Notes: This chapter includes at least one comment taken directly from the show, but for the most part it's me playing around with plot points from canon. Also a little retcon: especially for the anon(s) who have recently begun bringing up this point from Monsters, an explanation of how Loki passed his criminal records check to work at the school. I hope this will settle the matter.
Warning: Loki's moral compass is not as wonky as it used to be, but it's still pretty dodgy.
Chapter Nine
As she opened her eyes, Annie became aware of her cheek and nose pressed against something warm and yielding. And blue. Dark blue.
It took a moment for her to recognize Loki's pullover, and realize she had fallen asleep practically burrowed into his chest.
It took her a moment after that to realize- she had fallen asleep. And had apparently slept through the night, judging by the soft dawn light that was beginning to stream through the windows. It was the first night's sleep she had had in three years.
It was the first time she had slept since the night before she died.
It wasn't that Annie couldn't sleep, she just didn't need to. Mitchell sometimes told her she should anyway, that it might be good for her- Mitchell, who was dead too, maintained the habit as well as he could- but she didn't want to. She was afraid of… what dreams may come.
Really, the worst thing about going to school in England- or maybe just in English- was all the Shakespeare. Not that Annie had anything against Shakespeare in general. In fact, she liked bits of it quite a lot, and she sometimes thought she and the boys were being somehow derelict in their duty as English-speaking people by not making sure Loki was properly introduced.
But the bits that stuck in your mind weren't always the ones you wanted, and she remembered just enough of Hamlet to be afraid of the kind of dreams dead people might have. And now, after all that, it turned out- at least based on the evidence of last night- she didn't dream at all.
She shifted a little and realized she and Loki were covered by the flowered quilt from the foot of his bed. Annie didn't remember Loki summoning it, and she thought she'd felt him fall asleep shortly before she had. So how the quilt got here was a little mystery to be solved later.
Well, she was awake now, and if she didn't get up soon she'd probably end up waking Loki, too. As a ghost, of course, it was quite easy to extricate herself and materialize beside the bed. She stood for a moment, looking down at Loki, who shifted a little toward her side of the bed as if he was looking for her. She pulled the quilt up around his shoulders, ruffled her fingers gently through his hair, and zapped herself out of the room into the hallway.
Philip and Elizabeth were sitting outside the door, looking very offended. As well they might, since as far as they were concerned Loki was supposed to be their very own personal bed-warmer, and they loudly complained that they had not slept a wink all night.
"Of course you didn't, you spoiled brats," Annie whispered, feeling a fleeting but powerful urge to giggle. The kittens glared at her, and Annie relented. "Don't wake him up," she warned. Which was a forlorn hope at best, but after all, Philip and Elizabeth had put a lot of effort into training Loki. Surely they should get the benefit of all that work.
She opened the door a crack. Philip and Elizabeth scampered into the room and up onto the bed next to the pillows, where they disappeared under the quilt. Loki curled up a little more but didn't wake, so she left the door ajar and went downstairs to see who else was up.
Mitchell was at the kitchen table, eating toast and jam. At the sight of her he offered a tentative smile. "How are you this morning?"
"Better," Annie replied.
"How much better?" Mitchell insisted gently, and Annie gamely offered a smile of her own.
"Enough to be going on with. Is George still asleep?"
Mitchell went along with the change of subject.
"Wouldn't be surprised. He didn't come home last night." When Annie's expression changed to one of alarm, Mitchell held up his hands. "Sorry, sorry, I forgot you didn't know- he brought Nina round last evening. And then he went off to 'walk her to her bus' and hasn't been heard from since."
Annie paused in the act of walking over to the teapot on the stovetop. "Really? Well done, George."
"That's what I thought," Mitchell giggled, and then sobered. "I'm sorry I didn't check on you, Annie. I didn't even realize you had come home until Loki arrived back without you."
"I didn't really want to talk to anyone right then," Annie admitted, carrying her mug of tea over to the table and sitting across from Mitchell. "Although… it was probably good Loki showed up when he did. He… helped."
"I thought he might have," Mitchell said. "When I looked in on you later, you were both asleep. Was that-?"
"Yes. First time since I died. Were you the one who covered us up?"
Mitchell wriggled. "Um, yeah. I went and found the kittens a jumper out of Loki's laundry basket to sleep on, so they wouldn't be yelling at the door, and then I thought you might get cold, so…"
Annie gave him a genuine smile. "You're such a softy." She stirred her steaming tea and added a few drops of milk. "You know, it's… not funny, exactly, but… I was just remembering the day Loki arrived. I left him on the sofa while I went to put those clothes from the dustbin into the washing machine. When I came back up to the lounge, he had fallen asleep. He was kind of curled up the way he does, only he seemed all … sort of flattened out." She hesitated. "And for a minute, I thought he'd died and passed on while I was out of the room. I actually had to go over and look to make sure he was breathing. I'd never seen anyone look that tired before. I didn't think it was possible to be that tired. I wondered what had happened, for him to feel that way. And then afterward, remember what he was like for the first few days? Like… like he had lost everything that mattered, and he didn't know if he would ever find anything to replace it with?"
"Yeah," Mitchell replied. "I remember that. He was like a sleepwalker. And then he followed you around for a couple of weeks, and then he started to come out of it. Why?"
Annie turned her mug carefully, where it sat before her on the table. "I think… I think I know how he felt. I think that's the way I felt, last night. After what happened at the cemetery- " She fell silent.
"Yes, about that," Mitchell said, when it became clear Annie wasn't going to continue without a push. "What exactly did happen? Loki didn't stop to explain before he went looking for you. He just said you went to look at your grave, and you ran into your parents."
"Yes," she said. "Loki was just putting some flowers on my grave when my parents walked up. By the time we noticed them they had already seen him, so Loki pretended to be someone I knew before I… when I was alive… and my parents talked to him." She turned the mug again. "They spoke to the police after I died, you know. They talked to Herrick."
"Christ," murmured Mitchell. Upstairs, they heard the creak of a floorboard, and then water running in the bathroom. Annie looked up briefly, toward the ceiling, before resuming her story.
"And they told Loki about everything that worried them about Owen. They had been worried for a long time, I think. They said I told them I was all right, but I don't remember them asking. They said… the boys I went out with, there was something wrong with all of them, that I wouldn't talk to them, I didn't trust them- "
Loki, his hair damp at his temples, walked into the kitchen just as the mug of tea in front of Annie exploded.
Mitchell let out a startled yelp and scrambled to his feet just as his own mug blew up, and then his plate of toast hurled itself across the kitchen to shatter on the wall behind the stove. Loki darted forward, and at the same time there was a scampering movement down on the floor that indicated the kittens had probably been following Loki and had retreated into the lounge to hide under the sofa.
"What is it?" Loki began, and the jam jar and the margarine tub leaped up from the table and sailed toward his head. Loki deflected them with a hasty bolt of magic and dropped into the chair beside Annie's, reaching for her hands. "Annie! Please look at me."
"What's happening?" Annie nearly shrieked, as a series of tumblers threw themselves from the open cupboard to the left of the sink and shattered on the countertop, then the pink spray bottle and the washing-up liquid spewed their contents over the broken glass.
Loki got a firm grip on Annie's hands and tried to turn her toward him. "Annie. Look at me."
All the cupboard doors, and those of the refrigerator and stove banged open-
- And then Annie had turned toward Loki and was clinging to his hands, her eyes wide and frightened, and everything went quiet.
"You are all right," Loki said firmly, folding both of her hands into his so he could pet them reassuringly.
"I don't understand what just happened," she said breathlessly. "Was that- was that me?"
"Seems so," Mitchell replied shakily. At a really savage glare from Loki, Mitchell threw up his hands. "Well, it wasn't you, was it, Loki? And I'm pretty sure it wasn't me."
"It can't have been me!" Annie protested, tears welling into her eyes. Loki edged his chair closer to hers.
"Did you feel anything while it was happening?" he asked. His tone was a combination of reassurance and clinical interest, rather like a sympathetic doctor asking someone dear to him to describe her alarming symptoms. Annie took a deep breath, and her hands became steadier in his.
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I don't think so. I was just telling Mitchell about… about what my parents said to you. About… them worrying about me, and me not trusting them, and-"
The clock to the right of the kitchen doorway jerked free of the wall and sailed toward them. Loki released Annie's hands, calmly lifted his right in a warding-off gesture, and at the same time used his left to pull Annie toward him so he could use his body to shield her from the flying timepiece. Mitchell ducked and covered as well.
The clock apparently ran into a pulse of magic heading the other way, hesitated in midair, and then retreated meekly back to its hook on the wall. When Annie and Mitchell sat up, they found Loki looking thoughtful.
"That is very interesting: did you notice how easily I was able to redirect the clock?"
"Very impressive," Mitchell said, past a dry throat and not nearly as sarcastically as he might have wished.
Loki glanced at him, one eyebrow arched in mild rebuke. "I was not boasting," he assured his friend. "Rather, I was pointing out the fact there seemed to be no enchantment propelling the clock toward any particular target."
"Of course there wasn't!" Annie protested. "I wouldn't throw jars and clocks at you or Mitchell!"
"I apologize," Loki said, hugging her. "I did not mean you did anything deliberately. I am simply trying to understand the sorcery involved in this incident. It appears that once the object is broken or… thrown seems to be the best word… At any rate, once the initial impetus is applied, it feels as though no other forces are present. The spell literally throws things and breaks things, but does nothing to prevent us protecting ourselves from its activity."
"Poltergeist," Mitchell said.
Loki raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? Is that not what one says when someone sneezes?"
"No," Mitchell replied, managing to smile. "You're thinking of gesundheit. What I said was poltergeist. They're both German words, but a poltergeist is a specific type of ghost that, well, pretty much behaves just like we saw right now."
Annie's eyes narrowed. "Are you saying I'm a poltergeist?"
Mitchell raised his hands defensively and hedged, "Not if it means you're going to throw something else at me." Annie picked a paper napkin out of the holder on the table and threw that at him. Mitchell smiled at her. "You got pretty upset when you were talking about what happened yesterday. And you've had a really terrible shock. Maybe that's what's happened, you're just… expressing it through these powers."
"That makes sense," Loki said, turning to Annie for her response.
"I've been upset before," Annie protested, looking at both of them. "I was really upset during that whole mess with Hydra and the Dire Wraiths. And when we found out what they did to you," she addressed Loki. "Why wouldn't I have gone all poltergeisty then?"
Loki turned his hands palms-up. "I have no idea. The only thing I can suggest is, you did not have to face those other fears alone."
"You were there," Annie said softly.
"Yes, but there was little I could do to help," Loki pointed out, equally softly. "These burdens were entirely your own."
"But I was all right, later," Annie protested. "After you talked to me, after we talked to each other. I felt so much better."
Loki smiled. "Feel free to throw something at me, when you lose patience with the way I keep referring back to my own experiences, but they are what I have to offer. And I know I am not one of your Midgardian doctors whose role it is to reduce the size of the burdens on one's heart and mind, so that they might be carried more easily- "
"Pardon?" Mitchell blurted.
Loki blinked. "Is that not the correct term? 'Shrink'? I feel sure I have heard it used in this context."
Annie giggled nervously, and Mitchell said, "I'm not sure that's where the term came from, but I think I like your definition. Sorry for interrupting. Go on."
Loki did, turning back to Annie. "You recall when Heimdall rescued us from the vampires, and brought us to Asgard that first time? When my father told me he really did love me and always had, and we embraced each other?" Annie nodded. "I, too, felt so much better after that happened. It helped a great deal. But it did not mean all the painful feelings were suddenly gone, never to return. They still come back sometimes, even though I am happier now than I have ever been in my life." He did not add that, sometimes, the fact he was happier than he had ever been was the thing that caused the painful feelings of grief and shame. It was not pleasant to reflect that all the happiness he now possessed was the more-or-less direct result of his madness, and the terrible crimes he had committed against innocents.
Brushing the thought aside for some future night when sleep was evasive, Loki went on, "Yesterday, you did not simply remember the dreadful event that ended your life. You also remembered the pain, and fear, and all the other unhappy emotions that must have been your companions for… years, probably. And as a mortal, you were not very many years old, so those were certainly a significant portion of your life. Your memory sought to protect you from the memories- " as his own had protected him for so long from the memory of why he had ruined Sif's hair "- and so it seems likely that when they finally got free, you were nearly overwhelmed by them."
Mitchell and Annie looked at each other. "That makes sense," Mitchell admitted, looking- to Loki's eyes- surprised.
"I am, occasionally, able to make sense," Loki replied drily. Mitchell made a face implying that, were the pink spray bottle not emptied of its contents, Loki would be looking forward to quite a faceful. The spray bottle being out of play for the moment, Loki returned his attention back to Annie.
She was looking rather horrified. "Are you saying that I'm going to keep doing this kind of thing?"
"Possibly, at least for a while. But I am sure you will learn to control it," Loki assured her hastily.
Unexpectedly, Annie brightened. "Do you suppose I'd be able to move that stove? I've been dying to clean behind it."
It took the other two a moment to realize, with relief, she was mostly teasing them, trying to make them laugh and lighten the mood.
"I would be glad to assist you, if you really wish it," Loki assured her, smiling.
"That would be nice. You being a professional, after all," Annie said. Loki took her hand again.
"Any aid you might require," he assured her.
Mitchell looked around at the mess of toast, jam, and shattered glass littering the kitchen and remarked,
"Well, you might start with this lot."
And just at that, with impeccable timing, George walked through the kitchen doorway. Stopped dead.
Looked around at the mess.
And, on a high note, demanded,
"What on earth is going on here?"
~oOo~
Annie, Loki, and Mitchell tried to catch George up on everything Annie had learned the day before, but when they got to the part where they described her parents' thoughts and reactions, a potted plant and the kittens' water dish went flying. Loki was able to save both, but the four friends agreed their safest course was probably to tell the story outside the house.
Accordingly, after George had breakfast and a bath, and Loki had reassured the kittens and cleaned up the mess- he generally made a point to complete his chores without resorting to magic, but surely this was a special occasion- they got in the car and drove out to visit Scamp. The little dog's delight at their arrival seemed to cheer even Annie, and she and George and Loki spent half an hour or so petting Scamp and throwing the plastic ball for her to chase. Mitchell, waiting at a safe distance from the gate, seemed to share the general amusement at Scamp's antics.
Eventually, Scamp decided she was tired of the game and carried her ball to Annie and Loki, where she lay down in easy petting range. George joined Mitchell outside the gate and they all sat down on what amounted to blankets of magic Loki had cast to prevent chills and damp trousers among the purely corporeal members of the party.
"All right," George said finally. "What happened?"
Annie repeated as much of the story as she had managed to tell Mitchell before the magical outbreak. Like the others, George was chilled at the thought of Annie's mother and father innocently consulting Herrick in his guise as a police officer.
"I can't imagine he cared, one way or the other, what Owen did," George muttered.
"No, but he would have followed up if there was concrete evidence," Mitchell said, with a mixture of distaste and scrupulous fairness. "Aside from the whole business of being a murderous vampire, he was actually a pretty good copper. He had to be, to keep his cover safe so he could hide the tracks of other supernaturals - like that criminal records check I asked him to fake up for Loki, when he applied to work at the school."
Loki grimaced, distracted. He had been grateful to Mitchell, who of course was maintaining an identity as a young human man working in a hospital, for using his vampire connections to procure the documents he had needed in order to create such a "cover" and pay taxes as a human. He had not asked for details, and had later been uncomfortable at the idea of being indebted to Herrick, who of course had quickly discovered Loki was not some human Mitchell picked up for reasons of his own.
It was fortunate indeed that Herrick had died again before his plans for enslaving the humans had included blackmailing Loki on that point, as they surely would have done before very long.
This being old business, the four friends went on to the matter of the suspicions and fears Annie's parents had entertained concerning Owen and his treatment of Annie.
Mitchell stopped her at this point, in need of clarification.
"You said that you don't remember them ever asking if you were okay," he prompted.
Annie shook her head. "I don't. I suppose they must have, if they remember it, but I don't."
Recalling that this was the point at which Annie had uttered her words of self-recrimination and vanished, Loki spoke up.
"They also spoke of their anxieties about your previous… attachments." The word was a compromise, because he could never seem to utter the Midgardian "boyfriend" without feeling ridiculous. But since it was also the word he used, in his own mind, to describe his bond with Annie, he also disliked using it in this context.
That being neither here nor there at the moment, Loki said carefully, "They seemed concerned that you… that you seemed to deliberately choose the company of those who were… who were in some way damaged, or lacking. Who needed help."
Who, of course, included Loki. He had assumed, when Annie took him in, that she did not fear him because she knew he could not harm a spirit such as herself. Longer acquaintance had persuaded him that, even had Annie been alive when they met, she would have come to his rescue anyway, because that was what Annie did. It was perhaps a sign of his own progress, that he could believe her current feelings toward him were of more than simple compassion or even pity.
Shaking off the thought, Loki went on, "Your father expressed the fear that… you might believe… you might not have understood… you deserve better than such, such broken creatures."
Lying in a battered tangle among the overturned dustbins, trying to catch his breath, trying to make his limbs obey him, confused and sore in body and soul, and waiting without hope to see what would hurt him next. And then the sounds of the door opening, of running feet, and a consoling touch on his shoulder as a concerned voice asked, "Are you all right?"
"He said that?" Annie asked slowly.
The red ball, and several fallen branches, suddenly flew across the churchyard. Scamp sprang to her feet. Apparently unable to determine which of these objects she should pursue, the little dog first ran after her ball, then scrupulously retrieved the sticks as well, laying them one by one Annie's feet.
"Good girl," Annie quavered, reaching down to pat the little dog. It took her a moment to look up at her friends. Loki met her eyes as squarely as he could.
"Annie," he said gently, "I am beginning to think this poltergeist business is not entirely about Owen." When Annie bridled visibly, Loki raised his hands in a peacemaking gesture. "It is for you to think about, if you wish. Just know that I am here if you need to speak of anything, and nothing would make me happier than to make return on the understanding you have always shown me. All right?"
"All right," Annie murmured. Loki lowered his hands, and then put an arm around her shoulders. To his relief, Annie moved a little closer to him, as though comforted.
"I think we do have to talk about Owen, though," George said uneasily. "He still owns the house. We've asked him to do something about the boiler- "
"Bother the boiler," Loki snapped, barely restraining himself from uttering a more pungent expression he was absolutely not permitted to use at school. Had he any understanding of the mechanical principles involved, he would have magically repaired the boiler long ago, and none of this would have had to happen.
"I just mean, he's going to be around," George said peaceably. "We can't stop him."
"Oh we can't, can we?" Annie snapped, her eyes flashing as she stiffened under Loki's arm. It did his heart good, to see her angry instead of looking so small and defeated. "We'll see about that."
"I think," Mitchell said, "that you really need to think about how you want to deal with Owen."
"Deal with him?" Annie repeated. Her eyes went suddenly to Loki's.
"Hogun's offer was in earnest," he said evenly. "And would be no more than Owen deserves. I would have no qualms, either, if that would bring you peace."
Loki was a skilled and talented liar, but that did not mean every word he uttered was a lie. It would be pointless, for one thing: if everyone knows you lie all the time, the tactical advantage of being a convincing liar is fatally undermined.
Loki's falsehoods were, of course, not always strategic. When he was frightened, he often lied without even thinking about it, as though defending himself from who-knew-what. It was, therefore, a sort of pledge of trust with Annie, that he did not lie to her.
Most of the time. At a moment like this, the lie seemed necessary. Volstagg had been quite correct, that the local authorities would consider it murder instead of justice if Loki was to make an end of Owen. Such an action would be a violation of the social contract, and a poor repayment indeed for the refuge had had been given here- refuge which had recently been rendered official, including pardon for his earlier self-protective lies, after his participation in the defeat of Hydra and the Dire Wraiths. He owed the realm better than to flout its laws in such a manner, and he was acutely aware of it.
Besides, Loki was no longer so far gone that he could tranquilly contemplate undertaking the death of anyone, even such human vermin as Owen, and especially not in cold blood.
He would have qualms aplenty, and guilt afterward, but if Annie asked it of him, if that was the payment that would give her peace, Loki would do it and live with the consequences afterward. His debt to the realm was and always would be secondary to that owed to Annie, George, and Mitchell.
And speaking of George and Mitchell, the two of them knew Loki nearly as well as Annie did.
"Hang on a minute," Mitchell spoke up hastily. "Loki, you're not saying what I think you're saying, are you? Because that's not what I meant, at all."
"And besides," George added, practically, "the last thing we need is Owen haunting the house, too."
Loki blinked, and Annie flinched at the very notion.
"I hadn't thought of that," she admitted. And then she shook herself. "And anyway… no. That was a crazy idea, and I didn't mean it. I wouldn't ask it of you. I don't know what I want of Owen, but I don't want anyone to murder him. We're better than that."
Loki tightened his arm around her, relieved in spite of himself. "You sound exactly like Steve Rogers when you speak like that."
Annie patted his knee. "That's got to be a good thing, right?" She frowned in thought. "I don't want Owen to die. I want him to… feel sorry for what he did. I want him to know it was wrong, and… and regret it."
"Do you think that's even possible?" George asked.
Annie looked uncertain, and in the space left by her silence, Loki spoke up.
"Stranger things have happened." And worse villains repented. "We can but try."
"Right," George murmured. Not even Mitchell looked optimistic.