Ægir's Wife Ch. 05

And Mikael? If Greta had nearly destroyed him, this was going to finish the job. He would have done anything to spare his brother the pain of that conversation, but he could not. Greta's appearance in their life complicated an already impossible situation.

One that none of them had a solution for. In the end, they had agreed to talk again. Once they knew for certain. Fuck! He had meant to pick up a pregnancy test from the store but it was too late now. He knew it was only one more day, but every day in this place seemed like another in purgatory.

Not purgatory. Múspellsheimr with its lakes of fire made the Christian hell look like a day in the park. Or perhaps Niflheimr with its cold, dark barrenness?

Neither were a place he wanted to bring another child into. But he was almost certain it was too late to worry about that now. Hell, he would have sworn he felt the child move when he touched her stomach while she was on that damned St. Andrews Cross. But he knew that was not possible. Not physically anyway. It was much, much too soon for that.

***

Kirsty pinched her eyes shut tighter and pretended she was asleep. Maybe he would just go away? As much as she longed for the comfort of his strong arms around her right now, she was too confused. Too hurt. She needed time. Needed to figure a few things out. Needed to get her head on straight.

Her hand cocooned her tummy. Was it really possible? Of course, it was. Months of unprotected sex made it not only possible but likely that she would fall pregnant. But the very thing that she had prayed and pleaded with the goddess for once, now seemed...

Frightening. That was the word. She was scared. Petrified actually. So much had changed. They had changed. And as much as she wanted a baby, the timing just seemed off.

Hell, it even seemed wrong somehow that there was no doubt this child was Bjorn's. That should have been reassuring, especially here. Though they were brothers what if the baby had been Mikael's and inherited his darker coloring or Sven's with those icy blue eyes? How would they have explained those subtle differences...especially to her mother?

No, she should be grateful. Not this strange longing. Wistfulness that this child would have no part of Mikael. The man was such an amazing dad. And Sven? Could she even begrudge the man the son he had waited a lifetime for?

Who knew maybe all this concern was for nothing? Maybe it was just a false alarm? But as bad as the timing was, that thought brought no comfort. No, even if the timing sucked. She still wanted a baby. That much was certain.

Probably the only thing that was in this new fucked up life they lived. She felt the tears slipping from her eyes onto her pillow and fought to hold back the flood that she was certain would wake him as she cried herself to sleep.

In the bed next to a man she loved. Yet all alone.

Just as she had lived her whole life until the moment that he had taken her arm and drawn her through the turnstile at that train station in Tilbury. Sven. The first one that had captured her heart...and the only one whose heart she could never hold.

***

He sat staring at the sky. It was not fully daylight. But there was still more than enough light left to work by. Even this late at night as he drove the nail deeper into the board. But it did nothing to relieve the frustration and anger that seemed to threaten to boil over at any moment like a pot on his mother's stove.

If winter was eternal darkness, then summer was perpetual light. Except he had chased away the only light that had ever dared to shine in his world. He had let fear of the raw emotions that were so fucking new to him control him. He, who had prided himself on his control, had lost it the only time that mattered. That was no fucking kind of Dom. Man. Or husband.

So the gods had condemned him to this barren existence of Niflheimr. With its dark coldness, which was still probably more than he deserved. Maybe he would rename this cabin that. He sighed, the sooner he finished it the better.

***

The screen had been dark for half an hour at least. His mother, whom they had both felt the need to include on this one, had long since disappeared. She had hugged his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. "We'll figure something out, Mikael. We'll bring them home somehow. I promise," but the raw pain in her voice offered scant reassurance.

A baby? He knew he should be happy for his baby brother. And he was.

For all the reminder of that vicious bitch that this call had brought forth, he could never hate the woman completely. She had given him the one that meant more to him than anything else in this world. His little girl.

Well, more than just about anything. He would certainly not want to have to choose between them.

His wife. But was she really anymore? The words, 'my brother-in-law,' brought an ache to his chest as deep as it had that day. Not my husband. No, that honor was his baby brother's. He was just the brother-in-law. And whose fault was that?

His own stupid fault.

Now this! A baby that would only bind her closer to Bjorn. He felt everything he loved and wanted slipping through his fingers. It hurt so much he could not even bring himself to get up and move the few feet to his bed. Instead he simply leaned his head on his arms as the tears began to hit the dark screen. Tears he had never spilled...even when Greta abandoned them.

Not even the light still streaming through the window could overcome this darkness. Like the molten fires of Múspellsheimr, Ragnarök had come and his Asgard had fallen, a broken, burning mess all about him.

***

She greeted the dawn atop the outcropping of rock that had always been the perch she had climbed to await their return. In the days before satellite internet, when CBs and sea-to-land radios were the only options, how many times had she climbed the cliffs and looked out to sea for any sign of them?

Her whole body shook as the tears spilled down her weathered cheeks. She had thought it was a good omen that the girl had taken to this very spot just as she had as a new bride. But once more she had chosen to see history through the rose-colored lenses of an old woman.

And for the first time ever that was how she felt. Like an old woman.

Lars...the love of her youth. A man she had barely come to know before he was jerked from her embrace by that bastard Njörður and cold heartless bitch Rán.

Andres...the first, the hook they had used to lure her to them. Her pain had driven him to the bottle. And that had killed him too.

Stig...

"Damn you, damn you to Helveti," she cried to winds. "Why must he be so much like you? Why couldn't he have opened himself even just a little bit to her? Why couldn't he love her back even just a bit? That was all it would have taken. If he had bent, even a little, she would have met him more than half way."

"Like you did all of us, woman?" she turned to see him standing there. She held out her hand.

Without a word, he came to her. Wrapping her in the safety of his strong arms as even more tears flowed. Enough to fill the oceans afresh. Was there some hidden meaning that those tears were as salty as the seas that called them? Her husbands. Her sons.

"And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons," she whispered as she swiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

***

He chuckled, "Don't be quoting your grandparents' silly religion now, woman." He kissed her tenderly, but even after four decades the fires still burned brightly and that tenderness soon fanned the flames of passion until they were both breathless.

"We converted your Christian ass to the one true faith long ago, Rachel. So remember the goddess you serve now. Remember you are a daughter of Freyja. Love. Fertility. And battle. The first...well, we have always had in abundance, woman," he laced his arthritic fingers through hers and brought them to his lips.

He rubbed them against his thick beard until she giggled like the girl she had been when he first laid eyes on her. And he swore that she was more beautiful than she had been even then. If that was possible. "And if I overheard correctly, it seems the second is working out too."

"I don't know whether to hope she is or isn't," she sighed heavily.

"Yes, you do, woman. A baby is always welcome in this family. And like you told our boy, we will figure this out somehow. We always have. Generations upon generations. Our way is never easy. You know that."

He bent until they were eye-to-eye, "Which is why she is also the goddess of battle, woman. So what are we going to do to bring them home where they belong?"

"You men, what would you do without us shieldmaidens?"

He chuckled, "Probably kill each other. But right now woman, I am more interested in showing you what we do with our shieldmaidens."

She laughed and the sound rang across the fjord like the sweetest song he had ever heard or ever would, "Dirty old man."

He stood up and held out his hand, "Then take a shower with me, old woman. I'll wash your back if you wash mine."

Her hands found the front of his jeans. Her fingers wrapped about him, "I much prefer washing the front."

He caressed her lower lip with his thumb until they parted, "Yes, well, it is the inspections afterwards that I like best."

He wrapped his arm about her and held her against him as he stared out to sea for a moment. He added his prayers to hers that they would find a way to mend the divide, to make their family whole again. Because missing his baby girl and seeing his wife and son in this kind of pain was tearing him apart. As much as watching his brothers self-destruct had.

But this time, he would not watch helplessly. No, if he had to take that boy to the fighting fields himself, it was time this family learned to work together. To truly share all that it had. What it meant to be brothers...real brothers.