Chapter Text
She’d never have thought, all those weeks ago when she’d first awoken with vomit on the pillows and a night missing from her memory, that she’d be listless and bedridden by the turn of the month.
It’d started with weakness; with aches in her joints and rasps of her breath and even tasks as small as climbing the stairs had made her head spin. But she’d pushed on, because she’s Mikasa Ackerman and it’d take more than a petty flu to bring her to her knees.
The shivering came next.
The military issue jackets did nothing to keep the cold at bay, and even the cloaks – made from the finest material the survey corps had to offer – weren’t enough to warm her through. She’d curled into the thin bed sheets each night, wrapped herself up in them until they’d fit her like a second skin and still she couldn’t chase the chill from her bones. She shook and trembled and fell into a fitful sleep night after night after night, and when each new morning came she’d wake, cold and clammy and drenched in sweat.
She hadn’t thought all that much of the headaches when they’d first made themselves apparent, either. A bi-product of busy days and restless nights. They’d started off as a soft thumping between her eyes, but as the days drew on they’d spread; out and back, filling the space between her ears until she was struggling to think through the pain.
From what she can remember of that first night, she’d passed out a little after midnight. She remembers, vaguely, taking medication to dull the pain, just enough to let her sleep, despite the cold and the aches she couldn’t seem to shift, and she thinks she remembers getting into bed, but beyond that there’s nothing until the following morning.
Her cheek was wet. That was the first thing she noticed.
And then came the rancid, burning taste on the back of her tongue when she’d swallowed, and she’d blinked her eyes open through the pain in her skull to see what little of last night’s dinner she’d managed to force down staring back at her from the pillows.
It’d been early, the morning light filtering through the window thin and tired and grey, and she’d stripped and re-made her bed before anyone else had woken. She tried not to think about it; about the half-digested food she was cleaning from her own sheets, about her inability to remember where her night had gone, about the pounding in her head and the hollowness in her gut.
Things did not get better.
In the week that followed, the shivers got worse and the aches and pains mounted until waking in the morning was almost too much effort. She felt nauseous all the time; each swing of the maneuver gear made her stomach roll and her tongue tremor and on more than one occasion she had to pause on a tree branch, or behind a derelict building to retch until her whole frame shook and her knees gave out.
She began skipping nightly meals, too; afraid of being unable to hold them down when she finally relaxed into sleep.
But she coped. She went on, day after day, doing chores and training and missions and she was drained. She was losing weight; gut concave, ribs and hips peaking beneath her skin, cheeks hollow and eyes sunken.
And then the nightmares began.
It was Sasha that shook her awake. Bed-warmed hands pressed into the damp skin of her shoulders, nudging her until her eyes flew open, breath heaving and panting and her cheeks wet with sweat and tears.
She pushed herself back into the mattress and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Everyone was dead. Eren, Armin, Sasha, Jean, Connie, everyone and there was nothing she could do because the ache in her joints was too much, the pain in her head and the sting in her gut held her fast while her friends, her family dropped like flies around her. Ripped to shreds by the monsters they were trained to kill.
The next thing she knew, a new, more calloused hand had gripped one arm and a set of cool fingers squeezed at one wrist, pulling the bones away from her face but she shook and trembled and pushed the new body away, scooting up and back against the wall and tucking her knees to her chest.
“Mikasa,” Eren breathed, taking both of her hands and pushing them down onto the mattress. “Take a breath. What’s going on?”
She sucked in a lungful of air and shuddered out a sob. Her stomach rolled and heaved and she scrambled to the edge of the bed to gag, but a pair of arms scooped her up from the bed and when she landed back on solid ground, she was on the cold tile floor of the bathroom. Eren pulled her cropped hair away from her cheeks and splayed a palm over the space between her shoulder blades and he waited, quiet and patient, while her gut clenched and tried to force out food she had not eaten and water she had no drank. She heaved, dry and hacking, until she had no strength left and she slumped back against Erens’ chest.
“You need to see a doctor, Mika,” Eren said, pressing his face into her hair. “You’ve been off for weeks now.” She shook her head and prised herself away from him, body shivering from head to toe.
“I want to go home, Eren,” she breathed. She curled in on herself once more, wrapped her arms around her knees and pressed her head against them. “I’m so tired. I want to go home.”
Eren slipped his arms around her and pressed her to him, tucking her head under his chin.
“My head hurts,” she whispered, “my everything hurts and I just want to go home.”
“I know,” Eren said. He knocked his chin to the crown of her head and smoothed a hand down her arm. “But you are home. This is home.”
She shook her head and fisted the fabric of his shirt. The edges of her vision were black and spotted and the darkness peeled in until she could see nothing but a tunnel of bathroom tiles, fuzzy and shimmering, and the fingers Eren brushed over her cheek to catch the tears that fell.
“Please,” she breathed and her voice trembled, “please take me home. Please.”
**
“How long will she be out for?”
Mikasa swallowed around the cotton on her tongue and blinked her eyes open. She was in the med-bay, a needle in one arm and a crowd of people huddled by the side of her bed. None of them were looking her way; all eyes were focused on Hange, who scratched the back of their neck and shrugged a shoulder at Levi.
“They’re saying months,” they said. “For now, all they can do is keep her hydrated and pump her full of meds to stave off the pain and the nausea. Until they find out what’s causing it, there’s nothing they can do to fix it.”
“We can’t afford to have her out of commission,” Levi grumbled, folding his arms. Hange brushed a hand over his elbow and shook their head.
“There’s nothing more we can do. Just gotta wait it out.”
“She’s the best of the new recruits,” Levi said. “The fuck are we going to do now?”
“She has a name, and Mikasa is more than just a weapon, Captain,” Eren hissed.
“Watch it, Jaeger. Taking your anger out on me will do her no good.”
Mikasa rolled her neck and blinked. The pain in her head was the dullest it’d been in weeks; her system had been drowned in medication strong enough to addle her brain function, and though it meant every movement she tried to make was clumsy and sluggish, it was relief at least.
Eren was sitting beside the bed, hands fists atop his knees, and Armin stood behind him with his arms folded, his gaze furrowed and passing between Eren and Levi. Sasha and Connie and Jean hovered off to one side, watching the altercation with varying degrees of interest and alarm and Hange was squeezing their hand against Levi’s elbow.
“Give him a break,” Hange said, and Levi frowned over at them, then relaxed his shoulders and turned away.
Mikasa swallowed again and almost choked on the dryness of her throat. Water, she needed water. It was a simple task, in theory; open her mouth and ask for it. But it took every ounce of concentration she had to so much as grunt and when she finally did, all eyes whipped her way and Eren’s fingers found hers atop the bedspread.
“How you feeling?” He asked, wide-eyed and breath baited and Mikasa squeezed her throat to make words but all that came out was a hoarse, slow groan and Eren squeezed her hand tighter. “Mika?”
“Drink,” she choked, swallowing dry air and coughing around it. Armin poured water from a jug by the bedside into a glass and Eren helped her sit up enough to drink it. Every muscle burned with the exertion and when she’d sipped until her throat was coated she collapsed back against the pillows and sucked in a few heavy breaths.
“’M tired,” she hummed, pressed her head back into the pillows. Eren slipped up onto the mattress at her hip and brushed a lock of hair from her face.
“You’re on a lot of drugs,” he said, hitching one corner of his mouth a little further up his cheek.
“How’s it feel, being baked in front of your superiors?” Connie piped up from the back of the group. Sasha elbowed him in the ribs and Jean cuffed the back of his head but Mikasa managed a lazy smile and pulled her fist into a thumbs up.
“Pretty damn good,” she wheezed, and Eren let out a breathy chuckle. “I’m really tired.”
“Get some sleep, stupid,” he said, voice calm and quiet and Mikasa sighed, closing her eyes and sinking her bones into the scratchy sheets. “We’ll still be here when you wake up.”