26Hey guys, this is die-forellex over on tumblr. I decided to cross post this fic here on. (Please don't review saying I stole it lol.) While this story is completed, I would love for feedback/comments, it helps me stay motivated to keep working on my current works (that should also be posted over here!) Enjoy!
Mikasa adjusts her scarf around her neck. This one is blue and silk, not the familiar wooly red one she used to wear constantly.
"Wasn't the play wonderful? I've never seen anything like that!"
Jean walks a few paces ahead of her, his feet slapping on the wet pavement on the way back to the inn she's taken up residence in.
"Yeah, it was great," she says, trying her best to sound cheerful. Despite the fact that she hasn't felt cheerful in a long time, she's pretty decent at this deception.
Jean, like everyone else, accepts her words for truth and smiles brightly.
She has wondered multiple times this evening if going out to a dinner and play with Jean was a bad idea, but she's too lonely to refuse. With Eren and Armin dead, it takes every ounce of her strength to get out of bed each day. She exists purely on stubbornness, grief, and spite. It keeps her functioning, but she doesn't remember the last time she felt anything genuine.
A beaded dress, silk scarf and a "not-a-date-date with Jean Kirstein hasn't filled anything inside of her. If anything it's done the opposite, his happy glances and demeanor simply echoing around in her emptiness. His presence exhausts her, and all she wants to do is go to sleep.
So thankfully they're close to the place she's been for the last couple months, an Inn on the outskirts of the city over a small but boisterous tavern. The bedding is comfortable, the landlady is kind and she pays on a weekly basis for the next week. This way, it's not permanent. She doesn't have to set down roots here, doesn't have to form an attachment to anyone or anything, she could be gone to who knows where anytime she decided.
She probably won't go anywhere, she has nowhere. It's wrong of her to bring her misery upon someone else, like Connie and Sasha who've just had a baby. Even Jean is the normal kind of lonely; the kind that a pretty wife and a garden can probably fix.
Eren taught me to live again, and now all I can do is live so I remember him.
What's worse is that Armin, the only person who understood, who loved him as much as she did, is gone too.
As nice as Jean is trying to be (he's talking right now, but she isn't listening) she just wants to go up into her room, snuggle her scarf and go to sleep, maybe after a drink or four.
"Would that be nice, Mikasa?"
"Uh, yeah sure."
In a show of chivalry, Jean holds the door to the Inn for her to walk inside.
Mikasa gathers that she had agreed to get a drink with him, which is the very last thing she wants. She wants to be alone and sleep until eleven, but for whatever reason she doesn't have it in her to be rude to someone who's consistently tried to make her happy for the last five hours.
She slept with him about a month ago and immediately regretted it. Still, she hadn't been able to stop herself from repeating the mistake over the course of the following month. Eventually she came to her senses and told him that they should just continue being friends. He had agreed even though she knew that it wasn't what he'd wanted. She knows that she has no business taking advantage of his company or kindness, and fucking him had just reminded her of how empty and alone she felt.
But he's someone familiar, and she doesn't have many familiar faces anymore so, in her selfishness, she still does something with him once a week, as "just friends."
She orders them both steins of ale and she sits herself in a worn red armchair, taking off her wet shoes and curling her feet under herself, looking off into space.
The tavern is busy with plenty of laughing people – it's a Friday and it's 10 in the evening, so most people's nights are just getting started. Mikasa feels out of place, but that's not unusual.
"Do you wanna get out of the city sometime? I've been wanting to go to the countryside and visit this orchard."
Mikasa glances at Jean, his face genuine and kind despite her cold demeanor, and she holds back a sign.
"I don't know if that's really my thing."
His smile falters and he glances downward.
"Oh, well that's okay, what about–"
"Mikasa? Jean?"
Mikasa has to stop herself from standing and thumping on her chest as the former Commander Hanji walks into the increasingly busy tavern.
Jean clearly feels similarly as he's actually stood up, clearly out of habit.
"It's great to see you two, I had to be sure it was you guys because well, I don't see so well anymore," she gestures comically at her eye patch.
Mikasa then notices that Hanji isn't alone.
For whatever reason Mikasa feels her heart skip when she sees the former Captain Levi glaring from behind Hanji. He's dressed sharply in a grey suit, tailored perfectly to his small frame and shining black shoes.
They make eye contact and her initial reaction is to look away because even she finds the man intimidating, but her pride doesn't allow it so she bears his scrutiny with her usual facade of blase apathy. She can't help but feel that she's being sized up, though she supposes that she's doing the same.
"Oh and Captain–"
"I haven't been in charge of anything for a few years now," he drawls.
"Oh right," Jean laughs and rubs the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed, "force of habit I suppose."
For whatever reason, this whole encounter has Mikasa on edge. Seeing two people from the past like this is unsettling. She reaches for her clutch and pulls out a cigarette, lights it and takes a deep inhale, the slight buzzing sensation providing her with a mild relief.
She exhales slowly, watching the blue smoke circle upwards in lazy circles and flicks the ash off the end of the cigarette.
Levi stares blankly at her as he sits down across from her, next to Jean. He unbuttons his coat revealing a crisp white shirt and black suspenders.
"This place is really classy," he says distastefully.
She doesn't know why, but she can't help but smirk at his nonchalant, almost sarcastic way of speaking, a trait of his that perhaps she didn't appreciate in her youth.
Hanji speaks animatedly about her work as a scientist in the new government.
Hanji takes every opportunity she can to tease him, either referencing his small stature, his up-tight cleaning habits or both.
"What are you guys doing here anyways?" Jean asks after he finishes the ale that Hanji bought.
"I live nearby and shorty here was helping me with an experiment so he's staying here," Levi glares at the word "shorty" and slugs Hanji on the arm.
"Ah!" Hanji hisses and rubs the spot he hit.
"What kind of experiment?" Mikasa asks, extinguishing her cigarette and reaching for another distractedly.
Hanji's eyes light up with glee and Levi rolls his eyes at her excitement, taking another drink of his ale.
"Well Mikasa it's funny you ask because with today's findings I could use your help as well! You see, even though the titans are gone and the military all but disarmed, it's bothered me," Hanji adjusts her glasses, a serious, contemplative look now in her eye, "I want to know what specifically what makes descendants of the Ackerman bloodline so particularly…" Mikasa can tell she's searching for the right word, "lethal is really all I can describe it as because athletic sells the whole thing a little short, wouldn't you agree?"
Mikasa thinks back to flying through the air, the burn in her muscles as she slices through titan flesh, the way she would move without thinking but simply knowing. One after the other falling until she's killed every single one around her, watching them pile on top of each other in a heap while her comrades struggle to take a single one down in teams of five.
"Yeah, athletic doesn't suffice," she agrees darkly.
"Right. I mean don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of strong soldiers, myself not being anything too shabby, but you and Levi were something truly unprecedented. Before you came along, I thought it had to do with Levi's upbringing, orphan in the underground city etcetera," she waves her hand dismissively as if she's simply discussing the weather. "But then you came along and what a twist, you share an ancestor! So we know that it's not just coincidence, not just circumstantial, though we know circumstance matters, I'm interested in the missing biological element–"
"Hanji you're drunk, why don't you bother her later?" Levi interrupts.
"I'm not drunk I can drink way more than this!" Hanji shouts.
Mikasa untucks her feet, crosses her legs and takes the first drag of her second cigarette.
"I don't see the benefit honestly," she says coldly. "He and I are the only ones left, the titans are gone, my… skill set, is somewhat obsolete, I haven't touched maneuvering gear in years."
Hanji looks like Mikasa has just said that the sky is green or that fish walk on land.
"But isn't it curious?! Don't you want to know if there's anything specific? Today alone I found three unique markers in Levi's blood, three!" Hanji speaks as if she is reciting the most beautiful of poetry. " And another variation that, get this, I've only ever seen before in Titan blood!"
This makes Mikasa flinch and Jean sputter.
"Are you saying that Mikasa's family is somehow similar to…titans?" Jean asks.
Hanji shrugs. "It's hard to say, but it's clear there's something unique, something special." Hanji looks at Mikasa, who is trying her hardest to maintain her usual indifference but knows that it's cracking a little bit.
A strange combination of boredom and curiosity make her agree to partake in Hanji's little study.
The next morning when Mikasa shows up wearing a dress and stockings, she can't help but feel she has made a mistake.
"I guess I should've at least told you to wear pants, you're taller than me but let me see what I have that you can wear!" Hanji exclaims, fumbling with 3DMG and rifling through her bag for extra clothes.
Levi looks at her boredly; dressed in a simple grey shirt and pants he is far better equipped to handle whatever it is Hanji expects of them.
Tentatively, Mikasa examines the gear and memories come flooding back, of both terror and exhilaration.
She carefully and methodically takes everything apart, checking for malfunctions and calibrates everything to her preferred specifications.
"Gah, I'll be right back, I gotta run inside to get you some clothes of mine."
Hanji comes back and hands her a pair of green canvas pants and a white shirt, insisting that she will buy her clothes in her size for helping her out first thing this evening.
"Alright both of you if I could just take a preliminary blood sample that'd be great!"
Mikasa doesn't ask, but Hanji starts explaining anyways.
"You see, I have a theory, but I need a baseline sample for comparison," she sticks her with the needle quickly and collects a small vial of blood, "what I'm looking for is change, really." She sticks a bandage on her arm. "Sorry in advance for how many times I'm going to have to stick you."
"It's fine, what do you want me to do?"
"My theory requires that I get your heart pumping. In a perfect world I'd have ten Titans for you to kill," Mikasa thinks this an odd vision of a perfect world but remains silent, "so instead, I have this maneuvering course set up, like back in the day," Hanji sighs wistfully as if being in the Scouting Legion had been some sort of social club.
"Hard to get worked up about slashing mannequins," Levi says lowly, arms crossed and somehow looking down at Hanji imperiously despite the fact that she's quite a bit taller than him.
"Yeah, let's see how you both do and we can figure it out from there, in any case push yourself to complete the course as quickly as you can," Hanji sighs but after a beat seems to get excited, a grin on her face, "In fact, whoever is faster gets dinner on me!"
Mikasa could care less about dinner, but the idea of competition — real competition — gives her a thrill she hasn't felt in a while.
Hanji watches the former Captain with rapt attention, a clipboard and pencil in hand. When he prepares himself to start the course, Hanji readies a timer and jots down a few notes that Mikasa can't begin to guess about since he's just standing there.
"Okay, start!"
Levi aims at a post with his grappling hook and is off.
He is still blindingly fast, even after all of these years. Mikasa has never simply observed him, always fighting herself or even with him, and he is truly a sight to behold. He is suited to the air in a way that seems impossible for a creature with no wings, his body twisting with the wind, blades cutting at the targets with elegant brutality.
The last target is at least ten meters away from the previous one, and lower as well. Mikasa watches as he uses the momentum from the previous strike, his blade following through completely and rotating his body flawlessly, splintering the top of the last target in an impressive display.
Hanji stops the timer when his feet hit the ground. She quickly runs up to him and runs a swab on the back of his neck. He bristles at this and she laughs.
"I need sweat samples too!"
"Disgusting," he deadpans. "Do you save all of these in some sort of scrap book?"
" Actually–"
He waves a hand dismissively.
"I don't want to know."
Hanji draws another vial of his blood and puts it away in a leather case that is already filled with five others like it.
"Ok Mikasa, his time was three minutes and forty-two seconds. It's probably been a bit since you've been in gear so if you need to warm up–"
"That's unnecessary," she says shortly.
Hanji laughs lightly, "right, well then," she takes a note and holds up the timer "start!"
With overwhelming certainty, Mikasa flings her body into the air; it's as if no time has passed. Each target is merely something she knows. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and that target is there. All she wants is to be faster.
Her arms burn as she uses her strength and momentum to cut and it's the most satisfying feeling she's had in ages. Still, she knows she needs to be faster if she wants to win, so when she comes to the last target with the large drop, instead of spinning her momentum, she pulls her arms and legs in tight and she's diving to the ground. Somewhere in the back of her mind she hears a shout when she is about to hit the ground and she releases her grappling hook, her gear jerking so hard that it nearly knocks the wind out of her before she cleanly slices the last target.
The world rights itself when she lands and her focus broadens again to the scene before her. Hanji is standing there, mouth hanging open, hands gripping her hair nervously.
"Holy shit I thought you weren't gonna pull out of that dive and I nearly pissed myself!"
Mikasa runs a hand through her hair and lazily ejects the now dull blades.
"What was my time?"
"Oh, right!' Hanji swabs sweat off the back of her neck and it gives Mikasa the strangest sensation, like she's some sort of animal or strange new species being observed.
"Hah! Levi you're getting old, she beat you by fifteen seconds."
Mikasa glances over at her competition and even though his expression remains neutral, she sees a bit of tension in his jaw that wasn't there before, she can tell he feels annoyed that she beat him and that makes her feel smug.
"It's not his fault, what are you, like fifty?" she says in her usual blase fashion as she sits down for Hanji to draw her blood again.
This makes him grit his teeth and glare.
"Try knocking ten years off of that, brat."
Mikasa glares back at him.
"I'm twenty-five pipsqueak."
"Be nice, children," Hanji says patronizingly to the both of them as she tightens a band around Mikasa's forearm and draws another vial of blood.
"Alright, I'm gonna test these later tonight and make slides out of the sweat samples later."
They do this routine for the next five days — Mikasa and Levi have blood drawn twice a day, and as each day passes Hanji seems to get more and more frustrated.
Each evening, she and Levi return to the same Inn, hardly acknowledging the other. There's a tension between the two of them. If she's honest, it's always been there, but without a constant shroud of death and despair looming over them it wasn't as noticeable.
But now she can't deny it, even though she isn't quite sure what it is.
On the fifth day they finish the course, Levi wins which irritates Mikasa to no end.
Hanji crosses her arms and says she doesn't need to draw blood.
"I'm missing something, both of you come back to my office, if you wouldn't mind."
Mikasa already feels a little wary. She doesn't like to talk at length with anyone, even former comrades.
Is this how Eren felt?
Mikasa doesn't even wince when she thinks about Eren anymore, the pain more of a constant companion than anything. She thinks about him every day. Truthfully she's not sure if she ever stops thinking of him.
Hanji's office is a cluttered mess with volumes and volumes of books lining the walls and heaps of paper stacked high on her desk. The two chairs that are clearly intended for her and Levi to sit in have books and a spare change of clothes stacked on top of them.
"Oh here," Hanji just takes everything off the chairs and literally throws them on the floor, earning a frown from Mikasa's lab rat counterpart. She'd almost forgotten about his neat-freak tendencies.
They both sit down. Hanji takes out a huge ream of paper and adjusts her glasses.
"OKAY!" She says excitedly.
"So, I have a theory but I need some information from you two to test it out," Hanji looks at both of them, clearly focused.
"As you might have gathered, I'm not getting much of anything from these samples, actually the both of you don't really seem to react much at all from dangerous physical exertion, but it's no surprise that the two of you are well suited to such things," Hanji sighs. "So late at night while I was looking through some slides, I remembered a conversation the two of you had from a long time ago."
Mikasa glances over at her counterpart, his face is blank while he sits, surprisingly relaxed in his chair as if he's been here before.
"Levi, during the uprising, you spoke of having what you described as a moment , an epiphany, if you will, where you felt overcome with power . Do you remember that?"
Mikasa feels herself tense up a little bit, recalling the conversation and what came after that.
Eren was in danger then.
Levi sighs and crosses his arms.
"I remember the conversation. I don't remember the circumstances, it's blurry, I only remember the specific moment, what it felt like; that I never felt weak ever again, that I always knew what to do with my body in any situation."
Hanji frowns.
"Can you try to remember anything?"
He shakes his head slightly.
"My mother died when I was four, and then I was taken in by Kenny. It had to have been sometime shortly after that. I don't remember the first time I ever killed someone, I don't remember details of much until I was fighting in the Underground and then I was on my own again, until Farlan and Isabel."
Mikasa briefly wonders who Farlan and Isabel are. He says all of this in such a detached way, like it doesn't keep him up at night but it sounds sad to Mikasa. If she hadn't seen so much suffering in her life, she would probably feel sorry for him.
Hanji sighs dejectedly.
"You were probably too young, most people start remembering things reliably around that age, but trauma doesn't help things; our brains sometimes shut down and try to protect against… difficult experiences, so it's probably too fuzzy. I am willing to bet that something about you fundamentally changed after this moment you're describing, on a chemical level."
Mikasa knows that Hanji is going to ask her about what happened all those years ago. Mikasa fights the urge to fidget with the hem of her shirt and look away because it's still painful to think about.
When Hanji asks her, she crosses her legs awkwardly and rocks back on her seat bones a little awkwardly.
Why the hell am I even bothering with this whole thing? Studying this is pointless, he and I are the only ones left, the Titans and shifters are gone.
But Mikasa doesn't like running away from a challenge, and that's all this whole thing has been so far. That and a way to occupy her time, so she's not going to run away now.
"I remember everything," she says shortly. She opens her mouth to speak, to try and talk about the murder of her parents before her young eyes, the gripping, cold, fear she felt until Eren got her to fight but the words don't come out.
Hanji and Levi are looking at her, Hanji's pen ready to write down whatever she says but her voice just isn't working.
"Fuck," she shakes her head and looks downward, ashamed.
So pathetic.
This is why she always needed Eren. She knew what to do, how to save people, how to fight, but when it came to her feelings, to what it actually meant to be alive it was Eren who taught her that. With him gone now, life has just been an infinite loop of confusion.
"It's okay," Hanji says with a surprising amount of tact, "we can come back to it–"
"No," Mikasa says quietly. She's so frustrated that this is difficult.
"It happened when I was nine, I'm sure you remember the rumors about me," she pauses for a second and she can tell that the both of them are remembering whatever was written down on her military records about her.
"How a nine year old girl killed three human-traffickers, but there's a lot that was left out."
She tells the story in as detatched of a fashion she can manage – how her father was stabbed when he opened the door expecting Dr. Jaeger, how her Mother, attempting to protect her put herself between the men and her.
"They didn't want to kill my mother because they had hoped to sell us into what I'm assuming was sex slavery because being Oriental is such a rarity – I don't really know what would've become of me had they succeeded, but they accidentally killed my mother. I felt paralyzed as all of this happened before me–"
"A fight or flight response," Hanji adds, taking notes quickly.
Mikasa swallows and nods.
"So one of them knocked me unconscious, but when I woke up, Eren was there."
She hasn't spoken Eren's name for three months and thirteen days, and it makes her chest feel tight. Despite this, she continues.
"But Dr. Jaeger was supposed to come by that afternoon, I was having growing pains so he was going to bring something for us to put in the bath," Mikasa is momentarily surprised at the detail she remembers, she avoids thinking about this as much as she can, "But he was running late and sent Eren ahead to let us know, and," she swallows, "I woke up to Eren untying me, he was the one who had killed my parent's murderers, he'd pretended to be some lost kid looking for directions and took them by surprise. But the third kidnapper came back, and in a fit of rage at seeing his comrades dead and his primary bounty, my mother, killed, he grabbed Eren and started to strangle him."
She glances over at Levi, who is listening passively, neither interested or bored, simply attentive.
"I was still frozen, I saw Eren's legs kicking, heard him choking but I couldn't do anything. But then he said to me: If you win, you live, if you lose, you die. If you don't fight, you can't win," she inhales quickly remembering how powerless she felt in that moment, how terrified.
"I grabbed the knife that Eren had used earlier and stood up, but I was still shaking. I couldn't do it, I was just a girl, after all," she almost laughs at this at how foreign it sounds to her now.
"But then that's when it happened, it was just like he described," she glances over at Levi and he nods.
"I just had a moment of clarity. I stopped shaking and I realized that the world was merciless, that the only option I had was to fight. It was like I was struck by lightning and filled with power, I charged forward so hard that the floorboards splintered beneath my feet and I killed him easily, saving Eren."
She sighs deeply and collects herself. "And ever since that day, I have never struggled to do anything, things that other cadets would struggle with have seemed silly. I haven't touched maneuvering gear in five years before this week yet I'm confident I could kill a dozen Titans if I had to."
Hanji finishes writing down a thought and sighs.
"See there are so many factors. For example, your father was an Ackerman yet he hadn't had any kind of moment or awakening, if you will, otherwise the outcome of your story could've been very different."
Mikasa has never thought about this. What if her father had been able to kill the kidnappers, her life may have been totally different.
"I just wish there was another Ackerman, one who hasn't experienced the moment you're describing so I can see if, for example, that Titan marker is simply dormant," Hanji then leers, a mischievous grin on her face "you two need to go find someone and make me an Ackerman baby, then I can confirm some of this."
Both of them huff and, at the same time say: "don't hold your breath."
Mikasa cheeks warm with embarrassment at their shared reaction.
"Awww, you two are no fun," she sighs. "Well, I have another idea," she continues on a bit more seriously. "I think that something changes when the two of you experience duress or a strong emotion of some kind, I've seen it, on rare occasion," she glances over at Levi and Mikasa knows that they are both remembering something specific.
"So since I can't scrounge up a bunch of Titans for you to have it out with… not that that would be ethical even if I could," Mikasa highly doubts that Hanji would have too many reservations about that if it were possible, but she ignores this, "so, what if you two were to fight?"
She has only fought, really fought with him one time. She knows that she only won because he hadn't been trying to kill her.
It's unexpected, but she feels a shiver up her spine. She can't place it, this odd feeling that has settled into her chest.
"Fine," he says shortly, getting up and already leaving the room without hearing what she has to say. "Tomorrow, I have things to do tonight."
Mikasa frowns at how he just assumes she'll agree, even though she knows she will.
So, when he's about to close the door behind him, she speaks up, "Better rest up tonight, shorty. "
The glare he gives her makes gooseflesh fan over her arms, but it's not out of fear.
"I don't need to," he says calmly.
It's excitement.
Tonight she has her weekly not-date-date with Jean, so she showers and dresses in her favorite dress. It's a grey-blue with beading and hits right below her knee. It's in the current style that flatters her more androgynous figure, and she loves how comfortable it is.
Jean really is a nice man, and she wishes that he would find someone else to pine for because if there's one thing Mikasa knows it's that she's not a nice girl.
She laughs at his jokes, enjoys the dinner that they're having at one of the new jazz clubs that are popping up left and right. They dance the new dances together and she admits that it's fun, but more importantly it makes her feel wanted; makes her ever present thoughts of Eren more like background noise. She can stop thinking about about how even before he died how he didn't want her, that she'd just been his sister when she'd wanted everything with him.
Being wanted is really all she's ever wanted if she thinks about it too long, and she just wants to be selfish, to let Jean want her even if she knows that it's not fair of her.
So when he walks her back to her room, she pulls him inside and kisses him hard on the mouth because she's lonely.
She can tell that initially he's shocked but that quickly fades. His hands are on her, gentle on her waist, as if she is this fragile, delicate thing instead of the woman who was once worth more than a hundred soldiers.
He's reaching for the clasp on the back of her dress and she quickly realizes the mistake she's making and pulls away.
He looks at her, confused.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly, "I shouldn't have done that, it's not right of me."
He crosses his arms and shifts his weight between his feet.
"Why not?" He runs a hand down her arm and grabs her hand with a tenderness that confirms exactly why she shouldn't be doing this, so she pulls free and takes a step away from him.
"I don't have feelings for you."
She sees a flash of hurt on his face but he quickly hides it and plays it cool, "I didn't ask you to marry me or anything."
She shakes her head. "That's not the point."
"Why do you insist on pushing me away? We have fun together, that's better than nothing."
She shakes her head.
"You don't understand. You don't know me," she says unkindly.
"That's because you don't let anyone get to know you!" he shouts, and it irritates her.
"Don't you think there's a reason for that? I don't need your judgement on something that you don't know the first thing about."
Now she's starting to get angry, her pulse starting to race and her hands clench into fists.
"Oh poor Mikasa, " he takes a step close to her, though she can't be bothered to even think of him as a threat, "you act like you're the only one who has suffered, the only one who lost anything well guess what you're not ! If you want to sit around feeling sorry for yourself–"
"Maybe I do!" She shouts, rage finally cracking through completely. "You have no idea what I feel, what I've been through, I don't give a shit about what you think you know about me!"
Now he really looks hurt, the anger fading completely from his face as he takes a step back, wordlessly putting on his jacket that she'd pulled off of him earlier.
He turns to leave but glances over his shoulder at her one last time.
"I really hope you find peace someday, life is a lot longer than it used to be."
Then he leaves, letting the door shut behind him.
How dare he, acting all pious like that!
How could he possibly understand what it was like for her, the burdens she shouldered, the lives she had been responsible for?
She grabs a vase and against her better judgement throws it against the wall, momentarily satisfied when it shatters and falls to the ground.
Still, she knows it's for the best. He's right — she wants to be alone, even if it's painful. It hurts less than loving someone else and losing them.
I'll never go through that again.
After a few moments she has the sense to feel slightly guilty. She knows she hurt Jean and it makes her feel like shit, reminds her of the awful, selfish person she's become.
She changes into a nightgown and fumbles with the latch on her window so she can have a cigarette.
She thinks it's more the habit than anything that calms her; reaching for her clutch, igniting a flame and having something to occupy her hands gives her a sense of relief.
It's raining again, but the street below is still busy with groups of friends drinking and laughing.
She tries to think back on the last time she felt happy – truly carefree, laugh until she cried, happy – and it feels impossible. Probably back in Shiganshina, with Eren and Armin. There had been good moments in training and in the Scouting Legion, but as the years went by, the pressure became crippling. And then after the war was over, Eren only had a limited amount of time left to live, with Armin not too far behind.
She tries not to let her mind wander down that path, but she can't help it.
She can't help that he didn't want her the way he wanted Armin, that he loved her like his family, like his sister, but it still pains her.
Even worse, she'll never see his smile again, never hold him in her arms again, never protect him.
She hears her door open and quickly glances over her shoulder, making a quick note of the knife she keeps on the dresser, but she's surprised to see Levi leaning up against her doorway.
He glances around her room; at the open trunk with unorganized clothes and the untidy but made all the same bed, then at her.
"You have a body you need help getting rid of? I heard shouting," he says dryly.
She exhales smoke out the window and flicks the ash off the end of her cigarette.
"You must be hearing things, I've been reading a novel all evening," she lies, not trying in the slightest to be convincing.
He glances over at the shattered vase.
"Mm, I throw objects when I read books all the time."
"It was a shitty ending, the girl settles."
This makes him smile — not a grin, but a small, amused look that would be easy to miss.
"Right," he agrees with her.
She sighs and glances over at him for a moment. He's wearing his nightclothes; grey and striped pants with a loose cream colored shirt, his posture nonchalant and gaze fixed on her.
"You want a cigarette?"
She isn't quite sure why she asks, but he comes into her room and shuts the door.
"Sure."
Years ago, she never would've imagined that she and Levi Heichou would be smoking cigarettes in her bedroom, but many things have turned out differently than she had thought they would.
They sit there quietly, not speaking, simply watching the rain fall and the people outside. She's positive that he would've recognized Jean's voice, and she appreciates that he doesn't ask her about it.
The silence between them is surprisingly comfortable. She appreciates that he doesn't feel the need to make small-talk, content to simply blow blue smoke into the night air.
He looks tired, but she supposes that that never truly leaves him, she knows he doesn't sleep much. His hair has started to grey at the temples, but it suits him and grey hair is a luxury in some respects.
He smokes faster than she does, so they finish at the same time. She's a little surprised when he casually flicks the butt out the window, the ember streaking orange until it hits the ground and extinguishes in a puddle.
He exhales the last bit of smoke and glances over at her.
"Try to take your own advice and get some sleep."
She watches him leave and can't help but feel that same thrill again. She doesn't know if it's at the reminder of their fight tomorrow or if it's just him, but it's one of the only genuine things she'd felt in a long time.
She wraps her knuckles in bandages and leans from side to side, letting her vertebrae pop as she bends.
Hanji and Levi are bullshitting while she draws his blood, something about how he owes her a home-cooked meal, which makes Mikasa think of him wearing an apron and chasing around kids with a wooden spoon like Carla used to and she nearly laughs.
It's a sunny weekend day with a gentle, warm breeze and blue skies as far as the eye can see. She looks up at the blueness of the sky and can't help but remember Armin, how he longed for a world without walls.
At least he got that for a few years.
"It's pretty amazing, isn't it?" Hanji says, pausing to look out at the vastness before them.
Mikasa never longed for a world without walls like Eren and Armin. She'd wanted simpler things – a house, maybe in the country, two or three kids, a real family.
I always search for the things I've lost, for things that I've already had, longing for the past.
"Yeah, it is," she finally replies, though she can't help but feel that its beauty is wasted on her.
"I always think of Erwin when the weather is nice like this, it's what he loved more than anything."
Hanji says this so lightly, almost happy sounding, not like she's remembering her dead friend who never got to see the world he'd dedicated his life to creating.
"Yeah he loved shit like this, what a sap," Levi agrees lightly.
"It's even better when you're not worrying about being eaten," Hanji sighs wistfully. She stares into the distance for a moment longer then turns to Mikasa.
"Okay, back to work!"
Mikasa sits down and clenches her fist so that Hanji can take a vial of her blood and add it to her steadily growing collection.
"Okay you two, so this is in the name of science," Hanji insists.
Mikasa openly watches her opponent now, as he cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders disinterestedly.
"Now, I'm not saying to kill the other one, but don't pull your punches too much, my hypothesis depends on a…" Hanji thinks for a second, her hand on her chin, "somewhat primal response, one you can't get just dancing around each other."
Mikasa smirks.
"Try to kill each other but don't kill each other, got it," she says sarcastically.
Hanji laughs, this time a little nervously.
"Don't worry, Mikasa has tried and failed to kill me before."
Arrogance is unusual for him, but maybe such a long era of peace has allowed him to relax into his title of Humanity's Strongest a little more. She'd never say it out loud, but the snarky expression on his face suits him. She can tell by the glint in his normally expressionless eyes that he's as excited about this as she is, that he wants something too, something he's missing and he's hoping to find it.
They don't wait for a signal to start, they don't need it because she knows he feels it too, a crackle in the air, a moment of electricity between the two of them that drives her forward.
More than going out dancing, more than fucking Jean Kirstein, more than flying through the air in maneuvering gear, fighting him feels like something inside her just falls into place.
Her body moves both with his and counter to his, each blow met perfectly with either an evasion or a counter attack of his own, until finally she lands a blow to his stomach. It would knock the wind out of any normal person, but she can feel that he tensed his abdominal muscles at exactly the right moment so that her fist feels like she's punched into a brick wall.
Still, his balance is thrown and it sends him to the ground. He uses the momentum to roll away from her but she's too fast. She tackles him to the ground and pins his shoulders to the ground moving to knee him in the groin, but when she tries to get the momentum, he overpowers her with brute strength, elbowing her in the throat and exploding upwards, grabbing her hair tightly in his fist.
She takes a blow to the head so hard that her vision goes black for a second, and it keeps coming, next a hard blow to her belly that winds her and before she can guess next his boot is on her cheek and pushing her head hard into the ground. She tries to elbow his shin, but her head is still swimming and it hurts her more than it probably hurts him.
"You disappoint me, Mikasa," he deadpans as he twists his heal mockingly on her cheek. "Do you like eating dirt like this?" He bends over and grabs both of her wrists, bringing her up to her knees limply, though she still can't catch her breath because her head is swimming from the last blow to her head.
He plants his foot in between her shoulder blades and he starts to pull on her arms. She can't help but let out a groan as he slowly continues the process of dislocating her shoulders. He runs his hands up to her biceps, still gripping so hard that she feels like her bones could snap from his grasp alone. He leans down close enough that she can feel his breath on the nape of her neck.
"You look pretty like this, maybe if you had gotten on your knees for Eren he would've noticed you as a woman instead of his sister."
His words are low and suddenly she can feel her heartbeat in her head; anger doesn't even begin to describe the sensation, it's an overwhelming combination of grief at the mention of the person she loved more than anything, of his rejection of that love, shame at her inadequacy, and blinding, white hot rage.
She does it so quickly that she doesn't even think about the movement, she doesn't know even know how it happens but she's free from his grasp and is just hitting him. Over and over again, and it feels so fucking good that she never wants to stop.
She hears shouting, but it's somewhere far away. Something pulls at her arm as she brings it back to hit Levi in the face again, but she easily shakes it off and lands another blow before she feels a pinch and her vision fades to black.
She wakes up and feels like she's simultaneously hungover and been chewed up and spit out by a Titan.
She's laying down in a bed with soft white linens, a glass of water on the bedside table. She grabs it and downs the whole thing without thinking and tries to move to get out of bed but she feels too stiff to move without stumbling, so she stays put.
I must be in Hanji's room.
As if her thought somehow summoned her, the bedroom door opens and Hanji, carrying a tray of breakfast food enters.
"Oh good, I thought you'd be awake soon," she unfolds the legs on the tray and sets it neatly in Mikasa's lap.
"What happened?"
"Oh, I sedated you before you could kill Levi or make his concussion worse, whichever came first."
Mikasa glares at the scientist. It's coming back to her, what he'd said, how she had wanted nothing more than to hit him over and over again, until all of his teeth were knocked out of his mouth and his eyes swelled shut, how good it had felt every time her fist made contact with his body.
The memory exhilarates her; what it had been like to hit him, the simultaneous lack of control of herself juxtaposed with the power she had over him.
She's experienced this sensation before – pleasure and excitement at inflicting pain on someone else – but she feels justified in her actions and confident enough in his strength that she doesn't feel guilty.
"You're the one who said to fight him for real."
Hanji nods.
"Oh I know that, but even I was a little surprised at how seriously you took me, what he said to you must have really pissed you off. I like to think he would've gotten out of it had I not stuck you, but I didn't want to chance it."
Hanji clearly sees Mikasa's deepening frown and the flush creeping up her neck at the memory of what he'd said to her.
Noticing this Hanji adopts a contrite expression.
"Hey, whatever he said don't hold it against him, before you got here yesterday I told him to make you angry."
"What?" She growls.
"I knew that telling you to fight without holding back wouldn't be good enough, so I told him to say or do whatever he needed to to set you off. Maybe he was a bit too good at finding just the right button to push, but he was only doing what I requested."
Mikasa is still angry that he'd said what he said, but somehow it's less humiliating to her that it hadn't been completely unprompted.
He still had to think it.
"Whatever," she dismisses, trying to act like she's not bothered even though that's far from the truth. "Did you get what you need?"
Hanji's eyes light up, pure excitement.
"I think so, I took a few samples from you while you were out, I've already started doing some preliminary things and it's promising. I'll need more time to make conclusions but I don't think I'll need to stab you again for quite a while."
Mikasa nods. She doesn't know why she cares if Hanji completes her research, there's no reason or benefit for her, but she can tell that it makes Hanji happy, this pursuit of knowledge in itself enough for her.
Mikasa slices the pancakes on the plate and eats them while Hanji rambles about specific proteins and other things Mikasa doesn't really understand nor care to.
"Here's some pain relief for if you're feeling stiff," Hanji sets two white tablets on her tray after she finishes her food.
Mikasa must pull a face because Hanji starts to laugh.
"I know, different times, right? Would've been nice to pop a few of these after an expedition, we just didn't have stuff like this, you'd be lucky if we had enough hot water for a decent shower."
Mikasa thanks her for the medication and swallows the pills. In an hour she feels pretty good. She has some nasty looking purple bruises all over her body, but she's experienced far worse.
Since Hanji doesn't need anything else, Mikasa goes back to the Inn.
A week passes and she hasn't seen Levi around and assumes he's left for something else. It's probably for the best because she's not sure if she could stop herself from punching him in the face again. Still, she can't help but think back to fighting him, how she hadn't felt that way, that indescribable rush in years.
She spends another week stuck in her head, the mundane nature of doing chores to earn her keep, reading books and smoking cigarettes not enough to keep the darkness away – thoughts about people being eaten, about waking up every single day wondering if she was going to die that day, or the next, or the next haunt her. But worst of all she thinks about Eren; his face, his smile, his laugh, all things that used to bring her genuine happiness but have now left her only with bitterness and a longing for the past.
Without the annoying but effective distraction that was Jean Kirstein's company, she decides to head out to the country to visit Connie and Sasha.
It's a long trek, about a half a day if she catches a ride on a passing truck. She thinks that the man who offers her a lift recognizes her, but he doesn't want to say anything because he's not sure. She supposes that she looks a bit different than she used to – the dress and stockings can throw people off when before she'd been seen carrying blades and wearing her green cloak, the wings of freedom burned onto her back.
He drops her off at the road that winds back to Connie and Sasha's forest home, but not before offering a quiet thank-you for her years of service to humanity.
It's funny how after everything was said and done, the few remaining members of the scouting legion had been elevated to humanity's saviors when most of their existence they'd been derided as tax payer funded waste.
Still, she accepts his thanks and walks up the dirt road. It's about two miles and despite the oppressively hot summer heat, she finds the forest beautiful.
The Springer family lives in a cottage not unlike the one she grew up in with her parents, though in the yard they fly a flag with the wings of freedom on a green field. She raps on the door and inside she can hear rustling, perhaps someone stumbling, and then Connie answers the door, his almost a year old daughter propped up on his hip.
"Oh hey Mikasa! Come in, it's so good to see you!" He says excitedly.
Their house is truly a home , fresh cut flowers on the window sill, Elise's toys strewn about the floor and framed pictures on the walls. Photographs, which are still somewhat rare even though they are becoming more common, of their wedding day, of their small family and even the first photo that Mikasa had ever been in, one with all of the 104th scouts who'd survived the war – Armin and Eren eyes bright and smiling, an arm over each other's shoulders, and her standing just behind them, looking upon them.
That was always my role, wasn't it, to watch them?
She shakes her head and stops the thought in its tracks.
"Sasha is out hunting for dinner, but she's pretty fast so I'm sure she'll be back pretty soon, what brings you out here?"
"I wanted to get out of the city and come see my favorite little girl," she smiles at Elise who is now on the ground, her chubby little hands playing with a block and attempting to shove it in her mouth.
Connie laughs. "Well you know you're always welcome with us, Sasha will be so excited to have you!"
Mikasa sits on the ground and plays with the baby. She's a happy, chubby little thing with eyes that are big and turning brown like her mother's. She must be about eight months old now.
True to his word, Sasha shows up within the hour and is thrilled to see Mikasa, the hugging her tightly and kissing her cheek affectionately.
"Connie take Mikasa's things to the spare room, how rude of you," Sasha admonishes, though Mikasa can tell by the way her gaze softens upon her husband that she doesn't mean it.
"Is there anything I can do to help you out?"
Sasha picks up Elise and kisses her on the cheek, Elise giggling and grabbing at her mother's chest. Sasha sighs.
"Yeah, keep me company while I feed her and then help me go slice up the deer I got for dinner!
Mikasa watches as Sasha unbuttons her blouse and puts Elise to her breast. The baby is all too happy to eat and simultaneously kick her Mother's chest while she does so. Sasha sighs and tries to hold her feet down but then Elise starts to hit her breast and hum.
Sasha groans.
"Motherhood, I tell you," she says glibly and Mikasa can't help but laugh at seeing what is often depicted as the pinnacle of femininity look so ungraceful.
Eventually Elise calms down and starts to eat quietly.
"So, what brings you all the way out here?"
Mikasa shrugs.
"Mm, big city life can get overwhelming at times."
This is something Mikasa has always liked about Sasha. Sasha has an uncanny ability to fill in the blanks; to state sometimes uncomfortable truths in a casual way while not prying deep into anything personal.
Sasha talks about Elise, about how she's getting her first tooth and pulling herself up on everything she can, how Connie has been running a sewing business out of their shed that's taken off far better than either of them expected so Sasha has had plenty of time to cook and take care of Elise like she wants.
"That's great, I didn't know Connie could sew."
"Oh yeah, he grew up next to his town's seamstress and these new sewing machines make it so much easier," Sasha says lightly.
"Yeah and our new model is making it so I can hardly keep up with business," Connie says, overhearing their conversation as he walks back in from outside.
Sasha laughs but she remembers something and adopts a more serious expression.
"Speaking of, I asked him to come by later tonight, there's something wrong with Marigold, she bit at me yesterday."
Connie frowns.
"That's unlike her."
"Marigold's our horse," Sasha explains.
"Oh, is your model also veterinarian?"
The two of them share a look and laugh, clearly it's something of an inside joke.
"No, not really, just a neighbor who knows more about horses than either of us, He's–"
But Sasha cuts him off, shushing him because Elise has fallen asleep.
Sasha carefully tiptoes to their bedroom with the peacefully sleeping baby, and comes back shortly after making a thumbs up sign.
"Alright, time for a drink, she'll be asleep til later tonight!" Sasha says excitedly.
"Don't we have to go cut up that deer?"
"Who says we can't do that while drinking?"
So that's how Mikasa finds herself outside, holding a glass of wine while Sasha, well into her second beer, pulls the skin off of the doe she felled that afternoon.
Mikasa tries to help, but Sasha bats her hand away.
"No offense but I can get more meat off this thing than you can, and I don't want you to get your dress dirty."
Mikasa laughs at how much the beer has loosened Sasha's tongue and just takes another sip of her wine.
"So, have you made any new friends in the city?" Sasha grunts as she carves away backstraps off of the deer.
Mikasa finishes the rest of her wine glass and pours a little more from the bottle they brought outside and laughs.
"No, opposite actually, I can't manage to keep any." If she wasn't a total lightweight and this wine wasn't strong, she would admonish herself for how pathetic that sounds, but the happy buzz she has going eases the embarrassment.
Sasha clicks her tongue.
"I'm sure it's not as bad as all that."
"Yeah, well you know how I'm so warm and friendly all the time," she says sarcastically.
Sasha grimaces and doesn't disagree, but then shakes her head.
"Well then I guess you're stuck with me and Connie, we're boring parents and all but we don't mind if you're kind of a bitch sometimes," she shrugs.
Mikasa smiles at Sasha's teasing. If anything Sasha is familiar with her quirks, and that can be nice.
She'll feel guilty if she stays too long, because Mikasa knows she's mostly a cloud of grief and self-loathing and that anyone as perceptive as Sasha can pick up on that, but for now she's happy she came to visit, it takes her mind off of Hanji's crazy experimenting, off of Levi and the thrill fighting him gave her.
Feeling anything is better than feeling nothing at all.
Sasha suddenly stops carving the meat and sets down her butcher's knife, clearly hearing someone.
"That's the model veterinarian," she says lightly.
When Mikasa sees the very man she'd been thinking about dismounting off of a chestnut mare, Mikasa can't help but think that life is strange.