Give each other space, but don't become strangers. That was Loki and Alice's formula for peaceful cohabitation.
Do not enter the other's room unless explicitly invited, and assume that the other will want at least as much time and space in every communal area as you do. Surprisingly simple, and everything else–from noise levels to fair division of household chores–fell into place around these principles.
Staying out of each other's way was easy. Too easy. Alice never asked for anything, before or after receiving Loki's gifts. She was content with staying in her room most of the time, only coming out to prepare meals and take showers. Her room even had its own half bathroom attached. And Loki was rarely even home during daylight hours. He would leave without his car, and never tell her specifically where he was going or why.
Sometimes he called her cell phone during the day to see how she was doing. The thought of her being isolated worried him, but he understood that she didn't feel mentally fit to be around many people right now.
By the end of their second week together, it was still a little awkward to be in the same room. Loki thought that was too long of an adjustment period. He came home one evening to find Alice in the kitchen washing a plate. She greeted him with a genuine smile, but he noticed that she sped up her pace. Instead of walking past her to go straight to his bedroom like he normally did, he approached and stood right next to her.
She tensed, but kept scrubbing. "What's up?"
"I'm sorry I haven't been spending as much time with you as I probably should."
"It's okay. You've done more than enough."
"No, it is not okay. You shouldn't feel like a guest in your own home."
"I am a guest."
"No you're not."
"Well, I don't feel like one, anyway. I haven't been this comfortable in… wow, a long time." She finished rinsing off the plate and placed it in the dish rack. Without drying it first? Loki cringed internally, but continued on topic.
"Are you sure? I fear if this place remains too quiet, it will become a reminder of your past."
"Everything reminds me of my past." She stared at her burn-scarred hands as she started rinsing a fork. "And it's not too quiet for me. I have my tablet."
"Let's watch a movie together," he suggested when she finally turned the water off.
"You like movies?" she turned to him and asked, surprised.
"..." Loki tilts his head. "What do you think I am, a potato wearing a flesh suit? I am a person, Beth."
Alice flinched and backed up a couple of feet. Again he called her that. So naturally that she almost could have missed it. In fact, there have been times when he called her 'Beth' and she didn't realize it until replaying the conversation in her mind later.
"Why do you keep calling me 'Beth'? It's not like you knew me back then. Are you trying to mindfuck me into becoming my 'true self' again or something?"
Loki is now confused and slightly concerned. "Because one of the first things you told me on the night we met is that your name 'was' Beth Kane, remember? You first mentioned 'Alice' as a defensive identity fragment that was named after a storybook character. So you see, I did know you as 'Beth' before I knew you as 'Alice'."
Oh right. They didn't exactly introduce themselves the traditional way. "But I'm not 'Beth' anymore."
"Yes you are. That is why you're so angry, and why you miss your family. Alice was the one who blocked everything out, until the day she was shocked into remembering who she really was. That was how you described it, at least."
Alice was actually stunned by his psychoanalysis. He was right. Technically, Beth was 'the crazy one', and she had reason to be. Alice was nothing but a servant, aware of being a prisoner, but having no recollection of how she became one. Until she saw her mother's unaged frozen face, jolting Beth forward, forcing the two halves to merge in that moment. She kept the name 'Alice', but Beth was the one who awoke and escaped.
"You're right," she said incredulously. She had it wrong all along. Everyone did. She is Beth. Very different from how she used to be, but still Beth.
So this is me. There's no hidden side that's waiting to come out and transform me back into who I was. This is who she became. Beth is the monster. Alice was a shield… but also part of me. I remember all those years vividly…
She almost lost herself in thought, until Loki snapped her out of it by saying, "I can call you 'Alice', if you prefer."
She looked at him like she forgot he was there. "I… I need to sit down."
Loki watched her walk unsteadily to the dining room table, dropping herself into a chair and laying her head atop her arms on the table. He felt a tinge of guilt. He knew being called 'Beth' annoyed her at times, but he didn't consider the raw trauma behind it.
After watching her for a minute, he silently took the seat beside hers. She knew he was sitting there, but didn't trust herself to move for another minute or two.
"Sorry," she said when she finally raised her head, face paler than it was a little while ago. "I thought I was going to vomit out of the top of my head."
"'Tis not your fault. I should have been more… tactful."
She shook her head. "I already knew, I just… needed to hear it. Everyone keeps saying that Beth is gone. I was probably the first one to say it. You don't even know me, and you just… How can I even put it into words?"
"You were Beth to me from the start; then you told me your sins, showed me your scars, and yet you are still Beth to me. Even though I have known you for the least amount of time. It must be strange."
"... Whoa."
Loki wanted to paint a portrait of her eyes at that moment. Wide and stormy with both wonder and sorrow. This was the first time he ever found a human truly beautiful.
And Alice was taken over by an instinct she hadn't felt for a very, very long time. A warm, magnetic impulse to express a sentiment that words cannot convey. Compelled by it, she stood up, leaned over Loki, and gave him a hug.
Loki froze, even though the heat from her skin seemed to flood his whole body on contact. All the worst parts of him wanted to force himself to sit there like a statue until she was done. But his need for affection overrode his fear of further emotional attachment. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her.
Gods, she felt as soft as a feather. How could someone so small and fragile survive so much? Drowning. Beatings. Burns. Starvation. Slowly and carefully, Loki pulled her tighter–as tightly as he thought a simple hug should ever be–and sure enough, she tightened her own hold to match the strength of his with minimal effort.
Wow. All this time, he truly believed that he could squash a human just by hugging them the way he would hug his brother. But they are much stronger than they look or feel to the touch. Inside and out.
They slowly pulled away, and Alice… Beth returned to her seat.
"So, what would you like me to call you from now on?"
She thought about it for a few seconds, then made her firm decision. "You can call me Beth. But only you. In front of everyone else, I'm still Alice."
"Actually, everyone else would know you as 'Alicia' now, remember?"
"Yeah, and I will always ask them to just call me 'Alice'."
Loki chuckled at that. "Well, thank you for such an exclusive privilege."
He made it sound so honorable or something. She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."
A month later…
The living room finally looked like someone actually lived in it. There was a pillow on the floor. Bowls containing leftover popcorn kernels sitting on the table. A phone charger plugged into a wall socket with no device attached. A small blanket crumpled up on Beth's favorite couch, a slightly-dirty pair of Sailor Moon socks on the floor from when she kicked them off a few nights ago.
Tonight, they re-watched one of Beth's favorite old horror classics. At some point midway, she paused it and asked him a seemingly random question.
"Have you ever wanted to be a superhero?"
Loki didn't need to think about it. He was expected to be one his entire life, and hated it. "No, because I wouldn't be impartial. I wanted to be a hero for my family. Someone they could depend on even if the whole world hung in the balance. No one should ever be left helpless just because they happen to be on the wrong side of a statistic. Besides, someone has to take care of the people who take care of everyone else."
"Sounds like you've thought about this before."
"I think about it all the time. I resent Odin for being a King. Every boy should grow up knowing that his father would do anything for him. I grew up knowing my father would behead me without hesitation if his 'duty' called for it. What about his duty to us? I understand that the universe sometimes needs people like him, but if that's what he knew he would be, then he should have never become a father."
"You don't think heroes should start families?"
"I think it's fine to get married, because your spouse has a choice. But children cannot choose their parents. I don't think you should bring a new life into the world unless you intend to do anything and everything to protect it. Even your own life is no longer yours to sacrifice. Do you know how many times Thor and I almost lost Odin too soon, to battles that were not even ours to fight? He had no right to put us through that. We did not choose to trade our father, and a wholesome upbringing, for others' lives."
Beth was shaken. He was really hurt by this. He really hated being a Prince of Asgard.
"At best," he continued, "adopting me was purely self-indulgent on Odin's part. If he knew he couldn't love me as a father, he should have let me die there."
Beth slowly shrugged. "Kings need heirs, though."
"Why? Give me one good reason why a ruler should be chosen even partially based on their blood? Or why the Queen should lose her station upon the King's death if he does not lose his upon hers?"
"... Oh, that wasn't a rhetorical question? I have no idea. Politics aren't my thing."
"Well, they're mine, and I wish they were not. We would have been better off as peasants." Loki looked away from her, off to a place she couldn't see. "Let someone else do it. Just let us be one of the billions of families who only need to worry about being together."
Beth smiled. He seemed very firm and passionate in these beliefs. She hadn't seen him this emphatic before. "So, in a nutshell, you're the kind of man who would let the world burn for his son? Assuming you had another world to take him to."
Loki nodded. "Easily, and I refuse to change my mind. Even if someone could prove to me that I'm wrong."
"Yeah, you would make a suck-ass King… but you're going to be a great father one day."
Loki's face turned red. Where he's from, for any woman outside of your blood family to say that is usually considered quite suggestive. As if she were saying she doesn't mind you planting your seed within her own belly.
But Beth's face and body language says she didn't mean it that way. He swallowed the sudden excess of saliva in his mouth as his color returned to normal. "What about you? Do you ever think about following your sister's footsteps?"
"Sometimes. But I wouldn't be impartial, either. My only objective would be finding and freeing kidnapped children."
"Really?" He sounds intrigued, but not surprised.
"Mm-hm. I almost barfed when I Googled the number of children that go missing every year, just in the United States alone. And to think how many of them are even being rap–"
"NO!" He cut her off before she could even finish the syllable. "Enough. When we start talking about children being… that… it is time to end the conversation." Loki grabs the remote and gets ready to resume the movie.
But Beth snatches it away before he can. "No, this is important!"
"It's depressing."
Frustrated, she adds, "I happen to really care about this! Can you just hear me out?"
Loki sighed. "I'm sorry. Go on."
"Thank you. Now… think about it. I'm better than the police at gathering information and tracking people down. I'm at least as good a martial artist as Kate. And I'm no Bruce Wayne, but I'm sure I can afford a bulletproof bodysuit. All I've been doing for the past few weeks is sitting around the house, shopping online, eating and watching movies. Why not go out there and prevent other children from becoming what I did? Imagine how many lives I would save by proxy."
She looked at him with a hopeful expression, obviously seeking positive feedback. Loki almost wanted to laugh. One minute, she would blatantly profess that all lives are playthings at best, then the next, she cries over dead cartoon animals and wants to become a vigilante.
"That is very thoughtful of you." When her smile widened, he added, "I think you can do it. You would be the most reliable person for such a mission, understanding firsthand how crucial it is to bring them home."
That was about exactly what she wanted to hear; someone believed she could do as much good as harm. "Maybe that's why I survived. Second chances, especially when they're way too convenient, rarely come for free."
"If you do it, I wouldn't mind being your occasional sidekick," he said with a wink.
"I'll keep that in mind."
It felt like the conversation had come to a close, so Beth pressed play on the remote, and they went back to watching people panic and be eaten alive.
It wasn't five minutes before Beth began spacing out again, thinking about Kate. How many times did she fantasize about watching movies or playing games on the sofa with her sister again, like normal people?
If anyone was going to take her in, it should have been her father. If anyone was going to hold their own life hostage for hers, it should have been the person who spent nine months in the womb with her. To have what she wants, but not who she wants it with, is almost as bad as having nothing at all.
She felt guilty for feeling that way. If Loki really is who he acts like around her, and really means the things he says to her, then he is probably the best friend she's ever had. He could have been literally anywhere else in the world, doing things no human can do, but he chooses to spend almost every night sitting on the couch with her, in a house that must be like a closet compared to the home he was raised in. Kate wouldn't even visit her in Arkham.
Whether Kate was justified in abandoning her or not was irrelevant at that point. Loki was there, and Kate wasn't. So it felt… disrespectful in a way, and definitely wasteful, to be fantasizing about someone else.
They both sat quietly for the remainder of the movie, lost in their own minds until the credits ended.
Beth yawned and sprawled out on her couch, pulling her blanket up to her neck. "I feel like sleeping in here tonight. It's nice having that option. Sleeping at home, but not in your bed. Knowing that it's okay."
"I once fell asleep in the bathtub."
"That's hilarious."
Loki chuckled. Why do humans say things like "That's hilarious" and "Laughing Out Loud" when they aren't even laughing?
"Would you mind if I join you? I haven't participated in collaborative sleeping since I was a child."
She craned her neck to look over at him like he was nuts. "'Collaborative sleeping'? Is that what you call slumber parties back home?"
"'Slumber parties'? Is that what humans call a group of friends gathering for the main purpose of sleeping together?"
"... That's one of the things we call it."
"Slumber party." Loki thought about the phrase for a moment, and nodded his head. "I like that. It's a paradox, in a way."
"Oh my god, it is, right? How do you sleep and party at the same time?"
"Ask Thor when he was a child." Always a wild sleeper.
She giggled. "That would be a neat trick."
Hesitantly, Loki lied on his back across his couch, his head facing the side closest to Beth's. He stared at the ceiling with a smirk. "Sharing a bed with Thor always had me waking up wondering what the Hel went on last night."
Beth snorted. "Okay, I can't let it slide this time just because you're an alien. That universally sounded gay."
Loki laughed so hard, if they had neighbors, they would have almost definitely heard him at that time of night.
"Don't act like you didn't know that when you said it," she added, tumbling into her own laughing fit.
And they shared petty jokes and fleeting memories until they both fell asleep with smiles on their faces.