Beneath
Chapter Fifty-Eight – Distraction
Loki spent the next week on a fairly erratic schedule, bound to neither Jane's work hours nor the rising and setting of an absentee sun that no longer leaked any light at all over the horizon. A sliver of moon and those ubiquitous red lights provided the only illumination outdoors.
When he slept at all, it was during the day. At night he got cold food from the leftovers refrigerator – always checking first for anything labeled with Selby's name though he'd taken now to occasionally availing himself of Wright's as well. He used the weight room daily, and even did Dr. Ellison's infantile "PT" exercises, though he made modifications, such as strengthening the elastic band he was to stretch outward with his shoulder muscles. He took over the conference room, never in use past dinner time. Across its table he spread multiple notebooks, and on its erasable white board he drew diagrams of homes and entire towns from memory. He learned Gary the machinist's schedule and Su-Ji's, since she often worked from MAPO, the observatory that housed the machinist's shop for whatever reason, and found that from 9 PM to midnight neither of them were ever there; he repurposed tools and metals and began crafting more knives through the peculiar mixture of technology and magic he'd learned here. His shoulder was a little stronger every day; next week he would begin adding knife-throwing practice into his schedule, working on the knives in the machinist's shop, then marking targets in snowdrifts and regaining the perfect aim he'd long had when throwing with his right hand.
On Thursday he assisted with house mouse chores as promised, speeding it along with magic whenever Selby and Wright weren't around and permitting himself a certain amount of enjoyment of how Jane tried not to act impressed but clearly was. He couldn't stop a bit of a chuckle when she pulled him into a corner of the Arts & Crafts Room and whispered, "You never cleaned a single toilet the normal way, did you? That's why you always closed the door on the stall." "I never cleaned the showers the 'normal' way, either," he whispered back with a raised eyebrow. Honesty, sometimes, had its merits. She gave a huff and walked away. He might have laughed again, but he'd caught Selby's eye then, and simply gone back to work sweeping the floor while Jane scrubbed a table. Selby was visibly uncomfortable around Jane, and he wished again he could have seen the expression on his face when he'd read that e-mail. Jane was just as uncomfortable as Selby, and burly Wright looked ready to smash heads together – a demeanor Loki was rather familiar with.
On Friday Jane knocked on his door and tried to convince him to throw darts with Austin and whomever else the scientist had lined up to join him. He knew from the start he would refuse, but he let Jane try her best for several minutes before he gave an unequivocal response.
On Saturday she stopped by in the morning to ask if he was going to breakfast, and, when he said no, if he wanted to go out and look at some Pathfinder data from the probe they'd sent to Asgard almost a month ago, the night of the sunset. He didn't. A mild curiosity did tug at him, but none of her data held any use for him now. Pathfinder would send him to Asgard safely; that was all he needed to know, and anything further was a waste of valuable time.
On Sunday she knocked on his door and invited him to a movie called Back to the Future, and said it was about "magic…sort of." He declined, though he had found that other movie he'd seen interesting, and his interest was somewhat piqued by what exactly the mortals might think of as "magic…sort of."
On Monday morning he decided made-to-order omelets, even though they weren't made from fresh eggs, really were better than random microwaved items from the leftovers refrigerator. Jane was there, sitting at one of the long tables with Zeke and Carlo. She called out to him – with the correct name at least – as soon as she saw him, and he joined the small group, followed by Nora Ellison, who thankfully did not mention his shoulder. Instead they were talking about horses – Carlo's family bred them somewhere in Italy, Dr. Ellison and her husband owned two at their home in Colorado, Zeke had been thrown from one as a child and hadn't been on one since, and Jane had never ridden. "Really?" Loki asked in surprise. Jane just shrugged her shoulders. He couldn't imagine never having ridden a horse. Or being thrown from one and letting it stop him from getting back on. "I have, however, ridden a donkey," she added. Carlo asked something about the donkey, but Macy joined them then and the topic of conversation changed. Loki didn't even know what a donkey was. He supposed it didn't matter. Afterward Jane informed him he would be shoveling snow for the next couple of hours, and he instantly regretted all the weight-lifting he'd done during the night. When afternoon came he could barely move his right arm.
On Tuesday morning he went to breakfast again, and was annoyed to find Jane again seated with a small group, though he again joined them – he needed to keep up some kind of appearances, and grating as they occasionally were, he had to admit that the sound of other voices was somewhat welcome. He remained on the periphery as they discussed various sporting games he didn't know, unless he knew them by different names on Asgard. He grew a bit more interested when Ken mentioned some kind of skiing championship, and that a Norwegian had been victorious in one of the contests. He had been to surrounding lands in his younger days but never to Norway; the area had been declared off limits after the Ice War. Still, childhood stories and picture books made him picture Norway as full of little more than terrified peasants desperately fleeing bloodthirsty Frost Giants. He remembered then that most of those books and stories had come from outside the palace; he remembered one book in particular, a book meant for older children, a book he'd instinctively known to treat like contraband even though he'd only been five or six at the time, a book with images so gruesome and real he'd had nightmares for weeks. He remembered that his mother had taken the book away after she'd found out about it. He dragged his thoughts back to Norway. Jane had been there. He thought he might ask her about it, but stopped himself. A little conversation here and there was all right, but he needed to remain vigilant; her presence was still dangerous to him, corrosive. Afterward, he'd gone to the Computer Room to approve Jane's e-mails and looked up what a donkey was. He'd laughed picturing Jane on one.
On Wednesday morning he skipped breakfast. Jane knocked on his door that afternoon and asked if he wanted to go to a lecture on auroras being held in the evening because it was now dark enough for them to be visible. He knew what she was referring to; Mohsin had shown him one and told him about them, and he'd seen pictures of them on display here at the South Pole. He was genuinely tempted, for the colorful displays of light were impressive to behold – and he felt positively foolish for having once thought them to be a manifestation of Thanos pursuing him – but he declined. Midgardian auroras were not part of his future.
When the next Thursday morning came, April 15, he checked the board outside the galley and found he, Jane, Selby, and Wright were scheduled for bathroom duty. He gave a snicker and went back to his room. Today he would rank order his targets according to a number of factors he'd identified earlier in the week – ability in magic, accessibility, likelihood of willingness, trustworthiness, vulnerability to various forms of coercion, degree of privacy available for the encounter, expected extent of security forces in the area, and so forth.
By 10:00 at night, he was ready for a break. He heated some chicken noodle soup, ate it quickly without even sitting – he'd been sitting far too long – and headed out to MAPO and the machinist's shop. He couldn't even tell that the building was blue any longer in the darkness and red light.
Loki was holding another new throwing knife in his flattened palm, admiring the symmetry of its smooth planes, when he heard footsteps unexpectedly approaching. The knife went into the pouch he'd created for it, and the pouch went into his satchel. He glanced at his watch; it was nearly midnight. The footsteps reached the machinist's shop and came to a sudden halt.
"Oh, uh, Lucas?"
Loki turned from the worktable he sat on a stool at, feigning surprise. "Gary, hello. I was just finishing up repairs to an electrical component in one of Jane's devices. I hope you don't mind my taking the liberty."
"No, no, of course not," he said, shaking his head and waving his hand as though to brush Loki's concern away. "Actually, do you need any help? I could use the distraction." He stepped in close, toward the table.
Loki also stepped forward and cut him off, needing a distraction himself to prevent Gary from seeing which tools were laid out on the worktable and asking questions. "Thank you for the offer, but I really just finished. What brings you out here this time of night? Trouble sleeping?" Loki could easily converse with anyone from a peasant to a king, from a child to the aged, from a farmer to a warrior, but the mortals were not worth the time he would waste on it. Except for Jane, who occasionally proved herself worth speaking to. He hoped now simply to engage Gary in sufficient conversation that he could quickly convince the man to leave with him; Loki would then return and clear the table of any evidence of blade-sharpening.
Gary nodded and ran a hand over his dark beard. "Yeah. I, uh, I got a phone call today. My dad passed away. You probably heard, he had a heart attack a few weeks ago."
"I'm sorry," Loki said after a short hesitation. This was not a conversation he wanted to have, but he was now stuck in it. He didn't know what the mortals' customs about such things were – if he was expected to do or say something specific. But he knew he wasn't supposed to simply walk away.
"It wasn't a surprise," Gary said, taking a seat at a large tilted work table, letting his shoulders slump. "Not by this point. His heart was really damaged, and then he fell into a coma and his lungs just kept filling up…. Well, we knew he probably wasn't going to wake up at that point." He paused for a brief moment. "Doesn't make it any easier, though. My dad's still gone." He turned away, a hand going to his face. When he turned back his eyes were a little red.
"You were…close?" Loki asked, even as his mind shouted at him to give up on this, to excuse himself and leave.
"Yeah. Close as we could be, you know, with him and Mom in Florida and me and my family in Virginia. All my life I wanted to be just like him. Went in the Navy like him. Came here to do the whole South Pole thing like he did. He lived a pretty amazing life. He was my hero."
Loki nodded, though his own thoughts turned unavoidably inward. To a "father" he'd looked up to all his life. To a man who had not only been his hero, but an entire realm's. To a king who'd known through his every attempt to be more like Thor, to be more like him, to be worthy of his name, that he would fail, because he'd been unworthy from the very start – unworthy even of Jotunheim, much less Asgard.
"How about you, do you still have your dad?"
Loki blinked in silence. Have him? Ah. "Yes, he still lives."
"Are you close?"
He couldn't suppress his frown, and wondered what any of this had to do with him. He understood why Jane needled him for information, but not why this man would have any interest in Loki and his supposed father. "Not particularly," he answered, careful to keep his voice neutral.
"Oh, well, sometimes it's…complicated, I guess, between fathers and sons."
Loki nodded. And sometimes it's not complicated at all. Victorious Aesir king – hero. Son of victorious Aesir king – hero. Son of defeated Jotun barbarian – enemy. Black and white, tidy and clean. Simple.
On Friday morning, Loki went down early to breakfast, and, since Jane was not there, he sat by himself, dawdling over blueberry pancakes. The breakfast service ended, the stragglers left for work, and still Jane did not appear. Loki found himself growing angry with her. He had wasted time he could have spent working, because he thought he might enjoy- He drew in a sharp breath. And there was his downfall again. To tolerate her was one thing. To seek her out, entirely another. He'd only sought out sustenance, of course, but he'd finished the pancakes and forced down the reconstituted watery juice and lingered, staring at the paper in different colorful patterns that had been put up over whatever was now blocking the large galley windows, perhaps drab brown cardboard like in his chambers.
She had said that everyone needed someone to talk to. And he had agreed, to a certain extent. Really it was a question of mental fitness – prolonged deprivation from contact with other living beings was unhealthy for the mind. Jane kept his mind alert, while at the same time allowing him a reprieve from some of the other things that occupied his thoughts. And she had been here, every morning. Perhaps she'd started to come in and seen him sitting there at a four-seat table instead of a long one and turned around to leave; he'd been facing the wrong direction to know. Perhaps he'd been more successful than he'd originally thought with his slanted story about Thor on Jotunheim, with his emphasis on the bloodletting after he'd retrieved his hammer on Svartalfheim. After all, he hadn't seen her all day yesterday, either. Was it really what he wanted, to drive her away? Yes, he answered his own question immediately. A "but" began to form right after it and he squelched it. He needed neither someone weakening his resolve nor some kind of crutch making him less than self-sufficient.
He was getting closer, anyway. He'd selected a target – Niskit, an older woman on Alfheim who best met his conditions and who continuously worked to strengthen her magical abilities and so should only be stronger than the last time Loki had seen her, perhaps half a century ago, when he'd sought healing from her and stayed in her home for nearly a month. He knew her home and her village well, knew the roads into and out of it. She was a kind woman, but with a wicked temper and a thick streak of bitterness that sometimes crowded out the kindness. Loki would not mention Odin, but instead spin her a tale of mistreatment and false accusations, for she had experienced those things herself and would likely extend him sympathy. It would not come to coercion with her, he didn't think. He didn't even expect she would respond well to that. Not that this expectation would stop him from trying it if need be. But she detested Brokk and had little loyalty to Nadrith, king of Alfheim, and ultimately it was her distaste for Nadrith that led him to name her his top choice rather than Martif, who had in the past been in service to Nadrith's deceased father.
His plans now merely needed further refining, his shoulder further strengthening, his blades further sharpening. When he got to Alfheim he could talk with Niskit all he liked, right up until he killed her to ensure she didn't talk to anyone else about him.
/
/
"One should really look up when one is walking down a corridor," Loki said as he neared his room and saw Jane come out of her room and walk right toward him, chin down.
Jane's head snapped up. "Morning, Lok- Lucas. Sorry," she said with a grimace. She started to say something, she should invite him somewhere, try to include him in something…but the words didn't come. She had other things on her mind, and as much as she wanted to try to pull him into a normal – for the South Pole – life, he couldn't always be her top priority. "I was just…I'm going to get breakfast."
"They've already stopped service. You're too late."
"I am? Oh…I must have lost track of the time. Well…I'll get some cereal or something, I guess."
"What's wrong? Did you not sleep well?" Loki asked somewhat reluctantly, suspecting he would regret it even as the words fell off his lips.
"No, it's not…well…maybe not. I-"
"What is it?" Loki leaned down to whisper, suddenly suspicious. "What are you up to?"
Jane's shoulders slumped forward as she looked up at him in disbelief. "Really? What am I up to? Your ego-." Really knows no bounds. But I'm not supposed to be saying stuff like that. "Not everything's about you. I have my own life, you know. Look, I'm just going to go see what I can find for breakfast, okay?"
"Of course," Loki said stiffly, stepping to the side and holding out an arm in the direction of the main corridor and the galley.
"Thank you," Jane said, and walked past, trying to forget the pointless little encounter already.
Loki watched her go with narrowed eyes, then went to the Computer Room for clues to her strange mood.
/
/
Jane jerked upright from where she'd been slouched over the makeshift desk in the jamesway, the side of her face resting on her palm. With one glance she knew who the tall figure was who'd entered and was now pulling off layers of gloves. Of all the days for him to decide to show up while she was working…or supposed to be working.
"What are you doing out here, Loki?" she asked with a hint of irritation seeping through her voice.
"Last weekend you said you had some data you wanted to show me," he said, now working on the gear on his head. He'd tried to get some sleep in the morning and found himself unable to. It was a little past one in the afternoon now.
"And you said you weren't interested."
"Well, now I'm interested."
"No, you aren't."
"Yes, I am. Jane," he added quickly, cutting her off, "please don't say 'no you aren't.' It may make me regress to childhood."
"All right," she said, and ran her finger over the laptop's mousepad to wake it up.
"I'm not actually interested in the data."
Jane laughed in surrender to the complete absurdity of the conversation – considering who she was having it with – and leaned back in her chair, running a hand through her hair. When the laughter faded a moment later, she turned to Loki and said, "See? No, you aren't."
"I want to know what's going on. Whenever I've seen you behave strangely before, it's had something to do with me. Or with SHIELD. I need to know, Jane."
She shook her head. "I told you it's not about you. And I don't want to talk about it with you."
"You're such a hypocrite," Loki bit back immediately.
"Wh- What?"
"You heard me. You're a hypocrite. You're always asking questions about me, about Thor, about Asgard. You want to hear my stories, and when you don't get enough of them you seek out some embellished version of them in ancient tomes. Do you not see your own hypocrisy?"
"I- But-" But this is painful, one side of her said. But didn't I ask him about things that might be painful? another side of her answered. But this is personal. But didn't I ask him about things that were personal? And has he ever answered those questions? Really answered them? And why should he, if I won't?
Loki was already turning to leave. If it really did have nothing to do with him, then he didn't care, and he certainly didn't care to listen to Jane defend the inequity in what she expected him to speak of when she would speak of nothing.
"Gary's father died yesterday. Or I guess the day before yesterday. I don't know. Time differences and all. You remember, he had a heart attack. And it just…I guess it kind of got to me and dredged up a lot of old feelings."
"Ah," Loki managed to get out a few seconds after Jane stopped speaking. She was right; it had nothing to do with him. And while he'd once tried to prod such tales from her, in order to show his sympathy, to share her pain – he'd been prepared at that time to say his parents were dead, too – to gain her trust, now it was uncomfortable. Wrong, somehow.
As Jane watched Loki, she realized he was actually listening, without his usual haughty expression. So she continued. "I mean…Gary couldn't be there. With his father. To hold his hand. Tell him everything he meant to him. Kiss his cheek and-" Jane sucked in a quick, full breath and rubbed her thumb and fingers over her eyes. If she let herself really go all the way down this road it wouldn't be pretty, and the trip back wouldn't be quick.
"You…didn't get to say goodbye," Loki said, remembering what she'd told him one day in the Science Lab, that after a car accident she'd awoken and been told her parents were dead.
Jane nodded, her gaze falling on the bar chart on the computer screen.
"It's better this way. If you remembered it all, if you'd been with them when they died, you'd never be able to think of them without remembering that exact moment when the light faded from their eyes. Your last memories are good ones, are they not?"
"Yes. I guess so. They've always been kind of fuzzy, but I remember I was singing along with the radio in the back seat. They were driving me home from a softball match. Dad couldn't always make it, sometimes he had to work. But they both came to that one. I felt guilty for so long. Still do, sometimes," she added, glancing up at Loki, who looked back at her – or was it through her? – his expression completely unaffected. Vulnerable even, open in a way she'd never seen him before. It reminded her of the time she'd seen him sleeping. And then his eyes focused and the openness was gone.
"You have no cause for guilt. You didn't kill them. You-" He had no idea what to say next. Comforting emotional women was not something he did. He no longer knew how to do it even if he wanted to. He had no comfort to offer to anyone.
Jane was nodding. "Yeah, I know. I mean, my head knows it. But you can't stop yourself from playing the 'what if' game, you know?"
Loki just stared at her. He knew. Light fading from eyes, a hand going slack in his. He knew. Always coming second to Thor, because he'd come from an unfeeling monster's womb instead of Frigga's. He knew. Thor coming back to ruin everything, despite all his efforts to prevent it. He knew. Being dragged back silenced and shackled, because he'd failed again. He knew. A foolish attempt to help, twisted to lay an alliance of seven realms against Asgard at his feet. I know, Jane. "I should go."
Jane nodded again. "Sorry. I mean, about all this. I just…you know, you asked." She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, not really crying but moist, the threat of real tears still there. Self-conscious of the splotchy red she knew would be on her cheeks and the general emotional display she'd allowed Loki to see, she rolled up the cuffs of her blue checkered flannel and tucked her chin down to try to regain focus on the data she'd been looking at before. It had been many years since she'd cried so hard she could barely breathe through it, but once in a while something would sneak up on her and surround her with that acute sense of loss, a sharp reminder of the gaping hole in her life where her mother and father should be. When that happened, she would call Erik and talk it over with him, or else make plans with a friend to go do something active, to make sure she didn't cocoon herself up in some kind of depression. But now she didn't want to bother Erik, dealing with his own issues, and she wasn't yet close enough to anyone here to go to with this, especially when it was Gary who'd just lost someone. Here there was only Loki, who, Jane realized when she glanced up at him again, was still watching her.
Despite his stated intention to leave, Loki lingered near the door, feeling uncomfortable, thinking about how Gary had come out to MAPO the night before, and had been glad of a distraction. Perhaps Jane needed a distraction. "Since I'm out here, why don't you tell me about the data you mentioned after all. It's from inside Yggdrasil? Or from Asgard?"
She looked up at him in surprise. "Um, yeah, okay. It's from inside Yggdrasil. Some weird gravitational readings, and unexpected neutrino interactions…I'll show you," she said, beckoning over to the other chair.
Loki hesitated a moment, then nodded and went over to sit beside Jane. Perhaps he needed a distraction, too.
/
/
Jane suddenly looked at her watch, then remembered it had died while waiting outside for Loki to return, then looked at her laptop and closed it up so quickly that Loki visibly jumped. "I almost forgot! It's 6:30. Let's go get supper."
Loki gave her a skeptical look. "I realize you're considerably more fond of the cuisine here than I am, but I don't recall ever seeing you so enthusiastic about mealtime."
"Well, it's…I'm hungry," Jane said, shoving her black notebook into her mini-backpack and going to the door to retrieve all her gear.
Loki watched her for a few minutes in suspicion, then started getting ready to go outdoors himself. He wasn't going to ask this time. Whatever was going on with Jane now, he figured it also had nothing to do with him. "I'll leave you to your dinner. I should get back to work anyway."
"Work? What are you working on?" Jane asked, her voice muffled as she pulled a fleece on over the overalls and flannel.
"Thinking," Loki answered.
"Mm-hm. You'll think better if you have some supper." Jane was concerned about just what it was Loki might be doing so much thinking about, but she figured there was no law against thinking, and it wasn't like she could enforce it if there were. At least if he's just thinking he's staying out of trouble.
When they were both covered head to toe in multiple layers of ECW gear, they stepped out into the darkness and hurried back to the station, Jane as always jealous of Loki's seemingly effortless sure footing and his long stride that he had to shorten to let her keep up.
At the Destination Zulu entrance between the jutting A1 and A4 housing wings, Jane stopped on the landing at the first level and Loki, already continuing up and on the third step to the second level, turned to look back at her.
"I just want to show you something first, it'll only take a few minutes, okay?"
Loki's suspicion grew, but Jane was already opening up the door. He stepped down and followed. Jane started stripping off gear, and at her urging he followed suit. She walked a few steps to the left and across the corridor, toward the post office, but it had been closed since the last flight out on February 15. Instead of stopping at the post office, though, she went just past it, turning right into one of the rooms he had never been in, for it had been closed when Jane gave him her rather meager tour of the facility.
"We're going shopping," Jane said with a big grin.
"I don't need anything," Loki said, lingering in the doorway.
"Hey, Jane, Lucas," station manager Ken said from his stool at the cash register where he was on volunteer shop-keeping duty and reading a book.
"Hey, Ken," Jane called over her shoulder, having turned around to talk to Loki. "Yes, you do. You're wearing stuff to the gym that's more formal than what people wear for work here. You need some casual clothes. And I remember what you said about not having any more shirts, or tunics or whatever. And I finally got you here when the store's open so you can do something about it. Come on," she urged.
Mindful of Ken nearby, not particularly paying them much attention though that would change if Loki argued, he allowed Jane to put a hand on his elbow and guide him forward and to the left. There he saw simple articles of clothing folded on shelves, and underneath the shelves, stacked on the floor, were cases of what he now knew to be beer, apparently a weak, watery imitation of what on Asgard was called ale. "Like apple juice but not sweet," Thor had called it, though Thor hardly had the most sophisticated of tastes and had probably simply been reacting to its color.
Jane had been in the store a few times before to pick up toiletries and borrow a couple of DVDs, but she hadn't given more than a cursory look to the clothing and other souvenir items, figuring she'd pick out her postcards and T-shirts and magnets at the end of the winter rather than the beginning when she'd just have to store them the whole time. Now she pulled out an ice blue T-shirt with a whimsical smiling penguin in a white fur hat on the front – quite close in color to the cute hat with the bow on it Darcy had sent. She held it up over her chest.
"There aren't any penguins here."
Jane frowned. Sometimes it really seemed like his goal in life was to suck the joy out of everyone else's. And she needed a little joy today. "It's not supposed to be a National Geographic special on the non-existent flora and fauna of the South Pole. It's supposed to be cute." She turned the shirt around and held it up against Loki's chest and his green long-sleeved henley and black Carhartts.
"Either this is a jest – not a funny one, I might add – or you are delusional. Even my dead body would rise up to prevent you from putting that on me," Loki said, refusing to even look down at the thing she was holding up on him.
And there's the joy back, Jane thought with a bright smile, wishing desperately that she had her camera with her…not that Loki would have let her take a picture of him, even without standing behind a T-shirt with a smiling hat-wearing penguin on it. She started folding it back up. "Do they have penguins where you're from?" she asked with a quick glance toward Ken, still immersed in his book.
"They do not."
"What about on…in the cold place?" she asked, placing the shirt back on its shelf.
Jotunheim, Loki knew she was asking about. "They have other creatures there. Beasts. Ghastly ones. None that smile. None that you would stamp on your clothing."
"Oh. Sounds nice," Jane answered with a fleeting smile. It sounded pretty awful. She wondered if the people on Jotunheim liked their animals and would think that penguins were "ghastly beasts." "How about this one?" she asked, pulling out a long-sleeved brick red T-shirt with an image of the flags and the ceremonial pole.
"I don't wear red," Loki answered.
"You wear red every single day when you go outside."
"That's different."
"How is that different?"
"Everyone wears Big Red."
"Not everyone wears Big Red. Some people wear-" She stopped, because Loki was starting to look angry. "Okay, it's different. What's the big deal about red, anyway?"
"There's no 'big deal' about red, I simply don't wear it." It was an automatic response, really, and now that he found himself having to repeat it several times, he wondered how valid it remained. Red was Thor's color, just as green was his own. But that was based on very old decisions, made in a set of contrived, false circumstances – a mirage that had faded into nothing. Loki was not a Prince of Asgard; nothing was set apart for him within Odin's family. He was a king, or he was nothing. Either way, he could wear whatever color he wanted.
Jane had put the red shirt back and was looking over the rest of the selection – it wasn't exactly gigantic. "Any other color restrictions I should know about?"
The question caught Loki off guard. No one on Asgard would have dared to ask. No one on Asgard would have needed to ask. His eyes scanned the shelves to see if it mattered, and quickly saw that it did. "Yellow," he said, his face hardening. No matter how many centuries passed since Baldur's death, he would never wear yellow. Loki realized something for the first time, then, along with an ache in his chest, that just as he had never been Thor's brother, he had never been Baldur's either. The little boy he'd walked to the first day of his lessons, just as he'd planned to since before Baldur was born, had been Thor's brother, but not his. Everything happened just as it was meant to, he supposed. The son of Laufey and the sons of Odin…
"Hey, everything all right?"
Brow deeply furrowed, Loki's eyes fell back into focus on Jane's concerned face. He could tell her. Tell her that yellow was Baldur's color. Tell her that there had once been a third son of Odin, who was really a second son, who had lived in adoration and died in a crushed bed of lavender. In one heartbeat he imagined telling her. In the next he recognized the idea for the foolishness it was, a manifestation of the corrosive effect Jane had on him every time he lowered his guard.
"Lo- Lucas?" Jane prompted, surprised and a little nervous about the myriad of emotions – subdued but plainly visible – that had just played over Loki's face.
"Jane, has anyone ever told you that you have an effect much like that of acid?"
"Ummmm, no, I can't recall anyone ever saying that before." She swallowed and turned back to the shelves, annoyed with herself for thinking he might actually open up to her for real about whatever it was he'd been thinking about, and less disturbed than she thought perhaps she should be at being compared to acid. Moving on… "So, how about navy blue, then?"
"I won't wear any of those sleeveless ones." Loki shook his head, unsure suddenly why he was tolerating any of this. He could tell at a glance that these were poorly made clothes, stitched by machine with whatever cloth was most cheaply available and died with colors that would likely fade quickly.
"They're short-sleeved, not sleeveless. But this one's long-sleeved, anyway. Look." She held it up against her for Loki to see.
No smiling penguins, just "Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station" in white lettering. "Fine," he said. It was easier than arguing, especially after letting things go this far.
"Great!" Jane exclaimed, her smile back. "Okay, how about this olive green sweatshirt?"
"One is more than enough."
"But you need-"
"No. Don't," he added when he could tell, as usual, she didn't want to accept no for an answer. She acquiesced then, but somehow he wound up holding a pair of what she called "sweatpants" in the same color as the shirt.
"Do you have your- Wait, do you carry a wallet? Do you even have money? You can only pay by cash here. US dollars."
Loki smiled and thrust the clothing into Jane's arms. "How unfortunate. I have only New Zealand dollars."
"How…how did you get New Zealand dollars?" Jane asked, lowering her voice to a whisper, hoping he hadn't robbed a bank or something while she'd been strolling around Christchurch. "Wait, and your plane tickets. And the clothes you bought in Sydney. Where did you get money for all that?"
Loki smiled in satisfaction. "I made it."
"You made it? Doing what?"
"You misunderstand, Jane. I don't mean I earned it. I mean I…made it," he said, holding his hand out in front of Jane and pulling his New Zealand dollars from the air.
Jane immediately looked back at Ken; he hadn't noticed anything. "Don't do that here," she whispered. And then she realized what he was saying. "Oh my-" She stopped and clamped a hand over her mouth for a moment. "You…you counterfeited that?"
"When you put it that way it sounds so very wrong, Jane. I don't know what I was thinking, falling afoul of your financial regulations."
Jane grit her teeth to hold back an unhelpful retort. She knew exactly what he was getting at – that this was hardly the worst of his crimes. "I'll pay for it," she said, turning her back on him and marching over to the other side of the small store, hoping Ken hadn't managed to overhear any of that.
"All set?" Ken said, setting his book down and taking the shirt and pants Jane handed him.
A few minutes later they were out in the corridor by the DZ door, collecting their gear to continue up to the second level.
"Do you want to meet out here, or in the galley?" Jane asked when they reached the A-1 wing.
"Neither. I told you, I still have work to do."
"So you aren't going to eat?"
"If I'm hungry I'll eat later. Do I look like I'm starving?"
Jane frowned. She hadn't seen him in the galley over the last week, other than a few breakfasts. But no, he didn't look like he was starving. "I wish you would come have dinner with everyone else."
"You may continue to wish it, but your wish won't come true."
"Austin asked me again yesterday if you were going to play darts tonight."
"I hope you gave him my regrets."
"All right," Jane said with a sigh. She'd pushed him enough with the clothes; it was time to back off. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow, then."
"Maybe," he answered amicably. Most likely not. They had reached Jane's door and paused in front of it. Loki turned to continue past, and Jane stopped him with a hand on his arm again.
"Thanks for coming out to the jamesway. It was, um…I enjoyed it." Her lips quirked up into a smile at the end, because by the time the words were out she recognized that she really had enjoyed it. He hadn't been all that difficult, relatively speaking, and she'd been able to truly relax around him. And somewhere in the middle of showing him the unexpected energy patterns she'd discovered inside Yggdrasil, she'd been pulled out of her funk.
Loki looked at her in silence for longer than he meant to, out of indecision over how to respond. In the end he simply gave a polite dip of his head and lowering of his eyelids, then continued on to his room.
He closed the door behind him and released a breath. He had enjoyed it too, this day, for the most part, though he had spent nearly all of it with Jane and accomplished nothing toward his goal. He looked down at the cold weather gear in his hands and on his body, the new clothing Jane had plied him with. He had enjoyed it, but he would not repeat it.
He quickly stripped out of his bunny boots and Carhartts and exchanged his silk slacks for leather. It was time to get back to work.
/
Teasers for Ch. 59: Jane catches up with an old friend, which raises a red flag to Loki; Odin gets a visitor and has something up his sleeve; Thor finds a book that catches his eye (see below); an alarm sounds over the bifrost; Loki gets ganged up on to go somewhere with Jane.
And excerpt:
The book had been pulled out so far – by a servant, he presumed, for he knew it had not been him – that its dark spine hung over the edge of the shelf. It was a small thing, and Thor was hardly obsessed with tidiness, but he didn't know how long he would be away from these chambers, and it seemed right that he should leave things in order. He reached out a hand to push the book back into place, then paused, his fingers resting on the shelf instead of the book.
