The first snow of the season ushered in the first week of November. Loki had made it a point to avoid Grace as much as possible since Halloween but it had been a painful separation. The encounter seemed to create a bond stronger than the one he had possessed with Sarah, different, made tighter by the fact that they were both telepaths. He had taken to stripping himself down to his Jotun form,
hated though it was, meditating in his room every night to recenter himself. He seemed to be able to eschew human emotions more readily then, the warmth of the fireplace playing deliciously on his cold skin.
Still he had begun to dream, maddening, highly erotic dreams, half remembered, incredibly intense. He'd more than once that week forced himself to lie abed hands clasped into fists, willing his arousal to abate, knowing that if he touched himself, all would be lost. He wondered if Grace had been having the same difficulties as he but dared not approach her on any subjects save academics at this point.
Sundays were usually reserved for visiting family and friends, often a busy day and this Sunday was no exception. Still Loki was taken aback when Logan found him in the common room. "Hey, pal, you got a visitor in the foyer."
Loki's heart leaped, could Sarah have decided to come see him? Then the reality hit him, he would have felt her if she had...wouldn't he?
He trotted towards the foyer, suddenly slowing as he saw the back of a long black leather coat and a dark bald head looking up at the ornate drop lights that hung from the ceiling.
When he heard the footsteps, Nick Fury turned and a smile that ended at his one good eye, crossed his face.
"Happy Early Thanksgiving."
Loki stopped a few feet distant from him. "Why are you here?"
"Now I thought this was a finishing school, where are your manners?"
Loki bit his bottom lip hard then gestured with his hand towards the common room, "This way, please."
He led Fury into the common room and waved his hand towards one of the couches before the roaring fire in the massive fireplace. Fury nodded and sat down but Loki remained standing.
"Have a seat, I'm not going to whisk you away, I promise."
Loki stared at him, unmoving, his arms before his chest.
"Suit yourself," Fury leaned back in the couch, crossed his legs, "I came here to check on our wayward son, to see how he's adapting to academic life. Miss Munroe informs me you're fitting right in, becoming like one of the family."
Loki frowned, "I am flattered. I was not aware you were receiving regular updates about me."
Fury clapped his hands together, "That was one of the stipulations of your remaining here. Did you think we were just going to forget about you?"
"One could hope." He muttered and Fury gave a soft laugh.
"You're even teaching a self defense class. Keeping your skills sharp?"
"I am an assistant."
"But you get paid for your services, you've actually become a contributing member of society. The IRS is gonna have a ball with this one when they try to send your W-2's to you. Might want to get a change of address form."
Loki put a hand to his temple and rubbed it. He was quickly becoming irritated.
"Staying put?"
Loki cocked his head, "What do you mean?"
Fury shrugged his shoulders, "Any clandestine jaunts about town?"
"The farthest I have been outside the facility is Salem Center with Ororo and Logan."
He had been shocked when Ororo had pulled him aside and asked that he go with them to town for party supplies just before Halloween. He'd thought, too, that even though they were extending every freedom to him, that he was indeed limited to the grounds simply based on his first long talk with Ororo a lifetime ago now.
"I was just checking, I had to ask, not that you'd tell me the truth now, would you?"
Loki gave him a sly smile, "What reason have I to lie now?"
"Well I'm happy to know you've found a safe place here. I'm heading out to be with my family for a couple weeks, the holidays and all, which reminds me, I got something for you." Fury reached for the inside pocket of his coat and drew out a black and white photograph, handing it to Loki who hesitated, then reached out and snatched it away as if Fury was suddenly going to grab him by the wrist and drag him out the front door. He stared at the photo, at first mystified by it, then reading the words around the edge, "Miller, Sarah D.O.B. 4/12/78" he could discern two small silhouettes in one strangely shaped chamber.
"Ah you've probably never seen an ultrasound picture before, I'm getting slow in my old age. The doctors take pictures of the babies while they're still in utero. It's a picture of the twins from last week."
The picture started to blur before him and he backed into a large easy chair, sitting down heavy, mouth hung open in shock.
"Sarah sent this?"
Fury shook his head, "No, Thor brought it to show me, he was there for the ultrasound, he thought I'd like to see how the little Laufeysons are doing."
Sick rage welled up inside him, his breath quickening, pulse racing, "It should have been me."
He growled, "Thor has no right to be there."
Fury raised an eyebrow, "Technically, neither do you. If you step foot on the island of Manhattan without permission, you fall under my jurisdiction and you're fair game. You might want to keep that in mind."
Loki's stomach was turning now, the anger threatening to overwhelm him as he forced out his next question with great effort, feeling as if he was begging, pleading like a dog for any scraps,
"Does Sarah speak of me?"
Fury shook his head, "Not to me, you'd have to ask Thor that question. Sarah lives with him and Jane now."
"I know this," Loki's voice was barely a whisper.
"How?"
Loki tapped his forehead with a long finger.
"Oh yeah I forgot. A pity it doesn't always work." He tapped his own bald head and smiled.
Loki's frown deepened, Fury was another human he had never been able to read. He could see him but it was as if he was a hole in space, a blank, as if he didn't exist.
"Yeah sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you." He sat forward from the couch and stood up,
"I've got to head out, they're predicting more snow and I got a ways to drive. Before I go, is there anything that you want me to tell Sarah if I see her?"
Loki shook his head, "I could tell you volumes but nothing would reach her."
Fury's face remained impassive, "Don't say I didn't offer." he glanced into the foyer where a few students and their parents had now gathered. "I'll show myself out."
Loki sat there until the front door closed behind Fury, then rose from the easy chair, striding past the students and their families without a word and down the hallway on the opposite side of the corridor. His throat stung with swallowed tears, teeth clenched together, nostrils flaring with each lungful of oxygen, the picture clutched in one hand, the other in a fist, he needed to be alone, he wanted to be with someone, his thoughts were racing, his eyes not seeing the path he was taking, the people he was passing.
Grace had taken the book from her bookshelf before she'd left her room and was hoping she wouldn't be late to the library when she caught sight of Loki heading down the hall at her. She put her own head down and kept walking. They had done a good job of avoiding each other the week after Halloween. He had remained in his quarters on All Hallow's eve while the children enjoyed their night of revelry, even Kurt couldn't move him.
She'd awakened from a dream the morning after Halloween and had decided that distance was the best thing she could give him right now and though she'd expected him to do the same she was startled when he sailed by her, silent, swift. She turned and looked at his retreating form, eyes narrowed in confusion as she continued to the library. Logan was outside the door, leaning against the wall, reading a book.
"Don't tell me you're going to the poetry reading. Ororo threaten you, did she?"
Logan's head jerked up, "Ha ha, yeah I'm going to read "Hiawatha."
"Oh should be interesting." Grace glanced back down the hallway but Loki had disappeared.
"Geez Gracie, you think I was serious?" Logan stood up,. "I was finishing the last chapter and returning my book. I wanted to get out of there before the poetry reading started. That crap is sissy shit."
"Nice, nice."
"Well it is, now that's stuff that Loki would like, where is long, tall and ugly?"
"He was headed down the hallway when I saw him just a couple of minutes ago."
Logan peered down the dim hallway, "He had a visitor this afternoon."
Grace's heart skipped a beat, her chest felt empty, "A visitor, a woman?"
"Naw a big black man in a long leather jacket, had a patch over one eye. I thought it was Nick Fury but I've only seen pictures of him."
Grace looked at the book in her hand, "He didn't say what he wanted?"
Logan shrugged, "He wanted to talk to Loki, that's it." Logan opened one of the double doors into the library room and walked inside. She heard Kurt yell to him, "Vat is dis, are you going to read a little Valt Vitman for us?"
Grace closed her eyes and sighed. She knew she should just walk into the library behind Logan and sit down with her book, wait her turn to read. She turned the way Loki had gone, took a couple steps, stopped, turned back again towards the library door, groaned, turned away and headed down the hallway to find Loki.
Fury had pulled off the highway into a rest area when the snow started to come down heavier and he now sat, watching the large plows scraping the highway behind him. He opened the glove compartment to his right, took out the envelope which read "Loki" in big letters on the front, and opened it. In truth, Fury had felt the slightest twinge of guilt about the photo and so he had given it to Loki, but not the letter. He opened it and reread it in the orange glow of the sodium arc lamps lining the walkway of the rest area,
"Loki,
Here's the latest ultrasound picture of the babies. I'm doing okay with the pregnancy although I'm a little tired and I think the kids use my bladder for a trampoline.
We need to talk soon. Things are changing here. I've written my new cell number inside the envelope. Call me any time, day or night.
You don't know how many times I've wished I could turn back the clock, stop you from leaving that car but I know that's impossible. I understand why you did what you did, I only hope you understand why I did what I've done in turn. Thor tells me you're happy and safe at the school which gives me a bit of peace, knowing that you're not out on the road somewhere alone. If this is the way it has to be, then so be it. I just need to talk to you, I miss you.
Sarah"
He refolded the letter and slid it back in the envelope. If he was to keep Loki at the school where he could have some measure of control over him, even under Miss Munroe's jurisdiction, then Thor would have to continue the job he'd been asked to do. Whether it was now a pleasure or a burden for him was no matter. The bottom line, the end result was all that mattered, that Loki stay where he was for the foreseeable future. Fury took a bottle of pills out of one of the cup holders, opened it, shook a little blue pill into his hand and swallowed it down without water. Then he got out of the car with the letter in his hand. His footsteps were muffled in the snow as he walked to the men's restroom. Once inside, he methodically tore the letter into dozens of tiny pieces and distributed them evenly between the three empty toilet bowls, flushing each one in turn.
Once back outside, he stretched, got back into his car and started the engine, backing out into the deserted parking lot and heading north on Interstate 684.
Grace made a cautious entrance into the large kitchen, peering into the darkness broken by the outside lights that illuminated the mansion. She could see him silhouetted in the big bay window behind the wait staff table, looking out at the falling snow, a piece of paper in his left hand, his right pressed against the glass. She stood there listening, watched his hand rake across the window, curl into a fist, heard him take a shuddering breath, just as quickly let it out. She took another couple steps forward, afraid to startle him. She sat the book down as quietly as she could on the table beside him, put her hand out, took a deep breath and touched his arm.
"Loki,"
He flinched as if he'd been stung, and backed away from her.
"It's me," She stepped into the light from the bay window and looked up at him. "Are you alright?"
He held up the piece of paper in his hand and she saw what it was, took it from him and stared at it.
"Thor was there with her." She glanced up at him then back at the ultrasound picture. "Where I should have been."
She could hear the tremor in his voice as she put the picture down on the windowsill beside her and put a gloved hand to his cheek, wiping the tears with her thumb, the touch of her hand finally serving to break him and he curled forward, sobs wracking his body. She slid her arms around his neck, hands stroking his hair as she whispered to him that it was going to be alright, feeling his arms encircle her waist, lift her to him, his head buried into her shoulder. They stayed like that for long minutes until he gently stepped back from her, his gaze fixed on the floor as he wiped his eyes with his fingertips and looked up at her.
"Thank you Grace, You cannot know what you have done for me. I so desperately needed you tonight. I feared I was coming undone again."
He reached out for her again and enfolded her in a tight embrace, her head resting against his chest, hearing his heart beat. "Thank you," She heard his voice a low purr and she closed her eyes, relishing the closeness of another person, one she didn't want to run away from screaming in fear.
She backed away from him, finally, and picked up her poetry book from the table.
"Why don't you come with me. It's reading night, we're doing poetry."
Loki shook his head, "I would make poor company, I fear."
"Nonsense, I'd only worry about you if you went to your room. Just sit and listen. Splash some water on your face," She walked to the large basin sink and turned on the cold water, "It'll feel good after what you went through."
Loki did as he was told, the cool water serving to refresh him. He grabbed the picture from the windowsill and followed her dutifully out of the kitchen.
Kurt paused in his recital when Loki and Grace slipped into the library.
"Sorry," Grace mouthed to Kurt who gave her a slight bow and continued. Loki had asked her to put the photo in the back of her book so that no one would see it and she had obliged. They sat on one of the couches together, she handing him the book she'd been holding as they listened to Kurt. After a moment, leafing through the book, he nudged Grace.
"You should read this one."
She took the book from him and read the title, "From Pent up Aching Rivers" She cast him a sideways glance but he was focused on Kurt.
"Loki," She whispered, "I can't read that, take a really good look at it."
She watched him read the first few lines to himself satisfied he would see what it was, "Well?"
He turned to her and smiled, "Then I shall read it."
He stood before she could stop him as Kurt bowed, the others, Ororo, Kitty, a new staff member who had joined them, Joseph Lundgren, and Piotr clapping.
Kurt smiled at Loki waving him to the middle of the floor, Grace trying to sink into the cushions a little farther, wishing fervently that she'd not picked Walt Whitman this time, but as he started to speak, his low, fluid voice mesmerizing, caressing the words like a patient lover, she began to wish he'd not picked it for quite another reason,
From Pent up Aching Rivers
From that of myself without which I were nothing,
From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole
among men,
From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
O for any and each the body correlative attracting!
O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all
else, you delighting!)
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,
Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it
many a long year,...
She had her hand to her neck, absently rubbing it, letting his voice carry her away, he focusing on her alone in the room as he read, she watching him, listening.
The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.
The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that
loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,
(O I willingly stake all for you,
O let me be lost if it must be so!
O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust
each other if it must be so;)
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the cushion, transported by the words.
From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom,
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting
with excess,
From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,
From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace in
the night,
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,
From the cling of the trembling arm,
From the bending curve and the clinch,
From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,
From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling
to leave,
(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)
From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,
From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,
Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,
And you stalwart loins.
The sound of clapping brought her back to herself and she opened her eyes just in time to see Loki staring at her as he snapped the book shut. He walked over to the couch and sat back down beside her, she not daring to look around the room, instead taking the book from Loki and pretending to browse through it for another poem.
"Well how did I do?" He nudged her and she rolled her eyes, catching Kurt's stare as Kitty stood up in the middle of the room.
"Wonderfully. Next time, let me pick the poem."
Loki sat back in the couch and smiled, "I rather liked it. Might I read some more to you another day?" suddenly his face darkened and he stood up, "If you' will excuse me. I'm going to retire for the evening."
Grace sat forward, "Do you want me to walk you up?"
He shook his head. "I am fine. I will talk to you tomorrow."
"Promise?" she said quietly.
"I promise."
He glided around the couches and chairs, slipped into the hallway and was gone.
Grace lay in bed that night, the book of poetry clutched in her hand, open to the poem Loki had read, her hand keeping the page as she finally fell asleep.