New Asgard, way back when

"Thor, could we have a moment of your time?" Loki handed Stian over to the Valkyrie, who immediately whisked her little Revenger to the balcony. Ever since his latest near-death experience, Loki had been very reluctant to let their son out of his sight, and the moment he was strong enough to walk, there was no separating the two.

Stephen indulged him of course, and it had nothing to do with the cloud nine he had been walking on ever since Loki accepted his cleverly-worded proposal. Absolutely nothing, he thought dreamily.

But he had to confess, the prospect of breaking the news to Thor did fill him with the tiniest bit of dread.

Better Thor than Odin, Loki had said, in his attempt to assuage his fiancé's apprehension.

"Is it urgent, Brother?" Thor gave Loki a distracted smile. "It's just these trade treaties need signing or we will not be getting the beer in time for the festivities to greet the harvest in."

"I –" Stephen caught himself. "We have something k-iinda important to tell you."

Thor's hand stilled around his quill. "You're not unwell, are you, Brother?" His nose flared.

Thor slammed his quill down, sending splatters of ink all over his antique King Louis XV writing desk.

"Are you dying again?" he demanded.

"What? No!"

Stephen sighed. "I think we'd better sit down for this." He gave Thor a tight, sickly smile. "May we sit down, Majesty?"

"Of course," Thor assented. He warily studied Stephen's antsy, almost anxious countenance for a few seconds, before shifting his attention toward his brother. His eyes narrowed suspiciously at Loki's particularly ruddy complexion. One would not think by looking at him that just two days ago, his brother had almost exsanguinated to death. Again. Within the same month.

It was a record, even for Loki.

"Loki, why are you blushing?"

"What? I'm not! I'm just, ah…hot. It's ah…kinda warm in here. Don't you think?" Loki turned helplessly toward his fiancé. Unsure of what to do, Stephen half-thinkingly grabbed for his hand as he tried to find the words to say; they seemed to have all left him – he had rehearsed them too!

Thor gaped. Unaware of what he was doing, he began thumping his fist against the table. "Stephen."

Stephen's lips bared into neither a smile nor a grimace, showing his clenched teeth. "Yes?"

The thumping grew louder. "Did you get my brother pregnant again?"

"Oh, for Norn's sake." Loki rolled his eyes. He stood up, hand still in Stephen's – "Thor."

Stephen scrambled to his feet. He had to say it first!

"Stephen and I are engaged to be married." "I have asked Loki to marry me."

Damn it! He glared at Loki.

"About time." Thor coolly picked up his quill again.

Stephen and Loki stared at him, dumbfounded.

Well. Loki may be flabbergasted, Stephen was simply relieved all his pieces were still in one piece.

"So…do we have your blessing?"

"As King of Asgard, or as your brother?"

Loki's eyes softened. "You were my brother long before you became my King."

"Thank you, Loki. You don't know what it means to me that you have come to ask me for the blessing of your union."

"Of course I would come to you." Loki said softly. "I have no one else."

After a short eternity,

"And you shall have it." Thor's eyes were wet.

He turned his attention once more toward Stephen.

"I trust you will care for my brother, and all your children by him, and never betray, hurt or give up on him, and that you will agree, should you breach any of these conditions, to waive the rights to your own head and you will grant me leave to separate it from your body?"

Stephen's throat went as dry as sandpaper. "I will."

"And there shall be no amendment to this vow you have taken in front of me today?"

Stephen turned his head slowly to look Loki right in his beautiful eyes. "No, there shall not be any amendment to this vow I take in front of you today."

"Well then." Thor held out a hand to Stephen. "Welcome to the family."

"T-Thank you, Majesty," he almost stuttered. "I ah, won't let you down."

Nothing could have said 'We'll see' better than Thor's raised eyebrow.

Stephen and Loki quickly excused themselves and hurried for the door before Thor could have a turnabout and change his mind –

"Oh, and Loki." With a wince, Loki halted in his steps.

Thor spread a hand, gesturing at the ink-splattered documents strewn across his desk. "Can you do me a quick favour and do something about this mess?"

Loki sighed and exaggeratingly trudged toward the table, and was about to wave a hand to magic away the stains, when suddenly Thor rose from the chair and threw his arms around his brother. Startled, Loki almost stumbled, but Thor fiercely hugged him, and Loki's arms slowly rose to gently cup the back of Thor's shoulders.

He heard Thor whisper in his ear, "You chose well, Brother."

Loki nodded his chin into the flesh of Thor's shoulder. His eyes welled. "Thank you, Thor."

New Asgard, Present Time

"Hey, you," Stephen managed, his voice thick. "Welcome back."

"Stephen," Loki murmured. He tried to open his eyes but they were heavier than lead. From the beeping sounds around him and the feel of hard mattress on his back and the needles in his hands, he had a fairly good idea where he was.

"I'm here." He felt Stephen's lips brush against his, but he could not muster the energy to purse his lips to respond. He felt so weak, his muscles cramping and screaming in pain as though he had run an entire day without stopping.

"Stian?" he whispered.

"He's with Thor and Valkyrie, don't you worry."

"Can't…let him…see..." Loki's eyes were mere slits; the lights were too bright, much too bright – "The curse…"

"What?" Stephen's forehead furrowed. "What curse?"

He ran a shaky hand through Loki's tangled hair. "There is no curse, Loki. It's your blood pressure, it's shot up and causing a shitload of problems."

Loki nuzzled his forehead into Stephen's palm. "Hmm?"

"Remember the thing Christine told us to look out for?" Stephen's voice was soft, lulling. "It ended up happening. You had a seizure."

"The baby?" He remembered falling, remembered Aífe shifting inside him like a tempest –

"She's hanging in there, for now. But there isn't any time to waste." He knew how much Loki had wanted a normal delivery this time around, but delivering the baby as soon as possible was the only definitive treatment, and he could not afford taking the risk, not when Loki's blood pressure was off the charts.

"Once Christine gets here, we will deliver her, and you will be just fine."

Stephen kissed Loki's knuckles desperately. "You'll be fine."

"What…" Loki squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered. He breathed out a sob, "My head, Stephen..."

Stephen's face was white with fear as he massaged his thumb along the back of Loki's ear. "Shh, try to relax. This will all be over soon."

"I feel strange," Loki said dimly. "Like I'm…un-underwater..."

"He's seizing again!" Somebody shouted. And a flurry of activity flocked toward them and an oxygen mask was quickly placed over Loki's face.

"Give me IV Clonazepam 2mg, quickly!" Stephen ordered, snapping back into autopilot mode. He wrested Loki onto his left side. After a minute passed with the convulsion showing no sign of ceasing, "Get ready to intubate. Dr Banner, can I count on you?"

The desperation in Stephen's eyes was all the push Bruce needed. "Of course."

"Stark?" He whirled around to find Tony hanging up his phone and giving him a thumbs-up.

"That was Pepper. She's got the surgical as well as the paediatric team assembled, all ready to go."

Tony could not take his eyes off Loki, whose entire body was locked in tetanic convulsion, veins prominent against his long neck, stretched and taut. Was Loki even breathing? "Anytime, uh, anytime you're ready, Doctor."

Christine hugged him fiercely. "How is he?"

"He's on maintenance IV magnesium sulphate on maximum dose, but has had two episodes of breakthrough seizures, arrested with benzodiazepines both times. Hasn't shown signs of magnesium toxicity, but we might have to add in phenytoin if he continues to fit," Stephen rattled off. "Blood pressure's labile, but so far hydralazine's keeping it more or less under control. Labetalol's out of the question, it makes him wheezy and drops the oxygen sats."

Christine may look like a saint, but she worked like the devil. She took one look at Loki and something in her face changed. "The Paeds Team here?"

Wong too, could move like the wind if the situation called for it. "Wong's portalled them all in. The neonatal team is ready."

She stared at Loki, whose intubated and stuporous form was a far cry from the terrified but brave, very brave, (despite his panicky babbling) Norse demigod from Outer Space she had met five years ago.

She would take babbling Loki over this deathly-still Loki any day.

"Push him in. Now."

Little Aífe stirred in his arms, content after her first feeding. If Stian had been tiny in Thor's arms, his sister was even tinier, but Thor could not have been gentler. He could fit her entire head in his palm, and Thor could swear his breath caught in his chest several times as he marvelled at the miracle Stephen had placed moments ago in his arms.

"She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," he murmured. If Stian had the glossiest black hair, his niece had a full head of hair in the softest shade of auburn, Loki's high forehead and thin lips, and the most startling grey eyes, much like Stephen's piercing own. "Her hair is the most unusual colour."

"She takes after Donna," Stephen murmured. At Thor's inquiring gaze, "My ah…My late sister."

Thor stared at him with an indescribable expression on his face, and it took Stephen ages to realise what it was. Stephen had lost a sibling, one that was clearly very much beloved for Stephen to have never talked about her, never mentioned her…until today.

Perhaps now they had finally found one thing they had in common.

"I'm sorry, Stephen." Thor regarded his brother-in-law, his newly-found kindred spirit with a gentleness that had never really been there before.

"Don't be," Stephen said softly. "She's…she's looking down on us. From wherever she is. I'm sure of it."

Thor only nodded, and would have said something else had he not been distracted by a tiny hand tugging on his cape. He looked down and smiled. "Would you like to hold her, Stian?"

"Please, may I, Uncle Thor?" Let it never be said that Stian was not the politest boy in the universe. A master of words, just like his Pappa. "Can I hold my sister, Daddy?"

"Of course, buddy."

"What do we call her, Daddy?"

"Aífe."

Stian's lips worked around the name for a little while before finally trying it, "Eva?"

Stephen hesitated, before planting a kiss on top of his son's head. "Close enough."

To his utter horror, Stian began to cry.

His little boy had always been somewhat of a bawler despite his sweet disposition, but this time his tears slid down his snow-white cheeks silently without a sound.

"Oh Stian…" Stephen wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "What's the matter? Why are you crying?"

Thor moved to take Aífe out of his arms but if anything, Stian tightened his hold possessively around his little sister. "I'm trying to be strong, Daddy."

"Poor Eva." Stian nuzzled Aífe's cheek tenderly. "You only have me and Daddy, now, Sister."

"Stian." Stephen's heart began to thunder in his chest. "What are you saying?"

"Pappa won't wake up." Stian sniffed.

The tears had stopped. He was a strong boy alright. "The wolf got to him. He's never waking up."

Stephen reared back as if stung, his face drained of all colour. Thor was equally stunned, dropping into his chair like a stone.

As if on cue, came a soft but urgent knock on the door. Christine stuck her head in. "Stephen, a minute?"

Stephen shone his pen torch into Loki's pupils. He had nothing against Christine's impeccable clinical skills, but he simply had to see it for himself…and true enough, Loki's pupils were unequal and poorly responsive to his light.

He swallowed hard against the hard lump in his throat.

"We haven't been able to extubate, his respiratory efforts were very poor, and his GCS has dropped from 12 to 8 within the last hour." Christine halted. "I think he's coning –"

"Don't." Stephen said roughly. "Don't say it."

No.

"Stephen."

He ignored her. He grabbed Loki's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, and upon receiving no response, he squeezed it again harder, hoping against hope that Loki was in there somewhere, somewhere Stephen could still reach him, that by a stroke of magic or miracle he would somehow respond…

But alas, Loki's fingers lay limp in his grasp, giving not even the slightest twitch.

"We need…we need to move him." Strangely hollow, Stephen felt rather than heard himself mumble, the tips of his fingers tingling with a peculiar, icy numbness. "We need to move him to another facility, somewhere equipped with neuroimaging."

He took a deep breath and the numbness receded only slightly, his head clearing only a fraction. "A CT scan, or MRI."

"No, we don't." Tony crossed his arms. "Your CT scanner is arriving in approximately half an hour."

Stephen stared at him. Now the numbness had somehow spread to his face. He could not for the life of him speak.

"Ask, and it is yours, remember?" Tony reminded him lightly.

Stephen was still staring at him, having been rendered utterly speechless.

"Well, I know you didn't exactly ask but," Tony hesitated only for a millisecond, "Your ex was already ahead of you." He nodded at Christine. "Sorry. Not that I was snooping or anything." Christine gave him a tight smile – "I caught her asking around, calling hospitals around Oslo, Bergen…Stavanger… but I doubt you would want to move Loki, not in his condition."

Tony shrugged casually. "So I just went out and bought one."

"Stark…" A run-of-the-mill CT scanner could cost up to a million dollars, two million for a bigger one and Asgardians weren't exactly tiny people – "I can't possibly ask you to do that."

"You're family, Stephen," Tony stressed. "And that makes Loki family too. By accidental extension."

"Besides, didn't you hear?" A lop-sided grin. "I'm Uncle Tony, now."

Screw it, Stephen, a voice said. You don't ever look a gift horse in the mouth.

Stephen's arms moved on their own and found themselves grabbing and pulling the billionaire into a tight embrace. "Yeah. Yeah, you are."

The hug Tony returned was equally fierce. "There's no getting rid of me now, Strange."

"Apparently not." Stephen snorted, not unfondly. "Wouldn't even dream of trying."

"Wong."

Wong grunted, as he concentrated on his healing spell. Stephen stole a glance and had a feeling he was wearing the same alarmed expression his friend was wearing on his usually impassive and calm-under-pressure face.

"Is it just me, or is he rejecting my magic?"

"Something is blocking our healing energies, Strange," Wong said tersely. "I can sense a foreign magic barring us entry. And it's not Loki."

"No. That – this cannot happen." Stephen swallowed hard. His face felt hot with the achingly-familiar rush of adrenaline. "He has bled inside his brain, Wong. We need to break the clot if we have any hope of relieving the pressure on his brainstem."

Wong said nothing. His mandala dissipated. He sat back a second and stared at Loki's face. He pulled back his eyelids and studied the bloodshot eyes where the conjunctival vessels had blown in Loki's series of seizures.

Wong tried again, this time with a different spell, to counteract the foreign magic he could feel brewing underneath Loki's scalp, but again his magic was met with a dense, vault-like wall.

"It's like steel-reinforced concrete. I can't break through." Stephen heard the first hint of panic in Wong's voice and as hard as he tried to let it pass over him like water, he felt his gut sicken with a cold, raging fear.

"So it's true then. It's a curse." Stephen echoed Stian's words. "The wolf."

"I have felt this energy before. Four, five years ago."

"Where?"

"I felt it on you." Wong was sure of it. "This dark energy, it is similar to that of the Sorcerer you fought, the one who gutted you from the inside out."

"Orri."

He remembered it now, the sheer agony of magic so dark it had taken him almost a month to be entirely rid of the lingering pains in his stomach. Abruptly, Stephen lifted his hand off his husband's forehead. "Loki never mentioned any curse."

What have you been keeping from me, Loki?

"It's going to take me some time to try to undo this curse. I will have to go back to The Sanctum." Wong gathered the courage to meet Stephen's eyes.

"There is no time," Stephen whispered sickly. Loki's intracranial pressure was steadily rising by the hour, any longer they would risk permanent brain damage, and inevitably, death.

"Stephen…" Wong said in a tone somewhere between placating and warning.

"There is no time!"

The rage exploded within him, exploding in a blast of chaotic energy that overturned a trolley filled with various surgical instruments, sending them crashing to the floor. Bruce and Thor who were watching from the observatory barged in.

"Strange?" Thor demanded. "What happened?"

Seeing nothing but red, Stephen slammed a fist into the wall with a cry of sheer frustration, and stalked out of the room.

The remaining men stared at each other in shock and started as the double doors to the adjoining induction room slammed shut with a bang.

Stephen did not need to turn around to see who it was that had followed him in his fit of tantrum.

"Thor…" He shut his eyes, and placed his hands on his hips. ""Now…now is not a good time."

"You seem to be upset, Brother."

Stephen barked a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. "Upset."

He whirled around and hissed, "Upset?"

"Loki is dying, Thor!" Stephen shouted. "He gave birth to our second child and did not even get the chance to hold her and now he is dying from some intracranial bleeding that I cannot fix due to some obscure curse by a dead Sorcerer that he never even bothered to tell me about!"

"And that surprises you?" Thor was astonishingly calm. "He has been doing that on a regular basis ever since we were children."

Stephen's hands fell away from his hips as his shoulders began to shake, in grief or in fury, he could no longer tell.

"My husband is dying right in front of my eyes, and there is nothing I can do." Stephen sounded almost weeping.

Thor felt something in him harden. "I have never known you to sell yourself short, Strange. Certainly not when Loki's life is as stake, as it has been many times before, ever since he met you."

He marched forward to twirl Stephen around to face him. "Look around you. I am not so blinded by my love for my brother to be deluded into thinking that their presence here is solely for the sake of my brother." Thor pressed his index finger gently on his chest. "They are here for you."

"And I believe they are still here because they believe in you, that you will get through this," Thor laid a hand on his stiff shoulder, "And get Loki through this, as you have done before."

Stephen palmed his eyes. "I don't know what to do, Thor," he whispered his confession.

Thor was quiet. "I think you do."

"When you first came to me asking for Loki's hand in marriage, I agreed to it readily because I was hoping some reverse psychology would give Loki second thoughts about marrying you, but…" Stephen glowered, and Thor sniffed, not looking the least bit guilty. "You make him happy."

"And that's all I ever wanted for my brother." Thor gripped his shoulder. "Someone who loves him and accepts him for who he is."

Stephen was still wrapped in his own cocoon of hopelessness and delusion of worthlessness. "My hands are useless. My magic is useless."

"It was never your magic that Loki needed, Stephen. He has plenty of it of his own." Thor covered his shaking hands with his own. "It was your humanity."

"You have saved my brother time and time again," Thor reminded him fiercely. "Even when you thought all hope was lost."

"You never gave up."

Stephen's eyes welled. Thor saw, and with no hesitation, gathered Stephen in a one-armed embrace, cupping his large hand around the back of Stephen's neck.

"No amendments, Stephen."

Stephen shuddered. He took the longest, deepest breath he could.

He squared his shoulders and looked Thor in the eye. "No amendments."

"Now, brother-in-law." Thor braved a watery smile of his own. "Are you ready to get back out there?"

"I think it's time to call in old favours, Strange."

Stephen laid a hand on Loki's forehead. He hoped Loki was dreaming the sweetest of dreams, that no nightmares or pain had followed him where Stephen could not reach.

Or the wolf

He inhaled deeply. And nodded his head.

"I'll make some calls." Christine squeezed his arm.

"No, I'll call him." He reached out to catch her wrist as she turned.

"What will you say?"

"The truth. That my husband is in a coma with a massive intracranial bleed that requires urgent neurosurgical decompression, and that I am in desperate need of his help."

"You have changed."

"It's not about me, Christine."

"It's about Loki. And everyone who cares for him. And everyone who needs him." Stephen's eyes stung, but he refused to let the tears come. He had to be strong. Yet his voice broke, "Our children."

Stephen wanted nothing more than to taste Loki's lips but the respirator was in the way, so he settled for a gentle kiss on his cold, cold forehead. "My pride be damned."

Dr Nicodemus West thought he had seen everything, having worked in one of the busiest departments in one of the biggest hospitals in New York City, dealing with gunshot wounds to the head, traumatic brain injuries, what have you.

But when a peculiarly-dressed Asian man accosted him on the way home after a long shift and forcefully ushered him (he refused to say kidnapped, such negative connotation to it, since Christine did tell him beforehand what was going to happen, and what to expect after all) into a ring of fire, from which he emerged not only unscathed, but unscathed in Norway –

Yeah, he had not seen everything.

Now he found himself in a palace of some sort, expected to perform brain surgery on an Alien Prince, who also turned out to be the husband of Stephen Strange. The Stephen Strange.

He was immediately whisked into the surgical suite.

"Dr West."

"Dr Strange." Stephen nodded. "It's been a while."

The scans went up. Nick whistled. "Tricky." He peered closer. "Impressive."

"Right?" As weird as it may sound, Stephen felt very proud of Loki's brain structure and its vasculature. Not so much the expanding clot that was impinging on his husband's brainstem and bringing him closer to death's door by the hour.

"How should we approach this? Decompressive craniectomy?"

Surprised at the courtesy Strange was showing him by asking his opinion instead of ordering him what to do, Nick felt his tight chest loosen and his anxiety dissipate. "I think it's feasible to do it less invasively."

"Endoscopically?" Stephen sounded surprised, and more than a little impressed. "Can you do that?"

Nick nodded. "It would not be possible if not for his unique anatomy. I can enter from the occiput, make sure the trajectory doesn't run far off course, evacuate the haematoma, and come out again."

Stephen studied the scans as if debating the merits of foregoing the traditional and adopting the unconventional method, but his eyes finally softened. Loki was far from conventional. And Nick…

In his absence, Nick had become the maverick, if his recent track record was anything to go by.

"Go for it, Dr West," Stephen consented.

Nick turned to finally look at him.

The last he heard of the former neurosurgery maestro was that he had become a recluse, squandering all his fortune on treatments, orthodox and unorthodox alike, to restore his hands. And not long after, it was as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth, and Nick had spent countless nights wondering what had become of Dr Stephen Strange, the fear that his failure had somehow driven his former colleague to suicide keeping him from sleeping.

"I'm glad to see you're still alive."

"I'm…flattered."

"I suppose you'll be observing?"

Stephen was quiet. "Would you rather I don't?"

"Depends." Nick shrugged. "As long as you don't wear a watch, I don't really care one way or another."

All awkwardness and tension broke as they both burst into chuckles, despite the seriously dire situation.

"God, I was such as an ass."

Nick was quiet. "You were."

"I'm sorry."

"It's forgotten." Nick inhaled deeply. He waved in the direction of the OT. "Shall we?"

It went without saying that the surgery was a success.

Stephen had watched with bated breath as Nick's skilled, steady hands manoeuvred the endoscopes through the unfamiliar anatomy of Loki's brain with a confidence Stephen had not seen in a fellow neurosurgeon, having last seen it in himself.

Nick commanded a full visual control despite the minimal exposure conferred through the tiny burrholes drilled into Loki's cranium, and when the massive blood clot finally appeared on the video monitor, Stephen could feel his breath stagnate in his chest.

Nick looked at him and inhaled deeply, as though urging Stephen to emulate, and he did. Only when Stephen had exhaled, were they both calm enough to proceed. "Ready, Dr Strange?"

"Ship's all yours, old boy," Stephen breathed out shakily. The thrill had never left him, and he watched transfixed with a deep sense of melancholic nostalgia as Nick blasted the clot and sucked it out in one try. He irrigated the haematoma cavity and coagulated all the bleeding vessels with an expertise Stephen had once commanded himself.

"Fantastic." Stephen had shaken his head in amazement. "Fantastic job."

And how Nick had smiled…

Now they stood at the mouth of the portal, Asgard on one side, New York on the other.

"Again. I'm sorry."

"And again, it's forgotten, Dr Strange," Nick finally gave him a small smile. "You were…a necessary evil."

"I'm flattered." The Sorcerer Supreme straightened, and told Nick the one truth he could no longer deny. "And you were mine."

Nick's smile widened and this time, it was genuine. "I take that as a compliment."

Never in a million years could he have imagined such a reunion, and as Stephen stood facing his former colleague, his once arch-rival, and almost-friend, it dawned on him just how small and insignificant their rivalry had been in the grand scheme of things.

"I did everything I could." He knew not if Nick meant the irreparable damage to his hands all those years ago, or the emergency procedure he had just done to relieve the pressure on Loki's brain, or perhaps both, but whatever it was, the desperate plea for approval in his words was something Stephen could no longer accept – it sickened him to admit it but it was something the old Stephen would have gloated over.

"I know you did, Nick."

The Stephen of now knew to count his blessings, for what could he have possibly done to deserve all these people in his life who were leaving no stone unturned to help in his desperate time of need was anyone's guess. And in hindsight, he had blamed Nick West for the loss of his hands when he should have thanked him instead.

Stephen held out his hand. "Thank you."

Nick stared at the hand not a moment too long before he accepted it. "You take care, Stephen."

"You have a beautiful family," was the last thing Nick said before he stepped into the portal. "You're very lucky."

Stephen's sad smile remained long after the portal flickered out into nothingness. "Don't I know it."

A/N:

Some references to the Dr Strange movie in case you haven't watched:
Dr Nick West was a fellow surgeon pre-accident Dr Strange used to make fun of because he found him inferior. In a critical scene when Dr Strange needed to remove a bullet from a patient's head, Nick's watch was ticking so loudly in the deadly silence of the OT that Stephen requested him to cover his wrist because it was distracting his genius.

Some terms:
Haematoma - collection of blood, usually congealed

Endoscope - long, probe-like things with a camera/cutting instrument/sucking port/water port at the end, used in minimally-invasive surgeries, when you don't want to cut people up so much.

Neurosurgical decompression - procedure done to relieve the pressure when the brain gets compressed from blood, swelling, fluid, tumour etc.

Coning - as the brain is encapsulated in a rigid skull, it doesn't have much give at all. So due to whatever reason mentioned above, any region of the brain can become compressed because it's so squishy and if it is the brainstem that is compressed and herniated, then you're in deep trouble because that's where all your main controls are i.e. breathing, consciousness, heart rate, blood pressure.

Chapter title is a Josh Groban's song I was listening to the entire time I was writing this. I should have listened to something happier...Now I have to go watch Ragnarok again for some happy.. T.T