Holy shit you guys! 21 reviews?! You are awesome! You know that?

I'm so glad you're all still with me after such a long break. I'm so sorry again /:

This is just a short one before Christmas and New Years, but I couldn't leave ya'll like that.. all hangin' and stuffs.

So, behold!

Chapter 20 – His Just Reward.

Loki was stunned and terrified.

"Pardon?" he whispered, trying to remain cool.

Cassidy looked angry, very angry. Her voice was calm and controlled, but there brewed a storm within her. Loki could tell.

Who would tell her? Who would know to?

She simply watched him through the glass.

"Was it you?" she repeated, calmly.

His automatic instinct was to lie.

Loki moved his eyes to the side, then returned them to her hard gaze.

"Was it you what, Cassidy? I-"

"How could you?" Cassie asked, interrupting him.

"I'm sure that one of us knows the direction of this conversation, that person however doesn't appear to be me." Loki tried to joke, he could talk his way out of this. He was Loki Liesmith, master of lies and deceit. He could surely spin a tale around this? But Cassie shook her head in disgust.

"It was you." she croaked, her lips barely moving, "Steve Rogers told me everything," she shook the machine in her hand at him, "So don't try to deny it. I know you're a good liar, Loki– the best, but you can't talk your way out of this. It was you."

His heart dropped and stopped, all at the same time. It was fruitless. He couldn't fool her any more.

"It was you, wasn't it?" she repeated, still trying to remain calm. She wasn't succeeding.

Loki licked his bottom lip nervously.

"Cassidy, I can explain. That was a very different time for me. I was a completely different person then-"

"And that justifies it?!" She shouted suddenly, stopping Loki in his tracks. She looked off to the side and shook her head again, raising her hands to the sides of her head.

"You killed hundreds– No, thousands of people and all you can say to try and justify it, is that it was a hard time for you?"

"It was in a dark place in my existence. A beacon of light had been illuminated from an unlikely source, only too late did I find that it was false. Please believe me." he begged, but she wasn't soothed.

Loki had never seen her like this before, not directed at him anyway. Her eyes were hard and her face was contorted with disgust and disapproval.

"You nearly destroyed an entire city, an entire planet! All because you wanted Daddy's approval. You wanted to rule? You wanted to be King?" She stopped, breathing shallowly.

Loki felt his body slump. He couldn't look at her. He knew it would end up like this. Why did he try to pretend otherwise? He knew that she could never accept what he did to this Realm.

"We were made to be ruled." she muttered, spitting venom at him, repeating his words. Loki's fear renewed itself. He couldn't bare it, she was so angry at him, "I read the article about what you said in Germany." she paused. "You said that, 'We were made to be ruled'. Is that what you think?"

Loki couldn't lie any more. His lies had cost him so much and now, they were about to cost him his friend.

"Yes. I did." he admitted.

Cassidy looked down, two beads of tears fell to the floor.

"But not now." he hastened to add, "I don't believe that now. I was a fool to. I was lost and so blinded by revenge and hate, that I could not see what was truly real." He balled his fist and beat it against his chest as his voice broke, "I, was wrong, Cassidy. I see that now. I am so truly sorry."

"Were you gunna let them kill me?" Cassie said in a low register, bringing her head back up. Her was brimming with tears, but her face was devoid. Loki's heart burst.

"No. Of course not. I would never let them-"

"So, you were planning on? What? Kidnapping me? Taking me as a hostage, a slave?"

"Maybe I would have had to," Loki snapped, Cassie's face contorted with disdain, "but I would never have let them hurt you."

Time stretched out forever between them, driving a wedge in the conversation. Loki dared not speak. This was her turn to respond.

Cassidy finally gave movement. She blinked slowly and leaned her head to the side.

"All those people." she breathed, shaking her head. Her curtain of curly, caramel hair moved gently, as if moved by a breeze.

"All those people, all those lives you ruined, all those communities broken, all those families.. It's all your fault." she looked at him and if it was possible, Loki's heart sank even lower.

There was no anger in her eyes, no disappointment, nor detestation. They were empty. Hollow. Nothingness.

"I honestly thought that you'd come back to make up for leaving twelve years ago. I thought things would be like they were. That I would finally have a friend! After you left, I'll admit, it fucked me up." Loki blinked.

What could she mean by that?

"You left. My best friend. So, what would stop anyone else from leaving me? My mom, you. Eventually, everyone would leave me. So I shut myself off from people. I didn't trust anyone, or let anyone into my life any closer than arms length away. And that's your fault."

"Cassie. I've told you, I never meant to–"

"Is there anything that you haven't fucked up? You destroy my chance at any sort of companionship, or friendship. You almost obliterate an entire world. You screw up your daughter's life because you tried to play with fire and got burned."

She paused, shaking her head.

"Everything you touch turns to dust. Everything." she said, mostly to herself, it seemed.

Loki throat felt dry and he swallowed, trying to alleviate it but to no avail.

"For the first time since you came back into my life, things are finally making sense to me. You were going to use me to do your filthy little ritual to get your way back here to finish what you'd started."

"No!" Loki interrupted, "No, Cassie, I swear. That was not my intention at all–"

Cassie's angry eyes shot back at him with venom.

"And why should I trust you? You'll never change," she sneered at him, "Thousands of years as a liar and a cheat, why would you change now?"

Loki didn't have any words to say.

"I don't have to put up with this. I shouldn't have to have you in my life."

Loki's stomach fell.

He knew where this was going.

"You said that you would never leave me, unless I asked you to."

His stomach heaved into his throat, "Cassie." he started, holding out an extended hand.

Her eyes brimmed with tears, that she refused to cry.

"Loki Laufeyson-"

"No." He objected. She closed her eyes, as though to block him out.

"Loki Laufeyson–"

"No!" He shouted louder.

"–I'm asking you to leave."

There was a pause, Loki could feel the Realm spinning around him. He felt sick.

She opened her cold, stone eyes.

"And never come back."

Loki didn't speak. He didn't do anything. He just stood in the mirror, defiant and shocked. She could see the cogs fiercely whirling in his head, trying to think of a way out of this, how to make it all better.

But he couldn't.

How could she forgive him for something like that? He massacred innocent people. He destroyed people's lives and homes, all because he wanted Daddy's seal of approval.

How could he be so shallow?

He was going to use her to get back into this world and do it all again, she knew it.

How could she have been so blind?

Now that she thought about it, the signs were there. His reluctance of her going to New York, his resolute attitude that she should not speak to Thor and now that she thought back on the events of May 4th, who else could be behind it?

She was furious and not just at him, at herself. She'd protected herself from hurt like this since she was 14 years old, but the pain didn't make any less of an impact on her.

She was losing someone. Someone she trusted, someone she..

He was still in the mirror. It made Cassie angry. She couldn't bare to look at him, all she could think of were the photo's of those poor children, motherless and frightened. The bloodied and bleeding, begging for their lives.

"Did you not hear me?" She said, attempting to keep emotion out of her voice, "I said, get out and never come BACK." She lost her cool, banging the cabinet beneath her and shouting the last word, trying to frighten him, or jolt him a little.

The room started to shake.

But this time he wouldn't scare her. Cassie balled up her fists and stood her ground.

The light fittings shook violently and the furniture jumped around. They stared at each other, he with silent determination, her with anger and hatred. The T.V smashed to the floor, narrowly missing her. She flinched at the near contact.

"You think this is the way to make me change my mind?!" she shouted over the rumbling, "Trying to scare me? Trying to frighten me into taking it back? You're a monster, Loki! And you always will be!"

Loki's face loosened and the room silenced. He looked ashamed of himself.

"It wasn't a difficult time for you. It's who are, Laufeyson," she spat, "You'll never change."

Loki's brow's flattened and his lips came to thin lines.

"If you ask it, I will leave. But know this Cassidy Sheridan. I will always wait for your call, whether it comes or not, I will always listen for you." His voice was quiet and soft, and sorrowful.

There was a pause.

His remorseful face shot daggers into her heart.

"I'm sorry." he whispered, tilting his head in a bow. Cassie saw the faint glimmer of a tear in the corner of his eye.

Then with that, he shot of of the mirror, like a speeding bullet and blew all the lights, making Cassie scream and fall to the floor.

She hit her bad hand as she fell, and screamed at the pain, but not that pain.

Her heart felt like it was splitting, nerve by nerve. Being ripped apart and chewed by wild dogs.

She screamed again, and started crying. Tears streamed down her face as she tried to rack a breath from her lungs. She hacked and hiccuped, crying so hard that her eyes itched.

Cassie brought her knees up to her chest, tucking herself into a ball on the floor. She wiped her nose on her coat.

She was still holding the Dictaphone.

She sniffed and pressed rewind. Tears still falling from her eyes. A weird, strangled noise came from her throat and she clicked the play button.

"...'Well, there's nothing that you lot can say that are going to stop me from being friends with him. That's what friends do. Stick by each other, through thin and thick. Or, so I've been told.'

'Cassie, I'm not joking, he's not who you think he is. He's using you to get back at us.'

'Oh, fuck you, Rogers. The sun doesn't shine from your ass as much as you think.'

'I'm not saying it does. I'm trying to explain to you that he's dangerous.'

'I know he can have a bit of a wild side, but he'd never hurt anybody. He's a nice guy–'"

Cassie screwed up her face and croaked out a rabid moan and clutched the Dictaphone to her chest.

There she stayed, for what seemed like hours. Crying herself hoarse, lying on the carpet.

There were no words. Only pain.

Loneliness and sadness.

Regret and misery.

His life was over.

And he deserved it.

His exile was just and his guilt and pain were fit punishment.

But why did it hurt so much.

He sat in the darkness, his covered face with his hands and a strangled sob escaped through his lips.

This is what he deserved.

His just reward.

Oh dear :( Things aren't looking grand for our lovely duo, are they? Such drama! Tehe.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, and if I don't get bitten by the writing bug again 'til the New Year, HAPPY NEW YEARS! :D