Special thanks to Kappy (gh0sty in ) for betaing this! She's amazing!

Growing up under the heavy wings of freedom necessity hadn't been easy for anyone, and for her, even less. It had already been four ungenerous years. Dead friends, dead dreams, dead hopes – those were the only things that the massacre of the titans brought back to them, the only ones who truly fought back.

It was horrible. It was horrifying. It was a heavy sensation sinking in her chest every time they were told to go to a new mission. It was counting their friends before and after leaving, and praying to the heavens to get the same numbers. It was having the bland knowledge of their own highly probable death nailing, nailing, nailing on the back of their minds every time the click of the gears echoed the silent rooms full of soldiers getting ready for their missions. Looking for freedom. Looking for peace.

It had been a year and a half she had been put under the exhausting command of Captain Levi, too. She was the second best soldier, after all – after him. It was not an easy job; they often had to carry heavy weights. They were expected to fulfill the hardest tasks, and excel in doing so.

It really had been a breather for both of them when they were sent to investigate inside the city.

"I know you are lying to me, Earl! Tell me the truth, already!" A toad-like woman shouted. The cloth of her apron swirled along at her sudden movement, knocking down a nearly empty jar of water, which broke into a thousand pieces as it crashed harshly on the floor.

"Honey, you know I'd never lie to you!" the desperate voice of a man swore, his palms opened up towards his wife in a vain attempt to show surrender.

"Then who was that woman in the market you were with, huh?! You cheating bastard!" A chubby accusing finger erupted from her hand, as her cheeks reddened with anger. "At least tell me who's her! Is she younger than me? Skinnier?! I bet she is! You are the worst, Earl!" The woman took a few stalking steps towards him.

Unknown to them, two pairs of attentive eyes watched the whole wreck of scene from a framed window, steel and onyx following each of the movements of the adult couple.

"There isn't another wo… Wait, Maryl, don't move!" And he interrupted himself mid-sentence, alert raising his voice. But it was too late; a slightly quieter 'ouch' reached his ears. The man hissed in sympathy, "Okay, don't move again!"

The woman didn't answer, as she tried to keep balance on one feet, trying to examine the other, trying to hold much too childish tears for her thirty-long years that threatened to fall from her eyes. Soon, his lanky arms surrounded her figure, and with shaky efforts, lifted her up and put her away. Well, at least as far as his short strength allowed him.

The woman remained in humiliated silence as she allowed the man to examine her hurt feet. He smiled a little, as he treated her cut with familiarity now. "Here, all good now."

"You know I love you, Maryl, don't you?" His voice was quiet now, the storm had gone away. His hand still rested on her feet, massaging it slightly.

She looked away, trying to avoid his older eyes. "…Yes."

The man nodded to himself, as he looked at her clear eyes, "The woman you saw was your mother.", her eyebrows shoot up in surprise and cluelessness, "She was helping me choose a pretty pair of shoes to go along with her gift. As your birthday is coming soon. I… uh, I just spoiled the surprise, dangit."

Her eyes filled up with tears again, as she stretched out her arms towards her husband, and hugged tightly his lanky frame. "Oh, Earl! I'm so glad! I'm so, so glad!" Her embrace tightened even more, "I love you too! I was too afraid to lose you!"

The man let a low chuckle, as she stood up once again, telling the man to lay the table, so she could serve the dinner.

The light chatting died away in the corridor that took to the other side of the house, and two bodies finally sat down again on the dirt of the modest backyard.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them as their minds processed the scene they had just seen. The man's arms were crossed against his chest, as his back lay against the white wall. The clear moonlight was the only thing that made those kinds of details visible to her eyes.

"I don't think he's the one we are looking for." She suddenly broke the silence of the night. In response, she only received a low hum of agreement.

For some reason, she felt a sort of distant melancholy. The scene felt much too familiar, even though she was sure she had never seen a lovers' quarrel like that. Mikasa couldn't help but to think of it as sweet.

"Some people have it easy, hm?". Levi's voice made a cricket close to them cease its concerto. She raised her eyebrows slightly, even though she wasn't all that surprised. She was kind of getting used to her captain's peculiar behaviors, spilling whatever was on his mind occasionally being one of those.

So, she simply remained shut. But the silence lasted way longer than she expected. Perhaps he didn't have anything else to say?

"You know, sometimes I imagine having that kind of life"

She was actually surprised now. Her eyes dared to steal a side glance at the older man. His back was still straight as ever, his arms firmly crossed, but his face was facing forward. Mikasa suspected his eyes were looking somewhere way further than the simple wooden fence.

"A… 'loving wife', a small home. A little store. Maybe some kids tangling around my feet.", she saw his posture relax a little bit more as he went on. "Hell, even a dog, if they swore to keep it outside the house. The whole average mid-low fucking package."

That faint hint of longing in the back of his tongue was something she was having trouble getting used to right now. This was completely new. She never saw… well, considered her superior to be someone like that. Someone who longed something else than violence to rule his life; someone who would rather mediocrity over a frenzied military life anytime.

"Average is good.", she just let out, unsure how to respond to that. "I… um, can relate to that."

She wasn't going to deny it. It was more than relating – she actually felt like that. She couldn't count the amount of times she had imagined herself in those kind of situations before she fell asleep. Having a dear husband coming home from work, herself making dinner, wearing long dresses again. Wearing a dirty apron. Lecturing imaginary almond shaped, green-eyed kids. That sounded like a lovely life in her mind.

"Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to get married and have kids. Even though I don't know how to cook." she suddenly confessed, thoughtlessly. "I… wanted to be like mom and dad. And like Eren's parents, too. They were good people."

The melancholy she felt got a bit less subtle.

"I bet you'd make a nice wife, too.", she lowered her eyes just in time to catch a glimpse at his face. For the first time in a long time, his brow wasn't in its permanent furrow. "Even if your cooking is shitty."

She detected his dry humor, and smiled a little. When she was about to thank him, though, he chose to talk again.

"I was going to marry Petra.", he let out. For some reason, Mikasa felt like she had just accidentally tipped a jar full of honey, and it was slowly but surely spilling in a thick puddle, and she felt that she was sticking her opened hands in it. "I didn't really love her. But she told me she loved me. I wouldn't have minded her as a wife. That was the closest to the life I wanted I got." his voice sounded a little thicker now, perhaps a little choked. "And then she died. In the end, neither of us got what we wanted.", she heard a sigh disguised itself as him clearing his throat.

She didn't know how to respond to that, either. She was surprisingly too exhausted to think of a proper one. Or perhaps she felt that this subject was too touchy for her inexperienced words, as those were the only ones she could provide.

"You are the only one who knows." he finally concluded.

But she felt like she had to say something as well. Like she owed it to him. If she couldn't provide support, she'd at least offer sympathy.

"I don't think Eren wants the same life as I do." she said, but she suddenly regretted it. Now, she felt like she was venting her insecurities, instead of sympathizing with him, like she intended to. Besides, he was neither her friend nor her confidant. He was her superior.

Her internal, insecure rambling got interrupted with another of his hums, this time an interested one, as if he was asking her to go on.

"I mean…" she didn't know how to put her thoughts into words. Partially because she didn't like to give it much thought, as she knew her worries should be far from those kinds of wishful thoughts, and partially because she was astounded by her captain's actual interest. "I can't imagine him settling down. But it's weird, because he's the only one I ever imagined myself with."

She let her words echo into the night. He looked slightly conflicted, the furrow coming back to his eyebrows once again.

"Well, there's always others out there."

Silence once again, but this one was different from the other tranquil ones. She felt air leaving her lungs suddenly, for some reason she ignored. But before she could dwell on it, Levi spoke up again.

"I think it's about time to leave." he stood up, and began patting the dust off of his pants. Her eyes flickered to him, and knowing she had at least three good minutes until he finished the usually meticulous dusting task, they went to the sky once again. The stars shone more beautifully in the city, she thought, even though not as bright.

But after a few seconds, her vision was interrupted by a pale hand. She blinked twice, once in shock and once in recognition, and she took the offer.

As they walked back into the stone streets to the modest hotel where they'd stay the night, she heard him mutter to himself the last words he'd say for the night.

"Average is good, indeed."

That night, alone in her own room, she imagined someone else with her in her mundane fantasies before falling into a deep sleep.