Chapter Text
The first time she finds herself wandering the halls in the middle of the day in nothing but a nightgown, sweat-greased hair clinging to her cheeks and her eyes glazed from the fever, it isn’t entirely by choice.
The nightmares pull at the fibres of her mind, snarling and snapping and vicious and she tosses the sheets from her frame in a fear-induced haze, feet rolling out and knees quaking as she bears her full weight against the cold floor for the first time in months. She isn’t all that aware as she stumbles from the room, the last tendrils of the dream clinging to her, wrapping around her chest and squeezing the air from her lungs.
Splinters from the wood floor dig into the skin between her toes, and she’s dimly alert to each spelk burrowing deeper into her flesh as she stumbles her way through the corridor. Voices call out, and a cold, calloused hand clasps at her forearm but she wrenches herself free of it’s grasp, staggering until her shoulder scrapes over the wall. Hange’s face swims in the edge of her vision, mouth morphing open, grotesquely wide and full of teeth and tongues and Mikasa blinks against her raging fever and blunders on.
She trips over her own toes every other step and the wasting muscles in her thighs and calves burn and ache, and the walk from the med bay to the sleeping quarters takes what feels like a lifetime.
When she pushes the door, four figures rise hurriedly from the beds, and one invades her personal space before she can really register what’s happening, his hands coming up at either side of her face, fingers feeding her greasy hair behind her ears and palms cupping her cheeks.
“You okay?” says Eren, and the last threads of the nightmare release their hold. Her knees shake and give, and Eren catches her beneath her arms and hauls her up and over to his bed. She curls onto one side when she hits the mattress, the sinews of her neck tensed and protruding as she strains her head against the molten heat in her gut and the aches and pains wracking her frame.
Eren’s fingertips scrape against her scalp and she sighs, warm breath billowing out over the pillowcase, and lets her eyes fall shut once more.
The first time Eren opens the bedroom door to find her already curled in his sheets, her back propped against the wall and her eyes more alert than they have been in weeks, she is a little tired and little feverish, but mostly hungry.
It takes some persuading; some soft smiles and gentle kisses and she concedes to let Eren check her temperature twice over, but eventually he sneaks back into the kitchen and warms a bowl of soup and some bread for her.
They sit on the bed, Eren opposite her with his feet tucked under him, and Mikasa with her legs folded, the bowl rested in the crevice of her lap, and they talk. Eren updates her on the who’s and what’s and why’s that have developed over the months she’s been burning in the med-bay, and she in turn tells him about her dreams and nightmares and he stares at her for a long while, then braces his knuckles on the mattress and leans over the space between them to brush his lips over her hairline.
She drops the spoon back into her half-eaten soup, furious at the waste and at her inability to eat the smallest of meals without her gut bloating uncomfortably, shrunken and useless from months spent barely ingesting anything at all.
Eren says, “baby steps, Mika,” and he puts the bowl on his bedside table and curls beside her, pulls her to lean against his chest and rests his chin atop her head. “Doesn’t matter if it takes a little while, just focus on getting better.”
The first time she relapses, falls down a staircase as the fever rears it’s head and her brain swells inside her skull, Eren is terrified.
He sits by the bed for days, one of her pale, clammy hands clasped in both of his, and he trails his gaze over the sheets. She is tiny; muscles wasted, chest flattening, stomach concave above her peeking hips. She is nothing but skin and bone and heat, and he can’t remember a time he’s ever been more afraid. The thought of losing her, having her taken by this sickness of all things, makes him ache in ways he’s never ached before, and he pulls her knuckles to his mouth and rests his lips on them as he watches her.
She is conscious, barely, and beneath the pains in her head and the gnawing in her gut and the burning in her chest, she is disappointed. Disappointed, because for the million baby steps she’s taken over the last couple of months, this is one titan-leap back and it’s exhausting to think of working her way to the top again.
Everything is exhausting, so she sleeps.
The second time she finds herself wandering the halls in the middle of the day, dressed in a long skirt and a casual shirt, her hair reaching past her shoulders and pulled up into a ponytail, it is entirely by choice.
She tiptoes down the hall, pauses at the end of the corridor and presses her back to the wall as she listens to Levi and Hange bicker around the corner, and jogs the rest of the way to the sleeping quarters.
It tires her, and she takes a moment to catch her breath outside the door to the bedroom. Her legs burn, but it’s a good feeling; exerting herself is becoming less disheartening and more encouraging as time goes on. She is still small, much of the muscle built up over years of military training and combat still missing from her bones, and her joints still jut out against her skin, but she is starting to fill out once more.
She knocks on the door and peers in, and Eren glares up at her as he lays a playing card face-down on the floor and says, “seven.”
“Bullshit,” says Jean, and Eren takes his eyes off Mikasa to shoot a smug grin across the room at Jean, where he’s leaning off the edge of the mattress with his cards fanned in one hand, and he flips his card face-up, a red seven of hearts shining in the sunlight. Eren shoves the whole pile in Jeans direction and heaves himself to his feet.
“You,” he says, pointing an accusing finger at Mikasa’s chest, “are supposed to be resting.”
She catches his hand in both of hers and the corner of her mouth pulls up in a grin.
“I know,” she says, “but I wasn’t tired, and you’ve been busy with Hange’s experiments all week. I’ve barely seen you.”
Eren fumbles his hand to lace his fingers with hers.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
She steps all the way into his personal space and he knocks his forehead to hers.
“Still, you should be in bed.” His voice is low, a little dry and a little shallow, and Mikasa curls an arm around his waist and fists her fingers into the back of his shirt. Eren’s spare hands presses to her hip and he sighs at the feel of her breath, warm and alive against his lips.
“I should be.” She pulls away and skirts around him, scurrying over Armin’s outstretched legs and settling on Eren’s mattress. “But the med-bay sheets are scratchy, and the mattress is lumpy,” she leans back into his pillows and sighs, “and I’d much rather be here.”
Eren gives her a look, brows furrowed as he weighs up his options and Mikasa gives a near-imperceptible pout of her lip, and Eren hangs his head in defeat.
“Fine,” he says, crawling up beside her and laying his head in her lap. He glances up at her and his eyes flutter closed when her fingers tunnel into his hair. “Fine, but tell me if you start feeling crappy again, okay?”
Mikasa nods and hums and scrapes her nails over the nape of his neck, and Eren’s back arcs up from the mattress, just a little, eyes rolling and lids fluttering again. He blinks, wide green eyes staring up at her, and Mikasa leans down and drops a lingering kiss to his lips. Eren reaches a hand up to the back of her head, fingers fumbling around the unfamiliar ponytail until they find purchase in the hair at the back of her neck.
“Love you,” he hums, quiet and raw against her mouth. She straightens up, back pressed against the pillows, and smooths his fringe back from his forehead.
“Love you, too.”
He’s still looking at her, and there’s something in his gaze that she’s rarely seen before; it is fragile and worldly and earnest, and it is focused on her, like she is the only thing on the planet that matters in this moment, and it makes her chest tighten and her stomach jump in the most pleasant way.
“Now, if you’re gonna stay here,” he says, and she shakes herself from her own head. Eren’s hand reached up and he taps a finger against the end of her nose, then sits upright and tugs the bed sheets over her legs. “You’re gonna get some damn rest.”