Author's Note: This chapter is sort of a grab bag of things happening, which I guess is kind of fun because no one plot thread gets neglected for very long. Also, it featured my two favorite SnK side characters whose names start with 'M'!

What scares me the most about my predicament is that I can't get up and follow him. I'm an invalid; the best I can do is lie on the floor and pray that something doesn't come flying through the window and hit me. I hate being so weak, as if I were some helpless damsel in distress.

I need to find out what's going on.

My breath is unsteady as I peel the covers off my skin, which is dripping with sweat. In fact, it seems to be giving off threadlike puffs of steam from pockmarks all over my left side – the side, that is, that was facing the window. So I had been injured, though probably not very badly because the window pane was made of safety glass and wouldn't form deadly splinters.

I decide that the best route to take to get a view out the broken window is under my bed, so I squash myself to the floor and start shuffling forwards. The darkness curdles around me; it feels rank and oppressive. I have to keep my head tilted to fit, and my neck starts aching almost instantly. Once I'm buried completely under the bed, I'm close enough to reach out with one arm through the gap on the other side and try dragging the bedside table closer. I'm thinking that I can maybe use it for cover when I finally emerge.

Now that the nearly sound-proof window is gone, I can hear the chaos from the street below. The muffled chants of the rioters mingles with the crackle and whine of megaphones and the wail of sirens. It's likely not the city police out there, but the corporate guards. I've seen them throughout the building in their black uniforms; they're a little frightening, to be honest. I'd always wondered why Titan Corp hires them, but now the reason seems obvious.

I crawl out from under my bed with the nightstand acting as a sort of barricade. In a moment of daring, I peek out from over the top, though pulling myself up takes a great deal of effort. It's at times like these that my being crippled is most painfully evident.

With a grunt of effort, I roll out of my hiding spot and land with my back to the wall beside the window frame. I hear a startling crack that makes me jolt and yelp, and a bit of plaster crumbles from the ceiling like a puff of pollen.

I've just been shot at.

The realization is a punch to the gut. In my idiocy, I'd thought that whatever broke my window had been carelessly thrown by a rioter, but I should have realized right away that this wasn't true – I'm ten stories off the ground, and no one can be that strong or that accurate with a stone or brick. Someone's watching me, someone with a sort of long-range sniper rifle (where did they get a thing like that, I think, with tears of fright streaming down my face), and they've got their sights on the room.

It's okay, I tell myself frantically. It's okay, because as long as I don't get out in the open again, this shooter won't be able to hit me.

What kind of unruly mob has a trained assassin in its midst? I ask myself. Could it be that whoever is trying to kill me isn't just another one of the Wandkult fanatics? Are they just taking advantage of the confusion?

The door slams open and I lift my head in fright, but it's just Jean, with an anxious expression. "I couldn't find any guards on this fl—" he starts to say.

"JEAN, NO!" I shriek. "GET DOWN, NOW!"

The words are just falling from my lips when there's another crack, a muffled thwump and then Jean's eyes bulge.

"Jean…" I croak.

I'm standing fully upright, but teetering forwards. I'd gotten to my feet just in time; my upper body blocked the shot.

The pain between my shoulder blades is unbearable. In a dizzy haze, I collapse to my knees and then slowly keel over sideways, my head cracking against the floor.

"Marco!" My skin is stinging with chilly fire. "Marco, say something!"

"Hit the floor!" I yell, and he does, just as another round whizzes over his head and punctures the wall behind where Jean's head had been. He can't leave his spot. If he does, the sniper will hit him too.

"Marco!" Jean moans. "Shit… Marco! Marco!" He's weeping with tortured shock; right now, I'm bleeding out on the floor and Jean can't even hold me. He can hear me hacking and choking on my own blood, and the sound rips a sob out of him.

"Stay… down…" I wheeze. "Don't you… dare move! You'll be… shot… if you do!"

Jean howls in frustration, and then I hear him shifting on the floor. His hand appears on the railing on my bedside, the one with the emergency pager that he's supposed to use if something terrible happens to me. I'm glad that Jean can still think on his feet, but I'm so deathly afraid for him right now.

Especially after he slings one arm over the railing and hauls himself up. His head appears over the lip of the bed and he stabs a finger down at the red button. "You're going to be okay!" he yells to me.

But you're not, I think. You're in the line of fire.

My mind fills itself with a burning resolve. I shouldn't fear death – my body has recovered from worse than a couple of bullet holes. What I fear is my life being useless. I want to be of use to the world. I want to be of use to the tiny slice of the world that I consider to be home and family. I want to be of use to Jean. And so even though moving the muscles on my back feels like someone's gouging my flesh with a ragged, red-hot spoon, even though it hurts so much that my back feels like it's swollen into a massive lump just so it can contain the halo of agony and aching that radiates from the puncture in my shoulder, I force myself to my feet once again.

The imperative flows in my veins like ichor. Protect Jean. I am invincible. Protect him. My brain is popping and sparking like a blown fuse. Keep him safe. It's overwhelming my thoughts, but I know I can't give in to the seizure this time.

Sudden knowledge flashes through me. A connection is made in my mind, and it isn't an intellectual leap; the realization is purely physiological. It's as if the three separate events I am hit with a recollection of have the same taste to my thoughts. The first time I had a seizure, I had lost control of my physical body – that explained the spasms – but within me there was the sense that I was directing another set of limbs and nerves. And this sensation was not so unlike the one that came over me when I caught the jar of PIXI dust and grew my fingers so rapidly. The only difference is that in one instance, I was constrained to writhe on the floor, with no way of releasing my power, but that first time, as now, I am uninhibited.

"Marco, don't!" Jean yells as I stand, fear flaring in his eyes, and I know that he knows that I know.

It's the same look that Karla and Grisha Jaeger had been giving me just before I'd regrown my hand, when they'd woken me up claiming that there had been 'complications'. They had both been fully aware they were handling a live bomb; that was why Karla had been shaking so much, why she'd dropped the powder in the first place.

And I know, somehow, that I can grow a lot more than a mere hand.

"Be safe, Jean," I say.

Barely a handful of seconds have passed since Jean crawled out of cover. I'm acting on instinct, body before mind. The sniper fires again; the round strikes my back and there's a sharp, high-pitched whip crack, like the echo of the gunshot, and my eye snaps open in the burst of yellow-green light. And it feels as though, even after it has reached its extent, it continues to widen, taking in more and more imagery. My senses are expanding; my flesh seems to explode out. I have a million arms and legs and I can't keep track of them all.

Yet somehow, I do. I tighten the threads, sewing myself together. The hungry ends of flesh gobble up the air and the walls and even the nearest computer, filling in a pre-determined shape with whatever raw materials it can. The necessary element, above all else, is carbon, my memory tells me, and then I recall that carbon can be formed into the most resilient of crystals – nanotubes, graphene, diamond… My body knows what to do.

And then it's all over, and it's strangely quiet. I realize why – the rioting outside has grown still. I've shocked the breath out of them.

Then, in the next moment, the floor knocks the breath out of me. I fall from a spot somewhere near the ceiling, the springy tendons emerging from my arms releasing me as they shrivel up into steam.

"Marco…" Jean breathes. It's either in fear, awe, or a mix of the two.

When I look behind myself, I think I might have a good idea of what Jean might be feeling at the moment. What I see is a massive crystal cage replacing the wall that it has eaten away, and it's shaped like a hollowed-out torso, the rib cage broken and incomplete. The bits of it that are still flesh are coming apart, but the hard shell stands firm. Bluish iridescence twinkles down on me as I scramble away from it, terrified.

It's like seeing a partial fossil looming over me, except it's not of a dinosaur or a prehistoric sea beast, even though those are the only things that ever lived on Earth and grew that big. The skeletal structure is human; copied, I have to assume, from my own body but then blown out of proportion and magnified.

"Marco!" says Jean again, and I remember that I'm not alone. He's scrambling over to me and clutching me tightly to his chest, burying his face in my hair. Being this close to him, I can smell the faint aroma of men's perfume – fresh like pine – and a stronger scent of perspiration, rubbing alcohol, and other chemicals which were likely what the perfume was there to cover up. It doesn't matter to me; all the smells feel appropriate and right on Jean. He's shaking as he holds me, making tiny noises of distress in the back of his throat. "Marco, you idiot… what have you done!?"

I don't understand. Why is Jean so terrified? What exactly is he frightened of? He's not shocked by what has just happened; he's afraid of the consequences.

"What… what's going on?" I say, strangled a bit in Jean's arms. "You're acting like you know what's going on—so tell me!"

Jean scowls deeply and spits out, "Marco, shut up. You are in so much danger right now and you don't even know it, so be quiet and let me get you out of here!"

"What?" I croak. "More danger than when someone was firing bullets at us?"

Jean is tugging at my elbow fiercely. "Get up," he says, "Get up or let me carry you!" He wraps his arms around me and tries to haul me upright, but I don't cooperate; I'm like a sack of sand in his arms. "Dammit, Marco, don't be difficult!"

My head is swimming; I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just sorely confused. "Why won't you tell me what's happening?" I ask, and I remember the secret that Jean had breathed into my ear: that the giant fist punching through the wall, the frightened, crying girl – all that had been real. "I'm not the only one this has happened to, am I? These… these monstrous limbs—! They're just like the one that I saw…"

And then my legs wobble and I reel forwards into Jean's arms. He staggers, but does his best to catch me. "Whoa, there," he murmurs. "Careful, buddy."

"You don't get to call me 'buddy' until I know I can trust you," I grunt, as I'm hauled off towards the door. "Jean, if you know something about this, you've got to tell me now." He's starting to frighten me now. What if all this time, he's been my enemy?

"No, I don't have to!" He glares at me as if I'm being an imbecile, and I have no idea what has prompted this. "We don't have time!"

I'm struggling; I break away from Jean and stumble, vision blurry and listing, towards the humanoid shell of crystal. "Then just get out of here," I say, betrayal churning in my throat, raising a hand to ward him off. "O-or I'll… I'll turn into a monster again, and this time, I won't come out! Please, stay back!" I don't have any idea how I can trigger that explosive transformation, but Jean doesn't know that, does he?

"Whoa! Marco! Calm the hell down!" Jean flings his arms up, reflexively covering his face. "I'm your friend!" There's once again fear in his eyes, but it's squashed by stubbornness. "Just hear me out! I'm on your side!"

I have to stay calm about this, and take control of the situation. "I'm sorry, but I can't know that anymore," I firmly tell him. My eyes dart to what once was the window. "Who knows… maybe those crazy cultists have got it right after all. Maybe I really am an abomination! And it was the RHIM treatment that made me like this. Why should I trust you?"

"Shut up and listen a sec," Jean frantically says. He edges towards my giant section of rib cage, which I huddle back into even as it comes apart into steam around me. In a low voice he says, "I'm not part of some big conspiracy against you, Marco. All I know is the stuff I figured out on my own. One of those things is that you weren't being treated just to grow back an arm, that there's something a lot bigger going on, and the other is that we're being spied on. Only an idiot wouldn't keep a close watch on a dangerous thing like you." Louder, he says, "I'll show you why you can trust me."

He reaches out and yanks me close, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and tilting his head, almost like he's about to kiss me, but he doesn't, and I realize that Jean's trying, in fact, to fool anyone watching that that's exactly what we're doing. To any outside observer, it would have looked like a passionate embrace.

Into the tiny hollow of space between our heads, Jean whispers, "See, if the people spying on us think that I know more that I actually do, then I've got leverage over them. Think of the blackmail potential, Marco! I could get job security, money, an inside position… and I'll be able to use that to help you out, tell you what's really going on. Everyone wins, right?"

I'm disgusted. Jean Kirschtein is probably the most immoral, selfish person I've ever met. In every situation, he can only think of the ways he can get an advantage. I'm almost hoping that whoever's actually conspiring against me decides that Jean should be just be eliminated. That'd be a fine way for his greedy plan to backfire. I can't believe I risked my life to save this arrogant, cynical boy. Can't believe I cared.

But, in the end, Jean's right. His scheme does benefit me, because I'll have a friend on the inside. I'll be able to find out what was really done to me; I just can't help feeling used. I force myself to give a tiny nod

Jean smirks and relaxes his hold on me; his face contorts into a worried smile. "See?" he says gently, but loudly, for the bugs to pick up. "You trust me, don't you?"

Irritatingly, I still do. I don't think he bears any ill will towards me; he probably even likes me well enough. That doesn't mean that I have to like him back, though.

Still, I know he's not asking to get an honest reply. It's part of the performance we're putting on; Jean has just seduced me into total mindless loyalty. What an unlikely scenario, I think. Will people really believe me to be that naive? I nod. "Yes, Jean."

"You won't regret it," says the rascal with a false sigh of relief and then, before I can stop him, he grabs me by the ears and drags my head down to plant a firm kiss on my lips. A real one this time.

Let me say that again. Jean kisses me.

His hands have a vice-like grip on my cheeks, presumably because he's worried I'll panic and pull away. His mouth is wet and soft. I don't really have time to register much else before our lips part ways with a loud wet smack.

My whole body flares up with heat, and I convince myself that it's out of anger. I know it's all part of the act, but there's such a thing as taking liberties, y'know? "That really wasn't necessary," I finally get out in a complaining whine, trying to calm my thundering heart. "I don't even think we're visible to the cameras anymore. The room's full of steam."

"Can't be too careful," says Jean, with a rakish grin, and in my dizzy state I'm torn between smacking him and kissing him back with twice the passion, just to show who's boss.

He grabs my hand; oddly, I get the sense that he doesn't honestly realize he's the scum of the earth. He thinks we're both having jolly good fun playing a trick on the Powers That Be and cheating the system. He can't fathom the idea that I might be offended by his unscrupulousness. "Now come on," he says to me, tugging on my wrist. "Let's get out of here."

"Just a moment," I say, because something's caught the edge of my attention. I reach out an arm and scrub the steam off the nearest face of crystal so I can peep through it. "I think the rioting's started up again… but…"

We press our faces to the crystal, which provides us with a hazy, bluish view of what lies beyond. The tiny figures below on the street seem to be grappling with one another, their shrill cries muffled to my ears.

"Are those the corporate guards?" I ask. "Are they suppressing the crowd?" I'm dubious, because those people fighting with the rioters don't appear to be in uniform.

But Jean gets it. "No," he tells me, looking up from the makeshift window to shoot a look of puzzlement my way. "The Wandkulter… they're fighting each other!"

It was crowded in the back of the tiny carriage – seats designed to comfortably fit three total were trying to hold a total of five, two of whom were wearing their maneuver gear. And on top of all that, Jean wasn't even sitting next to Mikasa. He'd given up a long time ago of there being any real relationship between them, because she was just too much to handle, but she was still a better choice than Eren, who had practically ended up on Jean's lap.

"For god's sake, Jean," the brat complained. "When did your knees get so bony—?"

"Don't you dare start this again," Jean snapped back.

"Have you been neglecting to eat recently?" asked Armin, with a concerned lilt in his voice. It was true that Jean had been skipping many of his mealtimes to visit the Gentle Titan, but Armin had assumed that he ate outside, rather than foregoing food altogether.

"If you don't eat, you can't fight," said Mikasa sternly, folding her hands together on her lap. "And if you don't fight, you can't w—"

"I hate," said Jean, "all of you."

Taking the slow route from the edge of Wall Rose to Stohess District amid the musty, leathery smell of the carriage had been quite the test on Jean's patience. Whenever the wheels hit a rut in the road, Eren would bounce halfway into Jean's lap and then complain under his breath about how sore he was going to be, while Jean jabbed him in the back and tried to shove Eren off to one side but ended up relenting because it would mean pushing the load onto the beleaguered fifth member of their party, who, along with Mikasa, was fully dressed in his gear.

"Maybe we should all just calm down a little," Armin offered, spreading his arms out – such that he could – in a diplomatic appeal. "I don't think it's very fair on Moblit."

The man was busy flicking through a stack of papers that were desperately trying to disorganize themselves but eventually relented under his patient efforts. He did not seem to be aware that he was now being discussed.

"I'm still not entirely sure why he's coming along," said Jean, glancing to one side with a bit of resentment. Every extra person in this carriage was making Jean's life more difficult.

Armin nodded. "With all due respect to him… wasn't the whole point of this particular plan that the Military Police couldn't complain if it was just us kids—"

"I'm not a kid," Eren grunted, despite all evidence to the contrary.

"Well, for these purposes, you are," Armin explained patiently. "It's important that we don't seem like a threatening force."

With Eren along, the whole pretense of them being harmless was a ludicrous farce. Shifting his numb legs, Jean scowled. "Even if that is the case, I don't see why we need a babysitter."

Moblit shuffled the papers on his lap, and then glanced up, finally realizing that he had become the topic of conversation. "Oh. You mean me?" he queried innocently. "No, no. I'm not here to back you up, unless you need my help. Leader Hanji asked me to do an informal investigation on the Titan in the wall. She'd have preferred to come herself, but…" He folded his hands together uneasily. "As you said, it wouldn't be a good idea to send a higher-ranking officer."

The Titan in the wall… now that was a frightening affair. Jean settled back and mulled this over. They still had no leads on the true meaning of those Titans, and what they signified, except for the strongly-supported hunch that they comprised the majority of the walls. Were they there to protect humanity or to cage them? Had they ever been humans once?

Brushing aside the curtains on the windows to catch a glimpse of the road rolling by, Armin murmured, "You mean because she's too ill to make the trip, don't you?" He pushed the catch on the window and sighed as a fresh breeze pushed out the stuffy air.

Moblit squirmed uncomfortably. "You're too smart for your own good, Arlert," he finally said.

"Hanji is still sick?" Mikasa glanced up from checking her gear. "I'd heard her wound had become mildly infected, nothing more."

"I've seen her injury," Eren declared. "That's no mild infection. Nothing I've seen ever could cause that kind of swelling and discoloration, especially since her original injury was only a second degree burn."

This sudden outburst of knowledge from Eren, who had never struck anyone as being particularly academic, left the carriage in a sort of pensive silence, which Jean broke. "So now YOU'RE the expert?" he drawled.

Because he was in a perfect position to do so, Eren stamped down on Jean's foot. "My father was a doctor, moron!" he snapped. Normally, even with his easily sparked temper, Eren wouldn't have reacted in such a petty fashion, but the cramped ride had left everyone feeling very cross. Jean, in retaliation, shoved Eren off his lap and across the carriage into Armin's. Eren was about to turn and yell a protest when he realized that this arrangement was far more preferable, and stiffly took a seat upon Armin's knees.

"Ahh," Jean sighed, stifling a cackle when he saw Armin's flushed expression. He stretched out one leg, then the other, sticking the soles of his boots in Eren's face. "Free at last."

Armin had to wrap an arm around Eren's waist to keep him from lunging at Jean. Trying desperately to pretend like that particular altercation had not taken place, Armin leaned around Eren and addressed Moblit for a second time. "With you on this mission, won't that leave Leader Hanji… unsupervised?"

The obvious implications of this were, of course, that Hanji Zoe would not manage very well on her own without someone to supervise her. One time, after a training session in particularly boggy terrain, Jean had found her watching a leech suck blood from her wrist with the utmost fascination. She probably would have let it drink its fill until it fell, engorged, if Moblit hadn't noticed Jean staring at Hanji with a repulsed expression, ridden over, and tiredly tugged the leech off himself. Hanji wasn't always like this – most of the time she was sharp as a tack – but she had spells of fancy where she didn't have much regard for her own personal safety. Left alone too long with her illness, she would probably start experimenting on herself – if she hadn't done so already.

"Captain Levi has elected to take care of her," said Moblit, penning in a handful of careful notes. The wheels of the carriage struck a rut; a large splotch of ink marred the parchment and Moblit clucked his tongue and sighed, with a mildly distraught expression. "I'm sure he'll be quite vigilant and strict."

Jean leaned back against his seat and crossed, then uncrossed his ankles. "The captain, hm?" He smirked. "And he volunteered himself? To take care of poor bedridden Hanji? Seems like you should be careful, Moblit. Levi's making his move on your girl."

"That," said Moblit, turning slightly pink, "is entirely unfounded. I imagine the captain just felt a certain degree of responsibility for what happened to Leader Hanji." He shuffled the papers together one final time and laid them on his lap with a relieved sigh.

When the carriage next hit a bump, a feisty gust of wind came rocketing in through the window that Armin had opened and sent Moblit's papers flying in all directions. In the end, they had to yell at the driver to stop the carriage so they could retrieve those documents that had been blown out into the road.

"You have," said Levi, "just five more minutes."

Hanji Zoe squirmed in her seat, pressing her eyes to the microscope and letting out a visibly condensing huff of exasperated air. "Don't be silly, Levi," she murmured. "I feel fine. I am fine."

But she wasn't. Her eyes were red and puffy from lack of sleep and her breathing was shallow and labored, every other inhalation coming as a wheeze. And yet she bore herself as if she were as hale and hearty as an ox. Hanji was simply not a person easily deterred by physical weakness. Her enthusiastic mind plowed through any roadblocks.

She had the white card underneath her microscope, and a light glowing bright and steady below that. It was an ancient, rare technology: a glass container filled with specially refined nonreactive gas, holding a metal filament that was slowly burning as controlled lightning passed through it. The rays it gave off were piercing enough to render the card slightly transparent, and through this, Hanji was able to begin discerning what images it had once held/

Captain Levi sat off to one side, tiredly cranking the generator that powered the bulb of light. "You promised you'd only be at it for half an hour, which is nearly up. And I can't wait to put this damn contraption down."

"I've almost got a picture!" Hanji protested. She reacted to one side and selected a piece of pale blue glass. Inspecting it she mumbled, "Hm… dirty," and breathed on it, quickly causing a thick fog of condensation to form, which she wiped off with a soft cloth. "Oh, and you'll have to make the light a bit brighter, if it's not too much trouble."

With an exasperated glare, Levi began to turn the generator more rapidly. Its humming increased in pitch. "I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe you're doing this. You should be in bed, instead of doing whatever it is you're—"

"I'm glad you asked!" Hanji exclaimed, answering the question she wanted to hear instead of what Levi had actually been about to say. "These filters block out one color at a time so I can more easily distinguish the faint shapes." She squinted and then slowly traced a line on the gridded sheet of paper at her right, glancing back and forth between the picture and the sketch as she did so. "I'm positive that this card once held a picture, and if we can reconstruct that image, we'll have a clue as to what the card signifies, and why it was so important to the Gentle Titan." She placed the sky blue pane down and chose a yellow filter instead, filling in a few tiny squares on the paper grid with a bit of like-colored ink.

"Where even did you find all these pieces of colored glass?" Levi asked, shifting his position but continuing to crank the generator with an exasperated expression. "Don't tell me you spent Survey Corps funds on this… Who's horse is going to go hungry because of your experiments this time?"

Hanji shook her head briskly and tugged at the bandages around her neck; they'd grown very damp and muggy and were ever so bothersome. It had become a kind of impulsive habit, to play with the bandages idly. Levi tried to keep her from doing it whenever he could, saying it was part of the reason she wasn't getting better. She couldn't help it, though; they itched. "There was a stained glass window in the old castle that had broken long ago. I sent for the pieces and had them rounded, that's all. No expense, save for the travel."

She went back to patiently transferring the faint image on the card to the graph paper, penciling in a few lines here and there, inking a bit of color. She went methodically, starting from the top left and going across the first row, then heading on to the next.

"Time's up," said Levi abruptly. "Now get back into your bed, you stubborn woman." He let go of the generator and slapped it onto the table; the light faded out.

"Wait!" Hanji exclaimed, but Levi wasn't having any of her nonsense. He grabbed the back of her chair and squealed it all the way across the room in one swift motion, picked Hanji up, and dropped her into her bed.

Levi folded his arms across his chest at a job well done. "Now stay there," he ordered. "Or else I'll have to tie you down."

"I have to complete work on that drawing!" said Hanji, frustrated. She tried to sit up again. "It's absolutely vital—!"

Sitting down next to Hanji, Levi folded one leg over the other and stared the scientist down. "No, It's absolutely vital that you stop dicking around and let yourself heal," he told her. "Just go to sleep or some shit like that; it's for the best."

The unhappy Hanji pouted and said, "But I'm not even sure if just resting will make this wound heal. It's not a normal injury… We've had it wrapped up for more than a week now, with bandages soaked in peroxide – if it was a simple infection, it should have cleared up by now. The only way this injury will be healed is if I find out more about it."

"I don't see how drawing a picture will help much with that," Levi muttered.

Hanji rolled her eyes. Everything was related to everything else. Solve one mystery and you might be on your way to the next clue about a totally unrelated one. In one way or another, the picture was the key to finding a cure and for understanding what the Titans really were – and perhaps those two ideas were related as well. "At least bring my data over so I can review it." The scientist lay back onto her bed and crossed her legs. "And you'll let me finish my drawing by today, all right?"

There was quiet in the room save for the clicking of boot heels as Levi gathered up the replica picture and the card itself and brought them over to Hanji. But he stopped in the middle of the room and studied the image Hanji had been working on. "Doesn't it look…?" he began, and then paused, and then began again. "Doesn't it look a bit like a face to you? It's just… this bit here almost looks like a smile…"

Hanji sat bolt upright.

Jean and I make it out of my room in one piece, somehow – I feel like I could fall apart just from all the physical and emotional stress that I've been going through, but some tiny reserve of strength, a stalwart corner of my heart, holds me up and keeps me moving.

It's only once we're in the hallway and halfway to the elevator bank that Jean turns to me and says, with mouth agape: "Marco… I just realized… you're walking."

The tone in which he says this makes me rethink my dislike of him. He's so shocked and yet so tender, like he's genuinely happy for me. "And… I don't feel dizzy at all," I tell him, and my lip begins to tremble as I realize that this might be one of the first times in my life as far as I can remember that I'm not a hindrance to someone. "Jean, I'm… I'm walking!"

His face is unsure of what it wants to express – graveness or happiness. "And what happened to the bullet in your back, Marco?" he adds nervously. "What happened to all your injuries?"

I don't honestly know, and I tell him so. It feels like I've just been born anew. Then again, if that burst of power I'd felt could have constructed a massive structure like that crystal shell, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that perhaps, in the process, parts of me were…

Jean reaches out and touches the bandages covering my right eye. He's hesitant, like he can hardly dare to hope, and neither can I. But as he slowly unpeels the surgical tape holding the bandages in place, I can see his expression and it's one of slowly unfolding wonder.

And then, I can see him.

Really, really see him in a full three-dimensional way that feels so startlingly new that my knees turn to jelly. I blink, two eyelids pat against the lower lashes and then lift up. I rub my face and then open my eyes wide, wide, as wide as they can go.

"Marco…!" Jean squeaks. He reaches out a finger and swipes along my smooth and fully restored cheek, as if wiping away a tear. "Even your freckles are…"

I slowly begin to unwrap the bandages around my arm. I'm whole, I think. This is impossible. Unbelievable. Beautiful. Jean reaches out impatiently and tugs the whole thing off of me, then catches my flawless hand in his own, running his fingers over my new skin.

"Freckles everywhere," he says wonderingly. "You're like a galaxy, Marco… One big freckly Milky Way."

Who am I fooling? I can't even begin to dislike Jean, for all his flaws. "I'm glad you like it," I say, suppressing a smile. "But let's worry about that later." I grasp his hand firmly and tug him along towards the elevators. "We have to get moving, right?"

But we've only just made it to the lifts and I have my finger centimeters away from the button when there's a soft ding and the doors slide open.

The figures inside are clothed in familiar black uniforms; they've all got rather stern expressions and, most frighteningly of all, they're all carrying rather large weapons. I stumble backwards, gulping down fear. There's no reason to assume that these people aren't on my side, right? They're just corporate guards, I think. I'm valuable to the corporation. And yet those guns… guns have always freaked me out and right now they're not helping much.

Jean, however, seems quite complacent, and I get the sense that he's been anticipating an arrival like this. I glance his way, wondering if I should let him take the lead.

In the end, neither of us speak first. One of the soldiers, a young man with a stern face, a large nose, and a bowl cut of black hair marches up to me and demands, "Are you the patient known as Marco Bodt?"

"Yeah, that's Marco," says Jean, shrugging. I'm almost annoyed at him again for not being more nervous about my safety, or his own. After all, we had just been conspiring together againt the very people who employ these guard. "What d'you want with him?"

"We're here," says the young man, who looks oddly uncomfortable and unsure, like he's an actor who's forgotten his lines. "We're here to escort you out of the building and into a securer location. If you would step this way…"

But he doesn't finish before I snap my fingers and point at him, half in accusation and half in triumph. "I know you!" I declare.

The man is taken aback, mostly because he just didn't see a grand pronouncement like that coming at a time like this. "You… what?"

"Yes!" I tell him. "But I didn't realize you were in the police when I saw you on TV! I thought you were just some kind of academic, especially since you checked out a book and nobody reads paper books anymore and…" I grin hugely; I feel like I'm meeting a mild celebrity, even though it's probably me who's the famous one. "You're Marlo Freudenberg!"