Just before midnight, Jean marched out of the officer's hotel with Armin by his side. Both men wore rain ponchos against the downpour, packs slung over their shoulders, and their weapons ready as if prepared for combat; however, this time it was not against an enemy they ever thought they would fight.
Jean's motorcycle was parked nearby, something he had petitioned to get after he returned from the front lines in the south. Armin sat in the side car with the bags stored by his feet. They both lowered goggles to help them see in the rain. Then, with a roar of the engine, they drove off into the night.
Metz was silent except for the patter of raindrops in puddles. Even the soldiers at the blockade they came across looked sleepy, and they did no more than check their identifications before letting Jean drive by.
The cathedral loomed ominously in front of them, as if God himself was prepared to smite some souls that night. Armin said a short prayer and crossed himself as they drove past the gothic arches and headed toward the bookstore.
Jean stopped the bike a little down the street and looked up ahead at the store. There was no doubt about it: that was the place Levi mentioned, the new headquarters of the French Resistance.
"I'm either going to betray my country, or get shot by the enemy," he mumbled.
Armin wished he could give him some encouragement, but he knew this was a dangerous move. There was no going back after this.
Jean let out a sigh and began to walk forward. His eyes darted around in the midnight storm. Damn the rain! If it had been quieter, he might have been able to hear noises and know where the partisans were, or even see their shadows in the moonlight. As it was, he could not see nor hear anything.
Suddenly, Jean stopped short. Eren used to say that Jean had a sixth sense, while Connie teased it was his horse sense. Maybe those two were right, because despite the darkness and noisy rain, he knew there was a gun pointed at him. Slowly, his hands raised.
"Mir wurde gesagt, ich solle hierherkommen." I was told to come here.
Jean waited, but he did not hear or see anything. Did they not understand?
"Ich komme in Frieden. Frieden!" I come in peace. Peace!
He knew this was all futile unless they had someone who spoke German. Searching his mind for the little bits of French he learned from his aunt, Jean tried again.
"Je ... Je viens ... en paix." I come in peace. Then he mumbled in German, "Verdammt, ich hoffe, das ist richtig." Damn, I hope that's right.
Finally, he heard the sound of footsteps, and his attention went straight to the source. A shadow was moving, and soon a man in a black trench coat and fedora came forward. As the man got closer, Jean saw a revolver in his hand pointed right at him.
"Ne lui tire pas dessus. Nous pourrions attirer une attention non désirée. On le tuera dans la librairie." Don't shoot him. We could attract unwanted attention. We'll kill him inside the bookstore.
Jean only understood a few words. The man used his gun to motion him to step toward the store. Jean was ready to simply follow and hope Fate was on his side when he heard footsteps coming up the road. Armin! He wanted to look around, but he knew any quick movements could result in both of them getting shot.
Armin had the black backpack slung on his shoulder and his hands raised high. Calling out into the storm, he said, "Levi nous a dit de venir ici." Levi told us to come here.
Now the man looked stunned. "Levi? Savez-vous où il est?" Do you know where he is?
"Non, je ne sais pas." No, I don't know. "Je m'appelle Armin, et lui c'est Jean. Nous sommes des amis de Levi." My name is Armin, and he is Jean. We are friends of Levi.
Just then, a little girl with dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing black clothes and a beret, came forward with a rifle pointed at them.
"Gabi!" the man hissed. "Gabi, reviens ici!" Come back here!
Undaunted, she continued forward. Armin was taken aback by the presence of a child, especially the fearlessness in her dark eyes.
"Êtes-vous le même Jean dont Levi a parlé? J'avais l'impression que vous étiez français. Il a dit que votre tante vivait à Metz." Are you the same Jean who Levi talked about? I had the impression that you were French. He said your aunt lived in Metz.
Armin cringed. That was a bit too much, and she spoke too fast for him to easily translate.
Gabi's eyes narrowed, and she said in German, "Du bist kein Franzose, Nazischwein." You're not French, Nazi pig.
Gabi lifted her rifle to eye level. The man in the fedora warned her again not to shoot in the open and attract attention, but she seemed to not hear him, her teeth snarling in hatred.
Just then, a delicate hand lithely went over the rifle barrel, pushing it down, while another stroked the girl's head like calming down a cat.
"Ne nous emballons pas." Let's not get carried away.
Jean heard the voice, and his mouth dropped. Then he got a whiff of cigarette smoke, and there was no mistaking it.
"Madame Carly?"
Her light brown eyes turned to them. "Hallo, Männer." Hello, gentlemen.
Gabi scowled as she lowered her rifle. "Connaissez-vous ces Allemands?" Do you know these Germans?
"Mais oui, on est amis." Why yes, they're my friends. She smiled at the two soldiers and asked them in German. "We're good friends, yes?"
"Oui," Armin answered, seeing how she was trying to diffuse the situation.
Jean looked confused. "I thought you were arrested."
Carly chuckled deviously. "Oh, I was, and ready to be shipped off to a camp in the morning."
"Where's Annie?" he shouted.
Armin saw guns lift, and he put a hand on Jean's shoulder to hold him back. "Easy." Then he turned to Carly. "How did you break out of the internment camp?"
"I didn't break out. I was released." She smirked and shrugged nonchalantly. "If you fuck the right man and slip him the right pill, he'll do anything you want and never remember a thing." She tittered slyly. "I had a feeling you would try to rescue Annie, but I had no idea you would be so bold as to come here. Obviously, Levi told you where to go."
Jean nodded. "He and I were planning to work together."
"Is that so?" She looked back at the bookstore. "There aren't many of us left."
"Levi's been arrested."
"I know," she sighed, and her brow crinkled with worry. "I considered seeking you out to help me, but when I got to your hotel, the Gestapo had swarmed the place. I feared you had all been arrested."
Just then, the Resistance began to shout again, and Jean saw a truck coming up the road.
"Shit!"
"Inside," Carly urged, motioning to the bookstore.
Gabi looked stunned. "We can't let them in there. They're Germans!"
"I told you, they're friends. Aren't you friends with that German boy Falco?"
Gabi huffed, but she did not argue more.
They hurried into the building, but Jean did not have time to adjust to the darkness. His face immediately went to the window to look out as a Krupp Protze truck pulled up. A door opened, and a man stepped out.
"Wait a minute," Armin whispered. "Don't tell me..."
The soldier shouted out through the rain, "If you think we didn't see you, Jean, you're stupider than a horse."
"That bastard Connie," Jean hissed.
Armin turned to Carly. "They're members of my platoon. Let me speak to them and see why they're here."
She pouted. "If they pose a threat, I have to protect my people."
"I understand, but give me a chance to talk to them first."
Carly whispered something in French to the rest of the group, and the aimed rifles pulled up. As Armin stood, Jean put a hand on his arm.
"Armin!"
"This is Connie we're talking about. I don't think he's here to cause trouble. Or I should say, I hope he is here to cause some trouble, just not for us."
He exited the bookstore and stepped out into the rain. The truck turned off its lights and engine, leaving the wet street quiet except for the sound of raindrops.
Connie shouted out, "With that bandage like a turban on your head, this must be Armin."
"Keep your voice down," Armin warned as he walked close enough so they could speak without yelling. Cautiously, he asked, "What do you want, Connie?"
"Jean stopped by the barracks to tell us about Eren. Those Gestapo goons finally left about an hour ago, so Floch and I headed over to the hotel just in time to see you two leaving. We followed you." Connie gave them a cavalier grin. "Did you really think you were going to do this alone?"
Armin's face stiffened. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Connie snorted a soft chuckle. "Please, we're not stupid. This is Eren, after all. You'd destroy half the world to save that man, and despite how he acts, we know it's the same for Jean."
Armin watched as Floch stepped out of the truck and walked around to join Connie. He asked softly, "Just you two?"
Floch explained, "The others are still recovering from their wounds, and Stabsgefreiter ... I mean Unteroffizier Jarnach is covering for us so no one knows we've left."
Armin glared at the young soldier, and Floch drew up to attention under the hard gaze. "I trust Connie because we fought in Anzio together. How do I know I can trust you, Gefreiter Forster?"
With conviction, Floch declared, "I am fully devoted to Oberleutnant Jäger."
Armin whispered, "Even if he did something illegal?"
Floch's face was hard with determination. "I've known about the Jew dressed as a woman since before we were sent to the north. I don't care! I wholeheartedly believe that Oberleutnant Jäger is the man Germany needs. Hitler represents the old guard, but Oberleutnant Jäger is young, brilliant, the future of Germany. He is the sign of the new times! I don't need to know why he likes a man. The only thing I care about is this: if there is trouble, I will fight to defend Oberleutnant Jäger at all cost."
Armin weighed his answer carefully, and finally mumbled to himself, "A devout worshiper is better than nothing."
"You'll need a driver, at least," Floch pointed out.
"For what?"
Connie laughed. "To break Eren out, of course. That's why you came out here, isn't it? So, who did you find to help? Disgruntled soldiers? Zealous Catholics? The French Resistance?"
Armin glanced back at the bookstore. "You two should go back. If you start down this path, it's treason."
Connie scoffed. "Since when is rescuing my commanding officer an act of treason?"
"Since he was arrested by the Gestapo."
Floch stepped forward and declared, "What Oberleutnant Jäger is doing goes beyond the Gestapo. His mission is above even them!"
Armin's eyes narrowed in wariness. "His mission?"
Floch nodded fervently. "He told me about it. He and the Jew are on a special mission, highly classified, one that even the Gestapo doesn't know about."
Connie looked over with a raised eyebrow. "Did he tell you that? Damn, you're gullible!"
"It's the truth! He wouldn't lie to me."
Connie laughed but said nothing else about that. "My guess is he finally got caught fucking that tiny Jew from last summer."
Armin gasped slightly. "What do you mean?"
"Oh please! I could tell he was homosexual back when we were in Italy. Why do you think I teased him so much? Then back in September, Franz, Thomas, and I came across Eren with someone dressed as Louise out for a stroll. It was a good disguise, unless you knew what Louise looked like, and I'll admit, I was really checking out that blushing bride at Eren's wedding. She was cute." He laughed to himself, knowing how despicable that sounded, to be fantasizing about a bride on her wedding day. "It was raining that day, so I leaned in close, hoping I could see that pretty face again. That's when I could tell right away ... it was the Jew who took care of Eren this past summer when he had pneumonia. I had a feeling about those two even back then, which is why I didn't want that Jew in the house. I knew Eren would slip up ... probably like he did now."
Armin was in awe. "This whole time, you hid the truth about him?"
"Of course. Eren's a good friend and a great leader. In battle, that's all that matters. If God really cared who Eren fucked, we all would've been blasted into oblivion on the shores of Italy, or died in that town hall in Machern-bei-Metz. God hasn't judged him, so why should I? Maybe by saving him and his boyfriend, I'm doing God's will." He laughed at thinking about how most devout Christians would call that blasphemy.
Floch looked excited. "A mission from God! Yes!"
Connie stopped laughing and raised his eyebrow at Floch. "Seriously?"
Armin glanced back at the bookstore. "Okay. Raise your hands, stay behind me, and walk slowly."
All three walked to the store with Armin leading the way. With every step, he expected to hear the sound of a bullet piercing the night, but he made it all the way to the door without incident. There, the door opened, and right away he saw Gabi's rifle.
"They're here to help," Armin said quickly.
Gabi sneered. "More Nazi swine."
Floch quickly told her, "Nous voulons aider Jäger et Levi à s'évader de prison." We want to help Jäger and Levi escape from prison.
The flawless French stunned the little girl, and Gabi's rifle lowered in hesitation. "Êtes-vous français?"
"Non, je suis allemand, mais la France n'est pas mon ennemi." No, I'm German, but France is not my enemy.
From inside, Carly called out, "Laissez-les passer." Let them in. She stepped forward. "Désolé, messieurs. Tut mir leid, meine Herren."
Floch gasped softly in surprise. "The brothel madame?"
"Brothel madame?" Connie cried out, looking again at the curvaceous woman. "Do you mean that fancy brothel for officers that people said Eren was hanging out in?"
Carly smiled at them. "A friend of Eren's is a friend of mine. Come in."
Armin said, "We would, but..." He glanced down at Gabi with her rifle pointed at them.
Carly warned the girl, "Repos, soldate." At ease, soldier.
With a huff of annoyance, she swung the rifle back across her shoulder and stomped off.
As they walked in and dusted off the rain, Connie's eyes glanced around at the store with its towering shelves of books all hiding cautious men. "So, who are the rest?"
Carly answered, "Men who are willing to fight and die to defend their homeland."
"Good. I was hoping it'd be the Resistance," Connie mumbled. "You guys have given us so much trouble, if anyone can pull off something so daring and crazy, it's them."
Carly tittered musically. "I'll pass on the compliment."
"What's the plan to free Jäger?" asked Floch.
Armin pulled around the bulky black bag. "We don't have one yet, but we brought the blueprints to the internment camp." He pulled out the schematics and showed them to Carly.
"Blueprints?" she whispered, stunned as she took the pages. She turned to the man in the fedora. "Claude, Hugo." Two men stepped forward, and she spoke to them in French, explaining what they had. Both men were stunned and relieved to see the layout plans. "This is Claude Duvalier. Without Levi around, he's now the de facto leader. The buff man here is Hugo. He's been with the group since the beginning."
The one with the fedora glanced over the blueprints, then glared up at the soldiers. In broken German, he said, "We help you. We owe Carly. We owe Levi. Ils ont tué nos amis, nos frères. Nous avons survécu grâce à Levi. Ce soir, nous allons rembourser notre dette et venger nos frères."
Carly smiled in satisfaction. "He says, 'They killed our friends, our brothers. We survived thanks to Levi. Tonight we will repay our debt and avenge our brothers.' I convinced them, they owe us a favor: me for letting them stay in my brothel and putting my girls in danger, and Levi ... well, they owe him for surviving this long. The least they can do is help him to escape."
Armin stepped forward. "Good. We could use some locals who know the terrain."
"How's your French?"
Armin pouted in regret. "I've only been studying for a few months."
Floch stepped forward. "I can translate."
Connie scoffed. "Seriously, why didn't you offer to translate back in that village, rather than using the Jew? We could have avoided this whole thing if Eren didn't have to work with him and then fell madly in love like a schoolboy."
Gabi stomped forward. "I will translate." She glared at Floch. "I don't trust a German to understand the intricacies of the French language."
Carly placed her hands on both Floch and Gabi's shoulders. "You'll work together, that way the nuances of both languages won't be lost."
A towering old man approached them, his hair solid white and round wire-framed glasses enhancing his dark gray eyes. "I see we have more friends." He tipped his head to Jean, Armin, Connie, and Floch. "The kettle is piping upstairs. Shall we get hot drinks all around?"
Carly stepped up to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "That sounds wonderful, mon ami. Gentlemen, this is Monsieur Alexeï de Marly, the owner of this store and an old friend of mine."
"Not that old," he teased.
She chuckled and poked his chest. "Young at heart, kept energetic with the power of books, oui?"
Alexeï turned to the Germans. "Sorry I don't have much to offer besides a roof and a few wise quotes from the masters of literature. I'm lucky that my little Yelena recently gave me a tin of mint. It helps to ease my stomach when the bombs start falling."
Armin smiled gratefully. "Mint tea sounds wonderful."
Carly then said, "Gentlemen, I'll take your coats."
Jean snapped, "I'll keep mine on."
"You're dripping water all over the place. I don't want to ruin Alexeï's books."
"What if something happens and we have to run out?"
She stepped up close to Jean and softly pinched his chin. "You may be sweet, but you won't melt like sugar with a little bit of rain. Coat off. Now."
He glared at her, then gruffly yanked off his coat. The others did the same, taking off the soaked coats. Carly brought them over to a crackling fireplace to dry them off.
A couple minutes later, women began to file down a staircase that went up to the living area above the shop. They carried cups, mugs, and anything they could find to hold liquid. They began to pass the steaming hot mint tea around.
Floch's eyes grew massive as the beautiful young women weaved around the room. "Am I already dead and in heaven?"
Carly giggled as she looked around with proud and protective eyes. "They do look like little angels bringing solace to weary souls."
Jean's brow furrowed deeply. "I recognize some of them. They're the brothel girls."
"Brothel girls?" Connie cried out. Just then, a small blond with piercing blue eyes came up to him and offered him a cup of tea. "If I had known the French Resistance had such pretty girls, I would have switched sides long ago. Do you think I could have a romp with—"
"No," Carly cut in sharply, her voice edging toward coldness.
Connie immediately closed his mouth and hid down in the ceramic mug that held hot tea.
Jean accepted a cup as well, although his face looked conflicted. "Why would you bring them all here? Isn't that dangerous?"
"Less dangerous than having them stay. The Gestapo has plans to ship every single one of them to a camp."
"What?" Floch yelled. "Why?"
Carly's shoulder twitched, and the coldness in her eyes seemed to say, You tell me! "Nazis see Jews as a rat infestation, except sometimes their solution is to burn down the whole building."
She looked around the store, at women she had tried to protect and men she had befriended as she hoped her country would one day be liberated.
"I survived as a Jew in Metz for four years by resorting to all sorts of horrible, dirty tricks—more than just sleeping with old men. Bribing, poisoning..." A dangerously seductive smile crept onto her face. "...murder. I was fortunate that I at least had the means to protect myself. These girls have nothing: no money, no family, most of them can't even speak the language. Even if they managed to escape the city, where would they go? They've already been hurt so much, their families murdered, their souls stabbed and stabbed over again until they're dead inside."
Carly paused to pet the head of one teenage girl whose eyes were vacant of all emotion, passing around a tray of tea with machine-like movement.
"Some are so traumatized, they stopped talking months ago. Some, I have to keep drugged to prevent them from killing themselves, and I'm not sure if they'll ever recover from the horror of not being seen as Human anymore, not seen as girls who used to play with dolls with big dreams of being a bride one day, women with emotions, hopes, fears, suddenly having all humanity stripped away, reduced to being nothing more than a warm pussy for German dicks!"
Connie frowned deeply, now feeling guilty for what he had tried to ask early.
Jean looked wary with a deep frown. "As much as I sympathize with what you women have had to endure, we're here to rescue Jäger."
"So am I. I want to get him and Levi out as much as you."
"Why? What is he to you?"
She smirked around her cigarette. "Would you laugh if I said it's because I think those two boys make an adorable couple?" Her flippant smile quickly faded. "Levi and I are connected through a person I saw as a parent. I couldn't help Hange, and I failed to keep Yelena safe. At the very least, I can help Levi to continue on. Besides, Eren did me a big favor once. I owe him a debt."
Jean still scowled. "Well, so long as you know what you're getting yourself into."
"Mon cher, I've known the consequences for years. This isn't even the most dangerous mission I've done. It only involves more people, and to make it work, we need all the help we can get. So, although the rest of these men are reasonably wary of some Germans suddenly showing up, personally, I'm glad you're here." She looked over to a table, where Armin had spread out the blueprints with Hugo and Claude examining them, while Floch and Gabi argued about translations. "If both the French and the Germans can come together for a single goal, who can stop us?"
Connie tried to cheer himself up. "Well, I gotta admit, as far as prison breaks go, this one sounds like it's going to be quite the party!"
* * *
The night wore on. Armin was focused on the map, occasionally debating tactics with Claude and Hugo. Connie had fallen asleep by the staircase with a pile of books for his head. Jean used a candle to read a book he had found on the towering shelves, although he could barely focus on the words, and as the story talked about the young damsel in distress, all he could picture was Annie.
Then the broad Russian woman named Oktyabrina came up to him and offered Jean a mug. The smell perked him up immediately.
"Выпейте кофе. Have some coffee. It's from Madame Carly's private stash. She said you and the little German can have some."
Jean accepted the cup and inhaled the aroma of coffee beans. "I haven't had real coffee in ages." He took a sip and let it linger in his mouth before swallowing.
Oktyabrina took a seat in front of him. "You're willing to turn against your nation, your comrades, all for a girl."
Jean snorted out a soft laugh. "Yeah, I never thought I would end up so stupid."
"You can't even understand what she says."
"We don't need words when our souls resonate together."
Oktyabrina still frowned, doubting him. "So long as you promise to protect her, that is all that matters to me. I cannot judge others on love. I've never been in love."
Jean's eyebrows raised. "Never? No offense, but you look old enough to have been married with kids."
She shook her head. "I have no desire to get married, and I cannot have children. Romance? Love? I don't understand these things. I know sex, I know pleasure, but I have never felt what others call love. Only one person has ever shown me kindness that I assume is similar to love." She glanced over to where Carly was checking on Armin and offering him some medicine for his aching head.
Jean looked back and forth between the two and exclaimed, "You and Madame Carly?"
"I was originally sent here to replace her. I ran a brothel of my own in Russia. Some of these girls are mine from back home. The original plan was for all of us to replace the Jewish prostitutes, including Carly. She slept with a few men, blackmailed others, and poisoned one who was being stubborn. The result: she was allowed to stay. They were going to send me to Reims to run that military brothel, but Carly managed to keep me here. I asked her why she would, and she said..." Now Oktyabrina blushed slightly in embarrassment. "Why am I telling you this?"
"Did she say you were pretty?" Jean guessed.
"No. She said, 'You are the strongest woman I've ever met, and I admire women like that.' No one had ever complimented me like that. I know I terrify men and intimidate women, but her ... she's different, and she treats me like an equal, a partner."
"A partner? Have you two ever ... I mean ... I'm not even sure how two women could ... um..."
"Make love together?" she cut in. "Of course we have."
Jean's cheeks grew warm. "Of course." He buried his red face down into the coffee.
"She was the first person to get me to orgasm."
Jean spit out the coffee and choked. Oktyabrina laughed at his reaction.
"I enjoy pleasuring men, but men don't pleasure me. A few thrusts and you're done. A woman, though ... a woman lasts and lasts, and she will make sure you are satisfied. If you learn to make love like a woman, you will satisfy Annie for the rest of her life."
"Make love like a woman?"
Oktyabrina chuckled keenly. "Let me teach you a little about ... I think you Germans call it Oralverkehr."
* * *
At last, Armin and Carly came up to Jean. "I think we have a solid plan," he said.
Oktyabrina took that as her cue to get up. "I'll wake up the sleepy one." She went over to where Connie was sound asleep by the stairs and kicked him in the leg.
Jean tried to press aside the embarrassment—and he had to admit, intense arousal—at some of the techniques Oktyabrina had just told him about, ways to intensely pleasure a woman. He wanted to rush into that fort, rescue Annie, and drive her wild until she forgot all of this scary darkness. For now, he needed to focus on what Armin had to say.
"What's the plan?" he asked, his brow drawn down in seriousness.
"First, we need a distraction so the French Resistance can move into place undetected."
Carly expanded, "That's where my girls come in. What man would resist free prostitutes?"
Floch eyed some of the young women. "You have to admit, they make a good distraction."
Carly let out a soft, musical laugh. "Women are the best distraction God ever created."
Armin went on, "Carly will take her limousine plus our truck to fit all of the women and drive into the fort."
"They're already expecting me," Carly told them.
"Floch will drive the truck with Connie. Jean, they already know your face, and with my injury," Armin said, pointing to his bandaged head, "we stick out too much. We'll hide in the back of the truck. We found a few good places to park the truck that are near doors that lead to the internment cells. The women will pull soldiers away from key areas and distract them so the Resistance can move into place. They'll circle around and surround the fort to the south, the same direction where the American Army is located."
Jean nodded in understanding. "They'll fire upon the fort, and our side will think it's the Americans making an attack."
"Exactly. Connie, you'll slip out early and go to one of these lookout points," he walked over to the map, and both Jean and Connie followed to see where he was pointing. "You should be able to take the area without a conflict by simply sending the soldier down to the women, but if there's trouble..."
"I'm ready to do what I have to," Connie assured.
Armin frowned, hating the idea of hurting their own people, but this was all to save Eren. "You'll have a radio. Claude," he said, motioning to the man in a fedora, "has the equipment. It's in French, so I'll explain the switches and knobs to you before we go. The mission has to be timed just right. Unfortunately, all of this rests on the Americans making their air strike."
Connie was in the middle of a sleepy yawn when he heard that. "Wait, the Americans are coming?"
"At least their planes are," said Armin. "I heard on the radio earlier tonight and deciphered some of the code. If I'm right, they're planning an air strike just before dawn, but that can't happen unless the weather clears up."
Connie looked astonished. "And we want them to attack?"
"That's our distraction. The chaos will be to our advantage. Once the bombing starts, Jean and I will slip out of the truck and go find Eren."
Carly added, "I'll find Annie before the bombing starts. Oktyabrina will be in charge of the girls. When the attack begins, she'll gather all the girls and head inside for shelter. She'll move through this corridor," she said, pointing to the map, "and wait for us here. It'll seem reasonable enough, getting the women out of the way of the soldiers. It's also close to where Eren is located."
Jean nodded grimly. "I walked past this room when I went to see him."
"Oktyabrina and I will wait for you at that location. It'll seem like an officer making sure a group of women are safe. Armin can hide in the middle since he's short."
Armin pouted at that comment.
Connie asked, "So, we can get Jäger, but what about the Jewish guy?" He looked over to Jean. "Do you know where he's being held?"
Jean shook his head. He had to admit, he had not bothered to look for Levi. It was too dangerous to show concern for a Jew with Gestapo all around.
Carly chuckled. "Worried for a Jew? I'm flattered. Fear not, mon cher. I have eyes and ears and tiny little fingertips probing every hole and crevasse of Metz."
Connie choked up as his face went red, and Jean growled softly at her, not liking how erotic that sounded.
Carly looked over toward a group of young women and called out in Russian, "Podoydi, Katya." A brown-haired Russian woman stepped out. "Sweet little Katya here can take us to where Levi is being held. She was in the fort earlier tonight. He's alive, but he's not in good condition."
"That Jew is probably dead by now," Jean grumbled.
Carly's eyes narrowed at him. "You better pray he isn't. We both know Eren won't leave this city without his boyfriend, and he probably won't want to live without him either. You rescue Levi, you rescue Eren. Then me and my girls get two German soldiers to escort us to safety, quelle chance."
Jean scowled and thought it over. "Do we have to bring all of them? You could be caught in the crossfire."
Carly shrugged with a nearly fatalistic chuckle. "This whole city is going to be shelled. Bombs now or bombs later, at least this way we have a chance to escape to freedom."
"I don't like the idea of putting all these innocent women into danger."
Carly chuckled as she took a drag on her cigarette. "Mon cher, these girls get fucked by Nazis a dozen times a day. Do you really think a prison break is more dangerous? Besides, a few of them have done missions like this before."
"Missions?" asked Floch.
Carly's eyes remained transfixed onto Jean as a tiny smirk lifted her painted lips. "You probably know what I mean."
Jean's brow tightened even more. He had seen the French Resistance being pulled out of Carly's basement. Had she been using her prostitutes as spies as well? "If you're this talented, you could have left the city already."
"I could have," she admitted, and suddenly, her eyes narrowed fiercely, "but I'll be damned if I run off to save myself and leave a single one of my girls behind to suffer. Which is why I'm getting them out. All of them."
"Including Annie?"
"Especially the other Jews. I am not leaving them behind."
"If you're certain..."
"Mon cher, it's the only way."
"She's right," Armin said. "Once the air raid sirens start, that's when we make our move. We'll sneak in through the side, Oktyabrina will bring the girls in from the front, Carly will already be inside and freeing the Jewish girls, we'll all meet up, and we'll go to free Eren and Levi. Once everyone is ready to go, I'll leave the fort and signal Connie. You'll radio the Resistance with the code word Valentin."
"Valentin?" asked Connie.
Carly explained, "Saint-Valentin came to the rescue of couples in love, just as we are rescuing Jean's sweetheart and freeing Eren and Levi so they can be reunited."
Armin admitted softly, "It was a word that was the same in either language. Anyway, it tells the Resistance to move to the north and lay down fire. The fort will think it's the American Army on the move and shift their positions, drawing fire away from the South. That's your cue to leave the main building. Jean and Carly will take everyone out of the fort through this exit point," he said, again pointing to the map. "You'll cross a short courtyard, enter this building, and at this point here, there is a door that leads to a tunnel.
Jean leaned in close to the map to see where the two points were. "A tunnel?"
"There are a few in the fort, emergency exits built during the last war. Most of them go north so soldiers can sneak out and flee to Metz proper if the fort gets surrounded. This one goes to the south to a hidden exit in the forest near the bottom of the hill. There may be soldiers in the courtyard, and the tunnel may be guarded. Once you're inside, though, the path should be clear."
"Plus," said Floch, "if Eren and Levi can hide in the center of a group of women, what man would shoot into a group of innocent girls?"
Carly huffed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, you'd be surprised. You should hear some of the horror stories from the Polish girls. I'm not putting it past the Germans to point their guns at us, but its still safer than getting sent to a camp."
Armin looked over to the younger soldier. "Floch, you'll stay with the truck. Connie and I will meet you there. I'll need to be returned to the hospital, then you two go back to the barracks. With any luck, no one will ever realize we were involved."
Floch grinned in excitement. "A getaway driver, like a heist!"
Jean looked at the map as he played through the scenario. "Let's say this all works. Where do we go from there?"
Carly chuckled as she lit up another cigarette. "You forget, I was born and raised south of here, and I still have quite a few friends in the area, including one who runs a church where we can all find sanctuary."
Floch looked intrigued. "A church? Where?"
She breathed out a stream of smoke. "No offense, mon cher, but if any of you are captured, it's best that you don't know. I want to protect the people of that village, as well as myself."
Connie asked, "When does this all go down?"
"We leave as soon as possible," Armin told them. "Carly needs to distract the men long enough to give the Resistance time to move into place. I've been listening to the radio chatter and checking weather reports. Just before sunrise, the rain is expected to stop. At that time, General Patton will order his planes. Give them ... I don't know, twenty or thirty minutes to reach here. It's a window of opportunity the Americans have been seeking for over a week."
"And if the rain doesn't stop?" asked Connie.
Carly answered, "If it's delayed, my girls can extend the foreplay."
All the men blushed at that.
"If it doesn't clear up at all and there's no airstrike..." She looked at Jean, and her eyes softened with apologies. "I can at least get the women out, but they'll have to leave the fort with me ... and I don't know what will become of us after that. It won't take the Gestapo long to realize they're missing. Perhaps we could go into hiding and I can smuggle a few out at a time, but how long before more bombs rain down?"
Jean grimly understood the risk. "All of this relies on the Americans bombing us. How ironic, to be looking forward to something like that!" Then suddenly, a laugh burst out, wry and filled with disbelief.
"Jean?" Connie asked, concerned by the outburst.
He slowly shook his head, amused at how his life ended up like this, all because he fell in love. "I always figured I'd die following Eren's lead running headlong into a battle. Now I'm risking my neck just so we can run away from the whole goddamn war."
Armin patted his arm. "He'd do the same for any of us."
"Yeah, because he's a suicidal idiot. So are we, I guess." Jean let out a sigh that was almost a growl, hating himself for risking so much, but knowing he had to follow his heart. "All I want is for Annie to be safe, no matter what it means to me."
Armin's eyes softened at hearing the devotion in Jean's voice. Still, Jean's brow was pinched tightly with grim seriousness.
"Dammit. I used to say, I don't really want to meet a disappointing end with someone burning my bones without even knowing who they belonged to. At least this way," he said with a glance around at comrades from his old platoon, "if I die, I'm surrounded by friends."
Connie punched Jean in the shoulder. "Don't start going soft on us."
Floch grinned confidently. "No one's gonna die!"
"I'm definitely not dying for that bastard," Jean said, his shoulders squaring up with confidence. He looked at Carly, and she smiled warmly as she nodded in approval. "All right! Time's ticking, and those shitty Americans won't wait for us. Let's load up and roll out!"
# # #
The bookstore became active with preparation. The women went upstairs to prepare themselves. Men checked their guns and loaded up ammunition. Static crackled as Armin showed Connie how to use the Resistance's radio. Both French civilian coats and German military coats were pulled on, fedoras and uniform caps adjusted.
Carly went up to Alexeï, who had stayed by his counter to keep out of everyone's way, and she kissed him on his cheek. "I may not get to see you again for a while."
"As long as you're safe," he said. "I'll pray that you succeed this time."
Her eyes looked pained. "I'm sorry I failed to rescue Yelena."
"You didn't fail. You were never given a chance."
"True. The Gestapo never let her out of their sights."
"Because they knew how dangerous my little giraffe can be. Don't hold onto that guilt. It doesn't suit such a pretty face," he said, patting her cheek.
Carly laughed and softly punched his arm. "You dirty old flirt! Take care of the men, especially that kid."
He looked over to where Gabi was waiting with her rifle. "Does she really think she's going too?"
"She's brave enough to stand her ground," Carly said with a proud smile, "but too young for combat like this. Hugo will deal with her. He's a father, and he's good with children." She drifted over to Armin as he watched the radio being packed away. "Are you really returning to the military hospital? You're welcome to come with us. You're too cute to stay behind."
Armin blushed at the compliment. "If I was well, I'd go, but I have to be realistic. My skull is still healing, and I need another surgery. Even just standing here, I keep getting waves of blackness."
"Will you be okay?"
"For now, but I'm not well enough to travel. I'd slow you down."
She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I will pray that you heal fully ... but not too quickly, so you can avoid the rest of this war." She turned to Connie. "And you? You could head to the tunnel on your own and meet us at the other end."
Connie shook his head. "I owe Eren this much, but I have no intention of leaving the military. Not that I want to fight, but if I became a deserter, it would cause my family a lot of problems. I have younger siblings; I don't want them to suffer. I have to look out for my family."
"Well, I want to go," Floch blurted out. "I would follow Jäger to the ends of the Earth!"
Connie wrapped his arm around Floch's shoulders. "Remember that time when I tried to drive down the Rue de Rivoli in Paris and nearly crashed into the Palais-Royal?"
Floch shivered. "I thought we were all going to die."
"That is why you don't want me to drive, and Armin never learned how to drive. That leaves you. Eren is trusting you to get all of us back safely."
Floch nodded with a scowl and trudged off.
Connie let out a sigh and mumbled, "Besides, the only person who should gush over Eren so much is his boyfriend. It's not normal."
Just then, Oktyabrina led the girls back down the stairs. Connie whistled softly as he saw the women, now dressed in scant clothing with their faces done up with lipstick and powder.
"They are one hell of a distraction," he muttered.
Carly looked proud. "Aren't they!"
Then Connie saw a huge bag Oktyabrina was carrying. "What's in that?"
"Real clothing. You can't expect these girls to run around a forest and across barren farmlands wearing tiny skirts and lingerie."
Oktyabrina walked up to Carly. "Enough boots, coats, hats, and dresses for all of them."
"Including the imprisoned girls?"
Oktyabrina pulled out another bag. "You'll take this one. Be safe getting them."
Carly caressed Oktyabrina's cheek. "I will, milaya."
Connie's eyebrows shot up, grinning at the open display of affection between these two women. He muttered to himself, "I'll say one thing about Nazis: they really should not have outlawed lesbians!"
Finally, they went out into the freezing rain. Carly's limousine was parked in a garage, and she went there with Oktyabrina and as many girls as would fit. Floch backed the truck up so the rest of Carly's girls did not have to get wet as they loaded up in the truck. Jean assisted Armin, who struggled with dizziness as he tried to climb into the back of the truck.
"Are you really going to be okay?" he asked in concern.
Armin gave him a smile of reassurance. "So long as we don't have to fight much, I should be fine."
He glared at Armin. "That's not reassuring, considering what we're about to do. I'm relying on you to signal Connie so the French Resistance doesn't shoot us. I'm sure each of them would love an excuse to kill me."
"Let's just find a good place to hide. Excuse us, ladies," he said, tipping his bandaged head to the women now piled into the truck as Armin made his way forward, looking for a good hiding place.
Jean was about to pull himself into the truck when he heard a girl yelling.
"Je veux me battre aussi!" I want to fight too.
"Parle moins fort, fille." Lower your voice, girl.
Jean looked over to the bookstore entrance, where Alexeï was holding back Gabi as she argued with the brawny Frenchman named Hugo. Jean shook his head.
"They better not allow her to come. The battlefield is no place for kids." He ignored the argument and climbed into the truck.
Hugo was trying to reason with Gabi, keeping his voice calm. "I know you want to help, and you can, by staying here and guarding the place."
Alexeï tried to appeal to her. "I'm relying on you to keep the hideout protected."
It did not appease her, and Gabi tried to lunge forward, only for Alexeï to show he was stronger than he looked. "I can fight!"
"If this was a small raid, I might allow it, but we're going against an entire fortress, and the Americans might end up dropping their bombs on us. It's too dangerous."
"I'm smaller, I could sneak into the fort..."
"Absolutely not!" he snapped. "Look, we're only doing this because we owe Levi a debt. One of his rules was no children. He did not want the blood of children on his hands."
Gabi insisted, "The only blood will be the Nazis I kill."
Hugo shook his head. "Levi quoted the Bible at us to show, it's a sin to let children onto the battlefield. Surely, you don't want us to sin just because you feel you have to prove yourself."
"You can just pray for repentance on Sunday," she stubbornly countered.
Claude's motorcycle pulled up, along with three others belonging to the French Resistance and two cars filled with the remaining members.
"Hugo!" Claude called over, motioning to an empty sidecar.
Hugo sighed and looked down at Gabi. "You're staying here, and that's final."
Gabi's teeth bared in a sneer. "We'll see!" She angrily stormed off back into the bookstore.
Hugo shook his head. "If she was five years older ... Look after her, Monsieur de Marly."
Alexeï tipped his hat. "I will. God be with you."
Carly pulled her limousine out from the garage and onto the street. She pulled up beside the Krupp Protze, rolled down her window, and leaned out to Floch.
"Follow me. When we get to the fort, I can get us through." She looked over to Claude. "Vous savez où aller?" Do you know where to go?
"Oui. Tout le monde connaît ses itinéraires." Yes. Everyone knows their routes.
She looked around, Germans and French together, ready for battle. "Levi et Premier Lieutenant Jäger ont besoin de notre aide. Levi und Oberleutnant Jäger brauchen unsere Hilfe. Allons sauver nos amis. Retten wir unsere Freunde. Allons-y!" Levi and First Lieutenant Jäger need our help. Let's go save our friends. Let's go!
With a roar of engines, they all drove off into the night, the motorcycles splitting up to avoid suspicion, the limousine and truck heading toward the main avenue to the south. Alexeï waved farewell into the rainy night and then shut his door.
"How would you like to bake some cookies, Gabi? I have some milk, we can have oatmeal cookies, and I have a nice fairy tale book you'll like. It has a princess who fights, just like you." He looked around his bookstore, now disheveled after the chaos of that night. "Gabi?"
Then he heard a door in the back slam shut. His long legs strode quickly to the door and he opened it just in time to hear a motorcycle roaring off into the night. As it pulled out of an alley, Alexeï caught a glimpse of Gabi's ponytail flapping in the wind. He shook his head with a reluctant smile on his face.
"I swear, French women are the most stubborn fighters! Just like my little Yelena."
* * *
Unbeknownst to any of them, they had not left undetected. Tucked away in a dark corner, Daz and Samuel had been keeping a watch on the bookstore.
They had seen Jean acting strangely all day, not enough to file a complaint, but suspicious nonetheless. When the Gestapo came and raided everyone's rooms, both of them whispered if maybe it had something to do with Jean, yet he was inspected with nothing out of the ordinary. Then Armin showed up, and they both began to realize Jean was up to something.
So when Jean and Armin left, the two got on a couple of bicycles and pedaled after them so they would be silent. They fell behind, but after about an hour of wandering around, they finally saw the motorcycle left abandoned in the street, and up ahead was a Krupp Protze truck. They had tried to approach the bookstore, but some unknown Frenchman chased them away. Still, they heard German voices inside, and Daz recognized Carly's voice.
"I would know that woman's voice from anywhere!" he had insisted. "Madame Carly! She's safe! Oh, thank God!"
Yet the place seemed to be guarded by French paramilitary. They decided to keep watch and see what Jean and Armin were up to. When the group left, they were confused at first as young girls filed into the truck. Daz had at first hoped Jean was merely planning to bring all the brothel girls to the hotel, but as they saw the caravan of cars, motorcycles, Carly's limousine, and the truck, they realized this was much bigger.
Carly's words finally made it bluntly clear.
"Did you hear that?" Samuel whispered.
"They're breaking Jäger out," Daz said with a tense grimace.
"They must be part of the French Resistance. Traitors!"
"Madame Carly," Daz whined. "How could you?"
"We should report this to the Gestapo."
"No! They already arrested Madame Carly once."
"Daz, she's with the French Resistance!"
"Not the Gestapo!" he insisted. "We'll go to the fort. Whatever they're planning, I'm sure we could talk some sense into Jean. He just wants his girl. I don't blame him, but I'm sure we can reason with him before he does anything stupid."
Samuel shook his head, but he decided not to argue. "Well, we need something quicker than bicycles." He looked around the street and saw Jean's motorcycle left abandoned in the street. Samuel went up to it and realized the keys were left in the ignition. "We'll take this. Let's go."
They climbed onto the motorcycle and raced through the Metz streets after the others.
# # #
# #
#
"I don't really want to meet a disappointing end with someone burning my bones without even knowing who they belonged to." — This is a quote from Jean from the manga.
Connie talks about seeing Eren and Levi dressed as Louise out for a stroll. This happened in Chapter 55 "Braus Haus." He also brings up Levi tending to Eren when he had pneumonia. This was way back in Chapter 12 "The Importance of a Book" and Chapter 13 "Nursing the Sick" which was the first time Eren really played around with Levi and began to let his heart open up. In that chapter, Armin told Eren, "I shouldn't say this, but Connie once joked that maybe you were homosexual. Don't be too mad, he was drunk." In reality, Connie already figured it out, because he had a cousin who was gay. The cousin was taken away and "vanished," so Connie decided to hide Eren's homosexuality by cracking jokes about it to remove any suspicion.
We got to see Oktyabrina open up a little. I have a whole complex backstory for her, and I figured I might as well share it.
Oktyabrina's Story
Oktyabrina Stenberg was born in Ostrov, USSR, on October 1918, one year after the October Revolution (Октябрьская революция, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution). The coup took place on November 7th of the Gregorian calendar, but at the time Russia still used the Julian calendar, thus to them it was October 25th (Old Style).
Her father was a Swedish immigrant and a devout Leninist, so he named his firstborn after the October Revolution, and his younger daughter was named Dazdraperma (a name that stands for "Da zdravstvuyet pervoye maya," or 'Long live May Day," International Workers' Day).
Despite his support for Communism, Oktyabrina's father ran afoul with authorities, mostly due to being an immigrant and thus not trusted. He was taken away by the Soviets and "vanished." Her mother raised Oktyabrina and Dazdraperma without any sort of religion and a strong sense of community over individualism, passing on the passion for communism their father had. When Oktyabrina was 14, her stomach began to bloat out and she had extreme pain. She was rushed to the hospital, where they realized she had a massive ovarian cyst, and the whole ovary had to be cut out.
While still recovering from the operation, her mother fell ill and died. Thanks to the Communist system of propiska (a residency permit, in the USSR a right to shelter was made into part of their Constitution, homelessness was illegal, and one could not lose their home without another being provided) the two girls were not forced to live on the streets. Oktyabrina was considered to be old enough to be Dazdraperma's guardian, keeping her out of an orphanage.
One day, Oktyabrina was approached by a man and offered money for sex. She had no religious moral restrictions to make her think this was "wrong," and she rather enjoyed it. The money was enough to buy her sister shoes. However, other women in her apartment who also secretly resorted to prostitution warned her that, under Stalin, a prostitute could be sent to a force labor camp, so Oktyabrina had to be careful when bringing men home. She eventually realized that these women got abused a lot by their clients. When she tried to physically bar known abusers from entering the apartments, the men threatened to have her and the women arrested as prostitutes.
Oktyabrina began to have ovarian pain again. While at a doctor, one of her regulars showed up. Dazdraperma told him her sister was gone and to return tomorrow. The man offered to hire Dazdraperma instead, but she refused. The man instead asked if he could wait for Oktyabrina inside, since standing around in the apartment hallway was suspicious. She agreed to let him into their shared room. He attacked her, raped her, and beat her nearly to death, leaving her disfigured and paralyzed from the waist down.
When Oktyabrina came home and saw her sister, she wanted to call police, but the other women in the apartment warned her that if the police got involved and the man said she was a prostitute, she would be sent to the Gulag, and Dazdraperma would be sent to an orphanage. So Oktyabrina tracked down the man and killed him with her bare hands. She got Dazdraperma a wheelchair, and since the girl's dream was to be a seamstress, Oktyabrina started a business, allegedly of seamstresses making bespoke suits. She hired all the sex workers in her apartment. While her sister headed the front business, Oktyabrina ran a secret brothel in the back, allowing the women in her apartment legal employment while safely having a way to make more money. She protected those women from abusers and made sure they got their fair pay. She swore to never allow another sex worker to be hurt.
Oktyabrina's ovarian pain continued until it was so intense, she was rushed to the hospital. Realizing her remaining ovary was covered in cysts, and her endometriosis was so severe that she was likely infertile anyway, the doctors removed the ovary. Dazdraperma eventually got married and moved into her own flat. Oktyabrina was offered a hefty bribe from a migrant worker who frequented her unsanctioned brothel, asking her to marry him purely so he could get a propiska for Ostrov. (In the USSR, people were not allowed to move to a new city and get a room of their own unless they worked for an employer for 20 years or married someone local.) She took the bribe, but she would still charge him for sex.
When Germany invaded Russia, Oktyabrina's apartment and business were raided by German soldiers. When they asked her name and she said "Oktyabrina Stenberg," they misheard and thought she said "Steinberg." With their blond hair, they assumed she and Dazdraperma were of German ancestry. Ever a savvy survivor, Oktyabrina said their father had been an immigrant, but she wasn't sure where he was from since he had been killed by Soviets when she was young. To the Germans, this seemed like "proof" that she was German, and her father must have been killed for being loyal to the homeland. So, they decided not to harm the two Stenberg sisters, a mercy not shared by many of their Slavic neighbors. The lives of the blond women were spared, the others were raped mercilessly. Both sisters had their husband's murdered. Dazdraperma was allowed to keep her business if she hired German women, which she agreed.
Realizing that Oktyabrina was essentially a brothel madame, she was sent with a group of blond Russian women to Metz to replace the Jewish prostitutes after it became illegal for an Aryan to have sex with a Jew. However, Carly managed to keep her position (and her life) through sex, blackmail, and poisoning. Oktyabrina was meant to be sent to Reims to run the brothel there, but Carly petitioned to keep Oktyabrina in Metz. While Carly was the businesswoman of the establishment, Oktyabrina became the "mother" who made sure the girls were safe and shielded those who were traumatized.
Oktyabrina is what we would now call aromantic and bisexual, with a preference for women since most men cannot fully please her. She truly doesn't "get" what romance is supposed to be, although she has a soft spot for seeing others fall in love. She has a strong attachment to Carly purely due to the fact that Carly finds Oktyabrina's tall broadness attractive, something Oktyabrina has never experienced before.
Old Style/New Style
I mentioned "Old Style" with the October Revolution, so let me take a moment to nerd-out about what English calls "Old Style/New Style." It has nothing to do with this story; this is purely for the history nerds out there.
Quick summary: the Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, based upon calculations at the time that a year lasted 365.25 days; in reality, it is about 365.2422 days. This discrepancy seems small, but it means that the Julian calendar gains a day every 129 years. Over the centuries, the calendar was increasingly out of alignment with Earth's orbit. Celebrations that should have lined up with the equinoxes were slowly falling behind.
By the 1500s, the calendar was 10 days off. This was especially a problem because of Easter, a "movable date" holiday which falls on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon. (Since Jesus died on Nisan 15 of the Jewish calendar, Passover day which lands on the full moon, Easter is observed on the following Sunday.) Because Easter was closely tied to astronomical calculations, the Church turned to science for how to remedy this problem.
In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decreed a new calendar: the Gregorian calendar. Ten days were skipped to catch up to what had been lost over the centuries: October 4th was followed by October 15th. (By coincidence, the first female "Doctor of the Church" Saint Teresa of Ávila was dying on the night of October 4, 1582, breathed her last around midnight, so her feast day is held on October 15th. Her most famous quote is "Just being a woman is enough for my wings to fall off"; in other words, she lived in a time when men "clipped the wings" of women, yet she refused to be held back. She also said that a day without reading a new book was a lost day. She especially loved stories of knights and wanted to be as brave as one. My kind of lady! Apparently she is the patron saint of headache sufferers and writers. If I was Catholic ... anyway!)
A minor change to Leap Years helped to prevent the problem from happening again, at least for a long time:
"Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400."
So the years 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 was. (I am old enough to remember this causing some minor confusion in 2000 and news stations trying to explain it.) On Leap Years, rather than the old way of doubling February 24th (does this mean you get two birthdays?) a new day of February 29th would be observed every four years. (Sucks for anyone born on February 29th.)
With these changes, it will take over 3,000 years for the Gregorian calendar to fall one day behind, at which point a special leap year can be observed.
Pope Gregory also standardized New Year's Day to January 1st. Before this, the Catholic Church had changed the new year from the Roman 1st of January to a Christian holiday, variously on Easter or Christmas. Russia observed it on March 1st, until they changed to match the Byzantine Empire which observed the new year on September 1st. The British Parliament observed their legal new year on Lady Day (March 25, "Lady Day" was the English term for Annunciation Day). Thus, the Parliamentary record lists the execution of King Charles I on 30 January 1648, but history books now list it as happening on 1 January 1649, since back then New Year's Day was in March.
By returning to the old Roman tradition of the new year starting on January 1st, this helped to alleviate a lot of confusion. Plus, nothing really happens in January in the Northern Hemisphere, no festivals, no important business, so people have time to remember "oh crap, I need to write down the NEW year!" (I still sometimes write down 2020 ... Covid threw off my sense of when YEARS happen.)
Catholic countries like Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal adopted the Gregorian calendar right away, but it was slow to spread: Hungary adopted it in 1587, Scotland in 1600, Prussia in 1610, Netherlands and Denmark-Norway in 1700. Sweden decided to do their own "adjustment" by simply skipping leap years for the next 40 years, leading to four decades of them being out of step with both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Great Britain very reluctantly switched in 1752. Russia finally did in 1918. Greece was the last European to adopt it in 1923. (More recently, Saudi Arabia adopted the Gregorian calendar in 2016.)
Depending on when a country changed to the new calendar, the amount of days that had to be "leaped over" increased. By the time Great Britain made the change, 11 days had to be leaped. By the time Russia and Greece switched in the 20th century, they were 13 days behind.
When the Gregorian calendar was first proposed, Queen Elizabeth of England actually loved the idea. However, her Anglican Church ministers told her, being a Protestant country, they could not adopt a Catholic calendar. Other monarchs and politicians tried to push for the change over the centuries but were always stopped by the conservative Tory Party. By 1750, all of Britain's neighbors had switched calendars: France, Spain, the Netherlands, even most of the Protestant German states. This was causing the island-empire a lot of headaches. Scotland became part of Great Britain in 1705 and was allowed to keep its Gregorian calendar, so even the Scottish were more "in with the times" than the British.
Still too stubborn to concede to something invented by Catholics, the British instead came up with the Calendar (New Style) Act of 1750. It acknowledged that there were "practical difficulties" in having the New Year on March 25th and not January 1st like the rest of Europe, acknowledged that the Julian calendar was inaccurate, acknowledged that other countries were using a revised calendar (without ever once saying "Gregorian") and that they shall henceforth use this "New Style" of calendar. 31 December 1751 would be followed by 1 January 1752. Wednesday 2 September would be followed by Thursday 14 September, skipping eleven days to align with this "New Style."
This was not a popular subject and fell down party lines, with conservative Tories insisting the liberal Whigs were displaying an "abandonment of Christianity" due to their "favouritism toward foreign Jews and the Popish calendar." In other words, Tories disliked the recent Jewish Naturalisation Act and what they saw as a Catholic calendar. The smear campaign worked, the Tories won more votes in 1754, and they immediately repealed the Jewish Naturalisation Act. (Because how dare someone suggest religious intolerance should be illegal!) However, they did not repeal the calendar, because even they had to admit, it fixed a lot of problems.
During that political campaign, a satirist painter created a picture of protesting peasants demanding to "give them back their 11 days," although there are no records of such a protest happening. Still, the Tories leaped on it, made prints of the painting, spread it around ... basically, they were spreading "fake news" in a time before radio, TV, or Twitter. It was enough to create a myth, which I have seen stated as fact on websites, that the British people protested the new calendar. In reality, very little changed, besides some missed birthdays. Things like rent and taxes were taken into account, and this is why British Tax Day was moved from the old New Year's Day on March 25th to its current day, April 5th, to make sure no one would be fiscally cheated out of their money. This is yet another reason why I love to do deep dives researching REAL history and not the "fake news" spread by the internet.
Between 1582 and 1923, dates had to be marked with "O.S." for Old Style and "N.S." for New Style, to note the discrepancies between countries. This led to chaos in the colonies. For example, in what is now the United States, the Dutch, French, and Spanish colonies were 10 days off from the British colonies.)
The Eastern Orthodox Church still observes holidays based on the Julian calendar, even if the civil calendar is Gregorian. For this reason, Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Easter on a different date from that of the Catholic Church and Protestant churches (which follow the Gregorian calendar). This has led to me wishing a Happy Easter to a trombonist friend, who is an Eastern Orthodox priest, only for him to say "Nope, it's not for another two weeks."
Sometimes in history books, especially dealing with events that happened before the 1800s, you will see "O.S." after a date. I know I've seen it a lot when I was studying Medieval and Renaissance British History. For most of my educational journey, I never knew what it meant. That's when I learned about the complex history of how our calendar, which we now take for granted, came to be, and all the chaos it caused for over 300 years.
So now you know more than I did in my 3rd year of college!
(This is how my brain works: "I want to copy and paste the background I have for this a minor character, she's named after the October Revolution, but wasn't that in November, wait how did that work again, oh right that whole Old Style/New Style thing, something to do with the Gregorian calendar, ooh I remember OS/NS being an issue back in college and my British History class, when did we start using the Gregorian calendar again, oh right in 1582, but then why was it a problem in 1700s England, oh yeah, the British refused to switch because it was "Catholic," didn't it cause riots, no I remember now, that was a political claim but didn't actually happen, wasn't there a saint that died the day the Gregorian Calendar began, who was that, Teresa something, let's read about her, ooooh she's pretty interesting, this says she was the patron saint of headache sufferers and Spanish writers, wow so with these stabbing headaches I've been getting for the past four days does that mean I'd be praying to her for relief if I was Catholic, wait, how did I get from the 1917 Russian Revolution to reading about a 16th century Catholic saint? BACKTRACK!" My brain is a messy jungle full of monkeys and squirrels.)