Beneath

Chapter Thirty-Eight – Conscience

Loki looked stern, severe in some strange sense, alien and unnatural with his face entirely bare out here where no one ever went bare-faced for long, certainly not in winter, and freakishly tall in a way Thor never had even though Thor was a little taller. Because Jane had never been afraid of Thor. She'd never really been afraid of anyone before. Not like this.

She was afraid now, in a different way than she had been over the last two days. She detested it. It rebelled and morphed into anger and the anger recoiled into fear and the fear turned back into anger and it made her want to jump out of her skin.

But she stayed in her own uncomfortable skin and looked down at her bag of dry snow. It was full enough. She peeled off the outer and inner gloves from her right hand so she could seal the top of the plastic baggie. She stepped to the right to walk past Loki.

He stepped to the side and blocked her. He cleared his throat. "Did you hear me? I said we have to talk."

Been there. Done that, Jane thought, staring steadfastly at his chest and refusing to look up. Refusing to show just how scared she was.

"What's that for?" he asked, his voice gravelly.

Jane assumed he meant the ice, so she wrapped the bag in the blue towel, then pulled down Big Red's hood and undid its fastenings enough to wrap the towel around her neck, looking up at him at the end with as much defiance as she could muster before it melted away.

"Is that your version of healing?" Loki asked with distaste, wondering how badly he'd hurt her. He didn't think it could be any worse than himself, and he felt fine now except for an unpleasant tightness in his throat.

That didn't seem worthy of an answer, and Jane wasn't ready to try out her voice yet anyway. She took a step to the left and Loki blocked her passage again.

"Take that off. I can heal this."

Jane wondered just how delusional Loki was, but kept her look of incredulity carefully below his eyeline. What would happen if I screamed…? You are so not a screamer, Jane, she told herself. But you aren't this either. You aren't! She couldn't make up her mind what to do – running was futile and Loki didn't seem willing to let her walk away – so she stayed there, silent, rooted to the ground as though her feet were frozen into the ice, as though she were herself an ice sculpture. A block of ice. A coward. A victim. And that thought made the fear spike straight back into anger.

Uncomfortable as with an itch that can't be scratched over Jane's lack of response and the incident that had unquestionably led to her strange behavior, Loki reached for the towel himself.

Jane jerked away from the hand that came toward her neck, then surprised herself as much as Loki by swinging her arm up and slapping him hard. It was kind of like hitting a flesh-covered brick wall but she barely felt it through the surge of anger, and her ungloved hand was already numb in the subzero temperatures anyway. She shoved the hand up between her left side and arm, then just as quickly stuck it out at him again, forming a fist and pointing a finger at him. "I am not a victim!" she shouted over her hoarse throat, punctuating the words with stabs of her finger in the air.

Loki watched as the hand went back under the arm. He swallowed, and found his throat had grown even tighter. Her hand wouldn't leave a mark. It wouldn't even have budged his head if he hadn't allowed it to be moved a little, at the end. How had simple anger managed to cast such a thick and deceiving fog over his mind that would lead him to such a stupid mistake, to think she was capable of choking him? How many other things have I miscalculated because I was blinded by anger? Gambits failed. Battles lost. Anger…is it not sentiment also? "Let go of your anger." His mother had said that. But he couldn't. Sentiment or no, he clung to anger. Anger and hatred. He needed it. Without it he was back in the abyss. Without it he had nothing. Without it he was nothing.

Jane was trembling. As weak as any other mortal, weaker than many. But still standing there. She'd pointed a finger in a god's face. No one had dared do that to him on Asgard – no one who wished to retain his finger. "No, you aren't," he finally said, keeping his voice quiet and level, though it still sounded unnaturally harsh to his ears. "Now if you would just let me-"

Jane stepped back, shrinking away from his outstretched hand a second time. "Don't touch me. Don't you ever touch me again," she said, softly, coldly. She took her right hand from under her left arm and shoved it into Big Red's pocket. The cold was pushing steadily up her legs, where she had on only jeans over long underwear, no Carhartts or additional thermals; the last time she'd seen the temperature outside it was -65 with a wind chill approaching triple digits. Her hand probably already had the beginnings of frostbite. She made another attempt to step past Loki and this time he didn't stop her.

Loki watched as she walked away, back to the Beer Can stairs. He dropped his head in thought for a moment, ran his fingers over his lips…realized he could barely feel the contact. He wasn't sure if he could get frost bite – he'd never been in temperatures this cold, and for him a Frost Giant's grip was another phenomenon entirely. But wouldn't it be ironic if I can? He stared hard at his hands again, and before he knew it he heard the clanging of Jane's boots on the grated metal stairs. Jane. He still had to deal with Jane. He ran to catch up to her.

"Jane, what happened, it's not what you think. It was…it was a misunderstanding. If you-"

"A misunderstanding?" Jane croaked out, whirling around on the first floor landing. "You're… How is Thor even related to you?"

Are you actively trying for a repeat, Jane? But the thought came only out of spite and ire as she turned on her heel and continued up the stairs. There would be no repeat. And although he knew exactly what she meant, that he wasn't worthy of Thor's blood, of Odin's name, he shook off the insult because he was glad not to be related to that idiot of a brother – man – whom Jane had turned into such a sentimental fool. Loki would not compromise himself like that. But he would explain himself. Whether Jane liked it or not.

He caught her just outside the door at the second floor landing, stretching out his arm to keep the door closed. "I insist that you let me explain what happened."

And I insist that you get out of my way and off of my planet! Jane thought-screamed at him. She forced herself to look up-up-up and meet his gaze, and it was hard, so much harder than it had been before. What's wrong with you?! You do not let people intimidate you like this. But there had never been any "like this." Her purse had been snatched once, a couple of times guys had tried to cop an unwanted feel, and SHIELD's Men in Black had physically restrained her twice. Nobody had ever assaulted her like this. Helpless. That was the other thing she felt. The thing that made the fear bloom into anger. Experience with getting angry at Loki made the anger shrink back into fear.

"We can sit in the galley. It's dinnertime. Plenty of other people will be around. You have nothing to fear."

"That sounds familiar," she couldn't stop herself from muttering.

Loki drew in a quick breath. He could restrain her and force her to listen, but such an action wouldn't exactly aid his cause.

"Whatever," Jane said. Because nothing had really changed, she was coming to realize. Her options were few, and all but one of them involved bringing risk to other people instead of just herself. So he'd gotten mad and tried to kill her. It wasn't like she hadn't already known he was a killer. The only thing that had actually changed was that Loki is a killer had gone from something distant and kind of abstract to something very up-close and personal. From a fact to an experience.

He relented then and pushed the door open; she ducked under his arm and went in, taking an immediate right down a short corridor that led to the far entrance to the galley, the one she'd rarely used. She pulled off ECW gear along the way, fumbling at it with her numb right hand, leaving Big Red on. She passed all the windows that had been so picturesque when the sun was still up – large windows with endless white, outbuildings, flags, and the ceremonial South Pole marker. Now it looked kind of creepy, a half-moon and red lights shining in the twilight. Jane thought briefly about some horror movie that had been made about the Pole, that everyone here made fun of but she still hadn't seen. She wondered if the villain or monster or whatever it was exactly measured up to Loki.

She didn't know why but she passed the dozen or so people sitting down, exchanging a few lackluster greetings, and went to the serving line to get dinner. She got vegetable polenta lasagna and a side of green beans with red peppers, nice and colorful. Loki followed her every step of the way, and out of the corner of her eye she could see him putting the same things on his plate. It occurred to her now why he never seemed satisfied with the food here, when everyone else, her included, was pretty impressed. You probably had personal chefs whipping up whatever suited your fancy. I wonder what you did to them if they overcooked your steak… She stole a quick glance at him. Thor had been arrogant, but he'd never complained about the food. He'd loved Strawberry Pop-Tarts and pretty much anything else put in front of him. You don't act anything like him. You don't even look anything like him, except for the height.

"Jane…?" Loki prompted. She'd stopped at the end of the service line and was staring at her tray, and he was growing worried. If she didn't snap out of it and start acting normal, others would notice, and the questions would start, and she would be unable to answer them.

She glanced up at him and lifted her tray; they made their way to one of the small round tables they'd sat at dozens of times before. She wasn't that hungry, and her stomach wasn't feeling all that settled, but somehow eating seemed very important. Maybe it was just to have something to do other than look at Loki, whose gaze she felt without seeing. When she tried to swallow a small bite of the polenta lasagna, though, she had to try three times before she could get it down. Maybe eating right now wasn't such a good idea after all. "Well, go ahead then. I can't wait to hear your explanation for trying to kill me," she said quietly.

Loki glanced around again. They'd taken a table which wasn't close to any occupied ones, but still it made him nervous to have this conversation here. He'd believed, though, that she would be unwilling to go anywhere else with him now. "I'll explain everything. But first allow me to heal your throat. Please."

"So you can assuage your guilty conscience?"

"You assume too much. You're experiencing discomfort which I accidentally caused, and I merely wish to remedy the situation."

Accidentally. You accidentally wrapped your hands around my throat and squeezed until I almost passed out.

"If you'll just remove the towel," Loki said, putting great effort into remaining patient. It seemed no one could try his patience quite like Jane. No one since Thor, anyway, but Loki was trying hard not to think of her in that context, as Thor's…whatever. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about Thor at all. For his purposes now, she had nothing to do with Thor at all; it was merely coincidence even that she knew him.

Jane stared at her food as she thought. There was something fundamentally wrong about letting Loki fix the damage he himself had caused. But there was also something fundamentally wrong about risking her throat swelling shut and dying. For the first time it occurred to her that she could go to Club Med…but Club Med wasn't some walk-in clinic. If she went, there'd be questions, and she'd be required to give answers, because there'd also be reports. Reports that might be sent to SISI… Jane wondered then if Loki had some kind of control over the whole station's communications or just hers. Although she still hadn't decided that she should try again to contact someone, for she still feared what the result of that might be for everyone else at the station, the mere reminder that such a thing might still be possible – and after all, the Iridium phones were also still there, a 24/7 lifeline – gave her a spark of hope, and the hope buoyed her spirit, enough to interrupt the cycle of anger and fear.

She sat up a little straighter, set down her fork, and unbuttoned and unzipped Big Red. What's he going to do? Finish the job? If he really wanted to do that he could have done it in my room or outside. She looked him in the eye, then pulled the towel covering the ice baggie from her neck and set it on the chair between them.

Loki carefully schooled his expression as something highly unpleasant that he didn't want to dwell on curled in his stomach at the sight of his own red handprints encircling her neck. He focused instead on the task at hand, and stretched out his right hand toward her throat.

Jane watched the hand steadily, but her resolve failed when it got close.

"I don't need to touch, but it's delicate work. I need to be close," he explained.

"You don't have one of those magic rocks?" Jane asked, eyes flitting back and forth between him and his empty hand, now resting atop the table next to his untouched tray.

"'Magic rocks'?" Loki echoed with a mixture of confusion and distaste for the vague sound of an insult in her voice. But then he realized what she was talking about, and that she'd seen Thor use one on Erik Selvig in New Mexico. "You mean healing stones. And no, I'm afraid I forgot to pack a supply of them in my luggage when I left Asgard. But I don't need one. I just need…." He let the sentence hang, reaching again for her throat, and trying to make it look natural should anyone glance their way. He needed to concentrate on doing, not explaining. He didn't really know how to explain it to her anyway, though he knew she'd be interested. Jane was nothing if not curious.

Loki found the bruising under the skin that was just beginning to be visible and the excess fluid causing the swelling, and worked quickly but carefully to repair the damage and reverse them both; with his right hand so close to her skin she could feel its warmth, Jane summoned all her self-control to stay completely still. When everything felt as he thought it should – he had no particular knowledge of mortals' throats but they seemed to work the same as his – Loki withdrew his hand and looked closely at the red handprints around her neck. He ran his hand in a semi-circle around as much of her neck as was visible, further repairing the skin and the tiny blood vessels, and the marks were gone.

Loki sat back and relaxed a little; it was much easier to look at her now. He swallowed, then grimaced, then blinked in surprise. Well. This is bad. He'd assumed that healing Jane would heal his own throat as well. Apparently not.

Jane also swallowed and was surprised, but there was no grimace. "It…it worked," she stammered out, and her eyes widened as she realized her voice sounded normal now, too. She'd known it would work if he said it would – she'd seen Erik healed by Asgardian magic from something much worse – but she'd known that the same way she'd known Loki was dangerous at first. A fact. Now she'd experienced it herself. She took a deep breath, enjoyed the feeling of it rushing over an unconstricted larynx. It had tingled a little, when he did whatever exactly he did, but it hadn't hurt, and even the tingling was fading now.

Physically Jane was completely healed as far as she could tell. Emotionally the recovery of her courage was still incomplete. "So…you're awfully quiet for somebody who 'insisted' on explaining…this," she said with a motion of her right hand toward her throat. And all of a sudden, for the first time since her world started to fall apart, she was on the verge of tears. She dug fingernails into her leg hard enough to feel them through her jeans to stop herself, because she was not going to let Loki see her cry. She was not going to fall apart in front of him.

Her breaths turned a little shaky again, and Loki again felt uncomfortable looking at her as her eyes grew shiny with unshed tears. His gaze dropped to her right hand. The fingers were still paler than normal, nearly white. It gave him something else to do while she got control of herself, or at least he hoped she would. He had no idea how to deal with a crying woman – mortal or otherwise. He had been known to mock on the rare occasions he'd found himself in such a situation, but he knew beyond doubt that he could not mock Jane for this, and not just because it would aggravate the setback in securing her continued assistance.

Jane felt her hand tingle and grow warm. She stared at it, at the pale fingers, and realized she'd forgotten about the frost bite that had started to set in, never consciously realizing that the fingers had not regained feeling. Until now. She looked up at Loki in surprise, and forgot she'd been fighting off tears.

"Better?"

"Yeah," Jane said after a moment, easily ignoring the instinct to be polite and say thanks. She noticed his voice still sounded a little husky, which she'd earlier attributed to his being outside without any cold weather gear protecting his head. She wondered if Asgardians got frost bite. Serves you right if so. The warmth on her hand felt really good, and she nervously moved it from the table to rest on her leg underneath it.

Loki steeled himself. No more procrastinating. The performance of your life. The truth. Mostly. "Did Thor tell you about the" – Loki paused, swallowed with difficulty – "restrictions on me when I was sent here?"

Jane thought back to that conversation in her hotel room in Tromso. She nodded. "He said his father…your father…put some kind of enchantments on you. He said you wouldn't be able to hurt anyone." She took a quick breath. "I guess he got that wrong."

Loki frowned. Not my father. Not enchantments. But therein lay the "mostly." Jane still needed to believe he was desperate to get back to his "family," that he wished to reconcile with them. "No, he didn't get it wrong. But he obviously didn't fully explain it. You… I lost my temper. I lashed out. It was a mistake, of course. I never meant to hurt you. I…" He paused to collect his thoughts. Truth, he thought with disgust. Lies are infinitely better. Infinitely easier. "I just wanted you to stop." To stop talking. And maybe, for a fraction of a second, to stop existing. He never would have taken it that far, though, he was confident. "But this enchantment" – singular, for he would not tell her more than he needed to – "if I harm a mortal, I experience the same injury. So when I put my hands…around your neck…I also felt hands around my own neck. I thought…I thought you…" Curse the truth!

Jane followed his halting sort-of-explanation as best she could. She'd never heard him speak in such broken phrases. By the time he reached the end, or at least the point where he paused for the longest, she was convinced this was his "I'm telling a lie so impossible to believe that I can't even say it properly" mode. "You're saying you thought I was choking you," Jane supplied in a flat voice that said "You're right, it's impossible to believe."

"Yes," he grated out over lips that barely parted. It was humiliating.

"I'm ready for the next version of your explanation now," Jane said with a sigh.

"I'm telling the truth," he said sharply, sitting forward. To admit to such a stupid mistake and have her not even believe him was salt in a wound. "If I'd wanted to kill you I would have. I thought you…you wouldn't let go of my throat. I would have let go of you as soon as you'd let go of me. But you never let go because…and then I realized that your hands were on mine, and if I was looking at them there then they couldn't be around my neck. It was only then that I understood what was happening. It was the first time I experienced that, Jane. I haven't been going around hurting your people since coming back here." And oh, how good it felt to tell a small lie! To put some distance between himself and the harsh reality of the truth. The words flowed more smoothly and he struck just the right note of pleading for understanding, of vulnerability, of innocence. Jane did not know and had no way of finding out about the incident in Melfort.

Jane thought that over, in the meantime looking idly at his hands, the long slender fingers, the thumbs that had pressed into her throat. There was no sign of any broken skin or scratches or redness, but the slight throbbing in the fingers of her left hand – not in the right, the one he'd healed – reminded her that she'd scratched and clawed at his hands. She could swear she'd kicked him, too, but it had all happened so fast and she'd been in such a panic she couldn't be certain. If he really was telling the truth, then whatever she'd done had had so little effect on him he hadn't even noticed. "According to you, then, this thing, this enchantment kicks in when you're trying to kill someone, and stops you from killing them."

"No," Loki said, drawing in a deep breath meant to steady but instead only reminding him again of how swollen his own throat apparently was. "It's not- I wasn't trying to kill you. I never wanted to hurt you at all."

"Then that's not the first time it's happened."

"I… What…" She can't know about the hockey game.

"You hurt my elbow. Yesterday. After the MCI drill." And you didn't seem to think I was grabbing your elbow.

By the time Loki blinked he remembered. "That was entirely different. I- And yes, the reason I let go when I did was because I realized I was holding onto you too tightly. Because I felt it as well. Do you need me to heal it?" His own elbow didn't hurt, but he hadn't inspected it for bruises yesterday, either.

"No. It's fine. Show me your throat."

His brows furrowed and his lips began to curl into a look of disgust and disdain at that – on Asgard demanding to be shown a throat was one way of ordering a defeated opponent to admit his defeat and submit – but he quickly realized what she was thinking. He hadn't tried to look at his throat when he'd gone to his room, and a dark green turtleneck sweater concealed it from view. Now he hooked his thumbs into the material and rolled and tugged it downward, at the same time stretching his neck upward. He watched as Jane's gaze settled there, and he knew exactly what she was seeing – the same thing he'd seen on her. He could almost feel Thor's hand behind his neck, roughly pulling his head back. Defeat. But this was not that. This was just a tactic in a game, and he would never again submit to defeat at Thor's hands, or anyone else's.

Jane stared at his throat and reached out her hands as though to a magnet, and though Loki looked like he might literally start snarling, she placed her hands over the red handprints. They were much larger than hers – the size of his hands. Identical to what had been on her throat, she assumed – she hadn't looked, hadn't wanted to. She nodded and slipped her hands back under the table; Loki pulled up the cloth of his sweater and smoothed it.

"You felt everything I felt," she said.

"Yes."

"What did you feel?"

"What? You know what-"

"I'd like an answer," Jane said, courage slowly building again as she realized there might be something to this protective enchantment thing after all.

"I felt…anger. And pain. And weakness, at the end." But mostly anger. But he thought the other two answers might be more helpful...and while they were less palatable, they were not untrue. "Because you wouldn't take your hands off my throat. Or so I believed."

"I see. So it's my fault you almost killed me. And yourself, too, I guess."

"Of course not. That's not what I meant." Except of course it largely was. "It was Odin's fault, for putting these cu-" He stopped, glanced down at her neck. Where the marks of his own hands had been visible. "Fine. My fault. It was my fault. I overreacted." He paused again, swallowed, wondered if he'd be able to heal his neck the way he'd healed Jane's. "I apologize," he finally said. He even meant it. It had been a mistake.

"It's supposed to teach you empathy, then."

Empathy for mortals? Not likely.

"It's supposed to make you understand what the people you hurt here go through when you hurt them," Jane continued, still working it out in her own mind. "Were you afraid, when you thought I was choking you?"

"Of course not," he scoffed. "I knew I was stronger than you." It was true, but more importantly, Loki's pride would not allow him to answer any differently.

"Then it doesn't work." Loki tried to say something, but Jane was really tired of listening to him and his excuses and quite possibly the most reluctant, begrudging apology she'd ever heard in her life…as if a simple apology for an "overreaction" was sufficient to cover near-strangulation. "Oh, it may keep you from killing people, I guess, but a prison cell would do that just as well. I think it's supposed to teach you something, part of whatever it is you're really supposed to learn here. And I don't think it's working."

Loki looked away for a moment before responding. None of this was any of her business. As if she were sitting in judgement over him, deciding what he should be taught and how well he was doing in his lessons. "I don't presume to know what Odin was thinking when he did this. And neither should you. What you're meant to teach me is your science. You have taught me, and I've learned well. As for the rest…just tell me you understand. I couldn't hurt you if I wanted to, Jane, not without dire consequences to myself as well. And I don't. Want to hurt you, that is. I-"

"Until the next time you lose your temper."

"I will never lose my temper that way with you again. I swear it. It won't happen again."

"Because you know now what'll happen if it does."

"Not…not just because of that, but yes, if it makes…Jane?"

"What?"

He'd watched as her expression changed, her gaze drifted away, and her eyes grew unfocused. Her train of thought was clear. "It doesn't prevent me from defending myself, Jane. The All-Father was quite clear on that point. I won't suffer for killing someone who tries to kill me, including anyone you might wish to try to send for."

"Well. On that cheery note…" Jane looked down at her long-cold supper. At least she could swallow food now, but she still didn't think she could eat. She pushed her chair back and stood. "I'm going to turn in early. It's been a long day."

"I thought you said the first data would be ready tonight." Loki watched her with growing apprehension. He was out of arguments to ensure her continued cooperation.

Jane nodded. "It will be. I won't be. I'll see you in the morning." She turned her back to him and walked away with her tray, towel, and bag of melting ice. Her words and actions reflected more bravado than she actually felt, but with each unchallenged step she grew stronger. Loki hadn't learned empathy. But he had learned – she hoped – that physically harming her wasn't worth the consequences. And that meant she was – she hoped – safe. Sort of. By the time she reached her room, she'd decided she felt safer than she ever had since she'd found out who her "assistant" really was.

And then she saw the stack of papers on the floor. The floor where she'd sprawled, gasping for air.

Loki was right. Nobody ever asked her to teach him empathy or make him grow a conscience. She remembered that morning they'd gone skiing, when she'd tried to broach the subject of friendship again and he'd rejected her, when she'd tried to tell herself that she couldn't fix everything. She reached down for the papers, carried them over to her desk and straightened them on it out of habit. She dropped them into the bottom drawer and closed it. Maybe he can't be fixed.

She pulled her desk chair out and sat down, pressing her fingertips to her temple and rubbing. When she stopped, it was to examine the fingers of her right hand. There was no sign of damage at all – no discoloration, no tingling, no numbness, no pain. She wondered why he'd healed it. It wasn't like it was a life-threatening injury, it was minor. He certainly hadn't done it out of any form of guilt. He didn't seem to feel any more guilt about nearly choking the life right out of her than he did about the 1,227 deaths he was responsible for.

Her gaze fell back to the closed bottom drawer. She thought back to that moment just an hour or two ago when Loki had stormed into her room brandishing the papers she'd left on his desk. He'd been furious, offended in his own vengeful way. Maybe it was true that whatever was wrong with him couldn't be fixed. Maybe it was true that he hadn't learned empathy, or that he wasn't even capable of it. But it wasn't true that he didn't have a conscience. A man with no conscience wouldn't have been bothered by the names of his victims, or the few dozen of their faces she'd pulled from a cable news website. A man with no conscience wouldn't care if he'd killed twenty or twenty thousand, and he wouldn't care whether they worked for SHIELD or were raising arms against him or not. And if he really believed those things, that he'd killed twenty armed soldiers and the rest was just some random property damage, then he was truly delusional. But she'd worked closely with him for nearly two months and he'd never seemed delusional. Angry and moody sometimes, yes, but not delusional. Not some crazed maniac.Wouldn't I have seen that? Jane asked herself, sifting through her memories of him, of Lucas. If he isn't really delusional…then what is he?

Jane sighed and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She was no psychologist; the closest she came was a handful of meetings with a child psychologist after her parents passed away.

Complicated, she thought in answer to her own question. That's what he is. Assuming all went well with the probe, and with the adjustments that would be needed to send a living person through Yggdrasil, she doubted she would have enough time to be able to figure him out. Jane laughed – and it wasn't an especially happy laugh but it felt good after everything that had happened today. Assuming she was stuck here with him for the rest of her mortal life she didn't think she'd be able to figure him out. But one thing she knew: the next time he had a flare of conscience, she didn't want to be around.

Jane stood and took a look at the rest of her room. Her wardrobe was open, a shirt on the floor next to it, a few other articles of clothing pulled from her makeshift clothesline tossed on her bed. She'd never finished hanging it. So, after nearly being choked to death by Loki, after Loki following her out under the station and getting frostbite on her hand, after Loki healing her throat and her hand and showing her magical reciprocating injuries and warning her it wouldn't stop him from killing a few Avengers…Jane went back to hanging up her laundry.

Tonight she would shake off as much of what had happened today as she could. Tomorrow morning she would be right back by Loki's side. She wasn't sure how she would handle being alone with him again, the proximity of the hands whose physical marks were gone but whose other marks were much deeper. She wasn't looking forward to it, but she knew it was necessary.

Jane looked down at the clunky white bunny boots she hadn't yet taken off. Hardly ruby-red slippers, but still… "There's no place like Asgard," she whispered, clicking the heels together three times. Some tiny exceedingly irrational part of her thought it might actually work, after Loki's little demonstration of magic.

It didn't work, of course, and Jane rolled her eyes at herself, then went back to her laundry. Life had never before presented her with easy escapes from difficult situations; there was no reason it should start now. "But if you're listening, Heimdall," she said in another whisper, "anytime you want to bring me to Asgard, you go right ahead. I think I'd like to have a chat with Thor."

/

First off, thanks for all your reviews on the last chapter, and the positive response! A lot of you wrote some really insightful things, too, which I enjoy so much. Actually I was reading back through older reviews today, and really I'm amazed at so many of things that were written, how beautiful and clever and almost like miniature character studies in and of themselves. And I thank you so much for reviewing, for reading even if you don't review, for favoriting and so forth, for sticking with it all this time!

I always respond to reviews, and for the last chapter I wound up trying to express a particular idea in a number of responses, and I think I only partially succeeded in saying what I wanted to. This part of a response to SylphJr is where I came closest to what I really wanted to say: Loki's really stunned, in a way, that he did this. It puts an arrow in his self-image...which is already really confused and distorted. He embraces being a "monster" or villain on the one hand, but at the same time he doesn't *really* want to be a monster, or to be thought of as a monster. He embraces what he despises and rejects what he desires.

If you're interested: (1) You can search "The stairs in the beercan at South Pole Station" (exactly that = first hit) and see a very short clip of someone walking down the Beer Can stairs. (2) You can search "Whiteout: The Making of the Trailer" (exactly that = first hit) for some Polies making a kind of dramedy video poking fun of the movie "Whiteout," the one Jane's thinking of in this chapter. One of the Polies there also told me they have a tradition of watching it and poking merciless fun at. I plan to watch it when this whole thing is over. Just FYI, the Polie video has "rated R" language. (The weird little bit with a cook being asked "do you want to buy a dog" I think comes from a requirement in the film competition is was made for.)

Without further delay, here's some previews for the next chapter: Thor's finally able to take a short rest; Asgard's leaders debate what to do about what's happened & Odin comes to a decision as an answer is revealed; Loki & Jane continue to deal with the aftermath of his attack, and his trend toward greater honesty continues; Jane, Loki, & YOU will find out exactly where the probe went.

And the excerpt (I was torn, I can also give you a Loki-POV excerpt if you want):

"Is there no word on what caused the explosion? No enemy was found?" [Thor asked.]

It was First Einherjar Hergils who fielded the question. "No enemy was found anywhere in the palace. We searched three times. What disturbs me is that the magic shield surrounding the throne room was never breached."

Thor wrinkled his brow at that, for it made no sense. "There were only six of us able to come and go freely from the throne room. Four of us are in this room. None of us are traitors."