Note from Hunny:

Sometimes it takes a kindred soul to help you make sense of the pain you feel. it's hard to let people in and make yourself vulnerable time and time again after you've been hurt so many times. To me, this story is more than just a LOKANE fan fiction but a story about healing, forgiveness, and growth. To me, Jane's confrontations with enemies can be a number of metaphors for emotional or physical trauma. Sometimes we are consumed by rage because it's the only catharsis we find to sooth the pain. But we forget that we might need the cold too. Some fires we need let starve, because it we feed it: it will only consume us.

Love you all.


Present

When evening comes, Jane does something she hasn't done in a very long time. She looks at the stars.

Jane pulls on her coat, the grandfather clock in the living room groaning the time. She stalks through snow to her back porch and curls up on one of the fold out chairs. It makes her remember the times back in Antiguo, New Mexico. When Darcy, Erik, and jane were all together and life was simple. And…when Jane and Thor looked at the stars together and slept in each other's arms. The thought of it makes her ache, but she's certain it's only the Aether. Ever since her literal blow up at Loki, she had become more aware of its conscious presence inside her. She can feel it moving, like a cancer: metastasizing over her organs, into her bones, into her bloodstream, assimilating into her very being and scratching at the walls of her mind.

Jane breathes evenly despite the writhing of the Aether inside her. She watches the warm puffs of fog come from her lips and disappear into the night air, her eyes searching the sky.

The stars gleam like hungry eyes in the dark and Jane can't help but feel a twinge of long-dormant curiosity. The stars used to feel so much closer to her, as if she could reach up and pluck them out of the sky. That was when Thor had been in love with her, and had nurtured her curiosity for the stars. Now, they never felt farther away from her. Jane thinks absently that maybe the past few years were all just a dream, just a brief comerical break of happiness, in her otherwise shitty, and uneventful life. Despite the brief happiness she found, Jane wishes, more than anything, that Thor had never come. That she could have lived out the rest of her shitty, uneventful life in peace. At least she'd still have the people she loved.

Jane's thoughts snap at the sound of a smooth voice.

"He's not coming." Loki sits across from Jane in the other fold out chair, his elbows resting on his knees as he cranes his head up to the stars. He looks oddly, domestic, wearing the loose flannel, jeans, and tan boots.

"I wasn't-" Jane starts. I wasn't thinking about him. But the excuse dies in her throat, admitting to herself that she was doing just that. Jane shifts, glaring at Loki while he looks up. His expression is, as always, unreadable to Jane. She notices that his breath doesn't come in puffs like hers. Jotun, she thinks. Frost giant. Monster.

She had nearly forgotten what he was, the way he appeared so entirely human wearing regular clothes and not his Asgardian robes.

"Asgard is in turmoil," Loki's eyes drift back down to Jane's, "Thor is occupied with his duties as ruler of the realm."

"Ruler?" last time Jane checked, it was Odin who ruled Asgard. Not Thor.

"In short?" Loki sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Odin went mad. He was twisted by dark magic and used as a puppet. Unfit to rule." Loki rubs his hands together as if he were cold but Jane knows it's only a gesture to make him appear like less of a freak of nature. Perhaps that is all Loki is up to: gesture. To ONLY appear like he wants to help Jane, help Thor, and the rest of the galaxy.

"I get it. We're not very high on his to do list," Jane says, grinding her teeth together. As if she ever was. "How long until it's safe?"

"However long it takes to secure the throne once more," Loki says. Jane's face twists in confusion.

"You mean Thor's not really ruling yet?"

"Jane, you have to understand: Before I was sent here, Asgard found itself entwined in civil war. Aesir against Aesir vying for control. Thor's position as ruler is not a guarantee. He rules only a small faction of loyalists," Loki explains.

"Why didn't you tell me this before."

"I'm telling you now," Loki offers. Jane growls, the plot of this ever-escalating shit storm thickening. First, it's Loki on her doorstep. Then, it's supernatural pyrokinetic powers. Then, Asgard's civil war. What could possibly be next?

"I'm going inside. You've thoroughly ruined the moment," Jane grumbles. When she reaches the door, she takes one last look at the night sky, before a terrible wretching pain clamps inside her abdomen.

"Fuck!" she hisses, doubling over like she just got punched in the gut.

"Jane?" Loki rushes to her side, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't shit a brick, it's just cramps." Jane grunts between breaths.

"Cramps." Loki repeats, his voice full of stark disbelief. He opens the door for her and follows as she hobbles to the couch.

"I doubt I need to explain the complexities of the female body to you." Jane tears off her coat, a sudden flash of heat overcoming her body.

"That'd be correct."

"Ew." Jane huffs, reclining shakily on the couch and kicking off her boots. "What the fuck." Jane grits her teeth together, knowing full and well that this wasn't a normal cramp. Loki stands with his arms crossed, rolling his eyes.

"You and I both know the Aether is growing stronger by the day."

"Well there's nothing I can do about that presently, can I?" Jane's voice rises before another cramp seizes her body. This time, she can't even choke out a cry, instead her mouth hangs open in pain.

Loki crouches at her side and puts a hand on her shoulder. Jane shoves him away.

"Don't." Her eyes are dark and primal.

"Let me," Loki presses a cool hand to Jane's forehead despite her protest and she sucks in a breath. Not in pain, but in relief. Jane didn't realize that she had been craving the cold, something to keep the fire inside her at bay.

"Better?" Loki asks, and Jane nods weakly. She presses her eyes shut, soaking in the relief of Loki's icy touch against her skin. She senses Loki move, feels pressure at her abdomen. Jane's eyes fly open and she catches Loki's wrist at the hem of her sweater. She knows he remembers her threat to never touch her again, at least not there.

"Jane, let me help you." Loki's voice is even and as soothing as his touch. She holds his gaze for a long moment, not knowing whether to trust someone like him, a monster. She keeps waiting for the trick, for the big reveal and the more time that passes with no Jack popping out of the box: she's afraid the consequences of Loki's reveal will only grow worse.

But then there's the small voice inside her, that same innocent feeling she felt when Loki held her hands. That quiet, untarnished voice. What if he's not lying? What if this is real?

Jane's grip doesn't yield, but only loosens enough to give Loki permission. He grazes the hem of her sweater again, Jane's fingers still clenched around his wrist. Her skin prickles with goosebumps when his palm meets the flesh of her stomach, just above her scar. She lets out a long-held breath, her muscles finally relaxing, that tight-rope feeling in her stomach abating.

"How did you do that?" Jane huffs.

"Magic." Loki's eyes focus on her abdomen. He rests both hands over her scar, a stern look on his face. "If only you'd let me help you, there might be a way…"

Jane props herself up on her elbows as Loki's keeps a healing hand on her stomach.

"Give me one reason to trust you," Jane says, "How do I know you're not just trying to control me, control the Aether? Better yet: why not just off myself and call it a day?"

"Suicide isn't the answer, Jane." Loki's eyes flash something dark, his usually unreadable expression softening to emotion. His brow furrows and there is something very sad about him that Jane can't put her finger on. "Besides," Loki continues, tearing his eyes away, "The Aether would only heal the host, you, and take control of your body fully."

Jane shakes her head. "You can't give me one, cane you?" Jane feels his fingers move against her skin and it sends a shock of…fear…through Jane. Not fear because she is afraid of Loki and what he might do, not really. She'd faced death before and knows she could do it again with an eat-shit grin on her face.

No, this was a fear of herself. Because Jane likes it. Likes the way his hands feel against her skin.

A blush rises on her face but Loki seems thankfully oblivious to it.

"A reason? To trust me or to live, Jane?" Sharpness returns to Loki's voice, and an iciness to his emerald eyes. "Think of it this way: say you 'off' yourself. The Aether takes control of your body without a mind to stand in its way. Then it will do what fire does best across the entirety of the realm until it reaches Asgard. Do you want that? I can teach you how to control it."

Jane knows he's right. She knows suicide would be the easy way to escape the Aether's torture but what then? Would Erik and Darcy be proud? Now that Jane thinks of it, killing herself would make their sacrifices meaningless. In fact, the Aether taking control would make everything meaningless by destroying the universe completely. Jane slumps back into the couch, her fingers pressing against her eyelids.

"How is trusting you going to make this any easier?" she groans from under her hands.

"I won't play coy, Jane, I need to see inside your mind." Loki says with a tone of finality. Jane peaks out from underneath her fingers to look at his face.

"You're serious?"

Loki nods.

Jane laughs.

"You think I'm just going to open the door to my sanity and let YOU walk in? You made Erik go insane! You're a monster!" Jane shouts. Loki pulls his hands away and steps back from Jane, which given her tendency to literally explode, was probably the safest idea. But Jane inwardly laments the absence of his hand against her skin and that same fear crawls inside her. Loki raises his hands, like a surrender, a passive look on his chiseled face.

"I'm the only monster in the universe that knows how to help you Jane. I understand."

"Understand what, exactly?" Jane crosses her arms.

"Pain." Loki answers and that sad look crosses Loki's face again. Jane thinks about the scars over Loki's spine, on his wrists, and those odd little ones on his lips. She softens. If any of this has been a lie, she knows that at the very least, that is true. Loki does understand pain, that was irrefutable.

"You need to let me in or the Aether is going to destroy your mind. It's tearing apart your whole sense of reality. Don't you think it would be best to have an outsider take a look?"

"Don't condescend to me, Loki. Even if I wanted to, I don't know how to trust you."

"It may be hard to believe, but I truly want to help you." Loki's eyes linger on her. Jane regards herself, chewing the inside of her lip. Did she actually trust Loki? Could she?

"Well," Jane takes a fistful of her hair with a heavy sigh, "Say you don't want to help. But if the universe is fucked either way, I guess I have no choice."

"That's one way of looking at it." Loki agrees, approaching her again like a cornered animal.

"What do I need to do?" Jane asks as he comes to stand at her side. To Jane's surprise he puts two fingers to her forehead, a flash of confusion crossing her face. She quickly realizes what he's about to do, but before she can voice her protest Loki says the incantation.

"Sleep." He says in that lulling voice, and the world goes black.


Good stuff coming up next folks, buckle up!

Also, there will be more flashbacks to come and more explanation regarding the events happening in Asgard: Amora's rise, the civil war, and how Loki escaped.

As for what is up with Heimdall: yes he'd been possessed by Amora as well.

Stay tuned...