Chapter Text
On the nights when Susan Lei couldn't sleep, Harry Fawkes had learnt to hold her fast and wait. His wife had laughed like sunrise, when they'd killed Ainz the Lich King. Bards called her smile the banner of heroes. Yet it was all too often that her husband saw her tears.
"Sorry..." She whispered into the pillow, "I'm an idiot. It's been so long, since…"
"Shh, I'm the idiot, remember?" He shifted in the bed, pressing into her back and her thick dark hair "Got you into this awful job."
"No, you believed in us, dear one. That it would be worth it. Even back then, when children went out untrained in parties of four, like slaying goblins was a sick game."
"Thank the gods that's changed. We helped change it. You're a hero, Susan Lei."
She smiled bravely, squeezed his hand. Stared at the darkened wall of their fine little apartment.
"Never felt it. Not since our first quest, when our Priestess died. Poor Alison, she deserved the world..."
"A better world than this...but we should have saved her. I'm sorry."
"No, no…" Through her hard, scar-worn body, Harry felt the sobs, "If it had been you…I'm so, so glad it wasn't you, Harry. Glad it wasn't…me. We're so lucky. So many wounded friends, so many lost. Every time I see the Sword Maiden, or those poor girls who were tortured – if the monsters had taken me and did what they did, I know I'd never have come back! I'd never have fought again. I would have hung myself, a broken failure, and that would be the story of Lei Qiang's daughter! I'm no hero. Every time we saved the world, I was an imposter."
With the look he'd had when he'd killed the dragon, Harry was suddenly above Susan, looking her in the eye.
"Love, love, you would have beaten it, whatever happened! You can't know you wouldn't have beaten it and come back!"
"How can you say I'd survive?" She still smiled, but her dark eyes were empty, "If I lost my honour, my strength, and you?"
"No. Susan, think of all the people you've saved! Your care and your smile have saved so many poor souls, even with this cursed lie still lodged in you! Don't think about might-have-beens. Remember how you've worked, and fought, you're a fighter, and that is the truth! The truth….the truth we've built and bled for. If we believe in ourselves we can be heroes..."
Susan quietly took hold of his ever-messy hair. Drew him down to her breasts.
"You always believed, you big idiot. We found out right away, the world we were born in was a heap of dung–but you never stopped believing in dragonslayers and stories, and you changed it. Gods only know where I'd be without you, Harry. You're the real hero."
"Well, yeah, but…argh…" Susan stopped twisting her husband's ear and he forged on, "You're the hero of all the greenhorns you hug and scold before their first deployment. Not me, you. No one has a strong heart for the weak like you, you've saved me a hundred times...you could kill me with your pinkie. You're you, and if that isn't enough to be a hero, then dragonslayers and stories can get stuffed."
They'd carried each other through the morass many times; whispers in bed or in the lobby of a palace. Some dragons took more slaying than others, but heroes fought down the little voice of doubt. Harry was surprised, though, by the thoughtful look that crept into his wife's eyes.
"I must have felt like I had something to prove. So many missions, councils to sort out this dungheap world, and the martial arts school...I shouldn't have taken so long to do this."
"Susan, what–?"
Her smile was a little afraid, but fulsome with glory.
"Dearheart, I think I'm ready to have a baby."