Thor shifted in his chair beside the bed, back aching from leaning over in the same position for so long. He kept the move as small and silent as he could, but he wasn't as steady as he used to be, and wound up pulling on Jane's hand a little, enough that she stirred.

She murmured something he couldn't make out, so he leaned over further, despite the pain that flared, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"Hello, sweetheart."

"Mmmm," she said, followed by more words he failed to find meaning in. She worked her mouth, rubbing her lips together, and swallowed. When she looked at him again, her gaze held no recognition.

Thor's heart sank. He hated those moments. They happened more and more. Her mind, the healers had assured him, was sound, but she was so weak that at times it was as though it simply hibernated. "It's me, Jane. It's Thor. Are you thirsty? Can I get you something to drink?"

She started to lift her hand, and looked surprised to find it clasped in his. She looked back up at him, and when he smiled, she smiled back. "Thor?"

"Yes. I'm here." He gave her hand – skin papered over bone and vein – a gentle squeeze. Her return grip was there, but even weaker, and her thumb rubbed a familiar path over the rounded brown spot on his hand. Sunspot, she'd told him her people called it. She'd worried it was cancer when she first noticed it. He'd been fairly certain it wasn't, but not certain enough to not have it checked, not that Jane would have let him do otherwise regardless. He had plenty of them now, mostly on his neck. She used to love to kiss them.

She tried to wet her lips again, and this time when he offered to get her something to drink she nodded, and chose water when he listed the options. He'd hoped she would choose something else; he had three different kinds of juice at hand, plus a chocolate-flavored milk drink with added nutrition. But her stomach had grown so sensitive she had trouble keeping down anything other than water.

He stood, cupped one hand around the back of her head to prop her up a little further, and wrapped his other hand around hers to help her hold the cup. She caught the straw on her second attempt – his hands trembled – and he nuzzled his head against hers, pressed his lips to her long silvery hair. It had grown thin this last decade or so, which Jane hated. She still took such pride in her hair; just yesterday she had insisted it be washed.

"Are your hands getting worse?" she asked as he put the cup on the bedside table.

When he looked back at her she was watching him closely, eyes focused and sharp. "They're fine," he assured her.

"I think they're getting worse."

"I'm just tired."

"Were you sitting there this whole time?"

He gave a little shrug, his old rotator cuff injury twinging with the movement. He didn't want her to worry about him, not now. His little aches and pains were nothing. "Do you think you can eat?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

He bent over the bed, bracing one arm on the edge of it, and ran a hand over her hair, smoothing down the back, too, between her and the pillow, where cascade of silver had become mussed. She leaned into his touch when he rested his hand against her cheek, and he was heartened by her smile. "Are you certain? I can get you anything you want. And you know I mean anything."

"I don't think so."

"I don't think so" was not "no," so Thor persisted, a little light of hope rising flicker of hope sparking to life inside him. "How about…a slice of that fruit pizza we loved so much? Where were we again?"

Jane shook with laughter. Light, but enough to leave her struggling to catch her breath after, which wiped out the joy he'd felt at seeing the laughter. "Europe?" she asked when she was able.

"Are you making fun of me, my beloved?" It was an old joke between them, his ignorance of Midgard's modern geo-politics, and his initial lack of interest in learning it. Old, because he'd finally knuckled down over a series of maps and learned it all. Some of it he now knew better than Jane.

"Maybe," she said with a familiar teasing lilt that still made his heart skip a beat.

"Maribor, Slovenia. We went on a wine-tasting tour that afternoon."

"I remember. You hated it."

"I hated the pizza. A dish really must decide if it would rather be a meal or a dessert."

"I don't see why."

The words lacked the mock challenge they would've once held, but Thor could hear it in them even so, for this was one of those arguments-for-fun they'd had a hundred times or more. "I love you," he heard in those words.

"Something lighter, though. Soup, perhaps? A few bites of chicken? Warm toast with jam, or melted cheese? Or a—. What? What is it, sweetheart?" She had that look in her eye that said an idea had come to mind.

"Remember that stew we liked? Porotos granados. The one from that little restaurant just past—."

Thor waited. She just needed to catch her breath.

"Past the bicycle shop in La Serena."

"I do. I remember that. We tried to get the cooks here to make it and it was never as good."

"Why don't you get some of that?"

"Right away," he said, pushing himself up with his cane and pressing his lips together to muffle the grunt that came with the movement. "I'll be right back," he said as he patted her hand.

"Thor?"

He turned, back stooped a little more than usual. Her voice had a little more volume to it than before, and the shake in it was more evident.

"Yes? Do you need something?"

"Get one more thing."

"Anything," he said, perking up and even managing to straighten a bit. This was the most interest she'd shown in food in three days.

"A biscuit from KFC. Hot and fresh."

He nodded. "Any particular KFC?"

She shook her head, a weak motion, but recognizable. What she said next, however, wasn't.

"What?"

Thor watched her chest rise as she tried to take in a deep breath. "One in the US. In case they use" – she stopped to breathe – "different recipes."

He nodded. His hearing, then, rather than her words. His hearing loss was mild, and when proximity was combined with mostly predictable answers and paying attention to mouth movements, he rarely had difficulty understanding even Jane's weakened voice.

"Get two. No, get—. Get four," she said after another pause for breath, holding up four fingers on her right hand. His vision had deteriorated, too, but it had really only affected his reading, which had become such a chore he'd given it up entirely. Jane had felt worse about that than he did; he'd never been much of a reader.

"Four? All right. Four biscuits it is."

"You still have the most beautiful smile."

He hadn't realized how broadly he'd been smiling. "You're still the most beautiful woman in the Nine Realms."

She scrunched up her face, transforming its lines into new patterns. "You're still the biggest liar in the Nine Realms."

Thor raised a hand dramatically to his chest, widening his eyes to show shock. "You've confused me with your deliveryman, my lovely wife. I would never lie about your abiding beauty."

Her expression faded to something wistful, maybe a little sad. He didn't like to see her sad. He blew her a kiss, picturing her face lighting up at the food he would bring her. "I won't be long."

In the antechamber he closed the door softly. The lighting here was brighter than in the bedchamber, and he turned squinted eyes on Loki, who rose immediately, dropping the book he'd been reading on the arm of his chair.

"How is she?"

Thor nodded; it was his standard answer to the standard question. Loki understood. "She's awake."

"And her breathing?"

"Shallow, but clearer than the last time she woke. She's asked for something to eat."

Loki's eyebrows rose. "What does she want?"

"A bean stew with, ahhh, with pumpkin and corn, from…you visited us there, didn't you? Yes, that's right, you did. When Jane was working on those upgrades at Gemini South, that telescope atop a mountain in Chile with the observatory down in town. La Serena. We took you— Oh! Loki, I'd forgotten! Yes. We took you to that little restaurant down the street from us, just past the bicycle shop, and you refused to eat anything there once you saw they had horse on the menu. Remember that, Brother?"

"I remember," Loki said with a grimace, a mild one from Loki. "I can find it. Bean stew?"

"It's called porotos grandado—. No, granados. Those words don't roll off my tongue like they do Jane's. Do you want me to write it down?"

"No, I can remember. No one can read your writing anyway. Porotos granados, not grandados. Got it. Anything else?"

Thor nodded his enthusiasm. "Four biscuits from KFC. It means Kentucky Fried Chicken. You know it, yes?"

"I know it."

"The fast-food restaurant with the chicken and the old man."

"Yes, I know it."

Thor drew his head back. "You were supposed to say something witty and sarcastic there."

"I can if you want me to."

"Please. How do I know it's really you if you don't?"

"Your eyes haven't become that bad, have they? And I just told you I remembered that place you and Jane dragged me to where you attempted to force me to consume horse meat."

"There were plenty of other things on the menu."

"They might have been seasoned with horse meat."

"You wouldn't even drink the water."

Loki leaned in and said into Thor's ear – loudly, "It might have been seasoned with horse meat."

"You!" Thor said, laughing as he gave Loki's shoulder a shove. Loki, good brother that he was, let him do it.

"Satisfied, then? You know it's me now? And KFC, really? At least that place in Chile was an actual restaurant. Those biscuits are probably frozen for a year before being heated in a microwave."

Loki's very mild disdain was replaced by a smile at the end.

"Very satisfied," Thor said. All these years, and Loki hadn't changed a bit. At least not on the outside. He remembered then that he hadn't conveyed the rest of Jane's request, and scolded himself for letting his buoyant mood distract him from his task. "You must take care, though, Loki."

Loki nodded, leaning in again with a concerned look. Leaning down. It was still the strangest thing, Loki being taller than him now, if only by a few hairs.

"The biscuits must come from a KFC in the United States. The recipe must be the one Jane is used to. And they must be hot, and fresh." He wrinkled his brow. "Do you really think they're all frozen first?"

"Hm. Probably. I don't know. I'll ask. If it's at all possible I'll ensure they've never been frozen. And if it's not possible, then I'll ensure they've at least not been left sitting around for hours after heating. I'll insist they're heated in front of me. No microwaves."

Thor's hand found Loki's arm to grasp it and squeeze as hard as he could. His brother's tone held not the tiniest suggestion of anything other than utter seriousness. He swallowed, eyes growing watery. "Thank you, Brother. I couldn't do any of this without you."

"You're welcome," Loki said, softly enough that Thor didn't actually hear the words. Maybe Loki only mouthed them in the first place. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

With that, Loki trotted away, Thor watching with a vague fond envy.

"Do you need anything, Your Majesty?"

Thor turned to Afrid, the Asgardian healer on duty, who had stood as soon as Loki left. Sherrie, the Midgardian healer on duty, quickly joined her. "No, thank you, Afrid."

"Then perhaps we might perform a quick check of Her Majesty's health? If it's a good time?"

"Yes. Yes, now is a good time. She's awake and alert, or she was a couple of minutes ago. And I should probably go…ah…"

"Yes, of course, Your Majesty."

"Very well, yes." He was grateful not to say more. The signals from his bladder were not always entirely reliable. The current signal was sudden and strong. Each of the Asgardian healers devoted to his wife's care was also aware of his own health issues, to his occasional dismay. Somehow it bothered him a little less that each of the Midgardian ones – a larger team that usual, now that Jane needed full-time care on hand – probably knew, too. "Tell her I'll return in just a few minutes, and Loki is taking care of her request."

"Of course, Your Majesty."

/

/

Loki returned just as the healers finished their brief report back to Thor – yes, Her Majesty was doing well at the moment for her condition, no, Her Majesty's condition was unchanged. He'd hoped for more, but Loki's arrival with two silver boxes staved off his disappointment. He knew what the healers had said. What Jane had said. He still clung to hope.

"You got it?"

"Please. Do you think me an amateur?"

"Come in with me, then."

"Ah…no. I don't want to intrude. Just let me explain first. The soup is in this one. They were about to close and this was…well, that's a long story, never mind. It's in a plastic container, but there's proper silverware in with it. I paid them handsomely, don't worry. Dollars, but they didn't seem to mind. They said they don't have the same cook they had back then, but it's a family recipe, so it shouldn't be much different. This one," Loki said, holding up the other silver box in his other hand once Thor took the first, "has the biscuits. The child working there didn't want to tell me how they make them. I insisted. No one was harmed, not physically, so don't worry about that, either. They arrive at the restaurant frozen, and they're baked in an oven for twenty minutes. I watched these come out of the oven with my own eyes. They put some chicken in the bag, too. I didn't ask them to. I think they were trying to placate me. But I was thinking that if you remove the skin, perhaps Jane might eat a little of it. Everything has been kept warm in here. Can you manage?"

Thor looked at the box Loki was holding out to him. He thought if he balanced one on top of the other as Loki had been at first, perhaps he could. He looked back up when he heard a huffed breath from Loki.

"We could make biscuits for her here. Any kind. Fresh."

Thor nodded. "She likes these." He smiled, then chuckled. "So do I. Did you know sometimes they'll deep fry them for you if you ask?"

"Sadly, no. It never occurred to me to go to a KFC and ask them to deep fry a frozen biscuit for me."

Lifting his cane for a moment, he bumped his knuckles against Loki's arm. "You should have. It's a real treat. Perfect with honey. Come on, give me the other one."

A few bumbling seconds later, though, and it became clear Thor in fact could not manage, not without help. Before he could become too frustrated, Loki called Afrid over to get the second box. When she tried to take the first, too, Thor had to apologize for the prickliness of his response.

"I've returned!" he declared as he entered the room, Afrid holding the door open for him. Jane was no longer flat, but slightly reclined in the bed. "And look what I've brought, sweetheart. All the way from Chile and…well, Loki didn't say which KFC he went to, but he watched the biscuits come out of the oven with his very own eyes, and he made sure everything stayed nice and hot."

Afrid helped him set up the dishes on the tray that emerged from either side of Jane's bed and met in the middle over her lap. When he looked up from opening the box with the biscuits, he caught her hurriedly wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her blue and white sleeping gown. He mustered a smile and pretended not to notice, though when he leaned in to place a biscuit on a napkin in her reach, he took a second to peer more closely at her and saw that her eyes were red.

"Do you need some help?" Thor asked when they were alone and everything was set up just so, Jane with a fine cloth napkin tucked into her nightgown, and she was looking at him instead of the food.

She shook her head.

He glanced down at the food and back up at her. The faint whiffs of garlic and onion and other seasonings in the colorful bean stew stirred memories that tingled at the edge of his consciousness, but all he wanted at the moment was for Jane to pick up her spoon and scoop some of it up and eat. "It's going to get cold."

"That would be a shame. All the way from Chile. You should eat it. It's for you."

He drew back in confusion, then figured he must have misheard. Sometimes he guessed at what he was hearing more than he realized. "What?"

"You heard me. Go on. Please."

"But…Jane…I got this for you. Loki got it for you. You said you wanted it."

"I said I wanted you to get it. But not for me. I wanted to watch you eat it."

"Just eat a little. For me."

"Get Loki to try the biscuits."

"No."

Jane's face fell.

"I'm sorry." The word had come out more sharply than he meant it to.

"It's all right."

"It's just…I thought you were going to eat something."

"I don't think I can."

"But maybe you can?"

"I don't think I can, Thor."

He sat back to think, reaching behind to press and squeeze at the muscles at the back of his neck. "You wanted to watch me eat it?"

She nodded. "So many good memories."

"All right. I'll make you a deal. For every bite you have, I'll have three."

Jane tilted her head at him and laughed; Thor noticed it didn't seem to interrupt her breathing as it often did this last week, and thought the healers must have done something to further help her. This time, maybe it would last.

"Deal?"

"Am I your wife or your child?"

"You are my wife, who needs to eat something, and I'm not above bribery."

"One bite," she said after a moment. "And you eat the rest. But if I keep that down and think I can keep another down, I'll try another. Deal?"

"Deal." It was something. At this point, he would take anything he could get.

It took a bit of effort; Thor insisted on composing the perfect bite, with two different types of bean, a couple of kernels of corn, a couple of flecks of basil, a sliver of onion, and a tiny piece of pumpkin he carved out from a larger one, and then he had to transfer the spoon from his shaking hand to hers. A drop of broth left a yellow splotch on the napkin. Watching the stew disappear into her mouth and her jaw work over it was sheer joy; watching her struggle to swallow it, less so.

"Your turn," she said with a smile once it was down.

"Good?"

"Mm-hm," she said, nodding.

Thor wasn't convinced. Her smile looked more like an attempt to hide a grimace. But she had eaten beans and corn and pumpkin, real food, real nutrition. "Water?"

She shook her head.

He picked up the spoon she'd set down on the tray.

"It's getting worse."

"It's not." He took a bite, taking extra care to keep down the trembling. The healers had assured him there was nothing wrong, really. Simply a minor loss of fine motor control. His handwriting had gotten even worse, and he no longer wore any clothing that required lacing, but otherwise it had little effect on his life, except that lately it seemed to concern Jane. "Tastes the same, I think. Oh, Loki said they have a new cook there now." He continued relating what Loki had told him, and reminded Jane of how Loki had refused to eat or drink anything there and why. He was just moving on to Loki's brief tale from KFC when Jane made a noise of discomfort. He forgot the story and the stew and saw Jane's hand balled into her sleeping gown at her stomach.

Dropping the spoon, he grabbed for the special bowl on the bedside table.

"Get them," Jane said, eyes squeezed shut.

Thor rose, but even before he was all the way up he realized walking to the door would take far too long. "Afrid! Sherrie!" he shouted.

It was Sherrie who came rushing in, an internal medicine specialist they'd hired away on a sabbatical of sorts.

"She's going to be sick." Thor stepped back to get out of the way, holding the bowl out for Sherrie.

"Patch," Jane said, looking like she was already starting to heave, but clamping her mouth shut as soon as she got the word out.

Thor watched in surprise that quickly turned to relief and then happiness as Sherrie retrieved one of the anti-nausea patches prepared in advance, pushed aside Jane's gown and hair, and affixed the patch to the side of her neck.

It took another minute or two, but finally the deepened furrows in Jane's forehead faded to their normal lines, her fist uncurled, and the bowl was replaced on the table. But her eyes also drooped, her breaths sounded shallower, and her tiny frame seemed to sag even further into the bedding. That single spoonful, and the fight to keep it down, had exhausted her.

That spoonful he'd insisted on. She'd tried to tell him, and he'd ignored her, because he had to get what he wanted. But he could not force Jane's body to accept food, not without making her suffer for it. It was unfair. None of this was what he wanted.

Jane did not have much time left.

The healers had told him.

Jane had told him.

But Thor was used to doing what was needed to get what he wanted, regardless of who might be hurt by his failure to consider the cost.

"Stop that."

"What?"

"You heard me. Stop that. It was good. But you'll have to finish the rest. Don't let it" – she paused to catch her breath – "don't let it get cold. Don't make me call you a liar again."

"There's some chicken, too. I think Loki scared the people at the KFC so badly they added it for free. I could take the skin off for you?"

Jane shook her head, but her chest shook a little with a quiet laugh. "I wish I had seen that. I can picture it, though."

"The biscuits?" he asked. He didn't dare push her again.

"I'll try one little bite."

His eyebrows shot up. He'd been certain of a no. He reached over for the box that still held the biscuits and chicken, bad hip protesting at the awkward position, removed one of the still-warm buttermilk biscuits from the red-striped box inside the silver one, pulled it apart, and pinched away a bite from the very center.

"You remembered."

"Of course I remembered. My memory's not that bad."

He fed it to her. Not because she couldn't have done it herself, but because it reminded him of them feeding each other cake on their wedding day, per the custom on Earth. He leaned in close so she could feed him the next bite. Thor ate the rest of the biscuit, and the rest of the stew. He offered broth; she refused it. He told her everything he remembered about their stay in Chile, Jane contributing little in words but much in her reactions; it was easier for him to do the talking, and talking kept his mind occupied.

"Do you really still think I'm beautiful?" she asked when he ran out of memories. Her eyes shone with tears he hadn't realized were there until he looked more closely and the light struck them just so.

"So beautiful." He traced fingers over her forehead and down around her eyes. "Every line is a memory. Every gray hair is some idiotic thing I did that made you worry. But you're the same woman I fell in love with. The same woman I fall in love with every day."

"I love you, too, you handsome old man. Sometimes it's hard to remember."

"Remember what?" he asked, hand wrapping around hers, her thumb finding his sunspot again. He looked up from her hand to find her eyes glistening again. "Jane? Remember what? I didn't hear you."

"That this isn't really you."

"What?" Her voice had grown so soft he could barely make out the words. He must have guessed wrong.

"I want to see the real you."

Thor leaned down to get closer, certain he was mishearing something. Jane's eyes wandered over his face, scrutinizing it here and there as though she could see beyond it, back to some time before the wrinkles and sunspots and bushy eyebrows overtook it.

And then he understood.

His hand fell slack, slipping from hers.

Notes

This was my "pandemic story"...which has nothing to do with the pandemic, it was just an idea that came to me during the early period of that, grabbed me hard and wouldn't let go 'til I wrote-wrote-wrote, I threw down a lot of words in one day, May 19, 2020, based on the date the first Word doc was created. It's probably the most personal thing I've ever written. I have I guess most of the next chapter written, much of the rest of it exists in pre-writes of key scenes. Don't expect quick updates, but do expect it'll be finished. I guesstimate 5 chapters, and I record this here solely so you can laugh at me and make bets on how many it will actually be. But it's not an epic. It's a love story...a story of love. I hope you will enjoy it. (Also: I spent over an hour today trying to come up with an actual title for this one, and I'm still not sold on what I settled on...slight chance I might change it down the line.)