A Second Chance (Marco x Fem Reader)

Chapter 68

It was already late in the evening when you rendezvous with the others inside a little forest. You were delighted to see both Marco and Jean in good health.

'I guess I don't have to break any arms then'

The second the carriage stopped you had jumped off to throw your hands around Marco's neck. You honestly didn't expect yourself to be so worried about him considering you weren't really separated for longer than half a day, but your time left with each other where uncertain and limited. You'd rather spend your last waking moment being close to him.

Levi has been sleeping ever since you got there, and you didn't want to wake him up, although all you wanted to do was hug him tightly. The state of him was enough to make your stomach drop. He was alive, yes, but he just barely survived the attack, meaning he was in bad shape.

The rest helped you unload the wagon so that you could start setting up a little campsite. Everyone was pretty hungry, Hange getting a fire and a stew started straight away.

It was like the second everything was set up and people ran out of things to do, a silent agreement not to speak to the counterpart commenced. You stood beside your friends on one end of the fire, Reiner along with the other ones from Marley sitting on the other side. Yelena and Onyankopon was sitting awkwardly in the middle. The symbolism of the scene was evident enough to make you huff slightly.

"Instead of staring each other down, could some of you help us?", Hange sighed. Herself and Moblit was sitting closest to the fire, still adding chopped up vegetables to the puttering stew.

"Hmph, To think we'd all be here taking a meal together after all the time we spent trying to kill each other", General Magath huffed. "It's interesting. What changed your mind? You know you'll get the world you want if you just let Eren Yeager go. That heaven for you island devils... We were so close to keeping Eren and Zeke from coming into contact... If only you guys hadn't helped them out", he eyed your group. You felt another pair of eyes on you specifically, peeking over to see Reiner switch between looking at Marco and yourself. His eyes were sad; regretful.

"Like I explained General... None of us want genocide. We wouldn't have scurred off to a forest to lay low and make stew if we did", Hange said tired.

"So you're saying you finally see whose side justice is on—". You furrowed your brows at this. How is he one to speak about justice?! You were about to give him a piece of your mind, but Jean beat you to it.

"Justice? Were you just talking about justice? You?". Magath looked up at him in surprise. "So we were the bad guys for fighting against those titans you people kept sending over to us?! Listen up! The reason we fought as hard as we did is because we didn't want to be eaten alive by titans!! And you're over there trying to say that's something only devils would do?!". Jean was fully yelling now.

"Yeah... You do look like devils to me. All our concerns about Paradis have come true, and now you're working on destroying the world. This is the result of all your hard-fought battles, is it not?". You felt like pushing that man into the fire at this point. Can't he see that if they'd just left you alone, you would have left them alone?

"Listen here. If his mom wasn't eaten alive after the walls got torn down, Eren would never have done this in the first place! You're the ones who backed him into using the rumbling, don't you get it?!"

"Oh, so now you want to talk history? You at least understand that Eldia was the first to devastate Marley and make its people suffer, right?"

"This again?!", this time you couldn't hold back your thoughts. "All I've ever heard from you guys are 'you did this first', but we didn't even know about it! We were born inside these walls! Hell, we thought we were the only ones left of humanity! And that's not because we're ignorant! It's because we were forced to forget! How can we atone for something we didn't even do ourselves?! How long are you going to play the victim over something that happened two millennia ago?!", you yelled at him.