Well I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette,
A lifeless face that you'll soon forget

When one reaches the end, one cannot avoid remembering. This is a reality Levi knows only all too well.

And yet he refuses to name the empty shells of his comrades as he passes them by. Corpses he knows. Corpses he is used to, their empty eyes that once expressed the final throes of anguish, the blood that steeped his nose with the smell of iron. He merely counts them, One, two, three…

Four.

He cannot linger, and he knows this. But he feels his muscles strain against the instinct, to jump, to move, to escape, to run, run, run, run, RUN!

So Levi does the unthinkable.

He keeps absolutely still.

Four, he keeps thinking to himself. Four, god damn you! This is no longer a person, this pathetic heap of flesh and bone, the breakable foundations of humanity. He knows this, tells himself the facts. The gold in her hair will always be hers but everything that is left behind is but a pale imitation.

(He remembers how it filled his vision when she jumped up to hug him upon being invited into his squad. It was a vision filled with gold strands.)

He reaches out to touch it, and his hand comes away stained with blood. Levi does not care. Overhead, the sun hides its face, ashamed of his weakness. Carefully, he lifts her and lays her on the ground.

Then he sees it—a flicker in her eyes.

Against all odds, Petra Ral is clinging onto life; but only just barely. He knows this.

He provides no reassurances, does not frantically fumble for anything to staunch a wound. He knows a lost cause when he sees one. There are no words that can ease this passing.

She is immobilized, and only her eyes move. The blood is oozing everywhere—her ears, her nose, her mouth. Her body is shattered and broken. He does not want to see this. He's seen this one too many times before….and when he watched his men die, it had always been her at his side.

She only looks at him as he kneels beside her and takes her hands in his. There is no need to tell her that her spirit will live on in him, no need for brave words. She has always believed this, always buoyed through her when things got too hard, or when the world tired her too much.

He realizes that he cannot say anything that she doesn't already know.

But it is a two-way street.

He knows her, too.

He knows she forgives him by the slight way her eyes crinkle, the way it always did when he berated them too harshly, or when he acted on his own without his team. He knows she is saying, Sorry, I am so sorry, even though that she does not, and never did anything wrong. He knows she is afraid, so deathly afraid, by what comes next, by the way her eyes widen, the way he almost sees himself in them. But she feels no pain anymore, her body too broken even for that.

Then, Levi sees in her eyes the first thing he ever saw in them when he first met her, and something that she's tried to hide ever since.

What a coward he is.

Then she cries, tears sliding down her temple, mixing with the blood, god, there is so much blood, and he has to close his eyes against it, prays that she forgives him for his weakness.

But Petra is fading fast now, and that's a wasted thing, too.

The sun comes out from hiding, and Levi is gone.

FIN