I've actually wanted to write this little thing for maybe 2 years now, and don't ask what suddenly gave me motivation for it, but here it is. I hope you enjoy my attempt to get out of my fandom slump.

"Eren."

Her voice floats to him, carried through the layers of his dreams to reach his mind, to push against the barriers of his sleep and work its way into his heart. He's dreaming of Titans, again, but it's a rare dream now. He has something else to occupy his mind.

"Eren, you need to wake up."

Eren thinks he groans, thinks he reaches up to swat her away or at least try to roll away from the noise, but he doesn't move, he's grounded too firmly in the moment, too deeply in the illusion of a few more moments of blissful sleep. If he stays still enough, maybe she'll just curl up next to him again, adjust his arms until she's comfortable enough, smiling into his collarbone and running her fingers over his hipbone, a half-hearted attempt to wake him.

None of that comes, though, but he feels the early sunrise begin to warm his lids, and knows that he'll be pulled from his dream soon enough.

In the dream, the Titans are swarming him, staying close behind until they have him surrounded. He's alone, as he always is in these kinds of his dreams, but he knows- he doesn't know how, but he does- that his friends are safe, whether in death or inside the walls, though, he can't tell. But he's alone.

He tries to use his gear, the maneuver gear that's never failed him before, but something is jammed, and there's two aberrant Titans running his way, clearly finished with whatever- or whoever- had been occupying them. Eren's own Titan power, his go-to on missions lately, had failed as well, and try as he might, Eren hadn't been able to transform.

Alone somewhere in a field, no horses or soldiers or civilians in sight, Eren's out of options. He has no higher-level soldiers to help him, no more resources, and no more time.

From above him, there's a blur of black and green, and then one of the Titans is reaching for him, its fleshy fingers stretching out toward Eren, the empty smile of its face- similar to one from so long ago- is the only thing Eren can focus on-

"Don't," her voice interrupts the dream again, and the vision shatters. He's no longer in an unnamed field, facing certain death, but in their bed, in her arms. In her arms. She's always been so good at that, at bringing him back from the brink. Whether in the compounds, when he doubts his power or a mission, or when they're fresh back from a mission, and he can't fathom all that they've done, she always brings him back. And right now is no exception.

"I know where you go," she says, her voice fading in volume as the sun continues to rise against his eyes. "I know how you get lost."

With that, she touches him.

She presses her cold fingertips to his temple, smoothing his hair back from his face with a practiced ease, in a way that he'd been used to for years, in a way that she'd woken him more mornings than he could care to count, not when she was there, warming their bed, not when he had the precious carving of her features to look forward to every morning. Not when he had her. Never when he had her.

"Come back to me, Eren."

Eren's suddenly aware of his surroundings, but his eyes remain shut. He can feel the sun on his eyes again, hotter than before, and he's aware that he needs to be waking up, but he's also aware of the smell of her hair, enveloping his everything. He can feel her fingers in his hair, can sense the proximity of her lips, hovering somewhere over his ear, her hair falling to curtain their faces, and perhaps if he were more awake, he'd need to sneeze when her hair brushed against his nose and mouth.

She smells the same, the same way she's smelled every morning he's woken up next to her- like goddam soap. Fucking military issued soap and a few herbs she and Sasha had found in the nearby forest, but it's always captivated Eren. It's always intrigued him how someone like her, someone who spent the majority of her time killing Titans or seedy politicians, could also be so soft. Could trail her fingers along his jaw and collar, could smell of flowers or the sea, could fall into bed with him night after night for nothing more than the pleasure they get out of being close enough to forget where he ended and she began.

"Eren."

This time, he rolls away from her voice, sensing that the end of his morning was fast approaching. She doesn't back away, however, and the tickle of her hair and the touch of her hands on his bare back follow his movement. Eren feels her cool breath on the back of his neck, and he shivers, and suddenly feels the inexplicable sting of tears in his eyes.

There's a tiny, imperceptible press of her lips to the back of his neck.

"Wake up, Eren."

"No." Eren chokes out, curling his fingers into his sheet. He can't. He can't lose this moment, not when the world is so still, not when there's no trace of responsibilities or war casualties or meetings. Not when she's so close, so close to him, so close- "No," he says again, his voice thick with tears.

"Eren-"

Eren jerks awake, shoving himself back and away from the new voice- the familiar voice, the same voice that's woken him several times during the last few years.

"Mikasa," he gasps, barely managing the word through his thickened throat.

Again. It happened again.

Armin kneels by the side of his bed, shaking his head slowly. He knows. He knows what Eren dreams of, what he's dreamed of since that wretched fucking day in the forest. The day humanity loved to celebrate, and Eren dreamed to burn from his memory.

Armin reaches out for Eren's hand, "I'm sorry-"

"Don't," Eren spits, his knuckles bleeding white from his grip on his sheets, his cold, cold sheets.

"Come on," Armin says after several long moments of silence. "The ceremony will be starting soon."

Eren wants to explain his dream, to tell Armin every tantalizing detail, to force it through his tears that Mikasa was there, that she was at Eren's side again, but he knows it to be futile. It had been five years already, and as much as Armin loved and treasured Mikasa, he did not believe in spirits.

And Eren had never found the right words, anyway, never found the right syllables to say that he could feel Mikasa again.

Eren swallows thickly, staring at the small side table perched by his bed. He can't see it, but he knows it's there- the bloody red scarf covering a tiny wooden box, the contents of which Eren had never had the chance to even think of using.

"Eren."

It isn't Armin's voice, and it isn't quite the timber he remembers hers being, but it's haunted his dreams for five years, and it haunts him as he falls back into his bed, finally giving up on celebrating the day the Titans fell, finally giving in to the heavy tears, the painful sobs, that hadn't racked his body in almost four years.

Armin leaves to celebrate the greatest victory in mankind's history, and Eren stays, stays exactly how he recalls falling asleep, staying as still as possible while his tears soak his pillow, desperate to feel her touch again, desperate to hear her voice again.

Desperate to see her again.

It never comes.

But that doesn't stop him from trying.