Ok, so this was intended to be a one shot. But after seeing Thor II, I was forced to write this. I am still not giving much time to fanfiction, as my own story is taking priority, but when Odin All Father is holding you hostage in your own mind, you do what he says. There will be one more chapter, a look at Odin and his thoughts during Loki's two returns to Asgard in Thor: the Dark World. Looking forward to writing it and getting back to work. (dad gum plot bunnies getting in my head and refusing to leave me alone, I need a friggin' exterminator up there)

Odin hadn't been seen by anyone outside the royal family for six Asgardian days. He currently sat in the medical chamber where he had been during the Odinsleep, hunching in the chair where Loki had been sitting when Frigga gave him command of Asgard. There was an untouched tray of food on the side of the bed, and the remains of another on the floor some distance away, looking as if it fell victim to Odin's rage. His one eye was closed, but Odin did not sleep. No, he did not sleep. His mind was not far, though, simply in another part of the palace, a long time ago.

"Where are you, boy?" Odin said, trying to resist a smile as he searched for his youngest son, "You cannot hide from your deeds forever."

Loki gave no hints as to his location, so Odin looked everywhere, taking into account Loki's uncanny ability to fit into places not even a body that small should. When he did find him, he was jammed into a cranny in the wall, his wide green eyes looking up with plainly evident guilt. Clutched in his hands was a long, golden braid of hair. Odin looked down at the braid and then back to his son, again fighting against the urge to laughter as a look of dread came to Loki's face.

"It was an accident," the little liar said, his voice not showing a hint of the terror in his face.

"And accident," Odin restated, allowing himself a small smile at the thought.

One did not cut off an entire head of hair by accident. At the smile, Loki's dramatized image deflated. His eyes closed slightly, his posture straitened, and his hands flipped to hold the hair behind his back casually.

"Ok, so it wasn't an accident," Loki said, looking unconcerned and overly-confident, "I just don't like her, that's all."

"I see," Odin replied, leaning against the way beside his son and taking a similar posture.

He knew the boy was still lying, it was more obvious than before for all he oversold it, but Loki's tall tales amused him.

"I just think she should be as ugly physically as mentally," he said, giving his father a more daring display of rebellion than Odin had seen from him in some time.

Odin raised an eyebrow and gave Loki 'the look.' Loki visibly recoiled and shrunk again, this time much more convincingly.

"Why, Loki?" Odin asked in a quiet voice akin to the eye of a storm.

Loki swallowed hard and answered, his eyes flickering in and out of contact as he spoke. In most people, these shifty eyes were a sign of dishonesty, but Odin knew no better sign that Loki was being truthful.

"I wanted it," he answered, looking down at the braid in his hands.

Odin stood silently beside his son and waited until the pressure to ask the unspoken question was too much for the youth.

"What will my punishment be?" Loki asked quietly.

Odin looked down at his son again. The boy was staring thoughtfully at the braid of hair, running his fingers through the loose strands. Odin paused for a moment, the spoke.

"Well, firstly, you must apologize to the maiden," He said, earning a small huff of discontent from his young listener, "Then, you must do whatever is in your power to make right what you have wronged. That is how one earns the forgiveness of others."

Odin's eye opened, the ghost of a smile crossing his face as he thought of the result. Loki had taken him quite seriously, gambling with dwarves and casting magic to return the girl, Sif's, hair to her, though his spell had the effect of blackening the strands. Thor would simply have followed the girl and sheepishly repeated the apology until the girl surrendered and forgave him out of sheer annoyance. Loki, however, did things all the way and with flair. When he was told to do all that was in his ability that was what he did, whether in the way intended by his instructor or not.

Odin sat forward slightly and reached to his spear, using it to strengthen his sense of the magic in the room. If he concentrated in this way, he could still feel faint traces of the magic that was Loki's, a leftover echo of his presence in this room. He had been there frequently while Odin slept. Frigga's presence was only slightly stronger, and she had never left. His heart ached and he leaned against the spear. If he had given this much concentration to his son during his life, perhaps he would not be here, now, searching for the last traces of a loved one lost.

He knew he should have seen the signs. The All Sight gifted him was an odd gift indeed, for it only allowed a moderate view of the present or future but a perfect view of the past. He destroyed himself with thoughts of what he should have done when Loki asked about his parentage, or what he could have said when Loki began to argue with him. His son needed him, and he had not seen, had not known. This could not have come from nothing, Loki must have been in pain for much longer than the few mortal days of his final decline. Odin stood and paced slightly, his face reflecting the gravity of his mood.

Thor was exiled and changed in ways that Odin could never have predicted. He had grown, become a man in mere days. He confronted Loki and they fought, but he never lost himself to the rage of battle or surrendered his reason. He sacrificed something very dear to him for the good of a race he had invited to war but days before. Midgard, the land of mortals, had done this to him. He was able to learn there what Odin was…unable to teach him. He was proud of the strength his son showed, the character, but deep within himself Odin was ashamed. He had failed Thor. He had failed his sons.

Something broke inside Odin when Loki died. How had his quiet, clever boy fallen so far? What had he done wrong, what pivotal moment was it that destroyed his son? Odin remembered his son's last words with painful clarity.

"I could have done it, father! For you! For all of us!"

His gentle second son, the boy who came to him demanding to learn reality warping magic to repair the hopelessly broken wing of a bird his brother had thrown a rock at…the quiet, collected son he loved was screaming that he could have destroyed a world full of living things on his behalf. No, this could not be. This was not his son, this could not be…

"No, Loki."

A tear slid from Odin's eye as the moment relived itself again. He saw the look of betrayal, of surrender in his son's eyes. He watched the glimmer leave them. Then Loki opened his hand and calmly let go of his own life. Odin saw the eyes of the first Thor as he died, watched the life leave his own brother, and seen the deaths of countless men, but those eyes would haunt him forevermore, dead before death took them.

When he lost his first wife, his best friend, and his brother, here was no time to grieve. He was at war. He wept for them, yes, but he could not allow himself to be weak before his men. When he returned to Asgard, the people needed him even more and he forced himself to remain strong, locking any weakness deep within himself. He hadn't allowed himself to be weak in over a thousand years. After all, he was the All Father. He was Asgard, and without him and his magic, Asgard was in dire peril. Perhaps the reason he had been able to carry on was the balm he was given for those wounds. He had two sons, named for those he lost and carrying their spirits. He had another wife that he loved more dearly than he dared admit to himself. He could carry on, could be strong for them. And now, through his own reluctance to be weak, he had lost his child. He had failed in the worst way a father could. His own strength had broken him. He reached out again to the magic and pressed his face against Gungnir, weeping at the faintness of the traces.

There was no balm for this wound.

Thanks for reading guys, I'll get the never and (hopefully) final installment on this out soon.