Feelings

Chapter 7: Annie

(MIKASA POV)
"Annie..."
A pair of huge blue eyes stared up in response.
"...Fall."

Mikasa pushed herself off of Annie's head and seemed to float in mid-air as Annie's titan fell and landed with an earth shattering impact.

"EhhhhrrrGGHHHH."

A scream of triumph came from the rogue Titan. It wasn't Eren anymore. It was primal. Alien.

Mikasa shoved this thought to the back of her mind. It was still Eren in that body. She just had to cut him out before the Titan devoured his soul.
She watched in horror as the Eren tore apart Annie, piece by piece. But all of the sudden, it wasn't Annie there anymore. It was Mikasa instead.

"I am free..." Eren hissed. "I will devour you all..."

Eren's mouth came down to devour Mikasa. She began to scream.

...

And sat up in her bed. Mikasa woke up, cold sweat rolling down her back. She sat there quietly, except for her hammering heart and her quickening breath. She held herself for a second.

Why now? She thought to herself. People die all the time and I've never had nightmares before.

Was she scared of Eren now? Did what happen to Annie scare her? No, she deserved what happened to her. But it was Eren's Titan that scared her. She had been attacked by him before but this was.... different. Animal like.
Mikasa got up from her bed and slipped on a shirt. She wrapped her scarf around her face and took a deep breath to calm her nerves.
She had to go see Eren.

~

Mikasa slipped by the guards and the faculty that ran the prison. There was no better word for the underground cellar. There were many rooms where they threw deserters and thieves and murderers. Some of them were chained. Others just knew better than to run away.
She walked past all the others. She had her mind set on one cellar.
It wasn't her decision to lock Eren up again, down here. Even after he managed to capture Annie, the Military Police put Eren in a cell to make sure that he couldn't transform again. Everyone had seen him go 'ape shit' according to Connie.
She didn't care. She needed to prove that Eren was still there, that Eren was still.... Eren. She didn't care if he was human. She just wanted Eren.
She walked around the corner to the cellar where he was held. She saw that the lock was on the floor, open. A small piece of paper was attached to the door.

Give him my regards,
Hanji

Mikasa smiled to herself. No matter how annoying, Hanji seemed to be on her side in this whole thing. Maybe it's because she wanted to believe that Eren was in control of the Titan?

She opened the door slowly. Two torches, in opposite corners of the room, provided light to the dim cell. There was a straw bed in the middle of the room, surrounded by chains and various tools of experimentation. Eren was asleep on the bed. Mikasa made sure to walk as quietly as she could to avoid waking him up.

She came and sat down beside him on the straw mattress, brushing his hair from his face. There were burn marks left on his face from the muscles that held him captive in the Titan's body. Levi had cut him free when Annie attempted to fuse with Eren and the scalds on his skin were still present even a few days after the battle was over. 

The cell door opened and Mikasa turned to see Levi standing in the doorway. Mikasa stood up quickly and went to attention. 

"Captain! I..." Mikasa was frustrated to see him there. She knew that he was going to berate her for visiting Eren when he was under house arrest.

"Relax, Ackerman. I had Hanji write the note for you to come here." Levi crossed his arms and leaned against the door. He looked like he had little sleep but no one knew if he actually ever slept. "I wanted to have you move Eren to a more comfortable living space."

Mikasa was taken back. She had expected that Levi wanted to bitch at her for defying orders.

"But, Captain... I thought that the commander wanted him to be confined because we didn't know if he had control yet."

"Well, Commander Erwin wanted to put Eren in a medical bay, but the counsel wouldn't have it. The new idea in the upper's tiny heads is to weaponize Eren. Like he wasn't already more than capable." Levi uncrossed his arms, and walked to the doorway, stopping just outside. "Just letting you know, he's deep asleep. Nothing so far has waken him up. Good luck."

"Wait Captain..." Mikasa stopped him from leaving. "I wanted to say thanks... for saving Eren from himself."

Levi made a grunt, turned away, and pushed past Mikasa. She watched him over her shoulder and then walked in, closing the cell door. Eren was on his back with a towel on his forehead. Burns on the side of his face from when they pulled him from the titan still remained on his cheeks, slightly browned as they had begun to heal. She knelt down next to Eren and brushed his hair from his face. His mouth was open and his breathing was steady, and Mikasa just watched him sleep for a couple minutes. 

~FLASHBACK TO FIVE YEARS AGO~

"Eren! You are going to catch a cold. It's freezing outside." Eren's mother called from inside their snow covered house. Mikasa watched as a snow covered, soaked Eren came running back from tumbling down the hill with the widest grin. 

"I'll be fine Mom! I'm not even that wet." Eren shook himself free of the snow but was still soaked to the bone. He sneezed into his sleeve and he looked up slyly at his mother who was glaring down at him with an 'I told you so' look. 

"Mikasa help your dimwitted brother get his wet jacket off." Eren's mother huffed and walked to the kitchen to attend to the stew that she was making that was sending smells through the halls of their house. Mikasa dragged the heavy and soaked jacket off of Eren's shoulders and helped him get into dry clothes, while Eren's teeth chattered through an ear to ear grin. 

"Mikasa, you should have joined me! We rarely see snow this time of year and you never know when we'll get to see it again!" Eren shook himself off like a dog all over Mikasa. Mikasa smacked his arm.

"You dolt! I'm not trying to catch a cold too!"  Mikasa scolded him. Then as Eren was laughing she caught herself giggling at the dumb joke. 

~~BACK TO PRESENT~~

Mikasa smiled thinking about how things were different, and if not a little bit more simple. She had already made the resolve but now she added to it, to survive past all the strife and trouble of her time. She wanted to go back to being with Eren, again and again.

That was enough, for her.