That following Thursday evening found Kurt and Loki in the easy chairs in front of a small fire in Loki's room. Kurt had shown Loki how to play chess over the ensuing weeks and he'd picked it up quickly, having been possessed of a military bent coming from a family of warriors, in fact he'd gotten good at it. Kurt had suggested they join everyone in the common room for Scary Story night but Loki had been pensive all week and he refused. In the end, Kurt had decided to keep Loki company, perhaps to see what was troubling his friend so.
Kurt watched Loki's face in the firelight, could see that his mind was not entirely on the board before them. In fact Kurt had made a couple easy moves that Loki had failed to encounter.
"Mein freund, tell me about dis woman, Sarah."
Loki's face clouded over, "What is it you would like to know?"
Kurt thought a minute, "Is she pretty?"
Loki glanced into the fire, "Beautiful."
"You said she vas an agent, Ja?"
"She still is."
Kurt watched him poised above the board with the rook in his hand, "Have you tried to call her?"
Loki shook his head, "She now lives with Jane Foster and my brother." his last word was delivered with a growl, "If I were to attempt it, they would not let me speak with her."
"But how do you know if you have not tried?"
Loki tapped his temple with one long finger, "I have seen her thoughts. She does not dwell on me as of late."
"Oh?" Kurt sat forward, looked at his bishop, went to pick it up, hesitated and sat back for a moment to ponder the move again, "Why?"
Loki looked up at Kurt, "My brother takes up her time. He claims pretense that it is..." he stopped, no one in the school knew about Sarah's pregnancy unless Fury had told Ororo but she hadn't indicated that she knew in all the conversations they'd had since then.
"Is vat?"
"He claims to comfort her in my absence, in truth he is become enamored of her."
Kurt nodded slowly, "And vat of her, does she reciprocate his feelings?"
Loki didn't answer immediately and Kurt waited, let him concentrate on the chess piece in his hand.
After a couple of minutes Loki put a hand to his forehead, "I see the turmoil of thoughts in her mind when I try to reach her. She reasons that he is there, he plays kind, caring, loving. She cares about Jane and that holds her back. She thinks of me and it holds her back further, and then she sees him and it is undone yet again."
"I vould not see you in such pain, Mein Freund. Perhaps you could attempt the phone call, even if dey answer the phone, you could simply hang up."
"I would be afraid that if my brother answered the phone, I would not be able to hold my tongue and he would be here in minutes. I will not put the school through that disaster again."
They played in silence for awhile and then Kurt tried a different tack.
"What of Miss Archer?"
"What of her?"
Loki had quickly become agitated, Kurt could see it.
"You say Sarah's thoughts do not dwell on you, do your thoughts dwell on another?"
"No," Loki hovered over the board, making another simple move that Kurt easily countered.
"You seem to seek her company quite often."
"We are friends just as you and I. I seek your company most days but it does not mean I wish to bed you."
Kurt looked up at Loki who was still intent on the board, "I said nothing about bedding her."
Loki closed his eyes, trying to center his thoughts. "I misunderstood the implications."
"Indeed, das is certainly a misunderstanding...checkmate."
Loki sat back in the chair, stared into the fire, "Forgive me Kurt, I wish to be alone."
Kurt sat forward and patted his knee, "Dere is no need to ask forgiveness. God grant you peace. I think I vill vander down to der common room and see if I can scare anybody."
Long after Kurt had gone, Loki sat listening to the crackle of the fire, thinking of Sarah, of the struggle they'd endured just to steal a few moments each time they'd met. The panic that under-lied their lovemaking in his quarters at S.H.I.E.L.D., the desperation that had caused them to flee and the resignation that had made him run. He couldn't see that changing, Thor would not allow it. Fury would not allow it. How could they ever be free?
Then his thoughts turned maddeningly to Grace. His heart would pound every time he saw her as of late. Kurt had been right, painfully so. He would deliberately seek her out, even as much as he seemed to annoy her at times and owing to the fact that she too was a closed door much like Thomas had been, he could still sense the thoughts close to the surface and he had felt her heart race as well every time he was close.
Perhaps the events set in motion upon his return to Earth what seemed like eons ago now, were truly leading him here to his fate. He felt accepted, among like people, even loved to a point. He had a purpose, the rage in him that he'd borne when he and Thor first stepped onto the landing pad in New York had diminished until it was a distant memory. He was content here, if he could convince Sarah to come here and stay with him and their children, maybe he would finally be truly at peace but if she decided to stay in New York as he suspected she would, how would they ever be a family?
He rose from the chair, banked the fire and headed out into the hallway, heading for the common room to find Kurt again.
Logan pushed the wheelbarrow into the multi-port garage. "Here's the last of them. It's getting damn cold outside."
Kitty, Piotr and Loki started taking the pumpkins out of the wheelbarrow, setting them on one of two long tables.
Kitty had counted the first table and was now in the process of counting each of the remaining ones the men set on the second table.
"Forty pumpkins, this is going to look beautiful. We've got to cut the tops and gut them after lunch so they can be ready for tonight."
Logan looked at the watch on his arm, "Loki, we got a class to teach too. We don't get going we're going to be late."
"I am..." He sighed, "I'm ready when you are."
Logan clapped him on the back, "I'll have you trained in no time. Come on."
They stepped out into the late October sunshine filtering through the golden maple leaves of the trees surrounding the garage. "Grounds is gonna have to rake tomorrow before the party."
Loki picked up a maple leaf and studied it as they walked, "Should I ask if you are helping with the pumpkins tonight?"
Logan rolled his eyes, "I was corralled this time. Mother hen told me I had to because I was strong enough to cut the pumpkins." He slid the adamantium claws out from his right hand and held them up, "Maybe she'd reconsider if I tell her I'm using these babies for the job."
Sarah stared hard at the time in the corner of her computer screen, willing it to be five o' clock already. She'd been to the bathroom three times in the last hour and just wanted to get home to put her feet up. The babies had finally quieted down, stopping their acrobatics. Tomorrow was Halloween. Thor, Jane and herself would make supper, put scary movies on the TV and hand out candy but tonight she would be alone, with Thor. Jane had a night class to teach so they'd be eating dinner and spending the night without her. Sarah looked forward to it and feared it at the same time, knowing she was slipping into dangerous waters.
When Thor had returned and told her Loki refused to come back with him, she had told Thor that she was glad of it. Inwardly, she had struggled to contain her emotions, her relief that they wouldn't send him back to Asgard and the chance that the High Council would order his death, her pain at being apart from him. She knew why Loki was staying at Xavier's school. She knew the options he faced coming back. She also realized what chance they had to be together, and what it would mean for her career. The mere fact that they had kept her on, led her to constantly second guess herself as to why, though she had two good ideas.
The elevator stopped at the second floor of the parking garage and she got out. She'd been driving to work a lot lately for the freedom it offered her. She hit the unlock button as she stood before her little Jeep Patriot and waited for the beep to pull on the handle. She pulled herself up, strapped in, backed up and headed down the exit ramp.
She had come to terms with her mistakes. The biggest one of course being ever letting anything happen between them in the first place. She should have been fired just for that offense, it was one of the number one rules, do not get involved with staff, prisoners, or team members. It had demeaned her professionalism and as such, she'd been happy to return to a desk job, considering the fact that she at least still had a job to go to. Fury had been unusually understanding but she'd had to go through the gauntlet to return to S.H.I.E.L.D.
As time began to move forward without any communication from Loki, Thor had been her constant source of comfort and encouragement, telling her that she wouldn't be alone when the babies arrived, saying that she was beautiful when she felt like a beach ball with arms and legs, taking her hand while she cried, kissing her on the top of the head, holding her.
She wanted to believe it was the hormones rushing through her and she would keep saying it, using the excuse over and over as Thor moved closer to her every day and her time with Loki became almost a dream, a terrifying, wonderful dream but a dream nonetheless. A number of times, she'd driven out of the city to see Lizzie in Far Rockaway and had nearly kept going towards the highway, intending to head to Xavier's school and then she had forced herself back to that same reality, the futility of it all.
She pulled into the dooryard of the little house in Brooklyn, could see Thor's silhouette in the kitchen as he doubtless was preparing supper, and she shivered, then sighed, shut the car door and trotted up the front porch stairs into the house.
Half the staff was in the garage with knives, spoons and paper towels. They'd paired up and claimed spots on the garage floor. Newspaper was spread out on the concrete and barn heaters were going as the temperatures had dropped into the forties the afternoon.
Loki was poised on his knees, using the knife to cut around the circle Grace had drawn around the stem.
"Make it big enough, I still need to put my hand inside to get out the seeds and stuff unless you want to do that?"
Loki poked his finger into the now exposed fibers and seeds on the inside, "No, this is your chore."
Grace shook her head, "What a wuss." She gutted three of the five pumpkins in front of her, slinging the detritus on the newspapers beside them as they talked and laughed.
"Why didn't Kurt join us for the fun?" Grace asked Loki as he cut into the fourth pumpkin.
"I inquired as to why he wasn't joining us and he told me that he had lesson plans to go over. He is very serious about this German class. I told him that if I were required to go to the party tomorrow night, then he would be also and he agreed."
Loki pulled the top off of the fourth pumpkin and set it beside the great orange globe, backing out of the way to let Grace have at it. She shoved her hand into the pumpkin and squelched the innards between her fingers, smiling. "I've always loved Halloween and autumn, the colors of the leaves, the smells, the scary stuff, the cozy fires and warm days, the food."
She scooped as much as she could out with her hand and grabbed for the paper towels to wipe her hands but found an empty roll.
Loki would you get me a new roll of paper towels, I need one."
Loki stretched over to the table above them and grabbed a small roll, unwound a few sheets and handed them to Grace. As she took them from his hand, her fingers closed over his and their heads snapped upwards in unison, images, thoughts suddenly in her head, scenes, a bracelet, a burst of rainbow light, a post, chains, the face of a woman holding a small stick, a cabin, New York from stories above the ground, a sightless monster standing amidst a dark rocky crag, a landscape of ice and snow and she pulled her hand away with a shuddering gasp.
Loki had pitched backwards when their hands parted, catching himself with one hand behind himself, the other still in midair, fingers outstretched. Grace meanwhile was on her feet at once, realizing the garage had gone silent. She felt sick to her stomach, glanced down at Loki, her hands now stuck beneath her arms which she'd folded across her chest.
"I have to go," her voice was small, soft. Loki stood up then, started to put his hand up to her shoulder and watched her shrink away from him.
"Stay here. I shall go."
She kept her gaze at the pumpkin at their feet, felt him brush past her, out into the cold October evening, only then did she allow her bottom lip, which she'd bitten hard, to tremble as she took her hands from beneath her arms and looked at them as if they'd betrayed her.
Ororo came up beside her and laid a gentle hand on her arm, feeling her stiffen in response.
"I forgot that I had my gloves off to clean out the damn pumpkins. It just happened and I wasn't ready for it." Grace closed her eyes tightly, trying to stave off the tears forming there. "And the exchange works both ways, my god."
"You'll be okay Grace. Why don't you grab a chair and sit down. Take a rest, we'll finish the pumpkins. The children will be here in pretty soon."
She took the folding chair that Kitty had carried over but not before she had used the utility sink in the garage to wash her hands, then taking her gloves from her jeans pocket and pulling them on. She sat quiet, watching the rest of her friends clean up the newspapers and put the pumpkins on the long tables but the activity failed to distract her from the images, thoughts that she'd received from Loki when she had touched him. God only knew what he had received from her.
Loki sat on his bed, looking at his hands. The exchange had been exhilarating and crude all at once, animalistic. It felt like being turned inside out with all one's deepest darkest thoughts bared for everyone to see. He had caught images of her screaming, crying as a man came at her in the darkness of a small room, a small teacup shattering to the floor, two girls holding a pair of gloves high over their heads laughing, then more, stronger images, seeing him for the first time, thoughts, words, even emotions, fear, desire, rage. She was a telepath like him. A particularly powerful one at that. He lay back on the mattress and covered his face with his hands, groaned aloud, jumping at the sudden knock on his door and sitting up.
"Come in,"
Grace swung the door wide, walked into the room and immediately set to pacing before him, her gloved hands clasped in front of her, "Well now you know why I wear gloves. I've always been telepathic. My parents gave me up for adoption shortly after I was born," Her voice was tremulous, close to breaking, "I went threw a slew of foster homes and schools where I learned real fast not to touch anyone or anything because shut off what I would see. I still haven't learned to either. Then one day I was outside in the snow, I couldn't have been more than four. My foster mother came outside to bring me in and grabbed my hand, I had mittens on and I found her thoughts were muffled, like someone talking through a pillow. I asked for some heavier gloves and it worked. I could feel where the gloves had been but that faded with time. Objects are one thing, people are worse. I learned some control when I knew I was going to touch something but when it was unexpected like you, I had no chance to throw up any barriers and I get millions of images all at the same time and the connection is immediate, like being plugged in, woven together like a tapestry and I saw things I shouldn't have and I'm sorry."
She stopped pacing but didn't look at him, couldn't meet his eyes.
"It is like that for me too. Each time I see into someone's mind, it becomes more entwined with my own until I can sense that person's thoughts over a great distance."
He stood up beside Grace, distressed when she flinched at his movement.
"Is it like that with Sarah?"
"Yes it is, though sometimes I wish it were not. It is easier not to see that which you cannot have."
He walked over to an easy chair and sat down, his head in his hand. Grace walked over to stand before him, "You never told anyone she's pregnant."
"What good would it do, I cannot be with her, nor see her. I know not whether I will even be able to see my children."
Grace sat on the couch opposite him. "We'll find a way for you to see them when it's time."
Loki looked at her, wanting to take her chin in his hand and make her return his gaze but he was sure such a move would send her screaming from his room at that moment.
"Your connection is like a conduit, an exchange. You have seen into me and I have seen into you."
He waited for her to absorb his words but her expression never wavered though her eyes glistened in the light from the small lamp between the easy chairs.
"There's so much I want to say but I can't, Loki. I've made it a point to forgo human contact for so long that the connection between us feels foreign. Unwanted."
She turned her head then, and finally looked at him, "That's not right, I didn't mean unwanted, I don't know what to call it."
He shrugged, "Unexpected."
She gave a shy smile, "Unexpected, oh that's an understatement."
He clasped his hands together and put them to his chin, "You know then that I am the same as you. A telepath."
She nodded, "I saw things I didn't understand. Who is the monster that stands in the dark rocks?"
"He is called The Other. He is the maker of the destruction in Manhattan."
She recalled then, the scene in New York, watched his face.
"I saw the markings on your back the day after you arrived but didn't dare ask what they were from, now I know."
"There is much I have seen about you as well. The man in the bedroom."
She put her hand to her mouth, "I've never told anyone about Wade."
"I will keep your secrets."
She frowned, could feel the tears threatening again, "And I'll keep yours."
He wanted to comfort her in that moment, to take her hand and kiss it, to reassure her. He looked up at her.
When their eyes met again, he could feel his heart begin to hammer in his chest and suddenly he needed to be anywhere else in the world but here before her. He broke their gaze.
"Loki," She began but the words would remain where they were as there came another knock on the door.
"Come in," Loki sat up straighter in the chair and Grace sat back in the couch both of them aware that their actions were making them seem like they had been caught doing something wrong.
Kurt opened the door, "Loki, I vent down to der..." his gaze passed from Loki to Grace and back.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Loki and Grace both stood at once,
"No, not at all. We were talking." Loki gave Kurt a wide smile, Kurt noticing that Grace had turned her head to look at him, more appropriately, stare at him.
"Are you going down to der pumpkin carving? Der kinder have already started."
Loki nodded, put his hands out to usher them from his room and closed the door behind them.
Outside the large garage, there were a number of Jack o' Lanterns already carved and lit. Kurt had observed Loki and Grace all the way down the hall and out the foyer, into the courtyard and around the circular drive where it forked off around the mansion. They had tried so hard to look casual that they were having the opposite effect, Kurt finally corralling Loki as they neared the crowd and Grace was taken up with the children.
"Vat did I valk in on?"
"A talk, Kurt. That is all."
Kurt saw that Grace had stopped what she was doing and was watching them.
"Ja, a talk but vat more?"
Loki started to walk again, "What does it matter?"
Kurt caught up with him, "Vat of Sarah?"
Loki stopped and turned on Kurt, "What has this to do with Sarah?" He could see Kurt's tail swishing back and forth like an angry cat.
"Maybe I should ask it another vay. Are you seeing Miss Archer?"
Loki's blank stare only served to frustrate Kurt, "Ach, courting, dating, sleeping vith? Does any of this make sense?"
He knew the words had struck a chord as Loki was visibly shaken. "Friends, Kurt, I have told you, we are...friends."
Kurt looked again to Grace who was still watching them. "Come, mein freund, let us talk no more of dis. Let us join der festivities."
Loki stood watching the children, teenagers all carving the pumpkins in their own designs, laughing, joking. He stayed far from the crowd, unsteady, trying to calm himself. Tonight he would meditate before bed. He'd been doing so as of late, to quell the torrent of emotions he'd been going through since his arrival and it had helped, but as he watched Grace among the children, smiling, laughing, casting the occasional glance his way and each time in doing so, causing his heart to race, he knew meditation would be forced tonight. Kurt had seen again what he had sought so hard to avoid. The encounter tonight had only served to deepen it, the fact that he'd been denying it serving only to make it worse. He was falling in love with Grace.