Life
"Alexandra?" The voice came from miles away. "Can you hear me?" It echoed inside her head, oddly metallic and flat. She recognised it, but through the pain, she couldn't place it.
Yes, she thought, all control over her own voice long since burned away.
"Then you must focus, and you must listen." A man's voice; imperious. That meant something, but she didn't know what. "I can help you, but it is your choice to make." She knew the voice now. Odin. It was stronger, even if it still sounded like it was coming through a badly tuned radio. Behind his voice lurked another. She couldn't hear the words it said, just feel the fear and panic leaking through.
What choice?
"Life or death. You can let go, and the end will be painless."
The other voice came through clearer. "No! She cannot—"
"Or you can choose life. It will not be a mortal life. That way will be closed to you forever."
Death without ever having truly lived seemed no choice at all.
Life.
"As you wish."
The burning altered, cooling down, though the cold hurt as much as the heat. The Tesseract's energy didn't lift, but instead burrowed deeper, a knot of frozen fire in the pit of her belly. She took it, and took it, and took it, drinking it down, wondering if she was going to die after all. The power spread to every cell, a cold blue light she was going to drown in.
"Changing. Not dying," Odin said, but it didn't make the agony any easier to bear. She wanted to keep hiding inside herself, sheltering in her head away from the torment wracking her body. Things had been better when her senses were broken, but now they were repairing themselves, turning the volume back up on the pain. She could hear herself screaming again, and others screaming around her, the protesting voice yelling, "No, no, no!" It was hard to focus on who and what, though, when it seemed as if every nerve had been skewered with a needle.
The power changed again, warming, and she became aware of her heartbeat thundering in her ears. The knot of power pulsed in time with it, and there didn't seem to be any more flowing into it. When she reached out, instinctively, for the link she found only empty air. Her nerves numbed, her lungs painfully full as she began to breath again. Her heart refused to slow, blocking out all sound except the booming thud thud thud of her pulse. The blue behind her eyes faded to splotchy grey.
Then, mercifully, all became black.
Someone was sobbing, and Alex was fairly certain it wasn't her.
She was lying on her back on a hard, glassy surface, and she'd have moved to get more comfortable if every single fibre of her being didn't ache so badly. All she could manage was a flutter of her eyelids.
Black sky above. Fingers curled around her own. Odin's grave face. She was sure he was not the one holding her hand.
"Asta…" came a whisper, choked by tears. She should recognise that voice, she really should. It was the one who'd been so adamant against her choosing death. It took a second attempt at opening her eyes before she could put a name to the voice, and to the other crying figure. Loki and Frigga. They and Odin knelt by her side, while Thor watched over from a short distance away. They were all ringed by the Valkyries—dozens of them now—kneeling with their heads bowed in her direction.
She lay on the Bifrost, dimly aware of how empty the sky was compared to when she'd taken control of the Tesseract. How quiet it all was—the frenzy of the battle had been replaced with a smoky hush. She wished to sit up, to explore how else the world had changed, but that was beyond her capabilities for now.
"You have done a great thing," Odin said. "You have saved us all."
"She did a stupid thing," Loki spat. "A foolish thing, and you should never have allowed her to." He leaned over, his face filling her vision. "I told you to never put yourself in harm's way, and what did you do?" She flinched away from his anger. Hands found his shoulders, trying to pull him back back, but he wouldn't be moved. "Were you still so eager to escape me that you'd risk your life?"
"No." The word took all her concentration to say, and her throat protested, still raw. "Chose life."
His anger folded in on itself, just like it had that day in the meadows, and she could taste the salt of his tears where they dripped onto her skin.
"She needs to rest, Loki," Frigga murmured, covering their entwined hands with her own. He made no indication he was going to move until Thor came over to crouch beside Alex, readying to lift her.
"I'll do it," he snarled, sliding his arms beneath her, cradling her against his body. He lifted her and the Valkyries rose too, the sentries of death following as an honour guard.
She let her eyes drift shut and her head rest against his chest, her skin oversensitive but thankful for the warmth he offered. She faded out again before he'd taken two steps.
A/N: Short but sw...um, yeah.
Sorry, once again no teasers. *flees back to hidey-hole*