Blossom
Canonverse, future. Because when the titans are gone, Mikasa deserves a happy ending (sort of) and a beautiful family. Warning: I am a shameless JeanKasa shipper sometimes. I wrote this in one fell, bare swoop, so forgive the lack of description and any typos.
NOTE: I do not own any of these characters. That honor belongs to Isayama Hajime.
The little girl's running footsteps were light on the rough planks of the kitchen floor.
"Mama! Look what I found!"
Mikasa turned from the sink in time to catch a bundle of child and book and parchment. "And were you sneaking in your father's office again?"
Misaki's brilliant green eyes narrowed slightly, a measure of her guilt. "Well, maybe. But look! This is you, Mama, isn't it?"
Mikasa eased herself into a kitchen chair. Her back was really bothering her today. She certainly wasn't 15 any longer.
"The book is Uncle Armin's. He must have left it when he came to visit last. And these," she smoothed a fond hand over a sketch, "are your father's."
Misaki's eyes widened. "Daddy made these?" Her little hands reverently lifted the first drawing. "You were so pretty. And your hair was short. And why were you wearing these funny things? Why did you have a scarf? Did Daddy wear this stuff? And Uncle Armin?"
Mikasa chuckled softly. "We were soldiers. We fought battles against a great enemy. We've told you the story many times, you know."
The little girl nodded firmly. "I remember. You were brave, braver than anyone. That's what Daddy says all the time. Oh! These are more of your friends. Why is this man so much shorter than you? He looks grumpy."
As her daughter exclaimed in delight at each new drawing, Mikasa felt herself pulled by memory, to a time of blood and violence and darkness so vast you could swim and swim and never find the light. At Misaki's age, she had already experienced more pain and loss than she would ever wish upon any family.
"A horse! It's beautiful. And…." She trailed off. "Is this one of the bad things, the giants you fought?" Her little body shivered on her mother's lap. "Scary. I'm glad you made them go away, Mama," Misaki said earnestly, her expressive eyes lifted to her mother's face.
Mikasa kissed the crown of her dark head. "Me too, love. Me too."
After tea and cookies, Misaki attacked her own piece of parchment with charcoal at the kitchen table. Her little face, scrunched in intense concentration, was a near mirror of her mother's. Save for those brilliant emerald eyes and Mikasa just didn't want to think about that.
The distant slam of their front door announced an arrival.
"Daddy!" In a flash, Misaki was off to greet her father. With barely a breath, she recounted her discovery of the amazing book and sketches and why had he never drawn her or even told her he could make such wonderful pictures. He just laughed and swung her up for a kiss. Mikasa's heart contracted at the sight of them together.
"And how are you feeling today?" He dropped a kiss on her head, but his eyes were full of her protruding stomach. He knelt to spread his hands across her belly and left kisses there too. "This little one giving you any trouble?"
"I'm tired, but fine." She laid her hand over his on her belly. Jean looked up at her, his hazel eyes still lit with wonder.
"You're amazing."
She flicked his forehead. "And you're still full of shit, just like always."
His answering grin was as cocky as ever, but she saw the concern in his eyes. "I love you, you know, and Misaki. More than anything." He saw the shadows behind her eyes as well and knew all too well their cause. "Armin still coming for dinner?"
"Uncle Armin?" Misaki danced around the table at the mention of her "uncle". "Can I show him my drawing? And can we look through his book, Daddy?"
Jean gathered the green-eyed girl in his arms for another hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek to his. "You bet, 'Saki. Armin can tell you all sort of things that happened because of that book."
As Jean finished up some of the evening chores, Mikasa herself tackled the more mundane tasks. It was accepted that in her extremely pregnant condition she could at least feed the chickens and check the garden for fresh tomatoes without tipping over. Their little patch of land halfway between Trost and Shinganshina had proved perfect for a small homestead. Jean spent so much time at the military base, but she had a lot more freedom to organize their little kingdom during her leave.
The lowering sun was warm on her shoulders as she walked the rows of vegetables. The pure, lovely air was nothing like she remembered from within the walls. Levi had always said it stank of shit within those walls, but she had thought him tainted by the Underground.
Dammit, he had been right. Or maybe it was just the freedom that made her think that. The sky was drifting to pink and mauve as the sun sank towards the horizon – a horizon with no walls and no titans. And look at her, the woman once worth a hundred soldiers, waddling around a provincial garden with an apron full of vegetables. How Eren would have laughed.
The pain was sudden and swift, like a dagger to her side. Eren. Damn him, damn him….
Steeling herself as she had so many times, Mikasa lifted her eyes once more to the horizon. And then she went inside to her family.
"Misaki, eat your dinner. Armin's going to be here for a few days. You have plenty of time to talk about your adventures."
Armin, whipcord lean and tan from said adventures, smiled at Mikasa. With his long hair pulled back from his face, he looked mature and handsome and capable. And he should – he was responsible for surveying and mapping his own sector of the area beyond the former walls.
"I want to tell you what I saw just a few weeks' ride from here," he told them.
"I want to hear about the sea again," Misaki insisted with a wave of her spoon. "Was it really so salty and cold?"
"Eat," Jean told her firmly, ignoring the resulting pout. He grinned at his friend. "By the Walls, Armin, it really is good to see you, though."
After her bath, Misaki snuggled next to Armin in a big leather chair near the fireplace. His grandfather's old book spread on his lap, he and the child paged through the illustrations so they could mark off the things he had seen. They made such a picture – Armin's bright head bent over the midnight of Saki's.
"This," Armin pointed to an illustration of tall mountains of sand. "We found something like this 7 days' ride from here. So hot and dry you wouldn't believe it. The horses had trouble with the footing, so we only explored the edge. There were huge spiny plants everywhere. When we cut them, they were full of water."
Saki's eyes were round with wonder. "So amazing." She looked up into Armin's face, her jaw set in determination. The expression was not lost on him. He had seen it many times on his best friend's face. "When I'm old enough, I'm going with you to help," she announced. "I want to draw maps too."
Jean and Mikasa exchanged amused glances. "Sounds like a worthy goal, brat." Jean tugged her damp braid. "But now it's time to explore the realm of….bedtime! Advance!" Using his best Commander's voice, he plucked her from her seat. "Mount up, soldier!"
"They do this every night?" Armin watched in amusement as Jean slung Saki on his shoulders and ducked down the hall to her room.
"Without fail. In these mostly peaceful times, it's the only expedition Commander Kirschtein gets to lead. Let me say goodnight. Oof! This is ridiculous." Mikasa struggled out of her chair.
Armin extended his hand to help her. "Mikasa, he treasures you. Misaki, too. So much. And this baby…I've never seen Jean so….happy."
Her expression softened. He didn't tell her, but he had never seen her so at ease either.
"I know. I'm pretty lucky. I mean it."
Armin leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Your parents would be very proud. Carla and Grisha as well. You're an amazing mother."
"Thanks, Armin. That means a lot. Especially because I sucked so badly at it at first."
Later, when Armin was settled in their guest room, Mikasa found herself restless. Sleeping soundly while nine month's pregnant was as likely as the sun shining at midnight – it just didn't happen. It was cooler outside the house than within, so she wobbled to the porch and lowered herself onto a wooden bench with a sigh.
She had never seen so many stars while within the walls. Out here, with no torch light to compete, they were sprinkled across the black velvet of the sky like pearls. Mikasa sighed again. Her stomach roiled with the movement of the equally restless life within.
"Soon enough, you beast," she murmured fondly.
The door opened and closed softly behind her. Her husband – and it was still weird to call him that even after ten years of marriage – dropped down beside her. She leaned against him to breathe in his familiar scent of leather and gear and soap and just Jean.
"Rub your back?"
"If you can reach around that far. I'm as big as a house."
His hands were skilled and strong, their movements soothing away some of the ache in her lower back. "You are the most glorious thing I have ever seen," he told her bluntly. "Well, besides Saki. She's pretty damn adorable."
His hands stilled when he felt her tense. "I mean it, Mikasa. You know that."
She leaned against him again. No. She wouldn't let her thoughts go there tonight.
Jean rubbed her shoulder absently. "Remember when I finally had the nerve to even approach you again?"
She snorted. "How could I forget. You acted like a fool, so tongue-tied you could barely say my name."
It had been over a year….after, when Misaki was just four months old and Mikasa was at her wits' end, ready to drown in her grief and give up on everything. And Jean had nervously approached her in town one afternoon. After blushing furiously and barely cobbling two sensible words together, Mikasa tersely told him to go away. And then the baby, who had been irritable all day, started crying. Her world had tunneled to panic and despair – there, right at that moment in the bright sunlight of a Trost street.
And Jean had calmly taken the squalling bundle that was his former squad mate's child and draped her tummy-down over his arm. "Is it your tummy, little one?" he murmured, swaying a bit. And Saki had quieted.
"They like being held like this sometimes," Jean told her. "Especially if they're feeling colicky."
Misaki's bright eyes drifted shut and Jean readjusted her to his shoulder. And Mikasa lost it, there in the street in front of dozens of people. She cried in great, huge gulps, the hot tears clogging her throat and streaming down her face until she dropped blindly to her knees on the cobblestones.
He had taken her to his mother's. His mom was only too happy to cuddle such a beautiful baby while her mother, emotionally exhausted, had slept like a stone for two hours.
"You saved me, Jean. No one else was there until you were," she told him, her voice hoarse.
"I know you still miss him. I do too, believe it or not. And Armin….he covers it well, but you can still see it in his eyes."
"Eren was always bigger than life, so angry, so determined to save the world. And he did. Maybe that's why." She breathed back a sob. She would not vent this grief in front of the man who had done so much for her. The man who had raised Eren Jaeger's green-eyed child and loved her as his own.
"I love you so much, MIkasa. That's all I know to say." He laced their fingers together over her stomach. Their baby kicked at their joined hands.
"It's always just what I need to hear, Jean. Thank you."
Not every woman was fortunate enough to be saved twice in one lifetime. Miksa was just lucky that way.