Will Thor get to Jane in time...or is someone going to get to her first? Remember to review my darlings and tell your friends about the story


Chapter Eleven – Driven to the edge

Jotunheim

Amora the Enchantress returned through a portal to the icy wasteland of Jotunheim. She had to report back to Loki about what she had seen in Vanaheim.

The Frost Giants watched her as she walked in a much different way than her first visit to his realm. This was not a social visit.

"Loki," she shouted his name in the chamber where his throne was. "I need to speak to you now." Still he did not show his face. "Loki!"

Suddenly a blade of ice appeared at her neck.

"You are quite the nuisance you know," the prince's voice hissed in her ear. "How dare you enter my palace with your insolent behavior and…"

"Thor has gone to Earth," she blurted out.

It obviously got his attention because he released her by whipping her out and turning her sharply to lock eyes with him.

"How?"

"He went to the Earth Goddess Jörd's temple and secured a portal to Midgard," she told him. "Your plan to kill Jane Foster and bring down your brother is about to fail. He is going to cure her."

Loki smiled devilishly. "Well, then I guess I am going to have to actually pay her a little visit this time."


Hospital

Cedars Sinai hospital was busy, but Doctor Keith Kincaid was up on the fourth floor in the isolation wing of the Intensive Care Unit talking with ex-wife Jane.

"You are being so stupid Jane," he blurted out to her.

"I am doing the right thing," she replied. She was signing her name on the form that would declare her a DNR. "I am not going to be a perpetual vampire and suck out the hospital's blood supply, nor will I have a tube shoved down my throat to give me oxygen."

She was turning pale and her hair was a mess. She looked as though she was on the verge of death.

"But signing over to not be resuscitated," he blasted her. "You haven't even given my contact at the CDC a chance to find a potential cure for you."

"Nothing can cure me Keith," she finished signing her name and closing the folder that was on the rolling tray table. "Nothing but magic can save me now."

"Oh cut the crap Jane! You know that I never believed in that stuff," he told her. "Don't you think if your champion, whatever his name is…"

"Thor."

"Whatever," Keith said. He came to sit on the bed beside her, taking her lightly shaking hands in his. Her skin was clammy and loose against her bone structure. "Don't you think he would know that you were in danger and come swooping in to save you? He certainly was not here when you nearly died in the car crash. I was your champion then. What about Jake? Are you forgetting him?"

"Of course not," she replied. "I just know that Jake is going to be well taken care of and in your care. I just do not want to suffer anymore than I have to. I just ask that you bring him here after school so I can say goodbye."

His pager was going off. "Damn," he said after reading. "Multiple car crash with fatalities coming in. I have to get back downstairs."

"You have to patch them up and get those people back to their families," she said before he walked out. "I am a lost cause."

Keith sat back down on the bed beside her. "And I am going to the same for you. I am going to patch you back up, just like before, and bring you back to your family. Just be waiting here when I get Jake back from school. They went on a field trip to the capitol today and will be back around four o'clock."

"No promises," she replied.

He left a kiss on her forehead and got up at the sound of his name on the overhead, asking him to report to the ER immediately.

Right as Keith left the room, the priest entered in. He was here to deliver her her last rites.


Keith entered the elevator and punched the two button with his fist hard and flipped the switch to the emergency setting. He was so angry that Jane had signed herself over as a DNR. She was giving up way too soon. She still had sometime and his colleague at the CDC would have to come up with something that would sustain her for a while.

He could not think about it anymore as he exited the elevator into the emergency room. There were several ambulances that were rushing patients and bodies in. He rushed out to one of the many ambulances that pulled up. He needed to get to work; even though his mind was on Jane and his family right now.

But this trauma event would keep him preoccupied.


"May God be with you child," the priest said to her, gave her the sign of the cross, which she repeated very softly.

He rubbed her hand one last time before walking out of the room. He finally left her and the nurse came and put the oxygen mask on over her face.

"Will you be needing anything else Doctor Foster?" the nurse asked.

"Just this," she said as she shakily reached out for the regulator. It led from the needle in her hand up an intravenous line to a bag of saline and morphine. It would make her pain vanish and send her into something of a drug-induced coma. "I should be fine."

She would feel no pain of her demise. Who would want to experience her breath fading and finally the seizures of her body dying?

The nurse left her alone.

Nothing worth worrying about now, she thought as she flipped the switch on, and took one last look at her necklace, which was a pale blue color, before she passed out into a peaceful sleep.


Emergency Room – Cedars Sinai

An ambulance brought in the victims of a multi-car crash. Some were injured severely while others were able to be brought in on wheelchairs.

From behind a passing car, Loki the Mischief-maker appeared in his ceremonial green garb and helmet, staring at the hospital doorway.

"Now, you are sure she is here Enchantress?" he spoke out loud as if the person were next to him.

"Trust me," an echoing voice said. "She is here."

Loki started for the doors and amidst all the chaos and people walking around, he would be able to gain access to the hospital without anyone noticing.

He walked through the doors, passed security, doctors, and patients lining the corridors and rooms. The cloaking spell he put around his body allowed him to walk passed everyone and no one would say a word. He drank in the suffering sounds of the people that were in pain or dying, but he had only one painful sound that he wanted to get closer to.

Following the aura that Jane Foster emanated, he proceeded into the cubicle that would lift him from the ground floor to where she was located.

The people crowded inside near him, but he kept to the center; standing perfectly still.

Once he was to where he could smell Jane Foster's aura as though it surrounded him, he appeared in the elevator. He was cloaked in a business suit and glasses over his face. His calm demeanor was also replaced by a frantic one.

He did have to play the part after all.

Loki approached the nurse's station at the end of the hallway.

"I am looking for Jane Foster," he said to the woman sitting there doing her duties.

"I am sorry sir," the rotund woman said to him.

"I am looking for my friend Doctor Jane Foster," he said.

"And you are?" she asked.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a manifested medical ID from within. It was the ID with his picture on it, but it read Doctor Lucas Kenton, Biology Division

"Dr. Kenton," she said, influenced by his magic. "I am sorry. I did not recognize you with the glasses. Doctor Foster has requested isolation at the end of the hall."

"I had heard that she was getting bad," Loki lied. "I was hoping to see her before she does leave us for good. I just finished work. Terrible, terrible accident downstairs. I was asked to keep Doctor Kincaid in the loop as she was beginning to slip away." If she wasn't, she soon would be, he thought to himself. "I want the ability to say goodbye."

"I would not blame you," the nurse replied. "Down this hall, step up to the doors and I will buzz you in."

"Thank you," he replied, taking back the forged ID.

And Loki walked down the hall to the sealed door and the door was opened for him to enter.

Now, Jane Foster was all his.


The doors to the hospital lobby opened and Natasha Romanoff lead the way through with Tony Stark and the God of Thunder at her sides.

Security tried stopping them, but she flashed her S.H.I.E.L.D. ID tag. "Shut up," she told him in the swift motion.

Stark walked up to the registration desk. "Looking for Doctor Jane Foster," he asked the nurse. "Patient, not an actual physician."

The nurse was working as fast as she could type.

Thor was searching around the halls, no doubt using his energies to try and "detect" where Jane Foster was.

Natasha knew that she had been moved here, but she did not know exactly where she was located.

"Foster, Jane," the nurse said. "Intensive Care Unit, Isolation Ward. Fourth floor."

Thor went searching again for a way to get to the next floor, but Natasha pushed him up against the wall.

"You want to get to her big guy?" she asked with a gun pointed at him. "Then calm down."

Tony Stark stood there staring that she was able to subdue a god. "If we are done playing here kids," he said, "elevators to ICU are this way."

She released him and they followed Stark to the elevator.


Loki in his disguise as another fellow physician entered the door to her room. Bleeping noises softly gave volume that showed her heart was still beating.

Her pale skin appeared to match the beige and whiteness of the space around her, almost making it to where he could barely see her. Her brown hair was in a mass around her pillow and her body was swathed in a simple blue and white cloth.

His hand stroked along the foot of the bed so he could get the full view of her as she lied there; completely at his mercy.

"You know Jane," he whispered as he twisted the blinds to her window closed, "not to insult you or anything, but death becomes you. You are very beautiful. I can see why you entranced my brother into believing himself again."

He came to sit near her bedside, stroking her hand with the tops of his fingers.

Loki looked to see a large stone that was hanging from a chain around her neck. It was a rune stone that in silver showed the mark of Gebo.

"A lovely necklace my dear," he told her. "I have to assume that my brother sent this to you. I wish that you only knew. The rune you wear means a contract of marriage and union." He brushed a section of her hair aside. "My brother proposed to you and you probably had no idea."

Loki leaned in and took a deep inhale of her scent and her aura. "For all this is worth Ms. Foster," he whispered close into her ear, "I am sorry…sorry for my brother's arrogance and greed. He has brought you into the folds of war. And now instead of coming to claim you as a blushing bride, he will come to claim a corpse."

After removing the mask from her mouth, he took his hand and placed it securely over her mouth, using his thumb and index digits to pinch her nose closed.

The machines that displayed her heart rhythm started to blare loudly as her breathing was becoming labored and her heart was slowly dying.

He was not ready for Jane to start fighting back, but her hands and fingernails reached to his hand, but she was so weak that she could not fight him off. Her eyes opened and tears appeared.

Loki smiled that she would see that it was him that was going to end her life.


The nurses looked up the viewing screen and saw that Foster, Jane's screen shows that she was coding. The red label below her vitals said DNR, so all they could do was wait for her to code.

"Call Doctor Mitchell and tell him that Jane Foster is about to start coding," one of the nurses called to a clerk on the phones. "That poor girl," she repeated to the other nurse by her.

"I feel badly for her son," the other nurse replied. "At least her husband got to her in time."


Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, and Thor all walked in a hurry from the elevator to the nurses' station. They stood there, but Natasha was the one that looked up and blurted the words, "she's coding…"

The trio was about to go down the hall when Thor dropped to a knee.

"Thor," Stark said to him, "what is it?"

Natasha was ordering them to open the isolation doors and grant them access.

Thor could feel the dark aura that represented his brother. It was strong and it was nearby.

He found out that it was coming from the room at the end of the corridor.

"Jane," he whispered her name and headed to the door.

Once he arrived to the door, he caught a glimpse of Loki with his hand over Jane's mouth as he used his own powers to shut the door.

Thor rammed his shoulder into it, but could not break it down.

The female used a primitive Earth weapon to fire at the door, but it would not open.

"It's no use," she said.

"Get out of the way," Thor said.

"What?" she asked and turned as he was sending energy up Mjolnir's handle to the head of the hammer. His armor and cape began to glow as the hammer hummed in his hand.

"Fire in the hole," Stark shouted and forced Natasha to the ground.

With one swing of his hammer and powers, the door was blasted from the hinges and allowed entry.

He entered and saw his brother who had released his hold on Jane's face.

"Loki," his growled his brother's name.

"Say farewell," Loki said with a smile on his face, gesturing to Jane with his hand.

Thor swung at him and the wall, shattering it instantly.

Loki was propelled out the window and flew through the air and debris.

Thor went to check on his brother's demise, but did not see it. The pieces of the wall that he had just blown out missed some people in the parking lot and smashed a few vehicles.

But his brother was not there. He must have vanished.

"Next time brother," he whispered.

He was suddenly drawn back into the room because the machines that were connected to Jane were making a loud noise. By the way Stark and his female companion were acting, it could not be good.

"She's going into tachycardia," the female said.

"What does that mean?" he demanded to know.

Stark yelled down the hall, "We need some help down here!"

"What is going on?"

He looked down and Jane was starting to twitch a little bit; as if she did not have control over her own body.

Natasha was testing Jane's heart to see if she was alive.

"Her pulse is fading," Natasha shouted. "She's checking out." After that, she ran out of the room. "She may have asked to not be resuscitated," she added, "but I do not think that includes murdering her before her time."

"What is wrong with her?" Thor asked angrily.

"She's only got a few minutes," Stark told him. "When she starts going into seizures, oxygen is not getting to her brain. Your brother certainly sped up her clock." They noticed that her lips had a slight bluish tint to them. "We need more oxygen." He was reaching for a mask to put it over her face.

Thor shoved Tony Stark aside and reached down to scoop Jane up into his arms. "There is no time," he growled and got her secured even though she was moving uncontrollably. He stepped to the ledge and looked out to the sky, calling, "Mother Jörd, I summon you to return us to Vanaheim."

There was a bright light from the heavens above and encased him. They were instantly enveloped and were removed from Earth Realm.


Tony Stark and Natasha, who was followed up a team of doctors watched as Thor abducted and vanished with Dr. Jane Foster.

Once the halo of light was gone, they all stood there in amazement.

"OK," he said, "now that is the way I want to travel."

Natasha gave him a slight smack on the chest with the back of her hand and ordered everyone away.

Their job was done.


Oh the drama! Oh the drama! Jane is on the verge of death and Thor has taken her back to...well, I guess I am going to have to let you stir a bit.

Background on the necklace, the mark of Gebo is from Norse history as being an "X" that symbolized marriage and a contract of union. I am working on my drawings and I will post a link to my album where you can view pictures of the necklace and other costumes as it will prove beneficial in imagining many of the characters for most of the next few chapters of the story.

Remember to review everyone and I will be posting a little more frequently with school being out for the next two weeks.