Beneath

Chapter One Hundred Forty – Confession

"When the station closed for the winter season on February fifteeth," Jane began, "there were fifty of us here to winter over. But only forty-nine of us were actually supposed to be here. Lucas Cane, who I at first believed to be an assistant my sponsoring institute provided at the last minute, isn't really my assistant, and he isn't really named Lucas Cane. He isn't really a grad student or a physicist. He isn't really Canadian, or American, or British. He isn't even from Earth at all. His real name is Loki."

The galley floor was still cleared of its tables from when it had been set up from dancing, but now chairs had been pulled back out and were in ragged rows. The galley was fuller than she'd ever seen it. Every single Polie was there, except for Nora and Selby, and of course Loki himself.

Jane waited, weirdly enough not in the fear she'd expected to feel – that had faded out in the corridor with Frigga – but simply trying to gauge their reaction. She saw mostly disbelief and confusion, a lot of people paying more attention to Frigga than to her, and then a couple of people laughed. They thought she was joking. They would realize soon enough that she wasn't.

"I found out the truth on the day of the big Mass Casualty Incident drill at the end of March. I wasn't sure what to do at first – I was scared, and I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to call Tony Stark. I think most of you know that I know him, that one of his R&D subsidiaries is my sponsor. Tony, with his Iron Man suit, is the only one who could actually make it out here in winter. But when I thought about what happened in New York, the amount of destruction that battle caused…I knew I couldn't let that happen here. So I talked things over with Loki, and I was convinced that he had no intention of causing any harm to anyone here. We kept working together, and I kept his secret."

Jane paused for a moment. As she'd expected, no one was laughing anymore, though a few faces still looked they were trying to figure out what kind of practical joke she was trying to pull. A few mouths had fallen open. A few people looked scared.

"And over time…it really did him a lot of good, being here with all of us. I used to have to almost trick him into social activities. He just wasn't interested. But that changed, and I want you all to know that the things he did with you, he wasn't faking or anything. He didn't have any ulterior motive. He just enjoyed hanging out with you. I remember when he came and found me after the first time he played poker with Austin and Carlo and Zeke and Paul and Ronny. He was in possibly the best mood I'd ever seen him in, and he was so ridiculously pleased with himself that he won that game. And you guys know I don't mean the poker game."

"Yeah, wait a minute, about that," Zeke said from where he stood leaning against the wall, next to one of the covered windows. "If I'm understanding all this correctly…that means he's not human. That means that bastard cheated and had us doing all his chores for him."

Frigga held back a smile as Jane sputtered and a bit of scattered laughter returned; she could tell this man had been drinking, and if the alcohol helped everyone stay relaxed, then maybe that was for the best. And she was encouraged by what he said. Loki had not only not been disliked here, he'd actually made friends here. Real friends, it sounded like. Not just Jane. And if there were games, well, then, yes, it was entirely possible that Loki had cheated, and if getting out of menial labor was at stake, then it was a near certainty, although Jane was denying it. Frigga didn't care that Loki had cheated. She cared that he'd bothered to sit down with these mortals, the ones he'd attempted to rule not so long ago, and play games for small-scale stakes.

"He wasn't really cheating. He's good at games, or I guess games like that, anyway. When he lost he was usually doing it on purpose so he didn't stand out too much. He-"

"So you and Lucas really aren't doing each other?" Brody asked.

Jane's eyes went wide and immediately found Tristan, who quickly looked down and started picking at the hem of his sweater in his lap. "No," she said resolutely, gaze swinging back to Brody.

Frigga's eyebrows went up at the exchange. Jane and Loki, probably, had been spending a great deal of time alone together and had grown quite close, enough so that some others thought there was more to it. She snuck a look at Jane out of her peripheral vision.

"Ow! What was that for, dude?!" Brody exclaimed when Gary came up behind him and slapped the back of his head.

"Drink your coffee, idiot. Jane…I think we're all going to have a lot of questions. It just might take some of us a while to come up with good ones. But first, you should introduce our, uh, guest."

"You're right. This is Loki's mom," Jane said, unbothered by Gary getting her off-track – there hadn't really been a track to begin with. She'd been winging it, and Brody had already derailed things by asking if she was "doing" Loki…in front of his mother. "I guess most of you heard her on the radio earlier today." She caught a few nods, a lot more stares at Frigga, and Brody's look of embarrassment.

"I'm pleased to meet you, despite the circumstances."

"Is this for real, Jane?" Elliot asked, talking over a few others. "Lucas Cane, the guy who's been living here with us all winter, is really Loki, the guy who was trying to…what, take over the planet or something?"

"Yeah," Jane breathed, feeling like she should say more, but she wasn't really here to plead Loki's case. She just hoped she could get them to understand. And not to panic or do anything rash.

"So you were talking about Loki, in the speech from New York…and I don't even know how you got here so fast from there," Elliot continued, looking at Frigga now, "but you neglected to mention he was here."

"She didn't know he was here at the time," Jane said. "She just found out…was it even an hour ago?"

Frigga put a hand over Jane's arm; it wouldn't do them any good for Jane to become confrontational.

"I knew he was here. And I didn't tell anyone. But I did what I thought was right, for all of us."

"How did you get here so fast from New York? Do you have a spaceship parked over the South Pole or something?" Ronny asked.

"No," Frigga answered, truly addressing this group for the first time, for these were Jane's friends, and it was Jane, primarily, who would have to deal with them. "We have the ability to travel through space on our own, with great speed. We came here directly from Asgard. I'm very pleased to be able to meet you all, people that have become important in Loki's life, though I am sorry for the deception that has been a part of it."

"Does he want to kill us?" Hector asked. "I made fun of his tie a few times. He acted all annoyed but I thought he was just playing along. You think he was keeping track?"

"I think it's safe to say that if he wanted to kill us we'd all be dead by now," Austin said, voice quiet. "And I would've been the first, for all the grief I gave him over darts and poker."

"What does he want?" Tristan asked at the same time as Paul asked, "Why is he here?"

"That's…not easy to answer. He first came here because of me. Because I know Thor. And-"

"Thor?" Austin repeated.

"That's the one with…you know, with the red cape and the hammer. Like Tony Stark said on the radio," Jeff said, words a little slurred. "One of the Avengers."

"Yeah, I know," Austin said.

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around this," Ken said. "Loki somehow…snuck his way in here with a made-up identity and got his name on all the right lists and…and I've been going skiing on Sunday mornings with Loki. And all this Norse mythology is real? Except…they're all aliens instead of mythological gods?" Ken asked.

"No!" Jane asserted, jumping in before Frigga could. "It's definitely not all real, all the Norse mythology. Just some of it. Some of the people." She didn't need them all running out and Googling mythological Loki and snickering about how he gave birth to a horse as soon as the satellite window opened. Of course, Loki probably wasn't going to be sticking around here much longer to know about it if they did. Which a lot of them probably would, once they'd calmed down.

"I'm not familiar with Norse mythology," Frigga put in, because Jane hadn't really answered, "but I do know that we were once worshipped here, from an earlier time when we journeyed here more often. That's one of the reasons we stopped going to Earth."

"Well, you see? You beakers are going to have to make those adjustments to your theories now, huh?" Zeke said.

"Will you stop?"

All eyes turned to Mari, who sounded upset in a way that no one else quite had. All in all, Jane had thought things were going pretty well. The questions were starting to come and there was some fear, some of it tinged with anger, but no one had really sounded that angry. Maybe things were about to change now.

"You all think this is funny? It's some kind of joke? Haha, Lucas is Loki! Spaceships and mythology? What is wrong with you people? Do you remember who Loki is? What Loki did? Did you forget what the Vanaheim king said? What she said?" Mari looked up at Frigga at the last, but quickly looked away. Mari was a sweet, quiet young woman, nothing like the stereotype of the brash loud New Yorker. But other than Jane herself, Mari was the only Polie whose life had been directly affected by Loki's attack.

"Nobody's forgotten, Mari," said Paul, who was sitting next to her. "It's just a lot to take in, and we're all a bit toasty. It's easier for some people to make a joke."

"Well it's not a joke! People died. A lot of people. People's homes were destroyed. Their offices… Jane, I told you about it. What happened at my old office. And you still thought it was okay to let him run around here, doing whatever he wanted, like he was one of us? I baked a birthday cake for him, for God's sake. Okay, so you didn't know at first, but after you knew…how could you not tell us?"

"Mari, I'm so sorry. I didn't know when you told me about that. And it came down to…I didn't want Iron Man coming here to try to capture him, and him and Loki getting into a brawl that destroyed this station and killed people who got caught in the crossfire."

"And we're just supposed to trust your opinion that he wasn't going to hurt anybody?"

"But he didn't…did he?" Austin put in. "Jane, when you were out at SPRESSO, Lucas was really worried. He started to charge out after you and the others, like he was just going to march out there and find you. He was off the rails. Said something about being 'born to the ice.' To be honest, I was worried about him. But I got him to calm down and come watch a movie with the rest of us. He didn't sound like a guy who had any interest in hurting anybody, he sounded like a guy who really didn't want anybody to get hurt. Especially you, Jane."

Mari's jaw trembled, then she shoved her chair back, stood, and ran from the room.

"Mari...," Austin said, standing too.

"I'll go after her," Paul said, hurrying out while Austin slowly sat again.

Jane watched the whole thing with physical pain in her gut. Mari wasn't wrong to feel the way she did. In her place, Jane would have felt the same way: betrayed. And Jane was the betrayer. It didn't change her conviction that she'd made the right choice, but sometimes someone got hurt, even if you made the right choice.

"A lot of things make sense now, actually," Austin continued after Paul and Mari were both gone and the room had fallen into a tense silence. "Some of the stuff he said when we were playing poker. How good he was at darts. That same day you guys went out to SPRESSO, he said he'd never seen a basketball before he came here. I was pretty sure he was joking, but sometimes you can't tell with him, you know?" A few quiet, nervous laughs followed. "I guess he was telling the truth. No basketball on Asgard?"

Frigga shook her head minutely. "No," she said quietly, shaken by Mari's outburst. She didn't know what had happened at the woman's office, but she was obviously traumatized by it, and Loki was to blame.

"Oh. Oh, man. Paul was dressed up as Loki," Tristan said. "He is going to kill us."

"He was?" Jane asked with a grimace. The costumes were mostly gone now, just a few random oddities remaining. "And he's not going to kill anybody. I promise. If I had ever thought there was any danger of that, I would've called Tony and he would've been down here as soon as the suit could get him here. But, uh, did he see you?"

He nodded. "It was because of the whole Vanaheim thing. I was Gullveig and Paul was Loki. We were even joking with him about it. But looking back…he wasn't laughing. I thought he was acting weird. But, you know, it's Lucas. He wears ties. Or he used to. He's always acted kind of weird. I guess that's because he wasn't Lucas." He paused, frowning worriedly. "Paul couldn't shut up about the stupid cape. Lucas said Loki's mother probably thought he looked good in green."

Everyone looked Frigga's way, but it took her a moment to respond, as she tried to take all these tiny glimpses of Loki's life here and put them together in a way that made sense. It sounded like with Gullveig's arrival, Loki's life here had started to fall apart. Frigga hated Gullveig then, not just as an enemy of Asgard, but on a personal level. The idea of surrendering to him was repugnant. In the end, she simply nodded, even though the implication – that his color was chosen simply because it was becoming on him – was untrue.

Jane, meanwhile, watched Frigga without really seeing her. She was instead imagining Loki coming across Paul and Tristan making fun of him, treating him like a big joke, without knowing it. Not much later Loki was hightailing it to the past to kill himself. She was sure he hadn't done it because of that…but it must have contributed to the sense of hopelessness she figured he'd been nursing ever since the failed visit to Niskit two days ago.

"You guys are saying he didn't hurt anybody," Wright said, speaking up for the first time. "But what happened between him and Selby?"

Jane took a deep breath. This was a tough one. It didn't surprise her that Wright would be the one to ask; from what Frigga had said, he was the only one who'd already been told about Loki, so he'd had longer to think it over than anyone else. "I don't know exactly what happened. I guess not everybody knows this yet…they got in some kind of fight. And Selby got stabbed."

"I saw him taking a chef's knife from the kitchen," Zeke said. "Selby, I mean. Not Lucas."

"He found out that Lucas is Loki. He told me," Wright added, "but I laughed it off. I didn't believe him."

"Do you think he took the knife to confront Lucas?" Sue asked.

"Selby's not a confrontational person."

Jane frowned at that; she wasn't so sure. Selby wasn't an immediately confrontational person, but he could be pushed into it. She knew from personal experience, when he'd yanked her into his room that time after "SHIELD" had threatened his wife. And Loki had pushed his buttons pretty hard. Still, she didn't think that was quite what had happened this time. "He told me he'd figured it out, too. And Selby knew something the rest of you didn't – he knew that I'm friends with Thor, and he knew Thor and Loki were fighting against each other in New York. He was worried about me. That Loki might try to hurt me. He didn't know that I already knew Lucas was Loki, and I didn't have time to explain it to him then. If I had…maybe neither of them would have been hurt," she said, shoulders sagging. She hadn't thought of that before. But at the time, she'd been racing out to try to stop Loki from killing – as she'd thought then – Thor.

"What about Lucas, then? Loki," Wright corrected himself. "You said he got hurt, too."

"The Asgard doctor went to go check on him," Gary added.

"There's more of them?" Carlo asked. "Jane, how many of these people are here?"

"Is this like some kind of invasion? Are we being invaded?" Brody asked loudly over others' questions, standing up from his chair and going over to the serving area – getting closer to the door, Jane figured.

"Is there anybody else here who isn't who they say they are?" Ken asked, standing up as well and sharing a glance with Olivia.

The room fell silent, and Jane watched as the mood shifted and people who'd lived with each other pretty amicably for months were suddenly looking at the person next to them with suspicion. "No. Guys…nobody else. And there's no invasion or anything. It was just Loki here, and his family and their doctor came, because…yes, Loki was hurt, too." She hated to say it, in a way, because Selby hadn't hurt Loki, Loki had hurt Loki. Yes, Selby had brought the proverbial knife to a gunfight, but she didn't want to make people think Selby had set out to stab Loki, when she still wasn't sure what actually happened. Frigga, she remembered, had advised her to share her concerns with her friends, and this was something she could share now. "The truth is, only Loki and Selby know what happened, and they haven't been able to tell anyone yet. Loki was unconscious, too, and now he's recovering, like Selby. But I don't think either of them meant for this to happen. I think Selby was trying to protect me from Loki…and I think Loki was trying to protect me from Selby."

"Selby's been on edge a lot lately," Wright said, eyes distant.

"And Lucas knows his way around sharp objects," Sue said. "I thought his misses were too perfect, that time we were throwing darts. And remember how he whacked that piñata?"

"Piñata?" Frigga echoed, concerned about what exactly Loki had been whacking here.

"It's a paper machet…um, people blindfold you and spin you around and you have to try to hit it. You take turns until it breaks and candy falls out," Jane explained to Frigga over the murmurs from her fellow Polies. "Nothing bad."

"I'm just saying I don't know why you're putting Selby under a microscope when it's Loki who we already know killed people in New York," Sue was saying in something approaching a shout.

"How do you know what Loki did in New York? Were you there?" Austin asked.

Sue barked out a laugh. "Were you? I saw it on TV before I came out here. Entire buildings were reduced to rubble."

"Sue's right," Tristan said. "I like Lucas, or…I liked who I thought was Lucas, but…whatever he has or hasn't done here, he was responsible for a lot of deaths when he led that attack on New York."

"Loki never wanted any of that to happen," Jane said in a rush. And then she bit her lip, because that wasn't quite true, not in its entirety. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to defend him to you, really, I just…it wasn't that simple." She took a deep breath. This was Loki's story, not hers, and she hadn't been there any more than Sue or Tristan. Trying to explain Loki's side of things wasn't going to get her anything except maybe derision. "But I can tell you this: he doesn't look at us the same way now that he did then. Each of you has made a difference in him, every time you let him into your life and he let you just a little bit into his. I was so mad at him when I found out the truth. Mad and, like a lot of you must be now, scared to pieces. And he told me he'd never lied to me about anything but his name. Now that," she said with a fluttering, nervous laugh, "wasn't exactly true. But I know what he meant. Whatever things he shared with you about his life, his interests, his likes and dislikes, his sense of humor, all of that was real. If you spent any time at all around him, you must have seen the change, once he started to get involved here. That was real, too." She met their eyes – those who would meet hers – pleading with them for something she couldn't give voice to. Going into this, she'd feared her friends' hatred and rejection. But she had other friends, and she could handle that if she had to. It was Loki she desperately didn't want them to hate.

"Jane," Rodrigo began a moment later, voice calm, "look, I don't know what to think about all this. Frankly it makes my head spin just trying to think about it, and I wasn't even drinking. Right now, we're facing this entire building being reduced to rubble. Does he have something to do with that? Would you even know it if he did?"

She stared back at Rodrigo, then heard Loki chastising her yet again, while they were preparing for their trip to Alfheim. "Pausing before a lie when you have not paused before truths announces to the entire nine realms that you have just lied! Again!" She'd wanted to punch him. But she pushed forward with her answer now, and while Loki would have noticed the brief pause, the others, she hoped, hadn't. "The earthquakes aren't his fault. Queen Frigga told me that Asgard and some of the other planets out there have had them, too, not just us here. No one knows for sure what's causing them."

"Okay," he said, apparently accepting Jane's words easily enough, though Jane wondered how much any of them trusted her now. "You said, uh, Your Highness, that you're able to travel quickly from your planet to ours. Can you get us out of here if we have to evacuate? We don't have any other way to leave the South Pole until October."

"We'll do what we can to assist," Frigga said. She'd already explained this to Olivia, Ken, and Drew, but the others deserved to hear it as well. "As you may have heard earlier, Asgard is embroiled in war at the moment, and there is no longer any place in the entire realm that can be considered entirely safe. Asgard relies on a shield to protect the city, but our defenses have been so weakened that our enemies have recently gained the ability to breach the shield and attack in unpredictable locations inside the city. Evacuating you through Asgard is a highly dangerous proposition. You would be incredibly vulnerable there. If it comes to that, though, if the risk is greater in staying here, then as long as it remains within our power to relocate you via Asgard, we will."

"Freezing to death or dodging alien weapons," Brody muttered.

"Is he really interested in horses?" Carlo asked.

Jane looked at him in confusion. Everyone else was looking worried; Carlo's question seemed pretty random.

"Yes," Frigga answered. "Not as much now as he once was, I think, but yes. He has one horse in particular that has always been especially dear to him. A gift from his father, when he was still a boy. She was just a yearling when he got her, and he helped take care of her and train her."

Most of the others seemed as confused as Jane by the question, but glances passed around the galley, and as Jane followed them she realized they were being shared by the guys Loki played poker with – Carlo, Austin, Zeke, and Ronny. Paul played with them, too, but he hadn't returned from following Mari. She waited for somebody to say something, ask some other question, somehow explain what horses had to do with anything, but the silence lingered.

Olivia pushed her chair back and stood. "What's done is done. Frankly I can't spare the time or energy to deal with this right now. Now we know the truth, but we don't have anything to worry about where he's concerned, because he's not staying here anymore. Right? You're taking him back with you?"

"Yes," Frigga answered, feeling the weight of everyone's gaze on her, especially Jane's. "I suppose we must. Once he's…fully recovered." On Asgard, she didn't know what fate awaited him. It was something she didn't want to think about.

"But in the meantime," Jane put in, "please don't tell anyone else that Loki's here. There are people on Earth and beyond who want to try to capture him and-"

"The Vanir people? You said on the radio that they wanted him as a war prize or something?" Gary asked.

"Yes. I'm afraid so," Frigga answered. "When the war broke out Loki was already on Earth, and in some ways I was glad of it, because he was safer here than he would have been anywhere else."

"I know it's asking a lot, to maintain this secret, and believe me, I know it's not easy. But it's not just for Loki's sake. None of us wants the South Pole to turn into an intergalactic war zone, with Vanir armies or whoever else showing up to try to take Loki."

"'Intergalactic war zone?'" Olivia repeated, incredulous. "No. That is not happening here. You need to get him out of here right now."

"Olivia, no one will come for him if no one knows he's here. And no one's going to know he's here unless one of us tells someone. That's true even after he leaves. If Asgard's enemies find out he was here, they could still show up looking for him, or looking for answers. The only way to make sure that doesn't happen is to continue letting the outside world believe that fifty people wintered over here this year, and one of them was Lucas Cane."

"She's right," Gary said. "We don't need the South Pole popping up on anybody's radar as a target of any sort."

"It's not that easy," Olivia said, shaking her head. "We had a stabbing here, Gary. Do you know how much paperwork there is on something like that? What kind of inquiries there'll be afterward?"

"Seems to me nobody's going to expect that paperwork to be the top priority at the moment," Gary said. "You'll have some time to think it over, figure things out."

Olivia fixed an angry look on him, before huffing out a sigh. "Nora, I hope you're hearing all this. We'll talk later. I don't have time to think it over. The satellite window opens again in…what, about seven or eight hours?" She looked to Rodrigo, who nodded. "When it does, if any of you are still up, or later, assuming we're even still in this building, nobody mentions Loki or Lucas or Asgard, or any of that stuff. No hints, no 'I know something I can't tell you.' I mean it. I've got enough to deal with right now. No sat phone calls either. Gary."

"Yes, ma'am," Gary said, standing up straighter.

"Come get the checklist and do the inspections. Take someone with you if you need it. Ken, Drew, Rodrigo, with me. Everybody else, just stay here. Except for you two," Olivia said, looking at Jane and Frigga. "You can do whatever you want, I guess." Her gaze fell solely on Jane then. "Especially since that's what you've been doing all along."

Jane shifted uncomfortably under the rebuke.

"And no more drinking. If we have another emergency I want everyone sober."

/


/

"His heart rate has increased," Eir said.

"He appears to be in distress."

"Yes. The dream is causing anxiety."

"Can you stop it? I need him to recover as quickly as possible. And for that he needs his rest." Odin knew it sounded callous, but he didn't concern himself with such things. He was needed on Asgard, and he had to deal with Loki before he returned. When he'd first come to Midgard, he hadn't anticipated having to wait this long for that to happen.

"Yes, I think so. It would be simpler in the Healing Room, but-" Eir jerked away, startled, an instant after Loki gave a full-body flinch. "Well…that was unexpected. He's surprisingly responsive for being in a state of unconsciousness. I'd barely begun, but…I don't think he's dreaming anymore. He's calming down now," she said, examining him.

"Good," Odin said with a nod, watching Loki's slack face.

/


/

Loki searched frantically for some means of escape, but he didn't even know where he was – there was nothing but bright white light, pressure against his back, and Father, Mother, and Thor looming over him. He couldn't think clearly and nothing made sense. "Something is wrong with him," Thor said, voice curious but void of concern. "Other than the fact that he's from Jotunheim?" Mother asked. Run! he told himself again and again, as their words continued, sometimes piercing his skull, sometimes floating about muddled and unclear, sometimes receding so far into the distance that he momentarily forgot they were there. But they came back, and there was nowhere to run. "What is wrong with you, Loki?" someone asked, a familiar grating hissing voice that Loki somehow knew promised pain. Hands reached out for him and he squeezed his eyes shut in terror. Don't touch me don't touch me don't touch me… His eyes opened again, sluggishly, and they were gone. He was alone. He closed his eyes in relief, and everything slipped quietly away.

/


/

"You did well, Jane," Frigga said once they were out in the main corridor. Olivia and those with her had disappeared down into the office area, and she and Jane had left to allow the others to think and talk things over freely, on their own. "I don't think it went too badly, considering what your people experienced when Loki came here before."

"Yeah. Better than I expected, on the whole. But this really isn't a typical group of people here. Everybody who comes to the South Pole for winter knows they're going to be living in some fairly austere conditions, and that whatever happens here once the station's closed…you're just going to have to deal with it. You have to pass a bunch of medical and a psychological screenings before you can come here. It's not for the faint of heart. And the truth is, he's been here all this time, and they like him, the ones who've gotten to know him. I know they're afraid, and for Mari it's more personal…but I think a lot of them are more in shock than anything else. Trying to figure out how the guy they know can possibly be Loki."

"I'm glad he made friends and a life for himself here, even if under false pretenses. It's what I'd hoped for, part of it. It's what I wanted for him with this exile to Midgard." What I wanted, Frigga thought. Odin wanted…something more? Something else entirely? She wasn't sure anymore. She regretted not insisting he explain it. Perhaps I just didn't want to know, it occurred to her, a flicker of a thought she quickly set aside. "Shall we return to the tent now?" she asked, for Jane was looking inquisitive, and Frigga suspected she may have questions that Frigga didn't have the answers to.

"Yeah. I want to be there when he wakes up. But we've got a while before then, if Eir's right. So before we go back out…maybe you'd like to get some warmer clothes on?"

"That would make the walk more pleasant," Frigga agreed.

"Okay, then, let's go down here," Jane said, leading them into the corridor to her room, through the double doors. She wondered what was going on the galley, what they were saying now that she and Frigga weren't there, but she couldn't worry about it. "This is one of the berthing wings, the A-1 to be specific," she explained as they walked. "Loki and I are both assigned here. This is my room."

"Oh, it's…" Frigga took a careful look around the space and confirmed there was no door leading to additional chambers. An elevated bed, a desk, a chair, an armoire, an extra chair squeezed into a corner, that was it. A single narrow window was completely covered, not by draperies meant to dampen light and beautify but by something brown mean to block the window entirely.

"I know it's tiny. But it's just a" – Jane paused to laugh – "a temporary living situation."

"Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult. I just assumed it would be larger, with so few of you here."

"There's a lot more people in the summer season. Right now a lot of the rooms in the station are empty. There are parts that we don't even heat, that we use to store frozen food."

"And are there places to live outside this building as well?" Frigga asked, hoping there might be an alternative to bringing all these people to Asgard.

"Yeah. The jamesways out in Summer Camp, where Loki is now. It's overflow housing in the summer. But our only kitchen is in here," she added, understanding why Frigga was asking. "And our only medical facilities. All our communications equipment. Summer Camp's really just for sleeping. They're working on contingency plans to hopefully make us able to survive the winter without this building if they say it's too unstable for us to stay in."

"I meant what I said, Jane. We won't stand by and let your people perish here. Asgard is itself not safe right now, but if the risk is less than staying here, we should be able to use the Tesseract to bring you to Asgard, and then to some other location on Midgard."

Jane nodded. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "It's good to know we have that option. But I hope it doesn't come to that. None of us are here because we had to be. We have people here who've been trying for years to get a position, any position, at the South Pole."

"Thor has spoken of your courage with great pride. I see he's correct and you aren't alone in this trait here. But enough of that," she rushed to add when Jane looked a bit embarrassed. "I wanted to tell you that despite its size, you've made this space feel warm and comfortable." And she had. Brightly colored paper flowers were attached here and there, the sheets on the unmade bed had lacey edges, an image overlooking an ocean hung over the desk and radiated warmth.

"Thanks. I did what I could," Jane said with a shrug. "Sorry about the mess, by the way. The last few days have been kind of hectic and…no servants," she added with a crooked grin.

"I don't know how Loki managed," Frigga said, matching Jane's smile as the younger woman turned to the armoire and began going through its contents. Frigga's gaze fell on Jane's desk, utilitarian and simple and, she suspected, exactly the same as every other desk here. But as with her chambers as a whole, Jane had certainly made it her own. Along the shelves at the top were photos affixed directly to the shelf, hanging down from it. Friends and family, she assumed. There were funny drawings, a few of the colorful paper flowers, and a boldly written message: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. As she considered the words, her gaze drifted further downward, and fell on a pen atop the desk. A familiar pen, she thought as her eyes focused on it.

Underneath the pen was a sheet of paper with Loki's handwriting. It was an invasion of Loki's privacy. And of Jane's. But Frigga only hesitated for a second, with a quick glance up to make sure that Jane's back was still to her, for this struck her as odd. Loki had never left the pens she'd given him just lying around. And he could have chosen to give one to Jane, but this one sat atop his note, not hers, which made her think Loki had left it there rather than Jane.

Dear Jane,

I have not forgotten that I gave you certain assurances, that I would not do certain things. But I hope you have not forgotten that I once said that you trusted me too much. What I do, I must do. I don't do it to hurt you, though I understand that it will. I have no choice. This time I must act. I recognize that it's irrational, but all the same I hope that you can somehow forgive me. If all goes as I expect, though, you'll never know there was ever anything to forgive.

Keep the pen. Take it apart, examine it, test the ink if you like or simply write with it. I don't need it. I've stolen enough pens from this station to last…I suppose however long Midgardian pens typically last.

Loki

Frigga held her breath as she read. Loki had done something – or intended to do something – that was so terrible he was afraid Jane, who cared enough about him to risk her life for him, would be unable to forgive him. But he also thought she wouldn't know about it…after informing her of it himself. And giving her the pen – which Jane had obviously seen before – the way he'd said it, it was a "goodbye" if she'd ever heard one.

He set out to deliberately kill Selby? she thought, turning and stepping silently away from Jane's desk. Jane was mumbling to herself, commenting on some of the items she was going through. "It's good you're so prepared for the cold here," Frigga said idly; Jane twisted around for a moment to face her and said something Frigga didn't really process. But how would Jane not know about that? How would she not know someone here had been killed? And it was Selby who took the knife, not Loki. The note had to be about something else.

She wanted to ask Jane. But she couldn't. What she'd seen, she knew it was deeply personal, something Loki probably wouldn't want her to see. And it troubled her. It spoke of something terrible. Of that she was certain.

"Okay, I think these things of mine will fit you," Jane said, holding up a couple of shirts and a variety of smaller items, "but for the Carhartts – that's the black overalls – I think you'd be better off with Loki's extra pair."

"I can imagine yours might be a bit short for me," Frigga said with an easy smile that betrayed nothing of her turmoil.

"And we'll get his bunny boots, too – if you stick some extra socks in there I think they'll be okay. His room's just a couple of doors down from mine. I just can't find- oh! There it is," Jane said, stepping around Frigga to her desk, where her other balaclava was for some reason. She froze then, hand loosely resting on the balaclava, eyes fixed on the note Loki had left her, the pen Frigga had given him still there at the bottom of the paper where Loki had left it. Did she see it? "Here it is," Jane said with a forced cheer, holding up the balaclava.

"Stars on the ceiling? What a lovely idea," Frigga commented, her back deliberately to Jane; she'd noticed Jane's pause, and where her eyes had fallen when it came.

"Um, yeah," Jane said, feeling better. She must not have seen it. "Yeah, actually, hold on a sec." She took the few steps over to the light switch and turned it off; the stars lit up with their familiar yellow glow.

Frigga laughed. "Even lovelier. Though I think you must not be lacking for stars here. Your sky is beautiful. Those waves of green…it's like magic."

"They're called auroras. Thor liked them, too. The one we saw in Tromso, before I came here. We have them in the far northern and far southern hemispheres."

"And Loki?" Frigga asked as they left Jane's chambers and continued further down the corridor.

"Loki…I guess he hasn't commented on them very much. He doesn't really like it here. I mean the weather. The cold and the dark. He didn't know exactly what he was signing up for when he followed me here."

"Mmmm," Frigga said noncommittally. She suspected she knew why Loki wasn't fond of the cold and the dark. Frigga had never been to Jotunheim, but "cold" and "dark" were words she'd certainly heard used to describe it enough times. And the reminder that Loki had followed Jane even to the end of her world, to this cold dark place, in that darkness that had consumed him, was disturbing.

Jane opened Loki's door, turned on the light, dumped the stuff she'd brought from her room onto Loki's bed, and went straight to his armoire.

The structure of Loki's room, Frigga noted, was identical to Jane's. He lacked the cushioned chair Jane had, and his stepstool was shorter than Jane's, but otherwise the furniture was the same, too. Yet the rooms couldn't be more different. Jane's room was alive with personality, bursts of color, a bit of a mess – countless touches that marked that space as hers. Loki's…a green cover lay neatly over the bed in place of Jane's blue, but otherwise there was hardly a sign that anyone at all lived here.

"What happened here?" she asked of the broken bits of something, black and silver, atop the otherwise bare desk.

"It's his radio," Jane said, turning around with Loki's spare pair of Carhartts and bunny boots. "He broke it last night. Just an accident."

There was clearly more to it, more that Jane didn't want to say for whatever reason, but then, Frigga figured, there was more to everything here. Loki had lived months of his life in this place, with a false identity, amongst a people and customs he knew nothing of. Someday, she hoped, she would hear more of these stories. "It must have been difficult for him here. He's never lived in such small accommodations," she said, stepping closer to his desk which was entirely bare but for three books stacked neatly on top of each other and pushed into the back corner of a shadowed shelf.

"I guess he wouldn't have. I don't know, though, I think he's done all right with it. Or at least he's gotten used to it."

"The Collected Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson," she read, pulling the top book from its corner. "Midgardian literature?"

"Yeah," Jane said, setting the Carhartts on the bed and the white boots on the floor and taking the book. "Tennyson's the guy who wrote the poem with the quote on Observation Hill at McMurdo. The, um, the station we stopped at before continuing on to the South Pole. The quote's on a memorial to some of the first explorers who made it here but died on their way back. I've got it taped to my desk. 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.' I didn't know he was reading that. It's from the library here," she added, reaching for the book to look at its spine. She wondered if he had intended to ever return it. Probably not, she thought with a mental eye-roll.

"I s-see how that quote would appeal to him," she said, quickly correcting herself from what she was going to say – that she had seen the quote on Jane's desk – to avoid drawing attention to the fact that she had paid any attention to the things on her desk. "To any Aesir, really. Determination in the face of adversity… This is the decision we face on Asgard at this very moment. Whether to yield…or accept our destruction."

"Loki said he didn't think Asgard would win. And that's why Thor had to go back so soon? It's gotten that bad?"

"The ranks of our warriors have grown thin, and our enemies have launched several attacks directly in the city, through the breaches in our shield that I mentioned. Yes, conditions have deteriorated greatly. We have a plan, something we will attempt in a few days' time…but the chances of success I fear are slim."

"If you have to yield…what does that mean for Loki?"

Frigga hesitated. "You know of the other realms' demands?"

"Loki…yes. He's been to Asgard. He heard about it there. He told me." That hadn't been through time travel, so it was okay to say.

"I see," she responded. "And the answer is, I'm not sure. It isn't my decision."

"Is it Thor's?"

"Thor has made his decision. He gave his word to Loki that he wouldn't let him be sent to Jotunheim, and he will abide by that, come what may. Odin…kings do not necessarily make the best fathers, Jane. But no matter what Loki has told you, his father loves him very much."

"But he hasn't made his decision. And he's the one who's really in charge, even though Thor was made king."

"I don't think he wants to have to make that decision."

Jane nodded. She understood what that meant even if Frigga didn't quite say it: Odin more or less had made his decision, and it was the one that would sacrifice Loki for Asgard, if Asgard had to surrender. Jane acknowledged to herself that she couldn't understand what it would be like to be put in a position to have to make a decision like that, but she did understand that on Loki's end, he wouldn't exactly be feeling the love if his dad handed him over to Asgard's traditional enemies. And Odin was out there alone with Loki now. Eir was there, too, but Jane figured she was seriously outranked by Odin.

"The Art of War?" Frigga said, having moved to replace the literature book and instead examining the one under it. She picked up the second book.

"Hm. Didn't know he was reading that, either. It's Chinese – another culture on Earth. The book's really famous…though I've never read it. I didn't realize it was so short," Jane said. It was pretty tiny, more like a booklet.

"I've heard of it," Frigga said, opening the book and flipping through it, eyes skimming absently over a few words here and there. "Loki actually gave Thor a copy of this as a gift, a long time ago."

"No kidding, really? He did tell me he used to be into China. Loki, I mean."

"He was, yes. Oh, that was a very long time ago. I'd forgotten," Frigga said with a light laugh. "And this one?" she asked, looking at the bottom book, the largest of the three. "Understanding the Physics of the Universe?"

Jane pursed her lips in a wry smile. "I'm pretty sure that must be the one he read to be able to pretend like he was an astronomy grad student. So he knew the terms we use for physics concepts."

"Ah. And how did he do?"

"Pretty well. Extremely well, actually. He had me completely fooled."

"Mmm. He was always a quick study. He could have been a scholar of some sort, had he wished to pursue it. And I'm sorry for the way you first met him. But fooling people…he's very good at that, too."

"Yeah," Jane agreed, looking back over the first few days she'd known Loki. She'd received an e-mail from SHIELD right after meeting him, informing her that she now had an assistant. Much more impressive – or scary, depending on your point of view – however, was how he'd somehow falsified all the bureaucratic requirements of wintering over at the Pole. He would have had to submit medical reports, funding documents, and other minutiae that Jane had little understanding of and she'd come here legitimately. She remembered how at the Clothing Distribution Center in Christchurch, they had his name, but not his questionnaire regarding sizes and other clothing needs; Loki either hadn't known about it or had run out of time to send in that particular document, but either way, he'd talked his way through it when he got there and no one had been the wiser. "Well, I'll let you get dressed in here, then just come grab me from my room and we'll head back out and check on Loki, okay? Some of this is probably…not exactly stuff you're used to on Asgard, but it's not that complicated. And Loki doesn't wear as many layers as the rest of us, so I guess you don't need as much protection from the elements. That keeps things simpler for you, too."

"I'll be fine, thank you," Frigga said.

Jane left, and she perused the things Jane had left for her.

"How do I look?" she asked Jane several minutes later, black overalls over a beige sweater blue shirt that were a little snug on her, white boots stuffed with socks as Jane had suggested. She'd also smoothed out her hair since her head would soon be covered, letting it fall straight down her back, and had the neck warmer in place.

"A lot more like you belong here," Jane said with a laugh, surprised at how much of a difference a simple change of clothes and hairstyle really did make.

The women gathered the rest of their gear, leaving Frigga's gown and shoes behind in Jane's room, but Frigga stopped them once they reached the main corridor. "Do you think we might get some coffee? I've been curious to try it ever since Thor told us about it, and the time finally seems right."

"I think it's a great time for coffee. But…," Jane said, gaze lingering on the empty hallway outside the galley, "let's get it from the Science Lab. I'll brew a fresh pot. Loki likes the coffee in there better. Well, we all do. Besides, I think they're still talking about us in the galley. Wouldn't want to interrupt," she added, mustering a smile.

/


Long chapter again and I really need to hit the sack, so next-to-nothing from me this time down here. Big thanks to LingeringSentiments, Silencebeyondthestars, auraizee, Servantatheart1, ChaosRivers, Theowyn of HPG, Mel439, fourdevils, and Imogen74 (I don't think I missed anyone?) for sharing their thoughts on "how do you think YOU would react, if you were one of the Polies finding this out?" I printed all of your ideas out and underlined and made notes. Seriously. I really appreciated your input. I hope you see signs of it here, because I did take it all into account. You may have only seen little hints of it though, as we saw only what people said aloud, not what they were thinking necessarily. It will come up again in a different setting/s, and you'll see with some more specificity what's going on in at least some of their heads.

Previews for Ch. 141: Well, let me just tell you - I don't think it can be considered much of a spoiler - Loki is finally back in the picture. :-)

Excerpt:

"I need some time alone with him," Odin said.

Loki kept his face carefully still. Odin could be alone with him all he liked. Loki hoped he enjoyed conversing with a stone.