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"Eren..." Mikasa tried to keep her voice at a whisper, as she leaned in toward the unconscious body before her and shook him gently. There were others sleeping in the neighboring rooms, and she didn't want to wake them too.
"Eren." She spoke a little louder, as her target groaned and pulled his blanket over his head.
"Come on Eren... wake up," She'd tried to be gentle, but it clearly wasn't working. She pulled the blanket from his face with a sudden tug, but he squeezed his eyes.
His hair was getting too long, Mikasa couldn't help but notice. She wished he would let her cut it. It made him look far older than he actually was. He needed to shave too. He couldn't quite grow a beard yet, but she thought the fuzz that lined his face and jaw was endearing. He would be embarrassed if he knew that. She smiled to herself at the thought.
He opened his eyes then, as if he sensed her smiling at him. "Mikasa," he groaned sleepily. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing at all," she giggled silently.
"You're lying," he said it like it was a simple fact - like he knew whatever she was thinking without having to be told. In a way, he did.
Mikasa smiled bigger.
"You're a bad liar, Mikasa." Eren closed his eyes again, looking like he was ready to fall back asleep.
"I think you just know me too well." Mikasa didn't want to let him drift off again, not after all the effort she put into waking him up.
"I think it is both." Eren surprised her then by quickly grabbing her arms and pulling her into his bed. Mikasa let him. He covered her in his blanket and held her close to his bare chest, planting sleepy kisses across her face.
How many times had she crawled into bed with Eren? She would never forget the first time, the night she went to live with the Jaeger family. Mikasa had felt so detached from everything around her then. Her whole world had just been turned upside down. She remembered being so sure she would have died that day if this brave boy hadn't come to her rescue. As an adult, she knew that Eren had saved her from a fate worse than death. She owed her life to him.
That first night, Carla had been unable to hide her surprise when Dr. Jaeger and Eren had come home with a new family member. Despite the shock, she welcomed Mikasa with open arms. She made a bed for her on the sofa in the family room, and promised they would find a real bed for her soon. Mikasa just nodded, meek and silent.
"She can share my room, mom!" Eren was so eager to give her a place in their home. The adults agreed, mostly because they didn’t really have another option. There were no extra rooms, and they couldn't expect Mikasa to sleep in the family room forever. Mikasa remembered being so relieved that she would get to share a room with Eren. She hadn't gotten to interact much with kids her own age, and she knew that she and Eren would be best friends. She felt a strange connection to the boy who had thrown himself into harm's way for her.
That first night, sleep did not come easily. Every time she saw a shadow flicker across the window, she was overcome with anxiety. She was exhausted though, so she did eventually fell asleep. When sleep finally came, it was plagued with nightmares.
Mikasa awoke in the middle of the night with tears in her eyes. Normally, she would crawl into bed with her parents when her nightmares got too scary. Her parents were gone though. Her life was gone. She was overwhelmed with grief and fear, and she went to the only person she could think of.
She knew nothing about the boy who had saved her, aside from his name and that he was incredibly brave – fearless even. Mikasa crept silently through the small house, wearing some oversized pajamas that Carla had given her. She came to the door to Eren's room which was open ajar. She walked in and wasn't surprised to find him sleeping. He was sprawled out across his bed, sleeping on his stomach. He even had some drool falling out of his mouth.
His room was tidy. Mikasa wondered if he cleaned it himself or if his mom did it for him. Mikasa's parents were always telling her how important it was to have a clean room. The sadness struck her again. Her parents were dead. This was her new family, her new life. She started to sniffle, as tears began to fall from her eyes.
"Hey," Eren whispered sleepily. She hadn't realized he had woken. "What are you crying for? Are you okay? Do you need something?"
She just shook her head back and forth. She didn't know which question she was responding to, as the tears began to fall in greater quantity.
"Stop it. Don't cry," Eren looked so confused. Mikasa just kept crying, uselessly.
"I'll protect you," he assured her, as he took her hand and pulled her to his bed for a hug. Mikasa wrapped her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder.
"I.... had.... a nightmare," Mikasa finally sniveled out.
"I'll protect you from those too," Eren assured her. He wrapped his blanket around her and pulled her into the depths of his bed. It was never weird or awkward. Being with Eren felt right. During every thunderstorm, and after every bad dream, Mikasa knew there was one place of safety where she could always go.
Being with Eren still felt right. They had grown up together. They knew each other as well as each of them knew themselves, possibly better than that.
"Eren, don't fall asleep." Mikasa shook him to keep him awake.
"Can't I just sleep a little longer?" Eren groaned. "It's still the middle of the night."
"I wanted to see if you wanted to go on an adventure with me, like we did when we were kids..."
Eren opened his eyes and looked at Mikasa then. "An adventure?" he asked. "In the middle of the night?"
"Yeah. I wanted to go to our hill." She breathed quietly.
He smiled sleepily at Mikasa and rubbed his eyes. "Alright," he responded unquestioningly, and kissed her forehead. "Let's go on an adventure"
Eren got dressed, and within minutes he and Mikasa exited the building that was serving as their barracks while they were stationed in Shinganshina.
The reconstruction was going well. Walking through the streets, one could almost be fooled into thinking Titans hadn't terrorized this very city less than seven years ago. What gave it away was the emptiness. Very few people had returned to the city so far. The current residents were mostly made up of military personnel, or those directly involved in the rebuilding effort. The silence of Shinganshina was deafening, especially this late at night.
Eren and Mikasa walked hand in hand through the empty streets until they reached the outskirts of town. The road gave way to grass and soon they found themselves in the grassy pasture where they used to come when they were children. A hill rose in the distance, topped by a tree on one side.
Eren had taken her to this place first. That first week at the Jaegers' hadn't been easy. Everyone did their best to make her feel at home, but she had been a bundle of fear and anxiety in those days.
On the second night Mikasa came to Eren, he comforted her and soothed her nerves just like the first. "Do you want to go on an adventure?" He had asked her with such a kind look in his eyes, she couldn't say no. She nodded in agreement. She knew she would be fine if she stayed with Eren.
"Shhh," Eren whispered to her as he opened the window of his room. "We can't let my parents hear us leave."
The city hadn't been nearly so empty then. Occasionally, a candle could be seen lighting a room from just inside a window. They walked by a tavern that had been bustling with conversation and laughter, and kept on going. They kept walking until they had left the city itself and found themselves in a clearing on the outskirts – a clearing with a hill topped by a tree.
Eren led Mikasa by the hand as they approached the hill. Once there, he let himself fall into the grass that lined the slope of the hill. He rubbed the ground next to him, motioning for Mikasa to join him, and she did.
It was so dark – but the moon gave them enough light to see their surroundings.
"I like this spot," Eren told her. He leaned back so he was flat in the grass, facing the sky. "When I lay here and look at the stars, sometimes I forget that we are stuck in these walls."
Mikasa mimicked him, and let her head touch the grass. "They are really pretty," she agreed, still holding Eren's hand. She wondered how many of them there were. She tried to count but soon lost track of where she was in the sky, and gave up. Eren was right. Being here was freeing. It felt as if the sky would swallow her whole.
Eren turned his head to look at Mikasa then, and she did the same. "I have a friend named Armin. You will really like him, I promise." Eren paused, trying to remember something. "He read in a book that most of the world is covered in giant lakes of salt water – the sea. They are so big, that it's impossible to see across it. Armin says that a long time ago, people used to use the stars like a map to find home." His voice was full of wonder, and she could tell he was fascinated by this stuff.
"But they all look the same to me," Mikasa said quietly. She had never stopped to really consider the stars before. They were just always there. She tried to see if any stars looked different than others, and she decided she couldn't tell.
"You can make shapes with them, if you know where to look." Eren scooted over so that his head was touching Mikasa's – so he could see the sky from her angle. He took her hand in his and pointed upwards, tracing a pattern in the stars. "That one's a big spoon..."
"I see it!" Mikasa was so excited, and she giggled for the first time in days. "Are there more?"
"Yeah!" Eren looked absolutely pleased with himself for making Mikasa smile. "There are so many! I only know a few though... Let me see..." He searched the sky for other patterns he remembered. Mikasa just kept staring up at the giant spoon in the sky.
"Oh!" Eren exclaimed, remembering. "Here's two." Eren guided her hand again so that she was pointing at a different area of the sky. "This one is called the Chained Lady," he said.
"Why is she chained?" Mikasa asked quietly. She felt some pity for the woman she saw in the stars, and didn't like the idea of anyone being chained up.
"She was captured by a monster, according to the stories..." Eren told her. "But here...." He guided her hand over just a little bit, tracing another shape very close to the Chained Lady. "And this one is called the Hero. He turned the monster to stone, and saved the Chained Lady. See? There are his legs and arms."
Mikasa looked up in wonder, as she began to see the two human shapes in the stars so high above them. "What happened to the Chained Lady after the Hero saved her?"
"They got married," Eren said, smiling at her. "That's why they are so close together in the sky. They wanted to stay together forever. Now, no one can tear them apart."
"I like that story," Mikasa had said in her tiny, hushed voice.
This place hadn't changed at all, Mikasa thought. Out here away from the city, it was easy to forget that Titans had occupied this land for so long. One could almost believe that there were no titans at all, and that it had all been a horrible nightmare.
Eren and Mikasa came here often, now. It was their way to get away from everything, to enjoy the tentative peace that they had earned for themselves. All of the titans in the walls and on the island had been eliminated or captured. This was the most freedom they had ever known.
The two of them lay on the slope of the hill, Mikasa's head resting on Eren's arm as their fingers entwined.
"The two of them are still up there," Mikasa said, referring to the stars Eren had shown her when they were small.
"They always will be...." She couldn't see his face at the angle they were laying, but she could feel him smiling at her. He was the same. He had aged, grown, and experienced horrible things... but he was still her Eren – still the same boy who had saved her all those years ago.
They stared up at the stars together without speaking for some time, just content to be in each other's presence.
"Mikasa?" Eren broke the comfortable silence that had engulfed them.
"Eren." Mikasa smiled back.
"I'm ah... I'm sorry I'm so terrible at expressing myself..." He fumbled for the words he was looking for. "You know... ever since that day, I promised myself I would protect you from anything. I remember thinking I wanted to marry you, and keep you safe from all of the monsters in the world." She could feel him blushing, becoming anxious as his fingers wiggled nervously in her hand.
"You wanted to marry me??" Mikasa felt herself blushing too. "You never told me that."
"I was just a kid," Eren said, defensively. "I didn't really know what marriage was, or understand the point of it. I just knew I wanted to be with you." His voice trailed off as he considered his words. "But really... I've always known I wanted to marry you someday."
Mikasa was silent, waiting for what he would say next.
"I don’t tell you often enough. I love you, Mikasa. I want to marry you."
"Eren..." Mikasa's eyes were wide as she listened to Eren's words. He wanted to marry her. That single thought consumed her mind and filled her with warmth.
"I want to marry you here in Shinganshina," he continued, "where it all started for us." Mikasa could feel him smiling as he spoke to her. "I'd be with you forever if I could, Mikasa. I'd turn us into stars and put us up in the sky where we could just be us until the end of time. That sounds like such a nice existence... so simple and uncomplicated... so much easier than the lives we have now."
Mikasa rolled over so that she was on top of him She needed to see Eren's face. She needed to memorize every emotion that played across it – every nervous twitch and every blush. She found no shred of doubt in his expression, only a calm sureness that she had grown to be so fond of. Her legs were on either side of him and her arms rested on his chest, and all she could do was smile as she looked down at him.
"Let's get married, Eren."