He's slicing a dagger across a throat and watching a copy of himself fake out another attacker when the seed of an idea is planted in his mind. Loki drops the dead body to the ground and stares out over the carnage before him as he plays out what has happened. The attack was sloppy at best. There was no finesse to it, just loud and pure brute strength, which made them so easily discovered. Loki turned slightly, ignoring the yelling, and stared out over Asgard. Someone came to attack him and with an annoyed snarl he waved his hand and threw them against a wall, body snapping and crumbling to the floor.
It occurred to him soon enough that the point of attack was of no value. There was nothing to be gained from it. In the grand scheme of things nothing of importance would be harmed where they battled. Loki snapped his head upwards and then it hit him. He would have stumbled with the force of his realization if he had been a weaker person. "No," he whispered once and ran, ignoring Thor's calls behind him.
-
He wanted to be wrong. He wanted to open the door and find her standing out the window with worry for his safety. Except when he threw open the door she wasn't at the window. There were many of them in the room, to many for even most Asgardian warriors. It didn't matter, not when the only thing he cared about was sprawled on their bed, her vacant clouded eyes staring at him, but not really seeing, and the being at her side, hand raised over her, calling the aether. Her back was bowed from the effort, chest raised into the air.
What happened after didn't matter. They were dead within moments, in broken heaps of blood and frost bite. They died with their eyes wide in shock and fear, screams dying on their lips.
Loki fell to his knees beside her, and pressed his hands to his chest. The aether fought him with a force it never had before. Loki snarled in response. Mine, he told it. It defied him, but Loki wouldn't give her up to anyone or anything. She whimpered and he found he had to ignore the tears escaping her closed lids if he was going to help her. Even when she cried out, body bucking, he pressed his forearm over her stomach to hold her down. Then her eyes snapped open and she was looking at him, really looking at him with blackness clouding her eyes.
"I'm tired Loki," she whispered. "I don't-."
"No," he snapped, anger replacing his panic and fear. Anger was better. Anger he could work with. "Don't you say it. You don't get to give up. I'm to selfish to allow it." Then he pushed hard, ignoring her scream, pulling her hands away from where she fought him, and then she stopped. Her body crumpled to the bed and he glanced up to see clear eyes flutter closed. She was breathing, and that's all that mattered.
The doors to the balcony flew open, shattering with the force of Thor's hammers. Loki looked up into Thor's shocked face.
"Does she live?" Thor asked, seeming to hold his breath.
"This time," Loki responded and turned to her. With a weak sigh he dropped his forehead against her stomach.
-
Thor watched his brother converse with Eir from the doorway of the healing rooms. Footsteps at his side alerted him to their father's presence. "Everything is secure."
"I never doubted it wasn't," Odin responded and stopped at Thor's side.
"It was Jane," Thor said in amazement. "They were after Jane."
"So I can tell from the state of Loki's chambers."
Thor recalled the slaughter he'd come upon. There had been no grace to the kills, just pure, unrestrained fury. "I know she poses a risk to us, but-."
"Forcing her away from Asgard will do nothing," Odin interrupts, already having predicted Thor's train of thought. "Loki would go with her with resentment in his heart. Here she is safe." Odin pauses for a moment. "We'll help him find a way. I fear for your brother's sanity if we don't."
Thor sighed and watched his brother sit at Jane's side. "I worry for us all," Thor responds. What was even more worrisome is that their father didn't argue.
-
Again Loki sighed and rested his forehead against her, taking comfort in the warmth of her thigh through her clothing. Something brushed his hair and he turned his head to look up the bed into her heavily lidded eyes. She smiled down at him. After all of that Jane smiled at him. Her small hand settled over his cheek, thumb brushing over it gently and he found himself having to close his eyes against his emotions.
"I'm sorry," she said gently, "for giving up."
At that his eyes snapped open and he grasped the hand at his face and raised his head to kiss the top of it. "It's of no matter. I'll be stubborn enough for you. I'm not letting you go, ever."