Though nothing, nothing will keep us together

We can beat them, forever and ever

Oh we can be heroes, just for one day

I, I will be king

And you, you will be queen

Though nothing will drive them away

We can be heroes, just for one day

We can be us, just for one day

We Could Be Heroes- David Bowie

The library was one of Mallory Keen's favorite spots- though she'd never admit it to anyone. There was something peaceful about the smell of the tattered pages of books and leather, the creaking comfort of a well-used chair, and silence. When she had first started visiting the library, it had been to study up on books of war and tactics. Now, however, she liked to visit a different shelf every so often and read everything in it. Some were worse than others- she had voted to put the Romance section last. Tawdry tales of sexual encounters with unrealistic fictional people sounded like a special kind of torture she was hoping to put off until Ragnarok came and she hopefully died without having to read any of it, But overall, it had been entertaining. She'd made it through the fiction first, most of it going quickly and easily. The next shelf, however, she found herself staring down encyclopedias and text books that could probably be classified as weapons for all their weight, and she was starting to feel a little intimidated.

"Need some help?" Augh. Gunderson. She was bound to run into him here eventually. He was working on his PhD or some such nonsense and that required library time and textbooks. She had managed sometimes to avoid detection in the library by going on days when Gunderson and Jefferson had been killed later in the afternoon- usually siege days-, so that she could be sure neither would be around while she explored and read to her heart's content. They'd show up at dinner time none the wiser about how she'd spent her afternoon; probably assuming she trained as she did most afternoons. But mostly she went late at night after her hallmates had gone to bed because she often woke in the middle of the night with nightmares. Mostly the same thing over and over- her mother's death, or the car bomb, the pain exploding in her eyeballs over and over until she woke up screaming.

And so she supposed he must be up late working on his paper and she just hadn't noticed him when she came in.

"Not from -you-." she retorted, rolling her eyes, "I'm surprised you even know how to read. How do you see through all that hair?"

Her words seemed to roll right off of him, as they always did, and he shrugged, "Suit yourself. Try not to stab any more of them with your knife. The librarian was quite put off having to replace the last one."

Mallory froze, her eyes opening wide. How had he known about that? That had been -years- ago, and she had been certain she'd hidden it somewhere no-one would find it. And how would they know it was -her- anyhow? She had gotten so frustrated with the ending of that book, she'd had to put an end to it. Since then, she'd learned to keep her knife in her pocket, rather than on the table.

"I saw you do it, Mallory Keen. I was in here working on my Master's thesis."

The girl scowled, angrily grabbing the nearest book off the shelf and opening it to somewhere in the middle, as though she had only been looking for the book she'd left off with and not a new one altogether, "Don't you ever sleep?" she snapped.

"Don't you?"

Mallory bit her lip. The dreams were still too fresh in her mind and she was finding it difficult to come up with biting retorts, "Not really," she admitted. Even on nights she didn't go to the library, she usually ended up waking up and training until she passed back out.

Halfborn gave her a quizzical look, "Why not? I'm working on my thesis, and that takes up my evenings. But you…"

"Can't sleep," she grouched, pretending to be engrossed in her book. It was some kind of anatomy text, as it turned out, because the picture she turned to on the next page had her making a face, "Gross."

She may have been trying to ignore him, but she was feeling quite unsuccessful as he got to his feet, looking down at her until she felt she had to either meet his gaze or run out of the library screaming.

"Why do you have so much trouble sleeping?" She tried to pretend the concern in his voice was obnoxious- he knew she could take care of herself. There was no reason to be so worried.

Mallory's eyes narrowed, as she glared angrily at the page in front of her, "What do you care?"

"I care."

He was sitting across from her now, and she lifted her eyes to meet his at last, ready to snap a retort. But there was a softness in them that stopped her in her tracks. Her heart beat so fast she felt like it might burst, her breathing hitched, her cheeks red as she found herself admitting the truth, "I have nightmares. They wake me up, so, I come here and read sometimes to get my mind off them."

Halfborn nodded thoughtfully, "happens to most of us…" He stood up, walking over to shut the books he had been referencing and pick up those along with his notebook, "Come with me, Mallory Keen."

She wanted to hate the way he always said her whole name, but she didn't. Vikings, from what she had read so far, always used both titles. It was something of a form of respect. She knew that Halfborn found T.J's insistence on being called only by two letters exceedingly strange, and so she let it go. And in fact, had come to enjoy it. It was like his own particular nickname for her. She did hate the way he was attempting to order her around without explanation, however.

"Where are we going?" Why was she going with him at all? She hated Halfborn Gunderson! He was infuriatingly rude. They fought near constancy most of the time- he had funny ideas about how women should behave if they were off the battlefield and she had spent the better part of the past several years trying to rid him of them.

And yet. He looked at her with such gentleness sometimes. It had been a long time since anyone looked at her like that, not since her mother died when she was a child. And frustrating as it might be sometimes, she believed him when he said that he cared. And so, against her better judgment and in strict violation of her oath to never let anyone close to her again, she followed him out of the library.

"When T.J. first got here, he had nightmares as well," the Viking explained, "this worked for him, til they went away."

Mallory rolled her eyes at him- it was hard to imagine T.J Sunshine having nightmares, "So you have some kind of magic nightmare cure?"

Halfborn grinned widely at her, setting her heart fluttering again and she cursed her body for betraying her. Smiles like that ought to be illegal. "Something like that."

Before long, they were on Hall 19 and Halfborn opened the door to his quarters, motioning to her to enter. She gave him a hard look, "I don't think-"

He shrugged, "We could go into your quarters instead…"

"No!" she cringed at her outburst, hoping T.J didn't hear it and wake up. She did not want Gunderson in her room, to be sure. He'd see her pictures, her stuff...no. Setting her jaw with determination, she entered his room.

It was dimly lit, and smelled strongly of grass. Most of the room was one large area with a campfire in the middle, with the bathroom, kitchen, and sleeping area all more 'sections' than rooms. The campfire seemed to be the only lighting in the place, and there was a mattress on the floor for a bed. Weapons were placed all over the walls, with books on a small table. She focused on these rather than on whatever it was that Halfborn was doing.

It turned out that he was only sitting on the bed, and he cleared his throat for her attention, motioning her to sit in the chair next to it. She sat, watching him curiously, "What… ?"

He smiled again, and began to sing. The girl shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She hadn't known Halfborn was a singer, though she supposed with his gift for languages she couldn't be too surprised. But what exactly was she supposed to be doing while he sang? And how was it supposed to help her nightmares go away?

She settled back with her head against the wall, watching the flames of the campfire flicker. Halfborn must have grown up in a hut like this. She'd read about that sort of thing in history classes, of course, but the reality was a completely different thing. It looked...warmer than she had expected. Cold stone walls, maybe, but lit by dancing firelight that made it feel more homey.

Halfborn's voice was a soft hum in the back of her mind at this point, and her eyes were starting to feel heavy, but she refused to fall asleep, instead tilting her head to examine the weapons. She'd seen him use most of them already, of course. Some more often than others. He preferred his axes in general, but she had seen him use sword and polearm and halberd. She'd even seen him use a bow and arrow occasionally- usually during dragon days.

Her eyes fell on a strange looking weapon by the table with his books and things, and she paused her examination for a moment to contemplate it. It was long and wooden, with a hook like end. It didn't look particularly dangerous. The shape of the hooked end kept it from being properly useful as a staff, and there was no metal for slashing or even a tip on the end for piercing.

"What is that one for?" she asked, jerking her chin sleepily in that direction. Halfborn paused a moment, and she turned to meet his gaze. A sad look had come over it- something she'd never seen before, and privately hoped she never would again.

"It is a shepherd's crook," he advised her quietly, "not a weapon. I brought it with me from a mission very early in my days in Valhalla."

He looked so forlorn that she dare not ask any further questions, but instead dragged herself from the chair to take a spot next to him on the bed, nodding solemnly, "A memory."

He nodded, quiet, and she nudged his shoulder with her own, "Go on and sing again."

There was that softening of his gaze again, and she decided not to cut his arm off when he wrapped it around her shoulders and began singing again. Her eyes went to the fire again and before long she found her cheek had drooped onto his shoulder and her eyes were closed and before she knew it she was deep in slumber.

For some reason, she was waking up to the smell of campfire and leather and...sheep? With a start, she was on her feet, knife at the ready. A bundle of blankets now at her feet stirred, and she kicked it before charging towards the door.

"Ow! Whoa, hey, Mallory Keen, calm down!"

It took her another few seconds for her heart to stop pounding long enough to realize the voice was Halfborn Gunderson's, and a deep flush crept up her cheeks as she realized that she was still in his room, "I fell asleep in here?" it was a rhetorical question. Of course she had fallen asleep, "why didn't you wake me?"

He shrugged, yawning and stretching as the blankets fell off him to expose his bare, hairy chest. During battle, she hardly noticed or cared that he was shirtless. Her mind was on slicing and slashing and surviving, then. But, in this more...intimate setting…

The pink in her cheeks grew darker as she pointedly looked away before he could catch her staring at him- why did he have to sleep half naked? Oh gods, please let him be only -half- naked. If he was about to climb out of that pile of rags nude as the day he was born, she was pretty sure she would die right then and there. This whole situation was ridiculous. Mallory Keen did not fluster and fawn over boys like this! She was a warrior!

"T.J always fell asleep in here too. Said it helped to have the company. I figured it'd be better to just make up a bed for myself and leave you be."

Mallory turned around as he got up, afraid to see what he might or might not be wearing, and shook her head, "Now I have to sneak out before T.J wakes up and sees me."

She could hear the grin in Gunderson's voice and reached for the dagger she kept in her shorts before realizing he had taken it out before lying her down on the bed, "Wouldn't want him to get the wrong idea, hmm, Mallory Keen?"

The redhead spun on her heel, "I don't think T.J is stupid enough to think I would do anything of the sort with such a...a…." But her words died on her lips because she was looking at him again and Odin but he was a solid block of muscle and hair, wasn't he? At least he did in fact have on pants- even if they were garish boxers and hung loose on his hips in a way that made her heart beat even more rapidly.

She spun around again. He could keep her knife. She had more. She couldn't do this right now. She needed a shower and some coffee and a gods damned sword with which to stab the heart out of his furry chest so that maybe her own would stop beating so loudly in her ears. She slammed the door behind her, with Halfborn laughing ever more loudly as she left.

She was running again. Not away- never away. Mallory Keen always ran towards danger, rather than away from it. Particularly when others were in trouble. The clock was ticking down, tick tick tick, red letters spelling out the end of her life as she tried desperately to find a way to stop it. It was all her fault- why had she fallen for his charming words? At least she'd managed to warn everyone. Maybe some of them would still die, she didn't know, but she was going to do her best….she picked up her baseball bat and started hitting the stupid bomb underneath. Maybe if she could just break it….boom! Red red red flash, flames, searing pain, feeling like her eyes were exploding…

She gasped, sitting up in bed. Car bomb again. Years of this dream, and her mother's death interspersed occasionally with the hot blood of battles fought and won here in Valhalla, and she was still waking up nearly every night. She climbed out of bed, sighing. Mallory had spent the past three weeks avoiding the library in the evenings rather than risk running into Halfborn Gunderson again. But this was getting ridiculous. It was getting harder to get back to sleep- the past few nights she'd only had a few hours before the nightmare set in and then she'd been wide awake training until breakfast.

Sighing, she threw the blankets off of her legs and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching for the photo album at her bedside. She flipped through the pages. Pictures of her as a baby, toddler, little girl. The pictures all but stopped after her mother died when she was seven. The only photos after that were from softball team photos or Judo class, or the school newspaper. It was the same album that had sat on her bedside for ten years before she'd died and she had burst into tears the moment she saw it sitting in her room alongside her mother's sweater, her stuffed bear, and the curtain of threaded colored glass separating her bedroom from the living area.

Mallory's fingers traced the familiar lines of her mother's face briefly, then slammed the book shut, setting it on her bedside table again. Bare feet padded on the floor as she pulled a pair of sweatpants on underneath her night shirt and walked out of her room. She'd been putting it off- but the truth was that the only night she'd slept through without having nightmares in the past few weeks had been the one when she'd fallen asleep in Halfborn Gunderson's room. He'd said that T.J. no longer had nightmares...so if the only way to be free of them was to suffer through Halfborn's singing for a few nights...well, she was willing to try it at this point.

She tapped on the door to his room, cringing as she did so. She really, really hoped that T.J was a sound sleeper. The last thing she needed was for him to come out here and ask why she was trying to get into Halfborn Gunderson's room at midnight. Not that T.J was stupid enough to think she had other reasons, of course. She was certain he wasn't. Because she didn't have other reasons. She just wanted to sleep again- the deprivation was starting to show in her ability on the field. She'd been killed so much more quickly the past two days...and there, the door was opening and there was that stupid Viking with his shirt off and his boxers so low she could almost see...she jerked her eyes up to meet his as he rubbed sleep from them, a small smile on his lips,

"Can't sleep?" his voice was soft, not nearly as teasing as she had expected and it caught her off guard as he opened the door wider for her to come in. She was still too tired and too flustered and drawn in by that look he'd given her, and now his hand was brushing hers, twining his fingers through hers, and she found herself actually pulled towards him rather than just metaphorically.

It caught her off guard, and she stumbled into his chest, looking up at him with a scowl that faded the moment she saw the warmth of the smile he was giving her, "well, if you wanted a hug…" he wrapped his arms around her, and if she wasn't already so unbalanced she would have stabbed him with the knife in her sweats, but as it was, she let him squeeze her tightly.

He smelled like leather and metal and sheep, just like his room and her senses must have been briefly overwhelmed because she could not stop staring at him, mouth agape, "Halfborn Gunderson!" she protested weakly. He laughed, and the sound woke something in her, so that rather than punching him in the face as she normally would, she eyed him curiously, "why are you doing this?"

He shrugged, "You stink on the battlefield when you don't sleep." his voice was teasing, and he let go of her, motioning to the bed, "You can sit there if you like. Better than passing out in the chair- first time T.J fell asleep in that chair, he gave himself a concussion falling out. It was pretty funny, but then you'd have to stay awake until it healed."

Mallory nodded, sticking her hands in deeply in her pockets and settling on the mattress, her legs crossed,

"I do not stink on the battlefield. Ever."

Gunderson laughed and sat next to her, shoulder-to-shoulder.

"And put a shirt on! Or at least some proper pants!"'

The laugh got even louder as he shook his head, "Am I distracting you?"

The girl gave him a scowl that might curdle milk, but had little effect on the boy who'd been on the receiving end of it for so many years already, "No. But a shirt will give you a little more protection when I decide I've had enough of your warbling and stab you until I fall asleep."

He bumped her shoulder with his, "You could always go back in your room with the nightmares."

She shook her head, pulling her knees to her chest, "all right. Point made. Go on with your Viking voodoo."

His face became soft, wistful, "it's not voodoo. They're lullabies. We used to sing about everything- bed, meals, battle. It helped tie us all together."

He draped an arm over her shoulder, and she decided not to remove it, because he was warm and she was exhausted. Instead, she let her head fall onto his shoulder, closing her eyes, "You should sing a battle song on the field some time. You're not a terrible singer, and maybe you'd fight better."

Halfborn's chuckle was a rumbling sound that she found comforting now that she was warm with firelight flickering against her cheeks, "Perhaps I will."

And then he started singing. A quiet, soothing tune that had her yawning quickly enough. She felt him shift after a few moments, gently settling her sideways onto the bed and getting up to make up his own sleeping arrangements as she drifted off to sleep to his gentle humming.

This time, Mallory remembered where she was the moment the smells hit her nose. She was still on her side, having had no dreams that she could remember and so not thrashed around all night long the way she usually did. Halfborn seemed to be still asleep buried under his pile of blankets, and she carefully climbed out of bed, watching for a moment as they rose and fell with his breaths.

Why was he being so kind to her? He'd said he had done the same for T.J, but it was easy to be nice to T.J. She even did it herself sometimes- T.J was a fun and friendly variety, off the battlefield. But she? She'd never been anything but bitter and angry and hateful. She'd never had more than a couple of friends after her mother's death, and then after the car bomb...well, she had sworn since Aaron's betrayal that she'd not let anyone that close again.

But, this was different. She wasn't going to fall in -love- with Halfborn Gunderson, despite what her stupid teenage hormones might think. Wouldn't it be okay to just have a friend, though? To actually -be- a shield sister to him and T.J? At least behind closed doors? It didn't mean she had to stop razzing them- both of them did enough stupid things to give her material for the rest of their afterlife. And wouldn't it be easier to face eternity without keeping completely to herself? They were put into these groups for a reason. She was supposed to trust these boys with her life. It would probably be a lot easier to do that if she maybe, just occasionally, let them know she didn't really hate them.

"Morning."

His nose was barely poking out of the blankets before he greeted her, and she watched as he cleared them away, not looking at her, "sleep okay?"

She nodded, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But nothing happened. He climbed out of his blanket pile wearing nothing but his boxers again, and she felt her ears turn fiercely red, but chose to ignore it. Sighing, she tossed her mane of red curls and blew one out of her face, "Why are you being so nice to me?" she asked, biting her lip and finally catching his eyes as he rubbed the sleep away. The Viking shrugged, "You are my shield sister, whether you like it or not."

Mallory Keen got to her feet, bare toes digging into the dirt floor, "Thank you."

His arms were around her again, and she sighed, but accepted it, "You are welcome, Mallory Keen. Any time. Day or night. T.J. and I are here for you."

Mallory returned the squeeze tentatively, and then pulled out of his arms, "now, no offense but I have to pee, so I'm heading back to my room. See you at breakfast."

Her cheeks furiously red, she left the room, closing the door just in time to see T.J. turn around and smile at her from across the hall.

"Nightmares?" he asked. She nodded, the warmth on her cheeks making it clear to her that they were as bright as her hair.

The civil war soldier tilted his head to the side, "If you ever want to talk about it...just, y'know, remember that Halfborn and I have been through a lot, too."

Her eyes narrowed briefly in skepticism, but he put his hands in the air in a motion of surrender, "Hey, if you're not ready, that's cool too. We have an eternity, take your time."

Mallory nodded, though she still had a hard time believing anything in T.J's life had been less than sunshine and roses. She knew, realistically, that he'd been fighting in a -war- long before she was born, and there were horrors associated with that she'd only come to know in the past ten years. And that his mother had been a slave, his father had been Tyr...and so, giving proper credit, his life had probably been as difficult as hers, if not worse. Still. He always seeemd so -cheerful-.

"And we won't think any less of you," T.J. was rambling on, "Nobody who's ever met you would think you were weak at all. It's okay to have feelings sometimes…"

Mallory put a hand on his shoulder, meeting his eyes for what was probably the first real time since she'd gotten there, "One day," she promised, "But not today."

The boy nodded, smiling, "I know. But, when you're ready."

She let her hand drop from his shoulder, "I'll be back out for breakfast. Try not to miss me too much."

Author's Note: Hello there! I know this is not great, but it's better than everything else I've written in the past year, so I'm trying out publishing once again. I promise more T.J in the next chapter, and slightly less fluff with a lot more backstory. I've already got a good chunk of this whole story written so hopefully things will be posted very quickly before my muse runs away. Overall going to be pretty fluffy Gunderkeen stuff, but I want to explore the family/friendship aspect and I'm pushing myself to do some exciting adventure stuff too! Obviously this will end up AU since I'm going into backstory stuff that will likely be expanded on by Mr. Riordan and be completely different from this. So yeah. And yes, I gotta work on my transitioning. And a lot of other things. Still, progress!