He was staring blankly at the horrible cup of tea, deep in thoughts while the blonde teen was scrubbing the table on the other side, making sure it would shine. He looked up at the strange color of hair and then tch-ed, annoyed with he terrible taste his expensive black tea had. Kirschtein was one of the worst in his actual squad so he couldn't ask for much - he had a big mouth and no guts, shitting himself whenever the commander was in the room and losing all his dumb ideas. He also loved to get in quarrels with that Eren kid which was a strong headache most of the time. He peeked up to see the expression on the squad leader's face and then looked down, knowing he couldn't ask for conversation. No one to make tea in this HQ.

"I want tea" He grumbled as he got inside from the heavy snowing, feeling water dripping down his face and getting closer to the fire. There were a few teacups prepared and after he was greeted nicely by Oluo that was cleaning his winter boots along with the others' because he was on duty.

"How was the trip to Sina, heichou?" The grey-haired man asked, not looking up to see the reaction because there was none.

"Fucking useless. Tch, Sina pigs" He murmured and then grabbed a cup. "Petra made the tea?" It was still hot and perfect for warming his insides.

"Yes, she went to sleep" Of course she knew he would demand tea so he made some, his favorite too. He sipped on the hot liquor that burnt his tongue and enjoyed the taste, knowing there was no person who could prepare a better tea than his second.

He hated when images like these were running before his eyes because he couldn't do anything to stop him and they kept reminding him of people who weren't there anymore and whom he wanted to get rid of. They were like ghosts, roaming through his brain, during the day or during his sleepless nights. He suddenly got up, making the blonde teen to jump startled and picked his light brown jacket that was part of his uniform and that he was planning to wear.

"I am going out" he mumbled and told him he was expecting the castle to be shining by the time he was coming back. Theoretically it was a day off, practically they were still shit at cleaning so he had to train them like dogs - even if he was there or not. He went to the stables where he's got his horse and rode down the road that was now familiar. They were near the third wall so it was a long way until he reached the place he desired to see; it was a nuisance at first but now he was used to it as he made the trip monthly. He enjoyed riding and letting his mind fly to other things than killing titans and protecting humanity, in the wild he was no longer the most valuable soldier, he was a simple man and no one cared about him. Of course once he reached a town everything changed because of the wings he was bearing on his back, people were looking at him with hate, asking where did their money go, why did they have to send their children to death and he was walking by them impassively as always, looking straight forward and ignoring the hurt eyes of mothers who lost everything they had. It was not his fault, whoever chose to enrol in the Survey Corps knew what were the risks and they were accepting everybody who wanted to be a soldier. He reached Sina little after noon and he tried not to spit in disgust at the sight of the rich, enjoying food and drinks to their hearts' content, not worrying about the others who sometimes had nothing to eat. For him, who came from the undergrounds where they lived like rats it was sickening to see something like this actually existed and it was making him wonder if humans were really worth the saving.

He walked down the green path, counting the trees so he would know which way to go and then tied his horse to a fence before entering the yard. Three rows to the left, the fifth stone, that was what he was looking for. His steps were fast and calculated and as soon as he saw the name he kneeled in front of it, dropping the flowers he had bought. The flowers he knew they were her favorites.

"What the fuck are these?" He groaned, feeling the sweet smell coming from the windows.

"They are white roses, sir" Petra grinned, ignoring his grumpy look. They were not suited for anyone in the castle but her, they were a bunch of filthy men but somehow he didn't have the heart to tell her to cut the bullshit and throw those away and got accustomed to the smell and then to the ritual of having new ones every week. Even if they were expensive she used her soldier loans to buy them and took care of them. Sometimes he could hear her talk to them as if they were alive when she was tending their needs and in those moments his eyes left the heavy papers he was reading and followed her with interest.

They were whiter than the stone and he observed there were a few more bouquets there, probably from her father who was visiting the place daily. He couldn't believe it has been one year already but the letters on the grave confirmed it.

Petra Ral,

Loving daughter

829-851

He hated how they reduced her to loving daughter, she was a fierce soldier, a brave woman and a trustworthy human - if there wasn't for her, humanity might have lost it's secret weapon and the chance to survival. He said out-loud the only prayer he ever knew, the one he learnt years ago from his mother, trying to sound convincing. The truth was there wasn't a God for him, not after all he had seen during his life but he hated the thought of simply disappearing so he forced himself to believe, knowing she once believed too. He knew under him was earth alone because they weren't able to save her body and still, when he heard her father was making a burying process he felt almost relieved because he now had a place of solace. It was stupid to bury an empty coffin but as the only daughter, Petra was going to be missed by everyone.

"Shit, I'm stupid. You're not even here" he whispered to nothingness and felt his fingers clasp tighter on the cold ground. He didn't know how this was supposed to go - not even after an entire year of monthly visits. "I'm trying to keep my temper around the brats" He continued, a little louder. He remembered all too well how motherly she was towards Eren and he was terrified imagining her with the new squad. "They're not bad, not that I would tell them that. I've never told you that" He remembered the first day after he chose her for the team, how shaky she was whenever he was talking - she saw him like someone made entirely of ice and whenever he lost his temper she would cry. He knew that because Eld told him various times she was crying at the stables or in her room but not once did she show her crying face to him, she didn't want to disappoint or to seem weak. "Fucking shit" He's never been good with words. "The HQ looks terrible, not that Gunther and Oluo ever learnt how to clean but you were skilled at dusting and brooming. And tea." He gulped. "I want to drink your fucking tea again" He sounded almost angry and he stopped when he saw an old couple coming near, realizing he was yelling at empty dirt. He's always been shit with words but she was the best at figuring things out so he wasn't worried she wouldn't understand that he missed her. He planned on staying there more so he continued to scowl at the stone, smelling the flowers and hearing the birds above his head. It was a peaceful place, he knew she would have liked it. His legs were going numb when he heard steps he ignored and a familiar voice spoke.

"You're coming here often, corporal" The man talking had now white hair and deep lines on his face, he aged 10 years in one. Petra's father was dressed in black and was holding white roses himself, that he placed next to Levi's, sighing as he did so. The lance corporal didn't flinch, just like he didn't the day they first met. "I am coming here daily" He nodded, understanding and then thought he couldn't daily, not even weekly. The old man said a prayer out-loud and then straightened his back with a wince. "I would be honoured to treat you to tea"

Levi nodded and got up himself, following the man. It wasn't his desire to drink tea with Mr. Ral but he knew he should make it as a sign of respect towards Petra so he took the horse and walked towards the little house he knew it was hers. He's been there a few times before, when she asked for him to wait but he never once stepped inside, he never talked to one of her relatives because it wasn't his place and honestly, he wasn't interested. He tied the horse to the near tree and then entered the wooden door, getting inside a small but clean hall. He got his dirty boots off and followed the man in the kitchen.

"It's not much but I don't need much space anyway" The man commented and Levi nodded. "Take a seat, corporal" He pointed towards a chair Levi sat on and put some water to boil while getting a little bag of tea from an upper shelf. He was a small man, it was no surprise Petra was small too and when he turned around suddenly, the soldier realized he was staring. "Black tea is your favorite, right?"

"Yes, sir" he said, keeping his voice under control. Black tea Petra used to buy every week.

"There isn't a letter I received in which Petra didn't write she prepared you black tea and she was writing me daily" He smiled, sadly and took two white cups from the counter. "I remember she once came home for Winter holiday and served the whole family tea and I thought she poisoned us" He chuckled lowly, broken and Levi stiffled a smile. "No sugar, milk nor cream, right?"

"Yes" Levi agreed and he was offered his cup of tea. Two spoons of sugar, cream and a little vanilla, that was Petra's favorite. She used to tease him about drinking bitter tea in the long nights she helped him do the paperwork in his office. He once tried to make her tea but it turned out horrible so he never tried again.

"Where is Petra?" he groaned as he stepped inside the kitchen where Gunther was preparing dinner, wearing a white cloth on top of his pants. "Gunther, I hope you don't serve us half bag of salt again" The last time he cooked he dropped the entire salt in and they had to drink buckets of water.

"She's in her bedroom, sir"

"Well, tell her I need her in my office to sign some papers" The big man dropped the wooden spoon he was holding and wiped his hands on his uniform pants. His eyes were somewhat worried and Levi wondered what was going on. They surely must've done something bad.

"Not possible, sir" Gunther muttered and he rose his brows, waiting.

"What he means, sir is that Pet is in Hange's care because she is sick" Oluo said and the corporal frowned. How comes these clowns knew and he didn't that a member of his squad was having a cold? And why was Hange involved before him, of course she was the doctor but he still had a right to have these things reported.

"And where is she?" They told him she was in her room so they left them behind and hurried to the right wing of the first floor where her room was and entered without knocking, making Hanje jump startled from the chair where she was staying. She came closer to him and covered his mouth before he spoke and he looked at the bed to see there laid Petra, her skin covered in swear and with a white towel on her forehead, probably meant to cool her down. She was looking terrible, her face an image of pain even as she was sleeping and they got outside so she wouldn't wake up.

"I just injected her medicine for the fever and she managed to fall asleep" Levi gulped.

"Why didn't I know about it?" Hanje sighed, it was rare to see her this serious.

"Maybe because you don't allow them to be human" He tch-ed and pushed her aside, as if he was telling her to fuck off. For fuck he wasn't allowing them to be human. He was stopped before he opened the door again. "Let her be, she hasn't close an eye all night, she's been convulsing and vomiting" He furrowed his brows, distressed and turned to the other squad leader.

"What can I do to make her better?"

"Let her rest for a while, she's exhausted" He nodded once and then walked away. "And stop being a pushy dwarf!"

"Go eat titan shit!" He yelled back and climbed down the stairs to the kitchen where the others were already eating. "I need a bowl of that" He pointed to the food and the others jumped to offer it, putting in on a tray. He then prepared for tea - a thing that he hasn't done in years and placed some leaves in the boiling water, remembering to put all that she enjoyed drinking. He placed the cup on the same tray then took it upstairs where he left it on the nightstand and sat down on the chair where Hange previously stood. She was pale and sweating hard but he remembered that was a good thing when you had a cold so he didn't frown at the unpleasant smell in the room, he waited patiently for what seemed like hours until she woke up slowly and jumped embarrassed. "At ease, soldier" He placed the tray in her lap.

"Eat"

"Sir, what are you doing?" Her honey eyes were big and her cheeks were pink.

"I said eat, that's an order" She took a spoon and then another until the entire food was gone and then he offered the tea. She sipped from it and by her face he realized it was probably horrible. "Tastes like shit, eh?"

"Worse, sir" she wrinkled her nose and he snorted with a smile, crossing his hands in front of his chest.

"You've never been a kiss-ass, Petra. Sleep now" She didn't try to fight because she knew it was his way of taking care of her so she scooted on the other side, even if feeling awkward and closed her eyes, a small smile playing on her lips.

He sipped the tea that heated his body and straightened his tie.

"I saved every single letter, they are all in her room, I haven't thrown out anything" He nodded because he was in the same situation and he understood how hard it was to get rid of someone's existence. "Do you have a family, corporal?"

"No" he replied with a bitter sound and the man smiled. "Why didn't you write soldier on her grave?" Mr. Ral let his cup down and looked at him almost pale.

"Because she wasn't a soldier to me" Tears gathered in his eyes and he took a big breath. "She was my little girl" Levi looked down at his boots and wondered what was that feeling of suffocation trying him. He looked back at the man that wiped his tears and then smiled. "I never agreed to her going in the army but of course she didn't take my feelings in consideration and ran away from home when she was 15, to train" Levi smiled at that, imagining a very young ginger girl with fiery eyes who just knew she had to be a soldier. "Once I found her she was already top class and unstoppable" The man sighed. "I lost her mother when she was still a baby and I hoped she would grow up and marry a honest man with whom she could start a family" Levi tch-ed because the image didn't match with Petra at all, she had no intention of being a simple wife or raising children in a small town. "I thought once she was done with the training she would change her mind but then you came along and handpicked her and honestly, corporal, I hated you then. I thought you were some devil who was trying to steal her away from me"

"Your daughter was one of the most capable soldiers I was given to see. Her combat skills were sometimes above her seniors' and she never backed down from a mission" She was stubborn, he knew that too well because he tasted her attitude very often. When she was not satisfied with her orders she would sometimes burst and call him different names. If anyone else would have called him a "rat" or even an "heartless asshole" he would probably end up without his head but not Petra, maybe that's why everyone else in the squad pushed her forward to ask things from him, because he was more accepting when it came to her.

"She was a child, she was 17 when you put the weight of the world on her shoulders" The man continued and Levi didn't reply anything to that. The man suddenly got up, making the soldier aware. "Do you want to see her room?" It was a weird question, he didn't know what to say but the elder was already showing him the way so he had to go in that direction. He found his heart beating faster with every step and he took a big breath before he entered the spacious room that was once Petra's. Everything smelled of her and he was surprised to see it was almost identical with the one at the HQ. There was a bed with light pink covers, a big mirror, a closet, a desk and a few books that caught his eyes. "The letters are in the top shelf of the desk" The man pointed and then left, leaving Levi frozen at the entrance. It wasn't right to do this, he was sure of it.

He closed the door, though and closed his eyes for a bit, trying not to let the feelings overwhelm him. He sat down at the desk and opened the top shelf, finding inside a box with hundreds of letters - one for each day of the last four years at least. He knew Petra was writing her father everyday because whenever he was looking for her in the afternoon that was what she was doing, explaining he was an old and lonely man and he loved her dearly. He didn't read them because it wasn't his place, instead he saw there was a portrait of her on the desk, covered with glass to protect it. It must've been an old drawing because her hair was long and Petra cut her hair right after he picked her for his team. It kept getting tangled in the 3DMG so after one training session he made that observation and was surprised when the next day he saw her with shoulder-length hair.

"What happened to your hair, Ral?" She jumped startled from her place in the formation and placed a strand of redhead hair behind her little ear. He found out later that it was a very distracting gesture, this one.

"I cut it, sir." He rose a brow, knowing hair was something important for women in general. "I won't let anything stop me from becoming a good soldier" He nodded once and left the subject, pleased with the explanation.

He saw the closet's door was opened so he stepped forward, curious. Inside he found some really surprising items - a lot of dresses, skirts and bright shirts, things he was not used to and he didn't know she possessed. He rarely saw her in anything other than her uniforms, though there were times when he was surprised by her appearance. He remembered one of those times.

He was eating lunch, pushing the meat aside like always, still bothered by it's taste. He simply didn't understand why humans were thinking it was so delicious, for him it was plain but maybe that was because he didn't have it before he reached the above cities. It was a free day and he decided he should spend it cleaning the top floor so he was thinking about the procedure when Petra came in, wearing a light brown dress that was ending right above her knees. It was plain and tight on her body, the sleeves being the only ones large and she had her hair up, helped by black pins. He almost choked on his food when she smiled at him and saluted him properly.

"Hello, sir!" He nodded and wiped his mouth with a napkin when Oluo came in and roamed his eyes all over Petra's body, especially the legs area.

"Wow, Pet, are you dressing so nice for me?"

"In your dreams, monkey" The girl groaned and he felt a vein pulsing on his neck when Oluo grabbed her wrists, mimicking a kiss and making her laugh. He didn't recognize the emotions that were trying him but he knew he didn't like what he saw so he dropped the fork, his appetite lost. They both stopped and turned to look at him and he felt his body heated with anger. He got up and as he passed by he turned to look at the ginger girl.

"Go and change, Ral, you're looking ridiculous" As harsh as he usual was, he never commented when it came to the private matters so Petra's eyes darkened. She didn't began yelling though, she didn't even protect herself, she smiled bitterly and nodded. She probably put the dress on for him but he didn't care at all, he didn't like the idea of everyone seeing her as a piece of meat, especially Oluo who was drooling after her for years now. Later, when they met she addressed him the usual happy smile, wearing her uniform.

She was not the type to stay mad at anyone. And if she was ever mad at him, he never saw it. That was the thing about Petra, she was warm and as days went by you couldn't even realize how she crept inside you and made a home inside your ribs, intoxicating your blood with her kindness. She was willing to spend her days with a shitty bastard he knew he was, she wanted to see beyond him, to make his heart bloom in ways he never thought it was possible. And most times she succeeded to twist his brain, to provoke his feelings, to make him human. She never once complained, not even when he asked her not to come to his room at night, not when he refused to kiss her, to show her affection. He never told her he loved her - not in the middle of passionate moments in the bedroom, not in the morning after love-making, not when she made him feel like bursting with affection. He felt inhuman for that, he always knew he was not worth her love but she never accepted this fact, she refused to listen to him talking about his pointlessness. And somehow, whenever he thought of her he never imagined her as a sexual being, he almost forgot all those times - they were few -, instead the image that came before his eyes was her smiling. In the morning, when they were the firsts to be awake and they were drinking tea in silence. Because of simple moments like those he came to care for her.

They told him time would heal but even know, after an entire year, he couldn't rub her off his skin and he was desperate. He wanted to forget everything and he wanted to keep her forever. The door opened and he gulped, turning around the find Mr. Ral, realer than ever. He looked around one last time before getting out and going to the kitchen to grab his jacket. It was late. He was followed by calm and steady steps and froze when honey eyes fixed him.

"You're a tough man, Mr. Ackerman, I didn't expect less of you but leaving aside this image you created, I know something about you that most people don't. You have a heart." Levi stopped, frowning; not understanding where this conversation was going. "She wouldn't have loved a heartless man" His skin began to crawl.

"It's late" He muttered and got out of the house, going towards the fence.

"Corporal Ackerman!" He turned around and saw Mr. Ral was resting against the door. "Thank you for making her happy" Levi nodded, feeling helpless as he was untying his horse and left as soon as possible, feeling the chilling air hitting his body like a wave of ice.