Here I am again. Forgot I actually finished this a while ago... No onto another chapter, which will only take some ages... sorry guys... inspiration is slow...
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.
As soon as Loki was gone, Jane's legs suddenly felt oddly weak and next thing she knew she had sunken to the floor, leaning back against the wall behind her, staring at the bright LED lights above, her mind suddenly oddly blank and... drained...
Loki was alive. He had saved her from the Aether's aftermath... Made her immortal. Now wanted her to join him on a quest, but had asked her not to tell Thor about any of this... It sounded crazy. Troubling. Impossible. To good to be true... Traitorous...
Loki having survived or rather having been resurrected by magic? Impossible. No one and nothing could bring back the dead. Then again he said the Tesseract had somehing to do with it and she had seen what it could do. What the Scepter or Mind Stone could do. And of course what the Aether was capable of. They were the primordial beings of the universe, they had created it, they could undo it again, so it stood to reason that they held some kind of necromantic power, too.
Loki asking Jane on a quest to save the universe? Needing her help to do so, but not wanting to involve Thor? Crazy and Improbable. Loki's suddenly new found heroic streak aside, Jane knew that saving the universe meant gathering all the help and aid one could find, so Loki would not just dismiss Thor's strength and endurance like that, seeing what a huge quest this was gouing to be. And if Svartalfheim had shown her anything then that these two brothers worked best in a team and that both of them cared deeply for the other. If he was truly back, Loki would involve Thor.
And then there was the third big revelation... Jane being immortal now? Inconceivable. She just could not wrap her head around it. And at the same time... To good to be true... a part of her mind actually rejoiced at all the possibilities... Living longer than any human and having a stronger constitution than them? So much time on her hand! So much time... to explore and travel to places – even to those humans would normally not be able to go to – To search, to find, to develop, to gather knowledge, to see all there was to see... Everything the world had to offer... more than that: the universe! What she would be able to see! And do! And experience!
But Darcy... and Eric... She remembered the reason for why she had grown so angy at Loki...Was immortality and the prospects it held worth that much? Was it worth the pain and heartache of seeing your friends, your family grow old and wither and eventually die in front of you or to be forced to leave them behind before you'd have to see them do so?
There was a treacherous, small voice that said yes. Jane hated herself for it. New guilt instantly gnawing at her for her despicable selfishness, her goddamn curiosity and thirst for knowledge...
Unless of course, she wasn't immortal! Unless of course Loki had not asked her to join him on a quest. Unless he was still very much dead.
That conversation... It couldn't have been real... Could it? It must have really been a hallucination, caused by Miranda's chemicals after all... Maybe her long hours at work had exhausted Jane so much that she had just drifted off, unawares, and was dreaming still... Or it all had been a very odd, very vivid daydream – like the one she had had this morning... the one she had been trying her best to suppress and forget all day long...
No! She was not going to drift back into that dangerous memory-dream-fantasy-thing...
But seeing how it seemed real enough and if her mind had been able to conjure up Loki before – while she was awake – who said it wasn't able to do it again? What if her trying to supress that odd trick of her mind, had actually caused it to get worse? Or what if those dreams, in which she relived all that happened on Svartalfheim, in which she went on to blame herself for his death, and in which Loki in the end always appeared and soothed her, were suddenly turning into day-time hallucinations as well?
After all, she had observed herself, just this morning, that while her body might have miraculously recovered now, her mind hadn't done so, yet... It seemed as if her subconsciousness was trying to make her feel bad or ashamed for having recovered again, for feeling so good and alive again... while Loki was dead... Maybe to remind her that she was only alive because of his sacrifice? Because he had had to die in order for her – and Thor – to live? To remind her of her guilt in it? By doing it in the most grotesque way: Letting her see aparitions of a reality that could have been? Of a reality she wanted to be real? And then making her realize again and again that it wasn't true... ?
Maybe this was the lasting effect of the Ather, Loki had meant! Back on their way to Svartalfeim, in her head, when they had struck that one-question-one-answer bargain and conversed about the infinity stones' influence:
"You were the Tesseract's host... but it has been taken from you after returning to Asgard... So, are you still it's host? Does it still tell you things?" she had asked him, the question having burned on her tongue for quite a while.
Loki sighed and then, after a long pause, nodded, subconsciously biting on his lip: "I was... and still am not completely rid of it... and, yes, it told me a few things... But to answer what you're really asking," His eyes locked on hers, meaningfully and sympathetic, there was sadness in them as well, when he told her: "No, it never quite leaves you. Even if we get the Aether out of you... a part of it – the experience – the effect it had on you – it will forever linger... you should know that..."
And wasn't this exactly what the Aether was? What it stood for and how it had characterized itself to her?
The reality shaper! The shifter of matter!
All this... It suddenly made a whole lot of sense! The Aether had racked her body and mind so completely and probably changed – if not broken – something vital within her... What if now, as a consequence, she was stuck with hallucinations and fantasies and dreams she could not really distinguish from reality any longer? But then... What if this was not real either? What if she was dreaming still? Had been this whole time and for the last couple of days and had not even gotten better at all?
No. No! She was awake! She definitely was. This was real. She was really currently sitting in S.H.I.E.L.D.S. lab and she had been working here all day and Thor had gone on a mission with Tony and the other Avengers this morning.
And she talked to Loki. Their conversation had been real. It must have been...
After all, if it had truly been a dream or a concotion of her mind, wouldn't this conversation have gone a completely different way? If her mind was truly playing tricks on her, showing her a false reality only to ruin it... and thinking back to that weird way, how her reminiscing Thor's and hers coupling had conjured up Lokis face instead of Thor's... and before that... how her mind had brought her back to the apple orchard, resting in Loki's arms... Taking all this into account, her reaction to Loki's sudden apperance and revelation would have been a different one...
After Loki appearing and announcing himself to her… After her initial doubting him ... After him suddenly appearing right in front of her... As he determinedly told her: "I am not a hallucination, my dear!" – with his breath carressing her skin like a whispering gust of wind... With that mischievous smile lighting up his face, daring her: "I can prove it to you – do you want me to?"
Jane would have stood there, for only a fraction of a moment, shivering slightly, looking him straight in the eyes, just as determinedly, and said: "Prove it then."
Loki would have blinked once – the only indication that she had actually caught him off guard – then chuckled, and next thing she knew her back would have been against the wall of the lab,his left hand on her hip, his right hand cupping her neck, thumb stroking her cheek, his lips pressing down on hers with passionate ferocity.
Jane would have lost herself in that kiss. Drowned in it. Let herself be consumed by it...
Then Loki cleared his throat...
No... Not Loki... Jane's eyes opened with a start and her head snapped up toward the sound, toward the security guard looking at her with a mixture of concern and awkwardness.
"Miss? Are you alright? Did something happen to you?" they asked her, and Jane could only nod and manage a weak reassuring smile, as her mind only slowly tried to get back on track and to what had to be reality.
Quickly, she rose, brushing off mostly invisible dirt and dust from her trousers, from sitting on the floor and then cleared her throat: "Yes, I'm fine. Sorry, about that, I have just been deep in mind, thinking – not sleeping! – Just going through some theories and equations. Helps me focus. You know, like Sherlock? And his Mind Palace?"
The guard only looked at her puzzled, Jane realized only then that they might not have even been worried about why she had been sitting on the floor at all and didn't need that bit of awkward over-sharing, which had clearly made her seem just like someone trying to lie about having fallen asleep at work...
"Ah never mind... " Jane weakly followed, clearing her throat again, blushing slightly.
The security guard just ignored her awkward mumblings and stayed all serious: "Miss, are you aware that there was a power outage just a few minutes ago?"
Jane's eyes widened. If she had needed any prove that Loki had really been here, then this was it. He must have caused that outage when he appeared, and, after leaving again, all had just set back to normal...
"Yes..." Jane replied to the guards inquisitve look, hoping to sound confused, "I mean, I noticed it, but thought nothing of it."
"Well, we suspect it to have been an attempted security breech, so we will have to access and check all devices connected to the facilities intranet to make sure all is safe and uncompromised."
Jane nodded: "Yes, of course, sure. My laptop is just over there."
Jane pointed out her laptop. She hadn't even had time to check whether her data was still there and had been automatically saved after all. Well, too late for that now. She handed it over to the guard who told her she would receive it back tomorrow morning at the start of her shift.
Jane did not even have the energy anymore to feel upset about her lost work and not having been able to finish her task for the day. She just grabbed her jacket and bag and then finally went home. She was in dire need of a strong coffee and normalizy – as in: Erik rumbling on about new mad theories that came to him in his sleep and Darcy talking about how she'd made poor Ian's day an intern's-intern's nightmare again. She really needed the distraction.