Beneath

Chapter One Hundred Three – Choices

"Hey!" Jane cried, caught completely off guard. She was inside Selby's room with the door closing behind her before she managed to react. "Get your hands off me," she said angrily, but by then Selby had already let go. "What's wrong with you, Selby?" He was about Loki's height, but even though he towered over her he didn't really look physically imposing at all, with his thin figure, receding hairline, and glasses. Still, he'd just dragged her into his room with a wild look in his eyes and Jane was looking around for objects to grab and whack him with if he tried anything and she couldn't get past him to the door.

"What have you been telling people about me?" he asked.

"Is this some kind of interrogation?" she asked angrily, because it sure sounded like one. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, really?" Selby responded in a tone that made clear he was convinced she was lying. "Then why are- Jane, look, I'm sorry I…I'm sorry I grabbed you like that. I just… I need to know, okay? I'm not a part of anything, and I don't know anything, and I want it to stay that way. I'm sorry I ever mentioned anything about…you know…to you. I'm just a physicist. And I just want to do my research and be left alone, my wife and me. Okay?"

"Selby…," Jane began, shaking her head in confusion. "What's this all about? You're talking about what you told me about your friend, about him working for SHIELD? Is this about that?"

"Don't you know? Are you seriously going to tell me you don't know?"

"Yes, I'm seriously going to tell you I don't know. Are you okay? Because frankly you seem kind of…unhinged or something." Jane winced. Right, Jane, tell the guy who sounds like he's delusional that he sounds delusional. That's helpful.

"Look me in the eye and tell me you haven't been reporting to SHIELD about me."

"What? Selby, I've been looking you in the eye this whole time, and I'm not reporting on you to anybody. Why would I? What's going on?" Selby was definitely sounding delusional now, and that left a sour taste because his paranoia that she was reporting to SHIELD about him was exactly what she'd thought about Lucas at first, and then thanks to Loki's manipulation she'd thought it about everyone else, too, including and especially Selby.

Selby started to visibly relax, and soon started to almost grow limp, pulling out the chair from his desk and virtually collapsing into it. "I'm going to trust you. I don't…I don't know what else to do. It's SHIELD," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper at the last. "I got a warning from them. I thought maybe they'd forgotten about it, or…I don't know, realized how ridiculous it was that they should have any interest in me. But I heard from them again, and then they showed up and questioned my wife…she was really freaked out. Still is. We're quiet people, you know? We like our quiet lives. Coming here is the craziest thing that ever happened to me. That and Jessica wanting to marry me in the first place. And then all this happened and I- I just can't believe I've gotten dragged into this. And now my wife!" Selby said in an anguished whisper.

Jane took a deep breath. Her eyes had settled on a heavy-looking hardcover book on Selby's desk – it might not hurt Loki but she was pretty sure she could slam it into Selby hard enough to do some damage – but now she let go of that idea. Selby didn't want to hurt her. He was just upset and desperate and did something stupid. And all this time SHIELD had been harassing him and he'd thought she was behind it. That explained a lot. Jane certainly understood his frustration with SHIELD. "This is all completely ridiculous," she said. "But they can be real jerks sometimes. I mean, who do they think died and put them in charge of the world? The first time I ran into SHIELD they just showed up at my office and they were confiscating every piece of equipment I had, every document, if it was bolted to the floor they unbolted it and took that too. We more or less came to an understanding later, and I got my stuff back, but when…you know, when the incident in Stuttgart happened, they lied to me, told me they had this awesome opportunity for me to use this observatory up in Tromso. And I naively thought it was because they were impressed with my work, but really they just wanted me out of the way, to make sure-"

It was good to be able to talk to somebody else about this, even after all the simmering animosity between her and Selby, first on her part, then on his – but she really wasn't supposed to. Of course, it was SHIELD that had laid down the law, and if SHIELD was harassing Selby and his wife for no good reason then maybe breaking their "law" was okay.

When Selby prompted, "To make sure of what?" Jane decided she would confide in him at least in part.

"To make sure nobody came after me. Because I know about what happened in New Mexico. Because I knew Thor," she said, whispering the last. Selby had mentioned the "Norse gods" that showed up in New Mexico, though neither had mentioned Thor by name before.

"Because of Loki?"

The unexpected words – the unexpected name – sent a chill up Jane's spine. While Thor's name had leaked but was never officially confirmed, the name "Loki" was not widely known outside SHIELD. She'd been warned not to even mention it around SHIELD agents, because not even all of them knew it. Selby had told her a friend of his had been recruited to work on the Tesseract project; now she wondered if his friend had been inside the testing facility where Loki had shown up, and where he'd taken Erik.

But those were unimportant details. It wasn't such a shock, really, that Selby would know this name. But it was hugely disconcerting. Loki was right down the hall. Of course, he wasn't the same person who'd shown up on Earth shouting and stabbing and enslaving. At least she didn't think he was, and hoped that feeling was more than just wishful thinking. She knew he wasn't the same with her as he had been earlier, or even with the rest of the Polies. "Yeah," Jane finally said, then rushed ahead because she didn't like deceiving Selby like this – calling Loki "Lucas" in front of the others was one thing, talking about Loki as though he weren't right here at the Pole was another. "So anyway, there are definitely some good people in SHIELD, but the organization as a whole is just so…"

"Arrogant? Threatening? Rude? Demeaning?"

Jane gave him a sympathetic smile. "Yeah."

Selby's shoulders then sank and his face went slack. He met Jane's gaze very deliberately, then, it seemed, and stood. "Jane…oh, man, geez…all this time, I thought it was you. I thought you had told SHIELD that I knew stuff, that I asked you about it. And I've been a complete ass to you. I was convinced it was you causing me all this trouble, and I was freaked out, and scared, and…oh, man, I am so, so sorry. And I grabbed you like that, and I…I don't know what else to say but I'm sorry."

"I did wonder why you'd turned into such a jerk," Jane said with a half smile. At least the air was finally being cleared between them. There was no need to get all petty over it. It was a misunderstanding, and he was apologizing, and it seemed pretty clear he was sincere.

"And I wondered why you acted so clueless. I guess it was because you were. I'm really sorry, Jane."

"Okay, I understand. When SHIELD gets in your face, they don't always bring out the best in you. Maybe your friend remembered more than you thought about what he told you at your bachelor party, and he confessed to SHIELD. They must be afraid you might have been telling other people since he told you."

"Yeah, maybe so," Selby said, looking worried again.

"Well, you know that I know Tony Stark. I can ask him to see if he can get SHIELD off your back."

Selby was shaking his head vigorously before Jane even finished her sentence, and she had intended to also mention having Maria Hill's number. "No, you can't do that."

"But it's not right that they're harassing you like that, and if I-"

"No! I mean it, Jane. I know you're only trying to help, and especially after the way I've acted I really appreciate it, but…look, they said not to get anybody else involved, not to tell anybody else. I shouldn't have even told you. But I haven't done anything wrong, so this is all going to be fine in the end, I'm sure of it. It'll go away, eventually, if I just do what they say and stay calm. I just don't want to make it worse."

"Okay, I guess you have to handle it the way you think is best. It's your choice. I won't say anything to anybody. But if you change your mind, I do have a few contacts in SHIELD, plus Tony, that might be able to help."

Selby nodded. "Thanks, but yeah, please don't say anything." He signed, shaking his head slowly. "I'm just really glad it wasn't you. I feel…safer here now, weird as that sounds."

Jane smiled back, but felt a little sick. He wouldn't feel safer if he knew Loki was here. But Loki wasn't a danger to him or anyone else here, not now, anyway – maybe in the beginning. And maybe if Tony showed up. She winced and hoped Selby didn't notice, realizing only then that when Loki had insisted she not bring Pathfinder back out to the roof of the DSL, it wasn't because he wanted to be able to quickly escape to avoid endangering anyone else should Iron Man or anyone else show up, as he'd claimed – it was because he'd wanted to continue pursuing time travel. She hoped that if things went wrong and Tony did come here, that Loki would try hard to avoid the kind of carnage here that had happened in Manhattan, but there was no guarantee he would succeed even if he did try. The Avengers themselves had caused some of the New York damage, in the course of fighting Loki and the Chitauri. The best way to avoid that kind of destruction was to make sure no such fight ever had the chance to happen in the first place. "I'm glad," she said. "And I'm glad things won't be so tense between us anymore. That was kind of a drag. I was actually coming here to try to talk to you about it again. I was at my own door and heard your voice from the hallway and then it was quiet for a while so I was just about to knock when you opened the door. I wasn't trying to listen in."

"I was talking to my wife. She's worried."

"Tell her to try not to. SHIELD might push hard, but they're not going to lock you up or anything," Jane said, then hesitated. Actually, she didn't really know what SHIELD might do if they thought you were spilling their secrets. "And if they do…"

"You know people," Selby said with a wry smile.

"I know people," Jane agreed with a grin; it was a new enough concept that it still felt cool to say it. Of course, some of her people – namely Thor, who'd made sure Phil returned all her stuff – were otherwise occupied at the moment. Then there was Phil himself. But there were others, and Jane had never been afraid to stand up to SHIELD, either. Selby didn't deserve this kind of meddling and bullying from SHIELD, and if she could do anything to stop it she would, but if he didn't want her involved then she'd stay out of it unless he changed his mind.

/


/

Lunch in the galley was a taco bar. Jane was excited; she didn't eat much red meat but tacos were a great comfort food, even if not quite like the more authentic ones she'd some to appreciate in New Mexico.

Loki was less enthusiastic. There was no other hot meal option today, though – he double-checked – so he watched as Jane scooped up crumbled seasoned meat and some kind of brown mush and shredded yellow cheese and vegetables that must have come from a can and sour cream that wasn't nearly as thick as what was served in Asgard and a bit of fresh lettuce from the greenhouse and a chunky red sauce, all into three pale yellow containers that looked like they were made from some sort of grain meal and then fried. He followed suit, skipping the thin sour cream and the unidentifiable brown mush and following Jane to a table, one of the smaller round ones.

"So we have to create our own meals today," he said when they sat down. Serving hours were almost over, and several people were still eating but no one else was near enough to hear.

"It's a taco bar. You choose what you want on your tacos. If they made it for you, you would have been stuck with refried beans and sour cream on it. This way, everybody gets it the way they like it," Jane said. She'd caught Loki's look of annoyance at the lunch menu and kept a corner of an eye on him as he made up his tacos.

"Refried beans? So that's what that…item is? Do they truly fry them twice?"

Jane laughed. "I don't actually know. I never made them, and I never thought about it. But they're good. I know they don't look it, maybe, but you should try some. You don't have to have it in the taco, you can have some on the side."

"Thank you, but this is more than enough," he said. He'd gotten three of them, the same as Jane, figuring perhaps that was standard. He picked up his fork and stuck it into the taco container and caught Jane stifling a laugh.

"What?" He put down his fork, sighed in annoyance, and sat back in his chair.

"Sorry, sorry. Nobody eats them like that. But you couldn't know. Okay. Like this," Jane said, picking up the taco. And just then she realized that when you ate a taco with someone really watching you do it, it was kind of awkward and embarrassing. Still, she gamely angled her head, opened wide, and bit into it carefully, trying not to make a mess. "Mmmm," she said with a smile as she chewed.

"You don't have to treat me like a child, you know, you could have just told me you have to eat the container with it. I simply preferred not to."

"The shell," Jane said once she swallowed. "And I wasn't. Or I didn't mean to."

"The shell," Loki corrected himself, ignoring the rest. He looked down at the tacos on his plate with resignation. He could feast with the best of them if he so chose, raucous and rowdy and downing copious amounts of food with minimal attention to etiquette. And while under the right circumstances he would eat a piece of meat on the bone with his hands, he always preferred cutlery and more civilized dining when sitting at a table.

"Come on, Lucas, give it a try, everybody likes tacos. They're totally customizable. I like them with fresh cilantro, too bad we don't have that here. You can have them with different meats, or no meat, and fish tacos are awesome." Jane went on with her lunch, then; if Loki didn't eat, that was his choice.

"I am not everybody," Loki said, just to be belligerent because this meal had put him in a bad mood. It was, of course, not just the meal. Perhaps it wasn't even the meal at all. It was what would follow the meal.

Jane nodded. "Of course you aren't," she said facetiously as soon as she'd swallowed. "But you'll still love tacos if you try them. These have fresh tomatoes and lettuce, and some of the salsa ingredients are fresh, too."

"The tomatoes are fresh?"

"Yep. Harvested just this morning from the greenhouse. Macy told me about it at breakfast."

That was something, at least. Loki picked up one of the tacos. He bit in, heard the shell crack, and hoped he hadn't crushed it. Though if he had, he supposed that would mean he wouldn't have to eat it…or could eat it with his fork. Crushing them "accidentally," he thought then, might not be such a bad idea. He set the taco back down as he chewed. There was a crack in the shell, but it wasn't crushed.

"So?"

Loki looked at Jane with a frown. "Not bad," he admitted grudgingly. The shell added little in the way of taste, but the combination of different textures was not displeasing. The seasoning on the meat was a bit much for his preference, yet the fresh tomatoes made up for many of the shortcomings. They were juicy and flavorful and sweet, and he regretted again that he hadn't bought Jane – and himself – a real meal while on Asgard. And there would be no time for meals on Alfheim. The thought of Alfheim made him grimace, but there was no point in dwelling on that right now, so he picked up the taco for another bite.

"I'll translate 'not bad' as Lucas for 'five-star cuisine.'"

"Five out of five, is it?"

"It is."

"Then your translation is faulty," Loki said, flashing her a quick overdone smile. It was true though that he'd begun to get used to the food here and it didn't bother him as much as it once had. And it really, truly helped that there were fresh greens and especially fresh tomatoes.

Jane shook her head. "You're incorrigible."

"I try."

"So you don't have anything like this? On Asgard?" she added after glancing around.

"An entire meal's worth of ingredients served inside a crunchy moderately-edible container? No."

"Oh, come on."

"All right, fine, an entirely-edible container, I'll grant you that. Though it would be much better if it were fresh, too."

"I can't disagree with you there. I like the corn tortillas straight from the frying pan, those are the best."

"I'll take your word for it."

"I'll make them for you sometime. I'm not the world's greatest cook, but I'm not the world's worst, either, and tacos are really pretty much child's play."

"Mmmm," Loki said, trying to ignore the 'I'll make them for you,' because he couldn't imagine when she thought she might actually do such a thing. Probably, he figured, it was just something they said on Midgard, to be polite. "They, ah, they do have something similar on Muspelheim, though I never tried it."

"Let's get some. They smell good."

"They smell burnt, Thor. Let's just eat what we brought from home," Loki said.

If Thor heard him he didn't show it, ignoring him and going right up to the vendor. But the days were long past when Loki followed wherever Thor led without question, and he left Thor to his charred meat and went back to their horses for the lunches the servants had packed. Loki wasn't fond of the cuisine in this part of Muspelheim, but Thor would try absolutely anything. Why couldn't Thor ever do what he wanted? Why did it always have to be the other way around?

He turned back toward Thor. Perhaps it could be…

Thor was walking toward him, clutching in each fist two of the enormous boat-shaped things held together by falla fronds and stuffed with who-knew-what buried under the pile of overcooked meat. He looked at them, thinking at first he could do something to just the meat, but then realized that might be too difficult.

"I got two for both of- Ah!" Thor shouted, throwing the eels he now held in his hands down to the ground, where they instantly reverted to their original form and made a rather disgusting mess. "Loki! What did you-"

"Stop shouting. It's unbecoming. Didn't you look at that meat before you got it? It had worms, Thor."

"Worms?" Thor repeated, face scrunched up in disgust and looking down at their intended meal.

"Here," he said, holding out the satchel with their food from home. Thor nodded and thanked him, then shot an angry look back at the vendor; Loki smiled. Too easy.

"Oh yeah? Why not?"

"They stank," Loki told her curtly.

"Oh," Jane said, raising her eyebrows and deciding instantly to drop it. Loki was being a little surly, maybe, but it was couched in that dry humor of his that she'd gotten used to. Despite their fairly amicable chat, though, something had struck a nerve, to judge by his abrupt change in tone.

"And one does not need to put together one's own food in Asgard. The cooks know what I like and don't like, and if for some reason they decided to serve…tacos, they would know not to put brown mush…or refried beans on mine."

"Okay, so by 'one,' you mean 'you.' And your family. Or does everyone there have cooks? I'm guessing not."

"You guess correctly. But I wouldn't know anything about that." That, of course, was not entirely true. There had certainly been occasions when he'd been without cooks or other servants, but the days with them vastly outnumbered those without them. Now he stood in line behind mortals, with a plastic tray to scoop up defrosted food served in large utilitarian metal pans. I'll get it back, he promised himself. I'll get it all back and more. Somehow…somewhere else…

"Lucas?" Jane said after Loki zoned out again, jaw muscles working.

Loki looked up at her from the table, where his gaze had drifted. He wasn't sure if she'd said anything other than his false name.

"So if that's the way it works, then how do you ever get to try new foods?"

He blinked at her. It was a strange question, and she didn't seem to realize it. He glanced around them again; only two others remained, and they were seated far enough away. "I have lived for over a thousand years. There are no new foods to try."

Loki didn't exactly sound upset about it, but it sounded depressing to Jane; she was far from a foodie, but going new places and trying new things had always given her a thrill. It wasn't true, anyway. She raised an eyebrow and took a pointed look at his plate. "You tried tacos for the first time today." There was also the Muspelheim version of a taco that he hadn't tried yet, but she thought she was better off not reminding him of that.

Loki rolled his eyes. "And you know I was not talking about Earth. I have had very little exposure to your…culinary delights. Until coming here." With that he picked up his second taco and took a large confident bite, with greater success at keeping the shell fully intact.

"Well, you obviously have a strong preference for fresh foods, which I can't exactly blame you for, but it's a big world, lots of countries, lots of cultures, lots of fresh foods for you to try when the season ends."

Loki froze for a moment, then set his taco down and finished his bite. "Jane, why do you say such things? Do you imagine I'll pack my suitcase and travel this world sampling its cuisine? Do you imagine I would be welcome?"

"Nobody really knows what you look like. I mean, as long as you don't go around in your, um, home clothes with the helmet and everything, you should be fine. And it would be a good experience for you. You know, getting to know more about Earth, different cultures and traditions."

"One taco at a time?" Loki asked drolly. "SHIELD knows. We're so isolated here that you've forgotten what reality is. I'm not free to go where I please on this world."

"Yes, you are," Jane said, feeling a little irked. She certainly hadn't forgotten about SHIELD, not after that chat with Selby. "That's what your father intended. Thor said so. You said so, earlier."

Loki grit his teeth. It was hard not to correct her on referring to Odin as his father, especially when she was referring to the old man being in a position of power over him. "That was when I could easily use magic. Money, disguises, travel documents… It isn't easy for me any longer. The passport wasn't easy when I created it when I first arrived."

"They sell this thing called hair dye here. Earth magic. I know you, Lo- Lucas. You have answers for everything. You could make it happen without any magic. And besides, you're planning to fix the magic problem, right? So why are you inventing obstacles?"

"All right. You're correct," Loki said. He'd had enough of this. "There are no obstacles. Do you imagine I would want to wander your world if I had a choice of anywhere else I could go?"

Jane gave up trying to reason with him then; she'd had enough, too. Enough of navigating the minefield of his reactions and whatever was eating him. "You can be so mean sometimes."

"'Mean?'" Loki looked away, toward the serving area where the kitchen attendants were clearing away the taco bar. "Mean" was an insult…in two entirely different ways. "Mean" was petty and insignificant, a child bullying a smaller and weaker child, and Loki had arrived on Earth through that portal out of Thanos's presence as neither petty nor insignificant. But Jane had just called him "mean," referring merely to their conversation, and there was no jest in it. He wasn't sure what this discussion had turned into, or how it had reached that point from a few half-serious words about tacos. It had been a fairly harmless conversation earlier. He knew how to be cruel and wound with words, but had not really intended to here. He wondered if it had become such an instinct that he knew no other way to speak to people without deliberation, but then thought of the previous day on Asgard, when he'd not said anything cruel – "mean" – to her, at least not that he could recall, even when he wasn't taking any particular care with his words. He was on edge now in a way he hadn't been yesterday. "I did tell you I'm not a nice person, Jane," he finally said, because Jane was ignoring her meal and watching him, waiting for something more of a response, when he really didn't know what to say.

Jane shook her head. "You're full of it, you know that, don't you? Yeah, you've done some things that were definitely a million miles from 'nice.' And there's a lot of…darkness, I guess, in you. A lot of anger. But if there wasn't also a nice person in you, you wouldn't have shown me such a nice day yesterday, with you and Thor both, when I know you were tempted to show me something that would make him look bad. You wouldn't have bought two sweet rolls and given them both to me. You wouldn't have put your cloak on the ground for-"

"Has it occurred to you that I did those things simply to convince you-"

"No," Jane said firmly. "Don't get me wrong, I know you had a point you wanted to make to me. But you didn't do all those things just for that. And you're just lying to yourself if you say you did, because I know better." If Loki took offense at that, he didn't show it…he looked only about the same level of offended as he did before. "You have…" Jane struggled for the words, not wanting to come off as condescending, which he never reacted well to, or trite. "You have a real opportunity here. For right now, no one knows you're here. No one knows what you did on Earth before. You can be whatever you choose to be. You can be a good person, and try to let go of some of the anger. Like what you're doing with the other-"

"I choose to be someone with full command of magic," Loki cut in. Jane's naivete was stunning, and he didn't want to hear any more of it. "You can be whatever you choose to be." How ridiculous. What choice have I ever had in anything?

Jane just stared for a minute, while Loki picked up a taco and bit in as though the taco had insulted him. Let it go. But she'd let so much go for so long, and things were different now, better. Loki listened to her, sometimes, at least. "Do the two have to be mutually exclusive?" she finally said.

Loki finished his bite and set the remainder of the third taco down with a clenched jaw, then stood. "Be in my chambers in half an hour, ready to learn. Focus would be appreciated."

"O- okay," Jane stammered, trying to recover from Loki-whiplash. Conversation – such as it was – over; Loki was the king of abrupt ends to conversations. He had swerved around a corner to Alfheim, and from the remark about "focus" she gathered he wasn't willing to look back. She watched him leave, wondering what exactly had gone wrong. Yesterday had gone so well and now everything she said seemed to set him off in some way. He hadn't yelled or threatened, not even with one of those menacing looks, but it still felt like a U-Turn from yesterday. If that was a fight, she wasn't sure what they were fighting about. Maybe it had gotten personal at the end, but getting personal was nothing new between her and Loki, and that too had been fine yesterday. Personal from a thousand years ago, for him, though, was maybe not the same as personal now.

She remembered how he'd laughed on Asgard, and how different he looked when he was relaxed and uninhibited and his whole face transformed with a genuine, unaffected laugh. What happened to that Loki? Jane wondered. This one was moody and prickly and, yes, mean. This one wasn't a stranger to her, either, but she'd thought they were past that.

Loki might want to focus, but Jane didn't want to let this simmer. If they were going to do this trip to Alfheim, things had to be smoother between them. And regardless of Alfheim…Loki was a friend now, and she wanted to know what was wrong.

/


/

Loki stood in front of his desk and tried to do what he'd asked of Jane – focus. He had diagrams and lists already drawn up; knowing this was coming he'd stayed up last night and committed even more information to paper. Several stacks of it were neatly lined up on his desk. It would be awkward working in this tiny room, though. Unlike Jane, he did not even have two chairs. He could go to hers and bring her chair here, but she wouldn't appreciate him going into her room without permission.

He leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. Permission! He was standing here stuck in inaction because he lacked permission from a mortal to do what needed to be done – to move furniture as though he were a servant.

He shook his head at himself. Somewhere along the way he'd changed, even before he'd learned the truth of what he was. He'd grown resentful and prideful, harsh and exacting in his expectations of servants. In his youth he'd moved furniture for fun, rearranging his own chambers simply for the change, rearranging Thor's as a jest. He'd cared for his horse Lifhilda himself; Odin had insisted he do so. When did I stop? he asked himself, but he could not remember. It had been a gradual change, he supposed. He knew he'd become more used to it here over time, living as a common man, a common mortal man, no less, but occasionally it was the recognition that he had become used to it that he chafed under.

He longed for so much more, and the fact that any part of him could actually accept living like this stung.

He longed for the life he'd once had. The thought hit him like a tail-thrash from a bilgesnipe. Asgard was beautiful, as were its culture and traditions and architecture and… But he'd also struggled against it all his life, it seemed, in some way or another. When his way of fighting – or not fighting – was deemed "less." Less honorable, less courageous, less strong. When he'd been judged guilty, served his punishment, then had to find a way to live again, as the prince of a people who condemned him. When he'd realized that Thor was Odin's favorite and tried in vain to prove himself just as worthy. Or to prove Thor wasn't as worthy as Odin blindly believed.

"You can be whatever you choose to be." Really, Jane, can I? Then I choose to be thought just as worthy as Thor. I choose to be king of Asgard, and I choose to be obeyed and respected as such.

He didn't want that life again. Illusions and lies, that longing arose from. He'd spent a day indulging in the good things he'd believed himself a part of, the things he'd loved, the parade and Central Market and sweet logs and his favorite hillside, sharing them with someone whose delight in it all had been obvious. And you bade it all farewell, he reminded himself. It was not an unpleasant visit, but you cannot live in the past, either literally or figuratively. A new path would appear, or else he would forge one.

"You have a real opportunity here." Do I? Where is my opportunity? I choose to be Aesir, and not one of them. I choose to be Frigga's real son, and not the discarded progeny of a cold-hearted brute. What real choice do I have, Jane? What choice do you have in your birth?

A few more minutes passed and a knock came at the door; Loki jerked his head toward it, startled. Half an hour had passed and the focus he'd asked of Jane had lasted perhaps half a minute. He didn't want to see her right now. He looked down at his neatly organized piles of notes. He had no real choice. He went to the door.

"Hi," Jane said.

"Come in."

She followed him in. "I know you want to focus on Alfheim, but-"

"If it's all right I'll go to your room and-"

"Sorry," Jane said after they stopped speaking over each other. "Me first?"

"Go ahead," Loki said reluctantly. Apparently she wished to speak further about tacos or opportunities or choices.

"I just wanted to say…and this is going to be an 'if' apology and I hate 'if' apologies because they make it seem like… Okay, look, I don't know if I said something that bothered you, and I…I try not to do that, well, mostly, and if I did say something like that, I'm sorry, because I really didn't intend to. I like talking with you, and I like that you talk to me now, and yesterday was such a great day, and…I just…I don't want to lose that. I consider you a friend, Loki, and I don't want to lose that either."

Loki stood by the closed door, unmoving, eyes still locked on Jane's only because centuries of training had ingrained in him that breaking eye contact was a sign of weakness. There were so many ways he could respond to that, but they all crowded together somewhere at the front of his mind like gnarled Midgardian traffic such that nothing actually made it to his mouth. Her plain yet kind and gracious words angered him and warmed him; he appreciated them in some uncomfortable way, and he hated them. He thought her a fool and courageous and valiant and naïve andunsophisticated and virtuous, and somewhere buried beneath many heavy layers a child, a youth, a young unburdened man wanted to embrace her and thank her and quite possibly even weep and it made him nauseous and angry and guilty that he should feel anger in the face of her goodness and the apology she needn't have made and it made him want to flee the room because he could not allow those layers that he needed, that kept propelling him forward despite all manner of hardship, to be so thoroughly eaten away by the words of a mortal woman. He was emotional, perhaps because of yesterday's events, perhaps because of nervousness over the upcoming visit to Alfheim, and it had to stop.

"Um, so, are we okay? Are you okay?"

We? He closed his eyes briefly. Yes, there was a "we," a "we" that was going to Alfheim, a "we" that was alone here in knowing things the others did not. There would never be a "we" beyond that. This "friendship" would not survive the sunrise. It would probably not even last that long, not if he found success on Alfheim. "You have no need to apologize," Loki finally said, because he preferred the more comfortable interaction they'd had yesterday and at other times, and because it was true. He hesitated to continue, but Jane was waiting and clearly expecting him to say more, and perhaps it needed to be said. "I enjoy talking with you, too, but I am not always…I'm not often good company. I'm better fit for solitude, really, and that's not your fault. I apologize, and we…are fine."

Jane found herself smiling despite the mixed messages, for while he might again disagree with her translation, to her he'd just said that he valued her friendship, that he valued her, as a person, not just as a scientist. It was just a handful of words, and maybe they did add up to more in her mind than they really were, but it felt monumental. Wasn't that what Odin had wanted? For Loki to respect and appreciate humanity? After what had happened yesterday, and now this, she half-expected streaming blue light to burst into the room and suck Loki right through the roof. But Loki was still there, and there was a conspicuous absence of streaming blue light. "Good. I'm glad," Jane said, for that was the most important thing. But she couldn't let the other part go. "You're not meant for solitude, though. 'No man is an island,' remember? You just-"

"Regardless, I don't wish to waste time discussing such things at the moment. A great deal is riding on my journey to Alfheim, Jane." Everything. "And now I have to worry about your presence there, too." He paused; Jane looked a little guilty. She was well-disposed toward him at the moment, perhaps because of the visit to Asgard and his failed attempt to get a cure for her illness. He could use that. "Jane…it will be difficult for me to focus on accomplishing what I need to there, while at the same time protecting you and ensuring no one realizes that you are of Midgard. Would you please consider letting me do this on my own? I swear to you, my intent in doing this in the past is to avoid the war that is going on in the present. I have no interest in changing anything other than my own present ability to defend myself, as I tried to explain earlier."

Jane took a deep breath. You're good, she thought. Of course he was good. He'd fooled her thoroughly for nearly two months with that look of utter sincerity, that voice of earnest honesty. And maybe he was being honest, when it came to the facts, but his demeanor was so different now than just a moment ago – from obvious discomfort to equally obvious comfort – that she knew that he was also trying to manipulate her, and that he was much more comfortable with manipulation than with friendship. "No. If you're going to do this, I'm going with you. But I'm ready to learn everything I need to know, and while it took me a little bit longer than a couple of months to master advanced astrophysics, I am a quick study, and I'll do everything I can to prepare and be a help to you rather than a distraction."

Loki watched her a moment longer in silence. She'd seen through him. He knew it. He'd allowed her to see enough of himself that she was learning to discern his truths from his falsehoods, though he thought perhaps he hadn't tried as hard as he could have, if it was that easy for her to tell the difference. "Fine," he said, trying to keep his irritation under control, since he'd just apologized for it less than five minutes ago. "Then I need you to memorize these," he said, pointing to his desk.

"These?" Jane asked, pointing to the nearest stack of loose-leaf paper.

"All of them."

Jane's eyebrows went up. There were four piles of paper neatly aligned on his desk. "Okay. I, uh, I don't have to memorize them all today, do I? Because you may be fine without a few nights' sleep but I'm not going to be at my best if I stay up all night."

"I've noticed. You're short-tempered and impatient when you don't sleep."

"Again, the pot and the kettle are doing introductions," Jane said with an affected expression of amusement.

"Explain the pot and kettle reference," he said with a frown. Having heard it twice now, he had guessed its intent, but it annoyed him not to understand why those specific items were cited, and with Jane he'd gotten over his refusal to ask at least a month ago.

"Oh, well, the pot and the kettle are both black. So it means-"

"That is sufficient. I don't need the interpretation. But your analogy is incorrect. I'm short-tempered and impatient irrespective of how much I've slept."

Jane gave a short chuckle. "Okay, you may have me there."

Loki allowed a small smile, the best he could do today, perhaps. "Now that we're agreed, I'm going to retrieve the chair from your chambers, if that's all right. There is much I'll need to explain to you."

"Great, let's do it."

Loki nodded and left for her chair. He couldn't even say he minded it that much, he thought, as he brought it back. He could adapt while here; it didn't mean it was permanent. It didn't mean he had accepted a life little different from that of a servant in Odin's palace. He was only making do with the temporary circumstances in which he found himself.

His mood, actually, had even improved, despite the activity he'd dreaded all day now being upon him. With a large measure of surprise, he thought for the first time that it might even be somewhat enjoyable, telling Jane about Alfheim and Niskit and his plans, seeing her reactions, sharing all this with her in the safe environs of the South Pole.

It would be another thing entirely once they left here.

/


I happen to have ground beef in the fridge right now, intended for hamburgers, but I have to say while editing this chapter I was wishing I had some entirely-edible containers to make tacos with. I made tacos once for a Czech friend who'd never had them before, store-bought hard shell and ones I fried at home. He preferred the "home-fried" ones, and I can't disagree.

"Polka-Dot-Sally," you gave me a good LOL with "we all know she's good at dealing with nuts and being careful with what she says haha." How right you are! And "Laurie," is he "too coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs"? Hahaha, that's a nice blast from the past.

Thanks you for your reviews/comments/questions, and continued new faves/follows - welcome to the story, you brave souls who are undaunted by the word count! I am about a week behind responding to PMs and reviews, but I'll get back to you!

Previews for Ch. 104: Loki and Jane prepare, and we'll have to see if this little rough patch is behind them; Loki & Jane discuss scintillating topics like pens and circumbinary planets and hairstyles!; silly stuff turns a bit serious, for both Loki and Jane.

And excerpt:

"But why? I didn't have to hide my face last time."

"You may unintentionally do or say something that makes someone suspicious. And last time your face had not been entered into the Einherjars' repository of potential threats to the throne," Loki said with a growing sly grin.

"Threats to the throne? What are you talking-" And then she remembered. "Loki…you…did you…you did not-"