Disclaimer: Please refer to chapter 1.

I apologize for the very long hiatus. Shortly after posting the first chapter of this story, I had an epiphany of sorts, and then life and new ideas and various other distractions got in the way before I got back into fixing this. You will find some changes in the previous chapter, so I highly recommend returning to it since some of these changes impact the plot. They are mostly subtle, but certainly significant (and you'll probably want to reread it anyway, considering I've been gone for so long).

Otherwise, there is nothing else noteworthy except that I request that you keep an open mind to Caleigh's character. I know OCs can be hard to deal with, but I hope you can see her through to the end. Like I said, I have plans for her.

Enjoy!

Chapter 2

When Loki finally awoke it was to the low hum of voices and a bright room. He felt groggy and disoriented for a moment, before the events of his early morning banishment came rushing back to him and he understood quite suddenly that voices and bright lights were not what one in hiding should awaken to. Quickly sitting up left him both dizzy and in pain, and the god-turned-mortal was forced to wait until he could properly get his bearings.

When he realized the tone of the voices had not changed with his movement, Loki looked up to find that the source of the noise was not from people directly, but from the small monitor on the stand across from the couch. He had seen the device during his previous stay on Midgard, though he had not given it much thought beyond being mildly impressed that Midgardians had the technology to project images. This one showed three Midgardians at a long table, discussing something he did not care to make sense of at the moment.

Loki put his head in his hands, trying to relieve the pounding with a bit of pressure. He figured the headache stemmed from either his blood loss or the whole pursuit. In his younger days when he had participated in battles a bit over his head, he and Thor would return to Eir for something to relieve the slight pounding in their skulls (which was always accompanied by a scolding, though they never seemed to learn from it). Being in a mortal body seemed to change it from a slight pounding to a persistent throbbing, and he expected he would have to ask the woman what mortals had to rid themselves of such pain.

Speaking of the woman, she did not appear to be around. While he could hear the voices from the monitor and the noises that came from beyond the window, he could not hear anything else within the living quarters that suggested she was within the area. There was the possibility that she was asleep, since her slumber had been interrupted prematurely upon his arrival, but with the amount of light pouring in through the window, Loki doubted any healthy person could find slumber.

An object of bright yellow caught his attention when he paused in his ministrations to his skull, and he looked over in curiosity. Next to the cup of water he never had the chance to drink was a note written on yellow paper, and Loki thanked his fondness for language studies for giving him the knowledge to decipher it.

Loki,

I stepped out for work. I get out at 5, but I'm going to do a little shopping before I return. I'm sure you're hungry, so help yourself to the chicken salad in the fridge or whatever else you may find. My apologies; I don't have much, hence the shopping run.

Also, don't attempt to operate anything you don't understand. I'm sure you could figure it out, but I'd rather reduce the risk of you drawing attention to the apartment. I have neighbors who might pry out of suspicion.

Stay out of trouble and be careful of that arm of yours.

Caleigh

Caleigh was her name, he reminded himself. He vaguely recalled learning of that, though anything beyond that memory was blank at best. While he was not too concerned about remembering that which could not be recalled, he would do well to remember her name. Considering the courtesy she was showing him, the least he could do was refer to her properly.

The note confirmed he was alone, and though he thought the warning to not operate what he did not understand was an unnecessary addition, he supposed it was her way of making sure he stayed hidden. It was at least thoughtful; the note answered the question of where she had disappeared to, and informed him of food he could eat.

And quite frankly, he was starving.

While his appetite was never as big as Thor's (and would never reach the enormity that was Volstagg's), it had always been healthy. Loki could never recall feeling quite as hungry as he did now, however, and he really quite wanted to know where the fridge she wrote of was located. A Jotun could not die of hunger, but a mortal probably could, and the way his stomach felt, Loki was quite certain of that probability.

He stood carefully, making sure the danger of collapsing was minimal before attempting to walk anywhere. A little light-headedness followed, but did not persist, and Loki considered it safe to wander.

He glanced around the space, spotting the doors that led to the bedroom he had mistakenly shut himself in before (or thankfully, considering his pursuers had barged in without pause) and the terribly small bathing room. He had not yet explored the area of the apartment to his left, and the furnishings in that space appeared to be suitable for dining and food preparation.

The flooring changed beneath his shoes as he moved around a table that appeared to be attached to the wall. The counters held few items, a small mass of dishes had accumulated in the left side of the sink, and the right side of the kitchen held two large appliances, one which seemed to be running. It was a very small space, and, much like the bathing room, far more suited to a woman of her size than someone much larger. It was hardly big enough to host more than a few people, quite unlike the massive dining hall he was more familiar with.

To his mild surprise, more notes on bright yellow paper were stuck to various surfaces of the room. A drawer on his left was labeled with utensils, the cabinet above labeled cups. The appliance in the corner of the room brightly announced that it was the fridge, and Loki figured he would have time to read the rest of the notes after he filled his stomach.

Upon opening the door he found several more notes in the relatively empty chilled space. He recoiled for a moment – cold was an unpleasant reminder of his true nature – but he shook his head in the next at the stupidity of the reaction.

On a lidded container were two notes. One simply read chicken salad, while the other was a bit lengthier.

It occurred to me you probably don't have chicken salad where you're from, so I labeled it. And everything else for that matter. I don't know what you know about how kitchens work on Earth, so if I labeled something unnecessarily, do forgive my assumption.

Enjoy the food. I'll have more for you to eat later. Oh, and there's some bread on the shelf behind you that should go well with this. Feel free to eat as much as you like.

He was again struck by the kindness she was offering him, and considered the number of yellow squares dotting the space around him for a moment longer. It seemed he would return to the thought that she should not be helping him quite frequently.

Loki settled himself at the strange wall-table after finding a fork and procuring the bread from the shelf. He shortly found that lifting his left arm to rest on the surface of it was not possible, or at least painful enough to deter him from forcing it. A headache and a wounded arm he could deal with, though, and food would likely help to distract him from both. It was strange to have meat so cold, but whatever it was mixed with went well together, and it was satisfying his stomach.

He could not say the same for what images played across the device that he had awoken to. Halfway through the container, he was confronted with scenes of destruction from the city that appeared to have barely begun the process of cleaning up and rebuilding. A woman stood before the changing imagery, pointing and speaking about what played out behind her, and a headline read in large letters MANHATTAN CONTINUES CLEAN-UP across the bottom of the screen.

Frowning out of annoyance at the reminder of his defeat, he forced his attention to the bread. It was sweet, far sweeter than he expected, and served as a distraction until the taste became bitterly coated by the words that reached his ears. Frustrated with the disruptions, Loki made for the monitor to figure out how to return it to the state it had been when he had first entered the apartment, when it had been quiet and dark and not tangling that knot in his stomach. Regret, he knew, but he did not want to put a name to its birthplace.

He found buttons along the side of the device and scanned for the one he needed. Caleigh had warned against operating what he did not understand, but having each one labeled with etched writing made it easier than many of the devices he was familiar with. This even a child could figure out.

I have neighbors that might pry out of suspicion.

That thought made him pause as he wondered if the sudden absence of the noise from the monitor might alert those who lived around her. It was not all that loud, but he did not know the construct of the building and how well sound would travel through its walls. Annoying though it might be, it also helped to cover the sounds he made moving through the space…

No, he decided. He would rather risk being caught than be forced to confront his actions.

But his curiosity betrayed him just as he passed his finger over the button labeled POWER. Instead of pressing down, it halted at a light touch when his eyes were drawn back up to the screen. The smiling face of a child stared out from the monitor with eyes that seemed pointed directly at him.

"Seven-year-old Taylor Pauling succumbed to her wounds last night. Friends and family were hopeful after she had been pulled from the rubble alive Thursday evening, but the toll of her injuries was just too much," a voice relayed, echoing the sadness appropriate. Loki remained trapped in that gaze, even as the picture shifted to display a different one of her. She still looked out at him.

"She was a loving child, her father tells NBC, with dreams of working with animals. She'll be happy to be with her mother and brother, who were killed the day of the attack."

A child had died.

Two children.

Their mother, too.

Oh.

It took him a while, a long while, to form thoughts beyond the sudden understanding that passed through him. Something had righted itself inside of him, put back into place so abruptly that his awareness of the world vanished. At some point he had gone from crouching to kneeling, his hand had moved from the button to his wounded arm, and when he finally registered that her eyes were no longer staring back at him, it was too late.

His regret had been sourced.

It was understandable why he had never thought about it before. The mortals he had personally faced had been adults, armed, dangerous to him. Necessary deaths. Mostly men, too. He had not cared to think about the rest. They had no faces, no names, no importance to him. He had no reason to care.

Her gaze had penetrated that wall that had existed between himself and who he had brought war to. His battle had not simply been two-sided, not been in a field or a small settlement. It had not been like others he had participated in throughout his life, where most involved were prepared for death, trained to face it. Manhattan was not a placed filled with warriors, but a place full of weak, ignorant mortals. A different sort of weakness and ignorance than he had fitted them with before, he realized. One born of peace.

A child had died.

Many died, he corrected himself.

Many who knew nothing, who did not even know to know because why should they need that knowledge? This place, big as it was, was not crowded by warriors. It was crowded by innocents.

He did not want to put words to it, did not want to accept that Odin's disapproval was reasonable, that he was wrong to have pursued his right to rule the way he did. He did not want to accept it, but his mind would no longer allow him that luxury. It pulsed ever louder with the weight of the realization those child's eyes passed to him.

He became angry suddenly, with Odin, with Thor, with himself, all at once. Had Odin properly handled Thor's swelled pride, never planted the thought that Loki could ever be king, none of this would have happened. Had Thor thought once of others more than himself before being forced to by Odin's banishment, this would not have happened. Had he simply chosen differently…

Loki resisted the urge to punch something, aware the act would be brutishly Thor-like and perhaps would damage property not his own (if not his own skin). He took a long, slow breath, and then drove his attention at nothing beyond the button labeled POWER. With a simple push the display went dark, along with his thoughts on the subject. He would not dwell on it. He could not.

Returning to the food he had been eating made him aware that his appetite had skirted away from him, so he placed the remainder in the fridge and tied the bag of bread shut again. Faced suddenly with an absence of activity, he was not sure what to do next. He contemplated the bag in his hands before returning it to the shelf, and a sharp ache in his left arm prompted him to take a look at the wound, if only for something to do.

The small room made him feel claustrophobic the moment he walked in though, and while he could tell the bandage was in need of changing, there was something about looking at his own reflection that set him off. He could no more face himself in the literal sense than he could in the metaphorical (the former made worse through tangibility), and he would not dwell on it. Not now. He turned right back out of the room with nothing to do again, and scanned the area for something, anything to distract himself with.

Reading had always had a calming effect on him, so when he spotted the bookshelf in the corner of the room he felt an immediate change in his emotions. Books were always the best distractions, perfect escapes from his own world, and he felt like he desperately needed one. Caleigh being out left him alone with himself, and he did not want that. At least in his cell he had fellow prisoners to entertain himself with.

It was an absurdly small collection of five books, either on history or human psychology save one; the misplaced title of Myths and Legends from Around the World stood out to Loki, and he found it in his hands out of sheer curiosity. He opened it to discover it was a rather light account of small tales from all corners of Midgard, and though the pages with text were full, they were simple entries repeated thrice in different languages of the realm. There was a creation tale of a small island country, accounts of gods that controlled weather, and…

He stared for a long moment at an ugly representation of himself, comically cartoonish but in some ways accurate. The Midgardians actually had a tale about him, though the short entry went nothing beyond a general description of his deceitfulness and honey-tongue.

If they thought of him and others as merely a myth or legend, it was no wonder the realm was so young.

He flipped a few pages in either direction simply to see the images (and laugh a little to himself at inaccuracies) before replacing the book on the shelf. Had the book been denser, he might have found it interesting apart from unwanted reminders, but as it was, it wasn't enough to pull him away from his awareness of the world.

Eventually he settled for A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, as learning about places had always been interesting to him, and history was a subject typically written subjectively. Far enough removed from him to keep his mind from backtracking to undesirable subject matter, the book was also thick enough to keep his attention for quite a while. Loki settled himself back in the corner of the asymmetrical couch and opened the cover, and lost himself in recounts of wars and politics.

I decided enough was enough and stopped here just so I could get an update on this. I apologize for its shortness – I have a tendency to write lengthy chapters, and that contributes to my terrible wait times on my stories. I really need to break up chapters more so that I can be a little more regular.

I debated about Loki 'coming to his senses' so quickly in this story, and I'm not entirely sure that I like how it turned out, but I'm going to leave it and work with it until the end. Suggestions are of course welcome.

I can't promise I'll update soon as I'm student teaching this semester and won't have a lot of free time, but I will be working on this. I finally have it all figured out, after all, and finishing something for once would be fantastic.

Until next time.