Thanks for celebrating 50 chapters with me! We're sort of on the cusp of the final phase now. It was lovely to hear from so many of you, long-time readers and new readers alike. Wanted to share a quick word with "liz04" and other potentially nervous non-native English speakers - I used to teach ESL and have foreign language experience myself, so please don't ever feel bad about imperfect English. If you have actually read this far in this story...your English is pretty darn good, my friend. It's up to you if want to review or not, but please don't let language concerns stop you. Big smiles to liz and to you all! And now...onward!

/


Beneath

Chapter Fifty-One – Determination

Frigga strode toward the Feasting Hall. She had no idea what to expect. Jolgeir had simply said that Loki told him they should speak with a palace servant named Vigdis.

An Einherjar had been tasked with identifying her – which had been easily and quickly done – and ensuring she waited alone in the Feasting Hall because someone wished to meet her. When the Einherjar informed the queen that Vigdis worked mostly in the kitchen and served at the high table, and had just been there begging for her job back after being dismissed the day before for spilling mead on Thor, Frigga instantly recalled the young woman with the long wavy light red hair. Thor had gone to apologize to her afterward. He'd been too late to stop her dismissal, apparently.

When she entered, Vigdis was standing rigidly beside the high table, near its center, in a pale yellow gown of straight, simple cut. Frigga sized her up quickly. She was young. Perhaps not even quite of age; the rules on such things were relaxed in wartime. Her hands, clasped together in front of her, were trembling slightly. She was afraid.

When Vigdis saw who was approaching, her eyes grew wide, then promptly fixed on her feet and bowed. Frigga ignored her and went directly to the chair no one dared sit in: Odin's chair. Frigga couldn't see the girl's face, but she could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

"You are Vigdis Aurikdottir?" Frigga asked in a tone that said she would not tolerate any lack of cooperation.

"I am, Your Majesty," the girl said, so softly her voice barely reached the end of the table.

Frigga watched her carefully. She had come prepared to be firm. Ruthless, even, should the woman not wish to reveal whatever it was she knew. It was not her nature, but it was a role she'd learned to play effectively when needed. "Come to me," she said, her voice silk over steel.

Vigdis kept her eyes down as she shuffled reluctantly toward her queen.

"Closer," Frigga urged, until the girl stood just a couple of feet from her chair. "Vigdis," Frigga began, noting the girl's utter timidity and quickly slipping into a more familiar role, that of a mother. "We both know there's something you need to tell me, my child."

Vigdis's blue eyes snapped up to meet Frigga's, as Frigga smiled gently. In a flurry of movement that saw the four Einherjar in the room racing forward with swords drawn, Vigdis threw herself at Frigga's feet, grasping and kissing them in between sobs and breathless muffled hysterical pleas for forgiveness.

Frigga lifted her hand to stop the guards, but they lingered close by rather than return to their earlier positions. Who is this girl?

/


/

Bragi, Odin's chief diplomatic advisor, renowned poet, and an aging veteran of both the Ice War and the Vanir-Aesir War who himself no longer fought, stood off to Frigga's left, while Vigdis sat relatively composed at the table reserved for the royal family, close friends and advisors, and important guests. Vigdis – who'd only achieved "relatively composed" following five minutes of crying at Frigga's feet that ended after Frigga finally allowed an Einherjar to pull her up, a pitiful and poorly considered attempt to flee, and a brief fainting spell that Frigga had initially believed was faked – had dissolved into sobs and prostrated herself on the floor again upon being told to sit at a table she'd only ever delivered food and drink to and cleaned.

Frigga glanced at Bragi; his face was red with anger and impatience. He'd softened over the years, tempered by the necessities of his position and by gaining three grandchildren in the last two centuries, but he'd already quietly suggested that they have the servant flogged to get her to talk. It was an accepted form of punishment for severe transgressions, but this girl's transgressions – and her behavior suggested there were serious ones – were not yet known. Besides, Vigdis appeared to be on the edge of a mental breakdown, and Frigga feared any harsh treatment would send her tumbling over, perhaps at the cost of forever losing whatever it was she knew about the alliance against Asgard.

"How old are you, Vigdis?" the queen asked.

"Nineteen," she answered, her voice rough from crying and devoid of everything but despair.

Frigga glanced over at Bragi and raised an eyebrow. He nodded; there would no further calls for flogging.

"Your parents are both dead. You live with your grandmother, yes?" The Einherjar who had identified Vigdis had learned this information and informed her.

Vigdis nodded, her eyes wide and fearful.

"Tell me everything, Vigdis. From the beginning. If you leave anything out, I'll know," she said, her voice gentle yet conveying her insistence on the full truth. All sorts of rumors of her "special sight" roamed the realms – she could see the future, she could see into souls, she could read minds, she could discern truth from falsehood. None of it was true – Loki, she suspected, had deceived her far more often than she ever knew – but Frigga was not above taking advantage of such rumors when it suited her purpose.

It took a long while for the beginning to come out in any coherent form, but once it did – she'd met a man who promised to cure her from an affliction – the story continued with minimal coaxing required.

"What man?" Frigga asked.

"A man…from Svartalfheim."

"His name, Vigdis. Now," Bragi put in angrily.

It took several more minutes before she could speak sense again; Frigga in the meantime flashed Bragi a warning look.

"Brokk," the girl said, flinching as she spoke it aloud. "I don't know his full name. He's a master of magic. He made me better, for a while."

Frigga swallowed hard, no more questions forthcoming at the moment. She knew exactly who Brokk of Svartalfheim was: that mean-spirited friend of Loki's whom Odin had forbidden him to see because he was such a bad influence. If he'd become so powerful as to be termed a "master of magic," she'd been unaware of it. She hadn't seen him in centuries, not since Odin had also banned him from Asgard.

"And what is this affliction he cured you of, for a time?" she finally asked.

"I don't know the name for it, Your Majesty. Our own healers could do nothing. I have terrible dreams. They seem so real, and when I have them, I believe they are real. They don't let me sleep. When I wake up, it's like I never slept at all, and it was happening night after night. I was failing in my studies. I couldn't stay awake. I couldn't think properly. I was jumping at shadows. I thought I was losing my mind. And he came to me, and he said he could fix everything," she said, wide-eyed again by the end.

"Send for Eir," Frigga instructed the nearest Einherjar, who saluted and obeyed. "So Brokk helped you, for a while. Tell me what he asked from you in return." She was skipping over details – how and where did she meet Brokk, and when did this affliction and the meetings begin – but others could fill in those gaps. Frigga wanted to get straight to the heart of the matter. Besides, she was fairly certain Brokk had "cured" what he himself had caused, though she'd never heard of him having the ability to invade dreams – a frightful ability indeed.

"He told me I should leave my studies and take a position serving in the Feasting Hall, that there would be openings because a terrible war was on the horizon. And…"

"Continue," Frigga said, motioning with her hand.

"He said he was a friend of the prince. Prince Loki. And they were trying to stop the war in secret. He said all I had to do was report what was said at this table," Vigdis said, pressing her palms flat against it.

Frigga nodded, trying to concentrate on Vigdis's tale through her sudden distraction, trying to think back over what had been said at this table.

"And then there was the explosion. I told him I couldn't meet him anymore. In the beginning, I told him I could get a position in the throne room itself, and he told me not to! When the throne room exploded, I knew! I knew he was lying! And I told him I wouldn't meet him anymore. I'm a loyal Aesir, Your Majesty, I swear it! He threatened me. He told me I'd be branded a traitor, even executed. But I'm not a traitor, I'm not! I didn't tell anyone, because I was afraid, and then the dreams started again, and Brokk found me at the market, and he said I could be tried for treason, or driven mad by my affliction, or I could keep reporting what was said at the table. And I…I'm a coward, Your Majesty, I'm such a coward…"

Vigdis continued sobbing, pleading for understanding, but Frigga tuned her out. Part of her sympathized with this naïve young girl; part of her believed she'd been willfully naïve and held her in disdain. There would be time later for consideration of her crimes and whatever factors may mitigate them, and for determining exactly what she'd told Brokk. For now, one question burned on Frigga's mind. But she wasn't sure how to ask it. It wasn't a question, really. It was a word – a word with a thousand questions swimming around it in a murky soup of fear and dread and worry and love.

Loki.

"Did you ever meet with anyone other than Brokk about this?"

Vigdis shook her head, her face a red wet mess.

"What else did Brokk say about Prince Loki?"

She wiped at her nose and looked up in clear confusion. "Nothing else. Only that they were friends and were secretly working together."

"But you never saw him."

"No, Your Majesty." Vigdis's eyes then went wide. "Oh, no, Your Majesty! He was lying. I'm sure Prince Loki has nothing to do with whatever Brokk is doing."

"Of course he does't," Frigga said sharply, causing Vigdis to cringe and bury her face in her hands. She didn't need to turn. She knew what the expression on Bragi's face would be. He, too, knew of Loki's past association with Brokk. She didn't want to see that expression. She straightened her spine, smoothed her face to betray no emotion, and waited.

"My queen…?" Eir asked tentatively when she arrived, startling Frigga. Her beige robes were stained red and her graying hair only partially remained in its typical coils pinned up to her head.

"See to this girl. Take her to the Healing Room, the private wing. Then lock her in a cell until we're ready to question her further."

"Your Majesty, if I may?" one of the Einherjar spoke up, continuing only when Frigga nodded. "The cells all hold warriors from the other realms. It's no place for a woman. Unless we put her with the female Fire Giants."

Frigga ignored Vigdis's look of sudden panic. "Fine. Keep her in the Healing Room, then, but under guard."

The guard nodded, Eir sat down beside Vigdis, and Frigga put a hand up to stop whatever it was Bragi had started to say. She walked to the far end of the Feasting Hall, where it opened up onto a balcony overlooking the beauty of Asgard. Night had fallen, and the smoke to the west was no longer visible, but a faint flickering light in the distance told her fire still raged. She knew that was where Thor would be, using Mjolnir to try to bring down enough rain to stop the flames from destroying its largest forest and spreading to Asgardian homes.

She looked to the east, where beyond her view Svartalfheim attacked with perhaps a thousand warriors. No one had time to stop and count them. She knew that was where Odin would be, leading the defense, turning it to attack, wielding Gungnir for Asgard's protection as he had for millennia. He was not young anymore. Such efforts would tire him, and tire him beyond what a good night's sleep would resolve.

She stared straight out to the south. Toward the wooden observatory and the remains of the bridge. She knew that was where Loki had been. Trying to steal the tesseract. To what end she did not know, but it was hard to imagine a scenario in which he was doing it for Asgard's security. He'd nearly killed two Einherjar in his attempt. And two Einherjar swords had come away stained with his blood, one of them shorn cleanly in half.

Frigga felt the tightening in her throat, the drawing together of her brow, and she took a deep steadying breath. She would not cry. Not when she bore this level of responsibility. She pressed a hand to her stomach, for she felt sick. The Einherjar had never seen who had set off the silent alarm inside the observatory, who had fought a brief and bizarre battle with them, hovering with feet at the level of their chests, then popping out of existence in a burst of light. They suspected the Dark Elves, two of them, in fact. But Frigga knew who had fallen for the trap the instant Huskol began his report.

You will not cry, she ordered herself.

She looked to the east again, where Odin fought. Surely they were beating back the Dark Elves by now. She wanted Odin back here. She didn't want to bear this burden alone.

/


/

"Look!" Sif shouted, then wrenched her sword from the body of the Svartalf she'd just been fighting. She stumbled backward with the momentum, bumping into Fandral, who was too busy concentrating on the Dark Elf coming straight at him on horseback to do any other looking.

He stared open-mouthed, sword sheathed, at the long curved sword bearing down him, as though frozen in terror. Sif shook her head and took a moment to watch, catching her breath. Two days of fighting and he still puts on a show.

As the Dark Elf swung his sword in a well-practiced move intended to separate the enemy's head from his neck, Fandral dropped to the dirt into a roll, lifting his sword at just the right moment in a well-practiced move to separate the enemy's arm from his body. Unbalanced with the loss of both his arm and the incredibly heavy scimitar the Svartalf cavalry used, he pitched over the side of his steed and hit the ground hard. Sif finished him before Fandral was fully righted.

"You're going to get yourself killed like that," she said, rounding on Fandral and shoving hard at his shoulder. "This isn't the training grounds. You don't win points for style."

Fandral laughed giddily, and Sif recognized the reaction, the strange disconnect from gritty, brutal reality; she'd gone through such a stage herself in the afternoon. "Calm down, Sif. Let your hair down, so to speak. This is the end, we're allowed to have a little fun. In fact, I think the Aesir training manual says it's required."

Sif pushed an angry breath out her nose and looked around. The enemy's numbers were thinning, else they wouldn't be able to stop and discuss it. The All-Father astride Sleipnir with Gungnir in hand had certainly made a difference; the Svartalf cavalry was ferocious. "Maybe they're retreating," she said, pointing off to where she'd seen a few crackles in the air. The initial portal that the Dark Elf army had come through had closed on its own after several hours, and another one was now beginning to take shape in almost the same spot.

"They must be retreating," Volstagg said, lumbering over, breathing heavily, his right hand tucked under his left arm, his double-bladed battle ax in his left hand instead of the usual right. "It's about time. I haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday, and I've missed the little ones' bedtimes two nights in a row."

Sif nodded while trying to get a better look at Volstagg's hidden hand; Fandral's attempt at a clever retort was cut off by the sudden approach of four Dark Elves on horseback, reminding them all that they were here to fight, not talk. A moment to catch their breaths and take stock of each other, however, was refreshing, and Sif molded her body into a battle stance again.

Once four more Dark Elves were dispatched, Sif's eyes again sought out the place where the portal had begun to develop. It was fully formed now, and silvery light raced across it like fire over oil and bathed the battlefield in its brilliance. Sif thrust her sword and shield into the air, ready to cry out in victory. She, Volstagg, and Fandral stood waiting, catching their breath again. There was no need to pursue the remaining Dark Elves; they would soon be fleeing for their own realm.

The silver light retreated to the edges of the portal.

And Dark Elves emerged from it with their own battle cries.

Sif's sword and shield slowly lowered, along with her jaw.

"Form up again! Attack!" Volstagg shouted, rushing forward with a speed that belied his size.

She glanced at Fandral, who in turn glanced at her, all traces of frivolity evaporated, and the two of them fell into place behind Volstagg, joining with the rapidly reforming lines of the Aesir, surging forward to bottle up the Svartalf reinforcements before they could fill the grounds again.

/


/

Jane sat at her desk, staring blankly at her laptop and the lack of new e-mails. It was 6:00, and she'd already been up for an hour. Outside her narrow cardboard-covered window, only a tiny bit of refracted sunlight made it over the horizon, the sun itself long gone, whether it was 5:00 or 6:00, noon or midnight. She'd only managed a few hours of sleep, unable to stop thinking about Loki, and what had happened to him, and what was going on in Asgard, and why he'd come back here. "None of your concern." She couldn't imagine now why she'd accepted that as a valid answer yesterday afternoon. It might have had something to do with that nauseating wound on his shoulder, or all of that blood dripping down his-

Deep breath. The twisting in her stomach passed.

She needed answers. She deserved answers. She had a legitimate reason to fear for her safety with Loki here. She didn't fully understand the whole enchantment thing; maybe it was what had kept her and everyone else here alive all this time. But it hadn't stopped him from strangling her, and if she understood correctly, according to him, in a sense it had caused him to squeeze harder and harder on her throat because he'd misunderstood the enchantment's warning. Regardless, she wasn't ready to put near-strangulation in the "let bygones be bygones, we all have bad days" category.

She wanted to know about Thor, too. If he was still king. If he had a First Officer at his side telling him he wasn't allowed to go on the away missions because he was king. And of course that was Star Trek, but…why not? If they were really fighting it out with someone, though, it was hard for her to imagine that Thor wouldn't overrule his Asgardian First Officer and be right there in the thick of the fight.

And then there was Loki himself, and the condition he'd come back in. He'd seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing, as though discovering you have a broken-off blade sticking out of your back was less a concern then stubbing your toe. He may have been entirely blasé about the whole thing – he seemed more upset about his sliced open boot than anything else – but Jane was wracked with guilt. Loki deserved punishment for what he did…but there was punishment and then there was bleeding out right in front of her from half a dozen wounds. Wounds that she might be responsible for him getting.

So she sat, doing nothing, staring at the laptop, with her door open. Waiting for Loki to get up for breakfast and walk by. She hadn't seen him when she'd come back to the station, or at dinner, or after dinner, when she'd stuck to her original plans and gone out for a mini-celebration at the DSL. She assumed he was in his room, but she wasn't quite ready to go banging on his door. And for all she knew he had one of those magic sound dampener things up anyway and wouldn't hear her knock.

Her computer beeped and Jane jumped. She looked at the screen. It was an incoming VOIP call, from Erik. It was just after 7:00. Jane bit her bottom lip. She could ignore the call. If she answered it she was going to have to lie, or at the very least, not mention some very big truths. Or…she could actually tell the truth. That Loki was two doors down. That he'd just gone to Asgard and come back with a bunch of stab wounds and somebody else's blood on his face. She nodded to herself. You can do this, Jane. She couldn't not take his call. At least it was voice only, no video.

She pressed "Accept Call." "Hi, Erik!" she said with forced cheer, keeping her voice low because her door was still open. "It's so good to hear from you."

"Thank God, Jane, I'm so glad you answered. I sent you a couple of e-mails and when I didn't hear back…"

Jane grimaced. She could hear the relief in his voice. "I'm so sorry. We've had some…problems with the internet service here lately. You know, there's only so much bandwidth, and science gets priority."

"Oh, sure, I understand. It's just…I worry. And it's not like you've never given me reason to."

"I know," she said with a laugh, and it wasn't even all that hard. As much as she'd been afraid to talk to Erik, hearing his gruff-but-soft lightly-accented voice coming out of her computer speakers right here in her room was almost as good as getting a hug. "So how about you, is everything okay?"

"Of course it is. I called to check on you. Wanted to make sure no one forgot to pay the heating bill."

Jane laughed again. "We pay it early, just in case. The mailman doesn't make it out here too often."

"So how's your work been coming along?" Erik asked, after a chuckle.

"Oh, well…" Her work…since Loki left it had been mostly staring blankly at nothing and running more and more of the data the probe gathered during its roundtrip journey to Asgard through various data analysis programs. "Nothing too exciting," she said, certain her voice screamed liar, liar, pants on fire. "The SPT team thinks they've found another galaxy cluster. We were just celebrating it last night."

Jane was grateful for that galaxy cluster, and the additional time she'd spent last night looking over the supporting data during the party. It gave her something neutral to talk about that was of mutual interest; for several minutes Erik asked questions and Jane answered them.

"All right, well, I know you've got to get to work, but don't get discouraged, Jane. I know you're going to find the answers you're looking for, especially now that you've got all that fancy equipment and the perfect atmosphere to use it in. And I'm so proud of you. For never giving up, for standing up for what you believe in, for your courage…well. I don't mean to go on. I just…like I said, I was worried."

"I know. I'll do a better job staying in touch. And you, you take care of yourself. A frozen meal and a beer is not supper," Jane said, relaxing back into familiar ground after the guilt trip Erik had unwittingly started to send her on.

"Yes, ma'am. And a double espresso isn't breakfast."

Jane rolled her eyes and laughed, wishing she could have that hug for real. They said their goodbyes and that was that. She'd just successfully committed the biggest lie of omission she'd ever made in her entire life, with the most important person in her life.

All because of Loki. Loki, who'd blocked her incoming and outgoing e-mail and made Erik worry about her, when Erik had enough to deal with himself…because of what Loki did to him.

Lips pressed into a thin line and expression stony, Jane stood up without making a conscious decision to do so. It was now 7:22, and Loki still hadn't come to her door or walked past it – she'd continued to keep an eye out during her talk with Erik. He never slept that late. If he was going to hide out in his room, she wasn't going to wait around all day for him to finally stick his head out of the door. She was going to talk to him now.

She steeled herself for the confrontation, then marched down to his door and knocked. When she knocked a second time and still got no answer, she figured he did indeed probably have his sound dampener up. She went back to her room, grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, and scribbled out, "I need to talk to you. Now." She hesitated over the "now," and thought about re-writing it with a "please" or something instead…but quickly rejected the idea. She wanted him to know she was serious.

Jane went back to his door and pushed the note under it. She waited long enough to begin feeling awkward standing out here in the hallway. She wondered if he was in there at all. He'd said he was going to heal the cut on his leg in his room, but maybe he'd left again sometime in the night.

There was only one way to find out. Jane pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Her eyes first fell on the open suitcase on the floor, in front of the armoire, a few items of clothing – all leather, as far as she could tell – in disarray inside it and spilling over onto the opened top piece. The two times she'd been inside his room before, she'd never seen anything in disarray…or array. She'd never seen any personal belongings, period.

As her gaze rose from the floor, she gave a small gasp at the realization that there was a large lump on the bed underneath the dark green comforter. When she'd first walked in and hadn't immediately seen him, she'd assumed he wasn't there. Her first thought when she realized he was was to get out, immediately. She'd been furious with him when he'd walked in on her sleeping. She didn't want to see him furious again. But then she realized he hadn't heard her come in. And maybe the sounds of the door, still open behind her, had been dampened, but…he wasn't moving. She couldn't tell if he was breathing. She couldn't actually see him at all, only a lump under the covers.

She closed the door and stepped further into the room. Erik had said he was proud of her courage. Courage…stupidity…fine line, she thought as she crept closer and closer to the head of the bed, where the satchel he always had with him was slung over the metal post. When she reached the head, she was looking right at him, and she fell still, mesmerized. This man, asleep and vulnerable, had tried to conquer her world. But no one, she supposed, looked evil, or even all that scary, when they slept. He looked peaceful, even innocent like this, eyes closed, face completely relaxed – she realized she wasn't certain she'd ever seen him completely relaxed before – black hair splayed out over the white USAP-issue pillowcase in stark contrast.

His face was pale, too…he was on his side, facing her, the covers pulled up to his chin, so she couldn't tell if he was breathing. He'd lost so much blood… "We aren't easily killed, but we can be," Thor had said, or something like that. She started to reach out a hand, to see if she could feel his breath, but thought better of it, uncertain if she would still have that hand if he was breathing and woke. Instead, she stepped back out of what she predicted his reach to be. "Loki," she whispered.

/


/

Loki stumbled down a corridor with walls that glowed blue. He wasn't sure how he knew they were blue, because other than the blue, he saw nothing. He was blind. He knew he wasn't really blind. He knew he was dreaming. He knew this wasn't real. His hands pressed into the blue of the wall that threatened to spread through him like a virus and pull him in. He didn't want to touch it at all, but he had no choice. He didn't even know where he was going. At first he'd thought this to be the corridor outside his old chambers, but he'd already been feeling his way along it for much longer than it would have taken to traverse the entire length of that corridor. He couldn't see the end of it, and he couldn't see the beginning of it. He wondered if he should turn around, try the other direction. But he'd passed nothing that way. He'd come too far to turn back now. He set his jaw and pressed forward into the unknown.

"Loki," his mother's voice called, and a memory slipped into the dream. Suddenly he was lying in bed, and he was just lucid enough inside his dream to wonder what had happened to the corridor. "Loki, can you see me?"

"No, Mother," he answered, and even though he was perfectly aware of the look of concern and fear on her own face, his mind told him he was blind. It wasn't fair. Thor had had this particular illness when he was an infant, but Loki hadn't had it until his early youth, when its symptoms were much worse. He should have been afraid, but he wasn't. He just didn't want to see that look in her eyes.

"Try harder. If you just try harder, you can see me. Loki? Can you hear me?"

"No, Mother," he repeated, but then grew confused. Hear you? He wasn't deaf, he was blind. Why was she asking if he could hear her?

"Loki?"

This time he knew immediately this was not his mother's voice. His eyes shot open and he bolted upright, heart racing. Jane was standing in the middle of his bedchamber, staring at him, tense with fear at his sudden movement. "What…what are you doing here?" he asked, his voice still raspy with sleep. He hoped to all that was sacred that he had not just had some half-awake conversation with her in which he'd called her "Mother."

"I…I'm sorry I…" Jane stammered, glancing toward the door. He looked slightly wild, hair mussed as it had been the other time she'd come in here when he was in and had been in bed – pretending to be sick that time, she recalled – but now bare-chested but for the gauze she'd applied yesterday, and that huge round red non-ruby against pale skin, and a look somewhere between nervous and angry in his eyes. And he'd just called her "Mother." She took a step back toward the door, but changed her mind. "You're all right, then?" she asked.

"Of course I'm all right," he bit back, fighting the urge to wipe the sleep from his eyes, reviling how vulnerable he appeared before her. "I don't need a nursemaid. And I'm certain we had no appointment I've forgotten."

"No, you just…you're always up early. I've been waiting for you. And when you never came out of your room, well, I was…" She couldn't quite bring herself to say it.

"Concerned? I'm touched, Jane, truly. It's heart-warming," he mocked, hoping she would get mad enough to turn her back and leave. He didn't want to deal with her at all today. Or ever.

"You know, I guess I was, for about half a second. And then you opened your mouth. Your heart must be a block of ice," Jane said, standing her ground.

His fists clenched at his side, resting on the sheet over the mattress. "Get out."

"No. Not until you answer my questions."

"You're in no position to make demands," he said, just before remembering that Thor had said the same thing to him, when he was emptying bottles of Johnnie Walker. He could already tell by the reaction on her face that she didn't accept it any more than he had.

"Oh, really? Because I think I am. I have two words for you, Loki. Satellite. Phone. The only reason I haven't used one yet is because I decided that everyone here was safer if I didn't. I'm not so sure of that anymore, so you better start convincing me by answering my questions."

"I have two words for you, Jane Foster," he began, and then he remembered the curses. Asgardian sword would be an empty threat, and she knew it. Instead he jumped down from the bed, landing right in front of her and making her take a step back, delighting in his ability to intimidate despite his limitations. "Ask. Away," he said with a polite smile and slightly widened eyes before putting his back to her and moving over to his wardrobe, past the open suitcase, which he hadn't bothered to put away the night before. He'd been too exhausted after cleaning and healing the cut on his leg, then laboring over the ruined boot for a solid hour, then putting the metal salvaged from his back to good use.

Jane gave a shudder and watched as he reached into the armoire and took out the green henley he so often wore, then pulled it on over his head and ran his hands through his hair. When he turned back to her, he looked a little more like himself. "First, I want you to undo whatever it is exactly you did to my e-mail."

"That isn't a question."

"No, it isn't. I still want you to do it. My friends are getting worried because they can't reach me. Erik called me this morning."

"What did you tell him?" Loki asked cautiously.

"I didn't tell him anything. It would upset him too much, and he can't take much more stress like that."

"Fine," Loki lied. He would go and approve her messages this morning, and she could think she was in control. "Now, do you have any actual questions, or do you expect to keep making demands?"

"I need to know what your plans are here."

"With a little effort I can almost pretend that was a question. But I've already answered it. I just need to do some thinking. I don't have any plans, not the way you mean it. Ruling Antarctica is tempting, but I think I can manage to control myself."

Jane smiled sarcastically. "Then why are you back? Why can't you do your thinking in Asgard? What happened there? How did you get all…all…"

Loki put up a hand, his palm to her. "Let me stop you. I'm losing track of your questions," he said, delaying. He hadn't put even a second's thought into what he was going to tell Jane. He had naively assumed she would prefer to keep her distance and leave him alone. "I had a lovely family reunion," he said after a moment.

Jane felt a flash of anger. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"That. Play games. Tell lies. Did you walk into the middle of a war?" His eyes went a little wide, and Jane knew she was right. "Was it Svartalfheim? Are you at war with Svartalfheim?"

His eyes went wider. "How did you know- Did Thor tell you that? You knew? You knew that and you said nothing?"

Righteous indignation died a quick but painful death. "I…I didn't exactly know…he said there was some kind of delegation from Svartalfheim going to Jotunheim, maybe to make a deal or something. He wasn't sure what was going on."

"When was this?"

"When we were in New Zealand. Loki…I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"What else? What else did he tell you?"

"Nothing, that's all."

"Think, Jane, what else?" he said, leaning forward.

Jane shrank away from him with two more steps back. Her hip bumped his chair; she was slowly letting herself be backed into a corner, literally. "That's all I know! He…he was worried about being away from Asgard. He was acting as the king then. His father, your father, was in something he called the 'Odinsleep.' It was the last time I saw him. We only had a few minutes. He just wanted to make sure I was all right. He…he was making sure I was safe. From you," she added, though she wasn't even sure she'd realized that at the time. He said Heimdall couldn't see me. She decided to hold back on that part, though she wasn't sure why. She hadn't understood what it meant at the time; she thought maybe she did now, and she assumed it was Loki's doing. Everything was Loki's doing. Except him bleeding all over the jamesway floor. That was her doing, she thought with another sickening wave of guilt.

Safe from me. Loki scoffed. Everyone in this entire realm was safe from him, thanks to Odin. And thanks to Jane, he'd nearly wound up rotting away on Brokk's sofa in Svartalfheim. He should have worried whether I was safe from her. He wanted to express his displeasure more fully, but he had to settle for glowering at her. Because she is safe from me.

Jane tucked her hair behind her ears and bit down on one of her knuckles, then slowly drew it away from her mouth, remembering how Thor had kissed her there. "Did you really see your family?"

"When I returned here, did I look like I'd had time for chatting with the family?"

"Just answer the question, Loki. Please," Jane said, another terrible pang of guilt hitting her. Maybe he could heal those wounds, or most of them, easily and quickly, but she was sure that getting them had still hurt. And angry as she was at him for everything he'd done, she was no sadist.

"No," Loki growled. Particularly since he had no family with which to chat.

"Thor? You didn't see him at all?"

"I did not," Loki said, then lowered his eyes for a moment. He couldn't hurt her physically – and truthfully he knew he wouldn't even if he could – but words had long been his best weapon. "But I was told he was injured."

Jane blanched. "H…how? What happened?"

"I don't know the details. There was an explosion. He was nearby." And fully recovered, according to Jolgeir.

Jane was silent for a long moment. "What else…did you see? You arrived in the capital? Near the palace? Like in the imagery from the probe? But you were gone for two days. Were they fighting there? You were trapped by it?"

"Exactly like the probe," Loki said, remembering the blurred streaks of the original imagery; the probe had been caught in Asgard's gravity and had been rapidly falling where the observatory once stood, just like he had. "The palace is not so near. Relatively so, I suppose. And no, they weren't fighting in the city. The battles were beyond the walls. What difference does it make to you? They were fighting to the east and to the west. Does that interest you as well?"

Jane never heard Loki's question. Her brain had slipped into overdrive, and she lost track of everything else around her. Until she blinked and found Loki's face inches from hers. "What?" she said, jerking away and bumping into his desk.

"I think I've answered enough questions. Will you go away now? I can pick you up and carry you out if you refuse."

"What? Uh, yeah, sure, whatever." He was standing right in the middle of the narrow room, so she stepped past him sideways, then hurried out, glancing one last time over her shoulder before closing the door and forcing herself back to her own room at a walk instead of a run.

Loki stewed in his room for a few minutes as he put his suitcase away and changed into his dockers and boat shoes. Of course all she cares about is Thor. How quickly she forgets her supposed concern. His right arm hurt every time he moved it. Her fault. It hurt a little less than yesterday, but not much. He had worked on it some right before going to bed and had healed some of the deepest muscle damage, but it was difficult work, and he could do nothing for the areas where Brokk's magic still lingered. Even his own natural healing appeared to have slowed. Her. Fault.

He picked up the satchel and got it over his neck – made more difficult by his bad shoulder. Out in the berthing wing corridor he glared at Jane's closed door as he made his way to the main corridor to get some breakfast and then go to the Computer Room and inspect her e-mail. He shook his head. "And what were their battle tactics? And where was Thor fighting? And why weren't they fighting in the north and the south?" he heard her asking. And, and, and, and. Her questions had at least been logical, until the word Thor had come up. Why she suddenly wanted to know where in Asgard Pathfinder had sent him, and where the palace was, and where the fighting was…

Loki stopped mid-stride just outside the berthing wing. Someone passed by, leaving the galley, and said "Good morning," but Loki ignored him, never really even noticed him.

No. She would not be that stupid.

He turned back, slowly at first, opening the door to go back into the berthing wing. His speed picked up, and he reached Jane's door at a run, throwing the door open. She'd ceded the right to be angry at him for that when she'd done the same to him earlier. The chambers were empty. He stepped behind the door; Big Red was gone from the hook she kept it on. He took one shaky breath and released it, then raced back to the main corridor and Destination Zulu, through the plastic sheets, out the thick metal door, and down the stairs, into the freezing darkness of the polar morning.

/


/

Jane placed her right hand on top of Pathfinder, careful that the structural field generator was in contact with the platform intended for the probe. She pressed the button.

Five.

Thor's hurt. He would come for me if I were hurt.

Four.

No fighting where I'm going. No swords. No massive bleeding stab… Jane swallowed heavily.

Three.

Pathfinder works. The probe made it there and back. Loki made it there and back.

Two.

If Loki can do it, so can I.

One


/

So...I hope the end caught you by a bit of surprise! Hmmm...what will happen next? The next chapter ran the gamut, for me writing it. Part slow and difficult, part pretty quick and fun, part rip-your-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it. For me. No idea if it'll induce that reaction in you, I generally don't write with reaction-inducing intent.

Coupla things - (1) It would be handy to know, as a writer, what makes a character resonate with readers (I can only speculate). It was amazing to me to see how many people specifically commented on liking Jolgeir. If anything comes to mind about why you particularly liked him, would you mind letting me know? For future reference for other fiction. Jolgeir will appear again, BTW. (2) Ever wondered how Tony wound up with that fishpond in Stark Tower? "names are hard guys" has given us the answer. Check out her "What to do with the hole in floor" story. Recommended!

As you might guess, no previews/excerpt for Chapter 52 "Cruelty" unless you're cool with spoilers and specifically request it, in which case, easy enough to provide. Oh, okay, here's your preview: Yes, there's some cruelty involved.

Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, see you next chapter!