Leaving Loki behind in Jotunnheim was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. But eventually, my vigil by his side had to come to an end.
No spirit had come to visit me to speak last words of comfort. I thought perhaps Loki was too angry at me after meeting an untimely death by my hand.
I would not have blamed him if he had been.

Jessie was waiting for me at home. I could tell from her face she already knew. Someone had been kind enough to spare me from having to be the bearer of the bad news.
"I never said goodbye to him, mum," she began to cry. "I just left for Asgard, I didn't even give him a hug goodbye…"
I took her into my arms.
"He knew sweetie, and he understood. The plan was always for you to leave right away, he wanted you to be safe."
"But I never told him… I never told him…"
"You didn't have to. He knew," I reassured her, my heart breaking all over again. "He knew from the moment he first set foot in our home. He knew he had found a family. He knew he belonged with us.
He loved you so much, sweetie, and he knew you loved him. He was always so observant. You didn't have to say it, he has always known."
Together we cried for what felt like hours, knowing our family would never be the same without Loki.
Eventually, I sent Jessie to bed to get some sleep, with the promise I would do the same.

I was completely and utterly exhausted. And yet, sleep eluded me. I kept going over Loki's final moments in my mind.
Had there been any way I should have realised it was my Loki? And sign he'd given that I had missed at that moment?
But try as I might, I could not see a way I could have known.
I tossed and turned, my mind in turmoil, my heart aching. How was I ever supposed to learn to live with this?

Friends and family came to visit the next day, to express their condolences and pay their respects. I refused to see anyone.
I could not bear to see the pity on their faces, I could not bear to face the blame in their eyes.

Asgard held a funeral for the soldiers lost during the battle, including Loki who was given a place of honour during the ceremony.
But I declined the invitation, I couldn't face saying goodbye a second time, not even to a ship with an empty funeral pyre.

Thor had tried to come by a few times, but I was refusing to see the big god as well, unable to face the grief that marred his handsome face.
He returned to Asgard.
First of all, just to help his father with the funeral, but he stayed to help restore order in the other realms. Asgard had received multiple requests from the other realms for aid, and with the Bifrost repaired, Odin could finally send his men to restore order.
I envied Thor in a way, for having something to take his mind off his pain and an enemy to take his anger out on.

Sif and her Valkyrie ventured into Niflheim to find if Loki's soul was truly there, risking the wrath of a vengeful Hel in mourning.
Sif felt Hel's claim on Loki's soul wasn't as ironclad as Loki had made it out to be. While Hel had helped to create Beaumont, Beaumont had never fulfilled his actual purpose to be a host for Loki's soul after Loki's death, voiding the agreement according to Sif.
She argued that Loki had died on the battlefield, my spell counting as the first act of aggression, and that Loki had been worthy of Valhalla at the end of his life.
But if Loki's soul was there, Sif could not find him.

Days passed as I failed to deal with my grief and guilt, sinking deeper and deeper into a depression I could not rouse myself out off.
I hardly ate and could not sleep. Day turned into night and night into day as I lay in the dark, repeating the events of that cursed day in my mind over and over again.
I had tried to sleep holding Loki's pillow but that hadn't helped a bit, it wasn't the same as falling asleep with his arms around me.
I tried wearing one of his t-shirts, I remembered reading that was something people did, but Loki was meticulous about keeping his clothes clean and it simply smelled like detergent.
Desperately I raided his wardrobe in the middle of the night, going through his clothes to find something that made me feel closer to him, something that would ease my pain.
In the end, it was the jacket of his Gucci suit that gave me some comfort. Whether it was that the expensive fabric of the suit retained his scent better, or whether it was my imagination, I don't know. But holding it tight to me I was finally able to doze off for a bit.

Carter was our rock after Loki died.
Richard and Anita made sure we had groceries, but Carter was the one who cooked, cleaned, fed the cats, made packed lunches for herself and Jessie and made sure they went to university.
She and Jessie were the only ones I could bear to face in those days, and even to them I barely spoke.

"Will you turn off that light? My head hurts," I muttered as Carter and Jessie barged into my room together.
"Nope, can't see a thing in the dark," Carter replied firmly. "The light stays on."
"And you are going to eat something, mum." Jessie took the untouched tray from dinner the night before and replaced it with breakfast.
"It's toast with some sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top, just the way you like it. You'll eat some toast and drink some tea or so help me, I will get uncle Thor to hold you down and force-feed you!"
I sat up a bit and looked at them groggily. Jessie eyed me with grim determination. I realised she wasn't making an idle threat.
"And after you've eaten you are going to get up and let me change the sheets, you can't stay here wallowing in a dirty bed." Carter folded her arms and frowned at me.
I obediently nibbled on a corner of a slice of toast. It tasted like ash in my mouth but I ate it anyway.
"It has been two weeks Sorcha, you can't stay in bed all day," Carter's face softened as she saw I was at least eating a bit. "I know it hurts, we all miss him."
"I miss him too, mum," Jessie said softly. "But I need you to eat something. I can't lose you as well."
I forced down some more toast, blinking away the tears that suddenly welled up in my eyes. What had I done to us? To all of us?

"You still haven't read the letter?" Carter asked as she saw Loki's letter sitting unopened on my bedside cabinet.
I shook my head.
"I can't," I said softly.
"Sorcha!"
"I can't, I really can't…"
I didn't know how to explain that those were Loki's last words to me. It was all I had left of him.
"Please, Sorcha! Loki made my promise I'd give the letter to you right away, that I wouldn't forget! He made me promise to make you read it!"
"I can't…" I muttered again, stubbornly shaking my head.
"Fine! Then I'll read it to you! Because I am not going to break the last promise I ever made to him!" Carter picked up the letter angrily and began to open it.
"No, that's mine," I sat up a bit more and tried to grab the letter out of her hands. "That's for my eyes only!"
"Okay, you read it," she said, giving me the letter back. "But either you read it now or I'll read it for you."

I looked at the envelope. My name was written on it in Loki's beautiful flowery handwriting.
Slowly, I opened it, bracing myself for what was certain to be a touching and eloquent last goodbye.
I expected Loki to tell me one more time how much he loved me, how I had been his whole universe, and to remind me to look at the night sky and remember how much he would love me even after he had died.

"Hello, darling,

If you are reading this, I've probably died. Sorry about that. If not, please disregard this."

I raised my eyebrows. Not quite the opening I had expected.

"I know you are probably upset, but please do not be too angry.
Thor was right (never thought I'd write down those words, please don't let him see them) but Beaumont did, in fact, make himself a spare body to inhabit in case of death. Not that that would have worked, seeing as he did not have a soul of his own.
A day before writing this letter, I gleaned the location of said body, and I may have stolen it, and I may have brought it to the hold and tied my own life force and soul to it.
I know, you probably are fuming right now. But that's why I didn't tell you, easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission and all of that.
There's a secret room behind my father's study. I drew instructions on the back of this letter on how to open it.
Beaumont took almost a month to wake up after the spell activated him, it might take me a while too. I'm hoping your blood magic may be of aid in that.
Anyway, see you anon,

Loki.

P.S.: Please don't yell too loudly at me when I wake up, I'll probably have a blistering headache.

P.P.S.: Love you!

I dropped the letter on the bed in disbelief.
Both Carter and Jessie were looking at me expectantly.
"Mum?" Jessie asked.
"I am going to kill him!"
I angrily swung my feet out of the bed and shoved my arms into my big fluffy dressing gown.
"I'm going to kill him for real this time! I am going to wring his scrawny neck!"
"Mum? MUM!"
I wordlessly handed her the letter and I stomped into the hallway. Jessie read while coming after me.
"What does it say?" Carter asked. After a moment Jessie handed her the letter."Killing him sounds about right, right now," Jessie muttered.
After reading the letter, Carter seemed to agree.
"Sounds like a three-woman job," she said grimly. "You failed to kill him the first two times all by yourself, Sorcha, need some help this time?"

I opened the door to Fárbauti's study. We had left the room intact when we moved in but I hadn't actually been in here since we had found the remains.
I climbed up the chair, for all the world looking like an angry toddler, and from there I climbed onto the desk.
Angrily I bashed on the points on the royal seal Loki had indicated. Slowly, one of the bookcases began to move to reveal a space beyond it. I couldn't see what was inside, it was dark.
Suddenly my anger evaporated. What if it hadn't worked?
"I'll go in alone," I told the girls. "Who knows what I'll find? I'll call you if he's in there."
I summoned a flame in my hand and made my way inside. On a camping stretcher lay a body. Not resembling my Loki, but looking like Beaumont. Which made sense, since it was one of Beaumont's creations.
I just hoped Loki retained his shape-shifting powers.
I moved closer to the body. The face was deadly pale, and it didn't seem to be breathing. I reached out, praying to any god (present company not included) he wouldn't suddenly sit up and give me a fright, and placed two fingers against his wrist. The skin was cold to the touch, and I couldn't find a heartbeat either. Had the spell failed?
I formed a globe of blood in my other hand. Now I could sense life!
The heartbeat was so slow and weak that I hadn't noticed. And I as watched carefully, I could see his chest rise and fall. His breathing was slowed to an unnatural pace as well.
I let my healing magic do its work. Slowly colour returned to his cheeks and his breathing quickened to a healthy rhythm.

He was naked, and I took my dressing gown off and draped it over him before I called the girls in.
"Is it him mum? Is he okay?"
Jessie had never seen Beaumont before. She curiously looked at his face.
"Wow. Talking about the opposite of a glow-up!"
"A dim-down?" Carter suggested.
"He's okay. He was very weak when I found him but he looks a lot better now," I told them.
"And it has to be him. Beaumont had no soul of his own, it was always going to be Loki's soul that got transferred." I understood the magic behind it well enough now to be certain of that.
"He'll wake up soon."
"Good," Carter said. "We'll stay with him then, you go."
"What do you mean? I'm not leaving his side!"
"Oh yes, you are! You haven't showered in two weeks, go and have one now! You don't want Loki to see you this way, do you?"
"She's right mum, you smell. Go and shower! And brush your teeth! And your hair!"
"And wax and pluck and shave! Bet you haven't done that either. Go!"

I grinned as I sprinted towards the bedroom. The girls weren't wrong, I could smell myself.
But Loki was alive, and soon he'd be awake and back with us again. I'd better clean myself up a bit!

I heard someone moving around in the bedroom as I came out of the shower. Quickly, I wrapped a towel around myself just in case it was one of the girls and open the door.
For a moment, I stood there, in stunned silence, not able to breathe or accept what my eyes were seeing.
Loki, my Loki, was standing in our bedroom, looking like himself again.

"What is this, Sorcha?" Angrily he held up the crumpled Gucci jacket. Loki had put on trousers but must have spotted the jacket before he could button up his shirt.
I still couldn't do anything else but stare at him. Alive, and right in front of my eyes. Each of his perfect features was so beloved and familiar.
"Do you know how hard it was to get Gucci to make a replica for me? How many strings I had to pull?"
The vein on his forehead started to throb dangerously.
"What on earth did you do to it? It's…. damp!" He held the jacket at a distance between his thumb and forefinger in disgust.
"I cried in it," I muttered.
"But why?" Loki's expression changed from anger to bewilderment.
"How long did it take you to rouse me from slumber?"
"About the time it took me to have a shower?"
The whole situation felt surreal. One moment I was mourning my dead husband, the next he was yelling at me for ruining his jacket. I was struggling to make sense of it all.
So was Loki, it seemed.
"What about the battle? Is it over? What happened? Did someone else die? Is Thor…"
"The battle is over, we won. Thor is okay," I reassured him quickly. Loki shook his head and looked from me to the jacket again.
"Then why? What made you so upset? And why my jacket? Ran out of tissues perhaps?" He tried to make a joke out of it, as he saw my lip begin to wobble and my eyes fill with tears.
"Two weeks…" my voice sounded very small. "I thought you were dead for two weeks…"
Loki sat on the bed with a bump, disbelief written on his face.
"But I wrote you a letter…"
His beautiful blue eyes met mine, as he shook his head again in bafflement.
"I wrote you a letter to make certain this wouldn't happen. Did Carter not give it to you?"
"She did. But I didn't read it until today…" I began to cry. Loki reached out and pulled me onto the bed next to him, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
First, a few tears rolled down my cheeks, but then big heaving sobs escaped from my lips as all the pain and guilt and sadness I had held within me came pouring out like a deluge of grief.
Loki lay down on the bed and pulled me with him. He held me in his arms and stroked my hair gently until I cried the last of my tears.

"I still don't understand," he said softly once I had calmed down a bit. "Why wait with reading the letter? I had stressed to Carter how important it was you'd receive it immediately upon my presumed demise."
"It was all I had left," I said softly, not sure how to explain how I had felt after he died. "I was convinced it was going to be the sweetest, most loving thing you'd ever written, that you had poured your heart and soul and all your love for me into it."
"Well, that must have been a bit of a disappointment for you today," Loki winced.
I smiled through my tears. "Maybe a little," I admitted.
He grinned back.
I turned serious again. "I felt that as long as I had that letter, there would still be one more time your words could surprise me, touch me and delight me.
That there would be one more time I'd feel your love for me, be amazed at how much I had come to mean to you.
And as long as I had that one more time ahead of me, you were still with me in some way. I wouldn't have to let you go completely."

"Oh, darling…" Loki sighed softly.
"Oh, my sweet, deranged, adorable and utterly insane darling. I asked you to do one thing. One last wish.
And still, you think you know better than me, still, you completely and utterly refuse to do things any differently than your own way."
His eyes were soft but there was a hint of a laugh in his voice. "You do this to yourself, you know! I wrote you a letter, and all you had to do was read it!"
I sat up, suddenly feeling anger at the way he was gently mocking me.
"Two weeks, for two weeks I mourned you! And so did everyone else! I was heartbroken! So was Jessie! And Thor! Even your father mourned you!"
"Father mourned me?" Loki sat up too, looking at me in surprise.
"Yes, he did! He nearly cried when you died! He held a whole state funeral for you!"
"Really?" Loki pursed his lips. "Who knew, all I had to do to finally get him to notice me was die! If only I had known! I would have died centuries ago!"
"LOKI!"
"What? Too soon?" The corners of his eyes wrinkled as he tried to bite back a smile.
I glared at him.
"You should have told me! You should have told me that were going after Beaumont! You should have told me you brought a replica into our home!"
"You would have just yelled at me! And told me to get rid of the body! After one of them snuck in here and tried to seduce you I didn't think you'd want a dormant one lying around!"
"I thought I had lost you for two weeks, Loki! I didn't eat, and didn't sleep! You broke my heart!"
"And I had left you a letter to make certain that wouldn't happen! How was I supposed to know you were going to be too stubborn to read it?"
We both glared at each other.

After a moment, Loki shrugged and said: "You knew who I was when you married me.
I told you I'd lie and deceive you, that I'd hide things from you. You said you were willing to accept that and marched into Jotunnheim to demand my mother marry us.
You knew you were marrying the god of Mischief and all that entails. I am not going to apologise for who I am."
He took my hands into his.
"But I am truly sorry that you and everyone else who mourned me were so upset these last few weeks. I am sorry that I hurt you. That was never my intention in all of this."
"I know," I whispered. I stroked an errant strand of hair out of his face. "And I am sorry I didn't read the letter sooner."
"And…" Loki looked at me expectantly.
"What?" I asked irritably.
"And you are sorry for ruining my wardrobe? First my Gucci jacket, now one of my favourite shirts?" Right?" Loki eyed me expectantly as he peeled off the shirt he was wearing, now soggy with my tears.
I grinned despite myself. "You are a big idiot sometimes, you know that?"
Loki grinned back.
"But I am your idiot. And still very much alive. Or perhaps, alive again, not certain what the appropriate nomenclature is here.
Either way, I wasn't going to leave your side.
I'm right here, with you, and will be for the next few thousand years, just like I promised."
He lay back down again and pulled me into his arms. I snuggled up against him, his arms around me, my head on his chest.

"Didn't the girls explain anything when you woke up?"
Loki winced. "Darling, I yelled at them to get out the moment I awakened.
I was completely naked, bar your dressing gown covering me. I'm no prude, but those two are literally the last two people in the world I'd want to see me unclothed!"
Loki grinned. "I pulled on your dressing gown once they ran and came in here to get some clothing. The rest, as they say, is history."
I hadn't slept in two weeks. Listening to the familiar sound of his heartbeat, of his breathing, I felt myself get drowsy.

"So, this funeral Father held for me?
Who was there?
Who wasn't?
Who cried?
Who didn't?
Oh…. did you rend your garments and threw yourself naked upon the pyre before it was lit? I always hoped someone would do that for me, it is so wonderfully dramatic!
What food was served?
Did the skalds sing songs in my name?
Did they tell tales of my heroics?
Oh…. what were people wearing?
This is so amazing! To get a chance to find out what my own funeral was like afterwards!
Tell me everything!
Sorcha?"

Before I could get a word in edgewise to answer the deluge of questions Loki had about his own funeral, my eyes fell shut. And for the first time in weeks, I slept.
A proper, healing, restorative sleep I was only able to find with my husband's arms around me.