Flowergirl |L. Laufeyson|

Chapter Thirteen

She could not speak, she felt numb. She did not hear Pepper calling her name, she did not notice the concerned looks she received from Bruce and Tony. The world for her had stopped the moment she had seen his body.

She did not know what she was feeling. She thought she had lost all her senses except from her vision, but at the same time, she was feeling the most excruciating pain she had ever felt in her whole life. She knew before that he was dead, but it seemed like she had never realised that this was the case. But now, reality had come to slap her in the face.

"L-Loki," she managed to choke out, and her knees almost gave out. She rushed forward, but before she could make much movement, she was restricted. "No let me get to him!"

"Thor, put him on the couch," Pepper mumbled, distracted as she watched her gardener. Zoë's eyes seemed way more blank than before and pain was clearly seen on her face. She did not even try to fight Tony as he held her back.

The Asgardian obeyed to her words and slowly walked past Zoë, refusing to look in her direction. He laid the body in his arms on the couch and took a step back, just as Tony left the woman move as she wished.

The blonde staggered forward, reaching her beloved's side quicker than anyone had anticipated. She kneeled before the body and immediately, raised a hand to touch his face.

His skin was cold, as she had expected. Her vision became blurry with tears as she raised her gaze to his eyes. The fear he had felt at the moment was still mirrored in his eyes, along with the realisation of what was to happen. It was the last straw for her.

She started crying, quietly at first, but then, she could not contain herself. Sobs wrecked her body and she laid her head on his chest as she cried, one of her hands reaching to hold one of his, even if he was cold and unresponsive.

Thor turned away and wordlessly, left the room. He could not bear to see his friend like this. The image of her crying over his dead brother was too much, especially since he had been there to see his downfall.

Everything was playing again in his mind, and he remembered the final moments of his brother. The look of determination in his eyes when he had first said that Thanos should kill him for the stone, but the regret later on. He had exchanged the Tesseract for his life.

He also remembered the last speech of his family relations. After all this time that Loki had detested the thought of them being brothers, he had finally accepted the idea out loud. And it all made everything more heartbreaking, because the brothers had finally pushed their differences aside, only for one of them to die.

But this was not the only reason why Thor was pained from the sight of Zoë mourning his brother's loss. He could see it clearly in her eyes, she could not hide her affection. He remembered that when she still was in Asgard, Loki would often leave the palace in order to visit her. Some other times she came to the palace, and even when he was with them, the two always seemed to be close.

How had he not noticed it before? Zoë loved Loki, she had loved him even when she had been in Asgard. The man she had fallen in love with had not known his true identity, he had not known such pain. She had no idea what his brother had done.

But she had changed as well. Back in Asgard, she had been all smiles and laugher, but the woman in front of him was visibly less happy than she had been once. Her eyes had lost their previous glint. It was not like she did not seem happy - no, she seemed like she had everything under control, like she was living exactly the life she had wished to live. Nobody could guess that she was not truly happy, unless they knew of the way she had been in Asgard.

It was all too much for Thor to handle, and as he got to the kitchen and sat on a seat around the table, holding his head in his hands, he wished he could turn back time to the moment that Zoë had still been in Asgard, before she had been exiled, before he and his brother had started fighting.