Author's Note: so I'm updated ahead of schedule. Everyone thank SweetnSour333 and wbss21, because their epical reviews give me reason to work my butt off double-time instead of regular time. And everyone thank my hubby for posting this chapter now that he's off work and sooo sleepy. I love him. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

Oh, and the chapter title comes from a song by The Civil Wars. Love that song.

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Chapter Seven

Dance Me to the End…

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Alex moved slowly down the corridor, arrowing—at a snail's pace—for her father's private quarters (where Agent Sitwell had said he'd be). She had everything she wanted to say prepared. She knew exactly how she wanted to handle this. The clincher would be whether she could get it all out without choking on the nerves dancing around in her chest along with her palpitating heart. Because what she was asking for was a big deal…and she wasn't entirely sure she actually wanted it. At least the first half.

She'd gone outside for the first time in who knew how long, and it had been like crawling over shards of broken glass while Coulson had driven her from SHIELD Underground to Central Park. Being at the Park—all those people staring and whispering, the sun so bright it was nearly blinding after the comforting shadows and false illumination of the Reverse-Tower, the warm April air squirming down her throat and into her lungs like maggots—had been even worse. Only the heavy pulsing decibels of her music had kept her from losing her mind, from breaking down and screaming at Coulson to please, please take her back to the Tower.

And then…Lukas. Nearly all of the mind-numbing fear had gone away then. Vanished back to a time before her coma, before her accident, before gunshots that had drawn a curtain of darkness and cursed sleep over her life; a time before fear. She hadn't been so terribly afraid once he'd started talking to her. And he'd been so kind, so gentle. Even when she'd been panicking…

He asked me out on a date, Alex reminded herself. Just the thought made her breathing kick up until she was almost lightheaded. She'd never been asked out on a date before. Nick had had a very strict no-dating-before-sixteen policy, and Alex had been too busy with her dancing to have time for crushes or breaking the rules. Dancing for six hours a day, six days a week, didn't leave much time for screwing around. And then, not too long after she'd turned sixteen, had been the accident…the shooting…the coma…but she wouldn't think of that.

Pursing her lips, Alex focused on making as little noise as possible as she crutched down the hall. She didn't want her father to know she was coming. If she caught him by surprise, maybe she could shoot out her request and get him to agree out of sheer shock before he realized what she'd asked.

Thoughts of Lukas—his brilliant emerald eyes, charming smile, the rich dark-chocolate voice—swirled around in her head along with the carefully-rehearsed words of her proposal. Alex sucked in a deep breath when she got to the door of her father's quarters. When she pressed the button for entry, the doors whooshed open with a soft hiss. She quickly went inside.

Nick wasn't in the entryway. When Alex poked her head into the living room area, she didn't see him there, either. The door to his office was open. Cautiously Alex approached; if Nick was in the middle of something, she didn't want to interrupt. Of course, if he was distracted, she might get her way faster. She'd have to weigh the outcome after she discovered whatever it was he was doing. So she peeked around the edge of the open office door…

…and froze, agony clamping down hard on her chest like a vise. Shock froze the blood in her veins, turning it to lethal shards of crystalline ice. Pain spiked through her right temple, clawing at the back of her right eye so that dark spots swam across half her vision. Her fingers convulsed around the handle of her crutch. If not for that crutch, and the steadiness of the doorframe, she would've fallen.

Nick Fury sat in profile, eyes glued to a monitor screen. On screen, a slim girl in a crimson and orange leotard and skirt sprinkled with gold glitter, vermillion and amber feathers in her carefully-styled hair, executed a perfect piqué across a stage. When the girl glided into position to the strains of Stravinsky's The Firebird, Nick drew a shuddering breath. His hand drifted up to cover his mouth. Stravinsky's music morphed from the terrifying brass notes to soft, sweet melodies on joyous silver strings, and the girl began to spin in fouetté rond de jambe en tournant, her lithe body pivoting swiftly and gracefully on her right foot as she executed the series of difficult turns on the tips of her toes, a beaming smile on her enraptured face. For several minutes the girl danced on. As the music finally ended and the girl dropped into an elegant curtsy, a single tear rolled down Nick Fury's cheek to soak into the shadow of his beard.

Alex cleared her throat. Her heart hammered painfully in her throat. "Dad," she croaked. Nick jumped as if someone had shot him, whipping around to face his daughter. He swallowed audibly. Alex saw that his hand shook when he picked up the remote and paused the recording of one of her student showcases, where she'd danced as the Firebird. The screen froze an image of thirteen-year-old Alex rising from her curtsy. Clearing her throat again, the adult Alex demanded in a voice that shook nearly as badly as her crippled hand and leg, "What are you doing?"

"I…I was just watching one of your old videos."

The words seared her throat when she said, "I thought you got rid of them all."

Nick rubbed the back of his neck. "I put them in storage, Aurora. I wasn't going to throw them out."

"Why not?" She demanded. When her father didn't answer right away, something hot and vicious and sharp as a tangle of thorns broke loose in her chest and lodged in her heart. "Why not?" She shouted, ignoring the scalding pulses of pain rocketing around inside her skull. "I'll never be able to dance again. I'll never be able to do that again!" Her good hand flicked dismissively at the screen. "Why keep them?"

Her father looked away. "Maybe today isn't the best time to discuss this. You had a hard time outside, I know, and I don't want to argue with you. We'll talk about it later when you're calmer, all right?"

"No, we're going to talk about it now! Get rid of them! I don't want them here!"

"Aurora, there's no reason to throw them—"

"I don't want them here!" Her head was pounding, pounding. Agony shot spears of red-hot wire through her fragmenting skull. The black dots swimming in front of her eyes multiplied and grew fat. She swayed. Her good leg threatened to buckle.

"Aurora—"

"That's not my name!" She couldn't suppress the undercurrent of fear and desperation in her voice, and she knew Nick heard it. He surged to his feet, and she quailed from him, but couldn't stop the poisonous words spilling from her mouth. "I'm not her anymore! I'm never going to be her again! I'm—not—Aurora—anymore!" Tears spilled down her cheeks as an oceanic roaring filled her ears. "I'm…not…"

Then the pain in her skull and everything else was too much, and she fainted.

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Loki studied the girl from his vantage point between, wondering what had happened while he'd been out making provisions for his plans regarding worming his way into the Midgardian maiden's confidences. When he'd bid her farewell at the Park, she'd been shyly excited about the prospect of meeting him on the morrow. Yet now she lay on her bed in her room, scarred brow furrowed in pain, ashen as a corpse, a purple bruise flowering on her cheekbone. What had happened? The pseudo-Æsir had heard something about a fainting spell…

Two other Midgardians occupied the girl's chambers. One, a compact female warrior in the SHIELD uniform, her dark hair cut sleekly to her skull, worry twisting her features—she sat on Alex's bed and held her limp right hand. The other was a slender man with curly red hair and spectacles perched on his nose, wearing a sleeveless argyle knit vest over a button-down white shirt. He scanned the circular room with keen eyes.

Suddenly Alexandra moaned softly, shifted. Her eyes opened with a flutter of dark lashes. She blinked confusedly at the ceiling of her bedroom before focusing on the woman at her side. She frowned. "Mom?" Then she cringed and brought both hands up to her head. "Oh, jeez…hn. Ow. What happened?"

"You and your father got in an argument and you fainted," the woman—Alexandra's mother?—said gently. "Alex, honey, we've talked about this. You can't let yourself get so excited about things. Your body can't handle it."

Loki's lip curled. The bratling had fainted because of a mere argument? What was the matter with her, that she was so weak her body couldn't withstand the so-called strain of simply raising her voice? Just when he thought he could find nothing else about her to scorn, she went and revealed a weakness like that. Pathetic.

"He still has the tapes," Alexandra mumbled into her hands, catching the Frost Giant's attention. His brow arched. Tapes? What tapes? "I told you guys to get rid of them months ago. Why do you still have them?"

"Because we love you, honey."

Something about the woman's tone and the way Alexandra stiffened brought back a flash of memory to Loki. Eyes the color of honeyed mead, dark with sorrow and apology but somehow still lit from within by devotion; an aristocratic and beautiful face soft with mother-love and shadowed by regret; Frigg, whispering, You are our son, Loki…and we, your family. Frigg, his moth—

No, Loki snarled at himself. Not now. Wrenching his thoughts away from Asgard and its queen, he focused once more on the Midgardian girl on the bed. What would she say in response to her mother's declaration? Her entire body was braced for battle.

The girl dropped her hands from in front of her face. Squinting at her mother, her face lined with pain, she said coldly, "If that were true, you would've torched the stupid things when I asked you to. There's no point in keeping them. Get rid of them. I'm serious."

"Alex…why? Can't your father and I watch you—"

"No," the girl said tightly. "No, you can't watch me."

Her mother frowned. "Why not? I'm actually kind of partial to that video of you dancing to 'The Pines of Rome' when you were nine—"

Alex bolted upright, then groaned and hunched down, cradling her head in her hands. Pressing her hands tight against her temples, she said through gritted teeth, "Mom, I swear if you don't stop talking about it, I'll scream. I don't want to think about 'The Pines of Rome.' I don't want to remember dancing 'The Firebird' or being the Arabian Queen or…or Giselle or Florine or dancing in Coppélia. I don't want to remember my audition for Swan Lake. I don't want to remember! That part of my life is over! Shut up, Dr. Hopper," she added savagely when the bespectacled man opened his mouth to speak.

Loki was frowning, studying the girl with new eyes. Dancing. Dancing? The girl had been a dancer? In Asgard, a woman who danced for a living was known sometimes to offer other services to paying customers, but the pseudo-Asgardian knew this wasn't the case—anymore, at any rate—on Midgard. Besides, the girl was too shy and generally sweet-natured to have ever been a prostitute. The way she'd acted at the Park when he'd suggested a rendezvous, she practically had the word "virgin" branded on her forehead.

A dancer; he could scarcely fathom this crippled wreck of a woman-child ever being graceful enough, powerful enough…Bor's ghost, even simply able-bodied enough to be a dancer, of all things! The girl could barely walk. She couldn't be a dancer…

Then he thought of the collection of music boxes in the glass display case in her closet, and the single music box on her desk. Thought of the tiny dancer-figurines inside the boxes, how they spun in graceful pirouettes as the music chimed from the empty boxes. How Alexandra had stared at the one on her desk, watching the little figurine dance while the music played. Her eyes had grown wider and wider until they'd practically swallowed up the rest of her face. Her fingers had pressed into the wood of her desk until her fingertips turned purple with blood, then gone pale. Like a phantom shadow in his mind, he remembered the odd something in the girl's eyes. He realized now it had been hunger.

"Agent Hill, I think we should leave Aurora alone for right now," the slender man said. Loki barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Were these Midgardians so simple that they couldn't remember the girl preferred the name Alexandra? Dr. Hopper continued, "I think she needs some time to deal with today's events. Going outside for an entire half-hour must have been very stressful—"

"That reminds me," Alexandra said, every word carved from ice. Loki could see she was still pale, sweating now. Her fingers pressed hard against her right temple. He knew that as soon as her mother and this Dr. Hopper left the room, she'd be laid out on her bed, holding herself immobile to minimize the excruciating pain. "I'm going out again tomorrow. I want to go by myself and I don't want a wheelchair."

"Out of the question," her mother said immediately. "You don't go anywhere by yourself."

"Mom—"

Loki reached out, still swathed in the shroud of between so that none could see him, hear him, feel him. His fingertips touched the tight muscles at the back of Alexandra's neck. Because of the headache burning through her skull, Loki knew he'd have to use more power than before to get the result he wanted. Gathering the tendrils of seiðr around him, weaving them around the trembling girl, he leaned in. Blew a soft, cool breath in her ear.

His breath misted on the air as icy cold descended over him. Could Alexandra feel it? Loki saw gooseflesh ripple across the mortal's arms. Power curled around them both as the prince whispered, "A bodyguard or two would work, but you don't want more than that. The wheelchair is fine."

He saw the way she shuddered, then murmured woodenly, "Fine. A bodyguard or two would work, but I don't want more than that. Okay? I don't need a bunch of babysitters. And…and the wheelchair is fine, too…I guess." He noticed her fingers scrunching in the black knit blanket on her bed. "I…I can handle…I can handle the…the chair."

Alexandra's mother tucked a curl behind the girl's ear. "Honey…there's nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair."

The girl pulled away from her mother. Stared hard at the blankets with wide, unblinking eyes and hunched her shoulders while she massaged her temple. "I'm tired," she said abruptly. "I think I'm going to take a nap. Good night, Mom. Bye, Dr. Hopper."

When she was alone, she fell back onto the bed and curled her left leg against her chest. Her right leg, cruelly twisted and a good three inches shorter than the other leg, stuck out at an awkward angle diagonally across the bed. Loki watched as she closed her eyes and forced her entire body to relax as much as she could manage. His own power coiled and twisted inside her skull, dulling the sharpest edges of the pain. A few tears managed to escape from beneath her lashes, to spill over her cheeks before splashing onto her pillows. Why, Loki wondered with no little irritation, was the girl crying? The pain wasn't that bad; not anymore, at any rate.

"How could he do this to me?" Alexandra whispered, blinking as more tears fell. She drew a shuddering breath. "Why does he still have those stupid recordings?" She shoved at the dark curls that normally hung in her face. "He was supposed to get rid of them. He was supposed to…" And then she began to sob openly, scrunching into herself as best she could with the impediment of her bad leg. She beat her fist into the pillow, whispering between clenched teeth, "It's over, it's over, it's over! Don't they get it?"

Thoroughly disgusted with her childish tantrum, Loki turned his back on the mortal chit and side-stepped into the aether of between. He came out in Nick Fury's private quarters. A recording of his daughter would most likely be found there, not in his public office.

Alexandra had been a dancer? Well, Loki supposed that could be up to interpretation. He'd seen what many Midgardians considered dancing, which fell far below the pseudo-Æsir's standards. He wanted to see for himself. So he would see for himself. If the girl was a dancer, or had been, and had been crippled…it might give him more insight in how to manipulate her, might make it easier for him to understand her.

He found the stack of black plastic rectangles in Fury's private office—VHS tapes, a form of mortal recording that hadn't been used in several years. How long had it been since Alexandra had stopped dancing? The labels were handwritten. There were dozens upon dozens of tapes, spanning back years. Loki studied them, scanning the labels. He selected one video from each available year.

First Ballet Class—First Showcase—First Recital—Christmas Recital '93
Spring Recital '94—Summer Showcase '94—Summer Recital '94
Snow White '95 (Mouse)—The Nutcracker '95 (Polichinelle)—Cinderella '95 (Bluebird)
Fall Showcase '96— Mistletoe '96 (Snowflake)—The Nutcracker '96 (Mouse)
Les Sylphides '97—Swan Lake '97 (Cygnet)—Snow White '97 (Faun)
The Little Match Girls '98—Twelve Dancing Princesses '98 (Princess #7)—Giselle '98 (Ghost)
La Sylphide '99 (Sylph)—Napoli '99 (Fish)—Summer Recital '99
Winter Showcase 2000—Christmas Recital 2000—New Years Showcase 2000
The Nutcracker '01 (Shepherdess)—Swan Lake '01 (Cygnet)—Giselle '01 (Giselle)
Cinderella '02 (Stepsister)—Sleeping Beauty '02 (Red Riding Hood)—Summer Showcase '02
The Firebird '03 (Firebird)—Snow White '03 (Snow White)—The Nutcracker '03 (Spanish Chocolate)
Coppélia'04 (Swanhilde)—Sleeping Beauty '04 (Princess Florine)—The Nutcracker '04 (Arabian Queen)
Sleeping Beauty '05 (The White Cat)—Swan Lake '05 (Odette/Odile)—Summer Showcase '05
Cinderella '06 (Cinderella)—Sleeping Beauty '06 (Aurora)—The Nutcracker '06 (Clara)

Catching at the threads of power all around him, he wove a handful of spells together to give him time. He wanted to scan the videos, watch how the girl had progressed from a young child to the last video in the collection. To see her grow up…perhaps it would give him insight. She would have changed over time, but he would be able to get a sense of her, of what had formed and molded her into the woman she was now.

Loki set up a barrier between the study and the rest of SHIELD Underground, to keep the Midgardians out. It would warn him if anyone was coming, giving him enough time to put up an illusion to hide his presence. Then he picked up the first tape and slipped it into the VCR.

For the next several hours, he watched Alexandra's progression through the thirteen years of recordings. Three-year-old Alexandra had been small, with a toddler's plumpness, a fluffy corona of frizzy dark hair cascading around her head in natural ringlets. She'd been barely more than a baby, yet there had been an odd, smiling studiousness in the child that had struck a chord in Loki, though he couldn't have said why.

The girl was so young, yet she'd been so serious and dedicated. In a way, she reminded him of Thor. Thor as a child had been determined to be the greatest warrior Asgard had ever seen. He'd often had the same fierce expression as Alexandra sometimes wore on stage.

And then there was the way she moved…smooth, efficient, all grace and subtle power instead of brute force and lumbering presence. She'd have made a skilled warrior—for a Midgardian—if not for being crippled.

As a boy Loki had been mocked by some of the Asgardian children—though, he thought with an odd pricking behind his breastbone, Thor had never said anything—for his appreciation for more things than bashing his peers with wooden practice swords. He'd loved art, music. His mother had taught him to play the dulcimer as a child. Later he'd studied the lute, the lyre. He'd also enjoyed watching, learning, absorbing the beauty of the world around him. Studying the skillfulness of artisans, craftsmen, and performers.

Because of that, Loki could appreciate what he saw now on the screen.

He watched Alex grow from toddler to child, still with those ringlets, still with that fierce dedication to dancing. He could see she'd actually had skill. The steps were simple, but then again, she was still a little girl. As the videos progressed from adolescence to maidenhood, and the girl began to dance more difficult roles, Loki found himself fascinated. Midgardians could butcher so much—music, language, literature, dancing—yet they also had this? The sinuous movements, the power of the steps, surprised him. Asgard had no such dancing as ballet. There was skill required for such a style. Not just skill, but presence. Alexandra had had both. She was good enough, Loki realized, that had she been a dancer of the same skill-level on Asgard, he would have spoken to her father and offered to become her patron.

It surprised Loki to see the difference in Alexandra as she'd danced in the recordings compared to the way she was now. Not just crippled in body, he realized—watching avidly as she twisted and curved her body like a jeweled serpent while playing the "Arabian Queen"—but crippled in spirit. How strange…Had it been this shattered dream of dancing that had left her such a pitiful wreck of a girl? The sparkle and spirit of the young dancer on screen was missing from the Midgardian woman he'd met at the Park.

Viewing done, Loki put everything back in order and slipped out of the room. Was the girl sleeping as she claimed she would? Or was she working on the tesseract translations? Or doing something else entirely?

He found Alexandra asleep on her bed, her cheeks still wet with tears. Dozens of books and children's illustrated stories littered the floor around the bed. Under her outstretched hand was a thin stack of papers. Her notes on the tesseract's obscure messages, Loki realized. Several phrases had been circled in red and linked together, or linked to notations scribbled in the page margins. He scanned her fresh notes.

Black bear and black wolf are same person. Red death is Red Skull? Probably. Who is the Sleeper? Can't be me. Black bear has something to do with magic. East of the sun, west of the moon is Jötunheim? Possible references to Sleeping Beauty, East of Sun/West of Moon, Snow White, Hans My Hedgehog, and The Snow Queen. Son of the hearth might be black bear/black wolf. Potential son of the hearth—hearth gods/mythological entities: Jack-o-Lantern, Hephaestus/Vulcan, Loki, Nectan, Lugh, Dažbog.

Emerald eyes widened as Loki spotted his own name among the short list. Son of the hearth…could it possibly be…? But then how did that affect the tesseract's odd messages? He rapidly scanned Alexandra's notes. Following her theory of the bear and the wolf, he puzzled out the following message.

"'Need Loki.
Caught in thorns.
The walls are falling up.

"'In the long dark.
Winter found Loki.
Need Loki.
Need Loki.
Fight winter blood.

"'Need Grace through seasons
Need maker of broken things.
Loki lost.
Loki need to find.

"'Red Death touch spindle.
Sleep, cold sleep.
Long sleep in winter.
Blood on snow.

"'Sleeper need Loki.
Magic need Loki.
Loki and Loki come.
Magic from Jötunheim.

"Loki run from winter blood.
Loki lost to thorns.
Loki need Sleeper.
Sleeper's blood feeds thorns.
Red Death waiting to wake.'"

No, the girl had to be mistaken. The line "wolf and bear come" meant that the bear and the wolf couldn't be the same creature. And yet…an odd niggling sensation continued to nag at him. What if the girl was right? If he'd replaced his name in the text correctly, than "magic" needed him. Not only magic, but the Sleeper—whoever they were. And apparently he needed the Sleeper as well. Who was it? Why did he need them, and vice versa? Could it be Alexandra? And what did the tesseract mean, that he was lost? And he certainly didn't run from anything.

Loki replaced the pages beneath the girl's hand, careful not to wake her. He would see her tomorrow, and perhaps get more information out of her. Until then he would be patient and observe the tesseract's behavior…and eventually he would figure out what the blasted thing was trying to tell him.

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Author's Note: and here we are with more progress made on the tesseract translations. What do you guys think our little blue box is trying to say? And now Loki has seen what Alex used to be. What do you guys think of that? Thoughts on the chapter as a whole? LA loves you guys, and I hope you love me, too! Reviews make me happy! *hugs*