A.N.: I believe there is a Chinese curse that says: "May you live in interesting times", and in many ways 2014, and the first few months of 2015 have been that way for me. On the plus side I got promoted at work, traveled a bit around Europe, and almost reached a life-long goal of mine (I'm still working on the 10% left of its completion), but on the other hand I was hospitalized, had a major surgery, injured my knee and then real life decided to get insanely busy with mind numbing and creativity killing routine tasks. And to my dismay, here we are, a year after my last update on a story that was supposed to take a couple of months to write.

A thousand apologies for that to any, and all of you, who are still sticking with it, even with my own dismal record for updating.

Now for the good news: this story is largely finished – in a very rought draft form, but that means it will be finished by the end of August.

The bad news: it needs major editing since I feel like I've gotten worse, writing-wise, instead of improving as it would be normal. But taking a break from creative writing sure took its toll.

And that's it with my overly long author's note. Once again, a heartfelt thank you to all of you who still hoped for an update to this story and decided to drop me a line reminding me to get back to it. I read and cherished each and every one of them.

Rating: T

Pairing: Harry/Loki – It's complicated

Beta: Un-betaed. Please let me know if there are issues that need to be resolved.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are property of their respective owners. Everything else is the product of my imagination. Enjoy!

Chapter 10

The moment the Resurrection Stone touched her hand, everything around her changed, as if the colors had been leached from her reality, leaving behind only grey and twisted shadows. Unafraid, Harry searched the room for where the darkness was deeper, and with a firm tone she commanded, "I need to speak to them."

The shadows swirled together and out of them a skeletal face and hands became visible, with two embers of light flickering faintly in one bony grip. "Are you willing to pay the price?" a rasping voice made out of a thousand whispers asked her.

Harry barely refrained from accepting. Death in her own world had never questioned her will, but this incarnation was far more confrontational. It was definitely not happy about having a master.

"What is it?" Harry asked, caution warring with impatience. Every moment she lost here, Teddy was getting further and further from her.

"Life," Death answered, face splitting into a creepy grin. "Or life-force, to be more precise."

"Mine? Take what you need and let me talk to them," Harry said taking a step forward. For a brief moment, Death looked so hungry it made almost Harry shiver with cold, but, "No…I could never take it from you, Mistress," Death said, head tilting to the side as if in regret. "But it has to come from someone, really."

Harry suddenly had a very bad feeling about the conversation, "Anybody?" she said, tone not wavering even though she felt less than stable.

"Yes. Friend, family, foe, complete stranger," Death explained, moving the hand with the embers as if presenting them to Harry. "Are you willing to risk it?"

Harry gripped her fists so tightly she could feel her nails biting in the flesh of her palms. She was tempted, horribly so, to do it. Take the souls from Death and ask them all she needed to know, and damn the consequences, but she'd been burned too many times by just charging ahead without caring for the consequences. She didn't trust this Death not to take its payment from Teddy, for example. Simply put, she couldn't risk it.

"Take them away," Harry said through clenched teeth, and Death made a show of closing its bony hand on the souls then stopping as if pondering something. "Perhaps, a question I could allow you to ask each of them."

"And the price?" Harry asked in a clipped tone, because this game was slowly making her angry.

"A favor, for a favor." Death answered genially. "To be asked for at a later date."

Harry wet her dry lips then said, "Will this favor involve only me?" She would never agree if innocents were at risk.

"Only you, Mistress." Death grinned, knowing that it will have what it wanted.

"Deal," Harry said before she could talk herself out of it. She was aware she was taken advantage of, if Death's smug air was to be judged, but Teddy was far more important. Just as she finished saying the word, Death extended its arm and threw to the ground the souls it had been holding. When they hit the floor, they grew in a flash into the shadowy versions of the two deceased agents. Unlike the souls of her parents who had seemed almost alive when Harry had last seen them back in the old world, these two waited passively for her to ask her questions while Death stood calmly in the background.

Silent for one long moment as she thought of the best way to phrase it, Harry eventually asked with a steely voice, "Each of you tell me the one thing that will get me back my son."

She then waited for the answer.

xXx

Loki swore under his breath when another computer broke into sparks and ominous clouds of black smoke. These human contraptions were so fragile, he thought with disgust, while using a simple spell to dispel the smell of burnt plastic and the fire erupting from where the sparks had fallen onto the files that someone had left on the desk. The closed office had seemed the perfect place to start his search for information; he was now thwarted by the basic incompatibility between his strong magic and the fragility of the human computers.

Loki knew he needed a new strategy, and he needed one fast, for he feared he was attracting too much unwanted attention, and while the agent disguise had taken him this far, it won't survive a closer scrutiny.

The idea of a spell came to him just as he was preparing to leave, and it made him take of the hand he'd already placed on the doorknob. A Spell for Affinity, his mother had called it while explaining it to a teenage Loki who only wanted to learn of how to make things burn.

It was delicate work, and the results were pretty boring, at least he remembered thinking that way while Frigga's patient tone explained the finer details, but it would give him an image to all the people connected to one particular individual and also their level of commitment, as long as Loki possessed a personal object of his target.

Loki looked at the badge he'd taken from the corpse in Harry's house and judged it personal enough. It was now time to see who thought what about agent Wade, he thought and then concentrated on the spell.

xXx

Laura Wakefield was technology savvy and had the diplomas to prove it. And she was quite proud of them for they had gotten her working at SHIELD's IT support department, so she chose to decorate the walls of her small office with them. What it wasn't so obvious was Laura's love for chocolate, margaritas and her one-sided crush on agent Wade, but the water cooler gossip knew all about it. So when agent Wade came to her with a sheepish smile and a personal laptop spitting sparks and blue smoke, she stammered a little and then proceeded to rescue the information still available on the hard drive, while distractedly answering questions about accounts, passwords and SHIELD's electronic security. And if Agent Wade's smile turned wicked with each piece of information he coaxed out of her, she never noticed it. Not that it would have mattered in the end, because when a call came for a jammed printer, Laura blinked as if waking up from a dream and saw nothing suspicious around her, only that the clock on the wall presented a hour too advanced to be right. She raked her brain, but couldn't find any explanation for the time flying so fast, except that maybe she'd fallen asleep. After all, as far as she knew it, agent Wade didn't even know she existed.

xXx

With a mocking bow, Death dissolved back into the shadows, and in a fit of rage Harry threw the Stone to where it had stood only seconds before. The moment the Stone was away from her, the colors came back almost garish in comparison, the light from the windows burning her eyes. Taking a deep breath, Harry swallowed back the sob that was threatening to free her inner turmoil, and after pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes, she took a moment to recompose herself.

One shadow had told her a password and the other a set of coordinates and no matter how much she'd pressed, they had nothing else to add.

Now what?, Harry asked herself. She couldn't just stay in the house and wait for Loki to come back with more information about her son; she needed to do something, anything, to stave the emotional storm that threatened to consume her.

And if Death denied her the answers, then SHIELD should be ready to provide them instead.

With a clear purpose in mind, Harry wasted no more time in getting ready. From the same trunk where she'd taken the Stone, she took the battle robes she'd packed for worst case scenarios she'd hoped would never come true. With each piece of enchanted material that replaced her everyday wear, Harry could feel her healer persona take a step behind as the fighter she'd been for most of her life took center stage. Donning the Invisibility Cloak as the final touch, and gripping the Elder Wand hard enough to make the wood creak, Harry apparated to where she knew SHIELD had their headquarters. She had some questions, and someone there would surely know the answers.

But first to find Loki and see what he'd found. The time for sitting idly had long passed.

TBC.

N.A. I know it's short. And not much is going on. Don't feel too disappointed because things are rolling down the hill, I promise you. Next update on Monday!