After a wild afternoon by the side of the road, the siblings trucked down the highway. It was like all the static had gone out of the air after a storm.

Loki petted Fenris' head, absently smoothing the fur in one direction. Thor mostly stared out the window and turned the plastic hammer over and over in his hand, checked the map every once in a while even though the freeway had another hundred miles before they turned off.

They stopped at a little mom-and-pop diner for a late meal. They'd lost a lot of time messing around in the tall grass—there wasn't a chance they'd make it to Frigga's house even if they drove through the night, and Hela was getting sick of driving, sick the white dashes reflected in her sunglasses. She wanted to sleep in a real bed. Wash her clothes. She didn't even want to look at her hair at this point.

Across the table, Thor down his pot roast with a little less fervor than usual, and Loki poked at his spaghetti. He'd been unusually quiet the whole evening and avoided looking at Hela. He hadn't called his mom since it happened. Probably didn't want her to find out.

Hela stabbed her pot pie, mashing the pale crust into a soup of suspicious vegetables. She'd handled the whole thing like an idiot, but out of all her own teen delinquencies, stealing had never been one. Spray-painted walls, whiskey, driving too fast and getting home too late. All the screaming matches with the old man blurred in her head—they all ended with a banging screen door.

Hela sighed and took a bite of her pot pie. Too salty.

When they got out of the restaurant, the sun hid mostly behind the horizon, and dark purple and blue stretched over their heading.

"Are we almost there?"

Hela glanced at her phone and reloaded the map a couple times like that would shorten the distance to Frigga's house. It didn't. "We'll get as far as we can."

"Okay. Do you want me to text Mom and ask her to get us a hotel?"

"No, that's okay. Who knows, maybe I'll get a second wind and just drive all night."

Thor snorted. "That doesn't seem safe."

She shot him a tired glance, but it lacked the usual venom. "You weren't complaining when I picked your butt off the airport curb. Besides, I haven't had a normal sleep schedule in two weeks, I figure why start now?"

Thor repeated a vague approximation of her jab in a high-pitched voice before throwing open the side door and digging through his duffel bag.

Hela sighed and checked her phone. Still no panicked texts from Frigga, no emails from Adam or the office screaming that the sky was falling, no angry voicemails from Odin or his lawyers demanding they turn their apocalypse van around right this minute—that lured a small smile out of her. At this point, she'd rather drink kitchen grease than drive all the way back to California.

Loki snapped on Fenris' leash and ran him to the grass for a quick walk—Hela pursed her lips at that. Her dog followed after the little beanpole like a baby duck, and Loki leaned on the mutt and messed with him like they'd been playing since the cradle. Way too friendly. There were gonna be tears when she loaded Fenris back on a plane, and that was the last thing she wanted. But that would be Frigga's problem. Thank God, soon enough this would all be Friga's problem.

"Hey," Loki yelled. "Spit that out!" He dove for Fenris, but the dog jerked his head away, chomping away at who knew what. "Thor, help!"

Thor groaned and jogged across the parking lot. "Fenris, drop it."

Rubbing her forehead, Hela secured her sunglasses in her jacket breast pocket. She wasn't cut out for this parenting nonsense. The fact that she had been the adult in this wild triad for so long was hilarious, especially since everybody was—in the strictest sense possible—still alive. Emotionally traumatized for all time, probably, but alive.

At this point, she'd take a win where she got it.

So, still breathing, they all piled into the van and drove off into the dimming light. After about an hour, Loki unbuckled and popped the mattress out, throwing blankets and pillows this way and that as he bedded down for the night. He laid on his stomach, watching TV on his phone and petting Fenris' head absently.

They drove on for a couple more hours before Thor crawled into the back. Loki was out cold, facedown on his phone that shone into his hair and cast odd shadows on the ceiling. Thor pulled his brother's phone away, turned it off, and tossed it in a bag, any bag. Then he stretched out beside his brother, feet beside Loki's head and a pillow waded up in his arms. Pretty soon the snores of two boys filled the van, and Hela shook her head and adjusted the radio to quiet jazz.

She drove that way for a long time until her eyes went heavy. She glanced in the mirror and saw Loki and Thor passed out, limbs akimbo and mouths open, half curled around each other with a blanket tangled around them. In the floor, Fenris laid with his paws up in the air.

She tapped her phone, rubber banded to the dash, and it lit up with 1:37 in blocky white letters that hurt her eyes.

Ick.

Turning down the radio, she cracked the window. Cold air rushed in, smelling like a farmyard, and she grimaced and rolled it shut again. Her hair was blown in her eyes, but she was more awake for now. So she blew the hair out of her eyes and adjusted her grip on the wheel.

After another fifteen minutes, she was having a hard time keeping her head up and her eyes open, so she pulled over to the side of the road and checked Google Maps for the nearest town with a hotel.

Another forty minutes. Damn. So much for getting to Frigga's house tonight.

So she drove until she found a dirt road and turned off, following the ruts in the gravel for another mile before she reached a turn out where she pulled over and parked. After throwing on the parking brake and locking all the doors, she crawled into the back, peeled down to her jeans and cami, and laid down on the unoccupied couch. Even though she had no idea if the woman was still awake, Hela shot her stepmother a text that they were stopping for the night.

Crickets and a quiet breeze whispered outside the solid metal walls, and overhead the plexiglass sunroof showed a black sky studded with more stars than she'd seen in a long time. Hela rolled onto her side, tucked on arm under her head, and closed her eyes. They were in the middle of nowhere; it was safe enough. Fenris chuffed and stirred, but then settled back down. He'd let her know if there were any problems.

She'd almost fallen asleep when a hesitant whisper cut through the dark: "Hela?"

Loki. She kept her eyes closed and gave a questioning sigh.

The mattress creaked, probably the thin boy rolling over. Then he was silent for a long time before he took a deep breath. "What's gonna happen?"

She frowned. "Hmm?"

"When we get home."

She snorted. "We're finally gonna have a decent night's sleep."

A long silence, and she thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he spoke again, his voice trembling: "Are you gonna tell Mom? About… about how bad I've been?"

Oh. She rolled over and peered through the dark for his face. The faint moonlight barely outlined his mussed hair and shoulder as he sat up on one elbow.

She shook her head. "No."

Silence.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

More silence. Neither of them moved.

"Okay, what else is bugging you?" Hela asked.

"You… do you… do you hate me?"

Hela scoffed. "You're like nine years old." She could almost hear him frown in indignation. "You're fine, kid. I've done too much dumb shit to be mad at you over some stupid donuts."

"Yeah?"

She laid her head back down and shifted to get comfortable. "Yeah, your mom can tell you all kinds of stories when we get you home."

"What kind of stories?"

"Hmm? Oh, you'll have to ask her."

He fell silent, and Hela shut her eyes.

"Are the lawyers gonna let us stay home?"

Oh. Okay, they weren't going to sleep anytime soon. She sat up, groaning. "Do you want to stay home with your mom?"

Silence. A trembling breath.

Hela covered her face with one hand and rubbed her eyes. This was a disaster. She didn't know how to talk to kids, let alone to one going through what these two were. A divorce, shipped across the country to nowhere, trekking back across the country with an almost stranger. They'd be lucky if the boys only needed a couple months of therapy after this.

"Listen, Loki. Whatever you tell me stays in this van." She paused. "And I'll beat Thor up if I have to."

He giggled then paused. His shoulders slumped, and in the dark, he looked like a wilting cattail. "I… I wanna…"

"What do you want?"

"IwannastaywithMom."

She smiled. "Well, there you go. I'm sure your mom and Heimdall will make sure it stays that way."

"You don't hate me?"

"We literally just went over this."

"Well, do you?"

"Would I have driven you across the country if I hated your guts?"

"I think Dad hates me." His voice trembled, and the silhouette of him shivered.

Hela rubbed her temples, feeling the beings of an exhaustion headache coming on. She wanted to tell him that it wasn't true, that Odin would love him no matter what happened with the divorce or where the kind went in life, but...

Odin hated her, or he was embarrassed. Not that there was much difference. She'd stopped losing sleep over it a long time ago, but Loki has his whole life ahead of him—a life that might include his dad for a long time. Maybe it would be a kindness to lie. To speak with authority and certainty. But she didn't know, any more than she'd ever known what went on inside that old man's head, and it felt cruel to offer Loki that.

Finally, she spoke: "Why would he hate you? You're just a kid."

Loki was definitely crying now. "I told the judge I wanted to stay with Mom."

Oh.

"It's his fault!" He hurled his pillow against the front window. "He left us! And now he wants to take us away from Mom, but he doesn't love me, he just loves Thor." He hung his head and sobbed. "It's my fault."

Hela stared helplessly at him. "It's not your fault."

"Yes, it is. We got stuck in Phoenix and you had to come get us because Dad was mad at me. If I hadn't picked Mom, then maybe they would still get back together. Maybe… maybe…" He sobbed and pulled his knees up to his chest.

Hela sat all the way up and hopped from her couch to the mattress, and it sagged under her. She put an arm around his shoulders and gingerly pulled him against her side. He buried his face in her side, smearing tears on her cami and skin.

She hugged him awkwardly. "Hey. Listen to me. None of this is on you. You're just a kid. A smart kid, but it's not your job to make your parents or anybody else happy or together or whatever crap you've convinced yourself you got to do."

Shaking, Loki wrapped his arms around her and cried into her shoulder. "I wanna go home."

"I know."

He cried, and she held him, arms wrapped around his tiny, shaking frame. He was so small. She wasn't equipped for this.

She set her chin on top of his head. "And I know I talk smack about your dad. A lot. But I do think your dad really does love you, even if he's never figured out how to say it. And even though he and your mom couldn't work it out doesn't mean they're going to drop you by the side of the road."

Loki dragged a ragged breath. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Your mom loves you, and if you want to stay with her, she and Heimdall will figure out a way for that to happen."

"O… okay."

She hugged him, awkwardly, tightly. "And I guess if everything really hits the fan, you can run away and live in LA with me."

It occurred to her that she should stop offering her apartment as a safe house if she ever wanted to sleep in peace again, but—holding this dumb, crying, scared kid—she realized she didn't mind.

On the bed, Thor shifted a little, and Hela knew he was wide awake and pretending desperately not to be. Thankfully, Loki was too distracted whipping his nose on his t-shirt hem to notice.

She didn't know

"Go to sleep, okay? And tomorrow you'll be back home. And you'll see your mom, and I can finally take a decent shower..."

Loki laughed and wiped his nose on his wrist. Hela smiled and let him go, and he sat up and crawled back onto the bed where Thor pretended to sleep. He snuck back under his blanket and laid down. Yawning, Hela laid down and curled up on her side.

"Hey, Hela?"

"Hmm?"

"We'll be home tomorrow, right?"

She snorted. "We better be."

Loki sniffed, teary and laughing, then he settled back down and his breathing evened out into the slow deep breaths of sleep.

"Pssst."

Thor.

She was never going to get to sleep. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

She grabbed her jacket off the floor and lobbed it at him, not so hard it would hurt, but enough to get it over Loki's head. "Go to sleep."

He snickered. "Jerk."

"Brat." Hela laid down and settled into the lumpy couch in the middle of a stranger's corn field for a few hours of rest.