Chapter Five: Odin's Son

"You possess far more power than you have any right to. How is that?" Malekith questioned, taking another step closer so that he now had the Trickster backed up against the wall.

Loki just gave him a wry little shrug, not even bothering to make his denial seem convincing. "Surely it is of no concern to you in this enhanced state. You possess the power to bring the nine realms to their knees, and I should seem naught but a gifted child by comparison."

"You're probably right, nonetheless your brother will miss you dearly," Malekith taunted and lunged forward, grabbing Loki by the throat. Loki fought him and struggled to draw in a breath, but the Dökkálfar leader had become too impossibly strong. "Or if not, it will be my pleasure to know that I have slain the youngest son of Odin."

Loki grabbed desperately at his attacker, still struggling to breathe, and changed tactics. He sent three dazzlingly-bright pulses of raw energy out of his core. The white-hot blasts scorched the skin right off of the flesh it contacted, cracking the dark elf's armor and causing spirals of thick smoke to billow off of his smoldering cloak. He was mending himself too rapidly for Loki to prevail, and although Loki did manage to gain himself a chance to breathe, it didn't last. In the distance, he could hear Thor yelling something, but he couldn't make out what he was saying. Mjölnir came flying at Malekith's head, but he deflected it without looking. Seriously, how does that keep happening? Loki's muddled mind demanded indignantly.

Please, focus. You can get out of this. I know you can, Charles urged, seeming oddly distant. Loki snapped out of his strange haze.

Of course he does. We're being murdered! he realized, growing angry. And neither one of us is a son of Odin. Light from the prism was beginning to shine out from behind the flickering illusion that he had cast over his chest as it was disrupted by the building power of the Aether.

Malekith's eyes zeroed in on the source of light and he reached towards it with the hand he wasn't using to strangle Loki. Greed and fascination shone in his dark eyes, but Loki caught his reaching hand before he could grasp his prize. He then grabbed the side of his would-be-murderer's face that Thor hadn't already scarred with his lightning. Malekith smirked at Loki's apparently useless attempt at resistance and tightened his grip.

Just as the world around him was fading into darkness, Loki's skin began to change. His porcelain complexion was replaced by a sweeping shadow of deep sapphire, and ridges etched themselves in ornate patterns all over his face, arms, and chest. Malekith scowled uncertainly at the transformation. Loki's blood red eyes snapped open to bore into the Dökkálfar leader's as his flesh began to freeze.

"No! You stupid little boy!" Malekith hissed, even as his grip on the jötun prince began to falter. "You think that a little ice could be enough to stop me?!"

Loki's gaze shifted to focus on something over Malekith's shoulder.

"Not just ice," a roughened baritone corrected, affecting an air of nonchalance.

Loki shoved Malekith into the speedster's waiting arms, and with a blur of motion, Agent Maxwell hurled him out through the destroyed wall. He looked on with appreciation as Thor snatched Malekith out of the air before he could land, and flung him into an SUV parked nearby with enough force to fold it nearly in half. The speedster gave him a mock salute and turned back to check on the still-jötun-Loki coughing and gasping, on the floor. Agent Maxwell walked over and knelt down beside him, but stopped just short of patting the alien's back when he flinched away from the touch.

"Might hurt you," Loki gasped out in warning.

"Ah," Agent Maxwell acknowledged and sat back on his haunches, waiting for Loki to catch his breath without further comment. Once he had, Loki turned to study him inquisitively.

"It doesn't bother you," he observed.

"You'll need to be more specific."

"My appearance. You're taking it... unusually well."

Agent Maxwell shrugged. "You look a bit like a friend of mine, but you don't have a tail."

"You are a rather peculiar creature, aren't you Agent Maxwell?" Loki observed appreciatively.

"That's what the voices in my head keep telling me."

Loki furrowed his brow at the strange remark while his cerulean coloring was swept away by a wave of white.

"Joking."

"Ah," Loki acknowledged, his deep red eyes swirling back to their usual striking green.

"You might as well call me Peter, by the way," the Agent stated, "Or Quicksilver, I suppose, if you absolutely insist on formality."

"Hmmm. Peter," Loki repeated, trying the name out on his tongue.

They fell into an almost companionable silence, both gazing out through the hole in the outer wall. Agent Maxwell let his gaze wander around them, taking in the scorch-marks on the walls left by the shock-waves Loki had emitted in his uncontrolled resistance, and the debris those shock-waves had scattered across the floor around them. Neither of them was feeling confident that the top hinge of Jane's bedroom door, which Loki had half snapped and half melted was capable of repair.

"Dr. Foster won't be happy about all this property damage," Agent Maxwell noted. There was a beat of silence.

"It's Thor's fault," Loki said easily. The agent regarded him for a moment, then they both burst out laughing.

Peter and Loki shared a look.

"Living room?" Peter suggested.

"Living room," Loki agreed, accepting the hand that Peter held out to him in order to help him up. He only managed to get halfway to standing before his legs buckled underneath him and he fell to his knees, nearly dragging the speedster down on top of him.

"Whoa!" Peter stumbled forward a half-step before regaining his equilibrium.

"Give me a moment," Loki muttered, blinking the white haze from his vision.

"You are a lot heavier than you look."

"You should count yourself lucky. A true Aesir such as Thor, holds an even more condensed mass," Loki noted.

"I'll have to remember that. You alright?"

Loki nodded irritably. "Merely a touch lightheaded," he lied. That last encounter with Malekith had depleted the rest of his reserves. He doubted that he would be capable of maintaining even a simple illusion for more than a few minutes if he came under attack within the near future.

We'll handle that problem together, if and when it occurs, Charles reassured. Bear in mind, Peter is very good at what he does.

Jane ran flat out through the breezeway with Eric Selvig following only a couple of steps behind her. He was getting weighed down by the tripods that he was still dragging around with them.

"We need to get to the epicenter now if we're going to stop this!" Selvig shouted redundantly. By now they were all horribly aware of how much was at stake. It wasn't just about Malekith, or Thor, or even the fate of the planet Earth. If they didn't finish this quickly, there were eight other worlds that were going to be snuffed right out of existence along with them, without any warning, or even a chance to fight for their survival. Everyone was going to die, on the whim of some vengeful megalomaniac.

"I know! You got any ideas on how we're supposed to get there?" Jane shouted back over the sound of gathering storm-clouds and other, more alien chaos going on overhead.

"I'm not sure yet," Dr. Selvig admitted.

"Yeah, me neither. Where the hell is- Darcy!" Jane exclaimed, skidding to a halt, just short of toppling the temp - who'd just appeared out of nowhere - making out with her own 'temp's temp'.

"Dr. Foster!" Ian gasped in embarrassment, right before he was absentmindedly dropped by Darcy.

"Ethan!" Jane greeted, wincing in sympathy, then ducked when Mjölnir flew past her out of nowhere.

"Meow-meow!" Darcy exclaimed, watching the weapon soar away. "Wait. If that's here, where's-"

The God of Thunder dropped out of the sky a few yards away to land in a crouch, catching his hammer in the same instant and smashing a small impact crater into the pavement in the process. He looked around, spotted them all, and cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Oh, right...Thor!" Darcy belatedly exclaimed, drawing sidelong glances from the other mortals, and a mildly confused one from Thor himself. "What? Don't want to leave him out, right?" She flashed him a grin and an enthusiastic thumbs up. "We still love you, Buddy!"

Thor shifted his questioning gaze from Darcy to Jane. She rolled her eyes, and shook her head at her friend's antics.

"My friends! We must make haste! Malekith has nearly reached full strength, and I am uncertain of how much longer I will be able to hold him at bay," Thor informed them, glancing around him warily as he made his way towards them.

"We need to plant this at the very center of the distortions if we're going to stabilize the alignment," Selvig explained, holding up the tripods. "It will still take us some time to navigate around all of the distortions."

"I fear that our foe will not be foiled by such... restraints," Thor mused with a dark look on his face.

"Speaking of which, where is the Big Bad, anyway?" Darcy thought aloud. As if on cue, Malekith came running out of what should have been a solid wall a little way behind Thor's back. Luckily, he was preoccupied, as anyone might be with the talons of something that looked massive, unfriendly, and more than a little bit on fire making a grab for his cloak. "Whoa, holy crap! How do I keep doing that?" Darcy said, slapping her hands over her cheeks. "It's like I can summon people now or something!"

"Please God, don't give Darcy superpowers," Jane muttered to the heavens, while Thor charged Malekith.

"Hey!" Darcy objected.

"You wouldn't use them responsibly," Selvig reasoned, distracted by re-calibrating the tracker that he and Jane were using to monitor the distortions.

"I would- Well, no. I totally wouldn't," Darcy admitted, watching with Jane while Thor used his hammer to ram Malekith through a stone wall, only to be thrown backwards by a blast of red.

"Have you found a way through?" Jane asked Dr. Selvig, sneaking a peek over his shoulder before snapping her gaze back to the battle being fought in front of them.

"I think I'm getting close..."

"No worries, Thor's keeping the bad guy pretty busy," Darcy remarked.

Malekith lunged forward and tackled Thor a second after she'd spoken, knocking them through another soft-spot that had been hidden in the lawn and out of sight.

"...And there he goes," Darcy amended, looking uncertainly around at the others while they started to follow Dr. Selvig towards their goal. "Do you think that's bad?"

"I don't know. I hope not. Let's just try to be-" Jane stopped short and looked around when she realized that Darcy and Ian seemed to have disappeared while she was talking. "...careful."

"They'll be fine," Dr. Selvig assured, sounding like he might be trying to convince himself.

Jane nodded with new determination. "Let's get this over with."

Unfortunately, when they reached the epicenter they discovered that Malekith had returned through another soft spot, while Thor had not. Jane tried not to think about what that might mean as they tried to find a way through the black cloud of destructive energy Malekith was funneling around him. They retreated – after three tries to brave the smoke had made it clear that doing so would either result in being electrocuted, smothered to death by black smoke, or electrocuted and smothered death by black smoke. To top it all off, Malekith was now doing the evil psychopath laugh, and Jane really didn't appreciate the sentiment. He isn't even that good at it, Jane reflected, then frowned at her own strangeness. Wow, it's only been three days and Loki's eccentricity's already rubbing off on me.

"That's probably not a good sign," Jane finished aloud.

"What?" Dr. Selvig asked.

"I was just thinking," Jane dismissed, relieved to see Thor flying into the courtyard to join them. "Hey, good timing," she greeted, giving him a quick hug,

"Thank you. How goes the effort?"

"It's not good. Malekith found the epicenter. We've tried, but we can't get through to stop him," Selvig reported. Thor nodded business-like.

"I can," he said simply, looking into the crackling spiral of smoke and debris with a murderous look in his eyes. He took the leftover tripods from Dr. Selvig and marched purposefully into the darkness.

"We should probably get back to a safe distance..." Selvig observed, staring at the point where Thor had just vanished.

"Uh-huh," Jane said sounding dazed, and he herded her back towards the building. They caught glimpses of Thor's red cape, or flashes of lightning while the two aliens fought, and then the courtyard seemed to explode. Thor went flying to land on his back on the lawn while Malekith dropped lifelessly into the disappearing cloud and vanished.

"Thor!" Jane screamed when she noticed the Dökkálfar ship falling toward him, running forward to throw herself on top of her unconscious Thunder God.

"Jane! No!" Selvig called after her, but instead of being crushed under tons of unforgiving metal, Jane looked up to see nothing but foggy English sky overhead. Well, that and a harassed-looking pigeon whose flight pattern hinted at the rather nasty shock it had just undergone. The harrow must have fallen through one of the closing distortions, Jane realized, and let out a giddy burst of laughter.

"Jane?" Thor murmured, blinking his eyes open.

"It's over," Jane said happily. "You did it!" and leaned down for a celebratory snog. When she pulled back, Thor was staring dazedly into space. Jane couldn't help but feel a little smug about that.

"Nice! I give that a 9.8," Darcy's voice remarked from directly behind her.

"Darcy!" Jane said, trying to calm her racing heart. "How long have you been standing there?"

"I dunno. When did you start kissing him?"

"Really?" Jane replied. Thor sat up, drawing their attention back to him. He looked inexplicably wary for someone who'd just saved several worlds from annihilation.

"We must go," he stated and helped Jane to her feet.

"Thor, what's wrong?" Jane asked him quietly.

"I must see my brother."

Jane nodded, but she was still watching him questioningly.

"I do not believe that the danger has truly passed. There was something that Malekith said. It... troubles me."

Darcy turned onto Jane's street and blanched. "Oh, sh-!" Her foot stamped down on the brakes at the sight of the swarm of heavily-armed soldiers in combat gear, and equally jet-black armored vehicles flooding the area.

Jane's saucer-wide eyes examined the scene in front of them and sure enough, there was that dreaded eagle patch adorning the right arm of each uniform. "It's a setup. Back out!" she announced, just as a few of the closest soldiers registered their presence and started towards them. Darcy didn't need to be told twice. She instantly shifted into reverse, backing away as rapidly as possible.

"OhdearLord!" Ian cried, clinging to the nearest handhold for dear life.

"Suck it up, you pansy," Darcy dismissed as she swung them into a sharp spin that would've made 007 proud, refusing to acknowledge the few bullets that ricocheted off the front of the vehicle. The oncoming SHIELD personnel were trying to shoot out the tires, but the temp's surprisingly skillful stunt driving wasn't allowing it.

"But Loki!" Thor protested, grabbing the door handle, only to be foiled by Darcy's deft application of the child-safety locks.

"I'm sorry Thor, but it's too late for him," Dr. Selvig responded, trying to be gentle.

"No. Go on without me if you must. I will not abandon him!"

"Um..." Darcy looked uncertainly over at Jane even though she was still speeding.

"Eyes on the road, please," Jane prompted, then turned back to face the reluctant aesir. "Listen Thor, we're not going to abandon him. We'll figure something out once we've lost these guys. I promise. Getting ourselves captured isn't going to do him any favors."

"We are allies of SHIELD, surely we can reason with them, and come to some understanding," Thor argued.

Darcy let out an unladylike snort. "Yeah, right."

"It's not that simple," Jane told him. She caught herself with an arm pressed to her window as Darcy swerved into an alley.

"This is it. We're going to die," Ian reflected.

Dr. Selvig patted his arm comfortingly, but ended up clinging to him a second later when Darcy spun the car around again, more or less doubling back on their original course.

"Oh!" Jane gasped in shock. "Okay, please don't do that again."

"Dude. Trust me. I know what I'm doing," Darcy stated, sounding self-assured.

"How, exactly?" Ian questioned. Dr. Selvig looked like he was equally curious to know, himself.

"Oh, you know. I had fun in high school," Darcy answered, slipping them right past one of their pursuers, just inches from scraping the side of the car against the larger vehicle. She then swerved onto a side street before the other vehicles could account for her previous course correction.

Inside Jane's apartment, two muscular and patently unfriendly-looking soldiers moved to haul Loki up off the couch, but Peter stepped in between them. The taller of the two ground his teeth, but his compatriot held up a hand in a semi-placating gesture.

"I'm going to have to ask you to stand down, Sir. We have orders to escort the prisoner into secure custody," he said, ignoring the other soldier's attitude.

"I wasn't informed."

"I can't speak to that, Sir."

"You'll have to do better than that, Lieutenant," Peter countered. His expression had become utterly inscrutable, but there was a hint of bite to his normally affable voice. "On whose authority?"

"I'm sorry, Sir. I'm not at liberty to share that information."

"How strange. You behave as if you've forgotten my authority over you, and yet, you repeatedly allude to my superior rank by calling me 'Sir'."

The Lieutenant opened his mouth to reply.

"No. Don't bother. I don't care what you have to say anymore. You're far too slow," Peter dismissed, waving toward the door. "Go. Quickly. Try to find someone who actually knows what they're doing. If I must deal with obfuscation, I'd rather it came from someone competent."

Loki's eyes narrowed slightly at the Agent's behavior and he perked up.

You're right. Something's off here and he knows it, Charles agreed.

"Agent Maxwell. If I may-" the other one put in as more personnel marched into the apartment.

"Yes, Sergeant Mathers," Peter cautioned. Loki noted that the use of Sergeant Mathers' name unsettled the older man, but that he was doing his best to hide it.

"With all due respect, we're on the same team here. This alien is wanted for inciting an interplanetary war and destroying a big chunk of Manhattan in the process."

"You give me so little credit," Loki remarked sarcastically, sitting up from his lounging position.

"Shut up," Peter instructed without sparing him a glance. His cellphone beeped twice and he answered it. "Maxwell." He looked off to the right, absorbing whatever the caller was currently telling him. "Yes." He glanced fleetingly at the soldier in front of him. "Yes. ...I understand." He hung up and pocketed his cell, before stepping out of the other man's way with a lazy wave toward Loki.

"Thank you, Quicksilver."

Peter barely acknowledged him, pushing past the Sergeant and out of the apartment.

Loki watched him go, then held his wrists out to be cuffed, gracing 'Sergeant Mathers' with a patronizing expression. He's a liar. That's what your Agent saw, he noted to Charles. Mathers snapped the reinforced handcuffs onto Loki's wrists, locking them uncomfortably tight. Loki just smiled wanly up at him, making it obvious that he was humoring his 'captors'.

You don't think these men were sent by SHIELD? Charles inquired, mulling the problem over.

I know that they are attempting to deceive him, Loki corrected. Mathers and the unnamed Lieutenant yanked him to his feet and began to lead him out. He swept his eyes over Mathers and added, this man is not who he claims to be. He noted that there was something tucked under the back of Mathers' uniform. It was some type of concealed weapon, if Loki's observations on the man's character were correct. He was usually correct about that type of thing. He was drawn out of his thoughts by sounds of a commotion outside, just as they reached the open doorway. The lieutenant shoved him to the ground and Mathers ran outside to assist his comrades. Loki peeked around the door frame in time to see Jane and Darcy through the windshield of the car that his captors were peppering with gunfire. They both seemed surprised, but relatively unharmed, as the vehicle quickly retreated from the line of fire.

"You would attack your own allies," Loki observed scathingly, watching the little car skid around and speed out of range of their pursuers' weapons.

"After them! Move! Move! Move!" A burly, middle-aged man shouted, waving toward the two closest Land Rovers.

"Get up," the Lieutenant spat, dragging Loki to his feet by the back of his borrowed shirt. Or at least, Loki let him think that's what happened. As he had seen on multiple occasions, humans tended to be inclined to forget about his superior mass, and at the moment he was willing to allow these people every opportunity to underestimate him.

I've been meaning to ask you about that, Charles said, unfazed by the rough way that they were being shuffled into the back of an unmarked, armored car. I'm still not very familiar with your capabilities.

Could you not simply glean such knowledge from my mind? Loki pointed out, only sparing the soldiers around him the attention necessary to overemphasize his injured state.

Technically, I am capable of doing so, but I prefer not to encroach on your privacy.

You live inside my head.

Yes, but only where you permit me to be.

Loki's brow crinkled in thought. He was being chained to a bench. The Sergeant retreated, then slammed the back doors shut, leaving the Trickster locked in the back of the armored car with a heavily armed and helmeted soldier. The soldier's head turned as though to scrutinize him, but Loki paid the masked man no mind.

You seem sincere.

Charles sighed. I am. I'm trying to help you, remember?

You said as much, Loki replied, feeling Charles' frustration wash over him. I will permit you access only after you allow me the same courtesy.

Certainly, Charles agreed. Loki leaned back against the cool metal behind him, and shut his eyes, running through every minute detail of the new information about his mysterious friend, which he now suddenly knew.

You certainly could prove useful to me, he observed as the armored truck began to move.

For as long as I choose to, Charles cautioned. I'm not a tool that you can simply use for your own ends.

I am aware, Loki assured him. The same applies to my faculties. You are a guest within my body. Should you cross me, I will be certain to expel you permanently.

I won't.

You may collect your payment now, Charles.

Once again, Loki felt that odd sensation as Charles carefully peeked into the specified sectors of Loki's mind. Charles would know that his actions were being monitored now, but Loki figured that at this point, that was more in his favor than playing dumb.

Oh! An empath! Charles exclaimed delightedly. How fascinating! Do all of your kind possess the aptitude or... Oh, I'm sorry; I've said something wrong, haven't I?

I don't know whether they do. I was not raised amongst them, Loki explained. He wasn't exactly thrilled about not being able to mask his emotional responses from Charles, but he had accepted that as a necessary evil. The consciousness was yet to disprove that the sacrifice was worth it.

Of course. I'm sorry. That was insensitive of me.

I'd rather that you didn't.

So... You've been holding out on them. Even during the invasion, it would seem, Charles noted, changing the subject.

Naturally.

Care to tell me why?

I should think it would be obvious.

At a guess, I'd infer that you were minimizing the damage. Most notably to your opponents themselves, but that's odd behavior for an invader.

Loki tensed, but did not respond outright.

Oh. Oh! Why didn't you say anything?

To what end?

You know, a few things are starting to make a lot more sense now, Charles remarked.

Jane watched Darcy flop down on one of the twin beds before her in their hotel room while Thor paced into the room behind her. The other men were lingering on the far end of the suite, careful to give the angry alien a wide berth.

"What next? What do we do?" Jane whispered to herself and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her assistant. A muffled hip hop beat broke through the tense silence. Jane grabbed her phone out of her pocket. "Who could that be?"

"Answer it," Darcy prompted with a limp flop of one arm.

"Hello?" Jane answered.

"You're still with Point Break, right?"

"Mr. Stark? Yes I- How did you even get this number?"

"Genius, inventor, designed your phone, yada-yada," Tony Stark answered airily. "Put me on speaker, would ya?"

"Oh, right. Here." Jane took the mobile phone away from her ear and did as instructed. "Go ahead."

"Hey, Big Guy."

"Son of Stark!" Thor greeted, perking up a bit. "It is good to hear your voice."

"...Yeah. You too. Hey, settle a bet-" there was a faint shuffling, followed by a belligerent sound from Tony.

"We heard from Agent Maxwell that you had a bit of a situation on your hands," the Captain's voice prompted.

"I was getting to that!" Tony commented.

"Yes. I am afraid that it is quite a complex tale..." Thor began, but Darcy sat up and held out a hand to stop him.

"Hold up. We can't afford to be overheard right now," she advised, taking the phone from Jane.

"This line is secure," Agent Romanoff's voice put in.

"Yeah sure. How secure is it? Like secure secure, or... I mean, how many of you are on the line with us right now, anyway?" Darcy interrogated.

"It's just the three of us," Steve replied. "As for the uh..."

"You're safe. I secured the connection myself," Tony added, presumably at the Captain's prompting.

"Even from SHIELD?" Jane questioned tentatively.

"Honey. I'm Tony Stark. They wish that they could tap this."

"Thor? What's going on?" Steve asked, ignoring Tony's indiscretion.

"I have been betrayed," Thor informed the other Avengers. "We returned to your world to stop the Dökkálfar, Lord Malekith from bringing darkness to the nine realms. My brother was injured while aiding us in our attempts to stop him-"

"Whoa, whoa! Wait. Your brother? Not that brother," Tony interrupted.

"Yes. He means Loki," Jane responded a tad impatiently. "Like Thor said, it's complicated. He's not really like that... mostly. He saved our lives. Twice in my case."

"You do realize that he's e-" Tony started to argue.

"Stark," Agent Romanoff warned. "Thor, what happened?"

"We have prevailed against Malekith, but Loki was badly injured in the fight against the Dökkálfar. We had no choice but to leave him behind at Jane's home while we continued the battle," Thor explained. "I was assured by our allies within SHIELD that he would be safe!"

"I'm guessing that's where Peter comes in?" Steve inferred.

"Aye."

"The whole place was, like, crowded with men in black when we got back! They friggin' shot at us!" Darcy exclaimed directly into the receiver. "That is seriously not cool!"

"So he pulled the whammy-" There was a whoosh and the sound of a skidding slam "Ow! That is unsafe piloting!" Tony snapped, there was another sliding sound. "Okay! Okay! Tasha quit it!"

"Are you sure that Loki isn't orchestrating this somehow?" Natasha suggested, sounding as professional as usual, while Tony grumbled about 'what the hell was I thinking not just flying solo in the suit'. "The agents might have fallen under his control."

"Hypocrite. No, never mind! I take it back!"

"I am certain of it. When I left him..." Thor trailed off for a beat, swallowing his guilt. "When I left, Loki was still barely able to stand. His energy reserves were drained to near life-threatening levels. Even if he wished to, I do not believe that Loki is capable of posing such a threat in his current condition."

"That does sound like the perfect time to kidnap him though..." Darcy reflected. "We probably shoulda' seen that coming."

"Okay, guys. Just hold tight. We're already en route to join you," Captain America instructed. "Agent Maxwell hid a tracker on Loki's person. Once we meet up, we can follow it straight to the convoy and intercept him, understood?"

Thor hesitated. It was obvious that he was considering just heading after Loki on his own.

"Thor?" Jane pushed, and the two locked into a short staring contest.

"Understood," he relented.

Jane let out a relieved breath, only for her relief to vanish at his next utterance.

"I will wait for as long as my conscience will allow."

A/N: Yep. This chapter is a bit shorter than the previous ones. I do hope you'll forgive me, perhaps the plot development is worth it maybe? Anyway, thank you all for reading and special thanks to icanhearthedrums for reviewing. Feedback is always welcome.