She heard him before she saw him.
As she worked open the barrier, she knew what the guard would say, had he any awareness of her. She heard the men when she walked without attendant. They spun tales of things that had never happened during hers son's sojourn on Midgard. She knew they would tell her this was only a trick to make someone open the gate.
He had no reason to believe she was watching. And he would not have trusted in the guards to inform her. Nor would he have shown such vulnerability for a gamble.
She knew his fool-pride only too well.
And it had been a long while that he fled sleep.
Throwing the barrier back, catching her skirts up in her hands, she slipped unnoticed within the cell.
He was on the bed, thrashing, making some awful sound that was worse than a scream in its simple desperation.
She shut the door behind her, though she doubted he would make any move for it, even should she have left it wide. He had always ignored the obvious when he was in pain.
It was a trait she had neglected to reckon with, and one that she ought never have forgotten.
"Shh," unbidden, the soothing whispers that all mothers use on their children slipped from her tongue as she knelt by the bed. He would need that, she thought – need her – though he would no doubt dislike admitting it. "Loki," she moved her hand, softly drawing back his long hair from his face. "Loki," she whispered, "wake up."
He thrashed, turning his face away from her, and the sound he made made the blood run cold in her breast.
Since he'd returned to her, he had been harsh, biting. This was the first she had seen of the boy she prayed still lurked beneath and it made her mother's heart weep, though her voice remained strong.
She brought her power to her fingertips, tracing lightly on his shoulder, "All is well, my son," she murmured. The cell walls were glaring and white around her and it took all her will to ignore them. "Come back to me."
With a jerk, he drew tighter on the bed, beginning to wake. The sound choked off in his throat and he gasped for breath.
She stroked his shoulder, "Shh,"
Abruptly, he woke. He threw her off, lurching out of the bed and half-tripping on the blanket that tangled around his feet.
"Don't touch me," he spat.
He'd gone to the far side of the cell, as far as he could get from her reach. He was panting and his hand shook as he raised it to press the hair back from his face. His eyes were wide and still barely focused.
He was afraid.
Glancing at her, he came more in possession of himself, though that in no way reassured her. Ever since childhood he'd been loath to show fear.
He turned his eyes on the floor, his mouth pressed thin and shamed. He swallowed thickly between his gasping breaths.
She had seen him go through so much pain.
He closed his eyes and she watched him as he forced himself to breathe. She watched how, still, his hands shook, and she saw how the skin of his face and neck was beaded with sweat.
She had seen the Chitauri. She had heard all that had transpired while he was on Earth.
The confirmation of suspicions shouldn't have come as a shock, but Frigga felt her heart drop and beat cold in her stomach. Her hands twisted in her lap.
What she had considered and in part doubted she could mistrust no longer.
Tears pricked at the edges of her eyes, and it wasn't until she heard the broken whisper on the air that she knew she had spoken it.
"What did they do to you?"
He was looking at her with his eyes wide.
For one moment, all hung in the balance. She saw the fault lines. The broken places that made up her son. The fear and the hurt and the parts of him that wanted no more than to come home.
But in the next heartbeat it was gone, pressed back behind an unsteady breath and a ragged smile. He knew she could see through it, as he turned his head away. "Nothing I did not allow," he told her, roughly.
Her strength was returning to her and she got to her feet. "That is not as your dreams would have it."
His hands raked through his tangled hair, pushing it back. He gave an unsteady, mirthless laugh, "Are dreams truth now, then?" he asked. He turned with one of his quick, sharp movements and went around the room, careful, she noticed, to avoid her reach, "Because I, had a dream, once," he sat cross-legged on the bed, tipping his chin back to face her, "that I had a father, and a brother too, who cared for me."
"Loki," she chided.
The muscles in his jaw shifted as he closed his teeth and stared at the wall.
She gentled, lacing the words with promise she prayed would bear fruit, "do not doubt their love," she said.
He looked up at her then, and he wanted to believe her. She saw it in his eyes. His eyes that would always betray him.
Her heart rose, but by then he'd looked past her. He scanned out the confines of the cell before meeting her eyes again.
"Oh," he breathed, flashing a false smile. "I don't doubt it."
