Hello there! I hope you enjoy my story. It will be released in 3 short parts, depicting the life of Levi and Petra after the tragedy of their team. They were my OTP, and I was heartbroken when Petra and left us! So to comfort us, I wrote this. Please enjoy, and review.

Chapter 1- Punctured Souls

I opened a bleary, beaten eye, and my world refused to come into focus. Closing it again, I assessed the damage; it felt like some of my ribs were broken. I tried to move my arm, but there was a horrifying squelching sound that sounded like blood, bones and muscles grinding together. There was almost no feeling, so I assumed that some nerves had also been torn apart. One of my eyelids was swollen shut; the socket was probably broken. And, a deafening throb resonated excruciatingly through my skull from the back. I must have really smashed my head.

Then, I remembered.

The titan had me, and- with a solitary kick- sent me hurtling into a tree, which tore apart my body and left me half-dead on the ground, before I even had a chance to kill it. Glory shone around me as I glanced into the eyes of my teammates, communicating our plans without the need for words. Determination was in their eyes, and we careered forward, reaching out to clasp the only hope we had left of defeating that female beast. Things did not go to plan, however, and I was lying here, unsure as to whether I was truly alive or not.

A tube was stuck uncomfortably in my healthy arm, presumably monitoring my blood, and another tube was jammed into my stomach. Life pumped painfully into my body, forcing me to feel every pulse of vitality. The agony proved that I was still here, but my mind was so blurred and my memory so vague that I felt like a doll. At home, I had rows of china dolls sat, swinging their legs off a shelf I had not touched since I was a little girl. I would sit and dress them every day, tell them stories, and wrench their heads forward to face me, frustrated that all they would do was flop over and look like they were zombies. Acutely aware of how similar my situation was to theirs right now, I grew sad enough to cry, but obviously no tears came out. All of my neurones were probably focused on healing my broken body, and not on indulging my human fears.

I wished that someone would cut me off from this existence. It seemed like I had been lying here gathering my thoughts for an eternity. For a while, I registered that the cart I had been lying in began to rumble over the cobbled stones in town, where the shouts of the townspeople enraged my battling heart with their poisonous words. Then there was some conversation going on around me, then I was placed carefully on a stretcher, and then I felt every single agonising bump of their footsteps until I was carried to the bed I currently recovered in. Nobody had said a word or tried to communicate with me. Was I brain dead? I had indeed been smacked into a tree in the giant forest, so maybe they thought I was worthless, and they were only keeping me alive because they felt obligated to try? Simply because I was in Squad Levi?

That was right… Levi.

"…Le…Lev…i…" I muttered, my throat still blocked with dried blood. "Levi."

Although my ears were hardly working, I did hear a faint voice that sounded flat, blunt and so familiar. I forced that eye to open, and I kept it wide, wheeling my eye around to see who in the world had just talked. Then I found a shape that was a mixture of browns and greens, not facing me, looking out of the open window. When I noticed that, I noticed a cool breeze passing over my face, quenching the heat that came from my swollen wounds.

"…Captain?"

The figure turned around swiftly, and the tight feeling in my chest subsided when I saw him. His hair was dull and matted with grease, and dried blood, his skin was slick with sweat, and he was supported by a pair of wooden crutches and a bandage around his leg. Those injuries of his were terrible and distorted him greatly, but he had the same look on his face. The lips that were pressed into a hard line, the expressionless demeanour, and the pair of blank, bored-looking eyes… Yes, that was my Captain, Captain Levi.

"Captain…" I said again, desperate to be heard.

"Don't talk too much." Levi sighed, and sat down on the chair beside my bed. I blinked my world into existence, and soon I could clearly see the man beside me. There was something different about the way his eyes stared at me. Surrounded by furious dark circles, Levi's eyes were unblinking and held a pain that I did not understand yet.

"Am I dying?"

He deliberated for a moment. "You were. But you're out of the worst of it."

"What about the others? Are they okay?"

"…All of them were killed by the female titan."

"…"

"We were able to come back for the corpses. We thought you were a corpse too, until I checked that your heart was still beating. We had to abandon their bodies in the end; the carts were too heavy. They are still outside the walls."

I sniffed, and stared at the ceiling. So, my entire team had been slaughtered, leaving only me and the captain left. Despite the raw shock, I thanked my stars that I had not perished too, and left the captain alone.
On my first mission, I pissed my pants. The men never allowed me to forget that, even bringing it up in front of Eren Jaeger. But, it was true. I was a young girl, so terrified facing my first titan that I could not control my body. I froze up, even my horse had skidded to a complete halt. But then Captain Levi had raced forward, and dispatched of the titan with a single swing from his twin swords. Back within the city walls, Oluo had patted me on the back and sardonically welcomed me to the special operations squad, otherwise known as 'Squad Levi'.

We obeyed Levi's draconian rules of cleanliness, mucked out the horses, and only we were witness to the captain's many personality defects. His short stature, irritable and blunt personality were all something we respected and trusted, and we would trust that man with our lives. We ate together, joked around together, and we killed countless titans. And now… it was only the captain and me, and all those times we had together as a team were mere memories.
I did not want our friends to be considered 'those teammates we had once, but they died'. The memory of their touch was so fresh, I wanted to cry.

"Don't cry, Petra."

I already had tears streaming from my working eye.

"Your orders are to rest. Get some sleep."