AN: Thank you guys for all the reviews, faves, and follows! I'm sorry this took so long to get out and that there isn't much, but I've been on and off sick (went to the ER one night), had a bit of writer's block, been busy with classes and have been exploring Seoul, South Korea since I only have a month left here. I hope that you like what I've written so far. This chapter is 1,457 words long.

Previously:

Holly nodded to her only friend in this dimension. "So, just to be clear, I'm stuck?"

Death stood up and picked some invisible lint off her cloak, "Oh yeah, indefinitely. Now, I have to go, some moron is trying to call me."

"Fantastic, have a nice time abandoning me in this place."

With that Death disappeared with a chuckle and Holly was left with a cold, empty room. Closing her eyes once more Holly welcomed whatever sleep she could manage, knowing that she'd have to talk with Director Patches later. She really had the worst luck on Halloween.

Holly woke up early the next day from her sleep. Taking care of her business quickly, so she could perhaps wander a bit, she didn't even bother to charm her jumper a different color. She left her room and saw rather than heard how the helicarrier was all a buzz with constant motion. Jets coming in and landing could be heard, people were walking stiffly down the corridors, and someone informed her that Director Patches wanted her on the Bridge.

The person who told her Fury's wishes then left her to her own devices. She was sure that they were watching to see what she would do; it was a test. So, Holly did her best to walk in a direction she felt was accurate.

The witch probably could have probably taken a surface dip into someone's mind to check if she was going the right way, but she reserved that trick for life and death situations. She didn't like having to invade someone's mind (partly because the occlumency attacks that Snape and Riddle had pulled with her, and then learning that Dumbledore had basically always been reading her surface thoughts whenever they interacted without her permission kind of pissed her off.) You can tell a lot about a person and their thoughts by body language, even if they're trained. There are always little ticks.

When Holly saw a couple men dressed in civilian clothes—not uniforms like everyone else— with a redhead dressed similarly she realized she, in fact, had been going the correct way. She followed them for the last leg. Holly knew that her fellow ginger knew she was following without even looking back. Following the trio through the dark doors into the Bridge she saw that it was a room of windows, tech, and agents scurrying around.

Red gave Holly a glance over for a second before turning and walking further into the room. The two men went in separate directions; the blonde to the right and the brunette to the left. They were looking around the place much like Holly was. It was a mix of wonder and a part sizing up the place and agents standing by.

The brunette man took a glance at the guards, she noticed, before quickly turning his head down a bit and moving away. She thought that the man felt threatened to be here. He wasn't like the blonde who was more open and smooth in his movements or Holly with her casual perusal— but ready for anything with her wand waiting for the moment she would flick her wrist and break into curses and hexes.

Holly moved further into the room, closer to the organized chaos where she heard words like "output capacity", "capacity reached", and "SHIELD Emergency Protocol 193.6 in effect." This all meant nothing to her, but was clearly all meant to be good things for Director Fury where he stood at control. When they talked about vanishing Holly was a bit intrigued on how they would achieve it. The helicarrier was huge and the sound of it flying alone—the high speed blades rotating making a bit of a whine— would alert someone to their location for sure. Holly caught the word "reflection" and assumed that they'd be engaged with some smoke and mirrors muggle trick, but still. Her thoughts on the sound of the behemoth were valid.

Patches turned around once everything seemed alright and in control. He moved towards the two men and Holly who had wandered close to the table. Holly had a vague thought on how his leather jacket reminded her a bit of a muggle movie she had seen decades ago: The Matrix.

"Gentlemen, Miss Potter," Fury welcomed them.

The Blonde moved towards the Director and money was exchanged. Holly was curious as to what the bet they had entailed, because obviously it was some sort of bet, but kept her mouth shut. She'd ask Blondie later. Once he came back over, since he kept walking away from Fury over to the tech stuff. Fury made it over to Holly and the brunette that had stayed in place.

"Doctor, thank you for coming," the two men shook hands.

"Thanks for asking nicely." The doctor didn't seem to meet Fury's eyes for long as he spoke. Holly raised a brow in curiosity. "So, uh, how long am I staying?"

"I'm with the Doctor on this one," Holly interjected. "How long will we be here? Although, I've got nothing better to do . . ."

Fury closed his eyes for a moment after looking at Holly before answering. "Once we get our hands on the tesseract—"

"That glowing blue thing that brought me here, yeah? That's what it's called?" Fury looked annoyed at Holly's interruption. She wisely decided to keep quiet. He had a similar look about him that Mad Eye had had about him.

"Yes." He said to Holly before looking back at the Doctor and continuing where he left off, "Then you are in the clear."

The Doctor moved away from Holly and the Director as he asked where they were with finding the tesseract. An agent wearing a suit and earpiece with his arms crossing answered that they were "sweeping every accessible camera on the planet." Which Holly had to admit both impressed and scared her. The sound of computers distracted Holly for a moment as he looked to the monitors.

They were trying to find the agent that Holly hadn't managed to save in the end, and Loki himself, quickly. Red was concerned that they wouldn't be found in time. It was a valid concern. They had this mystical, powerful, world destroying cube as well as agents who knew SHIELD secrets and some sort of scientist. That meant trouble. Anyone who thought otherwise would be bloody barmy.

Soon there was a bunch of science talk from the Doctor that people seemed to follow, but Holly wasn't sure she cared to follow, or was important for her to know, and "Agent Romanoff" aka Red lead Dr. Banner to his labs they had set up on the helicarrier. As Romanoff passed Holly she heard the woman making a quip about SHIELD having "all the toys" for the Doctor.

Once the pair left Fury and Holly were the only two in civilian clothes left on the upper level of the Bridge. The two looked to each other. The man dressed all in black looked to the redheaded witch with curiosity and a bit of distrust that he couldn't quite hide. It was a natural response to be like that, especially with the career path that he chose. Holly completely understood that and where Patches was coming from. He couldn't work on just her word alone that she wasn't in cahoots with Loki. He needed actions to prove that. He also didn't know how powerful of a witch she was. Clearly she was pretty powerful if she supposedly couldn't die, but was it like people with an X-gene where she had a healing factor or Loki where he wasn't even getting hit with bullets?

"Miss Potter, I'd like for you to do an evaluation." Holly nodded her agreement, but an agent claimed that they found a match on Loki. Both Fury and Holly turned to check it out.

Apparently the god was in Stuttgart, Germany. As the agent said, Loki wasn't bothering to hide himself. What a typical megalomaniac; for the god of mischief and lies he was really a letdown.

"Captain," Fury spoke to the blonde in plaid. "You're up."

"Need any help, mate?" Fury glanced at the witch with a look that clearly said, 'what did we just talk about?' "No. Right. Evaluation. I got you." Holly hated listening to others commands.

She could pop them to where they needed to be in just a moment and save people from whatever Loki was planning in just a moment. Taking a deep breath she let it out slowly. This wasn't her home dimension. It wasn't her call. So, for once, she would follow an order and sit it out. Holly would do the stupid evaluation that Director Patches wanted her to do. With a quick mutter of a charm though she set an alarm to tell her if anything bad or not according to plan happened to the group that went out to stop or fetch Loki.

It was her stupid saving people thing. An old habit she just couldn't quit stamp out. If she was around something crazy slight that had a small chance of going life and death, and she could help (read: get into trouble then miraculously get out alright), she did what she could. It was ingrained in her from her Hogwarts training.

AN: Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it :) Please R&R and let me know what to fix or clarify, or if you just liked it. I always love hearing from you guys!