A/N: Sorry, took forever to write yet it's short and crappy. Don't hate it too much, I'm just trying to move things along.
Things Left Unsaid
By: Thessaly Corgin (Corgin)
Chapter 10: Silence
o
"Darcy? It's three in the morning, why are you calling?"
Darcy heard her step father grumble sleepily in the background.
"Hi mom... I don't know, I haven't really been sleeping lately... I think work is finally getting to me..."
She lied, knowing perfectly well that her two-week-missing friend was the problem. Her mother groaned and Darcy heard the rustle of sheets.
"Did you have to call in the middle of the night? Honey, you must be going insane or something. Why don't you come home for a vacation? Just a few weeks?"
Darcy sighed into her phone.
"Yeah... yeah I think you're right. I was calling to ask if that was okay with you. I'll ask Jane for some time off and get work to book me a flight."
"Do you want to bring that friend or yours or something? You've been talking about him constantly for the last half year, I think Jim wants to know who he is, he always likes to think that he's your overprotective father."
"I... we'll see. I don't know. I'll call you tomorrow, alright?"
Her mother was quiet for a moment, absorbing that Darcy's agitation was a 'boy issue'.
"Okay honey, just don't call in the middle of the night, please..."
Darcy hung up and leaned back onto her pillows, staring at the ceiling. She felt like her mind was unravelling more and more each day. She rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes, determined to get at least an hour of sleep. Just as she was dozing off, Darcy felt the air snap tight as all of the books on the desk scattered and pages fluttered, violently jarred by a rough landing. Darcy squealed with fright at the sudden noise and sat bolt upright, scurrying back against the backboard of the bed as she watched the paper tumble down and the dust settle.
"L-Loki?"
She stuttered, her body buzzing from being awoken so quickly. Loki appeared to jump at her voice, and turned to look at her with wide, scared eyes devoid of his usual mischievous glimmer. His hair was jagged and messy which was an oddity for him as he was such a tidy man; his eyes were sunken and tired and his face dirty, his clothes ripped and mottled with what appeared to be blood stains. Blood appeared to be running from his nose to his lips, which he was taking no notice of. He jumped down from the desk and collapsed on the floor.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
Darcy said harshly, running over to him. He swatted her away, struggling to sit up and lean against the bed.
"Stop - don't touch me. Why are you in my room?"
His voice was bitter and raspy and his eyes flickered from Darcy to random spaces around the room. She reached out to touch his face and he flinched away.
"Are you okay?" Darcy wanted to hit herself - she always managed to asked the dumbest questions. Of course he wasn't okay, he was basically looking right through her. "I'm in your room because you've been gone half a freaking month and I was starting to go insane. Where the hell were you?"
"Get out. GET OUT."
Darcy saw it again - that hollow, scared look. She finally realized that he had absolutely no idea who she was. He turned away from her, his head in his hands. With a sigh Darcy went to the bathroom and picked up a towel, running it under hot water. What did he get himself into? She thought, remembering his hasty disappearance. Bastard owes me a date.
"Turn around." She said shortly, crouching down beside him. "Come on, turn around and let me wipe off your face, you look like a pathetic child." When he didn't respond she grabbed his chin and turn it around herself.
"Dear lord, are you crying? What have you done with the real Loki?"
Instead of replying Loki dropped his eye contact with her as she started wiping off his face.
"What's my name, can you tell me what my name is?"
Darcy asked him.
"I - I don't..."
He started, trailing off.
"Whoever screwed you up screwed you up really bad. I think I'm going to put you in the shower and get you something to eat, then you should probably sleep or something, maybe it will fix you. Does that sound okay?"
Once Darcy convinced him to take a shower she wandered down to the cafeteria to find something for him to eat. The cafeteria was bright with artificial light, as it was all hours of the day. One of the lunch lady's sat dozing behind the buffet of food, and at one of the far tables someone sat reading a book, presumably Erik. After grabbing a tray of food she walked over to him.
"Darcy?" He asked, "what exactly are you doing in here at four in the morning?"
"I... I can't sleep. You know how it is."
"You need to stop worrying. Loki's a god, he'll come back eventually. He probably got caught up in something and lost track of time."
"It's... not that. He came back."
"What, when?"
"About half an hour ago."
"The look on your face isn't exactly joyful, you look a little glum."
"I... don't know. I'll talk to you about it tomorrow."
Without waiting for a response she walked briskly away, back to Loki's room. He sat one of his chairs wrapped in a towel, his eyes cast downward at the ground.
"I brought you some food." Darcy said simply, "do you want to talk?"
Loki just shook his head as he continue to avoid eye contact. He burrowed under the covers of the bed and turned his back to Darcy, still not speaking a single word. Darcy lay down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to roll him over towards her. When he didn't budge she just sighed and turned away from his, disheartened by his strange behavior.
"Well, I'll let you go to sleep. But I'll be here all night so just wake me up if you need anything. And if you get hunger I left food for your on your desk and..."
Darcy, unaware of her own state of exhaustion mumbled on for another twenty seconds before she fell into a yet again restless and uncomfortable sleep.
o
Darcy was beginning to think that it was time to quit her job and just go get a masters degree or something. She knew that working for SHIELD was going to be hard and probably a little bit strange, but she was really starting to lose it. The job had given her Loki by some stroke of luck, and now he was slipping away from her more and more each day. He had been back almost two weeks and hadn't spoken a single word to anyone since his return. He walked around the building like a ghost, his eyes lifeless and tired. Erik was being driven up the wall because Loki also refused to do any work at all, and no amount of yelling or complaining would make him do anything. For the first couple of nights Darcy had slept in his bed with his, nudging his and watching him in hopes he would finally speak to her. However, after the first few nights she just found herself becoming more and more upset at the lack of words in between them, and felt that she needed to take a healthy distance to keep herself sane.
"Maybe you should just let go, Darcy. There's a good chance nothing is going to make him any better. We have no idea what happened to him, and no way to get that information out of him. Do you remember what the last time you saw him here before he left?"
"Uh... yeah. We were just doing... stuff and he said he suddenly have to go, and he disappeared."
"Were you guys fighting about something? Was he angry at you?"
"No, not at all. For the first time ever he was actually responding to me in a way that wasn't sarcastic. I don't think I had anything to do with it - I don't think any of us did. It seemed like something in his head."
"Well then I don't know. Hopefully he comes to soon or we'll have to get rid of him."
"You'll what?"
"Get rid of him."
Darcy stared across the table at Jane, a look of half shock half disgust on her face.
"You can't just get rid of him. He's an employee, a person. We need him here.
"So long as he's just sitting outside in the rain planting banana trees he's not really being much use to us.
"What? Banana trees?"
"Go outside and look for yourself."
Darcy jumped out of her chair and ran down the hallway, out the front doors of the facility. As Jane had mentioned, Loki was sitting out in the rain with a spade in one hand and a small tree in the other, digging a hole. Ignoring the stinging freezing rain Darcy walked over to him and sat down next to him.
"Loki...Loki stop. If you're doing anything you should be working."
Ignoring her, Loki continued to dig the hole peacefully, his half closed eyes watching the dirt slide off of the spade he was digging with. He dropped the little tree into the hole and started covering up the roots, his dark, wet hair hanging down in front of his face.
"Loki, I don't even think that banana trees can grow in the winter, or in New Mexico, you shouldn't be planting those. You shouldn't be planting anything, we're a government agency and we don't need a display of plants outside of our front doors. Stop it. Now."
Loki looked at her passively for a few seconds before looking away. Without delay he picked up another tiny tree and started digging a new hole. Darcy grunted in frustration and stomped away, back to the building.
o
"Look at him. Sitting at that table by himself, I almost feel sorry for the fellow. Then again, he's kind of a waste of our time."
"Oh, is he freaking you out now, Erik? And yes, he is a waste of our time and he's driving Darcy absolutely insane. I think she really loves him, and she's way too young to have to see someone she loves degenerate right in front of her. She deserves better."
"So we're in agreement then? We're going to try and convince her to let us get rid of him?"
Jane pushed her fruit salad around with her fork, before looking back up to Erik.
"Well... I... don't think that's quite fair either. He is a person. Don't get me wrong, I dislike the guy as much as any of us, he's a jerk... but he means so much to her. I think it would really destroy her."
"Look, how about this. We get Darcy to come to a meeting tomorrow, and we talk about it with her. If we talk about it with her, she won't feel like we're the evil parents taking away her toys. Sound good?"
"... I guess we could give it a try."
o
"I can't believe we're having this meeting. We shouldn't be having this meeting. It's only been three weeks since he's come back, and it's almost Christmas. I don't want to deal with this."
Jane brought over a tray of coffee and put the mugs in front of Darcy and Erik.
"Darcy - I know. Don't think that he hasn't grown on us, too, but he's a liability. Here at SHIELD we're a very serious agency, we can't have a man who's severely mentally handicapped walking around, I won't be able to justify it to Stark or Fury."
Darcy dragged her coffee cup over and stared down into it. Erik sighed and patted Darcy on the back.
"It's not like we're going to take him out to the back and shoot him, we want to get him help."
"Help? What the hell kind of help can you give him? He's unequipped for the human world and his brain is turned off - even if you set him up somewhere he'll probably starve to death because he doesn't know how to get food."
"Can gods even starve to death?"
"Shut up Erik."
Jane took a sip of coffee and looked up at the ceiling, "Well... we could take him to a mental hospital. I'll file it as a work related accident and we'll have enough insurance money to keep him at a good one."
Erik quickly shook his head, "No. Absolutely out of the question. Even if he's completely out of his mind, he's still crafty. In a month he's almost managed to drive all of us insane with his silence, I can guarantee you all of the staff at whichever mental hospital we dump him on will end up in the psych ward themselves."
"Hah! Are you kidding me? So he's a liability and he's dangerous? You disgust me, he's innocent as a kitten, especially right now and what he really needs is to stay in a stable environment. Just give me a few more weeks before you make a decision, Stark isn't going to notice right away. Just say he's our gardener, he's been doing a fair amount of that."
Jane and Erik looked at each other before looking back to Darcy.
"If Stark doesn't notice Fury will. They have eyes everywhere around here, I'm surprised he hasn't been spotted yet, he must be doing a pretty good job at impersonating a human librarian. Or gardener now, I guess."
The trio were silent for a moment, looking down into their coffee.
"I'll get him a fish." Darcy said triumphantly. Jane and Erik looked puzzled.
"A fish?" Erik asked skeptically, as Darcy gave a confident nod in response.
"You know, like animal therapy. Maybe we're not getting to him enough, so a fish will."
Jane let out a long sigh, putting her empty cup of coffee back onto the tray.
"Okay, fish, bird - whatever. You have two weeks, and after that we're seriously going to have to consider getting rid of him. You're lucky I'm so soft."
Darcy struggled to hide her excitement and she bounced up and skipped out of the room.
o
Darcy coughed as the fine gravel she was pouring into the fish tank spat fine dust up into the air towards her.
"I can't believe she let me do this."
She said to the eel-like little fish sitting dumbly in the water filled plastic bag beside her. The fish, of course, gave no response. Once she finished filling up the tank with water and attaching a filter she carefully opened the bag ands slipped the creature into the water. It looked as if it had a permanent little smile plastered on its face, and it looked up at her with pink eyes. Weird fish, She thought. After half an hour Loki returned to his room and looked at the tank with confusion, before sitting down in the chair in front of it.
"It's a fish."
Darcy said, assuming that Loki had no idea what it was. She was desperately hoping that he was going to ask her about it, give it a name, say something. Instead it simply stared into the water at it, his expression unchanging. Unable to deal with his lack of response, Darcy promptly left the room, leaving behind the food pellets for the fish on the table.
o
"It's been a week and a half Darcy, I just wanted to remind you. What's he been doing?"
"Staring at the fish. Presumably feeding it because it looks alive, but whenever I go into his room he's either not there, and if he is, he's in the chair staring at the fish. And it stares back, it's kind of creepy."
"I think you should just relax and give it a rest. Why don't you go into town and go to a bar or something? Or you could go to your parents house, it's only a week until Christmas, they would probably love to see you."
"Jane just... I don't think I can leave. What if something happens while I'm gone? What if I come back and Erik's gotten rid of him? I'm not going anywhere until he's okay."
"What if he's already okay, and he doesn't want to talk?"
Darcy threw Jane a dangerous glare.
"Jane you know exactly what he's capable of, and if he was 'just fine' he would be doing a lot more than planting banana trees and staring at a fish. I'm going to go check on him."
Darcy promptly excused herself from the cafeteria and walked up the stairs to the residential wing of the building. She had almost gotten used to being alone everywhere she went - for the last half year she had grown so used to Loki at her heels. As she had assumed Loki was in his room staring into the fish tank... Darcy was beginning to regret buying that fish.
"Loki..." she said, sitting down next to him and putting her hand on his, "you're driving me insane. Jane and Erik want to get rid of you, and I'm struggling to keep you here. I haven't slept for two months now. Two months. Please just... saying something, anything."
He turned to Darcy with a quizzical, profound look on his face some shallow recognition dancing in his eyes.
"What is this?"
He asked quietly, pointing at the fish. Darcy flinched in shock at the sound of his voice - butterflies fluttering in her stomach and her skin becoming hot with excitement.
"I uh... that's a... that's a fish?"
"What kind of fish?"
Darcy looked at the little monster: it stood at the bottom of the tank on four tiny little legs and had a long tail, with an oval head and beady little eyes. On the side of its head it had gills, which were large and red and stuck out like fluffy pipe cleaners.
"I think it was a..." she picked up the pamphlet that was still little next to the tank, "Mexican walking fish. It was the strangest one I could find, I thought you'd like it. It looks like it's smiling."
"It looks very happy."
"Well I imagine it is very happy."
Loki dropped a pellet into the water and stood up, grabbing his bag.
"Where are you going?"
Darcy asked with a concerned tone.
"Outside."
He said simply, leaving Darcy alone in his room. Darcy wasn't sure if she was happy or disappointed about Loki's anticlimactic and unprofound choice to break the silence.
o
The ground was hard. With only a week until Christmas the soil was frosty and difficult, unwilling to accept any new seeds. Loki was carefully landscaping the outside of the facility, and so far his obsessive diligence had produced a beautiful albeit out of place arrangement outside of the main doors. Loki shuttered again as he felt his mind grinding back into motion, memories and new thoughts bombarding him all at once. He crushed the spade in his hand as he felt a shock of pain from the rush of ideas. He looked up from his gardening to see a silver Audi pull up in front of the facility. The driver stepped out, completely unaccompanied by body guards or an escort, and walked up to the door. Before he went in he turned and looked at Loki, staring at him for a few moments before walking over with a grin. Oh great, Loki thought.
"Well, I didn't know they had a gardener here. Great job - I should hire you."
"Quiet."
"Oh, come on, I know you're friendlier than that. Or is it just because of all the gin you drink around me? Although, I've heard you lost a couple of screws recently, did I hear right? Tell me all about it."
"Perhaps you did hear right, perhaps not. Is there a particular reason you're in New Mexico today?"
"Yeah, actually. Looking for a fellow named Loki, I heard he's an asshole who likes talking around conversations that are supposed to be about him."
"Sounds like my kind of man. Are we talking here or at your place?"
Stark looked from his car to the SHIELD facility, before pulling out his phone.
"Pepper? Get my jet in New Mexico ready, I'll be there within a few hours -and cancel all of my appointments for today and tomorrow, I have a more important guest." He hung up and turned to Loki. "Get in the car, wonder boy. Preferably not the divers seat, I know how you drive."
Loki raised an eyebrow and dusted his jeans off before walking for the car.