Part I

Jane Foster sang. Mostly to Loki. She sang songs from Midgard when she couldn't think of any other way to express what she was thinking or feeling. One song remained a constant and Loki found he could hum the tune – if wanted to, and he didn't want to. Well…maybe now he did. Anyway, the song went a little something like "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you, don't you…?"

Loki found himself thinking of that song as he slipped into her bedchamber to find her, as she had been for the past thirty days, sleeping. In his mind's eye he could see the glint she'd get in her eyes when she'd start singing the song to him. She loved to tease him. She was the only one that could without suffering any repercussions.

Loki stared down at Jane as she slept on. She looked so peaceful, and sometimes Loki caught a grin lifting the corners of her mouth. He wondered what she dreamed of. More likely it was who, and not what. Thor, of course. Her betrothed. Why wouldn't she dream of him, of the man she was to wed…Or at least had been going to wed until one morning after Jane had eaten breakfast and had informed Thor she felt ill and was going to lay down.

She had lain down and had yet to awaken. Thor being Thor went on a rampage and took himself out of Asgard to find a cure for his bride-to-be after the healers came up empty on their diagnosis. He had also gone to find out who had done this to Jane and would no doubt kill them when he found out. Loki and Frigga kept watch over Jane, and every day Loki grew more and more worried about her.

He heard the door behind him slide open and then shut with a hum. He felt his mother's presence without her having to say a word as she came up to stand beside him. Loki tried and failed to school his features into one of stoicism. What was the use? His mother knew by now that Loki's feelings for Jane were more than one should have for a future sister-in-law. How much he cared he dared not speak it aloud, dared not to even think it, and he was thankful that his mother never made him do so.

"How is our patient?" Frigga murmured softly.

Loki shrugged and said in a normal tone, "The same."

He moved away from his mother and sat down in what was now "his spot" in a chair beside Jane's bed. Her face was turned toward him and he wanted to reach out and touch her soft skin. If he was alone he would, but with his mother there he dared not.

"What hope is there for Jane, Mother?" he asked softly.

"There is always hope, Loki," Frigga said.

"if my magick can't break her sleep and Thor hasn't yet found anything…" Loki sighed again and rubbed his forehead in frustration. "She would hate this. I wonder sometimes if she knows. If she can hear us. If she is trying desperately to open her eyes and just cannot. The daft woman cannot sit still for five minutes and now she has slept for thirty days? She'd be mortified."

Frigga's laugh was light as she sat in the chair on the other side of Jane. "You and Jane have come to know each other well, haven't you?"

Loki nodded and allowed himself to touch Jane's hand. "Don't tell her I said this, but she has a brilliant mind for a mortal. She loathes when I say that."

Frigga blinked. "When you tell her she has a brilliant mind?"

Loki grinned. "No, when I tell her 'for a mortal'. She had started to put her hand over my mouth before I could get the words out." Loki chuckled in memory of the last time he had taught her a simple magic trick: how to shut her alarm clock off in the morning without having to get up and march across the room to do so.

"Why do you even have an alarm clock?" Loki had asked her.

Jane had frowned. "Well, because I'm usually up late with Thor. He's a night owl despite all he does during the day and so I try to stay up with him. Night time is the only time I really get to see him while he's off doing whatever for your father. Then he gets up at the butt crack of dawn—"

"Pardon?"

"It's an expression. It means he gets up really early. I don't want to get up too late and give your father any more reason to hate me so I have an alarm clock to make it in time for breakfast."

Loki had sighed then, thinking a. his brother was a lummox for not understanding that mortals needed their sleep and b. his father was also a lummox for being so hard on Jane. "Stop trying so hard," Loki had told her softly.

"I'm not the only one trying to win points here," Jane had said and looked at him pointedly. "I recall a certain God of Mischief trying to make right what he'd done wrong in Puente Antiguo." Loki had shot her a glare to which Jane had just grinned and shrugged. "So, will you teach me?"

"Just so I understand, oh Jane of Midgard – you place your alarm clock across the room because….?"

"Because otherwise I would shut it off and roll over to go back to sleep."

He stared at her. "Jane. How is me teaching you to shut it off not going to end in the same result? Isn't this defeating the purpose?"

She had frowned. "Well, yeah, but…okay, how about just the snooze then?"

He had laughed, because what else could he do? His mortal – no, wait, no, not his mortal – was a bit touched in the head. She had caught on quickly and afterwards when he'd told her that she'd done well she had quickly put her hand over his mouth and laughed. "Don't say it!" she'd exclaimed, her eyes bright with laughter.

"Framrtal," he had mumbled against her hand and she'd shot him a mock glare to which he'd simply laughed.

"Mortals," Frigga said, "seem to have their own talents. Don't you think?"

Loki said nothing. He knew exactly what his mother meant and he chose to ignore it. "What do we do?" he whispered. He hated this. Hated feeling at a loss. Hated having something not even his magick and manipulations could fix. Whatever had bound her in this…spell, had bound her good.

"We wait. We have patience. Your brother will find a cure, of this I have no doubt."

Loki bristled at that and stood. He didn't care to hear about how Thor would come through for Jane. The simple fact was Loki wanted to be the one to find the cure for her. And he'd tried everything – he'd tried getting into her dreams, visited other realms, made threats, used his magick exhaustively – he'd done everything to find what would help Jane and to no avail. He couldn't get inside her head, couldn't find any answers. Yet somehow Thor was going to because he, what – twirled his hammer around, knocked a few heads together?

"I have some things to do, I'll be back," Loki said and got to his feet. His mother said nothing as she watched him go. Loki would come back later and hopefully he would be alone with Jane.