A/N: Sorry! It's been a while. This chapter is still a bit gloomy, but I promise the next one is more cheerful, and then it should get better from there.
Also, I thought it worked better for Jane's parents to be emotionally abusive rather than physically, so I changed that from chapter 2. =P
Christmas Eve was lonely. She'd done her best to throw herself into the holiday cheer, but it was hard to dig up Christmas spirit when memories of Christmases past remained so vivid.
Her parents were very wealthy. She had grown up in the lap of luxury, a silver spoon in each hand, so to speak. She had been given the very best of everything. She had been sent to the best schools, been told to wear the most expensive clothes, been thrust into the very highest circles of society. Financially, Jane had thrived. Emotionally, she had been starved. Hugh and Lydia Foster managed to be cold and distant to their only child, while still mapping out the activities of her daily life and demanding perfection at every turn. Jane grew from a quiet, meek girl who could speak fluently in three languages yet barely spoke at all, to a shy, sad teen who retreated into the world of science- to the infinite reaches of space and the many unanswered questions and intrigues it held- when it became too much to face the more personal, important questions that she knew the answers to and that were far more terrifying and important.
It had been just before Christmas- December twentieth, her birthday- that her parents had given her an ultimatum when she turned seventeen: marry a man they had chosen for her, some rich oil tycoon's son, by her next birthday, or get cut off. She remembered it clearly, because it had come as such a shock. It had never occurred to her that her parents would go that far. And then as soon as she'd had that thought, it had struck her as painfully naïve and innocent to have thought that they wouldn't. Because of course they would. She had never been given the opportunity to make her own choices before, and she'd never rebelled- it seeming impossible- so why would they not take this step? Knowing it would be useless to argue, instead Jane had driven herself harder than ever at her studies, practically living inside textbooks except for the social functions her mother would drag her too. They were awful. Her mother would make the rounds with Jane on her arm and Jane would feel so awkward and clumsy that she'd be tongue-tied. She had been painfully shy. Her work had paid off though, and she'd gotten the scholarship she'd wanted so desperately. When she'd told her parents that she would, in fact, be going to college rather than marrying their oil tycoon's son, her mother had simply looked at her, her eyes cold and her face taught, and walked out. Her father had chewed her out for an hour as she felt smaller and smaller, and then, finally, had announced her disowned.
"I want you to be gone by tomorrow," he had said, his voice steely and unbending. She'd nodded, tears that had slipped out silently as he yelled drying tightly on her face. As she'd turned to slip out of his study he'd snorted, disgusted. "Eighteen years," he'd muttered, not speaking to her but not caring that she would hear. "What a god damn waste."
That had been the first truly terrible Christmas, not that the first eighteen were much good. It had been wonderful being free of the constant control, but then that first year of college had been when she met Keith, and she had, in effect, traded one prison for another.
Jane shook her head at her youthful folly. Keith had been a disaster. He was also the primary reason for putting men aside for so many years. As if she hadn't had enough issues before she'd met him...sighing, Jane plugged the lights in on her small Christmas tree, the smell of sugar cookies lifting her spirits slightly. Letting go of the past, she reminded herself. I'm letting go of the past. It was self-destructive to obsess over things you couldn't change. She'd been making an effort to put it to rest.
"Rockin' around the Christmas tree, at the Christmas party hop..." the radio sang, and Jane's lips curled up. She did have a weakness for Christmas songs, especially upbeat ones. There was something so wonderfully hopeful about them.
Thor sat before a TV in a hotel room on Christmas Eve and popped the lid on a beer. Laurel and Hardy danced across the screen. They were acceptable, but no match for Abbot and Costello. Some Chinese food containers lay strewn on the table before him. Another Christmas gone by. What was that- ten without Loki? Too many, anyways.
"Thirty-two years old, and here I am- eating Chinese food in a hotel room, alone, for Christmas. Obviously I am doing something right," he said wryly to himself.
He spent Christmas day whittling as Laurel and Hardy fought their way through a marathon.
Jane spent Christmas curled up on the couch with some ice cream, reading romance novels.