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Just like the science stuff, the magical stuff is all made up.

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Day 126

Puente Antiguo, New Mexico

Rising slowly through layers of sleep, Jane brushed against a faint memory. What was that? She waited for the sensation to float closer, then reached for it. Gold...and black? But what—?

The Destroyer.

The dark stranger.

"You will destroy it, Jane Foster."

BZZZZZZZ

Consciousness rushed in. Jane blinked once, twice. She groped on the floor for her phone. Bleary eyed, she brought it close to her face. Message from Erik.

Erik: I'll ask today about getting those reports for you.

Reports. For the Tesseract project. Right.

Do I want to do this?

She let the thought ring out and waited for the echo of emotion to come back to her.

Mild interest. Curiosity.

It wasn't the deep passion she had always felt for her work, but it was more emotion than she had been able to muster for months. It would do for now.

oooOOOooo

Jane towelled off and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her color was better, she knew, but her bones were too sharp under her skin. She shrugged. Who was there to see her bones, anyway? Jane wrapped herself in her green bathrobe, shuffled into her slippers, and headed to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

Grind the beans, measure the water, push the button. A fresh cup in hand, Jane crossed to her work table to check email.

The most recent email was another request for an interview. She deleted it without reading. The next was from someone she didn't know, somebody at SHIELD, who had forwarded a couple of emails from NEIC and NOAA. That was fast. Wow—really fast. Erik apparently had a lot of clout. Jane opened the first attachment. Columns of raw data on seismic events filled her screen. She scanned the information, toggled to the table of Tesseract activity, and jotted down a few dates. Back to the NEIC data. A small frown wrinkled her forehead.

Jane opened the second file, about solar weather. Again she flipped back and forth between tables, checking and comparing. She maneuvered the mouse in short, sharp strokes with her left hand while she made notes with her right. Her eyes flew across rows of numbers. She punctuated her work with a running commentary under her breath.

"What? That doesn't—"

"Let's see what NEIC says…"

"Why don't you fit? That would make too much sense."

A knock at the door jolted her from her little world. Crap. She was still in just her robe, now gaping open more than was polite.

"Who is it, please?" she called.

A muffled voice answered, "It's Isabel."

Jane pulled her robe closed and let Isabel in. "Hi, Isabel. Sorry—I got caught up in work and forgot to put clothes on."

Isabel shrugged. "Makes no difference to me, honey."

The older woman crossed to the kitchen while Jane grabbed her clothes from yesterday from the arm of the couch.

"Did you sleep last night?"

Jane glanced up on her way to the bathroom. "Yeah, I did. It's like the third night in a row. I hardly know what to do with myself."

Isabel smiled back and continued dishing out something that smelled delicious. "Well, you look a heap sight better than you did a few days ago, that's for sure. You've got color in your cheeks. And that robe does wonders for you. That color—what would you call it? Jade? No, emerald, I think. It brings out your eyes."

oooOOOooo

Loki stepped through space into his room at the inn. If Jane was going to waste time idly chatting and dining, he might as well continue to regenerate his energy. He growled in disgust. Humans and their nearly constant need to stuff themselves with food! It was as frustrating as trying to tear Volstagg from the banquet table to prepare for battle.

He shed his clothing without magical assistance and lay down, reflecting on the last several hours. His first foray into manipulating Jane's nightmares had gone well. As he had suspected, Jane was desperate to be rescued. Her subconscious hadn't resisted his suggestions at all.

And this morning, Jane had almost lost herself in the work, her eyes darting all over furiously gathering information, which her pen then scribbled in her notebook, biting her lip as she clicked through page after page of numbers, pushing errant locks of hair behind her ear…Perhaps she was ready to use her mind again, inferior though it may be.

oooOOOooo

The computer dinged the arrival of another email, this one forwarded from NASA. The new attachment was pages and pages long. She could compare all the data more efficiently if she printed the documents. Jane clicked several buttons and waited while the sheets of paper rolled off her printer. Coffee. She needed coffee to keep thinking straight. As she rose to go to the kitchen, one of the pages fluttered to the floor. She bent down to pick the paper up, then paused. The date stamp in the bottom corner caught her eye.

Brow furrowed, Jane sat down again and pulled up her email. She clicked on the sent mail folder, then opened the email she had sent to Erik, requesting those reports. She had sent it Wednesday, October 5, at 10:07 a.m. Her phone showed that Erik had texted her this morning, Thursday, at 8:32 a.m. Back to her inbox. The first email with the reports arrived at 4:16 p.m. yesterday.

She toggled to the report from the National Earthquake Information Center and searched the file's properties. It was created on Wednesday, October 5, 2:19 p.m. Sixteen hours before Erik replied to her email, the report had already been run. What was going on?

Part of her phone conversation with Erik came back to her.

"SHIELD knows it can trust you."

"Are they spying on me?"

Erik had never answered her question.

She hadn't had the energy to care at the time, but now Jane's heart thumped rapidly. Breathe, Jane. In, out, two, three, four. A sick lump of fear kept her from drawing a deep breath. Someone had read her email to Erik and had requested those reports from the government agencies even before Erik replied to her. Yes, it was to help her research. But they were spying on her. Again. What else had they seen? read? heard? Her head pounded and spots danced across her vision.

Get a grip. Don't let them do this to you. Her office chair spun drunkenly as Jane shoved away from the work table. She marched to the kitchenette, grabbed her mug, and poured herself coffee. Think, Jane. Be rational. What should you do now?

But panic spasmed in her belly—SHIELD wasn't even trying to cover their tracks! A child could have figured it out. They clearly weren't afraid of her. Her mug slipped to the concrete floor. Hot coffee and blue ceramic exploded.

I'm trapped.

oooOOOooo

Peach and pink smudged the sky as Loki stepped into Jane's lab. The room was dark, shades drawn again. Remains of a broken cup laid in a puddle of something brown near the work table. One eyebrow lowered as Loki slowly scanned the space for Jane. Surely she hadn't gone—or been taken—anywhere? What a bother that would be. He'd have to retrieve her, of course. Who else would solve the riddle of the Tesseract?

Oh. There she was. Huddled in the corner of that dingy couch. Not working again.

Loki forced himself to relax. He could be patient. It had only been three Midgardian days since he had arrived. Thanos wouldn't be looking for him yet.

Papers were scattered on every side of Jane and on the floor around the couch. Loki soundlessly maneuvered himself to see the papers. "Data Observed by…"; "Solar Flares measured…"; "Phenomena reported 2009-2010." Ah. Perhaps she was working after all—or rather, had been working. Now that he stood over her, he could see her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and rhythmic, though it was still early evening.

On her lap a small notebook laid open. The scrawlings and diagrams snagged his attention. Evidently created hastily, the document was not easily decipherable. After studying it from different angles, Loki raised his eyebrows and smirked. So, Jane had discovered she was being monitored.

Whoever was watching her hadn't gone to great lengths to disguise it. He had sensed the foreign signal sent by a listening device the first time he entered the lab. It was so obvious that he wondered if Jane herself used it for security. For his own protection, he had caused the battery to die a premature death.

He couldn't tell from these papers what had led to the revelation. But apparently it had upset her, thus the darkened lab and the broken drinking vessel.

Jane twitched in her sleep and Loki narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her. Had she already been asleep long enough to begin dreaming? Her face contorted and a low keening moan slipped from her lips. Loki cursed and quickly threw himself into her dream, wincing at the abrupt transition.

An empty street unrolls before him. Smoke covers the ground, curling around his feet. Where is Jane? Loki stands still, waiting. From his left, a choking cry yanks him into motion.

Jane lies crumpled, eyes closed, hands cupped over her breast. Blood soaks her t-shirt and pools in the hollow of her abdomen. She arches her back and fights to draw a breath. Loki kneels at her side.

"Jane."

Tears leak from her closed eyes, but she doesn't respond.

"Jane. Look at me."

One, twice, three times she blinks, then focuses on him.

Haltingly, she forces out words. "Y...you. Where were...you?" Blood slides from the corner of her mouth. "You said...I would de...destroy it. But...I couldn't. I can't."

Why had he left her alone? He should have been there when she fell asleep, to stop the nightmare before it got this far. He can't afford to lose any ground on the Tesseract project.

He gently pulls her hands away from her chest. A shard of metal protrudes next to her breastbone. Loki sits back on his heels. He could break the nightmare and put an end to this misery. Or he could try to help both of them.

"I can fix this, Jane." Without waiting for an answer, Loki cups his hands over the metal and recites a simple incantation. It's up to Jane now. Does she believe that he can heal her?

Jane stares at him. He holds her gaze, some idle part of his brain cataloguing that her eyes were more whiskey than chocolate.

"Okay," she whispers.

Loki glances down to check her wound, but it's already gone, all evidence erased. He raises his eyes back to Jane's and finds her still watching him, her gaze sweeping slowly across his face.

"This is—You're—I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

He simply nods.

"Is any of this real?"

He lies, of course, and shakes his head no.

Jane pushes herself up on her elbows and smiles. "In that case, if this is just a dream, I need to tell you something."

Loki freezes, uneasy.

"You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen."