TEN

Now I will tell you what I've done for you

Fifty thousand tears I've cried.

Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you

And you still won't hear me (going under)

Don't want your hand this time - I'll save myself.

Maybe I'll wake up for once (wake up for once)

Not tormented daily defeated by you

Just when I thought I'd reached the bottom

I'm dying again

I'm going under (going under)

Drowning in you (drowning in you)

I'm falling forever (falling forever)

I've got to break through

I'm going under

- "Going Under," Evanescence

Alana had returned about two hours later. Loki was still fuming, hidden up in his room. She sketched for a while, then made a cold dinner for herself and left out a plate for Loki, then, exhausted, trudged up to her room and quickly fell asleep.

When Loki realized she was asleep, he left his room and headed downstairs, grudgingly eating the dinner laid out (he was hungry) and noticed Alana's sketchpad lying on the coffee table.

Still angry with her, he decided to look through it.

What he found astonished him.

Pages and pages of eyes, maniacal brown, warm blue, her own gray eyes, and the cold blue ones he had seen her draw on the first morning he spent in the house.

He flipped to the last page and stared into his own eyes.

They were green and drawn with care and a gentle hand, and looked pained and vulnerable. He saw the inner workings of his heart etched in the sorrow he found there.

Was that how she saw him?

Sighing heavily and very confused, Loki walked up the stairs, heading towards his room, when he heard a whimper coming from Alana's. Dare he enter? The memory of their previous encounter made him wary.

Damn that, he would.

He slowly opened her door and peered inside.

Alana was curled up on her bed; in a fetal position so tight it looked painful. She was making pained noises, and he knew that she must be having a nightmare. As he watched from the doorway, she curled tighter and mumbled. He crept up to her, silent as a shadow.

His anger at her dissipated as he watched her stir fretfully. These must be the nightmares of which she had spoken, and he could see now why she had not wanted to talk about them.

Who was this girl, this mysterious girl, who locked up her heart tighter than the Weapons Vault on Asgard? And what powers did she hide?

Above all, why did he feel as if he was falling again?

Falling from the Bifrost, giving up his life, wanting and wishing and hoping for death, only to have death cruelly snatched from him.

Alana made a little noise of protest, then said, "Don't fall… please. Please." And then, soft as a whisper, "For me."

What?

Strange coincidence, that. Coincidences seemed to happen regularly around her.

Loki was growing most distrustful of coincidences.

And no one would have stopped him from falling.

The hardest truth to learn was to learn that you were alone.

An empty hole, filled with darkness. No brother, no father, no friends. Only the shadows, the darkness; his shadow, his father's shadow, the shadows of Thor's greatness.

But as he searched his heart, he found a light. Only a tiny one, only a spark, but a light that made him feel warm, and safe, and even perhaps… loved?

It was her.

But he pushed against the light, he resisted it, he tried to quell it, for he had known nothing but darkness for years, and the light hurt him deep inside, for it brought memories of his childhood. He refused her, for she was mortal.

And yet, she made him question who he was, who he ought to be. He was above her, above all of them. Yet she did not fear him.

She had stared him in the eyes, unimpressed by his show of magic. While he raged, she stood there, calm and cool.

When he threatened her, she had laughed.

But the falling he felt deep inside when he looked at her did not feel like falling. It felt like flying. But he feared flying more than falling, for reasons he did not know.

Whoever this girl was, he would unlock her. Whatever it took.

He moved closer and looked at her sleeping face, worried in her dream.

"Don't fall… please. Please. For me."

The words echoed in his head.

He reached out to touch her face, then stopped and turned away.