Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OC. All of this is still unbeta'd, so read at your own risk.
I was five again, picnicking with my mother in our garden. Sayang, she whispered, leaning over to brush a lock of hair behind my ears, you are going to grow up to be a very special person. But remember, no matter what you do, Mama will always love you. Mama and Papa and Grandmama and little Ian. We will always be here.
In the garden? I asked naively, sipping orange juice out of a gold-edged teacup as delicately as a five-year-old could. A fragment of dream-me frowned at the anachronism; Ian wasn't born yet, so why was Mama talking about him? But that question fizzled out of importance as Mama laughed. I loved her laugh.
She gazed at me affectionately. In the garden, in your head, and in here. She placed her hand over my heart, but then she began to fade, dispersing into the sunlight. The last bit of her to go was her hand, which left a spot of warmth in my chest.
A slight breeze rustled through the leaves of the saga tree I leaned against, plucking bright red saga seeds from their pods and gently raining them down on me. Catching a seed in my palm, I realised that it wasn't a five-year-old's palm, any more; I was in my SHIELD catsuit, battle- and blood- stained. The saga seed fell to the ground, unheeded, as panic bubbled in my throat.
Calm down, young one.
I whipped my head around to see a woman, clad in a cloak of falcon feathers, lounging lazily on my porch swing. She looked like she was expecting my confusion, because she smiled at me reassuringly and got up. The sun glinted off a bright gold torc that she wore around her neck, and I felt that I should have known her, just for that necklace.
She took my hands in hers. I am Freyja, Goddess of love, war, and death. You are in Fólkvangr, the field of the host.
But we're in my garden. My home is right there.
Her smile turned mysterious. All gardens know each other.
A thought hit me, as bright and hot as lightning. Am I dead, then?
Her reply was kind. I'm afraid so, young one. You're here because I receive half of all those who perish in battle; the other half is claimed by Odin. You may stay with me in my field, before passing on to the great beyond. Alternatively, you may leave and join the einherjar. In her wisdom, the Lady Skuld, both Norn and Valkyrie, has offered you the burden of choice. For the first time, I noticed a young woman, clad in black and silver armour, standing by my front gate. She did not move to acknowledge me, but I knew that she was observing the proceedings very closely.
If I go with the Lady Skuld, will I be brought to Odin's halls?
Freyja nodded.
I will become a warrior of Asgard?
Freyja nodded once more.
The concept of becoming immortal was both appealing and dreadful. On the one hand, I could return to my family, resume life, and, possibly, be with Loki – if he still wanted me. On the other, I would have to watch my friends and family grow old and pass on without me. As I mused on this, part of me registered that my heart was still radiating a pleasant heat from my mother's touch.
Freyja and Skuld waited in the echo of my family's garden, watching me weigh the scales of my mortality with old, knowing eyes.
At first, I thought that I must be in the heart of a star. Gold was everywhere; palely translucent in the air, bright and brassy in vague shapes that solidified into furniture upon a second look, dark and burnished in the silk sheets that tangled in my legs.
Blinking rapidly, I tried to crank myself upright, but a hand clamped gently over my wrist halted my struggles. Startled, I tried to snatch my arm away, but I was too weak to break free of even that loose hold.
"Kate."
I froze. Was that my name? With mounting horror, I realised that my memories were blurred; melding like slurry into each other. Certain things stood out – a family laughing over a dinner, a dance of bullets in the air, a redheaded woman with cool eyes, and a man – he was blue, and he was pale, and he meant something to me.
I turned slowly to meet green eyes.
The man from the chaos of my memories was dishevelled and exhausted. He was now pale, but purple bruises ringed his tired eyes and his skin was so pallid that blue veins were clearly visible. A fleeting, agonised look crossed his face when he realised that I didn't remember who he was.
"Kate," he repeated, voice breaking. "I have failed you. I am so, so sorry; I should have protected you better, I should have been faster, I should have never let you go in the first place. Kate." And then he bent over my hand, hiding his face as his shoulders shook.
Overcome by his distress, I placed my other hand on his head, trying to soothe him, but not really knowing what I was doing. To comfort him felt like the most natural thing in the world.
"It's fine," I tried to say, but my voice came out hoarse and scratchy. I tried again. "Don't – don't be upset. I'm ok."
He raised his head, but kept his eyes shut as he fought to control his feelings. I let my hand slip down to cup his face. Too thin. I ran my thumb against the knife of his cheekbone, catching a tear that escaped from one traitorous eyelid. Unconsciously, my hand slid further down his neck, and a niggling concern led me to ghost my fingers under the open collar of his too-large shirt, reaching towards his right shoulder.
My fingertips brushed fabric bandages. The man inhaled sharply.
An iron javelin in his shoulder. Blood on the ground, blood on his shirt, blood bubbling from an open wound like lava from a volcano.
A volcano. Guns. A portal. An explosion.
"Loki," I gasped.
His eyes snapped open.
"The disorientation will last for a couple of days. You will get all your memories back in time." This second voice was female; low, musical, and belonging to an older woman with silver hair coiled into a mass of braids atop her head. She stopped at the foot of my bed and swept the man – Loki, I reiterated to myself – a curtsey. "Your Highness, you should be resting in your quarters. I believe that I gave you my word that I would inform you when the Lady Katharine woke."
Loki seemed not to hear her. "Kate," he began, lowly and rushed, "I am so sorry that this is your lot now. I know that becoming immortal was never your intention. I am sorry that I have condemned you to a life of battle and war when that was the last thing that you wanted. Forgive me, Kate." He was desperate, now, clutching at my hand. "Forgive me."
Fragments of a dream flashed through my mind – serenity in the heart of an inferno, a garden in a web of gardens, an old, gnarled tree dotted with red seeds, and two women, arms outstretched.
I chose.
"Loki," I breathed, savouring his name in my mouth, "I chose this. I chose to do what I did, and I chose to come back. Whatever happened was not your fault." I paused, struck by a wave of remembrance. "I can live with battle, as long as I can live in a life with love in it; I had so much to return to."
Neither of us noticed Eir leave in a silent swish of green silk, half touched, half uncomfortable with the level of emotion in the room.
I thought of Nat, constantly looking out for me despite her personal disapproval of some of my riskier manoeuvres. Darcy, going through my clothes when I first moved into Stark Tower and tossing everything she thought was too boring. Stark, whose obnoxious façade hid a genuine concern for the people around him. Pepper, exacting, but thoughtful. "I have friends."
Images of my brother playing with his aeroplanes, my mother gently rocking me to sleep after a nightmare, my father teaching me how to drive, my grandmother's hand over mine as she guided me in chopping up pineapples for achar. Kisses goodnight and goodbye hugs. "I have my family."
I kept my eyes steady on him as more memories flooded through – Loki, the wild animal in a trap; Loki, patient but demanding; Loki, gentle and fierce. Loki. Loki. I leaned my forehead against his. "I have you."
Loki exhaled, his breath fanning across my face. I closed my eyes. Nothing else needed to be said.
I was moved into apartments near Loki's as we both recovered from the aftermath of our skirmish. There were scars on my torso from the fire demons' arrows, but the burn on my back healed clean. Loki's shoulder, while still tender, was almost completely knitted back together. He'd taken to supporting me if I needed to amble around to get somewhere (like the bathroom), because the transformation from mortal to Aesir was still happening, and my body was slowly transforming into a more durable version of itself. The entire process took about three weeks to complete, leaving me an aching, winded mess in the interim. It kind of felt like I'd finished running a 30 kilometre marathon at a dead sprint, but without the copious amounts of sweat involved.
Thor came to visit on the third day after I'd regained consciousness, after I'd badgered any person who came near me to tell me what had happened to the rest of SHIELD's forces. From what I'd gathered, I'd been brought to the palace a day after my death by a host of Valkyries, and had been in a healing coma for a week. There was a lot of stuff to catch up on.
In sum, the casualties were not as heavy as they could have been, he reported. Thirty of the two hundred SHIELD agents mobilised that day were dead. Without Banner, that number would have probably been much higher. According to Thor, the Hulk had cut a swathe through the entire left flank of the advancing fire demon army, scattering their battle formation and taking out any giant that was dumb enough to get in his way. Stark and Clint had picked them off from above, while Rogers led the infantry charge, Nat by his side. Thor had engaged in a bloody, extended fight with Surtr himself, eventually pinning him to the ground with Mjolnir. The remainder of the fire demons surrendered after his defeat, throwing their weapons down bitterly. They were transported away (to a holding prison on an Asgardian outpost, Thor said) promptly via Odin's magic.
Apart from a couple of broken ribs, burns, and a wealth of bruises and cuts, the Avengers had escaped largely unscathed.
That evening, I bullied Loki into taking me out onto the grounds, where I floated thirty origami flowers (after Thor had left, I'd spent two hours furiously folding paper that I had demanded from a passing servant) into the river that led out of the palace and into the ocean that spilled over the edge of the world. He made a grumpy comment about me littering, but I hushed him. I hadn't been able to travel back to Midgard for the funeral service for these thirty agents. I didn't know them, but that didn't make their lives any less precious. They had died in service to their world, as I had. They deserved my respect.
As the flowers approached a grille in the wall that marked the boundaries of the palace, Loki made a wordless gesture, and they burst into flames, one by one. In silence, we watched each blossom of light bob along the current, the paper unconsumed by the flames. I wasn't surprised that he'd gotten his magic back. Taking a mortal wound for a mortal certainly counted as redemption. My throat tightened at the thought of mortality.
In the afternoon, I'd asked Thor if my parents knew if I was alive.
SHIELD had done as I'd hoped.
The agent that I'd ordered to get Loki medical attention, Agent Torres, had found that his burden was suddenly no longer there, having been spirited into the heavens by a golden flash of light. He still proceeded to where the quinjet hovered, and once on board, radioed Hill to report that the portal's guard squad had been neutralised, Agent Goldberg was securing the site, and Agent Lee was shutting the portal down from the other side. With some measure of regret, he informed her that since the remote detonator had been destroyed during the skirmish with the guard squad, it was likely to be a one-way trip.
This impression was confirmed when Agent Goldberg radioed back, jubilantly proclaiming that the portal had been closed.
When SHIELD was processing the administrative work in informing the families of the thirty deceased agents of their loss, Agents Goldberg and Torres insisted that they break protocol and let my family know that I had died so that the mission would succeed. The last that Thor heard before coming back to Asgard was that Fury was en route to Singapore to break the news to my family himself. He hadn't known that I'd been brought back as an einherjar until his arrival on Asgard that morning.
I had to go back.
After the last flower had drifted out of sight, Loki wrapped his good arm around my shoulders and herded me back into the palace. Like a sleepwalker in a dream, I let him lead me through a maze of corridors until we arrived at a set of double doors panelled in gold. I didn't need to be told that these were the king's and queen's apartments.
The guards on either side almost made to stop us from going through, but a glance from Loki quelled them. They pushed the doors open for us, and Loki swept us through.
Odin and Frigga (for it had to be them) were deep in conversation, but while they abruptly ceased their discussion, they didn't look surprised at our visit.
Loki let go of me to perform a stilted little half-bow; I was still too achy to curtsey, so I just spasmed a bow as well and hoped that it worked just as well. Odin raised an eyebrow, but Frigga just smiled kindly.
"Your Majesty. Mother." Loki's address to his father was still significantly cooler than his greeting to his mother. I resolved to talk to him about that later; the guy had teleported his son away from the heat of battle to get him proper medical attention ASAP. Probable assholery aside, that was a pretty good thing that he did.
Loki was still talking. "The Lady Katharine's family believes that she perished in the battle of the volcano. They are unaware that she has been returned to us as a warrior of Asgard. While she understands that her place is now within these halls, she begs an indulgence from the crown to allow her access to Midgard. The reconstruction of the Bifrost will be complete in several months, but she humbly requests that she will be allowed to see her family as soon as the transformation process is complete and she can travel safely via Your Majesty's means."
Odin's face was a study of polite interest carved in stone. "Does Lady Katharine have anything to add?"
Gathering up all my strength and boldness, I looked Odin All-father square in the face. "I chose to come back for my loved ones, Your Majesty. I am eager to see them and shorten their time of mourning, because they think that I am dead. No parents should have to live to know the death of their child. I would not inflict that suffering on them a moment longer than necessary."
Both Loki and I had been speaking to Odin, but it was Frigga who laid a hand on her husband's arm, exchanging a charged look with him. Beside me, Loki's posture tightened. I'd forgotten that he'd been thought dead after his fall into the Void.
Just as I was beginning to sway on my feet, Odin rapped his spear against the ground. "So be it. Loki, you will accompany the Lady Katharine on her return to Midgard." Loki caught me as my legs failed. Odin's expression softened, and Frigga stood to help Loki adjust my hold over his shoulders. "Take as long as you require."
A week and a half later, Loki and I were standing on the patio of my home, Odin having beamed us down into the driveway. We must have made quite a bit of a commotion, because I could hear footsteps thundering through the house as all of its occupants raced towards the front door to see what had landed on their doorstep. Loki was dressed in his full Asgardian glory, sans the helmet (I'd warned him that it was overkill), and I was in a silk gown embroidered with dragons – very princessy. I could get used to dresses like these. Words fail to describe how comfortable they are.
We both looked wildly out of place, but, for me, at least, it felt right.
Loki fidgeted nervously as the hopeful, excited chatter of my family got louder. I reached out and took his hand; after a moment's surprise, he curled his fingers around mine.
The door opened, and Mama, the first person I saw, burst into a flood of tears. Suddenly overwhelmed by a cacophony of shrieks, wails, and prayers of thanksgiving, I tightened my grip on Loki's hand while burying my face into my grandmother's shoulder as my parents joined in the group hug.
I was with the people I loved. I was home.
A/N: IT'S DONE! There'll be a sequel coming up, so stay tuned for that. Thank you guys for being so supportive; I really appreciate your interest in Kate. Let me know what you think about the end of this story/the story as a whole!
Sayang: Malay for love (both noun and verb). Like in Greek, there are different words for the different types of love in Malay. Sayang is purer, familial love; non-romantic in nature.
Achar: A cold dish of pickled vegetables and pineapples.
From what I dug up during the course of my research, Skuld is both a Valkyrie and a Norn. I thought that she would be the most appropriate Valkyrie to bring Kate to Asgard; she would, by virtue of her authority as a Norn, be able to grant Kate a choice as to whether she wanted to be immortal or not, and her name, Skuld, means shield.