A/N: I'm not done posting Lokyrie angst :)

The ship shuddered around them, deadly blue light streaking past the viewscreen as the massive ship attacked. Val grabbed for Loki, and he for her, the couple holding each other upright as they processed the doom looming before them, threatening to tear their home apart.

"We must send a distress call-" Thor started.

"No," Loki interrupted hoarsely. "That won't stop him."

Val scrutinized the terror in his face, remembering it from the night he had revealed his year of torture. "That isn't…"

"It is," he confirmed direly, his knuckles gleaming snow white as he clutched her with all his strength.

"How can we defeat him?"

Loki shook his head. "There is no winning."

"There is always a way-"

"I didn't say there wasn't a way," he said. "He only slaughters half of a population – the rest can escape. We need only buy them time to do so."

"All right," Val said, reaching for her Dragonfang. "Then fight we will."

"No," Thor murmured, glancing between them with apology in his eye. "Valkyrie… you must lead the civilians to safety. You must take an escape pod with them."

"No!" she cried. "I won't leave you-"

He took her shoulders, gripping firmly. "The civilians are our priority. Asgard must trump over our own desires."

Val stared at him, searching for a retort, but there was none. She was a soldier, and she had her orders, and however painful they were, they made logical sense. There was nothing to do but follow them.

But first…

"I'll give you two a moment," Thor said, already slipping away.

Val turned to Loki, reaching up to twine her fingers into his hair. He looked down at her, deep into her eyes, and she forced strength into them, sharing what she could with him. "You'll do what needs to be done. I know you will."

He swallowed, but determination crept into his eyes at the words. He cupped her face in his hands, leaning in for a kiss.

"Nope," she said, pressing a finger to his lips before he could connect. He flicked his eyes up to meet hers, brows furrowing in confusion. "Think of this as… a promise. If you kiss me now, you have no reason to come back to me. And if you don't kiss me…"

He smiled. "I'll be back."

"Exactly. Now go be a hero."

They stood still a moment more, holding on, until an explosion jolted them into action. And as they ran their separate ways, she wondered if maybe she should have kissed him. But no – this was Loki. Twice dead, twice resurrected.

He would be back in her arms before long.

Valkyrie opened her eyes to an overcast day, rain drizzling down her windows like teardrops. She rolled out of bed on autopilot, donning her freshly scrubbed armor almost without blinking. Only as she reached for the small bouquet on her table did she pause, one finger brushing against a soft baby blue petal.

Flowers. Such a… Midgardian offering. They seemed to be their answer to everything. Declaration of love? Flowers. Forgotten anniversary? Flowers. Wounded in either heart or body? Flowers. Fell into death's cold embrace? Flowers.

It didn't feel like enough. And yet… what else could she offer? She had no gold, nor jewels, nor anything she or he held dear. So many lives taken, snuffed out in no honorable blaze of glory, but in needless waste. And the survivors had naught to offer.

She picked up the bouquet, cradling it as carefully as she had once cradled its intended recipient's hands, and left her room. The Wakandan palace seemed especially quiet on this first day of proper mourning. Her footsteps echoed through halls dimmed by the grey skies, hardly another person to be seen, their head bowed and eyes as empty as her heart when they did pass without so much as a nod to acknowledge the Valkyrie.

Today was not a day for the living. Those had come and gone this last week, as the survivors picked up the pieces left behind. T'Challa, still clinging to his sister's hand after his resurrection, had granted the Asgardians refuge within his small country, and the days since had been spent clearing the devastated battlefield and settling the traumatized Asgardians, often in the houses once owned by the members of Wakanda's devastated army, shared with the elders and spouses and children left behind.

Valkyrie supposed she should feel lucky at getting her own room, rather than being crammed into a family's spare bedroom or couch, but it only tore wider the hole in her heart. After the weeks of retiring to the comfort of Loki's arms, Thanos had cursed her to spend her nights alone, lying awake even through her haze of exhaustion, staring at the stars Loki had so loved.

They now just seemed cold. Distant, heartless pricks of light. His voice taunted her ears as she looked at them, a whisper just too quiet to make out as he recounted their stories in the words of his mother. His lost touch ghosted over her skin, a finger curling through her hair, shapes traced against the bare skin of her back.

She did not sob – she had run out of those on the first lonely night – but a tear did slip from her eye, tracing a path down her cheek. Flecks of rain joined it as she stepped into the clouds' domain, and for a moment she paused, lifting her face to a soft, icy breeze.

She closed her eyes, further tears emerging, and could picture him perfectly. Smiling, face uplifted, a sheen of blue gracing his complexion at the lower temperature he so enjoyed, the breeze toying with his soft curls.

The breeze picked up, whistling quietly through the buildings, through the gathering mist, through her own loose hair. Lo… ki… it seemed to whisper, in a voice as feeble and broken as hers had become. Though… it did have a more masculine quality.

She took a breath, opening her eyes to see the buildings disappearing into the mist. Water droplets had gathered on the flowers' tiny petals, as if even they wished to shed tears for the fallen. For the prince. For her prince.

Yet somehow, she continued on her journey. Her hair grew heavy with rain, the drops falling from its ends to splash to the ground. The solid material of the city gave way to grass, the emerald blades the only splash of color on the monotone day, reaching for the rain, given life by the pain of the sky.

Her boots brushed through the plants, lively enough to spring back into place as she left. As if they had absorbed the lifeblood given to defend them, flourishing where their heroes could not. Taking their place in the cycle of life, a persistent reminder that death was not the end.

But Valkyrie ignored their sentiment, instead finding herself relieved as the life gave way to the scars. Her boots sank now into mud, into the ruts and craters left behind by the battle. Here, even the land had bled, sliced open by friend and foe alike, both sides laying down their lives within its wounds.

It was a comfort for the Wakandans, in a way. That their friends and family had died at home, surrounded by the fields they had played in as children, watched over by the capital that had guarded them, beneath the skies that had nurtured them.

Loki had had no such comfort. Strangled in the uncaring grip of his worst nightmare, under the crying watch of his broken brother, caged in by the dark, burning walls of his last refuge and the piled bodies of his people.

Valkyrie guided her shuttle into Midgard's atmosphere, steering towards the sole non-human lifesigns her scans detected. Crashing waves, squawking flocks, shaking trees, they all passed beneath her.

She just drove forward.

Hoping.

Praying.

The readings changed as she drew nearer, becoming more detailed as the signatures separated themselves out. But she ignored them, for they had to be wrong.

They couldn't be right.

Finally, she landed. She leapt out almost before the ship had stilled, racing for the grove of trees where her king and prince awaited her. She hurdled over bodies human and unfamiliar alike, clearing them as she strove for the living.

They came into view, and still, she deceived herself. Only one was familiar, his back to her, an axe discarded at his feet.

"Thor!" she called. "Thor, are you all right?"

He turned to her with the speed of a glacier, blinking at her arrival with empty eyes. Yes, eyes – he had received an implant. That was good.

"Where's Loki?" she asked. Ignoring how the humans glanced furtively at each other.

The emptiness she refused to acknowledge as such fled his expression in a heartbeat. Grief flooded into its place, his entire body drooping under the weight of it. "Valkyrie-" he murmured.

"He's just somewhere else, is he? You two got separated in the battle."

That grief didn't leave. "Val-"

"Because he promised to meet me again. We didn't kiss goodbye so we could kiss hello-"

"Brunnhilde!" he interrupted, suddenly with enough hardness to make her freeze.

"No," she protested, voice wobbling. "No, he promised-"

Thor just wrapped her in a hug, clinging to her more than reassuring her.

Valkyrie fell to the ground, catching herself only to save the flowers, her entire body trembling. The fingers of the hand holding her up dug into the ground, adding her own agony to the ground's. Her head hung, the ends of her soaked hair spreading across the muddy scar. Her jaws gaping in a scream she couldn't voice.

The breeze coasted by, twining this time through the flowers. Their leaves and petals shuddered, shifted, stretched in the direction she had been walking. Yearning to reach their destination.

With a monumental effort, she picked herself up, planting her foot beside the desperate handprint. She pushed on, holding the bouquet with only her clean hand now, staring resolutely forward.

Gradually, she left the battlefield behind. The muddy scars gave way to the grass again. To both sides were copses of trees, but she and Thor had insisted he not be placed among them, even without a body to truly bury. No, he belonged atop the hill she now climbed, reaching for the stars.

But when she finally reached the top, she was not alone.

There knelt the source of the rain, his hands on his knees, his forehead resting against the gravestone. The rain and mist cleared around him, and only him, a single ray of sunlight beaming warmth and light upon what was left of the royal brothers.

Her love for her prince flowed through her veins, indeed her very soul, stronger than anything she had felt for over a millennium. Yet, she had lost far less than Thor had on that day – it was not her place to interrupt his mourning. So she turned, facing her trek back to the palace, flowers still held in her hand.

"Don't go. Please."

Quiet. Raspy. It wasn't just his heart that had been crying.

Valkyrie turned only her head, looking at him over her shoulder from the corner of her eye. "I shouldn't-"

The patch of sunlight grew, extending slowly around her until the rain was simply a curtain around them. Thor rose, coming to stand beside her, laying his hand on her shoulder. "You were his princess – you have the same rights to grief as I. And he… he would want to see you."

Valkyrie bit her wobbling lip, nodding.

Thor began to leave, but he paused, looking over his shoulder as she had at him. "Should something happen to me before I marry or have an heir… I believe he would recommend you be next in line for the throne. And I would agree."

"I couldn't possibly-"

"It is as I said: You were his princess."

And he was gone in the billow of red cape, disappearing into his storm. Valkyrie stared after him, tears cascading anew down her cheeks, unwarmed by the sunlight.

"He's right, you know."

Valkyrie looked up sharply, sucking in a breath at the person beside her, dressed not as a warrior, but a civilian. There was no hint of armor, not even his trademark helmet resting resplendently upon his head. And yet he looked carefree and comfortable, as he never had in life. "Loki? But…"

"I can't possibly be here?" he finished for her, his mouth lifting in that familiar cocky grin. "No. I am simply a figment of your imagination."

She reached hesitantly for him, for the softness of his skin, for his supple magician's fingers that had once held her so tenderly, as if afraid she would disappear. Oh, the irony of that now, she thought as her hand slid right through his.

His cockiness faded to wryness. "It's not fair, is it? That you were finally home, only for my past to catch up with me. But I couldn't let him kill Thor – you understand that, don't you?"

The fall had taken a lot out of her, but still, Brunnhilde pushed herself to her feet. She grabbed her Dragonfang and charged, weaving amongst the bodies of her sisters. Hildr ran in front of her, and Brunnhilde moved to join her, to finish the charge.

Hela spotted them, of course. Her jagged black weapons flew towards the pair.

Brunnhilde listened to her sense of duty, not her sense of survival.

She kept running.

Hildr did not.

She slammed on the brakes, spinning on her heel. Time slowed as she reached for Brunnhilde, one hand shoving her backwards, to the ground, to safety.

Just as a weapon burst through her chest.

Brunnhilde hadn't the breath left to scream.

All she could do was reach for Hildr's falling body.

"I understand," she whispered, forcing herself to look him in the eye as she said it. "I only wish you hadn't needed to make the choice."

He hovered his hand over her hair, so tantalizingly close and yet so agonizingly far. "As do I, Valki. As do I…"

She held up the flowers. "These… are all I have to offer you."

Loki lowered his hand to brush their petals. "They're more than Thor brought."

Despite herself, she managed a chuckle, crouching to place them in front of the gravestone. It was a simple shape, essentially a rectangle but rounded at the top. Inscribed in faintly shimmering gold were the words Here we honor Loki Friggason, beloved brother and lover. May he dream in peace amongst the stars.

"Friggason," he echoed, crouching beside her and tracing the word. "Your idea?"

She nodded. "Thor says you claimed the Odinson title… before, but I wondered if it was only to attest to your love for your brother."

"To let him know I had found my home too," he murmured, his gaze flickering to meet hers.

He had an ethereal glow about him, with the sun shining on the curtain of rain behind him, light leaping off in gold and subtle rainbows like the halos of Midgard's angels.

Valkyrie couldn't help it – he was there. Maybe all of the fairytales were right – maybe a kiss could resurrect the dead. Maybe everything could have a happy ending after all.

So she leaned in.

But happy endings didn't exist in real life, of course. Only happy middles, short-lived, destroyed before you knew to savor them.

She fell through empty air.

I should've kissed him.

The rain swept in to pour over her.