What a strange night, Jane thought as she slipped into her nightie and braided her hair.

Mondays and Wednesdays she had yoga. Tuesdays and Thursdays were for focusing on some kind of art- whether that ended up being writing poetry, painting, or practicing piano, it was up to what she felt like on the given day. The weekend was for getting out in the fresh air and exercising. And on Wednesdays she took her research to the bar and studied it there amid the boisterous atmosphere, to get another change of scene.

She didn't socialize much, though that wasn't necessarily her choice. People just tended not to like her. Oh, most of them pretended they did- like Darcy, her assistant at the lab. But they didn't really. They kept her at a distance and she couldn't figure out why. She wondered about it a lot. More than she should, she was sure. But she couldn't figure it out! It drove her crazy. What was it about her that people hated so much? She made a point to always be nice, always be polite, always take an interest in others' lives, and yet...people never tried to get closer to her. She'd never had a best friend. Barely even really had 'friends'.

She'd had few relationships. Men came onto her frequently for some reason- it wasn't pleasant. She was just too nice though, and had a hard time being firm with her 'leave me alone's. But even when she'd liked them enough to agree to go out with them they were satisfied with a shallow relationship consisting of maybe knowing what she liked to do in her free time and how she liked her steak (not at all; she was a vegetarian). They rarely asked about her past or even tried to get to know her, which made her reluctant to share on her own because then she felt like she would be boring them. It didn't make for satisfying relationships.

What she wanted more than anything was to connect to someone. She didn't even care at this point if it was a man or a woman- she was just emotionally starving and clueless about how she could fix it.

The man at the bar had been interesting though. He'd broken the monotony of what her life had become. For one thing, he had been quite an exception among the men that had hit on her in the past. Most at least tried to be smooth and charming. Not this one. Thor. Jane chuckled to herself. He had been almost rude. Well, actually he had definitely been rude, but she hadn't minded it- a surprise in itself because, personally, she tried to be polite at all times so as to offend as few people as possible. But his rudeness had been almost charming in its own way. Even close to a compliment.

It had been clear that he was talking to her because he wanted to be talking to her, and it made her glow a little to remember that he hadn't wanted her to leave. Had even tried to get her number.

She shivered as she stood alone in her bathroom and opened the bottle of her pills. His eyes- he had stared at her intently throughout their whole exchange, and it had been heady being the complete focus of such a huge, intense man. Who had been gorgeous. Not her usual type, which tended more toward brainy, willowy men. Thor had been...well. Large. Like really large. Over six feet, definitely. Quite possibly six and a half. And really fit, too. He'd been wearing a simple dark green t-shirt and jeans, and the t-shirt had molded to what she was sure were rock-hard abs. His face had been rugged and attractive, with a square jawline, high cheekbones, and sharp nose that looked like it might have been broken before. His skin was tanned. His eyes a deep, magnetic blue.

He had the ability to be extremely intimidating, and she even got the sense that he used that quality purposefully sometimes- yet she had felt perfectly safe. Had felt more able to be herself, in fact, than she had felt in quite a while. She had even snapped at him! It had surprised her so much, because she usually had such a tight grip on her more inappropriate impulses. She had been mortified at the time, but thinking back was more amazed that she'd actually done it than regretful.

Taking two pills out of the bottle, she swallowed them down with a swig of water. Her depression pills. She had battled depression since she was a teen and her mother had married an emotionally abusive man. She had been so relieved to get a scholarship after high-school and be able to just leave. But her depression had followed her. All the nagging doubts and self-consciousness. They were stuck under her skin like insects in amber. They were just part of her now. The pills kept it manageable though, and being aware of it was incredibly helpful. Then she could catch herself when she was getting sucked in by her issues. It was also important to make sure she had a strict schedule and not too much time to herself to obsess over things, because that spiraled down to a bad place.

"Jane," she said to herself as she stood in front of her bathroom mirror, her hands at her sides. "You're going to be fine." She tried a smile. Her brow furrowed and she traced her curved lips in on the mirror- what a strange thing, to be able to smile when you weren't happy. And yet she wasn't exactly unhappy...it was more of a deep, long-term melancholy. She sighed.

Her face was pale. Shadows lay unattractively below her eyes. She was a light sleeper, and woke frequently all through the night, never really getting to the restive state. It was hell.

"You're going to think about five things that made you smile today, and then you're going to read for thirty minutes and and go to bed."

She looked awful. Almost ghostly. And she was so- Enough! She stopped herself before she could really get going. The list went on for a long time. She'd been to the end of it many times. Enough. Focus on the good things, Janey.

"Okay. Okay, good things," she thought back over the day. "I saw a bluebird. It was so pretty," she smiled faintly, remembering it. What it must be like to be able to just fly away...And bird's brains were so simple. There weren't all these confusing thoughts jumping around inside your head. Survival and reproduction, that's all birds thought about. "Second thing...Darcy told me a joke. Something about how many plumbers it took to screw in a light bulb...but I can't remember the punchline. Third thing...there was an amusing turn of phrase in one of the articles on fusion that sounded like a dirty pun. Fourth thing...that guy. Thor." Jane smiled again to herself as she remembered it. "Fifth thing..." She fiddled with the end of her braid as she wracked her mind. "Umm. Fifth thing...well. Fifth- oh!" She grinned, relieved. "There was a song on the radio that was really funny. Good. That's five things."

She felt ridiculous for it, but honestly, it helped. So she did it every night.

She walked through the bathroom door into her bedroom. Snuggling into her bed and wrapping herself in blankets- even New Mexico got chilly in November- she picked up the romance novel she was in the middle of. They were her (incredibly) guilty pleasure. She would never admit to liking them, but, in fact, she ate them up. The idea that the hero and heroin ended up together, for sure for sure no playing around, despite whatever obstacles had to be overcome, was appealing to her on a deep level.

Reluctantly turning the light off half an hour later, Jane tossed and turned all night, waking up in the early light of the morning, glad to have gotten through the night once more.