Sylvie always liked grocery stores, especially on Earth. There was something comforting about all the consumerism. She had picked that Roxxcart as her main hideout for a reason. There had been a hole in her chest ever since the TVA ripped her away from her life, and it was like she had been trying to fill it for eons. She tried to fill it with her glorious purpose, her rage, her revenge, with candy and stealing from apocalypses, with meaningless sex. Then, she had almost let herself believe for a split second that whatever she had with Loki (herself?) could've filled that void once she completed her glorious purpose. (Once she brought it all toppling down.)

"Maybe we could figure it out together?"

She had never given him a straight answer, no promise. He had promised not to betray her, but she hadn't made that same oath. Promises were just prisons in disguise. And if he had been thick enough to wholeheartedly trust her, to assume she would give up her glorious purpose for him.

Well, then he was wrong.

Now, however, he was hugging Mobius in a Target aisle. Sylvie didn't love Target. The dog freaked her out.

A couple minutes ago, Sylvie had been almost certain Loki was going to kill Mobius. Part of her, the little girl that had been taken to the TVA all those years ago, had been tempted to rush out from behind the endcap and pull them apart. Mobius seemed… good when she met him, when he saved her from Alioth. Better than what she expected of the TVA.

He's not good, he's been trying to track you down and kill you since you were a child, a voice snarled in her mind. The voice was right. So instead, she had just waited and watched.

I guess they found each other somehow, unless that Mobius is from the alternate timeline I sent Loki to.

A rectangular ceiling light nearby flicked on and off. The air smelled like air conditioning and plastic and sweetness.

Maybe it had been a bit cruel of her to purposefully send Loki to a timeline where she knew he had no allies, but she couldn't risk him immediately finding Mobius and storming back to her.

"He cares about you."

She hadn't been lying. In fact, she had almost been trying to persuade him to go, to get out of her way. He cares about you.

Probably more than I did.

(But she couldn't say for certain that was true.)

Watching them now, however, crying on the floor, she felt a bit embarrassed. They were too vulnerable. She could kill them both right now and then be done with it.

But she didn't.

Maybe because she wanted to know their full plan first, make sure there wasn't anyone else involved. Clean execution.

Maybe it was because, according to her TemPad, the timeline they were forging was still growing, and she wanted to meet them on the precipice rather than in the shadow of events that already occurred.

Maybe it was because they might not be trying to undo things at all, there might be no reason to have even more blood on her hands.

Or maybe it was because they looked so broken already… clinging to each other for dear life…

Impossible. Weakness.

A group of teenage girls walked past on the other side of the aisle, stopping to stare at Loki and Mobius. The pair broke apart, still staring at each other. One of them said something, but Sylvie was watching the girls now. They were giggling at the men on the floor. A brunette had made eye contact with Sylvie.

Loki and Mobius turned to the teenagers.

The light flickered again.

Sylvie hit a button on her TemPad and disappeared.

The girl clapped a hand to her mouth.