I had a lot of fun writing this one, I hope you will enjoy it! Some beauty, some frustration, a little bit of internal conflict for Jane.


Beneath

Chapter Four – Aurora Borealis

At last the lights from a car approached from the north. Loki lowered himself back to the ground, on the edge of the road right next to the small mountain of snow that had been cleared from it. He grunted as soon as he returned weight to his right foot, having managed to actually forget about it for a while, but he was exhausted from the constant effort required to maintain his levitation and would have had to give in to the pull of gravity before long anyway. Over a minute passed before the headlights again came in view. Loki put his back against the snow, pulled the hood of his coat over his head, and extended a hand toward the vehicle, hoping this would suffice to signal the driver. He tried to contain his pleasure when the small white car began to slow. He would have to watch his behavior carefully now.

The car came to a stop several steps past him and the driver rolled down the passenger-side window and waited for him to catch up. "Kind of cold for a stroll, isn't it?" the man asked in a clipped accent and rhythm Loki was unfamiliar with. He wore some unfathomable expression on his mustached face, which Loki studied for a moment before responding.

"It certainly is. Actually, my car went off the road," he said, gesturing widely in no particular direction. "I was hoping you would be so kind as to drive me into town."

"Oh, that's terrible! Of course, get in, get warm. It's only about an hour's drive. Are you all right?" the man said, reaching over and pushing the door open from the inside.

Loki got in, pleased at how well this was going. "I am in your debt. I'm afraid my car is the worse for wear, but I'm fine."

"That's all that matters. Things are things. They can be fixed. Mohsin Tarkani," the man said, putting the car back in motion then sticking out his right hand toward Loki.

Loki quickly grabbed and released the man's hand, preferring he keep it on the wheel that guided the car. "Lucas Cane," he said with a friendly smile. He'd thought of the name along the way, felt it suited him.

"Nice to meet you, Lucas."

"Likewise, Mohsin. Do you…live around here?"

"I do now. I moved out here just last month. I'm hoping to bring my family out soon, but it's complicated. They're more comfortable with city life. How about you?" Mohsin glanced over at Loki, but thankfully kept his eyes on the road most of the time.

"No. I'm travelling. I live in New York," he said.

"Ah, now that's the city life! I've been there. I like it a lot. But I like having a big lawn and nature just around the corner more. Have you ever been ice fishing, Lucas?"

"I have not."

"You should try it sometime. I don't know how long you're planning to stay in the area, but there's a lake just north of here where you can do some great ice fishing. I was just there at the lake. It was incredible. You saw a hole through the ice and you sit on this stool under a little tent," he said, gesturing with his right hand as if this would help his passenger better picture the event he described. "You drop your line, the fish goes for the bait, you pull the fish up through the ice, and there's your dinner. Very cool. My dinner's in my trunk back there in a cooler. Perch," he said, turning to flash a big grin at Loki.

"That sounds exciting," Loki said, expending some effort to make his voice match his words. He had gone fishing in his youth a number of times, and had enjoyed the challenge of it. It took skill and cunning to catch something which did not want to be caught. But doing it on ice, shivering and unable to see anything of the waters below, did not sound the slightest bit interesting to him. He wished the man would stop talking about fish and start telling him where they were located – the one question Loki had right now, upon which all other questions depended, and the one question he could not ask, not without drawing unwanted scrutiny for not knowing something he should if he hadn't arrived here out of the blue from another realm. But instead the man told him about his wife and his two daughters, his love of fishing with his friends and kite-flying with his daughters, and his job with a mining company that brought him "out here," all the while managing to give no clue to their location, as if he knew that was precisely what Loki was waiting to hear. Thankfully Mohsin seemed content to shoulder most of the burden of conversation, allowing Loki to say little and instead listen, hoping to learn something more useful than the numerous merits of living near nature.

/


/

"I guess we have to call the SHIELD office," Jane said, walking as slowly as she knew how out of the restaurant, Thor a half step behind her and forced to match her dawdling pace. She caught a glimpse out of a window on the far side of the restaurant and into the night. Her last night in Norway and Thor's last night, for who knew how long this time, on Earth. She came to a stop altogether and Thor bumped into her and apologized.

"Jane?" he asked when she didn't move. A waiter threaded his way around them with a tray full of steaming plates.

"Fifteen more minutes. Can you stay just fifteen more minutes?"

She looked up at him with eyes bright and eager, body tensely coiled with sudden energy and excitement. If she'd asked him to stay forever he would have found it difficult to refuse her. He dipped his head deeply to her, more of a bow than a nod. The next thing he knew she had darted a hand around his left bicep – partially around it, anyway – and was pulling hard on him. He let her tug him the rest of the way out of the restaurant and into the Grevinden's lobby.

"We're going to get in the elevator. When we get in, you have to close your eyes and cover them. If I had something to blindfold you with, I'd do that, but I don't, so your hand will have to do. You can't take your hand down until I tell you to, do you understand? Not a moment before I tell you to."

"I understand but…this isn't wise. What if someone or something were to attack?"

Jane rolled her eyes at him. "We're in a nice hotel in Tromso, Norway. Nobody's going to attack us. And if they do, don't worry, I'll protect you," she said with a smirk.

"How? I don't see your car here," Thor smirked back at her, stifling laughter.

"Haha. Come on, funny man. Into the elevator. You know, someday that's going to get old," she said as she herded him over to the elevator.

"No time soon, I trust."

"Don't worry, I'll let you know."

"With your car?" Thor asked once they stepped into the elevator.

Jane gave a cry of amused annoyance and smacked him on the back of the head, standing on her tiptoes to do it. Thor roared with laughter.

"Eyes. Covered. Now. No peeking or I will rent a car."

"I shall obey, my lady," Thor said, still chuckling as he dutifully put his right hand over his closed eyes and tightly covered them. Jane wrapped her right arm around his left and he could feel them going up.

"Okay, forward, the ground is level," she told him when the door opened.

Thor stepped out blindly, uncomfortable without his sight but trusting Jane implicitly.

"Stop." He heard doors opening. Cold air rushed in on a breeze. "Forward, slight step down, okay, keep going, keep going, turn a little to the right, keep going, okay, you can stop here. Keep your eyes covered. Turn just a little to the left now. Lift your head a little bit."

"What is this?" Thor asked, his curiosity doing battle with his patience, a virtue he was trying to cultivate but had certainly not yet mastered.

"Open your eyes and see," Jane said, already staring upward herself.

Thor opened his eyes…and his mouth fell slightly open. Over a grand background of the island they stood on, the still cold waters of the Norwegian Sea, and the mountains in the distance, hung ethereal curtains of brilliant shimmering green, morphing in some places into blue the color of a clear daytime sky and fading so gradually and diffusely upward that it was impossible to determine exactly where it ended. And then what at first he thought he had imagined he realized he had not – the curtains were moving.

"What is this?" Thor asked again, softly, unable to take his eyes off the display of ghostly light before him, unwilling even to blink.

Jane smiled, delighted that he was so clearly in awe of what she was showing him. "It's called the aurora borealis."

"Aurora borealis. Even the name is beautiful."

"It's…" Jane shook her head slightly. It didn't matter. Talking about charged particles and the magnetosphere and solar wind wouldn't make this moment one iota better.

"I've never seen anything like it."

"So Asgard doesn't have everything, huh?"

Thor gave a small laugh. "No, not everything."

"We're lucky tonight. See the blue in it?"

Thor nodded slightly, trying to maintain his concentration on the aurora's movements, sometimes in barely perceptible shifts and sometimes in dramatic appearances and disappearances of luminous green folds.

"Blue is relatively unusual. Green is the most common color."

"I'd hardly call any of this common."

Jane slipped her arm around Thor's back and huddled in close to him. The cold was sinking into her bones. She should have been wearing a jacket, hat, and gloves. An Asgardian was the next best thing; he was pretty warm. He wrapped an arm over her shoulders and pressed her even closer to his side.

"Do you get cold?" she asked, looking up at him curiously.

He spared her a quick curious look of his own before lifting his face back to the sky. "Of course I get cold, Jane. I am cold. I'm grateful for your warmth beside me. Jane…our bodies may be stronger and heal more quickly, but we aren't gods, and we aren't truly immortal. We…we feel the same things you do."

Jane sighed against him, savoring the moment, and wondering exactly what feelings he might be talking about. But eventually her more scientific curiosity overcame her and she asked something she'd been wondering about ever since Erik had shown her that book of Norse mythology. "Just how long do you live?"

Thor chuckled. "I'm afraid I'm a very old man, from your perspective. I have lived around a thousand years, my father many more than that. But how long do we live…it depends. Even here, a man of forty years may appear much older or much younger, true? It depends on whether he's been dealt a hard life or an easy one, whether he's been able to take sufficient care of his health or not, and other differences."

Jane nodded, but only because it felt like that was what she should do, not because she could fathom living for a thousand years. She couldn't fathom living for a hundred years and that was something she actually stood a shot at achieving. Not to mention, the Thor who'd shown up in New Mexico could have passed for a trust fund undergrad. A trust fund undergrad on the wrestling team. "So…in a thousand years nobody on Asgard ever taught you to say 'please' when you wanted something?"

"Princes don't have to say 'please.' Though it is better if they do," he added with a smile. "But enough about my old age and poor manners." He looked down at her, longer this time, more confident that the majestic display in the sky would still be there when he turned his eyes back. "I wanted to ask you earlier, what do you do for fun, Jane Foster?"

This, Jane answered, but only to herself. She sighed, tried to recall her other life, the one that was not glued to Thor's side on a hotel rooftop in Norway staring at one of the most stunning auroras she'd ever seen with her own eyes. "Well…I like to go window-shopping. I'd like to go real-shopping, but I can't ever really afford it. I like to travel, although I haven't had too many opportunities for it, not until now. I like getting together with old friends and reminiscing and catching up and giggling like teenagers. I like going for hikes in the mountains…though I've never actually climbed one to the top," she said, pausing to give him an extra squeeze. "I like having a new idea, and the rush that comes with trying to grab hold of it and flesh it out and research it and test it. I guess that doesn't sound so much like fun, maybe, but it is to me. And I like to look up at the sky, stop thinking about mass and gravity and particle emissions and the speed of light and everything else I ever learned from a book, and try to look at it like I did when I was a little girl. Just beautiful and endless and full of meaning that you're sure you can grasp if you just stare at it long enough."

"Come back with me," Thor said, the words out of his mouth before they were fully formed. He found he could now look only at her, at her soft brown hair and her soft brown eyes rising up to meet his.

Jane opened her mouth, but was too stunned to speak. To Asgard?

"You've shared so much with me. I want to share my world with you. Come with me."

"I…I could? I mean, I would be able to? I would be allowed to?" She had looked at the stars all her life. Could she truly travel out into them, beyond them? To this land where people lived thousands of years? Where Thor lived?

Thor's smile faltered a bit. "It would be unexpected…but yes, you could do it. I want you to see Asgard. We have nothing so spectacular as this," he said, looking up again to find the green curtains had rearranged themselves and more blue trim had appeared. "But it is beautiful there."

For a split second, she could actually imagine it. Strolling along gleaming streets – she was sure they gleamed – holding Thor's hand, watching wide-eyed as he pointed out beautiful sites, places that were important to him, the Rainbow Bridge that she had so wondered about. But then she remembered another beautiful site, a thrilling site. A place she'd always wanted to go and finally had the chance to. She was scheduled for the last passenger flight. There was no delaying it. And she didn't have a thousand years in which to get a second chance.

"I can't," she finally said, and by the time she did, Thor already knew her answer.

He nodded, but his smile had disappeared. For a split second, he had been able to imagine it, too.

"I'm sorry. I want to. I want to badly, you have no idea. But…I have to be on a plane before dawn tomorrow morning. And I want that too. There may not ever be another chance to do the research I'm going to be able to do. If I went with you now…I don't know if I'd have the strength to ever come back, much less in time for that flight."

"I understand," he said, though it was only partly true.

"Ask me again sometime, please?"

"I promise." He leaned down and caressed her cheek, then wrapped his left arm around her again.

They stood there in silence a few more minutes, Jane second-guessing herself and Thor wondering if he should ask again this very moment.

But if it could not be, then it could not be, there was nothing more to it, Thor thought. He had come here to warn her about Loki's presence and he had done that. His father was awaiting his return and growing weaker. He turned to face her fully, taking both her hands in his. "I need something from you, Jane."

"What? Anything."

"I need you to tell me what is needed to make cheesecake." His mouth spread into a grin.

Jane burst out laughing, the tension of a moment before shattered and already forgotten. "If I'd made the cheesecake you wouldn't be asking for the recipe. I think it has eggs, and probably butter, and…" She broke into laughter again. "You'd have to ask my mother."

"Very well, then, I shall."

"Oh, uh, no. I mean, I'm sorry. My mother's gone. Passed away, I mean."

Thor cocked his head a little to the side. "I'm sorry. I should not have-"

"No, no, it's okay, really. She died a long time ago. She loved to bake but I didn't…well, let's just say I wish I'd let her teach me a few things like that instead of always running off to stick my face in a book or a telescope."

"I'm sure she was proud of you and your books and your telescopes. What you study…this is a noble pursuit for a clever person like you."

"I think so. I mean, I think she was. She never said no when I asked for another book. She said no a lot when I asked for another telescope, though," she added with a laugh before growing serious again. "I just mean I wish I'd spent more time with her. But I didn't know I was going to lose her so soon."

"I know what you mean. Sometimes things happen too fast, and there's no time to right any wrongs. That battle I mentioned, with Loki, on the bridge? I pounded it again and again with Mjolnir and it shattered. Loki and I were both tossed up in the air by the explosion. My father caught me by the leg, and Loki and I wound up holding onto either end of Gungnir – Father's staff. Loki tried to…" Thor wasn't sure what Loki had been trying to do. Surely he hadn't truly believed he could gain their father's approval for what he'd done in his short time as king. "This look came over him, and I knew what he was going to do and that there was nothing I could do to stop him. He let go of Gungnir, and he fell into the abyss." He paused. He would never forget that moment that seemed to last forever, his horror and disbelief as Loki fell, shrank, and disappeared from view while he watched, powerless. He could see it in his mind's eye as though it had just happened, and for a moment that image superimposed itself onto the green curtains in the sky. "We thought him dead. I mourned for him every day."

"You know, after seeing what he did to Manhattan, it's hard for me to believe it, but for your sake, and your family's sake, I hope he is able to change. I hope you get your brother back, and you both get a chance to right any wrongs."

"Thank you."

"So…," Jane began, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

"So."

"I guess you have to go."

"I do."

"I don't want you to get in trouble for being out past curfew because of me."

Thor wrinkled his brow, then chuckled. "I do love how you make me laugh."

"I do what I can. Come on, let's go back to my room and call SHIELD."

Thor shook his head. "No need. I know the way back. All I need is Mjolnir."

"You and that hammer. Okay, let's go get Mjolnir, then," she said, working to get all the sounds out properly and remembering with a smile how Darcy never could.

They rode down the elevator and walked to Jane's room in silence. Thor grabbed his hammer and Jane grabbed the coat, hat, and gloves she should have had all along. Then on second thought she stuffed the gloves in her pockets. She didn't want her silly rainbow-striped hand-me-down gloves between Thor's hand and hers. Jane felt her stomach sinking as they went back up on the roof. Thor stepped away from her and stretched out his arms; she was about to move into them when she realized that wasn't what he had in mind at all. Out of nowhere his armor began to appear and fly into place. With it on, he looked much the same as he had when he'd left her the first time.

"I'll come for you again," he said. "But it may be a while."

"I know."

He bent down toward her, hesitating, but she pushed herself up against him and their lips met in a soft kiss. His arms tightened around her and she felt as though she were melting into him. She could have stayed there forever wrapped in his strong arms. But he had somewhere else to be. And so did she.

She pulled away before the kiss could grow deeper. He stood up straight again and took a step back.

"Have a safe flight. Watch out for traffic."

Thor laughed and held her gaze steadily for another moment. He swung Mjolnir around a few times and when the momentum had sufficiently built he thrust the hammer straight up, and shot up into the night sky. Green curtains closed around him.

/


/

The road had taken them due south for some time now, during which Mohsin had continued his stories. Loki learned he was from a place called Peshawar, in Pakistan, but it was clear from the way he spoke only in the past tense of it that they were not in Pakistan now. As time dragged on, Loki began to wonder what wasteland he had been dropped into to travel this far and see no sign of a settlement. He tried to recall the maps he'd studied of the planet when he'd been here before, but he'd put most of his effort into learning the power – and population – centers that Clint Barton had told him about. Still, he knew there were also vast stretches of sparsely populated land. The humans didn't live long enough to fill it up, he figured.

Suddenly Loki was pitching forward, then was slammed back against the uncomfortable seat, poorly proportioned for his tall frame.

Mohsin had been in the middle of some story about growing up in Peshawar, Loki couldn't remember what exactly. "Sorry, sorry. I just have to see this!" he called as he scrambled out of the car and closed the door, leaving the engine running.

Loki clenched his jaw. He briefly considered leaving this Mohsin and taking the car – he'd watched how Mohsin controlled it and was fairly confident he could do it himself, and do it much more quickly by applying more pressure to that pedal on the right. But what if the man fell ill standing in the cold? Loki wasn't sure what would happen to him in return. He stomped angrily against the floorboard with his left foot, then closed his eyes and brought his emotions under control. What could this man possibly have to see in the dark in the middle of nowhere? He opened his door and got out, turning to face back northward as Mohsin was now doing at the back of the car.

His lips parted and his irritation faded away. Fear replaced it. Countless wisps of smoky green trailed upward almost from the horizon high into the starry sky, surrounding a more defined area of green so bright and intense that Loki did not think it could possibly be natural. It looked like a wave, undulating ever so slightly across the depths of space. He clenched his fists and spared a quick glance around him. Along with his failed plans he had collected enemies.

There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where we can't find you.

Loki stared at the strange phenomenon before him and began evaluating his options. Surely Odin's curses wouldn't punish him for using whatever magic he needed to protect himself from the blood-thirsty barbarians in whose pit he'd landed after his fall through emptiness. From the sadistic torturer at the top of those stairs perched in the blackness of space.

"Isn't it incredible?" Mohsin called over his shoulder.

Loki fixed his eyes on the Pakistani. The mortal didn't sound afraid. Because he knew something Loki did not? Had this man set a trap that Loki had fallen into like some naive child? Had Odin sent him to this isolated land as part of a secret arrangement with the Chitauri and their master? "What is it?" he asked in a tight but steady voice. He glanced over at the tree line, just a few feet away, and flexed his hand in preparation for creating a duplicate of himself to mask his escape.

"You haven't seen it before? Well, you definitely can't see it from New York. You have to be quite far north. It's the aurora borealis, the northern lights. So remarkable. I don't think I'll ever get bored with it. It's been cloudy the last week or so, no chance for auroras."

"What causes this?" Loki asked. Mohsin seemed relaxed, unguarded. But as a masterful liar and manipulator himself when he needed to be, he knew better than to trust appearances.

"Oh, I don't know, I don't understand it. I read about it when I first got here. Electromagnetic something or other. I studied structural engineering at university," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

The iridescent green wave slowly undulated and dissipated, losing its form entirely, as though it had crashed on a cosmic shoreline.

"It's beautiful," Loki said, ensuring that a smile could be heard in his voice even though he did not wear one. As the seconds ticked by and nothing happened his concern lessened. Besides, he had studied "electromagnetic something or others," and was beginning to have an idea of what he was looking at; it probably was a natural phenomenon resulting from this planet's rotation and magnetic fields. The northern lights. They had to be far to the north. Norway was far to the north.

An actual smile began to spread over his face and warm him from the inside out.


Jane finished packing everything except her carry-on and lined the two suitcases up by the door. She looked at the clock on the desk, now cleared of her laptop and all her papers. 8:58. She should go to bed. She'd told herself it would be lights out by 9:00. She looked at the bed. Felt her heart still pounding and her mind still racing. It was no use. Sleep was not in her immediate future.

She laid down on her back on the sofa instead, pressing her face into the cushion Thor had reclined against just a few hours earlier. She thought she detected his scent, but couldn't be sure it wasn't wishful thinking playing on her imagination. She ran a hand down her green-and-yellow checkered flannel pajamas and chuckled. Good thing she hadn't already changed into these when Thor arrived. They were warm and comfortable – practical – but they weren't the kind of thing you wanted your…

"Your what?" Jane asked herself out loud. She turned onto her side and wrapped her arm around herself. Your super fit friend from Asgard who drops out of the sky…or knocks on your door…a couple times a year, likes your eggs, loves cheesecake, laughs at your jokes, never misses an opportunity to remind you how you almost ran over him. She sighed, let her thoughts keep going in directions she hadn't permitted for some time now. Has strong arms and really soft lips. Looks at you like you're the center of the universe. Makes you want to forget everything else and follow him wherever he goes.

Jane scrunched up her toes from restless energy, but quickly gave up on lying down at all and jumped up from the couch. She took a few steps over to the sliding glass doors to the balcony and opened up the curtains. If she craned her neck upward she could just make out a few wisps of the aurora. It seemed to have become more diffuse. Perhaps it would fade away entirely, now that the guest of honor for this night's performance had left.

She rolled her eyes at her uncharacteristically maudlin thoughts.

She wondered what Asgard looked like. She wished Thor had brought pictures. She wondered if they had cameras on Asgard. Maybe they took magic pictures. She wondered what magic pictures looked like. For someone who said he had no secrets from her, there was still an awful lot she didn't know about him or where he came from.

But maybe that didn't matter at all. We aren't so different from you. We feel the same things you do.

Thor had the worst timing known to man. She couldn't imagine any other evening he could have looked down at her with those ridiculously intense eyes and scruffy blond beard and said, "Come with me," and she would have said no. And she couldn't think of anything else that could have made her question her intention to get on that plane tomorrow any more than those words. Any other day, she probably would have forgotten everything else and followed.

Suddenly she felt foolish. She'd had an invitation to visit another planet. Realm. Whatever. How could anything at all on Earth measure up to that, ever? She'd been thrilled at the opportunity to go to Norway, even if it all turned out to be nothing more than manipulation on SHIELD's part to keep her out of Loki's path. Asgard was somewhere out beyond the Milky Way, with constellations she'd only glimpsed through amateur photography.

But there she would be a tourist. Here she had a chance to collect real scientific data that could revolutionize the way humanity understood the most basic principles of energy and matter. To test hypotheses she'd never dreamed she'd be able to do more than speculate on and be ridiculed for. It was the culmination of everything she'd worked so hard for, of every time she'd had to defend herself and her theories against professors and colleagues and committees and… How could she turn that down for the instant gratification of an interstellar trip with Thor? An interstellar trip with Thor!

Had she made the right decision?

She realized she could no longer see any sign of the aurora. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "I hope so," she whispered against the glass.


/

Did Jane make the right decision? Will Loki ever reach his destination? How awesome would it be to stand on a rooftop and watch the aurora borealis with Thor?

I do hope you enjoyed it, please let me know! Reviews as always appreciated.

In the next chapter, Loki finally starts getting some answers, along with a dose of Midgardian sports, a reminder of Odin's enchantments/curses, and a new skill. Jane gets some pictures and a little taste of luxury.