4.50 am. May 6th, 1935. Leonhardt Farm, Oregon.
Mikasa was used the the cold bite of the early air; Eren was not.
She'd always functioned better in the morning. She feels the benefits of sleep before the day, before her memories drag well-restedness from her and she becomes tired. The coldness effects her like an electric current through her bones, strengthening her. Her eyes focused better, and in the darkness she could pick out her surroundings easily.
Eren feels dragged down by the early morning. It always takes him longer to adjust to the almost pitch black, and he felt the tiredness dragging his eyes shut. A fiery headache burned in his temples, and he was thankful for Mikasa's silent movements.
The air was cold and slightly damp. There were crickets chirping somewhere in the fields.
"Are you sure that everything's packed?" Mikasa asked Eren. "She'll be here soon."
"I've got everything." Speaking hurt his head. He gestured to the bag on his back. "It's all in here. All the food we should need and water for Saint."
"Good. Just checking."
"I know."
He could hear the strain in her voice, tugging at him. He hated hearing her stressed. It made him panic.
"How long did she say it would take to get there?" Eren asked, impatient.
"It's only fifteen miles north. She said we'd have to wait around, remember? Hide somewhere until the train comes."
"Yeah. Police are going to be swarming the place looking for us."
"That's the plan. That's the whole reason we're doing this. We'll have to double back. So they don't think we're going to the train. The guys after me, that is."
"For how many hours? I mean, that's not going to work, is it-"
"It's going to have to. Look. She'll be here any minute, right? Get on the horse."
They sat on Saint together, Mikasa in front, Eren behind. He was pressed so close to her that she could feel his heartbeat on her back. She traced her thumb over the knot tying Saint in the barn, watching the way her fingers shook and wondering if there were any way she could make them stop.
Imagine it's an adventure. No different to the games you used to play.
"Hurry up! They're gonna get us!" Mikasa shouts to Eren over her shoulder. They're running through the streets. It's half past one, and they've both just turned nine; they've ditched school, bored, and are playing outside. Behind them run imaginary men, dressed up as gangsters, with briefcases stuffed with money in one hand and guns, pointed at them, in the other. They're pretending that instead of books, their school bags are stuffed with precious jewels.
"We need to make a break for it!" Eren shouts back, pushing past tired-eyed men and women pushing strollers.
"Follow me!"
Mikasa cuts left into an alleyway, scrambling up over a fence, and Eren follows. They find themselves in another street, and Mikasa jumps onto a tram, holding onto the rail. Eren runs alongside until Mikasa holds out her hand and pulls him up with her. As always, he's astounded by her strength. They laugh at the disapproving glares of strangers.
"Shouldn't you two been in school?" One woman asks, her hair pulled back too tight from her head.
They stick their tongues out at her and jump from the tram to the park, where they share Mikasa's packed lunch.
When they get home, Mikasa's mother doesn't suspect a thing. It's their secret.
"Looks like the jewels are safe," Eren says later that evening, when they're sitting on the fire escape. "Looks like we'll be able to get out of this city any day now."
"I don't want to go anywhere," Mikasa says, looking up at the stars. "This is the best place in the world."
Annie's eyes narrowed at them suspiciously, like she knew something was wrong. Her face wore a cold expression, one that Mikasa had quickly become accustomed to in the short time she had known her.
"Eren," Annie said, her eyes boring into Mikasa's, "you're riding with me."
Mikasa felt panic, and something else - jealousy? - squirming in the pit of her stomach. "I want Eren by my side," she said, anxious. The plan was already falling apart. Mikasa knew that this would all go a lot more smoothly if she just let Annie have Saint… but they needed Erwin to find them, and losing Saint would be like losing a part of herself.
Not that there was much left of herself to lose.
She knew the plan was far-fetched. Erwin could be dead for all she knew, lying on the ground like her mother and father, a bullet resting in his spine. She pushed the thought from her mind as the familiar feeling of panic bubbled in her chest. No time to waste thinking about that now. But it was hard not to - as much as she tried to focus, the countless ways this plan could collapse in on itself pushed themselves to the front of her mind.
"Where's Bertholdt?" Mikasa heard Eren ask.
"He's staying back." Annie's voice was cool, collected. Calculated. It made Mikasa uneasy.
"Why?"
"Doesn't feel well. Come on. Eren, get on my horse with me. We need to go before my father wakes up and sees us."
"I want Eren with me." Mikasa's tone left no room for negotiation.
"You don't trust me, Mikasa? If you don't start co-operating here, I'm just going to go and tell my father about how the two fugitives - the girl that killed her parents and her uncle - are right here in this barn."
Mikasa could feel the acid bile heaving in her throat, burning. "They think I killed my parents?" She said. Her mouth was dry.
"Obviously." Annie jumped from the horse and walked over to Saint. "I thought you would have gathered that by now. Jump off," she said to Mikasa. "You can ride my horse. Can't trust you to not run off with yours, now, can I?"
The colour drained from Mikasa's face. "What do you mean?"
She looked back at Eren, panic in her eyes. "Do it," he whispered.
Mikasa slowly dismounted Saint. Annie's horse was pure white, a stallion. He looked like he was glaring at Mikasa.
"Thank you," Annie said, exasperated.
Mikasa could feel her blood pounding in her veins. Barely ten minutes had passed and their plan had already failed. She clenched her fists, knowing that this was now her only option. She could feel Eren telling her not to do it. But she did; she did what she knew best.
As she passed Annie she forgot her training. All of it. The pointless fights she'd had with Annie were no help at all now; so she acted on instinct and grabbed Annie's shirt, pushing her back at first. Then as she was about to fall Mikasa pulled Annie towards her and smashed the top of her head straight onto Annie's still-bruised nose, knocking her unconscious instantly. She fell to the floor, hitting it with a loud thud, and suddenly she looked a lot more vulnerable than she had just moments earlier.
Eren was silent. Mikasa stared at her hands. They had stopped shaking now. It took a second of looking at Annie for what she had done to dawn on her.
"Fuck… Eren, what the… why did I do that?"
Eren jumped down from Saint, panicking silently, and walked over to Annie. Checked her pulse. He breathed deeply, using every ounce of courage he had to stay composed and not show any worry. "She's fine. But we can't leave her like this."
"We've got to restrain her, or something, fuck. FUCK!"
"Calm down, it's alright." Eren ran over to the corner where he picked up the rope they'd used to keep Saint in the barn at night. Mikasa dragged Annie over to the hay and lay her down, tied her hands together. She felt like she was going to be sick - she always did. The constant taste of bile in the back of her throat had made it sore.
"Mikasa."
She ignored him.
"Mikasa." His voice, almost pleading. "We have to go."
She was stood a few feet in front of him, back turned. He stared at her for a second and walked over, facing her, and put his hands on her shoulders.
"I really shouldn't have done that." She mumbled, staring at the ground. "We're fucked."
"Maybe you shouldn't have. But what happened, happened, yeah? Come on. We've got to come up with another plan now."
"I don't know. I don't know what to do."
"Wait." Eren paused. "This is actually… I think I've got it. Alright. We leave now, right, find our own way there. When evening comes and Annie's not back, Bertholdt is gonna think something's wrong, right? So he'll come find her. But by that time we'll already be on the train. Her father will call the police when he finds out, I'm sure of it, and then Erwin can find us later. We'll plan it on the train."
Mikasa could hardly process the words he was saying, but she trusted him. "Okay…" she said slowly, agreeing. "Okay. Yeah. Let's do it."
"I just want to get you back home."
"I know."
He pulled her close, into a hug, and she stopped everything for a moment. Stopped the panic, the worrying, the fear. She just squeezed him close to her. "Thank you," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Eren smiled and pulled away from the hug, looked at her. He could see that she was scared. That no matter how hard she tried nothing seemed to go right. He leaned in close to her and stared at her face, tilted his head so that their foreheads touched. Her breathing hitched, then slowed. She could feel her heartbeat returning to normal. Home.
"Come on," she said, pulling back. "Take Annie's horse. We can't leave it here."
Mikasa opened her mouth to speak when she was interrupted by a weak laugh from the other side of the room. Annie had woken.
"I fucking knew it," she said. "Oh, I fucking knew I couldn't trust you two."
watched her for a second, frozen, not sure what to do. "You were trying to split us up," she said cautiously. "I didn't have a choice."
Annie stood up, her hands still tied together. There was still blood dripping from her nose, and she wiped it with her shoulder, wincing slightly at the pain of touching her nose. "Doesn't matter to me now," she laughed.
It took Mikasa a moment to process what she had said. "Did you give us up?"
"For the money," Annie said simply, standing up and walking out of the barn quickly, if not slightly dizzily.
"What? Where are you-"
And then several bullets flew through the shoddy barn wall, missing Saint by inches. Mikasa screamed and threw herself on the ground, waiting for the next load of bullets to come, and when they didn't, she looked to Eren. Blood was pounding in her ears and she crawled along the floor of the barn towards the a pile of hay at the back. Hide. Eren followed. The shots started again; less this time, but for longer. Annie was running out across the fields, as fast as she could, her hands still bound. A man shouted something in Japanese.
It was definitely them.
"Quick!" Mikasa motioned to Eren to move quicker, and when they reached the pile, they covered themselves in hay. Mikasa lay, completely silent, but she felt as if the thudding of her heart was so loud that she would give them away.
Footsteps. They were coming into the barn now. Two of them? They called loudly.
"Mikasa! Come on out now!"
Mikasa could hear cars in the distance. More of them. She looked at Eren; was this it?
"We won't hurt you, Mikasa. We've come to bring you home!" His accent was thick. He sounded like he was only a few feet away from her.
Three, maybe four cars screeched to a halt behind them. Mikasa could hear their tires on the road. The gunshots started again, but Mikasa didn't hear any tearing through the walls of the barn. She sat with her hands over her head, trying not to make a sound.
They said something to each other that Mikasa couldn't quite hear and then the stairs were rattling as one of the men ran up them, his feet pounding.
But they stopped. Mikasa heard sirens in the distance. The police were coming now.
She heard them talking to each other.
"Come out or the horse gets it!" The man from the ground shouted. Mikasa gasped and the man ran up to her. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. She had never felt a grip as strong as his. She kicked him in the stomach, trying to knock him back. Eren tried to pull the man away from her, but the second had his gun trained on him.
"I got her!" The man shouted.
The gunshots from outside had stopped. The man with the gun, the taller one, had taken hold of Eren and the barrel of his gun was pushed against Eren's forehead.
"Come on, Mikasa. It's about time you came home with us," he said, his eyes sharp. "Come and get in the car."
"Fuck you," Mikasa spat.
"Do what we say or your friend here dies." He pushed the gun harder against Eren's head.
"Eren!" The man was dragging Mikasa out of the barn. She followed.
"Mikasa, don't!" Eren shouted. "Run!"
But even if she had wanted to, Mikasa couldn't; the man's hand had such a grip on her that she was wincing with the pain of it.
He pulled her out of the barn. She could see the flashing of lights, no doubt from police cars, in the distance. Mikasa felt light-headed; it was happening again. Gunshots rang through her ears, each of them echoing deafeningly in her head. Her vision was going blurry.
She was being taken away from Eren again.
She's sitting in the back of an unfamiliar car, with an unfamiliar man talking to her mother an unfamiliar language. The streets of New York pass quickly as the car speeds far over the limit; they look blurry through her tears. It's been ten minutes. Mikasa cries quietly, in part through shock and in part through fear. Her father sits to her side. He has his hand on her knee, murmuring quietly, trying to console her. Fleetingly, Mikasa notices how much paler his skin is than hers - but then she remembers her panic. Where's Eren? Is he still running after them?
She realises that he isn't when they reach the highway. When she turns her head to look out behind them, the road looms long and empty.
"Mikasa!"
For a split second, Mikasa thought it was Eren shouting out to her. But then she looked up. And everything snapped back into focus.
"Erwin!"
The man holding her let go, and stared for a second in total shock. Mikasa dodged his grip as he lunged for her, and she ran back into the barn to Saint and began untying him, aware of how hot on her heels her kidnapper was. But then two shots rang out; Mikasa heard the thump of the man's body against the ground. She didn't look back, and jumped onto Saint. Erwin had caught up to her.
Mikasa couldn't begin to comprehend the relief she felt when she saw him. It was going to be alright. Erwin was here; Erwin had saved her before, and he would save her now, too. He already had. His hair was matted with what Mikasa guessed could only be blood; his clothes were stained; and he was bleeding from what looked like a bullet wound in his arm, tied shoddily with a torn off piece of shirt.
"Are you hurt?" He asked her, looking as relieved as she felt.
"No, I'm fine - but Eren- Erwin… how did you-"
"No time, let's go - now. This isn't going to be pretty, I can tell you." He grit his teeth.
"But Eren!"
"Erwin?" The man holding Eren said. Erwin span to face him; his face was one of complete shock.
Still holding Eren around the neck, the man slowly removed the barrel of his gun from Eren's temple and pointed it at Erwin. Erwin's gun was trained on him, arm steady, no sign of shaking. The man called out in Japanese, saying something Mikasa couldn't understand. She watched them, wanting nothing more than to run over and pry Eren from his grip, but she knew she would be shot. Or worse; Eren would be.
"There's no point calling for them, Akita," Erwin said. "They're all dead. Let him go and I'll let you live."
The other man narrowed his eyes. "Never thought I'd see your face again, Erwin. You are a traitor of the worst kind."
"You wouldn't know the meaning of that word."
"She must come home, Erwin. Stay out of this. It's for her own good."
"Just let go of the boy," Erwin said carefully. "Boss'll sure favour the lone survivor, won't he? Better make your mind up, Akita. The cops aren't far off now."
Eren wasn't struggling, but the look of pain on his face was hurting Mikasa. His eyes stared into hers, but she couldn't understand what she was trying to say. Behind her, she could hear the ragged breathing of the man Erwin had shot. She couldn't begin to guess how many more he had killed looking for her.
"I'll give you the boy if you give me Mikasa."
"That isn't going to happen and you know it."
"Then the boy dies."
"If he dies, I will kill you, Akita. Don't think I will hesitate to do so. Now, the cops will be here any second, so let me make this easy for you. You're going to let him go, and then you're going to walk out of here. We'll be on our way and you'll be on yours."
Akita looked at Erwin with narrowed eyes, but seconds later, he lowered his gun, and released Eren, who dropped to the ground and scrambled to Mikasa. The man turned slowly, casting Erwin one more look, and began to walk out of the barn.
Erwin shot him in the back of the head.
Mikasa watched him hit the ground. Eren vomited into the hay.
"We need to go. Now. Are you injured?" He asked Eren. Eren shook his head. "Good. you get on that horse with me."
And then, suddenly, they were leaving; leaving behind the derelict barn that been their home for the past four nights. She said goodbye to it silently, turning back one more time to look at the moonlight shining through holes in the roof, casting its light on the bodies scattered on the floor, staining the hay a deep red. Eren and Erwin were beside her, and Erwin nodded at her as they rode out of the barn and onto the road.
More men dead out here; it looked like a battlefield.
Erwin set the pace. They moved fast, and Mikasa heard police cars screech to a halt as soon as they turned the corner. When several minutes had passed, and Erwin was sure they were not being followed, he spoke.
"Tell me how you found us."
It wasn't a question. Eren looked at Mikasa, his eyes pleading with her to tell him how to answer. Mikasa nodded. Tell the truth.
"Mikasa wrote me letters." His voice was small and quiet. All he knew of this man was what Mikasa had told him; that he was dangerous, and had vowed to protect Mikasa with his life.
Erwin was silent for a tense moment. And then he sighed.
"I had told your mother you were bound to rebel. I suppose it is no less fault of yours than it is mine for leaving you. I underestimated the danger you are in."
"But what if it is my fault?" Mikasa heard her voice crack.
Erwin slowed to a stop. In the distance, the sun was beginning to rise, and its light cast shades of orange into the sky.
"I don't think that's possible," he said. "If anything, I'm glad you weren't alone."
"Me too."
"I'm proud of you, Mikasa. You're a damn good fighter."
Mikasa could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. "Thank you for teaching me."
"It was my duty to."
A few seconds passed. "Who are these people?" Eren asked.
"I can't explain now. It's a very long story. I will explain once we're safe."
"They're why we left New York, right?" Mikasa said.
"Yes, they are. If we can find a safe space to talk on the train, I can tell you about everything then."
"We're going on the train? The Empire Builder?"
"It wasn't my first choice. I was going to drive, but my tires were blown out when I came to find you. We can jump on the train."
"That was what we were going to do," Mikasa said. "We thought you'd be following the police, so if they saw us getting on the train you'd know where to find us."
"Good plan. It's what I would have done."
"How are we going to get to New York from Chicago? The train doesn't go all the way," Eren said.
"New York? We're not going to New York," said Erwin. "If you must, you can find your own way from Chicago."
"What?" Mikasa said. "Why aren't we going back?"
"We're going to Canada. I know people there that can get us to England, where we can be safe."
Mikasa's heart sank. England? That was even further from New York than Oregon was. "But can't we go back to the city?"
"No. It's far too dangerous for that."
Mikasa swallowed, and tightened her fists around Saint's reins. Eren looked sideways at her, his eyes wide, not knowing what to say.
After everything, they were to be separated again.