Lost Before The Dawn
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Playlist: 'Goodbyes' from 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1' and 'Gwen and Arthur' from 'Merlin: Series Two'
'Could we see when and where we are to meet again, we would be more tender when we bid our friends goodbye.'
- Ovid
Jane felt her skin prickling with unease the entire drive to Colorado. She was jumpy and tense, constantly glancing at her rear-view and wing mirrors, to check they were not being pursued. Almost every car was glared at, but especially the shiny, sleek black ones that looked like they could be SHIELD cars, then she reminded herself they wouldn't be stupid enough to come after them in something so conspicuous.
Which just made her twice as jumpy as before. By the time they made Denver University, she was as jumpy as a Jack-in-the-Box. Loki, wisely, said little to her, but she sensed his amused glances every so often.
A part of Jane didn't want to arrive. Didn't want to arrive because that meant she would have to tell him, just a little, of what she was planning or at least that she was going away and not coming back any time soon. What was she going to tell him?
Erik had been offered a teaching post at Denver just after the Puente Antiguo incident, before Jane got the call from SHIELD. She had encouraged him to take it, especially after she agreed to work for SHIELD. After all the trouble of the last few weeks, Jane was doubly glad Erik was safely out of the way of all the danger and aliens. He'd had enough of that to last him a lifetime. She'd missed him, sometimes, during late nights spent doing little more than staring at the Tesseract in its cradle and thinking. Erik had always been there with a word of encouragement, even when her theories defied accepted conventions and academic limits. She didn't know what to say to him, she just knew she had to say goodbye. She owed him that.
A warm hand suddenly clasped hers on the wheel, and she glanced sideways at her up until now silent passenger. Loki sat beside her, deceptively normal in his mortal clothes, but she could sense the aura of power he always gave off, sometimes like a fire, warm and comforting, other times like a malevolent blizzard, threatening to skin her alive with cold even when it wasn't directed at her. He still hadn't told her what happened to him after Stark Tower.
Nonetheless, she was grateful for Loki's hand on hers, silent and reassuring, as she turned off onto the street where Erik's apartment was, a brown-brick building nestled among condos and more apartment blocks. Students and academic mingled in this neighbourhood, and Jane's breath caught when she saw Erik emerge from his building, smiling as he clapped a friend on the shoulder and said goodbye.
At least he wasn't alone.
She pulled over, watching Erik as he went back inside, feeling paralysed. Now she was finally there, she couldn't move.
Once more, it was Loki who spurred her to move. "Go to him," he breathed in her ear, and when she turned to look at him, she saw he'd masked his appearance, his hair short and curly, a russet brown, which trickled down his cheeks to the scruffy beard on his chin. But his eyes were still the same. "We do not have much time."
He extricated her hand from the steering wheel and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. That brief moment of contact and sensation gave her the strength to move, as she nodded and got out of the car.
For a second, she paused then looked back at the car. "Come with me," she murmured, as he stiffened. "I want him to meet you, even if this is the only way without him freaking out."
For a moment, she thought he'd refuse, then he sighed and got out the passenger side, rounding the car to join her. "This is not a good idea," he muttered, as she determinedly interspersed her fingers with his.
"Then why did you get out?" she replied teasingly, as she led him up the steps to the front door, buzzing the number for Erik's apartment. He jerked her to a stop in front of him, holding her against him by her waist as his teeth grazed her neck, making her gasp.
"I think you know very well why, my little temptress," he breathed against her neck, as she slapped the hands around her waist.
"Behave!" she hissed, moving away from just as Erik's enthusiastic greeting came over the intercom, and the door opened.
Erik's apartment was sparsely but comfortably furnished, a few paintings and things from his Scandinavian heritage hung against the bare brick walls. As soon as she and Loki stepped in the door, Erik scooped her into a deep hug.
He'd never been quite so demonstrably affectionate with her before, and it both warmed and broke her heart. She hugged him back tightly, squeezing her eyes shut until the tears receded.
"Jane! It's great to see you, why didn't you call me?" he breathed in her ear, before straightening and glancing curiously at Loki. "And who's this?"
"Erik this is…" Jane began, looking quickly at Loki who smiled and smoothly offered his hand.
"Lucas King," he introduced himself, as Jane rolled her eyes at him behind Erik's back, at the surname. He just smirked wickedly at her. "Pleased to meet you, Professor Selvig. Jane has told me much about you."
"Pleasure is all mine," Erik replied politely, glancing between them both questioningly. "So, are you…?"
"Yes, we are," Loki replied firmly, as Jane sighed exasperatedly, as he drew her to his side. "We've just made it official, really."
She inwardly wondered at how easily he lied, since she felt about as comfortable with all this as if she'd sat on a wasps' nest. She smiled weakly, as Erik looked to her.
"How'd you meet?" he asked curiously, his eyes narrowed, and once again Loki answered.
"Through SHIELD, actually," he replied calmly. "I…assisted Jane on the Dark Matter Project."
"So you're an astrophysicist too then? What do you specialise in?" Erik asked, moving towards the kitchen, as they followed suit.
"Dark matter and energy, mostly, but I have dabbled in thermonuclear astrophysics," Loki continued, as Jane just gaped at him. He winked at her when Erik's back was turned.
"We…lost track of each other after…what happened," Jane decided to take over the story, since Loki was really getting too into this. "We just found each other again recently, and decided, what the hell? Live through one alien invasion, why waste time?"
Erik chuckled and nodded, as he put the kettle on. "You guys want a drink? I was just about to make myself some coffee."
Jane shook her head. "We can't stay long, Erik," she murmured, feeling tears well up again, as she looked to Loki, who nodded and went back out the hallway. She turned back to her oldest friend and mentor, who was watching her with a careful expression. "Erik, I'm…leaving."
"Going for a holiday?" Erik asked, his careful expression lingering in his eyes even as he smiled for her. "That's good, Jane. You deserve it, after…well, after everything that happened. Better make it a long one."
"Yeah, a really long one," Jane replied, just as she clenched her fists and rounded the breakfast bar to Erik's side. "Erik, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for always being there for me, for always trusting in my instincts, for helping me out even when things got crazy. I'm not sure I'd be where I am today if it wasn't for you."
"Hey, don't go all soft on me, Jane," he muttered, looking bemused, as she threw herself into his arms again. "It's ok, Jane. Everything's going to be fine, I promise."
He stroked her hair, and she closed her eyes, inhaling deeply of the smell she'd always associated with Erik, of coffee and pine needles and fresh mountain air so cold it could freeze one's breath as it left one's mouth. Tears pricked, but she held them back.
Erik's eyes were moist when she drew back, as if some part of him knew that she wasn't just going on vacation, that she wasn't coming back anytime soon, likely not ever although she hoped that maybe one day, she could come back to her home planet.
"I gotta go," she mumbled, wiping her eyes. He caught her back with a gentle hand on her wrist.
"Jane, are you really ok?" he asked. "Really?"
"Really?" she managed to smile through the pain. "It's just been a tough few months."
"That it has," he smiled tightly, letting her go and following her out to the hallway where Loki waited, intently inspecting one of Erik's photographs. Jane recognised it as the ones of her and Erik at her high school graduation, when she was all awkwardness and enthusiasm in one still maturing package. She saw the innocence in her younger self's eyes and almost envied her that.
Before all the monsters, the darkness, the aliens and SHIELD and the Tesseract and Gods and Frost Giants, before all the scorn and the contempt, all the horrid loneliness of a life on the outskirts.
But she wasn't alone in it. Loki was there with her now. The two outcasts.
"Graduated top of her class," Erik nodded at the photograph, as Loki glanced at him. "She was so nervous going to get her diploma, she tripped on her graduation robe in front of the entire school body, and then when one of the football team started laughing at her, she turned around and told him the exact mathematical likelihood of him ever graduating high school."
Loki chuckled as Jane blushed. "That sounds like you," he told her sincerely. "What was it, out of curiosity?"
"0.0002%, and that was being generous," Erik replied, as Jane's face reddened even more while Loki's chuckle threatened to turn into a full-bellied laugh. She swatted him with her hand.
"Stop it!"
"Well, I'll let you get off," Erik said eventually, as they stood in his hallway, feeling out of place and uncertain. Jane clung to Loki's hand and nodded. "You take care of her, son. I mean it, she's had enough lowlifes jerking her around. You take care of her or there'll be hell to pay."
"Oh I can promise you that, Professor Selvig," Loki replied firmly, as Jane felt his gaze on her. She couldn't meet his eyes as he leant in and kissed her forehead, and something in Erik's eyes shifted. He squeezed her hand, then let go. "I'll wait by the car."
As soon as Loki left them, Jane took a deep breath, steeling herself. Erik's words shocked her, as he took her hand.
"He really loves you, Jane," he told her. "I can see it in his eyes. He's a keeper."
"I hope so," Jane replied weakly.
"Do you love him?" Erik asked.
"I don't know," she replied honestly. "Still figuring that one out."
"But if there's ever anything you need…if something's wrong, you would tell me, wouldn't you Jane?" Erik pressed, and she nodded, swallowing against the lump in her throat. Erik's face softened and he nodded, drawing her in for another hug. "I'll see you soon, Jane."
"Goodbye, Erik," she breathed, hugging him tightly and pressing a kiss to his cheek, before she tore herself away and left hurriedly, feeling Erik's eyes watching her all the way out of the building.
Loki said nothing as she got in the car and started the engine, pulling away from the curb as quickly as humanly possible without knocking anyone over, and proceeding to get as far away from Colorado as she could before imploding, Loki's hand around hers the only thing keeping the tears at bay.
They drove for an hour after they cleared the city limits, as Loki gently squeezed her hand to get her attention. "Pull this vehicle over," he told her, and she mutely obeyed, inwardly thrown by the change in his appearance again. She parked it on the side of the road, as Loki's hands dragged her into his arms, holding her tightly as she finally cried.
She finally calmed, shivering a little from sobbing, her muscles spasming every now and again, as she wiped her tears away with her shirt sleeve. "That was rough," she breathed, feeling Loki's lips against her hair. When she looked up, his appearance had reverted back to his own colouring, and she felt instantly better, his familiar dark hair soft under her fingers. "I definitely prefer the black hair," she told him softly, and he smirked. "What was all that back in his apartment?"
"The best lie is often one founded on a half-truth," he told her solemnly, as she looked away, into the distance contemplatively. "It is harder to disbelieve and easier to remember. I meant what I told him, Jane. I will take care of you."
"I know you will," she sighed, meeting his eyes again before nestling her head beneath his chin. They stayed like that for a moment, before she gently tore herself away, feeling centred again by Loki's embrace. She reflected on the impossibility of that, for a moment, feeling peace and comfort in the arms of her former captor, but then Loki had always called her an impossible creature. "We'd better get going. I want to get as far away as possible before we stop for the night."
Back in his apartment, Erik stood at his hall window, staring down at the space where Jane's car had been parked an hour before.
Something was not right. It niggled in his brain and sent cold tendrils down his spine.
Jane had seemed so…fragile. He supposed it was only natural, considering what she'd been through, but…she seemed so desperate, so sad, as if she was never going to see him again. But she was just going on a vacation, fully deserved in his opinion, not away forever…
But Jane never took vacations, ever. It was hard enough convincing her to take a break when she was working, for five minutes, so an entire vacation…
No, something was not right, and the crux of it centred on that mysterious man she'd brought with her. Tall, lean and muscled, his features partially obscured by the russet beard and hair, but something about him pricked at Erik. His eyes…so cold, so calculating and intelligent, except when they rested on Jane…
With a shudder, he remembered watching footage on the news, footage of an alien like Thor, powerful and strong, but this one reeked of it in a way Thor did not. He was darkness and ice and death all wrapped up in a pale, leanly handsome package. And Erik knew he'd seen those eyes before, from that footage some onlooker had got on their phone at Stuttgart, as Jane faced down that monster.
Those eyes…just like this mysterious Lucas King's eyes.
He had to make sure. Jane had never made any mention of a man when they spoke on the phone before the incident, and he thought she was still hung up on Thor, to be honest. This man…something didn't feel right.
He reached for the phone, digging in his pocket for the card Agent Coulson had once given him, just after the Puente Antiguo incident.
To be continued...