Sorry. I know I said I would publish while at the airport, but if you knew what I went through, you would understand...or maybe you do.

Anyway, here is Chapter Ten and probably the one you have been waiting for! Enjoy and please review.

Music

Jane on the Chitauri vessel - "Immortal Avenger" by Two Steps from Hell (Archangel)
Redemptive changes - "Maharet" on Queen of the Damned soundtrack
A hero's rescue - "Love and Loss" by Two Steps (Archangel)

Chapter Ten - Midgard's Golden Girl

Her skin burned all over as she flopped like a fish without water. All her internal senses were in overload, consuming and destroying every thought that tried to gain access.

The cold ground did not help either sending shivers up her spine.

That was just painful, she thought while trying to catch her breath. She was not used to traveling without a portal ring. Each thought or attempt to move caused her brain to agonize.

But once her breath was caught up, Jane sat up and climbed to her feet. She dusted off the leather ensemble she wore.

From what she could tell, she was no longer in Asgard or the battlefield. She had been transported with the tesseract's power to an unknown place.

She had asked the cube to take her to Loki and hoped that was where she was.

Jane took a few cautious steps and looked around the open exposed space; wondering how she was able to breathe in the middle of the cosmos.

Before that question could be answered, she finally saw that which she was searching and requested to be brought to.

Her husband hung from an apparatus that spread out his arms to where he was dangling loose while his legs were left freely. His body was covered in a fleshy cocoon that emanated with a dark energy.

She approached slowly seeing as veins pierced into his body either draining him of blood and/or replacing it with something that was keeping him complacent.

He did not respond when her hand graced the gelatinous surface. Sticky gelatinous goo coated her fingers and she struggled to get it off.

"Hang on darling," she spoke reaching for her dagger. "I am going to get you out of there."

Jane sliced at the shell and fleshy lines one by one. Soon, he was free and fell into her arms.

Loki was heavy even though it appeared during his torture, he had lost a considerable amount of weight.

Carefully bringing him to the floor, she popped the remaining broken vessels out and off of him with her hands.

Jane figured that he would regain consciousness, but it was not working.

"Loki," she called his name softly. Her fingers combed back his hair. "Loki, please, wake up. It's me. It's me Jane."

Still no response.

There had to be something that she could do to wake him. There was no way that she was going to be able to carry him out of the ship and back to Asgard unconscious. He needed to wake up.

A couple of her tears left her eyes as she continued to hold him, disbelief racing through her out of fear that her husband and king was dead.

"Come on Loki," she shouted. "Wake up!"

But nothing still.

However, she was no longer alone.

"Such sentiment," the Other appeared behind them, no doubt to retrieve the tesseract; the very object that rested beside the both of them. "Quite pathetic if I say so."

As a queen, she would not accept these words aimed at her. Reaching for the Tesseract, she put it very calmly into the satchel at her belt.

Jane whipped off the cloak she had been wearing, balled it up, and put it under his head.

Her gentle lips pressed softly and delicately against his; hoping it would be that of true love to her husband.

Slowly, she rose to her feet. It was time to show her enemy whom he was dealing with.

"With your king dead," he spoke, "you are nothing. You, mortal queen, are not worth killing."

"Really?" she said as she slowly turned to face her adversary. Slowly, she took her hand and swiped it before her eyes, revealing that they were no longer brown.

"I think I am golden," she said.

What this demon failed to realize is that when she had met with Odin before the battle, Jane had finally succumb to her insecurities of being an immortal.

She wanted to spend the rest of eternity with her husband and her children. He went to Idunn and took one of the fruits. It was there that she slowly chewed the apple and felt her body become immortal.

Jane's chamber (Yesterday)

Jane's teeth pierced through the golden flesh that Odin held in his outstretch palm. She dared not touch the radiating fruit for fear of what it would do to her.

The apple was succulent as she chewed it through her canines and molars; each returning to a moment of her childhood when she would pick and eat apples from the tree located at the Hastings' House.

The chewed bits began their journey down into her stomach.

Her father-in-law backed away slowly and she looked about her body.

Nothing hit her yet. She wondered when it would.

Then a quake in her abdomen knocked the wind out of her. That was quick, she thought.

Another shake and pulse from within followed by several smaller ones.

Her hand was held out before her body...just as the epileptic shaking and contracting in ways that frightened her mind.

Jane's eyes flashed over to her father-in-law.

"It has begun," was all that came from his lips.

Her brain felt as though it was going to explode as her hands grasped tightly onto her temples. Voices, thoughts, and feelings took over every piece. As though she were connected to everyone in the palace and beyond.

"I can't!" she screamed through her tears.

Jane succumbed into the Allfather's arms who guided her body very gently to the floor.

Her body shook uncontrollably as the change happened. Her flesh burned, heart raced, and her brain could not take the stress.

"I will hold you now daughter of mine," Odin said tenderly. "Let these sensations pass."

"It hurts!" she cried in pain.

"I know, but soon you will be like us...and like us," he said, combing his fingers through the section of hair near her eye, "you will have the gifts you need to stop these demons and free your husband and family from this evil."

This brought her some comfort.

Chitauri Vessel

Jane's eyes reopened as she returned to focus from the recalled memory.

Her senses were sharper from her sight to her hearing. She could feel feelings as if they were her own.

Her hand used magic, transforming her dagger into Loki's scepter. It was a simple cloaking tip, but it was worth it to keep his weapon at her side.

"What is this magic you use?" he asked.

"Power," she answered. "The one thing you attacked my world for. The very thing you stole and tortured my husband for. So what say you, your demonship? Care to fight someone of your own caliber?"

The Other growled at her, bore talons on his hands, and moved with lightning quickness toward her.

Jane leapt up, her braid snapping her flesh as she came back down to her feet. She turned around and held the scepter in her hands tightly.

The orb fired once and he dematerialized before she made her mark.

A slicing sound came from above and she barely got the staff up to block the shot.

She backed up while blocking each attack from the Chitauri leader and took her own swipes and blasts at him.

The demon was trying to attack and maim her in anyway possible. Though she had not been a goddess that long, she did not want to heavily rely on her new powers. What if her full healing ability had not happened yet?

Would she be able to heal enough to continue the fight?

Their weapons clashed again and again.

"Want to see a trick?" she grumbled, pushing up on her weapon to keep his away from her.

Jane swiped her hand in a circle and was sucked into a portal that she had created.

During the transition process from mortality to immortality, she had to associate her body and mind with a power that she wished to have dominion over.

In her youth long before Loki and their marriage and family, Jane had been obsessed with portals and wormholes.

So why not? Be controller over the pathways laced within the stars.

And so she traveled through a vortex of time and space; passing through the moments where the Other shouted for her to reveal herself. She watched in amusement as he attacked the wind that surrounded him.

She continued to play with him, whispering in the darkness "I'm over here," or "You missed me," a few times; enjoying every minute of it.

Jane smirked, but when he called her a very cruel name, she reappeared silently and quickly.

"Here I am," she playfully said as she swiped the bladed scepter tip, scoring a hit with a slice across the abdomen.

The Other recoiled while grabbing and feeling his black blood cover his uniform and hand.

"Ooo, that looks like it hurt," she smiled at her victory. "You should watch your tongue when you talk like that to a lady; let alone a queen."

He charged, a bull shoving her down to the ground.

Their bodies slid on the floor to the point where her head was hanging off the edge of the floating platform. She could see below her the realm of Asgard, but that was way too far to see anything that was happening in the conflict.

Right now, her situation was more important. Her hand groped for her weapon, but she could not reach it and fend off her enemy at the same time.

Jane struggled to free herself while the blood was covering her fighting attire as well. The talons on his hands that encircled around her throat nearly pierced her flesh, but he was concentrating on suffocating her first. Black ooze was coating her neck at causing him to not have a complete grasp.

"Now, Lady Odinson, you...will...die," he said.

Jane was scared. She...had to...power...escape...but her air was slowly leaving.

Suddenly, The Other gasped and arched upward while his hands loosened.

They both looked to where the shock had come from. There was a bladed tip that pierced through his breast.

Her eyes went higher and her champion appeared; struggling with limited strength, but was able to pierce the blade of the scepter from the back to the front.

"Loki!" she cried.

The Other whipped his elbow back, sending her husband flying and tumbling to the ground.

She used the distraction to ram her knee into his injured abdomen and roll to freedom.

Using her gift again, she passed from under the leader's body to appear at her husband's side. "Loki," she spoke his name and stroked his face.

He was struggling to breathe and move, but at least he was conscious.

Loki did open his eyes and locked onto hers.

"Jane," he said her name, hoarseness in his throat. "You are still alive."

"But of course I am," she replied. "You doubting me?"

"Lies," he choked. "The lies he spoke to me."

Jane pressed her lips, dried and chapped to Loki's mouth. He responded to it and must have realized that is was her; when he placed a gentle hand upon her cheek.

He smiled once they stared into each other's eyes.

"Take me home," he begged of her.

And she nodded.

The moment was shattered when they both turned to face The Other who howled with his bloodied hands in the air loudly. He looked down in their general direction, ready to attack.

"I think that is our cue to leave," she said with a mild panic in her voice just before she reached into her belt for the tesseract. She did not know if her power would take them both so it was better to use the tesseract to make sure they both got home. "Hang on babe," she shouted.

Surging forward from where they lie, Jane hoped they would reappear on Asgard.

OK, Jane has Loki back, but this fight is long from over. Remember those reviews!