FOREWORD: (Spoilers: Anime Episode 22/Manga Chapter 30) The scene where they ride towards the walls and she rides next to him, watching him stuck to me even after I finished watching the anime and reading the manga (Yes, I'm all caught up now!). Mikasa had probably wanted to kill the female titan for more than just Eren, but also for the many she had killed, but yeah... We all know Eren's her trigger.
Summary: They ride home. Eren is unconscious and Mikasa watches over him.
I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, or any of its characters.
I won't move, I won't breathe until I see the verdant fields of your eyes.
.
The wind whips through her hair. Her ears are filled with the scamper of dozens of horses pulling wagons, carrying soldiers, hauling the dead. The stench of blood and defeat surrounds her. The steady gallop of her horse steals short breaths out of her lungs. The dust raised in their collective steed stings and pricks… But her strong stride stays in line with his cart and her gaze never leaves his sleeping figure.
Like Cerberus guarding the gates of Hades, she lets nothing past when it comes to him—a shadow too fast to follow, a blur too quick to punch back and a constant too vital to ignore. Mikasa would follow Eren to the depths of Titan hell, even if they tied her up to a tree and took her weapons away. Maybe that is what family is; maybe that is what love is. She never stopped to wonder. She does not need a name attached to how she feels about Eren—she only needs to be with him.
She still wishes she could have slaughtered her: the one who had dared take him away. She had lost control at the thought of losing him. She had been driven by a dark urge to hurt the female titan, like it hurt to think she had lost him. Mikasa had wanted to slice through her disgusting flesh and demolish her. And as a result, she had almost failed him. Had Levi-heichou not been there, would he have been lying there in that cart? Had Levi-heichou not stopped her, who would have been watching over him instead of her?
Blinded by revenge, she had almost forgotten what is most important.
They ride homeward, but home is right there, unconscious and barely breathing in the moving cart next to her. She will not tear her eyes away from him. She will not stop making sure he is right there, comatose but alive. She glances over his limbs—whole and wrapped up in layers of cloak; checks his chest—going up and down with ragged breaths; and stares at his face—sickly pale, but the face of the man her sanity rides on.
She silently wills him to open his eyes—the doors to her haven, where everything is beautiful and warm. And she waits, she hopes.
She watches.
