Stolen Stars
Chapter Four
So give me something to believe
'Cause I am living just to breathe
And I need something more
To keep on breathing for
So give me something to believe
(Believe – The Bravery)
0o0o0o0o0o0
Thor studied his father warily. They had been discussing the sudden appearance of the strange blonde Midgardian late into the night, and had yet to come to an agreement on what to do with her.
"She is not malicious, she only wanted to ensure the well-being of a friend," Thor said.
"We cut ourselves off from the Time War for a reason, Thor," Odin told him. "Just because this woman claims to have ties with the Doctor does not mean we can trust her. You know what kind of beings Loki attracts."
"The Time War is over, and what the Gallifreyans unleashed was contained because of the Doctor. If she is in possession of a TARDIS, I would think she could have easily escaped if she wished to."
"That kind of power has not been seen for centuries, and we do not have the capabilities to confront it. I cannot allow it to threaten the peace of the Nine Realms."
"Rose Tyler is not a threat. She has been honest with us from the beginning. Maybe she can help with Loki."
"She tried to help him escape! There can be no concessions. Loki is still being punished under our laws—"
"How well has that done us thus far? How well has that done him?" Thor ran a hand through his hair, forcing himself to calm. "Father, we have tried everything to bring the Loki we know and love back. Do you really think we can keep him locked away forever?"
"And risk everything by trusting a woman we hardly know to talk sense into Loki? You do realize who we are talking about?"
"I just think we should consider our options more carefully. I am weary, Father, of tearing apart the Realms to find a way to restore Loki's sanity. Rose Tyler obviously has information we do not, and she is willing to share it."
Odin sighed.
"I am interested in how she is acquainted with Loki. It is possible that she may know about the Chitauri and their leader. We shall continue this conversation tomorrow, and I shall make my decision then."
"Father—"
"Get some rest, Thor."
The thunder god made a move to argue, but he obeyed his king and left.
Thor understood Odin's worry; Rose's sudden appearance, her connection with Time Lords, her interest in Loki—the timing of everything that had happened on Earth could not be a coincidence. Crossing through universes could not be possible, not without the Bifrost or the immense amount of black matter that would have to be conjured. And only the All-Father could accomplish such a feat; not even the Time Lords had the knowledge and capabilities to do so.
There is something more here.
0o0o0o0o0o0
It took her a moment to recall where she was, but Rose was so used to waking up in strange beds on foreign planets it took her longer to reach the point of anxiety that was wrapped around the reason for her being there. The room was silent, and she looked around to see if the Asgardians provided clean clothes for her. There were no new clothes lying around, but her jeans and jacket were folded neatly on a wooden chest by the door. She sniffed them; clean, fresh.
There was only one reason why they wouldn't offer her a change of clothes. Why would she need anything if she was expected to leave today?
She got dressed and quickly rinsed her face in the small marble basin. It just so happened that there was plumbing, but she was too nervous to take the time to bathe. If she was leaving, then she might as well wait for T-Too and her luxurious tubs fitted with Jacuzzi jets. Especially if today was to go as badly as she expected.
Rose slowly opened the door.
"Erm…"
"His Majesty is expecting you in the throne room."
"Oh," Rose answered. Well, that was easy enough. She allowed herself to be escorted through the twisting halls of the palace. This Odin is really all business, isn't he?
"Lady Rose Tyler," Odin said as she walked through the immense doors. Thor stood at his right hand, his bulk imposing as usual.
"Dame, actually," Rose commented. "But that title wore itself out a long time ago."
"Well, Dame Tyler. I expect you slept well?" he asked.
"Sorry, but let's not sit in niceties," she said, impatient as she stepped closer to the throne. "Your Majesty, you expect the story of how I came to know your son, am I right?"
Odin gazed down at her from his throne, one hand under his chin as he considered her.
"What I am most interested in is when you met."
"Good question," she replied. "Loki never told you himself?"
"Loki has not been cooperative to efforts to rehabilitate him," Odin said, his expression grim. Rose resisted the temptation to ask him to elaborate. She wasn't sure she wanted to know, anyway.
"I first ran into Loki while dimension jumping. Literally. I slammed into him as I was popping from one universe to the other. My best guess is that he had been fallin' through the Void and I intercepted him on my way back to Pete's World. Erm, the Earth I came from, I mean."
"How long did he stay on this Earth?"
"Six months. He got a hold of another dimension cannon and I hadn't heard from him since. I lived out my life with the Doctor in Pete's World after a universe-saving stunt—don't ask, too long of a story—and then…"
The Asgardians waited as Rose paused, unsure if she should confess. They were so certain she was completely human. They did not need to know otherwise, or it was likely that they wouldn't trust her at all.
"The Doctor, or rather his clone or whatever, passed away a few years ago," she said. Well, at least that much was true. "I kept travellin' in the TARDIS until I picked up Loki's message."
"How is it that after only a year he does not recognize you?"
"I changed a bit, lost some weight. Dyed my hair," she lied. She needed to steer this conversation away from that particular question. "Maybe he's got a few screws loose. The real point is; that is not the Loki I remember either. You have to have realized that."
"That is beside the point," Odin said. "His actions were grave, and thus punishment must be dealt in order to protect the stability and safety of others. That is the way of the Aesir."
"All I ask is that you give me a few minutes with him," Rose pleaded. "The guards can be there the whole time, I don't care. I really just want to convince him I am here as a friend. Please."
Thor looked at his father expectantly. The king kept his gaze on Rose, however. He was silent for a moment.
"I will grant you this request, on one condition."
"What?"
"That after you speak with Loki," the All-Father intoned as he stood, "you will go to your TARDIS and you will leave this Realm. And never come back."
Rose's mouth opened in shock and to protest, but Thor beat her to it.
"Father. She just arrived, she should have a chance to—"
"Silence, Thor," Odin snapped before turning to Rose once again. "You are lucky I do not contact your Realm about your attempted crime. Ten minutes, and then you leave. That is my offer."
Rose ground her teeth in frustration, but she nodded in agreement.
"Very well," the king said. "Thor and I both will accompany you to Loki's cell, so that we may ensure you keep the end of your promise. Is that understood, Rose Tyler?"
"Yes," she replied almost automatically. Rose suppressed the urge to make a face. Now she understood why people called him 'All-Father'.
The three of them headed out of the palace, where three horses were made ready for them. Rose couldn't help but oogle at the eight-legged giant stallion that Odin mounted. Thor caught her stare and whispered, "That is Sleipnir, the greatest stallion in all the Nine. He can ride even into Hel itself."
The ride to the prison dragged on longer than Rose remembered, but she guessed that it was due to her growing anxiety. How was she possibly going to convince Loki that she was still Rose? And how was she going to escape with him?
Should I even try?
But Rose shoved the thought from her mind almost as soon as it came. Attempted genocide or no, something was seriously wrong with the black-haired prince. Leaving him to rot in prison was not an option. Perhaps she could try to move the green box directly into his cell…
Before she could consider the logistics of such a fine-tuned landing procedure, they had arrived.
Her heart felt like it was permanently lodged in the middle of her throat as she followed the two gods down into the bowels of the prison.
Her eyes flickered for a moment to the nook where the TARDIS was being hidden at the end of the hallway, and then landed on the door that held Loki captive.
"I will talk with Loki before we let you inside," Odin said. "To make sure he understands who you are and that he is not to harm you."
Rose guessed that he was attempting to sound assuring, but it did nothing to calm her nerves.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Loki jerked his head up as he heard voices on the other side of the door. He had tried—without success—to exorcise the poison from his memories once more. The blonde woman (not Rose, not Rose, not Rose) kept floating to the forefront of his mind, ruining all attempts at ignoring the ever-present pain in his head.
He straightened as the door clicked open, and when he saw the All-Father enter his expression fell into a smirk filled with contempt.
"Well, well, well," he snarled. "Your majesty…what have I done to deserve the honor of your presence?"
"I am here to escort a young woman who claims to know you," the king said, his manner calm. Loki flinched when he realized who Odin was speaking of. "She has convinced me to allow a short visit."
"Well, you can tell this woman to kindly walk off the edge of the Bifrost."
"Her name is Rose Tyler, and she is affiliated with the Time Lord known as the Doctor. She insists that you met in a parallel realm after you fell from the Bifrost. Any of this sound familiar to you?"
Loki remained silent, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Underneath the quiet rage that was fueled by the poisoned fog in his mind, an icy fear was constricting his chest. Rose left. Rose hated him, the monster, the killer. Rose was dead. Rose would never come back for him.
"I do not want any motion of violence, Loki," Odin warned. "She has ten minutes, and then she is leaving Asgard for good. I will be watching."
With that, Odin slipped back out of the cell. A few whispers later, the slim blonde appeared, followed by a guard.
Loki watched her as she crossed the room, stopping a man's length away from his position on the cot.
"Hello, Loki." Her voice was soft, non-threatening. Her hands were crossed in front of the faded leather of her jacket. Loki tried to keep his attention away from that particular detail, and on the matter of the unfamiliar face in front of him.
"Who are you?" he demanded. Her lips pursed together in frustration, and she sighed.
"Your hair is longer than I remembered."
"I beg your pardon?"
"It needs a cut, to be honest with you." She let out a small laugh.
"At least you are a real blonde now," Loki shot back before he could help himself. A light leapt into the woman's face just as the pit in his stomach worsened.
"Time's a funny thing," she answered, something akin to hope in her eyes as she tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear. He looked away, unable to process the emotions crashing through his body.
"I am not here to kill you, if that's what got you so worried last time," his visitor told him, her head ducking down to find his eyes once more. Loki glowered at her, choosing anger among the panic. But no violence. If he struck her, he would not receive the answers he so desperately needed.
"How can I believe you?"
"Ask me something that only Rose Tyler would know."
Loki furrowed his brow. This one was persistent. What in the Nine Realms was she trying to do? If she really was working for the Other and the Chitauri, she would know most of who and what Rose Tyler was to him. There was hardly a nook or cranny in his head that the Other did not violate. She would be able to answer anything he could remember from those six months.
The only place the Other never personally entered and exploited was after his incarceration, when he dreamed—
Ah.
"Very well," Loki drawled, slowly standing and taking a step towards her. She didn't move. "Tell me this; when did Rose Tyler marry the Doctor?"
"How did you know I—"
"Answer the question," he hissed through gritted teeth. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him for a moment. She then reached behind her neck, and then slowly drew an unlatched necklace out from under her shirt
"Six months after the stars came back." She dropped the necklace to dangling in front of him. Loki began to feel his pulse quicken. A horribly familiar diamond ring and a wedding band hung from the delicate chain. "A heart attack took him from me."
Loki looked into her eyes, trying to keep himself from drowning in the now overwhelming fog in his mind. Every nerve was howling with rage and despair, and the person before him—RoseRoseRose—was beginning to shift in and out of his vision.
"I watched you die."
"Yeah," she said, her eyes filled with confusion. "I'm still wondering how you could possibly know all that."
"This…no. You are not real. You would never come back for me. You could not even cross the dimensions properly. You are a useless mortal, pathetic in your search for your wayward Time Lord. What—"
"No. It is me, Loki. I am here, and I am real."
She stepped towards him as he stumbled backwards. Then she grabbed his hand, tugging him back to her.
It all happened at once.
The sound of a bell, clear and pure, surged through him with a warmth and a spark that was all too familiar. He remembered it, so vividly. All those tiny moments where skin brushed skin, the electric current that shocked him with its short-lived intensity, came back to him in a rush of shared memory.
She was different, he had thought, all that time ago. This blue-and-yellow human.
The twisted thoughts, the taint in his head, disappeared in that one touch. It was like being suddenly submerged in ice water—everything stopped. The fog dissipated, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he no longer had to fight against the creeping madness in his soul.
But he also saw her. It was Rose, the Bad Wolf, the shining golden thing that rescued him from the pit. Loki trembled as the knowledge of her regeneration flooded through him. He could feel the bond stretch between them like a spider's web, the one that Rose unconsciously created with him just because she was having nightmares.
Vaguely he registered shouting, and then a ripping sensation as Rose's hand was pulled roughly from his. The loss was palpable, and despair caught his lungs in an iron grip as the poison returned.
"No," he whimpered, his head spinning. Something slammed into him and he was sprawled across the floor. Thor had him pinned to the floor.
"Dammit, leave him alone! He wasn't gonna hurt me!" he heard Rose protest. "Lemme go, you overgrown medieval thug!"
"Get her out!" Odin commanded, striding into the room.
"That will not be necessary."
The sound of swords being drawn rang in the small stonewalled cell as, with a flash and a crack, a woman appeared in the center of the room.
"You!" Rose cried out. Loki managed to push aside the nauseating mists in his head to focus on the woman draped in white robes.
"I am Seidh, of Nornheim. I am here to send a message from the Great Ones."
"Stay your weapons," Odin barked at the guards.
"Rose Tyler will stay in Asgard to tend to the poisoned prince."
"Poisoned?" Thor questioned.
"Loki Laufeyson is ill," Seidh stated, her face smooth and emotionless. "His mind is held captive by the insidious powers that corrupted him in the bowels of the Chitauri plains." She turned to look at Rose. "You know what you must do, Defender of Midgard, as you have just done so. Work until his mind is clear."
Rose's mouth opened and closed again silently before she clenched her jaw closed and nodded.
"The throne of Asgard must not interfere—"
"The Norns have not interfered in Asgardian affairs for centuries," Odin interrupted. "Why now?"
Seidh merely smiled and vanished.
"Get off of me," Loki growled into the stunned silence. Confusion and fear ran thick in his veins, and he shoved Thor's hands roughly from his arm as he scrambled upright.
"Are you alrigh'?"
"I am fine, Rose."
"You called her Rose," Thor pointed out.
"Yes, you idiot."
"You recognize her then?"
"Yes, well she did just shove her consciousness into mine," Loki snapped, irritated by the questions as much as the persistent vertigo. "Now I suggest we discuss what, by the Realms, a norn was doing in my prison cell."
"Are we to believe her? The norn?" Thor asked Odin, who was studying Loki with a strange air of shock.
"Yes…yes, we are," the All-Father murmured. He blinked, and then set his gaze onto Rose, who was still being held back by a guard. "You cleansed his mind when you touched him. How did you do that?" Rose threw her hands in the air in exasperation.
"Not a clue!" she said. "Maybe it was a fluke, I dunno."
"The Norns are never wrong," Odin said. "You must stay, Rose Tyler. For what purpose beyond helping Loki…Well. I hope there is nothing more than that. Follow me, and we will discuss your stay in Asgard."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You heard what Seidh proclaimed. You are to tend to Loki until his mind is clear of whatever poison has befallen him. I am sorry that we have not caught onto it until now."
"Listen, I'm not complaining or anything, but…" Loki realized that Rose was having a hard time tearing her attention away from him.
"I am fine, Rose," he repeated, still dizzy with violent nausea that had overcome him when the guards and Thor tore the two of them apart. He waved her to leave as he sank stiffly onto his cot, one hand rubbing his temple. "Get out of here. Discuss with the king."
"Can you let me go for a second?" Rose snapped, wrenching away from the guard. She stepped over to Loki, whose eyes widened at her proximity. "I don't know how this works, so I'm sorry if I get it wrong…"
And with that, she laid a hand softly on his. Like a sigh, or a damp cloth on a fevered brow, relief arrived. Without the shock and the spark like before, a small portion of the poison was drawn from Loki like venom from a wound.
His shoulder slumped forward, and suddenly he was very, very tired. Without ceremony, he quietly levered himself down to lie on his side. He felt Rose leave, but this time the break in contact was gradual and infinitely less painful. But he still missed it.
"What did you do?" he heard Thor ask.
"I…I'm not sure," Rose muttered as Loki slipped into peaceful unconsciousness.
0o0o0o0o0o0
The hall was still, but Seidh knew that she was being watched as she stood before the Well.
"It has been done. Rose Tyler has begun to remove the poison from Loki Laufeyson's mind."
Very well, sister. And the All-Father?
"He will agree to keep Rose in Asgard until her task is done."
Good. You may return. Watch their progress carefully, Seidh.
"Yes, of course." The young norn bowed and exited the temple.
The Great Ones appointed her to watch Rose Tyler long ago, even before she fell into the parallel realm. The golden girl's fate was obscured to those in her rank, as well as the ice prince—facts which piqued her curiosity. But it was not her place to question the Fates. Her job was simply to observe and report.
But the power, the surge of light and electricity that Rose Tyler could send as the Bad Wolf; it was unprecedented.
Seidh was an observer of prophesy, but every once in a while she would get the sense that something was to come.
And as she watched the black-haired Loki sleep and the new Rose Tyler argue over her charge to the great All-Father, she could not help but feel that something very important was about to come.