WARNING: SnK manga chapter 51 spoilers in the fourth section. You can just skip that section if you like and read the first three, which are fine on their own. But dunno, after reading chapter 51 I wanted to write something about it so I tacked that onto the end of this fic. But the first three sections are fine on their own. The last section was inspired by an idea from pensivebanana on tumblr.

This was written for Rivetra Week Day 1: Repentance.

Repentance

or: three times levi repents and one time he doesn't (and how they all have to do with petra)

one.

He has killed before, killed in cold blood, felt the slick wet squelch as his blade slices neatly through flesh and muscle, bursting arteries and spilling life-liquid. This woman is nothing new.

It is her own fault for wandering into parts of town and down dimly lit back streets she has no business wandering into, her own fault for not slipping away the moment she spotted the dark figures deep in discussion at the end of the alley, her own fault for eavesdropping and trying to signal the Military Police when she realized what they were talking about, her own fault for not being quieter with her bags of clothing and fabrics, her own fault for giving herself away.

At least this is what Levi tells himself as he gazes dispassionately at her dead body, her blue dress limp and soaked, the cobblestones of the street slippery with her blood. If he hadn't pulled his knife, one of his companions would have, and they would not have made it as quick. She would have suffered more, and besides, they are already starting to doubt his loyalty. This is as good a way as any to prove it.

"Damn it, Levi, we could have had a bit of fun with her," one of them laughs, nudging the woman's head with a toe; it flops, her copper hair spilling onto his boot. The others laugh too and resume the conversation about the new smuggling rings being set up between Rose and Sina, Levi wipes his knife clean with a handkerchief, and they leave the alley and the body, the incident pushed from mind.

The next day, he walks through one of Sina's many marketplaces, the sun shining on his back, wind blowing through his hair. Many people are out and about, browsing through stalls, haggling for better prices, talking and laughing as they shop or hurry to wherever they're going. Their voices blend in a cacophony of noise that blurs and fades into the back of Levi's mind.

"Best prices for cotton in all of Sina here! Get your scarves, sweaters, shirts here today!"

"—and I told her, that dress is so out of fashion, and you should have seen the look on her face when—"

"Bobby, I told you not to forget the list! Now what are we going to do—"

"—bloody prices are going up again. If they raise any more we won't be able to afford new jackets this winter from—"

"—he's a fool for signing up; everyone knows joining the Scouting Legion means almost certain death—"

"Excuse me, has anyone seen my mother?"

Levi blinks and turns to locate the source of the high, clear voice that cut through his thoughts. He does not see her in the throng of people, but he sees a man—pale hair, unlined face—and a small body next to him, their hands linked. All he can make out of the little girl is a flash of copper hair.

"My wife went out last night to return something to the tailor's shop and never came back," the man is saying to anyone who will listen. There are deep creases of worry in his forehead. "We reported it to the police, but they haven't found anything yet. Has anyone seen her? Golden-red hair, blue dress, about thirty years old—"

"I miss her," the little girl sniffles, and the crowds shift a little, she turns; Levi sees a tearstreaked face and eyes and hair the color of honey, and he freezes.

He tells himself it's just a coincidence, but he knows deep down inside that this little girl is the daughter of the woman whose blood he wiped off his blade less than twelve hours ago.

He doesn't say anything to them, just walks past, avoiding their eyes as if they can read his guilt printed all over his body; but when he gets back to his own little corner of Sina, an abandoned alleyway with a broken-down toolshed in the back, he falls to his knees and tries not to retch, tries not to think of the little girl's innocent eyes and tearstreaked face, tries not to think of what a coward he is for not leaving the group when it's clear to everyone he wants to and what a coward he is for not telling the man and his daughter the truth, tries not to let the regret in his heart spill out and overwhelm him.

two.

She's drunk.

He repeats this to himself even as she inches closer, her smile bright and fuzzy and her eyes flickering with stars. "And then what, Levi?" she breathes.

It's far too familiar, the way her voice caresses the syllables of his name, and he tugs at his collar, wishing he didn't like the way it sounds. She's hasn't been just his subordinate for years now, and she's called him by his name in private for nearly as long, but the alcohol has gotten to her brain and her voice is far too intimate, her leg far too close to his. (He should have known drinking to celebrate something so trivial as no deaths on an expedition was a bad idea.)

"… and then he shut up and left," he says quickly, ending the story on a rather lame note. He glances at the clock on the mantelpiece; it's nearly two in the morning. "We should probably go to bed, Petra."

"Yes," she agrees, and then her fingers curl into the loops of his belt and she's pulled herself onto him, latching her hands onto his lower back. "We should go to bed," she murmurs against his neck.

Levi stays frozen as she lets her mouth explore; she moves up his neck to his chin and then his jaw, peppering it with light kisses. His fingers clench and unclench in his lap.

He wants to; he's never admitted it to himself but he wants to more than he can remember ever wanting anything in a long, long time; but she is only nineteen years old and his subordinate and she is drunk and she won't remember any of this in the morning, and he would be the world's worst bastard to take advantage of that.

So he pries her hands off him and pushes her away; he ignores the confusion in her eyes, dimming the starlight, and says as firmly as he can, "Petra. You're drunk."

She blinks up at him through her lashes, hurt written all over her face. "That doesn't mean I can't make decisions for myself," she says, and he supposes it's true; her eyes are clear and her words are hardly slurred. "And I want you, Levi."

He nearly gives in then, but even as she leans her face towards his, a memory flashes to the forefront of his mind: when Erwin brought him into the Scouting Legion despite his long, colorful history on the wrong side of the law, the promise Levi made to fight for humanity because he was sick of fighting for himself; and then his first expedition, dead bodies everywhere, blood coating everything, everyone dies eventually, and humanity comes first, the Legion comes first, Erwin comes first, and it's selfish of him and not selfish of him, but he doesn't want to deal with all of this—

So instead of letting her kiss him, he leans away just as her lips brush his. "Petra," he hisses, capturing her wrists to push her away instead of pulling her closer like his body and mind want to. "Stop. You're not going to remember any of this in the morning."

Her face falls, her expression goes flat, and then she apologizes and says she must be more drunk than she realized. He says it's getting late and they should really go to bed now. Separately. She agrees, and they leave the room, the air awkward and stilted. He finds it hard to breathe, but he forces himself to act normal, to wish her a good night as he walks her to her bedroom, and he pretends he can't still feel her breath ghosting over his.

Lying in bed later that night, he tells himself he made the right choice, and he doesn't regret it. He is still her superior, and she is still his subordinate, and nothing will change the fact that he is over ten years older than her and has probably killed more people in his life than she has Titans. He is humanity's strongest; he belongs to Erwin and the Scouting Legion. He cannot have her.

He does not regret his choice.

(He changes his mind the next morning when she greets him cheerfully like nothing has happened and then proceeds to kiss Erd good morning on the cheek.)

three.

She does not look peaceful.

There is a saying for the dead, a saying carved onto graves and spoken at funerals, a saying meant to reassure the living: rest in peace.

But she looked far more peaceful in life; despite the constant threat of the Titans, despite all the fighting and blood and death that surrounded their lives, she was almost always smiling, ready with a cup of coffee and a kind word to brighten everyone's spirits.

Her brow is smooth, unmarred by death, but there is blood seeping out of her nose and mouth and into her hair; her eyes are distant and unfocused, her lips slightly parted, and were it not for the blood and the unnatural angle of her spine, he would say she looks distressed.

No, peaceful is far too kind a word for these dead.

Thoughts churn rapidly in his mind: he should have given them different instructions, he should have tried to catch up with them sooner, he should have stayed with them; then maybe they would not be like this, all bent angles and broken limbs and pools of life-liquid draining away.

He does not want to remember them like this: broken and bloody, their last expressions (shock, horror, regret) forever etched into their faces. He would rather see them smile, and laugh, and be angry, even, but not this.

He was responsible for their lives, and he failed them.

Gazing down at the body twisted against the tree (he won't think of it as Petra, he won't), a memory springs unbidden to mind: five years ago, what she later told him was her second expedition.

"You're lucky I was scouting ahead and saw you before you got eaten. You should have fired the smoke signal," he says as he pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his blades free of dissipating Titan blood.

The girl does not respond, just continues to kneel there, staring blankly around the field. The bodies of her comrades—or what's left of them—litter the grass, interspersed with the corpses of the two Titans Levi just killed.

"What's your name, brat?" he asks when she remains silent.

His voice must have been harsh enough to snap her out of her stupor, because she blinks and looks up at him, her eyes—a deep honey-amber—focusing again. She shakily swipes one hand across her eyes, pushing her copper hair out of her face, and her hand comes back wet with tears. Something nags at the back of Levi's mind but he ignores it; this is no time to let his mind wander.

"Petra Ral, sir," she whispers, "and I…" Her face crumples and she digs her fingers into her forehead, pressing her palms against her eyes. She swallows down a sob and continues, "It's my fault, sir; I dropped the smoke canister before I could fire the signal. It's… it's my fault they're dead. They're the only other friends I had from th-the trainee corps too…"

She lets herself cry then, muffling her mouth with her hands, but in the near-silence after a battle, the sound is loud all the same. It is foreign to Levi—he does not remember ever crying, he does not see the point—but he can understand how she feels; he still remembers his first expedition well (so few Titans killed, so many people dead).

So instead of reprimanding her for her clumsiness or telling her to get a hold of herself, he decides to impart a piece of wisdom it took him all of two expeditions to enlighten to: "Don't regret."

She sniffs and wipes her nose, looking up at him. "What?"

"Don't regret anything. No matter how you feel about it, you can't change it, and it's a waste of time and energy to have regrets. You may have made a bad choice or a mistake, but there's no changing it, so there's no point in wasting the present thinking about it, because you do have choices now. You can only look to the future and move on."

He's never been eloquent, but he thinks he made his point clear. A bit of light creeps back into her eyes, and slowly, her tears subside. She wipes her eyes one last time and swallows hard, and stands up.

"Yes, sir," she says quietly. "I won't regret."

I won't regret, Levi thinks, though he still cannot tear his eyes away from the body below. I won't regret, he repeats to himself, because no matter how he feels right now, he is wasting time and energy and gas and he should be speeding off to look for Eren now. His squad is dead; he has seen the proof and there is no changing it. He needs to stop wasting time. He needs to move on.

I won't regret.

He blinks, and he moves on.

and one.

She would hate him.

The thought comes from nowhere and catches him off guard; he tunes Hanji, Erwin, and Pixis out for a moment and tries to locate its source. He hasn't thought about his dead squad (his old squad), hasn't thought about Petra in a while (hasn't let himself think about them), and—

The girl standing behind Pixis shifts slightly at something he says, and the light catches her hair.

Oh. The realization is like a punch in the gut.

She is not Petra, but her eyes are the same color, her hair is only a half shade off, her face is about the same shape, and if he squints, he can pretend she is. She is looking only at her commander, her face passive, but he feels like she is raining judgment upon him anyway.

Because Petra is—was, he forces himself to acknowledge—kind. She was brave and loyal and honest, and she firmly believed in trust. She was the one who wanted to trust Eren and wanted him to trust them; if she were alive, if she knew what he is thinking, she would hate him for it.

But she is not here. The girl standing in the corner is not her, and besides, even if Petra were still alive, he would not change his mind. (If Petra were still alive, he wouldn't even have to do this, but he doesn't think about that.)

Because no matter how he feels right now—Hanji's news still rings in his ears, making him doubt his very existence—he is going to do whatever he can to keep the Scouting Legion—to keep humanity—on its feet. Erwin has lost an arm and it has definitely affected him; despite what he claims, the unshaved man sitting in bed is not the same man who can rally hundreds to their deaths, the same man who picked Levi off the streets of Sina and gave him a chance at a life with purpose. And Levi is called humanity's strongest for a reason; it does not matter what he wants to do, it does not matter if he wants to give up: he can't. If Erwin can't be counted on right now, then it is up to Levi to deal with it.

And he tells himself that all the recent revelations about the Titans surround the 104th trainee squad, that it would be smart to keep them all in one place, that Eren will work better with them there, that they are all skilled (they've survived so far, haven't they?) and would do even better with more training, but Petra would call bullshit and say he's only using them to keep Eren in line, using them and her death, her squad's death, his old squad's death—and she would hate him.

But he is humanity's strongest, and he does not regret it.

(The girl in the corner brushes a strand of hair from her eyes; the movement does not catch his attention and his heart does not twist in his chest.)

A/N: Yes, I had thug!Levi kill Petra's mother. No, he does not know the girl he picked for his squad is the same little girl whose mother he killed all those years ago. No, this is not one of my headcanons, but idk, it seemed to fit here.

I apologize for how crappy this is. It seemed so much better in my head (story of my life).

Leave me your thoughts?