"What do you want for lunch?" Sigyn spoke up, breaking the silence between them as they slowly made their way back to Fafnir's house. "I could make you basically anything from Vanaheim. You like Vanir food, right?"

Logan dumbly shook his head. "I've never had Vanir food."

"Yeah, you have." Sigyn contradicted. "I used to make it for you all the time, you just don't remember."

"No, Sigyn." Logan softly insisted. "I've never had it. I've never been off Midgard, I'm not your betrothed, I'm just a madman who desperately wants something to call himself."

Sigyn pursed her lips. "I don't believe that." She stated, her voice firm and decisive. "You might not be Loki, but how many times do I have to tell you you're not mad, until you believe it?"

"I'm not Loki." Logan repeated. "It's overwhelmingly obvious. There's no way. First of all, how would I have survived dying, again? Second, how would I manage to transport myself from the cold heart of space to Midgard? Ten years ago? It doesn't make sense."

"Fafnir told you what happened on the Statesmen, then?" Sigyn deduced, her eyes drifting to that faraway, sad place that made Logan feel so helpless and inadequate.

"He didn't have to tell me, I remember." He muttered.

Wait.

He remembered.

And accurately, too?

He actually recalled an event that had happened in his life? How in the Nine had that happened? (Nine what?)

Sigyn was blinking up at him in shocked glee. "You… you actually do remember?"

"I think so?" Logan replied, doubtfully. Desperately, he clung to the memory, trying to imprint in his mind, the face of the Titan, the choking feeling of the gauntlet around his neck… or had it been his ribs? Where had they been standing, again? Was it on a spaceship, or in a barren cave? He couldn't recall… the lighting… the lighting was…

It was fading away. It was leaving, and Logan had been so close, and he could almost hear…

Nothing.

There was nothing.

Sigyn was staring up at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to say… something. What had he been trying to say? He thought he remembered having a memory… but he couldn't quite put his finger on what the memory concerned, or what topic of conversation had led to a memory being stirred up.

"…What are we talking about, again?"

Her face fell, and she shifted her gaze down to the dust beneath her feet. He had let her down, and he didn't even know how.

"Please don't be sad…" He whispered, taking her hand in an act of desperation. "I can't bear it. I want to know, please. What were we talking about? What did you want me to do?"

"Nothing." Sigyn shook her head.

"No, please, it was something." Logan insisted, nearly in tears. "It was something to you! I… I want to talk to you, Sigyn, I don't want this to be a barrier between us. Please tell me?"

She glanced up at him, her gaze softening a bit. "Okay." She agreed. "That's fair. We were talking about your identity."

"As per usual." Logan laughed in relief, overwhelmed with how gracious and patient she was.

"And you nearly remembered how you died, I think." She finished, her voice a little faint.

How he died…

"Oh." He said in a very small voice.

A memory from Loki's life. That meant he had to be Loki, right? …or maybe he really was just crazy.

Suddenly, Sigyn let out a little sniffling noise, and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder.

She was hugging him.

This was awkward, but also for some reason, his heart sped up drastically, and a teeny smile edged onto his face, because she was hugging him, and she was so little, and only came up to his collarbone, and he loved her smile and how understanding and patient and kind she was, and she was a little goofy, and just a tad flirty, and so very beautiful and he loved her so much…

He loved her.

It was that simple.

He loved her, and everything she was. A little huff of laughter escaped his lips, as he hugged her back, his mind racing a million miles a second. She was so precious to him, and he thought the world of her, and at that moment, he wanted nothing more than for her to be safe, and as happy as physically possible, and he held tightly against the world, and beamed as she sobbed.

No, wait. She was crying. This wasn't good.

"Are you okay?" He asked, not bothering to stop hugging her, because good Norns, he loved her to the moon and back.

"Yeah." She mumbled into his shirt. "It's just…" She pulled back a bit to look him in the eyes, her face tear-streaked and hopeless. "I really, really want you to be him. I haven't had my hopes so high since New York, and… If you're not him, I don't know what I'm going to do…"

Logan was completely at a loss. He doubted himself, he always did, but never had he wished he didn't more than that moment. He wanted to make it better, but at that moment, he knew he couldn't. Even if he could, Sigyn had every right to be upset.

Loki was the love of her life, and he'd been dead for a decade. Even his being Loki wouldn't take the pain away of him being gone for a whole ten years. She was going to be upset, and that was going to have to be okay with Logan, Loki or not. She was grieving, and he could only be there for her while she healed from the aged, festering wound.

"It's okay." He whispered, and pulled her in close. "I've got you. It'll be alright."

For another full minute, she cried in his arms, and he told himself that he was okay with that, he was more than okay with that, she trusted him enough to open herself up to him. Still, it hurt him how much she was hurting. He wanted her to be okay so badly that this moment, when she was wasn't okay, was torture to his soul. But like all things, this, too, would pass. She would smile, again.

"Lackey?!"

Logan glanced up in confusion, unsure of why his skin had suddenly crawled with a wave of irritation. He knew this voice… He knew the woman jogging up to the two of them with a shocked expression, too. He didn't know her name, but he knew she was annoying.

Sigyn spun around in startled surprise, and wiped the tears from her eyes, smearing her makeup a little. "Hello, Brunnhilde."

The woman paid Sigyn no mind, and strode confidently up to Logan, and punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Where have you been?! We all thought you were dead, and your brother's been in a depression for a decade and there've been imposters every other week! What happened to you?"

"Brunn…" Sigyn began, gently trying to pull her to the side.

"I don't know…" Logan backed up a little, slightly unnerved. "Who are you?"

"Wait, wait…" Sigyn waved her hands insistently. "Brunn, who is he?"

"He's the prince, you moron." Brunnhilde laughed. "Obviously. Prince Lackey."

"It's Loki." Logan narrowed his eyes at her, completely fed up, already. "And who are you supposed to be?"

Brunnhilde narrowed her eyes. "Scrapper 142? The Valkyrie? You don't remember me?"

"No."

"I'm wounded." She dead-panned. "But your brother deserves better. Why haven't you turned up?"

"Brunn!" Sigyn insisted. "He lost his memory. But you're absolutely sure? No doubt in your mind that this is…?"

"You're not?" Brunnhilde's eyebrows lifted. "Look at his face. Does he look like an imposter?"

There was a moment of silence, as Sigyn's brown eyes flicked back up to his face, silently evaluating him and his identity for what felt like the millionth time.

"I don't know." Sigyn quietly stated, turning to him. "You know, you look so uncannily like him that I have to second-guess myself."

"No, that's where you're wrong." Brunnhilde stated. "I saw the other guys, He looks so uncannily like himself that you don't have the self-confidence to say he is for certain, and that's probably why you haven't."

"You have a point." Sigyn admitted, after a bit of a pause.

"Perhaps lunch would help?" Logan suggested, provoking twin irritated flat looks.

"Men." The Valkyrie sighed. "Always thinking about food."

Sigyn laughed, and suddenly, Logan didn't feel quite so affronted on behalf of his entire gender as cheerful fireworks went off inside his head at the sound of Sigyn's happiness.

Boy, he was head-over-heels, wasn't he?

"I had a long and hunger-inducing morning..." He weakly protested, as Sigyn took his arm, and started gently tugging him in the direction of Fafnir's house.

"Thank you, Brunn." Sigyn grinned over her shoulder, waving her farewells to the Valkyrie.

Thank you, indeed. Now they had two and a half votes in his favor, and only one against him.

That evening, Logan sat cross-legged on the carpet of Fafnir's living room, playing a card game he didn't remember the name, or the rules of, but he seemed to be winning. Maybe he was cheating, not that he would know. Dressed in an oversized t-shirt and sweat pants that weren't long enough for his legs, he was comfortable, the fire crackling and warm, as snow fell gently outside the window, the first snow of the season.

They were talking about Sigyn, or Logan was talking about Sigyn, Fafnir was being an amazing friend and sitting quietly while Logan rambled about the woman he'd just found out he'd fallen in love with.

"I want to be Loki, you know." He admitted quietly, as he played a card he wasn't sure he was supposed to be playing. "That way, she'll be happy. And I won't be a constant disappointment to her. You know?"

Fafnir hummed in affirmation. "You don't have to be Loki to make her happy, though."

"What?" He asked. "But she wants me to be Loki."

"I don't think so." Fafnir shook his head, and played his card. Logan squinted at the three of diamonds, unsure of whether the card had increased his chances of winning, or not. "At least, only to a certain extent. She doesn't want you to change yourself, and you're a very different Loki than you were, when she knew you, anyway. You're not a disappointment to her, just because you're not someone she once loved. Hearts can break, and mend, and beat again, you know"

Logan bit his lip, and played a card he wasn't even paying attention to. "Maybe you're right. But…how am I supposed to compete with what he used to be?"

"You don't. It isn't a competition. At least, it doesn't have to be. You are who you are, and she likes you."

Logan's eyes widened. "She does?"

"At least as a person." Fafnir assured. "I wouldn't be surprised if the reason she said she wants you to be Loki is because she's feeling the same way you are towards her. Or maybe just a little. And she's still very much in love with him. But she's also getting feelings for you. And, although I think you're the same person, she's not so sure, and she doesn't like the idea of being disloyal. At least, that's my brilliant theory."

"So what you're saying is…" Logan hesitated. "She feels like she's cheating on me? With me?"

"Possibly." Fafnir shrugged, and played his card. "I'm not her, I can't tell you what's going on in her head. Plus, I'm bad at girls in general. Take my lousy advice how you will, but I wouldn't consider her a lost cause. She does like you, I know that much. You're certainly her friend. Give her some time to figure herself out. Just cause she's a mind healer doesn't mean she's going to have everything handed to her on a silver platter. Grief is hard, and, no offense, you stir up some painful memories, just by being here."

"I wish I hadn't shown up." Logan muttered, and shrugged. The collar of his shirt slipped down over one shoulder, and he subconsciously moved to pull it back into place.

"Wait,what's that?" Fafnir's eyes were wide as he blinked at Logan's collarbone in shock.

"It's a scar." Logan blushed, and pulled the fabric over it in embarrassment. "I've got hundreds. I don't know where they came from."

"Hundreds?" Fafnir was in shock. "Are they all that deep?"

"Some are deeper than others…" Logan muttered, playing his card in hopes to distract from the topic.

"Loki, that's…"

Logan glanced up in surprise. Not that he could be sure… but he didn't recall anyone ever addressing him with that name. It felt… right. Almost as if Logan had merely been an alias he'd forced to put himself under. Loki was his name…

And he didn't know what to do with that information.

Fafnir nearly looked guilty, as if he was afraid he'd said something wrong. "I mean… Logan."

"No… You can call me Loki, if you're more comfortable." Logan… Loki? Whispered.

"Look." Fafnir pulled up his pant leg, displaying a white raised mark on his lower shin. "That's a scar. I got that in a training accident, yeah? That mark on your collar is deeper than this, and it's closer to vital organs. Whoever did this to you was purposefully inflicting pain on you."

"Well…" He admitted. "Whoever I was… I lived a very painful life. Unless I'm very much mistaken, I was impaled, here." Distractedly, he brushed his fingers along the deep nasty scar in his abdomen.

Fafnir's jaw dropped. "Impaled…" He whispered. "Right there? There's no mistake?"

Mutely, he lifted up his shirt, displaying the dozens of scars, and the deep, puckered, nasty groove just under his sternum. "No mistake."

Fafnir leapt to his feet with a wide grin. "That, my friend, is what we in New Asgard like to call 'irrefutable evidence'."

Aaaaand, that does appear to be that. I do love this story to bits, don't you?

Next chapter, we will have the long-awaited meeting between Logan/Loki and Thor. Stay tuned ;D

ALSO GUYS LOOK AT THE NEW COVER MY FRIEND ASKE MADE FOR ME DOESN'T IT LOOK SO GOOD GAH I LOVE IT SO MUCH

Please notice the starfish, which the both of us have decided is Logan's signature animal :D

TheOnlyHuman.