Rated T for strong language (c'mon it's Levi). May be changed to an M in later chapters.

Chapter One: The Silence

"Petra?" he called out, tossing his keys onto the kitchen table and draping his coat on one of the chairs.

There was no answer. Levi frowned. She said she'd be here cooking dinner. Lasagne or some shit, he recalled as he took off his shoes and placed them beside the door. He paused and squinted. There were scratches below what seemed to be an indistinct dent on the wood.

Ignoring it, he called out again, this time breaking into a small run as he jogged up the stairs to their bedroom.

Did she go outside? She said she was at home...

He stopped at the top of the stairs, focus catching onto the white marks on the stairway handle. These hadn't been there this morning. He turned to glance down the stairs, eyes following the trail of pronounced carpet scuffles leading all the way to the ground, like something had been dragged. Petra wasn't one to be so clumsy, nor did she have long fingernails.

Something was off. Suddenly the air felt too humid.

"Petra?" he repeated for the third time, doing his best to calm the erratic beating of his heart and to keep the panic from thickening in his throat.

Something like a disturbing sense of unsurprised dread lurched in his stomach as his silver eyes scanned the vacant room. The bed was unmade, he noted with mild distaste...the sheets were in disarray yet there was no sign of a struggle. Everything was how they were positioned. Nothing was out of place except for the burning fear threatening to explode in his chest. Petra would never leave our room in such a state.

He walked back down towards the living room. He saw her bag and her phone resting on the sofa, ruling out the idea that she had gone out for a breather. Petra was sometimes forgetful but she wasn't stupid. His eyes slid to the centre of the room. The coffee table was slightly unaligned. More scuffle marks on the carpet.

Then he saw it: a knife next to the barren fireplace, shards of glass from a broken picture frame decorating it. He knelt to pick it up. It was of them on the day she had won her first trial working pro bono, when her copper hair used to be so long. His attention shifted to the knife. Squeaky clean. No blood. He didn't know whether to be relieved.

It seemed like now he was only calling her name to comfort him; the two syllables managing to slow down his heart rate, albeit marginally.

"Petra."

It was met with a silence that deafened him twice over.

It chilled him to the bone, creeping up his spine, and wrapping its gnarled fingers around his neck. Suffocating.

Something in his head clicked. Instantaneously, he was sent into an internal panic. Cold sweat had started to trickle down his forehead. No, she can't have…those fucking bastards, I'll –

He searched everywhere, frantically pulling back the shower curtain, ducking underneath the kitchen table, fuck, he even searched in the damn cupboards.

He was ready to scream. His blood was pumping uncontrollably, drumming in his ears.

There was nothing to ignore anymore. He was alone. The house was empty.

She was gone.

Levi sat in the waiting room with his arms crossed, a murderous glint visible in his eyes. The numbing 2 AM hum of bustling police officers and wailing families did nothing to soothe him. Normally he would be the one facing their tear-streaked faces, listening to their mortified reactions to the death of their child or spouting out hopeless defences for their rebellious teenager – all the while lazily sipping a cup of coffee. Black, with no cream or sugar.

But now, as he observed their melodramatic hand gestures – "my son would never do that!" – and faces twisted into the kind of agony only a parent would feel when their worst nightmares finally happened: their son stabbing another family's son, or their daughter never coming back home from a party at the time she'd said she would, Levi could not help but to empathise. He scowled at their ceaseless screeching, reckless words being thrown about as threats or excuses, only because he actually wished he could say them himself. To yell them at the deaf ears they were falling upon. Get a fucking grip, he scolded himself.

The minutes ticked by. Soon his thoughts found themselves rooted into the idea of blood spilling and necks shattering, of guns cracking and where the fuck was Erwin? His right leg had already started to involuntarily shake on the spot – a habit that only happened when he was becoming too impatient. Usually a warning that he was about to do something compulsive. Like break down Erwin's door.

But as it was, Erwin's door was entitled to live yet another day. The blond man slowly closed it after him, moving to sit down next to the seething black-haired detective who he had forced to wait for him for half a fucking hour.

By the time he had calmed down enough to open his eyes, he was dizzy and his dress shirt was drenched in sweat. He stumbled towards the bathroom, curling his fists on the edge of the sink. Slowly, he washed his face with cold water, staring at the reflection that stared blankly back at him.

Dead, bloodshot eyes followed his every movement, the dark circles underneath them providing a stark contrast to his sickly pale skin.

Steadily now, he walked back towards the bedroom – their bedroom – which she'd only just lain in last night with a curled 'come hither' finger and hooded amber eyes locked onto his.

He shook the memory from his head lest the bile actually made it out of his system and instead reached for the phone resting next to her pillow. Tentatively, he dialled her number twice, both times being sent to voicemail. Levi grimaced. She could've just slipped out to walk around the area for a while and maybe this one time she'd forgotten her phone. She'll be back soon, was something he would be dying to think. But something in his gut told him, if you don't act fast, she'll be dead before you know it. Maybe she's dead already. That was enough to set the gears in his mind into motion.

He typed in a few more numbers before raising the device to his ear, fingers drumming impatiently on the mattress. Eventually –

"Levi," the voice answered.

Levi exhaled through his nose. "Erwin." He hoped the blond man would ignore the hitch in his tone.

"Is everything alright?"

No, it fucking isn't! Levi wanted to scream. He paused to inhale sharply. "Petra's disappeared and I don't fucking know who took her," Levi cursed. He hadn't felt this vulnerable in years. Not since his first mission on the job. Not since Isabel and Farlan…

Erwin's gruff voice cut through his meandering. "Clear your head then report to my office as soon as possible."

Again; silence. Levi put the phone down, resolving to clean the mess that had been left for him in order to follow Erwin's orders.

Erwin eased into the cushioned red seat with a quiet, drawn-out sigh. He turned to Levi, scrutinising his dishevelled state. "Detective Ackerman."

"I'm not a detective currently," Levi sneered in reply, arms still crossed. "You and your bullshit criticisms on the way I handle my cases."

Erwin nodded in understanding. "Levi," he continued, blue eyes unfazed. "Did you sign in at the desk?"

Levi let out a silent exhalation. "Half a fucking hour ago."

"I've contacted the others," Erwin stated. "We'll start working on the case when everyone has arrived." He glanced at his watch. "They'll be here shortly."

"Probably taking their damn time," Levi replied bitterly. "Time which we don't have." He spared a sideways glance at his colleague. For a moment, Erwin watched his eyes soften, but that moment was short-lived. "Get a head start. I'll clear the drawing board."

Both men stood up from their seats, the difference in their heights more apparent than ever. Levi glared. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"You're still a civilian at present," Erwin responded calmly, but his cerulean eyes were burning, daring the shorter man to defy him. Levi knew he had to step down, but his chest was ready to collapse if he waited another second without doing something. "You can't – "

"She's my fucking wife!" Levi shouted, a feral scowl plastered on his face.

Erwin narrowed his eyes slightly at his partner. In all ten years of working alongside the raven-haired man, he had never seen Levi so hysterical. It was unnerving...and out of place. He did not let this shock show through to him, instead choosing to purse his lips. "I know, but clearly, you're still not fit to go back to work. Now, tell me what happened."

Levi shut his eyes in frustration. He was right. In any case, it would be too personal for him. He'd only let his emotions get in the way and that might be the deciding point of whether she lives or dies. Any sane man would set aside their pride in this situation.

But Levi was far from sane. He'd seen too much, dealt with too much. His hands were permanently scarred and soaked into an ocean of blood. No amount of water from a well or multi-award-winning detergent could wash his hands clean from that.

Finally, he opened his eyes, face no longer contorted in rage. Erwin observed him intensely, waiting for him to put his foot out of line. Venomous steel clashed with cold, unsympathetic blue.

Levi held his stare for a heartbeat before replying. "I'm sure you're the one better suited to give me the answers." Without another word, he turned his heel and walked away, hands hanging limply at his side.

Erwin's shoulders sagged as he watched his comrade disappear into the crowd of screaming mothers and stony-faced fathers. It'd been a lifetime since Levi had done something truly foolish out of his own accord and it took an entire SWAT team to immobilise him. He was lucky he'd scraped by with minor consequences.

But Erwin knew that face he had put on when he opened his bullet-grey eyes. He'd seen it ten years ago when Levi was young and somewhat innocent to the prospect of real pain: the pain of losing someone you love. He never thought he would see it again after all this time. She had undone him more than he'd like to admit.

Something about that thought tickled in the back of his mind.

He remained in his place, yet he could not erase the image from his head for the whole night. It was the face of a man willing to do anything to save himself.

A/N: First and foremost, this is a Rivetra (Levi/Petra) story.

This is my first fanfiction story and I haven't written – at least not anything I've considered decent – in a while, so I guess I'm kinda rusty and also really nervous, but please feel free to review and tell me what I could improve on (I've never written a crime story before – eek!), or if you enjoyed reading. As for the rating, I know that it will definitely change to an M later on so I'm not really sure whether to change it now or wait until later. And update frequency is also dependent on how inspired I am, sorry :/

This story was inspired by a lot of things, but primarily Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and also The Man from Nowhere (such an epic movie), so if you've read/watched either of those, you might have a head start in knowing what's going on...but only for a short while.