Author's Note: So I wasn't going to write this chapter, but I had a bit of an emotional breakdown the last few days and took it out on my characters. Loki, in particular. I felt it was about time he had some emotional depth given to him. This story has largely been about Grace going through her own pain, and Loki being so strong and supportive... but we all have our breaking points. And this is his. It's shorter than most chapters, but I think more powerful than most as well. Enjoy. 3


Chapter Twenty-Nine: Breaking Open

Song: Hold Her Closer by Blessid Union of Souls (no, really, download this one)

The silence surrounded them like a warm blanket, penetrated only by the faint sounds of their slowly steadying breathing. Grace hadn't moved from her spot atop his body, but had stretched her aching legs out to lay between his, and had nestled her head to lay with her ear directly over his heart, hands on either side of his chest. Loki had one of his ankles wrapped around one of hers, and both arms draped over her back, fingers tracing the pattern of the constellations across its blank canvas.

"Are you falling asleep?" Her voice was barely audible.

"Hardly," he replied.

"That makes one of us. I feel exhausted. And sore."

"Then I have done my job well." She could tell he was pleased with himself.

"Ass," she snorted. "But you're right. It's a good sore."

A beat, and then she turned her head to rest her chin on his chest.

"I love you," she said. The words were like hot butter on toast, melting him in the most delicious way.

"And I, you." They were words he never imagined himself saying, and now he felt he would never tire of saying them.

"And I'm sorry." Her fingertips grazed his sides, tickling him slightly. Loki cocked his head, an unspoken question on his lips.

"I'm sorry that I put you through hell to get here. I'm sorry that I was so difficult, and that I made you work so hard to convince me that you weren't out to get me. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you and that I was so hard headed and borderline angry half the time. But mostly, I'm sorry that I didn't say it sooner, because I've felt it for a long time now. It scared the hell out of me to admit it."

Loki pulled her closer to his chin so that he could rest it on the top of her head. He placed a kiss on her frizzy hair, damp with sweat.

"You have no need to make apologies to me. I require no explanations. I am not without my own fears and flaws, after all."

"You're never scared of anything," she said, sitting up a bit. "Since day one, you've been strong. Confident."

Loki let out a rueful laugh.

"My dear, that confidence was but a mask for the insecurity I have felt my entire life. I never intended to lie to you, and in fact I found it nearly impossible to do so. But until recently, I was merely a confident and skilled actor. My true confidence has come in my love for you, and for your child."

He sighed, tracing the outline of Yggdrasil over her bare shoulders.

"I once thought power over others was the way to earn respect and loyalty. But you have shown me that it is the exact opposite: power over others creates nothing but chaos…"

His words trailed off as his mind went to a distant place. He found himself thinking of all the pain and death he had caused in the last few years. The shattered lives of countless innocents, their blood shed on the very streets he had spent the last months walking with Grace. Silently, he began to beg forgiveness from those people, as if that would bring them back or make them whole again.

And as for his own adoptive family, Odin could very well have put him to death for his actions, but instead showed him mercy at Thor's request. Thor was the one who had asked their father to send him back to Midgard, asked for Loki's life to be spared. Thor, who Loki had nearly killed on multiple occasions. Could Thor ever find it in himself to forgive him for his many transgressions? Could his mother, whom he had shunned in his bitterness at the discovery of his true parentage, forgive him for his unparalleled rage?

Then, a terrible thought crashed upon his soul, one that had not occurred to him since the nightmare he had had months earlier. One that he had spent months fighting back.

In his mad quest for power and his rush to war, he might well have nearly caused Grace's death, whether at his own hand or at her rapist's. He might never have known this love, might have taken this woman from all who loved her, and never would have been the wiser for it, never would have cared. And even now, he was still lying to her about who he truly was.

But how could he tell her? How could he tell the woman he loved that he might well have been responsible for the nightmares that had befallen her? For all Loki's imagined slights, Grace had suffered true pain. Surely, she could never understand what he had done or his reasons for it. If she knew the truth of his identity, she could never forgive him.

There was no entity in all Nine Realms that could forgive him these sins, no matter how many good deeds or thoughts or requests or offerings he made.

Meanwhile, Grace brought her hand to his face and felt damp skin underneath her fingers.

"Honey, what's wrong?"

He hadn't meant to spoil the moment, but nearly a century's worth of pain began spilling out, and once he had opened the gate, wild horses could not have dragged those emotions back in.

"I have left so much chaos in my wake, Grace… I have done things that you could not imagine… terrible things, unforgivable things… I do not know how to begin to explain them..."

Grace sat up and climbed next to him. She pulled the blankets around them, drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around him. Heaving sobs wracked Loki's body, shaking him so hard that the entire bed rattled under them. He laid his head on her shoulder, burying his face so that she could not see the tears fall even though she could feel them against her skin. As she struggled to keep him upright against her, Grace thought back to the night he had woken her with his screams and wondered if he had been dreaming of those terrible things then.

"No, now, you listen to me," she said, a slight edge to her voice. "I have known terrible men. The most terrible man, in fact. True evil walks this earth, Luke, I've seen him with my own eyes, and he is a man with red hair who sits in a courtroom still thinking that he doesn't need forgiveness because he did nothing wrong. You are nothing like him. You are not terrible. You couldn't be if you tried. Even if you did terrible things, we've all done terrible things. We have all made mistakes. It's part of being human."

He gripped her hair and her neck and her arms, trying to cling to all of her at once, as if he might lose her if he let go even for a second. His cries softened, but he would not look at her, ashamed of himself, ashamed of his lies but unable to speak the truth. She dropped her head to the place where his neck met his shoulder and kissed him, wishing she knew the words he needed to hear.

"But there are things I have done for which I do not know how to repent. I am sorry for them, but I fear there is no way to make them right…"

"But don't you see? You're asking forgiveness. That's what makes you different, that's what makes you good. You see what you've done, and you're asking forgiveness. Not because you think you deserve it, but because you're truly sorry."

He didn't say anything, but she knew he was listening.

"I wouldn't be here if I thought even for a second that you were capable of anything remotely close to evil. I think my judgment is better than that. Do you understand? You are my love, the only love I've ever had. You are my best friend. You are my daughter's father. You are a good man, Luke Laufeyson. A good, decent, strong, beautiful man."

Suddenly, he pulled back from her. Tears were still falling from his eyes, which were reddened with pain.

"Your… daughter's father?"

"You heard me." She smiled at him, running a hand through his raven hair, pushing it away from his face.

"But, I thought-"

"I can give her almost everything, Luke, but I could never be a father to my daughter, and I could never give her the love of her biological father, even if I wanted to. You have given her something I never thought she would have, Luke. You're her father, in every way that counts, and for that alone, I will love you forever."

Loki's face crumpled anew, as if something powerful had just broken within him, and he lost what remained of his self-control.

"I do not deserve it. I do not deserve you, her, any of this. I am not worthy of the family I have been given." He let out the cry of an animal slowly dying, a werewolf's desperate howl in the darkness, the icy blast of winter against autumn's warmth.

Grace held him tighter, rocked him, soothed him in her embrace, until her breast was soaked. She laid soft kisses on his temple, stroked his hair, allowed him to wail and moan against her until there were no more tears left in him. She whispered affirmations of her love to him, over and over, the same simple phrases, anything she could think to quiet the storm raging before her.

Finally, he began to calm, his grip on her loosening slightly. His wracked nerves caused his body to shake, but he was at least able to look at her again. Grace studied him, trying to ascertain his emotional stability.

"Oh," he said, as if coming out of a dream. He leaned back against the pillows and his muscles relaxed. "Oh, my love, I am sorry. I did not mean to- to lose myself in that manner."

"I'm going to say the same thing to you now that you said to me earlier," Grace replied, settling in against him. "No apologies, no explanations, honey."

Loki's eyes burned from crying, so he closed them, focusing instead on that which he could not see. He breathed in Grace's scent, her perfume wafting up from her neck, honey and jasmine. He felt the comfort of the blankets Grace had pulled around them while he had sobbed on her shoulder. He timed the beats of her heart against his own, until he was lost halfway between reality and a dream. Then, just as he was beginning to drift into the peacefulness of slumber, he heard the gentle sound of her voice pulling him back.

"Luke… earlier, when you asked me to stay with you… was that a marriage proposal?"

Loki's eyes remained closed, but he felt his heart begin to quicken. He wondered if she could feel it as well. He had not really considered the concept of marriage, as Midgardian standards dictated. On Asgard, marriage was an arranged affair, rarely for love, usually unhappy. His own adoptive parents had only recently grown to love and respect one another, after many years of simply coexisting.

Loki realized that perhaps this was why he had resisted the very idea of love for such a long time. It seemed an unreachable, starry-eyed dream meant for children's stories, not at all the reality of a king's life. Still, he was not sure which answer Grace wanted to hear at present. So, he did what he did best: deflected.

"Would that please you?"

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She knew she loved Luke, of course. And particularly in the aftermath of their lovemaking and the warmth of his naked body next to hers, she could easily envision a life spent with him. But she also knew she was in the middle of an emotionally taxing life event, and didn't want to make rash decisions based on those emotions.

"Right now, I know exactly two things that please me, Luke. The first is that an hour ago, I made love to the most extraordinary man in the world, and it was probably the most terrifying but also the most beautiful experience I've ever had."

Loki smiled, finally feeling himself again, and realizing that "feeling himself" had an entirely new meaning now.

"And what is the second?"

Grace gave him a look that was full of so much mischief it might have rivaled one of his own.

"The second," she said, throwing her legs on either side of him and pressing her lips against his, "is that I want to do it again."