A/N:

1) Sincere thanks for reviews and encouragement goes to: Ordis, cara-tanaka, Celestial Dance, ThatOneFan, Ie-maru, peppymint, jeanette9a, akuma-river, Ynath Esrith, boukenbee, Aryun, AquaBurst, simply anonymous, Blessed24 7, ebonyWing, ORgasmicPigeon, OrionRedde, fan girl 66, Isis36, pointyearsrule, noukinav018, EmeraldEyed, , Purplenurpl, Guest, Guest, Elise, killing u with umbrellas, Mirage Alcedame, Remzal Von Enili, Hulkishpower, CatchingCraziness, AllieKatheryn, Guest, LR, Rayner Fox, chibi heishi, Guest, Tsuki no Akebono, and Anna the Lynx.

As usual, I'll respond via PM to anyone I can.

Also, thanks for all the faves, alerts, etc, it is most encouraging!

2) Ok, again, this might be a chapter or so longer than expected. this is one of those cases where the story just sort of went where it wanted and pulled me along. We probably have still! three chapters after this

3) Thanks to OrionRedde for pointing out my error re. Natasha's real name versus her cover. Guess it's time that I fixed it. Also, thanks to AllieKatheryn for the music reccomendation, and to Anna the Lynx for pointing out my mushrooming ellipses. I'll work on it :-)

4) Sorry for the long wait, i'm a student again, so... whew... and my muse has been very finicky lately - and I have family issues. I hope this chapter doesn't disspoint... because it made me pull teeth, both its and mine - and that said, I'm not sure I am happy with it.

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Loki awakens first, having become accustomed to cat-naps – in the home of a mortal who never slept for very long at any one time and worked at the oddest hours – and he steps outside onto his balcony, looking up at the sky which is finally clear and sunny, free from the dark rolling clouds and weeping rain of his brother's grief….. and then down at the world that he really hadn't missed in his exile of sorts and yet now reminds him of all the good times he and his brother had shared when they were children.

He plans to stay outside for only a few seconds, not wanting his brother to awaken alone and think that it was all a dream and that he is still alone…. but when he turns and looks around him at the balcony itself, he finds himself frozen in place, because here are his plants – the ones he'd always assumed would have been forgotten and left to die without him, the ones he'd not even thought to look for after a year – alive and well cared for….. and Loki can't stop smiling.

Even if they had parted on good terms, Loki would never have thought that his brother would have done this because he'd never seemed to understand the need that had driven Loki as a child who had never really fit with their peers and was slowly watching his brother slipping away from him – or so he'd thought anyway – to find solace in caring for such elemental creatures….. and he probably still didn't.

Thor, after all, could water their entire realm when he wanted to, and didn't need to put a plant in a pot to care for it….. and yet, despite that, he had cared for the elementals that Loki himself had decided he didn't care about – couldn't care about because monsters didn't have that capacity anyway - and even though sooner or later, Thor had given up desperately hoping that somehow his brother had survived….. he hadn't stopped doing this.

He knows that his brother has awakened because he hears his name be called, hears the grief that seeps into his brother's tone raw and unconcealed in the depths of his fear that he is alone as ever…. for all that he needs to believe that he does have his younger sibling back, and once …. once Loki would have let him call in vain for a while at least - just as he had hundreds of years earlier when he'd hidden himself too well with the newly-discovered art of illusion during one of their games, and he'd let his brother search for hours, finally screaming himself hoarse, because he didn't believe, couldn't believe that his brother had really wanted him back – but now, better than ever, Loki knows there is no reason to.

He doesn't need confirmation that his brother loves him, he doesn't need to be convinced of what he knows…. and he doesn't want to see Thor hurting any more, so instead of waiting, he calls back, immediately:

"Out here."

Thor arrives faster than usual, and noting the slight uncertainty that laces the blatant relief in his expression, guessing that perhaps the Thunderer fears that Loki had gone out to find the solitude that his presence was interfering with - because he shouldn't have to fear that, but in many ways they've been worlds apart for hundreds of years, not just one, and it will take time and work to mend this deep fissure – Loki reassures him gently:

"I was planning to return, I've missed you too, brother…. it's just…. you took care of my plants."

It's far less eloquent than his usual - for good reason because it would take Loki too long to explain every emotion that had run though him just seconds ago and to verbalize all the memories that had returned to be finally seen in a different light – but it conveys accurately why he'd lingered, and Loki doesn't need eloquence…. not here… not with his brother.

If it is even possible, Thor seems to be the more uncomfortable of them anyway, and he seems much younger – much more vulnerable and simultaneously, paradoxically perhaps, far more free – as he replies:

"I know it makes me a fool…. but caring for them…. made me feel closer to you."

At that, Loki can't help but smile and give his brother the reassurance that only now he even recognizes that he needs:

"You're not a fool. Thank you."

For a second it seems like the Thunderer is about to say something self-deprecating, something that would be entirely out of place coming from his lips, and yet Loki sees it coming nonetheless, because however he looks at it, and however much he wants them to be at peace once more, there is no denying that he had managed to hurt his brother… and ironically not in the way he'd hoped…. because ultimately Thor hadn't fallen by the hand of Loki but rather by his own…. he'd been condemned by himself, by his conviction that he had failed his brother… killed him even, and Loki knows that it is only time that hopefully will have the power to ease away that pain, helped by him reminding Thor of the truth as long as it takes for him to accept it.

Sighing, Loki takes the moment to observe his brother – truly observe him – and realizes that he looks exhausted, more so perhaps than any fight, any injury, ever had made him before…. and decides he should have realized this sooner, because last night he'd seen proof of his brothers nightmares.

For just how long had Thor not truly found rest, even in sleep?

Loki doesn't realize he'd spoken aloud until he hears his own voice, gentle and caring – as out of place as such a tone would have once seemed when directed at the Thunderer:

"How long, Thor? how long have I haunted you?"

Thor frowns in seeming confusion, though it's more likely that he just doesn't want to answer….. and he's never been a good liar anyway…. so pressing on, still gentle but more firm, Loki asks:

"What I saw you endure last night…. has it always been this bad?"

Had the year apart within which Loki had healed been exactly the opposite for his brother?

Shoulders slumped in defeat, Thor walks back inside, and after a long silence replies quietly, brokenly, while tracing a reverent hand over Loki's books:

"At first, when I …. lost you… I held on to the hope that somehow you'd survived… you'd come back even if only to tell me how badly I'd failed you…. because I knew I had. I knew then everything I should have told you when we had the chance…. and saw clearly every time that I should have been there for you….. and sometimes I'd dream about us having those chances….. if it wasn't you falling."

A tremor rips though the Thunderer, for all that his low broken tone remains steady, and he takes a breath before forcing himself to go on:

"But in time…. I…. accepted that those chances would never come, and for a while I only ever saw you falling….. Different times, different places – sometimes we were just children still…. but I always failed to catch you….. and then eventually those dreams too became rare."

Loki takes a step closer, needing to offer comfort for all that he's never really contemplated how to fix this – because he'd never expected their bond to have ran this deep, never expected the sibling he'd hurt so much to still love and need him as he does – but he is stopped by the sheer magnitude of emotion in his brother's blue eyes which are filled with tears as he turns to him and offers a bitter half smile with his admission:

"I missed them…. because at least I could see you… at least before it ended every time you were alive in my mind. When those became rare… I was always wandering in the cold… lost, alone, knowing that you were gone forever…."

Another calming breath, and Thor seems more weary than devastated as he finishes:

"Then when Heimdall told me that he saw a flash of what looked like your magic on Midgard….. I hoped that you lived yet…. so much that when days passed with no trace of you….."

Loki silently muses that, unsurprisingly perhaps, his teleportation had also included a small time-jump, not like that is in itself unusual… just remarkably inconvenient.

Then he pushes the thought aside, irrelevant as it is compared with what is transpiring here and now, because despite the seeming leveling of his tone, Thor can't seem to bring himself to finish that statement, so Loki does for him:

"I was like loosing me all over again."

This time the Thunderer doesn't reply with words, but the closing of his eyes is enough answer for Loki - now that after all he's experienced on Earth he truly understands loss - and he steps forward, gently placing a hand on his brother's shoulder as he intones:

"You're wrong…. we both were, brother, because you were there for me all those years. I was simply too blind to see it when we parted ways, and it took a mortal to make me understand that all along, you have always been there for me…. so please brother…. let me be there for you now."

'Let me save you', Loki thinks, but he doesn't need to say it, any more than he needs be surprised when his brother's embrace envelops him once again, strangely desperate despite the fact that its simultaneously careful…. and the only thing that matters in this moment is that they have ended up connected once more…. and more than ever, Loki knows that they'll heal.

Standing by the window, and drinking up his brother's silent presence by his side, here's a dozen things Loki would like to say now, though he's not sure where to start or even how, and in the end he is spared from saying anything further when the door opens once more, and it is not he Allfather, or even the royal guard…. but their mother.

His mother, rushing toward him with arms outstretched and tears in her eyes, voice choked with emotion and a mother's love as she calls out:

"Loki, my son."

And without thought, without the barest hesitation, Loki reaches out to her, lets her pull him close as if he's still an innocent child in her arms – he feels like one – as if everything he's done doesn't matter.

He doesn't deserve this, Loki thinks, but at least he'd never hated her…. at least he'd never been able to think of her as anything but his mother however much he'd insisted he didn't have a family.

At least he'd never plotted any direct harm to her, though the fact that he'd all but forgotten her – that he'd chosen not to think of her because she was the only one who made him feel conflicted, even in the smallest degree – might be even worse.

In any case, though, she doesn't seem to care, one way or the other, and when she tells him that the Allfather knows of his presence and would speak with him, but that that nothing of the sort is happening until he's had decent sustenance – apparently what he's been eating on Midgard doesn't count – he just smiles and lets his mother lead him away…. lets her take care of him this once, because for all that he'd tried to deny it to himself – to ignore the hollow loneliness that only a mother's presence could ease - Loki had missed her.

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