Big thanks to Becky for the beta job!

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The sound of the wind howling nearly steals away the desperate wails of the infant. The cries slowly growing weaker in effort as the bone chill saps the life from the small creature.

It's a picture of despair that makes him feel as though his own chest has been halved, leaving his bleeding heart on display.

Loneliness and sorrow heavy on his mind as he takes in this war-devastated land. The blood of his own people frozen on the ground where the babe lays, tiny body curled to prolong what little warmth it has.

Abandoned, to never go home again.

He can hear Anthony shifting across the workshop, maintaining the controls to the machine that has punched this hole through time and space itself.

Powerful Midgardian magic indeed, his brilliant inventor has given him a doorway to fix everything.

Starting here.

Here as the tiny babe's cries die down to soft whimpers of lost hope.

Stepping closer to the portal he feels the pull of the icy realm just beyond the gateway of energy, blowing its snow into his face and dusting the surrounding workshop with powder.

Just feet away the babe shivers. Alone. Always so alone.

His hands itch to sooth the newborn, hold and comfort and give it everything he'd never remembered having.

"You can go back now. Change everything." Unable to pull his eyes away from the spectacle of death and destruction before him he simply listens to the words from Anthony across the room.

What should be joy is laced with a dark amount of mourning.

He'd never thought anyone would miss him here.

How many weeks had been spent here in this very lab, rewriting the history of magic and science so that this could come to pass? How many thousands of hours has he spent in the company and growing attention of the mortal man? A man of whit and genius unmatched. A man who'd only shown him respect as a peer and honest affection.

A man who's given him the greatest gift ever; the way to go back and change everything, to make right thousands of years of wrongs.

A mere mortal who loved him enough to give him everything.

Pulling his eyes away from the portal, black hair whips his face in the arctic breeze as he looks to this strange, beautiful man.

Anthony stands strong, pride keeping him from revealing the emotions that boil just below the surface. Eyes, ever the window of the soul are so betraying though. Hurt and sorrow and happiness and loss all battle for even ground.

"Go on. I don't know how long this bitch is going to stay open without ripping the universe apart." The mortal says, caught in his weakness and covering for it cheaply. "You know, try not to come back again and throw me out a window."

Swallowing back emotions he'd long thought dead he turns back to the infant, so cold and alone for so much of its existence. The lies and hurt it must endure to find a place in life that it feels warm; nearly soul breaking for a period and it will always bare the scars of these battles.

But the reward.

The mortal hands that smooth all chills no matter how deep in his soul…

Shaking his head slowly he steps back, snow and ice crunching under his boots against the stone floor of the lab.

"Close it."

"What?!" There's too much fear and hope in that voice to be anything but the honest truth, drawing a tight smile to his lips.

"Close it. Some things are worth waiting for."