Author's Note: Thank you to all my reviewers! The amount of support I've gotten is really surprising and inspirational. I'm very sorry about the delay in updating. Thank you for your readership and your continued support. I'm surprised by the number of people from foreign conuntries interested in my dinky little stories. I'm very flattered by this and I hope this chapter is okay. It was extremely difficult to write.

Loki's mind was whirling.

He stared at Thor with eyes the color of peridot gems, his face a mixture of horror and enchantment. Behind Thor stood Zlotan, disapproving, angry, afraid of what this man barging in might do to his patient. But Loki didn't see Zlotan. He saw only Thor - whose name was supplied to him by his subconscious, who he was sure he knew. He had seen this face in his dreams. He had heard this voice in his head. Belief beyond reason, sources he did't know how to identify told him, this man is Thor and that was all it took to root him to the spot. There was something inexplicably horrifying and comforting about Thor's presence. He was familiar. He was forien. He represented fear, comfort, family, anger, a whirlwind of things. Loki couldn't think. He couldn't beathe.

There was no indication Loki understood what Thor was saying or even heard it. He stared at him, like a deer in headlights, trying to fight against the wave of unreasonable and overwhelming panic that was rising up in him. He wanted to run. Scream. Fight. But he didn't know why. He didn't even know how to think. The world was a thousand miles away and yet all too real. His mind could not process what it was seeing, nor could it block this out. He swayed where he stood. This couldn't be happening. This was just another one of those dreams he'd wake up from in a minute. His green eyes flickered with a spark of magic for a moment, as if his own energy was trying to muster up a defense for him. He didn't appear to notice.

Thor reached out and touched him on the shoulder. "My brother?"

Loki shoved him off with surprising strength and dexterity, and then he was gone. He'd meant to run down the hall, but found himself teleported outside the building. Farther, he needed to get farther away. He couldn't be here. His heartbeat was in his head and there were so many voices, so many things running together, he was suffocating, he had to get away. He flickered in and out around the grounds, unable to think or breathe, clutching at his raven hair, caught in the maelstrom of his own mind. He neither heard the footsteps approaching him nor saw the man approach.

"Loki!"

There were hands on his shoulders, but they weren't Thor's. They weren't big and rough. These were long fingered, thin, pale where Thor's was tanned. Loki shut his eyes and inhaled. Cigarettes, oranges, suede. The same voice that could unleash Hell upon him told him this man you can trust and so he clutched him in a death grip. Then the next thing he knew they were somewhere else entirely, some place quiet and surrounded by trees, where no one could find them.

But the real world faded away all too soon, replaced by more images and sounds. Faces, whispers, words, anger, gold, rainbows, metal, armor, clanging, heavy fotsteps, thunder, the crunch of ice, where was he? Someone was shaking him but they were far away, through a deep fog. He swayed and collapsed without even being aware of it. Thor. Thor. Brother. Metal armor, an overturned table, yelling, yelling, familiar, he knew him. How he did was lost to him. Everything was lost to him as he drowned in his own mind, crushed under the magnitude of a thousand different thoughts at once.

He babbled. In Norse, in English, about the way he kept seeing the phantom image of people and the voices shouting lines without context in his head. He shook. His open eyes saw nothing. He kicked and thrashed, threw the man off him again and again until finally he regained his senses... for very certain definitions of sense. He could see the world. He could stand. He could even walk. What he couldn't do was think, because it would unleash more tidal waves. All he wanted to do was collapse. Loki didn't want to even be awake. He wanted everything to stop.

His magic flared up one last time, a burst of ice that left the ground coated in front. And then he stopped talking. He stopped moving. He just existed, in a state beyond incoherency. He didn't even blink. Something inside him had changed, and not for the better.

Zlotan was left with the task of, having been teleported off the hospital grounds, guiding Loki back to the closest thing he had to home.

Zlotan was not afraid of Thor.

Gaberiel Nikolaj Zlotan, age forty five, an untrained, unarmed mortal man, was currently scowling up at the god of thunder with barely contained fury. He had been in enough crisis situations that he'd built up an immunity to intimidation. In his life time he'd swapped continents, been shot in the leg, and dealt with a homicidal patient who'd gotten ahold of a knife. Thor was nothing. Zlotan crossed his arms and drew himself up to full height - a less than impressive five foot five - and glared at him like he was an unruly child. Many patient's families had recieved that look, a combination of disappointment, protective anger and disdain. His cold gray eyes were alight with anger. Thor was surprised by the tenacity of this doctor, but then Zlotan opened his mouth and cemented himself as a very brave (or possibly stupid and reckless) human being.

"You are an idiot. A completely reckless, immature, impatient idiot. Did you ever consider what this would do to him? Did you think about maybe asking the person who's been with him every day since this happened what would be best? Ever stop to think maybe the doctors who have spent their lives working in this field might know better than someone from a world where psychology is unknown? Did you think at all today?"

Thor had the decency to look thoroughly ashamed of himself. The redheaded doctor had piercing eyes when he was angry and his body language made it clear he was not in the mood for excuses. "I meant no harm-"

Zlotan's accent grew more pronounced as he continued to rant right over Thor's attempted apology. "Well, that didn't keep you from doing it. Outstanding. I have half a mind to have him transferred out and not tell you where he's going." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, shaking his head slightly. "The only reason I'm not doing that as we speak is because it would be detrimental to his mental health. My patients are worth more than their weight in gold to me. If you ever want to talk to Loki again, you will go through me, because my purpose in life is protecting and healing these people. You will do things the right way or you won't do it at all. Understood?"

"Yes, good doctor. I... I have clearly erred my brother, in more than one way. How is he?"

He inhaled slowly to calm down. He means well. Reel it in. In a more or less neutral tone, he said, "Drugged up to Hell and back. Apparently he managed to squirrel awake some Xanax for just such an occassion. Where he hid it, I'm not sure, but the first thing he did when I got him off me was go knock himself unconscious." He ran a hand through his silver streaked hair and sighed. "Now, I'm going to try to put my anger aside for a moment to explain something to you as best I can: your brother is not okay. His condition has improved since he arrived, but his moods are all over the place, his memories are gone, his powers are dormant and when they do manifest they're unstable - in essence, my only good news for you is that he's alive. He's not in the state of mind right now where you can just stroll up to him and act like nothing's happened."

The massive man frowned. "What has caused this madness in him?"

"My guess is that you'd know more about that than I would. If we're going to help him, I need to know everything. Your childhoods, your family, the last events before we found him here on Earth. I need complete honesty or - and I cannot stress this enough - I can't ever hope to turn his life around."

"...I would not know where to begin. We are immortals and far more ancient than can be easily conveyed." Thor met the doctor's eyes. "But ask and I will say it."

"Then come to my office. I have a few calls to make, one of those being to SHIELD so they can help me with the magical aspect of this, and then you and I are going to have a talk. But you can start by telling me how you knew he was here when we couldn't find you to tell you before."

"Heimdall found him."

Barley resisting the urge to facepalm, Zlotan inhaled and exhaled slowly. "Oh, I can tell this is going to be a fun conversation already."

Having Loki materialize into his living room that night wasn't scary so much as it was startling. Zlotan nearly dropped his cup, hot cocoa sloshing out onto the carpet. Loki frowned.

"Sorry. The nurses and I were having disagreements." Loki sank into Zlotan's armchair gratefully, ignoring the look his psychiatrist was giving him. "I don't even know how I'm doing this. I don't know where you live. Or didn't, rather." He looked around, trying not to show his instability, his growing fear of his own abilities. "I just wanted to get away and then..." he raised his hands up in a gesture of helpless cluelessness. "Not that the nurses will believe me."

"We'll sort that out later, when they ask. SHIELD will probably be able to back you up on this. But I'm more concerned about your mental state than your magical one. How're you holding up?" Zlotan asked gently, setting the cocoa down on the table. "Can I get you anything?"

"I'll live, I suppose," Loki said, burrowing his head in his hands. "I need a favor, Zlotan... Gaberiel."

"That's what I'm here for. Shoot."

"SHIELD wants to assign me a new psychiatrist. New doctors. New everything. They want control of me." The green eyed god frowned. "I know I need to be kept where my powers can't cause casualties, but I can't accept strangers digging into my head."

"I don't have a whole lot of authority to decide whether or not I can stay your psychiatrist. But I'll try my best to convince them that a switch is a bad idea." He chose his next words carefully. "However, if a switch would help you more than I could... I wouldn't be against it. I want you to get well again."

There was no humor or light in Loki's eyes as he replied, "I was never well, doctor. And I doubt I ever will be."

And with that parting statement, he vanished.