Chapter 9: A Faint Wisp of Light
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Mikasa doesn't sleep much anymore.
How can she, when Eren lies beside her moaning and thrashing, sometimes even kicking or punching the bed in anger? He yells incoherently in his sleep, while tears run down his face. She doesn't know how to make him stop sweating in terror every night.
Mikasa wonders if this change is because of that policewoman who they were forced to watch be tortured and murdered a few days ago, even though Eren's new problems started before then. She wants to know if it was Eren who spoke to that woman, if he was trying to get them out and almost managed it. Mikasa remembers how pale his face was when that woman was dragged into the cellar room, already beaten and bloody, and Mikasa wants to know if Eren smiled at her, laughed with her, knew her name.
She doesn't ask. Instead, Mikasa spends most of her nights getting some towels to soak up the moisture pouring off of Eren's body. She hugs him close when he starts to shake, and runs her fingers through his hair. It doesn't help, but she doesn't know what else to do. It's not like they have anyone that she can talk to about this. There's no one here that she trusts except Eren.
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Early one morning, Mikasa wakes up tired, like usual. Immediately, though, she knows that something is very wrong. Eren is not in bed with her, which is alarming enough, but then she realizes that he's not in their shared room at all. Her heart thuds with fear, and she's frozen in place again, just like she was all of those years ago. She's scared, and she can't move. Something is happening, right now, and somehow, she knows that it involves Eren.
Still, Mikasa sits there in their bed, unmoving, until she hears the screams.
Then she is leaping up out of her bed and racing down the hall towards the stairs. She runs up them, trips and practically crawls up the last few steps, and then runs down the hallway and into the large room at the end.
Somehow, Mikasa already knows what she's going to find, but it's still a shock to see the chaos in front of her eyes.
Eren is kneeling above the woman who took them in. They're both naked, and some part of Mikasa hurts at that, but the rest of her is too busy processing all of the damage around the room. There are books and clothes everywhere. The bed is cockeyed, and the curtains have been torn down. It looks like a demon has ravaged the room and everything in it.
Then Mikasa forces herself to look more closely at the two occupants on the bed. Eren is straddling the woman, and he's choking her. Her lips are turning blue and her eyes are rolling in her head, and her fingernails have left scratches down Eren's face and chest, and all over his arms. Mikasa is almost afraid to approach them. Almost.
Instead, she walks calmly up to the still-struggling pair and completely ignores the woman. She can guess some of what's been happening between them (How long has this been going on? Why didn't Eren tell her?), but that's not important right now. Slowly, Mikasa reaches over with one hand and gently cups the side of Eren's face. "You're crying," she tells him.
He doesn't move or blink, except to tighten his grip around the woman's throat. She's gasping for air now.
Mikasa strokes her fingers softly along Eren's cheek, and then moves her hand down to his shoulder and presses firmly there, trying to give him different sensations to focus on than whatever's going on in his head right now. "Eren?" she calls out. His eyes are empty. She wonders if he's even conscious.
Just as Mikasa is considering prying his hands loose forcefully, someone behind her says, "Don't."
She turns her head to see a man standing in the doorway. He has a gun in one hand, though it's pointed at the floor away from everyone, and he's staring calmly at the scene in front of him. She's about to ask him what he means when a distant memory surfaces in her mind. She knows that face. "Uncle Levi?" she asks, stunned.
The man squints at her, blinks, and then rubs his free hand over his face. "Shit," he mutters. He seems to sway slightly before he looks at her even harder, nods his head, and then puts the gun away in a holster at the small of his back.
Mikasa wants to ask him a thousand questions. What is he doing here? How did he find her? But she doesn't have the time at the moment. She turns around again to focus on Eren. "Why not?" she asks her uncle, referring to what he said earlier.
"He's having a night terror," Uncle Levi replies simply, immediately catching her meaning. "People torn from them by force can react violently and lash out before they wake up."
She nods. This makes sense. She wonders if that's what happened to the rest of the room. "How do we get him to let go of her, then?" she asks.
Uncle Levi pauses, and then looks at her evenly. "Do you want him to?" he asks in return.
Mikasa hesitates at his question. Does she? It has to be as obvious to her uncle as it is to her what was going on in this room before they arrived, and has probably been going on for quite some time. Why didn't Eren tell her? Even as she asks herself that, though, Mikasa already knows the answer.
Faintly, she nods her head. "I don't want Eren to murder someone when he's not even aware of what he's doing," she decides. "He doesn't want to execute her right now."
"No, he doesn't," Uncle Levi agrees, raising an eyebrow at her choice of words. Mikasa realizes that he too can see the tears on Eren's face, just as well as she can, and that her uncle knows what they mean, but that he still let Mikasa come to a decision on her own. She thinks that maybe he wouldn't have stepped in even if she'd said no.
Her uncle walks over to the light switch and starts flicking the light off, then on, and then off again. Slowly, at first, and then more rapidly. Mikasa watches him as much as she's able to, fascinated by this plan.
The light is off when Eren wakes up, but she stills reaches out to him in the dark when she hears his confusion. "It's okay," she soothes.
"…Mikasa?" Eren asks. His voice is scratchy and hoarse. From sleeping or screaming, Mikasa doesn't know which. Maybe both.
"It's fine," she murmurs, sitting down beside him on the bed when the light finally turns back on and stays that way. "You need to let go of her," she adds, gesturing to the woman who Eren's still choking, even though she's unconscious now.
Eren looks down, finally notices what he's doing, and he jerks away from the woman like her touch burns his skin. "I- What am I…?" he asks faintly.
"You were asleep," she tells him firmly, and then slowly pulls him sideways until Eren's head is resting on her shoulder. "It was just a bad dream." She starts stroking her hand through his hair now.
There's a few seconds of silence before Eren starts crying in earnest, shaking both of them with the force of his sobs. "I'm sorry!" he chokes out. "I'm so sorry!"
"Hush," she commands, and his words obediently trail off, though he's still crying uncontrollably. "She's fine." Mikasa doesn't actually know if this is true or not, and she doesn't particularly care. The woman's breathing shallowly, although she's still unconscious. Good enough for Mikasa.
"No," Eren mutters, fighting down his sobs long enough to clarify. "No, not her. I could have hurt you! I didn't know what I was doing, and I could have hurt you, Mikasa!"
She smiles, although Eren's face is still pressed against her shoulder and he can't see her. "Don't be silly, Eren," she scolds lightly. "I'm your sister. You'd never hurt me."
She rocks him back and forth gently, letting him finish crying. Uncle Levi is silent behind them, a presence that she can ignore until Eren is feeling better.
Finally, after a long time, his crying stops completely. "We have to get out of here," Eren says, his voice a mere whisper against her skin. "We have to leave now, and I don't know where we can go."
"It's okay," she says again, hugging him even closer to her. Mikasa turns her head to the side and looks her uncle straight in the eyes, silently daring him to refuse her plan. "I do."
Uncle Levi gives her a flat look in response, and then sighs and looks around with disgust at the mess of a room they're all in. "Shit," he says once more, clearly agreeing with Mikasa, and that's enough for her right now.
