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She is working a night shift in St Margaret’s Hospital, Croydon when she sees him again, immaculately dressed, and leaning against a door post with a faint smile on his face. She stares, then looks away and back again. Still there, only now he looks faintly puzzled.
He straightens up, and walks towards her, hands in his suit pockets. When he is close enough to touch, he stops and asks, “When you first became Idunn, did you have hallucinations of me? Because I saw you all over the place. Let me tell you, silver is a great colour on you.”
Oh my God, he’s real, she thinks.
“Anders,” she says, and his name feels strange on her lips, “What are you doing here?”
He takes a tiny step closer to her and cocks his head, “Can’t a God come see how his errant wife is doing?”
“Will you shut up about the God stuff?” she hisses. They are too close to the Nurses’ Station for comfort, and as it is she knows her colleagues will be avidly curious about her visitor, and how is she to describe him? Ladies, I’d like you to meet my husband from a past life! Did I mention he’s a God? And that I’m a Goddess? Or, Ladies, this is my ex-fiance’s brother with whom I’ve had incredibly torrid, awesome sex. Say hi!
“Gaia,” he says, and it is terribly unfair that him simply calling her name can affect her so. “Gaia, I just wanted to see how you were, so I thought I’d come find you.”
Her brain simply can’t deal with how surreal the situation is. And how did he find her anyway? Axl doesn’t know exactly where she is, and she can’t imagine Mike helping him track her down, which means – “Zeb!” she exclaims.
He nods, “He’s a chatty fella, especially if you ask him questions the right way.”
“And you couldn’t – I don’t know – send an e-mail? Write a letter? You decided to show up, at my place of work, at one in the morning, for an intercontinental booty call?!”
It happens before he can reply; a rush of joyous energy sweeps them off their feet like a tidal wave, and tosses them every which way until they find themselves again, clinging desperately to each other in a hospital hallway. She cannot look away from him, nor he from her; everything has changed, and yet, to mortal eyes, things remain the same. He is smiling as he has not smiled since Asgard-that-was.
“My Lady Idunn,” he says and laughs.
“My Lord Bragi,” she answers, laughing as well.
She is still laughing as they kiss, power singing through her veins and joy dancing along her skin. The kiss is like coming home, and she wants only to lock the door behind her and lose herself in him.
Dimly she hears someone exclaim behind her, and with the greatest reluctance, detaches herself from him to look. On the countertop of the Nurses’ Station, the African violets that had been almost dead earlier are blooming, wildly and floridly. They look at it, then back at each other; they couldn’t stop smiling if they tried.
“Molly,” she says, “can you tell Nurse Hoskins I had to leave due to an emergency?”
Molly, her colleague and friend, snorts: “What, an emergency in his pants?” Anders only looks amused, not offended, and Molly shrugs, “No worries, I’ll cover for you.”
“Thank you!” Gaia says, as he takes her by the hand and they walk away.
“So,” he says, taking out his mobile, “Odin finally found his Frigg … And he’s not answering his phone. I want details, damnit!” Clearly he is still Anders, just with a full dose of Bragi’s divinity.
“Anders,” she says, grinning.
He looks up from his phone at her, then puts it back into his suit pocket, takes her face in his hands and kisses her, gently yet thoroughly.
When she speaks, her voice is husky. “Do you know why he’s not picking up the phone? Because he’s probably making love to his wife. I think he’s setting a fine example for the Aesir, don’t you?”
“Let it not be said that where the All-father led, Bragi did not follow. Now which way to the exit, my Lady Wife?”