Chapter 14:

Frigga moves distractedly into the living room, where her son and husband are waiting, her thoughts caught up in everything that's happened in the last, few hours. Caught up and wondering... worrying, about Thor's new friend.

She doesn't even notice at first Odin and Thor looking at her, waiting expectantly.

"Well?" Her husbands voice finally pulls her from her thoughts, and she looks up at him, seeing him staring back. "How is the boy?" He goes on.

To anyone else, the question might have come out sounding cold, even detached. That was just the way her husband conducted himself. He was a big business contractor. A damn fine one, and it was his job to present facts and make offers and propositions while remaining neutral.

But to her familiar and practiced ears, she could hear the deep concern, even guilt, under the tone. Odin was worried, and, she knew, felt awful about what had happened.

"He's doing better." She tells him and Thor both.

"The medicine worked?" Thor asks, relief in his voice.

"Yes." She answers again. "He's shaken up, but the pain is gone." She can't help her own relief from breaking through.

She'd held it together, having dealt aplenty with young people suffering migraines, but she'd been scared also. Loki was obviously delicate. Not simply because he was paraplegic. She could tell just to look at him that he was sickly, physically weak, even in his upper body, maybe even had a weak immune system. He was painfully thin, and it wouldn't surprise her in the least to find out he suffered frequent bouts of illness.

So it had scared her. Migraines could prove fatal in some rare cases if not treated properly, and the boy obviously wasn't well off financially. She doubted he could afford any sort of special treatment.

It seems as if her husband is reading her own thoughts when he speaks next.

"I shouldn't have made that stupid joke." He says. "I didn't mean to scare the boy. He's obviously fragile."

"I don't think that's what triggered the migraine though dear." Frigga tells him gently. "Things like that just come on unexpectedly, usually."

"He does have a lot of medications though." Thor interjects then.

Frigga and Odin both turn to look at him, and he continues.

"I... I saw them when I was over at his apartment last night. I think you're right Dad. He has a lot of health issues."

"Mmm." Odin nods. "I noticed his shoes are those kind people wear for back and foot pain."

"Orthopedic shoes." Frigga supplies. "He probably suffers a lot of back pain, I imagine."

She pauses then, worrying at her lip as she wonders... thinking...

"Thor, how old did you say Loki is?" She asks.

"Um..." Thor blinks at her, thinking a moment. "Actually, I... never asked him. But I don't... I don't think he's more than sixteen or seventeen at the most."

"And he lives by himself?" She presses.

Thor nods, looking slightly dismayed.

"He has a cat. That's it." He says.

"If he's seventeen, we'll just guess for now, and he's been living here a year, that means he came to the US when he sixteen." Frigga goes on, almost talking to herself. "Without any family to speak of."

That's too young, she thinks. Too young for someone to be so on their own in the world. Especially someone like Loki, who's already dealing with so many disadvantages.

She looks back to her son.

"Has he mentioned any family to you?" She asks. "He told you he came here by himself?"

Thor nods.

"He said he came here by himself, yeah, but..." he hesitates for a moment, biting his lip and looking vaguely guilty.

Frigga doesn't push him, waiting for him to go on.

"I asked him at one point if he had any brother's or sisters and he... well he..." again he hesitates, and now both Frigga and Odin are looking at him intently.

Frigga feels her stomach clench as Thor continues for several seconds to waver.

"Well out with it." Odin finally starts, losing patience.

"He got upset. I mean... th-this was when we first really met, and I just sort of, uh, casually asked him... and he told me I should go. And then we didn't talk to each other for about a week. Well, really until we ran into each other last night. So..." Thor trails off then, looking confused and worried.

"That's odd." Odin says absently after a moment.

Frigga shakes her head, her heart heavy.

"He shouldn't be on his own." She starts suddenly, hardly thinking of what it is she's saying. "Not like that. Not as he is."

"I was thinking the same thing." Thor adds quickly, and Frigga hears the blatant hope in his voice. "He... he needs help." He goes on eagerly. "I think, I mean... I was wondering if, maybe, we could..."

"Thor," Odin starts, laughing gently. "you've grown agenda driven of late."

For a moment, Thor's cheeks color slightly and he looks embarrassed.

"... Well I was just thinking..." he starts, looking down at his feet.

"No, he's right." Frigga cuts in, again thinking. "We should do something to help him."

Again, Odin laughs, seeming amazed.

"But we don't even know the boy." He argues half-heartedly.

"Thor knows him." She argues right back. "And I've spent a whole afternoon and the early part of this evening around him, and I consider myself a pretty good judge of character. He's a good boy."

Odin throws his hands up, shaking his head.

"I'm not saying he isn't a good kid." He starts. "I'm just a little confused as to what the two of you are scheming about."

"We could adopt him." Thor blurts suddenly, and both Frigga and Odin turn to look at him with astonished expressions.

"... You're joking." Odin goes on after a long moment of awkward silence.

Thor shakes his head.

"N-no." He says, sounding as serious as Frigga has ever heard him. "No. If he... if he isn't eighteen yet, and I really don't think he is, honestly, I don't think he's even seventeen yet, he looks younger than Baldr, then that makes him legally s-still a minor, and we could adopt him."

"Thor, this is insane." Odin starts, and Frigga shakes her head.

"Well, I don't know..." she begins, and her husband turns towards her, single eye wide.

"Have you both lost your minds?" He says after a moment, disbelieving. "You both want to adopt him now? He's practically an adult!"

"Thor is right, dear." Frigga replies. "The boy needs help. He's obviously in a bad way, financially and otherwise. And we've been talking about needing to give back more. You know we have more than any of us will ever need."

"Of course." Odin says. "But when I said we should start donating more to charity, I didn't mean... this. Do you even know his last name?" He looks at Thor.

"Well... no." Thor says after a brief hesitation, seeming to realize it. "But..."

"Adopting someone isn't a decision you simply make on the fly." Odin goes on, talking over him. "There's all kinds of legalities and paper work and..."

He trails off, seeing Frigga and their son staring back at him, she knows, with almost pleading expressions.

He sighs, looking away and shaking his head.

"You two are going to be the death of me, you know that?"

"... Does that mean you'll consider it?" Thor asks, and he sounds like some little kid getting his Christmas wish. Frigga can't help but smile.

Again, Odin shakes his head, his hands on his hips.

"You're mother and I will discuss it." He finally says after a long, few seconds.

Thor opens his mouth, his face breaking into a thousand watt grin. Frigga barely manages to keep a similar expression from her own face, and she doesn't even know why she feels so excited. Why she's even so sure about this.

Odin is right. They don't really know Loki. Don't really know anything about him, beyond a few, basic things, but...

Something about the boy just stirs so much compassion in her. Her heart breaks just looking at him, and, she thinks, he seems so lonely.

A boy like that really shouldn't be on his own, fending for himself without any real way to.

"Later." Odin cuts Thor off when it seems like he's about to say something else. "We'll discuss is later. Right now I have to get back to the office. I just came home for some lunch, which I didn't get, by the way."

He looks pointedly at Frigga, and she can only smile back.

"You have to go back to the office?" She asks after a moment. "So late?"

Her husband nods, looking irritated.

"Yeah. Just a few documents I have to go over, shore up a few details. But I'll be back in time for dinner."

"Alright." Frigga replies. "By the way, I've invited Thor's friend to spend the night if he wants to. I hope that's okay."

Odin gives her a knowing look.

"You say that as if I actually have a say in the matter." He replies, smiling.

And Frigga laughs.

"Of course." She says. "I'm nothing if not polite."

/

"This sucks." Bylistr falls back against the cushions of the couch in the rented out hotel room, crossing his arms over his broad chest and huffing loudly.

"You've said that already. About a million fucking times." Helblindi rolls his eyes to the ceiling, irritated and disgusted in equal measure as he tries focusing once more on the television.

"Well that's cause it's fucking true!" Bylistir huffs again, throwing his hands up. "We've been here, what, almost a week already, and we ain't found shit! I mean, how do we even know the little fuckers here!?"

"He's here."

They both freeze, turning towards the room's entrance, seeing their father standing there, closing the door behind him.

"Remember," Laufey goes on, sauntering into the room and taking a seat at the table he'd set up as his workspace, pictures and documents spread out all over the top. "we've traced him. He might've slipped through the cracks if he'd have realized beforehand he'd need a passport to get out of London and to the States." He chuckles, grinning at his two sons. "But as we know, Loki ain't that smart. It's our luck he had to scrounge around for almost three weeks waiting for a passport before he could get out of the country. The dumb little shit left a paper trail. So he's here. No doubt about it."

Bylistir scoffs, shaking his head.

"What I wanna know is how the fucker managed to survive out there on his own for so long. He couldn't of had that much money."

"That lady at that rat-hole hotel told us he rented a room there for about a week." Helblindi reminds him. "Remember?"

"Yeah, but that's only a week." Bylistr bites back. "That leaves two more he had to have been out on the street. The fucker's in a wheelchair. How'd he not manage to die?!"

"You could ask the same question about how he managed any of this." Helblindi answers. "Like Dad says, he ain't that smart. And he don't know jack shit about anything. He'd never even been outside the apartment, 'cept when we let him that one time we moved from Iceland."

"Well didn't I say we shoulda' kept a lock on his room?" Bylistir says. "Who knew he had the balls to sneak out when we weren't there and use the computer? That's how he figured it all out."

"None of that matters now." Laufey interjects, flipping through a set of maps on his desk. "What matters is we've figured out where he is, and we've just gotta figure out when to make our move. We can figure out how to deal with the rest of it once we've got him back."

"And he's working at that University library, right? What name'd you say he was living under now?" Helblindi asks, sitting forward in his seat.

Laufey nods, not looking up.

"Loki Smith." He answers.

Bylistr laughs.

"Dumb shit wasn't even smart enough to change his whole name. And who the fuck's gonna think his last name's Smith with a name like Loki? And with his accent?"

Helblindi shrugs, turning back to the television.

"Can't we just wait 'till he gets off work and grab him on the street?" He asks.

"Dad wants to see where he lives, remember?" Bylistir adds, and Helblindi shrugs again.

"Don't see why." He says lazily.

"Because..." Laufey starts, standing up from where he sits and walking towards them, grinning wide. "I want to show him. I want to show him how stupid he was to think he could get away. And the best way to start is by taking away everything he thinks he has."

/

AN: As always, a huge thank you to all my readers and/or reviewers! So, plot twist I guess, lol. I assure you guys, this story WILL have a happy ending. But not before we get some serious drama.