A/N: I am very, very, very sorry for the late update, but we've been given several mock exam papers to do as homework that we have to do (even though the teachers don't even mark them) so I've not had much time to write. It's short, but at least it's something. Next chapter will be better!

There was a soft knock on Loki's door, but he didn't move. He kept his head in his hands and gripped his hair tightly, eyes shut tight. The door opened soundlessly, and equally silent footsteps approached. The person sat down on the bed beside him, the mattress hardly dipping from the extra weight.

"Loki, look at me," Sigyn said softly, touching a gentle hand to his wrist and prying the hand away.

Loki remained silent.

(Your words are poison- No one wants the words of a liar. I will break you, runt, and I shall do so a thousand times over should you fail me.)

Broken. Loki almost scoffed. It seemed he was already broken, without the extra help from Thanos- (He has already done enough to me. Any more and I will be nothing).

"Please look at me, my love," Sigyn pleaded.

My love.

She had not called him that since before Nari and Vali- (Looking down at the remain's of his son, the once-pale, smooth skin now torn and covered in blood. Nari... How could Loki have let this happen? How had it come to this? Vali- Where was he? Vali- Where are you? Running down the Rainbow Bridge- A dark shape near the very end- Vali. Where is Heimdall? Surely he would intercept Loki's son... Vali- Standing at the edge, looking down into the ocean. Vali! No- no- no- Leaning forward- Falling from the edge- Vali, no!). Elves bonded for life- Loki knew this- but he never expected to hear his ex-wife call him such an endearment ever again.

Loki slowly dragged his eyes up to Sigyn's face, but he did not utter a word.

"You cannot go on like this," she breathed, eyes raking over his features. He knew she could see past the glamour- such was the magic of the Elves- and he knew that she had always been able to. So he let her look; a shimmer ran over his body as he dropped the glamour completely.

"I know. But I do not know what to do to stop it," he replied.

"Loki... I know you have been hurt terribly these past few thousand years, but this bitterness will kill you. It will destroy you piece by piece, from the inside out. Selfish it may be, but I cannot lose you again," she said.

"You know I cannot promise that I will always return to you safe and whole; that is a promise I have never been able to make."

She smiled sadly. "I know, but I will not abandon you when there is still hope for you to return."

The words sent a pang of guilt and pain through Loki's chest as he remembered similar words spoken by his mother. He averted his gaze. "I do not remember what it is to hope."

A gentle, warm hand cupped his cheek, bringing his eyes back to Sigyn. She smiled warmly at him. "Then we will have to make you remember."

"No. Absolutely not."

"Loki, he'll be here in less than a day anyway-"

"And I fully intend to be gone by then."

"Then what? You'll spend the rest of eternity hiding from him? You know Thor will not stop until he has found you."

Loki was silent, staring out at the water as it rippled across the lake in glowing waves. He sat with Sigyn on the bank, among the wildflowers and tall grass. Sigyn had spent the night in his house, and she had used nearly all that time trying to convince him to stay and wait for Thor. Loki continued to refuse, carefully composing his features every time Thor's name was mentioned to hide the flinch of unease he felt.

"And what would I say to him? 'Hello, Thor! Fancy seeing you here! By the way, before you stove my head in with Mjolnir, I didn't fake my death, I just came back to life. Sorry I didn't tell you I was alive- nothing personal or anything'," he said irritably.

"Not quite how I would put it, but each to their own," Sigyn remarked.

Loki glared halfheartedly at her. "If- If I were to stay and wait for him, do you honestly think he would not drag me back to Asgard and into that cell?"

Sigyn sighed. "I cannot say, but I know that he does not wish to betray you. He misses you. Perhaps if you explain everything to him-"

Loki let out a short, harsh laugh. "Oh yes, that would go down well. 'I'm sorry for what happened on Midgard, but I wasn't myself. I'd been brainwashed too, you see, so none of it was really my fault at all'. Yes, I can picture my brains splattered across a wall quite clearly after that conversation, thank you."

"You know he'll let you explain."

"If he doesn't crush my ribcage with one of his ridiculous hugs beforehand."

"You miss him," Sigyn said with some amusement.

"Of course, I can't wait to feel each one of my ribs crack," Loki drawled.

"Please, just see him-"

"I'll think about it."

Sigyn sighed, and the conversation came to a close.

When Loki woke the next day, Sigyn's warm body beside his permanently cold one, he felt sick to his stomach with dread and anticipation. Thor would be arriving at some point in the day. And Loki still had not decided if he was staying, or if he was leaving. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to block out the world around him.

What he couldn't see, he didn't have to face.

At least, that's what he told himself when he was a child. He knew better than any now that it was the enemies you couldn't see that were the most dangerous.

With a silent sigh, he noiselessly rose from the bed and left the room. It was barely dawn, and the sky was just lightening to a blueish-grey. The forest around the meadow was silent but for the echoing voices of the Elves. They still occasionally sung of Thor.

He went straight into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Looking into his reflection, he once more allowed his glamour to drop. Rather than examining each individual scar, his eyes fell straight to the one on his chest.

Loki usually did his best to avoid looking at it, but he found his morbid curiosity was strong this day and wanted to see how it had healed. (Waking up in the cold, barren wasteland of Svartalfheim, knowing that Thor was gone, that once more, he had escaped death. Was Hela playing some kind of cruel game with him? If so, Loki wanted out.)

His long fingers traced the silvery, jagged line gently. (He watched as his magic sewed the skin back together, tendrils of green and gold magic weaved in and out of the skin like thread.)

Could he really stay and wait for Thor? Could Loki, who had done so much evil, really expect the Golden Son of Odin to forgive him for all his misdeeds and wrongdoings? As selfish as it made him- (Selfishness was one of Loki's many well-known traits. Always wanting, never giving. That was what the Aesir knew him for.)- Loki really did want that. He didn't expect it, but he wanted it.

He wanted it so very, very much.

And it was in that moment, just as Sigyn entered the bathroom to find Loki staring at his own emaciated form, that the God of Mischief made his decision.

Loki tapped his fingers against his knee, staring out of the window and into the meadow, searching for any signs of movement- any glimpses of red. Years ago, had he seen how jittery and nervous he was now, he would have told himself to pull himself together and stop being so pathetically anxious. But things had happened since then. Things that made him unable to 'pull himself together'.

"You know, tapping won't make him get here any faster," Sigyn said without looking at him. She was once more dressed in her traveling clothes, and sat in the armchair opposite him with a book in her hands.

Loki didn't answer her, though he stopped tapping. All he could think of was Thor.

Thor was coming.

Thor would find him.

Thor would know everything.

Thor would see him in such a raw state.

Red in the meadow.

Thor was here.