Spoilers: Up through Episode 4x06 "What Might Have Been."

Disclaimer: I don't own the fabulous show of Vikings or Greg Laswell's beautiful song "Comes and Goes (in Waves)." No infringement intended.

A/N: This is my first Vikings fic, and it's been awhile since I've written anything, so any feedback and constructive criticism about characterization and voice in particular are welcome and appreciated.

This one's for the lonely

The one's that seek and find

Only to be let down

Time after time

Lagertha is with child.

He can tell by the gentle way she carries herself, the softness in her countenance one he had memorized from each time she had carried his child – their children.

A sharp pang twists in his chest at the thought, a pain he had buried long ago, remaining – like so much else between them – unspoken and unsaid.

Lagertha is with child.

Her face turns towards him now, looking back from where she is on the boat overseeing preparations for their voyage to Paris. Her eyes crinkle in confusion at his stare, before her brow arches slightly in response to the question she perceives in his face.

He is struck suddenly, in piercing clarity, with an image of her in red, radiating quiet joy as she stood on this dock and revealed she was carrying his child once again.

The happiness he had felt in that moment gnaws at him, but he lets the question in his eyes fall away, allowing himself to gaze at the slight curve of her stomach for only a second before turning away.

Don't waste your time looking back, he tells his sons later, as their ships set out.

You're not going that way.

A storm hits them, the roaring waves a steady companion to the dread that has been building in his chest ever since their departure from Kattegat.

When they discover two other boats, Lagertha's and Harald's, the men around him yell in unabashed relief, murmuring softly in thanks to the gods.

But as they move towards land to wait out the arrival of the rest of their fleet and quickly dispatch of the Frankish scouts, the foreboding in his stomach does not subside.

"Signal fires," remarks Harald, as they come upon the scene Bjorn has discovered, a chain of burning pyres distinct against the lush greenery of the hills.

"News of our arrival will soon reach Paris," Ragnar remarks, as he glances briefly towards the other man.

"Come, brother," Harald motions, as he and Halfdan slink away in unison.

Brother, the word sinks painfully in Ragnar's gut, punctuated by those of the Seer, of the bear and the princess he suspects lie ahead of him.

It is Rollo's words to a wooden coffin that haunt him now, that mock the certainty of belief he'd once had in his brother's loyalty the day he set out with King Horik to face Jarl Borg, only to find Rollo armed to fight against his own flesh and blood.

But it is too much to linger on what awaits him in Paris, and he finds himself drawn, as he always is, to Lagertha.

Lagertha is with child.

If he'd had even the slightest doubt of its truth when the thought first entered his mind, he can no longer deny the way her hand had hovered just above her stomach after she carefully finished off one of the Frankish scouts encamped here.

Lagertha has never been fiercer than in the protection of her children, and her presence here, amongst their formidable war party, is a riddle whose answer he cannot even begin to understand.

There had been a time, after she first reappeared in his life to help him avenge the loss of his lands, when he would not dare to approach her with such a question.

Yet ever since her words to him, spoken in a trust and confidence he had broken once again when it was revealed he was not truly dead, there had been a shift in the way he let himself think about her.

The notion that she still dreamed of them together, in the next life in Valhalla if not in this one, was a balm to the ache in his heart whenever he awoke from one of his many dreams of her.

Lagertha is with child.

He wonders if she had known this when she killed Kalf to regain the earldom, if it had shattered her to murder a man she did not trust even as his child lay growing within her.

When he does find her, approaching as she sharpens her axe, he is reminded of a simple truth he had discovered long ago: his wife is never more beautiful than when she is with child.

It is this final thought that spurs him forward.

Her eyes light up gently in acknowledgement of his arrival before she continues with her task.

He settles in the grass beside her.

"Help me understand why you are here fighting," he starts, and her hands still at his words, "instead of trying to keep your baby safe."

She looks at him then, surprise briefly flickering in her eyes before she returns to slowly sharpening the blade.

He finds himself moving to sit closer, his eyes carefully scanning her face for any reaction as the next words tumble out of him (whether in offer of comfort or to satisfy his curiosity even he cannot say).

"You've never spoken to me about Kalf's death. Must've broken your heart."

His hands rest gently on the axe in front of him; his grip tightens as she so plainly utters her response:

"Of course it didn't. My heart was broken a long time ago."

She looks at him meaningfully, and he understands that she too sees no need for evasion after her confession over his undead body. He feels like he has stolen another truth from her – and has he not stolen enough already? – but he tucks away her words to turn over in silence later.

"I still don't understand why you are willing to risk your baby's life in battle."

And there it is: the reason for his unwarranted line of questioning reveals itself as the loss of their unborn son comes over him anew with a grief that makes him tremble.

It is as if the gods have condemned him to live simultaneously in the past and in the present. Odin, father, help me.

But there is no turning from the haunted look in her eyes when she finally turns to him, the moisture there a deeper censure to him than the words themselves:

"Who are you to talk? I'm not your wife."

She pointedly returns to her task, and he knows the conversation is over.

But he merely sits there for minutes more, as he recognizes another simple truth, one he had only dared to speak in partial jest to their son just a few weeks past: he has definitely, definitely failed at being a husband.

"There's no sign of Rollo's camp," Bjorn ponders, and Ragnar cannot help but chuckle in response.

"No," he smiles as Bjorn turns to him. "Does that surprise you?"

The bite of his own words slice open a wound already raw from his last conversation with Lagertha, and he quickly finds Yidu, knowing that only the effects of her Chinese medicine can numb the emptiness in his heart.

As he sits down, the power of the leaves quickly take hold.

Indeed, the land is transformed before him, a cup sloshing with red liquid, a familiar, white horse – oh how he had loved Hvítingur! – galloping towards, towards, well could it be?

His eyes widen in anticipation. He can barely allow himself to hope.

But there it is, the farm and house he had loved so well. And the people he had held so dear:

Lagertha her arm around his darling Gyda, the light in his life too soon extinguished.

Athelstan, who had understood him above else, whom he had trusted with the fiercest of confidences and loved with the fiercest of affection.

Bjorn, young Bjorn, gazing with a look of cautious hope that his father would return, that Ragnar would live to come back and take him on the next raid.

His peasant hands ached, ached to touch them all - to run them through Gyda's silken hair, to clasp them around the arms of dearest Athelstan, to pull them tight around Bjorn in a roaring bear hug, and to caress them against the side of Lagertha's face as she whispered his name.

And then there she was, the most beautiful of all his dreams, walking towards him, eyes alit with love as if it was a secret that bound them together, tied further with those of memory and blood, as she beckoned him home.

Come home, and longing washes over him until it makes his eyes smart, until he feels his sight cloud over once again, and he groans as he is forced to look away.

It is just a vision, he tells himself, just a vision, but his unsteady fingers betray the beating of his erratic heart, and he knows that he cannot resist.

He looks back.