Sarah slipped into the chair before her desk and turned on the computer. She had taken care to make a quiet entrance onto the floor and only Lily poked her head around the edge of the cubicle and waved to her. Every moment the door would open at the end of the aisle, she would flinch, expecting to see Loki striding towards her but it was always someone else, an errand boy, another agent, or an intern. Sarah began to believe that what had happened yesterday had surely been a dream, that belief solidified when the next day passed uneventfully and the day after that and the day after that until a week had passed. Friday afternoon was winding down and Sarah had all but taken to stabbing her leg with a pencil to keep herself awake as the sopophoric glow of the computer screen dulled her senses and threatened to drop her head on the keyboard in blissful slumber when Lily walked around the side of Sarah's cubicle, "Some of the staff are going out for drinks this evening, would you like to join us?" Sarah blinked, "Me? Join you guys? Uh, sure, thanks for the invite, what time are you going?" Lily shrugged, "Some people say seven, others are talking, like eight but I figure if we hit it in the middle, I'm sure we won't miss the party. I think we're going to McSorleys on East seventh st. but I'm not positive, I'll write down my cell number for you and you call us to make sure." Lily bent down and scribbled a quick number on a sticky note she had in her hand. "See you then." Sarah smiled as Lily slipped back around the wall to her own cubicle. She was even making friends now. She reached over and shut down her computer, opened up her briefcase and put her pad inside. Things were looking more like normal each day.
Sarah held her earrings in one hand as she dialed Lily's cell number with the other. Late spring sunshine was dwindling down to the horizon as she stood at the window listening to the ring of the phone in her ear. "Hello?" came Lily's voice at the other end, a pause, then "Sarah, it's you good, I'm going to be at the bar at eight, meet me there ok?" "Sure," Sarah replied, "I'm just finishing getting dressed. See you there." Mr. Whiskers streaked past her feet as she turned, nearly causing her to lose her footing. "Crazy cat" she called after him watching him run into her bedroom and dive under the bed where he would remain for the rest of the evening, when the knock came at the door. She ran over to the peephole, casting a glance at her revolver on the stand by the door just to be sure. She glanced through the peephole and closed her eyes, opened them and looked again at Loki, who was standing, arms crossed, casting an occasional glance down the hallway. She laid her forehead against the door for a long moment until she felt another rap on the other side. She quickly undid the locks and flung the door wide. Loki looked up at her, grinning widely. "The address in the database at the office seems to have been correct." He walked inside the apartment, "A true adventure is this city's public transportation system." Sarah turned and closed the door, locking it securely though a brief flash of reason caused her to wonder if she wanted to be locked inside anyplace with him. "I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be here." She said as she walked across the room, feeling his eyes trained on her as she bent down and picked up her heels. "I'm going out for the evening but first I'm going to return you to the office." She had a horrible picture of a pink slip being passed to her across her desk, "Before you get me fired." Loki shook his head, "I want to stay here with you, I want you to show me what it's like to be a citizen of this city of New York." Sarah narrowed her eyes and paused, one heel still in hand, "No way, I'm not.." she paused for the right words, "equipped to handle you. Besides, I can guarantee they're out looking for you right now." Sarah stood up "I know I would be," she added under her breath. Instead of heading for the door as she'd hoped he would, Loki walked past her, pulled a chair from the island in the middle of the kitchen and sat down, looking for all the world like he had been invited in for dinner. "Nobody said I couldn't go where I wished. I don't see what the trouble is." Sarah walked up to him, arms akimbo, she could feel her face becoming flushed as he leaned back in the chair, placing his elbow on the counter and resting his chin on his fist, the ghost of a smile crossing his face. "You said in the office on Monday that Mr. Fury gets concerned when he can't find you, so you're telling me he knows where you are?" Loki nodded and spread his arms in a wide arc, no answer was better than an outright lie, "How do you know I'm not allowed to go anywhere? If that were the case, do you think I could have left the facility unattended?" He looked at her expectantly, thinking about just how he had gotten past the security guard who was sure that the image standing before him was as solid as himself, while Loki had slipped out the front entrance and into the passing throngs. Sarah threw her hands in the air and leaned back against the far counter. "Ok, alright, but it doesn't change the fact that I have the opportunity to go out and I'm going to take it so you're not going to be able to stay here alone." Loki jumped up from the chair and clapped his hands together, "Alright, where is it we're going then?" Sarah's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, "We? Oh no, I'm meeting some of my co-workers tonight, at a bar, people who know you. I've already got a reputation started because of Thor..." Loki's grin shrank as he pursed his lips together petulantly, "My dear brother seems to bring so much more than the thunder with him. What happened between you and the great bleeding heart?" Sarah turned from the coat closet with her jacket in hand, "Thor is your brother?" Loki stood and turned around in a circle for effect, "Why yes, can't you see the resemblance?" Sarah began to stammer a reply but Loki cut her off, "That was a joke, actually I'm what you might call adopted. You don't read very much, do you.." Sarah slipped an arm into her jacket, indignant at the assumption, "Yes I do, why, did you have any suggestions?" Loki walked up behind her and lifted the other side of the jacket which she quickly shrugged into, "Try Norse mythology..."
She stepped out into the hallway and Loki followed her, waiting patiently as she triple locked the door behind her. "I was never much for mythology, now let's get to the subway so I can start my evening." "Is the place you're going to located in the subway station?" Loki asked as he trotted down the stairs behind her. "No, I'm placing you on the train and sending you back to the office." They stepped out from the foyer of her apartment building into the street and she set off at a breakneck pace towards the nearest station two blocks south. She'd gone a few hundred feet when she was aware that Loki's footsteps had stopped. She turned to find that he'd planted his feet firmly on the pavement and was standing, arms crossed, staring at her. "I told you, I don't want to, nor will I return to S.H.I.E.L.D. until such time as I will it." Sarah put her hands up in the air, "Fine, do what you want. I'm going out, damnit..." she shouted a bit louder than she'd wanted to, resuming her pace away from him and was nearly in the clear when she heard him call out to her, "Sarah, please, could I come with you?" She looked down at the sidewalk as she slowed to a stop, turned and shoved her hands in her coat pockets. It was going to have to be the leftover wine in the fridge or nothing at all tonight.
"He did what?" Fury bellowed at the young agent standing at attention on the large plasma screen that hung in Fury's bedroom. "Left, sir." Fury swung his feet over the side of the bed and glanced over at the clock on the stand by his bed which read 1:45 A.M. in bright blue led lights. "And did you hold the door open for him, agent? What the hell happened, why is he wandering around the city at this hour, alone?" Fury shouted this last word for emphasis. "We don't know sir, we're reviewing the video surveillance as we speak. It appears that he came to the foyer and stood in front of the security guard and when the guard looked away for a moment, he had vanished." Fury stood and walked across the room to the screen, "Vanished?" The agent cleared his throat, "Into thin air, yessir." Fury shook his head, "Well I'll bet you a hundred bucks that he's somewhere in this city. I want you to send a couple of agents to midtown to observe our new agent, Sarah Miller's apartment. Do not, I repeat, do not engage or interfere with Loki in any way. I want to keep a tight reign on him, I do not want to place Ms. Miller in any danger, and keep me posted please." Fury rubbed his head in hopes to stop the ache forming there. "I knew this was a goddamn bad idea."
Sarah rolled the wineglass back and forth between her palms as she watched Loki, his arms on the table before him, head hung over her tablet which she'd placed on the island, his face, all seriousness, bathed in the flickering glow. "Youtube, got it? Not me tube." She sighed and Loki looked up at her, eyes narrowed for a second..something told her to shut the tablet off before she corrupted him completely but instead she continued to watch him and he smiled mischieviously at her, "Is there anything that you cannot see on this wonderful thing?" Sarah laughed at this, the wine was having the desired effect. "I'm not going to show you any more than that tonight, afraid your head might explode with all that knowledge" She looked at the pink neon wall clock in the kitchen, "And it's getting late, I'm going to go to bed." Loki nodded absently, continuing to stare at the tablet before him until she slid it from the counter and held it in front of her, "That means you can see yourself out." Loki watched her open her briefcase and slide the tablet inside. "Might I stay here?" Sarah closed the briefcase and turned to him, "You really don't give up do you. I can bet that your accommodations at the office are a sight better than my old couch and tomorrow is Saturday so I've some errands to run. Real boring stuff, honestly." Loki suddenly grinned at her and she looked away, sure that it was the wine that had made her feel like she'd just done a hundred meter dash, breaking the world record in the process. "You know what, I'm going to lock my bedroom door and just so you know, I sleep with my service revolver under my pillow," She walked to the stand by the door and picked up the gun where she'd left it when Loki had first arrived earlier that evening, "See, so I expect to find you here on the couch in the morning." Loki scrambled obediently over to the couch and sat down, hands folded in his lap. "I am a man of honor, I give you my word. I will be right here in the morning." Sarah smiled, a sardonic grin, "Great, looking forward to it." She turned off the kitchen lights and put her glass in the sink then plodded into the bedroom, paused, re-entered the living room, walked to the briefcase, took out the tablet, walked over to Loki and handed it to him, "Might as well beat you to the punch," She mumbled as she turned back towards her bedroom and disappeared behind the closed door.
The sunlight streaming through her bedroom window startled her awake. She looked over at her alarm clock, nearly 9 a.m. She stood up and pulled her robe around her quietly, listening for any signs of life beyond the bedroom door. Finding nothing but silence, she opened the door and peered into the living room. Loki was fast asleep on the couch, his knees pulled up to his chest, back against the armrest, arms crossed in front of him, his head resting against the back of the couch. She approached closer. The tablet had been set on the floor and as she picked it up, she heard him groan. By the time she had place the tablet on top of the briefcase and plugged it in to charge it, Loki had swung his legs around and was now sitting on the edge of the couch, head down, elbows resting on his knees. "Better than your own bed?" Sarah asked him as she opened the refrigerator door, "Mmm," he mumbled, "Bad dreams are bad dreams no matter where you lay your head. Notwithstanding that, I slept no differently than any other night." Loki glanced up at Sarah, "Thank you for your hospitality." She shrugged, "I figured in for a penny, in for a pound. I'm making coffee, do you drink it?" Loki nodded. She added another scoop of coffee to the filter, poured the water into the reservoir on the side of the coffee maker and turned it on. "I'm going to go get changed, have a bite to eat and then I'm going to do laundry." She said to him, "if you're determined to tag along, you'll have to help me. Understood?" Loki gave her a half smile, "Good, I'll be back out in a minute."
She had opted for scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Loki had stood at her side, his full height of six feet making her feel even shorter than she was, watching her intently, interjecting with an occasional comment or a question. More than once, she'd had to push him aside to make room in the small space of the kitchen. He'd eaten a good share of the eggs, nodding his head in approval, Sarah, however, had lost her appetite as she pondered what Monday was going to bring when it came to light that she'd let Loki spend the night at her apartment. When they finally stepped out into the late spring sunshine, it was nearly 11 o'clock in the morning. Loki had hefted the bag of dirty laundry from her hands to his shoulder effortlessly when she'd made to pick it up herself and they walked down the sidewalk in silence, Loki turning and looking, staring at the shops, the people, who stared back at him. The laundromat was nearly deserted when they arrived and Sarah immediately started to load one of the front load washers. "Here," she said, handing him the half empty laundry bag, "Put the rest in this small washer." He slid the remaining contents of the bag inside the open washer and turned to her. "Isn't this fun?" She quipped, "Or is it a little too domestic for the likes of you?" Loki looked at the washer, "I've often wondered about such as this. It has a rather soothing rhythm to it." Sarah glanced at him, trying to determine if he was at all serious, "After we're done here, you have to go back to S.H.I.E.L.D., alright?" She hadn't mentioned to him the two agents she'd observed across the street when they'd left her apartment or the fact that they'd followed them to the laundromat and were now outside staring in through the plate glass windows from a company car, confirming the apprehension she'd felt the night before. Loki frowned, and sat down in one of the worn plastic seats next to Sarah. "Are you so eager to rid yourself of my company, Sarah?" She sighed and put a hand on his shoulder, the sensation of her small hand against his shirt startling him, "For all the trouble you've caused, I've actually enjoyed your company Loki, I would just rather have you back safe at the office." Loki stood abruptly startling her as she sat back in the chair. "I have nothing to fear from anyone, not from Fury, or Stark, or the good doctor," He leaned forward against the washer beside him, "Do you feel you're in danger when I'm here with you?" Sarah fought the urge to nod, "No, but," she shook her head, maybe it would make him understand, "There are two agents in a car outside on the street, and they've been watching us...wait!" She cried as he spun on his heels and strode out the door of the laundromat to stand, arms crossed, staring across the street at the two agents who by now had exited their vehicle and were walking over to meet him. Sarah walked outside and stood beside Loki whose blue green eyes flashed in the noonday sunlight, nostrils flared, a sneer twisting his face. "Ms. Miller," One of the agents said to her. She was about to respond when Loki stepped to his right, placing her behind him. "She has done nothing wrong. I sought her company of my own volition. You will tell Director Fury." The agent who had first spoken, nodded in agreement, "Yessir, now if you will come with us, we can be on our way and you can tell the Director yourself." Loki turned to Sarah as the agents stepped into the street, "Thank you, Sarah Miller, for playing a gracious host. I look forward to seeing you at the office." Here he grinned and once again she had to steady herself as a shiver ran up her spine. She retreated to the interior of the laundromat where she watched the car drive away towards downtown Manhattan. She sat down to wait for her clothes to finish washing so that she could transfer them to the dryer, after a minute, picked up a magazine, browsed through it, not really seeing the words and finally put it down again, suddenly gripped by a crushing loneliness as she'd not felt for many years, not since she'd made the decision to move from the family home in Rutland, Vermont to attend college three states away. She sighed and closed her eyes against the thought. The sudden jangling ring of her cell phone startled her and she fished frantically in her jeans pocket for it, finally getting it open on the last ring. "Hey," It was her sister Lizzie.
Just before the hole had opened in the sky last year, Lizzie and her son Daniel had moved from Manhattan to Far Rockaway after a long marriage and a short divorce. Her ex-husband Daniel Sr. had been killed when one of the ships that had come from the sky had crash landed on his office building. "Have you called mom and dad yet this week?" Sarah sighed. If the truth were known, she actively tried to avoid calling her parents more than a few times a month. The conversations always strayed to her line of work, and what kind of job was that for a woman to have, and then there was always the little remarks about how she wasn't getting any younger, when was she going to find herself a nice man. "I haven't, no, is there anything wrong?" She could hear her sister moving the phone, "Sorry, doing laundry," Sarah smiled, "What a coincidence, so am I." She could hear Lizzie groan,"Mom and dad have been pumping me for information is all." "Oh, speaking of info," Sarah perked up, "Tell me, what do you know about Norse mythology?" Lizzie laughed, "Seriously? Not a damn thing, Daniel however is doing a book report on gods and mythology. You want me to ask him?" Sarah hesitated a moment, "Naw, I had someone suggest it as reading material," "Oh," Lizzie replied, then Sarah heard her sister's muffled voice as she spoke to someone else for a moment "Daniel said that Norse mythology is very dark, The main gods are Odin, Hemdall, Freya, Thor, Loki..." "Loki, what was he?" Sarah asked hunching down over the phone as if she was worried someone would be listening, "Loki was the god of mischief, the trickster, the god of evil," A pause, "but not entirely all bad, he did a lot of good deeds but there always seemed to be an angle for him...wanna tell me why you asked?" Sarah smiled, "It's nothing at all, but it suits him." "Him who?" Lizzie piped up, "Nobody you know, listen I gotta go, the laundry is ready to go into the dryer, I promise I'll call mom and dad later." They said their goodbyes and she hung up. There was plenty of mischief about Loki, she thought to herself as she started to load one of the dryers.