Before that day when Bragi looked into his wife's eyes and watched the unending stream of tears fall down her cheeks all he'd been able to see was despair and horror locked behind cold glass. Every tear froze and added to the wall that trapped Idun with those things she shouldn't have seen, and Idun wouldn't stop crying, and she wouldn't look at him. Nothing he did or said helped. She moved, but she was frozen. She cried, but she wasn't really there. Bragi had wanted to cry too because they had no hope or future.
Now Idun was crying again, but she was also looking at him. While the tears before had built a wall, the ones now were tearing it down. Bragi wanted to cry too because his soul was back, and his heart was beating, and his wife saw him when he looked at her. She saw him enough that she hadn't seen anything else, and now instead of no hope, she'd brought all of it back. Bragi didn't know how she'd done it, but she had. Idun saved him. It was funny how she kept doing that.
Bragi nodded, smiled, and laughed. A tear slid down his cheek and broke down a wall Bragi didn't know he'd had. “Yes,” Bragi said through the laugh. “It turns out we made it after all.” They were home. Both of them. Maybe he had drifted off after all, and Idun had never woken up, and this was all an elaborate frozen death dream. But even if Bragi was dead, and this was a dream, at least it was a good one, and at least he didn't feel frozen any longer. Bragi didn't think it was a dream though. If it was, he wouldn't feel so tired.
When she pulled his collar, Bragi didn't resist. “I'll..” he stopped mid sentence when her lips touched his and their hall became silent. Before, in the icy death realm, those had been last kisses. They had a sad note of finality to them that would make a composer crumple. This kiss though, promised more. He grinned and then returned the kiss back to her, warm, sweet, long and proper now that he could feel everything again. It confirmed the previous idea. They were home. And he needed to get his wife those blankets. He kissed her one last time, for now. Bragi tilted his head a little. “I think..,” he said, “I much prefer kissing you hello to kissing you goodbye.”
He waited for her to let go of his shirt. Bragi looked at her hand as though he minded the lingering, but he actually didn't. He didn't mind at all. He scoffed as though she was speaking nonsense in retaliation for her reaction to him telling the story then shook his head at the words. “You can't miss me,” Bragi said, “I never left.” He paused. “Don't m..Stay there.” Bragi had almost said 'Don't move' but thought better of it. He didn't ever want her to stop moving again. Then he hurried to grab blankets. If he was gone too long, he'd miss her too much.
Bragi showed up a few moments later with more blankets than his arms could reasonably hold, which he dropped on top of her rather haphazardly before he pulled off her wet cloak and gloves. He'd removed his coat and gloves before he'd went to get the blankets. He removed her boots, and then began unfolding the blankets and draping them over her one by one. Then Bragi disappeared to get the one he'd dropped on the floor.
Once he had put that one over her too, Bragi leaned down over the back of the couch and embraced her. He kissed her temple. “I'm going to start a fire now,” he said. But it took him a moment to work himself up to letting go. Maybe he should have agreed to her no more worrying proposal after all. It was that worry that got him to release her in the end and get to work on the fire. Winter still did not agree with her. Bragi had to get her warm. He also needed to figure out if there was any food in the house that hadn't gone bad. They'd been gone for awhile.