Title: The Other Place

Summary: Sometimes, he watches the stars and wonder if she's up there.

Pairing: Levi/Petra

Disclaimer: the manga, characters, etc. are not mine.

Warning: may contain violent themes.

Sometimes, he watches the stars and wonder if she's up there.

It was a story he heard from a long, long time ago. Where, in his childish mind, it had seemed to make sense.

People went up into the sky when they die, his mother told him. They'd be watching you from up high above in a place where everything was fair and happy.

He scoffed when he was older, his mother long dead and believing she was up there in a faraway happy place seemed ridiculous seeing as she died so violently (murdered in cold blood in front of him and he murdered those murderers in turn, making sure the pain doubled every blow his mother received).

When he saw the sky, stars gleaming against the wide expanse of dark hues of blue, again after so long, smiling and hearing laughter from the two people he consider almost family, it had seemed hopeful then too.

Maybe that place did exist, he naively thought.

But snuffed the idea out the moment he saw Isabel's wide, beaming eyes so dead and Farlan's blood dripping down his chin.

(His fault.)

Then he saw her strawberry blonde hair, like flames in the sun, with wings flapping behind her, gliding in the air effortlessly. She was warm and kind and … hopeful.

She was love and precious and Levi felt his mind change again.

Yes, the place exists, she tells him one night when they lay in bed, his fingers lazily drawing patterns on her ivory smooth skin.

It's not real, Petra, he says. It's just a story.

I've seen it, she insists. I feel it. They never truly leave, Levi. They're just in another place we can't go to yet.

I can never go there, he admits.

Why not, she would ask him.

I'm not qualified.

There's no citizenship up there, you know, she would tease him.

Still. I can't go there, he would say instead.

She reaches up to his face. Run her thumb on his cheek. Look at him with so much love he feels his heart lurch.

You more than anyone can go there when the time comes, Levi, she tells him. Don't be afraid. Don't doubt yourself. I love you.

Levi often wonders if she was up there.

He wonders if she met Isabel and Farlan.

He wonders what ridiculous stories they'll tell her about him.

He wonders if the others are there, too.

He wonders if she was looking down at him, with a soft smile on her face.

He hopes she does.

He never had the chance to tell her.

"I love you." he whispers into the wind. "I'll see you soon."