In Asgard stands a tree with a thousand branches, all with brilliantly, surreally, green leaves, and scattered with golden apples. The tree belongs to Idun, and its fruit restores youth. Sigyn might have embellished a little when she promised eternal youth, that would require regularly eating the apples, but right now, just getting the energy of a young body back will be enough for Sigyn.

A little way away from this tree, a fair bit actually, really, so far away in fact, that they can not even see it, stands the little party of four - Loki still hiding out in his wife’s sleeve, and the other three walking on their own legs. So far, the fact that Heimdall would have heard Loki’s screams as the venom dripped down on him has been their cover, but now, with the long journey to and from Helheim, time is running out. Soon, the bowl should be emptied again, but when Loki is no longer there to scream and shake the earth, the Asgardians will know something is up. Heimdall will start searching for them, and the fact alone that Sigyn is traveling with two men will not be enough to dissuade the gods that Loki isn’t at least one of them. But though still strong, age is wearing on Sigyn, and she needs those apples before she can move on to the next step of the plan.

“Time to earn your keep,” she whispers. “Before it is too late.” Loki obediently slithers out and lands on the ground.

“Are you sure that is a good idea?” Max asks tentatively. “I mean, can we…” One could understand, after the spiel Hel received for speaking ill of Loki, that Max might be careful what he says, but one could also understand, giving his condition and the faint hope that now seemingly relies on a trickster god, that Ian holds no such reservations.

“Are you sure we can trust him?” he demands with no hesitation.

“He’s done it before,” Sigyn says simply. “And that time, he stole both Idun and her apples, this time he only needs four apples.”

“So…” Max says, not too daringly. “You would have gone here even if you hadn’t needed apples for us too? Like, you need the apples yourself? To survive?”

“To survive, no, but it is nice to have a young and healthy body.” Both Max and Ian nod. To be young, healthy, and in love. What more could man ask for? Slowly, treacherously one might even say, the hope is creeping in. They might, after all, get to live a full life together. A hasty marriage and a quick, daring honeymoon, all pressed together to fit in before the surgery, a surgery which has only a 4 percent survival rate past one year… that had been their expectation. Now, well, now maybe there’s a chance they can have something more. Something better. Granted, of course, now they have also risked it all on some mythological long shot. The surgery date has passed them by, and by now it may very well be too late to schedule a new one. Some types of cancer, they have been told, can spread very fast, and the symptoms can be near impossible to detect before it is too late. By now, an operation might no longer be a possibility.

And yet, a 4% chance, that wasn’t much to begin with. 4% chance of survival past one year, or the trip of a lifetime, searching for an impossible miracle cure, allying with gods and goddesses to take down the Allfather - a rational couple might have taken more time to consider it, but Max and Ian were on board almost from the get go. Sure, a crazy woman asking them for help to release her husband, that was strange, and offering them eternal youth in return, that was the talk of a madwoman, but at the time they had felt sure they could take her, if she turned violent, and if there really was some sort of truth to her words, that there was a man chained up somewhere, they owed it to their own consciouses to check it out. Once they had done that, actually gone to the magically hidden cave with her, once they had traveled to Helheim, seen the dead for themselves, well, it was all looking real now. Now they were here, and all those hopes that had somehow snuck in and festered, they were all riding on the trickster god who no one but his wife had any trust in, if indeed you could claim that Sigyn trusts Loki.

“Shouldn’t…” Max starts out. “Shouldn’t maybe one of us go with him? I mean, he can’t even carry the apples in that form.”

“Where there is a way, Loki will find it, and where there is none, Loki will make one,” is all she dains reply with. Great. O, how they wished they could follow him, see the apples themselves, see the goddess even, anything, really, except sitting here, waiting. They were not the waiting type, they were active. Last week, they were river-rafting in the amazons, the week before that it was sky diving. This week, it was supposed to be jumping off cliffs into the sea - or, well, I suppose that was last month, really. The journey to Helheim had taken them 20 days each way. Hermod had done it in 9 days, Sigyn had told them, but he had had Sleipnir to ride on, and they had only their legs to get them going. 20 days was really quite impressive to be honest.

Ian reaches out and takes Max by the hand.

“It will be alright,” he says. “Have a little faith.” Faith in a raft to hold is one thing, this kind of faith is a whole other story. Ian leans his head against Max’s shoulder, and Max reciprocates by touching his cheek to the top of Ian’s head.

“How long?” Sigyn asks quietly. Both Ian and Max look over at her, not sure what she means. Ian immediately assumes she is asking how long he has left before the cancer kills him, and Max is so preoccupied with Loki that he thinks she’s asking whether he has been gone too long. “How long have you been married?” she asks. The way they hold each other, lean on one another, there’s something magical in that, something that only the magic of love can create. She remembers when it was like that with Loki. Before Nari and Vali were killed, before they were even born. Back when she was young and in love, and she could imagine no one better than her husband. No one smarter, no one half as witty, of half as fast thinking. Back then, she hadn’t cared when Freya laughed at her, or when Sif claimed Loki was just playing games with her. If you ask her now, she might say that she was never foolish enough to believe that he would change for her, that he would give up his mischief, but had you asked her then, back before she found out about Angrboda, she might have let herself believe it just a little bit, just enough to think he would be faithful. But putting any kind of limit on Loki, any kind of restrictions to what he is or isn’t allowed to do, that is asking to get hurt.

“Two months now, I suppose,” Max answers. Time flies when you travel with gods - or when you search for impossible cancer cures, whichever part did the trick, the trick was done.

“Almost to the day,” Ian mumbles. Max turns his head and looks at him. “Tomorrow, it will be two months exactly.” Wow, how time flies. Having no better reply, Max leans down and kisses his husband. An old, faint memory and how it felt to be kissed like that, stirs within Sigyn. Even before Baldur’s death, it had been a long time since Loki had kissed her like that.

She wasn’t a fool, even back then. She knew who Loki was, and she knew he wasn’t some beast you could tame, that he would always be wild, always do whatever suited him. The thing was, he suited her. There was a freedom in his way of living, in the way he didn’t care what the others thought about him, in the way he was just himself. She wished sometimes that he would expand his world just a little, just enough to let her in, but then, of course, Vali and Nari would have been left outside. No, it was okay, the way it was. She was still the closest one to him, and he was still hers, even when he ran of to procreate with a jotun, and this way, she, Vali and Nari, could be there for each other. At least that was the case back then. Now… Well, now Loki was as distant as ever, a thousand years with no company but each other had not managed to bring them back together, and of course, her sons were lost, and the Asgardians had seen her loyalty to her husband as treachery to them, as if standing by Loki meant that she hadn’t loved Baldur as much as the rest of them.

She lets out a deep sigh. “I wish their eternal youth proves a blessing,” she thinks to herself. “And that their love never fades.” At that moment a very bulky snake comes slithering back to the others. It coughs up four perfect, golden apples, and then transforms back into the naked man from the cave.

“Eat up,” he says brightly. Sigyn doesn’t think twice before picking up the apple and taking a bite, and Loki himself bends down and takes one too. Ian and Max look at each other for a second. This seems a bit… unhygienic. By the time they look back, a mere blink of an eye later, they are faced with two entirely new people. There’s still something familiar about them, but their hair is now strong and vibrant, no longer flat and dead, and their skin has regained the glow of youth.

“There you are, my beautiful bride!” Loki says enthusiastically and throws his arms around Sigyn. In no way, shape or form, had she expected this. He pulls her close and kisses her lips. Ian and Max look sideways at each other, both thinking the same thing - or, well, both assuming they are thinking the same thing. In reality Max is thinking that maybe the naked trickster would like an hour alone with his wife, and Ian is thinking what a shame it was that Loki didn’t do that earlier, before turning Sigyn young and beautiful again. Sigyn might have thought the same, had there been room for any thought in her head.

Max leans down, mainly to not see anything else, and picks up the two remaining apples. He pulls Ian a little away from Loki and Sigyn and holds out the apples.

“Well, here goes,” he whispers.

“Here goes,” Ian says and takes one. They both wipe the apples off on their shirts before biting into them.

“Well?” Max asks, still chewing.

“I don’t know,” Ian replies and swallows. “I don’t feel any different, but I also didn’t feel sick before.” Some vision problems and headaches had been the first, and so far, only symptom of the brain tumor, and those had been taken care of with contact lenses and aspirin.

“Let me know if you get any more headaches,” Max requests sternly. Ian silently thinks that maybe he won’t. Either the apple worked, and the tumor is gone, or it didn’t, and there’s no need to worry Max with it. But the thought disappears as quickly as it came. Max has been by his side through all of this, he can’t start lying to him now. It wouldn’t make it any easier on Max, only delay the inevitable grief.

“I promise,” Ian says, and both he and Max are sure he means it.