A/N: Okay, apologies for the long wait and the relatively short chapter. This is an extremely important interlude where we learn more about the person behind the time loop. By the end of the story, it will be fully explained why this is happening, and as you read, some of you will probably figure out who the culprit is.

The really important thing is that you should have read the side story, A Day in the Life before you read this. If you have and you don't remember what happened, or if you just don't feel like going to check it out, here's a recap:

- A Day in the Life is about what the Avengers are doing on days when Loki doesn't attack New York. Obviously, they're all very confused and unsure if Loki disappeared or if he's going to pop up and yell 'boo!' at some point.

- At the very end of the story, Tony gets an email from someone called 'Mali.' This email has some highly upsetting contents and occurs right before the time loop resets. It then becomes clear that this happens every day, and each day the email has a new number on it coinciding with the number of loops. In this chapter, you will find out why.

So go now, all of you! Read forth!

There is a place that exists only within itself. A place where time, at its very essence, was born millennia ago. Someday, it will be the place where time dies. In the endless twists and turns of the universe, this place is the center of the knot. It is the lynchpin that keeps the strings together. It is a place one could never reach unless invited, either by rocket or bifrost. It is a place some don't believe exists at all, because they live under the mistaken impression that if something is real, they would see it.

It is the place where a woman, small in stature and lithe in build with a healthy yellow glow to her flawless skin, watches a robed man weave the threads of time into a breathtaking tapestry. He's been hard at work since she got here, conducting the streams into an eternal, looping dance around two people who have no idea their significance. The entire universe all the way to its farthest corners center around them now. If anyone had power over the Master of Time, he would've been tried and executed long ago. Somewhere it must be treason to do what he's done. Time hasn't moved for one hundred and six days; the equivalent of three and a half months. There is a saying from earth that comes to mind. People do crazy things for those whom they love. It's something Mali always thinks about when she's in Chronos's presence.

She's tried to understand, but it doesn't come easy. She is of a race that doesn't experience amorous affection the way Earthlings or Aesir do. Love is reserved for one's companions and children. A mate is merely a means of procreation. Once you decide you are ready for offspring, you submit your application with the appropriate offices, and if you're approved, a partner is assigned to you. While it isn't uncommon for partners to raise children as a unit, marriage is a foreign concept. As soon as the children are grown, they go their separate ways, their task complete.

If she went home now and told her people of her Master and Mistress's bold romantic displays, they think she was playing a joke on them. If she told them of the way they touched each other at night in the most intimate of places, not to procreate, but just for the sake of it, they'd faint from shock. Her mother would insist that she quit and come home, not that she doesn't already do that every time they converse.

The Master stands alone tonight. His lady will be in the tower, watching over her subjects. She rarely leaves anymore. No doubt she's been keeping busy. Whenever the Master is not here to guide the time flow, he is up there with her. Mali thinks he would stay forever if he could. If only he didn't have so much responsibility.

This room is not a room, though it dwells in the heart of a palace. It has a door, but no walls; a floor, but no ceiling. To stand at the threshold is to occupy a magnificent corridor made up of fine white marble and alabaster, beautiful but commonplace. To walk inside is to enter a world that both is and isn't reality. Here is where Chronos weaves the threads of life. Every living creature is a string with a beginning and an end. Some reach the heavens and keep going; others are no longer than her finger.

Two threads fly out into the center as the monochrome silver of the masses curve at his command. There is an hourglass beside him. The sand is about to run out. As the grains trickle, he brings all the threads of planet earth together, twists them until they form a rope. He repeats the process with all the life outside of earth, in the farthest reaches of the universe. One might think such a task would take forever, but in this room that isn't a room, forever and a microsecond are one and the same. They become one as the sand reaches the bottom, and he brings both arms up to join the ends together.

The rope spins as trillions of actions play out in reverse. A man walks backwards out of a room; a bullet flies into the barrel of a gun; a child on the ground is pulled onto their feet. The suns and moons fly in a race with no winner. They stop in different places and continue their solitary path until the time to flip the hourglass returns.

Time is many things, infinite, unstoppable, unchanging, undying. She has learned these last one hundred cycles that it is something else, too. When it needs to be, time is circular.

"You are not at your post, Mali."

The Master's voice is melodious and warm. He has taken his young adult form, the one that is closest to her demure height while retaining enough maturity to command attention. Mali stands a little straighter. She's learned this from her time watching the earthlings. This is something their military does when they want to appear obedient.

"Forgive me, Master Chronos, I was just…" she bites her lip. She rehearsed beforehand, but that alone can't stand up to the imposing picture he paints. In the face of his outwardly mild countenance and the unimaginable power he wields beneath it, her mouth abandons her carefully prepared speech and reverts to the default. "I wish to give you my report on Jane Foster's progress."

She bows her head, a futile gesture overall. The door to safety is a hole in the blackness. A perfect rectangle twenty feet high, so that even the tallest of Chronos's servants can fit. It seems close and far away at the same time. One step will get her through to the other side, but it would have to stretch a mile.

Chronos's robes billow at the top of her vision. He's wearing dark blue today and she's glad of it. Otherwise he'd blend so completely into the background that his face would seem to hover. A white beard grows to his stomach. As ancient as he appears, he'll never hunch over with age.

"Proceed," he says, "but please be quick. Time is of the essence."

Time will move as fast or as slow as he wants it to, but Mali understands his point. "She is well. Mentally sound as one can be in this situation. I don't see her much since we began. She spends most of her time with Loki now. Rarely does she venture away from him."

"Hmm… she will be happy to hear it." Chronos rubs his suddenly unwrinkled chin. "Loki has become attached to her?"

"His emotions are hard to read," Mali says with a hint of a smile. Chronos returns it.

"Perhaps that was a foolish question on my part," he says. "The Trickster god will show nothing unless he wants to."

"You could never be called a fool, Master Chronos."

He grows into a man in the prime of his life, the white beard turning brown and shrinking. His powerful shoulders eclipse the unfurling threads of time almost completely.

"Now, Mali," he says, sounding a bit like a parent. "You may flatter all you wish, but you must work to earn a pay raise."

"Of course, Master," she says, her hands clasped in front of her. She starts to back away as Chronos returns to his vigil. Everyone knows the conversation doesn't end until Chronos wants it to, and when he does, you say nothing more than 'thank you' and 'goodnight, Master.'

Mali prepares to leave with her mouth tightly shut. It's rude and she'll kick herself for it later, but if she lets even a syllable pass her lips, everything will spill out. The words are lodged in her throat, clamoring for release, but the moment has passed. She'll have to wait for another opportunity, if one ever comes again.

"Mali, one more thing."

She's mid-step and instinctively freezes at his words. This leaves her perilously close to an ungraceful fall on her face before she catches herself. "Yes sir?"

Chronos hasn't moved. He's still watching the gentle sway of the threads. They bump and swerve around each other in their ceaseless dance. Some threads shrink to nothing as a life is extinguished. Others are born to take their place. For one hundred days, the same lights have gone out in all the same ways. The thought alone inspires fear no mortal being should ever experience, but at least they'll never know.

"How do you feel about what we are doing?" Chronos asks.

For a while Mali has theorized that in addition to his many powers, her master also possesses a form of telepathy. It seems she was right about that. "You want my advice, Master?"

"Moreso your opinion," he says. "You may speak freely. Tell me your feelings."

Mali glances around, but they are alone as ever. The Mistress is not hiding just out of view. There is no place to hide her in the first place, no corners or nooks or crannies. It's just her and Chronos.

She still feels like she's entering the lion's den.

"I wonder if… I fear that in our quest to punish this sins of Loki, we might find ourselves going too far," she listens to her heart in her ears, pounding away. "I would never question your judgement or that of her grace. I will always defer back to you, but the thought still occurs to me that perhaps there is a better way."

Chronos says nothing. He doesn't nod or shake his head. His expression never falters. Mali doesn't know if that should worry or reassure her.

"You would stop if you were in my place," he says.

Mali swallows. Her once firm voice shrinks to a peep. "It's not my place to say, sir."

He appraises her. Mali forces her eyes up, though her head stays down. A show of diffidence he might not want, but she knows better than to give anything else.

"I see," he says. He takes one step closer. "You are troubled."

"No, sir."

"You are."

"Sir, I could never. Not when I have the pleasure of serving you."

"I appreciate your wish to not upset me," he says, "but Mali, have you forgotten why I hired you?"

She hasn't, but that just makes this harder. "My honesty," she whispers.

"You possess a strong moral quality unique to those who work for me," he says. "You came to me with nothing, no ambition, no prior experience, no one to vouch for your good standing, having never left your home planet in all the three hundred years you've been alive."

Sometimes, she wonders which thread floating in this infinite space belongs to her. Not that she'll ever ask. "I can never express how grateful I am to you and your lady for giving me a chance."

"And you don't have to," Chronos's voice becomes higher pitched, and the hand that takes hers is that of a boy. He grins at her, his mouth full of crooked teeth. Were his eyes not so old and full of wisdom, he would be no different from a human child. "All I want from you now is that same honesty. Please tell me the truth."

He's given her no other option, whether he intends to back her into a corner or not. Praying to the gods of her people, she chooses her words as carefully as she can. "Master Chronos, over the past one hundred cycles, I have watched Jane and Loki diligently. I've done all that you and your lady have asked of me. I will continue to for as long as it takes, but I do have to wonder..."

"How much longer will it take," he fills in her thought. His voice deepens with each word and he gains a foot of height. "You're attached to them."

"No, sir," Mali lies.

"You know it is not my decision to make when they are freed."

'It should be. You are the ruler of time, not her.' "Yes, sir."

"Ah, but you are sensitive," he pats her arm affectionately. "I knew that when I assigned you to watch over them. You've come to sympathize with them."

"I…" Mali bites her lip. "I just…"

"I'm not mad," he says. "This is why you were chosen. You follow orders, and yet you are kind."

"I would never disobey you," she says, and this at least is the truth. She hasn't once failed to fulfill his command. Whatever she does beyond that— be it taking a walk when Jane is busy with Loki or making a trip to Manhattan every day before the changeover— doesn't factor in.

"Just remember that disagreeing doesn't equate to disobeying," he says, walking past her to the door. "I would understand completely if you think this is wrong."

He speaks softly, almost like he doesn't want her to hear. Mali would happily pretend she hadn't, but now there's one more thing gnawing at her. "Do you think it's wrong, sir?"

He doesn't stop or even slow down, but as fast as he moves, he never seems to get any closer to the entrance. "I think there are two kinds of people for whom we are capable of doing anything: those we love and those with something to learn. You'll find even I am not so infallible."

He leaves her with that cryptic remark and no more. He might've told her not to dawdle and get in position before Jane wakes up, but she's already on her way. Several threads stick out in the crowd before she goes. Tony Stark flying in his suit, looking for someone he won't find. Steve Rogers on the helicopter his face severe and his shield ready. Bruce Banner driving at sixty miles an hour to get there as fast as the thirty-year-old bike allows. Their routine will only change if Loki wants it to.

His thread doesn't float, nor does Jane's. They are stationary, held away from the rest, one many times longer than the other, sharing only the same golden hue like gilded chains.

Mali plays her role to perfection. She watches Jane go about her morning before Loki arrives. He never does the same thing twice and sometimes it's hours before he's there lounging on her bed or walking out of the restroom. Where they go after that is not within Mali's domain. She watches from the observatory and no further.

When they leave (for Europe she hears), Mali drags herself back to Chronos's realm with her eyes half shut. A nap sounds like the most wonderful concept in the universe. Her quarters are in the south wing, just past the courtyard and the grand gardens. The latter didn't exist before Chronos married; his wife sowed every seed and nurtured their plants like a mother. Now the flowers stand tall as trees to touch the sky. The hedges are a maze for adventurous workers on break to explore. It's where Chronos and his wife steal away when they want a moment alone, as they do now.

Mali knows she shouldn't stay. She should keep walking like she doesn't see them and not stop until she's safe in her quarters, but even though she's been awake since three cycles ago, the exhaustion has left her. She finds a place in the shadow of a pillar and waits. Before her eyes, Chronos takes his wife's hand. Kisses it. She seems placid for now. That can easily change.

"A new day dawns soon, my love," he says.

"In a sense," she says. She seems to glide more than walk. "He grows fond of Jane Foster. His hostility towards her lessens each day."

"You speak as though it troubles you," says Chronos. "Is that not what you wanted?"

The Mistress gazes out at the gardens. She beckons the single tree in the corner. It comes alive with her magic, the branches stretching to reach her. She caresses the fine wood, whispering words of encouragement. From one branch, an apple grows, red and ripe. She picks it, inspecting it in the light. The tree recedes, going back to its original form. The Mistress passes the fruit to her husband.

"Nature is so lovely," she says. Her fingers linger over the apple. With the brilliant color as a backdrop her pale skin looks even paler. She is pure white from head to toe. Even her hair looks like it was spun out of snow. "When I was little, I thought no one would ever understand me like the grass did. Or the trees…" She has some leaves between her fingers. She opens her fist to set them free.

"If nature could talk," Chronos says, embracing her from behind, "it would say only how it envies your beauty."

"You said that when you were courting me."

"Did you think I was lying?" His nose brushes her hair. Wherever he wants to put it, Mali doesn't want to know.

"Never, my love," says the Mistress, her sigh almost content. "The face of a liar is ugly, and your visage is more perfect than any I've seen."

They share a kiss that goes on for an indeterminate amount of time. Mali doesn't know. She has to look away before she starts retching. She could live among sex driven animals for the rest of her life, and she'll never understand why the exchange of bodily fluids is considered romantic.

"I praise the day you came to this realm," says Chronos. "I cherish the love you have given me. Though sometimes, I fear, I do not understand your mind, I love it just as well as if I did."

"I do believe you said that, too." She rests her hands on the balcony. When Mali looks again, the Mistress's back is still to her. Chronos mimics her action. "I wish my mind could be at ease enough to enjoy your words. I fear that can't happen until this miserable task is complete."

"Yes," Chronos agrees. Just like that, the entire atmosphere of the room has shifted, and once more, Mali thinks it's time to leave. Once more, she does not. "Though you must know how much they have already suffered."

"It's only the beginning," says the Mistress. "Loki will endure far more before I'm through with him."

"And Jane?"

The Mistress pauses. Mali's ears are not especially sharp, so if she's making a sound, it doesn't reach her.

"Jane is necessary. She keeps him grounded. He would lose himself far too quickly without her, as we have seen."

A motion of her hand tears the sky in half. Inside the gap, Loki's actions from the tenth and eleventh cycles play out. His attempts to end the loop himself, his psychotic fit when he failed the first time, his despondence after the second. Had he not encountered Jane, this could've been his entire existence. His sanity wasting away until nothing of his former self remained.

"But has Jane not lost something too?" asks Chronos

Now she appears. Mali's heart sinks as Jane tries to convince her friends of what is happening during the eighteenth cycle. She remembers that. Loki came for her that same day and unknowingly put the second part of the Mistress's plan into action. Before that, she had been a wreck. Hopelessly confused and endlessly enraged by it. Mali had been there as she begged the sky for an answer in the fifth cycle, and when she spent the seventh and eighth in a deep depression. Jane hadn't seen her, but Mali saw everything.

"Jane has lost nothing she can't gain back," says the Mistress, banishing her image. "And she will. I'll make sure she does. I've seen her thread, and her fate has not changed."

"Fate can always change," says Chronos. A new face appears, that of Natasha Romanov. Mali sees her watching from afar as Clint Barton stands with another woman, children at his feet. He embraces his wife and Natasha looks away. "A single moment makes all the difference. It creates a ripple effect, changing the lives of everyone it touches."

The family of Clint Barton disappears. He's left alone and at Natasha's side. Together they watch a child in the distance. She's beautiful with her mother's hair and her father's eyes. Another couple hold her hands and lead her away. She's laughing, joyous and free, the happiest child in the world. Why shouldn't she be? She's a miracle child. A one in a million chance.

"I know what you're trying to impart on me, Chronos," she says, "but how much can a ripple do when each new dawn erases it?"

"More than you give credit for perhaps."

"Jane will live on," the Mistress snaps, as much as she would to her husband. "Someday, she will forget all of this. Loki will be nothing to her but a name. She will love Thor and he will love her. She will be his queen. That is her fate and it will not change."

"Magic can only do so much," Chronos says. "You know this best of all. You can take a memory, but you cannot take a feeling."

The Mistress harrumphs. Clint and Natasha disappear, replaced by a frosty night in Jotunheim. A baby swathed in paper thin blankets lays still on a burnt-out pyre. his tiny face is bluer than even a Jotunn's should be. Ice crystals form on his eyelashes. He twitches here and there, but the life is gone from him. It's only the standard seizing of a body recently vacated.

"Remember this?" the Mistress says bitterly.

Chronos nods. "The fate of Loki as it might have been."

"As it should have been." The Mistress turns away, her porcelain features revealed to Mali for the first time, and they are marred by fury. "You foresaw this the moment he was born. Were it not for Odin, it would have been so, and all the pain he's caused never would have been. Not one good thing has ever come from Loki Laufeyson's existence!"

Chronos goes to her, his expression one of great hurt. When the Mistress sees it, she seems to know instantly her mistake.

"You ran from him many moons ago when he betrayed you." He holds her face in his hands. "It brought you to me. I can hold you now because of what Loki did, so will you forgive me if I cannot damn him as you have?"

"Only you," she says thickly, "but, my love, I would've found you without him. Your heart called to mine."

'Please don't kiss again. Please, oh please, oh please—'

"I believe you, but I'm thankful we never have to find out." Their foreheads touch and there is peace between them. Their hands are joined as they inhale each other's scent. This whole time, Chronos has been youthful, looking no older than an Earth man in his thirtieth year. He dwarfs his wife considerably in this form, yet they always seem equal in stature.

"Soon, Chronos, it will end. Loki will pay for his crimes, Jane will return to her life, and we shall all be free of him forever. This I promise you."

"By then, Jane might not want to be free," says Chronos. "Do you truly believe she cannot love him as you love me?"

"Loki is nothing like you," she states. "If you were anyone else, I'd strike you down for insulting my husband so."

He chuckles. "But if Jane is anything like you she might say the same about Loki."

"Jane is a credit to her race," the Mistress concedes. "I have watched her for far longer than this. She is the one who will bring Midgard back to the nine realms, and she will do it with a prince at her side. A true prince."

"That is the fate she will make for herself," says Chronos.

"Loki can give her nothing Thor can't a thousand times over," she spits. "He doesn't know how to love selflessly. It's beyond him. That's why Jane can never love him. She might think she does, but I know better, and if she was in my place, she would, too."

Now, finally, Mali knows she must leave. The sky is sewn back up, their portal into the world of memory gone with it. Chronos settles into comfortable silence with his wife. Her purpose reaffirmed, there's nothing more for him to say. As the couple enjoys their reprieve, Mali blends into the shadows, sliding across the floor at their feet. Her magic masks her energy from all, even them. She gets through to the other side and her Master and Mistress are none the wiser.

Her room is along a corridor lined with identical doors. They are not numbered or distinguishable in any way unless you live in one. Mali's is the twelfth on the left. Inside is a bed and a chair for reading. A window on the wall provides light and a view of the stars. She needs no other accommodations. Her kind doesn't know hunger or thirst the way other races do.

The door next to hers is open. A woman waits for her. She's taller than Loki, though smaller than a fully grown Jotunn. Her bright purple skin is flawless and stretched over sinewy muscle. Her fiery red hair falls past her shoulders. Accusing eyes stare her down, but Mali's bed is calling out to her and she isn't about to keep it waiting.

"You're treading on thin ice, you know."

Mali presses her hand to the door and it slides open. "I do not."

"Don't lie to me." Nex steps between her and the sweet release of sleep. "You think I don't know what you're doing? You have to stop now before someone finds out."

"Assuming there is anything to find out," Mali says calmly, "why have you not exposed me?"

"You're my friend," says Nex. "I don't know how they do it on your planet, but on mine, you value your friends. You don't rat on them. Other people aren't going to be so nice."

"Nex, I am doing everything our master commanded me to." Mali grits her teeth and wishes she had Nex's strength, to beat her fury into these walls until her knuckles bled.

"But what do you do when your work is done?" Nex steps closer, lowering her voice. There's no way to know how many rooms are currently occupied. "You go to New York before every changeover."

Mali blinks innocently. "I go where?"

"What are you telling them?"

"Telling whom?"

"Mali, don't play games. This is life or death." Nex grabs her and shakes her. "If her ladyship discovers what you're doing, you won't just be fired. She will kill you."

"Master Chronos wouldn't let her."

"Do you want to take that chance?" Nex starts to pace. "Mali, I know you think you're helping, but Jane doesn't need to escape. Her ladyship will free her when the time is right and then it'll be over."

"Will it?" Mali demands. "Can you live with yourself in the meantime, Nex? You of all people should understand why I'm doing this!"

"And why is that? Because I watch over Jane, too?"

"You don't just watch her," Mali hisses. "You care for her in a way I never could."

Nex looks away, pulling her hair out from behind her ears to cover her reddening cheeks. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mali laughs. "I've learned a lot working here, Nex. Things I never could've fathomed. I may not understand the feeling of being in love, but I know what it looks like."

Nex growls in frustration and ducks into her room. She forgets to shut the door behind her. Mali would take this opportunity to run, but she's on a roll now and she isn't stopping. "You can pretend all you want that it's just a job, but this is wrong and you know it. Her ladyship is blinded by her hatred, but she can't make an evil act into a good one just because she feels justified."

"Then you're risking your life for one Earth woman!" Nex throws a book against the wall and it cracks. Magic instantly fixes the damage, but it can do nothing to heal Nex's pride. Her eyes are watery and her breath hitching. For all her posturing, Mali knows the truth. Jane will never be 'just an Earth woman' to either of them.

"I thought you'd understand," Mali says. "And on some level, I think you do. I need to rest now before the changeover. I'll want to have everything ready before I return to my post. If you want to reveal me in the interim, so be it. You'll find that while my body is weak, I don't go down easy."

Mali leaves Nex to think. She'll be doing a lot of it. Part of Mali dreads waking up to find a lynch mob led by the Mistress waiting for her, but her rationale isn't ruled by fear. Nex will not tell. She values her friendship with Mali too much, and she values Jane even more. Whatever she tries to convince herself, Nex knows good from bad just like Mali. She will wag her finger and tsk and disapprove until—as the Earthlings say—the cows come home, but if the Mistress held her by the blade of a sword, she'd never get one word out of her.

It's five minutes before the changeover, and this time, Mali makes a pit stop. Loki brought Jane back to the observatory early and left after watching her fall asleep. She's alone now, unmonitored until the next morning comes. Not even the Mistress is near. Mali still expends every ounce of spare energy to mask her presence. She walks on the air, her body a light that shines on Jane's peaceful face. Four minutes until she is rudely awakened and that encompasses only a fraction of the heartbreak Mali feels as she looks down on her.

"Hello Jane, she says. "I know you can't hear me right now. Even if you were awake you wouldn't." Her light flickers as her energy field is nearly disrupted. She forces all the emotion out of her voice and focuses. She can do this. "I don't have much time. This could be all for nothing, but if you can only know what I say in your dreams, then listen now. You cannot give up, Jane. You cannot stop fighting. You are so much more than any of them know. You and Loki both. You will find the answer together and you will escape her wrath."

Mali steps back. The clock is ticking and she's down to seconds.

"I have a plan. It's not a great one, but it's something I learned from you. I think if there's even the slightest chance it can work, it's worth trying. That's what you would say, right?" Mali smiles. "Be strong, Jane. You may not know it, but you not alone. As long as she stands between you and victory, I will always be there to block her path while you make a new one."

Then she is gone, Jane melting away into nothing. Her eyes now behold the interior of Tony Stark's tower. She touches the massive screen and transfers her energy. It appears in the form of an email. She leaves only her name to identify it.

"Mali? Who the heck is Mali?"

"What's the problem, Stark?" Barton shouts at him.

"Nothing, Angel," Tony responds innocently. "Just some junk mail that slipped through the cracks. 'Number 106.' Huh… that's kinda weird."

Mali leaves. She can do no more for them and she needs to be at her post before Jane wakes up. Until their minds reset, they have these few precious seconds of knowing exactly what's happening to them. Everything Loki and Jane have yet to discover, she'll give them over and over again. So that every day, they'll feel little more like something is wrong. Every day until that feeling becomes an understanding, and that understanding, a knowing.

Some would ask, what can they do then? Is it even possible for this to work? How does a group of ragtag misfit humans stand against the master of time itself?

'Well,' says a voice in her head that sounds like Nex, 'Jane's only human, and look how far she's come.'

This is how Mali comforts herself as Chronos spins the universe back into its original form, and the one hundred and seventh cycle begins with a song.

'Come on Eileen, oh I swear

At this moment, you mean everything!

With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess

Verge on dirty

Ah come on Eileen.'