It was getting dark by the time Jane parked her car in the garage near her apartment. She'd spent the lengthy and frustrating drive in full-force Manhattan traffic considering where she should take the group for dinner. Between her frazzled nerves, ravenous hunger, and her desire to keep the two Asgardians - Loki in particular - away from the populace at large, she decided that in the end she ought to just take them home with her.

Loki was silent through the entire drive, even though Thor attempted to engage him in some light conversation - asking him whether there was anything in particular he'd care to eat,whether he was tired. She'd glanced into the rear view mirror in time to watch Loki give Thor a withering look, and turn back to glare out of his window. Thor quickly gave up any attempt at getting Loki to speak, and took on a rather hangdog expression himself.

The four of them trooped to Jane's apartment building in the gathering dusk. The apartment was on the top floor, large and spacious - an extreme rarity in Manhattan, but Tony had been the one who'd found it for her, and he knew things about New York real estate that the non-billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropists among the human race couldn't hope to learn in a single lifetime. Jane had considered refusing for a more modest apartment, but at the last minute, she'd decided she liked having the extra space to offset her earlier, more cramped living arrangements, as well as the crush of New York. And besides, with her new salary, she could certainly afford it.

"Your home is lovely, Jane," Thor remarked upon entering.

"Yeah, isn't it great?" gushed Darcy, who loved Jane's apartment more than Jane did, if that were possible. Darcy was living on campus at Columbia, and escaped to Jane's apartment whenever she could. "Check this out!" Darcy grabbed Thor's arm and rushed him over to the door to Jane's balcony. This was another New York rarity, but one Jane loved. In all the months she had lived in New York, she never tired of the novelty of stepping out of her apartment to look out over the city, feeling above and apart from the lights and people below. When she was out there, she felt as though she were living in the sky.

"The view is amazing," Darcy was saying as she opened the door, letting in a gush of chill spring air.

Loki, who had been skulking in the hall, now stalked across the living room and straight through the balcony door, blowing right past Darcy who gave a little jump back as he passed. He crossed to the rail and slumped on it, resting his elbows on the rail and raking his hair back with both hands.

"Ho-kayy," Darcy said, glancing first to Jane, then to Thor.

Thor's expression had gone stony. "If he wishes to sulk, let him sulk," he said. "I care not."

Darcy closed the balcony door slowly, as though putting the lid on a box that had unexpectedly held a sleeping snake. "Is he usually like that?"

"I don't feel like talking about it," said Jane, as she crossed to the kitchen to fetch her takeout menus. She rifled through the drawer, and took out a Chinese menu. The restaurant was one of her favorites, not because of the quality of the food, but because they were fast, and included free Diet Cokes in all her orders. "What do you want for dinner, Darce?"

The order came in record time, and a good thing too, because Jane's arms were starting to shake with hunger by the time her intercom rang. Darcy had marshalled Thor into helping set the table, so it was short work to unpack the food and lay it out. Thor went out to the balcony, and Jane watched as she set the dish of General Tso's chicken onto the table. Thor reached out to Loki's arm, but Loki whirled around before Thor could touch him. Jane could hear Loki's voice, raised but muffled by the glass so that she couldn't make out what he was saying. She watched Thor start away from Loki, then back toward the door, finally turning to open it and enter the apartment again.

Another puff of cold air entered the space, along with Loki's voice, rasping and raised, loud enough that it filled the whole apartment. "-think I would eat anything made by the filthy hands of mortals? Unlike you I don't shovel anything I see into my mouth the way a bilgesnipe-"

Thor closed the door behind him, and Loki's rant was muffled again. "Loki thanks you very much, but he does not care for any dinner just now," Thor said.

"Oh. That's nice of him," Jane said. "Come on and eat - have you ever had Chinese before?"

"What is a Chinese?" Thor asked, approaching the table. "It smells delicious." His mood seemed to lift at the sight of the food.

Once she started eating, Jane's mood started to lift as well. Darcy fetched a bottle of so-so rum from the back of Jane's cupboard, and after drinking some mixed with the Diet Coke, the muscles in Jane's shoulders began to relax. Darcy started retelling the story of the NYU film student who kept breaking up with her over David Foster Wallace, and Jane tried to teach Thor how to use chopsticks. He was hopeless and spilled rice all over the table, but gamely kept trying, laughing as he did. Jane glanced to the balcony door from time to time, but by then it was dark enough that she couldn't see out. It was as though Loki wasn't even there, as though the ring didn't exist, as though Thor had come just for her.

After demolishing the food, Jane and Darcy carried plates into the kitchen while Thor gathered the plastic takeout trays from the table.

"Listen," Darcy said, "I think I'm gonna take off, yeah?"

"Don't want to help me wash up?" Jane said.

"Uh, I think I'm kind of fifth wheeling it?" Darcy said, giving Jane a meaningful look.

"I don't think you're the fifth wheel here," Jane said, with a glance back at the balcony.

"Okay, if he stays out there all night though? This is the quietest quiet time you guys are going to get. Take advantage."

"Yeah, no, that would be extremely weird and awkward," Jane said.

"You're just limiting yourself," chided Darcy. "How did you even get through college?"

"I was usually the one studying in the laundry room when the sock went on the door," Jane said, smiling a little to hide how it still hurt - how lonely she'd felt, shut out of her space, the hard chugging washing machine cold against her back, the book on her knees, the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. How exotic sex had seemed to her then, a flashing, slippery fish darting just outside of her reach. How disappointed she'd felt at the sticky, fumbling reality of it.

"Well I'm just saying, the guy you've been waiting to come back for a year, and you've barely even said a word to him the entire time he's here. So if you're not going to talk, you might as well-"

"Thanks," interrupted Jane, "I'll take the advice under consideration."

Thor poked his head into the kitchen. "Where should I put these?" he asked, holding up the paper bag full of takeout trash.

"Oh. Yeah. Trashcan's here," Jane said, feeling her face go hot.

"Thanks for dinner!" Darcy said, a little too loudly. She kissed Jane on the cheek, then gave Thor a hug. "Call me tomorrow, okay? I'm totally up for taser duty!" She bounded out of the apartment before Thor or Jane could say good bye.

"Well," Thor said. "I am glad that Darcy remains so... exuberant."

"Yeah, Darce doesn't change," Jane said.

"Good," Thor said. "Ah. Shall I help with the dishes?"

"You know what? No," Jane said, stacking the plates in the sink and turning around. "The last thing I need is dishes." Instead she fetched their glasses and started mixing them both another rum-and-Diet-Coke, this time garnishing them with slices of an only-slightly-dessicated lime. "Here," she said when she was finished, shoving a drink into Thor's hand. "Let's just, like, talk."

They exited the kitchen, and Jane paused. They could sit on the sofa, but that was in full view of the balcony where Loki was, ostensibly, still sulking. Jane didn't like the thought that she couldn't see Loki, but that Loki, looking into the lit apartment, could see them. "Okay," she said, deciding, "bedroom." Hope you're happy, Darce, she thought as she led the way.

Jane had just done her laundry the other night, so fortunately there weren't any clothes strewn around the floor. Her bed wasn't made, however, so she smoothed the covers up around her pillows before she kicked off her boots, pulled her cell phone out of her back jeans pocket and sat cross-legged on the bed, hunching a little over her glass. Thor sat next to her, but not too close, both feet on the floor. Darcy's words came back to Jane - the guy you've been waiting to come back for a year, and you've barely even said a word to him. But now that she had him alone, she couldn't for the life of her think of a single thing to say. So she defaulted to the subject at hand.

"So," she said, "what are we doing about this ring?"

Thor stared into his drink, as though the ring were at the bottom of it. "I wish I could say that I had thought of something," he said, "but I'm afraid I am just as uncertain as I was."

"If someone's really got this thing and is moving around with it..." Jane started, then stopped, thinking. "It'd take too much time to build a portable machine for the Tesseract," she concluded. "I could do it, given a few months and some help, but we don't have that kind of time."

"Could - would Erik help?" Thor asked. Jane started, nearly spilling her drink, and Thor noticed. "I did not mean that I do not respect your abilities, but perhaps - if I sent Loki back to Asgard, would he-"

"Thor," Jane started, then stopped, unsure of how to say it. She took two long swallows of her drink before she decided just to be direct. "Erik can't help us right now. He's in rehab."

"What-" Thor said.

"Oh - God - it's like, a place where people go when they have problems. Like, substance problems. And when they might hurt themselves, so they're put in a place where they can be watched."

Jane watched as Thor processed this information, still staring into his drink.

"Did Erik hurt himself?" he finally asked.

"Yeah," Jane said, and she surprised herself at how abrupt and bitter she sounded. "The night I got back from Norway."


I should just try to sleep - let my body adjust, Jane thought, leaning against the bathroom sink, her glass of water in hand. It was good advice, and sensible. But like all good advice, she did not feel very compelled to follow it. She was awake, and wasn't about to frustrate herself by lying in bed and trying to pretend otherwise.

So the question was, what should she do? She had some books in her carry-on, but none of them had interested her on the plane, and none of them seemed appealing now. There was the television - she had always had a secret weakness for watching cable in hotels, since she rarely had been able to afford it on a permanent basis. But even the wonders of Hoarders and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo did not tempt her.

She walked out of the bathroom to the bedroom window, sweeping the shade back to see the bright, uneven lights of a New York beginning its recovery. She felt the cars on the streets below her, as though they were running under her skin, as though they hummed with her own pulse.

She wanted to know what had happened here, why so many had died, for what? That's what she asked herself as she stared out the window. For what? For what? For what?

Funny, she hadn't thought to ask Erik. She'd been too relieved to see him, too unmoored by the events of the past day, too starstruck at having had dinner with the Tony Stark. And it struck her then, that Erik had never really answered her question - where had he been? Had he been in New York? Had he been helping the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents - had he been with Agent Coulson? Had he seen Agent Coulson die?

She wasn't sure she wanted to know. But then she turned on herself. This wasn't some movie where she could just shut her eyes any time things got too scary. This was real, and if Erik had been through something, she needed to know. She picked up the phone and dialed Erik's room.

Although it was ten past two in the morning, she hadn't hesitated before calling. She had known Erik for such a long time, since before she could really remember. He had taught with her father at the University of Chicago, had been her father's only real friend. Jane's father had taught her to love the endless mysteries of the cosmos, but it had been Erik who, when her father had been too busy grading exams, had driven hours with her, beyond where the lights of the city could reach, to a field where she could see the wheeling of the constellations above. He'd given her, as a Christmas present, a domed lantern upon which perforated plastic hemispheres could be placed, projecting the positions of the stars. She had lulled herself to sleep so many nights, memorizing the constellations on her ceiling, the seasons in which they would appear. Jane's father had given her the love, but Erik had given her the sky.

As she'd grown, Jane began to trust Erik to talk about the important stuff with her. Not the stuff her father thought was important and was so awkward with, like puberty and boyfriends, and the way some of the girls at school called her "Jane the brain" and didn't seem to realize that being smart was supposed to be a good thing. But stuff like whether he thought neutrinos might defy Einstein's laws of relativity, whether the universe would continue to expand or eventually begin to contract, and her favorite subject - whether an Einstein-Rosen bridge could exist, and if so, where it would lead.

When Jane's father had the stroke that would kill him, Erik was the first person she'd called, and he'd raced to the hospital, getting four speeding tickets along the way. He'd helped her with all of the arrangements that had proven so complicated, and with the heartbreaking work of cleaning out her father's office at the university. And he'd picked her up off the floor and held her when she'd opened the desk drawer to find that her father had saved every single crayon drawing of the solar system that she'd ever made.

The first Thanksgiving after her father died, Erik had invited her to his house for dinner. The turkey had caught on fire - she still had no idea how - and she'd had to douse it with the fire extinguisher, ruining the entire dinner and most of the food in the kitchen. So instead they'd gone out and had hamburgers and fries, and he'd gotten her a beer, even though it was six months until her twenty-first birthday. When the bartender had asked her for ID, Erik had said "come on, she's my daughter." And that, Jane realized, was true.

So she had never had any compunction about calling Erik at all hours of the morning, if she needed to. But now, as she sat on the hotel bed, listening to the whirr of the phone as it rang - and rang, and rang - Jane began to feel a black stitch of fear knit in her stomach. Of all the times she'd called, no matter how late - or how early - Erik had always answered his phone.

He's fast asleep, he probably didn't hear, or he thought it was his alarm clock or something, thought Jane as she dialed again. He'd been so tired when she'd been there. His mussed hair, his bloodshot eyes. And the smell of something, maybe vodka, on his breath.

She hung up the receiver, picked it back up, and dialed zero.

"Front desk," said the voice on the other end - too sprightly, she thought, for two in the morning.

"Hi," Jane said, trying to keep her voice steady. "I need some help. Uh - I was supposed to meet someone? I mean, another guest in the hotel, and he's not answering his phone. Or his door. I'm getting kind of worried."

"Oh?" The voice a little guarded now. She thinks I'm sleeping with - oh, who even cares?

"Yeah," Jane said. "Could someone come up with a key to room 1417, please?"

"I can have someone call the room," the voice said.

"No, I've called several times," Jane said.

"Well ma'am-" the voice said.

The hell you're going to ma'am me. "Listen. Either someone comes up with a key right now, or I call 911. Got it?"

A pause. "I'll have someone up right away, ma'am. 1417?"

"1417, that's right," Jane said. She hung up, pulled on the bathrobe she found in the closet, and padded down the hall to Erik's room. She may have lied about trying Erik's door, but she intended to try now. She knocked once, twice, a third time - louder. A fourth time, really putting some force into it. The room next door threw the bolt on their door, and Jane didn't care. She knocked again.

"Ma'am?" A fresh faced woman in a blazer and pencil skirt coming up behind Jane. She looked like an adolescent - she even had braces.

"Hi," Jane said. "You have a key?"

"Yes ma'am, he's not answering?"

"No. Please let me in." Jane could hear the wobble in her voice as she said it.

The woman - the girl? - slid the keycard into the door, and Jane pushed the door open, dashing into the room.

All the lights were on, and Erik was lying on the bed. Jane ran to him, grabbed him by the shoulders, shook, shouted his name. She got him on his back, and then saw the puddle next to him, and the froth in his mouth. Before she could even register what she had to do, she was doing it; digging her fingers into Erik's mouth, scooping out as much vomit as she could, the liquid slick and slippery, sliding between her fingers. All the while, screaming at the girl to call 911, realizing afterwards that the girl was already on the phone.

It wasn't until after the EMTs had arrived, shoving her aside to get to Erik that she saw it. The bottle of akvavit that she'd given Erik - empty, and lying on the floor.

She'd followed the ambulance to the hotel in a cab, vomit drying to a crust on her fingers, trying not to beg the driver to go faster just please can't you go a little faster. She huddled, feeling tiny and alone in the back seat, frantically thinking of someone, anyone she could call. Her first thought was call Erik, and this sent a sob bubbling up, escaping her mouth in a little moan.

Darcy was no good, not in New Mexico, and Thor - he was less than no good.

He could have come back, he could have come right back, Erik was his friend too, I shouldn't have to be here, not alone.

She had only one New York number in her cell phone, and she called it.

Tony answered Pepper's phone, saying "Stark," in the slur of someone awoken from a deep sleep.

Jane had to fight down the sobs just to speak. "Tony?"

"Who is this?" He sounded much more awake already, and suspicious.

"It's - it's Jane," and then, her voice rising in a tremolo, so high pitched she sounded strange in her own ears, "can I speak to Pepper please?"

They met her in the hospital waiting room. One look at Jane's face, and Tony said "I'm just gonna..." trailing off, and walking away, presumably to either bully or charm someone into giving them some news. Pepper sat next to Jane looking bleary and somehow more comforting now that she was in jeans and a Black Sabbath t-shirt, her hair pulled into a hasty ponytail.

"Have they told you anything?" Pepper asked.

Jane shook her head, not quite trusting herself to speak.

"God," Pepper breathed. "Clint said it'd been bad but I didn't think - I mean, Clint seemed like he was okay. He was shaky for a while, but Natasha said he was doing well, nothing to worry about so - we should have been watching him, I'm so goddamn sorry."

"Who's Clint?" asked Jane.

"He's the other one that Loki-" Pepper started, then stopped. "Erik didn't tell you." It wasn't a question.

"I... guess not," Jane said.

Pepper looked at her hands. "I should have said something at dinner," she said, "but it just didn't feel like I should be the one to do it. Erik said you two were close. I thought he would tell you himself."

Jane didn't say anything, so Pepper took a deep breath, and told her what Loki had done.

It was the most unusual thing, Jane decided, to have a job interview in the evening, and then end the night sobbing in your new boss's arms in the cold light of a hospital's waiting room.

It was hours before they heard anything, but in the end she got to see him - between her lying about being Erik's daughter, and the entire hospital staff's awe at Tony's presence, they had let her in. Erik had had his stomach pumped - Ambien in his system as well as the alcohol, the doctor said - and was still unconscious, but he would be better in just a few days. Everyone agreed that Jane should stay at the hotel until Erik was released, and - well, after that, they would just have to figure things out.

It was dawn when Jane let Tony and Pepper put her into a taxi - they'd offered to drive her, but they'd done so much already, she told them that she could get herself to the hotel just fine. And she'd wanted to be in the cab by herself again, in a quiet place where she could think. She rode through the dawn, feeling New York wake itself around her, the rising noise and movement of the people in it shaking off the devastation around them to begin another day.

I can do that too. If they can do it, I can.

She'd gotten to the hotel and almost immediately fallen asleep, and had awoken hours later to a frantic pounding on her door, and - when she stumbled to open it - Darcy on the other side.

"Hii-iiee," Darcy said, with a little wave.

Jane didn't move or speak for a beat, and then clasped Darcy in a fierce hug. "Holy shit," she said, "what are you doing here?"

"I got your message," Darcy croaked in a half-strangled voice. Jane had left a half-coherent message about what had happened on Darcy's voicemail at about three in the morning, and had expected to get a call back, or at least a text, not Darcy in person.

"How did you get here - I know you can't-" Jane stopped herself before she could say afford it. "I mean, you just came all the way here?"

"Well duh," Darcy said, extracting herself from Jane's grip. "Hopped the first flight to Philly, then took the train up. Is he okay?"

"Yeah, they said he'd probably be fine in a few days, but - sheez, come in."

Darcy hefted her duffle and did come in, and they sat on the bed together.

"What are you going to do?" Darcy asked.

"Well, stay here. Take care of him when he gets out. I got a new job, so I guess live here for a while."

"Oh, cool. I always wanted to live in New York," Darcy said.

"What?"

"Well, I'm here, right? I'm gonna help!"

"What about - school, your family-"

"Eh. Over it," Darcy said.

"But-"

"Look - Jane," Darcy said, "you know what it's been like the last year, right? Those S.H.I.E.L.D. guys, always around, recording my phone calls and opening my mail? Checking in on me to see if I've said anything about Thor? They locked me in my own apartment for two days after that attack, just to make sure I wouldn't talk. You were gone, Erik was gone - there was no one but those guys in their suits. No internet, and they took my cell phone. And I thought about it, and you know what? The only time I ever felt like I was doing something worthwhile was when I was with you and Erik." She raised her hands in a helpless little gesture, and then flopped them down onto the coverlet. "If I don't belong where you guys are? I don't know if I belong anywhere."

Jane stared at Darcy and breathed once. "Okay," she said, "yeah. I'd like it if you stayed."

Darcy grinned and this time she was the one who grabbed Jane in a huge hug.

"Oh, also," Darcy said, when she had let go, "I accidentally slept with my sister's boyfriend, and she set fire to all my old stuffed animals. So it's kind of not the best time for me to be in New Mexico right now."

"Right," Jane said, deciding to skip the part where she asked how the heck you "accidentally" sleep with someone. "Think you're okay to head over and see Erik?"

"Hell yes!" Darcy said.

And they went and saw Eric, and they stayed in New York, and they took care of things together, in the best way they knew how.

Erik was released from the hospital, and at first had been a good sport about Jane and Darcy taking care of him, letting them bring him soup and crackers, making jokes about being waited on, until he walked out of his hotel room one day and vanished.

It was Darcy who had found him after they'd gone on a frantic three-hour search - in a stale-smelling dive bar, half-past drunk.

After that, Tony had suggested that Erik might need a change of scenery, and Jane had reluctantly agreed. The rehab facility was one of the super-posh ones in the Caribbean that catered to celebrities, and Erik had reported with some glee that he was staying in Robert Downey Jr.'s old room. It was only supposed to be for a few months, but Erik had a knack for finding sources of illicit liquor, and was frequently getting into trouble for sneaking it in. He probably would have gotten kicked out by now, but Tony's influence and money kept him in. And there he stayed as Jane took over the job that would have been his, and tried to make do without him.


"So he's there," Jane concluded, "getting his ass in trouble and disrupting all his AA meetings. Uh - that's like, a method people use to stop drinking when they can't stop by themselves. But the problem is?" And here Jane sighed. "It's based on giving up your life to a higher power. And Erik just... he can't. Because-"

"Because of what Loki did to him," Thor finished. He'd drained his drink during the telling, but still clutched his glass in both hands as though he were afraid it would spill.

"Yeah. He still won't really tell me about it. Not that we get to talk a lot, he keeps getting his Skype privileges taken away." Jane didn't think she had the energy to explain Skype, but Thor didn't ask.

"I should never have brought Loki here," Thor said. "I should have left him in that cell. I flattered myself that I was no longer the selfish boy I once was, but-"

"You're not being selfish," Jane blurted. "None of this is for you, right? I mean, your father, your aunt... Even your hammer, it's to protect your people. It's not for you."

"I tell myself so," said Thor, "but part of me remains unconvinced."

"Why? What's selfish about what you're doing?"

"I suppose I thought that if I could bring Loki here, if I could prove that he was capable of doing something good for once, then maybe-"

"What - then it would be like all of it never happened?" Jane said, an edge of anger surfacing in her voice.

"No, of course not," Thor said quickly, "only that perhaps it would mean there was a chance for him. That I would not have to decide whether to incarcerate him indefinitely, or-" Thor swallowed- "to execute him."

Jane didn't know what to say to that. She didn't believe in a death penalty, but that belief was tinged with the awareness that until now, she had never known the victim of a capital offense. Loki had killed Agent Coulson, yes, but if it came to it, should he die for that? Could she bring herself, snark about the A train aside, to kill Loki in retaliation for what he'd done to Erik? How could Jane presume to decide who lived and who died? That sounded - well, it sounded a bit like something Loki would do.

"But I should not have even taken the risk," Thor continued. "It was not worthwhile just to indulge my own whim. I am sorry that I came."

"Really?" Jane said, and Thor looked up at her, abashed.

"I - no, I-" Thor started.

"Why didn't you come before?" Jane asked. "I know that you couldn't, not for a long time, but once you got the Tesseract - why couldn't you just use that to come? I mean - I thought you said we had a deal. Right?"

Thor shook his head, letting his hair fall into his face. "I cannot tell you for certain. I suppose that I - I felt that I-" and he raised his face then, locking his eyes on hers. "That I didn't deserve to."

"And what do I deserve?" she asked, voice hard. The second the words came out of her mouth, she hated Loki for planting the words in her head, and hated herself for using them. It was as though she and Loki had colluded to inflict the wound she saw blossom in Thor's eyes.

"You deserve someone who does not trail a mess behind him wherever he goes," he said in a near-whisper.

Jane thought about this. And she thought about Erik, living the last few months as an alcoholic on a Caribbean island, of Darcy's stuffed animals now charred and blackened, of Donald storming out of her trailer with half his things in a plastic garbage bag. She thought of herself, shrouding her hurt in work and nursing it in silence, and then inexplicably, she thought of Loki, standing on her balcony, alone.

"I think everyone drags their own messes behind them," she said.

"I am sorry, Jane," Thor said.

"Maybe," Jane said, "you ought to be a little more selfish once in a while." And she put her glass down on the floor, leaned forward, brushed the hair out of his face, and kissed him.

He didn't kiss her back, not at first. She had to take him under the chin, tilting his head up, to get her mouth solidly on his. He didn't resist, and let her slide a hand along his jaw, grazing the stubble. She pulled back, brushing their noses together, and let out a short breath. "Too much?" she asked, with a half smile.

In response, he set down his glass, grasped her by the waist and then he was kissing her back, pressing into her as she twined her arms around his neck, the sudden electric thrill of it running straight through her.

She couldn't let it go on too long - she pulled back, breathing hard and laughing a little. "Okay, okay, hold it," she said. "Sorry but I'm not all that comfortable with having your little brother outside on the balcony?"

Thor laughed at this, too. "Perhaps next time I shall leave him at home."

"Please!" Jane said, grinning so hard she knew she must look completely silly, but didn't care. "And maybe we could - no, no, I'm gonna do this right." She smoothed back her hair and took Thor's hand, striking a melodramatic pose. "Thor," she said, "thou hast arrived from distant lands - realms, I mean realms-"

Thor tried to keep a straight face, but sputtered and started snickering.

"And now I ask of thee-" but Jane couldn't continue, she was laughing so hard. "Okay! Okay. Will you go on a date with me?"

"Ah-" said Thor.

"It's when two people who like each other do something that's fun. You know, together."

"Ohh," Thor said, "courting. Then yes, I happily accept. So - what do you do in Midgard?" He frowned. "Are there balls?"

"Oh - um, no, not really. We could, like, go see a movie-" but no, that didn't seem right at all- "or go out to dinner. Or - oh, I know, why don't you bring that haunch of goat after all?"

"Really?" asked Thor.

"Yeah, now that I have an oven I'll cook it, and we can have dinner here. I swear I won't set it on fire."

"I believe you!" said Thor, but then his smile started to fade. "I would love to, Jane but-

"Yeah, the ring, I know. Are you sure you don't have any ideas? Because I'm kind of out." Jane leaned back against her pillows, and after a moment's hesitation, Thor lay down next to her, letting Jane settle against his shoulder. This, she thought, was very nice - something she could definitely get used to.

"Much as I hate to say it, Loki is the only one who has thought of something yet," Thor said.

I am sick of hearing about Loki, thought Jane, but she decided that she might as well hear it.

"All right," she said, "try me."

"There was a woman guarding the room where the ring had been. Loki said she was observant - she might have something to tell us about how it had been taken. He asked to speak to her." He sighed, and Jane's head rose and fell with his breath. "I refused to allow it. I cannot permit him to cross another mortal's path, knowing what he has done. I would have left him and spoken to her myself, but - well. I could not let him out of my sight. Not with you and Darcy outside."

He's out of your sight now, Jane thought, and shivered a little. She huddled into Thor's shoulder, and he tightened an arm around her.

"And there is the fact that I have not determined - I mean, I do not know whether Loki wants this ring for himself, for some reason. I am worried that he desires it for some purpose I have not yet understood, but I do not even know what this ring can do - I could not begin to say what he would use it for."

They lay in silence for some time as Jane processed this.

"What about me?" Jane finally asked.

"Hm?" Thor said, sounding distant and fuzzy.

"Have Loki tell me what he wants to ask, and I'll go talk to her - the woman. We could go first thing tomorrow." And then she thought of something so ridiculously simple, she almost smacked herself for not thinking of it before. "And if that doesn't work, we pick up some prepaid cell phones - so we can talk to each other from a distance, you know? I'll stay at the lab and see if I can get a track on whatever it was we saw moving, and you and Loki can chase it down. Darcy can drive you," she added, though she cringed at the thought of Darcy at the wheel of her car in Manhattan traffic. "What do you think?"

"I cannot fault the idea," Thor said. "Perhaps we should try it."

"Okay," Jane said. "Then we have a plan."

"I think it is a good plan," Thor said, "but if this does not work, I shall take Loki back home and try to determine something else. I will return as soon as I can, Jane, this I promise. I have finished torturing myself with waiting."

"Well good," Jane said. "That's something, anyway." And this time he was the one who tilted her chin up so that he could kiss her, and it was warm, comforting and sweet. Really, Jane thought, as she rested on Thor's shoulder, feeling his breathing go deep as he dozed off, it was perfect.

But she couldn't sleep. Not without knowing where Loki was, she couldn't. The rest of the apartment remained still and quiet. Is he really going to stay out on the balcony all night? she wondered. It had to be getting cold. She could make up a place for him on the sofa, she supposed. It would be the gracious thing to do.

She scooted herself down on the bed until she was free of Thor's grasp, just enough so she could sit up without waking him. Should she wake him? He looked so peaceful, lying there on her bed, and she felt a very pleasant fluttery sensation in her stomach just seeing him there. Oh yeah, she decided, definitely dinner at my place next time. She had a feeling that she was not going to be disappointed.

After a moment's deliberation, Jane decided to let Thor sleep. She reasoned that the apartment was small enough that if she yelled, he'd wake immediately. And it wasn't like she was about to dive into mortal peril. Make up a place on the sofa, tell Loki it was there if he wanted it, then come right back and have a nice night's sleep, safe, in Thor's arms. Under the circumstances, she decided this was an excellent plan.

She went to her linen closet and pulled out some spare sheets and a pillow, then carried them to the sofa in the living room. It was lit and empty - Loki must still be outside. At least, she hoped he was. She started smoothing the sheets over the sofa. What would Martha Stewart say about how to host a mass murderer? she wondered. I mean, she did go to prison, she probably knows something. Four hundred thread count Egyptian cotton for your basic serial killer, in a dark color just in case of unexpected blood stains.

When she was finished, she looked back up. There was no movement from the balcony, no sign that Loki had seen her at all. So she plucked her jacket and scarf from the back of the chair where she'd left them, opened the door, and walked out.

The temperature had dropped precipitously, and Jane pulled her jacket around her more tightly as she stepped over the threshold, keeping the door open behind her, just in case. Once her eyes adjusted, she could see that Loki was still there, slumped against the rail, his chin resting on his forearms, looking over the skyline.

"Loki, hey," she said, and he turned his head just enough to glance at her from the corner of one eye. "Um, so. New plan is we go back tomorrow morning, and I talk to this woman you flagged? See if she saw anything, or can tell us anything. If you have any questions you want me to ask her-" she cut off, seeing Loki's expression change. His eyes narrowed, mouth twisted down into a scowl. It was the same sort of withering look he'd given to Thor in the car to shut him down.

On Jane, it had the opposite effect. "Well excuse me if we're worried you're going to get all murderous on us - you haven't exactly given a whole hell of a lot of reasons for us to trust you," she snapped.

Loki didn't respond, but continued to glare at Jane in a baleful sort of way.

"And you know what the worst part about it is? About what you did to this city?" Jane continued, feeling the hard, smooth edge of her rage surface within her, "there was no reason for it. You just descend to earth and decide to take over, no matter how many people get killed along the way, no matter who you had to use and what it did to them. And for what? For what?" She raised her voice at this last, and it finally seemed to have an effect on Loki. He seemed to draw back a little, and the scorn on his face was mingled with something that looked to Jane like fear.

She decided to press the advantage, stepping toward him, and was pleased when he edged away, sliding along the rail and still not quite facing her.

"Tell me why you did it," she said. "All those people who died, and my friends who got hurt - tell me for what. Or just tell me there was no reason, and that would be even better, because then you would have just gotten your ass handed to you for nothing, you even fail at doing nothing." She could feel the sting of tears in her eyes as she said this, but she wasn't going to give Loki the satisfaction of seeing her wipe them away. "Tell me right now, you son of a bitch, you tell me why."

Loki was staring at her as she said this, the disdain slowly draining off his face, only the fear remaining. He'd backed away enough to reach the end of the balcony, starting when he hit the side rail. He turned away as though looking for somewhere else to go.

"No," said Jane, "look at me when I'm talking to you." When Loki didn't move, she shot her arm out to grab him, to force him to look at her.

Her hand went straight through him.

Jane barely had time to jerk her hand back, letting out an involuntary squeak of surprise, before she heard a voice behind her.

"Well," it said, "now that was interesting."

Jane whirled around to see Loki - another Loki, leaning against the balcony door frame, arms crossed, smiling at her. He flicked one hand out, and the first Loki vanished.

"Don't take it too hard," Loki said. "Thor always falls for that, too." He looked over his shoulder into the apartment, then cut his eyes at Jane, his sly smile broadening as he did. He stepped onto the balcony, closing the door behind him.

It was only then that Jane realized that the glass encasing the balcony was designed to dampen the noise from the street, and remembered how muffled Loki's voice had been when he'd been shouting full force at Thor. Even if she screamed at the top of her lungs, it wouldn't be enough to wake Thor all the way in the bedroom. Her cell phone was there too - lying on her bedside table, where she'd left it.

Loki was between Jane and the door, and worse, there was now only the rail between her and a twenty story drop to the pavement below.

She had made a very serious mistake.