A/N: Shuang 'Susan' Lei, Harry Percy Fawkes and Ilsa Tresckow are Fighter, Warrior and Wizard respectively. Ainz the Lich King is indeed from Overlord, another series I dislike.
On the nights when Susan 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 her tears, to him, were too accustomed a sight.
"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 "I got you into this wretched 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 poor Ilsa Tresckow died."
"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, I know I couldn't have survived what they did! I'd never have fought again. I would have hung myself, a broken beggar, and that would be the story of Yip Lei's daughter! I'm no hero. Every time we saved the world, I was an imposter."
With the look that had been in his eyes when he killed the dragon, Harry was suddenly above Susan, looking her in the eyes.
"Love, love, you could have got through it, you can't know you wouldn't!"
"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 heart 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 had the same talk many times, in bed or in the lobby of a palace. Some dragons took more slaying than others, but heroes fought down the little voice of fear. Harry wasn't expecting 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.
"I think, dear one, I'm ready for us to make a baby."
