One shot! Jean finally works up the courage to tell Mikasa how he feels about her. Unfortunately he is rejected...because Mikasa loves him? Slight crossover with Naruto. Set right after everyone joins the Scout Regiment.

Her glossy hair bobbed around her chin as she nodded her head emphatically in the distance. He could see the beginnings of a smile twitch around her lips as her friends (read: family) teased each other. Those lighthearted moments were few and far between, especially for the three from Shiganshina. He was content to watch her be happy - not in a creepy, lurking way, but as a friend that had a huge crush on her.

Mikasa's smile grew wider at something Armin had said, and she turned her head away in what seemed to be embarrassment. Before Jean could look away, her eyes met his and she froze, before excusing herself and making her way towards him.

"M-Mikasa," Jean stuttered. Damn, he thought, she caught me off guard! I've learned to control my nervousness around her, but what's a guy to do when she takes you by surprise like that?

"Jean," she retorted in that melodic voice of hers. "Was there something you wanted?" She started walking away from him, leaving him confused and somewhat hurt, before stopping and turning her head back to see him. "Are you coming?"

"Y-yes, of course!" Jean caught up with her, and the two of them walked around, the silence between them a little awkward, but not uncomfortable.

"I don't believe I ever mentioned how fantastic you were during Trost," Mikasa uncharacteristically broke the silence with an emotionless tone and an expressionless face. Her complement was matter-of-fact, as though she was simply stating the truth, with no embellishment or opinion involved. The lack of emotion in her voice somehow made Jean feel better - it meant that Mikasa wasn't pandering, or complementing him just to make him feel better. Rather, she was expressing to him what she thought was absolute fact - she didn't think Jean did well, she knew he did well.

"Me? Says the girl - woman, I suppose - that joined the elites the day of graduation!" Jean shook his head in amazement. "I honestly think you underestimate yourself sometimes, Mikasa. You're the strongest person in our whole graduating class!"

Mikasa's smile, the rare, mysterious and wistful one that made Jean fall deeper each time he saw it, seemed much more self-deprecating and disgusted than usual. "Please, Jean. I'm not nearly strong enough." She shook her head slightly, indicating that it was the end of that topic. She turned to him as she sat against a tree, out of sight from any training members. "What was it you so clearly wanted to talk to me about?" Her expression was schooled once again into a carefully controlled blank mask.

"What makes you so sure I wanted to talk?"

"You were staring at me for a while, Jean," Mikasa reminded him gently. Jean stared at her.

"You're beautiful. How could I not?" He whispered. Mikasa's eyes widened, and then dropped to look down at her hands.

"Jean..."

"No, Mikasa. I really need to tell you this, before I lose my nerve. I think you're amazing. You're strong, you're brave, you're kind, you're smart and you're beautiful. All these features of yours makes you extremely attractive, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to you the moment I saw you." Jean took a deep breath. "But I'm not just attracted to you anymore. I love you, Mikasa, because you are the woman that inspired us to fight, you are the woman that made sure her brother survived, you are the woman that has been singlehandedly carrying each and every one of us on her back. You are a miracle, Mikasa, a godsend. I love you - there is no single reason why." He exhaled. Sure, it wasn't the smoothest way to express himself, or the most romantic, or the best, but what mattered was that Mikasa heard it, that he had told her, that she knew someone loved her, even if she didn't return his feelings.

If she didn't return his feelings... God, that would suck. He'd deal with it of course, he'd be okay as long as she was happy, but damn, would that just hurt like hell.

"Jean..." She whispered, and he looked down at her. She was fiddling with the ends of her scarf, her eyes closed and her expression pained. "Oh, Jean."

"Yes?" His throat felt dry, and he could feel a lump starting in it.

"Oh God, Jean - we can't!" Mikasa's stoic demeanor was crumbling, and she looked devastated. Jean was more than a little confused.

"Mikasa, if you don't care for me, just tell me. I won't be offended." He swallowed. Offended, he wouldn't be. Upset and disappointed? Absolutely.

"How could you say that?" She looked stricken. She grabbed his hands and squeezed them tightly, making him gasp and causing his heart to go wild in his chest. She looked at him with tears in her eyes.

He had never seen her express such emotion before, save for a flash of pure grief when she heard Eren was eaten, and the loud sobs she let out when she found him alive.

"Mikasa..." he breathed, not daring to hope.

"Of course I care for you, you stupid horse! I love you too, dammit!" She burst out, angrily wiping tears from her cheeks.

For a minute, Jean forgot to breathe. For once, he looked past the horse insult, and focused on the last part. I love you too, dammit! A huge smile broke out on his face.

"But we can't - I can't - you'll die!" She sobbed, turning away from him and trying to put some distance between them. Jean was too quick, however, and grabbed her arm.

Oh, how he hated to see her upset. It was an inevitability, the realist in him acknowledged that, and he also knew on a base level that Mikasa's blank expression really meant she was sad. Nevertheless, the sight of her tears put a damper on the elation he felt, and he drew her to him, clutching her tightly to his chest.

She struggled halfheartedly, but Jean wouldn't let go. Instead, he rocked the two of them back and forth and murmured words of comfort into her ear. She sniffled, finally pulling away with a certain fragility he never would have associated with her. "I love you, Mikasa."

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because she flinched and her lip trembled. "I love you, Jean, and that's why we cannot be together." It seemed to break her heart to say that, the way it broke his. He reached out and grabbed her hand. She stared at their interlocked fingers with a desperate longing in her eyes.

"May I get an explanation?" Jean asked gently. "I understand if you don't want to, you absolutely don't have to, but it would make me feel a lot better."

Mikasa, uncharacteristically shy, brought her other hand up and cupped his face, using her thumb to stroke his cheek softly. Jean sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. God, the effect this woman had on him! His heart was thumping painfully against his chest, and went even faster when Jean turned his head and pressed his lips lightly against her palm, making her gasp.

"Of course I will explain," she confirmed, her voice gravelly and brittle. She leaned in, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and pulled away completely, settling beside him and drifting off to a different time, a different world.

"Everyone that has cared about me, as family or otherwise, has died," she whispered, sounding ashamed and disgusted with herself. Jean grabbed her hand and squeezed it. He knew she would need him to be a friend more than ever while she opened up to him. She looked at him hesitantly, and he smiled at her encouragingly.

"Do you believe in different worlds, in different universes?" She asked him suddenly, and Jean frowned, for he had a fantasy of a different, kinder world that he had long forgotten amidst the chaos and violence of the titans.

"It would be a dream come true," he whispered.

"I was born in a different world, Jean. I know how it sounds, even Eren and Armin don't believe me, but it's true." She sounded desperate, as though if he didn't believe her, she would break. Jean pulled her into his arms again, vaguely aware of the pounding of his heart as he did so.

"I believe you, Mikasa. There is no proof that another world doesn't exist. I just don't understand how you could get to inside the walls from a different world." She bit her lip and he tried not to stare.

"In the world I was born in, there are clans of warriors. My mother was part of one of these clans. Her name was Mikoto. But her husband was not my father, and the whole family knew it. He wanted only two children, you see, and once he had them, he never allowed the possibility of more. So when Mother fell pregnant, it was obvious that she hadn't stayed true."

Jean listened with a growing fascination. Ordinarily, yes, he wouldn't believe his ears. But this was Mikasa, who never made jokes or spun tales, who only ever teased Sasha. Besides, the pure emotion in her voice and eyes told him she was sincere.

"Father didn't want to risk the Uchiha name being dragged through the mud, so everyone pretended I was his. I lived happily for six years, following my older brothers everywhere and training to go to the ninja academy, until one day, everything changed."

Mikasa's voice shook. She had relayed this story only once before, to her real father, when he wondered why she was there. Letting out a quiet sob into Jean's chest, she whispered,

"My eldest brother, Itachi, killed - no, massacred - the entire clan. Sasuke and I couldn't believe it when we saw - there was blood everywhere, all my uncles, aunts, cousins... Sasuke and Itachi's father... Mother..."

She broke into sobs again, and Jean, aghast, could only hug her tightly, being her silent shoulder to cry on. After all, what could he say? She had seen her mother dead at the age of six, and she had realized it was at the hand of her brother, whom she obviously adored. Minutes later, Mikasa calmed down enough to continue.

"Itachi told us we weren't worth killing. My seven year old brother tried to protect me, his little sister, from his role model, and Itachi told us we weren't worth killing. Then, he looked at me and told me he was going to send me to my father. He performed a jutsu - a forbidden one at that - and banished me to a different realm."

"This realm." Jean's mind was spinning. "What's a jutsu?"

Mikasa looked startled. "Oh! It's - it's a way of expressing power, I suppose. It's the way the clans and other warriors fight a threat."

"I see."

"So I was banished here, to my father's world." She smiled sadly. "My father, somehow, had managed to find a way into that different realm. Into Konoha, where I was born. He and Mother had an affair while he tried to find a way back here, and I was the result. He got to name me, seeing as I would carry the Uchiha name and not his own. He was then returned here, after they invented the jutsu that hopped dimensions, and before it became illegal to use it. He got married shortly after.

"I lived with him for three years. His wife was like a second mother to me, and though she could never replace Mikoto, she was pretty damn close. Then, when I was nine, human traffickers came to our home."

Jean stiffened with horror. He tightened his grip on her as she began to shake.

"Well, they killed Father when he opened the door. His wife, my step-mother, told me to run as she attacked them to buy me time. I watched as one of the three men drove an ax into her neck. I was rooted to the spot. I had seen Mother lying on the floor in front of Itachi, but I had never seen somebody's life taken away in front of me until then."

"Oh, God." Jean felt sick.

"They kidnapped me. I remember hearing them talking about the price I'd go for with the old perverts. I had given up. I had loved two sets of parents, two families that had loved me, and the price they paid for that was death. And then Eren knocked on the door and killed two of the men."

Jean's eyes widened. Eren had saved Mikasa? Well, it certainly meant he, Jean, would antagonize him much less.

"Eren did what Sasuke tried to do, what Itachi had done for us before he killed our whole clan. He protected me. He acted as I wished my eldest brother had, and so I was indebted to him forever. He became my family, my last hope. That is why, when the third man that had kidnapped me me tried to kill him, I stabbed him in the heart through his back." Mikasa's voice had a vindictive calmness to it.

Jean could not bring himself to feel pity for the dead men. At this point, his only regret was that Mikasa (and, okay, Eren too) had to kill at such a young age. "Mikasa, I..." He couldn't bring himself to speak anymore. Instead, he clutched her tightly and pressed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. She sighed and nuzzled her head underneath his chin, her breath hitting his neck, making him shiver.

"What's worse... Dr. Yaeger took me home, and I lived with him, his wife Carla, and my new brother, Eren. Less than a year later, the titans attacked Shiganshina and Carla died in front of us. I looked away - I didn't think I could handle a third motherly woman's last moments playing through my head. Eren - Eren saw his mother die for the first time. I promised Carla earlier that day that I would always look after Eren. It was the last conversation we had. But how can I protect him if everyone I love, everyone I care about dies?" She sighed against his neck, picking her head up to look at him.

"That's simple enough - Eren can't die, not as long as Captain Levi and the elite squad are looking after him - it's hard enough anyway, since all he has to do is inflict pain on himself to transform into a titan. But you?" Jean stared deep into her stormy grey orbs. "God, Jean, if you died, I don't think I could keep going, even for him."

The gravity of that statement took his breath away. Slowly, he brought his hand up to cup her cheek. His eyes roamed her face, illuminated in the moonlight. The two of them had missed curfew, which normally they would mind considering the consequences, but neither could give a damn at the moment. He could see the tiny birthmark underneath her right eye, and felt the uncontrollable urge to kiss it.

Mikasa's eyes fluttered shut and she sighed as Jean's lips made contact with her skin. Fear for his life or not, she couldn't help how she felt around him. Sure, originally she saw him as a whiny brat that wanted to live the safest life possible, but as the years passed by, she found herself appreciating his quick wit and honesty. She didn't fault him, she had realized a while back, for wanting to live safely. He hadn't seen his loved ones ripped to pieces, so he had no motivation for revenge. And he hadn't seen the true size and the weak points of the titans, he had never seen the dullness in their empty smiles, never understood the simplicity with which they functioned; so he joined the academy fearing them from the exaggerated rumors he had heard.

She had been intrigued by him, intrigued by a boy (man, now, after their first battle) that put himself over others. She hadn't done that, not since that day in the mountain when she felt the need to repay Eren for saving her life.

His lips were now skimming across her cheek, sending shivers down her spine. Her heart went wild, thumping away as she brought her hands around his neck to hug him.

"You understand, don't you? Why my love for you will get you killed? Why we cannot be together?" She asked, desperately wanting him to agree, ignoring that tiny, tiny part of her that begged him to refuse and to stay with her, consequences be damned.

"Did Sasuke die?"

She was taken aback by the question.

"Your older brother, Sasuke. Did he die?"

"N-no," Mikasa said, feeling the same rush of relief she always did when recalling Itachi telling them they weren't worth killing.

"Did Eren die that day in the mountains?"

"No."

Jean smiled and leaned in so close to her that his eyelashes tickled hers. "Mikasa, I swear to you, that I will not let myself die, not when I have you to live for."

Mikasa gasped. "Jean, you cannot promise that!" Her voice quivered.

"It isn't a promise," Jean replied. "It's a fact. You are the reason I joined the Scout Regiment in the first place. I joined because you inspired me. During Trost, I nearly died. Do you know what saved me?"

"What?" She asked, clutching at his collar desperately.

He snaked his arms around her, one gently but firmly circled around her waist, the other softly stroking her cheek.

"The thought of you."

And he dipped her back and crashed his lips on hers. She gasped, but responded fiercely, throwing her arms around his neck and weaving her fingers through his hair. The sensation was euphoric. The passion between them, the pure emotion they felt for each other, manifested in a glorious explosion in both of their stomachs.

Mikasa leaned back reluctantly, feeling the need to breathe. She didn't pull back by a lot, just enough where their lips were barely brushing. Tingles raced down her spine, and she shyly pressed her lips back to his in a chaste kiss.

"I love you, Mikasa. You're the reason I'm here."

"God, Jean, I love you."

They both knew the problems with their relationship weren't sorted out completely. They both knew it would take some getting used to. They both knew that this would be difficult.

But dammit, in this moment, all that mattered was two souls finding each other in this cruel world.

So this has been on my mind for a while, because come on - Mikasa is absolutely an Uchiha.

I know they were pretty ooc, but I felt that if Mikasa had seen the destruction of her clan by her brother, then was sent to an unfamiliar world, lost her father and her second mother, then lost her foster parents, the idea of loosing the man she loved would destroy her, and so those emotions spilled out.

I hope you all enjoyed it! If you didn't, I would love to hear your feedback - just please please please keep it constructive criticism and not full blown 'you're horrible, get the hell out, you're a piece of shit' flames.

Love you all!

-coolbowties