She was there all at once in a flurry of autumn leaves and honey coloured eyes.

There, standing tall and proud, fist clamped firmly across her heart, those same eyes darkened with some fearless determination, the kind that divulged to him that she was fierce and strong and altogether prepared to be humanity's last standing soldier if it came down to it - therefore, with a glance of those hardened honey eyes she divulged to him that she was also a fool.

Wore her heart on her sleeve, overly prepared to lay her own life on the line for the sake of others, rather than preserve it in order to continue the fight for humanity.

Nevertheless, this determined foolishness was enough to pique his attention, something few others had ever managed.

He allowed his fierce gaze to linger upon her for only an instant too long, as her gaze snapped to meet his own, her face remaining determinedly stoic as a peachy blush rose up her neck and across her cheeks, betraying her silently.

She looked away after only an instant, seemingly crumbling under his gaze, as the commander dismissed the new scouts and they began to loosen in their stance and chat calmly amongst one another.

Levi moved to follow Erwin, his eyes focused carefully on the commander's back, his ear trained on the conversations that bubbled behind them.

"Didn't you see him, Petra? He was full on staring at you!"

Petra.

Her name was Petra.

She had proved her worth to him as a member of his elite squad not long after their first encounter.

They had been scouting, not far beyond Wall Rose in attempts to secure a base from which to launch further missions into the reclaiming of Wall Maria when it had happened. A swarm of titans, totally ignoring Hanji's theory of the lack of pack mentality among the titans, had suddenly been upon them, blisteringly warm and snapping at them for a taste of flesh.

Levi had launched into a deadly blur in the sky of shining blades and fearsome anger. As he sliced the nape of one, he leapt cleanly onto the shoulders of another, adeptly cutting away the flesh at the back of its neck in another swoop.

He had noticed the abnormal, from the corner of his well trained gaze, but had, however, under the rarest of instances, misjudged its distance from his own position. It launched forth, its great fingers reaching for him hungrily, as he pondered how he was going to move firmly enough to the left to avoid it.

In the split second before being clenched inside its massive fist, he felt a strong kick to the ribs, as a blur of autumnal colour slammed him to the side in time to activate his gear and fly firmly from the titan's grasp. The same blur of colour quickly moved to the nape of the abnormal and made quick work of finishing it.

She had landed at his side in moments, upon the branch of some mighty oak tree, as he clutched his side, already blooming with bruises and sucked air in between his clenched teeth.

Petra Ral hesitated for only a moment before shooting him a confused glance.

"Captain-?"

"Thank you, Petra. That's all we're saying on the matter," he shot at her, his voice sharper than he had intended, but he doubted he had deviated much from his usual monotone. He glanced at her, watching her face light up as she laughed, covered her mouth and laughed, that blush returning to her cheeks, and her eyes shining their honey at high summer colour.

He was mildly shocked, albeit his face read nothing that betrayed those thoughts, at this girl, young and fresh from her training, standing in a tree in the wilds of titan territory after having successfully destroyed an abnormal moving faster than any training session in the academy could have prepared her for, simply laughing.

Perhaps she had gone mad?

As she laughed, a soft snort escaped and she gasped in horror, clutching at her face as it bloomed the beetroot red of painful embarrassment. She coughed and nodded her head sharply, saluting him.

"Understood sir! We should me moving now sir, to tend to your injuries, sir!"

She activated her ODM gear, flying sharply from the protection of the trees back down to the horses. Levi watched her go, his brows slightly raised as she went, red hair flying freely behind her.

Perhaps she has simply always been mad.

She would bring him blisteringly hot, bitter tea, a spoonful of honey resting at the bottom, a wedge of lemon drifting on the surface.

She would set it just to the right of his writing pad, using her pinky finger as a cushion so it made a soft and satisfying clunk on the hard worn wood of his desk, before settling herself delicately on the edge of his desk, waiting for him to finish whatever sentence he was reading or writing. He would lift the tea, inhale deeply, before sipping on the burning liquid and sighing deeply.

She would tuck her hair behind her ear and watch him, with a fondness in her eyes that made his stomach squirm and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end - discomfort - marred with something more, something warm that coiled amidst the bottom of his squirming gut, grounding him.

It was possible that this unsettled him more, this calm togetherness that came over him when Petra was there.

She would smile softly, that fondness ever present, before kicking her legs softly away from the desk.

"So, anything you want to get off your chest today, Captain?"

She would say this every day, as though she were expecting him to one day stand and wax lyrical about the struggles he faced on a daily basis - he would occasionally remark about the filthy state of the junior scouts barracks. Rarely he would remark on a potentially problematic theory Hanji wanted them to explore and how he would never understand the insanity that ran riot within that woman's mind.

After he had chosen a response, she would always laugh good naturedly and put her chin in the palm of her hand, eyes never leaving his own sullen expression.

"Is that right, Captain?"

He often wondered what she would do if he one day came out with something entirely unlike himself. Something he had observed about her perhaps, the particular shine that her soft ginger hair held, or how those honey coloured eyes seemed to bore into him when she looked upon him during their evening ritual of tea and soft spoken words. How the rest of the world often faded into greys and blacks, uninteresting and altogether a distraction from his true purpose in life, and how often, he would find himself irked at her ability to distract him from that in these evening time calls - how the smell of blisteringly hot, bitter tea, a spoonful of honey resting at the bottom, a wedge of lemon drifting on the surface was the smell of Petra.

But then, that would of course, be entirely unlike himself.

She would pull him aside, speak with him with such severity in her eyes, that he wondered if he had done something wrong by her in inviting her into this squad.

Was he responsible for the slight dull in the shine of her hair? For the wretched look she sometimes carried in her soft eyes?

He would be lying if he said it didn't begin to worry him sometimes during this sombre conversations, when she would sigh, her mouth a tight line as she thought, the gears of her mind churning so loudly he could practically hear them.

He would just begin to worry, when she would take her hand from being clenched at her side, and place it gently, feather lightly on his arm, those eyes just as bright as the day he met her, her smile warm and full as ever as her hair shifted on her shoulders.

"We'll think of something, don't look so defeated Levi," she would say, youthful and smiling and Petra once more, and his stomach would squirm again, and for an instant he wanted so badly to show her some sign of... endearment.

She would squeeze his arm, like she understood.

It had been one, clumsy, uncertain, stolen kiss, which she had leapt in for, desperate, lonely and terrifyingly tempting as Levi pressed himself to forget, as she professed a thousand apologies, her eyes full of tears, her heart full of something he couldn't bring himself to understand as he threw caution to the wind and rolled his eyes impatiently.

If there was one thing Levi Ackerman hated, it was the inability of this titan obsessed human race to seize what they wanted, when they wanted it.

He took her cheeks between his palms, and held her in place as he pressed her lips to his own, fierce, unrelenting, the warmth rising up from the coil in his stomach to set fire to his insides, as Petra struggled to understand what he was doing, before kissing him back with the same ferocity with which she brought about the destruction of a titan.

One hand pushed past the pale expanse of her cheek to tangle itself in her copper locks, as her own hand slid from her side to rest upon his pounding heart.

The kiss was hot, so hot the tips of his fingers felt cold and she left a burning on his lips like raw cinnamon.

She stepped back, her eyes shining but fixed on the ground at his feet, as his hands fell back to his sides, his face his regular mask of indifference coupled with distaste.

Her smile was small, and she uttered not a word as she stepped away, back into the cover of nightfall and back into the position of Petra Ral, his dutiful tea-bringer come right hand woman.

He watched her go, the smell of tea in the air, the warmth in his belly sated, for now.

He often thought of her like that, burning against his lips, taught and soft beneath his touch, her eyes alight with joy and laughter, her hair shining in the light of the sun, or by the light of his candle in the evening time. The red of her cheeks as she so often blushed under his gaze, or became heated with rage at his stubborn coldness. Her smile, full and beaming.

She was there all at once in a flurry of autumn leaves and honey coloured eyes.

And she was gone just as quick.

First attempt at writing these two adorable dorks. Please leave me some feedback, I would adore it.