A/N: Hi guys! Sorry this chapter took so long, I had an episode of writer's block and a lot of other stuff to take care of... *offers chapter up, trembling* Please don't kill me! *hides*
Gemma (Guest): I'm glad you like it and think it's interesting. And I tried when it came to the Norse people... :)
matioshcka: Exactly. Ha!
Rhiannon (Guest): I'm glad you like it! Sadly, your review came right before a three-week hiatus... sorry about that. Not really a speedy update.
Lilly (Guest): Aw, thanks! Yes, cool stuff is happening... *chuckles evilly*
coolcat (Guest): Wow! That truly is a feat worthy of Thor. Don't die! Here's your update.
Just as the last chapter was a little more Loki-centric, this one's a bit more Alana-centric. Enjoy!
SIXTEEN
On my own
Pretending he's beside me
All alone
I walk with him 'till morning
Without him
I feel his arms around me
And when I lose my way I close my eyes
And he has found me
- "On My Own," Les Miserables
The city was just the same as she remembered it.
Loud, noisy, but so alive. The perfect distraction. There was no time for moping.
She paid the taxi driver, lugged her suitcases out of the trunk, and walked up to the brownstone building and buzzed the intercom.
A loud noise, and she was in.
She had found her roommates on the Internet, two girls who were juniors at Columbia University, who had been looking for someone to share in the rent. They'd met a few times before the arrangement was finalized. Rebecca was outgoing and had told her quite frankly not to expect her home on Friday nights. Paige was a little less bubbly than Rebecca, but she could clearly see that the two girls had been friends for a long time.
Paige met her in the hallway, greeting her warmly, and helped her to carry her bags up. She hadn't brought a lot – it wasn't like she was selling her house, after all – but her books and her clothing did fill up a few bags.
Rebecca showed her to her room, then rushed out the door for an afternoon Neurobiology and Behavior class. Paige had disappeared into the small kitchen.
The door closed behind her.
The room was small, with no space to spare (this was New York City, after all) but she managed to cram her books onto the bookshelf and hang up her clothes so that they at least wouldn't get wrinkled.
She sat on the bed, smoothing the sheets a little, absentmindedly playing with her necklace.
She couldn't think about him too much, because the emotions were so tangled. Here, in the city, it was hard to believe that it hadn't all just been a crazy dream.
She examined the whorls of the fingerprint pressed into the metal, then tucked it back beneath her shirt with a sigh.
He had memorized every line of his cell by now. Again.
No books this time, no comfortable furniture. Just the cot, and the guards outside.
He toyed with his magic, creating small creatures running through the air, a vortex in the midst of space, the stars being sucked in.
When he was tired, he slept. The days passed, he supposed, but there was no day or night deep below Asgard's surface. Though by the food brought once a day, he judged that about a month had passed.
A month without the sun…
His thoughts would invariably turn to her. Where was she? What was she doing? Was she still angry with him? Did she wish he were still there?
Sometimes he would pace his cell, wondering why he had been so stupid, why he had come back here. Who knew if Odin would keep his promise, who knew if he would ever see her again. Perhaps she would never need him. Perhaps she would never call for him.
Four thousand years to go…
She shouldered her bag and walked briskly past the stores, past the vendors on the side of the street closing up shop and past the other New Yorkers, going about their business.
It was getting late, and she was heading back with the groceries she had bought. Although New York never truly slept, the crowd around her was thinning.
Up ahead, a ways in front of her, she saw a man behind another woman. The woman was obviously young, perhaps returning from a party or a bar.
Whichever it was, it appeared that the man was following her.
She reassured herself, He's just walking home, too.
But as the woman nervously glanced behind her and began walking faster, the man sped up too. Suddenly wary, she reached into his mind and recoiled from the thoughts she found there.
Oh my god.
She looked around, but there was no police officer in sight, no one else who could help. And anyways, the man had done nothing yet. Oh, officer, this man needs to be arrested. Why? Well, I read his mind…
The woman turned down a side street and the man followed.
She followed too, breaking into a sprint, the grocery bag banging awkwardly against her legs.
When she turned the corner, she saw the man had caught up with the woman and had pinned her to the wall. The woman was trying to scream, and struggle, but he weighed at least a hundred and fifty pounds more than she did and had covered her mouth with a hand.
"Let her go."
She set down the bag of groceries, her body tense.
The man slowly turned to her, then laughed as he saw her, a slight woman. "Get out of here."
She walked towards him. "Let. Her. Go."
The woman was not much older than her, trembling in fear, eyes wide.
The man leered at her. "Make me, you little bitch."
"Oh, I will," she said, voice low. "Step away from her now or I will."
He laughed again. "You think you're so smart."
"Smarter than you. Are you scared to beat me up? Or are you scared that I'll win?" Fire in her eyes now, and perhaps her words were not the best, but she was not going to leave him with the woman.
His eyes hardened and then a knife flashed in his hand and the woman struggled even more.
He stepped towards her, releasing the woman, who stumbled away, almost tripping.
"Put down the knife."
"Make me." He suddenly slashed at her and met hard, inflexible air.
"What the - " He looked genuinely bemused as he slashed again and again, her telekinesis repelling his strokes.
She let him try for a while, then stepped towards him. "My turn."
She thrust out her hand and a shockwave pushed the man, who flew backwards, into the wall of the building opposite them.
He pulled himself up, groaning. "I'm gonna kill you, bitch." He picked up the knife and lunged at her again.
She smiled tightly and punched him square in the nose. "You can try." He came at her again, knife swinging, her but she sidestepped him and telekinetically threw him into the side of a dumpster. "I've sparred with a god, you bastard." He came at her, swearing, but her eyes had turned a watery blue now, and she dodged his clumsy blows again and again, landing a few of her own, forcing his fingers open, forcing him to drop the knife.
She pulled him up by the collar – damn, he was heavy – and punched him a couple more times in the face.
"Don't ever even think about doing what you were trying to again," she hissed. "I'll know. Do you understand?"
He spat at her.
She threw him up into the air and let him hang there, forty feet in the air. Now he was scrambling for a hold on something, but there wasn't anything to grab onto.
She let him fall, catching him less than six inches above the ground, hearing his screams of panic, and his whimpers as he realized that he was not, in fact, dead.
She let him sink to the ground.
"Get out of here. Now."
The man, finally cowed, scrambled up and ran away as fast as his bruised legs would carry him.
And she was standing in an empty alley, breathing heavily, knuckles split and bleeding.
She walked over to the end of the alley, picked up her groceries, and walked back home.
A week or so after that, Rebecca and Paige decided to pull her along as they went bar-hopping with their friends, though she protested that she didn't want to intrude.
They didn't care, so she sighed and surrendered herself to a night out.
She wasn't a fan of alcohol, mostly because it didn't take much to get her drunk and because she didn't exactly want to go spilling all her secrets.
"Oh yeah, that god that destroyed New York? He's (hic) in love with me."
So she mostly sat at the bar, trying not to get chatted up by tipsy friends of Rebecca's and nursing her lemonade.
She checked her watch again. How long was this going to go on?
"Alana!" Rebecca called her over. "Come'n dance!"
She waved, but stayed at the bar. Rebecca, apparently giving up on her, went to go chat with one of her other friends who could be persuaded into dancing.
As Rebecca moved away, she noticed a tall man with dark hair in the corner of the room. She almost dropped her drink. It can't be…
She made her way through the crowds on the dance floor, avoiding Rebecca and two men who were eager to dance with her, until she got to the corner of the room where the man had been.
It wasn't him.
From a distance, maybe, but up close, she could see that he was more muscular, less lean, with wide-set eyes and a sharp nose.
"Wanna dance?" he asked her, smiling.
She made her excuses and left.
On the way home, she tripped twice. Once was because there was a man on the other side of the street with pale skin and sharp cheekbones (at a second glance, he had red hair) and once because she thought she heard someone say his name.
To be fair, the second one could have happened.
She walked into the apartment and sighed, running a hand through her hair.
She missed him. She couldn't hate him now, much as she should, as she tried. He had left too much of a mark for her to forget him, and though she could not forgive his actions, she needed him, a physical ache in her side.
If only he hadn't gone… and who knew if she'd ever see him again. Perhaps they had not agreed to his bargain, perhaps they had – but the thought was too much for her to take and she brushed it aside.
She couldn't shake the feeling that she would never see him again, much as she tried…
And then she could almost hear him, saying, I swore to you, Alana. I will return, could almost feel his hands touching her face.
She sighed again, walking into her bedroom, falling onto the bed, face pressed against the pillow.
"It has been a month since I sent them. Why have they not reported back? Where are they?"
The voice penetrated through the priest, who shuddered. "My Lord, they have encountered… obstacles. We sent them far away after the battle, and they can only travel at night - "
Thanos growled. "I want him. And soon. Will that be a problem?"
"It will not, my Lord."
It was a stifling May night, and she couldn't sleep.
The noise of the city was muffled slightly by the fan whirring in her room. The displaced air swirled around her, but she was still much too warm.
She kicked the covers off her legs, rolling onto her side.
About half an hour passed, but she still couldn't fall asleep.
She heard one of her roommates (Paige?) return and kick off her shoes, making a clunking noise.
She rolled over again, trying to get comfortable.
Her thoughts drifted to where they always would, back to him.
It's all right, love.
She could almost feel his body pressed against hers, his cool fingers trailing over her arm, his lips whispering softly in her ear.
I'm here. Go to sleep.
She turned, half expecting to see him lying beside her, but there was nothing – no one – there.
Sleep.
And she eventually drifted off, locked in the embrace of her imagination.
Loki…
He tossed on the cot, sweating and shaking.
Loki… we are coming. We are coming for her…
And then he saw her, bloody and beaten, lying on the ground as she was taunted and prodded, struggling to breathe. Her eyes looked into his, and she reached out a hand to him. "Help," she whispered, curling into a ball.
"Help."
He sat up, panting, his fingers clutching at the empty space beside him, where she should have been.
Just a dream. Just a dream.
After all, that was why he had left, was it not? So that she would be safe, away from him.
He slowed his breathing, calming himself.
Just a dream.
A yellow eye peered through the window, spying Alana sleeping peacefully. A semblance of a smile worked its way across the creature's reptilian face, and it disappeared into the night.
They had found her.