At eight months pregnant, Mikasa still considers herself perfectly capable of handling everyday tasks. She can vacuum, cook dinner, wash clothes and scrub the bathroom (minus the tub) with no issues—she'd still be at work, too, if she hadn't been forced into maternity leave based on the concerns of her boss and coworkers, worried she might potentially injure herself. (She'd always thought she was a capable police officer who didn't need coddling; she hadn't even mentioned she was pregnant until Sasha joked about her gaining weight and looking a "little more plump" than usual.)
It surprises her more than anyone that it is the television remote that takes her down. If she's being fair, it isn't her fault, but Eren's.
Actually, she thinks as she sits cross-legged on the floor, resting her hands on her round stomach, this entire situation is Eren's fault—the child inside her, the remote on the floor. She would never carelessly drop the remote to the floor and leave it for a pregnant partner to pick up. Then again, she muses as she picks up the remote to twirl around in her hands, Eren did have an emergency to attend to, and can she really blame her fiancé for going to help save the life of a child?
As a pediatrician in an office with three others, his on-call time is a lot less than if he were practicing entirely by himself, but once in a while an emergency pops up and he has to leave. This is, of course, one of those nights. He's already been gone an hour and now, at ten o'clock, she has forgone any hope of getting up on her own. The couch is too far unless she wants to backstroke against the carpet; they have no coffee table for her to latch on to since Eren opposed them entirely, claiming they were death traps begging to stub toes.
At least with the television remote in hand, she's able to turn on an episode of Grey's Anatomy, which certainly makes the entire ordeal a little more bearable. She's so absorbed in watching an old rerun—Are you really going to marry him, Izzie?—as if she's never seen it before that she doesn't notice when Eren comes home until she feels his hands on her head as he asks, "Is there a specific reason you're on the floor?"
"Someone," she says, pulling her eyes away from the television, "left the remote on the ground. I can't exactly bend over to get it, because there's a small child in me, so I sat on the floor to get it."
"And didn't think to get up?" Eren replies, amused as he pulls out his phone to answer a text that pings loudly.
"See," she says, trying to reach for a hand of his to pull herself up, finding herself more irritated when she realizes his hands are busy, "there's no table to grab and I'm not going to crawl on my back to the couch."
"I see," Eren answers, staring down at her, phone still out, not offering her a hand.
"Well? Help me up, won't you?" In a fit of annoyance or perhaps hormones, she crosses her arms, a small pout finding its way to her lips as she sees him smile wider.
"Oh, but you look so cute like this…" Eren replies. Mikasa is horrified to see him angle his phone in a way that puts her directly in front of the phones camera.
"Are you recording me?" Her voice takes on an uncharacteristically high-pitched tone. "Eren, I'm really going to kill you once I'm up."
"I know," Eren says, a bit too jovially, "that's why I'm recording now, before my death."
It's a short video, certainly no longer than thirty seconds of her pouting, before he tucks the phone away and pulls her up, bringing her close to his chest. His nose skims her neck, his lips placing apologetic kisses along her collarbone. "You looked cute, I couldn't help it…"
"I hate you." She sighs, loudly and dramatically for emphasis, before turning to kiss him, a welcome home tradition she's never once forgotten. "You weren't gone long. Nothing too serious, this time?"
She can feel Eren's smile against her skin, his teeth nipping softly down her neck, along her shoulder, his hands placed on either side of her stomach. "There's nothing I can't handle," he says with such sincerity she wonders if he's still talking about his job.
"Missed you," she says quietly, back arching as he lips tickle her skin some more, this time near the nape of her neck.
"Missed you more," he answers, the honesty in his words apparent; she silently thinks to herself she'd sit on the floor for many more hours if it meant him always coming home to her like this.
A/N: The original credit idea goes to a user on tumblr (anon, tumblr user: shingekinoeremika), who had the super cute idea I couldn't resist writing up.
(I realize I've been writing a bit much on the pregnancy idea, hopefully that doesn't bother anyone!)