"One blaze of
glory
I have to find."
~Rent

—

He realizes that he doesn't remember what her face looks like anymore as he gazes out. In front of him, the ocean is wide and clear and it looks amazing, ethereal. They did it, they found the edges. He doesn't know how far that water goes, but it is an escape. It is a salvation.

At such a huge cost. Not only in lives, but in him.

He doesn't see her smile in the sea foam, can't imagine her eyes when the sun sets, a warm amber. She is no longer completely there, and all of her that remains is a painful ghost, trailing a hand up his spine.

He still knows the way she made him feel when there was coffee in the morning, mug steaming, fingerprints smudged against the cheap material. He could still recall elation, or at least, completion when his entire squad could sit down and eat. When they didn't have to bite into the hard, stale loaves that they served to the foot soldiers. Food was a luxury.

But so were they.

And the first to leave his mind was Gunter. He was always important, of course. Always a willing soldier, always a steady friend. But Rivaille couldn't find it in him to think up whether his eyes were brown or not. And Aurou went as well, his profanity still slick in his mind, but otherwise erased. Erd, his powerful second in command had gone after that, save for the silhouette of his salute, fist clenched tight against his heart.

He could let them all go. He could. His family, his friends, the only people he really had in the world except for Irvin. Rivaille knew how to shut down his humanity to save himself, knew how to become more monster than man just so he could have something left.

She was his something.

It started off harmlessly. He forgot the first thing she had said. For the life of him, he would never be able to recall. She never really repeated it, and it was likely something stupid and silly anyway. It didn't matter much.

But, then it was her favorite food, what she liked to do outside of fighting titans, what her hair looked like when she had it up, how many kills she had made, what she used to say when she was angry. And, bit by bit, his nightmares chipped at her, their bones showing through flaying skin coloring her hair crimson with gore. Her skin smeared, eyes blank. Her face eviscerated, vaporized.

He looks over at Eren and sees his elated expression, pure, unbridled joy at seeing the world, even if he had seen so much horror with it.

Rivaille feels the chain around his neck choke him as Mikasa and Armin set a hand against both the boy's shoulders, the looks on their faces not naive, but still gleaming with a certain hope he has long since lost. They are a family, after all.

The ring he was going to give her burns a brand against his chest. He forgets the shade of her hair and the gleam in her eyes and anything that doesn't help him with a blade and a monster.

He sees his reflection sometimes and wonders just what the difference is.

His eyes turn down to the swishing water and he is hypnotized by how solid it is. Not in the sense that it was able to be stood upon, but in the sense that it was always there. Always changing and moving yet still in place, rooted to a home Rivaille never had.

Petra would adore the ocean. She never said so, but he knew. She wanted to see a world free of sorry, free of cracked bone marrow, free of strife and suffering and bloody hands. She hated red. And, suddenly, it hits him like he was smacked against a house like a fly. He feels the bile swim up from his gut, and forces it back down again. His hand shakes as he turns to look at Hanji and Irvin standing behind him, watching and calculating, no kind hands upon his shoulders in comfort.

He knows that now there will be nothing left but plans and more suicide missions. Hope is the worst of killers, after all, pressing and peeling away at you like a disease, clawing against your flesh. He could no longer allow himself that comfortable agony.

So, slowly, he reaches for the chain holding the wedding band. It's gold, one of the many things he managed to steal in his life from rich, spoiled cows. It was what had led him to Irvin, what led him to become a soldier, what he kept from his thug days, his reminder of his humanity, the lack of it, his choices.

He lifts it from his body and realizes just how beautiful it is. She had said it was when he had offered it to her, and she had been able to see her own happiness reflected back at her from the gleam. He never really noticed, but now, he feels the fact chew against his bones.

He dangles it from his fingers for a moment before he slackens his hand, watching it tumble beautifully in airy, graceful arches, until it plops under the waves, swallowed.

It bubbles up like froth from his mind, a tight kept tidbit, something he found so very useless that he had simply locked it away. Something that he didn't need to hold onto, something that his nightmares couldn't take from him because it was so very trivial at the time.

Now, it is all he has left of her, and he knows he cannot hold onto it forever. Her favorite color was blue.

And, at least, he can give her the ocean.

—-

"Under the water you scream so loud but the silence surrounds you
But I hear it loud and you fall in the deep and I'll always find you
If my red eyes don't see you anymore
And I can't hear you through the white noise"
~Justin Timberlake