A/N: Initially, I had planned to end Olivia's story with Surfacing. However, she stayed in my mind and I quickly discovered neither her nor Loki were quite finished. So here we are, a few days later, with a brand new story. As always, feel free to tell me what you think. Happy reading :-)
The text cursor blinked steadily across the white surface of the page. I sighed and looked at the clock in the top right hand corner of my screen: 1:37 A.M. My eyes throbbed from the harsh light of the monitor. I ran fingers to my lids, massaging them as best I could. Technically speaking, I didn't have to do this. I had people who could type my reports for me. Still, I felt an obligation to the client if they had sought me out personally, not just my firm.
My risk the year before had paid off. Business for The Grant Group was booming. Within two months, my investment had tripled. I had more psychoanalysis work than I knew what to do with. I had to hire a full time staff. Two weeks later, we moved into a new building. One month later, more staff. Another building. On and on it went until, finally, we were then positioned at the current location. I had two hundred employees and owned half a building in downtown Seattle. We did evaluations for everything from criminals to cheating spouses. My company helped government agencies, desperate parents, suspicious spouses, the police. If you could think of a person or group, chances were, we had been hired by them.
Of course, the rapid success had its drawbacks. Since the visit to my sister's grave, I was able to sleep in peace. In the year that followed the outrageous success, however, I found myself not sleeping due to the workload I had on my shoulders. It had lessened somewhat when my staff had grown, but I often found myself unable to shut down my mind. And then there was the matter that I wasn't sure what I was.
I knew something happened to me when I touched the Saeculum. Something must have, but for the life of me, I was unable to recall what. Most days, I saw not only people's inner workings, but there were times I often thought I saw people in an entirely new way. For instance, one night Loki and I had visited the SAM. He seemed to enjoy telling me how incorrect the archaeologists were in regards to the lives of the "Midgardians" back then. That's what I was to him. That's what we all were. "Midgardians."
When we had approached an ancient Greek vase, the strangest thing happened. It was as if I were in ancient Greece itself. I was standing in a busy street, the smell of animals and incense mixing together. I heard people shouting, gold clinking, sheep bleeting, and various other sounds you would expect to hear at a market. Before me, sat a man. The wisp of hair on his head jutted in all directions. He was hunched, forming the very vase I had just seen.
In an instant, the experience was gone. Once more, I was standing in the museum, the quiet whispers of visitors echoing around me.
"Olivia, are you alright?"
The sound of my name jarred me from my thoughts. I turned my gaze to see a pensive Loki, his brows knit together in thought.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just kind of zoned out..." But I didn't tell him. I had never told him. For one thing, I felt like I had lost my sanity. For another, the idea that it had been real terrified me. Several occurrences similar had happened since then. I could have sworn I had been in Seattle during the time of the pioneers a month ago. It disturbed me greatly. And then there was the healing factor...
Since we were living together, I was actually able to put the cooking skills my mother had taught me to use. On my own, I was far too lazy to cook for myself. But I had come to rather enjoy making things for the two of us to eat. One morning in particular, I happened to be frying bacon. I meant to flip the strips over, I had done it countless times before. However, at that moment, the grease flew from the base of the pan onto my hand.
"Ouch!" I hissed, gripping my hand in pain.
"What happened?"
"Oh, I just got..." My voice trailed off as I looked to see a faint golden light emit from my hand. It shimmered and slowly grew stronger until, finally, the red burn faded to nothing. All at once, the golden light stopped. I stared in disbelief. My hand looked positively untouched. It was like the burn had never even happened.
"What?" He had come into the kitchen, inspecting me for damages.
"I just, er, stubbed my toe. Stupid stove..." I muttered, giving the object a swift kick for good measure.
"Try to be more careful with them, yes?" He pecked my forehead and returned to his book in the room opposite.
"I will." I raised my hand, just to do a final inspection. There was no light but there was no burn either. A fear crept into me at the base of my spine. One thing was definite, I was no longer just Olivia Grant. Something had happened. Something unexplainable. Deep inside, I knew the Saeculum was responsible.
Thunder from the storm outside tore me from my thoughts. The rain fell in heavy sheets, the wind causing the bushes outside to scratch at the window panes. The two pages I had written would have to suffice for the evening. If need be, I could always send it to my secretary, Avery, to work on. I yawned, shutting the computer down as quickly as possible. Creeping to the bedroom, I slipped off my clothes and pulled my pajamas over my body. The sleeping form in the bed caught my attention.
Initially, when we had arrived in Washington, the thunder from the frequent storms made Loki incredibly paranoid. It seemed that with every boom, he would look around in anxiety. I knew that this was due to fear of his brother, but it amazed me all the same. After six months, he had finally gotten used to it. He rolled onto his side, facing me, muttering wildly.
I knew, from what he told me, that Loki had seen some terrible things. Truly terrible. Letting himself fall into a void in space after an attempted decimation of Jötunheim had proved to be...unwise. He had ended up in all the dark, dingy back alleys of the universe. And though he never went into detail of what he experienced, I knew from his dreams that it was unspeakable.
Quietly as I could, I crawled into the bed, delicately lifting the covers. Sweat beaded on his brow and I frowned. I moved my hand to gingerly touch his face. The frantic sounds began to hush and I curled myself into him. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal, the murmurs and whimpers dying to silence. Tenderly, I kissed his forehead, hoping to assuage whatever nightmares were plaguing him that night. His arm wrapped around me and I began to drift into a dreamless sleep.
An emphatic banging awoke me. My brows knit together in confusion as I glanced, my vision fuzzy, at the alarm beside me. 3:47. Who would be knocking on my door at such an ungodly hour? It didn't matter. I was exhausted. Whoever it was would just have to come back later. Sighing, I closed my eyes and began to drift away once more.
Bang! Bang! Bang! I moaned, dragging my hand down my face. Loki stirred next to me, his face contorted in bafflement. "Did I hear someone knocking?" He muttered, his voice thick with sleep.
"I'm hoping if we ignore them, they'll go away."
We remained as we were for another minute when the sound began again. "Go away!" I shouted grumpily, pulling the covers over my head. I felt Loki rise from the bed, grabbing the spear that we both knew was disguised as a bat.
"I'm going to see who it is. And then I'm going to kill them." He muttered angrily.
"Don't get blood on the porch, we just re-stained it."
I pulled the covers from my head, flopping my arms to my sides. Why was it always me? All I wanted was a decent night's sleep for a change. Deep voices exchanged unintelligible words from the front room. Sighing, I kicked free from the bed and searched for a set of clothes. I found Loki's dress shirt from the night before strewn on the floor along with the jeans I had worn earlier. Quickly, I put them on before making a rather noisy exit from our bedroom.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I yawned, turning the corner down the hall and entering the living room. "Loki, who is-"
But the moment I opened my eyes I saw. Before me stood a dripping wet, very angry looking Thor.