’m okay.” Jean raised an eyebrow. That eyebrow almost finished him.

Jean didn’t look convinced. He moved away from the easel and started to walk towards him, arms still folded and mouth still frowning. Marco noted the oversize shirt Jean had slung onto himself that morning. It was the Spiderman T-shirt. His Spiderman T-shirt. Jean had had his eye on it for a while, and the way it fell halfway down his jogging bottom-clad thighs made Marco certain that he wouldn’t be getting it back anytime soon.

He reached out for him as he got near, his fingers gripping onto the loose fabric of the shirt like Claudine would if she needed comforting, and drew Jean close to him. They fitted together a little jaggedly, Jean the scarecrow and Marco the Superman, but that just about summed up their lives in Trost. Before he could wrap his arms around him, however, Jean reached lower and pulled his shirt up. “O-hey!”

The warmth of his shirt was replaced by a cold hand. Marco knew what it was looking for. Jean’s hand skimmed down until it found the scar nestled just above his navel. Jean made a thoughtful noise as he looked at it, brows furrowed and lips pursed. “It’s healing well,” he said.

Marco looked down at it too. “Another mark of me being a famous idiot, as Mikasa would say.”

“S’more a mark of you being brave.”

Marco flushed at that. Jean’s thumb traced the shape of the scar over and over, like he wanted to knit the flesh together and keep it unblemished. When he looked up, he was smiling, if only a little. “No blood. No open wound. No alleyway.” Marco tried to look away, but Jean’s gaze held him rooted to the spot. “I’m not going to ask you to change the way you fight this. All I know is that… that you’re not okay right now. But… but that’s okay, because you will be.” He looked away then, the honesty in his voice colouring his cheeks, and finished with a weak, “that’s what I think anyway,” to soften things.

His hand still lingered on the scar, still stroking its tail with his thumb. Marco watched for a while, that single little motion firing so many tingling sensations down his body, and when he looked back he noticed Jean was watching him. Jean didn’t admit it, but he’d definitely gained weight since he’d moved into the apartment; there was less of a gaunt, haunted look about him, and his smiles looked more shaded in and defined. When their eyes met and the smile came to life out of the shadow, Marco realised that Jean hadn’t smiled as much before – not when they had first met, back when he had jumped into the river for Jean and Jean had drunkenly told him to stick something up somewhere rather dark. Marco hated to use the word ‘healing’, but Jean was certainly looking better. Like his mile, he looked like he had woken up. With a smile of his own, he pressed his head to Jean’s and kissed him softly and sweetly. “That’s what I think too,” he said, grinning at Jean’s weak scoff.

“Try behaving like you think it, then,” he groused, but the smile was quickly back on his face when Marco bumped their noses together and leaned in for another kiss.

“Ugh, boy kisses!”

Jean jerked away instinctively, his cheeks flaming red and an excuse already brimming on his tongue, but Marco just rolled his eyes. “Sashaaaaa.”

She gave them a saucy wink and tried her best attempt at a saunter – which turned out remarkably like a flirtatious penguin. “Can’t help it when you’re all over him like some sort of sappy Dalmatian.”

Marco raised a brow. “Dalmatian?”

“It’s the freckles,” Sasha said matter-of-factly. “And, big guy, if you had a tail it’d be wagging.”

Marco could feel his face beginning to heat up even as he tried to laugh it off. “Oh, come on Sash’, we’re not that bad…”

Sasha, apparently, wasn’t done. “Oh, you’re that bad. Honestly, have I got to start labelling furniture you two can’t bang each other on, or are we still in the honeymoon period of doin’ it in the bedroom only?”

Jean’s face, if possible, grew redder. He bolted back to his canvas, his ears looking close to blowing hot steam, gabbling something that definitely sounded like, “oh my god Sasha you’re disgusting we’ve not done anything yet shut UP”, but it was said so quickly it sounded far more like a distressed animal. Marco gave Sasha a chiding look, one that she met with a wide beaming smile.

These days, Sasha was doing an excellent impression of a small hot air balloon. ‘Destroyer’ was late, as she liked to remind everyone every five minutes, and Marco was beginning to pray to any gods he could think of that she would give birth soon. He loved Sasha dearly, but heavily pregnant Sasha was a nightmare wrapped up in a Michelin man suit.

As if to illustrate his point, Sasha waddled towards the fridge with a huff of effort, prising it open and shouting, “GodDAMNIT WHY IS THERE NO CHEESE” like Marco had been stupid enough to eat the last of it. He saw Jean inch closer to his easel, cheeks still burning and a sheepish expression on his face, and made a solemn mental note not to tell on him. “Anyway,” she was saying, content with a slice of ham and a small carton of tomato juice, “you two need to start warning me about your cute moments, they could bring on labour due to heart strain.”

Marco looked to Jean for an answer, but Jean shook his head, still looking immensely awkward. “No, it’s not a thing.”

“Thought not.”

“Where’s the sprog?” Sasha asked, attempting to mount one of the barstools and failing miserably.

“Armin took her out.” Marco moved over and slid the barstool out of her reach. “Sash’, you know trying to jump on a barstool is a bad idea.”

“Ugh, since when did you die and reincarnate as my mother,” she grumbled, flapping a hand at him to get out of the way.

Marco shared a pained look with Jean, who ducked behind his easel with a chiding cluck of his tongue. Jean had gotten used to the sparks that flew from Sasha. Now he just found them funny. Besides, he’d seen pregnancy first-hand with Hitch, and Marco assumed that Hitch would have been just as bad – if not worse – than Sasha. After all, she’d been bad enough without a baby inside her. How Jean coped, he didn’t know.

“Marco.” He blinked. Jean was watching him, eyebrow raised.

“Mmm?”

“You’re staring.”

Marco smiled. “Sorry.”

“You’re not sorry.” Jean smiled despite himself though, and god Marco would break cities for that smile. “You need to go take your pills. I took mine earlier.”

Marco attempted to make a pained face, but Jean’s forceful eyebrow raise peeled him away and pushed him towards the bathroom.

His pill pot wasn’t hidden out of sight anymore. That was one of the many things that, though strange to adjust to, had changed in the past few months. Now it was in the medicine cabinet above the leaky sink, the clinical pot replaced with a small clay one Hyacinth had brought for him on her last visit. As he reached for it, he smiled at the cheery design. It was bright turquoise with small peace signs in purple all around it, and the words ‘MARCO’S PILLS’ emblazoned in a slightly wobbly hand around its width. Next to it was another pot, this one the inverse in colour, and Jean’s name in place of his own.

The medication gave Jean a helping hand where Marco couldn’t. It got him up in the morning, kept his panic from spiking, made it so that going outside the four walls of the apartment didn’t feel like a labour of Hercules. He hadn’t wanted it at first; he saw it as weak, like he was giving up and letting mindless chemicals take control. After a well-intended lecture from Armin and a less than helpful talk from Eren, Jean relented. He grumbled and glared, but he took them. After a while, he’d had to admit that they made him feel far more human than he ever thought he could be.

Marco took his pills with a glass of water, gulping away the chemical tang always left on his tongue. The side effects for these new pills were minimal; slight temperatures and occasional dizziness. It was a far cry from the cocktail of pills he’d been prescribed before. The doctor had said that it would take time for his body to adjust to the new medicine, and for a while Marco was certain it was all some sort of mistake and he was actually getting poisoned. Once his body had stopped throwing its tantrum, however, things evened out. He got back on track. The days of fever never happened, nor did the throwing up every few days. Maybe his pills made him feel a little more human too.

He was in the process of putting his pot back on the shelf when Jean shouted from the living room, “Marco!”

He very nearly dropped it with the volume of the shout. It sounded urgent. Before he could set the pot back the right way up, Jean shouted again. “MARCO, GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW.”

Marco abandoned the pot on the side and flew out the door.

A thousand thoughts came bumping into his head; Armin has lost Claudine, Eren had relapsed, Ymir was in the living room bleeding and barely conscious… they all attacked at once, in a fraction of a second, and knocked the breath out of him with their implications.

When he skidded back into the living room, however, he wasn’t met with either of those things. Jean had his arm around a heavily groaning Sasha, and Marco’s heart plummeted.

She was breathing heavily, her hand clutched tight to her straining belly, and as she caught Marco’s eye her own become wide-eyed and pleading. “Marco,” she whimpered. Jean looked up too, and the relief etched in his face was almost as strong as Sasha’s.

Marco blinked. “What’s-?”

But then he stopped. He took in Sasha’s hand on her belly, the phone in Jean’s sweaty hand and the puddle on the floor between them. Puddle? Realisation dawned on him. “Oh, please tell me that’s water,” he said weakly.

Sasha almost sobbed. “I h-had stomach aches last night but I thought it was the s-spicy f-food, and I th-thought it was the ham j-just now, it l-looked okay b-but…” she cut herself off with a sudden howl of pain. She grabbed for the nearest thing at the precise moment her knees buckled, and Marco flew to her side. The nearest thing, however, was Jean. Sasha gripped tightly onto his arm and twisted. Jean yelped, which was apparently the absolute wrong noise to make. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you in pain right now?!” Sasha hissed. She tightened her grip on his arm as she leaned on him, and he couldn’t bite back the yelp.

Jean glowered at her. “Shit woman, just warn me next time!”

The look Sasha shot him was one that suggested she really wanted to step on his foot. “Okay, next time I have a contraction I’ll squeeze your balls and then you can feel some pain!”

“Ooookay, no one is grabbing anyone’s balls,” Marco said, grabbing the phone from Jean’s grip that happened to be his own and punching in the number he’d had memorised for the past two weeks. “You’ll be fine Sash’, just keep breathing, I’m calling the midwife.”

Sasha groaned and twisted her wrist around Jean’s arm, who looked as though he would have much preferred if the whole thing was simply ripped off and handed to her. “Call Connie,” she rasped between breaths. “Don’t…wanna…talk…to her…”

“I’m calling the midwife, Sash,” Marco repeated, hoping he wouldn’t have to argue with her. “We need to call in to see what we need to d-”

“I WANT CONNIE,” Sasha burst out, twisting Jean’s arm so tight his face blanched. He didn’t dare yelp again.

The midwife wasn’t picking up. Marco hung up and called again, panic flooding through his system. What would he do if she didn’t pick up? Would Sasha have the baby there and then? Could she take a trip to the hospital? How far was she gone? Was this actual labour? Every time he’d put off reading the maternity books Hyacinth had posted to them flashed through his mind. “We’ll call Connie in a minute, Sash, I promise.”

Jean however was fishing his own phone out of his pocket with a free hand, and after dialling a number jammed it between his ear and shoulder. Sasha was weighing him down on one side, still calling for Connie and breathing like a racehorse, and as whoever he called answered Jean almost lost his balance and sent them both to the floor.

“Hello? Hi, Sasha’s gone into labour. Just now.” His voice was remarkably calm for how terrified he looked, his brows furrowed in concentration as he listened to what was being said on the other line. “Her waters just broke, I don’t know anything else, now she’s just mumbling and groaning. I guess they’re contractions, they look like they’re hurting a bitch. She’s… of course I don’t know how much she’s dilated, I’m not sticking my hand up there, do you want to come check?” A pause. “Fuck, I don’t know, we don’t know, can we just take her in?” Another pause. “Thank you.” He hung up.

“Did you get through to the midwife?” Marco said, relieved.

“No,” Jean replied, gently prising Sasha’s hand off his arm and replacing it around his shoulders, “I called Armin.”

Marco gawped at him. “Why can ARMIN help!?”

“I don’t know! I just panicked! I mean, uh, he’s got a car, and we need a car,” Jean answered, looking slightly manic. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

Sasha groaned. “I don’t want a hospital, I want Connie.”

Marco moved to her side and took over, the hand squeezing Jean’s arm off quickly transferring to his own. “I know, sweetheart, I know.” Jean took the opportunity for freedom and bolted down the hallway to Sasha’s room, no doubt to pick up the overnight bag she’d had packed for weeks. “I’m gonna call him soon, just keep breathing nice and slowly, and squeeze my hand whenever you feel a contraction okay?” Sasha nodded wordlessly, her breathing changing from short sharp pants to long, drawn out gasps. “That’s it,” Marco said, encouraging her. “Keep going, you’re doing great.”

“H-how do you know I am?” Sasha asked.

Marco paused. Well. He hadn’t expected an actual response. “I guess I don’t. It’s what they say on TV,” he tried.

Sasha, far from shouting and swearing at him, just chuckled weakly. “You’re…ugh…such…a dingus...”

“So long as I’m a dingus that gets to keep his genitals after this then I’ll be happy with that.”

“It’s…a deal…”

“And be nice to Jean. He’s trying.”

“Mmph…I’ll…try…”

Jean chose that moment to burst in with Sasha’s overnight bag swinging wildly from his shoulder and a small bag. “Okay, I got your overnight bag and your handbag, I didn’t know whether you wanted the canvas one or the leather one but I found your purse in case you need it and you have way too many bags why do you need that many-”

Sasha gave Marco a wide stare. It was a ‘please give me strength’ stare.

Jean clearly noticed it. “N-not that I was being sexist!” he blurted. “B-bags are good! Bags are always useful and-”

“H-hand them o-over, you goon,” Sasha said through gritted teeth, reaching out a hand for it.

Jean, however, held remarkably firm. “No, you’re not holding anything. Marco and I have this, you just focus on getting out of the building, alright?”

Sasha’s lower lip trembled. “You’re…you’re being so nice…I told you I’d squeeze your balls…”

Marco gave her side a gentle nudge. “C’mon Sash, let’s get you downstairs. Armin’s on his way.”

Marco stepped out of the apartment with Sasha wedged between him and Jean. She was breathing heavily and trying to both clutch her belly and have her arms slung around their shoulders at the same time, and neither option was really working well. “Sasha, stop fidgeting and let us hold you up!” he heard Jean snap to his right.

“Don’t shout at meeeee,” Sasha groaned.

Marco manoeuvred them over to the lift as a single unit, and then saw the ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign stuck haphazardly onto the call button. Jean was staring blankly at it, as though if he looked hard enough it wouldn’t be true. Fate was truly giving them the middle finger. “Guess we’re taking the stairs,” Marco said. He hoped he sounded more confident than he was.

Both Sasha and Jean gave him looks that suggested they really didn’t think it was a good idea at all, but unless they had an elaborate winch and pulley system, there was no other way. They began to move. The descent was slow, with Sasha elbowing Jean in the head repeatedly as they walked in an attempt to reach her straining belly, and Jean biting back hard on whatever insult or curse he wanted to spew out. Marco bore the majority of her weight, and though he liked to think of himself as strong, by the fourth flight he was struggling not to cling onto the rail and pivot her around like a ship’s rudder.

Once they got to the ground floor, Sasha sagged against him, panting. “Never…ever…make me do that again…” she wheezed.

“Me neither,” Jean chimed in, rubbing the side of his head where Sasha had elbowed him. “Come on, Armin will be here by now.”

The accompanying honk that came from outside verified it.

Marco, Sasha and Jean burst out of the apartment doors as the battered white Mini Metro screeched to a halt and nearly flung Armin and his passenger through the front window. Marco stopped dead.

Wait.

Passenger?

“What’s up, fellow gays?” A familiar head was stuck out of the window as Armin mounted the kerb, the Metro complaining loudly with a creaking grunt, and as the odd coloured eyes glinted at them, Marco felt Jean tense beside him.

“Eren, what the hell are you doing here?”

Eren ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “Here to witness the miracle of childbirth. Couldn’t give Sasha all the fun, could I?” He paused. “I was also bored, so. There’s that.”

“What the hell, we need seats in the car, shithead,” Jean snarled from underneath Sasha’s armpit.

Eren’s eyes narrowed as they landed on Jean. “When I want your opinion, asshole, I’ll ask for it. Who says you need to be here?”

“Eren,” Marco said, adding the warning to his tone.

Before Eren had the chance to say anything else, Armin forced the car door open and tumbled out, his hair dishevelled and eyes already rolling. “Eren, please shut up, I don’t want to take Sasha to maternity and you and Jean to A&E.” Eren flushed a little, but let his mouth snap closed. With a final nod, Armin turned back to Sasha and adopted the calming therapist tones he used at the community centre. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I’m trying to squeeze something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a lemon,” Sasha panted, “so…in a word…fantastic.”

Armin blinked at her, thrown by her honesty. “Uh…right. Best get you inside then.” Without another word, he guided Sasha over to the car with a hand resting in the small of her back.

As they got closer to the car, Marco noticed with a sigh of relief that Claudine was strapped securely into the carseat Jean had given Armin that morning. “Hey Princess,” he cooed at her from behind Sasha. “Busy morning, huh?” At the sight of him, Claudine burbled a little greeting and waved a hand the way Eren had taught her. Her hair was now tickling the bottom of her ears, ash blonde like Jean’s, and shook her head as her fringe fell into her eyes. Sasha sobbed out an “aw” as she bundled herself in and Claudine made a valiant effort to pat her companion on the head.

Marco realised now that there was only one seat left. A seat that both he and Jean had to fit onto, somehow. They looked at one another for a moment until Armin rolled his eyes. “I’m not getting pulled over because you’re sat in each other’s laps. One of you get in the boot,” he said, popping the catch. The ‘boot’ in question looked as though it would snugly fit a large terrier inside.

Marco glanced at Jean, who looked as keen as he felt. “Toss a coin for it?” he tried.

“JUST ONE OF YOU GET IN THE FUCKING BOOT RIGHT NOW BEFORE I PUSH THIS BASTARD OUT IN THE BACKSEAT,” Sasha screeched from the back seat.

“I’ll go,” Jean said in the same breath, practically diving into the boot in his eagerness to avoid the shouting.

Marco peered down at him, frowning as Jean tucked his knees in and crossed his arms to avoid knocking his elbows on the boot as it came down. “Are you-?”

“Let him be a gentleman, Marco!” Eren shouted from the front, though Jean’s scowl seemed to say otherwise. “Just get in the back with PregZilla.”

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST CALL ME.”

“Getting in.”

Marco fell rather than got into the Metro, yanked rather forcefully by a swearing Sasha, and the moment his door was slammed shut the old car wheezed into the fastest 0 to 40 it had done in about ten years. Marco was flung back against the headrest – his rookie error for not fastening his seatbelt in time – as Eren whooped with glee. “Step on it Armin!” he yelled, propping his legs up on the dashboard. “We got a baby to deliver, punch that shit!”

“Get your legs down!” Armin shrieked, batting Eren’s knee with panic. “If I stop suddenly your legs will break!”

“It huuuuurts,” Sasha wailed.

Marco ignored Eren and Armin’s squabble and leant over to take Sasha’s hand. “You’ll be fine,” he said, hating himself for using such a fake, fill-in word. “Keep breathing evenly, like the nurse taught you. In through your nose-”

“-out through my mouth, I know,” Sasha snapped, but she squeezed his hand tight as the Metro bumped along the road and Marco knew she was grateful. “SHIT, you are so lucky you don’t have a vagina.”

He wasn’t sure whether Armin had been listening or not, but he timed a sharp swerve at a roundabout eerily perfectly in response. The force threw everyone off balance, and Marco heard a loud ‘THUNK’ and a sharp, “FUCK” from the boot. Marco immediately flung himself backwards to peer over the back seats. “Jean? Are you alright?”

“Ugh, I’m…fucking…chipper,” Jean groused, rubbing a sore spot on his head. “Thanks for asking.”

Marco huffed and reached down to clumsily entangle their fingers together. Jean, after a brief attempt at ignoring the wiggling fingers amid being bashed around in the small space, relented and reached out in return. Their fingers fumbled together, but another bump made them fall away. Marco offered a smile, which Jean shyly returned. A sudden loud burble from Claudine broke the spell, and Jean shuffled onto his stomach to inch nearer to his daughter. “Hey, what’s going on Princess?”

Claudine blinked owlishly at the sight of her father looming up at her from behind a usually empty space, but after a few blinks and a confused “bluh?” of noise, she was giggling at the sloppy kiss Jean landed on her cheek.

“You have it…so fuckin’ lucky,” Sasha said in Marco’s ear, pulling his attention back around to her. Right. She was in labour. Focus. “You got a baby without the pain.”

Marco laughed. “She’s not mine though, is she?”

“Might as well be.” Sasha turned to watch them too, still puffing out breaths and readying herself for the next wave of pain to crest.

Marco looked too, and couldn’t help smiling. Claudine was patting Jean’s cheek with gentle squeaks of delight (patting was Claudine’s Thing for the week) and Jean was trying to chase her hand to press gentle butterfly kisses to her palm. Whenever he caught her, Claudine would squeal louder and accidentally cause Armin to break the speed limit.

It was nice to see; behind Marco’s door, or in the company of friends, Jean never stopped acting like Claudine’s father. It was so obvious he doted on her that it physically hurt sometimes to be in the room with them. There was just something about the bond they shared, a bond Marco hadn’t seen for months, that told him no matter what Hitch had intended, Jean would not have given Claudine up to her. The sheer amount of love Jean had for Claudine wasn’t something he flaunted for everyone to see, but there was a definite reason why Claudine laughed so much nowadays. Jean being happy meant Claudine was happy. They were just that connected.

“S’not fair,” Sasha mumbled, drawing Marco’s attention back again. “She’s so beautiful, Marco. And so good.”

“Takes after her father,” he answered, loud enough for Jean to hear. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jean blush and retreat behind the seats despite Claudine’s offended noises.

“What if my baby’s ugly?” Sasha asked. The tension on Marco’s hand warned him that the wave Sasha had been waiting for was starting to crest. “What if it’s secretly evil? What if it’s plotting world domination in my womb?”

“Sasha-”

“Oh god what if it looks like a deformed chipmunk?”

“Sash-”

“Mum always said I looked like a deformed chipmunk when I was a baby, I was an ugly baby, oh god I can’t-”

“Sash’, have you looked in the mirror lately?” Eren cut in from the front seat. When he got no answer, he slung himself around and raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “You’re hot as fuck. Also, have you seen who you banged to get this sprog?” Sasha glowered at him, but Eren kept going. “Come on, he may be a dick but Farlan is the most bangable man in existence… sorry Armin.”

“No, you’re right, he’s chiselled by gods,” Armin agreed, swerving to narrowly avoid a honking van.

“There you are.” Eren beamed at her. “And like I said, you’re not bad yourself, I mean if I had to pick a chick-”

“Owwww Marco Marco Marco Marco,” Sasha chanted, her knuckles turning white in his grip. “C-c-cONTRACTION.”

Armin chose that moment to step on it. The Metro’s engine complained loudly, choked out some black, acrid smoke, then began to slow. Everyone, even Claudine, went quiet.

“Uh… Armin?” Came Jean’s voice, tentative and unsure. “Please tell me we’re either there or stuck in traffic.”

“Oh god,” Armin said hollowly.

Jean took a breath. “What… does that mean?”

Marco knew the answer already. The vibrating rattle from the Metro was gone. It was still moving, but there was nothing driving it. And they were slowing down, the cars behind honking and overtaking them in frustration. “No, no, no, no,” Armin said, the word his own calming mantra as he punched the gas again and again and turned the key in the ignition. The Metro ignored him, coughing out more smoke and cruising to a standstill. Armin angled towards the pavement, the Metro gave one final splutter, and it moved no more.

“NO NO NO NO NO.”

“Armin…” Sasha’s voice was wheedling up to a pitch that would make dogs wince. “Wh-what’s happening?”

He took a deep, steadying breath. Everyone in the car braced themselves. Marco looked over the backseat and wondered if he could make a timed jump into the boot with Jean. If not, a timely evacuation wasn’t a bad idea either. Armin mumbled something in between his chants of ‘no’ that had to strain to hear. “Ithiwemighabroendahn.”

“What?” Sasha asked.

“I said I think we might’ve broken down,” he said, wretchedly.

To Sasha’s credit, she remained remarkably calm for longer than Marco thought she would. Sasha gave them a gracious six second silence (Marco counted) before she screeched, “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!”

“S-Sasha please calm down…”

“I’M NOT CALMING DOWN I HAVE A BABY IN ME AND IT WANTS TO COME OUT AND WE’VE BROKEN DOWN.”

“It’ll be fine,” Armin said, freeing himself from his seatbelt and spinning around in his seat. “We’ll call a taxi, they can-”

“She’s in labour!” Jean shouted from the back. “No taxi’ll take her!”

“And we have the vote of confidence from Mr Ray of Sunshine over there,” Eren commented drily.

“Shut the fuck up Eren.”

“I WANT CONNIE,” Sasha shrieked at a volume that made almost everyone clap their hands to their ears. Marco, unfortunately, didn’t have the option; one hand was still locked in a tight grip with Sasha’s, and the other had been fumbling for the door handle.

Armin was looking Sasha over in a flurry of panic, his eyes darting from her face to her belly and back again, his mouth opening and closing as they tried to form any words that he thought might help things. Marco shook his head when a sound did manage to get out, and Armin let out a short curse and left the car, slamming the door so hard the whole thing rattled like a tin can. Eren followed soon after, crying out a sharp, “Oi get back in the car I don’t have insurance,” before the door eclipsed all noise.

Then it was just Marco, Jean, Claudine and Sasha, one of whom was screaming and crying and the others were looking bemusedly at one another. Sasha was panicking now, her breaths breaking and crashing as she tried to keep them steady and failed. Marco was mute. He couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to do. The sudden realisation of nothingness that invaded his head sent a flash of panic through him, and even as he tried to call an emergency number his fingers slipped and failed on the buttons. He was shaking. He was so scared he was shaking. What on earth was he going to do?

Jean had peeked his head over the back seats now the car wasn’t moving, and as he looked over Sasha, Marco noticed his brows furrow. “J-Jean?” he managed to force out of his unyielding lips.

Jean took a deep breath. “Get me out of the boot.”

“Wha-?”

“Get me out!” Jean gave the rear window a sharp kick to get Armin’s attention. The moment the boot opened, Jean flew out and wrenched the door open on Claudine’s side. “Okay, so we need to get Sasha comfortable,” he said, unbuckling the car-seat from the seatbelt and prising Claudine free, car-seat and all. “Sorry Princess,” he added as an afterthought, bundling her into the front seat and re-buckling her with shaky hands. “You need to get out of the way.”

Marco watched dumbly as Jean then slammed the front door shut, ran over to the other side of the car and started talking to Armin excitedly, his hands making wobbly shapes in the air as he did so. Marco focused back on Sasha, who without prompting had scooted back so that she was now propped against the left hand car door, eyes clenched tightly shut as she tried her best to ride out the pain.

“M-Marco, they’re… they’re coming quicker now,” she whimpered, twisting her head from side to the other like she was fighting off something invisible. “D-don’t go…”

“I won’t go anywhere,” he promised, though every inch of him wanted to do exactly that. What was wrong with him? He’d faced down people in alleyways, got into fights with random strangers for the sake of something that didn’t matter to him – why was Sasha in labour the one thing he couldn’t handle?

Then he felt someone beside him. The smell of paint, subtle and small, made him turn to look as Jean stared up at Sasha, calculating something. Before Marco could open his mouth, Jean said, “Sasha, you’re going to have to take your sweatpants off.”

Sasha cracked open one eye to gawp at him. Marco joined her. “Wh-what are you saying?” she asked.

“I said you need to get your sweatpants off. And…” Jean gulped. “And, uh, everything else. O-on the bottom.”

Sasha huffed out an agonised laugh. “A-at least buy me dinner f-first, Kirschtein.”

Jean’s face went scarlet. “L-look, we don’t think the baby’s going to wait. How often are you getting contractions?”

“Mh…too often…”

“Take a guess.”

Sasha opened both eyes at that. By the way she stared at Jean, it was obvious that she knew that she was getting them too quickly. Even if she wasn’t ready to push, her body definitely was. There wasn’t going to be a hospital.

Marco didn’t like the way that the floor of the car was rippling. “Oh God, are we really doing this here?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.” Armin was behind him. When Marco turned, he saw a phone jammed under Armin’s chin and furious chatter coming from it speaker. “I’ve got a midwife on the phone.”

“If it’s Hanji tell her she fucking SUCKS.”

“No, Sasha, I won’t tell her that.” Armin glanced at Marco. “Eren’s got Connie on the phone. He’s letting him know where we are.”

Sasha was gazing up at the roof of the car, her chest still rising erratically. Marco squeezed her hand gently in an attempt to get a reaction, but all she did was mumble, “I’m going to be talked through giving birth by two gay couples and a terrible midwife. Have any of you even SEEN a vagina before?!”

“Yes!” Jean and Marco said at the same time Armin mumbled, “not exactly,” and Eren added, “I saw one in a book once.”

Sasha whistled through her teeth and rested her head on the car door window. “Great, now I’m relaxed.”

“Sasha, sweatpants?”

“Oh my God, just pull them off!”

They all looked at one another. Eren and Armin, still with phones stuck to their ears, looked like they would rather do anything else. When Marco glanced at Jean, his cheeks were so red he was surprised he hadn’t passed out due to a blood rush. “Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, gently easing his fingers from between Sasha’s and pulling the sweatpants down. At any other time, he was sure slipping clothes off of someone wouldn’t make him feel queasy, but as he threw the offending clothes haphazardly over his shoulder and heard Eren’s squawk of alarm as they landed on the pavement in front of him, he knew there was no way in hell he would ever want to do this again. When he made to move back, Sasha’s furious eyes stopped him. “What?”

“And the rest!”

Oh God, he was afraid of this. He wetted his lips and looked back over his shoulder at the others, who were all standing in a semicircle around him. “I…uh…don’t want to,” he said in a small voice.

“Oh my god it’s not going to bite you!” Sasha hissed, howling as another contraction started to crack and splinter through her voice. “You…saw…enough…of…Mikasa…to…know…”

“Ooookay, no one needs to hear that Sash’.”

He was pretty sure he heard Eren mutter, “flirt,” as he hoiked up Sasha’s top and peeled her underwear off. He glanced – just once – and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Oh my God.”

“What? What is it?”

“I… I think I can see the head.” Now he really did feel sick. Whoever said that this was meant to be a magical, captivating moment clearly hadn’t ever met Sasha. Or lived in Trost. Or had a car die on them on the way to the hospital.

“Oh God,” Armin said from behind him.

“Out of the way.” Jean gave Marco a gentle nudge, but Marco needed no persuasion. He knelt on the floor of the car, grabbed Sasha’s hand again and vowed not to ever look down in that direction again. He did, however, watch the way Jean’s eyes bulged as he caught sight of Sasha. “Oh, fucking hell.”

Armin shouldered his way next to Jean, the voice still gabbling on in his ear. “The midwife wants to know if we’ve got her comfortable?”

“I’m in a fucking CAR,” Sasha retorted. “How comfortable does she fucking think I can be?”

“We need blankets,” Armin said, looking lost. “I don’t have any-”

“Shirts will do.” Suddenly, Marco found a hand shoved into his face. “Give me yours.”

Instinctively, Marco looked down at his shirt. It was slightly baggy with an old band logo on it that he hadn’t listened to in years. He wasn’t sure why he still kept it, but the thought of using it forced up something defiant in him. “Why mine?”

Jean’s mouth drew into a fine line, like he was arguing with a toddler. “Because I said so.”

“What about yours?”

Jean looked down at his own. It was still the Spiderman shirt, the one that he’d stolen from Marco. He replied, a little bashfully, “I like this shirt.”

Marco gestured at his chest. “I like this shirt.”

“I AM GOING TO STRANGLE BOTH OF YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS,” Sasha screeched.

Marco was going to argue back at Jean, but then he noticed the clenched look to Jean’s jaw and let it drop. “Fine,” he said, “but you owe me a new shirt.”

“I’m sure Formula Ice Dragons will truly miss your support,” Eren butted in.

Jean glared over his shoulder at him. “I don’t know why you’re smiling, we’ll need yours too.”

Eren genuinely looked as though Jean had asked him to give up a beloved pet. “This is vintage!” he complained.

“Is that what they told you?”

“We don’t have time for this!” Armin snapped. He gave the phone over to Jean and stripped, his skin goose pimpling with the cold almost immediately as he laid his shirt in front of Sasha. When he looked over at Marco and nodded, Marco knew he had no hope of keeping his own shirt. He shed it with a feeling of distinct loss – he knew he would never be able to wear the shirt again – and passed it over.

Jean took it gratefully and laid it on top of Armin’s, smoothing out the fabric as best he could. “Okay, now what?” he said into the phone. His face went blank. “Are you sure? It looks pretty-” He stopped himself. More chatter. “Okay, well you’re the expert.” He handed the phone back to Armin and turned to Sasha. “O-okay, well, uh, you’re going to have to start pushing.”

Sasha’s mouth dropped open. “Wh-what?”

“You’re going to have to push. I’ll tell you – well, the midwife will tell me when to tell you to stop. I think.”

“Wow, you are really filling me with confi-UGH.”

Another contraction. God, they really were coming faster now.

Marco dived for her hand the same instant she started to push, and immediately got his fingers crushed. Suddenly everything whirled back to the forefront of his mind; the day Farlan had left, slamming the door and never opening it again, Sasha going to the pharmacy a week later because she had a bad feeling, one of the longest nights of Marco’s life since Thomas when he had sat on the other side of the bathroom door listening to Sasha crying. She didn’t think she could be a mother. She didn’t think she had a chance. Farlan was gone and she felt adrift, with no one to cling to but the boy who had taken her spare room with more emotional baggage than actual baggage.

It came down to now – and Marco wasn’t sure he was ready for it, let alone Sasha.

He fought down the rising sickness and lifted Sasha’s straining knuckles to his lips, kissing them softly. She was doing fine. She was doing okay. The baby was going to be fine. Marco didn’t say any of these things aloud – there was no point, he’d said them all over and over like some sort of spell and they hadn’t helped so far – but telling himself that it would all end well was more comforting than it perhaps should have been. Sasha lolled her head against his and groaned, their combined hands shaking with the force of her push. Marco bit back the pain and glanced down at the others. Armin looked like he was about to faint, Eren was cringing and Jean was gabbling helplessly into the phone trapped between his shoulder and his ear.

“Oh g-god, it’s coming, the head’s coming!” he said, and Marco distinctly heard Eren whisper “oh, gross,” under his breath.

“Owwww I’m never doing this again as long as I fucking live I need drugs I need painkillers I need SOMETHING,” Sasha howled.

“I know you do,” Marco said, “and you’ll get everything you want at the hospital, just keep going. Don’t give up. You can do this.”

Sasha stopped for breath for a moment, her pants coming short and fast, and then she started to push again. “That’s it!” Jean was saying from the car door. “The head’s almost out, you’re almost there.”

Sasha gave one last push and something large and slippery fell into Jean’s waiting arms – and immediately started bawling its tiny lungs out. Armin snatched the phone from Jean’s shoulder, and gabbled to the panicking midwife on the other end that it was too late, that the baby had already come, but Eren didn’t move a muscle. He just stood gawping at the wriggling, squealing shape in Jean’s arms, open-mouthed. “It looks like an alien,” he said, with equal parts awe and disgust.

“O-of course it does, it’s covered in gunk,” Jean replied. He was breathless. “Oh… Jesus fuck, g-get the t-shirt wrapped around it, Jaeger, c’mon, I can’t do it by myself.”

Sasha collapsed against Marco’s shoulder, her breathing edged with soft, relieved sobs. Marco brushed her hair out of her eyes and felt like crying himself. “Well done, Sash’,” he said, pressing his lips to her sticky forehead. “Well done, you did so well.”

“Still hurts,” she moaned.

“It will hurt,” Marco said, hoping that was true. “But we’re going to get you to a hospital, and they’ll check the baby over. You’ll get looked after there.”

“Dunno…nnn…you guys…weren’t so bad…” Sasha tried out a smile, but it shrunk into a small open-mouthed sigh as the crying reached a higher volume. “Is that… is that my baby?” she asked, her eyes shutting with the effort of staying open. “Is it alright?” she said, her voice wobbling up and down like the dial on an earthquake detector.

Marco didn’t know what constituted ‘alright’ in baby terms. It had to be breathing to be screaming so loudly, and it was wriggling too; Jean and Eren were fighting between each other to wrap it in Marco’s ruined shirt, and for a while Marco was sure the baby was winning the fight. “Yes,” he said, knocking his head against Sasha’s with a giddy laugh, “it’s fine Sash’, it’s okay.”

The crying had to be a good sign. No crying meant that there was a blocked airway or something else equally serious (Marco had read up on that, at least) but there was still a part of him that felt sorry for it; it sounded lost and furious at this noisy new world it had been born into, and even when Jean and Eren subdued it and wrapped it up tight like an infuriated pink burrito, it didn’t stop bawling.

“Is it…” Sasha struggled to sit upright, but lost the fight halfway up and slid back down. “Is it a girl? Is it a boy?”

“Boy,” Eren declared, grinning from ear to ear. “And what a boy, he’s got a gigantic –”

“That’s the umbilical cord, you pillock,” Jean replied.

“Oh, I’m sorry Nurse, not everyone knows the ins and outs of babies.”

“Ambulance is almost here,” said Armin, appearing from the front seat. “And a breakdown team. Not that anyone cares. I don’t know why I said that,” he added quickly when he was faced with a forest of incredulous looks.

The baby had stopped crying quite so hard now, its small face still scrunched up in defiant anger, but as Jean brought the bundle closer to his chest the struggling stopped altogether and the cries snuffled into barely a whimper. When Marco stared, Jean shrugged. “T-they like warmth,” he defended.

“Can I hold-?” Sasha asked. She sounded far away and slightly delirious from the pain, but after a shared look between the two of them, Jean slowly uncurled the bundle from his arms and handed it shakily over to Sasha. The baby started crying again, deprived of the warmth it had found against Jean’s chest.

Sasha’s voice crumpled as she copied Jean and rested the bundle on her chest. “H-Hey there,” she said softly, shifting it slightly brushing a thumb against the small, still gooey curve of its head. “Hey, Destroyer,” she added, laughing weakly at the sudden reality laid out in her arms. “Nice to finally meet you.”

It was then that the ambulance chose to arrive. It screeched to a halt in a blur of blue flashing lights, and as though a spell had been broken, Jean wrenched himself away from the car door and vanished. Marco, on the other hand, took the opportunity to free himself from where he had been wedged between the floor of the Metro and its door. He very nearly fell out, straightening up at the last minute and regretting it when his foot exploded in pins and needles.

“Elegant dismount,” someone commented.

Marco knew exactly who that someone was. Eren was stood with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his acid wash jeans, the jacket he had been wearing nowhere to be seen.

“You try getting squashed in Armin’s backseat and we’ll see how you end up,” he quipped.

“Tempting though that offer is, I’ll pass.”

Marco grimaced and tried to stamp the white noise out of his foot – which actually did more harm than good – and limped to the other side of the car to get Claudine out. She blinked up at his approach, but as he unclipped the straps and pushed them aside she reached up for him, her fingers wiggling in their anticipation to grab and hold. Marco’s heart melted there and then. He plucked her out of the carseat gently, and Claudine began to kick and squeal in excitement. “Hey, take it easy,” Marco chided, but under Eren’s watchful gaze he rested her on his hip and manoeuvred his way over carefully, stepping out of the way of the paramedics rushing to Sasha.

By the time he reached Eren, the attention was no longer on him. Eren was eyeing the men and women bolting in and out of the ambulance, everything about them professional and alert. Marco predicted the way Eren’s hands coiling into fists before it happened, and gave him a gentle nudge with his shoulder. “Hey, stop staring at them like they’ll explode. They’re doing a good job.”

Eren twitched. “I know,” he retorted, “I just… don’t exactly have a good track record with paramedics.”

Marco grimaced. He knew that more than anyone. There was a time when he had the private number of one particular paramedic on speed dial, just in case. Sadly, it had been well used. “Well, they’re not here for you this time,” he said, jigging Claudine up and down on his hip when she started to get restless. “You’ve gone past all that.”

One of the paramedics, a small blonde woman with a severe expression, paused to stare at them. A flicker of recognition seemed to go through her eyes as she looked at Eren, and Marco felt him step closer out of habit. “Fuck, I need a cigarette,” Eren muttered.

“No, you don’t. You told me you’re quitting.”

“You should know by now that I say stupid things and make dumb decisions, Marco.”

Marco rolled his eyes and leant back against the road divide, Claudine clutching onto him like a small koala. He’d managed to forget about his lack of a shirt until the thrill of cold up his spine gave him a particularly harsh reminder. He shivered. “It’s meant to be summer,” he complained.

“That’s the Trost curse for you,” Eren replied. “Here, take this. They gave it to me for some reason.”

Marco glanced down at what Eren was holding out to him and recognised the fluorescent yellow and metallic shine to be a shock blanket. He took it and, with a bit of Claudine-jostling and shifting, got it wrapped around his shoulders. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Eren looked as though he wanted to say something else, but he hesitated. Marco followed his gaze, glancing towards the car where the small assembly of people were helping Sasha and her baby out of the coughing Metro. “Christ,” Eren hissed, “that was…”

“Something?” Marco guessed.

“The most disgusting shit I’ve ever had to experience was my suggestion, but sure, ‘something’ works too.” Eren sighed and folded his arms. “I don’t think I ever want to go through that again.”

Marco chuckled. “I don’t exactly think you’re one to talk, Eren. You’re not the one who gave birth.”

“Still. That is the first and last time I see a vagina, that shit’s fucked up.”

Marco snorted. “Oh, the miracle of childbirth.” His gaze swept the length of road, taking in the backed up cars and Sasha’s relieved face when the paramedics gave her something to help with the pain. In the moment, it had felt like the whole thing had taken days, but the reality was far shorter than that.

Claudine tugged on a long strand of his hair as if to remind him she was there, and as Marco turned his head to nuzzle her pudgy cheek, the shock blanket rustling noisily, Eren said, “Jean’s over there, if you were wondering. Which I know you were, ‘cus you’re obvious as hell.”

Marco looked up just in time to see Eren point to a spot just underneath a road sign. Sure enough, there Jean was. He was stood on his own, his already pale skin turning a milky blue under the light of the ambulance. “Backed right off when the guys in green turned up,” Eren commented. “Looks a little traumatised, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.”

“And yet you still value my wondrous input in your daily life.”

“What would I do without it?”

Eren snorted, but the humour fell away from him quickly. They both watched Jean for a while, though by how heavy Claudine was becoming Marco was certain that she was falling asleep on him and he’d have to move away to put her down first. Jean was pacing a little, walking around in a tight circle with a hand seemingly stuck in his hair. A twinge of concern went through Marco’s system, and he cleared his throat. Eren got there first. “You know, that was pretty cool. What he did today. How he helped Sasha.”

“Yeah,” Marco agreed, eyes still on Jean. “Yeah, it was.”

Eren popped his lips. “He’s… he’s a good guy, you know?”

Marco smiled. “I know.”

Eren quirked an eyebrow at him, a smile twisting its way across his face. “You’re champing at the bit. Want me to keep an eye on Claudine so you can check on Dickmancer?”

“Please stop calling him that.”

“You said I couldn’t call him that to his face, not that I couldn’t do it behind his back.” Eren held out his arms for Claudine. “C’mon, give me the baby.”

Marco rolled his eyes and slowly prised Claudine free. He regretted it immediately; her little body had been warming him up like a small space heater, and now she was gone he was shivering again. “W-where’s your jacket?” he asked.

“Armin,” was Eren’s reply. Of course. It wasn’t like Marco would be able to wear it anyway; it would have been far too small. “Go on, go see what his deal is. He should be celebrating the fact he did something useful.”

Marco gave him a smart clip around the back of the head that Eren could do nothing about due to Claudine. Marco moved aside before Eren could change his mind and try to whack him anyway, and made his way over to where Jean was stood.

Jean wasn’t looking at anything in particular; his eyes were cast down, boring holes into the pavement as he continued to pace just outside of the chaos. That was the place Jean preferred to be; just to the side of the storm’s eye. His hands were still in his hair, the bloody smears on his jacket showing where he’d tried to scrub them clean, and as Marco got nearer he could see the way they shook uncontrollably. “Jean,” he murmured. 

No matter how softly he said it, he knew Jean would jump. And he did, whirling around with a wide-eyed, deer in the headlights sort of expression.

Marco threw his hands up in surrender. “Sorry.”

Jean swallowed painfully, but Marco noticed his hackles going down slowly. “N-no, it’s… it’s okay.” His circuit of pacing had been broken with Marco’s interruption, and instead of pushing past and carrying on he just stood there, trembling. It was like a warning light had been switched on inside Jean that was telling him to run – or at least get as far away as possible – and Marco was a little afraid to get too close.

He tried anyway. He reached out and touched Jean’s arm, and felt the twitch ricochet through his own body. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Jean scoffed. “S-stop asking if I’m alright, God. You should be asking Sasha, she’s the one who just squeezed a baby out.”

“Sasha’s safe,” Marco said, “so now you have my undivided attention.”

Jean snorted weakly. “I’m blessed.” The sarcasm, oddly, felt too watered down to be real. “What’s that thing, a superhero cape?”

Marco looked down at his shock blanket. He swept it out a little, grinning to himself. “Nah. I’d go for a less garish colour, I think.”

“Hmmph.”

Marco stepped closer and rubbed Jean’s arm, his brows drawing together at just how hard Jean was shaking. The trembles were like small earthquakes, splitting the boy they wracked into fragments and bringing him back together again in the same breath. “Jean, look at me,” he said, soft as he could manage.

Little by little, the shakes steadied themselves and Jean could bear to look him in the eye. Marco felt a little jolt when he saw just how alert and blown out Jean’s eyes really were. “I’m sorry,” Jean said first, throwing Marco a little. “I… I shouldn’t make this about me, I shouldn’t be so…”

“What do you mean? Jean, you were amazing back there.”

Jean’s mouth snapped shut. He looked away, the muscles in his jaw working nervously. “No I wasn’t.”

Marco frowned. “You were. That was incredible.”

Jean shrugged. “I just listened to what the midwife was telling me on the phone. Sasha’s right though – she is awful. She sounded more panicked than Sasha.”

“You were very brave.”

Jean flinched at the word as though it was an insult. “Are… are you joking?” he said, his voice tinny.

“What do you mea-?”

“I was terrified, Marco.” Jean was looking at him again now, his eyes wide and ringed with panic. “I’ve not been that scared for a long time, shit I mean… what if she’d lost the baby? What if she got hurt, or we lost Sasha or-”

“We didn’t,” Marco urged gently, pulling Jean into a one armed hug. “You kept it together. I couldn’t do anything but-”

“I was so scared,” Jean mumbled, as though he hadn’t heard him. “I was almost as scared as when Claudine was born.”

Marco peered down at him with a degree of interest stirring – Jean had never spoken about Claudine’s birth before. The scene came to his mind quickly; Hitch, screaming the place down and crying the way Sasha had, Jean trying to do anything to help and being nudged aside by doctors and midwives. Had Jean been pushed aside so much that he was left stood outside the delivery room, pacing back and forth the way he had in front of the blue ambulance lights? Had Hitch refused to let him touch Claudine at first, or had she shoved the bundle of screams and tears into his arms and looked in the other direction? Marco felt a chill rush through him as he wondered, bitter though it was, if that was the moment Hitch had started to hate him.

He shook the thoughts aside and focused on Jean, though he knew his grip had gotten a little tighter despite himself. “It’s okay to be scared,” he said, suppressing a shiver as the wind picked up around them. “I didn’t have a clue what to do, Armin nearly fainted and Eren’s about as much use as a-”

“I know.” Jean sighed. “I just feel… useless. Like when the paramedics came, I realised what I was doing. This… this fucking nasty feeling just came slamming back into my gut and…” He wriggled free of Marco’s grip and wrapped his arms around himself. “…a-and I noticed the blood on my hands.” Jean’s face went the colour of slightly spoiled milk at the thought. “Oh, g-god, there was so much blood.”

And then, to Marco’s horror, Jean’s legs almost gave out.

“Jean!” Panic flared in Marco’s stomach, the same barbed kind of panic he hadn’t felt in three months, and his arms immediately flew to Jean’s waist, keeping him upright as he looked him over. The blanket slipped from around his shoulders but he barely noticed. “T-take it easy!”

Marco should have been used to thinking clearly. He could push things aside, sort them into categories that consisted of ‘okay’ and ‘not so okay’ and think through things calmly. But at the sight of Jean looking close to collapse, all attempts at organised thought were ripped up and thrown out of the window. Every single answer flitted past his eyes like a flock of birds, not close enough to grasp fully. He patted Jean down, searching for something, anything that could tell him what was wrong. He couldn’t find any injury. He couldn’t see anything.

Jean felt heavy as a stone against him; his head had flopped onto his chest like there was no muscle left to hold it up, and he was blinking slowly and stupidly. Shit shit shit. “It’s alright,” Marco said, trying his best to be soothing as he rubbed a hand between his shoulder blades. “Come on, love, just breathe, it’s okay.”

Such a simple instruction seemed to be about as easy for Jean as a Labour of Hercules. He gasped for air like he was trying to breathe underwater, his stomach jolting with every breath. Marco pressed small circles into Jean’s back as he rubbed, looking up and calling for one of the paramedics to turn around and help him. “Help! Someone! Please, my boyfriend, something’s not right!”

None of them looked over. Marco might as well have been a scruffy, jacket-clad lamppost for all they cared. Giving them up for a lost cause, Marco tried the next person who popped into his head. “EREN,” he roared.

Eren appeared at his side in a multi-coloured whirlwind, his eyes raking over Jean’s doubled over, wheezing body. “Fuck, do you have eyes in the back of your head?! I just handed Claudine over to Armin, no need to get so…” he squinted. “What the fuck is wrong with him?”

Marco resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Eren was as eloquent as ever. “I don’t know,” he answered, pressing small circles into Jean’s back with the heel of his hand. “He just… started going a bit faint.”

Eren looked as though he was about to make some sort of inappropriate comment, but the look Marco shot him quickly killed whatever insult had been creeping to his lips. “Okay, well uh… shit, why did you call me? I don’t know anything, you should’ve called over Armin!”

Shit. He probably should have called over Armin. “I don’t know! I panicked!”

“You are the person who shouldn’t panic!”

“I can’t always be the calm one, Eren!”

“Okay.”

Both Marco and Eren stopped talking. Instead, they peered around at Jean.

He was still sucking in lungfuls of air, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, but Marco was feeling a hint of resistance from Jean’s body. He stepped back and watched Jean wobble, but slowly straighten up. Jean blinked slowly, as though he was trying to figure out where he was after waking up from a long sleep, and when he passed his glazed eyes over Marco and Eren, he gave a pained nod. “Okay,” he repeated faintly.

Marco blinked at him, pulling his small shock blanket back over his shoulders. “O-okay?”

“Okay.” Jean nodded again, reassuring himself as much as he was reassuring the others. “I’m fine, I’m okay, I’m-”

In one remarkably fluid motion, Jean threw up.

---

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not.”

“Well, it is a bit gross…”

“Oh fuck, I’m so fucking sorry.”

In hindsight, Marco probably should have known the warning signs. He was, after all, a veteran at that sort of thing – enough to know what ‘about to be sick’ looked like as opposed to ‘mortally wounded’, at least. He blamed the last few hours for his lack of foresight. Maybe then he could have avoided the trajectory of Jean’s frankly impressive aim. Eren, on the other hand…

Jean groaned into his hands. “I can’t believe I was sick on you.”

Marco rubbed his back in an attempt to be comforting, but all it did was make Jean groan louder so he gave it up as a lost cause.

They were sat on the familiarly uncomfortable plastic chairs that only seemed common in classrooms and waiting rooms. Armin had vanished to speak to his insurance company and Eren had gone on a quest for food, leaving Jean who refused to look at anyone and Marco willing anyone to do the exact opposite and take pity on him for, once again, having no shirt on. His shock blanket, sadly, wasn’t spared from the wrath of Jean’s stomach.

Marco probably wasn’t the first shivering topless man the nurses had seen that day, but it was probably the first one who was sat in the visitor wing of the hospital. To his disappointment, everyone seemed to be ignoring him as though he were a lunatic in a corner. A lunatic with a boyfriend and a baby. Claudine was sleeping soundly in her car seat, a fact that the both of them were likely to regret later on when she refused to sleep for the night. They were both too tired to care. Marco shivered and leant back in his chair, eyes threatening to droop at any moment.

What stopped him was the dark mass snarling in the pit of his stomach. Trost General Hospital was the sort of lingering baggage Marco never seemed to be able to shake. Every time he thought he’d shaken it loose, it came straight back to drag him back to its double doors and too-white corridors. He felt like, if he succumbed and let sleep take him, he would wake up in the bed he’d been in after the stabbing months ago and everything since then had been nothing but a strange fever dream. He glanced over at Jean and thought that, whatever the outcome, it was a beautiful kind of fever dream.

His fond expression faded as he saw the way Jean was hunched over, small enough to be passed over by the nurses and doctors who walked the halls. He was quiet. Eerily quiet. “Honestly, are you okay?” he asked, realising that was probably the first question he should have asked.

A muffled noise came from behind Jean’s hands that didn’t sound like a disembodied complaint.

Marco raised an eyebrow. “Wanna run that by me again?”

Jean peered at him from between his fingers. “Eren’s never gonna let me live this down, is he?” he asked, somewhat wretchedly.

Marco thought about lying, he really did. “Well, you threw up on both him and me…”

“Ugh.”

“And then on a paramedic…”

“Ugggghhhh.”

“And then almost passed out.” Marco paused. “So, uh, no, probably not.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Jean pulled his shirt up to his ears and stayed that way.

Marco couldn’t help laughing at Jean’s sulky expression poking out from above his shirt collar – just a small laugh, the kind that wasn’t mocking but affectionate. It was a laugh he reserved for Jean, most days. Jean was right to sulk; Eren didn’t need much ammunition to gun down someone’s reputation, it was true, but Jean had pretty much handed him a grenade to detonate at will.

The two of them had formed a sort of cautious friendship once Jean came back into their lives again; cautious because Eren knew exactly how to rile Jean to the point of homicide, and friendship because Jean could see how much Eren meant to Marco. Plus, he let Eren spend time with Claudine, which was not a typical honour. Of course, now Eren had perfect blackmail material, it was probably in Jean’s best interest to find something to balance things out.

His stomach still churning, Marco stood up and began to walk around the waiting room, his shoes loud and intrusive on the polished floor. He didn’t come to this side of the hospital very much; he was used to the side with diluted smiles on the doctors and a chemical stench masking the miasma of suffering bodies. His side of the hospital was where anxiety and fear for the future hatched and crawled into his mind without an invitation. This part was so different – the people were happy. They were screaming and hugging and crying, granted, but never in the bad kind of way. Marco’s old ward signalled the end of a road, but this ward was merely a new signpost. Perhaps that was what Marco needed; a new direction, after so much time convinced he was reaching a dead end. Plus, the cheery stork and baby mural behind Jean’s head certainly helped to cement the lighter feeling in his stomach.

When he turned back to his chair, Jean was looking at him. The shirt had come down from his face now, his brow furrowed in thought, and before Marco could ask what was going on in his head, Jean told him anyway. “The last time you were in this hospital was the day you got discharged.” It wasn’t a question. Jean knew the answer anyway.

Marco gulped back the cold shiver that wanted to steal through him. “Yeah,” he nodded, “it was.”

Jean nodded. “And are you alright?”

The little creature in his stomach roared with pleasure. Marco shuddered. “I-it’s fine, really-”

“It’s okay if you’re not. I’m not feeling great myself.”

Marco blinked. “What do you-?”

“This was where Claudine was born.” Jean got up from his seat and ran a hand through his hair, making him look as though he’d been electrocuted in very specific places. “Feels…weird being back here. Feel like how I did last time. Confused, scared shitless, wondering why I wasn’t feeling the way the other Dads were.” He shrugged. “I didn’t feel right. And being back here… makes me feel like that again.”

Marco sighed, and as Jean grew closer he was happy to rest his head on Jean’s shoulder and steady his breathing. Jean tentatively pawed at his hand in a silent question, and Marco answered by threading their fingers together and squeezing, ever so gently. “Things are weird,” he admitted, turning to plant a small kiss on Jean’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re here with me this time.”

Jean wrinkled his nose at the attention. “Fat lot of good I am, I’ve thrown up on you and got your cape taken away.”

“It’s a shock blanket.”

“Sure.”

A small warbling noise came from Claudine, and Jean pulled away. Marco had the feeling Jean had wanted to talk some more, and was almost grateful for Claudine’s distraction. “You’re awake then, Princess?”

Claudine was blinking back the last remnants of sleep, watching the two people standing above her with a haughty expression. After finding that she was strapped in tight, she started to wriggle and bleat in annoyance. Marco looked to Jean, who shrugged. “Hey, the hospital’s probably the only place she won’t get germs.”

Marco crouched down and began to unbuckle the straps of her carseat, amid frowns and grumpy babbling. “Come on, let’s get you out of there,” he said. “But you better behave, young lady.”

Claudine allowed herself to be picked up and propped on Marco’s hip, a place she was fast becoming familiar with, and started to look around the waiting room with an air of the same haughtiness she had given them moments before. Marco jigged her up and down with a smile. “Hey, sweetie, you missed the show. Your Dad gave a great performance.”

It was Jean’s turn to frown. “Hey, don’t talk shit about me to her.”

Marco, with a teasing grin, ignored him. He jiggled her a little more, causing a gleeful squeak to burst out of her, all frowns forgotten. “You missed Daddy throwing up allll over Marco and Uncle Eren, yes he did.”

“Don’t tell her that, she’ll think it’s socially acceptable.”

“Silly Daddy,” Marco continued, gently tickling Claudine’s sides to get her laughing, “but we still love him, don’t we?” He glanced back to see Jean in the process of turning a very tasteful shade of pink.

Claudine made a gleeful noise that sounded like, “da da ma ma muh,” which didn’t fail to melt Marco’s heart.

“That’s right,” he said, and she giggled at her inclusion. “We love him lots and lots don’t we? Even when he steals Marco’s shirts to wrap babies in.”

“Oh my god let it go, I’ll get you a new shirt!”

Marco was still laughing (and trying to avoid being smacked in the arm) when the cavalry arrived. The herd of five stampeded in like wildebeest, pushing and shoving and arguing. Marco relaxed at the sight of them, despite the scandalised and worried glances the nurses were shooting one another at the rabble, and he caught Jean crack a smile too. Claudine started to wriggle, and once Marco was sure the door to the waiting room was shut, he set her down on the floor.

Eren’s jacket looked a lot puffier than usual, but before either of them could ask it had been unzipped and opened wide for all to see. “Tadaa!” Eren crowed, proudly showing off his haul of what was unmistakeably the entire contents of a vending machine Marco had passed on the way to the waiting room half an hour earlier. He was missing a shirt thanks to Jean, but it looked as though he’d managed to coerce someone into letting him borrow their jumper, which almost fell to his knees. “Machine malfunctioned,” he explained gleefully, shaking the edges of his jacket to dislodge a few loose chocolate bars. “Tonight, we feast!”

“I caught him kicking the living daylights out of it,” Mikasa said, appearing from behind Eren and offering a severe, teacherly look in his direction. “Sometimes, I swear that out of the both of them, the machine was winning.”

Eren gave her a pained look. “Mikasa, why must you ruin my street cred every time?”

“You have no street cred to ruin, sweetheart.”

“Hey!”

Marco grinned as a shirt and jumper came sailing through the air towards him, thrown by a rather impressive underhand. He ignored the fact that the shirt was slightly too small and the jumper smelt like cats from where Batman had sat on it; he just wanted to be warm. “My saviour,” he groaned as he wrestled them both on.

“That’s my name, Twinkle, don’t go wearing it out.” Ymir elbowed Eren out of the way in the playful-yet-threatening way she always did, her hands shoved deep in her coat pockets.

She offered Marco a small, calculating glance, the kind that asked how he was without saying anything. When he offered her a smile, something in her eyes quietened. A delighted cry caught her attention, and she looked down to see Claudine tapping her way towards her, proudly showing off her crawling technique. Ymir blinked at her. Claudine burbled something unintelligible. In one smooth motion, Ymir sank to her knees in front of her. “Hey there, wee bairn. How’s it going? You got your skates on today. Keeping these two scruffballs in check, are you?”

Claudine’s mouth split into a wide grin, and Ymir leaned closer to be patted reverently on the head like it was a personal blessing. “Ba da ba buh,” Claudine said.

Ymir nodded solemnly. “You live your best life, kid.”

Her decision to slump on the floor seemed enough of a signal for everyone to get comfortable; they surged forward and followed suit, sprawling on the remaining chairs or flopping down on the floor beside Ymir and Claudine. Marco saw Marlow, his mohawk freshly buzzed, frisk Eren for a packet of Skittles and then stick the whole bag in his mouth to stop Eren snatching them back. Christa, a rare appearance, sank onto the chair next to Jean and squeezed his hand with a gentle smile. Mikasa was the one who dropped down beside Marco and cuffed him playfully over the head for doing something as stupid as helping Sasha give birth in a car.

Marco grinned despite himself, and butted his head against Jean’s shoulder. Jean hesitated, then turned his head to plant a small kiss on Marco’s forehead. The motion was simple: their family was here. They could relax. Marco hadn’t really done that since Sasha’s waters had broken, and now his body felt sluggish and heavy with the weight of relief that it was no longer his burden to bear alone, his wick alone to be burnt down to nothing. Now, they could share the flame.

There was one person, however, that was missing. “Where’s Connie?” he asked.

“Armin took him to see Sasha,” Eren yawned, spilling his trove of chocolate, crisps and sweets over the floor before settling himself next to Marlow – to Marlow’s immense disgust. “He was in an exam when we were calling him. The dumb idiot won’t stop apologising.”

“What did she say when he turned up?”

“An awful lot of expletives, mainly.” Heads turned to see Armin standing in the mouth of the waiting room. His hair was stuck on end from where he’d been running a hand through it so much, and he looked close to dropping with fatigue. But he was still standing, miraculously, and smiling. “That and she wants to put Farlan’s… well, there was a tenderiser involved, you can get the picture.”

The group gave a collective wince. “Christ, if I was Connie I’d run a mile,” Ymir muttered.

Jean had a different question. “Are they both okay?” The light-hearted chatter died down. “The baby, Sasha, are they – I mean, are they stable? The paramedics were all over them when they got to the road.”

Marco was hit with a sickening déjà vu; the lot of them squashed into a corridor and ignoring the nurses’ judgemental stares and tuts; everyone worried about Sasha, and Connie confessing in a flood of tears to people who knew he loved her all along; Marco, sat scared to death of the ward beyond and Jean’s observatory kiss still burning on his lips. He’d asked the question then, the one everyone wanted to ask and couldn’t bring themselves to. He’d been the brave one that time – this time, it was Jean. His eyes were the ones that were wide and desperate for news on someone he hadn’t known a year ago. Marco reached for his hand and noticed that Jean had been reaching for his too. Sasha wasn’t just Marco’s housemate now, not just Marco’s friend – she was their friend. Jean’s gaze, scared though it was, never fell from Armin. Marco gave his hand a squeeze. I’m proud of you.

Armin cleared his throat and everyone seemed to lean forward. “Sasha lost a lot of blood,” he began, “so she’s very weak.”

Marco stopped breathing.

“But she’s stable, yes.”

He breathed again.

“And the baby?” Jean pressed.

Armin smiled. “The baby is perfect.”

Ymir let out a loud cheer that startled Claudine and caused a break out of nervous laughter. It occurred to Marco that they had all expected something to go wrong; living in a place like Trost stopped them believing that something so difficult could go so well. There were more questions fired at Armin, all of which he dodged in order to sit cross-legged on the floor beside Eren. When they still didn’t desist, he slumped onto his side, and then led out on the floor with his head on Eren’s knee. Eren looked as though every single one of his Christmases had come early. “I’m really sorry, but I’m so tired. The insurance company are going to call me back later, can you just… wake me when they call?” he mumbled, his eyes dropping without permission anyway.

“But what about the bairn?” Ymir all but shouted in his ear.

Armin scrunched up his nose and cracked open a fatigued eye. “It’s a boy. Sasha hasn’t decided what she’s going to call him yet. Connie’s trying to talk her out of ‘Destroyer’.”

“Well, that is a good, strong name…” Christa considered.

There was a mumble of agreement, but Armin’s face suggested that he didn’t believe Destroyer to be a suitable name. Spoilsport, Marco thought with a grin, keeping an eye on the way Claudine was batting Ymir’s knee with one pudgy hand.

He wasn’t sure how long they all stayed there, slumped underneath the mural of the cartoon stork and the cheerfully waving baby. Hospitals had a funny knack of making time go fast or slow, but never in between. Days or weeks might have passed and Marco wouldn’t have known. Sooner or later, he was beginning to think that the stork had it in for him and the baby was just mocking him.

He woke from his reverie by a fuzzy vibration next to his leg. He frowned, knowing full well that his own phone was in the opposite pocket. It was Jean, then, who fished it out of his pocket and brought it up to his face. Everything in him seemed to tense, something that sharpened Marco’s suspicion. “Shit. I, uh, I have to get this,” he said, letting his fingers trail through Marco’s as he stood up. He didn’t look back. He walked all the way to the door and around the corner before Marco saw the Jean-shaped silhouette bring the phone to its ear.

“What’s up with him?” Mikasa asked.

It was exactly what Marco was thinking. “I don’t know,” he mused. “He seemed fine this morning.” Thinking back, though, made him doubt.

He sank to the floor, crossing his legs neatly underneath him as Claudine, having grown bored of patting down Ymir, made her way around the room at surprising speed. Her small hands slapped loudly on the polished floors, and the noise seemed to give her the determination to go faster still. She couldn’t have cared less about Jean pulling a vanishing act, and as Marco scuttled after her on his hands and knees, he wondered if that meant it was really worth worrying about. He let the doubt sink down to the seabed for now. It could wait. Jean would tell him in his own time.

He scooped Claudine up around her middle before she could reach the waiting room doors with a cry of triumph, swinging her around to face the others and shuffling back to where the chairs stood, with Claudine complaining and squirming all the way. He blew a raspberry on her belly, loud and wet, and the grumbles soon turned into more gleeful giggles and shrieks. He was in the middle of blowing further raspberries when a nurse emerged from behind the double doors – and promptly stopped dead at the sight that greeted her.

She clearly wasn’t sure what to make of it all; Marco, sprawled on the floor mid-tickle of Claudine, Mikasa with a sharp suit and pinched expression straight from work, Ymir looking as though she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards then challenged it to a fight, and Eren with his small mound of sweets and chocolate. The only remotely normal looking ones were Armin and Christa; even Marlow looked shifty. In a split second, she seemed to understand; she asked, “are you all here for Miss Braus?” in such a way that suggested she really hoped they weren’t.

“Yep,” Ymir said, reclining on her palms and tipping the nurse a heavy wink. “Ain’t she the lucky one?”

To Marco’s endless amusement, the nurse turned a soft shade of pink. “Well, um, as she’s stable and the baby’s fed successfully, you can see her if you like.” She finally addressed the chocolate pile Eren was sitting in the middle of. “Are they from the vending machines?”

Eren lifted his head high. “I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.”

 “SASHA LOVE WE’RE COMIN’!” Ymir hollered, and as though it were a mighty battlecry, everyone made for the doors. Marco scooped Claudine up just in time to avoid a boot in the side from Marlow, and Eren had completely forgotten that Armin was almost asleep on him, and had jumped up without warning. As Armin stood up, groggily rubbing his soon-to-bruise chin amid Eren’s strea of apologies, the nurse tried to restore order. “P-please, keep the noise down!” she protested feebly as Ymir pushed past her into the corridor. “New mothers and babies need peace and quiet!”

“You’ll be lucky,” Marlow muttered.

Marco rolled his eyes, reaching down to pick up Claudine’s empty car seat. Claudine herself seemed aware that this was an important moment, for she had gone very quiet and was peering at everyone with a small, incredibly Jean-like frown. “I’m sorry, we helped deliver the baby. Everyone’s a little excited.”

The nurse gawped at him, forgetting her professional persona for the moment. “All of you?!”

“What? Oh!” Marco laughed. “No, just my boyfriend, Eren and I. Eren’s the one with the-”

“The sweet mountain, yes.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose you heroes better get going. She’s in room 105.”

“Sweeeeeeet,” Eren chorused. “I hope the baby looks less like a Xenomorph now. That shit is giving me nightmares for a long time.”

“Sure it’s not just where it came from?”

“Shut the fuck up, Freudenberg.”

As they all trumped out of the waiting room Marco offered the hassled young nurse a smile, and made a mental note to donate to the Benevolent Nurse’s Fund that Christmas.

---

Sasha was waiting for them.  As they crashed into her room in a tangle of limbs and car seat, she actually had the audacity to laugh at them. Her sweatpants and shirt had been swapped for a hospital gown, and though she was nestled against the fort-like constructed of pillows around her, she was still quaking with laughter at their entrance. Connie was perched on the bed beside her looking less amused: hassled-but-happy was the best way to describe how he looked, and as their eyes met Connie beamed so proudly it made Marco grin by proxy.

Nobody was really paying attention to anything except for the small bundle nuzzled against Sasha’s chest. Now she was in a crisp white bed and not in an old car, Sasha looked so much younger. The bed threatened to swallow her in its vast landscape of pillows and blankets, and if she was small then her baby was nothing more than a barnacle on a rock in comparison.

“It’s… so small,” Mikasa said.

“Yeah that really is a small-ass baby,” Ymir agreed, albeit less gently.

“Is he feeding well?” Christa asked.

“Does it hurt when he bites your boob?” Eren asked, less eloquently.

Sasha snorted. “Wow, you guys really ran all this way to see me get my boob out and insult my baby? Best friends ever.”

“Couldn’t pick better ones,” Connie agreed.

It was at that moment the baby chose to move a little, and everyone seemed to lean just that little bit closer to the bed. From where Marco was stood, close to the door from where they’d wedged themselves in, he saw the baby turn his head and open his eyes. Two dark, tiny marbles blinked up at Sasha, the paper-thin mouth opening soundlessly just to try it out, before he tried to turn over and look at the forest of faces gathering around him. Though the baby did have the look about him of an old man doing an impression of a prune, he had a round, chubby face with delicate ears like Sasha’s that made him acceptably adorable, and as Sasha beamed down at him and tucked his blanket under his chin, he made a small snuffling noise and let his eyes slide shut again.

“He’s beautiful, Sash’,” Mikasa said, and Marco could tell she meant it.

He reached over and took Sasha’s hand, smoothing his thumb over the parts that weren’t bruised from the drip that had clearly just been taken away. Her heart was still racing, jumping like a frightened rabbit, and when he looked to her for answers she shook her head. “It’s okay, they said I’m going to be a little up and down with the adrenaline. Don’t go worrying yourself, big man.” She smiled again, but this was more reserved, more thoughtful. Though everything was shifting back to normal, the gears that had been juddering out of place now returning to their rightful places, something spun in a different direction. Sasha, when her laughter stopped and the humour left her, was a small girl in a large bed again, with something in her arms that changed everything. It was scaring her. Marco could see it.

He leaned over, making sure Claudine was shifted out of harm’s way, and planted a small kiss on Sasha’s cheek. “I’ll always worry about you, but I know you can handle it.”

Sasha grinned at that, dropping Marco’s hand to draw her arms tighter around the baby, her baby, and that was it. She was a mother. Marco could see it.

A knock at the door made them all, baby included, jump. Maybe it was the nurse, asking them to leave because there were far too many of them in the room? Frowning, Marco passed Claudine to the nearest person (it happened to be Ymir, to her horror and Claudine’s delight) and opened it.

He was met with a flash of tawny eyes before they flitted down to the floor, and the ash-blonde hair that was raked through and ruffled by steady fingers. Relief, heady and warm, rushed through him. “Hey,” he said, unable to keep the fondness from his voice and still having to remind himself that it was okay to show it. “You found us okay.”

Jean set his mouth in a fine line and nodded. “Asked one of the nurses,” he mumbled. “Didn’t need to bother, could hear Jaeger’s gob from a mile away.”

Marco snorted. “Sounds about right. What took you so-” His gaze wandered down, and he promptly stopped talking. Because, clutched tightly in Jean’s arms and wearing a painfully cheery expression, was a small powder blue teddy bear. Along with the cheery look it was giving Marco, it had a small blue bow around its neck in the same colour and ‘My First Teddy’ sewn onto its foot. Jean refused to look at him, his cheeks blazing with embarrassment, and Marco reached out to wiggle one of the bear’s feet. “Who’s your friend?”

Jean shrugged, the bear jiggling with him. “Just saw it and thought the baby might like it,” he mumbled, though now it looked like a decision he deeply regretted.

“What is it?” Eren called from further inside. “What has Kirschtein got?”

Marco raised a brow, silently asking, and Jean rolled his eyes and gave another loose shrug that meant more than it seemed. Marco put an arm around him and steered him into the room. Everyone was looking at them. Marco felt Jean hesitate for a moment before stepping inside and gently brushing him off. He held the bear to his chest like a shield, as though its bright eyes and soft tummy could deflect the stares he was getting.

Marco gave him a little nudge and Jean took a few more steps closer to the bed. Sasha was staring the hardest; from him to the bear and back again. Jean audibly gulped, but Marco’s smile spurred him on.

“I, er, got the baby this. I…uhm…” He glanced back at Marco, and after getting an encouraging nod he continued, “I always wanted to get Claudine one of these when Hitch was in the hospital, but she… Hitch didn’t want me to, said it was tacky, but I really like the idea of babies having something to cuddle with, so uh… I mean, you can chuck it if it gets ratty or gross or if he tries to eat its ear or something but…um…er…”

He was twirling the bear around in his hands as he spoke, so quickly that Marco was sure it would be dizzy if it were alive, and eventually Jean just gave up and held it out to Sasha without another word, his face closely resembling a stop sign and his eyes fixed almost directly onto the floor.

For a moment, no one moved. Then, Sasha patted Connie on the arm and asked, “Could you hold him, please?” Once she’d passed the baby over and settled him comfortably in Connie’s arms, she shuffled closer to the bed and pulled Jean into a tight hug, bear and all. Marco was sure it was Eren who incited the cheer that rose up from them all when Jean, after a panicked few seconds of flailing, inched his arms around her and hugged her back.

Jean wasn’t a massive hugger; he was all bones and angles and awkwardness, but with Sasha holding him he got softer, the edges all smoothed out until she pulled away and wiped her eyes, the bear sitting on the bed beside her. Jean even cracked a smile when she punched him in the arm and complained that he was being, “too damn adorable for someone who’s seen me fully dilated”.

Marco smiled along with them all, but he was finding it harder to hide the sense of foreboding that was threatening to squash his lungs. It had started since they’d walked in the room, though he’d tried his best to ignore it. It was the steady beep of machines that was doing it; the sight of cables and wires and tubes made him feel sick to the stomach.

I have to get out of here. 

He quietly excused himself, casting a small glance to Jean and deducing that he would be fine. He felt Mikasa and Eren’s eyes on him as he slipped out the door, but no one followed him. That was fine. He didn’t know how he could explain what he was feeling, anyway.

He wandered the hallways in a sort of daze, trying to push down the memories that were surging up to bite, but once his chest began to feel like it was closing up, he knew it wasn’t going to work. He made for the stairs – and kept climbing. He took them slowly, offering paper-thin smiles to the nurses, but once they were gone he let the smile drop. It was the dreams; he could see them now, replaying like a piece of crumpled film in his mind. Something kept triggering them, a particularly sadistic part of his brain firing off the dreaded scenes like a horror movie as soon as he closed his eyes.

He only stopped climbing when a big red door signalled him to. His stomach gave a particularly bad jolt, and Marco reached for the handle. He didn’t care that the door had a very stern ‘ROOF ACCESSIBILITY: STAFF ONLY’ sign emblazoned on it. He knew from experience where this door led. He’d been out here before. Back when Thomas was dying in his hospital bed, and he couldn’t look at him anymore. Back when he’d felt like a coward, and needed somewhere to go that didn’t involve monitors or doctors. Marco shuddered, shaking the thoughts loose like a dog with water. After looking both ways and making sure no one was watching, he opened the door and stepped through.

A rush of cold outdoor air hit the life back into him, though he choked at how sharp it felt. His lungs ached like they had just broken the surface of water, and for a moment Marco just let himself breathe. It had been a big day, he mused. Things were changing. Things were scary. Things, no matter what, would be okay. They had to be.

He straightened up and looked out over the expanse of blank space before him. It was as though Trost had skinned the moon and lain it across the top of the hospital. It was lonely up here, Marco realised with another shudder, but at least his stomach had stopped churning.

He tucked his hands in his pockets and walked forwards, scuffing his shoes on the dusty ground. Jean had told him that the part of the moon the astronauts landed on had been dubbed ‘the Sea of Tranquillity’ due to how utterly empty and calm it was. That was how the roof felt to Marco, and god did he need something like that, sometimes.

He crossed to the railings that fringed the edge of the roof and looked out over the city, his city, and gave a heavy sigh. Like it or not, Trost was his own, and he had learnt to love it. No matter how much it screwed him over, he wouldn’t ever leave, even if he could. There was something of himself lost in Trost’s winding streets and dark alleyways, and he still had to find it. The roads below him continued to belch out commuters and traffic as the light began to fail, and eventually that little piece of him lost along the way would come back. He was getting close, day by day, but perhaps there would always be a part of him sacrificed to the city that had made him.

Parts, he knew, could be found in the places he loved. The park. The cemetery. Jean’s house. His apartment. The tattoo parlour. The coffee shop with the stupid name – what was it again? – all of them, huddled next to their neighbours like roosting birds. They seemed small enough to be touched from where Marco stood, to be picked up and slipped into his pocket for safekeeping. He sighed again. If only things were that simple.

“Marco!”

The voice jolted him out of his thoughts. He turned to see Jean heading towards him, the door to the stairway still ajar. He smiled in greeting and turned back to the view. “Sorry,” he said, “I just… had to take a walk.”

Jean squinted like he didn’t believe him, but didn’t push things. Instead, he moved to lean against the railings too, brushing their shoulders together as he looked over the city. He chewed on his lip absent-mindedly, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves instead of really looking at the view. Giving up the pretence, Jean turned to look at him, and Marco was hit again by just how bright Jean’s eyes seemed to be lately. “Remember when you were sick?” he asked. “When you were all feverish and weird?”

Marco smiled. “I called you River Boy for the first time.”

Jean tried to pretend the blush that sprung to his cheeks was down to the cold, but Marco knew better. “Y-yeah, then. Anyway, that night, out on the fire escape?”

“I didn’t have socks on,” Marco remembered, nodding. “You almost had a heart attack.”

“I was concerned you were gonna catch hypothermia, Marco, of course I almost had a heart attack.” Jean frowned, mentally shaking himself. “That’s not what I meant. I told you back then that the only thing I’d wanted was to get out of this city. To just… fly off somewhere that wasn’t so grey and loud and busy.”

Marco frowned, thinking back. Jean had said that with Hitch, he could have done it. They had a chance, small though it was, of getting out. Of breaking loose of the hold Trost had around them.  Marco bit his lip. “You said that even though you hated Hitch and she hated you, you could have gotten out if you worked hard enough.”

Jean had the grace to look awkward. “Yeah, well I was an idiot.”

“Still are an idiot.”

“Thanks.” Jean started chewing a thumbnail as he traced the winding roads with his eyes, and the cars that followed their trail. “It made me feel so small, standing out there on your creaky fire escape watching this… this world that was a size too big for me. Felt like there was no way I was ever gonna fit in it.”

Marco stepped closer, hoping that his body heat would warm Jean’s icy body.  “It’s a big world out there,” he agreed, “and sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming.”

 Jean nodded. He was working up to something. Marco let him sort the words out in his head before he spoke again. “Thing is, getting out of the city wouldn’t change much. I’d still be me, just in another place. But…with you… with the others… the world feels the right size. I fit.”

Marco’s smile widened. “Of course you do,” he said, nudging him gently with his shoulder. “You’re Jean Kirschtein, struggling artist and beautiful disaster. Trost was made for you.”

Jean snorted. “Thanks. Again. You’re really selling yourself here.”

“I try my best.”

Jean looked away again, his cheeks getting redder. “I’m trying to say that sometimes… sometimes I think the world doesn’t fit right around you. And that’s okay, but… but I don’t think you know it’s okay. You think it’s weak, or you’re failing me or failing Claudine or whoever. But you’re not. You’re just… you. And, y’know, I’m here. To listen.”

Marco bit his lip. The familiar lie of ‘it’s fine’ died on his lips the moment he saw the look on Jean’s face.  It was fiercely hopeful, daring him to brush it aside and pretend it was nothing the way he had earlier. Marco sighed, and rested his head on Jean’s shoulder. “The dreams are getting to me a lot more than I thought,” he said eventually, closing his eyes as he did so. “It makes me feel sick, thinking about it. Thinking about what I could have done, what I could have lost...”

Jean relaxed, as though it had been what he was waiting for all along – and maybe it was. He said nothing. His hand had found its way into Marco’s hair, and was making small massaging circles just above his ear. Marco almost purred at the feeling. “But you didn’t,” he said quietly. “Loads of things could have happened. But you didn’t lose anything.”

Marco smiled weakly. “I just got incredibly lucky with where the guy stuck his knife.” Jean’s fingers stiffened in his hair, and he knew that Jean was thinking about it too. He’d not been there in the early stages. He’d not seen Marco wake up in a haze and wonder what on earth was going on.

Did Jean think about that a lot? Marco wondered. Did he stay up late beating himself up over not coming over, or trying to call again?

“I’m sorry,” Marco added, just in case. “I didn’t mean to say that. I want them to stop, I do, it’s just harder than I thought it would be.”

Jean’s hand relaxed. “Marco, look at me.”

Marco whined at the suggestion, but pulled away and looked at Jean anyway. He opened his mouth to say something, but Jean leaned in before he had the chance and kissed him, his hand trailing down to his jawline to cup it and bring him in closer. Marco’s surprise quickly dissolved – Jean barely ever took control, even now – and kissed him back, trailing his hands down to Jean’s waist and keeping them there. Jean’s lips no longer trembled when he kissed him; they had at first, like he was afraid they would pull away too soon and he’d be left chasing the air, but now they were steady, careful, exploring. It was like Jean was trying to kiss the fear out of Marco, second by second, and Marco was fine with letting him try.

When they broke the kiss Jean was panting, his breath warm on Marco’s face. Marco kissed him again, slow and gentle, and didn’t move far away when they stopped. “What was that for?” he murmured against Jean’s lips, grinning as Jean gave them a soft nip.

Jean’s eyes opened. “Don’t ever think that you’re not the strongest man I know,” he said.

Marco kissed him again but chastely this time, brushing their heads together and smiling like a lovestruck teenager when Jean butted him gently. “I’ll try to remember that.”

They kissed for a little while longer, the only noise the rush of their breath and the roaring of Marco’s heart in his ears, before Jean broke away. “Talk to someone,” he said, and they sounded a lot firmer than before. “I know I said you could face this your own way, but I was wrong. Talk to someone about the dreams. Someone qualified. They can help you. And that means a fucking lot coming from someone like me that hates talking about his problems.”

Marco sighed. Jean kissed him again. He reconsidered. “It can’t hurt to try…”

Jean smiled too, and kissed him softly, sweetly, a thank you without words. Marco still liked that they didn’t need to speak sometimes, that actions spoke far louder, and where Jean’s kisses were involved he was becoming fluent.

He only pulled away when he felt Jean shiver against him. “Cold, huh?”

“Fucking freezing.” Jean laughed. “If I get a cold because of you I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Marco shrugged. “You’re the hero of the hour. I’m sure Mikasa will let you get away with murder now.”

Jean snorted. “Well she did hug me and say thank you before I came to get you, so I guess that’s progress.”

“You might as well be a sibling now.”

Jean laughed again, though it was a little absent-minded. When Marco offered his hand, wiggling the fingers in encouragement, Jean brought out his phone. Marco frowned. “Oh yeah, who called you?”

Jean bit his lip. “My… my Mam.” The words sounded alien coming from him. Marco dropped his hand altogether. “She was… she was returning a call.”

Marco’s frown deepened. “Returning a call?” he parroted back.

Jean nodded, still biting his lip. When he next spoke, it came out in a rush. “Doyoulikevegetarianfood.”

Marco blinked. “Sorry?”

Jean huffed. He really was awkward now. “Do you… do you like vegetarian food?” he asked again, a little slower. It still took a while for Marco to decipher what he’d actually said.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t mind vegetarian food.”

“Mam’s gone vegetarian. She makes, like… sweet potato everything and puts kale in everything and makes lasagne out of mushrooms and leeks…I’ve never tried it but she says she’s a good cook.” Jean shrugged, still refusing to make eye contact. “Said she’d make something nice.”

Marco’s confusion suddenly lifted. Reality hit harder than any panic. “Are you… asking me to meet your mum?”

Jean shuffled his feet and nodded. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Does she know we’re-?”

Jean bit his lip harder. “Might’ve mentioned I was seeing someone.”

“Oh?”

“Might’ve said it was serious.”

“O-oh.”

Marco knew he probably should have said something a little more eloquent. He probably should have asked when Jean had started talking to his mother again, but it wasn’t really his question to ask. Besides, his brain quickly stopped working when Jean stepped into his space again and rested their heads together, nuzzling softly. The boy standing with his fingers laced in Marco’s and a coy smile on his face wasn’t the same one who had asked him what the fuck his problem was after being pushed clear of a bus. He wasn’t the same one who had fallen into the river after a drunken night out. This version of Jean was growing, reaching up to the sunlight like a sapling after a long winter, and as Marco squeezed his hand and offered him a smile so wide it was painful, he caught himself thinking that he couldn’t have loved him more than he did at that moment.

“I’d love to come for dinner,” he said.

Jean grinned. “Really?”

“Really.” Marco’s smile faltered as a thought sprung to mind. “Though I’ve not… got a good track record with parents,” he said.

Jean shrugged. “That’s okay. Hyacinth and Emil seem to like you just fine.”

Marco bit his lip. “You know what I mean. There’s a reason Hyacinth practically adopted me.” Jean’s expression sobered. He watched their hands swing together in the way he seemed to like, his smile returning to his face inch by inch. It was small, meek – but it was there. The sight of it made Marco relax, just a little. “Are you scared?” he asked.

“Terrified,” Jean answered, honestly. “But I have you.” He tilted his head towards the fire escape door, back down into the hospital. “And I have them.” He looked down at their hands again, lips pursed. “And a clever person once told me that we look out for each other. We make our own families. And that’s what I’ve got now. That’s what we’ve got. I-if Mam can’t see that, then…” He shrugged again. “Dunno. Guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Marco laughed and leaned in for another small kiss, breaking it before they had the chance to deepen it. “So long as you’re not jumping off it.”

“Oh, har de har.”

They turned back to the fire escape together, hands still together and fingers locked in something resembling a promise.

Marco had no idea what was waiting ahead of them; things changed and moved in the city like a galaxy, expanding outward and coming together again in a crunch and a blast, with pieces left to be picked up or sometimes nothing at all. Things were going to be tough. Things were going to break him to within an inch of falling apart. Things weren’t just the cookie cutter life he’d thought they would be when he stepped off the train from Jinae as a naïve seventeen year old.

They were a whirlwind of laughter, of staying up too late and taking bigoted old ladies’ shrubs and breaking into old observatories for the boy you love.

They were clouds of tears, of nights spent on sofas waiting for a ghost to walk through the door and of pills rattling around in pots.

But above all, he thought as he squeezed Jean’s hand and slipped through the door, they were so much better.