There was nowhere for Sigi to go. She was afraid to return to her room and encounter Loki. She did not want to deal with Odin and his politics. And she deeply did not want to approach Thor and struggle to express the doubt she now was privy to about his relationship with Jane. Instead, she wandered listlessly around the castle until she found Tony Stark pacing idly through the halls.

"Looks like my job here is done," he said, looking grateful. "Thanks to you, I get to head home. Also thanks to you, I have the keen displeasure of telling Fury that he's going to have to come up here himself and state his case."

"Well, if he wants to end this, then he'll come up here and talk to me himself. As much as I enjoy your company, Stark, Fury is the one I need to be dealing with."

Stark nodded. "That's a showdown I'd love to see."

"I hope I'm not interrupting," a voice said behind them.

Sigi turned around to see Jane standing there. She was now wearing Asgardian clothes and was idly fiddling with the cuff of her dress, as if she were trying to physically acclimate to where she was by what she was wearing.

"No, not at all," Stark said. "We were just finishing up here." He gave Sigi a serious look and paused for a moment, studying her. "Take care of yourself, Maddox. Don't let your truth misguide you." He patted her shoulder and walked away, leaving Sigi to face Jane.

"Does this place ever get any less strange?" Jane asked.

"Yes. And then profoundly no," Sigi replied. "It's so familiar and yet so distancing all at the same time. Sometimes I forget I'm not on Earth and then I speak with Odin and… well, he enjoys beating me over the head with the fact that I'm an outsider here."

"You don't say," Jane said sardonically. "Tell me – you've been here far longer than I have: is there anyway of overcoming Odin's prejudices?"

"Good of you to think of them as prejudices. At least I don't feel so alone for accusing him of that," Sigi said. "To be completely honest, I don't know if there is. Much of what Odin does has roots in good intentions. His method of he doing it, however… I have my doubts. I'm the wrong person to ask about getting on his good side, Jane. I'm the last person to be talking about good in general at the moment."

"I know that," Jane said. "But I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and trying to figure out where you stand in all of this."

"Between a rock and hard place and a lake of boiling lava. That's where I stand. No matter what I do, I'm going to piss someone off. So here's the best advice I can give you, Jane, as much as it pains me to say it – desert me. Don't side with me, unless you're absolutely certain it can be for your own good. What I've done, what I could do… how Fury and Odin see me now. It would be best for you and Thor to keep your distance, to not trust me as much as everyone else does. Because I can't argue that their mistrust is unsound. I did what I thought was right. But that doesn't mean anyone else has to agree with me."

"Sigi… what have you done?" Jane asked. "I can't understand why Fury was so angry when I told him about you using the portal again. Why did you return here?"

"For the same reason you've come here now," Sigi spluttered.

Jane's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"You came because of scientific interest and passion, of curiosity, of wanting to know more and see more. But also because of Thor. I came because I wanted to learn more about who I was. I returned out of curiosity about the planet as well. But also because I fell in love."

Sigi thought that perhaps admitting the heaviest issue in her mind to Jane would help her come to terms with her feelings. Instead, it merely caused her to feel as if she were playing Jane, trying to gain her confidences while she was becoming more and more attached to a man who would most likely conspire against her. But there was no backpedaling now; she'd said too much.

"What? Who? How?" Jane cried, her eyes wide with alarm, surprise, and perhaps a little bit of hope.

"A… a guard here. Theoric. I don't know what happened. I saw him and… well…"

Jane's eyes became bright. "And you just clicked. Even though he was the strangest thing in the world, you felt like you understood some part of him you never though was possible with a person."

Sigi thought she was going to cry. Oh Jane, she thought, Odin isn't going to be able to just send you home either. She had not been wrong thinking that her emotional attachment was going to complicate things for Jane. And now her mind ached from agreeing with Odin, agreeing with Jane, and wanting her own feelings to not be entirely unsound and flawed. Until that moment, she thought there was still the possibility that she wasn't really in love, that Jane wasn't really in love, that maybe they were both completely enraptured by something new and dangerous they didn't understand. But seeing that they both believed in something deeper than that caused Sigi to reevaluate. Perhaps the bond between Thor and Jane had more strength than Odin though.

And if that was the case, what did that mean for Sigi?

She shook these thoughts from her head and blinked tears out of her eyes, focusing back on the present conversation. "Spot on," she muttered. "The only thing I can tell you is that Odin believes people like you have no place here and that your relationship with Thor cannot last. He thinks I'm a liability and unpredictable. I'm becoming rather synonymous with Loki's standing, actually, if that's any help. I want to be honest with you, but I also want to make no promises so I don't have to lie. I can't tell you where I might end up by the time this is all said and done. But believe me when I say that I will do my damnedest to make sure no one gets hurt."

Jane stared at her with wide eyes. "God, Sigi – what's happening up here?"

"A lot," Sigi sighed. "The ground I'm standing on is so unstable. After learning about my mother… God, my mother…"

It struck her fully in that moment that the woman she thought she had always understood and known so fully had hidden so much from her. She had raised Sigi to be calm and understanding and logical while she herself had acted so harshly, heatedly, and cruelly in her past. It seemed unlikely that Frigga would have lied to Sigi about what had occurred with Hanna and now, knowing about her mother's actions and her revenge streak made Sigi feel slightly dissociated. Perhaps it was because she was spending so much time away from Earth, but she was beginning to feel that her entire life there no longer fit into the person she was becoming. How could she ever return there and face her mother and pretend that nothing had changed between them? How could she explain what had changed, not through actions, but through thoughts?

"I don't even know my mother anymore," Sigi said finally. "Not at all. I'm recreating myself and my life and I feel like everything else I had around me either has to change with me or get distorted in my mind. So much is happening and I… I'm not going to pretend I know what I want or what I'm doing. But I'm going to find out. No matter what others have planned for me."

And that goes for you, Loki, she thought. Whatever it is you have planned.

Would you like to find out? he replied, a hint of glee to his projected thought.

"You're wise beyond your years, Sigi," Jane smiled, turning to go.

Sigi shook her head sadly. "Even the wisest become fools."