Disclaimer: I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin

Author's Notes: Episode 22. I cried buckets. And I wrote this. My first crack at Rivetra. Levi x Petra. LeviPetra. My heart is breaking.

Levi knew her when he saw her.

Even though she was wrapped in a bundle of white stained red, a small, delicate hand had slipped out of her bindings.

Levi knew that hand.

When she was alive it had been warm, the skin soft and smooth against his cheek.

He knew her fingers too - fingers of a woman who had killed countless Titans, fingers crossed with scars - but they had seemed so frail when she had threaded them through his own.

The Corporal came to a stop by her corpse, falling to his knees. Levi wasn't a man of tears, but at that moment, his heart was crying out.

Her chirpy voice resounded in his head.

"Heichou! Your coffee is ready."

"Heichou! You've been at it all day, you should really take a break!"

"Heichou, there's this one move with the 3dmg I can't figure out, could you - um - please help me out?"

"Heichou! There's - ah - it's just that - I - well, I - "

"Call me Levi," he said smoothly, enjoying the pink blush that blossomed across her cheeks.

Levi remembered the softness of her cheeks against his fingers, the way she had flushed and gasped the first time he touched her, one finger trailing over her cheekbones and along her jaw.

He remembered her eyes, always so bright and full of hope. She was like a ray of sun in a life full of endless despair, Titan after Titan, a sea of blood and severed flesh.

Levi remembered those brilliant golden eyes, staring up at him. They were as beautiful as ever, but they had been glassy, the spark that always lit them up gone, gone forever.

There was a lump in his throat, and his hands were shaking slightly as he gently lifted up the bloodied cloth, revealing her jacket. He couldn't bring himself to look at her face again, but he stared at the familiar material, running his fingers over the badge stitched above her breast, the overlapping wings of the Scouting Legion. Placed right at her heart.

Levi tore it off, straightening it gently between his palms. He slipped it into his pocket.

It was only fitting that he keep her heart. After all, she had stolen his.

And when he saw her body tossed off the wagon - the cloth fall down to reveal bright orange hair and a face he knew so well - his eyes stung, and it felt like a blade had been thrust through his chest, again.

But he couldn't show weakness in front of his men, and though every fiber in his body was urging him to jump off the horse, his injured leg be damned, and save her precious body from the horrendous fate that awaited it, he steeled himself, and rode on.

A lot of the men thought him heartless, Levi knew that. But maybe that was because he no longer had a heart left. It had died the moment he'd seen her, smashed against a tree, her face streaked with red.

He recognized Petra's father the moment the man came up to him. His eyes were the same as hers, and Levi had memorized the shape of her eyes perfectly.

His heart gave a jolt as her father mentioned something about marriage. The entire time, Levi couldn't bring himself to meet his eyes. What was he supposed to say? What could he say? He couldn't possibly put any of it in words.

I'm not good enough for her. I couldn't protect her. I wanted to stay by her side but I couldn't. I failed her. I -

There were a lot of things Levi regretted about his life. But at that moment, one of his deepest regrets was that through the years he had known her, he had never once told her that he -

loved her.

That night, Lance Corporal Levi cried for the first time in his life, sobs wracking through his body and tears streaming down his cheeks as he sat in the darkness, more alone than he had ever been.

"Petra," he choked out. "Fuck - Petra - I -"

He hadn't even gotten the chance to taste her lips.

A/N - clearly they are canon from all those moments in the episode. They just broke me. Fuck. Who told them it was okay to add all that?! And that stuff about the families and the corpses and - ugh. I can't.

Please review.

Probably writing another ErenMika soon (handholding ftw, the anime team clearly ships both Rivetra and MikaEren!)

Also, I finally got a tumblr! The link is on my profile page. Check it out, I posted a SnK parody there (since fanfiction wouldn't allow that kind of thing here, and I needed to write something light to get my mind off of all this heartbreak and these feels)

And if you're interested in reading my reaction fic (of sorts) that I wrote after reading the manga chapter 49, check out my story Fifty.

End shameless self-promotion.