Author's Note: I know, I know. It took me forever to update. I'm soooo sorry! A lot of stuff came up (including a 2nd Loki fic). So here's the newest chapter of "Curse," and I hope you like this first conversation/meeting between Loki and Alex. Hugs for everyone!

Concerning the Chapter Title: "Enchanted" is a song by Taylor Swift that really describes how Alex is feeling off and on throughout this chapter. You guys should go give it a listen on Youtube. It's also on the soundtrack for the film The Vow.

.

.

Chapter Six

Enchanted

.

.

Alex stared at the man on the bench beside her wheelchair, trying to think of something to say. It was a pleasure to meet her? She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard a guy say that to someone. In a movie, maybe? Her brain raced, trying to think of something, anything, to say…but she came up blank. She could only stare at the handsome stranger on the bench.

His green eyes kindled with amusement. "May I have my hand back?"

Startled, Alex abruptly released him. "Oh! I'm sorry. I'm…I'm so sorry. I'm not used to talking to…meeting…I'm sorry." She was stuttering; fantastic. Was he staring at her? Did he think she was a freak? Of course he did. The brief peace from panic she'd felt when he'd initiated the conversation faded, leaving her with stinging eyes. Tension ripped across her shoulders. She ducked her head. "I'm sorry."

"It's quite all right," the man—Lukas, Alex remembered—said gently. "No doubt I took you by surprise. My apologies. But I am quite fond of music. I couldn't resist singing along." When she risked a glance at him, she saw he was smiling. The tightness in her shoulders eased a little. "Would you prefer I change the subject?"

"Um…that would help," she confessed, feeling like an idiot. "I, uh…what are you reading?" And why didn't she just tell him to go away? But he'd been there first. He might get angry. If he got angry, Coulson would come over to see what was happening. There would be a scene. People would look at her. Something might happen. And if it was really bad, her father might insist on her talking to Dr. Hopper, and maybe want to speak to the psychiatrist himself. The thought terrified her. Dr. Hopper might tell him about…

Lukas held up the pristine paperback he'd been perusing before her music had interrupted him. A simple illustration of a girl on a staircase, a shoe on the steps above her, decorated the cover. The title helped relax her a little—Iconic Fairy Tales and Analysis. Something she knew about. She knew fairytales better than almost anyone (except those rare individuals who might've studied fairytale literature and folklore at college). Her companion must have seen her relax, because his smile became more apparent. Holding the book out to her, he asked, "A favorite of yours, perhaps?"

Alex shook her head, feeling oddly shy; oddly, because while she had to fight the urge to duck her head, she didn't feel that choking panic clawing deep in the pit of her stomach. "I've never read it, but I've studied fairytales for years. They're so…" She gestured with her bad hand without realizing it. "There's just so much scope for…interpretation. Nuance. Adaptation. I mean, it's so cool how you can take ten people, one fairytale, and come up with twenty different variations of the story. Are you a fairytale scholar?"

"I confess, no," Lukas said with a wistful little smile. Alex saw that the pale face was accentuated by a dimple at the right corner of his mouth. She didn't think she'd ever seen a grown man with a dimple before. Of course, she hadn't really noticed that sort of thing before her accident and the event that had put her in a coma. Afterward…when had she been around someone who might've had a dimple? She never really looked at the SHIELD trolls, since they all seemed so uncomfortable around her (and who could blame them? She was a bit of an enigma; the crippled civilian daughter of their divorced director and his second-in-command, the recluse everyone probably thought was out of her mind…). Alex jerked herself out of that bitter train of thought as Lukas added, "It is a new interest of mine, but I fear I lack the necessary education to make much headway."

Here was something she knew how to do, at least—discuss. English had been her best academic subject in high school. Forcing herself to ignore the rest of the Park, and all the strangers prowling there, she smiled at Lukas. "Well, what do you mean? Is this a goal-oriented independent study or are you in a college course or what?"

"Independent study," Lukas replied, shifting toward her. A spike of fear shot through her; he was too close. Far too close. Close enough that she caught a whiff of his cologne, the mingled scents of ice, wood smoke, and pine. Alex tried to swallow, but it caught in her throat. Lukas shifted again. She jolted and hunched in her wheelchair. Green eyes narrowed as the slender, dark brows furrowed. "Are you all right?"

"I…yeah," Alex mumbled. "Sorry, I'm…I just…"

Those dark brows rose. "You're not used to being outside, are you? In company?" Stricken, her eyes shot to his face. How did he know…? What was he going to do now? But he simply shifted his weight to put a little space between them. "My apologies. I didn't wish to alarm you. Do you wish me to go?"

Why was he being so nice to her? Why didn't he seem offended? Surprised at the softly-spoken courtesy, Alex shook her head numbly. "No, it's fine. You're right, I'm just not used to this. I don't get out much."

"Work?" Lukas asked lightly. Alex shrugged. "Well, it is my good fortune that you had time to come out today. What do you do? For work," he added when she looked at him blankly.

"Oh!" She smiled. "I work for my dad. Right now he's got me translating stuff from Swedish and German into English. He never learned the languages well enough to do it himself without putting more work into it than he felt like."

"A busy man, your father?"

She nodded. "Head of his own…company."

"What are you translating?" For the first time, those pale lips curved into a little-boy grin. Waggling his eyebrows, Lukas leaned in just a little and asked in a confidential whisper, "Top-secret state documents, perhaps? The blueprints to a Latverian spy satellite?" Affecting a soulful look, he added, "Perhaps a romantic love letter or two?"

Alexandra laughed—which startled her, because she hadn't really laughed in…weeks, at least. Brushing a frizz of dark hair from her face, she said, "It's…poetry, I guess you could say. I'm not quite sure if that's what it's supposed to be, but…whatever. It's something to do. My background in folklore helps, actually."

"Regarding my independent study of American folklore and fairytales, maybe you have some suggestions about where I might start? I'm not from this country and much of the folklore lies outside my knowledge."

"Oh, where are you from?"

"I was born near a place called Tronsberg," he replied. "This is my first time in America."

"Tronsberg, Norway? Really?" Sudden delight fizzed in her stomach. Grinning, she said, "I was born there. My mom was on assignment there when she went into early labor. That's so funny."

He smiled. "That is quite a coincidence, to be sure. I can't detect an accent in your speech."

Alex shrugged and waved dismissively. "We didn't stay long. I've been all over the place with my mom. Born in Norway, lived in Sweden, Germany, Monaco, Wales. We finally moved here when I was thirteen. All the bouncing around and then living here for so long wiped out my accent. So…you don't have a grounding in the typical fairytale canon. Well, maybe you could look some stuff up by theme?"

One slender brow quirked. "Theme?"

"Yeah. Like, there's the animal bridegroom, like in 'The Singing, Springing Lark' or 'The Frog Prince.' Or the princess in peril situation. 'Snow White,' 'Sleeping Beauty,' 'Cinderella,' stories like that. Dangerous animal foes, like in 'Little Red Riding Hood.' Testing the bride will give you an interesting collection, too. Murdered maidens or murderous lovers, all that stuff. Themes."

Lukas leaned back against the bench, crossing his long legs. The dim sun through the clouds made his polished, black Oxfords gleam. He tapped one long finger against his chin in thought. His brows knotted together. "There was a story I heard mentioned…ah, what was it? I tried to look it up but couldn't find anything. What was it? I detest leaving puzzles unsolved, you see, and so now that I want to know what it is and can't find anything about it, I'm driven to learn all I can about it."

"I can totally get behind that," Alex said with a laugh. "I'm the same way. My friend Tony says it's a mark of genius. Of course he would; he's just like that, too. And he is a genius. Do you remember anything about the title?" She added.

Frowning, he nodded. "Something about…beauty, I think. 'Fair.' Or 'Fairest.'"

"'Fairer Than a Fairy?'"

Lukas shook his head. The small movement brought back the ice-smoke-pine scent. It danced in Alexandra's nostrils, whispered across her face. It was a nice smell. Oddly comforting. But then, everything about Lukas was comforting. Which should've been strange, but he was just so…unassuming and casual with the way he draped himself across the bench. Like he had every right to be there, but he'd be willing to get to his feet and offer the seat to someone who needed it in a nanosecond.

"Whatever theme this story falls under, though…I think I'll pursue it. What was it, though? Ah, yes! 'Fair Rosalinda.'"

Alex felt the blood drain from her face. Her lips and the ends of her fingers tingled unpleasantly from sudden loss of blood. Her heart kicked into a gallop in her throat that threatened to choke her. Somehow she managed to swallow hard enough to get her heart back where it belonged. Was she trembling? It felt like it. Please don't let her be trembling. Please don't let her throw up all over this handsome, nice, interesting man who'd been kind enough to talk to her.

As if the thought had jumpstarted her stomach, she felt her diaphragm give a hiccup. Bile burned the back of her throat. For a hellish, split-second eternity, all she could see was the blank darkness behind her eyes while she'd been in the coma. The darkness of accursed sleep. The pain of spindle-like needles stabbing deep into her flesh. Hands touching because she couldn't move, couldn't eat, couldn't even turn over, couldn't move at all. Helpless in the dark of Aurora's soul-killing sleep. Voices in the darkness, gentle and familiar and strong and pleading, but that wasn't what made fear rise up in her throat to strangle her. Not those voices. The other voice. The voice of fear and touch and deeper sleep.

Something brushed her crippled hand, the scar that ran from the web of her thumb down past the protruding bones of her wrist. A butterfly touch. She jumped and nearly screamed at the sudden burst of terror that raked her. Blinding pain lanced her right temple. She touched a hand to her head, trying to keep her brains from spilling out of the crack in her skull that had never healed properly. What had touched her? Where was Coulson? Where was she? She couldn't be out here, she had to be in the Reverse-Tower, she was safe in the Reverse-Tower, like the golden-haired Ladderlocks, Rapunzel with her golden hair. Where was her father? Why wasn't he there?

Crisp chill whispered down her neck. A sudden gust of nippy wind, the spring bite of winter's fading chill. A strange cold sensation crept across her mind, filling her skull, dulling the edges of the spiking fear. Her heart began to slow. As her pulse calmed, the pain in her head eased. Swallowing hard, she opened her eyes and met a gaze of gray-green shadowed by worry.

"Alexandra?" Lukas murmured gently. He slowly reached out, like one would reach for a wild thing afraid of the taming, and took her crippled hand. First instinct had her trying to jerk away. He tightened his grip fractionally. Not enough to hold her if she really wanted him to let go, but tight enough that she had to stop and think about why she wanted him to release her. "Alexandra, are you all right? You've gone pale."

"I'm…I'm always pale," she mumbled. His hand was warm around hers. His thumb stroked absently over the thick scar that ran over her right hand, barely a whisper of contact—as if he wanted to touch her, to perhaps comfort her, but didn't know how she would react. "I'm fine."

"Are you certain? Did I upset you? That was not my intention," he said in a low, coaxing voice. "Are you all right? Should I fetch your friend; the man I saw you with earlier? Should I get him?"

She shook her head—slowly, to keep the fragments of her skull from blazing with pain. If she kept movement to a minimum and made sure not to do anything that would raise her heart-rate or blood pressure, she ought to be fine. The headache hadn't had time to really take root and become unbearable. The pain would keep easing back as long as she was careful.

Forcing lightness into her voice, hoping it didn't shake, Alex smiled. "I'm sorry. I suddenly felt…I didn't feel well, but I'm okay now. So, 'Fair Rosalinda.' Do you know what it's about?" If he did, she wouldn't have to explain it. She wasn't sure she could explain it without another panic attack.

"I'm sorry to confess I don't," Lukas said. "Do you know it?"

Alex nodded. Fixing her gaze on a worm trying to squirm through the emerald-bright grass beneath her feet—little did the worm know, it was heading for a quarter-sized black spider sitting patiently in its web on the bench supports—Alex took a deep breath.

"So Fair Rosalinda was a beautiful girl who lived in this village, right? And one day a lord came riding through the village, saw her, and fell violently in love. Unfortunately, he was married already, and Rosalinda didn't love him anyway. But the lord wouldn't accept a refusal from a peasant, so he kidnapped her and took her back to his castle, where he locked her in the tower and forced her to become his mistress. One day the lord had to go on a trip. While he was gone, the wife discovered Rosalinda and had her murdered for 'beguiling her husband' or whatever. When the lord returned and found Rosalinda dead, his wife convinced him that she'd died of natural causes. Distraught, he—okay, are you sure you want to hear this? It gets pretty gruesome at this point," Alex said with forced calm.

A dull ache had begun behind her eyes, but she was pretty sure she'd be able to get through the story without getting a migraine, and once that was done, her panic would fade. Everything would be fine. She wouldn't have to talk about Fair Rosalinda…one of the girls whose tales she'd found herself trapped in after the accident.

Lukas nodded, watching her with keen interest. A wrinkle had formed between his black eyebrows; Alex realized she wanted to smooth it away with the tips of her fingers. Which was ridiculous, bizarre, and distracting enough that she could keep going with the fairytale.

"Okay, so…um, where was I? Right. So, distraught by her death, the lord kept Rosalinda's corpse for like…seven years, I think. Something like that. We assume he preserved it with magic, but we don't actually know that. Only that he, uh…had a penchant for necrophilia and kept up his nightly visits despite her being dead. Ew. Jealous still, his wife took Rosalinda's corpse and cast into the river, where it moldered and rotted for goodness knows how long, until a shepherd boy saw her thigh and jaw bones sticking out of the mud and made a harp out of them, strung with her hair. Of course it's a magical harp that sings heartbreakingly beautiful songs, so the lord calls the shepherd boy to play for him and the harp sings of Rosalinda's death and the lord murders his wife in revenge, the end."

There. That hadn't been so hard. That had been easy. Except she could taste blood, sour and salty in her mouth, from where she'd been gnawing her tongue during the entire recitation. The fingers of her right hand spasmed in Lukas's grasp. His thumb swept across the pale, gray-pink scar as if stroking a fractious cat. The spasms subsided.

"That's it?" Lukas asked casually. "You're right—it is a disturbing and gruesome story. And I can't see what relation it has to stories like 'Sleeping Beauty' or 'Red Riding Hood.' The conversation where I heard 'Fair Rosalinda' mentioned, that was the theory, that there was some connection."

"There is," Alex said through numb lips. Lukas raised an eyebrow at her, inviting her to share. She cleared her throat. "Um…rape. Either actual or allegorical, depending on what version of each story you read. And the girl in the tower is in both 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Rosalinda.' And technically you could say Red was living in a proverbial tower, considering her parents almost never let her out."

He nodded thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "An interesting analysis. The girl in the tower. Thank you, Alexandra. You've given me a place to start my studies." Suddenly he turned that vibrant emerald gaze on her. "How can I repay you? Would you allow me to take you out for…hmmm, coffee, perhaps? We could discuss things further."

"Why?" She blurted. Lukas blinked, and Alex noticed he had the longest, darkest eyelashes she'd ever seen on a man. "I mean…why would you want to go out anywhere with me?"

Lukas's brows furrowed slightly. He said in a carefully neutral tone, "You mean, why would a man like me wish to take you out for coffee? Why wouldn't I?"

"Because…I…"

"Because you're in a wheelchair?"

A spill of ice-water trickled down her spine. "Yeah."

He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Lacing his fingers together, he set his chin on his hands and regarded her steadily. "So far, we have established that you and I share a place of birth, music, and an interest in fairytales. I have enjoyed the meeting. I've learned quite a bit. I didn't expect to. I would like to meet with you again. Do you object to my interest?"

Somehow she managed to stammer, "Well, no, but—I just—I mean, you—but I'm…" She trailed off, unable to find any acceptable way to finish that sentence. Finally, she just asked again, "Why?"

The handsome man beside her knocked her for a loop when he replied, "Because you're intelligent, knowledgeable, and attractive. Why not?"

He thought she was attractive? The thought left her dizzy. Men didn't find crippled girls with scars on their faces attractive. But…but he seemed sincere enough…

"I…" Stunned by his candor, Alex stammered, "Um…I…oh. Um…I don't drink coffee." She couldn't. She had to stay away from something with that much caffeine, and decaf had always tasted like watered-down sewage to her.

Seeing the shadow that seemed to shutter across Lukas's eyes, she managed to mentally smack herself into thinking like an intelligent individual and offered, "But…but Starbucks has these strawberries-and-cream frappuccinos, and we could…um…go for those. I guess. Um…if you want.

"Oh," she added, realization deflating the small bubble of fizzy excitement that had started swelling in her stomach. "I can't. I mean, today. I can't today. I have to go back to work soon. I'm only supposed to be out here for thirty minutes." And for the first time, she wished her dad had scheduled her to stay outside longer.

To her surprise, Lukas smiled in understanding. "Very well. Will tomorrow work better for you? We can meet here. The same time as today?"

A smile curved her mouth. She felt it tugging at the corners, felt it sweeping across her face, and almost fell over in shock that she could smile out here, out in the open, with strangers everywhere, just because of this man she'd never met before today. "I'd love to. Thank you."

At that point, Coulson ambled over and told her it was time for them to go. Knowing that she couldn't stay outside much longer—she'd scheduled her day around this thirty-minute tribulation-turned-adventure—she told Lukas that she'd meet him here the next day, and let Coulson wheel her toward the SHIELD van. She couldn't stop the smile that kept playing about her mouth.

.

Loki watched the Midgardian girl go, and smiled. His seiðr had kept her calm enough for him to work his charms on her, and now he had another meeting arranged for the next day. Another chance to worm his way into her confidences. And it wouldn't be such a terrible hardship. Crippled and weak though she was, the girl was surprisingly intelligent. What subjects she enjoyed and studied, she knew well. Loki could respect that sort of dedication to the pursuit of knowledge. Discussing the fairy-stories would be less tedious than he'd expected.

She'd given him more information than he'd anticipated today, as well. Now he knew the full gruesome story of "Fair Rosalinda," though he didn't understand how it connected to the chit. The girl in the tower, perhaps? He didn't know…but now that he had a little more information, he could delve deeper into her journals and perhaps learn more.

I don't want to be Fair Rosalinda, she'd written. What did that mean? The puzzle of it drove him mad. But Loki would get to the bottom of it soon enough. That little brain-teaser, and all the others wrapped around the Midgardian maiden. The girl would have no secrets from him by the time he was through with her.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Author's Note: so not only have they met, but they have plans for a second date! Woot! What do you guys think so far about everything they've talked about? Who thinks Nick might be a problem regarding the 2nd date? Just curious. Reviews are love. Love me! Hugs! Bye everyone!