When Thor first learned he was pregnant, he did not seem to trust it. ("Are you certain it's not a trick?" "How do you know?" "Could my brother be responsible for this?" "Are you sure?" "I'm going to hit him with a lightning blast. Just to check, you know...") It took time, and a few lightning blasts, for him to come to believe in what Heimdall had seen.
As for Heimdall, he never doubted it, for his sight had never lied.
It did, however, leave things out on certain occasions. Including, as it happened, this one.
*
In the months after Thor's pregnancy became known, a hundred other such flowerings became apparent aboard the ship. Of all who had fled Asgard with them, Heimdall alone was unsurprised. And because he was unsurprised, the whispers began again, as they had time and time before. They suggested he could see what would be as well as what was.
The whispers were wrong, of course; futuresight had never been his gift. Patterns repeated, that was all. Their people had repeated the same patterns as so many other peoples, in so many other flights from and upon so many other worlds. It happened on the very first night, and on so many of the nights that followed: They took their comfort together, in twos and sometimes in threes. Sometimes, nothing came of it other than the comfort; more often, something did.
Heimdall had watched over all of them, on that night and on nearly every other night. When an even greater percentage of them--mostly women, but Thor was not the only man--fell pregnant than would have been expected in normal circumstances, that did not come as a surprise to him, either. Nor should it have to anyone else. Not when flowers grew in every crevice and corner of the ship, taking root where nothing should have been able to; not when Thor could rarely enter a room without something blooming by the time he left it again. There was magic in the air, everywhere.
At first, it seemed Heimdall was the only one who understood this. At first, none of the others could see it; they could see nothing but their concern for the structural integrity of the ship. Despite Heimdall's reassurance, they insisted on putting down on the first planet with breathable air they came to. They ran a full diagnostic there, with Thor standing some distance away, starting a forest in what had been a desert. They found exactly what Heimdall had told them they would: that the magic behind this was of creation, not destruction. The flowers that bloomed upon the ship would not send their roots anywhere that would endanger their vessel, or anyone on it.
Once the rest of them were certain, the ship flew on toward Midgard, carrying two hundred and fifty who by now carried a hundred and fifty more.
*
One day, Heimdall was in one of the viewing rooms, looking out on the stars. He did not need to be here to be certain the way ahead was clear to them, and the way behind free of pursuit, but this sight in addition to the rest calmed him.
He rarely had company here, but today, Thor himself came to stand beside him.
"Is something wrong, my king?" Heimdall asked--for although they spoke daily, Thor did not typically interrupt him in this duty, anymore than any of the others did.
"Yes," Thor said. "I mean, no, not really. Well, sort of." He shuffled his feet and looked at the floor, then out at the stars, then at Heimdall. "I've been thinking. We should probably get married."
This, Heimdall had not seen coming.
When he didn't speak, Thor continued, gaining confidence the more he went on: "It makes sense, you know. A wedding would be good for morale. And if we were married, that would make the baby legitimate, which means Loki will have a harder time taking over the throne. When he gets bored of the whole fealty thing. Which he will, you know."
"It would be good for you to marry," Heimdall had to admit. "But why do you think you should marry me?"
"Well, I've always admired you a great deal. You're my closest friend; I trust you more than anyone. And we get along really well sexually, if you remember."
"I see," Heimdall said. He meant to go on, to point out that as flattering as this was, there was a reason he was meant to be apart from the rest of their people. Being apart didn't mean marrying the king, no matter how lovely and earnest he was in the asking. It didn't mean marrying anyone. There really was no circumstance under which--
"Oh, and it's your baby. That's actually the main reason." Of all the things Heimdall could see, the expression on his own face had never been one; but whatever was there now had Thor squinting at him with his one good eye, before saying, "You knew that, didn't you?"
"I did not," Heimdall admitted.
*
"I don't see how you didn't know," Thor said a few minutes later, after he'd ushered Heimdall to his quarters so they could talk more privately. "You know everything."
"Evidently not. I thought your magic was responsible."
But Heimdall was remembering it now, the night he'd gone to Thor. It hadn't been their first night aboard the ship, nor the second, nor the third. If the rest of their people could take their nights to cleave together, Thor and the rest of a hastily-put-together council had had work to do. Day after day, night after night, they'd made their plans, and their contingency plans, and their contingency plans for their contingency plans. They'd carried the weight of a world and a people on their shoulders, and none more than Thor. As the days had passed, that weight had taken its toll, darkening his face and bowing his shoulders. Heimdall had seen the way to take some of the burden from him, for a few hours at least. He'd gone to Thor, and the time they'd spent together had done just what he'd meant them to. Thor had seemed lighter the next day, his burden eased enough that he might keep going.
"I don't think you thought about it at all," Thor grumbled, though it was not immediately evident how much of his thunder was about Heimdall, and how much was about the beautiful purple flower that had just come shooting up from between his feet, joining the cacophony of jungle that had filled his room for months now. "If you had, you'd have figured out that a baby isn't a flower."
"No," Heimdall said. "No, it isn't."
"Well? Are you going to marry me or not?"
For thousands of years, Heimdall had stood apart. It had been necessary, then. He'd had to be loyal to Asgard alone. It had meant forsaking all other, smaller loyalties. So he'd believed, all these years. But then had come Thor, and the great loyalty and the smaller ones had seemed to blur. Then had come Ragnarok, and all loyalties had been the same, for a time. Now it was after, and perhaps he should take back his post, and his distance. But the Bifrost was gone now, and his post with it. Asgard wasn't, but perhaps what Asgard needed from him now was something other than what it had needed before.
Heimdall had never seen the future, regardless of what people whispered at times. He would never see it again, beyond the patterns he could apply from what he had seen before. But in that moment, he did see something. For that one moment, it was so clear: he was standing in the corridor of a space station, looking out of another window. This one showed Midgard, and all the stars beyond it; and when he turned, he saw the children playing. Asgard's children, chasing each other and laughing, as children did when they were happy, when they were safe. At the head of them was a child he knew and didn't, with light brown skin and warrior's braids, who bellowed louder than any of the others.
It was the vision of a moment, and then it was gone, and Heimdall did not doubt the truth of it. Not then, when he had no proof it hadn't come from his own desire; not later, when it had long since been proven true.
"Yes," he said, and committed to stepping into a stream he had only watched (and occasionally tested the temperature of, lately) for the last few thousand years. "I will."