Part Nine: Wherein Things are Remembered
Sigourney didn't go to work the next morning. She awoke at 8:17am, remembered all that had transpired only a few short hours ago, thought about the prospect of facing costumers, and promptly texted Lavender not to come in that day. Then Sigourney went back to sleep. When she woke again at 12:23pm she lied in bed staring up at her ceiling. Absentmindedly, her fingers played with the bracelet around her wrist as her mind turned over and over and over.
The memory of arguing with Loki had been so strong. He had even known what to say and when. But Sigourney knew it couldn't have been real. Could it? No, she was being ridiculous. Of course it wasn't real. She had lived her whole life as any ordinary person might. She had done swimming lessons, had braces, nearly failed her high school math diploma, gone to grad without a date, and studied library sciences in collage. Those were all deeply ordinary, unremarkable, pedestrian things. But when she thought about them too hard... things began to go hazy.
She couldn't remember any one specific swimming lesson. They had all sort of blurred together. She didn't really remember the math diploma exam, just that she'd nearly failed. Collage was a montage of studying in the library and sitting at various desks in classrooms that all sort of looked the same. Sigourney had never thought much about the fact that this was how her memory worked. After all, her whole life had been like this, hadn't it?
She frowned up at her ceiling. If she could remember individual moments from working in the bookshop, than why not the rest of her life? She had always assumed that things blurred with time, but perhaps she was wrong. She had never really thought about it before. But Sigourney could distinctly remember moments in her life since opening the shop. She remembered unlocking the door for the first time, unpacking boxes of books, hiring Lavender. Each memory was clear and distinct. So why not the rest of her life?
She thought back, trying to pinpoint the exact moment things became blurred. She remembered watching the news reel of Lagos that spring. And from Sokovia the year before. And in 2013, three years ago, she had watched wide eyed as the news had shown portals to other worlds being ripped open in the middle of London. She remembered these moments with precision, where she was and what she had been doing.
Sigourney flung off her blankets, too agitated to keep still any longer. She dressed, pulling on a pair of jeans, a grey t-shirt, and a black cardigan. She made herself a cup of tea, drank less than half of it, then dumped it down the sink and left the apartment. She needed to be in the open air where she could think. Her apartment was stifling, the walls too close together suddenly. Outside the chilled wind caught her hair and swept it across her face. She brushed it aside, walking without taking note of where her feet lead her. Sigourney's head was too full of questions and half memories to pay attention.
When she found herself in the center of the park, Sigourney felt she had made a mistake letting herself navigate on auto-pilot. She could not keep the image of Loki's 'friends' arguing amongst themselves in the woods out of her mind. Sigourney stood for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. She supposed that if she kept away from the woods and stayed on the public path, she'd be safe. It wasn't likely that a group of aliens would attempt to do her harm in full view of the neighborhood. Would they? As she sat herself down on a bench she decided that, really, she had no idea what a band of aliens would or wouldn't do. It made her chest hurt just thinking about it. She didn't know anything. At least not about matters such as these. She had been pulled in over her head and was close to drowning.
Sigourney's head swam.
She had been running, her bare-feet kissing the grass so lightly it was as though she might fly. The day was bright and warm. And she had her hand clasped over her mouth to keep her laughter from spilling out. Her other was locked firmly in Loki's.
Sigourney shut her eyes tight, trying her best to hold onto the image. She needed to understand.
They had run until they fell laughing in the grass under the shade of a large tree. Their tree. Loki cackled with laughter and Sigourney squealed as tears of joy filled her eyes. They laughed until their stomachs ached, caught their breath, looked at each other, and then burst out laughing all the more.
"The look on his face!" Sigourney managed, "I shouldn't laugh, but I can't stop!"
Loki mimicked the shocked, hilarious expression that Thor had made when he opened the armoury, sending the flock of birds inside shooting right out the door over his head. Sigourney doubled over, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
Sigourney beamed at the memory. She touched her fingers to her mouth, opening her eyes. She'd always loved the way Loki's eyes danced when he laughed.
Sigourney had hovered uselessly by the door of the healing chambers. All she could do was watch, twisting and untwisting the fabric of her skirts. She watched as Loki sat perfectly still before his mother. Her long, graceful fingers tenderly plucked the thread from his lips. He didn't so much as flinch, but gave a soft whine once or twice.
Then, she was in a long corridor, her upper arm in the grip of a guard. She watched as Loki was lead past her. He was bound in chains, his mouth locked behind a muzzle. When he saw her, his eyes went wide with pain. He stopped in his tracks, halting the procession. Sigourney tore herself free from her guard. Loki shrugged off his own handlers and raised his shackled arms as high as he could to catch her embrace. She never reached him. Two guards grabbed her. They pulled her away down the corridor as she screamed. Loki's handlers piled onto him, preventing him from following after her.
Sigourney's chest ached. She sucked back a shaking gasp, pulling her knees up to her chest.
She had been standing in the middle of a field, disoriented. She stumbled, her balance so off-kilter she nearly fell head over ankles. There were patterns in the ground. Patterns she felt she should know, but didn't. She'd been in a car accident, hadn't she?
Sigourney pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. People stared. A man in an Iron-Man t-shirt took a step towards her cautiously.
"Miss, are you alright?" He asked.
"Just fine." She launched to her feet and fled.
She needed to get away, to be anywhere but there. She needed to be alone. Her boots pounded the dry, brittle grass as she turned off the gravel path. The park lead her down a slight hill to the deserted pond. Not even a goose graced the shore. Sigourney dumped herself onto a large, flat stone. It chilled her trough the fabric of her jeans. Her breath caught in her throat as she sat there, her mind churning. She didn't understand, but it all felt so real. So absolutely real.
The sound of footfalls crunching the grass on the hillside behind her made her jump. Clarity washed over her and Sigourney whirled around, suspecting that Iron-Man t-shirt had followed after her.
"Oh, just leave me be!" She shouted before she saw who it was.
The tall, dark haired woman from the woods stood on the hillside like a warrior of old. Her wide stance invoked an unshakable power and an unmatched confidence in herself. It made Sigourney's stomach flip.
"You." The woman's voice matched her posture.
Sigourney couldn't move. She was rooted to the spot.
"So this is where you are. I didn't see it at first, that day in the woods, but I do now. I see you, Sig." She said.
"I... I don't understand." Sigourney blurted out, "Who are you? Do you know me?"
The woman stared at her with a gaze working to decifer what it saw. She seemed... hurt, or at the very least disappointed. Just like Loki.
"Who I am does not matter." The woman told her after a moment of consideration.
Sigourney swallowed hard, her hands trembling, "What do you want?"
"To warn you." The woman said, voice dripping with certainty, "To become entangled with Loki now is to doom yourself. More than you realize. I do this only in friendship, Sig. If you do not heed this warning, I can promise only that you will once again be pulled down by that snake's wickedness. You were freed of him. Don't be a fool and fall back into his net. Save yourself."
The woman's gaze was so poignant it stung. Then she turned and hiked back up the small hill. Sigourney watched her go, stomach full of icy fear that stopped her breath short. The woman was so familiar, beyond the pictures on Lavender's phone and the moment in the woods. And she had seemed to know Sigourney. 'I do this only in friendship, Sig.' The words burned at her thoughts.
Sigourney had sat at that woman's side when they were little more than teenagers. She had been sobbing, her hair golden but sheered nearly to the scalp. When Sigourney put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her, she shrugged it off roughly.
"Don't touch me, snake lover!" She snapped.
"Sif, I swear I didn't know he would do something like this." Sigourney told her, "If I had, I would have-"
"What?" Sif wiped at her eyes impatiently, "You would have stopped him? Or would you have sat by and watched like you did when he stabbed Thor?"
Sigourney didn't know what to say.
Sif glared at her, "I thought we were friends. Just leave me be."
It was all too much. Sigourney's head ached. She slid from the rock, landing in a heap in the dead grass. It was impossible. This childhood she was remembering, this life, was impossible. She had grown up on Earth, she'd gone to school, ridden a bike, lost her baby teeth. Just as everyone she'd ever known had. She was human. When she got a paper cut opening her mail it bled. Her father had driven her to school every day. Her mother had helped her with her homework.
Hadn't they?
Sigourney tired to remember the last time she had spoken to her parents. It had been last week. Or perhaps the week before? She tried to remember calling them, but couldn't. Not specifically. All that came to her was a series of similar conversations, pleasant and casual and so non-discript she couldn't tell one from the next.
"I need to go home." She told herself.
Sigourney pushed herself up, stumbling to her feet. She trudged back up the hill and picked her way back through the park. When she finally reached her building, it was as though she had done nothing but walk for days. She clung to the wall in the foyer for a moment to steady herself.
Mrs Hult's front door opened then and an elderly man stepped out, Fiske bolting past his legs and up the stairs without so much as a glance. The man spotted Sigourney leaning against the wall. He smiled, his bushy eyebrows raising above the rim of his glasses.
"You all right there, Miss?" He asked, his voice papery like the pages of a vintage comic-book, "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Sigourney nodded at him, "Something like that. I'm fine, though. Thanks."
He gave her a nod, then walked past her and out the door. If Sigourney had been more put together, she would have speculated about why a strange man was leaving her land lady's apartment in the middle of the afternoon. Instead, she braved the stairs.
Sitting on the floor next to her front door, scratching Fiske behind the ears, was Loki. He gave her one look and was on his feet. Fiske slinked away to find someone else to smother him with attention.
"Siggy." He said, features wrought with concern.
Sigourney practically swooned. Loki caught her in his arms, supporting her weight. She let her head rest on his shoulder.
"My keys are in my bag." She mumbled into his shirt.
He reached into it and pulled out her key-ring first try. She smiled as he fit the right one into the lock without having to ask.
"I suppose you could have just magicked it open?" She asked as he helped her through the door.
"I could have." He agreed, shutting it behind them gently, "But I distinctly remember promising someone that I wouldn't."