A/N: Here we are, at chapter ten! I am so excited to be writing this story. I've gotten swept away in Olivia's story and I hope all of you are enjoying the ride as much as I am. As promised, here is another chapter. Happy reading :-)
I slept on and off for what seemed like ages, my state of delirium slowly fading to conscious reality. Fragments of my strange dream returned now and again. When I did finally wake, I was surprised to find that I was with Loki. Then again, I really shouldn't have been. Somehow, a piece of me had expected it to be him.
My first instinct upon seeing him was that he had changed somehow. The maddened look was gone from his eyes, the pain replaced with a tentative sensitivity. I soon realized that I was getting a rare glimpse of the real Loki. The one that had been buried so long ago beneath anger and lack of affection. It was completely unexpected and I was uncertain of how to proceed. Still, he seemed innocent enough. I shifted under the weight of his leather coat and forced myself up to a sitting position, the noise of it brining his attention to me.
"I'm sorry you had to save me again. I swear, I'm not normally this much of a damsel in distress." I stated bashfully, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
A gentle smile flickered across his face. The expression was warm for a change and I smiled back. I wondered how long he would stay, this sweeter soul of his. He was so quiet, his demeanor non-threatening. It was difficult for me to imagine him as the hateful, angry man I had grown used to. The goodness seemed to suit him somehow, as if the evil had been a nightmare, the faintest delight in mischief still apparent.
I was reluctant to mention anything about Thor, simply out of fear that he would revert. In the few moments I had spent with him, I never wanted the other to come back. "I don't mind." He muttered quietly, fidgeting with his fingers.
"Still, I feel terrible that you had to see me like that." My cheeks flushed from embarrassment. "I had some really wild dreams..." A sudden memory struck me and I abruptly froze in the middle of pushing back my hair. "I didn't say anything ridiculous, did I?"
Chuckling to himself, he sat down next to me. "You did mention something about dancing fairies and a forest, which I was the king of, by the way."
Oh, crap. "Right..." My hands slid from my hair and I covered my face with humiliation.
"You needn't feel embarrassed. I found it rather flattering."
"Flattering? I basically said you were a fairy king." The absurdity of it made me wince.
"There are worse things." I couldn't help but wonder how different he might have been, had he been given the love he so desperately sought. The smile faded and he looked at me with concern. Well, that was new. "You did say something rather troubling."
I suppressed a yawn and massaged my eyes once more. "Oh?"
"You seemed to think you deserved to die. In fact, you kept repeating that it was all your fault?" My muscles tensed, a motion that didn't go unnoticed. Then, in an effort to calm me, he raised his hands in defense. "Please understand that you have no obligation to tell me."
The difference in him was too massive for words. I wondered if this part of him, the real him, watched in horror as the stronger, angrier version of himself killed and destroyed. Likely. Overcome with the ever present guilt I felt, I spoke, my words slow and heavy. "Have you ever felt like a monster? That you're responsible for something too terrible for words? For something that ruined lives?"
His brow furrowed in pain and I realized my mistake. It was too late, though. "I did something...atrocious. Not intentionally," I was quick to clarify, feeling the strange desire to somehow prove I wasn't entirely evil. "But it was atrocious all the same." I tucked my knees into myself, looking at the floor. Emotion made its way into my throat, my eyes filling with tears. "Claire was my sister."
My eyes closed in grudging misery and I struggled for words. "I was so lonely as a child. It twisted the way I saw everything. My biological parents were drug addicts. I don't know who they are or if they're still alive. All I know, is that my father found me in a burning drug den as a baby. He was a cop and he had gotten a call for a drugs bust. By the time he had arrived, the people were gone and the house was on fire. He thought he heard something amidst the flames, so he ventured inside to find out for certain.
"Normally, that would have been the fire department's job, but they were ten minutes out and he didn't want to risk someone dying. So, he went inside and found me surrounded by flames, alone, abandoned, and crying my eyes out. My parents had simply...left me to die." I choked on the lump in my throat. I had never told anyone a single word of it. Not ever. The tears began to pour down my face in a steady stream and I sniffed before continuing.
"He followed protocol and child services attempted to find any relatives. They found none. Eventually, after several months, the opportunity for me to be adopted came around and he jumped at the chance. My mother was, less than enthusiastic. She agreed but under the condition that Claire, their natural child, wouldn't be neglected.
"And, of course, the old adage about blood being thicker than water was true. I grew up feeling...less important than my sister. They were both so proud of everything she did. For everything I did right, she did better. It didn't seem to matter how much they told me they loved me, because it was all too apparent that they loved her more." I laughed dejectedly at the distant memory. "One time, they forgot to pick me up from the library because Claire had a ballet recital. I was stuck waiting outside the library until ten o'clock that night." I roughly wiped the tears from my cheeks with my sleeve, swallowing thickly, the dark memories I had run from for so long resurfacing with painful clarity.
"Then, to make matters worse, Claire was the stereotypical perfect child. She excelled at athletics, academics, the arts. The only things I seemed to be better than her at were math and science. She was always the pretty one." I snorted in disgust at my past jealousy. "The boys in our town couldn't seem to get enough of my sister. She was petite, and blonde, and cute. I was tall, with unruly red hair, and far too awkward to ever be deemed attractive. It got to the point where I could no longer stand her.
"I hated her. Despised her, even. I hated that my parents loved her more than they loved me. As I got older, I went out of my way to sabotage her as much as I could. She would finish her homework and, while she slept, I would change all her answers, so that she would get them wrong. If she had a date, I'd 'accidentally' ruin her clothes. It was a never ending cycle. I couldn't stop. The more time went by, the worse it became. I wanted to see her be as miserable as I was." The tears flowed without stopping and I felt my lips quiver, despite my best efforts to remain as calm as possible.
"There was one night in particular that I had snuck out of the house to a party. A bunch of college kids showed up. There was one in particular, named Alec West, that I had the biggest crush on. He was funny, and attractive, and charismatic." If I had only known the evil that lurked under that charisma. I swallowed the solid lump in my throat, my voice suddenly taking on a darker tone at the memory. "But he had no interest in me whatsoever. When my sister went off to college the next year, they met and she turned him down. I was so angry at her, if it had been me, I never would have said no. But, she did." Clearly, Loki could sense the story was about to take a turn for the worse, I felt him shift uncomfortably beside me and I took a deep breath.
"I got a text from him one night, after the Christmas holiday. Claire had called to check on me, which really pissed me off, and told me that she was headed out to a bar with some friends. Alec had wanted to know if I knew what Claire was doing." I snorted derisively at the memory of my past self. "I thought it would be a great idea to annoy her, since she made me so angry all the time. So, I told him where she was and what she was doing. I even told him what time she would be there." My voice cracked. The guilt boiled over without warning and my words came out in a rush.
"She left early, at some point. There weren't any cabs around and the subway was closed, so she decided to walk back to the dorm. Alec and a bunch of his friends were drunk. They followed her out of the bar and when she turned down an empty street-" Sorrow washed over me and I began to weep fiercely. My body shook from it and I fought to finish. "They raped her. Over and over. By the time the police had arrived, she was already dead."
I was wracked with sobs, hunched into the smallest position possible. The pain bled out uncontrollably. I was dimly aware that he had wrapped his arm around me. Finish, Olivia! Finish the story and reveal the monster that you are! A nasty voice shouted in my mind. I wondered if he could even understand me through the sobs, my words shaky and fraught with emotion.
"My mother was so distraught. She wouldn't even look at me. The few times she spoke to me were to tell me that it should have been me, not Claire. My father tucked himself away in his garage and, eventually, he developed a multiple-personality disorder. Six months later, my mother killed herself. I came home from school and found her hanging from the ceiling in my parents' bedroom. I finally had a good relationship with my father but it was never what it should have been. I always knew that he blamed me for what happened to my sister and to my mother."
"Shh..." He whispered, his lips on my hair. But I couldn't stop. For what seemed an eternity, the tears continued to flow, the guilt overflowing.
"You. Said. It. Takes. One. To. Know. One." I had worked myself into a hyperventilating frenzy. "You. Were. Right."
"Olivia," He wrapped both arms around me and I instinctively buried my head in his chest. "Calm down. Shh..." He kissed me on the top of my head as I clutched at his shirt. Eventually, my crying ebbed to an occasional sob. I felt an incredible weight of shame on my shoulders. I had carried it inside for nearly ten years. Now, I could tangibly feel it upon me.
"Would you like to hear about me?" It was such a kind gesture, so unlike the ridicule I had expected from him. I took a brief glance at his eyes and saw the same vulnerability I had before, only now sorrow clouded them.
And so he began, telling me of how similar our stories were. I heard of Odin finding him as an infant on Jotunheim. The knowledge that I had been correct about him not being Asgardian failed to satisfy me. He told of his childhood with Thor, the feelings of being unloved and unwanted. Of not ever being able to please his father or compare to his brother. Of the discovery of what he was and how Odin had been unable to answer his questions. I grieved for him, as I grieved for myself.
When he finished speaking, neither of us uttered another word. We remained huddled together, the wind continuing its incessant howling outside. The snow fell in heavy sheets outside the opening of the cave, creating a thick veil of white. It was then, in that moment of released sorrow, that I realized what we were: two broken creatures, clinging to the pain we felt for lack of anything else. And in that instant, I wondered if there was a chance, a fragment of light at the end of the tunnel. If perhaps we had found one another for a reason.