Chapter Text
The reality of the situation comes home to roost when Tatiana leans forward, clasping her hands together on the table, and pauses before she raises her head to look at him before she speaks.
“So, on this you stake your pride and your reputation.”
It’s not a question and Keith realises what he’s put on the line to save the amnesiac doctor. Dot starts to speak up but a cold look from Tatiana silences him. She turns back to staring Keith down, waiting for an answer to a question that isn’t a question at all.
“Yes, I believe him.”
For a moment it looks like she’ll be content with that. Despite the way she’s phrased it, unclearly, deliberately so. He knows what this means if the doctor, Grisha Yeager, turns out to be anything less than he says he is. She leans forwards again and Dot cuts her off this time.
“It’s fine. Keith’s agreed to resign if it becomes necessary.”
Tatiana’s eyes narrow and then she stands up abruptly. She pauses deliberately, dramatically, at the door.
“There is no record of a Grisha Yeager in the central archive.”
She lets the door slam shut behind her.
Keith stares at Dot in silence.
“You knew that anyway.”
Dot punctuates the statement with a shrug.
“A man who drinks that much is looking to forget who he was.”
Grisha, the man Keith believed in, who he counted as a friend, marries Carla. The rest seems almost inevitable from that point onwards.
His troops die, in droves. He fails to come up with strategies that will save them. And the nobles start courting Squad Leader Smith instead of Commander Shadis. Everything is spinning out of control. He is clinging to his position as Commander, to an idea of having a purpose, desperately. But right now he isn’t sure that he has much of a purpose at all. He’d once dreamed of being exceptional. Now he’d just like to believe that he’d done something of worth with his life and that the lives of his soldiers haven’t been in vain.
So of course Erwin Smith comes up with a better plan to outmanoeuvre the titans.
This will be the last nail in the coffin. He has failed. So utterly, so completely, that he has wasted not only his own life but the lives of hundreds of others. The crowds who gather to watch his return from expedition after expedition look at him darkly and mutter that, despite his troops being mascaraed, he somehow always manages to make it home. But he knows why he always returns. He knows that in the heat of battle he is focused entirely on his purpose; he is careful of his positioning, he is sure of the swing of his blade, and he never hesitates, never flinches, and somehow that means he always wins through. A moment’s hesitation on the battlefield can be the split-second that leads to disaster so he never, ever, second-guesses his actions in combat. But his focus, his purity of purpose, also means that he doesn’t stop to aid others, he doesn’t think to sacrifice himself to save a floundering soldier either. And that makes him look like a monster.
He barely remembers granting permission for a suicide mission into the underground city but he knows he did authorise it. He can’t blame Erwin’s success on disobeying orders. Erwin had asked for permission and Keith knows he’d granted it without bothering to ask for further details. He’d been far too buried in his own worries to really care. And then he’d discovered that Squad Leader Zacharias had gone as well. That should have been grounds for him to say something, do something, but in the end he hadn’t. He’d probably ignored Erwin telling him who was going anyway.
The Survey Corps gain three new, exceptional, recruits out of that mess anyway. They are exceptional in their use of omnidirectional gear but equally rather reckless, and the only time Keith recalls anyone being quite so keen to risk themselves in combat was a long time ago. That reckless recruit had joined the Military Police in the end and had gone from being Tatiana’s shadow to becoming her successor. And Keith will have to talk to him today if he wants to try to make up some sort of cover story about Erwin’s new recruits.
Dot is already there when Keith is ushered into the office.
“We have some new recruits. The paperwork-“
“Has already been submitted by Squad Leader Erwin.”
“It has? Good, good, I….”
“Levi Ackerman; born in Mitras-“
“Ackerman?”
Nile Dok, Tatiana’s precious successor, smiles at Keith’s reaction; his smile has no warmth to it. Tatiana might have been terrifying in her own way but Keith had always known what to expect with her. This new Commander is something else.
“Why not?”
Dot shakes his head in something like disapproval but says nothing.
“Now, to the other matter. I’ll be blunt, Commander Shadis, you have lost control of this, and many other situations of late; this reflects badly on the military.”
“True-“
“I’m glad you agree. I believe there was some sort of agreement made with my predecessor which would facilitate your… removal from your post.”
“He agreed to resign! But it isn’t too bad yet.”
Dot breaks in.
“The medical association have no record of a Grisha Yeager.”
“That’s not his real name.”
Dot again.
“No doctor, trained by them, matches his description.”
“He saved so many lives during the epidemic.”
Keith says it quietly. He knows where this is going anyway.
“And for that reason alone he will not be interrogated.”
Keith sighs.
“What do you want?”
“Your resignation, Commander. And your endorsement of Erwin Smith as your successor.”
“Smith! He-“
“Do you have a better candidate?”
He hangs his head; he doesn’t. Then it occurs to him; Nile Dok had been friends with Erwin Smith. They’d both been in the same graduating class.
“You were in the same graduating class, weren’t you?”
“Your time is up, Commander. Resign or don’t; either way you will be replaced.”
“I don’t have a choice about this, do I?”
“Of course you do; would you like to live out the rest of your life tending to some other task or would you like to be buried as Commander? Suitable arrangements can be made either way.”
Dok’s tone betrays his amusement at the entire farce, and the finality of his decision.
Outside, in the sunlight of the courtyard, he feels Dot pat him on the arm. He’s not sure if it’s meant to be comforting or just a reminder that, despite everything, he’s still here. He’s survived.
“You made the right choice.”
Keith laughs, shading his eyes from the sun as he stares up at the skies, as if for the last time.
“Are you sure he’s not Tatiana’s bastard?”
Dot’s only response is to take a hefty swig from his flask.