AN: MY DARLINGS. I apologize for being away for so long. I had a lot going on with uni and then I went to Rome for a while. I wanted to thank you for all your support and I hope you'll enjoy this one :) Two more chapters to go, lovelies... Then we must say goodbye to Ink and Parchment :'I

While I wrote this I listened to: Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard - Sorrow (type to youtube).

The song at the beginning is 'Between the bars' by Elliott Smith.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Marvel.

Chapter 38

Drink up baby, look at the stars,

I'll kiss you again between the bars,

Where I'm seeing you there with your hands in the air,

Waiting to finally be caught.

Drink up one more time and I'll make you mine,

Keep you apart, deep in my heart,

Separate from the rest, where I like you the best,

And keep the things you forgot.

The people you've been before,

That you don't want around anymore,

That push and shove and won't bend to your will,

I'll keep them still.

'Are they any different?'

Darcy's soft voice broke the still air of her room, forcing warmth to spread over Loki's body. Strange warmth, welcomed warmth, rare warmth.

The large window was wide open, letting in the fresh night air and presenting the lying couple with a view of the everlasting night. Darkness stretched endlessly, allowing the universe to paint upon its blackness as it pleased.

'They?' Loki asked her, unsure of what she meant. Cold wind reached them, brushing against their bodies, stripped of clothes or any other barriers. She lay on her side, pressed to him completely as he stretched his long arm under her and pulled her into his embrace. Her head rested on his chest.

'Stars.' Darcy answered. Once she felt his long fingers drawing slow lines across her spine, she closed her eyes and inquired again 'Are they any different when you look up from your room in Asgard?'

The god of lies fell silent, still dragging his hand tenderly over her skin, looking up at the sky. He pressed her even more against his wide chest, not even allowing air to come between them.

'Yes.' He finally answered.

'How?' Darcy asked once more, this time with a smile.

'They seem closer on Asgard.' Loki's deep voice filled the room, 'The sky appears to be bursting from the untold amounts of constellations. Colors are blinding and it never looks the same. Every second it shifts, changes, floats, becomes different.' He paused 'It's… beautiful.'

Forcing her eyelids not to flutter and close from the sleepiness that arrived so suddenly with his soothing voice, Darcy asked him 'Do you miss it?'

Loki gave a small smirk, uncovering the shadow that still plagued him 'No.'

She observed his handsome, sharp profile. It glinted in the moonlight just like on the night she drove his broken body to the very house they now occupied.

'Will I ever see it?'

This question made him raise his head from the pillow. Loki turned his head and regarded her with a frown. His crystal clear green eyes narrowed; muscles that connected the base of his long neck and his shoulders tightened.

Darcy gave a small smile, laying her head down on a pillow just as his entire torso suddenly moved, and towered over her uncovered form. He shifted over her, pinning her with his body. Each strong arm that now pressed into the mattress on each side of her looked like a strong pillar.

He stared at her. Unblinking. At her smiling pale face that spoke of her contentment, dark locks scattered over white pillows… and her neck. Elegant, pale, no longer covered with gauze. Now it was adorned with a scar on the left side. Her smell that suddenly reached him reminded him of what happened only hours ago.

…

His breathing was hard and ragged, lips insatiable, mind thirsty. Loki peeled the last garment that separated her flesh from his and threw it to the ground behind him with a passionate growl. The door to the room was open, the abandoned trail of their clothes stretched from the living room, across the hall and to the threshold of Darcy's room. Oh, how they took one another.

Suddenly, Darcy yelped and held her neck with her palm, her eyes watering. Loki saw it. Not saying a word, he took a gentle hold on her wrist and removed it from her neck. Using his other hand to brush away her dark hair, Loki removed the bandage and blew an icy breath over it, his magic making her torn flesh heal completely. With a sigh of relief, she melted in his powerful arms, making him tighten his hold on her, pressing her into his freezing torso.

His lips found her neck, and kissed the fresh scar, dragging them gently to her jawline and across her cheeks.

…

Looking up at his pale face, graced with a wild expression, staring at his wide shoulders and marble-like chest, Darcy smiled even wider, thinking about how she could die like this, shielded by the man she loved more than life itself. She could perish in that moment without a single protest.

Shadows swirled on the ceiling above them, creating a background for this vision of a god that towered over her. The dark shadows moved on the walls, reminding Darcy of snakes. Undulating, silent serpents, biting their own tail as a sign of infinity she already shared with Loki.

He still stared at her, not answering the question.

Suddenly, the arms that held him propped above her smaller body slid to Darcy's relaxed hands, and joining their palms, Loki intertwined their fingers.

'Will you answer my question?' she whispered gently, staring at his lips.

'What was the question?' Loki leaned down like he was about the kiss her for the millionth time that night, but stopped, cold lips hovering over warm ones, still not touching them.

Then he spoke. Darcy closed her eyes when his chilly breath caressed the pale skin of her face.

'When you gaze upon the stars from the ground of Realm Eternal, Darcy… it is so incredibly beautiful, it is heart-stopping… But I prefer this.' His words were nothing more than a raspy breath meant only for her ears.

'This?' She breathed.

Loki gave a small smirk, caressing the side of her face gently with his knuckles 'I prefer Midgardian stars.'

Darcy felt her heart might burst in that moment. Blood boiled beneath her skin, her hands shaking.

Loki continued 'In this moment, when you are gazing upon them, they are eternal; they carry the unspoken beauty Asgardian stars can only dream of having.' He tucked a lost piece of her dark hair behind her ear, a drop of sadness welled up on his handsome face 'But any second could be their dying moment. Any second, they could fall, and cease to exist. They are evanescent and brief. And that is where their true beauty lies.'

Begging her pulse to calm down, Darcy swallowed the emotions that threatened to burst out of their prison.

As if in a fever, she took a shaky hold onto his face, and, arching her torso against him, she kissed him.

Tucking his long arms underneath her, he pulled her even more into him, engulfing her in a desperate hug, making her hook her legs around his hips. After a few moments, he chuckled in her hair when they both realized she looked like a clumsy panda, hanging comically from him.

Once again, they lay next to one another, only looking at each other in silence on their sides.

Once again, their fingers intertwined.

Once again, they breathed together.

The sheets were dirty, but warm.

The air was chilly, but comfortable.

They needed nothing.

They needed no one.

Loki observed as she relaxed, breathing evenly, closing her eyes. Letting go of one of her hands, he took the back of her head tenderly, and pressed his lips to her forehead.

He stopped asking himself questions, stopped wondering and marveling at the millionth act of gentleness he bestowed upon a… mere mortal.

A chuckle almost escaped him.

Darcy was no longer a mortal to him.

He too closed his eyes, letting his thoughts wander, letting relief spread across his body, letting his mind roam the white fields of Valhalla her presence created with the power of her perfume, the softness of her body and the knowledge she was once again his and his alone. Protected, safe and sound.

The bed beneath him slowly slipped. Just as he was about to fall down into the realm of dreams, where even he, with all his powers was feeble, something kept him up on the firm ground of reality.

He felt Darcy's palm on his cheek. He opened his eyes.

The expression that knitted her eyebrows so suddenly, changing it from the earlier content and tranquility to uncertainty and fear… it left Loki wondering.

Something hard fell upon her… that much he could see.

He needn't ask her, for her lips parted, and she pushed out the thought that plagued for so long.

'Loki…' Darcy started carefully, bowing her head down to stare at the sheets 'There is something I wanted to ask you… since we met.'

As though sensing the look he gave her, that almost commanded Look at me, she raised her head and faced him. Many emotions swirled in her dark gaze. Funnily enough… fear was the most prominent one.

'What happened to Baldr?'

Loki felt as though someone took a freshly minted sword and pushed it excruciatingly slowly underneath his Adam's apple. His pupils dilated, his breath fell short.

The old wound was opened up.

As bare as he was before her in that second, Loki tried to hide the pain that rose inside him. He smiled, lifting his eyebrows and hiding the pain. Slowly shifting so he was more comfortable next to her, Loki spoke.

His voice was hard and felt as if he swallowed a rock 'Why do you want to know?'

Darcy's gaze fell from his face to his neck. Worry filled her. She was afraid he will run from her after this.

'I don't know…' She whispered, returning her eyes bravely to his green ones that in those moments burned with flames of the ancient past '… it's just… you never told me.'

'I never told anyone.' He said quickly as the corner of his mouth lifted.

They stared at each other for a few seconds in silence.

'I understand if you don't want to…' She broke the heaviness, smiling a bit, even though there was nothing funny.

'I never said that I don't want to.' He cut in, giving her a side-glance, untangling his fingers from her own, and sitting up.

Darcy followed him, reluctantly wrapping the white sheet around her nude body. For a few moments, she stared at the back of his head and the messy black tresses that fell around his shoulders.

Loki sat on the edge of the bed, not facing her. Without a blink, she observed as his back rose and fell with the deep breaths he took.

The mortal woman's heart ached at the thought of how he must feel. Sadness filled her to the brim. Without a word, Darcy crawled on her knees and wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek between his shoulder-blades.

Loki swallowed a shaking breath, covering her gentle forearms with his large palms, caressing them.

He trusted her… with each fiber of his being – Loki trusted Darcy. But he couldn't let her see his face. Not now.

So he covered her arms with his, soaking in the gentleness she gave him, the love he was deprived of for many frighteningly long centuries.

He leaned his head back, and started the story.

Darcy never moved from the position she was in, listening intently to both his heartbeat and the words he was about to say.

She understood he didn't want to look at her. She understood everything. And so… she simply listened, trying to let him know she was here no matter what he confessed to her, no matter what she read about him in the past, no matter what the history said, no matter what kismet ordered.

Darcy Lewis decided to trust him. Him. The god of lies.

The dark ages of his life poured out before both of them as Loki finally lifted the dusty curtain, and revealed what truly happened the day suffering was born.

'I knew it was unwise to take the other passage to the Mountain of Mist…' Loki started, trying to control his shaking voice '…but Baldr was such a curios boy. So unafraid, so unaware… so young.'

Darcy breathed with him.

…

'Loki! Come, let us race home!' Thor yelled 'Who gets there last has to raise a false alarm the Frost giants are attacking!' His smiling, boyish face was damp from running and riding. Blond tresses stuck to his temples, his already deeper voice echoing from a great height, down the sharp mountain slopes, across trees hugged by thick mist and up to the razor-sharp peak of the mountain. Thor's horse suddenly grew restless; the poor, white animal's hooves shook and trembled on the narrow paths that swirled around the rocky mountain like poison ivy around the trunk of a tree.

…

'It was late, and we were already supposed to be on our way home.' Darcy could feel him smiling, albeit sadly 'I knew mother must have been raging because of our tardiness, as per usual.'

…

Loki laughed at his brother's expression when the horse jumped, scaring Thor together with the air of bravado that surrounded him. Another laugh joined in, coming from a boy seated on a brown horse, between mischief and thunder. The youngest of the three. The wildest of the three. The road before them split into two. 'Yes, I suppose we should. Mother will skin us alive if we don't depart now.' Loki commented lightly, steering his black horse in the right direction, the right path, the safe path and the one they and everyone else always took. Never the left one.

…

'It was a ludicrous wish… one that I should have denied immediately.' He paused, dragging in a beaten breath as Darcy's arms tightened around his middle 'We were too young to be there, Darcy. Too stupid.'

…

'We cannot go now!' The dark-blond boy protested with a frown 'Loki, you promised!'

Loki smiled at his younger brother, shaking his head lightly. Thor interrupted, chuckling 'I can't believe you promised to take him to the Left road.'

'I never promised…' Loki said with a smile 'I just told him about what you and I did when I was his age.'

'You took him to see the Abyss!?' Baldr yelped excitedly. The soft hair upon his head whipped as a gush of wind blew around them.

'There is nothing to see there, Bal.' Thor said with a sigh.

'And yet you and Loki went there! Why should I not be allowed to go, too!?'

…

'After those words, Thor didn't protest. And I… I wanted to tell him he was not old enough to go to that side of the mountain…' Loki now clutched Darcy's forearms with his fists. He felt her dragging in a sharp breath '… but the decision has already been made. Like our parents, Thor and I always wanted to grant Baldr's every wish, with him being the youngest…'

…

Turning to the right path of the breaking road, Thor's horse galloped faster as Thor yelled over his shoulder 'I will wait for you at the foot of the mountain. Baldr, Loki will show you the Abyss and that is it.' His tone was commanding. Before he disappeared behind a rock, Thor winked at Baldrs excited face and left, oblivious to the cruel truth - he will never see him again.

…

For a few moments, Loki fell silent. He bowed down his head, as if in defeat, hunching, shattered and so frighteningly quiet. Darcy untangled her arms from around him, and securing the sheet around her body more firmly, she got off the bed, and to her knees before him. Loki placed his palms over his face, leaning his elbows onto his knees. She could only hear his ragged breathing until he spoke again, this time through his teeth 'We got off our horses and he... ran so fast. I told him to be careful. I shouted. H-he slipped.'

…

'Brother!' The boy shouted in terror 'Loki! PLEASE DON'T LET ME GO!' The wind was unbearable, the unspoken depth of the black fall beneath Baldrs slipping hand so excruciatingly dark, Loki could not even look at it. The Abyss. The only known place on Asgard where even gods were mortal. An endless, shadowy, ineffable chasm.

'I WON'T LET YOU FALL, BAL! HOLD ON! THOR IS COMING!' Loki was lying on the rocky edge, holding his brothers smaller palm with his own, and holding himself up with another. A storm unlike any other shook his chest, fire burned his throat as Loki lied to Baldr, telling him comforting lies for he knew they stood no chance. His magic was cut form him, terror froze him - Loki was so young. His powers were just starting to grow. He was afraid. Loki screamed Thor's name… But he was too far away to hear them.

'Loki! I'm slipping!' Baldr screamed in panic and agony. Loki gritted his teeth and tried pulling him up. The sharp edge upon which Loki was holding both himself and Baldr, holding onto it for dear life was damp. His little brother's hand was sweaty. The air was humid. Everything was slipping from him. His reason, his emotions, his little brother… and with him, his freedom.

Before he could breathe, there was lightness. Nothing was pulling Loki down anymore. He was weightless. So unbearably light.

'BALDR! NO! '

If only his broken screams could grow strong arms, a rope, a stairway to the bottom of the pit, a pair of wings… anything to return his baby brother to him. If only they could turn back time. If only...

…

The air in Darcy's room seemed to be trembling with Loki's power, triggered by the wild emotion he successfully bottled up for such a long time.

'I should have held his hand tighter, Darcy. I should have n-never let go of him.'

Tears were sliding down Darcy's cheeks in soundless torrents of empathy and sorrow.

Shock filled her when she thought she heard a desperate, slightly mad chuckle coming from behind his palms. She pressed her palms onto his knees, begging him to look at her.

'And then… the same happened to me. Thor held me tight enough from the edge of the Bifröst. I should have held on tighter. But I didn't. I too fell, Darcy. Just like Bal. From the safe grip of Thor's hand, past the borders of mind and reason.'

More pain broke like fragile glass over her visage the moment the god of lies raised his head, ungluing it from the comfortable darkness of his palms, and faced her.

Shadows moved inside his emerald gaze, centuries old terror and loss. All of it leaked out with black tears, sliding down his sharp cheekbones. She thought her lungs would explode the moment she saw his bottom lip tremble. His hands curled into tight fists, trembling. Immediately, Darcy placed her warm palms onto his cold knuckles, leaning even closer to him, trying to banish the demons that flocked him like crows.

Before she could inhale, Loki wound his arms desperately around her, making Darcy crawl even closer. The gesture was so devastated, so broken and so unlike him. He shook like a branch.

The breaking earthquake of his confession, the words Loki spoke out loud for the first time in his life since the event on the Mountain of Mist… It was bound to throw him on the ground, to break him, but most importantly - to turn a god, even for a short while, into a creature as vulnerable, breakable and brittle as a human.

The god pushed his face into the crook of her neck. She hugged him to her breast, holding him as he slowly fell apart. She hugged him around his wide shoulders, feeling the trembling of his strong back, feeling the freezing tears that dripped onto her neck.

'I lost who I a-am, Darcy.' He hissed brokenly into her hair, clawing at her back 'I l-lost-'

'I know. I know.' She whispered, rubbing his back, caressing the back of his neck in soothing circles 'I'm so sorry, Loki. I am so, so sorry.'

The slow words traveled between them like a gentle mantra.

She cried with him, in silence of her room, changed for a lifetime. Darcy Lewis felt something unmade her to the point she could let go of every single thing she believed in before she met him… even more than the incident from four months ago. This changed her. It rearranged the pieces in her head, burning each doubt, each prejudice, each preconception and fear. The blank canvas of her mind was stretched anew - ready for her to paint upon it more carefully this time.

Funnily enough, Darcy Lewis didn't feel powerful or amazed by her current position. Not for one second did she feel like she was anything more than what she really was - a mortal giving comfort to a god who has fallen. Fallen for the second time since she met him.

Humble and in love - that's what she was, Darcy Lewis. A student. A regular girl. A little speck of light in a large cosmos, a little grain of sand in the hourglass of her own time. And yet, in these moments, under these stars, for a certain god of mischief, she was so much more.