The day's work had been fruitful, but only because the day had itself been very long. Thor had not slept for even a minute of the previous night. Nor had Heimdall, though he required little enough sleep in good times, and less in times of war or other strife; the lack did not tear at him the way it did at Thor, whose preference had once been to slumber as long and as whole-heartedly as he did anything else.
Thor did not seem in any danger of such slumber now--nor even of one of the light naps that had become his wont, these last few months. He paced from one wall to the opposite and back again, radiating a crackling energy.
"Let me soothe your ills, my king," Heimdall suggested, once he sensed he would not be immediately rebuffed.
Thor gave him a black look, though not without a humor that had been missing even five minutes before. Such was the benefit of timing. "Soothing your ills is what caused this--" he gestured to the swell of his pregnant belly "--in the first place."
"I recall it differently."
"You would."
This was ground retrodden every time they came together, a source of contention by now well-worn and comfortable. If either of them had been the one to come to the other, in those first days of their journey, it would have been easier to know which of them had first seen the other's sorrow, and thought to bed him in order to lighten it. But it hadn't been something either of them had planned; as inevitable as it seemed in hindsight, it had been the joining of a moment (which had been another late one, after another very long day).
"Let me," Heimdall said again, near-certain Thor would.
Thor did. They came together as they had on so many other nights. Kissing Thor was to see the coming of a storm, rocking within him to see the storm breaking, laying hands on his belly to bask in the growth that followed storm's end.
Afterward, as they lay together, the air smelled fresh and new, as if there had been a rain.
"You'll sleep now," Heimdall said.
"Only if your son leaves me alone for long enough."
But there was little enough thunder remaining in Thor's grumbling. He soon slept.
Heimdall did not. It was his duty to watch over this vessel and everyone on it. The king and the heir. Their people and the allies who traveled with them. But if it was his duty and his sorrow, then it was also his pleasure, sharper now than it had been at any other time in his long memory.
The night passed, and the ship flew on.