I thought I was done with this chapter, but for the life of me I can't stop going back and changing stuff... I'm still not totally happy with it, but that's probably because I've reread it three thousand times and it just doesn't make sense anymore... whatever. I had hopes to post it earlier but Marvel released a new Loki clip and I was so done for the rest of the day... my heart was literally shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. I shall reassemble it eventually, at which point it will be promptly obliterated again. I so cannot take it anymore! This movie is going to be the death of me! O_o Anyway, here ya go!
When Loki awoke the next day, his entire body was one unified ache. His back was sore from falling asleep on the floor and his head was throbbing from such a heavy overexertion. He sat up and his body produced a symphony of cracks and groans. He deeply massaged his tired face, pressing his back against the glass.
He glanced up with a start, having remembered the cause of all this pain. Naomi. He half turned to look over his shoulder. She was still sound asleep right where he'd set her down the night before. That was a relief. Facing forward again, he took note of the fresh tray of food that had already been set out for him. How long had he been asleep? While his internal clock was good, even he had trouble determining the time down here occasionally. He'd know for sure by lunchtime.
After a moment, he stood, stretching the sleep from his legs and carefully eyeing the food set out for him. He momentarily debated which would be simpler – or easier on his already aching body – conjuring meals out of thin air or teleporting what already existed from here to there. He frowned, not being able to decide one way or another. He would know for sure within a few hours, after he had some renewal in strength. For now, he returned to his perch, retrieving one of his books before taking a seat. Every few pages, he would glance up to ensure she was all right. Still breathing. Still peacefully sleeping. Still living. She stirred only once when the guards were particularly noisy with the delivery of his lunch. Other than that, she was at last content.
Loki waited until after his dinner before attempting to breach the barrier again. He was fearful that should someone discover this newfound blessing, they'd find someway to take it away. As the lights finally dimmed, the process began again. The second time was easier, as if the hole had already been worn through and only needed to be broken open again. This time he did it in half the time and thankfully with half the strain. His clone reappeared, accompanied by more solid food: some fruits and breads. He was only hopeful she could eat it.
Leaning over her, he brushed her hair away from her face. Her complexion looked considerably better, though her cheekbones were still more prominent than before. "Naomi?" he asked quietly. She stirred briefly. "I brought you something to eat." She didn't verbally respond, but her eyes flickered and she further adjusted. "Can you sit up?" She nodded, her eyes still tightly shut. Slowly, methodically, she pulled herself up one painstaking inch at a time until she was slumped against the tiny headboard.
Looking her over again, he quickly decided solid food was still going to be a challenge. He wasn't even sure she was aware of him – or the fact that it was him anyway. Had she known, he assumed she wouldn't have been quite so receptive. As her eyes finally opened, for the first time in days, he was greeted with a very obvious fog. Their brown color was dulled and they weren't focused on anything in particular. It amazed him that she was even conscious. She smiled weakly as she stared in his general direction. He sat down opposite her, poking through the fruit assortment. Pears, he decided. They were the softest and by far the easiest to swallow. He pushed a few pieces past her lips and she mindlessly chewed and swallowed without much difficulty.
He fed her three whole pears before she finally seemed full. She curled slightly into the corner, but the discomfort showed in her face. With a small space opened up, he squished in beside her, allowing her to rest against him instead of the rigid and most likely uncomfortable headboard. "Thank you," she breathed quietly against his sleeve. The sound of her voice had almost startled him, having not heard it at full strength for such a long time. Though this time it was still quiet and hoarse from disuse. "Thank you, Loki." Perhaps she was aware of him.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better," she moaned softly. "Tired."
"Hungry?" he inquired, half joking.
"No," she said, almost smiling as she nestled further into his sleeve.
Loki nearly laughed, imagining how under normal circumstances she would have somehow thrown that remark back in his face. He gently entangled his hand in her hair, twirling the strands around his fingers. She sighed and for a moment he thought she'd fallen asleep, until she suddenly adjusted, her eyes open again. "My mother used to do that," she noted, her tone more somber than before.
"What?"
"My hair – she used to play with it whenever she could reach it." She reached back, her fingers barely brushing against his. But they mine as well have passed through him. "She always did it when I was sick." She sighed again, her stare reaching to some far corner of the room, though he assumed she saw something very different than the emptiness that surrounded them.
"What's wrong?"
"I lost my phone." Not quite the response he'd been expecting. She pushed herself up a bit as if to look for it in her bizarre state of delirium. Having identified most of the objects she'd been afforded, he had to assume it was the only one he'd yet to put a name to. He reached under the cot, careful not to disturb her too much. After a moment, he found the little black rectangle. He turned it over in his hands – a screen of glass surrounded by plastic. She plucked it from his hand, quickly tapping a button on the bottom and the device came to life, suddenly a glow as her fingers slid across the screen.
He watched as she panned through its contents, not sure of what she was trying to do. She didn't seem quite coherent enough to be accomplishing much of anything. But after a while, she seemed to settle on one activity in particular. Her thumb pulled numerous pictures across the screen, one at a time. Over her shoulder he could see the photographs and their occupants – people he obviously shouldn't recognize. There were a few in which she resided, smiling happily among other figures very similar in appearance to her. Every few photos she would pause and stare for a moment and flip through a few more. He thought he heard her sniffle. And then he was sure when she started to sob.
"Are you all right?" She nodded silently, continuing through the pictures. "Is this your family?" he asked as another picture passed. Again, she nodded, quickly smothering another sob. "Tell me about them," he said, pulling the phone to where he could better see it.
She flipped past a few photos and then stopped when she found the one she was looking for. "These are my parents," she explained. "My mom, she owns a little shoppe back home and my dad, he works for the government. This picture was from their anniversary last year. Me and my sister made them a special dinner, but we almost burned the house down in the process." She cracked a small smile and then looked for another picture. "That's the hair thing."
Loki peered at the photo she showed him. It was her, though several years younger and with the woman she identified as her mother. True enough, her hand was tangled deep in her curly hair. But not her hair? "Your hair is rainbow." It was more of a question. Her wavy locks were patterned in stripes of every color. It was a design more fitting of the bifrost and not a woman's hair.
"Yeah," she responded simply, not elaborating any further. She flipped through a few more photos. "These are my sisters," she continued, pointing to another pair of figures. And this one photo took her attention for a little while longer. "Gwen and Evelyn," she commented at last. "Gwen is eight years older than me, but Evelyn and I are only two years apart. I was the middle child," she pointed out with a grim smile. "I was supposed to be the peacekeeper – the one that held us all together." So much remorse in so few words. He thought to inquire, but as she continued to stare at the old photo, she elaborated of her own accord. "My older sister hates me," she said matter-of-factly. "We were close for such a long time – all three of us. But she drifted away from us. She would yell and scream at me and tell me it was my fault. She blamed me for all of her problems. 'Everything was perfect until you came along.' She was so angry and upset and jealous of something I didn't have. She got involved with the wrong people. She did drugs. She was arrested. She tore the entire family apart. And all I could do was try and hold us together. But I couldn't. I couldn't do it.
And then she was gone. It all happened so fast. One moment there was this huge fight and the next everyone had gone their separate ways. Evelyn went off to college on the other side of the country. My parents left the home I grew up in. Gwen probably ended up in prison. No one's heard from her since."
"And what about you?"
"I'm alone." Her voice finally cracked, sobs threatening to overwhelm her again. "I'm all alone."
"No. No. You're not alone."
"Things will never be the same again. Everyday I tell myself that I want to go home, but it's not there anymore. And now I'm here," she sobbed, looking at their dank and decrepit surroundings. "And I'm going to die here all alone and no one will ever find me."
He tugged her closer, shushing her quietly until she calmed again. "Rest easy, my dear. You're safe now. I promise." He took the phone from her and set it aside. When her sobs subsided, she was very quickly off to sleep again, tear-stained face buried in his shirt.
Her admission was almost startling. Not so much for its content, but more because she was willing to make such an admission in the first place. She had been so brash – so secretive and closed off. But in times of weakness, people don't hide. They don't censor themselves. They speak honestly and with their truest emotions. Her strength, her attitude, was only a way of masking this hopelessness – the thought that she would die in here, never to see her family again. A family she already assumed to have deserted her. It was not so difficult to imagine. Now more than ever, he missed her stubborn attitude and her unending wit. He wished she would argue and taunt and yell and scream, but not this. Not this.
Loki's chest further knotted and he was sure by now the ache would never fade. Even as her sobs receded and the only sound was her quiet breath against his shoulder, her words repeated themselves over and over again, but this time in a very different voice. This time, it was Thor's. We were raised together. We played together. We fought together! Do you remember none of that? Of course he remembered with a sneer. It was a span of his memory several centuries long. Thousands upon thousands of childish squabbles and years of idiotic conflict. With Thor, every trivial matter came down to war. Wars from which he always emerged victorious. He sought violence and mayhem and chaos for the sole sake of basking in the glory that would assuredly follow. And even though it was paired none too often with a stern scolding that he had the misfortunate of beholding, he'd be on his merry way soon after. Sooner still to repeat the cycle again. And all the while, he stood in the backdrop, at the curb of his brother's existence. The true heir to the throne of Asgard. So he remembered a shadow.
But it wasn't always like that, Loki thought wordlessly. There had been a time – a time when the throne was only a dream or the object of a childhood game. A time when both were born to be kings, before the reality set in that there could be only one. He remembered the carefree aura that seemed to surround everything. They were only boys, pretending to be stronger and older and wiser. But in reality, only children. They were still going through schooling – Thor would have recalled it, more likely, as being dragged through it. Loki appreciated it to some degree, though the affinity for knowledge in any field other than that of battle, was lacking in his older brother. While Thor spent hours outside chopping straw filled heads off of wooden posts, he was cooped up in the deepest reaches of the palace buried deep in his spell books. His mother's most precious gift.
For a time, it was also the bane of his existence. Sei∂r was only for witches and wise men, they'd taunted. Endlessly. The old and the weak and the useless. So he retreated, vanishing into one of his many hideaways for days on end. The longest was nearly two weeks. But it had been Thor who came looking for him. "Mother's worried sick, Loki. We've searched the entire palace for you! And while this has been the grandest game of hide and seek in all the Nine Realms, you have to come out now!" Always another jest. "What's wrong, brother?" a younger Thor asked, noting his morose demeanor. Loki remembered being open with him – a surreal thought since then. "I shall hunt them down then!" he declared. "I shall slay them all for the things they've said! You are a Prince of Asgard after all." But it wasn't only that. While their words stung, it was mostly this one spell he'd spent the past weeks trying and failing to perfect. And their taunting only further encouraged him to give up. So then Thor shortsightedly volunteered to be his test subject, regardless of the end result.
Loki grinned. It was an interesting attempt, which, long story short, resulted in him spending some quality time as a boar. But the most supportive boar. And, true to his word, he saw that his antagonizers paid their dues, most in the form of horns in a number of painful places.
But I blamed him for everything. He was perfect – perfect by Asgard's standards. And Loki – he was no more than a blemish upon a perfect record. The monster parents tell their children about at night. Naomi was right. Things could never be as they were. You give up the Tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream! You come home. But he could never go home. There wasn't one to return to. Not anymore. Not after everything he had done.
Naomi exhaled a long breath and slumped further against his shoulder, only when she looked horribly uncomfortable did he finally lay her back down, sitting on the floor beside her cot instead. He watched her, peaceful for now, but not without a shadow of her silent sufferings. He interlaced his fingers with hers and tightened his grip until he himself felt somehow reassured. You're not alone anymore, love.
You're not alone.