Author: even after being sent home from the hospital, I still wasn't able to ride very well. I took a job supervising pregnant horses who were considered high-risk for aborting or hurting their foals. I also delivered some foals myself—an experience that completely reaffirmed my belief that I've the maternal instinct of a toaster. Much of this chapter was written on an overnight shift while working that position in an attempt to detract my attention from the fucking horse placenta sitting in a bucket in the corner.
Side note...I'm not sure why so many people seem to write Petra as a shy little girl who stutters her superior's name. She's a fierce little thing and she regularly kills monsters. I thought that I'd try to pay tribute to those aspects of her character.

For the third time that week, the less-than-tentative knocking sounded against the heavy oak door of his office and he didn't have to wonder who it was or ask why they were there in the early hours of a weekday morning or say that yes, he did indeed want tea. He didn't actually want tea, though. He didn't know what he wanted and that ate at him in a way that he was loath to admit.

Levi had been sitting at the desk for the better part of the day again and the latest episode of monotony had taken a ripper to his usually straight seams. He slouched in his chair, right foot on the desk and the other crossed over the knee, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His cravat was undone and draped around his neck and he spun an empty tea cup by its handle in one hand and sketched out a cube with the pen held in the other. "Come in," he said and, without having felt his body go through the motions, he found that he was reaching for the cloak flung over the back of his chair. He wasn't cold.

What are you doing? he asked himself, but even as the door cracked open and Petra shuffled inside, he still found a wandering hand attempting to flatten his hair. He withdrew it quickly when he saw that she was watching.

"You're looking a bit scruffy, Captain," said Petra, relieving herself of the steaming kettle.

Levi opened his mouth to reprimand before realizing that he didn't have the words on his tongue as quickly as he usually found them there. It was a disorienting sensation for a man who had defended himself as much with his tongue as he had with his fists—in that moment, all that he managed was a noise between a 'tch' and a grunt. His face felt hot. I must be ill.

If Petra had noticed his symptoms, she had the prudence to not mention them. "What have you been getting up to tonight?" she asked, tipping the kettle's spout into her cup.

"It's all of the usual bullshit," Levi replied, relieved to hear his voice achieve its usual tone. He glanced down to mark his place in his reading, but was forced to look back up at the sound of rustling paper.

Petra was rifling through the folder nearest her, flipping through the loose pages before returning to the cover letter. Her amber eyes narrowed uncharacteristically as she began to read, her gaze traveling rapidly across the page. She stopped at what looked to be about halfway through before leering across the desk at Levi, her expression suggesting that she had somehow been magnificently cheated.

"...the usual bullshit? Sir—this is the briefing for our squad's first expedition beyond the walls!"

"Yeah—so, the usual bullshit...I've been on enough road trips with the Scouts to last a lifetime." When Petra's face didn't change, Levi shook his head dismissively. "Look. Don't look so disappointed over my delay in relaying that bit of information to you. You can't pretend that you've been that eager to become Titan shit."

"I would be lying if I said that I wasn't excited to deploy."

Whatever Levi had been expecting, it had not been this. The wings of something—likely an acute awareness of mortality—gave a feeble beat deep in his chest. Before he could stop the words from tumbling out, he heard his voice saying, "Why is that?"

"I want to show you what I can do." Petra suddenly swallowed, her hard expression dissolving; she looked as much buffeted by the sound of her own voice as Levi had been by his. She looked down at her hands which were folded in her lap. "We all do, I mean—Eld and Gunther and Oluo as well, I mean. You know."

Levi did not know. The notion of anyone wanting to return to the wild land beyond Wall Rose—someone who had already seen what lurked in the ruins of old buildings and in between the trunks of trees—was unfathomable to him. What he did know is that he still didn't want tea, his stomach was rather uncomfortable, there was a lot of paper on his desk, the room seemed too warm, the atmosphere was balls deep in peculiarity...and that despite all of these things, he still didn't want to retire to his chambers. What he knew ended there.

He swung his feet down from the desk and straightened in his chair, still acutely aware of his disheveled appearance. "If you want to go through my belongings, at least be useful about it." Levi slid a thick stack of paper across the desk, reaching for the kettle with his other hand. "Read this, summarize it for me, and if it doesn't sound like complete shit, I'll sign it. I'm done; I'm not reading anything else tonight."

Petra pulled it towards her without objection. "What's this?"

"It has to do with ordering the smoke signal canisters—projections predicting what we're going to need for the new year. Somebody who regularly rides with the supply wagons prepared them—I don't think that he's entirely literate, though...looks like a chicken stepped in ink and ran across some paper."

"Huh, okay...then you just want me to tell you what it says and you sign off on it if you agree...? Captain, is that even allowed?"

"Did I stutter?"

"No, sir—I'm on it."

Levi snorted and raised his teacup to his lips. He had already scalded his lip before realizing that all that he was drinking was plain and very hot water. He looked up across the desk in search of a tea bag, but his gaze settled instead on Petra. She was reading, brow creased in an expression of intense concentration. She was a fast reader...she had already finished the cover letter. His eyes followed hers back and forth for a moment.

Captain Levi was a lot of things, but lacking in a healthy sense of curiosity wasn't one of them. "You read quickly."

"...hmm?"

"You read quickly...you're smart as Hell. You could be doing almost anything else with your life, but instead you're sitting here doing busy work and drinking tea with a—with me," Levi finished lamely. What the fuck is wrong with you?

"That's okay with me. I volunteered," said Petra, shrugging. "I know that I'm smart, even if it sounds foolish to say something like that...but I think that it's perfectly fine for smart people to be in the military, too. I mean, look at the commander. Anyhow..." she added. "You're smart as well."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere with me as your captain."

"That wasn't flattery."

"You already know that I'm a shit reader."

"There's different kinds of intelligence. If you weren't smart, you wouldn't be so bored almost every day."

"How do you figure that I'm bored almost every day?" asked Levi. He could feel an eyebrow arching skeptically in spite of himself. Titan fodder or not, at least one member of his new squad was entertaining.

"You sit here for hours and well into the night most days, but you never really do anything...because you find most of what you are asked to do beneath your skill set, probably, and you don't know what to do with yourself, I..." Her voice trailed off. "Oh, wow, I'm sorry...forgive me." Petra grimaced as Levi's brow reached peak elevation. "That came out...differently, I think, than I meant for it to."

Her words were reasonably, if uncomfortably, true. Levi had the distinct sense that if he had heard Erwin or Hange say the same thing that, despite the respect that they had earned several from him times over, he would have taken those words quite differently. Instead, he just felt a bland sort of acceptance, as well as a strengthening conviction that he had suddenly become transparent. He was not accustomed to the sensation.

"Why are you here?" Levi asked. He found himself having to manage his tone again. He cleared his throat; maybe he was losing his voice. "Not in my office, I mean—in the military."

Petra straightened in her chair. "I told you when I came in for my interview, sir, if you remember—I wanted to be a member of the Special Operations Squad because I felt that I could contribute—"

"Why are you actually here?" Levi interrupted, eyes narrowing. "Don't worry; I'm not going to sack you for whatever your answer is...although I probably should for your attitude," he added and he saw a smile ghost Petra's mollified expression. "I'm just...I don't know. I don't want the formulaic, bullshit excuse that I had to hear forty-something times when Hange and I ran those interviews. Most girls want to stay within the walls and have children and do all of that domestic stuff; I'm—" There was no way around admitting it. "I'm curious as to why most of them are off doing that and you're...here."

"I'm not here to pop out children," said Petra. Though she still looked as though she felt that she walked thin ice, the hard line of her jaw had not disappeared. "I was put here to save lives and...move mountains. I'm here to make this crapsack world just a little bit better and to do something more meaningful than sit in front of a vanity mirror. If my wanting to stay at home is the sort of preconceived idea that you have of women—"

"Easy there, brat," Levi said, raising a flippant hand, and Petra stopped speaking, lips pressed together as though her silence required a concentrated effort. Levi crossed his legs with an idle grace, hoping that the motion did not betray his surprise: Petra's response had raised more questions than it had answered. "There's no need to be defensive. I've known plenty of girls who did stuff other than pop out children...have you met Hange?" Petra snorted and Levi was pleased to hear the same wary acceptance in her laugh as he felt every time that he thought of his Titan-obsessed colleague. "Anyhow—" he added. "I knew plenty of girls like you growing up."

He realized quickly that he had said too much and had probably been saying too much all night; it took about a heartbeat for that suspicion to be confirmed.

"Where are you from, sir?" asked Petra. She had put down the cover letter and drawn her knees to her chest, hands crossed across her ankles and chin resting on her knees. Her posture spoke of expectancy.

Levi shook his head. "Stop calling me 'sir' when I'm sitting here at two in the morning and letting you put your filthy feet on my furniture."

"That's not an answer...was my question intrusive?" One of Petra's brows was cocked as though she couldn't possibly believe that could be the case. Levi's frown deepened, turning over the issue of deciding how to best respond—he really wanted to respond. The reason for that sudden desire eluded him.

"I grew up near near the capitol," said Levi carefully. That was true.

"Oh—so you must have grown up very privileged, then!" said Petra, eyes widening. "That's exciting. Who's your family?"

Fuck.

"You don't know them. My family was...less than traditional." Levi replied. Insecurity crept in his stomach, or maybe something unpleasant from dinner. The latter was more likely...

"So was mine; I grew up with my father and four—four—older brothers. No mother...she died when I was quite young. The five of them, though, they all write to me still—great big novels of letters; it's unbelievable. They all work at the university inside of Wall Sina, though, so I suppose that writing big things is something that they do a lot...I try to write back just as much but it's absolutely impossible. Do you ever write to your family?"

"I don't."

"That's a shame."

"They're dead, actually."

"Oh—" Something behind those wide eyes faltered. "That's...really terrible. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. It's not your fault."

"I know that it's not my fault. It's just that I...feel sorry for you, I guess."

Levi snorted. "I don't need anybody feeling sorry for me."

"Who do you talk to, though?"

"I don't need to talk to anybody."

"Everyone needs good people on their side, I think."

"Hange Zoe and Erwin Smith are good people."

"They're not family, though—family's different than friends and colleagues and stuff."

"Sometimes in life, your friends become your family. My friends were my family, you know—the family that you've been asking about."

"Huh..." said Petra. Her expression wasn't skeptical or judgmental—only curious. "That sounds really nice, though. See, I was kind of ungrateful when it came to having a whole herd of brothers...I had girlfriends growing up; I called them my sisters that I pretended were my family instead. I ended up close with the brothers, though." She paused hesitantly. "...can you tell me about your family?"

"I could."

"Well...will you?"

Levi looked evenly into Petra's face, devoid of any trace of the disparaging opinions that he had expected from someone of her background. Petra had been born into a family of wealthy academics and educated by some of the finest schools in the interior (he'd indulged himself in her file—not because he was interested, of course, because that would be unprofessional). He'd expected a critical eye and instead saw only curiosity.

Levi stretched back in his chair. "Yeah...okay..." He paused, trying to figure out where to begin, and was surprised—relieved, even—to find that he felt ready to talk about something that seemed like a good starting point.

"You remind me of one of them, actually—other people mentioned it before I realized it myself. Her name was Isabel and she was a fucking wild child—but she was a good girl, really, in most ways..."

He trailed off. A tightness in his chest had risen into his throat and he realized with a deep sense of disgust that his voice had risen half an octave.

Petra shoved her lukewarm tea at him. "Drink," she said, and Levi obliged, inhaling most of it in his eagerness to do something with his mouth, and he choked.

"...so there was Isabel," Levi coughed out, clearing his throat several times. "I knew Farlan longer, though," he continued, and he felt the warmth of the tea spread through him as he spoke.

"Farlan...?"

"Farlan—I lived with this guy named Farlan for a while before we met Isabel."

Levi found that he had been staring determinedly at a dried fleck of mud on one of his boots since he had started talking. He looked up again into Petra's expression of sincere, gentle interest and felt another kind of warmth tingle that he was positive had nothing to do with the tea. He took a deep breath, like a swimmer preparing to dive, and prepared to do what he did best: soldier on.

"Full disclosure...we lived in the underground. I wasn't lying when I said that we lived near the capitol. We lived right underneath it, geographically closer than most people on the surface but also the furthest away...you never realize how far away something is until you get that close to it. We were thieves; there's no denying it: we stole from a lot of people, but mostly from the Military Police—"

"You didn't!"

Levi had been expecting an interruption before this point—had even been hoping for one—but Petra had let him talk.

"We did," he said, and he had to suppress a smile at the look of unabashed satisfaction on Petra's face. "I still don't regret that bit. That's how we discovered the maneuver gear for the first time, actually...dicking around with it turned into using it for jobs. 'Jobs' is a nice word.

"Isabel came crashing through our door one night. She had this bird—it was all fucked up and she tried to bring it back up to the surface. Of course, that went completely to Hell and we ended up stuck with her," he finished lamely. It was an easier route than explaining that he had been wielding a knife for much of that initial encounter.

"...the end?" asked Petra with a wry smile.

"I'm not great at telling stories."

"No—it was a good story. You know...the real ones often are."

"The real ones don't have any heroes, Petra. They're depressing as Hell."

"I didn't think that it was depressing. She sounds like a wonderful person," Petra said firmly. "All of you do, really."

Levi snorted. "It's okay—they were self-aware, poorly-behaved degenerates. There's no need to fabricate—actually, Farlan and Isabel would both probably take it as an insult to their memories." He shook his head, mostly to clear it of the encroaching nostalgia that he loathed to fall prey to, and asked, "Are you almost done with that?" He gestured to the delegated documents that Petra was squinting at again. "It's late...or early, depending on your point of view."

"Here, maybe it's because we've been talking—or because it is definitely either very late or very early—but I don't understand this..." Petra rose and crossed to his side of the desk, bending over the page and jutting an exasperated finger at a column of digits. "The numbers...they all start in the summer. Is the data for the first half of the year missing, or...?"

"We operate on a fiscal year instead of a calendar year, so it starts...in June..."

Their faces were very close now, he realized. Levi could smell her hair and it was sweet that sweetness reminded him of something but he didn't know what. She wasn't looking at him but then she was and her eyes were soft and wise and something else. Her hands weren't on the edge of the desk any more...they were reaching out...they had touched him, one running down his hip and the other wrapped in the front of his shirt. Her lips pressed against his and Levi could not catch the startled breath before it escaped him. His skin felt hot but wet with something that chilled him; a vague and distant part of his brain questioned the constitution of his stomach as his insides did a uncomfortable backflip. Her tongue parted his lips, soft but sure and demanding—but just as quickly as she had asked, she pulled away, breathless and wide-eyed.

"Captain..." Petra Ral said. Her tone was that one shared by all who find themselves stranded somewhere in the wide expanse of emotion between horror and exultation.

Levi inhaled and found himself on his feet; Petra's hands had fallen away from him and he grabbed at them both, pulling her into him, positioning them where he saw fit with an authority that he did not know that he possessed outside of mortal peril. His fingers found her hips, her back...they explored lower, over the fabric of her clothes and layers of muscle and sinew. He tilted her chin upward with his other hand and kissed her roughly; his teeth caught one of her chapped lips. A whistle of breath left Petra; her fingers tightened around the back of his neck. Levi felt the heat rose in his face as he pulled away.

"Farlan and Isabel were not the only ones who were poorly-behaved," he said, and he found himself praying to gods that he did not believe in that the line was received less terribly by her ears than had been by his. It had sounded a lot better inside of his own head.