A/N: Please read and review!
"Clark?" Lois whispered when they looked out the window of Watchtower. The pale creatures with pointy ears and very sharp teeth turned to stone. "Those elves. . .they're dying. . .I think."
The elves each let out a collective groan, and they turned to stone. Cracks spread across each stone elf before they turned to dust. All the elves were soon gone.
Clark, still in his red and blue, watched the scene below them. "What happened?"
Chloe stopped her constant watch over what was happening to turn to the two of them. "The others were knocked out by wherever the big gigantic tree was. They're slowly waking up. Hawkman and Hawkgirl. . ." She listened to the other end of communications, and she looked pretty. . .un-Chloe-like. "Jonathon saw what happened. It. . .he. . .will need his parents."
Jane had to be pulled from her daughter, and even then, she still struggled against whoever was holding her back. She could barely hear what Thor was telling her. All her attention was on Tara.
Jonathon Kent scooped her daughter into his hands, ignoring her blood. He wore the same look she had when Thor saved her and others from the Destroyer when he was with her.
"Why did she have to do that?" Jane found her voice. "Why?"
No one chose to answer her. Even so far removed from the world, they could tell that Tara's sacrifice saved the world. Somehow. The tree, which at first looked old and withered, began to grow newer looking, almost revitalized, and the pond beneath the healed roots was crystal clear and shone with a hidden light, and there was no evidence of the dark and mold and then later bloodied water of before.
Thor picked up his hammer, and he carried it at his side, grief written across his face. He may not have known his daughter, but he grieved as much as Jane.
"She blocked us," he told her. "It should have been me, Jane. I am deeply sorry."
Odin could feel Yggdrasil as it was healed, and he felt a sense of relief. He stood next to Heimdall who stared across the slowly healing Bifrost.
"Your son grieves," Heimdall said. "He lost his daughter when she died to save the World Tree, and he grieves with her mother."
Odin was shocked when he could first sense the child of the mortal woman his son was so fond of. He should have been able to sense her birth, maybe then she would have received a proper upbringing instead of being tainted by the mortal world. He felt. . .nothing.
She wanted to scream! Scream! How dare that spawn interfere! It was the perfect plan. Revenge against Odin for her exile when Asgard would fall to Malekith and his followers once Midgard was securely within their grasp. The foolish mortal woman would be long dead, and Thor would have been hers after she comforted him over the loss of his woman, realm, and family.
That. . .that girl ruined it all! It was not fair.
Amora took several calming breaths as she waited for her newer associate. Malekith could not get what she wanted, so she went on to someone else. Someone who hated Asgard and Odin just as much as she.
"I know that you know the hidden pathways that even Heimdall is blind to," she said. "I will create your armies, and you will get the throne that should have been yours."
Her new associate smirked. "I was beginning to wonder when you were going to involve me. My brother is blinded by his grief, and he blames his father for not stepping in to aid her. Perhaps the fallout of your failed plan can be useful to me."
Jonathon laid Tara down on the hospital bed, and even though she was bloodless pale and covered in her own blood, she looked like she was sleeping. He ran a hand through her hair with a certain amount of regret. Over the few hours, he realized that there could be a future for the two of them, an interesting future.
It was the look in her eyes when he talked to her after she picked up the hammer. Impressed mixed with shock. She saw him as arrogant, at first, not really seeing that he was genuine, but when he talked to her, she realized that she misjudged him. She looked almost tenderly at him before they were transported to that place.
He heard his parents walk into the room. His mother wrapped an arm around his shoulders into a hug, and his father finished the small circle. There they stood, sharing the grief.
There was only one thing he obsessed about. Why did she do it that way? Why did she not use the hammer? She set it down before she aggravated the older woman, why?
Jonathon did not pay attention to the very, very faint heartbeat in the room.
Gaia watched it all, and she felt a great, great pain. All the worlds were saved by Touron's sacrifice, but she grieved. Tears rolled down her face even as Yggdrasil was healed. She could see the half Asgardian, pale and almost serene looking, and the young man with a just as storied family as hers watched over her.
A faint green glow surrounded Touron as Gaia let go of her shielding, and the blood of her blood became just as her bloodline should have made her. She became an Asgardian that she should have been in death.
Lightning flashed across the sky as her chest began to rise and fall, and the thunder began to boom in time with her slow and weak heartbeat.
White. . .she was surrounded by bright light. She could faintly hear her mother's tears and her father's yells, and she felt guilty for taking the action that led to her death.
She felt no pain, only a certain calmness, but she felt anxious. Not restful, not even close.
A plan. There was a plan. Using her father's grief and rage against her grandfather in a quest to take the throne of Asgard through bloodshed. Jealousy and anger. He should have been king. . .that same woman. . .
"Wake up," a voice told her. "Wake up!"
