Work Text:
The baby was dead when they found it.
It was coddled in a shirt. Blue lips and wrinkled eyes that hadn’t been open long enough to even see the river it had been drifting in.
“A shame” One of the veteran scouts commented, wrapping it back up for burial. “We get a steady supply from the refugee camp up the river.”
Eren was quiet. Staring at the bundle with an empty look as they buried it. A small, shallow grave on the bank of the river. Krista marked it with some flowers picked nearby.
“He….I don’t want him to have nothing” She said softly, arranging the flowers.
They took a moment before walking back to the castle. Levi declared training cut short, knowing it would be hard to focus with those little blank eyes at the forefront of their mind.
“We keep calling him he… but did anyone check?” Connie commented, breaking the solum attitude.
“Walls Connie, you can't just say shit like that”
“I was just wondering, it's not like you weren’t thinking the same thing Sasha”
“I was definitely not dude”
“Oh, so you….” He was cut off.
“Why would someone do that?” Eren said, voice hollow.
“Do what?” Jean asked. “Have a baby in that hell hole? I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose”
“I assume we don’t have to explain the birds and the bees to you” Levi commented from up ahead.
“No….I know how sex works you asshole” Eren stopped, he looked almost angry now. Softening to whisper “Drown him, why would they drown him”
He had been quiet since they found it. Staring at it with an empty look Levi had never seen on him before.
“You spent time in the refugee camps Eren. I’m sure you can understand what tough choices have to be made before winter comes.” Levi said.
“I ... don’t. Yeah it's shit but I don’t understand why someone would kill their own baby”
“Yes, you do Eren” Mikasa said softly. Glancing at Armin briefly. He hadn’t spoken since they found the body.
“It’s a tough choice. Would you rather it drown now, or have it starve in the winter.” Sasha said.
“Stop calling him an it” Eren snapped.
“Again, we don’t know if it’s a He or a She, no one checked” Connie said.
Eren’s head whipped around to glare at him.
“You better shut your mouth Connie before Eren drowns you” Sasha joked.
“Yeah, he might mistake your bald head for another baby” Jean said.
Levi, who had been government appointed to watch Eren’s every move, noticed the seconds Eren’s anger changed. The flip where typical teenage rage boiled over and took over the rational part of his mind.
“Why the fuck do you guys think it's okay to joke about a dead fucking baby?” He snapped, turning on Jean. “I know you might think its funny growing up in your little Trost house but maybe you should shut the fuck up”
Jean had the decency at least to step back. “Fine fine. I’m sorry. It doesn’t deserve to be talked about like that.”
Before he could even turn around to see Jean’s hands up in mock surrender or see his smug face, Levi knew Eren had lunged.
“Eren!” Krista yelled. Mikasa quickly stepped between them.
“Calm down Eren,” She said, “They're just being assholes, let it go.”
“How can you tell me to let it go? You don’t agree do you?” Eren’s teeth were clenched, fists balled by his side.
“No Eren.” Mikasa placated him.
“There are options”
“I know”
“Not always,” Armin said, his first words since they found the baby.
Eren turned to him, shocked, anger rising back up.
“Alright, kids that’s e-fucking-nough. Let’s can the dead baby talk” Levi said, pulling Eren forward by the collar of his shirt. “Let's get moving”
But Eren didn’t budge. “No” Looking right at Armin, whose eyes stayed glued to the ground.
“I’m just saying that sometimes…..sometimes it's not as lucky as finding…..”
Eren interrupted. “No, you don’t get to fucking agree with that.”
“I'm not saying I agree but…” Armin’s voice cracked.
“Then don’t fucking say anything!” Eren yelled. “You don’t get to agree with that. You're saying you could find someplace for Amelie at ten …” Armin’s head snapped up to meet Eren’s eyes. “But they couldn’t?”
“That wasn’t her name Eren”
“Yes it fucking was I’m the one who named her!”
“But you were the only one who… forget it. Forget it Eren.”
“No! I’m not going to drop it. Her name was Amelie. Just because you were too cowardly to name your own fucking daughter doesn’t mean it wasn’t her name.” Eren spit.
The word cowardly rolling off his tongue like an insult. The kind of insult that’s said with knowing exactly what buttons would make someone snap.
But Armin didn’t respond. He just kept his gaze on Eren. Eyes wide and shocked, mouth hanging open like he didn’t even know what he could possibly say to that.
Jean glanced at Mikasa, hoping she would be able to provide some kind of context. Some explanation for how Armin, who had made it known early on in their training days that he had no interest in girls, could have fathered a child.
But none came. She kept her gaze on Eren as he realized what he said. Anger dropping off his face in an instant.
“Shit Armin I..”
“No,” Levi said, “That’s enough. Armin you… alright great, He’s already walking back. Great, everyone follow his lead. If anyone else says another fucking word it's laps.”
The scout castle was large and empty. This meant, that for the first time in years. Jean didn’t have to share a room with 50 other teenage boys. Just one. But as far as teenage boys went Armin was not a bad roommate. For one he didn’t have anything to leave on the floor, and he spent most of his free time in Mikasa’s room or Eren’s cell. Better yet, sometimes Mikasa would spend time in their room.
In the first few weeks of their time in the scouts, Jean didn’t sleep well. The memory of Marco's body, alone and bloody haunted him. Waking him up with vicious nightmares. Armin had been a comfort, talking Jean back to sleep with tales of creatures he read about, or fairy tales he remembered from his childhood. And when he needed to talk, Armin was always right there with an open ear.
There were downsides. He considered Armin one of his closest, and honestly, only friends but he was odd, and often sullen and left the candle burning well into the night reading obscure books he found in the scout’s library.
Jean had gotten good at mapping Armin’s moods. Knowing when he needed time alone to stew. So when they got back, and Armin immediately took his lunch up to the room, brushing off Mikasa with an excuse about reports, Jean let it be.
“I know it's best not to mention it. But who else totally didn’t see that coming” Sasha said. They were on what must have been their 50th round of some card game Ymir made up.
“If it's best not to mention it then let’s not mention it,” Ymir said. Putting down another winning hand. “Nice. I go first next round”
“But really! Armin? Had a kid!” Sasha said, lifting up her arms so Ymir could take her cards to reshuffle.
“It's best not to gossip. He seemed really upset.” Krista said.
“Yes okay, but can we all agree that we thought he was totally into guys. Like he literally had a crush on that guy from the 103rd didn’t he? The one who was grouped with us for drills last year?”
“Mabey he likes both,” Ymir said, “but I’m done shuffling, so whose in too loose another round?
Jean finally called it a night when, for the fourth time in a row, Ymir won by some rule she ‘forgot to mention’.
When he got to the room it was dim. The candle burning low in the corner.
“Hey. You awake?” Jean asked, lighting a new one.
“Yeah,” Armin said, not turning around.
“Yeah,” Jean repeated, awkward. “I… uh….I brought you an apple. Since I’m the one who…well I stole it from Sasha but…”
“Thanks”
“No, uh no problem.” Still standing by the bed, holding the apple in one hand. Jean didn’t know what to do. “Look Armin…” He started.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, I get that. And you don’t have to I just. Well it was fucked up for Eren to tell everyone that”
Armin didn’t say anything.
“And I’m pretty sure he spent the evening being lectured about Levi about… well. Not being a dick.”
“Ok,” Armin said.
“And I …. Well”
“Just go to sleep Jean. It’s fine. I’ll be over it by morning”
“I wanted to say …”
“I said goodnight Jean”
“I know… I … Well, I know” Jean put the apple down. Sitting gingerly on the bed by Armin’s feet. “It’s not something you wanna talk about. But your obviously not like, feeling great about it. So if you wanna talk I’m not gonna tell anyone anything. “
Armin kept quiet.
“Just like you helped me talk about … about Marco. We’re friends.”
Getting no response Jean got up to get ready for bed. He didn’t have much in the way of pajamas but he was definitely due for a shower.
When he got back, hair dripping onto the floor, he noticed Armin had eaten the apple. Its core sitting on the bedside table where Jean had placed it.
Armin sitting with his back to the wall. Knees drawn to his chest and eyes looking down “Thanks for the apple”
“Thank Sasha,” Jean said, drying his hair with what might have been Armin’s towel, he couldn’t remember. “I took it from her”
“She wasn’t mine,” Armin said, just as Jean was climbing into bed.
“Sasha?” Jean asked.
“No…the baby… Amelie. She wasn’t actually mine.”
“Oh,” Jean said, one foot suspended on the rung of the ladder to his bed, the other on the floor. “Why did Eren say she was?”
“I told her she was. Well….We told her she was” Armin was curled tighter now, arms squeezed around his knees.
Jean climbed down, sitting on the edge of Armin's bed, one leg on the floor he asked, “Who was her mom?”
“A girl from the refugee camps. Her name was Eva she was from a village in Maria. Not far from where Mikasa grew up.”
“I didn’t know Mikasa wasn’t from shiganshina?”
“One track mind with you isn’t it Jean?” Armin said, a playful edge to his sullen tone.
“Stop, I’m listening to your harrowing tale, being a supportive friend.”
Armin continued. “She was alone too. Her brother died in the Mission to Reclaim Wall Maria, with my grandpa. So we stuck together. Her, Mikasa, Eren, and I. But she was sickly. Especially that first year when food was the tightest. And there wasn’t much we could do.”
“That second year, right before winter, she hurt her ankle. I took her to the infirmary. I tended to collapse in the field, so they knew me well there.”
Armin paused, trying to find his words.
“Did she die?” Jean asked. Armin looked up at him, the vice grip on his knees loosening.
“No. Well, not yet, It was just a sprain nothing…. nothing major but. She was injured and I was weak … we were weak, And we knew it. Too weak to survive the rest of the winter in that field, and too weak to be of any use out there. So they made us an offer.”
He paused, and Jean didn’t interrupt, just stayed still. Trying to push all the vicious meanings ‘an offer’ could have out of his mind.
“There was office work to be done they said. And we could both read, write, and do our sums. So it was….it seemed better than the fields.” Armin stopped talking, face pressed into his knees.
“Shit. I would take that offer.” Jean said, “Winter indoors, writing bullshit crop reports. Seems like an obvious choice.”
“Let me be clear.” Armin continued, head lifting to look into Jean’s eyes with a shocking seriousness. “I would rather work fifty more winters in that field than get fucked by those drunk old garrison officers one more time.”
“Oh….” Jean said
“So Eva got pregnant.” Armin continued, not looking from Jean’s shocked face. “and we couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it.”
“So why tell Eren it was yours?” Jean was, panicking, in a sense. Trying to match Armin’s blasé telling was difficult.
“Eren is a lot of things,” Armin said. “A lot of good things. And naive is one of them. He was happy, even proud of us when we got assigned the desk jobs. Mikasa saw through it but…I didn’t… well. I don’t know. I didn’t want him to be mad at me.”
“So you never told him”
“I was going to. When Eva got pregnant. I figured there was no hiding it. But then she said it was mine, and then she died and it was just us and that fucking baby.” Armin was crying now, tears welling up in his eyes.
“We kept her for almost a week, but we couldn’t find anyone to wetnurse and she was getting weaker and weaker.”
“But you found her a home,” Jean said, scooting to sit next to Armin on the wall, bumping shoulders. “You found someplace she could be happy or, alive at least.”
Armin whispered something into his knees. The words mumbled by his tears.
“What did you say?” Jean asked, placing a hand on his back.
“I said I didn’t”
“Oh”