"Faye?" Kratos whispers in a dry cracked voice.

A light stood off in the distance, just as it had in the light of Alfheim. Only this time, he was allowed to approach it without being ripped away. She materialized the closer he got to her. Her yellow dress ruffling gently in a wind he was unable to feel in this unknown location. Her hair was loose and disheveled from the draft. His favorite style he remembered. As if she had just woken up in his arms after a wild night of passion, or taken down after a long day of working outside on their house together. His heart begins to swell as he remembered their first encounter many years ago, the look of determination in her eyes as she swung her axe around. Right now, however, he recalled his favorite memories of her with her hair looking the way it did. The night their son was born.

His body was weak from poison but he forced himself to stand up regardless. Slowly he inched his way over to the light, to Faye.

"Truly?" He questions whatever higher power that was allowing him to look upon her again, sluggishly limping forwards.

Her sapphire blue eyes close and reopen slowly as she nods her face at him.

Kratos pushes through the aching pain his body had endured and began to run as fast as he could towards her. Engulfing her inside his arms.

Was this a trick? He didn't know. But she felt, so real.

He squeezes her in his grip, her skin feels soft and her curves were all the same as he remembered. He was holding her so tightly, not giving her the ability to return the gesture. He nuzzled his face into her rose petal cheeks before dasing his fingers up and intertwining them into the soft strands of her hair. After he was satisfied he loosened his possession of her ever so slightly and felt soft fingers trace along his lower back. Faye skims her silken tips upwards along his spine until she reaches his shoulders blades. She flattened out her hands and cradles them tightly against his skin.

With his bearded cheek still pressed down onto her own, Kratos drifts his face into her hair and finds her ear. He inhales her familiar scent rosemary and soil. It is her, it truly is her.

"Kratos." She says softly.

"Faye, my light. I-" He struggled to continue. He didn't want to move too abruptly, risking waking from this dream. He needed to stay here a bit longer. He exhales harshly as his nose and forehead make contact with her own.

"I'm so proud of you. You're doing such a wonderful job." She whispers into his face.

"No, no I." He wrestled to say. Years of thinking up what he wishes he could tell her if ever given the opportunity. All the questions he painstakingly wanted to ask. The murals in Jotunheim? Her abilities? Her race and relation with the gods of this land? Suddenly, all the rehearsed dialogue vanishes from his mind as he held her. He fumbled with his next few words. The most important thing right now, was for him atone for his own sins.

"I am sorry for everything I have kept hidden from you. I left you to raise him alone. I should have told you what I was doing. I- I relied so much upon you but in return, I gave you little opportunity to tell me...-"

Faye silenced him with her soft lips. He inhales suddenly, it had been so long since he tasted her, he loses himself inside her mouth. For the next several minutes, he communicated the rest of his thoughts and feelings through this act of passion and love.

Once he felt her tongue no longer dance as intensely with his own did he realize she'd been standing on her tip toes to reach him this entire time. Faye flattened her feet down onto the ground and with this act, pulls away from him. Kratos chases after her mouth one last time before standing straight up to look upon his wife.

"Our son, I have lost him." He begins to say.

"You're doing such a good job teaching him." She says reaching her hand to touch the beard on his chin. Her fingernails gently dig their way past the thicket of course hair and find his skin underneath. He relaxed, remembering how good it felt when she touched him like this.

"No, I have failed him Faye. From the day he was born, I have failed him as his father."

She delicately brushes the tips of her fingers to his lips. Still wet and puffy from their previous kiss.

"That's not true. You love him, and he loves you. Atreus knows, he adores you Kratos. He understands you because he IS you. You have taught him so much. Things I myself could never convey to him."

"Faye." He seized her hand on his face with both hands and nuzzled himself into her palm. "I should have been there for the two of you."

She smiles weakly while allowing him to continue rubbing his dry dirty face along her soft delicate hands.

"My unpredictable bear, you've made me so happy." She rises to her tiptoes again. "No matter what, know that I have and always will love you."

"And I you." He says before kissing her once again.

He pulls away from her slowly to look around. Finally noticing their bizarre location. They stood in a golden chamber with the blue sky above them. The blinding light was emanating off the walls.

"Atreus." He remembered. Kratos backed away from Faye and looked around for any signs of him if this was the afterlife the boy may be here as well. "Atreus!" He called frantically.

"He is not here, thankfully," Faye says, suddenly holding the leviathan in her hands. He forgot how beautiful she looked while holding it.

"Odin is after him. He was captured by a young goddess. I killed her...-"

Faye interrupted him. She begins speaking quickly as if being rushed by someone or something.

"Atreus is and will be fine. Our boy is growing into a wise and powerful young entity. He is on the right path, all thanks to you my love. Soon there will be no need to protect him anymore. But until then, you must continue to stay by his side and guide him."

"But Faye, I saw him...-"

She interrupted him once again.

"Idunn's death was necessary. She was never destined to company him once you are gone. Tell Brok and Sindri I'm sorry for their loss."

Kratos wrinkles his forehead trying to keep up. "Gone?"

"Narfi..." She trails off, no longer talking to him it seemed.

"Narfi, my dear friend. So it would seem our children will end up knotted together after all." She smiles.

Kratos was lost. "Narfi? The mother of the goddess?"

Faye smiles sweetly at him. She presses her forehead against his chest and nuzzles him.

"Sigyn. Atreus' future belongs with Sigyn."

"The fox?" He says, feeling his abdomen where the poisoned daggers had penetrated him.

"You must forgive me. I have a hard time myself keeping up with everything I accidentally alternated." She chuckled.

Kratos was still terribly confused. The young man with purple eyes, was Atreus' destiny?

"Atreus, he is looking for you Kratos."

"He is alive?"

She nods.

"Then I must find him!" Just then, Sigrun and the other Valkyries appear, surrounding them from a distance.

He let's go of her and backs away slightly to set off and search for his son. Only to look back and realize what he would have to give up in order to do so.

Wordlessly he inhales through his mouth and embraces his wife for what could be his final time. He pulls her face away with both hands to look at her. He memorizes her image, imprinting every feature in his mind. Her blue eyes, button nose, freckles sprinkled throughout her cheeks. Her lips the way they were so often red and puffy from her pulling them inside her mouth. He needs to taste them one more time.

He does.

"Kratos, your axe. It's the key." She says pressed against his mouth. "When our grand-" She faded from existence momentarily. "When the world serpent threw it back to you he enchanted it with his poison. Thor is on his...-"

She vanished.

He leans forward as his support vanishes, tripping over the imbalance for a moment. Frantically, Kratos gathered the space in front of himself looking for her touch again. But she was gone.

The leviathan sat on the ground by his feet. Silently he reaches for it and attaches it to his back. The Valkyries disappear, and the light in the room fades to black.

"For saving our eight lives." Sigrun says in a booming powerful voice, "We are each indebted to you."

Kratos gasps awake to find Atreus above him. Several resurrection stones broken on top of his chest.

He sits up with a groan. His senses coming back all at once. Atreus held a hand on his back to help support him.

"Father!" The boy says breathlessly.

His son. He thought he had lost him forever to Idunn, to the Aesir.

"I- I was so worried the stones wouldn't work. It's been so long, I don't even know how many days have...-"

Kratos pulls his son into his chest to embrace him. The boy gasped and stiffened for a moment while Kratos squeezed his son tightly.

He pulls him away and examined the boy with his eyes and hands. Idunn's roots, they were here, here, and here. He thinks while touching Atreus' arms, ankles, and eyelids.

"I'm fine, I promise," Atreus says.

Kratos nods approvingly as they both rise to their feet. This time Atreus leans in to hug him. He was getting so tall Kratos realized. His forehead touching where Faye's chin recently pressed against.

He reaches up to embrace him again but pauses to simply pat him on the head softly. "Come." He whispers.

Atreus nods, doing his best to hide his watery eyes. Kratos made sure to look away when a tear slips down Atreus' cheek. After the boy quickly wipes it away he followed behind Kratos as they made their way back home.

"Wait, where's Mimir?" Atreus asks.