Summary: Sometimes, Levi forgets about her. (And it's only a matter of time before he forgets completely.) Rivetra.
Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin.
Sometimes
Sometimes, Levi forgets her name.
These thoughts come randomly to him—when he's relaxing after a long expedition outside the walls, during a training session with the new cadets—but they mostly come at night, right before he's about to turn off the lights and go to bed because that's when he starts thinking. During the day, he could busy himself with cleaning and who-knows-what, but when night comes, the silence is louder than ever, especially without Auruo's snoring and Erd's laughter and Petra's usual "goodnight."
It's another sleepless night (they're becoming more and more often now) as he lies down, trying to grasp everything about the auburn-haired woman who used to be in his squad, who used to be there to cheer the team on during depressing times, who used to fill up the empty void that is growing bigger and bigger inside of him with each passing day, while staring at the dark, lifeless ceiling above him.
The image of her face is still imprinted strongly into his mind; the way she smiles when talking to the rest of the squad, the way her eyes shine as she hands out cups of coffee to everyone in the mornings, the way her nose scrunches up when she's in deep thought. He remembers the bright colour of her hair and how it can even become blinding under the sunlight, and he remembers her worn-out uniform that is currently hanging in his room that he really needs to throw out, but he can't remember her name no matter how hard he thinks.
And then, as if everything is okay, as if none of this happened, two simple words popped into his head, jolting him awake.
Petra Ral.
Eventually, his eyes close and he drifts off into a deep sleep, the mini heart-attack finally over.
(It comes back to haunt him a few hours later.)
-xXx-
Sometimes, Levi forgets her voice.
He's been having the same dream every night for the past month and at first, he thinks it's just his way of mourning over her, but now he is getting kind of scared. He always ends up in a clear field with no titans for as far as he can see; in fact there is nothing but grass and flowers and trees and her in this place.
Levi has no idea how his former squad member got here but she's always standing in the clearing with her hands behind her back and looking off into the distance, waiting for him. When he arrives, she would walk up to him with a smile on her face and she would start blabbing on and on about this place, her thoughts, her feelings, but he would never know what she really says because no matter how hard he strains his ears, he can't hear her.
The silence is ringing deafeningly in his ears and he would try so hard to just hear a single peep come out of her mouth but there was always nothing more than the silence and he's too shocked to say anything of his own. After this, Levi recalls exactly what happens next. The girl in front of him would continue moving her mouth and gesture wildly until her smile turns into a frown and even though he can't listen to what she's saying, he knows that her cheerful attitude is gone and it's replaced by anger.
In the end, though, he always hears one line from her, loud and clear:
"You could have prevented my death."
He knows. He knows more than anyone that if he had been a little faster, a littler sharper, a little stronger, he could have saved her from the terrible tragedy. When his dream finally ends and he wakes up, Petra fades away slowly, but the penetrating stare she gives him stays for the rest of the day. As Levi tries his best to distract himself with cleaning the kitchen, he realizes that he's completely out of it, breaking more tableware than usual.
He drops a cup, curses, sweeps up the broken pieces of glass, and goes back only to let another cup slip through his fingers. He bangs his head on the counter a couple of times; he never used to be this clumsy, not before she died.
Soon, sleep takes over his body again and Petra is there as always.
This time, when he wakes up, he has a throbbing headache.
(The guilt is starting to eat him alive.)
-xXx-
Sometimes, Levi forgets her coffee.
He has never even liked coffee before, but he always finds himself drinking hers and asking for more. He doesn't know how she does it, but there's just the right amount of sweetness, just the right amount of bitterness, to help him relax and start the day.
Levi once asked her how she makes her coffee so perfect every time, but Petra simply smiled her beautiful, dazzling, gorgeous smile that makes him forget what he asked in the first place, and said it was a secret. He remembers her mentioning that if she can't be much help during expeditions, then she will make up for it through coffee. (Which Levi thinks is ridiculous because her killing record was 58 titans and that's a pretty damn high number.)
But as he thinks back, he realizes that he should've gotten an answer out of her because now, he's sitting at the table, sipping coffee that takes absolutely terrible and no matter how he remakes it, he won't be satisfied unless it's Petra's coffee. He leans back in his seat and sighs, and he can almost make out the image of his team crowding around the table, laughing and talking like old times, until he blinks and the silence is screaming at him again.
Eventually, he gives up on breakfast altogether. He's never hungry nowadays anyway.
(He never truly understands how lonely he is until now.)
-xXx-
Sometimes, Levi forgets she has a family.
Or maybe that's just him trying to forget—trying to force it out of his mind. After the expedition to capture the Female Titan, he remembers coming back inside the walls and listening to Petra's dad talk about what his daughter's letters and what she wrote about him and it literally shattered his heart into pieces.
"Captain Levi!" The voice comes from behind him. "My daughter is in your squad... I'm Petra's father." Levi continues to look straight ahead, scared that if he turns to look at the man in the face, he'll search for any resemblance between father and daughter, and he might not be able to control his emotions this time. Levi knows that everyone thinks he's cold and heartless and that's what he wants them to believe, but it's hard not to show any sign of sadness especially if one of his squad members just died.
Although he wanted to tell the man to shut up and let him grieve silently by himself, Levi clenches his teeth and maintains a mutual expression.
"Before she sees me, I wanted to talk to you," Petra's father continues. "She sent me this letter. She mentioned that you respected her abilities enough to let her join your squad—that she was going to devote herself to you." Here, the man laughs and for a second, and Levi makes the mistake of flickering his eyes towards him, wishing that he could hear Petra's laugh one more time. "Well, I think it's too early for her to marry; she's still so young with so much to experience."
Levi stiffens, though it's almost unnoticeable. His eyes become dark and hollow, clouded with flashbacks of the auburn-haired girl locking herself in her room. He's always wondered why she stayed in there for hours and hours each night, what she could've possibly been doing during breaks between training sessions, and now he finds out that she's been writing to her father the whole time—writing this stupid letter that implied all the wrong things. But for some reason, Levi can't get those words out of his head.
On a night a few weeks later, he sits down at the table that would once be surrounded by his comrades, turns on a small lamp, takes out a piece of paper, and positions his pen on the first line, completely prepared to write, because it's been a while and he thinks that Petra's guardian deserves to know the truth.
It would be improper—unethical—of him, leader of the Special Operations Squad, to keep this information hidden from someone who has every right to know about Petra's death for so long. It wouldn't be fair. That's what Levi tells himself, that's what he knows would be the right course of action, but he simply sighs and places his pen down without writing a single word, the page left completely blank.
He turns off the lamp and the room is suddenly pitch dark—it reminds him of himself: Confused and lost with nowhere to go, no one to talk to, no auburn-haired girl to guide him and be his light source.
(And he just doesn't know what to do anymore.)
-xXx-
Sometimes, Levi forgets how obedient Petra and the rest of his squad—old squad—was.
It's only been a few weeks of training with his new team that consists of the remaining top ten 104th trainees, but he already misses his former comrades more than he would like to admit to anyone. They just aren't as skilled, as quick-thinking, as hand-picked as Petra and the others were and Levi finds himself having to go over some of the basics again with them, causing their progress to be exceptionally slow.
And all of are way too serious. (With the omission of Sasha, who, Levi finds, can never be serious enough.) There's Eren, who is focused on nothing but training and defeating the titans and sometimes he even wakes up hours before dawn, swinging his 3DMG around recklessly, disrupting the captain's precious sleep. Eren's asked Levi multiple times for extended practice time, which was declined every time because rest and restoring your strength is just as important as training, and Levi just doesn't think the boy understands that like his old teammates did.
Then, there is Mikasa, who performs flawlessly every time and usually stops mid-way through her training to help Eren. Often, when Levi goes over to correct something Eren does wrong, he can feel the girl's penetrating eyes glaring daggers into his back and he thinks that all this training will end up useless because if Mikasa doesn't stop being overprotective of the boy, he'll never learn to defend for himself.
Although they are both girls, his current squad member is nothing like how Petra was. It's wrong to compare two completely different people, he knows, but he can't help thinking that even though Mikasa's movements are smoother and her cuts are cleaner and her accuracy is better and that they say she's worth a few hundred normal soldiers, he would trade her off for his former comrade in a heartbeat.
Levi knows that it's bad to dwell in the past; he tells this to all of his soldiers more times than he could possibly count, and although he knows that it's very likely for someone in his squad to die on an expedition because they are far from perfect and even a single moment of hesitation could be fatal, he just can't seem to get over her death.
Damn it, he thinks he's finally going to lose it.
(And he's very, very much afraid.)
-xXx-
Sometimes, Levi forgets about her altogether.
(And he never remembers her again.)
A/N: This has been on my mind for a while. I always find that I write angst in present tense... Anyway, I'm not sure if the details about Levi forming a new Special Operations Squad with the rest of the 104th trainees are accurate or not because I haven't read the manga, but I'm just going with what SnKwiki said.
Ideas for this one-shot came in snippets, so I apologize if it's a bit choppy. Also, if you have any requests for this fandom, feel free to ask because I sort of want to write more, but I'm out of ideas. XD
Reviews are appreciated!
~Madin456.