Wings : Attack on Titan x Reader Scenarios / Imagines ▼

[The Moments After :: Mikasa]

One. A human life equaled exactly one.

And unless some name of world-renowned greatness was discovered, that's all it would ever amount to. It didn't mean you'd lost your parents. It meant you'd lost two. Because that's exactly what it came down to.

Suddenly Mikasa was back in your arms. She was still rigid, resistant and refractory, but that was okay, because now it was your turn to sob to her, and it was her turn to be who you had always known her for. Fearless Mikasa. Brave Mikasa. Courageous Mikasa. Everything you weren't, but simultaneously everything you wished you could be. Your hands found the same place they'd rested in the previous embrace, and returned. If anything, this time, more than ever, your grasp was stronger. Desperate. Thirsting for the knowledge that things would be okay. Hoping for that premise - needing that premise - even if it was all a lie. Even if it was a temporary placeholder. Even if it was nothing more than a distraction.

Anything to distract you from the fact that you were only a number in an atmosphere of equations, small and insignificant, now truly alone in the world, except for the girl who had become your savior and your saved, simultaneously the same.

But Mikasa was not a number.

She was a breathing, beating-hearted, raven-haired beauty, a beacon of light against the darkness of the unknown brewing round you, and she was more than a number, and there was not a chance, not in the slightest, that you were ever going to let her become a number. She was Mikasa Ackerman. Mikasa the Strong. Mikasa the Valiant. Mikasa, the girl holding you now, the sole remainder of a reminder of a life you last lived, a life lost to the beasts who had destroyed it, the girl who would not let you go, the girl who you would not let go of, the girl who everyone had feared but you had conquered that fear, and, oh, you were so glad you had, so glad you did, because if you hadn't her face may have been lying amongst the dead, amongst those faces of your parents, still and porcelain in the aftereffects of death, rigor mortis setting in and leaving behind only a number. Mikasa the Girl Who Was Not a Number.

The ship drew to a screeching halt abruptly, and now it was your turn to follow Mikasa's lead once more. She reunited herself with the boy she'd boarded the boat with - Eren - and his friend, Armin, all while you lingered just centimeters behind, focusing on the faces of those who were not numbers. All together in some incredulously mismatched quartet, the four of you fumbled their way off the vessel, pushing against screaming, panicked crowds, crying children and adults alike, shouting names and calling names and estimating numbers. For a few moments you weren't so much moving as you were lifted off your feet by what felt like the thousands of people fleeing the seacraft for the comfort of land, carried back to ground, albeit unfamiliar, but ground nonetheless. It was the first time since the realization of it all had sunk in that you felt your feet against solid concrete again.

It was still concrete. The same assembly of approximated bricks that you had once stood upon at the playground, or walked along on the way home, far too many to count and yet far too individualistic to simply blend them all together into one bland background. It was the same earth and yet a new land; the same existence and yet a new life. A life in which those you loved would not become numbers. Not again.

Quickly enough you found Armin and Eren, just a few paces ahead of you, only to notice the absence of Mikasa seconds before she appeared at your side, tugging you off the main pathway to a small alcove near the port. Her grip was strong but her arms were shaking. She wouldn't turn back to face you, even after stopping, and you realized in a fraction of a heartbeat that the noises you were hearing were not only that of others, but that of Mikasa crying, now audible, now amplified. You hesitantly returned her tight grip.

"[Y/n]..." she started slowly, shivers suddenly racking her whole chassis. "Are you alone here?"

Only a second was necessary to decipher her strange phrasing. Did you lose your loved ones, too?

Your voice was faint and it fumbled for recognition against the tautness of your throat. "Yes. I'm - alone."

This was when Mikasa's trembling seemed to fade. Once more the facade of fear was gone, and she seemed to be encompassed with the same sort of understated confidence she usually carried. "Please don't say that again."

"...Huh?"

"Don't say you're alone." She finally turned. Her face was burning red, wet with tears, more coming and going and forming and falling with every passing moment like the words were torture, and she was tormented by being the vessel through which they made their fleeting journey. "You're not. I - I'm not. We're not."

How had she - she'd...your mind couldn't make itself up. All you knew in the moment was that this was the time of which Mikasa was not a number, never had been a number, never would be a number. She was company. She was the reason for being Not Alone. She was your closest friend now.

And the intense look in her eyes, gray and sharp and cutting like steel, spoke the words she could not bring herself to say: you were the reason for being Not Alone, too. You were Not Alone. You never would Be Alone.

The world may have revolved around numbers, but your world revolved around Mikasa. Your world was Not Alone. Your world was not your world, because now it was Mikasa's, and she had seen the horrors you had, and perhaps worse, but somehow, someway, this would not be the end, because you were Together, Not Alone.