Those of you reading this "real-time," uhhhh, yes, I wrote the next chapter (31, possibly titled "Precipice") in like two days, so you're getting a quick update. Can you tell I'm eager? A number of you have said in reviews that you can't wait until Jane finds out the truth? And my response is always a heartfelt "Me either!". A number of things are going to come to a head very soon...
Beneath
Chapter Thirty – Friends
"This has gone on long enough. It's time for you to tell me why you're really here."
Selby stared back at Jane. He blinked, his brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, but otherwise he didn't react.
Jane decided to wait him out. She didn't want to make this easy on him, or tell him exactly what she knew or how she knew it. She'd found him in the Science Lab just as Wright had said, and he was clearly surprised when she wanted to talk to him alone in the galley. Jane thought a public place would be best…just in case.
"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about," Selby said after the silence lingered for at least a full minute.
"Don't play dumb, Selby. You have to know that I know."
"I don't know what you know. What you think you know. I don't know what you're talking about."
"Did you really go to CalTech?" she asked, pointing to the gray sweatshirt with orange CalTech logo he was wearing.
"What?" he asked, glancing down at his shirt. When his head came back up his brow was heavily furrowed. "What are you…Jane, what's this about?"
"Just drop the act, okay? I know you're here to spy on me."
Selby's mouth fell open and stayed that way for a long moment. He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. "I…uh…I really don't even know what to say to that."
"Try the truth."
More staring, more silence. Jane had really expected him to come clean more easily than this.
"I'm here to work on the South Pole Telescope for the University of Chicago, Jane. There's nothing secret about it. I'm not here to spy on anybody. Does this have to do with…" – he paused and glanced around, lowering his voice when he continued – "is this about what I told you I knew about SHIELD?"
"You know exactly what it's about. Lucas and I don't keep things from each other. So can we please just…just stop playing games?"
Selby shook his head. "Lucas? What does…did he tell you about the rumors?"
"What rumors?" Jane asked suspiciously. Why won't he just admit it?!
"About us. About…about something going on between us. I didn't want you to have to hear about that," he said with a grimace.
"What are you…" Jane's voice trailed off. Wright had said he felt like he was back in high school. Does he think there's something between me and Selby? That's ridiculous. No…it doesn't matter. That's not what we're here for. "You're trying to confuse the issue. Look, I'm used to them constantly looking over my shoulder. I'm just not used to them lying about it. Although I guess I should be," she added, remembering the ruse that had sent her to the observatory outside Tromso. "So just tell me the truth."
"There's nothing to tell. I'm not here to…to spy on you, or whatever it is you're thinking. I'm just a post-doc, and I've never had any contact with SHIELD. I told you everything I knew about that. There's nothing more to it. Wait, is that why you requested Secret Agent Man? You think I'm some kind of secret agent? Jane, that's…that's really outlandish."
Jane continued to press, and Selby continued to deny. Jane soon gave up and walked off with a huff. She had tried. But if Selby wouldn't come clean, she couldn't "fix it," as Wright had put it. At least now she could give up all pretense of not knowing the truth.
/
/
Dr. Selby Higgins,
I must inform you that it has come to our attention that you have become privy to classified information for which you have not been approved, and that you have been leaking this classified information to others. As soon as aircraft are able to land safely at your location, we will dispatch a private flight to bring you in for consultations. We advise that you immediately cease contact with anyone you have been discussing classified information with, and that you make no long-term plans following your time at the South Pole. We look forward to meeting with you.
SHIELD Security Operations
Loki's finger rested over the mouse, the cursor over the "send" button. He wanted to press the finger down. No magic. No consequences. Just the same SHIELD e-mail account he'd set up back in Melfort to inform Jane of her new assistant. He wanted Selby out of the way. Selby was a distraction for Jane, and thus a barrier between him and his freedom. And Selby knew something, somehow. The message was vague enough, he hoped, to have the intended effect no matter what kind of connection to SHIELD Selby had.
Jane could be out there right now, desperate for friends, begging Selby's forgiveness, and telling him all about how Lucas had said he'd been surreptitiously asking about Jane and her work and SHIELD. Who would Jane believe, when Selby denied he'd done this? Loki hoped he'd done his job well enough that she would believe Lucas, but he'd learned Jane was no fool and would question his story. There was little more he could say or do to convince Jane. But there was much he could do to Selby, and he'd wanted to toy with that man almost from the first time he'd met him and seen his insecurities. He suspected Selby would never say a word to Jane again after receiving this e-mail.
But if he clicked "send," it would be a rash decision. He didn't know what Selby and Jane were talking about. He didn't know if they were becoming best friends and Jane was telling him all about Pathfinder. He didn't know if they were comparing notes on everything Lucas had told them and finding unsettling inconsistencies. He didn't know if they were simply sharing memories of their beloved CalTech or otherwise calling a truce with no unfortunate revelations at all. Rash decisions had gotten him into trouble. They were not normally his domain, but Thor's… Loki sighed and shook his head. A losing battle, indeed.
He saved the e-mail as a draft and logged out. He did not need to learn from anyone else's mistakes; he could learn from his own. He hurried back to his chambers to study the lithium jelly battery and "recover" for Jane's inevitable knock on his door. He wasn't sure what the Midgardian healer would find if she examined him, so it would be best if Jane did not make good on her threat to bring her to his room.
/
/
It was nearly 11:00 when Jane knocked on Lucas's door again. The response was not immediate, but much quicker than when she'd first knocked on his door this morning. She got a clearer "come in" than before, and found Lucas sitting up in bed, same black pajamas, but he looked much more like himself, much better than before.
"Feeling better?"
"Much."
"So, uh, you've been sleeping all this time, then? I hope I didn't wake you."
"I went for some tea earlier, then I dozed off for a while again."
"Oh," Jane said with a nod, relieved that it didn't sound like he'd been faking. Then she cringed. Because that kind of meant she was relieved he was sick. "You should have told me you wanted tea before. I could have gotten it for you," she said, sincerely but prompted by guilt.
He waved a hand to the side. "Not necessary. But thank you. Do the bathrooms gleam? I was heartbroken to miss out on the fun."
"Oh, really? I'm so glad you said that. I actually saved your half of the bathroom, so as soon as you're up and dressed you can get to work," she said with a raised eyebrow.
"I shall get on it at once." He clearly didn't believe her, but she hadn't been trying hard anyway.
"Okay, well…I want to go check my e-mail before I lose the window again, and then maybe we can have lunch a little early? 11:30? And then get to work."
Lucas agreed – Jane hadn't expected anything different. "Are you all right? You seem a little…unsettled, perhaps?" he then asked.
"I do?" Jane didn't think she'd given anything away, but she was upset. She nodded reluctantly. "I got into an argument with Selby," she said, sticking her left thumb over her shoulder toward Selby's room across the hall. "Not a huge deal, I guess…I just thought I could get him to admit what he's doing. I don't understand why he won't, when it's obvious I already know about it."
"Some people find the truth difficult to face," Lucas said from atop the raised bed.
"I guess so," Jane said, wondering if maybe Selby was embarrassed about his duplicity. In the end it really didn't matter, though. There was nothing more she could do about it. She excused herself and went back to her room to get in a little computer time.
She had several new e-mails, including good news from Young-Soo that he'd gotten the teaching job he applied for. She was relieved to see, in case SHIELD were monitoring her e-mail, that he remembered their previously agreed-upon code word for Asgard; she'd told him about all of that days after Thor's first departure, before SHIELD's edict not to ever discuss Asgard or, later, the tesseract.
She thought about sending an e-mail to someone in SHIELD, the cat's out of the bag, but there was really no point. Selby was probably sending the same e-mail right now. Jane shook her head and logged out of her e-mail. Keep your distance from Selby, keep secret what you need to keep secret, live your life, she told herself.
/
/
Loki was eager to go to lunch; he wasn't that hungry but an early lunch meant he and Jane could finally get out and get to work. All the realms, though – or at the very least the residents of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station – seemed to be conspiring against him, and he was losing patience. Jane was insisting they go to the DSL and work on her other data.
"I refuse. You've outlined the tasks we need to accomplish to be able to send something through Yggdrasil with a trans-"
"Shhhh!" Jane looked around the galley to make sure no one had overheard. "Yes, but I'm days behind my normal schedule to send in data and preliminary analysis. Almost a week now. And you said you would help."
"I changed my mind. We're so close, Jane. How can you set it aside to work on things that don't matter? If you're days behind now, what's a few more days?"
Jane stared back at him, her face slowly changing from the bright impassioned look she had when she argued to a harder version of that kicked-in-the-gut look that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He knew instantly what he'd said that had caused it, and wished he'd chosen his words more carefully. "I don't mean it doesn't matter. I mean it doesn't matter for our current purposes. For our immediate goal. What's wrong with letting it wait a little while longer?"
She was shaking her head; he could see her jaw working. She was mad. "I'm not having this argument with you anymore, Lucas. Seriously. You know, I was joking yesterday about being the lead researcher, but you seem to have forgotten, I actually am the lead researcher. At the end of the day this is my project, which means I'm in charge. You're here to assist, not to take control over everything, not to make all the decisions, and not to argue over every one of my decisions. Are we clear?"
He waited long enough to let her see his anger, to let her know what he thought about her being in charge of anything. "Perfectly." If you only knew who you were talking to, dear Jane Foster. I challenge you to speak those words again then.
"Okay. Then…let's finish lunch and get out to the DSL. The sooner we can put together a package of data from my other instruments to send off to SISI, the sooner we can work on replicating the transmitter." She maintained eye contact for a moment longer before looking down at her chicken and rice to continue her meal.
Loki continued staring. He knew what he'd shown her. He knew she'd been affected by it before. He'd made SHIELD warriors twitch with a single look. Am I no longer capable of frightening this frail mortal? Of anyone? Stark had called him "neutered," after the manacles had gone on. He'd been wrong, but it hadn't been in Loki's best interest then to prove it. What am I now, with these invisible shackles? Reduced to reading e-mails and arguing with a mortal and pretending to be sick as if I were a child?!
He took a deep breath that he tried to keep silent, and placed his hands under the table so that their trembling could not be seen. He had to remind himself again that losing his temper would do him no good. Jane was cooperating without coercion – without physical coercion, anyway. Not as single-mindedly as he would like anymore, but cooperating nonetheless. Even shackled, even "neutered," he'd accomplished that much, and because of it he would soon be free of this realm as well as his shackles.
Jane didn't understand. She couldn't understand. And he couldn't tell her any more that he already had to try to make her understand. It was safer for him if she didn't know who he was; it was probably safer for her as well.
Loki took his fork and forced himself to resume his meal. They finished eating in silence.
/
/
They spent the afternoon and into the evening working quickly and efficiently despite the tension, simply because they'd been working so closely together for so long that the habits for accomplishing the work remained in place even when the communication dropped to almost non-existent. Loki appreciated the efficiency except that it counted for nothing toward his objective, but the current atmosphere in the Dark Sector Lab grated on him in a thousand different ways. His jaw began to ache from how tightly he was holding it the whole time.
Jane's stomach growled, and even that annoyed him. When it happened a second time, he couldn't keep his silence. "Why don't you do something about that?" he asked testily.
"I will when we're finished here."
He glanced up at her just long enough to note she didn't lift her head from her computer when she responded. A few minutes later her stomach rumbled again; this time she did meet his eyes briefly, but he couldn't tell if she was still angry or annoyed or just warning him not to say anything again.
"Just go, Jane. If you hurry you can still make it to the galley before it closes. We're almost done. I'll finish up here."
"You don't have to-"
"I know I don't have to. But the lead researcher's empty stomach is interfering with my ability to concentrate. And I would like to finish this tonight."
Jane sat back and sighed, then rolled her chair around to directly face Lucas over the short filing cabinets that separated their workstations. "Lucas…." She waited until he turned to face her as well. "I apologize for pulling rank so hard on you back there. That's really not my style. You just… You have to recognize that we have responsibilities here besides Yggdrasil. Things that we're accountable for, or really that I'm accountable for and through me you are too, because somebody else paid for all this, and I signed paperwork saying what I'd be working on and what my deliverables were and… Can you just please tell me you understand that?"
Half of him shouted that her paperwork and her deliverables were irrelevant, that if she wanted she could go back to them all she liked after he made it to Svartalfheim. The other half of him – the more rational half that thankfully won out – shouted only one word, a reminder of the role he was playing: Lucas. "I understand it. But sometimes I dislike being reminded of it," he said. "I have my reasons, Jane," he added quietly, letting some of the layers fall away, letting the lines blur between Lucas and Loki again. He wasn't even certain if he'd done it intentionally or not; it had just slipped out.
"I get that. Really, I do. And I can kind of relate. I know what it's like to have something to prove. We'll get there. What we've discovered already is…it really is nothing short of revolutionary, Lucas. And I couldn't have done it without you. You were the one who first came up with the idea that we were looking at some kind of ancient pre-existing wormhole. We're already so much closer to the possibility of wormhole travel now than I thought we would be even by the time we left here. A few days' delay here and there so that we can fulfill our other responsibilities really doesn't cost us anything. And…honestly, I kind of worry about you. I worry that you'll do something rash."
Loki cleared his suddenly dry throat. Sometimes it really did seem almost like she could read his mind – it was unsettling. "How about this? I promise not to do anything rash tonight while you have dinner."
Jane agreed and started shutting down her computer. "You can send the data package to SISI in the morning," she said as she gathered up her sweater and her backpack.
Loki froze, for just a fraction of a second. "It's best if you continue to send it, Jane. You are the lead researcher, after all."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine, I'll send it. Make sure you get some supper."
Loki nodded but didn't look up. He listened for the rustling sounds of her getting into her gear, then the door as it opened and closed behind her. And then he finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. Relief that she hadn't tried to insist he send an e-mail to a group of people who'd never heard of Lucas Cane, relief that the thicker-than-usual tension seemed to have largely dissipated, relief that she was gone and he could finish this pointless work and shift his attention back where it needed to be.
/
/
At a little past 8:00 Loki left the Dark Sector Lab, his black satchel with his mother's means of escape and his own – the battery he kept with him to study every chance he got – slung over his head and under one arm as always. He no longer wore the goggles, since they were intended to protect against the intense solar radiation here and not the cold, and as a result his vision was much clearer, unobstructed by fogging. He paused for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, just taking in the view. The only word that came to mind to describe it was eerie. The Dark Sector was beginning to earn its name. It was not completely dark yet, but red floodlights at the station and active outbuildings, including the DSL, had already been turned on for additional light. They used red light, he'd learned, because it interfered the least with light-sensitive scientific equipment, such as one of the lens filters Jane planned to set up the next day for her friend in Australia. He'd somehow forced himself not to react to news of that impending further delay.
There was something about the look of the place, now that the red lights had gone on. The twilight, the endless ice, the red lights…a shiver went up his spine. Red lights. Red eyes. Fiendish red eyes with small soulless pupils. His stomach churned. He remembered the last time he'd looked into eyes like that, right before he'd dealt a killing blow to the creature who'd spawned him. But how many times since had he seen eyes like that in his dreams…
Midgard. Not Jotunheim, he told himself harshly as he swallowed down bile and hatred.
The shiver returned and grew into a shudder. Standing still out here was probably not a good idea; he started off toward the red lights of the station. According to the station's intranet site, which he'd checked before shutting down at the DSL, it was -65 degrees, with a wind chill of -89. His balaclava had already turned crunchy with ice formed from his breath. And it would only get worse. He skin wasn't truly cold – the Extreme Cold Weather gear was highly effective and he could hardly believe he'd once gone without it – but something much deeper was very cold indeed. He couldn't fathom why anyone would actually want to live here. He would take any of the places he'd seen elsewhere in Midgard over this.
Loki wasn't sure he could take food at the moment, and it would be nothing but microwaved leftovers at this point anyway, but he decided he'd get that cup of tea he'd intended to get in the morning. He got up the stairs and inside, discarding layers at the door down to the Carhartt overalls which he left on, since he had "bold choice" seersucker slacks on underneath them. Jane could say what she liked; they were comfortable and looked good, even if no one saw them but him.
He didn't expect anyone to be in the galley other than perhaps a few stragglers like himself, but when he rounded the corner he found a small crowd of about ten somber-looking people, including Jane, gathered over by the coffee machine and the hot water dispenser he'd need for his tea. He hesitated; Jane noticed him there at the edge of the room and came over to speak to him.
"What's going on?"
"Gary just got a sat phone call-"
"Gary the machinist?"
"Right. He just found out his dad had a heart attack, and it looks pretty bad. They're not sure he's going to make it. We're going to give up our bandwidth tomorrow so he can make a video call home during the next satellite pass. Oh, I guess that means we could've waited another day to prepare that data to send back to SISI after all. We won't be able to send it tomorrow. It takes up way too much bandwidth."
"Oh…well, it's all ready for you to send anyway, as soon as you're able," Loki said, his gaze still drawn to the little knot of people. He could tell who Gary was now, the one who was clearly the center of attention. He could only see a little of him, in profile, but he was a largish middle-aged man, in Midgardian terms, with graying hair and a bushy mustache. Loki had seen him around, but hadn't known his name or job. He understood why everyone looked so full of sympathy for the man. He would probably want to be with his family, to see his father, but just as there was no longer a way into the South Pole, there was no longer a way out of it, either. If Gary's father were to die, it would be without seeing his son in person again.
"Are you okay?" Jane asked.
Loki looked down at her, surprised. "Yes, of course."
"It's just…you looked kind of upset. I figured you were thinking about your father."
He blinked heavily as his gaze fell further downward. He hadn't been thinking of his father, not really. Perhaps in some abstract sense. He wasn't even sure who he was supposed to think of when he thought of "father." The word still reflexively called to mind a stern image of Odin, but sometimes behind it came a repulsive image of Laufey. He had experienced a "father's" uncertain health and a "father's" death all at the same time, and he'd been the cause of both, if only one intentionally.
Jane was still waiting, staring up at him expectantly. He had to say something to explain whatever feelings – betrayals – had exposed themselves on his face that she had seen. "My father fell ill once," he said, settling on something essentially true, as usual. He vividly remembered sitting at Odin's bedside in the chamber set aside for the Odinsleep, watched over by the ravens Hugin and Munin day and night. Hoping he would wake. Hoping he would not. Consumed by countless other thoughts, all similarly in conflict with one another, struggling to make sense out of them. Until Gungnir was placed in his hands, and suddenly everything made sense.
"You still love him, don't you?"
Loki's eyes snapped sharply back to hers. He looked for – and for a split second thought he found – taunts or pleading or derision or pandering, but none of that was really there. There was no guile in her expression, none in her tone. His mouth opened and he didn't know what was going to come out of it until it did. "I love…I love a child's memory." He sucked in a quick breath through his nose afterward and quickly averted his gaze; it fell on the crowd offering Gary its sympathies or encouragements or whatever other expressions of sentiment. If he had thought about it in advance, he wouldn't have said that. He wasn't sure if it was true, or even precisely what it meant. Of course he had loved Odin as a child. He'd been ignorant and gullible and naïve…he'd been a child. He had believed. He had trusted. He had loved. He felt his throat tightening and swallowed hard.
"Hey, you came here to get something to eat, right? We had salmon in a teriyaki sauce tonight, it was pretty good."
Loki looked back at her again, wondering how she knew not to ask. He wouldn't have answered any more questions. He didn't have any more answers, even were he inclined to answer more questions. Her face was entirely open, hiding nothing. Gentle and smooth where he felt rough and ragged and like he would shatter her at the slightest touch. His face hid everything. And nothing at the same time, for once.
He cleared his throat. This had to stop. He was on the side of a mountain rapidly losing his footing and he could not afford to fall. There was too much – too much – inside him coiled and churning and dangerous. "I…" He cleared his throat again. It had gone so dry. "I only wanted a cup of tea, actually. It doesn't matter. I don't-"
"I'll get it. I'll get us both a cup. Stay, okay? Stay and sit with me for a while."
"Jane-"
"Please?"
He sighed. He wanted to exit this room for the privacy of his own, but he needed to stay on good terms with Jane. He had worked to keep her attention solely on him, so that he could shape his key as needed, and after a period of wandering she was focused on him again, at least for now, if not precisely in the way he would have chosen. He relented. He could accept this. But he couldn't let her go on dredging up ancient memories and childish emotions.
Jane got the hot water, tea bags, and packets of sugar and fake sugar – which he detested but she preferred – and made her way over to the table he'd taken a seat at. Gary and his group of supporters were dispersing.
They sat there sipping from steaming mugs, Jane a decaffeinated cinnamon-scented blend and Loki caffeinated black tea, since caffeine only affected him in very large doses. Neither spoke for a couple of minutes, and Loki used the silence to refocus his thoughts onto the same thing he always did – escaping this realm and ridding himself of Odin's curses.
"You know, he's your father, Lucas. Even if he did terrible things…it's only natural that you still love him, in some way. There's no shame in that."
Loki swallowed tea that no longer scalded and kept himself from reacting visibly. She was right, and she was wrong. The word "shame" echoed in his mind. It was little different from guilt. So she was right there. He had no need of shame or of guilt, not any longer. But she was wrong in thinking that he still loved his "father." He loved no one, except his mother, and even that was no longer the thing of blind innocence it once had been. "I don't wish to speak of it anymore, Jane," he finally said.
"Okay," she said with an easy nod. "If you ever do want to talk about it…I can be a good listener."
They fell into silence again, and Loki found himself wondering if Jane had thought about her own family when she learned what happened to Gary. He supposed it was a natural reflex, albeit one he hoped to be able to break. "Do you think of your parents often?" he asked after another moment passed.
She looked surprised, but he wasn't sure why – it was just a question. "Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, I do. I guess…it depends on what's going on, but something makes me think of one or both of them almost every day."
Almost every day. And they'd been gone for about half her life. If he extrapolated the ratio instead of the absolute number of years into his own life, it would be at least another millennium for him. It felt like a third curse. "Do you ever wish you could forget?"
"Forget what exactly?"
"Never mind," he said swiftly. He never should have said that. He was supposed to be turning the conversation toward her, not right back on himself. She was having some kind of effect on him, almost like magic, her own form of manipulation. He told himself to stop talking about himself, to stop saying things to her he wasn't sure he could say aloud to himself in an empty room.
She let the silence hang, but if she was waiting for him to say anything more on the subject she would be spending the night in the galley.
"Lucas…will you let me contact your mother for you?"
His eyes went wide for a moment before he regained control of himself. He was quite certain he would have choked had he been in the middle of eating.
"Not from here, obviously, I mean I guess it could be traced back to you, but after we leave. She must be so worried about you. I could just write to her, or call her, whatever, and tell her you're fine, that you're doing important work that you love."
"No."
"She doesn't even know if you're dead or alive. Just let me tell her you're alive and well. Please, let me do this for you. For her. I won't say anything about your new name, or where you go to school, or-"
"No," he repeated, more sharply this time. He expected to be angry. He wanted to be angry. But it wasn't there. She was looking up at him with soft brown eyes, earnest and open and kind. The anger wouldn't come, and he couldn't understand it. Couldn't understand why she would want to do such a thing for him in the first place. It wasn't as though he'd ever done anything for her, other than perhaps say a few complimentary words about her work, and those words hadn't exactly sprung from sincere, heartfelt compassion. "You are incapable of sincerity," Thor had said. Perhaps he was right after all.
"Jane…no. You can't. But I…it's kind of you to offer." And I don't deserve it. Not after everything I've done to you.
She looked inexplicably heartbroken, and it was maddening. Why should you care? It isn't your family, for which you should be grateful. There is nothing between us, nothing to make you care, beyond a little sympathy. Not love, not family, not…
"What?" Jane asked.
Loki realized he'd been fixing her with a rather inquisitive open stare. "Nothing."
"No, what? Tell me."
Loki considered it. It wouldn't do any harm. It might even help. "I was just thinking…are we friends?"
She looked stunned and immediately tried to mask her reaction; he felt like a simpleton and did the same. "Well…" she began. "I guess I kind of got the impression that you don't…that you don't really let people be friends with you. But I'd like to be your friend, Lucas."
His eyes flickered down to his empty teacup. That wasn't at all the answer he'd expected. He'd thought perhaps an "of course we are," or an "it's best if we maintain a strictly professional relationship," either of which he could have nodded and smiled and agreed to. Instead she had maneuvered him into choosing, and it both angered and impressed him; he couldn't have played it better himself.
She would be his friend if he wanted her to be. If he would let her be. And even if he didn't, even if he wouldn't, she wanted to contact his mother and assure her of his well-being, for no reason other than simple concern for a co-worker. She had seen glimpses of pain and she wanted to ease it, while seeking nothing in return.
And suddenly he knew. He knew what Thor saw in her. More importantly, he knew exactly what she had done to Thor. He had already acknowledged a certain respect for her work ethic and her aspirations toward greater knowledge – these were not likely the things that drew Thor to her, he thought. But he had watched how she danced, and although it was all rather silly and undignified, there was something beautiful in the silliness, in the way she smiled and threw her head back and closed her eyes as though she hadn't a care in the world. And now there was her kindness toward someone who hadn't been terribly kind to her – if only she knew just how unkind! – her desire to mend a broken relationship. He'd thought long ago that perhaps she was the type who liked to fix broken things. He'd been right. She'd taken her smoothness and worn away the edges of Thor's roughness, turning him soft and filling him with misguided sentiment. And now she was doing that to him.
He couldn't let that happen.
If you really knew me, you wouldn't want to be my friend anyway.
Loki glanced up at the television screen hanging above Jane's head. It was past 9:00. "It's getting late. I'm going to turn in," he said with a perfunctory smile. He stood up with his tea cup and left without a backward glance.
/
/
Jane stared after Lucas as he disappeared around the corner, feeling like she'd just made a major misstep.
She didn't always understand Lucas. She didn't even always like Lucas. But she knew she'd said the wrong thing. She shouldn't have tried to make a point. She should have just said yes.
/
Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing!
Teasers from Chapter 31 (possibly titled "Precipice"): With just three days remaining before King Gullveig's two-week deadline elapses, all of Asgard is busy with preparations, and Thor isn't sure he can get away to hear Tony's update; Frigga reflects on her sons and wonders if there's something she can do to help Loki; Loki watches a movie and probably wishes he hadn't whipped out that Melfort Mustangs baseball cap.
And excerpt:
[Loki] left "Club Med," as the Midgardians apparently called their healing rooms, at around 10:00 in the morning. It was his first trip to this room, right next to the galley, and if he didn't make it off Midgard soon he'd be back to it next week strapped down to a spine board. If he needed any further motivation that would do it; he had a strong aversion to being strapped down to anything. He hadn't realized all that he was agreeing to when Jane had volunteered him to play one of the victims.
