This chapter picks off precisely where the last left off. If you didn't just read Ch. 75 "Curiosity," you might want to look back at the end of it to refresh your memory.
/
Beneath
Chapter Seventy-Six – Questions
"Fffrederick," Loki said in Fandral's voice, clearing his throat at the end in hopes of masking his slight hesitation. "Fandral" he didn't think would sound quite normal here. He shook Wright's hand briefly and went back to his orange. If he were lucky, he'd left a bit of stickiness behind on the other man's hand. "Wright, hm? Unusual for a given name."
"Yeah, well, the one I was born with is 'Cyrus.' If your mother named you that, you'd go with Wright, too." He dug into his lunch with gusto, and Loki was again reminded of Thor.
"I'm sure you are right," Loki said with a smirk that felt odd on this foreign face, particularly the mustache that itched at the sides of his cheeks. He'd never been able to grow facial hair of his own, to much teasing in his late youth and early adulthood.
"Yeah, genius, I never heard that one before. Do you go by 'Fred?' How's Wilma doing?" Wright asked with a chuckle, his mouth full at the end with another bite.
"Well, thank you. I shall pass on your concern," he answered, not particularly caring who Fred and Wilma were.
Wright nodded and another man walked up and sat down; this one didn't even ask after the fact, but then it became clear that Wright knew him. "Vijay, this is Fred. Fred, Vijay. Fred says Wilma's well, in case you were wondering. Or…I guess you never saw The Flintstones?"
Vijay rolled his eyes. "And Pebbles?" he asked, looking at Loki, then turning to Wright. "India isn't exactly the moon, you know."
"My bad, my bad," Wright said with a laugh, stuffing half a roll into his mouth.
Loki, meanwhile, understood that no one actually expected him to answer the question about pebbles that was clearly for Wright's benefit, and instead popped the first blessed orange section in his mouth. Better than the best orange on all of Vanaheim, he thought.
"Apologies for my obnoxious colleague here," Vijay said, though Loki could tell from his expression he wasn't really trying to insult Wright. "We work out at the DSL, the Dark Sector Lab, on the Ten-meter Telescope. How about you?"
"Materials," Loki answered quickly, then just as quickly put another orange section in his mouth. He still didn't know precisely what that job meant, but figured perhaps they didn't either, and in any event, there were certainly a lot of materials being moved about outside now.
"I bet you're staying busy. Probably why I haven't seen you around."
"Plus he's got Wilma and Pebbles to worry about, you know," Wright added.
"Mmm," Loki said with a nod, swallowing. "I should go check on them now." He grabbed his tray and stood.
"See you, Fred," Vijay said.
"Yeah, see you later," Wright echoed.
Loki smiled and nodded again, then left the table. Yes, you will, Wright. It was time to go. There was no purpose to this; it was merely a test. A successful test. But it was only the first half of the test. Now he had to go back.
/
/
"I brought what you asked for," Jolgeir said, entering Thor's room with his shoulder against the door. An open-mouthed satchel hung around his neck at his chest.
"How do you manage, Jolgeir?" Thor asked, back in his reclining position after Eir had examined him. She'd said his blood parts were still low, but in another few hours should be sufficiently replenished for him to return to the fighting. His arm would need another day or two to fully heal, but he wasn't willing to wait for it. He would fight left-handed, and try to rest his right arm as much as possible. The stakes were too high to do anything else.
"Well, you would be surprised what one can accomplish with one's feet when one is determined enough," Jolgeir said as he reached Thor's side. "Chin and chest can be useful, and teeth are good for so much more than chewing food. Don't worry, I retrieved your journal with the chin-and-chest method. Though if you want to take it, you'd best do so yourself or I'm afraid I'll have to try the teeth."
"Thank you for the warning," Thor said with a smile, remembering to reach into the bag with his left hand. From it he pulled his journal and a pen. "I'm glad you're doing so well, Jolgeir. But I know it can't be easy."
Jolgeir looked down for a moment before meeting his eyes again. "It isn't. But I can't complain. I still live. Many of our warriors do not."
Thor nodded, and the silence between the two men was thick and heavy.
"Did you know," Jolgeir began in a lighter tone a minute or so later, "that on Midgard when they lose a limb they use artificial ones instead?"
"Artificial limbs?" Thor asked in confusion. He tried to picture it and could only picture restored limbs, perhaps an illusion from magic, but Midgard did not possess magic of the sort found on the other realms.
"Your friend Tony told me about them. He said I should get them. Quite a peculiar concept."
"There are many peculiar things on Midgard. Tony uses an entirely artificial body over his own when he goes to battle. And his dwelling speaks to him."
"Indeed. I experienced that as well," Jolgeir said with a laugh. "All right then, I shall leave you to your book. I deliver meals now, too. My wife fashioned a tray on a brace that I wear around my neck. It removes a burden from the healers, allows them to spend more time on the actual healing."
Thor nodded, but found that while Jolgeir seemed happy with his ability to assist in whatever ways he could great or small, he himself was pained by these words. Jolgeir had been one of the lead Einherjar providing his and Loki's security, and later the Chief Palace Einherjar, a position second in importance only to First Einherjar Hergils, and he would have likely succeeded Hergils. He had the keen eye and quick reactions required of all the Palace Einherjar and was a highly-skilled warrior, a formidable foe on or off the battlefield. And now he was delivering food to the injured. "Jolgeir," he said just as the former Einherjar reached the door. "Would you…want these artificial arms?"
He didn't answer for a long moment. "There's temptation in the idea," he finally said. "But I could not turn my back on this sacrifice."
Jolgeir left then, and Thor stared at the plain white wall – it had until recently held a portrait of Alfheim, he knew – in front of him, artificial arms still on his mind. He wished he could talk to Jane about it, hear her thoughts on the matter. She could tell him if this were something considered normal on Midgard, or some other strange invention of Tony Stark's. Or perhaps the Captain. He was a warrior in the American army, if he'd understood correctly, and would perhaps be able to discuss the issue from the perspective of honor and sacrifice in battle. Each of them, actually, each of the Midgardian Avengers, had shown honor and sacrifice as they'd battled together. He would value each of their viewpoints, even Tony Stark's. But he had no idea when he'd see any of them again.
Thinking of his fellow warriors on Midgard brought him back to where he'd started with Jolgeir's return: Loki. He opened up the journal and brought the pen to the first blank page – first with his right arm which did not care to lift a pen much less Mjolnir, then quickly switching the pen to his left hand.
"Loki, you probably saved my life today. Do you remember when you pestered me until I agreed to learn to use Mjolnir with my left hand? It is only unfortunate that you didn't also pester me to learn to write with my left hand," Thor wrote, laughing with the last sentence as laboriously-formed barely legible print slowly appeared over the page. "I owe you much, Brother. And I wonder, have you ever felt the same? I tried to support you, I did support you, but perhaps I didn't do it enough, or publicly enough. When we were younger, perhaps I was not always brave enough, and when we were older, perhaps I had grown too selfish to see that you needed it."
Thor squinted his eyes and looked up. A word took as long to write as a sentence normally did. And when did this book become messages addressed to Loki? It hadn't started that way. But he'd spent a thousand years with Loki, and was used to talking with him about things, if not exactly these things. Now, even if Loki were physically here, conversations with him were next to impossible, and led to arguments and often violence. If he could not speak to Loki, he could write to him, and the journal could not talk back, insult him, twist his words, speak in a contemptuous voice, or look at him with a condescending sneer. And Thor could not raise a fist to it in the retaliation Loki seemed to desire. It was better than speaking to Loki. Thor shook his head at the book. Safer, at least, he thought.
He lifted the pen again. It was slow going, but until he could stand up without passing out from all the blood he'd lost, he had the time, perhaps two more hours, and it would keep his mind off the battles that raged outside the city walls.
/
/
Loki made his way to the nearest men's room, which happened to be the one he normally used, the one closest to his own chambers here. His nose wrinkled a bit in displeasure at the thought, for it made him realize that someone else was living in his chambers now. He remembered the chemical scent of Midgardian cleaners that had assaulted his nose when he'd first entered the bare room. He'd stayed in inns and guest houses and friends' homes and on rare occasion foreign palaces. But he'd always had chambers that were his and his alone, a bed that no one else had ever slept in before him. He didn't enjoy the reminder that dozens had called that tiny room home before him, and that it held the only bed he could now claim.
The bathroom gave him the privacy he needed to think through his return and the magic that would be necessary, hoping to keep its use to a minimum, since Odin's Curse Number Two was clearly not in favor of him traveling to the past either invisible or masquerading as Fandral. Obviously he could not remain as Fandral, but he wondered if he could risk skipping the invisibility step and returning as Fandral to his present, where there were far fewer people and he was unlikely to be spotted. Pathfinder's flash of light would not be so noticeable here in the daylight, and it should be largely obscured behind the jamesway in his own time. He decided this was an acceptable risk, and emerged from the men's room exactly as he'd entered it. He reclaimed his gear and headed outside, looking down at his jacket and noting that it said "Lucas Cane" on the front and not "Frederick."
As far as he could tell, though – it became difficult outdoors with everyone bundled up in Big Red or some other jacket and faces mostly covered – he didn't pass anyone else he knew. He needed an isolated place that would remain isolated for a minimum of five minutes; isolation was less easily found here in the busy light of November than in the desolate dark of May. There was too much activity in Summer Camp to go to that location again, so he quickly settled on the Dark Sector, and beyond the DSL. If no one was working on top of the building, he should be able to remain undetected, though he also had to worry about someone spotting a figure in a bright red jacket going behind the DSL and never emerging. When he got there, no one was up top, no one was nearby, and no one was looking his way. He hurried around back, flipped the RF switch and waited for the last phase of the current test. He saw the flash, felt the change in gravity, and almost instantly found himself behind the jamesway in darkness, Pathfinder before him. He smiled, felt the mustache underneath the balaclava, and reverted to his own form.
He would check, of course, but he was already certain. It worked.
/
/
Jane rounded the corner from the galley into the main corridor and was somewhat surprised to see Loki walking toward her. He was smiling, and when he saw her he smiled more broadly. That she hadn't seen for a while. She tried to ignore the slight awkwardness she felt around him now. "You look like the cat that ate the canary," she said as they met just past their berthing wing.
"I'm not sure whether I should take offense at that or not. But if you have a moment, I'd like to show you something."
"Okay," Jane agreed easily, thinking he'd worked out some new general relativity solutions.
"Your room? I just need to drop off my gear."
"Okay," she said again, curious now. If he wanted to show her something in her room, he wanted privacy. "I'll see you there in a few minutes?" Loki nodded, and she turned around to walk with him back to the A-1 berthing wing. Loki, she thought, king of unpredictable mood swings.
In his chambers, Loki stripped off his gear down to his normal Midgardian attire and emptied the Carhartt pockets, palming one item, putting it in his satchel, and heading back to Jane's door, which she'd left open. He stepped in, closed the door, and soundproofed the room out of habit, rather than any expectation of shouting. Per the norm, Jane took the low reclaimed chair covered with her original white sheet, and Loki pulled out her desk chair and swiveled it around to face her.
"So, what physics problem are you working on now?" she asked once he was settled.
"Different aspects of the same one, I suppose. Einstein was an intriguing figure. That's not what I wanted to show you, actually. But first, I meant to check, what's the date?"
"The date? You don't have it on your fancy watch there?" she asked pointing at the gold designer watch on his left wrist. Jane didn't know anything about watches really, but she knew expensive when she saw it, and she knew expensive watches did more than tell time. Even the decidedly inexpensive one she'd worn out here before the battery died had shown the date.
Loki glanced at his watch. Of course it would show the date; he'd forgotten it. But it would show May 11, just as would have when he'd visited November 11, so it was no help. "The battery stopped working, and I just replaced it but I wasn't sure of the date."
"But you were sure of the time? Whatever," Jane said. Sometimes it really wasn't worth pursuing every one of Loki's peculiarities. "It's May tenth."
Loki's smile froze on his face and he then made a conscious effort to keep his expression natural. "May tenth? You're certain?" His heart was beginning to race along with his thoughts. Is this yesterday's Jane? Where was she at this time? Is the time even correct? She had lunch…she went back to her chambers…just as it appears she's done now… What was she wearing yesterday? Jeans and that soft checkered shirt…the same one she's wearing now…but didn't she have a white shirt on underneath it, not this blue one?
Jane thought for a moment. "Yeah. I think so."
"You think so? You aren't certain then? It's…Friday, isn't it?"
Jane scrunched up her brow at him. "If I didn't know better I'd ask if you've been hitting the bottle out there. Yeah, Loki, it's Friday."
Loki nodded and held back his sigh of relief. "Then it's the eleventh."
"Okay. If you say so. I lose track. I guess the moral of that story is, next time you have to set your watch, don't come to me for help. And speaking of Friday, Wright asked if you were going to play darts with him and the other guys tonight."
Loki grimaced. He'd forgotten about that, too. But he'd sort of committed to it. And, he begrudgingly admitted to himself, he enjoyed it, even if it meant putting up with Wright. "Yes, I'll be there."
"Good. So what did you want to show me?"
"Ah. Well, actually, I got you a gift," he said, pulling the satchel around from his side.
"Um, okay," Jane said, her face reflecting her surprise and confusion. All this week hardly an extraneous word from him and now he's getting me presents? Then she got nervous and shifted in her seat because Loki had gotten her a gift. Then something she'd learned in her college German classes came to mind – in German, "gift" meant "poison." Jane forced a smile to her lips and brushed the thought aside. Loki wasn't going to poison her; the idea was darkly comical. But she couldn't imagine what he would suddenly want to give her, or why. Then she saw it. "Oh, what is this, you're trying to" – "torture me" won't do, she thought, remembering how he'd told her he wasn't a torturer the last time he was in here – "to be cruel?" Her smile remained awkward. Being cruel wasn't much better.
Loki, meanwhile, glanced down at the orange resting in his hand, half-expecting to see that it had aged to look as though it had come from six months ago, but no, it looked just as it did when he'd taken it from the galley, perhaps an hour ago. "Cruel? Oh, are you allergic?" he asked, chastising himself for having only brought the orange. He had other fruits, and the carrots, back in his chambers. But almost in the same moment he remembered he'd seen her drinking that bland orange juice here and thought perhaps that wasn't it, unless there wasn't enough orange in the orange juice to cause an allergic reaction.
"To plastic fruit? No. Well, not that I know of, I guess, I've never tried to eat one. But hey, I'm sorry. I mean, it's pretty. Colorful. I'll put it on-"
"It's not plastic," Loki said, holding out his hand.
Jane glanced between Loki's face and the orange. He was watching her back closely, and his lips were quirked up ever so slightly. His eyes sparkled with mischief. Gingerly she reached for the orange and took it from his hand. It felt real. She lifted it up to her nose. It smelled real. "I don't get it," she said. "What is this?"
"It's exactly what it looks like. Though you're wise not to simply trust your eyes."
"But…so…yeah, I still don't get it. There aren't exactly any orange trees in the Greenhouse, Loki, where'd you get this?"
"Let's call it magic," he said, his lips pulling into an unabashed grin.
"Magic," Jane repeated flatly. "So…it's some kind of illusion?"
"No," he said, then stretched his right hand out between them, palm-down, and quickly twisted it around, palm-up, an orange taking shape and resting there. "That is an illusion."
Jane stared at the second orange wide-eyed. The sleight-of-hand he'd used reminded her of the more familiar type of magician, but his shirt was fitted and cuffed at the wrist and there was no way an orange had been literally up his sleeve. She leaned forward to sniff.
"Oh, you're going to make me work for it, hm? All right."
Where she'd smelled nothing in particular before, now the sweet citrusy scent of an orange wafted up, stronger than from the supposedly real one in her hand. Her mouth began to water and she sat back in her chair. Other than a few strawberries from the Greenhouse she hadn't had fresh fruit since the early days here at the South Pole.
"Take it," he said, watching her reactions play over her face. She was almost entranced, and he was reminded of how much he'd enjoyed showing her his sound blanket.
Jane reached out with her free left hand, but the instant her fingers should have touched the orange, it flickered and faded away, glimmering green and gold on the edges as the image retreated into nothing. She looked up at him, her hand still hovering above his.
"Illusion," he said with a dip of his head.
Jane slowly withdrew her hand and placed it over the orange she still held in her right. "Not an illusion," she said.
"Put it to the ultimate test."
Jane stared hard at the orange. Everything about it seemed real. But… "Is a magic orange actually edible? I mean, what's it made of?"
"It's an orange, Jane," Loki said with a laugh. "I didn't expect such skepticism from you, with your willingness to embrace such unorthodox theories."
"I didn't embrace them because they looked nice. I did a lot of reading and thinking and practical research first."
"All right, I understand. Would it help if I ate some first?"
Jane thought that one over briefly and nodded.
Loki took the orange back and started peeling.
"So…it's really an orange?" Jane said after he'd swallowed a section. Loki handed it back to her with most of the peel gone, and she pulled another section free and ate it. It tastes real. And juicy. And sweet. And really, really good. "What would it take to get you to explain how it is that there's an actual orange in my hand?"
"I believe it's because I put it there," Loki answered with a self-satisfied smirk, enjoying himself immensely.
"I'm serious, Loki," Jane said, popping another section into her mouth and talking around it. "Why won't you tell me how you do this stuff? And the illusion one, too."
"I can't explain magic to you. I can't explain things you can't see, feel, or experience."
"Well, you could at least try."
"Perhaps some other time."
"I guess I shouldn't hold my breath."
"I wouldn't advise it."
Jane sighed. "Thanks, though. For this," she said, pulling out another section. "This is good. Really good. Do you do room service? Like if I wanted…I don't know, a caesar salad? Or a jug of regular milk, that would be awesome."
"No. But I'll keep it in mind. For the future." For the future indeed. A jug of actual milk – that came from a cow or a goat instead of powder – would be a welcome respite for him as well. And perhaps appropriate for another test, six months into the future.
"So" – Jane paused to swallow – "why did you do this for me?" Loki had brought her coffee once, and a slice of toast another time, both from the galley. Magic fruit…that was a new one.
"You got me a gift. It was only fair. And I thought you might like this more than a T-shirt." The answer came quickly and easily, though of course it was a lie. The lie made him realize he wasn't sure what the truth was – he hadn't thought about it, hadn't even thought about doing it until he saw Jane in the hallway.
"You thought right. This is amazing. But it's not like it's my birthday or anything."
"Nor was it mine."
"Okay, point taken," Jane said, going for another bite of orange. She held what was left of it out to Loki, who put out a hand to decline.
Loki watched her for a moment, then glanced around the room in its typical disarray. There was no reason, really, to give Jane any of his "treasure" from the past. He was celebrating, in a way, he supposed, and this was the closest he could come to sharing his success, giving an orange to a mortal. To Jane. He smiled, then, for he couldn't deny there was also an appealing bit of mischief in watching Jane eat what he'd just taken from the six-months-ago galley. In making her unwittingly complicit in his blatant defiance of Odin. If you only knew, Jane Foster, he thought, and suddenly the desire to tell her was nearly overwhelming. Who could better appreciate his success than Jane? No one in all the Nine Realms. "Jane," he began, but in the exact same moment, Jane said his name.
"Let me go first, okay?"
"Okay," Loki agreed, the casual expression falling awkwardly from his lips.
"I just…" Jane steeled herself, hoping this wasn't going to prove to be a bad move. "I was just wondering if this is about the video."
Loki stared at her, caught off guard. "No," he said after only a second's delay, and then, as she watched him, he wondered if it was entirely true. Recognizing that something was for the best wasn't the same as liking it, and he'd missed these times spent with Jane, the times when he wasn't alone, the times when he let himself forget for a little while that he was supposed to be alone.
"Well…good, I guess. I mean…this was really nice of you," Jane said with a tentative smile. No matter why you really did it. She'd suspected it was some kind of a peace offering, but if it wasn't that, then there had to be some reason why for the first time ever he had brought her a gift, and a gift of magic fruit at that. It made her vaguely uneasy, but Loki wasn't telling, so there wasn't much she could do about it.
"You're quite welcome. Shall I assist you for the rest of the day, now? I've done enough with your Einstein today."
"Yeah, that would be great. It was hard transitioning from Yggdrasil to the data I was originally expecting to get – Pathfinder really spoiled me. But now I'm back into the swing of things, and remembering all the reasons I wanted to come here in the first place. I've been gathering a ton of data this whole time, and so much of it has fallen by the wayside because there's just no time…anyway, yeah, I appreciate your help, and I'll take it whenever I can get it."
"I'll meet you in the Science Lab, then. You should finish the orange first," he said, standing.
"Oh, don't worry. Nobody else gets to see the magic orange," she said with a smile.
Loki shook his head. "Magic orange," he muttered, giving her a sly, quick grin before turning to go.
"Oh! Wait, Loki, I'm sorry, what were you going to say earlier?"
Something very, very stupid. "Nothing. I already said it. I was going to ask if you wanted my assistance this afternoon."
Jane nodded; Loki left.
/
/
Wright was working from the Science Lab today as well, and Loki couldn't help stealing glances at him from time to time as he worked at Jane's direction. One final test remained that his quick trick into the past had unexpectedly enabled him to perform. He'd now met Wright…or rather Wright had met him before they'd met when Loki first arrived at the Pole. The conversation, such as it was, remained fresh in his mind, though for Wright it was six months ago. Will he remember it? Loki wondered. It would be awkward to ask him about it now, but tonight over a game of darts perhaps less so.
The afternoon passed quickly, and Loki thought Jane seemed a bit more relaxed around him. He, too, found himself slipping into the parameters of their interactions prior to Tony Stark's intervention, peppering his speech with the occasional jest or teasing comment. Part of him knew he shouldn't, but he was in a phenomenally good mood and didn't wish to hold all of it back. Before, it had merely been hope, and hope, after a period of feeling it was all lost, had been enough to buoy his spirits. Now it was proven fact. Einstein was a genius, demonstrating the interconnection of time and space at a point in Midgard's recent history when the realm had barely learned to control electricity. Odin had to know it as well, and recognized it for the vulnerability it was. If Loki knew nothing else, he knew how to exploit vulnerabilities.
At dinner in the galley, "Lucas" was invited to play poker tomorrow night, and Loki, for reasons he couldn't quite fathom, agreed. He would now have to either ask Jane what poker was, or dedicate part of his Saturday morning to finding answers on the ever-helpful internet.
After dinner he went back to his room for a few minutes to think about what he would say to Wright during the darts game. When he reached the Game Room, Brody was holding the long rod and eyeing the colored balls on the pool table, four others standing nearby, watching him. Loki watched for a moment as well; he'd never seen a game quite like this one, and thought perhaps he should learn to play it, too. He'd always liked speed, but also liked games that made him consider every angle and consequence of his choices, and he'd seen pool played enough to know that angle and consequence were the hallmarks of the game. Brody took his shot and sank a solid green ball into the far corner hole, but Loki thought if he'd angled his strike with the pale yellow ball a little more to the left and with a little more force, he could have sunk the solid orange ball as well.
He turned away from that game as Brody circled the table for his next shot, and faltered in his steps for a moment when he saw not just Wright, Austin, and Gary, who'd been joining them since Loki's "birthday" party, but also Jane.
"Hello, Jane," he said, and she turned to face him. "Come to watch the competition?"
"No, I came to join the competition," Jane said, her expression daring him to contradict her.
"I see. Do you play with…different rules?"
Austin's eyebrows went up and Wright laughed.
"Sexist much, Lucas?"
"My apologies," Loki said, having assumed there would indeed be different rules for men and women, based on Jane's short height and the fact that no women had played with them previously. On Asgard certainly there were different rules and expectations…at least until Sif came along and the rules got a bit reshuffled. Even then, while the Men's Trials and Women's Trials might now be called the Warriors' Trials and Defenders' Trials, everyone knew that the Warriors' Trials were for men and the Defenders' Trials were for women; very few women had followed in Sif's footsteps, and a young man who elected the Defenders' Trials would never survive the ridicule, so none did.
"That's okay," Jane said with a shrug. She knew she was tiny, went to the gym some mornings but was hardly a gym rat, and in Loki's world, she figured she'd be considered pretty puny. Darts, though, didn't have too much to do with strength. Steady hands, she thought, and she had those. She didn't know, though. Other than goofing around with friends at a bar in grad school a few times, she'd never played darts. She was really only here to try to mend things with Loki, though after the magic orange incident she wasn't even sure it was entirely necessary, and had considered cutting her losses and bowing out. But it was still something different to do, and after living at the South Pole for over three months "different" was sounding better and better.
On her first throw, for determining play order, Jane got 19. She'd been aiming for the bull's-eye in the center, and barely made it onto the board. She grimaced as Gary went forward to retrieve the dart.
"Don't worry, Jane, it's not a bad first throw. Nineteen more than Lucas got on his first," Wright said.
"You got zero?" Jane asked, turning to look at Loki in confusion. She'd seen how good he was at this the night of the birthday party, so good that he was making deliberate "bad" throws.
"Where'd you throw it, behind you?" Gary asked with a laugh.
"It was a disqualification," Loki said sourly.
"The dart fell off the board. Zero points," Austin explained.
"But he got better fast," Wright added. "Suspiciously fast. If it wasn't for that shoulder injury I think he'd be hitting straight triple-twenties by now."
"My shoulder is all better now," Loki said, and thought perhaps it might even be true. He'd slacked off on his early-morning gym hours, but he hadn't felt any resistance or twinging of the muscles there in at least a week, and the scars had faded down to barely visible. Normally, of course, his scars faded away entirely, but the injury had been accompanied by magic and he'd never had the chance to follow through with proper healing beyond what that barely-trained boy had managed to do back on Asgard.
"Sounds like a challenge," Austin said.
"Don't get him started on challenges," Jane said. "He can't resist them."
Loki shot her a look which he kept mild due to the presence of so many others in the room. If she mentioned anything about the recorder his good mood would come to a swift and unpleasant end.
Jane shrugged and shot him a look right back.
"You might try angling the dart a bit further upward," Loki said to her.
They got started, Austin going first because Loki permitted it, and once the first round was over Loki turned to Wright. "So it's just the two of you, you and Selby, at the DSL in the winter. What about in the summer? Do more people come out?"
"Yeah, sometimes, depends what's going on, you know, if they're installing a new dish or a new receiver or something. There were four of us out here this summer."
"Who were they? I wonder if I'd recognize any of the names."
"Uh, well, it was me, and two other guys from Chicago, Bob Chester and Vijay Dabir, and a guy from Caltech, Micah Withers."
"Vijay Dabir? From India?"
"Yeah, you know him?" Wright asked without looking at him, focused instead on the dartboard now that it was his turn again.
"I've merely heard the name."
Wright took his three throws, Austin recorded the score – a respectable 112 points – and Gary retrieved the darts for his throws.
The next part would be more difficult with Jane there. Loki could have postponed it, and found another time to speak with Wright, but it would need to appear casual, and he wanted this answer before he resumed testing on Sunday. This could be his best opportunity. "I don't actually know the name professionally. I heard it from someone else, someone I met right after I arrived here. Frederick from Materials? He mentioned a Vijay, something about being teased over his name."
"Oh yeah? Small world here, huh? That was me, actually. I mean with Vijay and Fred. Fred Flintstone. I only met that guy the one time, November, I guess it was. I'd only been here a few days. Vijay's back at Chicago now, we keep in touch."
"Mmm," Loki said with a barely-interested nod as he watched Gary take his last throw and as his heart leapt in excitement. He'd had a conversation with Wright hours ago and Wright remembered it from six months ago. Wright would not remember that conversation had Loki not traveled into the past, therefore Loki had changed his present, albeit in some meaningless way. But if things could be changed in meaningless ways, then they could also be changed in meaningful ways, and the possibilities were endless. First, though, he had to confirm that he could travel along both the time-axis and the space-axis at the same time, in general relativity terms, and through Yggdrasil to other times and locations, in Asgardian terms. The thought sobered him, for while playing with time at the South Pole could prove to be very entertaining if he put his mind to it, ultimately he was not here for entertainment purposes.
When Loki refocused on the game, Austin's dart had just missed the bull's-eye, and there were two other darts already on the board. He turned to Jane, to find her staring at him with blatant curiosity and an undercurrent of suspicion. "I believe it's your turn, Jane," he said with a friendly smile that betrayed no reason for Jane to feel suspicious.
Jane blinked rapidly a few times and tore her gaze away from Loki. That was the weirdest bit of conversation she'd ever heard from him. Loki had met Fred – and had a conversation with him long enough for them to get to teasing about names – in the first week or so of their arrival, before the station closed for winter. Loki had hardly talked to anyone then other than her unless he had to. And him bringing up such a random thing out of nowhere when even now he rarely initiated conversation with anyone other than her…it was altogether odd. She took the darts that Gary handed her and tried to shake the feeling that something wasn't right about it. Probably it was just that video that had gotten under her skin, making her look with suspicion on simple conversation.
She threw her first dart of the turn and got a triple-eight. She'd been aiming for the bull's-eye, and triple-eight wasn't particularly near it.
"Twenty-four, not bad," Gary said with a nod, and Jane sent him a rueful smile, for she knew he was just being nice. She wasn't particularly good at this, but at least she wasn't hitting the large single-score outer ring anymore.
"You're twisting your wrist to the left at the end of your throw," Loki said, coming up alongside her, at her right. "Either keep your wrist straight throughout the throw, or incorporate the twist into your throw and compensate for it by adjusting your starting angle an equivalent amount to the right."
Jane turned a skeptical eye toward him and mimed a few throws. She quickly realized he was right. The throwing motion didn't feel "complete" without turning her wrist a bit to the left at the end. But if that was just a habit she'd developed, then she could break it. She mimed the throw a few more times, then threw her second dart. She scored a two in the wide outer band – not exactly an improvement.
"When making a change in technique, it's to be expected that you'll get worse before you get better," Loki said, hoping Jane was sufficiently distracted from her suspicion.
/
/
Jane was distracted, but not sufficiently that she forgot what she'd observed, Loki found out when the gathering finally broke up – Loki allowed himself to win this time and accepted congratulations and promises of a rematch from his fellow players – following a round of beer that Loki abstained from. "You aren't joining them?" he asked as she fell into step beside him. The other three were all going to some movie night; Loki was tired from two weeks of short nights, and wanted to think through what he'd experienced today before getting some quality sleep.
"No. I'm going to read for a little while and then hit the sack. I'm beat."
He laughed lightly. "Yes, you were well and truly beat."
"Talk smack all you want. I can't argue with you on that one. You're way better than me at darts. Though that's not saying much. But you're better than everyone else, too. Are darts a big thing on…in your hometown?" she said as they passed Olivia in the corridor.
"No. I never played this game before coming here. But in principle they aren't too terribly different from knives, and those I do have a great deal of experience with."
"Ah," she said, remembering watching him hide knife after knife away in his Asgardian clothing the last time he'd left for Asgard.
"Do you…fight with knives? Back home?"
Loki looked over at her for a moment before setting his gaze forward again. "They're my preferred weapon. Speed. Accuracy. Wide views gained with the distance. Clean hands."
Clean hands? Jane looked over at Loki. She didn't think of his hands as being particularly clean. Or maybe he meant literally. She was too tired to think it through clearly; the single beer she'd had had done her in. They reached the door to their berthing wing and Jane came to a halt, and Loki as well, as she remembered something she'd meant to ask once they were alone. It was close enough. "So what was that about, that thing about Fred and Vijay and Wright? When were you having long chats with random Polies?"
"I never said it was a long chat. And it wasn't about anything important. You told me I should talk more to the other people here, so I was trying to do so. Have you changed your mind? Would you rather I not talk with them now?"
"No, no, that's not what I meant. I'm glad you're talking to people more. It's just…it was weird. I don't know." Jane gave up on trying to put a coherent thought together and gave in to a yawn, after which she scratched her head and ran her fingers through her hair.
"Are you feeling all right?" Loki asked.
"Just tired. I haven't been sleeping very well."
Loki frowned at how her eyes strayed from his as she said this. It told him exactly why she hadn't been sleeping well. "I'm sorry that you saw it," he said quietly after taking a moment to ensure he neither saw nor heard anyone nearby.
Jane looked up at him. "But you're not sorry that you did it."
Loki sighed. It seemed she would never let that go. Was he sorry? Did he regret it? Would he do it over again? He was sorry he'd ever gotten himself into that mess, sorry that he'd let Thanos dictate the terms, sorry he hadn't succeeded. Would he be sorry if he had succeeded? He didn't know. Though now he had the ability to go back and do things differently, and perhaps he could find out.
"Loki…I don't want to keep dwelling on this. What's done is done. Let's do something fun this weekend, huh?"
"All right. Do you know how to play poker? I'm supposed to play tomorrow night."
"Yeah, the basics, at least. You want me to show you?"
"I would appreciate it."
"All right, we can take a long break over lunch."
Loki agreed, and they continued on into the berthing wing and went their separate ways.
/
/
Loki descended the stairs as everyone watched. The coat moved nicely against his calves, just as his leather surcoat did, but this was soft and light and he wouldn't mind introducing it to his tailors back home, just for an occasional change from his typical attire. What he wore was a transformation of his own design, lacking the permanence of the real thing, for which fine cloth, a needle and thread, and a tailor's skilled hand would be necessary. He remembered then that his tailors thought him a traitor to Asgard. They would take their needle and thread and sew him into his clothing, sew his fingers together, his lips, his nostrils, his eyes, while those he'd called family watched. He glimpsed it, then squeezed his eyes shut against it. At least Frigga would weep for him, he thought.
He'd forgotten why he was here, frozen on the bottom step; the entire chamber had fallen silent, all eyes on him, staring, waiting with baited breath for him to act. He looked to his left and it all came back. There he was. The German scientist. The whole reason he was here. "I need a distraction. And an eyeball." He knew exactly what had to happen. He knew because he'd done it before. He'd seen it before. For a moment, he watched himself from the outside, and felt the pride in his own power as he threw the man whose eyeball he needed – his name was actually irrelevant, it was a body with an eye that would get him what he required – over a table covered in protective runic inscriptions. Protective runes would not stop him. In his empty hands appeared the scepter and the modified scanner. He squeezed the handle and the blades opened up; he thrust it down around the eye and let the scan begin while the body twitched beneath him.
He looked up with a growing smile, ready to revel in the chaos around him, the screaming, the looks of terror, the rush of power he knew it would give him.
His smile faded. No one was running. No one was screaming. They were staring. Pointing. At him. At the body that no longer struggled against him.
He looked to his left and right and back again, but everywhere it was the same. Staring. Pointing. Encircling him. He thought he heard someone crying somewhere, but other than that faint sound and the mechanical whir of the scanner it was silent. Hadn't there been musicians?
His hands began to shake, for suddenly he knew the person beneath him was not the German scientist. He closed his eyes because he didn't want to look, he couldn't look. Baldur, he thought, and a whiff of lavender came to his nose and turned his stomach. But it wasn't Baldur, it couldn't be Baldur, not in this place, not in this time. He felt their eyes on him like blades, accusing him, condemning him. A war raged inside him, a war over his eyelids and whether he would keep them shut forever or open them and see just what he'd done. The struggle was long and painful but the weight of the crowd's stares did not abate and he could not remain in this silent void forever. Even the sound of the scanner had stopped, its work complete. It was time. He opened his eyes…
And shot up in bed as though his pillow were on fire. Jane…
It was Jane. One eye open, staring up at him as she lay pinned down flat on her back, the other… No sound had come from her, but her lips had formed the word "why." He squeezed his eyes shut, but the image wouldn't quite go away, and he couldn't even blame this on Thanos; his own cursed brain had supplied him with it.
"Why?" Jane had asked.
He was certain he'd once had all the answers.
/
Whew, there you have it. Sorry for the longer-than-normal wait - holiday travel and being busy with family, just not as much writing time available.
A few quick notes!
(1) I learned from a reader that some countries aren't getting TDW until FEBRUARY! Can you imagine? Please be kind to your fellow fans and do your best not to post unlabeled spoilers around the internet until MARCH. I'm so thankful for the genuine surprises I had in the movie. ;-)
(2) This chapter contained the first bit of influence from TDW. Did you catch it? Nothing important, just the dissolve of the orange illusion. This was the second Beneath chapter I wrote entirely after viewing TDW.
(3) A second gold star was earned following the last chapter. To avoid spoilers I again won't specify...but I'm keeping track and will publicly award them later.
(4) Last but certainly not least - there's now fanart for this story! Wow! Check out "Isabel M-Ameban's" gorgeous art. You'll recognize the scene it's from immediately, I think. You can get there two ways: on DeviantArt (/ fav .me / d6x1qcf) or, if you prefer, on Pixiv (www. pixiv member_illust .php? mode=medium&illust_id =40160689&uarea= new_illust). For both addresses you'll have to take out the spaces. What an honor, thanks!
All right-y! On to some previews from Ch. 77: Loki's bothered by his dream; Jane teaches Loki the basics of poker and conversation turns serious; Loki hangs out with some of the guys, and Loki does love a challenge.
And excerpt:
"'Try stuff and see what happens.' I like your grandfather's philosophy," Loki said. Tomorrow he would try more stuff and see what happened.
