Humanity's Hope || Levi Ackerman

MARCO

Levi was having an important meeting that day with Erwin, something he couldn't tell Marta about, though she would never ask. The rest of the squad already had a feeling something about this mission was in the dark. But they never asked Marta if she knew, Levi wasn't one to be unprofessional about his duties.

They were friends, that much was obvious, but they didn't know each other all that well. They had conversations and both felt a weird sense of comfortableness around each other but never spoke about their past ever since that promise in their first fighting lesson.

It may have been the thing that shaped them but neither were ready to outright relive them.

Since Levi wasn't there today, Oluo was supervising them, unfortunately. Sometimes she laughed at his attempts at 'smart' one liners and being above the rest of the squad. Other times, he annoyed Marta when he acted like the Captain, really not doing him justice. She really wasn't in the mood that day, getting less sleep than usual due to her nightmares.

Marta and Eren about to tell Oluo about how they'd finished cleaning the stables but Eren caught a glimpse of Armin's blonde hair and blue eyes, "I can't believe it!"

"What?" Marta didn't see.

"It's them," she felt her heart swell at the thought of seeing her friends again, a smile growing bigger on her face. "Oluo, may we be excused to go talk to our friends for a minute?"

"Fine, just don't talk to long," Oluo groaned.

"Hey! Mikasa! Armin!" Eren and Marta sprinted towards the two, when they turned around they were glomped by Marta in a massive group hug.

"I missed you guys! Being stuck with Eren all this time has been awful!" She teased Eren, who lightly hit her shoulder.

"Man, am I glad to see you guys!" It was a happy moment but Mikasa grew more worried, grabbing Eren's hands in hers.

"Eren... have they mistreated you in any way? Like subjecting you to any cruel experiments or some sort of mental anguish!?"

"I'm glad she's so worried about me," Marta whispered in Armin's ear sarcastically, receiving a laugh in return.

"N-no, not at all..." Eren replied to Mikasa's questioning.

"That pipsqueak took things way too far. I will make him pay for it one day," her expression grew darker and Marta stiffened, pursing her lips, knowing she was talking about Levi.

"You mean Captain Levi?" Eren asked, little did the group know the Captain had just made it back, hearing the conversation but choosing to ignore it. Marta barely made eye contact with him, but still smiled and with that, he walked off to put his horse in the stables.

"Hey, Marta, Eren! Long time no see!" There was Sasha and not far behind was Connie. Smiling at the two, Marta pulled them into a hug, not realising how much she missed all of them.

"Oh, hey guys! You're all here!" Eren exclaimed as Marta made her way around the group, hugging Christa, which Ymir got jealous of and smushed herself between them until Marta hugged her too, then Reiner who seemed way to happy about that being the case and lastly, Bertholdt, who lightly hugged her back, a blush covering his cheeks. "Wait, if all of you are here, that means you all joined the Scouts?"

"Why else would we be here?" Connie replied in his usual cheery demeanour.

"I guess Marco, Jean and Annie joined the Military Police then?" Marta asked, her smile growing into a frown. 'I never said goodbye to any of them.'

Everyone looked up to see Jean standing behind Eren and Marta, a solemn look on his horseface. "Marco's dead."

Tears pricked and stung at Marta's eyes as Eren replied to the news. "Huh... what did you just say? Marco's not dead, you're just kidding around, right?"

"I wish I could tell you he died nobly or heroically. The truth is, I don't even know he went out. He died alone, no one was there to see it happen." Marta cringed and the tears started to flow like rapids under her eyes.

"Marco's dead?" Eren asked again, not wanting to believe. Truth be told, no one did.

Later that night Marta and Eren met up with what was left of the 104thagain, she was noticeably more sluggish than usual.

"Hey, Eren. I heard you tried to kill Mikasa and knocked out Marta in your Titan form, mind telling us what that's all about?" Jean asked accusingly.

"You're wrong. He thought he was just swatting a fly-" Mikasa defended with a lame excuse but he Jean interrupted. "I wasn't asking you. Oh by the way," Jean pointed at his face, "that cut on your cheek looks pretty deep." Mikasa sweatdropped and covered the cut on her face with her hair. "Just how did you get that again?"

"Apparently it's all true," Eren looked down he spoke, "when I was a Titan, I tried to kill Mikasa."

"Apparently? As in you don't remember whether you did or not. So, basically, you can transform into a 14 metre tall monster at will, but when you do, you don't have control over it?"

"Not yet. But that's right." Eren told them all, honestly to which Jean sighed. Marta wanted to stop the fighting, she really did, but couldn't find it in her heart to do anything at that point. She was too busy trying to supress her emotions and left the room, hearing Jean ranting about Eren for the hundredth time in her life.

When she came back, she was holding something behind her back calling Jean into the other room and he quickly followed her.

The two were the closest to Marco and he in turn, was one of their closest friends. When Jean sat down, Marta walked over and sat in his lap, not in a romantic way, more in a 'I need a comfort way.'

They wrapped their arms around each other, something tapping off Jean's back. "What is that, Marta?"

She weakly smiled, finally taking the bottle of alcohol and 2 glasses from behind her back. "I found it in a cabinet in the kitchen, looks really old. I thought we should have a toast for Marco."

He only nodded in reply as Marta shakily handed him one of the glasses and poured a shot of the whiskey. "Cheers," they took the warm liquid down, both slightly cringing at the burn. Yet they kept going, at some point they had started drinking from the bottle. The two glasses long forgotten, lying on their side on the floor.

"Oh Marco, why'd he have to leave us?" Marta asked and Jean didn't know how to answer so he just hugged her tighter, she in turn buried her face into her neck, surprisingly not having shed any tears yet. She begged herself not to give into her emotions.

"You know," Marta swallowed and began shakily, "I remember when Marco first introduced me to you. I was a mess, hadn't eaten in days yet when we were introduced the first thing you did was blush and say, 'you have really pretty hair.'" Marta laughed while Jean smiled at the memory, feeling slight embarrassment.

She pushed his head back jokingly, "you're such a dork, you know? You pulled the same shit when you met Mikasa for the first time. I remember, vividly."

Marta began to laugh loudly and Jean did the same, their laughter echoing through the hall they sat in alone.

They both knew if they didn't laugh they would cry.