Beneath

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Nine – Leadership

By the time Frigga fell silent, Jane had stopped moving and was staring up at the station instead of down at the ice. It was hard to see clearly, but even in the dim light Jane could tell the whole building had shifted and several of the support pillars looked like they had simply bent, like plastic instead of steel. "We've been having earthquakes. We th- Oh! There was another one, right after I drank the potion. It's my fault. I went after Loki. But I had to. I couldn't let him…" She paused to take a couple of shaky breaths. Loki's mother was right next to her; Jane had no intention of slamming her right now with exactly what Loki had planned to do on Asgard. "A couple of the pillars were damaged before and Loki said it was worse than Olivia said, and that he tried to fix it but he only made it worse. I don't think this is what he meant. This is way worse. This is…this is really bad. And I did this. If I hadn't come here, if I hadn't guilted SHIELD into paying for all this, if I hadn't asked Tony for that arc reactor, if I hadn't just skipped all the steps in between and gone right to making my own bifrost, if I had just-"

"Your own bifrost?" Frigga echoed, trying to follow the people and things Jane was referencing that were mostly unfamiliar. "Bifrost" she understood very well.

"Yeah. Sort of. We used this device, Pathfinder, I originally built it to learn more about the nature of dark matter, and based on that to hopefully identify Einstein-Rosen bridges, but we found out where Yggdrasil was opening up over Earth, and… Everybody's going to blame Loki for this. It's not Loki's fault. It's really not. No more than it's mine. We both did this, and we both made mistakes. Please don't blame him. He's already carrying around enough guilt. But this-"

"Jane, stop. Take a deep breath. As much as you can out here. No one's blaming anyone for anything right now. It sounds like whatever happened was an accident. Can your people repair the damage?"

Jane shook her head, staring up at the building that was currently her home, the building that 48 other Polies depended on for their survival. "No. Not the people we have here, and not in the winter. When they built this station, they only worked on it during the summer, when we have the sun all day and the temperatures aren't as extreme."

"All right. Let's keep going. Standing around out here doesn't get us anywhere, literally. The others must believe the building is still safe, or they wouldn't be in there." Unless they have no better options, she thought; this was perhaps the only building that was capable of sustaining the residents' lives in this harsh environment. "We'll see what we can find out. Perhaps there's some form of assistance that Asgard can provide," she added as she and Jane got underway again. The words were painful, for normally Asgard could have done a great deal to help, including sending a team of engineers and builders who probably could have repaired the building even in these conditions. Right now, Asgard had little to offer, and not a single builder to spare.

Jane nodded as they got under way again, head swimming. Selby was going to be okay, Loki was going to be okay…but now the crisis had shifted back to the station, and in the span of just a few minutes the thing that Jane was most worried about had changed yet again. "It's kind of ironic, you know," she said.

"What is?"

"I was really dreading telling them about Loki. I guess I still am, but…right now I think Loki might be the least of their concerns."

/


/

Jane took them to the Destination Alpha entrance, on the far end of the side of the building with the initial damage. But the stairs there were warped and twisted, no longer attached to the building. They came back around to Destination Zulu; the downside there was the likelihood of running into more people. People who hadn't seen a new person since the station closed in February.

They entered at the second floor, over the gap between stairs and entrance that Frigga pointed out. Wright was there, outside the doors to Club Med, insulated coffee mug in hand. "How is Dr. Higgins doing?" Frigga asked, surprising Jane by speaking first.

"Doc says he's doing fine," Wright said. "He already woke up, but he's really out of it. Started talking about being in an airplane hangar. Austin and Carlo are in there with him now. Um, I was thinking…I never met a queen before. Are we supposed to be bowing or something?"

"These aren't the circumstances for such formality, and I don't expect anyone here to be familiar with Asgardian protocol. Please don't concern yourself with it."

"Okay," he said, hesitation in his tone, then took a drink from his coffee cup.

Jane felt bad for him. He wasn't really acting like himself – Wright was gregarious, sometimes off-beat, always full of confidence, and as he'd told her more than once, he hated drama. Now he was nervous. Maybe even scared. The last couple of days had been rough for everyone, not just her and Loki. Today he'd found out about Loki; yesterday she and Wright had faced the possibility of being buried alive. "Wright, is everything okay here?" she asked, thoughts now turning back to the earthquakes. "Some of the pillars are in pretty bad shape. Has Olivia said anything?"

His worried expression answered the question before he spoke. "Really? I guess you weren't in the station for it, but there was a lot of creaking and groaning with the last quake. Like, sounds you really don't want to hear anywhere, let alone the South Pole. Nobody was running around screaming or anything but people were pretty scared. Nothing since then. But Olivia, no, nobody's seen her. Well, not since right after that last quake. She came looking for Gary, wanted him to go do inspections, but he was one of the only ones who hadn't had a single drink, you know, so he'd be ready to do whatever he was told to about the damage we already had, so he wound up helping Doc with the operation. He's down in the galley getting something to eat, then he was going to get geared up and go out and take a look at the structure. Wait, what were you doing out there, Jane? They told us not to…oh. Oh," Wright repeated, putting a hand to his forehead and taking on a pained expression. "Selby said he told you that" – he paused to glance left and right – "that Lucas was pretending…that Loki was pretending to be Lucas, and I guess this means that he's doing okay. Loki… Sorry. Still waiting on the coffee to kick in some more. I just can't believe any of this. It's all really too much."

You don't know the half of it. Not even the tenth of it, Jane thought with a sympathetic smile. She knew that feeling of being overwhelmed by Asgard and Asgardians and everything that came with it all too well.

"We'll explain everything as soon as we can. Perhaps if as many as possible could gather together somewhere?" Frigga said.

"Almost everyone's still down in the galley," Wright said. "After we found out about Selby…well, the party kind of died. And then there was the earthquake. It started to pick back up again after I told everybody Selby was okay."

"Maybe you can get some more coffee going?" Jane suggested.

"Yeah, okay. Good idea," he agreed, turning to go already. Jane figured he was probably glad to have something to do instead of just standing there trying to make sense of things that simply didn't.

"Is Olivia in her office?" she asked.

"Yeah, far as I know," he said, turning back. "Hey, Jane? Lucas is outside somewhere? Did they use one of those rocks on him, too?" he asked, glancing to Frigga.

"Yes," the queen answered. "It did for him what you saw it do for Dr. Higgins."

Wright nodded. "What exactly happened?"

"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure," Jane said. "I know it looks bad for Loki, but please don't jump to any conclusions just yet."

"I'll try. And he, uh, he didn't…" Wright pointed to his head.

"No. No, he didn't do that. I wasn't lying."

"Okay," he said, fixed in place, nodding slowly. Jane wondered what he was thinking, whether he'd be able to forgive Loki for the deception, whether he'd still be able to treat Loki as a friend. Whether he'd even have the chance. A few seconds more and he resumed his path to the galley.

"This way, Your Majesty," Jane said, leading them off in the opposite direction.

"You told Eir you had a head injury. Wright mentioned it earlier, too. How did it happen?" Frigga said, glancing over at Jane at the end to catch her reaction. Apprehension, she thought. Possibly guilt.

Jane briefly met Frigga's eyes, and took a moment to consider her answer. Frigga had to have a million questions, and unlike with Odin, there was something about her that made Jane want to answer. But it had to wait for Loki, and besides, there wasn't time. Jane figured Frigga wasn't looking for the full explanation right now, anyway. "It's kind of a long story. But the most important part of it is that Loki didn't do it. Really. He's not like that. He's never deliberately hurt me, or anyone else here."

"You're right, he's not like that. When he is himself. But he hasn't been himself for a while now. Jane...," Frigga began, slowing and coming to a stop, Jane following suit, "I am relieved, and grateful, and overjoyed to hear you say he hasn't hurt anyone. But…his injury would suggest otherwise."

A second or two passed in weighty silence. It bothered Jane, too. She had never asked Loki what happened; she hadn't even thought about it that much, deliberately setting the question aside to focus on what mattered most – saving Loki's life, and Selby's too. "I didn't really see what happened. And I didn't see how it started. They were fighting, and then…I don't know. He…he started to tell me something, when we realized he had the same stab wound as Selby. He said he was protecting something. Protecting…me?" She closed her eyes and pictured it. They'd been so close to Pathfinder, Selby and Loki had. So close to her. Selby had been afraid Loki was going to try to hurt her, so he'd gone out there, with a knife… Her eyes focused on Frigga's again; she was watching her intently. "I think he was trying to protect me. Maybe that enchantment went haywire. I don't think he wanted to…" Jane sagged, dropped her head, ran her fingers through her hair. Just this morning Loki had basically said he would kill Selby if Selby hurt her.

"Are you all right?" Frigga asked, placing a tentative hand on the younger woman's shoulder. If Jane Foster was about to break down, it was certainly understandable, given all she'd apparently been through recently, but it wasn't a particularly good time for it. Frigga didn't know this Olivia that Jane kept mentioning, or hardly anything about this building, or much more about modern Midgard as a whole. Jane's participation was crucial to that discussion. "Let's not worry about this right now, all right? Loki is recovering. Selby is recovering. Only Loki knows both what he did and why he did it."

Jane lifted her head, nodding. There was just too much going on; it was too hard to focus. She wanted to be in so many different places at once – with Loki, waiting for him to wake up; with Olivia, finding out the station's status; with Thor, because yet again he'd just popped into her life and disappeared far too quickly; with the others down the corridor in the galley, getting well and truly drunk; in her own little room, snuggled under the covers drifting into a deep dreamless sleep. All of those things could happen. Just not all at once. "You're right. Olivia's office is right through here," she said, pointing to the narrower side corridor they'd stopped just short of, that turned and to a row of offices that were mostly empty in winter.

"And Olivia is in charge of this outpost?"

"Yes, sorry. She's the Winter Site Manager."

Olivia's door was open, and with her were the other two managers, Ken and Drew, whose back was to them; Olivia had an Iridium phone at her ear.

"Who are you?" Ken asked, eyes wide under squinting brow.

Drew turned around and peered at Frigga like she was a specimen in a petrie dish. Jane saw that he was looking extra-closely at her hair and her dress, and realized that given how many people had thrown costumes together earlier today, he was probably thinking she was one of the Polies with a really good costume. "Mari?" he asked with heavy skepticism, confirming Jane's theory. His eyes were pretty red, too – alcohol was helping him force an impossible event into the reality he knew.

Olivia, head down and eyes closed, interrupted them. "I understand that, but you have to understand that we can't- I know. Yes, but we still don't-" She gave a frustrated sigh, fingers massaging the area around the bridge of her nose, and finally opened her eyes. Her gaze immediately fixed on Frigga, who still stood just inside the door, next to Jane. The buzz of only occasionally recognizable words came through the sat phone; the office was otherwise completely silent.

"I'm going to have to call you back, Jerry." "Yeah, I know. I'm going to have to call you back. It might be a little while." "You do that. I'll call you back, and you've simply got to have something for us by then. Goodbye, Jerry."

They all stood there for an awkwardly long time, Frigga expecting Jane to introduce her, and Jane, she supposed, a little too overwhelmed to do anything more than open her mouth as though she were about to say something, then close it again. "Olivia, I am Frigga, Queen of Asgard," she finally said herself, entering the room the rest of the way and extending her hand in the Midgardian style to Olivia, who shook it with just a second's hesitation. To the two men unabashedly staring at her, she nodded.

"Asgard," Olivia repeated a moment later, after letting go of Frigga's hand. " I don't know exactly where that is, but I'm pretty sure you're a long way from home. And a long way from New York, too. I heard you on the radio today. Talking about Loki and Gullveig and a war that you're all involved in, these other planets. Is there a war coming here?"

"No. No war is coming, not that I'm aware of. I'm sorry for worrying you in that regard. But I do…or rather we do" – Frigga looked pointedly at Jane, who stepped forward from the doorway with a bracing smile – "need to talk with you about a couple of things, as the leader of your people here."

"I figured as much. We don't get casual drop-in visitors here. We don't get any visitors here. So I figured you didn't just stop by to say hello, whoever you were. For right now, just tell me this. Are things about to get any worse here than they are right now?"

Frigga looked Jane's way; Jane would have a better idea of how to answer that.

"Um," Jane began, realizing Frigga was waiting for her to respond, "it depends on how you look at it?"

"That's not particularly encouraging. Is this about Selby? I heard you brought him in. And there was some kind of struggle?"

"Well, yes. And no. I mean…"

"Hold on, is this about…you said you were working on something…something that used a heavy-duty power source, and you thought it might have something to do with the earthquakes here."

"Yeah. Well-"

"We aren't certain what is causing the earthquakes yet, Olivia. We've experienced them, too, in Asgard, and at least some of the other realms as well. We have consulted our scholars on the matter. In the meantime, if you could tell me what difficulties you're facing as a result of them, I'll see if there's anything Asgard can do to assist, despite the constraints of the attacks on our realm."

"Why do you want to help us? We need help, don't get me wrong. Our main difficulty right now is we're afraid this building is going to-" Olivia stopped abruptly, pressing her lips together and glancing away. "But I never heard of Asgard before the last couple of days, and most of even this planet has never heard of the Amundsen-Scott Station. There are plenty of places on Earth that are dealing with natural disasters, or wars, or terrorism, or food insecurity… Why us? Why here?"

"That's something we really need to talk to everyone about," Jane put in before Frigga could answer. It was going to be hard enough explaining all this once. She didn't want to have to do it multiple times.

"All right. I can make that happen. Everyone else here has decided they don't have jobs to do anymore, and I haven't had time to disabuse them of that. They're mostly in the galley. I'll put out an all-call to get everyone to stay there."

"In their defense," Ken said, "half of them can't do their jobs at the moment, since they're not supposed to go to any of the outbuildings or even to this half of the building without good cause. You can't blame them for wanting to blow off some steam."

"They blew off so much steam we could hardly find anyone to assist Nora in the surgery."

"Olivia," Ken began in an exasperated voice, the kind of voice that said this wasn't the first time they'd argued over this, when Drew interrupted.

"Can we just set that aside and deal with it later? If an alien queen…um, no offense" – Frigga quickly shook her head to indicate she'd taken no offense – "just shows up here and says maybe her planet can help us when this whole building might collapse at any minute with another quake for all we know and our only other option is to try to survive the winter in one of the outbuildings, then I don't really care why she's here."

Olivia sized up Frigga for another moment before turning to Jane. "Do you know this woman, Jane? Greeks bearing gifts?"

"It's not like that. I just met her for the first time today, to be honest," Jane said, flinching at Frigga's sharp look; it hadn't been "today" for Frigga. "But I know her sons, and I trust her."

/


/

Odin was collecting shards of glass from the floor in one palm when he saw the twitch out of the corner of his eye. He stood and watched; the twitch came again, Loki's right thumb. He looked to Loki's face, and even in its unfamiliar details he could see the tension. "Eir."

The healer placed the small pile of papers she'd collected from the floor on the table and came immediately to Loki's side, pulling her gloves back on as she did so.

"Is he stirring?"

Eir rested her right hand over Loki's bare head, while with her left she lifted his eyelid; Odin could see the eye moving seemingly randomly about. "I don't think so. I think he's dreaming."

/


/

"Thor," Loki said, the name an accusation, an indictment.

"Monster," Thor said, equally indicting. More words followed, but they were gibberish, unintelligible. His expression was clear enough, though. As was the hammer he lifted over Loki's head.

Loki tried to jerk away from it, but his movements were sluggish, off-balance, unnatural in some way that left him feeling queasy. When he again opened the eyes he'd instinctively closed, Thor was crouched over him, leaning in close, nothing but bright white light behind him, and Loki's back was pressed against something, trapped. "You keep trying to hide from me, Brother. To escape me. But the more you try and the better you become at it, the more interesting you make the pursuit. I will always find you. You will never escape me."

Mother appeared then, leaning in over Thor's shoulder, Loki's cheek caressed by a hand he couldn't recoil from. "I thought I would tire of this eventually. But you were always good at games, sweet boy. A worthy opponent keeps the game enjoyable."

Father stood over all of them then, back straight, throwing them all into shadow. "At last, he's worthy of something."

/


/

"Thor! We need rain!" Sif shouted from nearby.

"I know!" Thor shouted back. But everything was happening too quickly, too many attackers, and Thor could not find the space to break free. Then again, it was also true that his focus was not at its purest.

Upon his return to Asgard, Heimdall had immediately directed him to where he was needed most: defending a tower under heavy attack by an army of Fire Giants, with less than a hundred Asgardians in place to stand up to them. It was the worst of enemies for Thor to have to face at that particular moment – worse would have actually been Frost Giants, but other than their freezing of the Eilif Springs, which Asgard was still suffering the consequences of, none of them had set foot here. Thor swung Mjolnir upward in a wide arc, catching an attacking giant only at the waist, and a stray thought crossed his mind: why is it that Loki was born normal-sized? And then other thoughts followed as he fought on with moves his body knew as well as breathing. Loki is not normal-sized. Not for a Frost Giant. Father said he thought that's why Loki was abandoned. He slew two more Fire Giants; five more converged on him. "Don't come back unless you can look at him as your brother." I can. I can look at him as my brother. He is my brother, no matter what he looks like.

Something wet sprayed the side of his head; he looked over long enough to see Sif looking down at him with a macabre grin from atop the shoulders of a Giant, one end of her sword embedded in his neck, having sliced halfway through it. Sif gave a yank on her blade and flipped backwards off the Giant, whose pupils dilated and took on that empty, unsettling look peculiar to the absence of life. Those eyes, Thor thought, unable to look away as gravity brought the dead giant crashing to the ground. With the reflex to close them upon impact gone, the eyes remained open, staring vacantly up at Thor, who saw not the dark purplish blue eyes of the Fire Giant before him, but the intense red eyes of a Frost Giant. They are hideous. How can I suddenly convince myself they are otherwise? They are the eyes of barbarism and cruelty and evil. How can I look into those eyes and not have such feelings? Whether they are Loki's, or any other Frost Giant's? I told them we can't call them beasts anymore. I told them I wanted a real peace with the Jotuns. I am such a hypocr-

Thor found himself on the ground, head ringing, breath knocked out of him.

"Your head's not in this, Thor," Volstagg said, just as he planted himself in front of his old friend and drove his double-bladed ax deep into the gut of the Fire Giant who'd felled Thor, and who'd been too distracted by the kill he expected to earn with a follow-up blow to notice the second Aesir coming up around his side. Thor got as much leverage as he could – not much from his position sprawled on the ground – and threw Mjolnir up at the protruding blade, driving it further inward. The giant screamed in agony and toppled forward; Thor rolled away to avoid being crushed underneath him.

"You're going to find yourself without it at this rate," he added, pushing hard at the dying giant to roll him over and retrieve his weapon, for although part of it now stuck out the other side, it would be difficult to retrieve it from there.

"You're right," Thor agreed, getting to his knees and helping Volstagg roll the giant. He took Mjolnir then and finished him with a blow to the head, ceasing the rumbling moans and twitching hands.

"You cracked my blade. How am I supposed to fight with this?"

Thor looked up, but could barely see his friend. He wiped his left hand across his eyes, and it came away bright red, his own blood rather than the giant's. His hand instantly went back to his head, and he sucked in a hissed breath at the intensity of the stinging pain he hadn't noticed before, right on top. A matter of protection, he'd been told long ago; the body tried to protect the mind from knowing just how much damage and pain had been inflicted on it.

"Behind you!" Volstagg shouted, going into motion Thor could barely follow from the blood dripping down his face. He didn't need to. Without even looking he whipped Mjolnir around even as he sprang up from the ground, cracking the arm bones of the Fire Giant who'd almost reached him, arms held out with his sword to slice right through Thor's head.

A scant few seconds later and these enemies, too, were felled, and Volstagg was retrieving his ax from a giant's head, where he'd thrown it. When it came loose, Volstagg fell backward and landed on his cushioned rump. Part of the cracked blade had broken completely and remained lodged in the giant's forehead.

More giants came. Thor wiped away the blood from his eyes whenever he had a spare second to do so; Volstagg grabbed the sword from the lax hand of the giant he'd just killed. The sounds and smells of electrical discharge signaled the formation of another portal; Aesir eyes went wide at the realization. They could not handle another wave of attackers at this location, and they knew it. They would stand their ground, but they would die on it, too. Thor threw Mjolnir at one giant and slammed his fist into the knee of another, pushing him back just far enough for Thor to call Mjolnir back and finally hurl himself above them all. The life of each remaining Aesir at this location depended on him preventing this portal from disgorging fresh enemies.

He had just drawn the lightning down to Mjolnir when he looked down and saw that instead of enemies pouring out from it, the remaining Fire Giants were running toward it. Lightning sparked and raged above and through him in a familiar rush, and when all of the giants had disengaged from the defenders he let it loose on them. Some made it through the portal; many others did not. He didn't rejoice in their deaths, but neither did he give them a second thought. It was war, and they were not retreating – they were regrouping. Those that made it out safely would only return later to attack again.

Then came Gullveig's voice, with that slightly distorted, tinny sound. "Asgardians, your towers and your warriors are falling around you. You cannot hold out much longer. Your defenders are few and your resources scarce. You've grown so desperate that you turn to Midgardians born a scant few decades ago to save you. Recognize this for the folly that it is. Surrender and spare yourselves further agony. We give you one day to rethink your decision to fight to extinction. Asgardians, lay down your weapons and you will not be harmed. On this you have my-"

Thor lit up the shrunken portal with sizzling electricity and the voice turned garbled and then silent as the portal winked out of existence.

He set down with a heavy thud near Volstagg, huffing in unbridled anger he tried to get control of.

"The nerve of that man," Fandral said, approaching with a limp. "Does he actually think us such cowardly traitors?"

Thor exchanged a glance with Volstagg. His friends had led the fight in this battle before he arrived, and it was good to be with them again. But of the four of them, only Volstagg knew that Asgard was in fact considering surrender.

"I've got to stop losing weight," Volstagg said, resting the flat of the blade of the Fire Giant's weapon on his open palm and inspecting it. "If I were any lighter this sword would topple me right over."

The memories were distant and vague, but Thor had at one point studied principles of things like weight and balance and gravity, and he wasn't sure Volstagg was quite correct, but then he also suspected Volstagg was simply trying to distract Fandral. It was successful; Thor stood by and pretended to listen, lightly tossing Mjolnir from time to time. Each time it rose up, the weight of the head really should have made it tip forward and fall to the ground, but each time he felt the attraction of the handle, the pull between him and it that he'd learned to feel and control so long ago, and each time the handle smacked his palm exactly as it should. Worthy. I am worthy, though I cannot see past Loki's skin. Whatever new magic his father had placed on Mjolnir, it apparently did not judge him for his every individual failing. "Being worthy of Mjolnir doesn't mean you'll no longer make mistakes." He'd been blind before, but now he saw exactly what he was doing – exactly where he had failed. He thought perhaps that was the difference, as Mjolnir greeted his hand again. But knowing where he'd failed didn't change the fact of the failure.

Volstagg, meanwhile, had ceased his jesting and pulled out his ram's horn, and Hogun and Sif were approaching. Thor waited, and nodded for Volstagg to signal the others forward and give his orders when he was done. It was Volstagg who'd been commanding here. "They've all withdrawn, all over Asgard. We don't know if they'll really stay away for a full day or not, so back to your assigned camps. If you need to see a healer…and it looks like most of us do…then take care of it. Bring provisions back with you. If we do have a day's reprieve, use it to rest and eat – regain your strength. Your Majesty, do you wish to say a few words?"

He did not. In the beginning, the encouraging words had been easy – they came naturally to him. He spoke of things he felt and believed in his heart, to an audience he knew and understood. Now Asgard – he, Thor himself – was planning a last-ditch effort against Gullveig, and if that failed…surrender. Tyr was tasked with the former, Bragi with the latter.

Ultimately, of course he spoke to them. He would speak to each of the camps before nightfall. He told them they had fought with honor, that their courage and commitment made all of Asgard proud, that their sacrifices would not be in vain. If Asgard surrendered…would it not make him a liar? Should they have surrendered at the very beginning, negotiated more favorable terms at the outset? Had their pride blinded them, convinced them that there were no odds they could not overcome?

"Thor, come on, you need a healer, too," Sif said, arm at his back, trying to nudge him forward. "You look like a redhead."

He put a hand absently to his head. It hurt, more of a heavy thud now than a sharp sting. His hair was damp and sticky. "I only need a healing stone. Where's the field healer?"

"She was killed in the first hour of the battle," Hogun said.

"Come on, let's go in," Sif urged, and the five started off toward the nearest gate, behind the other warriors who'd headed for the Healing Room. "What's had you so distracted?"

"I'm sorry," Thor said, shaking his head. His trainers had given him painful lessons on the rare occasions they'd caught him giving battle less than his full attention.

"I don't think anyone noticed but us," Fandral said. "What's going on? Where did you disappear to? We heard Tyr was given full authority in the war."

"Yes. One moment," Thor answered, pointing toward the gate they were nearing. There wasn't necessarily any additional protection from eavesdropping inside the wall versus outside it – Vigdis after all had done her spying from inside the palace itself – but still it seemed a better idea to Thor to be inside it. "We found Loki. On Midgard," he said as soon as they were on the other side of the wall, the two Einherjar at the gate out of hearing distance. "He's been living as a mortal, as far as I can tell. He followed Jane and he's been with her this entire time. He lied to her about who he was, pretended to be her assistant. But she found out the truth more than two months ago, she said. And then Loki was stabbed in the chest because he stabbed another mortal, not Jane, and Jane came here to Asgard… I thought she was escaping Loki, but that…that doesn't make any sense. I suppose it never did. Jane said they became…friends. She said Loki talked to her, about many things." Thor slowed and came to a stop, then looked around him. No one was there. He turned to face backward, and there his friends stood a few paces back, staring at him.

"Ah, Thor, old friend, I think you lost us at…" Fandral began.

"'Living as a mortal,'" Volstagg supplied, with Sif quickly echoing him and Hogun nodding.

"Jane was on Asgard?" Fandral asked.

"Briefly. Through magic Mother had intended for Loki's use, in case of dire circumstances. It was dangerous for her. It split her in two. But when she was whole again…my mother believed she did it for Loki, to get help for him, and from what Jane said…Mother must have been right. I…it all happened so fast, I never even had a chance to really ask about it."

"What about the old…aaah…" Volstagg thumped a finger to his chest.

"No. I believe her mind is her own. Loki's scepter is in SHIELD custody, and he has no such power without it. And her eyes were unchanged." His friends knew these tales, how Loki had been able to tap a magical scepter over a mortal's heart and thus enslave their minds, including that of Thor's friend, Jane's dear friend Erik.

"Then what game is he playing at? You said he followed Jane. He sought her out," Sif said.

"Yes. Jane believes he's sincere, that he's not manipulating her. But there's so much more," Thor said in frustration. He wished badly to be able to tell his friends about Loki's appearance, not because he wished to divulge Loki's secret, but because he wished to share his struggles with being faced with the physical reality of that secret, to perhaps obtain some advice from his friends on how to handle it.

"Well…your Jane managed to work wonders with you…perhaps she's done the same with Loki," Volstagg said.

"Perhaps we should each spend a little time in her company, hm?" Fandral said with raised eyebrow.

Sif rolled her eyes as Thor scowled, though he knew Fandral was just teasing. "You have a day, Thor. Supposedly. Go and talk to her. Talk to him, if he'll let you. Find out what's going on. You'd hoped that this time on Midgard would be as good for him as it was for you. It's difficult to imagine…but perhaps it has. I do hope you'll be careful with him, though. Loki knows how to play the trickster. And it wouldn't surprise me if he did it for months. He's patient, and he has all the self-control you never did. Or…at least he used to."

Thor nodded. He wasn't insulted by Sif's assessment of his lack of self-control; he knew it to be true. About Loki's self-control he wasn't certain. He no longer felt certain about anything regarding Loki, despite the effort he'd been putting into recording his thoughts about him, trying to understand his brother and himself in spare moments over the couple of months. "I need to see that he's healing from his injury. And to make sure that Jane is all right. But first I have to visit the camps. And speak to Tyr. And Bragi. And retrieve something."

"And see a healer," Volstagg reminded him. "If you're going to see Jane again…she'll die of fright if you look like that."

"And see a healer," Thor confirmed with a smile. Come what may with Loki, he would see Jane again. And he would do a better job of it this time. He took a deep breath and signaled their small band onward again. He would do a better job with Loki, too. "The question is," his father had told him after he'd killed a fleeing Frost Giant who hadn't been fighting anyone, "what will you learn from it?"

/


/

"Don't mind her," Jane said as she and Frigga walked back toward Club Med and, just past it, the galley. "She's not usually like that. She's just stressed out. This station and all the people in it are her responsibility for the winter."

"I understand. Taking on a position of leadership, and making decisions for others in their best interest, it looks easy, but it's not. It can be quite a strain."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd know, huh?" Jane answered, attention only half on the conversation. Frigga was a queen, and had been a queen for who-knew-how-long, maybe thousands of years, and for her what was about to happen now was probably easy, old hat.

"Jane. Are you all right?" Frigga asked, stopping them.

"Me? Yeah. I mean, I didn't get stabbed, and I've known Loki was here for a long time, and I've known about Asgard for-"

"All true, but you're under no less strain. I wasn't talking about me when I spoke of leadership."

"I'm not a leader here, not of anyone." She laughed at an ironic thought. "I thought I was Lucas's leader – when we first met on the way here he told me he was my assistant. But I was never leading him. He was leading me, mostly without my even knowing it."

"For better or for worse, that does sound like Loki," Frigga said with a smile. "Thor has a way of naturally taking over any room he enters. Loki used to be content with that, when he was a child. But at some point he came to realize that if he ever wanted to get his way with others instead of Thor getting his, he would have to use subtler, more manipulative means. He grew quite good at it. It's a useful skill, actually, but as with everything in life, appropriacy and context are critical. I'm sorry that he used that skill against you. I'm sorry for the position it put you in.

"You may not think of it as such," Frigga continued as soon as Olivia's voice over the public address system fell silent, "but you were put into a leadership position. You've borne a serious responsibility here. It's just that no one else knew it – you've borne it all alone. You were forced to take up the burden of Loki's true identity, and whether or not to disclose it. Forgive the presumption, I'm aware that I barely know you, but I have the impression that your natural inclination is to forthrightness. It can't have been easy to make the decision to go against that, and no one but you knows exactly what led you to that decision, and what you went through in living with its consequences. You have been under a strain, ever since you, and you alone, learned that your erstwhile assistant was Loki Odinson. Even if you weren't stabbed," she finished with a wry smile. It was much easier to relax about that and focus on Jane now, knowing that Loki was recovering, as was the mortal he'd gravely wounded.

Jane listened with a tightening throat. Every word Frigga said rang true, even though, as she said, she barely knew Jane, and she knew hardly anything of what had gone on here at the South Pole all these months. Somehow she just knew. And Jane wanted to throw her arms around her and hug her and cry on her shoulder for a good long while. There was Tony, but she didn't know him all that well, either, and their relationship – once he found out about Loki – always had a slightly adversarial edge to it. And Loki, as close as they had become, had never shown any real sympathy for the price she paid for keeping his secret. He'd been prepared to wipe himself out of existence in part to "save" her from ever having to deal with him period, which wasn't in the slightest something she wanted, but he'd never just said, "Jane, I understand this has been stressful for you, and I'm sorry," either. A little supportive understanding, she thought, went a long way.

The urge to cry on the queen of Asgard's shoulder settled and passed when Olivia, Drew, Ken, and Rodrigo approached.

"Hey, Jane, uh, and Your Highness," Rodrigo said, ducking his head toward Frigga. "You got another call from Tony Stark. He heard about the last earthquake. I told him we haven't been able to assess the damage yet." He stepped in close to Jane, whose eyes widened when he put an arm around her shoulder and gave it an awkward pat. "Radio," he whispered into her ear.

"Thanks," she said with a quick little odd. Olivia would want to skin her alive if she realized Jane again didn't have her radio; she'd left it in the jamesway. "Will you tell him I'm okay and I'll call him back?"

"No problem."

"Everybody should be there," Olivia said. "I imagine Nora will stay with Selby."

"Maybe she can listen in by radio? She deserves to hear this, too," Jane said.

"Good idea. Rodrigo?"

"Yeah, sure, boss. I'll let her know, and set up the radio in the galley, and pass on your message. He's actually kept the line open this whole time." Rodrigo said. "And then I suspect I'm about to find out why Tony Stark's been calling here so much," he said to Jane.

"Yeah," Jane said with a nod and a nervous smile, while getting looks ranging from curious to suspicious from Olivia, Ken, and Drew. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you the whole truth."

Rodrigo nodded, but his expression was guarded and for once she really had no idea what he was thinking. Rodrigo was the first friend she'd made here, while they were still at McMurdo. And now…

"We'll be along in just a minute," Frigga said; the three who appeared to be the station's key leaders headed further down the corridor while Rodrigo turned back the way they'd come. "You've been in contact with Tony Stark, Thor's friend? Ah. Of course you have. I suspected he might know where Loki was, but I didn't want to ask."

"He tracked Loki's travel here. It was nice to have someone else who knew, but it's been a constant battle. Tony…"

"He doesn't like Loki," Frigga supplied. There was no need for Jane to feel uncomfortable saying so in her presence; it was simple truth.

Jane shook her head. "He always told me he didn't trust Loki but he trusted me, so as long as I told him things were fine here and he should stay away – Tony's got this special suit that would protect him to fly here, he's the only person who could make it here in winter – then he did. And he kept the secret, too. He just said he wouldn't lie to Thor if Thor asked."

"I understand," Frigga said, recalling how earlier today Tony had pressed her on who had sent Hugin and Munin to look for Loki. She suspected now that had she told him it was Thor, that conversation would have gone differently. "So do you see? You have been in a position of leadership. And Tony Stark, I suspect, is not always the easiest person to handle. But you've navigated your way through dealing with Tony and Loki and everything else, all while living in conditions that must be challenging."

Jane nodded. "I've dealt with it better at some times than at others. I just wish I didn't have to deal with this," she said, pointing down the corridor toward the galley.

"These people who've lived here with you have become your friends. And what we're about to tell them could change the way they feel about you. Is that about the worst of it?"

Put like that, Jane thought, it sounded like some kind of high school social competition. Jane hadn't always fared well in those, never fully fitting into one social crowd or another. And she'd spent most of her academic career alienating many of her professors and fellow students, simply because they didn't want to taint themselves with Jane's theories. Frigga was right – she had been forced to make decisions that affected everyone here. And she'd done her best to make the right ones. If she was ostracized here for it, it would upset her, because she truly cared about her co-adventurers here at the Pole – but so be it. She had done what she thought best, for all of them. "There is more to it," she finally said, though she already felt much better about what she had to do next. "I'm worried about what's going to happen to Loki now, and about SHIELD getting involved in all this."

"Loki…is a complicated question. And I can say nothing about SHIELD. But share your concerns with the others, Jane. It will help them understand your decisions."

"Okay. Yeah…I guess everything's on the table now. No more secrets."

"Perhaps one, actually."

Jane nodded. "What's that?" If there was something Frigga didn't want said, Jane would find a way to not say it.

"I strongly advise you not to say that either you or Loki is responsible for the earthquakes you've experienced here. After all, you can't be one hundred percent certain of it."

"Ummm…okay," Jane agreed hesitatingly; this wasn't at all what she'd expected Frigga might ask to be kept secret. "But just so you know, I'm like ninety-nine-point-nine-repeating-decimal percent certain. And that's mathematically identical to a hundred percent."

"That may well be – I was never particularly fond of raw mathematics. But if you and Loki have done something that caused damage to Yggdrasil, however inadvertently…that is not something you want to become public knowledge."

"Damage to Yggdrasil?" Jane echoed with a grimace.

"Yes. That's what earthquakes on multiple realms connected by Yggdrasil suggests to me. Jane," Frigga hurried to continue, the guilt visibly descending on the mortal woman like one of Thor's sudden thunderstorms, "don't concern yourself with that right now. You obviously didn't intend for it to happen. I simply don't want you to take public responsibility for it. It would draw unwelcome attention to you and to your realm, possibly embroiling it in war."

War?! Jane thought. She had imagined all sorts of worst-case scenarios stemming from time travel, but plunging Earth into an intergalactic war… "And Dr. Plank said my work would never have any impact," she said with a weak smile, waiting for a minute then as Rodrigo came down the corridor again, gave Jane a quick thumbs-up and ducked into Club Med. "Okay. A lie for the greater good. I can do that."

"Good. Are you ready then? I imagine they're growing anxious."

"Yeah. Let's do it," Jane said, with a nod and the biggest show of bravery she could manage. In fact, she did feel ready to do this. More than she ever thought she would be. She remembered standing outside a Caltech conference room, passionate stubborn bravado slowly leaking out of her as she waited to be called in before a larger-than-normal audience to defend her dissertation. Larger than normal because defenses were open to the whole department, and no one believed she actually could defend her research and conclusions, not when truly challenged. They'd expected to see her fail. She hadn't – she'd been passed "with revisions," lots and lots of revisions – but she'd stumbled over her words more than she cared to admit, because her mouth had gone so dry her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her mouth. She'd grown stronger since then. She could handle anything life threw at her. She had, after all, handled Loki. And Niskit and Asgard and Alfheim and time travel and earthquakes while stuck in a tiny underground vault and even, for a short while, Odin. She could handle a roomful of Polies.

She wasn't sure what she was going to say. But she knew what she wasn't going to say, she thought with a smile. "This is going to sound crazy," she'd told Loki, when she'd first told him her theory of traversable Einstein-Rosen bridges. "That's never a good way to begin a presentation," Loki had interrupted her to say, and she could hear him saying now, teasing her. Encouraging her. I've got this, she thought as she led the way into the narrow side corridor that led to the galley.

/


Extra-long chapter again so keeping it brief here - thanks as always for reading, reviewing, following, favoriting, and joining me for the ride. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm and eagerness, you are such a wonderful group and I'm so glad to have heard from so many of you over this long haul. Please never fear to tell me to "hurry up," that doesn't bother me at all as long as it's friendly! Sometimes life gets in the way and things slow down but I'm always happy to hear you're anxious for the next chapter. (My two other in-progress also, massively slowed down but they *will* be finished, I wouldn't have put them up here if I wasn't 100% committed to finishing them - ask me how many others I've started and NOT put up here, ha!) Anyway I hope you enjoyed it. I know you're anxious to get Loki (more fully) back in the picture - don't worry, he will be. :-)

A Very Merry Christmas from North America! (Or, you know, a day or two after.) :-)

No previews, sorry - it's late, I'm tired, couldn't find a decent excerpt to include at first glance and one glance is all I can manage at the moment. 'Til next time!