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In the midnight silence, Eren began to stir, grimaces of pain were drawn on his face still unconscious from sleep, in his mind dazzled all kinds of nightmares resembling fresh out of hell, giant monsters that took humans who take humans to cruelly slit their throats, visors, body parts and dismembered heads thrown to the ground, people screaming in panic while being trampled by giants who marched without stopping, blood decorating the lands that were once green and full of life, flies flying around the rotting...
A kind smile that he knows he will never see again "See you later, Eren." and a sweet voice full of love that sends him off trying to mask the pain.
“Ah!” He stands up shaken and realizes that his shirt is soaked with sweat, he hears someone stirring beside him and in a matter of seconds, a faint light from the table lamp illuminates the room's darkness.
“Eren?” He startles when he hears again the generous and calm voice that recently in his dreams dismissed him, turning around he notices the woman standing next to him, her jet hair tousled and her tired but alert eyes who were looking at him with clear concern “What happened?” It was Mikasa. She came closer to him who still couldn't fully react, she gently held his face in her hands and forced him to look at her “Eren?”
“Mikasa?” When he finally manages to articulate a word he says her name with parsimony, he holds his hands resting on his face for a moment to cline to this reality, that everything was fine, that what he dreamed was just that: a dream “I had a nightmare.” He said to try to relax the worried countenance of the girl, but the reality was that it did not feel like a dream, it was so real, so painful that it was palpable from the burning of the wounds caused by it as the feelings of farewell. Mikasa gave him a small sympathetic smile to try to calm him down.
And he knew it, but he couldn't help feeling bad to such an extent that he couldn't even stop the tears that were starting to come just because he could see Mikasa next to him, feel her body heat, and hear her sweet sleepy voice trying to calm him down, he started to achieve it thanks to her who had cradled him in her arms.
Everything was fine, he was here and this was real.
“Is that better?” She asked to which he nodded in response, "Are you sure? Don't you want me to get something to calm you down, maybe some tea or...?”
“No, I'm fine, thanks.” He interrupted her immediately, he didn't want her to leave him alone because he was still afraid that if he let her go, she would disappear from his side “Let's go back to bed” Mikasa agreed, but before following him he paused to look to the side of the bed, at that moment Eren realized that a few centimeters away from his bed lay a small baby crib which Mikasa inspected before turning back to lie down “You're lucky that our little one is a heavy sleeper” Mikasa said as she entered the bed next to him “With what it took to put him to sleep I would have forced you to put him to sleep.” Her tone of voice was not angry, Eren got up and also went to the crib where he observed the little boy sleeping peacefully on his back, his little mouth half open and dripping a small trickle of drool on his cheek, his eyebrows furrowed like his own, according to Mikasa it was something he had inherited innately from him and he agreed, it was like seeing a version of him only with the difference of having black hair inherited from his mother.
He glanced over his periphery and looked at the pictures resting on the dresser where the lamp was, there were three pictures; one of Mikasa and him with Armin in their high school days, another of the two of them at their wedding where Mikasa looked beautiful in her white dress and he looked happy and couldn't take his eyes off her and how could he not? Mikasa, his wife looked fascinating, and the last picture was one where Mikasa was holding her newborn baby, and next to her was him holding with his finger the little hand clinging to him. And it dawned on him that this was real, he was married to Mikasa and together they formed this little family, Armin was still part of his life and he was the godfather of his son, no giant monsters were tearing human beings apart, no curses, no screams of people being cruelly crushed.
“Eren?” He turned to his wife when he heard her name, got into bed, and pulled her close to him, wrapping her tightly in his arms, clinging to this reality while Mikasa was planning to talk seriously to Levi's dwarf to complain about the overexploitation he was exerting on her poor husband who seemed to be starting to be affected by so much work.
“Sorry for waking you up," he said, Mikasa downplayed it by telling him that it didn't bother her and he knew it, she was so good to him that he didn't know what he did to deserve her, a girl so devoted to the love she feels for him since they were little, a love he also strongly professed for her since the first time he saw her.
“And I'm really happy to know that this is real, I'm with you and Erick and I couldn't ask for anything more”.
“I see you woke up very cloying” Mikasa replied with a smile and a blush that was not noticeable because of the little light provided by the lamp, "I remember when you were little you used to say you wanted a life of adventure and not a boring family life," she clearly meant it as a joke, but Eren took it seriously.
“He was an idiot, there is nothing he wants more than this,” Mikasa said nothing more, she simply clung to him tighter as she brought her head closer to his heart and listened to it beat rapidly. Eren didn't need to know that she knew since it was unspoken knowledge between the two of them.
If ever Eren dreamed of something big for his life - a zombie apocalypse where he would be the hero for example - now he didn't care, he was happy with his wife and son, a simple life but so precious at the same time, he was so lucky now because he will never know that once upon a time where his destiny was conditioned in a tragedy, where he would leave his friends and his beloved Mikasa behind and he could do nothing about it.
Because this was their reality now, this was the real thing.