Disclaimer: I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin, nor any of its characters.
He sees her face, so empty and devoid of life, and he wants to stop and hold her close and realize that her heart is still going - beating. But he knows it isn't and that he's out of time.
Even so, when he should still be moving, he stops to give her one last look. His mind is completely numb, and it hasn't quite sunk in yet that she's gone, so his face is blankly impassive as he stares, unable to form coherent thought.
He's just standing there by her lifeless body, completely and utterly frozen. He stares and stares and stares until he knows that he's most definitely overstayed. But he delays just a little bit longer, and hopes with all of his deadened heart that she'll come back to life.
Sometimes, though he doesn't like to admit it, Levi hates being a soldier.
These moments are few and rare between, but he has never felt it as strongly as he does now.
He's kneeling besides her corpse – her corpse – and he wants to cry and hold her and scream something at the sky, but he keeps his face carefully composed as the soldiers around him trudge by, their heads hung in defeat.
Quietly, he looks at her face, takes in every detail, and tries to imagine her without blood streaked across half of her porcelain face. He brushes the honey-colored hair out of her eyes and closes her lids so that he can't see her amber eyes anymore. But they were just empty, anyways, with all traces of her already gone. They're no longer shining with the kind of life she possessed, and her mouth is agape, her smile already long gone.
He takes his time next to her, clutching her small, cold hand to his heart, and he closes his eyes, imagining a world where they could live together; a long happy life with a proper family and coming home to her smile every day.
But this is war. And war isn't fair; it's not even kind enough to give him the time he needs next to her, so he lays her hand back down and carefully removes the patch from her uniform.
He gives her a long look as he leaves, feeling a lingering sadness and could-have-been's. As he turns away, he wipes a traitorous tear from his cheek, angry that he got himself attached and wishing he'd played his cards different, had just a little longer with her and her beautiful smile.
The sun shines on her hair, turning the ends of it into a brilliant gold.
He watches, his eyes widened, as the dying sunbeams catch on each strand that flies in the air, tumbled out of the canvas encasing her dead body.
And, in that split second, he knows it's her.
It's like somebody took a blunt knife and began to stab him in a desperate attempt to cut his heart out. He's watching her body, hovering in an instant in the sunset sky, and he can see part of her face - her pale skin is smeared with crimson - and, inside, he's screaming, yelling, desperately lunging to catch her.
But on the outside his face is stony, as his comrades come to expect, but his hands tighten on the reins of his horse because he wants nothing more than to turn around and go after her.
Her body hits the ground with a thud and he winces as it rolls and rolls and it's going farther away and why is he moving away from her? There's this tightening in his chest and it's so hard to keep moving forward that his whole being aches.
But, somehow, he manages to do it anyways.
"I know it's a little too early to be talking about marriage…"
It's Petra's dad, who raised her since she was little, who cared for her long before Levi has, and he's talking, happily, thinking that his daughter's still alive except she's not. She's gone, and she's taken all of Levi with her.
He keeps going forward, not looking at her father because if he does, he'll have a mental breakdown in the middle of the street. His face is a composed mask as he goes on, so no one can tell what effect the man's words are having on him.
If Petra were still alive, he'd be saying yes, I'd like to marry your daughter. If Petra were still alive, she might be in a white wedding dress someday, smiling up at him. If Petra were still alive…
he'd be complete.