Murmurs on Heartstrings
a sequel to
Things Left Unsaid
Chapter 1: Green
By: Thessaly Corgin
o
"Okay Miss Lewis. Can we go over that again? Linsey made very vague notes about this... what did you call him? Lochlyn?"
"Loki. His name was... is... Loki."
Darcy fiddled with her finger nails uncomfortably, inspecting them for a fourth time and making sure that they were all even. The woman sitting across from her had warm skin and a cold face, her eyes studying Darcy's every move and measuring her every habit. The old shrink had moved out of New York after the recent alien invasion, so Darcy was going through the traumatic event of dealing with a new psychologist.
"Now, Darcy. Loki seems to be a major stress point for you... do you want to tell me what happened in your relationship?"
"I've told Lindsey before, you should have her notes. I don't want to go over it again, it makes me nervous."
It was too late, Darcy was already thinking about it and she felt herself tapping her foot reflexively to calm her anxiety. Before the other woman could interject, Darcy started to talk.
"We worked together, it was nice. There was always some tension between us, and he became my best friend - my only friend - other than Jane. We were really, really ridiculously close and there was no one in the whole world who I wanted more, and I was sure he felt the same. Then it got weird.
"Weird?"
"Yeah, he disappeared for a while and I think he had some kind of... traumatic experience. Lindsey said it sounded like post traumatic stress. He wasn't himself and I felt like I had lost the person I loved most. After a few months he seemed to snap out of it."
"Okay, and then where did the problems come from?"
"We... made up. I forgave him, I wanted him back and I just wanted everything to return to normal and I.. and..."
Darcy put her hand on her leg to stop herself from repetitively tapping her foot because she could see it was wearing on the psychologist. She took a deep breath and continued,
"And then when I woke up the next morning he was gone. I never saw him again. The project I was working on with Jane was shut down, and I had to return here for school. It's been a year and I... I don't think about it... I can't... just..."
She felt as if ever word she had ever thought of was slipping away from her, tumbling into some abyss in her chest that had inexplicably opened up as she was talking. She had never managed to block her time with Loki out of her mind completely - that was impossible. But she had made an effort to stay active and fill up all of her free time with tasks in order to keep her mind busy. Originally she had only meant to be hung up on him for a month or two, but it had already been a year and she still couldn't breathe whenever she thought about being left behind.
"I... I can't talk anymore. I'll be back next week."
Darcy quickly stood up and scurried out of the room, gasping for breath as she ran down the stairs and out onto the streets below. The buildings of the East Village were low set and friendly, allowing her to take in air as she started rearranging her mind.
It had been a month since the invasion, and New York was still an utter mess. Most of the debris had been cleared and the blood on the streets washed away, but Darcy could still feel a deadly chill with each corner that she turned. Many had fled Manhattan after the unexpected and violent alien attack - some from the aliens, some from 'The Avengers', yet still some stayed behind: namely students. The East Village hadn't been hit as severely as Midtown or the Upper East Side, but no matter where you went you could see towering cranes reconstructing the monstrosity that was once the Stark Tower.
For a month - since the attack - four words had been bouncing in her head, printed across her eyelids every time she closed them to sleep. She never said it but she saw it scrawled across the walls like graffiti, printed on the subway signs, written on her Facebook... she knew it wasn't really there but instead was haunting her like a ghost waiting to be set free into the afterlife. She wanted to tell Jane - Jane would understand and Jane would have something to say about it... but instead she told no one, cooping herself up in her tiny room and waking up in pools of tears on her computer desk, her face stuck to the pieces of paper she had fallen asleep reading.
She walked for a moment and then sat down on the curb, resting her head in her hands and rubbing her eyes, before finally saying the words and feeling the freedom of releasing them into the air.
"I think he's back."
She said quietly, knowing already that they were the truest words she's ever said.
"And I think it was all his fault."
o
Media coverage on the invasion had come in a burst and had been scarce on details. She never actually saw him on the television but she had heard through the S.H.I.E.L.D. grapevine that there was some mysterious figure - a fiercely intelligent figure - in charge of the whole attack. On some of the videos she watched over and over of the aliens, she thought that she might have seen a flash of green, a glimmer of hope, the swish of an emerald cape. On those nights when she was especially lonely she would take out the emerald earrings he had given her the Christmas prior - and couldn't help but notice that they matched the green cloaked figure she seemed to be imagining.
University didn't do much to keep her occupied - it had been cancelled because of all of the destruction. S.H.I.E.L.D had no more tolerance for her (she was only ever a minor employee) and Jane had stopped communication after the apparent return of Thor. She spent hours staring at her computer monitor, refreshing her various email accounts and hoping - desperately - that someone would reach out to her.