A/N: This is my first time participating in a ship week and I realize I've never written a fic with baby eremika in it so basically, shame on me. My installation to day 4 of Eremika AU Week: Family

Rating: T

Genre: Family

.: Magic :.

"Daddy."

"Yes, baby?"

"Where do babies come from?"

Eren Jaeger is used to facing a lot of things in life: titans, gore, blood, violence—death, even. But nothing could prepare him for the question his daughter asks him that morning, a question that stalls his breathing and makes alarms go off in his head.

Panic.

What the hell is he supposed to say?

His eyes flicker to Mikasa, who's quick to return her gaze to the freshly-washed vegetables she's chopping up for breakfast. Where his eyes scream terror, hers twinkle with delight. She's enjoying this. The smile that strains her rosy lips proves it.

Eren drops his gaze back to his child, raising a brow at the genuine curiosity that beams in her small, inky eyes. She's a reflection of her mother, a replica in every sense. The only facets of her that resemble him are the tiny dimples on her cheeks, and her stubbornness.

There's no way she's letting this question go unanswered. No way at all.

"Well, that, my love," he croons, tapping her nose with the tip of his finger, "is a very good question! Why don't we ask your mother?"

Perfect.

The burden is no longer his.

Their daughter whips her head around to face Mikasa (who's quick to fix Eren in a glare, to which he responds to with a wink of an eye) so quickly that her pigtails bounce back and forth of either side of her head.

"Mommy?" the four-year-old implores. Mikasa offers her her warmest smile.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Where do babies come from?"

"Uh…" and she'll be damned. Mikasa remembers asking her own parents that question. She remembers even asking Dr. Jaeger once. But what were their answers? To her adult mind, they seem like a blur. So much time has passed—too much.

"Well, you see…" Mikasa begins, clearing her throat and setting down the knife in her hand by the cutting board. "When a mommy and a daddy really love each other, and they both feel that they're ready to start a family, the daddy puts a baby inside the mommy's belly, which then takes nine months to grow and comes out of the mommy and into the world."

Eren nods his approval, and their daughter's tiny lips part in a soft gasp. She seems to love the idea, accepting it with grin that dents the two small holes on her cheeks. At that moment, she's all Eren's.

The parents sag with relief, resuming their previous employments. Mikasa cuts up more vegetables, Eren keeps polishing the wood of the new dining table he's just built. Their daughter lingers where she stands, quiet.

She seems to think. Silence is dense in the air around them, pierced by the sharp thumps of the cutting board meeting the knife, the crunch of the vegetables being sliced to pieces. The silence grows even denser until—

"But…" Oh, please no. "How does it come out?" Damn it.

"Good question!" Mikasa chirps. "Ask your father."

Eren visibly cringes under the weight of his daughter's gaze.

"Daddy, how does a baby come out?"

"But your mom is the one who brought you into the world," he retaliates. Mikasa aims the knife at him. Eren grins. "It's only fair that we let her answer that question."

"Mommy." Pigtails bounce. Inky eyes land on her. Mikasa lowers the knife she had been aiming at her husband, who's clearly enjoying all this with the way he chews on his bottom lip to stifle back a laugh.

"Well, uh…" she swallows, running a hand through her raven hair, searching for the proper words. Ignoring Eren's glinting eyes, she stares intently at her daughter, who waits patiently for her response.

"You see, honey," she sighs finally, "the mommy delivers the baby naturally through her body in a way that you're far too young to understand and—"

"Sometimes babies get cut out of the mommy, too."

"Eren."

"What?"

"You mean they cut the mommy open?!" Her expression is utter tragedy. Eren pats his daughter on the top of her head.

"Not exactly, sweetie."

"Doesn't she bleed?!"

"Oh, yes," he exaggerates, widening his eyes and leaning close in to spook her. "There's blood. Lots and lots of it."

She wrinkles her little nose, and Eren can't help it when he leans in closer to kiss it. She's too damn cute.

"I never want a baby."

"That's my girl."

"Eren..." Mikasa chides him, her expression going serious.

With a slight roll of his eyes, he sighs. "Okay, listen." It takes everything in him not to grit the words out through his teeth, reluctantly accepting the fact that someday in the future—in the far, far future—his daughter may want a family of her own. Meaning that she will be an adult one day. Meaning that she will no longer need to live under his wing. Meaning that Eren can't bear that thought right now and wishes that she'd stay this cute and small forever.

"Someday, when you're old enough," he tells her, picking her up by her ribs and sitting her on his lap, "a daddy will put a baby in your belly, and you will have a family and you will help your baby grow healthy and strong. And beautiful. Just like you."

"Or you may not," Mikasa adds, voice gentle and caring. "You may also choose to never have children. This is fine too."

"It's all up to you, honey," Eren smiles, cupping her chin. "You can have your own children, raise someone else's children, have a family with a man, or with a woman—kinda like aunt Ymir and auntie Historia! Remember them?"

"Mhm," she nods.

"So babies come from many places, not all necessarily the same," he explains, bouncing her up and down on his lap, his eyes going hazy with love at the innocence she stares at him with, absorbing all of his words with childish wonder. "But there is one thing that all babies have in common. You wanna know what that is, baby?"

"What is it, Daddy?"

"Love. Every baby is a gift to the world, and carries a lot of love in it. Having a baby is a beautiful thing."

Mikasa gives him a smile, and Eren winks at her again.

Score.

"But Daddy…"

Fuck.

"Yeah, sunshine?"

"How does the daddy put a baby inside the mommy's belly?"

"Uh…" He shoots a quick glance at Mikasa, who shakes her head as if to say don't you even think about it, Eren. "Magic," he decides. His daughter gasps, appalled.

"Magic?"

"Yup!"

"Is that how you put a baby inside Mommy's belly?" she squeaks, scrunching her thin brows together in a frown. "With magic?"

Eren scoffs and looks off into the distance. "Pretty much, yeah."

"So you're a magician?!"

"Of sorts."

Suddenly, the girl bounces off his lap to stand before him, raising her shirt to expose her round, pallid tummy and flatten a hand over the puny indentation of her belly button. With all the innocence in the world, she asks him, "Can you put a baby in my belly, too?"

"No-ho!" Eren jumps. Mikasa finds it hard not to smile. "No. That's for someone else to do in the future."

"Someone you love," the mother says.

"And want to marry," the father says.

"Oh," the child breathes, disappointed.

"Yeah. Only big girls get to have babies in their bellies."

"Big girls like Mommy!" she screams, throwing her arms up in the air and squealing when her father stands to scoop her up into his arms and kiss her pudgy cheeks repeatedly.

"Exactly!" Eren grins, bouncing her weight in his arms to hold her better. "You're so smart."

"But, Daddy…"

The sigh that leaves his lips is weary, but he lets her curl her fingers around his chin and turn his head her way when he tries to face his wife for consolation, summoning a patience that only comes with being the parent of a child as curious as her.

"What?"

She points a tiny digit to her mother, whose eyes suddenly grow wide.

"Can you put a baby inside Mommy's belly right now?"

"Um—"

"Can I see?"

"Baby—"

"I wanna see the magic!"

"Shit."

Mikasa's too busy chortling to scold him for cursing out loud.