The days passed strangely. The flat was quite crowded with the five of them. Luckily Jane's mother, owner of inhabited flat, was away on vacation somewhere in China. Thor and Jane shared the bedroom, Darcy and Ian (who abandoned his dorm) made a tent on the kitchen floor, and Selvig took the couch. Mornings were exciting and fun, afternoons were busy as the mortals worked, and during the evening, they all went out to explore.

"I don't live here," Jane explained as she and Thor walked down the streets of London together. "My mom moved to England when I started college. She's an ecologist. She studies how the world interacts with itself. Mostly animals, but, she says it's not hard to reflect on people. We kind of rented out her space while she's gone. Erik was studying the gravitational anomalies for a couple of months before Darcy and I came here – the Convergence. When it was over, I got a call from the University of Greenwich asking if I would like to teach a few seminars. Sort of a tribute to my mom – she works there. I figured, 'why not'."

Thor nodded. "I see," he hummed. "You have all been very resourceful, it seems."

Jane chuckled, mostly because he had taken her hand in his.

The clothes they bought for him fit very well. Tonight he wore a white shirt, faded jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. He looked like another regular human, not a prince, nor a warrior, nor a god. But he didn't mind, and neither did she. They were happy.

Thor leaned in to kiss her when Darcy shrieked. For a moment, their hearts all stopped.

"That freakin' bird just came out of nowhere!" she gasped, rubbing remnants of bird feathers out of her hair.

"It's to be expected," Selvig assured. "The Convergence has passed, but small portals might open up here and there. Nothing major."

"That's 'nothing major'?" Ian asked, pointing down the end of the alleyway.

An ice beast stood in the shadows, panting. Its eyes gleamed white in the darkness. Thor dropped Jane's hand. "Everyone get back," he ordered, protecting them behind a meaty arm. Mjølnir whizzed through the sky, reaching his palm in a matter of seconds. But the ice beast just panted, watching them all. It was smaller than any Thor had ever seen, though size did not inhibit the danger. The ice beast lunged, fell through the cobblestone, and disappeared.

The group relaxed slowly.

"Is it gone for good?" Ian asked. "Because I'm pretty sure that thing ate a couple of those cyber-elves and I'd rather not be eaten, too."

"'Cyber-elves'?" Darcy asked.

"You know, like the cyber-men?" said Ian. "Doctor Who?"

Darcy shook her head.

Ian demanded a show marathon.

The group, after finishing a comfortingly greasy dinner, headed back to the borrowed flat. They spent the night huddled around the TV to begin Ian's program.

They watched sparingly for two weeks until classes let out for Christmas holiday. Thor continued to grimace at the terrible graphics. The mortals understood.

"It's only the tenth," Ian said, staring at the calendar. "We finished season one in two weeks, one episode a night, but if we're going to make it to the Christmas special, we need to finish seven seasons in fifteen days. That's a hundred and four episodes, including specials. Each episode is forty five minutes, that's roughly 4,700 minutes of TV. 4,700 minutes into fifteen days, that's roughly 300 minutes a day, that's roughly five hours, that's roughly seven episodes a day. I think that's doable on a break. I don't have class, Jane doesn't have seminars, Darcy doesn't have money, Selvig doesn't have a car, and Thor is Thor. We might even – if we're lucky – get through this sooner."

The others looked around.

Thor couldn't help but laugh.

"What, don't you have TV shows up there in space?" Darcy asked. "This is light watching. I forced Jane to watch Smallville with me, and Supernatural."

"We have things like television shows in Asgard, yes, but my father forbade them as my brothers and I grew up. By the time we were old enough to want to think otherwise, we were much too busy. I can remember several times when my friends would much rather have sprawled out under a tree with a holo-card and watched endless hours of performances."

"'Holo-card'," Selvig murmured, folding his arms in wonder.

Thor paused. "It's . . . like one of your cellphones. It's flat and clear, about the size of one's palm. It expands depending on how much room you have at your disposal. You can do many things with it, but mainly it's recreational. If there is little room, the actors float around the area of the card, but most people like to lay theirs on a flat surface and expand the projection until the scenes are played out around them. The light elves are particularly fond of acting, and most of the dramas Fandral used to watch were from Alfheim."

"I need a holo-card," Darcy said immediately.

Thor chuckled. "Next time I go to Asgard, I shall try to bring you all one."

They made a quick dinner of four boxes of macaroni, then sat down to get started on their next five hours. By the end of the first night of Christmas holiday, they finally understood Ian's cyber-men joke.

Ten nights of heavy watching. Ten nights of laughs, of tears, of passing around the bottles of beer and boxes of pizza and bowls of macaroni. Ten nights for Selvig to feel young, and ten nights for Ian to be proud of his culture, and ten nights for Darcy to fall in love, and ten nights for Jane to be in love, and ten nights for Thor to feel human.

Ten nights for Thor to feel human.

And then the dreams settled in.

He blamed it on his grief and the growing fondness for this television drama. When he closed his eyes, he saw Loki travelling around each realm, searching for something. He saw the Doctor chasing him through the worlds, across time, trying to stop the raven haired prince from reaching the Tesseract. He saw a war between the two, each misunderstanding the other, raining fire and bloodshed upon them both. In the middle of the night, he would wake and go to the balcony for air.

There, he wondered what this fictional Doctor would make of the deceased Loki. Thor wondered what the Doctor would make of himself, a god falling in love with a human. But the Doctor had his own human. Rose. Despite leaving behind a human version of himself, Thor held faith that the man in the box would return for her. Was the Doctor never jealous of that self? The one that got to live with Rose, and die with Rose? How did the Doctor lose all of his companions and still manage to stay sane? Loki chased one human across a millennia and in the end it drove him mad.

Ah, but they were all just dreams, silly thoughts.

Loki was certainly dead and the Doctor was certainly not a man who existed. Thor did his best to keep from thinking too much about it. About all the phrases and expressions and emotions in this television show that reminded him of his brother.

Five nights of dreams passed with five days of pleasant watching. They made it to the Christmas special just on time, and it was wonderful.

Thor stayed for five months and counting, and that was wonderful, too.

҉

Loki hid away on Jotunheim with the last ice beast. They were the final creatures of their kind, it seemed, destined to live out their life on this lonely rock. Upon some exploring, Loki found something strange about the planet. Its orbit had long ceased, giving one side of Jotunheim sun and mild weather, while the other side was covered in ice and darkness. The raven haired prince did not deny he was always curious how they sustained themselves. Here, in the light, they harvested food at the expense of their lives. The weather was not unpleasant, but to toil in bright sunny fields must have been torture. Loki chuckled to himself.

'Are you ever going to ask?'

His smile faded. "I have asked you to refrain from speaking, and that should be enough," he growled. The cube stayed tucked away in a leather satchel under his cloak. Many times, he thought to stow it in one of his hidden pockets of space. But the danger was too great, and to leave it unattended would surely be his plan's downfall.

'Ask me why I am still here. You know what happened. You know it should not be possible. Ask me why I live as Siv.'

The raven haired prince gave a dark laugh, shifting the satchel on his shoulder. "And why is it so imperative that I ask? I don't care to know. It is your own business. I am just an insignificant soul that 'Mother' cares nothing for. She favors only you, the firstborn."

Siv grew angry. A sharp headache stabbed through Loki's mind as she spoke. 'How dare you accuse the Tesseract of favoritism? She loves all souls equally! Loki, you are blinded! What have I done to make you hate everything so passionately, that you can no longer ask what makes you curious?'

"And you say I am blinded. Look at you," Loki hissed, holding his head. "I have no reason to know why you are still in existence. The Tesseract, the Mother – she obviously cares about you more than the rest of the souls if she will let you continue on with your memories. But because of this, you are no longer the same, are you? You suffer with emotions. They are difficult, are they not? They hurt. And when you absorbed the shard, it poisoned you, it poisoned the cube. You are becoming human in consciousness. You are not a perfect, clean soul. You are fouled. Defiled. Infected. Your continued existence is why I hate everything as 'passionately' as you say. There comes a day when even the most curious man must refrain from satisfying his own knowledge. Step off and shut up."

But she did not remain quiet.

'For a millennia, I sought to help you!'

"For a millennia, you ruined my chance at a normal life!"

'Your life would never have been normal, even without my involvement. You still would be exactly where you are today, without me.'

"Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that very much."

'You doubt because you wish me dead.'

"You are correct, my diseased little pet. I wish I had never met you. I wish you had never chased me down. I wish you would have just stayed away."

'Loki, I did it because I loved you!'

"And look what that love has done to us now!"

They were quiet for many days. Loki brooded atop the Jotun throne, and Siv, inside and around the Tesseract. Her Mother greeted her silently, an invisible emotion in Siv's consciousness. The soul came to the heart of the cube in search of knowledge and reason for Loki's behavior.

'He refuses to listen. What can I do to prove to him that I am here to save him? That I want him to live? That he is wrong to hate me as much as he does?'

'The accusations against each other of blindness are not incorrect. He refuses to see that you want to live; you refuse to see that he wants to die. He is young, and hurt, and he has only you to blame.'

'But I am not at fault!'

'But you are. To him, you are.'

Siv was silent.

'You have good intentions, and the thousand years you have spent carrying human memories inside of you have molded you into a strictly human soul. For eons, you favored the fauna of Midgard. They were simple, and full of love. When you took a human vessel for the first time, I was surprised, and kept a close watch. When you met Loki's Jotun vessel, I knew you were one of the souls that would chase its kindred for the rest of time. So far, I have not been incorrect.'

'How can I tell him why? How can I tell him what you have done for me?'

'You are certainly not the first soul I have allowed a partial cleanse, but know what it does to a vessel. You are carrying two lives' worth of memories, and to a human, that is more than overwhelming. Humans are powerful in some aspects, but weak in most. If you choose to continue to live on, beware that in the end you may harm yourself, as well as harm him further. If your vessel dies again, he will never forgive you. Even the soul inside of him will reject you.'

'But how can I tell him why? He won't listen to me.'

'Sometimes, it is best to stay silent. He will let you know when he is ready. You are too eager to rejoin him; you have forgotten what you admire most.'

'I am fated to live in a human vessel for the rest of time, but what about Loki? What other forms has he taken?'

'He is a young soul, only having three previous vessels. First, he was a birch tree, then a light elf, then a human, and now what he currently is.'

'So he does not favor the human form, but he has been there once. . .'

'Three cycles are not long enough to decide on a particular vessel preference. When you were an animal for the final time, he was kind to your vessel. I do not doubt that is why you suddenly chose to live as a human.'

'He was?'

'Yes. You were a weasel, wounded from a hawk. Loki's human vessel saved yours and bandaged it. You stayed by his side for many years, until you both perished of old age.'

'So I was destined to chase him from that moment, then? Out of kindness?'

'It seems the child's memories have affected even your foremost state of being. You are the oldest soul and yet even you find yourself believing in destiny and fate. It does not exist. You live and die based on choices made by everyone else. Patterns arise and become a calculation for what other souls possessing similar qualities will do. You are not destined to chase him for eternity, 'Siv'. It is your choice. Do with this what you will.'

Siv left the heart of the Tesseract to pace in an astral form.

Loki could see her out of the corner of his eye, though he rather wished he couldn't. She made no sound, though, out of her frustration or respect for his wishes. He made no attempt to communicate. The ice beast laid at the foot of his throne, panting heavily. It desired to hunt, to feast on living flesh, but the only thing left alive was Loki and itself. Neither were promising options.

The night the ice beast decided it would feast on its king, the Chitauri came to Jotunheim in search of the cube. Loki vanished without so much as an exhale. The ice beast had a pleasant final feast before they killed it.

The raven haired prince hid away on Niflheim, the dead realm, the first realm. Siv was not so pleased to be there, and made a few quiet murmurs of protest. She was ignored. Loki explored for a bit, but found he could not stay for long. There was nothing here to sustain him. So he left for Muspelheim, shifting into the guise of a fire demon for the sheer pleasure of spying. The Chitauri found him within two months, and this time, Loki did not escape so quickly.

҉

"The failed prince runs from the force he once commanded," the Other snickered. "He knows you desire the power he hides within himself. We will capture him. We will torture him. He will beg for death within an hour. We will not let him free so easily."

"He can hide better than this," Thanos mused. He sat upon his throne in silence for a few tense moments, stroking a strange metal gauntlet on his opposite hand. "He intends to lead us away from something. The Tesseract he holds is real, and there is nothing on any realm that he cares for. This desire to protect the other realms is uncharacteristic of him. Is it not amusing that the Midgardians are so close to destroying themselves?" Thanos smiled, turning his attention to a far corner of the cosmos. "He knows I seek death for Death, and yet he tries to stop me. What a valiant little maggot he is. Unfortunately, he will not succeed. My Lady will receive her gifts in full."

"Shall we bring him to you or play chase a while longer?"

"Let him go. Increase the number of Chitauri looking for him – send a Leviathan out on the hunt. It makes the game more fun."

"Yes, my master." The Other bowed and left.

Thanos gave a malicious grin. "Run, boy, run. The immune system of the universe is coming to collect you."

҉

Over the period of five months, several things happened.

Darcy and Ian were engaged to be wed.

Selvig received several mysterious phone calls which finally lured him back to America on a strange and hidden task.

Jane received an award for her work on the Nine Realms theory and the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory.

Thor's dreams about Loki's realm-travelling increased.

One night, he finally explained to Jane why he could not sleep. "I see him fighting the Chitauri, protecting the Tesseract, hiding in the smallest, most insignificant planets of all nine realms. Where he finds refuge, he does nothing but sit in wait. When they find him, he runs again. If he is not fast enough, they torture him. I cannot do anything to stop them. I know they are just dreams but it feels like – it feels like Loki is alive, and no matter what I do, I cannot protect him. I cannot help him. Because I am here, and not there. I'm not even sure where 'there' is, I see only glimpses. But he is dead, Jane. My brothers are dead. My mother is dead. Even the Chitauri are dead. We killed them all in the Battle for Earth."

And then, quietly, "The only family I have left is my father."

"You have me," Jane murmured, reaching to stroke his hair. "You have me, and Darcy, and Ian, and Erik."

Thor gave a somber nod. "You are right," he whispered apologetically. "I should not overlook what I have here."

Jane's cellphone rang suddenly, blasting a distasteful chanting. She frowned at it, muttering under her breath before answering. "Erik, it's the middle of the night."

"You're awake, aren't you?" he responded, grunting.

Jane heard shouting in the background. "Why're you calling me? Where are you?"

"New Mexico – Roswell is S.H.I.E.L.D., apparently. They set up a testing facility, that's where I've been. You need to get back to America now. They've been trying to work on your Nine Realms theory and the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory for a few months, but they haven't got it down. Jane, they're going to open a portal without your expertise – even I can't sort this out, and I opened a portal under the influence of a god."

"Are you kidding me?" Jane nearly shouted, exasperated.

"Jane, what's wrong?" Thor asked. He was unable to hear Selvig through the phone.

"Please, Jane, come to New Mexico. They'll let you in, I can give you clearance." And with that, Selvig hung up.

"Are you kidding me?" Jane shrieked, standing and ripping her suitcase from the closet, stuffing it with clothes still on their hangers.

"What's going on?" Darcy asked, bursting into the room, eyes covered with her hand.

"What are you doing, Darcy?" Thor asked.

Darcy peeked between her fingers, finding them safe to view.

"Erik just called. Stupid S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to ride off my work and open a portal without me – I can't believe this!" She finished packing and sought decent clothes. "I'm going to New Mexico to stop them, it's too dangerous."

"As am I," Thor insisted.

"I want to go, too," Darcy grinned, pulling her own suitcase out of Jane's closet.

"Where are we going?" Ian said from the hallway, yawning. The shouting had woken him up.

"Area 51, Erik said. I can't believe this," Jane repeated angrily.

Ian straightened up immediately. "Area 51, the supposed alien collection base? I've always wanted to go there. Let me get my suitcase!" He searched for his car keys to collect his belongings from his abandoned campus dorm.

"Nerd," Darcy lovingly mocked as Ian darted out the door.

They bought tickets and boarded the first flight out to Santa Fe, dressed haphazardly in something other than sleepwear. Jane muttered under her breath the entire flight. Her only comfort was in Thor's insistence of holding her hand. Darcy and Ian chattered behind them about sci-fi media they enjoyed, until finally getting a few more hours' rest on each other's shoulders.

They arrived in New Mexico in the first hour of light, rented a car and drove silently to Roswell. They were stopped by military vehicles, removed from the rented car, then escorted to a base after a few minutes of convincing and finally a phone call to Erik (who thankfully thought to keep his phone on his person).

At first, there were four armored vehicles. Two in front, and two behind. Then four became three, as one parted to drive off into the east horizon. Then three became two, as the second drove ahead to meet the south horizon. Then two became one, as the third stopped behind them altogether. They finally arrived a small distance away from a building that looked like an airplane hangar. The four piled out of the military vehicle, cautiously easing up to the facility.

"Stay here," ordered an officer in a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform, and the armored vehicle's other five passengers entered the hangar without them.

It was eerily quiet for a few tense moments.

"Get down!" Thor shouted suddenly, grabbing the armored vehicle and using it as a shield around his mortal companions.

The facility exploded.

"What the hell was that?" Darcy screamed, clinging to her fiancé.

"Oh, God," Jane breathed, stumbling out from behind the vehicle.

The hangar was completely destroyed. Nothing but a skeleton of the building remained. Metal panels littered the ground, as did other unidentifiable pieces of equipment. They didn't want to guess what else. Everyone was accounted for, with no one injured. Thor breathed a sigh of relief. Behind them, an old clunker of a van pulled up, filling the superheated air with noxious black diesel clouds. Erik Selvig hung halfway out of the driver's side window.

"Oh, God, I thought I wouldn't make it in time," he breathed. "Is everyone okay?"

Thor stood, tossing aside the ruined shield. "Erik, what's happened?"

"Come on, hurry up!" Selvig urged, beckoning them toward the van. "We have to get out of here! Get in the back! I'll explain on the way!"

The van slowed just enough for them to tumble into the back of the dying vehicle. A young woman was already inside, wedged in the corner with a small mass of equipment, a laptop, a coffee mug that had seen better days, and a hellish scowl on her face.

"Meet my intern," Selvig shouted above the roar of a dangerously rattling engine.

"You have an intern?" Jane said incredulously.

The intern ignored all greetings. "Leave me alone, I'm busy," she growled.

23:11

29.4.14