A/N: partially inspired by everlasting, a zutara oneshot, written by songs/anorable on tumblr. she writes snk stuff too, everyone, so go check out her writing; it's lovely. :3

this was originally written for the rivetra week prompt 'reincarnation.' however, it ended up being not quite reincarnation, so I'll be posting something else for that rivetra week prompt. but yeah.

you can interpret this however you like. first time writing rivetra; hope it doesn't suck too much. and sorry if anyone's ooc; I tried my best. concrit would be lovely. oh, and sorry about the crappy title. I'm a fail with story titles.

this is also posted on tumblr.

Petra sees him in her dreams.

She's never met him before, but he feels so familiar, she aches with the loss of memory. The delicate line of his nose, the strong curve of his jaw, the rigid tension in his shoulders, the lean power of his muscles—every detail of his body is familiar, as if she herself traced and painted them ages ago, but the specifics of her memory have been lost in the folds of time.

Sometimes he's fighting, spinning with deadly grace through the trees and Petra watches, mesmerized, as he slices at grotesque giants intent on devouring his comrades. He's a whirlwind of poetic destruction; Petra can't tear her eyes away.

Other times he's sitting at a desk in a small, tidy office, pale lamplight flickering against the walls as he scrawls his signature across paper after paper, all of them stacked in neat piles on his desk. His shoulders hunch like the weight of the world is resting upon them, and Petra wishes she could relieve his burden.

Once, just once, she sees him cry. He enters his office, his face a storm cloud, his knuckles bruised and bloody, and throws his cloak to the floor (it's the first time she sees him being messy with anything). Clutched in one fist is a sheet of paper, which he unfolds on his desk, smoothing it out with such care and precision she almost wants to look away. But her eyes are glued to that sheet of paper; somehow, she just knows that it's a letter, written by someone important to him, someone now dead.

His eyes, cold and unfeeling to everyone else but so precious to Petra, scan the letter. She sees the way his fingers curl around the paper, the way his shoulders hitch just a bit before a quiet, choked sound forces its way out of his throat. Looking back at his face, she's stunned to find a tear on his cheek. It's soon followed by another, then another, and then the man shoves his face into his palms, soundless sobs wracking his small frame as his hands fist in his hair.

Petra rushes to him, tries to wrap her arms around him, but with a gasp finds her arms only passing through his. She isn't real, not here, not to him. All she can do is watch as he cries, and with every choked breath he takes, Petra's heart clenches in agony. His pain is her pain, and all Petra wants is to take it away, to comfort him, to see him smile.

But he never does. He stares blankly, he scowls, he sneers, he even smirks occasionally, but she's never, ever, seen him smile.

Each time Petra wakes from a dream about him, her heart feels heavy with sadness, though she can't pinpoint why. She's sure she's never met this man outside her dreams before, doesn't even know his name, but her heart tells her a different story. The lines of his face are burned into her subconscious, something left over from a different life, a different time.

Why don't you ever smile?

Hanji is the only person Petra decides to tell about her dreams. Hanji can be pretty crazy herself sometimes, so she probably won't sic a shrink on Petra. Probably.

"So you've had dreams about this guy for… how long has it been again?"

"Since my last birthday," Petra says. She and Hanji are sitting outside on the grass on campus, enjoying the early afternoon sunlight before their next classes. A cool breeze ruffles Petra's hair, tugging it around her face, and for a moment, she imagine it's because she's flying through the air on one of those wires with grappling hooks she's seen the man shoot into trees and Titans.

Titans? She blinks and the word blurs, fades back into oblivion.

"And you're sure you've never met him before."

"Never," Petra confirms, but the word feels wrong on her tongue. She tries to shake the feeling, but it won't go away, settling on the back of her neck with little prickles of unease.

Hanji picks a blade of grass and twirls it between her thumb and index finger, contemplating it like it contains the answers to life's mysteries. "I deal more with the physical aspects of things than the metaphysical, so I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that every person you see in your dreams is someone you've seen in real life before. It may be someone you passed on the street, someone you never consciously noticed, but your brain noticed and remembered. You have seemed kind of stressed out recently. Maybe your brain decided to spew this random guy all over your dreams as a weird way to relieve stress."

Petra bites her lip. "No… it's not that." She's sure about that, at least; she would never pass by someone like him on the street and not take a second look. And it's not just that: entrenched deep in her gut is an absolute certainty that she knows this man, the same kind of certainty she usually reserves for things like her knowledge of her name and the existence of the sun. It's a deep-rooted, unshakable thing, and it frightens her, because if that's true, then why doesn't she remember him?

It feels like she should; the memories tease the edge of her mind, but when she tries to grasp them, they dance away from her fingertips. It's frustrating; no, more than frustrating; no wonder Hanji thinks she's been stressed out lately.

Hanji shrugs. "Okay, so you do know him then. Tell me what you know about him."

Petra runs her fingers through her hair and could swear that, for a brief second, she feels blood there. She shakes her head and and the moment passes.

"He's kind, very kind. He doesn't act like it—most people think he's emotionless and uncaring—but he cares, he cares so much, Hanji, about everyone. But he has to be strong for humanity, even if that means pushing everyone away and having everyone think he has no feelings. And he lost someone, someone important to him. But I don't know who."

Petra realizes her voice has choked up a bit and she clears her throat, irritated with herself. She's always been a sensible girl, not one to get easily carried away by emotions or lose her head over irrational things. There's something about the man from her dreams, though, something that makes the edges of her heart fray.

She sees the look on Hanji's face then; it's not skeptical, but something like it. Hanji's always been a woman of science, from her days as a little girl with pigtails charting moon phases in grade school to her current days as an undergrad double majoring in human biology and physical chemistry. She's never believed in anything she can't study.

Petra sighs. "I know you're not the superstitious sort, Hanji, but you have to believe me. I know him. I don't know how, or why—maybe he's from a different time-space, maybe from a different life—but I know him, Hanji."

Her friend's face is contemplative. "I believe you," she says, pushing her glasses up her nose as she appears to ponder something. "Science hasn't discovered everything there is to learn. There's so much more we don't know. Maybe you're right." Before Petra can respond, she continues, "It makes me wonder though… those giants you said you saw in your dreams. How do you think they can support such a great mass on only two legs? The way you mentioned them, it seems not only can they stand, they can walk and run around chasing and eating people. It doesn't seem possible for two legs to be able to bear such a weight. Perhaps—"

Petra smiles fondly as Hanji, ever the scientist, babbles on, and tries to shake the feeling that there's something strangely familiar about the situation.

The dream is different this time.

She's no longer just an invisible spectator; there's a cape streaming from her shoulders and giant metal boxes strapped to her thighs (3D Maneuver Gear, her mind supplies) as she shoots through the air, the wind whipping her hair into her face. Her body goes through the motions—shooting the hooks and releasing, letting the wires pull her forward—as if she's done them hundreds of times before (and perhaps she has), though her mind is oddly calm.

The man is always in her dreams about this strange world of carnivorous giants and flying people, so she looks for him as she moves through the trees with exhilarating speed. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches a flash of black and green, a blur of silver and white—there he is, in the trees up ahead. She would recognize the back of that head anywhere.

The moment she sees him, a sense of foreboding settles in her chest, and she finds herself trying to go faster, to catch up with him. There's a new feeling of urgency in the air; she has to get to him quickly, get to him before—

She screeches to a halt when she sees the dead body hanging in the air.

It's Gunter Schulz, the nice guy who sits next to her in German class and lets her borrow his notes when she needs them. He's dressed in the same uniform as she is, as all the soldiers in this world do, but it's splattered with blood. A deep slice in the back of his neck nearly severed his body from his head.

Petra feels bile creep up her throat at the sight. She's never seen people she knows in real life in these dreams before, and she's definitely never seen them dead. She's seen the giants kill and eat people, she's seen blood and gore, but never that of people she knows.

The dream is different from the rest; Petra doesn't like it. She wants to wake up.

But the man has moved ahead, and she has to follow. She swallows and shoots her hooks past Gunter's body, being careful to make a wide arc around the line he's suspended on.

The man—and there's something nagging at her brain now, something begging her to remember—has moved ahead quickly; she races to catch up. He suddenly stops and swoops low; Petra's about to do the same when she sees the bloody torso in the grass.

A cry escapes from her lips—she recognizes the face. She dated Erd Gin for three months in her freshman year before they decided to just be friends, but they've been on good terms all this time. Erd can be a shameless flirt, but she's never met a more loyal young man.

She doesn't know why all the people she's seeing in her dream now are people she knows, and why are they dead? Where's the other half of Erd's body?—but, shaking, she grips her swords and follows her captain.

Captain?

The memories are barely there, more faint wisps of recollection than anything, but she has a sudden image of herself, right hand clenched to her heart, swearing her devotion to this man, her captain.

And… he's the captain of this squad... these are their bodies in the grass…

She's not even surprised anymore when she sees Auruo Bossard next, lying on his side in the grass. At least he's in one piece; he's been a family friend for so long, she doesn't think she can stomach finding him in pieces.

She looks up in time to see her captain swerve around a tree and, for the first time since they passed the first body, freeze. He hovers there, unmoving.

There's a bad feeling in Petra's stomach; her thoughts churn at a rapid pace as she shoots a hook at the tree and swings herself over. Memories—strange, foreign bits of someone else's life that are somehow more familiar than her own—clamor for her attention, and she thinks she can guess what she'll find around the tree.

Even though deep in her gut she knows, nothing prepares her for the shock of seeing her own dead body twisted around the trunk, blood seeping into her hair.

She turns to look at his face; his expression is heartbreaking. He blinks, and with a sudden jolt, the memories rush back.

She falls, suddenly no longer wearing the Scouting Legion uniform and 3D Maneuver Gear; she's back in the tank top and pajamas she wore to bed that night. The ground comes up fast and she lands hard on her back, gasping as her breath is crushed from her chest.

He's still there, still staring at her dead body, and looking up at him through a haze of throbbing pain, memories flash through her mind with dizzying speed. A little girl grabbing her father's hand as she walked around a marketplace in Wall Sina; a dead body being carted off to the local cemetery as the little girl and her father wept; years and years of grueling training only to accept the wings of freedom and not the mythical unicorn upon her back like her father wanted; pledging her life to humanity; fighting and surviving until she was the only one left from her trainee squad; being singled out by humanity's strongest; forming strong bonds with Gunter, Erd, and Auruo; the way her heart beat faster whenever the captain said her name; quiet moments by the fireplace, in the dining hall, in his office; the touch of his hand on hers; giving him strength and comfort whenever she could, because humanity's strongest was still human; the Titan-shifter boy, Eren, his eyes blazing with determination; the 57th expedition; the female Titan stomping through the trees; a giant foot rushing towards her, crushing her; blood everywhere, vision blurring, sounds fading; her last thought—

"Levi!" she cries, but her voice comes out as only a faint whisper. "Levi, wait!"

He turns then, and for one heart-stopping moment she thinks he heard her, but all he does is shoot his hooks far away and speed off.

"Levi," she whispers, and then her vision dims and her world turns black.

Levi stops in midair, staring down at the body below. It can't be, it just can't be, it can't be her—

He blinks, and the image does not change. Petra—but it's not Petra; Petra is warm and bright and caring and alive—is twisted against the tree, blood leaking from her nose and mouth, staining her skin and her lovely copper hair. Her eyes are open, glassy, distant.

The feeling rises so quickly in his chest he barely has time to shove it down. It doesn't go easily; he has to wrestle it and pound it ruthlessly until it fades into a dull ache somewhere in the pit of his stomach, but he has to, he has to; the mission isn't over yet. The female Titan is still at large and Eren is in danger.

Protect Eren. He can still do that. But he failed to protect them. Protect her.

He needs to go, now, but he can't tear his eyes away from her body. He knows it's sentimental, but that doesn't stop the memories from flashing through his mind anyway—her fierceness, her determination, her right hand clenched to her heart as she swore her devotion to him, the way she always had coffee ready in the mornings with a smile, how she was unashamed to cry for fallen comrades, how she worried constantly about him even knowing he was humanity's strongest soldier, the way she and the rest of the squad teased each other, the lovely floral smell of her hair, the way her eyes flashed when she got riled up, the warmth of her arms around him—

For a moment, Levi could swear he hears her voice, a faint whisper in the wind. Levi, she breathes, Levi, wait. It shakes him out of his stupor, and he tears his eyes away from the bloody corpse below (that's not Petra that's not Petra that's not Petra).

You idiot, Levi thinks, surprising even himself at how savage the words sound. She's gone.

He shoots his hooks into the next tree and moves on, and doesn't look back.

Petra wakes with a start, hours before her alarm goes off; it's still dark out, no light seeps through the window blinds. Her heart is racing, and to her astonishment, she feels the wet tracks of tears coursing down her cheeks.

She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to ignore the choked, shaky feeling that something is terribly wrong. She tells herself not to be ridiculous; it's not like she even had a bad dream or anything. She hasn't had a single dream since her last birthday.