The first time it happens there is red everywhere. Frayed and unraveling and crawling across the floor of her bedroom like tattered snakes. Six strips of fabric where there used to be only one.
The scissors are still in her hand, blades hanging open and slack like the jaws of a Titan, as if they weren't quite finished when she'd so rudely interrupted their meal. Mikasa lets them drop to the floor with a clang and then she sits there limply, listening to the white noise that rings in her ears and fills the silence. Sometime later she stands and rummages through her scant belongings until she finds a needle and thread.
She spends the early hours of the morning carefully sewing back the scarf she's ruined, heedless of the tears that track down her cheeks.
The second time it happens, she jumps back instinctively from the shattering glass of her teacup as it breaks against the stone floor, even though she doesn't remember letting it slip from her grasp or having it in her grasp at all. The smell of peppermint curls up to her from where it seeps into the cracks in the stone and she wrinkles her nose against its strong scent. She doesn't care for peppermint.
"Lieutenant?"
Mikasa swivels her head, her grey eyes expressionless as they meet the young cadet's worried gaze. The girl tucks a lock of auburn hair behind her ear, looks down at the broken teacup, back up to her, swallows. "Are...are you okay, Lieutenant?" She asks, a wrinkle of worry creasing her otherwise youthful brow.
Mikasa nods. "I'm fine. Just a little tired." She can't remember the girl's name.
"Do you want me to clean that up for you?"
"No. I'll get it. It's long past curfew anyway. You should be in bed."
The girl goes beet red, thinking she's being reprimanded even though Mikasa is merely making an observation. She has never enforced curfew; it would be hypocritical, seeing as she never heeded it herself when she was only an entry-level soldier.
But the girl doesn't know this, and after a hasty salute and a mumbled apology, the soft tread of her footsteps carry her away.
Mikasa listens to them fade as her fingers trace unconsciously at the newest seams of her scarf.
Stitched back together almost as many times as me, she thinks as she bends down and begins to gather the shards of the teacup, and held together twice as well.
The third time it happens reality floods her in the form of an irritated, low voice. "Do you realize what time it is, Ackerman?"
Captain Levi is standing in front of her, arms crossed, narrow eyes bloodshot. She can see a few candles burning low in the room behind him, their faint flickers casting shadows on the bare walls and the stack of open books resting on a desk devoid of even one picture.
Mikasa would've known whose room it was even if the man in question wasn't right in front of her. Every impersonal detail was a portrait of him: detached and lonely— aching emptiness masked by rigid order.
It isn't so far off from being a portrait of her, too.
"It's late," she mutters, her reply even less excusable considering the time it takes her to say it. She's usually much sharper than this, a fact they're both well aware of.
He frowns up at her, a hint of something besides boredom in his eyes. "Do you... do you need something?"
"No." This time her reply is immediate. "I was just passing by—"
"You were knocking on my door for an entire bloody minute."
She tugs her scarf up over her mouth, trying to hide her distress. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize..." She trails off, catching herself before she can stoke his curiosity. Curiosity will only lead to questions she can't answer, to questions that scare her. "Good night, Captain," she says, and leaves him standing there without another word.
She doesn't hear the sound of his door closing until she's already rounded the corner of the long hallway.
The fourth time it happens she is outside and the wind kisses her cheeks as she falls into the mud. There is no grace, no dignity in her landing, just a jarring sense of pain that shoots out from her joints as her hands and knees brace her fall. She winces, heart dropping faster than her body had a second ago as she realizes she has her gear half on, some of the buckles in place, some dangling from her thighs and hips. How or when she's managed to retrieve her gear from her locker, she can't say.
She hears someone approaching and seconds later feels a strong arm around her waist, hauling her up. "Mikasa?" The familiar voice is heavy with concern.
She almost clutches at his arms before she remembers that her hands are coated in mud. She bites her lip as he pushes the hair out of her face and tilts her chin up. There is no judgment in his brown eyes, only softness. "Tell me," Jean says quietly, and she does. She tells him about each incident—the things she remembers and the lapses she can only guess at. He is quiet and attentive and never once cuts in, so different from the hotheaded boy he'd once been.
When she's done, he wraps an arm around her shoulders and whispers, "Let's go talk to Hanji, okay?"
Mikasa nods and lets him lead her back inside, and minutes later the two of them are sitting with the eccentric woman at a table in the otherwise-empty dining hall. Mikasa is finding it hard to look either of them in the eye, and she asks Jean to do the talking because the idea of vocalizing her problems twice in one night is too much for her. She is embarrassed and ashamed.
And scared, though she won't—(can't)—admit that. Not to them, not to anyone.
"It isn't unheard of, Mikasa," Hanji says gently. "Sleep disorders are often a side effect of PTSD. More commonly than not it manifests in nightmares, but you're not the first person I've known to exhibit somnambulism."
Mikasa looks up at the brown-haired woman. Her eyes are fervent behind the shine of her glasses, and although Mikasa knows she means well, she also senses there is a clinical interest twinkling there, a scientific curiosity that Hanji has never quite been able to turn off.
Her lips press into a thin line. "You're saying that I sleepwalk and do things in my sleep because I have a stress disorder, but what makes you think I have a stress disorder?"
Jean laughs half-heartedly beside her, though it is a weary chuckle rather than a happy one. "Mikasa." His voice is cautious, like he is speaking to a child: trying to be gentle but also trying to explain something vital. "You lost your entire squad- all six cadets- on our last expedition. Hell, I lost half of mine." His hand finds hers beneath the surface of the table, his fingers warm against her own. "The training, the schedules, the fucking Titans... it's a miracle we're not all catatonic." He pauses. "And I know you try to hide it, but the fact that Eren and Armin have been stationed away from you for the last few months hasn't been easy. You even started wearing your scarf again."
Mikasa drops her free hand from where it has twisted in the comforting cloth of said scarf, cheeks warming to a shade almost complementary to its hue. She pulls her other hand free of his grasp and rests both of them palm-down on the table. "When will it stop?" She murmurs, unsure if she's referring to her sleepwalking episodes or to something else entirely.
Hanji answers the more obvious question. "In time. For now, I'll give you something to calm your nerves at night, as well as some mental relaxation exercises to practice before you go to bed. And we'll lock you in at night, just as a precaution."
Like a prisoner.
But if she can't control her actions then she has no right to complain. Jean is giving her a reassuring smile and Hanji is nodding encouragingly as she looks between them, and Mikasa hears herself say, "Okay. If you think that's best."
Dreams always seem peaceful to her, especially the ones where the wings of freedom become part of her and she can take flight and soar. Feathers of blue and silver unfurl from her shoulder blades and carry her too high for anything to weigh her down. She is radiant and unstoppable, an incandescent blur as she chases the rays of the morning sun. But the hand that grabs her is strong enough to break her wings as it yanks her backwards and down, down, down...
"Stop!"
Mikasa's eyes fly open in terror as Captain Levi jerks her away from the edge of the roof, stopping her before she has the chance to discover that she can't, in fact, fly. She trembles, her breath coming in short gasps as the cold night air whips around her and stings her face, taunting her. "What was I...how did I get up here...?" She sputters as she becomes aware of her surroundings.
She is standing on the roof of the castle with her superior's arms caged around her waist, wearing nothing but her nightclothes. When she notices that her feet are bare, she shivers. Not okay. I am not okay and I am getting worse. The panic wells up inside and chokes out into a pained, keening sob as her eyes find Levi's. "I don't know what's real anymore," she breathes as she clutches at him with grasping hands.
"Mikasa." His voice is an anchor and his eyes are steady. Slowly, he pries her fingers from his forearm and draws her hand to his chest, pressing it against his heart. The pulse there is as calm as his gaze. "Real," he says.
She doesn't know how long they stay like that, standing on the roof as the night deepens around them, but eventually her fear subsides and she relaxes, the cacophony of worries in her head quieting at last.
She exhales. Her hand is still over his heart when she realizes that he doesn't seem surprised by her behavior. "How long have you known?" She asks.
"Since the night Jean took you to talk to Hanji, though I had my suspicions long before then." He sighs. "You may have been promoted, Lieutenant, but you are still technically my subordinate. It's my business to know what's going on with you."
Mikasa sees it again—the flicker of something the stoic man keeps tucked away, and it makes her crack at the seams and take out the things she's tucked away too. "I don't know what to do," she murmurs, voice barely carrying above the quiet breeze. "Hanji locks my door every night and I still managed to get out. If you hadn't been here..." Tears come, and she paws angrily at them as they brim over. "I'm trying to deal with this, but I can't, Levi, I just can't. On the nights when I'm not haunted by the faces of my squad, I'm too nervous to fall asleep because I know if I do, I'll lose control. There's never any relief. I can't stay awake and I can't sleep and I don't know what to do."
"I do." He lowers her hand from his chest and fear begins to creep over her again at the loss of contact, but it fades once he gives her a gentle nudge forward and says, "You'll stay with me."
She wraps herself in the light quilt on his bed because he tells her to and because she is too emotionally spent to argue with him.
Her eyelids are heavy, and the last thing she sees before sleep tugs her under is the Captain folding her scarf and placing it beside the assortment of candles and books on his desk.
To Mikasa, it seems to fill up the space almost like a picture would.
There's blood on his cheek and it's because of her. Sure enough, when she looks down, there is a nasty streak of red on the tip of her finger to prove her guilt.
Levi wipes it away. "It's nothing."
But it is something. She shrinks away from him, nails biting into her palms as she clenches her fists. "I can't keep staying here. I'm hurting you." She remembers a time years ago when she would have liked to make him bleed. Now the thought makes her stomach turn. "I'll go back to my room."
He blocks the doorway. "Five nights, and you haven't gotten past this door once. What makes you think you'll have any more luck right now?"
She raises her chin ever so slightly. "Are you saying I'm not free to leave?"
"Not unless you can convince me of a better way to make sure your ass is safe at night."
She lunges without warning but he grabs her wrist in an iron vice before her hand can even make it to the doorknob. "I mean it, Mikasa."
She twists away, faces the wall. "So do I. Knowing that I might attack you in my sleep is not okay with me." She stubbornly keeps her back turned even as she feels his eyes on her.
He is silent for a time and then he moves to his closet and opens the door. She stands there with her arms at her sides, watching as he pulls out a slender wooden box and removes the lid. There are a few items inside, though Mikasa can't make out what they are save for the item Levi removes from it.
"I have an idea," he says as he holds the blue tie up in front of him.
He puts the finishing touches on the knot and stands back, admiring his handiwork. "Go on," he urges her. "Test it."
She does, yanking and pulling and even trying to loosen the intricate, unfamiliar knot with her left hand. But it is no use; the tie remains firmly locked around her right wrist and the horizontal beam of his bedpost.
"If you can't figure it out while you're awake, I don't think you'll be able to untie it in your sleep." He eyes her speculatively. "Happy now?"
Mikasa nods. Her fingers glide over the smooth, cool silk. As she lies back down she asks, "Have you ever even worn this?"
He stiffens, hands tightening on the top rail of his desk chair. "No."
She says nothing, sensing that he has more to say. Eventually she is proven right.
"My squad bought it for me a few years ago. On my birthday. They thought it would be a nice change from my cravat. Tch. Idiots," he scoffs, but there is affection cracking through his acerbic tone. "I was going to wear it for Gunter's birthday, to appease them. But..." He swallows and his eyes find hers. "No, I've never worn it."
She is quiet for a long time, watching him as he sits down at his desk and plucks a slender logbook from a stack of paperwork and pulls it towards him. As he opens it, she says, "I like the tie. It brings out the blue in your eyes."
Her own eyes close before she can see the surprised glance he turns her way.
One night she wakes to the feeling of the tie being undone from her wrist. She sits up, curling her legs under her as Levi finishes loosening the knot.
"What are you doing?"
"You haven't even woken up the last three nights and this is chafing your wrist."
She looks down at the red choker marring her pale skin. It looks angry and raw in the moonlight, though she doesn't feel much pain. "It doesn't hurt."
Levi undoes the other end of the tie from the bedpost, ignoring her. He lays it across the back of his chair, where it hangs in disarray, wrinkled from the knots it's held for countless nights. "It's here if you need it."
Unfettered, Mikasa feels like a ticking bomb with an unknown countdown, and a familiar wariness settles in her bones. The what ifs claw at her, as does something else, something besides fear. She licks her lips. "Levi?"
He turns to her and she can see the exhaustion weighing him down, the circles beneath his eyes that are a little deeper than usual, the few strands of slim black hair that have started to grow out, the raised ridge of an imperfectly healed cut beneath his left jaw. She isn't responsible for all of it, but she knows he gets next to no sleep partially because he is watching over her so that she can.
"I'm glad you think I don't need the tie, but I..." She looks down at her knees. "It was reassuring, knowing that something was grounding me. It would be comforting to still have that feeling." She pauses. "Maybe you could...if you don't mind..." She doesn't know how to ask him, but in the end she doesn't have to.
He regards her silently for a moment before he blows out the last flickering candle, plunging the room into a hazy darkness. He walks around to the other side of the bed and slips in behind her, his arms going around her after only the briefest hesitation. He draws her into his chest until she feels the steady beat of his heart at her back, as strong and sure as it had been that night on the roof. It grants her a sense of security no tie or lock ever could and she nestles closer until she feels his warm exhales tickle her neck.
Safe, she thinks, and she closes her eyes.
They never use the tie again after that.
Sometimes Mikasa wakes to find herself still curled in his arms, other times with her head pressed to his chest, other times with her arms around him and her head nuzzling against the muscles of his back.
The first time their positions are reversed she worries that he will think she is overstepping some boundary by holding him, but instead he only laces his fingers through hers and draws their intertwined hands closer to his chest.
Mikasa wonders if he does it to make sure she can't pull away or because he needs her there. She decides it doesn't matter.
"I don't think you need to stay here anymore," he says one night as she shows up at his door as per usual, breaking the routine they've clung to for months.
His words hurt her even though they shouldn't, even though she knows their temporary closeness was born out of necessity rather than anything remotely personal.
"You've been sleeping through the night for a while, and Hanji agrees that you probably don't need to take such drastic measures anymore."
She shifts restlessly from foot to foot as she searches for a way to tell him that she'd rather stay.
But there is nothing in his expression that makes her feel like she is wanted there, and his usual veneer of boredom is in place. He just stands there, looking at her, waiting in a silence that makes her second guess all the nights they've been wrapped so tenderly in each other's arms.
"Well, if Hanji thinks I'll be okay..." She forces herself to stand a little taller, to straighten her spine. "Thank you for putting up with me all this time," she says, already feeling the ache of rejection squeeze at her heart.
"Of course, Ackerman. I'm here if you need me."
And I'm here if you want me. "I know." She gives him a forced smile that doesn't quite touch her eyes. "Goodnight, Captain."
She turns away and by the time she looks over her shoulder, his door is closed.
It isn't even two hours later when she returns, knuckles wrapping against his door. She waits, but there is no sound from inside.
Thinking he's fallen asleep, she twists the knob and cautiously peeks in.
Levi isn't there. His bed is still made, his chair is empty, and no candles are burning on the desk where her scarf once rested. Only the faint trickle of moonlight that bleeds in between the gap in the curtains lights the room.
Mikasa hesitates only a moment before closing the door behind her and getting into his bed. She burrows under the covers and inhales the faint scent still clinging to his pillow. It isn't as good as the real thing, but it's enough to send her to sleep.
"Have you been here all night?" A voice whispers into the shell of her ear. It is early in the morning, one of the slow, quiet hours before dawn.
She nods and begins to sit up but a familiar pair of arms restrains her. "Don't go," he says. "Stay." "You were the one who told me not to."
"I didn't want you to feel obligated. I'm an idiot." He leans his head into the slope of her shoulder. "Do you know what I've been doing all night long?"
"What?"
"Looking for you."
She turns to face him, still wrapped in the cocoon of his arms. Her hands find their way onto his chest but she doesn't look up, instead choosing to keep her eyes trained on the way her fingers splay out over his muscles. "Why?"
"Same reason you're here," he breathes as he nuzzles her forehead, and the faint press of his lips sends a shiver down her spine. "Because both of us want you to be here."
Mikasa finally tips her chin up and looks at him, and there is an honest hunger in his lidded eyes that makes her breath catch. Real, she thinks. One heartbeat, two, and she presses her lips against his, soft and seeking.
Another heartbeat and he is responding, his lips moving over hers as his arms draw her closer.
Sparks. Electricity. Static. Things Mikasa no longer thought she could feel and she feels them all at once. Her hands travel over his chest and up to his neck, tracing the ridges of his muscles through the fabric of his shirt as he does the same to her. She hums softly, submerged in sensation, and parts her lips to admit the brush of his tongue. Their legs twine together while they kiss, and it is only when Mikasa presses her cold heels into the backs of his knees that Levi hisses and pulls back.
They stare at each other, their breath mingling in the shallow space between them. Both of them are quiet for a long moment.
"You're awake, right? Not just acting out in your sleep?"
Mikasa smiles. "I'm awake."
Levi nods and presses his lips to her forehead. "Good," he murmurs, and he holds her like that until they both fall asleep.
Fall gives way to winter, rain to snow, longer days to shorter ones. It is predictable, ordered change—the turn of the seasons that continues in spite of all those who don't live long enough to see it.
On one unseasonably warm morning, she finds Jean in the stables, brushing the mane of a horse that isn't his.
She observes quietly for a time, watching the way he carefully coaxes out the many tangles, focusing more on how gentle he is with her than on how his hand shakes around the handle of the brush.
"What's her name?" She finally asks.
He only half turns to her. "Blackbeard. Kind of a dumb name for a chestnut mare, if you ask me, but I wasn't the one who named her. She was Kate's horse." The shake in his hand gets worse and he pauses midway down her mane.
Mikasa remembers seeing the girl's file on a desk in the Commander's office and her face flashes before her now: wide doe eyes and auburn hair.
"Do you want me to clean that up for you?"
She hadn't known her name then, hadn't learned it until she no longer had a reason to.
Katelyn Grove.
She'd been in Jean's squad.
Mikasa covers Jean's shaking hand with her own and guides the brush through Blackbeard's mane. Together they work out the rest of the tangles until her smooth hair shines in proud display.
They admire it together.
"Thanks, Mikasa," Jean murmurs.
She doesn't know what makes her ask but she does anyway. "Did you love her?"
He looks pained, his back noticeably tensing. But then he sighs and relaxes, showing just a hint of the emotional control he's gained through the years. "Yeah." He looks down at her. "I used to think it was a stupid fucking idea to fall in love, but now I know that love—now matter how brief—is what makes all of this worth it. The memory of Kate, of Marco...that's what makes me keep on fighting."
Mikasa feels a wave of emotion at his words and she shakes her head at him in astonishment. "When did you get so wise?" She asks.
He snorts. "I'm not wise," he says. "I'm just not as stupid as I used to be."
She rolls her eyes at him and smiles before she turns and jogs away.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" He calls after her.
She doesn't answer.
Levi is looking out of his window when she barges into his room, and he looks at her quizzically as she strides up to him, as if he can't understand why she's there while the sun is still high in the sky.
She throws her arms around his neck. "I love you," she whispers, and the words sound so strange coming from her lips that she makes herself repeat them. "I love you."
There is a moment of utter suspension, and then he tugs gently on her shoulders and pulls her back, holding her at arm's length. The seconds stretch out as he regards her silently, and then a rarely seen, lazy smile curls his lips. "I already know that, Mikasa."
Her throat works as her eyes search his. "You do?"
He nods. "I do. But it doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. It can just be words, if you want."
Mikasa thinks of his empty desk and of the small box he keeps stowed away in his closet, and she decides there are already enough things tucked away and that she doesn't want to be one of them.
"Do you love me?" She asks, and her voice is steady despite the way her heart thuds. His eyes are soft. "You know I do," he replies.
"Good," she says, and for the first time in a long time, she doesn't worry that she will wander off in her sleep when night comes.
She has a reason to stay.