Pairing: Eren/Mikasa

Setting: In the training years

Words: 2158

Rating: K

Notes: Sentinel07 asked for a prompt where Eren catches Mikasa doing embroidery and realizes he doesn't know much about her past before they met. I thought it was really cute cause let's face it as close as they are Mikasa probably never talked about her parents at first. Eren would have no idea who they are or even their names and I like it because despite that they are still very close. Once Eren lost his mom and everything with his dad, no one probably understood better than Mikasa. Title is from "Memory" from the musical Cats.

Let Your Memory Lead You

There weren't many places to hide on the training base, just the barracks and a few rooms in the main hall. Granted, they didn't get that much time off to begin with but Eren found himself wandering around the base on one of those days. He decided to leave the boy's barracks since Armin wanted to read and the silence was going to put Eren to sleep which wasn't how he wanted to spend his limited time to do what he wanted. The mess hall was the opposite; it was too loud since most everyone congregated in there and Connie and Sasha were doing imitations of everyone. Eren normally wouldn't have minded the laughter or maybe to go sit with Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie who were always a bit quieter but nothing just seemed to appeal to him.

He decided to just walk alone, heading down one of the halls that led to God knows where. If anyone said anything to him he'd just say he got lost and turn around so he didn't quite see the harm. Besides, there was one person he didn't see in the mess hall, and the fact the black haired girl hadn't found him yet unnerved him a bit. Eren supposed he should be happy, its free time and he didn't have anyone trailing him around but at the same time her lack of presence made him worry. He'd rather just find Mikasa and know nothing had happened to her then worry about it all night.

Eren had already tried to check the girl's barracks as best he could without someone yelling at him but there were no lights on and no voices so he assumed she wasn't in there unless she was asleep. He was tempted to peek in just to make sure but he didn't quite want to risk Shadis biting his head off and making him do laps all night.

Instead he found himself still wandering the halls seeing many doors and a few people he hadn't seen before; no one yelled at him to go back to the mess hall so he figured he was okay but he still didn't like that even in a relatively small place he couldn't find the one person who normally never left him alone. With a frustrated sigh, he turned and started to go back the way he came this time turning down a different hallway.

It was pretty quiet down this hall, no one around or even nearby it seemed. There were less doors lining the walls and at the end was just another wall; a dead end. Eren was gonna turn around again but something caught his ear. At first he thought someone might be singing from one of the rooms, something melodic and smooth; when he stopped he realized it wasn't singing but someone humming. It was soft and distant but vaguely familiar, like he heard it before but couldn't quite place it. It was almost like it was from a dream.

He tried to pin point which room it was coming from by hearing if the song got louder depending on what door he pressed his ear to. He probably looked insane to anyone who may have walked by but he was curious to why the song sounded so familiar; he needed to know where it was coming from.

It was the last door in the hallway and the moment he pressed his ear against it he heard the humming as clear as day. There was someone obviously behind the door, so Eren wasn't sure how to proceed. Did he risk knocking and having the person stop before he could understand where the song was coming from? Or should he give the person behind the door a heart attack by just swinging open the door?

Eren turned the door knob, deciding it was probably better just to walk in; he could always play it off as a mistake if he needed to, and pushed the door open. The room was rather small, just one window casting in the moonlight from outside; it looked like a small and rather cozy library, something that didn't quite fit on a military base. The sudden halting of the song caught his attention again though and his eyes quickly found the source of the song sitting on a chair near the window.

"Mikasa?" he asked, staring a little dumbfounded at the girl but it was her alright; Eren would know her anywhere.

She looked a little surprised at first but her face easily fell back into its normal expression.

"What're you doing here?" He closed the door behind him, relieved there was no one in here who was gonna yell at him for sticking his nose in places he shouldn't and that he had finally found her; the worry he hadn't even know he was feeling unknotted itself from his chest. He was a little surprised she wandered out here alone since she generally was always with him and Armin but he came out here alone too so he supposed he couldn't blame her.

She shrugged. "Just wanted some place quiet."

Eren walked the short distance to where she was sitting, pulling up another chair to sit near her. The room was pretty bright for there not being any light but the lights from outside shining in and it was bright enough to see the small scrap of white fabric in Mikasa's hand. "What's that?" he asked, gesturing to her hands.

Mikasa hesitated for a moment, like she was unsure how to answer but she held up the fabric for him to see. There was a small design started on it with black thread, a thin line of the thread leading back to a needle in Mikasa's other hand.

It was something he saw his mom do before but he never saw Mikasa even pick up a needle let alone sew with it. "Did you do that?"

She nodded, putting the fabric back in her lap but Eren reached over to pull it out of her hand. Mikasa moved to stop him, but he held it quickly out of her reach, holding it up to the window to get a better look.

"Eren," she started, her voice warning but it wavered a bit tell him she really wasn't all that mad, maybe just embarrassed.

"Wow," he said, running his fingers over the bumps of thread that were sewn together to form small flowers. "I didn't know you could do this."

"It's not really something they teach you in training here," she said.

Eren glanced up at her to see a small smile on her lips. "I would hope not, I'm pretty sure I really would get kicked out if that was the case." He looked down at the fabric again. It was so simple but so delicate; it was like being brought back to his old home where seeing something like this wouldn't have been out of place among his mom's things. A sharp pain passed through his chest as he handed it back to Mikasa.

"How'd you learn?" The question was out before he could really think about what he was asking. If she didn't learn here and didn't learn from his own mother then there was only one person who could have taught her.

"My mom taught me," she said without hesitation though her voice was a little lighter than normal. Her eyes dropped down to the fabric she was absent mindedly running her hands over. "She used to do it all the time. I thought her designs were the most beautiful things in the world. I begged her to teach me but she wouldn't, she was too afraid I'd prick myself with a needle."

Eren watched her carefully as he sat in his chair. It was the most she ever talked about her mother since the night she was killed. Eren didn't even know Mikasa's parent's names; he never asked her about it either knowing it probably wasn't something she wanted to talk about. Though, it also made him realize he knew nothing about her childhood before he met her.

"Did you?" he asked carefully, not wanting to push her but wanting to keep with the conversation.

She nodded with a small laugh. "I dropped the whole thing and bled on it. I was devastated but my mom got me a fresh piece of fabric and a bandage and we kept going." She paused for a moment seemingly lost in her own memories. "I found this room earlier today and found some old remnants of embroidery work. I just thought it would be relaxing to do it again."

"I wondered where you were all day. I couldn't find you anywhere."

She glanced up at him, and he couldn't quite tell but it looked like her cheeks had gotten a little red. "You were looking for me?"

He shrugged leaning back in his chair. "Yeah, Armin was reading and everyone else was being loud so I went to go see where you had wandered off to." He decided to leave out that he had been worried about her too.

She nodded looking back down into her lap and running a finger over one of the flowers she had sewed in. "Your mom taught me this one."

Eren's body jolted at the mention of his own mother. "She what?"

Mikasa held up the fabric again. "This was her design, she taught it to me when we lived together."

That's why it looked familiar, he saw it before. "I didn't know you did that with her too."

"It was normally when you were asleep. Sometimes she would find me still awake or she'd get to me before I..um..got to you in the middle of the night. She'd take me downstairs and sew with me until I fell asleep." Mikasa got that distant look in her eyes, like she had when she was talking about her own mother; it made Eren's heart ache.

Yeah, he lost his mom in front of his eyes and his dad was nowhere to be found but Mikasa, not only did she watch her mom and dad die, she watched his mom die who was like another mom to her from the moment Eren tugged her into his home. Mikasa had lost so much, and she was still the strongest person he knew.

Talking about the past probably wouldn't help, as much as Eren would've loved to know how Mikasa was as a wide eyed little girl; probably much more gentle than he was as a kid. Instead, he leaned over closer to her. "You gonna teach me how to sew?"

Mikasa looked like she was about to laugh. "You want to learn how to sew?"

"I figure if you sat here all day in peace doing it then why not."

She gave him one of her small but genuine smiles as she tucked the needle into the fabric. "Maybe next time, we should probably go back before we get in trouble."

Yeah, Shadis wasn't exactly the most forgiving instructor in the world. Eren pushed himself to his feet while Mikasa tucked the fabric into her pocket. He followed her the short distance to the floor, only then remembering why he came in here in the first place.

"Hey," he said as he held the door open for Mikasa. "What were you humming earlier? It sounded so familiar."

Mikasa looked up to him while they started down the hallway back to the mess hall. "Oh, um, it was something my mom used to hum to me when I couldn't sleep."

"Huh," Eren said, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. "I wonder how I knew it then. It just sounded so familiar, like a dream or something." It seemed kinda stupid now, but he had heard it before somewhere though he was pretty sure he never remembered Mikasa humming it before. Granted, her voice humming it was what triggered the familiar feelings.

"O-oh," she said her voice not as firm as usual as she looked at anywhere but at him. "I don't know."

Eren shrugged as they walked in silence. He almost heard the soft notes in his head, a warm comforting feeling in the pit of his stomach, soft hands running though his hair as the song went on until he was asleep again, nightmares not haunting him anymore. He wondered if it was a dream he was remembering; after all he figured he could only feel that peaceful in a dream.

He shook his head as they approached the mess hall which they heard before they even saw the door; he was thinking too much about it. He looked over to Mikasa who was reaching her hand up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear in a motion that seemed oddly familiar in that moment.

Still, he hoped that maybe he'd have that dream again.