I must have drifted for a while because after a point I could no longer feel Loki's weight on the bed and the only sound in the room was my now even breathing.
Still curled up under the sheets, I blinked up at the window - the moon was gone too.
And it came like a torrent. Sobs racking my body while I couldn't half believe I was so weak. What was he to me other than a pain in the ass? I pummelled the pillow and rolled over to hug my knees. Asshole. There was a crater where my heart should have been and I felt like I was splintering from the inside. So there I was, wailing into the dark.
"You stupid idiot!" I told myself not to cry. "What were you expecting?" That he would stay. That he would forget about Asgard. That he would wrestle with me for the remote and sit with me and a tray of tea at the crack of dawn and drive down to the river and skip stones on the water and fall asleep on my couch under a ton of comic books. What was I expecting? Pathetic little wishes, they were, and I forced them out of my head. This is not who I was, mourning what could have been. I had moulded myself into a fiercely practical woman from the minute I stepped out of my parents house. And then I thought about Olivia, about mom, about the sour look on my father's face whenever he looked at me, about these people I never really said goodbye to even though I knew I'd never see them again. And I cringed. The waves of tears that came were worse than taking a bullet to the gut. In a moment of absolute stupidity, I stumbled out of bed and went over to the living room. A single lamp glowed in the corner and shadows leaned against the walls and the news was on. Obviously Loki's plan had been poorly thought out, because the local news station was carrying a story about a farmer who'd sighted a spaceship. The reporter, standing with his finger pressed to one ear was nodding and the camera and responding to questions from the studio. I shuffled forward to the front door like a zombie.
The last few months flashed past my eyes. As if I was dying. Only I wasn't. He'd made sure of that. Sitting down on the front porch, with the bed sheet still wrapped around me, I wondered why that was. If he was going to leave, why bother saving my life? I knew I didn't mean as much and I couldn't bring myself to believe the last month and a half had somehow humbled him. He was, after all, like an injured cat, claws springing even though all I wanted to do was help.
"Why me?" I muttered. "Why my truck? Of all the thousand towns to fall into, why Riverside?"
I wondered if Loki's brother was camping out in somebody's house too. S.H.I.E.L.D. was certainly in cahoots with him.
That Loki was ever in any real danger was a thought that had crossed my mind but never lingered long enough to shape itself out. I had a bad feeling and there was nothing to explain it. An idea began to dawn on me, that he wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing. He had looked absolutely drained in the presence of the Chitauri. Like they were leeching off him or something. In the confusion and activity of the night, I hadn't really bothered to look at his face closely but now that I'd sobered up, I was quite sure he was injured. Something about the way he had walked, or held his arm away from his body, or to the welts on this forehead and jaw, things that I was only beginning to notice in hindsight. The cold air made the hair on my arms stand up, but I continued to sit and mull things over as the sky began to lighten from ink black to indigo. Loki often drew himself up to his full height but all said and done he was just a terrified boy with no place to call home, acting rashly. And that made him vulnerable.
I began to look for my keys when I realized it was still in the ignition in my truck in a patch of trees far away. But not that far away.
Pulling a clean shirt on, I slammed the front door shut and strode out onto the street, where the lamps were still on.
He may have been more terrified boy than prince, but he had a place to call home, even if it was a tool-shed compared to what he had been used to. Riverside was his home.