.6.

The year after Jane had met Thor, Eric had given her a birthday present. The act itself was anomalous; Eric was incredibly forgetful about some things in life. For all the years she'd known him he'd never once remembered her birthday on time. He always made up for his forgetfulness in this department by taking her out for dinner or making other thoughtful gestures. That year in particular, as he presented her with her gift—a small box wrapped in newspaper—Jane had been nothing short of astonished.

The gift itself surpassed anything and everything she could have imagined in generosity from her oldest friend. Lying inside the box was a silver small charm meant for a necklace. Jane had gently grasped it with two fingers and lifted it up for closer inspection. A year ago she wouldn't have recognized the charm and even if she had, it would have meant nothing. Now, however …

"It's Mjolnir," Erik said unnecessarily. "I, ah, found it … after he came. Thor …"

He'd mistaken Jane's silence for disapproval. In truth, Jane was fighting hard not to burst into tears. It was a thoughtful, compassionate gesture by someone she loved dearly and she knew that no other gift would ever be able to compare. Aware that Eric was growing increasingly distraught by her silence, she turned to him and flashed a brilliant, watery smile. "It's perfect, Erik. Absolutely perfect."

He never got a chance to reply because she'd thrown herself at him and encompassed him in a tight, inescapable embrace. Instead he'd patted her back awkwardly, his own eyes a little wet as her tears dampened his shirt.

.x.

Once Jane had made the final decision to go into hiding she'd had to pack quickly. Obviously she wouldn't be able to take everything—only what could fit in a vehicle. Darcy, via S.H.I.E.L.D, would send her other belongings once she'd settled in a new home. Jane had set about the business of packing up her life with brisk, detached efficiency. She couldn't afford to think about what had just happened. She couldn't afford to dwell. For her own survival—for her own sanity—she needed to go somewhere else and become someone else. It was easier than she'd thought it would be, leaving behind items she'd once cherished and considered invaluable. This new Jane, reborn from the fires of horror and suffering, could live without a great deal of life's little, inconsequential luxuries.

She'd forgotten all about the necklace with the Mjolnir charm. It had been lying on the bedside table beside her alarm clock. That was where she put it every night before she went to sleep. It was something she had worn every day for a long period of time. Somewhere between her encounters with the third and first of Thor's enemies, however, she'd started to fall out of that habit.

With two suitcases half-packed lying upon her unmade bed, Jane stared down at the little silver charm her closest friend had given her. That friend was now dead. The man the charm represented hadn't appeared on Earth for such a long, long time. That man, the man she cared about so much, hadn't been the one to rescue her this time. Once, she'd considered the Mjolnir charm to be a kind of talisman, something that would bring her good fortune as long as she wore it. She'd treasured too the memories that the necklace brought her, often cradling the small charm in her cupped palms and gazing at it while her thoughts turned to Thor and everything she loved about him.

When she left her home that night for the very last time, the necklace was still on the night table.

.x.

Sleep was coyly elusive. Jane, still shaken to her core by what had transpired between herself and Loki, had spent the darkest hours of the night seated in the big armchair she'd dragged in front of the fire. Where Loki was, she didn't know; such was her frayed, chaotic state of mind that he could have left the house and she wouldn't have known it. A part of her wished he would go, out the door and out of her life. Another part of her, the part she couldn't comprehend and wished she could hate, wanted him to stay for reasons that were utterly unfathomable.

That he'd shoved her didn't surprise her. Loki was a walking representation of turmoil—chaos, rage, and chained bitterness in motion. That he was prone to violence she already knew from what she'd witnessed during the events in New York. In truth, she'd half-expected him to kill her. The true surprise came in the way their confrontation had ended.

He'd backed down. He'd surrendered, in a way. And Jane had no idea why.

The possibilities as to why he'd done so haunted her, assailing her every thought, wearing at her already ragged emotions. And so she spent the night in the chair, knees pulled up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them, staring into the fire and fervently willing the madly riotous world to right itself so that she could try to find her balance yet again.

.x.

Time was not as disconcerted as Jane was by what had transpired and so it continued on. Days became weeks. Loki and Jane co-existed in a very strained manner. It was clear that whatever revelation Loki had had that night had rattled him as much as the confrontation had shook her. He was reticent, moving throughout the house as though he walked a different plane of existence from Jane. It certainly felt that way. On the rare occasions when he did speak to her it was only because she'd spoken first. And when he did speak, he never looked at her. His eyes always found some other focal point. Sometimes, though, she would catch him watching her. She'd turn from putting wood in the fire to find his eyes upon her. Most of the time, his attention was on the hand that lacked the two fingers, his expression one of sombre, intense speculation. When she caught him he would never quickly glance away as though embarrassed and ashamed. Instead he would meet her eyes levelly and hold them for a time before mutely turning his attention elsewhere.

What are you thinking? she wanted to ask. But then she would remember that she didn't want to know. Couldn't know, for the sake of keeping herself together. Somewhere deep inside, she had an inclination as to the truth. Somewhere deep inside, she also knew that that truth would terrify her as nothing else could. And so it remained buried as far beneath all the other terrors and worries of her life as she could put it. That it would resurface someday, she had no doubt. She only hoped it would be at a time in the far distant future.

.x.

Christmas crept closer. By Jane's count it had been nearly two months since Loki's arrival. And in all that time there'd be no sign of Thor or any other Asgardian, no indication that the situation was going to be remedied. If Loki were truly in exile for the reasons he claimed, Asgard was in dire trouble indeed. The war Loki spoke of—if he'd been telling the truth—must be of terrifying proportions. What if, she found herself wondering frequently, Loki was never permitted to return to his own realm? What if, because of this celestial war Loki had mentioned, Thor had no way to retrieve his brother? What happened then? Jane tried not to think about that. She tried not to think about anything to do with realms beyond Earth. Trying not to and succeeding at it, however, were two very different things.

Less than a week before Christmas, Jane made her way back into Woodrill on a grocery run. The weather had been for the most part fair since Loki's arrival. There had only been a couple of days with flurries occurring at random, never lasting long. The sky as she drove to town was darkening even though it was only late afternoon; the shortness of the winter days were something Jane had had difficulty adjusting to. The traffic she encountered was surprisingly busy, even for a town as transient as Woodrill. She surmised the onset of Christmas was the cause.

The town itself was openly festive. As she slowly drove past the urban residences on her way to do her shopping she was barraged from all sides by all things Christmas. Every home was decorated in some manner, the bright, cheery multi-colored strands of lights giving even the frigid winter night a warm glow, the sun having already set. Though she'd been prepared for it, though she'd expected it, the lights and decorations triggered a pang of reminiscent longing that was so strong that it was almost painful. Despite that fact, she genuinely enjoyed the holiday scenery. She hadn't realized how gorgeous Christmas in a winter setting could actually be.

Despite her firm resolve to not dwell on holidays and who she'd spent them with in the past, Jane found herself looking at items in the grocery store that were meant for a Christmas dinner. And suddenly, surprising herself, she thought, why the hell not? She had no idea how to cook a turkey or make stuffing. She had her cookbooks, though, which she'd accumulated when she'd finally discovered she enjoyed the task of cooking. Such was her new mindset that it didn't matter that she was inexperienced at creating large, festive meals; feeling oddly inspired, Jane began grabbing all the things she'd need to create a full Christmas dinner. Her separation from friends and family didn't necessitate that she spend it utterly devoid of anything that might bring comfort.

She thought, briefly, of Loki as she pushed her shopping cart through the icy, near-empty grocery store parking lot towards her truck. That he would scoff at the concept and meaning of Christmas, she had no doubt. Perhaps he was already well aware; he did seem very well versed in most everything else about humans and their customs. And even if he wasn't familiar with the concept, she had no intent of sharing it with him. She would embrace the holiday in her own shuttered, reclusive way. Inwardly she would remember Christmases past, recall the fond holiday memories she'd shared with her family, Darcy, and Erik. Those were her gifts and her comfort.

She'd opted to forego her iced capp this time around. She left Woodrill and headed for home. Night had fallen completely. Through the windshield Jane could see brilliant night sky canvas, unpolluted by city lights in this remote rural area. The sky was thick with stars, the lights of which glinted and shone with a crisp, clear light. Her trained eyes made out constellations and mapped clusters as she drove. She'd never in her life seen a night sky as lovely and pure as that which appeared every evening here in the north.

The stars weren't the only treat for her eyes. In the total darkness the Christmas lights of every house she passed on her way twinkled and beckoned with cheerful seasonal charm. One yard had a number of animals constructed entirely of lights, horses and reindeer that pranced among each other. Other houses were dressed up with careful consideration toward color coordination; a large house artfully illuminated in strands of yellow and blue was so attractive that she slowed her truck in order to get a better look.

It was then that the dam broke.

Unbidden and unexpected emotion overwhelmed every painstakingly constructed barrier Jane had erected within her mind. As her vision blurred dangerously, she braked and guided her vehicle to the shoulder of the highway before shifting into park. And then she let go entirely, giving way before the intensity of all she felt. She missed Darcy. And Erik—god, she missed him too, so much that the memory of him was nearly a physical burden, wearing her down with each passing day. She missed life as it used to be, when she was blissfully unaware of any other realm but this one. She missed normalcy and consistency and cohesion in her life. Sitting in her truck, the blue and yellow Christmas lights of the house across the road blurring as she blinked a steady stream of tears from her eyes, Jane wept as she hadn't in such a long time. She cried for the friend she'd lost and the friend she couldn't be with and for what she'd lost of herself in these last brutally turbulent years. She cried at the unreachable promise of the stars that drew her eyes ever upwards, of the merciless truths they housed that she'd stumbled so unwittingly upon. And she cried too for the loneliness that she was never without now, the life of solitude she'd never expected or wanted but that she'd had to accept.

Jane didn't know how long she sat in her parked truck, allowing herself to feel in all the ways she had worked so hard not to. It had to happen eventually—she'd known this. Better here, parked on the shoulder of a highway, then in her home where Loki stalked the halls as a relentless, constant threat. Such were the parameters of her life now. Her weaknesses were something she could not share with anyone. When finally she could blink without tears spilling over, Jane leaned her head back against the seat and sighed. The thought of returning home, to the house that had been such a comforting little haven for too short a time, filled her with unease. But the crux of it was that she had nowhere else to go. Home to Loki or onward to nothing—it was a milder, insidious version of a rock and a hard place.

Sniffling still, wiping at her eyes with one hand, Jane shifted the truck into drive, checked her mirrors, and eased back out onto the highway. In the rear view mirror, the Christmas lights she'd so admired dwindled away to nothing.

.x.

Jane had made a point of turning on the outdoor light when she'd left the house earlier in the day, knowing she'd be returning in the early dark of a winter night. She'd purchased so many groceries that she'd have to make two trips. After unlocking the front door, she stepped inside and deposited the very full plastic bags on the floor before glancing quickly inside. There was no sign of Loki. With an inward shrug, she turned and headed back out to her truck.

When she came inside the second time, he was standing at the entry to the porch. She paused in the act of closing the door. She knew her face was red and her eyes swollen from the abundance of tears she'd shed earlier—it was obvious she'd been upset. She waited for him to say something as they stared at each other in the strained silence that had become so common between the two of them. Instead, with no expression whatsoever, he bent and picked up two bags of groceries before turning and heading for the kitchen. Jane blinked, surprised. After a moment she finished closing the door and locked it. Removing her coat and boots, she picked up the remaining bags and followed after Loki. He was already gone, seated on the chair near the fire, a book in hand. Jane contemplated thanking him, but opted not to. These days, anything she said was likely to be met by cold silence or cruel remarks, neither of which she wanted to deal with.

.x.

On Christmas day, Jane proved herself capable of managing a large meal. She hadn't decorated her house. She had no lighthearted Christmas music blaring from the speakers of her laptop. She found she didn't need either of those, however, to invoke the warmth and comfort of Christmas—the wonderful smells of the meal she'd created did all that on its own. She wasn't a culinary expert, by any means; the turkey and stuffing were a little dry. But it didn't matter—it was all edible and, in her opinion, perfectly delicious.

She had no doubts Loki knew what day it was. When he'd risen that morning to find her already awake and hard at work in the kitchen, he'd watched her for a little while with a faint expression of mingled amusement and disdain. Aware of his scrutiny, she'd paused in the act of stuffing the turkey to turn and glare at him. With a little shake of his head, he rolled his shoulders in a disinterested shrug and walked off. Determined not to let his presence ruin her day, she instead focused intently on the task at hand, anticipating the finished product.

Hours later, when the meal was done and ready to eat, Jane leaned back against the counter to survey the repast before her. She'd done just fine for her first attempt at a holiday meal. The entire process, though hard work, had left her feeling contented and at ease. Jane took a few more minutes to bask in these feelings while she sipped at her wine. She wasn't much for alcohol in general, but she did have an affinity for a dry red. Her rumbling stomach was what prompted her to grab a plate and start dishing up food; she'd abstained from eating anything aside from an orange in the morning in order to be able to fully appreciate this meal.

Plate heaped with the fruits of her labor, Jane grabbed her wineglass and took a seat at the kitchen table. The first morsel she decided to sample was the cranberry chutney, which she'd never had before. It was sweet, tart, and absolutely what she'd hoped for. Pleased, she speared a length of asparagus—cooked along with slices of mushrooms, onions, and crushed garlic—and brought it to her mouth. Cooking, she mused with satisfaction, was fast becoming a hobby to rival all others.

Her next mouthful of food paused midway to her mouth. Loki had entered the kitchen and was standing there as he surveyed the feast Jane had prepared. She hadn't invited him to eat. She'd even considered making a point of banning him from partaking just for the sake of being mulish. In the end, she'd simply chosen not to talk to him at all. Moving the fork to her mouth and taking the mouthful—potatoes mashed with garlic butter and shredded cheese—she chewed in silence while eyeing him warily.

Having effectively taken stock of everything she'd made in the past eight hours, he transferred his attention to her. "Impressive. I've seen Asgardian feasts with less to offer."

Jane felt a little of the tension that had appeared the moment he'd walked into the room lessen. Just before taking a sip of her wine, she said in a pleasant tone, "Thank you."

"Food to celebrate the holiday season?"

She listened carefully for the always subtle but always present undertones of condescension and arrogance in his words, but didn't hear them. "In part," she replied. Gesturing with her fork to the hearty display of food that littered the kitchen in an array of pots, pans, and bowls, she said, "Help yourself."

His response to that was to grab the opened bottle of red wine from the counter, arching an eyebrow in her direction. Jane nodded her permission and went back to her food, inwardly contemplating his sudden change in behavior. This was the most he'd spoken to her in weeks. She felt a brief flare of hope—perhaps he'd decided civility would make his exile more bearable, after all? She tempered that hope almost immediately. If there was anything she'd learned about Loki, it was that he was unpredictability personified. Maybe he was bored and simply wanted conversation—all he did most days was read and spend hours outdoors. Maybe he really was contrite, though she seriously doubted it.

Or maybe, she mused wryly as she watched him heap food onto the plate he'd grabbed, he was just hungry and decided to work his way into her favor just in order to eat the meal she'd made.

He joined her at the table. Though her first instinct was to make small talk, she quashed it immediately. If he wanted conversation, it was up to him to start it. Even with Loki seated so near, Jane still felt remarkably content, better than she had in weeks. Part of it, she knew, was that cooking all day and eating the meal she'd prepared had brought upon a powerful sense of nostalgia. She didn't care. Even if for a night, she wanted—needed—to feel some semblance of happy.

"What meat is this?" He asked her after a time, indicating with his fork a slice of meat that he'd coated in gravy.

"Bison," she told him. She was particularly pleased with that dish, which she'd cooked in a roaster along with carrots, potatoes, and onions.

"What I said earlier was not in jest. You have created a most impressive feast."

Jane's eyebrows shot up at this. Civil Loki was unusual. Loki plying her with praise wasn't just unusual, it was completely out of character. Jane swallowed her mouthful as she considered him from across the table. His expression was mild. His voice hadn't hinted at anything untoward. He was watching her as he ate, waiting for her response.

"… Thank you," was all she managed, still trying to understand his game. In a gambit to keep things moving, she said, "Though you exaggerate. I've seen Asgardian feasts. A lot of goat and … other things."

Surprising her even further, he laughed. He set his fork down in order to take a drink of wine. Every mannerism he had screamed of total self-assurance. His movements were precise, confident, neat. She'd seen him in a frenzied rage. She'd seen him irritated. She'd seen him, the day he'd been sent to Earth, utterly distraught as he lay in a crater in the snow. He had an air now of being utterly at ease. This, she realized, was Loki the prince—adept at all manners of social interaction, affable and able to charm even the most reluctant of individuals.

Be very, very careful, whispered a voice in Jane's mind. Something is not right …

"Feasts in Asgard, like everything else, are as much a matter of over-quantifying as they are anything else."

Jane knew this was true, having eaten at several during her time in Asgard. Raising her wine glass, smiling sweetly at him over the rim, she asked, "And of course the food in Asgard, like everything else, is better than it is here?"

He'd caught the edge in her voice and gave her back his own smile. "Perhaps not always."

She tried to mask it as much as she could, this sense of being off balance, caused by his change in attitude. This was a new Loki, entirely unfamiliar to her. This Loki, she knew, was one that could warm even the iciest of personalities. It wasn't just his voice, casual and relaxed, holding in it more warmth than she'd ever heard before. It wasn't just his words, creating easy and relatable banter. And his eyes—Jane found herself struggling not to meet them, so seemingly open and candid they were. As they both went on eating, Loki began to speak to her of memorable feasts from his past, things he'd eaten—such as roasted bilgesnipe—on a dare from his brother. Even as Jane struggled to hold onto her conviction that this new face of Loki's was a false one, she wondered at all he was sharing with her, at the insight she was gaining into his life as a prince, a trickster, a favored son of Odin. His stories told of another Loki, one without ambitions of monstrous proportions, one without a tendency towards the cruel and violent. To her dismay, Jane found herself wanting more than a little to know this other Loki in greater detail.

It was a pleasant meal, her suspicions aside. She'd cooked a great meal and she didn't need Loki to tell her that. After helping herself to dessert—a chocolate-vanilla-strawberry trifle—and feeling tremendously full, Jane finally laid her spoon aside and leaned back in her chair as she swirled the last bit of wine in her glass. Loki, who'd just finished explaining to her the rarest delicacies of Asgard, finished his own dessert, pushed his plate away, and propped his elbows up on the table.

Bad manners, she wanted to tell him, but was feeling too sleepily contented from what she supposed was the tryptophan to even bother.

"How did you lose your fingers?"

All feelings of well-being and peace drained from her immediately. Here then was the other shoe dropped, just as she'd feared. He'd asked the question in a casual, conversational tone, but she knew that it was a facade, meant to lull her into complacently answering. For so many reasons that she couldn't even name them all, she didn't want to answer that question. Giving it to him would just be giving him another weapon in his arsenal meant to emotionally wound and cripple.

She downed the rest of her wine and set the glass back down harder than she needed to. Standing, she picked up her plate and began walking to the sink. She was waylaid, however, by Loki pushing his chair directly into her path. She stared down at him with narrowed eyes, hating that she'd actually enjoyed their meal together, hating that she'd known it was a ruse all along but had still went along with it.

"A simple question, Jane, that's all I ask."

"It's your reasons for asking it," she said tightly, "that make me keep my mouth shut."

His smile was a quicksilver flicker across his face. "I cannot blame you for that reasoning. And if I told you I ask for the sake of mere curiosity?"

Jane shook her head. "It isn't that simple with you."

She turned in order to walk around the kitchen island, bypassing him entirely on her way to the sink. His hand on her wrist stopped her. Not wanting to drop her plate, she restrained from pulling away, but the glare she leveled on him was one of furious intensity.

"Let me go, Loki."

But he shook his head, dark hair sliding across his shoulders with the movement. "Give me the answer and I will."

"Why is it any of your business?"

All remnants of the talkative, affable Loki had vanished. Here now was the man she was more familiar with than she had ever wanted to be, so very confident and authoritative. His eyes on hers held no hints as to what he was thinking in their icy blue depths. His grip on her wrist was unrelenting. When he spoke, all traces of friendly camaraderie were gone from his words. "The answer, Jane."

His reluctance to give his reasons grated on her nerves. "It's none of your concern."

"It shouldn't be," he acknowledged after a long moment. His voice had dropped in volume. "This I know." His fingers loosened from around her wrist and glided downward to her own, sliding over the remnants of the two she'd lost. The sensation was utterly disarming and she jerked her hand away with such force that she unbalanced herself. As she tottered, struggling to not to drop what she carried in the other hand, it was Loki that caught her by the elbow as he came to his feet.

"You cannot outrun me here, Jane. I am a fixture now in your life. As much as you hate it," he said, his smile mirthless, "and as much as I hate it. I find myself confounded by the quandary you offer—you are so very, very changed from the Jane my brother courted before. Colder. Harder. Even merciless in some ways, I think."

He'd let her go. Jane had skirted around him hastily, moving to the sink and placing her dish carefully within. He hadn't followed, but his words did.

"I wondered for so long why my brother sent me here the way he did. Why he hadn't come to you first. Why Odinson, in all his self-righteous glory, could not look me in the eye upon rendering my verdict to me. He spoke your name, Jane, but he looked away as he did so. Such a simple thing, that, but it has remained with me all this time."

"The answer," he continued as she turned to stare at him in mute dismay, "lay with you. In how you've changed. In your behaviour. In your bearing. In your … injury." His eyes dropped to her hand, the one that was no longer whole, for only a heartbeat before returning to hers. "In my time ruling under the guise of the Allfather, I kept my brother very busy so that he could not pry into matters that did not concern him. I distracted him by creating threats where there were none, by promising him ample opportunities to prove his strength and vigilance in combat. I assumed—wrongly, it seems—that he would always find time to return to Midgard, to this pathetic realm he holds in such high regard and to his little mortal love that he cherished so."

"But he did not," Loki went on relentlessly, even as Jane felt all the rage and fear and helplessness she'd tried to keep away returning with tidal force. "Because if he had, your hand would still be whole. It was no accident, losing your fingers—if it had been you would not keep the cause so closely guarded. No, they were taken from you, by force. You, Jane, were at some point very much the damsel in distress, and my brother did not come for you. And that is why he could not meet my eyes when he said your name, when he sent me here. Shame. Thor's shame is what has kept him from you. It is why he did not tell you in person of my exile. It is why he has not returned. He knows of what happened to you, Jane. He knows and has not come."

Silence fell, the last of his words hanging with terrible poignance in the air between them. Jane made no sound, made no movement, as tears slid unchecked down her face. Everything she'd feared, everything she'd hoped, wished, prayed hadn't been true—Loki had given her an answer, after all. An answer that had shattered something inside her and rendered her vulnerable to every subsequent spinning, jagged shard.

"You think me cruel," Loki said softly, approaching her until he was within distance to touch, to shove, to cling to. "I am. You think me heartless. At times, I am that as well. But I am only what Fate and circumstance have shaped me to be. Is it not the same with you, Jane? Tempered by the trials you have endured, you have become something else. We are not the same, you and I, but we are similar in the methods of our creation. I thought you a fool once before, a simpering mortal blinded to all but Thor and the future he offered you that was impossible."

"I'm not like you," was all she could say in a thin, wavering voice. It was the only defense she could mount with her emotions as ragged and wounded as they were.

"You are not. You never could be. I said we are similar. I think you know it, Jane. Why if for no other reason have you not given me to S.H.I.E.L.D or cast me out? It is not out of loyalty to Thor—your reactions and words have already indicated what I have suspected. Whatever you felt for my brother has faded, due in part, I think, to whatever happened that cost you your fingers. You allowed me in. You granted me haven."

She couldn't deny any of it. She wanted to, so very, very badly.

He had drawn closer, one careful step at a time, approaching her with a hunter's careful tread as though she were prey that might flee. He stood before her now, filling up her vision, his eyes a magnetic pull that she no longer had the strength to resist. "What I offer now," he said slowly, softly, as though his words could send her running, "is not out of gratitude. Nor is it out of pity. I offer you solace. I offer you insight. I offer you a diversion from what I know haunts your thoughts every waking moment. You are not my enemy, though once I believed you were. You are something else entirely, though I do not know what, not yet …"

She ached. She hurt from within, loss and anger intermingling with hopelessness. With sorrow. With loneliness so acute and razor-edged that she felt it as a million little cuts. When Loki's hand cupped her cheek she leaned into his touch, closing her eyes as inwardly a part of her mind screamed at her to fight, to run, to do anything but this. Morality wavered between the ever shifting line of right and wrong, of what was then and what was now. Loki's cruelest insult was also the truest: she was mortal. She was human. And she needed what every human needed at some point in their lives, needed it so desperately that every nerve in her body hummed with the intensity of that need.

His lips on hers were subtle at first, a test of willingness and acceptance. When she didn't pull away, when she didn't fight back, his kiss slowly became as he was—confident, demanding, enthralling. She wasn't clinging to him. Her hands had crept upwards somehow, at some point, and were laid flat against his chest as though to keep him at bay, as though to push him back. But she did neither, her mind utterly lost in a dizzying free-fall as his lips moved apart from hers, ghosting over her cheek, tasting the remnants of her tears. His hands cupped her face, tilting it upwards, his fingers long and deft and surprisingly soft in their touch—

The phone rang.

Reality reasserted itself like a cruel, brutal slap. She tore herself free of his touch, staggering away, running a hand over her lips, her face, through her hair as she shook her head in useless denial. She spun back around to see him, to find that his expression wasn't unreadable, wasn't cold or mocking or cruel. What she saw on his face was a trace of the longing and desire she'd known in such potency just a moment ago, and it shook her to the core. But even as she watched it altered and he became composed, hiding what he wanted better than she could ever hope to hide what she had felt. And then came that smile, that dazzling smile meant to entice and disarm and weaken.

"The offer stands."

Jane knew her expression was stricken, knew her face had paled in the wake of what she'd done and allowed him to do. It was the continued blaring of the phone that brought her back to some semblance of herself. Wheeling, she left the kitchen, racing down the hall to her office. She slammed the door and backed away from it, feeling for the phone that resided on her desk. Once it was in her shaking hands she fumbled with the receiver until the speaker was by her mouth.

She gasped an unintelligible greeting, all her thoughts on the man she'd just left standing in her kitchen.

"Jane? Merry Christmas!"

"Bruce," she whispered, and with a breathless sob, collapsed to her knees.

.x.