Chapter Text
A week before they leave for Marley, they have a cookout and a bonfire.
It’s the closest they’ve had to a party (a real party, like the ones normal teenagers have) in years, and everyone tries to make the most of it despite the uneasiness their impending mission had brought them over the past few months. They don’t have permission to drink often, so the evening makes for some very interesting sights and even more embarrassing stories to tell in the morning. Connie, for one, has a chicken struggling against his grasp and is currently trying to land a kiss on its head. Commander Hange Zoë is skipping and twirling to the cheerful beat of the music around Captain Levi, who wears a tiny, most unusual smile on his lips. A girl from another division - the Garrison, he thinks, from before they unified the military in the face of the Marleyan threat - has her hand wrapped coyly around Jean’s bicep, flashing him a smile that is as bright as she is pretty.
He humors her for a few moments, toying with the idea of flirting back in his mind but never actually making a move, and then he makes Connie’s chicken debacle the pretext for excusing himself tactfully. The girl looks disappointed. She gives his arm one last squeeze before letting go.
“I don’t think she likes me very much,” Connie sways on his heels, tearfully, an angry scratch threatening to bleed right under his eye. Jean releases the bird from his friends’ hold and makes a point to keep its beak away from his face as he looks for an adequate place to set it free.
“Maybe you’ve had enough, buddy,” Jean says, then links his arm with Connie’s to keep him upright.
“But you like me, don’t you, Jean?” Connie splutters, squinting up at Jean’s chin (he never really does meet his eyes) and nodding absently to himself, “I bet you like me, horse boy. You like me very much.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he agrees, and Connie blinks solemnly before losing his footing again. “But you know who likes you even more? Sasha. Let’s go find Sasha.”
“Ah. Sasha!” sluggishly, and Connie bares his teeth in a smile that could be either gleeful or diabolical. “Sasha is my favorite. We’re my favorite, d’ya know that, Jean boy. T’is true. Where’d Sasha go? We should find her!”
Sasha, it turns out, had been busy charming the cook into turning the snack table into her very own private tasting station. The weather on the island always makes Niccolo’s skin look a bit flushed, but the boy’s cheeks turn nearly three shades deeper of red the moment he realizes Jean is looking their way. It’s kind of endearing, truly, but it still takes him every effort not to roll his eyes.
“Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds,” he salutes. “Sasha, I brought your friend,” Jean says, letting go of Connie once he’s sure he won’t fall on his face. Instead, he falls on his butt. There is a hard thud and a moment between Connie realizing what's happened and Niccolo crouching down to help him up that Jean uses to swiftly steal two meat skewers (he knows there won’t be any left by the next time he comes around) before turning to leave. Sasha has her mouth too stuffed with bread to speak, and Niccolo is always unsure as to how to respond appropriately, so by the time they begin to protest Jean is already long gone. “You guys have fun,” he says, throwing his hand up to no one in particular at all.
He wanders through the venue, chewing absentmindedly on his meat. There are people laughing all around him, chatter and dance and booze flowing freely under the moonlight, young soldiers and recruits gossiping in little cliques and couples behind shadows of trees they believe can hide them from their superiors. They cannot, and it makes Jean laugh to himself and maybe it’s the wine he’d had earlier, but it occurs to him suddenly just how delightful everything is in that moment. Of course, there is that crawling thing in the nape of his neck that will not let him forget they still have their most difficult mission still ahead of them, in uncharted territory no less, because he is not a recruit or a young soldier anymore, and he is all too familiar with the calm before the storm. But he also knows - he has also learned - that moments like these are not made to last. And, for now, Jean just wants to hear the music and burn this peace he hasn’t felt in so long into his brain, so he can return to it for comfort on more difficult nights. He doesn’t know how many more of these he’ll get.
It’s a while before he spots Mikasa by herself near the fire. She looks solitary, which is not completely atypical for her, but there’s something about her expression that resembles melancholy, and (he doesn’t think he can blame this on the wine) Jean’s legs seem to move on their own accord as they carry him closer to her. Mikasa, ever the attentive soldier, seems to notice his intent even before he can. As he bends down to sit beside her, she quirks up an eyebrow at him, and it disappears behind the darkness of her hair.
“Not in the mood for dancing tonight?” Jean rubs his cheek against his shoulder and offers her one of his skewers (the one he hadn’t bit on yet). Mikasa gingerly accepts, and her fingers - cold, despite being near the bonfire for he suspects the entire time - brush against his ever so brieflt. There's a tingly sensation he doesn’t have a name for, and he thinks, belatedly, that the meat must be hard and lukewarm by now, and it's too late to be sorry and just late enought to be self-conscious.
“I don’t dance”, she says, a little brisk.
Jean tries not to take it personally, and for the most part he does succeed. This is the closest he's been to her in weeks; Armin and Eren had left with the first shipment of undercover soldiers, and Mikasa has looked adrift ever since. She mostly sticks with Sasha, but their gluttonous friend had become increasingly hard to track down since she had proclaimed Niccolo a ‘food genius.’ It’s nothing that hinders her performance as a fighter, or that’s even noticeable to anyone who’s not paying close attention. He chooses his next words carefully.
“You know…” he starts, “It’s okay to enjoy yourself when they’re not around.”
Mikasa cracks a knuckle - the sound is dull enough that it could be mistaken for the breaking of firewood, but Jean pays close attention. She pulls her knees to her chest and presses her lips into a thin line. “I thought I was doing just fine before.”
His wince is immediate and involuntary. “Right.”
“No - I’m sorry.” Mikasa sighs audibly, and tucks her chin into her scarf. “I’m sorry. It’s just strange for me. To be here without them, I mean.”
Jean nods, and tries to smile. “I know. It’s all right. They’ll be home soon,” he says. Only by a miracle his voice comes out steady. “We’ll bring them home.”
It's a beat before she gives him a tentative twitch of her lips. This tiny, controlled movement, like she’s trying to not let it grow and spread across her face. It’s oddly bewitching. They slip into a fragile silence, again, and Jean pretends that he’s interested in the cackling of the wood before them with such intensity he must look crazy. Mikasa glances in his direction for a second, and then turns her attention back to the fire.
“I don’t know how to dance,” she says abruptly.
Jean is startled, first by her suddenness, and then by the newfound fact that there’s something in this world that Mikasa Ackerman can’t do. The very notion of it borders on absurd, and Jean actually finds it in himself to laugh. “Well, you’re not the only one.”
Jean points to where Connie has seized both Sasha and Niccolo by the wrists and is making them spin around in circles, aimlessly and completely off-beat. Mikasa’s face goes from confused to offended to amused, and then she joins him in his laughter, her nose scrunching up and her eyes crinkling on the sides. Jean wishes he could tone down the music so he can hear her better.
“Not me, though. I’m a great dancer,” he says, hoping to drag another smile out of her.
It works. Tight and quick, but there it is. “For some reason, I don’t believe you.”
“You wound me, Mikasa. Sometimes I think the titan killing business was a mistake when dancing is my true calling.” He scratches the stubble on his chin. “I’m a natural talent. I could teach you, sometime.”
Mikasa tucks stray tendrils of hair behind her ear and nods. She looks at him and smiles. Small, contained, sharp - but there. “Okay. Maybe some other time.”
The silence is easier when they fall back into in this time around. Mikasa’s discreet demeanor is a stark contrast to the Garrison girl from earlier, but still Jean doesn’t think there’s anywhere else he’d rather be in this moment. Mikasa has always had this air of silent contentment about her, this graceful quietness that used to make him swoon and splutter when he was younger. He's not that blabbering teen anymore, but sometimes, if Jean stays still and listens closely, he threatens to resurface for a moment. It's not like it matters, though. There is no space for him anymore, no place in this world for a selfish, flustered boy. Jean knows he's got no time to get caught up in old fantasies. Mikasa shifts in her seat, inching just a little closer to him. Jean wonders, briefly, stupidly, if she’ll lean on his shoulder, and when she doesn’t, he tells the teenager in his chest to shut up and tells himself not to read too much into it. It's not like it matters at all.
“Some other time,” he echoes. He stares at the fire.
-
It takes Jean five days on a ship to realize that he actually enjoys being out at sea.
The first day of their journey is decidedly the most nerve wrecking. Most of the new recruits had only ever seen the ocean a couple of times from the watchtowers on the bay, and between them those who had actually touched the salt water were even fewer. There are desperate commotions every time the ship jerks a little harder or rocks too much to one side (Jean decides to start dismissing them on the second day) despite whatever the Volunteers say in reassurance, and the newly discovered sea sickness that seemed to plague more than half of their crew is not much help to their case, either. By the third night, there are still some that hang on to the handrails with bone-white knuckles, but most of the fear has dissipated. The nervous chatter dies out, making way for the restless tension that always prefaces the start of a mission, and the fourth day is marked by a stilted quietness that makes the air so brittle it could snap. Calm before the storm.
And then it’s twilight of the fifth day, and Jean is sitting on the deck with Connie, Sasha, and Mikasa when he comes to the conclusion that despite it all, travelling by ship is actually quite nice. He enjoys the sea, the ocean, the way skyligtht seems to bounce off the water and the way his skin feels sptritzed with salt water. Jean thinks he’d like to do this again some day, in an occasion in which he is not being sent undercover to a foreign land where he could very possibly meet his end. His opinion proves to be somewhat controversial.
“Are you fucking insane,” says Floch, who hadn’t been able to keep a meal in his stomach since they left shore, leaning against the mast and wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. At his side, a new recruit named Dane clings to his bucket and only glares at Jean mid-hurl.
“It’s great,” Connie snaps, looking a bit green himself and wiping a string of drool from his chin, “if you like the stench of barf and dead fish.”
“We can’t even smell the fish up here, idiot.” Sasha swats him in the head and ducks when he tries to retaliate.
“Just wait until you get stuck on kitchen duty. Though I hope the Captain knows better than to set you loose in there. We’d run out of food in a week.” Connie groans, “Ugh, if I have to eat just one more grass carp -”
“Quit complaining. The food is great. If you don’t want it, more for me then.” Sasha shrugs, and then she perks up. “Speaking of carps, if you get kitchen duty again any time soon there’s this lovely dish Nico always makes back home, I’m sure I can remember the recipe…” and as she goes on it becomes a ramble about how Niccolo makes such great seafood, and food in general, and how much she misses him, and his splendid, amazing, delicious food. Jean gets up, not bothering to excuse himself, and makes his way to the stern.
The sun has almost completely set, and the clouds are sprinkled with all shades of gold and pale yellow. The colors reflect in the waves, making for one of the prettiest sights Jean has ever seen. It's quiet, and so very beautiful. Yes, Jean would like to do this again, in another time.
“They are so loud.”
Jean jerks his body in the direction of the voice and hits his elbow most ungracefully on the rail with a yelp that almost knocks him out of balance. His throat dries up right after, and he makes a noise that may or may not have been his soul trying to escape through his mouth. Mikasa blinks and her lips part a little, but very mercifully she doesn’t point out his clumsiness. She looks pointedly to the spot next to him instead, and Jean answers her silent question with a nod. He can picture himself turning stupid red, and doesn’t trust his voice to come out steady just yet.
Mikasa takes a step closer, aligning her body with his, and rests her hands on the rail. Though Mikasa stands taller than most women, Jean had always been a little taller than her, even when they were fifteen and he’d just gotten his very first growth spurt. He’s grown a great deal more over the years, and standing next to her now he can easily see the top of her head.
“I know what you meant. Earlier. About the sea.”
Jean turns his face to her. “You do?”
“I like it here too.” Mikasa keeps her eyes on the horizon, purple-pink-blue. “I never really understood Armin when it came to his fascination with the sea. I knew it meant freedom, the world beyond the walls, but still… It’s different. When you really feel it."
“Do you? Feel it, I mean.”
She nods. “I think I’m starting to.”
“Yeah." He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "The first time we saw it, I remember him getting all mesmerized like he does. I just thought it was really salty,” Jean laughs. Mikasa grins, half of it hidden under the strands of hair that curl up just under her jaw. “But I think maybe I am starting to get it, too."
He inhales the salty air, the world bright orange and dark blue. “I wish we could swim,” he confesses, unprompted.
“What,” Mikasa says, leaning on her elbows slightly. Is the shower in your suite not good enough for you?”
Jean knows it’s a joke, but he still recoils a bit from the memory of the tiny shower box built for someone much smaller than him in the room he shares with three other men. “It can get a bit crowded in there.”
The sound she makes is nothing short of a snort. “Swimming... does sound nice. But I don’t think it’s safe to do it in the open ocean.”
"Probably not,” Jean agrees, and makes a mental note to never metion the idea of swimming to Connie and Sasha while on board. “We can swim when we go home.”
“Yes,” she says. Mikasa’s expression turns somber, distant, like she’s thinking of something that happened a thousand years ago. It only lasts a moment before she’s back, steady, steeling herself once more for what is still to come. “If we live, we can swim when we go home.”
Jean keeps his grimace in his throat; does not let it come out. It pains him to end the moment on such a bittersweet note, but she’s right. If they survive what’s coming, they get to go home. There’s no turning back now. They are five days into their journey, and every single one brings them closer to Marleyan territory. Once they reach it, they will be behind enemy lines, and all they can do is fight so they can see another day. It’s a very old story. They have acted it out countless times. Fight, live, repeat.
The three bells signaling it’s time for dinner drown out whatever words he might have wanted to say. Above them, the sky holds no memory of its bright colors. There is only darkness, and a moon that stands out like a tiny dot between the clouds.
-
Jean and Mikasa walk together to the dining hall in silence. Connie flails his arms frantically to indicate his location, even though he’s sitting at their usual table. Sasha gladly makes space for Mikasa next to her on the bench, stealing a carrot from her neighboring soldier’s tray before shoving him aside with her elbow. “Why do you two look so gloomy?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer before getting up for her second round of dinner.
“I caught Jean trying to take a dive in the ocean,” Mikasa says, voice even, and then she gets up and follows Sasha on her way to the food line. Jean opens his mouth to object, but in the end he can only watch her walk away in shock, wondering if he had imagined the quirk of her lips as she turned away.
“I hate to agree with Floch, of all people,” Connie says around a mouthful of bread he’ll probably regurgitate later, “but are you fucking insane? ”
-
Mikasa does not join him in his skywatching the following night, or the next, but Jean’s brain replays her voice like a broken record.They are little words, words too small and too grim for any hope of promise, not really comforting but comforting nonetheless. We can swim when we go home. Jean hangs on to them to shield him from the biting cold of the wind and sea as the horizon swallows the sun at the edge of the world.
He wishes he could reach out and feel it, sometimes, but the distance between them stretches too great to overcome.
-
They are to be distributed in small teams of four each and spread evenly throughout the city of Liberio, Commander Hange explains in a briefing later in the week.
They will be directed to strategically located stakeout bases, and their orders are to blend in and evaluate the area until further notice. In case they encounter a fellow soldier while out sweeping the perimeter, they must not interact. There must be no direct communication between the cells save for exceptional circumstances. The air in the mess hall feels heavy enough to crush them all.
Jean is assigned squad leader, and as the most experienced after the higher ranking officials, he gets first pick. He’s registered Sasha and Connie to his file before the Commander is even finished speaking. Getting Mikasa on his team is more of a struggle - someone above him in the chain of command had their mind made up about having her, but Captain Levi intercedes in Jean’s favor, arguing that assigning her to the same sector of the city as him is a waste of resources, and his input weighs more than any ordinary soldier's wishes.
He is surprised to see Mikasa waiting for him outside the Commander’s office where they had come to an agreement about her station. The Lieutenant who had gotten the short end of the stick leaves the room stomping hard, but he doesn’t try to defy his superior’s decision, and Jean gets out feeling quite proud of himself for having held his own against him. He’s so distracted with savoring his little victory he doesn’t see her standing guard in the corner.
“Jean,” Mikasa hurries to catch up with him. “Jean!”
“Hey,” he calls back, slows his pace and makes his steps smaller to match hers. “Did you need something, Mikasa?”
“I wanted to thank you,” she says. Plain and simple, but for some reason he feels the need to drag this out.
Jean raises his brow, hands in his pockets, “What in the world for?”
“For choosing me for your team. For insisting on me, I mean.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jean stops on his tracks, genuinely offended by the thought that he wouldn’t. Not only it would make him a crappy friend, it would also make him a stupid leader. Jean isn’t big on being either. “We’ve been fighting together since we were kids, Mikasa. You’re my friend - and our most competent soldier. I’m not giving up the person who has saved my ass more times than I can even remember so easily. Besides”, he glances quickly around them to make sure they are alone, “we both know that you’re the one who could actually boss those two morons around.”
She nods, pursing her lips, either missing the joke or purposefully ignoring it. Jean can’t quite tell. “Still, thank you. It meant a lot.“
Jean just shrugs it off as they resume their walk. “Well, you're welcome”, he says, “but I don't think you'll be so thrilled once you realize this actually means you'll be stuck with Sasha and rationed food for weeks.”
Of course, Jean is glad to have his unit filled with people he’s known for years and skilled fighters he knows can count on. Mikasa seems relieved not to have to part from her friends, and though Connie whines a bit just in principle (“How come you get to be squad leader?” “Because I’m tall, handsome and I have a beard, and because the Commander said so.” “You call those patchy pubes on your chin a beard?” “Well, it’s more hair than you have on your head.” “Shut your trap, horseface.”), Jean knows they all feel the same.
It’s always good to have people you can trust to watch your back in a war.
-
His first glimpse of the battlefield is through a tiny crack in the wall of the container inside which they are transported to the industrial zone of the city.
They can’t risk being seen by the fishermen and the locals, so the squads are all loaded up and sealed in hours before they reach the harbour in Liberio. There are three other teams meant to be stationed in the same area as Jean’s, totaling sixteen people sharing the space of the vessel. Jean finds himself squished between Sasha’s back, another squad leader’s shoulder and the wall of the rear right corner, where he finds the slit on the metal that is just the right size for him to peek outside.
The Volunteers had shown them pictures of Marleyan cities long ago, in black and white photo albums and texbooks they used to prepare for the mission, but upon seeing the real thing Jean realizes they don't nearly do it justice. Liberio is pretty, sunny and spacious, with architecture unlike anything they have inside the walls. The traffic is slow, and Jean identifies at least two different parks scattered with benches and fountains flowing with shimmering water. But as they approach the industrial sector, and, Jean supposes, the Eldian zone, the light dims and the buildings turn simpler, grayer, with an almost standardized look.
He sees a group of children skipping rope on the sidewalk through his little gap, and suddenly there’s this intruding thought, this realization that leaves Jean cold all over despite the overwhelming heat emanating from his colleagues’ bodies: they are passing through the very streets Reiner, Annie and Bertholdt grew up in. Now their roles are reversed, and Jean is the one invading their city like burglar, like a criminal, like a smuggled bomb, a parasite biding its time to destroy them from the inside. He can't help but think of them, how they had hid among them for years playing soldier, watching them closely, waiting for the moment to strike.
Did they think of him as they came for Trost? Did they think of Mikasa when they stomped over the ruins of her hometown for a second time?
The driver turns a sharp left that makes all sixteen of them bump skulls against one another, but Jean is just grateful it snaps him out of his trance. Their collective yelps die down as quickly as they started, but they leave their postures rigid with fright in their wake.
The container stops moving, starts again, and then stops. Jean thinks they should be almost at the factory where they are supposed to change into their disguises and split up. The rest of the drive is smooth and silent - the only sounds Jean hears besides the traffic are the breathing of his teammates and Sasha’s growling stomach. He feels the pressure of her weight against his knee and wonders if she was thinking about the same thing.
Keep your head together, he tells himself. Going there won't do you any good. Focus on the damn mission.
He stops looking through the crack.
Half an hour later, the door opens in a flash of blinding light. The soldiers, revelling in the fresh air, get out in an orderly fashion and distribute the pile of supplies evenly, before assembling the teams and meeting their respective handlers.
Jean, Connie, Sasha and Mikasa, now dressed in scratchy Marleyan fabric, are the last group to leave the venue. By the time they are dropped off at their final destination, the night sky hangs low, and Marley has been successfully infiltrated for hours.
Hundreds of soldiers from the Island of Paradis are settled in their safehouses, hiding, watching, waiting.