Attack on Titan Fanfiction – The Stowaway: Chapter 9

Warning: PG-13

To Leave or Stay

“I know her, I’ve seen her in the papers. She already gave birth to the future heir to the throne. A baby boy…”

“She looks miserable to me, being married to that lame excuse for a prince. I only feel pity for her now. But it was the path she chose to take.”

“They say she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. I think so, too. Plus, she’s fertile. She has everything. Who cares about her thoroughly rotten husband?” The tabloids always had a field day writing about what an awful human being the crown prince was.

Jean shook his head. “Mikasa, to me you are the most beautiful woman in the world. I’ve always thought so, since we were twelve.”

“You really think so?” she scoffed at him. “A beautiful woman is a fertile woman. Official definition.”

“Please don’t say that. You’re beautiful because you’re you, Mikasa. It doesn’t matter whether you’re fertile or not.”

She bristled, feeling the anger bubble up from inside her. “Don’t say shit like that!” she screamed at her husband. “You know it’s bullshit, so why do you say it?” The crestfallen look on his face made her angrier than ever. “I know you wished to shag Geraldine, I know you’re thinking, you should’ve married her instead of me! Really, Jean, why didn’t you just shag her and then marry her?”

And so they fought. Fought about his past, and everyone else he had dared to love before they became a couple. At first it was just veiled hints. I love you more, she’d tell him. More than whom, more than what, he’d ask, puzzled. I just do, she’d insist.

Jean did all he could to placate her, informing her his relationship with Geraldine ended after her engagement to the crown prince. 

Although it was clear their relationship never got physical, Mikasa was still extremely jealous because Jean had an emotional connection with the overly famous royal, whom many consider to be the quintessence of beauty and kindness. She knew from personal experience that a relationship didn’t have to be sexual for it to be deeply meaningful and profound and transformative. 

Even after Jean managed to reassure her, she continued to bring Geraldine up in conversations, asking him things like if the crown princess really had thousands of dresses as the gossip columns say, or if her golden hair was really washed only with expensive, imported bottled water from the fabled natural springs of Hizuru.

“I’ve no idea. I honestly couldn’t care less,” Jean replied.

“Why don’t you go see her and ask? I know you want to see her,” Mikasa insisted.

“I don’t want to see her. I want to be with my wife. Liberty will soon be over. Could we please not talk about Geraldine for the remainder of it?”

“You love her still, don’t you?” 

Her tone was so accusatory and Jean got so annoyed they ended up fighting. Again.

Jean was all fidelity and loyalty to his wife; he had been, without a doubt, monogamous after their engagement and all throughout their marriage. He would never cheat on Mikasa and she knew it, but Geraldine was prime fodder for the paparazzi and so famous her face was literally everywhere. Mikasa can’t help but feel jealous that someone like her loved Jean before she herself did. To twist the knife further, there the crown princess was in the covers of magazines, with her perfect face and perfect body and perfect life, holding a perfect baby in her arms. 

Mikasa boiled over with envy each time she saw that face. She refused to let it go.

One night she and Jean were having a nice, quiet dinner together at Nicolo’s restaurant when suddenly she said out of the blue:

“If the Noblainian crown prince didn’t propose to Geraldine, would you have married her instead of me?”

Jean laughed, “Before anything else, her parents would never allow her to marry an Eldian. And a commoner at that.”

“No, that’s not the point. Let’s say you’re an aristocrat, and of a race her parents approved of. Would you have married her?”

“If I were a non-Eldian nobleman, I wouldn’t be me. There were plenty of men like that who called on Geraldine, but she didn’t care for them.”

His deflections made her angry. “Stop beating around the bush. Let’s say you found out in Noblain that you’re an aristocrat with no Eldian blood. Would you have proposed to her?”

When Jean said no, she growled at him, “That’s a red-face lie!” 

The diners around them throw alarmed glances at their direction. They managed to make it outside the restaurant, where the fighting got worse. “What do you want me to say, Mikasa? ‘Yes, I’d have married her’?”

“See, I knew you wanted to!” she began to scream at him. “You should have! Why didn’t you? Why the hell did you marry me instead of her? You know she has a baby! You want that baby to be yours, don’t you? Say you do!”

Whatever Jean said or did made her angry and raving mad with jealousy. He couldn’t catch a break.

“Is she as beautiful in real life as she is in the pictures?”

“Is it true that she wears a different hat every day of the year? And that she never wears the same thing twice?”

Whichever way he answered, he ended up getting yelled at.

Eventually, Jean got sick of her tantrums and did what many people do when stressed out with home-related problems: immerse themselves in work. He couldn’t stand being around his wife anymore, and so when it was his turn for sea duty, he made no excuses for himself and captained a reconnaissance ship for three weeks. He left her a note. They needed to get out of each other’s hair for a short while, he reasoned. 

He returned home to a woman he no longer recognised.

Mikasa threw a magazine at his face. The picture on it was a paparazzi shot of Lady Geraldine with a pram next to her. She was gazing at a toddler playing in a sandpit at a luxurious country villa. The way her hands cradled her rounded bump, it was obvious another baby was on the way.

“She’s pregnant with your kid, isn’t she?” Mikasa was glaring at him with a savage look on her face.

“What the fuck, Mikasa?”

“You knocked her up!” she screamed. “That’s not Prince Stephen’s baby. It’s your baby!”

“You’re crazy! How could that possibly be my kid? I haven’t seen Geraldine since I left Noblain two years ago!”

“Well, it’s not like she couldn’t sneak into our country. She’s a distant relative of Historia’s, isn’t she? They say all the royal families in the world are related.”

“No, Mikasa, I did not see Geraldine in Noblain or on the island. She’s the most paparazzi-hounded celebrity in existence. If she came to Paradis the entire world would know.”

“You sailed your ship in secret to Noblain then, and you fucked her! You fucked her while her philandering husband was at his mistress’ boudoir!” The tabloids had a field day with that one, too: all the crown prince’s mistresses, especially the hideous-looking, married mother of two that he seemed to favor above the others.

Now Jean became very angry. “This is madness, Mikasa. I would never, ever cheat on you.” 

“Oh really? You wouldn’t cheat on me when you thought I could become the mother of your children. Now that you know I’m defective, you feel it’s within your right to spread your seed to where it could flourish.”

“I would never do that to you, and you know it,” he said, vehemently denying her allegations.

Yes, I know. You’re a loyal and loving husband, Jean, and I hate you for it. “Who cares how you knocked her up!” she screamed. “You could’ve done it with your mind, for all I know! What’s obvious is that she’s pregnant with your baby! I know it’s yours! That baby bump has you written all over it!”

He looked at his wild-eyed wife and said softly, “How dare you accuse me of something I did not do.”

“I hate you!” she screamed from the top of her lungs. “Pack your bags and go away! I can’t stand the sight of you!”

That’s it, thought Jean. I’m done with this. He slammed the door to their bedroom and packed his bags. 

When he came out, he found Mikasa standing in the living room, looking out the window, arms crossed, a stony look on her face.

She turned to look at him, all packed up, and said coldly, “Good for you, abandoning the island to be with the married royal bitch you knocked up. I’m glad you’re leaving.”

He looked at his wife. Something snapped inside him. Dropping the bags and closing the distance between them with long strides, he shoved her against the wall. Pressing his body to hers, and with his face a hairbreadth away he said quietly, “You know I didn’t knock up anyone, Mrs Mikasa Ackermann-Kirschtein.”

She turned her face away, but he grabbed her chin and forced her look at him. “Look at me, Mikasa. Look me in the eye and say, ‘I don’t love you anymore, Jean Kirschtein. I no longer want to be married to you. I no longer want to be your wife. I want you to leave and never come back.’ Say those words, babe, and I’ll walk out that door, and I won’t come back. I’ll have the Navy lawyers serve up the divorce papers. You won’t have to see me again apart from the monthly joint meetings. By then I’m already nothing to you, so I’m sure we could be professional in each other’s presence.”

For the first time in a long time, Mikasa stopped screaming at him. She just stared at her husband, dumbfounded.

Jean willed himself not to bawl his eyes out. All the long years of yearning for her, waiting for her, and finally being married to her, was it all just a sorry joke? 

The kindly old gynecologist they saw after the secret Ackermann papers were revealed took him aside and warned, “I’ve seen many couples break up over infertility. I’ve seen strong marriages ripped apart by barrenness. It’s the most difficult trial for a couple that want biological children. If you want to keep your marriage, you’ll need to be extra patient with and kind to your wife, and also to yourself.” Jean told the doctor he will do whatever it takes to make it work for them.

But here they were, a failed marriage on the horizon. What had he done? The enormity of his failure was staggering. Were their foundations as a couple simply too weak? What had they done? What had he done? His heart felt heavy and leaden, the pain in his chest threatening to overwhelm his senses. So, is this it? Was it really over for them? The pain will surely kill him, but he needed her to tell him clearly what she truly wanted.

“C’mon, babe. Say the words. It should be easy, given the way you feel about me now. Open your mouth and say: ‘I don’t love you anymore, Jean Kirschtein. I no longer want to be married to you. I no longer want to be your wife. I want you to leave and never come back.’ Come on now, surely you can say as much.”

Mikasa simply stared.

He pressed his forehead against hers, cupped her cheek gently in the palm of his hand. Closing his eyes so as not to cry, he said softly, tenderly, “I need to hear you say the words, Mikasa. Say it to me straight. I need to hear them loud and clear. That’s the only way I could leave you for good.”

No sound from her aside from erratic breathing.

“Mikasa, I beg of you. Repeat after me: I don’t love you anymore, Jean Kirschtein…”

A wretched cry tore from her throat. “Noooo,” she wailed, “that’s not true! I love you, Jean. I love you! I love you, I love you, I love you…” Sobbing uncontrollably, she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. “Don’t leave me, Jean. Don’t ever leave me…”

He wrapped his arms tight around her, stroked the back of her head with his hand. “I love you, too, Mikasa. I will never leave you, not unless you want me to.”

“Stay by my side forever, my darling,” she said between heartrending sobs. “Please be with me, until the end of time.”

How long did they weep in each other’s arms? 

Somehow, in the dark depths of their mutual anguish they both saw it: a light. Very soft and barely perceptible unless you blink and blink, but it was unmistakable. Jean and Mikasa focused on that sliver of candlelight and clung to it for dear life. They had been teetering on the edge of a shadowy precipice but instead of falling into the abyss, they held each other’s hand and decided to move away from it. Together.

That night, they made slow, tender love. It wasn’t like the daily, desperate, baby-making sex they had during their year of denial, or the raw, furious makeup sex they had after every fight during their year of anger. 

Tonight, he kissed and licked every inch of her body, and she did the same for him, as they sought to find each other again amidst the hopeless forest of despair. They looked deep into each other’s eyes, taking their time. 

As her husband slowly plunged himself all the way into her, she whispered “I love you” after every thrust. When he came inside her, she never took her eyes off his, and there was only one word on her lips as she came with him, “Jean…Jean…Jean…”

Afterwards, they kissed and cuddled for ages, then held each other and talked until morning.

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider sharing a thought or two in the comment section below. Your comments give me life and are a real source of encouragement. xoxo, hana

Next – Chapter 10: The Sacrifice

Back – Chapter 8: The Dinner Party