A/N: Thanks once again to my lovely beta, dristi5683. And thanks for reviewing to Wildhorses1492, Vashka, Chiafun, ISolemnlySwearToManageMischief, miss stoneheart, and Miss-Betta. It's so much fun to read your reactions.
Day 134
Puente Antiguo, New Mexico
"Johann Schmidt is alive?"
"No—I don't know—I didn't say that, Erik. I said that maybe he wasn't killed by the Tesseract."
"Okay, so where is he? What did Steve Rogers see?"
"I think maybe he saw the Tesseract transporting Schmidt through a wormhole."
Sssssss. Click.
The background noises of SHIELD's secure phone line usually didn't register with Jane anymore. But Erik's silence made the hisses and clicks deafening.
"Erik?"
"What's your basis for this hypothesis, Jane?"
Jane pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. Erik thinks I'm compromised. He doesn't trust my professional judgment. I shouldn't have run to Erik with a half-baked idea I got from a dream...
"Jane? Are you there?"
"Yeah, I'm here." She sighed. "I'm basing it on those unique solar flares I told you about, plus Rogers' report on what he saw compared to what I witnessed when Thor traveled by Bifrost. I saw it, Erik. It could look like vaporization or whatever to someone who doesn't know what he's looking at. I'm not crazy." Jane hated that her voice rose high in defense.
"Calm down. No one said you're crazy. I'm asking you questions any scientist should ask another. Your idea sounds plausible enough to research further. It's the best hypothesis I've heard so far about the Tesseract. What do you need from me?"
Jane slid her hand to cover her eyes. Relief and embarrassment washed over her. "Sorry, Erik. I'm still...touchy. I'm going to keep researching the link between gamma radiation and wormholes in the space-time fabric. Plus, before we can do any kind of tests, we need to construct a containment unit, like the cradle Schmidt and Zola used. How much vibranium can you get your hands on?"
oooOOOooo
Jane bites the end of her pen while she stares into the curling flames of the campfire. She plays with the ends of her hair, secured in a messy bun on top of her head. Ozone layers, vibranium...where was Kai?
As if summoned, the tall man appears at her side. She glances up at him. "Hey. I, uh, didn't know if you'd come tonight or not. I've been here a while."
Kai sinks onto the second chaise longue. He rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. "I told you I wasn't leaving yet. You still need me."
Jane looks away then, back to the fire. "Yeah, well, I kind of spazzed out last night. I might have scared you away. And, anyway, you wouldn't be the first man in my life to make promises he didn't intend to keep."
A gentle touch on her chin brings her around to face him. "There are no men like me. Trust me, Jane."
She stares into those impossibly green eyes. Perhaps she's absorbed a touch too much radiation in her years pursuing scientific knowledge. Probably she spends too little time in the company of other people—real, human people. But her nightmares are gone and her synapses are firing like they haven't in months. Isabel doesn't watch every bite she takes anymore. She can hear the relief in Darcy's voice each time they speak. Erik trusts her professional opinion again. She doesn't know what Kai really is: a symptom of a brain tumor? consequences of accidentally sampling hallucinogenic mushrooms? But she's very nearly whole again, so she draws a deep breath and takes a leap of faith.
"I trust you, Kai."
Suddenly feeling shy, Jane picks up her notebook. She assumes her most business-like voice. "I spoke to Erik today about constructing a kind of shield or cradle for the Tesseract. We'll need it if we're to perform any field tests on it."
Kai's gaze is steady on her, with no hint of amusement.
"May I see the notebook?" Kai holds out his hand expectantly.
Jane hesitates for a second, then passes it to him. "Be careful with it."
"Of course," he answers, and gently lays the open book on his lap. He thumbs through several pages, skimming her scrawl. "Are these the energy readings you spoke of?"
"Um, hang on, let me look." He passes the notebook to her.
"Yeah, these are the readings Erik first sent me. I made notes of the strongest spikes." Jane returns the notebook to Kai.
She studies him while his attention is safely on her notes. The firelight plays over his face, starkly highlighting his high cheekbones and sharp jawline. Ink-black hair sweeps off his high forehead down to his shoulders. As always, he is clad in a long black leather overcoat and slim breeches, with tall boots. She thinks he wears a type of leather armor under his coat. He is dressed to intimidate, perhaps for battle. And yet the way he moves his lips as he reads is charming.
His gaze swiftly lifts to hers, catching her staring at him. Jane waits for his customary smirk, but he simply asks, "Do you have a sketch of your proposed containment vessel?"
"Ah, yes, um, that's on this page…" Jane reaches over and turns pages, trying to read her messy handwriting upside down. Unsuccessful, she cranes her neck to decipher the notes.
"Here," Kai says, and returns her the notebook.
"Thanks," she answers, then yelps when he unceremoniously lifts her around the waist and sets her down in front of himself.
"What…?" Jane manages to ask.
"An efficient solution to the problem of sharing the notebook. You're small enough that I can read over your shoulder."
The old lawn chair creaks ominously under their combined weight.
"That can't be comfortable for you," protests Jane. "You're squashed into the metal frame."
Kai shrugs. "It's your dream."
The rooftop scene fades and they are surrounded by rocky, rolling terrain and the constant murmur of the ocean. The lawn chair is gone; instead they recline on an oversized emerald velvet chaise longue. Stars sparkle overhead in rich profusion, giving enough collective light to read by.
"Well done, Jane." He stretches one leg along the chaise longue, leaving the other on the ground, then reaches around and plucks the notebook out of her hands.
Jane is cradled against his chest. His arms gently bracket her sides and his breath teases the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. She closes her eyes, absorbing the sensation, then sighs. She can't give in so easily.
"I'm not sure how professional this is. I have work to do."
Kai shifts the notebook to hold it in one hand, and lifts the other to his lips. "Shhhh. We are working, love. Let me read these notes."
The absurdity of the situation strikes Jane funny. She giggles, and Kai again shushes her. That sparks a new wave of hilarity, and she turns to stifle the sound against his chest.
Kai's hand rests heavily on her back. "Be still, Jane."
After the giggling fit passes, Jane's attention is snared by his breastplate. She's been close to him before, but has never had a chance to examine the intricate design of his armor.
At this proximity, she discovers that the piece isn't solid, but made of thin straps of leather, woven in an unfamiliar manner. Jane pushes on the breastplate. It's resilient, not hard like metal armor would be. The individual straps feel like fine deerskin. Using both hands, she tries to pull the weave apart. It shifts, the straps sliding over each other to accommodate the tension, but no gaps appear. How? her mind demands. She slips a couple of fingers under the breastplate, investigating the reverse of the weave. An ultra-soft undergarment brushes the back of her fingers. Was that silk?
Does the breastplate give enough to be able to be pulled off over the head, or are there buckles somewhere? Hmmm. Perhaps in the back. Jane slides one hand under the heavy overcoat and follows the armor around the curve of the ribs to the back. There. Buckles. Too bad she can't see those. She contents herself with investigating the undershirt. Again she delves under the bottom edge of the armor and grasps the undershirt. She tugs the garment free from the breeches and rubs it between her fingers. It felt like silk, but it had stretch and give to it that silk didn't naturally have. How far did—
"Jane," Kai croaks.
She startles, becoming aware of her surroundings again. His head rests on the back of the longue, eyes closed. The notebook lies forgotten.
Jane sits up, alarmed. "Kai? Are you all right?"
He slowly opens his eyes and she inhales sharply. It's happening again. His eyes have changed. It was subtle; she wouldn't be able to see it if she weren't so close to him.
Fascinated, already forgetting her concern, Jane leans closer. "I see the stars in your eyes. A nebula, actually."
Kai blinks. "What?"
"Your eyes. Sometimes they get all marbled and swirly. There's lighter and darker green in them."
"You can see that?" He's surprised. And, based on the way he looks away, he's a bit embarrassed, too.
Jane smiles, pleased to have knocked him off balance. "Yes, I can. And it's gorgeous."
Kai's gaze snaps to her, and she actually witnesses the green agitating in his irises. His arm snakes around her waist and holds her in place facing him. "I think you're gorgeous."
Her brain feels swirly, like his eyes, then the thought ozone layer drifts through her mind. They have work to do.
"We need to talk about the Tesseract," Jane reminds him. And herself.
"Talk," he breathes, and nuzzles into the hollow behind her ear. "I'm listening."
"Okay, um, so Erik is willing to explore the...uh, idea that the Tesseract can transport people through space. I asked him…" Her voice trails off into a sigh as Kai nudges her head to the side so he can brush his lips along her jawline.
"You asked him…" Kai prompts, and lightly presses a kiss beside her mouth.
"I, uh, I asked Erik if he could...get…"
Now a kiss on the other side of her mouth. Her eyes flutter shut. He returns his attention to the sensitive underside of her jaw, suckling and nipping gently.
"If he could get…?"
"What?" Jane murmurs.
"How important is this Tesseract?" Kai whispers against her arched neck.
"Hmmm?" Why was he still talking?
"The Tesseract. Must we really concern ourselves with it?" Teeth, tongue, heat at the junction of her neck and shoulder.
"...yes…"
"Well, then…" Kai straightens and continues in a normal voice, "Tell me what you learned today, woman."
Jane blinks slowly, then scowls at him. He winks at her. She settles back into the vee of his body and picks up the notebook. It takes a moment for her mind to reassemble itself.
"Um...so, gamma radiation destroys ozone. And we know that the Tesseract occasionally emits gamma rays. Today I gathered all the data I could find about the status of the ozone layer over areas where the Tesseract has been."
Jane flips to the back of the notebook and points to a rough sketch of the world. "Norway, two places in the Alps, and the North Atlantic Sea. The locations of the Tesseract since World War Two have been top-secret, so I can't use that information."
Kai covers Jane's hands with his own and brings the notebook up to see it better.
Jane continues, "So look—there is some thinning of the ozone layer over Tønsberg, Norway. That's where Schmidt found the Tesseract in 1942. We don't know for sure how long it had been there. Then here and here"—she slips her right hand out and indicates two asterisks in the area of Germany and Switzerland—"the ozone layer is just fine. But there's a spot in the North Atlantic that is dangerously thin. Evidence points to this being where Schmidt disappeared."
Kai hums. "Is this where the Tesseract was recovered?"
"No," Jane replies, "but Schmidt and the Tesseract were on a jet plane at the time. That accounts for the disparity in locations. Here's the problem I'm working through right now: If I'm correct about the ozone layer being affected by the Tesseract, why are the readings so different?"
"Perhaps this layer of ozone was already thin in Norway?" He idly strokes her left hand with his thumb.
"I've already taken into account the average ozone reading in these areas. Over Tønsberg it's ten percent lower than in the surrounding area. Over the ocean we're talking a whopping sixty percent difference. And that's sixty-five years after Schmidt vanished. Why were the locations in the Alps not affected?"
"Are you sure that the ozone was affected by the Tesseract and not something else?"
Jane sighs. "No, I'm not sure. It's just a hypothesis. Maybe it doesn't mean anything."
Kai lowers the notebook, his hand still covering hers. They both fall silent. Jane rests her head on his chest and drinks in the stars.
A long moment later, Kai clears his throat. "Can you determine when the ozone layer was compromised in these locations?"
Jane shakes her head.
He hums again. "What if the action of the Tesseract does erode ozone, but only when it opens a wormhole?"
She stills and considers his words. "That might work." That was it. That was the puzzle piece she needed. Jane swiftly turns and kisses Kai on the mouth. "Thank you!"
oooOOOooo
Day 135
Puente Antiguo, New Mexico
Early morning sunlight stretched its pale fingers across the concrete floor of the converted service station. The hisses and gurgles of the coffeemaker—the third pot in a row—offered a syncopated counterpoint to the steady rush of the shower.
The couch on which Jane usually slept sat in front of her work table. Books and papers, pens and markers lay scattered over the cushions. Empty mugs littered the floor around the couch. Small squares of yellow paper dotted most available surfaces: the computers, Jane's notebook, even the floor. A very large writing tablet on wheels stood next to the work station. In the middle of this white-colored board were circled the terms "Gamma Radiation," "Wormhole," and "Ozone." Scribbled notes, diagrams, and symbols branched off these central words and covered a good portion of the board.
As if on cue, the shower spray stopped at the precise moment the coffeemaker gave its last burst of steam. The shower door squeaked. A moment later, the scent of warm vanilla and the sound of tuneless humming filtered under the door of the bathing room.
Loki sat against the wall of the lab, cloaked as always and safely out of Jane's way. Sleep would be prudent; entering Jane's dreams took a considerable amount of energy. His body begged for rest. But he didn't want to miss a moment of this.
After Jane had kissed him (he was still trying to wrap his mind around that), she had enthusiastically announced that she was going to wake up and get right to work. And work she had. Jane's first order of business had been to start the coffeemaker. She'd pulled a shapeless gray garment—"Culver U"—over her camisole, then wheeled the writing board to her work station. Next, she had apparently transcribed the entire contents of her mind onto the white surface. He was impressed that she could read the furiously scribbled notes.
After pouring herself a cup of coffee, Jane had stood in front of the board, still except for her eyes flicking rapidly. Without warning, she'd launched into action, dragging the couch to face the board. She'd opened drawers, rummaged through bookshelves, and dumped books and charts and files on the couch.
The rest of the night was a blur of Jane talking to herself, writing, erasing, rewriting, consulting references, scowling, searching on her computer, coffee and mugs (and more coffee and more mugs; Jane always absent-mindedly filled a clean mug each time), and pacing. Loki had stayed, intrigued and—at first—a bit amused by her transformation into a dynamo.
At the beginning of the night, Loki had smiled indulgently at the first iteration of Jane's working hypothesis. She had a theoretical grasp of trans-space travel and had watched the Bifrost operate one time, but that was no match for Loki's centuries of experience in starwalking.
Partway through the second pot of coffee, Jane had halted her pacing and growled in frustration. "Kai! Why aren't you real, you big jerk?" she had asked the empty room. "I need your help. What am I missing here?"
Loki had studied the writing board, looking for a dropped connection or a mistaken calculation. He had comprehended nearly nothing of what was written. His pride insisted that he likely already practiced whatever it was she was investigating. Jane was simply using unfamiliar Midgardian terms to describe her ideas. In truth, Loki knew he couldn't help Jane, not without her first helping him understand the terms and notations scrawled every which way. For now, he could only watch and try to learn from her intellectual leaps and deductions.
Something had changed in Jane—something had shaken loose, or, more probably, had been fixed.
The humming ceased abruptly and the door to the bathing room flew open. Jane stood at the threshold, clad in that dressing gown, towelling her hair. Her eyes fixed with laser focus on the white tablet, she strode across the room, dropped her towel on the floor, and picked up a writing instrument. Without hesitation, she wrote "BLACK HOLES!" across the entire board.
Jane stepped back and looked at her work intently. Her damp hair trailed halfway down her back, leaving darker green streaks on the gown. Finally she nodded. A wide smile blossomed. She grabbed her phone off the work table and sent a message.
That done, her shoulders drooped and she yawned. Jane headed to the kitchen and selected a clean mug, but then paused. She switched the machine off. Crossing to the couch, Jane pushed the debris of her night's work to one end and tugged her blanket free.
"I've got so much to tell you, Kai."
oooOOOooo
Jane had hit a mental traffic jam around 5 a.m. Nothing was connecting, nothing made sense. So she had hit the shower, where she had often done some of her best thinking. The mild sensory deprivation and water massage seemed to stimulate genius. As she was towelling off, the loose threads tied themselves together in a beautiful bow.
Black holes.
It fit. She had texted Erik immediately. And she couldn't wait to tell Kai.
Jane waits in her lab. There's no need to escape to some exotic location; everything is right here.
"Black holes?" The couch dips slightly as he sits beside her. "You seem pleased."
She shrugs. "Eh. No big deal. I've figured out how the Tesseract can make people travel through space-time."
Silence. Then Jane jumps to her feet. "It's a huge deal!"
Kai chuckles and inclines his head. "Do tell, Dr. Foster."
She flips her writing tablet over to reveal a blank surface. "Okay, so when a rapidly-rotating, high-mass star collapses, a giant electromagnetic explosion follows, with gamma radiation leading the way. A neutron star or even a black hole can be created from the matter of the collapsed star. These have unimaginably strong gravitational fields." Jane swiftly sketches as she talks.
"So what, right? Well, I don't know where the Tesseract gets its power, but it mimics the collapse of a star. On a much smaller scale. I mean, it's still big, but not like a whole star dying. Anyway. We've got the burst of gamma rays—the depletion of the ozone is added proof of that—and we've got a gravitational field capable of ripping a hole in the space-time fabric and pulling someone to a new location." Jane jabs the board with her marker for emphasis.
Kai considers her explanation, then asks, "Where do the solar flares fit?"
"Easy. The release of gamma rays stimulates the flares, like overcharging the atmosphere will cause lightning strikes."
Her enthusiasm is infectious and Kai smiles. "Congratulations, Jane. Where do you envision taking this next?"
Jane sits next to him again. "From Erik's point of view, catapulting people into outer space all willy-nilly isn't super-practical. We really need to be able to capture and use the energy produced by the Tesseract. And all I've figured out is what's happening. I don't know yet how to make the Tesseract activate when we want it to. We need to run tests for that."
"And from Jane's point of view?" asks Kai.
She grins. "I'm one step closer to visiting the stars and seeing Thor again. If he doesn't come back to me, I'll just go to him."
oooOOOooo
Ice cliffs gouged the valley below. Frozen spires clawed at the dead black sky above. A merciless wind ripped across the barren rock face. It was ugly and cruel and matched his mood.
He should have killed Jane when he first arrived.
He should have taken her life when she was but a means to exact revenge on Thor. He surely could have found another way to understand the Tesseract.
But he had let her live, and had discovered her whiskey eyes and satin skin, her endless curiosity and her stunning intellect. He had found that she fit perfectly tucked against his heart, that she humbly asked to learn but then taught so much.
He had let Jane live, but she didn't even know he existed. Or rather, she didn't know that Kai existed—her view of Loki was a topic best left unexplored. She had pledged to trust him, but she longed for Thor.
He was an even bigger fool than his not-brother.
He had let her live. Now he didn't want to live without her.
But she was killing him.
A/N: Thanks to Wikipedia for information on gamma-ray bursts and black holes.
