A/N: Second chapter is up! Third chapter should be posted in the next few days. I'm sorry it took such a long time, I totally forgot I posted this. ;_;

Again, reviews are greatly appreciated!

Enjoy!

Levi worries, gets upset and he is no exception to escape the hungry claws of Fear. He just doesn't want to give that bitch the satisfaction of twisting his features when she can already twist his insides. Levi is merciless, but Levi also cares and gets hurt. He worries for his soldiers and only shows them by voicing it. But right now, all the resolutions he's ever taken shatter like a mere fragile cup of coffee hitting the cold floor.

She insists on taking part in the next expedition and he thinks as he watches her angry eyes that she shouldn't even use the pronoun "I", because she's not alone in that body of hers, and that mere thought scares him shitless.

Not that he loves the living being growing in her, he doesn't—he doesn't know, he doesn't know who that is, he doesn't know where it came from (he knows but it's a distant thought, something he hasn't grasped the meaning of, yet) and he feels like the only thing it has done is taking the woman he loves away from him, and it drives him mad how everything is a contradiction because, again, a part of him is glad because at least he prefers that to death taking her away from him. If she doesn't die because of her stubbornness, that is.

She still fights him, shouts at his face and her fist lands on his desk with such force that his pen moves.

"Sit down, Petra," he calmly orders her but she doesn't obey, she keeps walking in his room with her hands clutching her hair as she breathes hard.

"I WANT to, and I will go! I'm still a soldier and you're still my Captain and I still have comrades and I don't want to leave like this, I want to remember what it feels like to fly, I want to remember what it feels like to have blades in your hands and to know that it is up to you; that the fate of Humanity depends on you," she stops and lets her arms fall loose at her sides before pointing a finger to her chest, "I want to remember, and this doesn't lessen my abilities as a Soldier. Captain, with all due respect, I'm still a valuable Soldier of your Squad, the one with the highest titan kill and you have no reason to exclude me like I am a burden, for I am not. I will participate in the next expedition; I will do it for Humanity."

"Petra," is all he can manage, and he secretly hopes that the way he says her name will tug a string at her heart and make her understand that, just as she had told him a few days prior, it is not about her anymore.

Nothing he says that day makes her change her mind.

He wakes up with a bad feeling nibbling his insides. He tells himself that if he were to believe some kind of irrational warning, he could just call himself superstitious.

He is not superstitious.

When she gets on her horse he feels a lump in his throat grow. When they leave the walls it turns against itself and a knot forms in his stomach.

Since then the air all around him doesn't seem enough to steady his fast beating heart—and he knows it isn't the excitement of a new expedition starting.

His eyes follow her everywhere. He keeps glancing back at her, just to make sure she's still there, just to make sure she's still breathing and that nothing constitutes a threat to her.

Auruo is the first one to notice the fact that his movements are a bit off, that although he is physically there, his mind seems to be elsewhere. Auruo shares his concern with him, tells him that they can carry on the mission without him, tries to reassure him but this whole time, Levi only looks at Petra's small form as she fends the air with her blades aiming at the titan's nape, mouth open in a scream that is all too familiar – except this time he doesn't know if she's only angry at the titans.

"Captain?"

"Make sure you survive, Auruo," Levi tells him before he pulls himself through the air again, aware of Auruo's loud "Yes, sir!".

One of his 3DMG's wires gets stuck in a branch and he curses himself because it wouldn't have happened if he wasn't pouring all of his attention searching for her, and for a split second he wonders if she likes disappearing just like that, just to make him pay for doubting her skills as a soldier.

Before he can land on a branch to fix it, he catches the sight of an abnormal running towards him, jumping as he gets closer to him, and again he curses under his breath, readying himself to act just in time and spin around while knowing his movements will probably be restricted because of the stuck wire. He needs to be fluid and fast, he needs to be exact. A second can cost him his life.

He can't afford that. He can't die.

Just as he narrows his cold eyes, focusing on the titan's moves, grip around his blades tightening, he sees a red liquid emanate from behind the giant's neck and feels hot blood smacking one of his cheeks. The titan ends up falling to the ground and he takes the occasion to finally land on the damned branch to fix his wire.

He doesn't even feel her as she stops next to him with grace, and she just tells him she's glad her Captain's still alive before leaving him again.

She is no longer a member of his Squad and she is no longer a soldier of the Recon Corps and she is no longer his lover but she is still the mother of his kid.

She doesn't tell him where she is going but she tells him she will stay at her dad's place for a while, just long enough for her to find a new house she can call home, and he doesn't know how they end up in his bed again.

It isn't as sweet, as passionate or as rough as it used to be; it's a tangled mess of despair and sadness and guilt and she breaks down before any of them reaches their climax, collapsing in his arms with her hands hiding her eyes as she cries her heart out. He holds her, his grip tight around her trembling form and he can't help but wonder. Will this kid be considered a bastard? Will this kid grow with hatred in his veins and wonder what kind of fucked up asshole got his mother pregnant and left? Will this kid fight in the dead of the night against shadows that are as real as the pain he feels when he has nobody to call "dad"? Will this kid trust the hooded men who will give him a needle and talk to him about a place where happiness exists and where loneliness is only the shadow of a chimera, will he trust them when they will tell him that he will enter that world when the needle pierces holes in his immaculate skin?

Will he?

Levi knows that pain all too well, he knows because he is a bastard, a fatherless child who got lucky, chose his own family and survived but still grew up alone and never got to call anyone "papa".

Petra wouldn't let the brat grow up like that, of course she wouldn't. Petra would make a fantastic mother, and he is being selfish when he wonders if Petra will be enough for the kid.

Isn't he?