Queens, New York – 28 January 2010

Lita was thankful that Heimdall let her use the Bifrost without notice. It allowed her to avoid the beeping and pinging that her helmet would cry out at her when entering Earth's atmosphere. Instead, Lita simply landed in the middle of Queens in a flash of multicoloured light. A small sarcastic laugh escaped her lips. Fitting, she thought. It was raining so hard that she needed her helmet to see more than five feet ahead of her. Lita reached out and showed her open palm to the sky. She watched the water pool in her hand and then pulled off her mask. Immediately, Lita's hair was soaked. The water was cold and chilled her to the bone, but it was a welcome relief to put out the angry fire inside her. With a sigh, the sound of Lita's footsteps landing in puddles reached her ears as she walked. As she reached towards her back pocket, her suit vanished into the canister attached to her belt loops.

Lita walked a little aimlessly for a while, listening to the sounds of the rain and cars driving down the street. She heard a few of them honk in the distance, likely because a pedestrian or another car had gotten in their way. While she couldn't see the details of the buildings, Lita was able to see the hundreds of lights twinkling in the distance. Observing the lights through the raindrops made them explode into New York's own version of a kaleidoscope of colours. Lita narrowed her eyes and turned away from oncoming headlights on the street, focusing her gaze on the umbrella-wielding pedestrians rushing past, hoping to get out of the rain as soon as possible. A few of them looked at her strangely, since she was beginning to look like a drowned rat, but she avoided their gazes when she climbed up a wrought iron spiral staircase.

Lita's eyebrows furrowed when she couldn't find Ricardo, her mother's ceramic pig that housed the spare key she kept for Lita. Her bottom lip quivered and her face scrunched up in pain. She suddenly felt stupid for breaking down over a little ceramic pig, but Lita slid down the railing and sat down, head in her hands. Her body wracked with sobs, warm stinging tears mingled with the downpour of rain, and Lita let out a raw cry into the evening.

"Lita?"

At the sound of her mother's voice, Lita raised her head, bottom lips quivering. Despite the relative darkness created by the downpour and the setting sun, Isabél could see her daughter's grief-stricken face and she nearly broke at the sight.

"I didn't want to wake you," Lita sobbed. She listlessly pointed to where the pig usually was. "But Ricardo—I couldn't find, Ricardo."

Isabél reacted immediately and reached for her daughter. She grasped Lita by the hand and gently pulled her inside. When Isabél closed the door, she wrapped her daughter in her arms, and Lita felt as if it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart. She sobbed on Isabél's shoulder for what seemed like forever—until both her tears and the water dripping from her hair had soaked into her mother's clothes.

"I'm going to get a towel," Isabél said softly. She held her daughter at arm's length. "Stay here."

Lita nodded once, her head heavy, and watched her mother disappear down the hall. She tried to take off her shoes by holding the heel with her toes and pulling, however, after several attempts, Lita wasn't successful. Isabél returned with an armful of towels and wrapped two around her daughter's shoulders. Lita pulled them closer to her body and sighed, pleased by their warmth—her mother had put them in the dryer to warm them up. Isabél then led her daughter by the hand and sat her down on the sofa. As she released Lita's hand, she took notice of the engagement ring's absence and sighed, then proceeded to take off her shoes. Lita's eyes remained glazed over and unfocused as Isabél used another towel to warm up her daughter's legs and stood to prepare a cup of tea in the kitchen.

"This will warm you up," Isabél muttered, handing her daughter the mug.

Lita reached for the mug and Isabél adjusted the towels on her daughter's shoulders. She took a sip and enjoyed the warmth of the tea as it went down her throat and the feeling of her mother gently squeezing her knee.

"Gracias, mamá," Lita mumbled, sniffling.
"Anything, mijita," Isabél whispered. She brushed Lita's air away from her face. "What happened?"

Isabél anticipated the shake of Lita's head. She took a final sip of her tea before placing the mug on the coffee table.

"I don't want to talk about it," Lita muttered, her voice shaking. She wiped the half-dried tears from her cheeks and pulled the towels closer. "Talking about it won't change anything."
"¿Es Loki?"
"It's done. We're—" A stifled sob escaped her lips and Lita looked down at the empty space on her index finger. "We're over."
"Dime qué pasó, mijita."
"There were... extenuating circumstances—some succession and recognition bullshit," Lita explained. She sniffled and wiped her nose on one of the towels. "He wanted Odin to see that Thor wasn't worthy and... he wanted to do something stupid to get it. There was so much that could have gone wrong, so many people that could get hurt—I didn't want him to go through with it. So..."

Lita took a deep breath and lay back on the sofa. She glanced at her mother, who was sitting across from her on the coffee table, then back down at her hands.

"So I told him that I wouldn't just sit by and watch him ruin everything. I told him... If I was enough then he didn't need to do this."
"Oh, Lita..."
"He was quiet," Lita sighed. A few tears fell gently from her eyes. "I returned the ring and I left. He didn't stop me."

Isabél gave her daughter a pained look. There was an immense amount of grief swimming in Lita's eyes, more than when she'd come home after losing hundreds of her fellow soldiers in the last war. Isabél sat next to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her. Lita huddled into her mother's side and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Can I stay?" Lita asked quietly.
"Stay?" Isabél echoed, caressing her daughter's hair.
"Yeah, stay. I'm done, mamá—I can't go back."
"Lita—"
"No," Lita breathed. "I can't. I've had enough of the back and forth, I've had enough of war... and now this? I think it's time to take an extended vacation."

Isabél chuckled and kissed the top of Lita's head.

"What about your father?"
"We've been joined at the hip for ten years—I've had enough of him."
"And Loki?"
"I love him, mamá... with every fibre of my being. But he's made his choice and I've made mine."
"Okay, okay."

She looked down at her daughter and smiled.

"Do you want to watch X-Files reruns?"
"Only if we can watch the pilot on repeat."