Plot is coming, brace yourselves.

Privacy was hard to come by in the trainee barracks.

Jean's attempts at finding a quiet, unoccupied space to practice using the cipher key Elle had made for him proved fruitless all evening. He wasn't sure why, but he felt somewhat possessive of the roll of parchment and the code written on it, unwilling to share it with just any set of curious eyes that happened past. It was childish, he knew, but he found himself thinking it would be fun to write encrypted notes back and forth, things that nobody else would be able to read.

In the end, he just waited until dark, sneaking off to the mess hall after curfew. Lighting a candle on the table, he unrolled the scroll, studying it closely as he wondered what he would write. A thank you note would probably be the best way to start; something simple, and a way to express his gratitude to her for making his assignment bearable. Spreading out a new sheet of parchment, he tried to work out a message. "So 'D' will be written as 'Y,'" he mumbled to himself, starting on the first word, but he barely had three letters written down when he thought he heard the floorboards creak and whipped around, fearing Shadis was making the rounds.

Instead, he found Bertolt standing silently in the dark, and even though he knew he wasn't in trouble—yet—he still jumped in surprise.

"Fucking hell, Bertolt," he spat, "You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing?"

The taller boy gave a sheepish smile. "Trouble sleeping," he murmured. Jean knew he was telling the truth by the dark circles rimming his eyes and felt a twinge of sympathy. Bertolt was always nervous, sweating and glancing around anxiously like he was expecting titans to come bursting in at any minute. Jean had thought before that he must have come from Shiganshina like Armin and the others, considering he acted nearly as skittish.

He was so startled by the sudden intrusion that he didn't think to hide what he was doing, only realizing when Bertolt had already come over the table and noticed the scroll with the key written on it. He sat opposite Jean and peered down at Elle's scrawl curiously, asking, "What's that?"

Jean restrained himself from uttering a biting, Nothing, reminding himself that snapping at his comrades and picking fights had put him in hot water plenty of times already. "It's a, uh," he paused, "Monoalphabetic cipher. I think."

"A cipher?" Bertolt repeated curiously, suddenly becoming animated.

"Yeah," Jean said, "You know a lot about it?"

Bertolt glanced up from the parchment to Jean, face flushing slightly as though embarrassed. "Uh. Just a little," he stammered, "Um. It's a hobby, I guess."

"You and Elle'd get along well, I bet," Jean said, looking back down at the key as he returned to the task at hand, "The girl at the pigeon post, I mean. She taught me about it, since she does all the secret code stuff for the government, I guess."

"So her name's Elle."

Jean shot up straight and looked back over his shoulder at the doorway, where Marco and Connie were standing. Groaning, Jean leaned over the table, covering the paper with the key almost childishly. "Is everyone just up wandering around?" he grumbled.

"Not everyone," Marco said as he and Connie took the two empty seats beside Jean, "We just noticed you sneak out and wondered if everything was okay."

"What are you doing, anyway?" Connie asked, looking pointedly at the paper spread beneath him, "Is that a love letter or something?"

Jean sighed tiredly, wondering if it was time to give up and go to bed. "No. Just a thank you note."

"Why are you writing a thank you note with a cipher?" Bertolt asked, and Jean was honestly surprised to hear him talk with so many people in the room at the same time.

"Because I want to," he sputtered, almost defensively, "Look, guys, can I just have a minute to myself, please?"

"Whoa, we just got here," Connie argued, "And what's a cipher?"

Jean nearly packed up his things and left right that moment, but decided he didn't want to be interrupted. Reluctantly, he sat up straight, revealing the key written on the paper. "It's like this," he said, hoping an explanation would get rid of everyone, "You substitute every letter of the alphabet with a different letter, and then you use your new alphabet to write messages."

"I thought you were taking care of pigeons?"

"Well, yeah," Jean said, "That's pretty much all I do. But the girl I work with—!"

"Elle?" Connie interrupts.

Jean frowned. "Yeah, Elle. She works at the pigeon post, too, but her main job is writing messages in secret codes."

"Is that an actual code used by the government?" Bertolt asked.

Jean shook his head. "I don't think so. She just made it up on the spot for us to use." Bertolt, Connie and Marco still looked interested and showed no signs of leaving, so Jean slowly began to roll up the parchment, taking his candle with him. "I'm just gonna go," he said, ignoring Connie's protests and Marco trying to tell him to give Jean some space. Bertolt didn't say anything, standing up to leave himself, and Jean gave up for the night, deciding he'd go back to sleep. If he didn't get any rest, there'd be hell to pay in the morning when he'd be too tired to do any of his drills.

He'd just have to try again tomorrow.

They were practicing with the omnidirectional gear bright and early, and Jean lamented not getting more sleep, finding it difficult to concentrate. He lost balance just as Shadis shouted for him, flipping onto his face and becoming tangled in the cords, and very pointedly ignored what had to be Eren's snickering from somewhere nearby.

"I don't know what you're laughing about," he muttered, "This is what you look like every time you try."

He was still grumbling as he made his way over to Shadis until he realize the person standing with him had patches with the green unicorn emblem—Military Police. He hurriedly picked up the pace, straightening up his uniform and brushing the dirt off of the front and silently hoped they hadn't seen him fall.

"Yes, sir?" he said when he reached them. Shadis gestured to the stranger who nodded and stepped forward. He was tall with his black hair cut uniformly short.

"Cadet Kirstein?" he asked.

Jean nodded.

"There's talk going around that you know a thing or two about ciphers."

Jean glanced back at where the others were practicing, knowing immediately that it had to have been Connie who'd blabbed; Marco was too considerate, and Bertolt just wasn't talkative. It shouldn't have mattered, but he felt a bit nervous with the grave tone the officer was using. "I don't know very much, sir," he admitted, "I've just started learning."

"But you've already made your own key to encode messages, correct?"

Jean glanced at the man uneasily. "Well," he started to say, but was cut off when the man flashed a smile.

"That's very impressive," he said, "That sort of skill would go to waste in most branches, but you'd be of great use to the Military Police Brigade. I hope you keep practicing."

Elated, Jean fought hard to keep a stupid smile off of his face, nodding as he said, "I will, sir."

"Good. Keep it up, and there might just be a position waiting for you when you graduate."

The man left after that, and Jean was dismissed back to training. He'd been aiming for the Military Police since enlistment; knowing he was close to his goal put him in such a good mood that he forgot all about yelling at Connie for spreading around his business, or being angry at Eren, or even how strange it was that the Military Police would be so concerned about a cadet who knew codes.

Jean didn't drag his feet on his way to the pigeon post. Learning ciphers with Elle had turned from a welcome distraction to a potential way into the Military Police, and he was eager to learn as much as he could in the short time he had left working with her. His eagerness saw him arrive much earlier than usual, but his pace slowed and he came to a complete stop, idling between a few trees when he saw someone he doesn't recognize lurking behind the coop wearing a green coat, the hood up and obscuring their features. Elle exited the coop a moment later, glancing around a bit nervously. Jean saw a small cage in her hand and Samson standing inside, something tied to his foot. She handed the bird off to the stranger, who tucked it beneath their coat and walked off in the opposite direction.

Jean wasn't sure what to make of the exchange; it looked suspicious, for sure, but he didn't know exactly what had happened. Despite the figure's hasty departure, he caught the crossed wings of the Survey Corps on their back, and his imagination went wild with speculation. Could it have been a hand-off of sensitive information meant for someone in Wall Sina? He remembered Elle mentioning that she, or rather her pigeons, worked closely with the Survey Corps, and figured she'd be eager to tell him about it. Hoping to find out, Jean came out from where he'd been hiding and approached the coop. Elle seemed startled when she noticed him.

"Oh, Jean," she exclaimed, but she gave him a big smile, "You're early today."

"Yeah. Looking forward to more code stuff," he said. He noticed the corners of her lips twitch and her smile became tense.

"Right," she said, "Well, go on in, I'll wait here for you." She sat in the grass with her back against the bright red planks of the pigeon coop, massaging her temples with one hand. She was acting odd, and combined with what Jean had seen earlier, it was making him a little nervous.

"You okay?" he asked.

She glanced up at him with a painfully forced smile. "I'm good," she said, "I was just up late last night, so I'm a little tired." Apparently not feeling talkative, she turned away again, and Jean reluctantly went into the coop.

Jean's curiosity was killing him. He tried to focus on what he was doing, carefully avoiding stepping on Felix, an aging, brown pigeon who insisted on following him around the coop, and pouring a bag of grains and seeds into the feeder. Eunice, he couldn't help but notice, was sitting by herself in the space she usually shared with Samson, and she looked a little lonely.

At least, Jean thought she did. He had obviously been around the birds for too long if he was imagining various emotions in their beady, little eyes.

He emerged from the coop an hour later, finding Elle with a smaller pigeon seated comfortably in the folds of her dress on her lap, allowing her to stroke its feathers with one finger. "Done," he said, and she startled to attention again but managed a smile, gently shifting so the bird got the hint and began to move. "I noticed Eunice was by herself, though," he added, "And I haven't seen Samson around yet."

When she stood up, the little bird waddled into the open door of the coop, and Elle avoided Jean's eyes, watching it walk away. "Really? He was here earlier," she said, "Must be off getting twigs. I've been letting them bring things back to make themselves comfortable lately."

Jean nodded, careful to keep his suspicion off of his face. She was lying; he'd seen her hand Samson off to someone. He's not sure he would have caught the lie if he hadn't seen her do it, either. Elle didn't sound nervous when she spoke, but she'd pointedly avoided looking him in the eye. Jean told himself he was being ridiculous, and that the level of secrecy must have been standard for secret communications. But there was something about it that bothered him, and he couldn't help but worry a little that something else was going on.

"Anyway," Elle said, meeting his gaze with a genuine smile, "You wanted to learn more about ciphers, right?"

"Yeah."

"Did you practice with the one I gave you?"

His smile fell. "Uh. Not yet," he admitted, "Sorry. I was going to write you a message, but never got around to it."

"That's alright," she said, beginning to walk with him towards the garrison offices, "I'm sure you won't have trouble with it. I actually wanted to show you something different today, just to mix things up."

This time, they headed for a different room, one on the ground floor of the garrison building situated at the end of a hallway. Jean had thought that she'd been exaggerating, but it really wasn't much larger than a broom closet, and had likely been one before being clumsily repurposed as an office. Elle squeezed between the wall and the far end of the desk, and Jean stood opposite her, watching as she reached for something on a bookshelf.

"This is called a diagraph cipher," she said, opening the book in her hands to a certain page and spreading it out between them. Jean squinted at the tiny scrawl, letters written into rows of boxes. The alphabet ran along the top and down the left side, with combinations of two letters in all of the other boxes.

"This looks really confusing," he muttered.

"It takes a bit of getting used to," Elle said, "When you write a message, you break up the whole thing into pairs of letters. So I could say," she paused, quickly writing on the corner of the page, 'This is how you use diagraph.' "So I take this, and I break it up for the code." Beneath it, she wrote, 'TH IS IS HO WY OU US ED IA GR AP HX.'

"So the 'X' is because there isn't anything, but it has to be two letters?" Jean asked.

"Exactly. So then, you go down the line and match up each combination with the correct box, and you can encode the message." She handed him the ink quill and grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. "Try enciphering it," she said.

Jean looked down at the paper with wide eyes, a little overwhelmed by all of the letters running together on the page, but reminded himself of his earlier encounter with the Military Police and decided to try. "The first one is 'TH,'" he said, "So I go along the top and find 'T'….and then I go down the column until I get to where it meets 'H'…." He paused, hesitantly writing down 'GZ,' and looked up at Elle nervously.

Her eyes lit up with excitement greater than he'd seen on her face before. "You got it!" she exclaimed, "That's all there is to it! Now you know to do two different ciphers."

Jean laughed a little, excited himself. "Thanks, Elle," he said, "This is really cool. I might actually have a shot at becoming an MP thanks to you."

Her smile fell immediately. Jean realized he might've said the wrong thing and opened his mouth to apologize, but Elle spoke first. "Have you been approached by any of the Military Police?" She spoke quietly, gaze flicking over his shoulder to where the door to the room was shut.

It was a simple question, but Jean struggled to answer. Elle had a serious expression that he hadn't seen on her face before, and tension hung heavily over them, having appeared seemingly from nowhere. "Yes?" he said uncertainly.

"What did they say?"

"That they like people who know about ciphers."

Elle's frown deepened and she slammed the book shut, putting it back up on the shelf and taking the paper from Jean, carefully folding it up before ripping it into tiny pieces. Jean stared, speechless, until she'd finished and returned her attention to him. "Are you okay?" he asked, unsure of what else to say.

Elle didn't speak for a long time, staring down at the table, before she nodded. "I'm fine," she said, "But that's enough for today. You should probably go back now."

"I didn't mean to upset you," he said quickly, "I get the feeling you don't really like the MPs very much, so I'm sorry if I—!"

He stopped when Elle met his eyes, her solemn expression replaced by one that seemed sad. "It's alright, Jean," she said softly, "You mean well, and I know that."

"Can you talk to me about…" He paused. "Uh. Whatever it is you're upset about? Or is it some kind of secret?"

"It wouldn't be right for me to talk about it with you," she said, "I don't want to influence any decisions you make in the future. You should do whatever it is you want to do."

"It's more than that, though," Jean insisted, "You don't just dislike the MPs, you have some kind of problem with them, right?"

Elle smiled sadly. "You should really get going," she urged. Reluctantly, Jean went to the door of Elle's tiny office, glancing back at her over his shoulder once before leaving, and found her timidly look away. He was disappointed and a little embarrassed, knowing he'd have to come back for three more days with things horribly awkward and tense between them, and angry that he didn't know what she was so upset about in the first place.

He thought he'd try writing a message to her, definitely an apology note—even if he's not really sure what he did wrong—and maybe they could go back to normal after that. He was so caught up in his inner frustration and planning as he slipped out the door and hurried down the hall that he didn't notice Elle's father, Captain Hayes, standing behind it, arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face, and a figure in a green coat standing beside them watching his hasty escape.

"Well, this is a problem," Captain Hayes muttered.

The Survey Corps member beside him shook their head. "It doesn't have to be."