Disclaimer: I do not own any of the official Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan characters.
Legitimacies
Nile was waiting in the foyer when Marie returned, dabbing at her eyes with her hankie.
"I'm tired," she clipped, ignoring the arm he offered her and sweeping past him, headed towards the stairs. The altercation with Erwin had drained her of more emotion than she had been willing to offer up, and she desperately wanted her bed, and to be left alone until the next morning's tea.
Nile watched his wife walk past him, and he caught the familiar scent of Erwin Smith flirting with her own perfume. He wasn't surprised, but it gave justification to his waiting, and the questions he had for her.
Doubt had settled into his heart eight months ago, digging up with it the same uncertainty he had felt when she had announced her first pregnancy, just after their marriage, a mere two months before Erwin Smith had left for war.
"Marie."
Though she tried to ignore him as she so often did, when his hand clamped around her arm, she halted, turning to him.
"No," she said simply, raising her chin. "I told you I was tired."
"I don't want sex," he told her, "I want truths."
She took a step back, silently telling him she wouldn't run from him. He wasn't a violent man, not towards women, so she knew that even if he suspected something obscenely scandalous (and she truly believed he did), he would not bring any physical harm to her.
"Nile—"
"You smell like him," he hissed, pulling her close.
Marie pursed her lips. "Do not get jealous, husband. It is not becoming of a gentleman."
Not a man able to think of quick rebuttals, his mouth twitched, but he said nothing.
"I wasn't intimate with him," she said, emitting an annoyed sigh, "so you may release me and let me be on my way. I am tired."
"Are they mine?"
The eyes that she had set on his hand snapped up to meet his own dark gaze and her mouth fell open in surprise.
"Excuse me?" The words were forced out by a voice that failed to perform its duty, shut down by shock.
"The children," he pressed, "Veronica, and this one, are they…did I father them?"
Marie's chest heaved and she stepped back. He released her arm, watching her eyes grow wide, her lips parted in an expression he didn't recognize. He wasn't angry. He just wanted to know.
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, something that seemed to be happening an awful lot lately and her breaths came in tiny gulps of air, not wanting to believe that her husband would ask such a thing. She had expected him to believe she was entangled in an affaire with Erwin Smith, but did he truly believe his own children were not sired by him?
"Do you think so lowly of me?" she asked, her lips trembling as she spoke, "that I would betray my marriage vows?"
Nile lifted his chin to level with her and he took a breath. "I think you are still in love with him, Marie."
She shattered. Everything he had ever thought his wife to be was swept away in a wave of raw emotion, triggered by the simple reminder that she had never, in her entire thirty four years of life, been in control.
"Of course I still love him!" she screeched, allowing her words to bounce off the walls of the foyer, carrying up the grand staircase, and whipping back around to pierce his heart, "I spent my whole life loving him!"
He knew it. He had always known it. Everyone had always known it.
She had been bred, raised, and molded to marry Erwin Smith, to become his duchess, birth his heirs, and carry on living life as one of the most privileged women of their society. She had, over the course of her youth, fallen in love with her intended, and it was no secret that the young duke had equal affections for his bride-to-be.
Childhood playmates grew to awkward flirtations that blossomed into a full blown passion by the time she was fifteen. It didn't matter, she had told herself. Her body had been sold to him at her birth; why should she wait, tortured, until he was ready to marry?
She turned eighteen and there was no wedding date in sight. By twenty-one, despite the nights she lay tangled in his sheets, calling out his name, there was no ring on her finger. He was so busy, he would chuckle as he stroked her cheek, politics kept him so busy lately and it would be unfair to a new bride to be so busy.
She would have to wait just a bit longer.
She never complained, trained to accept that his word was the only word, and that she must place all of her trust in him. He was to be her husband. He knew what was best for her, and for their future family.
At twenty-three, everything changed.
There was trouble brewing in a neighboring kingdom, and talk of war. Treaties came and went, some up for discussion, some rejected before they even crossed into the lands. There would be war, the council had decided. And Erwin Smith would lead the ranks.
Not liking the thought of leaving his precious Marie widowed, Erwin turned to his closest friend, Nile Dawk. Would he take her as his bride? She wasn't pure as a bride ought to be, but would he treat her well, comfort, protect, and love her?
Without a word to Marie, the families exchanged contracts. Her parents were satisfied. Their daughter would still be a duchess.
"I was sold to you!" she choked out, her hand pressed against her chest in an effort to calm her thrashing heart, "Nobody asked me, nobody spoke to me. All of you. . .you went behind my back and traded me like some common cow! A ruined cow!"
Marie had never been ruined, not to Nile. Her lack of virginity had never been something he even considered when he had been asked to settle down with her so suddenly. First, he had thought of her eyes, those beautiful grey storms that smiled at Erwin and shone with adoration. Would she come to look at him the same way? He thought of her posture, how sure and certain she was of herself. Would she greet the guests in their home with such airs?
Then he thought of her warmth. He'd known her since he was a boy, and she had always brought so much sunlight into his life. Her smile was radiant, her words soft and kind, and when she listened, she did so with a maternal sort of look, the type that set a person at ease, comforted in her confidence.
He signed the contract without hesitation. He would treat her well. He would comfort, protect, and love her.
But he received none of it in return.
She had never said a word against the marriage (it wasn't her place), but when she appeared before him at the altar, she wore the shards of her heart on her sleeve.
If you'd rather be alone tonight, I'll honor that request.
It was a difficult thing to say on his wedding night, and at twenty-seven, there was nothing that he had wanted more than his new wife, naked, beneath, beside, and atop him, screaming out his name in ecstasy. But it had been a trying day for her, and he would do nothing to upset her further.
She had rejected his offer, lifting her chemise over her head and standing bare before him.
Make me forget him.
He tried. He failed.
She wept.
"I never thought of you as merchandise," Nile argued, watching as his usually composed duchess fell apart in their foyer, her tears of anguish resonating through the entire estate, "and I have been nothing if not good to you."
"Are you accusing me of being ungrateful?"
"No," he replied, "I am asking you a question."
"Why does it matter?" she spat, tripping over her own feet as her knees turned to water. His breath caught in his throat and he dashed forward, catching her by the arm. She shoved him away and he could feel the backs of his eyes begin to burn. Did she hate him now?
"They still live under your roof, have your name. You are the one they call papa, and they'll look to you to choose their husbands for them. Not him."
Nile set his mouth in a thin line and he crossed his arms. "I will not be choosing their husbands," he said stiffly, "that practice hasn't done us any good now has it?"
It was a bitter remark, the sort that was better directed at Levi Ackerman or the like, but he couldn't help himself. He couldn't lose his daughters. He wouldn't lose his daughters.
It was in that moment that Marie felt a surge of shame wash over her. Had she not just told Erwin that she had wished for the children to be his? She had. She had wished to take the three girls, and one unborn child, away from their father, away from a good man who treasured them, just to satisfy her own feelings of a romance long dead.
She had shut herself away for nine years, keeping her heart locked up for a man who had tossed away the key. She had allowed this husband of hers to use her body out of obligation and because he wasn't without his own talents. She had spent his money, run his household, allowed him to shower her with praise, affection, and the genuine happiness that he held out of pride for having such a wonderful woman at his side but she had never, not once, looked upon him with approval.
When he had chosen to work intelligence from the city, he hadn't done so out of fear or cowardice. He had chosen a position in which he would be able to care for his family—his wife and newborn child. He had endured the scorn of the combat veterans and the mockery of his own ignorant peers for her sake, and for the promise he had made to his friend, the man she loved.
For the first time since she had known him, she was unable to raise her head and look at him. He bore so much for her and what had she given him in return?
Heartache. Desperation. Insecurity.
"All four of them," she whispered, "every single one of our children has Dawk blood flowing through them."
It was exactly what he wanted to hear, but when he saw her face turn to ash, he wondered if he had been wrong to ask. Or perhaps she had been wrong to be so open about her attachment to another man. Or perhaps a part of both of them was wrong, and the rest was simply human.
"Are you satisfied?" she wondered, "is your pride in tact? Your legacy secured?"
"It isn't about that," he told her, taking the few steps towards her, pushing his hands into her hair and coaxing her face up to look at him.
"Then what?" she asked, "a rumor?"
"It is because they are my daughters and they love me unconditionally," he said, his voice a pained quiet. He grit his teeth, steeling the words that spilled from his mouth, "and they are the only part of you that will ever love me."
His words hit her like ice and she trembled in his hold. The baby, his baby kicked and she choked out a sob. With shaking fingers she took hold of his face, rising up on her toes to press a kiss to his lips, the first token of affection she had ever offered him. She felt him stiffen, unaccustomed to her initiating physical contact, but when she didn't pull away immediately, he took hold of one of her hands, lacing his fingers with hers and giving her a reassuring squeeze.
"You are not Erwin," she breathed against his skin.
"No," he agreed, "I will never be Erwin."
She wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her head against his shoulder and allowing him to sweep her up into his arms.
"I'm tired," she sighed, closing her eyes. He muttered something sweet into her hair and began the ascent up the staircase and to the master wing of the estate.
In his arms, Marie could feel sleep pulling at her already and she was willingly submitting herself to it, the clarity of her surroundings fading, the only thing standing apart from the muffled footsteps and her own thoughts was the heartbeat of her husband, a comforting sound that she found herself focusing on.
Nile was not Erwin. Nile was Nile.
He was a good man.
He loved her.
Unconditionally.