His voice was so strong, it surprised her. She couldn t move anymore, couldn t yell back. Between choking on a sob and anger, she d lost her power of speech. She still felt pain and when his hands grabbed her shoulder and he held on too tight, it hurt. It hurt and she winced and avoided his eyes, but his face was so close, and his scent so welcoming and familiar, she couldn t help it. She dared a look at him, his eyebrows were raised and although there was anger in his tone, she couldn t find any trace of it in his eyes. Little by little, his words started making sense again.
"Don t you get what s at stake here? Damn it! Why would you do something like that?"
She stood her ground, said: You needed my help.
"No, I didn t. I could have handled everything!"
She shook her head. You were surrounded -
"I could have handled it!" he said, and she bit her bottom lip. He realized then what was happening, how he was hurting her by holding her like that. He let go, feeling a knot in his stomach one could only describe as guilt. She waited for him and felt warmth within her when he touched her again, this time gently and carefully. He took off her jacket, rubbed her shoulders. His frown had yet to disappear, but he pulled her closer anyway and she drowned in him.
"I ve been trying to protect you, too," he told her, his breath tickling her skin. "You need to let me."
Feeling safe, she let her guard down.
"I can t lose you," she said. "I m scared of losing you. You can t ask me to stay still when you re out there "
"Why are you so stubborn?" he said. "You ever stop to think about me? You re scared of losing me, fine, I get it. Now, how do you think I feel?"
Surprised, she opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out.
He kept going.
"All those times you risked your life -how the fuck can you think it s okay for you to die? You think I want to live without you?"
"I "
"And today! Do you have any idea how reckless you were? Damn it, I could have lost you. Don t you get that? I could have lost you and "
He trailed off, she felt exposed when he looked down.
"I could have lost you both," he said after a moment.
She wanted to cry.
The child she was carrying, their child, was precious and loved. It was also their secret.
She d told him about the pregnancy a month ago. She d said it so bluntly that he had no time to react properly. He heard pregnant followed by a chain of words that foretold only tragedy.
They were at war. They were trying to save humanity. They had no place for a pregnant woman. They would send her back, probably not without berating and humiliating her for breaking their code, and she would have to give birth all alone, she would have to raise the child not knowing if the man she loved would ever come back and that wold be too much, that would hurt her too much. And even if they knew the child was his, the titan shifter, they would take her in for experiments and he couldn t accept that.
But they couldn t keep it a secret forever.
Their situation was doomed. Neither of them wanted to stop fighting, neither of them wanted to be apart. They were so young, two kids having a kid, and they wanted it all to happen in a world where they were free. They wanted their child to be able to run and play without fear.
Before telling him, she wondered if he d regret what they had done. What they had become. She wondered and wondered and wondered until the day she told him came. And after listening to all she had to say, all the tragedy that could happen, he kissed her softly on the tip of her nose, then on her lips and finally, he knelt down and pressed his ear against her belly.
"You won t hear anything, " she d told him.
"I don t care," he d said.
She allowed herself to smile. A sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. He got back up, his eyes were a bit red, he didn t want to cry in front of her but that didn t matter.
"We ll find a way. I ll make you happy, Mikasa. I ll make you both happy, I ll save us, I ll fix everything. I swear, I ll fix everything and we ll be free, we ll be all right."
"I believe you," was all she could say.
And now, here they were. Still lost, still trapped.
"I could have lost you both," he said again, mostly to himself. "So please, don t do that again."
"Don t get into trouble."
"Stop being stubborn. When you put yourself on the line like that, you re being selfish, Mikasa."
He was worried. It was in the way he moved, the way he talked and looked at her. There was no anger left, only worry and fear. She took his hand in hers, caressed it with her thumb.
"You re right, it s selfish. There are times when I wouldn t mind running away with you and never coming back."
She felt him squeezing her hand. It was his way of saying he felt the same. Because she knew he was tired. She knew his entire body ached every day and she knew, although he would loudly claim otherwise, she knew that deep down he wanted peace and quiet.
"But today," she said, "it wasn t about me. I..tried to stay away. But then I saw you, unprotected, and I thought that if you died, our baby would never get to meet you."
His expression finally softened.
"Eren, that would be so cruel," she placed his hand on her stomach and said, "if you two never got to know each other. That s why I did what I did today. And I only did it because I was sure I could help you. I was sure. I would never risk losing our baby and and it hurts that you think I would."
It took her a minute to realize she let herself cry. And it took another minute for her to realize he was pulling her in for another hug. He had one hand on her waist and the other on the back of her head, his fingers in her hair.
They stayed like that for a while. She buried her head on his chest while he swayed them both in a little dance. It felt so nice, so good, that she thought the world was a good place, after all. She thought they were finally free.
When he backed away, he smiled at her and kissed the tip of her nose, much like he did when he found out about the baby. She couldn t help but notice how much his scent had changed, how he had gone from smelling like a boy to smelling like a man and she loved him with all that she had.
"I didn t mean it like that. I know you would never do something stupid or something that could hurt our baby. I know that. But things happen and I don t want you taking risks."
" We won t be able to hide it anymore. "
"We ll find a way."
"We re leaving in a week for another field trip, Eren."
It made her heart ache the way he reacted to this. The way his head dropped and his body went stiff. She wanted to comfort him but she didn t know how, not when she needed comforting too.
"You can get sick," he said suddenly, looking back at her. "You can get sick!"
"What?"
"Pretend to be sick, we can heat up some rags and put them on your forehead and we can say you re in no shape to go out -"
"Eren, do you really think they ll "
"Yes, yes, I do. They ll let you stay here, waiting, probably doing paperwork assigned by Hanji. It s the best we can do for now. It s not much, but it s another week we re buying, Mikasa."
"But you -you ll be alone "
"And that s good, remember? I m trying to keep you safe here. I m the one protecting you now. Let me."
She closed her eyes.
Her heart was on her throat. She didn t want to stop fighting, stop being by his side.
But there was life growing within her, counting on her to be a shelter, to be a mother.
"All right," she said. "We can try."
He smiled.
"Thank you. After that, when I get back, we ll talk to Armin, and he ll know what to do."
He didn t give her time to respond and kissed her lips one, two, three, four times. Four little, noisy kisses on her lips before he knelt down and kissed her belly.
She ran her fingers through his hair as he talked to their unborn child and promised them all a happy future.