Beneath
Chapter Twenty-Two – Allies
Thor and Odin stood before the portal to Vanaheim, the only realm other than Alfheim which required no further power or magic to reach. Vanaheim was the closest of the realms, both physically and in the relations of the two peoples. Multiple portals spanned the two realms. It had been so long since anyone had bothered tracking them that no one knew their number or all of their locations. Now, at Tyr's insistence, they had located and mapped all 34 of them, along with the three well-known passages to Alfheim. The data had been gathered as surreptitiously as possible, but still some citizens – including Vanir – had raised questions about the sudden interest. The portals were not guarded, and never had been since the Vanir-Aesir war, when there were only two gateways. They were, however, irregularly and covertly patrolled now, usually by out-of-uniform Einherjar who had some other legitimate reason to be in the area, for plausible deniability.
For Thor, who had never known the Vanir as anything but unquestioned allies and friends, a growing horror accompanied these changes, even though not a single act of aggression had taken place between any of the realms. The tension at the court amongst those who knew what was going on was palpable and unnerving. Thor knew what to do if attack came. He looked to the steadiness of his father as he strove to understand what he should do when it did not come even as the Svartalf delegation continued their tour of the realms.
Odin had gone to Svartalfheim and been refused an audience. Such a thing was unheard of. "You may seek an audience again once our ambassadors have returned," the royal guards told him. Odin had smiled politely and returned home in a barely contained rage. He had fared marginally better in Alfheim, though he'd learned no more than Thor had on Vanaheim, being told in terse words that Loki's actions had aggrieved the Nine Realms and called into question the honor of Asgard, and that Loki must therefore answer for his crimes on Jotunheim.
He had then planned to make his own journey to Vanaheim, but Frigga had suggested they instead invite Gullveig to Asgard. The agreed upon time of his arrival had now come and gone. Thor glanced more and more frequently toward his father, amazed at the man's patience. The colonnade stretching out into the distance and upward toward the heavens was empty, and father and son stood alone. Based on his own unsettling experience on Vanaheim, Thor had suggested they forego even a minimal presence of guards, and Odin agreed, ordering the colonnade closed and the route between it and the palace kept clear. Thor was without Mjolnir, but his father retained Gungnir.
An Einherjar guard approached, standing out on the otherwise silent and vacant street.
"All-Father," he said with a bow. "Heimdall wished me to inform you that the delegation has left Helheim and returned to Vanaheim."
Odin narrowed his eyes. "Thank him and go quickly."
The guard made a quick bow and sprinted away.
"Vanaheim," Thor repeated.
"Not Midgard."
Thor had been prepared to go to Midgard himself as soon as the delegation left Helheim, because it was the only other realm they had not yet gone to, and was assumed to be the final destination. It was assumed that the dark elves would go there demanding Loki, when the Midgardians did not even know of his presence among them. It would fall to Thor to deal with the repercussions of that uncomfortable revelation, and to convince Earth, presumably through SHIELD and his fellow "Avengers," not to take action against Loki. No one knew if the dark elves knew Loki's location on Midgard; if they did, then it would also fall to Thor to prevent them from absconding with his brother, which could prove difficult since Thor himself did not know Loki's location.
But they had returned to Vanaheim without visiting the two realms that mattered most: Midgard, where they knew Loki to be, and Asgard, which claimed jurisdiction over him. To avoid these two and visit Helheim, where only the dead roamed the land, was baffling, and neither Odin nor Thor spoke a word about it, continuing to wait in silence.
Another half hour passed before the sculpted stone archway glowed unnaturally and King Gullveig stepped through, followed by a broad-chested man in the blue and gold of Vanaheim's royal guard.
"Welcome to Asgard, Gullveig," Odin said, extending his right arm.
Gullveig grasped the arm in his. "Thank you for the invitation, Odin." He released Odin's arm and gave a brief nod toward Thor.
"It's good to see you again, Your Majesty."
"And you, Thor. This is my chief of security, Halladur Tofison."
Odin ignored Halladur. "You've never felt the need for security to accompany you here before."
Gullveig gave a thin smile. "You've never felt the need to clear your streets for me before."
"I didn't want any distractions. Much as I wish it were otherwise, you haven't come here on a social call."
"Indeed I have not."
Odin suggested they go to his official study, the comfortably appointed office off of the throne room. It would take them through that massive gleaming golden chamber, reminding Gullveig of Odin's status, but ultimately place them in a far more intimate and relaxing setting.
Gullveig agreed and they set off, Thor following behind his father's gold-armored form, deep red cape billowing slightly in the breeze, while Halladur followed behind Gullveig in his gold-embroidered white robes, now draped in a rich brown cloak. Thor stole glances at Halladur out of the corner of his eye, but the other man's head was fixed forward, his face hard as chiseled stone. His sword was sheathed on his back, but even without Mjolnir Thor was confident he could take him, if it came to that. Which it would not, he reminded himself.
Along the way, Odin asked after Gullveig's wife, grown children, and young granddaughter, and Gullveig asked after Frigga. Loki was not mentioned.
Guards outside the throne room and one in the doorway of the study came to attention, saluted, and were dismissed. Odin's gaze lingered on Halladur when the four entered the office.
"If you do not object, I prefer to keep him with me, as an additional witness. Nothing more."
"I do not object," Odin said after a moment's hesitation to let his counterpart know that even though he permitted the arrangement, he was not pleased with it.
Odin swept Gungnir past the fireplace, bringing a small fire to crackling life. He walked to the other side of a rectangular table of dark reddish-brown wood with one short end pushed against the wall and rested the staff against the wall as well before settling into a brown leather chair. Gullveig sat down in an identical chair across from Odin, and Thor took the chair at the table's end, though he would have rather remained standing.
"Let us come right to the point, shall we?" Gullveig asked.
"By all means," Odin answered, his face stern but neutral.
"Thor has confirmed what I already knew to be true. What all the realms now know to be true. Your middle son attempted to utterly destroy one of the Nine."
Thor swung his head immediately toward his father. No one had referred to Loki as a middle son in many centuries. Odin blinked his eye, but Thor could detect no other reaction.
"Do you deny it?" Gullveig continued.
"I do not, though it is true I did not want this known. Loki was not in his right mind at the time. He was reacting, not acting with forethought, and certainly without any approval, explicit or implicit."
Thor took care to hide his own reaction this time. As far as he had been able to piece events together, Loki had in fact put a good deal of thought into his schemes. He had lashed out with rage that seemed irrational while they were in the bifrost observatory, but he had staged an assassination attempt, set himself up as savior, and apparently intended to blow Jotunheim apart as his final step all along. They had discussed this, he and his parents, in trying to determine the facts of what had happened. The All-Father was lying.
"Be that as it may, it is no excuse. You know we supported you in your war against Jotunheim. And before you took their Casket, we had our own troubles with them, when they would turn up out of nowhere and freeze our crops. The Frost Giants have few friends among the realms. But that is irrelevant. Had Thor not stopped Loki, Jotunheim would be no more than floating bits of rubble and ice and not one Jotun would be left alive in the universe. We can look past Thor's misguided adventuring across the realms just as we can look past Loki's on Midgard. We cannot look past genocide."
"You speak of things which did not happen. Loki was stopped…"
Odin continued, but Thor found himself unable to keep up with the words. He was taken aback by Gullveig's casual comparison of his own "adventuring" with Loki's attempt to conquer Midgard. He had done foolish things in his youth…and well beyond it…but he had never attempted to rule another realm. He hadn't recklessly killed- But he had. He had done that. But Loki was usually with him. With him…but usually trying to get him to walk away. No. No, it was not the same. Thor swallowed, tried to force aside the anger he knew he now wore on his face.
"How fares Jotunheim now? Heimdall tells us things are calming."
"How should I know? We have no Heimdall spying for us. We have only a brief report from the Svartalfs. They said that Helblindi's faction appears to be gaining ground."
"Gullveig, where does this hostility come from? You've never expressed resentment of Heimdall's role as guardian. What role does Svartalfheim play in all this?"
"Svartalfheim plays only the role of messenger, because their masters of dark magic can forge gateways to the other realms. The rest of us are more limited. We have neither bifrost nor tesseract. And we do not resent Heimdall's role, we decry it."
Thor sat up, unable to remain silent any longer. "Were it not for Heimdall, we would not have known to go to your aid when Muspelheim sent—"
"That was 300 years ago, Thor, but yes, Vanaheim remains grateful that Asgard deigned to come to our rescue. That was when we all trusted that Odin would respect his treaties."
"My father was not responsible—"
"No, he wasn't. And if he can't be responsible for his own sons, then what can he be responsible for?"
"The Frost Giants first broke that treaty themselves, though both sides escalated the conflict," Odin conceded as Gullveig started to interrupt again. "Mistakes can happen in any realm, Gullveig. You are a wise king yourself, you know this to be true. A terrible mistake happened here. One that ultimately rests at my throne, as must they all. But the mistake has been dealt with. And I have attempted to rectify it. If you know as much as you seem to, then you know I went to Jotunheim myself, prepared to offer restitution and assistance repairing the damage to their land. I spoke with the leaders of all three factions, and none were interested. I gave them the option to call out to Heimdall at any point should they change their minds, and they have not called."
"Perhaps because they have been too preoccupied with fighting a civil war. It comes to this, Odin. Vanaheim is no longer satisfied to rely on Asgard for its safety or its very existence. That time has passed. Vanaheim and the other realms call on you to deliver Loki to Jotunheim to face justice. The Jotuns additionally demand the return of their Ice Casket, and we support this demand. If you do not agree, we will be forced to take matters into our own united hands."
Odin sat up stiffly, finally giving up the feigned relaxed posture, while Thor listened in shocked attention to what sounded like the end of a treaty that had been in place his entire life. "You are prepared to throw away well over a thousand years of peace and harmony over one rash action of my child?"
Gullveig snorted and leaned forward, resting his forearms over the narrow table between him and Odin. "He is hardly a child. I was at his coming-of-age ceremony and it was so long ago I can barely remember it. And he was Asgard's king when he undertook this 'one rash action.' But I haven't finished. You've recently added to your treasure store an item of such immense power that all the realms have taken notice. Even little Midgard knows its worth. You have gone too far, Odin. You have concentrated too much power in one set of hands. Seven realms are agreed. You will surrender Loki to Jotunheim. You will surrender the Ice Casket to Jotunheim. And you will surrender the tesseract to Vanaheim."
/
/
Jane sat up in bed and rubbed around her eyes. She glanced over at her alarm clock. 5:36. Her alarm wouldn't even go off for another nine minutes. She groaned and was about to flop back down on her pillow when a knock came at the door. The sound startled her and woke her up sufficiently to realize that knocking was what had woken her in the first place.
She swung her legs over the bed and slid down, landing with the ease of familiarity on her two-step stool. She shoved her feet into her slippers, wrapped the blue terrycloth robe over her green-and-yellow checkered flannel pajamas, and padded the few steps over to the door.
"Good morning," Lucas said, holding out a coffee mug toward her. "Did I wake you?"
"Um, yeah, but that's okay, my alarm was about to go off anyway. So, uh, what's up?" She tucked her hair behind her ears, suddenly self-conscious that she hadn't brushed it, or her teeth. Lucas was wide awake and perfectly groomed in his dockers and the green henley he wore so often and his black hair combed back perfectly in place, as though he'd been up for hours.
He pushed the steaming mug closer toward her and she accepted it with slightly squinted eyes that would still rather be closed.
"May I come in? I need to discuss something with you."
I hate morning people, Jane thought even as she gave a reluctant nod. She stepped back from the door to allow him in, then pulled out the beat-up but comfortable chair she'd salvaged a couple of weeks ago and loosely slip-covered with her original gold flat sheet. She sank into it, careful of the coffee, while Lucas took the chair at her desk. A glance inside the mug told her this was likely a double shot of espresso, and a quick sip confirmed it. A double espresso with one sugar packet – her caffeinated beverage of choice. She was surprised he'd noticed. I take it back.
"Okay, what was so important you couldn't—Oh, wait. Oh, no. Do I want to know?" Not more nonsense with SHIELD, please God.
"Nothing bad, I promise. Just an idea. Something I think you'll find interesting."
"I'm not so great with ideas before six, but sure, shoot."
He seemed a bit confused for a moment, but then got comfortable, crossing one leg over the other in that way that he always made seem so elegant and proper, and clasping both hands over the leg on top. Jane pursed her lips and wrapped her worn blue robe more tightly around her. "One of the wormhole theories states that there could be pre-existing, ancient wormholes that are held open by some form of exotic matter, perhaps with negative mass. Correct?"
"Ancient seems a weird way to put it, but yeah. Correct."
He pressed his lips together into a tight frown and actually looked annoyed. Jane squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and took another sip of her coffee while he got over his latest micro-mood-swing. "I think we're looking at evidence that proves that theory."
"How so?" One of her goals was to define the properties of dark matter, a form of exotic matter, but they'd barely even discussed this.
He leaned forward slightly. "We've seen something happening shortly before each impact event. Muon creation, neutrino collision, magnetic and gravitational changes, heat build-up—"
"Heat build-up?" They didn't have any readings on that.
Lucas froze with his mouth half-open, but only for half a second. "There must be heat build-up, given all of the particle interactions."
She nodded. "Go on."
"What if…what if this bifrost, this bridge, only needs to connect to a pre-existing wormhole mouth? And direct the energy to a relatively nearby location from the pre-existing mouth at the other end? It would explain all the data we've observed in a very specific time frame – precisely the amount of time required for the local bridge to extend down, or up, relatively speaking, to the larger, pre-existing bridge."
"Like…like a dirt road connecting to a highway," Jane said thoughtfully.
"Two short dirt roads connecting to a highway in the middle, yes. We don't have to construct the highway, or even fully account for it. All we need to do is construct the initial…dirt road, the local bridge, take advantage of the pre-existing bridge, and then properly direct the energy along a short second dirt road."
"Wait, wait, wait," Jane said, holding out a hand and waving it at him almost like a traffic cop. "You said you had an idea. You're jumping about a thousand steps ahead now. We don't need to 'account for' a pre-existing bridge? That's like saying you want to send a man to the moon but you don't have to account for gravity. Everything has to be accounted for in something like this. Why are you so quick to jump to construction? You can't construct something when you don't understand it yet. We're still on the understanding stage. You have an interesting theory, and we'll have to—"
"It's more than an interesting theory. It's the only theory that accounts for the facts. Why are you so quick to dismiss it? We've already agreed to do this, so you can't back—"
"Calm down, Lucas. What's gotten into you?" Jane asked, sitting up straighter and furrowing her brow as she peered at him more closely. "I'm not dismissing anything. I'm just trying to keep things realistic. Research comes before development, you…are you okay? What happened to your hands?"
He quickly clasped them back over his lap. He'd held them out in gesture before, and a slight tremble in them had caught her eye. Upon closer examination, she'd seen the skin there was pinker than usual and kind of shiny.
"Nothing," he said, his voice and body language back to their composed norm. "I just scrubbed them a bit too hard this morning. I wasn't paying attention."
"Middle-of-the-night idea?" Jane asked with a small smile, relaxing back into her chair.
"Well…yes."
"And lots of coffee to fuel it?"
He looked at her with confusion, then glanced down at his shirt as though he expected to find a giant coffee stain on it.
"Shaky hand syndrome," she said, pointing to the hands which were now still.
"Ah. Yes."
"How much?" She wondered if he'd managed to top her limit.
"Considerably more than that," he responded humorlessly, pointing to the mug she was just bringing away from her lips.
Jane nodded and smiled sympathetically. She was no stranger to coffee as a sleep substitute, but had tried to be more reasonable about it since the last time she'd gone a little off the deep end. The first few days after Thor left she'd hardly slept at all, until Darcy and Erik ganged up on her, cut off her coffee supply, and got her to bed. She'd slept for twelve hours.
Lucas faded away and Jane could almost feel the stiff New Mexico breeze tousling her hair and the chill growing as the sun set over the desert. She'd stood there watching something visible through the clear skies develop, linger for a long while, and eventually dissipate. She knew its cause now – Thor had destroyed the bridge, or, perhaps more accurately, whatever thing that controlled the bridge. Could that something have been the mouth of a pre-existing wormhole? With nothing traversing it, and nothing directing the energy ejected from it? Her eyes narrowed as she thought back along a different line.
"They have that data."
"Who has what data?"
Jane blinked and her room at the South Pole, with Lucas sitting in it and looking expectantly at her, came back into focus. "SHIELD has data on another bridge event. A fifth one. But I guess…kind of a failed one."
"A failed one? You saw that on- You saw that in the same location?"
"Yes. Well, close, anyway. Hard to say for sure. There was no impact. But…if that's what we're looking at here, then it could've been unfocused energy from a wormhole that terminated somewhere close to Earth. It would have to be a massive amount of energy for it to be visible here, probably interacting with the magnetosphere."
Jane paused to get Lucas's reaction, but he was so lost in his own thoughts she wasn't even sure he was listening anymore. She smiled and gave a soft laugh. Lucas wasn't easy to get a handle on – she'd spent far less time with people she'd gotten to know far better – but the look on his face was like looking in a mirror. Still here, Jane! she could hear Darcy complaining as she snapped her fingers in front of Jane's face. And sometimes the thought had been in such preliminary stages that at that snap it had disappeared like tendrils of smoke, equally impossible to grab hold of. She left him to his thoughts, then, and let herself slip back into her own.
It was an interesting theory. It accounted – if not for all the data as Lucas had proclaimed rather recklessly – certainly for the correlation she'd noticed in the data. If an Einstein-Rosen Bridge existed out there, held open by something – Lucas didn't seem to think it mattered what – then Asgard's bifrost simply connected to it, and something in that connection caused a series of reactions, such as neutrino collisions. With so many neutrino collisions…could that indicate that the neutrinos were in fact interacting with dark matter, holding the bridge open? Close to Earth? Could the goal really be so close?
"We don't have to get to Asgard," she said, and Lucas's eyes snapped back to hers. "I mean, we do, eventually. But the first step…if your theory is correct, the first step is to figure out how to generate something that will connect to the highway. Okay, not literally the first step, you're a bad influence on me," she said with a smirk. He didn't react, so she continued. "We don't have to get as far as Asgard. Not at first. We just have to figure out how to get to a specific place in space, not far from Earth. And we should be able to identify that location. We've been looking at this data in terms of time, but now we need to look at space. If we layer the data over both time and space, we may be able to…" Jane trailed off, then abruptly stood, empty coffee cup in hand. "We need to get out to the DSL."
Lucas nodded, then reached out and took back the mug. He headed to the door and Jane followed. He paused, hand on the doorknob. "Jane…"
"What?"
"You might want to change your clothes first."
Jane stared at him for just a second before glancing down and being reminded she was still in her pajamas. She shooed Lucas out the door and promised to be ready in ten minutes.
/
/
"Why do you seek this, Gullveig? Yours is a realm of tillers of abundant fertile land. Ours is a realm of warriors. We can protect the tesseract. You know what happened when others possessed it who could not."
"Yes. Your second son happened."
"You have never sought power of this sort," Odin said, ignoring the comment about Loki.
"And I do not seek it now. I seek – we all seek – a counterweight to the power of Asgard."
"Asgard's power is fated, and it has been earned and proven time and again. It is no danger to any of the realms. Loki is unable to do further harm."
Thor listened to the verbal battle in disbelief that refused to shift into belief no matter how long this went on. No one – save the Frost Giants, who hardly counted – had ever questioned Asgard's supremacy as protector of the Nine Realms, not in his lifetime. The one time he could recall someone coming close, on Svartalfheim, Thor had made certain he never had the chance to do so again.
"Loki is for Jotunheim to deal with. But we disagree that there is no danger. And precisely because I have never sought such power, the realms are agreed that the tesseract should reside in Vanaheim. We will overlay it with the protection of both warriors and magic, much as you have done here, but we will interweave magic from throughout the realms, a strong and united shield against any who dare defy us. It will be safe with us."
"And who would you have me deliver my son to?"
Thor tensed and jerked forward at that, but he felt something nudge his right foot, and realized it was his father, signaling him to hold his tongue.
"Byleister, Helblindi, Dirnolek, it matters not. All three have insisted on the same thing. I'm not here to dictate any more to you than the three things I already have."
"You are correct, Gullveig. It matters not. The crime to which you refer was committed on Asgard. It was discussed among Asgard's royal council. And punishment was decided by Asgard's king. No other realm has any right to intervene. No other realm may dictate our actions, nor do we claim any right to dictate yours. This is foolishness, Gullveig, and it is beneath you."
"You continue to speak as though you only hear my voice. I assure you, when I speak you are hearing the voice of seven realms. The dark elves neglected only Midgard in their journeys, for they are too ignorant of us to offer an opinion. If you don't believe me, ask the others. They'll speak to you now. But you'll hear no different. We make three simple, reasonable demands, Odin. If you refuse, we will join together and take what we demand, and upon your defeat we will divide up all the treasures in your weapons vault among us so that your safety and continued existence depend upon us, and not the other way around. You have two weeks."
"Until…?"
"Until we consider you to have refused."
Odin stood, and Gullveig drew back from the table, startled at the sudden movement. "Turn back, Gullveig. I do not respond well to threats. If you pursue this course against your closest ally, you will be making the greatest mistake of your long and benevolent rule. And when this mistake lands at your throne, it will crush you."
/
/
"Father."
Odin drew to a halt and turned to Thor. They had escorted Gullveig back to the portal at the end of the colonnade – this time with a full complement of honor guards who were meant less to show honor to Vanaheim's king than to display Asgard's might – and were now approaching the palace. The honor guard also came to a halt at a respectful distance behind them, and the guards at the palace's towering golden doors also remained out of earshot.
"Did you hear the same thing I did?" They had walked back in silence, Thor still struggling to process Gullveig's accusations and demands and threats.
"What did you hear, Son?"
"I heard…" It was difficult even to say it out loud. "I heard King Gullveig of Vanaheim threaten attack and plunder by seven of the Nine Realms if we fail to give Loki and the Ice Casket to Jotunheim and the tesseract to Vanaheim." Difficult…but helpful. As soon as the words fell out of Thor's own mouth they became real.
"Then yes, I heard the same thing," Odin said, smiling faintly.
"It is…unthinkable."
"There is yet time to dissuade them."
Thor nodded confidently. He knew this would not come to pass, that it could not. The All-Father would make all the other realms see the imprudence of their attempts to dominate and sideline the Realm Eternal and ally against it. "How do you always know the right thing to say, Father?"
"Did you think I knew the right thing to say to Gullveig?"
"Yes," he answered after a brief hesitation, and that only from surprise. "You kept control over the situation. You refused to give ground on any of his outrageous demands, and you made eloquent arguments against every point he tried to make."
"And yet he left here with every bit of vanity, every misguided intention he came here with," Odin said, his face impassive, his bearing as solid as ever.
"Father…"
"You need to hear this, Thor. You need to begin preparing yourself if I am unsuccessful. Asgard's place among the realms has not been seriously in question since the early years of my reign. That place was secured once again by craftiness and through costly wars. Wars against factions, or single realms. Never against seven united realms."
Thor listened with unease so strong he felt it physically, a twisting in his gut. In some strange way he could not quite identify, his father suddenly seemed less. He longed for the fabled warrior, the wizened ruler, the patient diplomat, even the wrathful father who banished him, instead of this man before him, confessing uncertainty and fallibility. "But you just said there was time to-"
"Yes. There is time. Theirs is an irrational, foolhardy decision. I will be up all night considering the right thing to say to the leaders of seven realms to make them see their miscalculation."
Thor nodded, considering his father's words. "With your advisors?" he asked a moment later.
"No. I'll gather them, then ask them to each consider the situation themselves before we meet again tomorrow. I want to hear each idea presented before the stronger voices have a chance to drown out the weaker. I will retire and discuss this with Frigga."
He nodded again, with greater assurance this time. He had watched those weaker voices being drowned out in his own meetings with his father's advisors. This was the wizened ruler speaking again. "May I join you, Father?"
Odin rested a hand against Thor's shoulder. "You may."
/
To everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving Day yesterday...Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you had a wonderful day with family and friends and much to be thankful for.
Teasers for Chapter 23 (haven't yet had the time to title it!): Loki and Jane really start to get on each other's nerves; that one piece of equipment Loki noticed Jane didn't say much about might come in handy; Loki decides to tell Jane more about himself...in his own way; Thor might have another realm to visit.
And excerpt:
She was full of longing for something more than what she had, more than what she was, and Loki had the sudden foolish urge to give it to her, even though it would result in precisely the thing he'd just been trying to avoid – her learning who he really was. Thor must have spoken of magic to her, but Loki could show it to her. Let her decide for herself if it was science or something more. Assure her that science alone – her science alone – wouldn't have to be enough.
Your reviews as always are appreciated and mean a great deal to me.
And in response to 11/17 Guest, to your last question, will Jane ever figure out what Loki's been up to with her computer...she definitely will...but she'll figure some other things out first...
