I'll preface this by saying while I'm emphatically not a Loki/Sylvie shipper, I actually don't dislike Sylvie as a character. I dislike the poor characterization and bad scripting that made S1 and S2 seem like two very different seasons, and that female characters so often are relegated to being nothing more than plot devices, but this isn't the place to get into that.

TLDR: I see a lot of myself in S2 Sylvie, having grown up in a religiously oppressive atmosphere and not feeling like I actually had freedom to be what I wanted until my late twenties. So this addresses a little of that, without re-inserting her permanently into this particular fix-it saga, which is ultimately about Mobius and Loki.

I'd like to think with a little more time and better depth, Sylvie could have been more well-rounded in S2. Like Loki said: no one is ever truly good, or truly bad. And I like playing with that complexity.

Also, why tf do we not have proper character tags for this fandom yet?

-SEVERAL MONTHS LATER-

Sylvie takes one look at him and slams the door in his face.

Unperturbed, he raps a knuckle sharply on it three times. "I'm trying to be polite, here," he calls through the thin wood. "I could've just opened a Door in your living room, y'know."

"Try it," she shouts back. "I can use magic on the branches, or have you forgotten?"

"I have not," he replies, grinning. "That's why I'm waiting to try the polite approach first."

"You can wait for the rest of Time for all I care, I'm not interested!"

"I mean, I could. But you gotta come out sometime, and I'm a patient man. Just don't step on me when you leave, if I fall asleep on your porch."

Huh. Now that's an interesting curse, he doesn't recognize that one. Must be particular to this Earth decade. But the door opens a second later, and Sylvie yanks him inside with that inhuman strength no one realizes her deceptively small frame holds until it's too late.

"Geez, warn a guy," he mutters, dusting himself off with his free hand as he regains his balance on a fluffy vomit-orange shag rug. "Hello to you too. New hair?"

"What do you want." Sylvie blinks in surprise as he shoves the small but fragrant bouquet into her hands. "And what the Hel is this."

"What, they never had flowers in any apocalypse you ran through?"

She glares at him, an icy dagger of barely reined, ever-burning rage that even now, years later, has barely reduced to a controlled simmer.

Mobius shrugs. "Just a peace offering. No tricks, no gimmicks. If you don't like 'em, toss 'em out."

"I didn't say that," she mutters at last, and sets them carefully in the kitchenette's tiny sink, one finger brushing a magenta petal briefly. "You just startled me, Mobius. It's been a long time."

"I gathered. And I know you're not all that interested in seeing me."

"You are smarter than you look," she snipes over one shoulder, but her expression's softening by the second. "Talk fast. I have to leave in ten minutes. Why are you here."

"I'm calling in a favor."

"Good luck with that," she snorts. "I'm out, Mobius. I told you that ten years ago, and we had a deal. This is my life now. My future, one that I control and I alone. I'm not interested in the Past, I'm not interested in what could possibly have been important enough for you to give up your own chance at freedom. I don't owe you or your precious new-and-improved TVA anything."

"All true. Mind if I sit? Thanks." He settles on the couch without actually waiting for an affirmative, ignoring the glare he gets in response, and leans forward with his elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped in front of him. "You don't owe me or the organization anything. And we did have a deal. By the way, we call it the Clean Slate Protocol now, if you're interested."

"I'm not," she snaps. "So why. Are you here."

"Because you don't owe me anything, but you owe him everything," he fires back, with just a hint of steel in his voice. "Including this beautiful little picture-perfect future you're clawing onto so badly, Sylvie."

Her arms fold in a clear defensive gesture. "Loki made his choice."

"Yes, he did. A choice just like yours, when you kickstarted the whole mess." Mobius raises an unbothered eyebrow in response to her clenched jaw. "You gave everyone free will and decided to let the universe burn while you walked away."

"And?"

"C'mon, Sylvie. You're not that dense. Do I really have to point out the difference between your MOs?"

She deflates, like a porcupine slowly lowering its quills, and has the grace to look a little ashamed. "No. I didn't mean for it all to happen the way it did, in the end. But you're not wrong."

"I'm not trying to be right, either," he says kindly. "We've had this talk before. And you're not the only one who's done things they'd like to take back."

She makes a non-committal humph.

"I'm not excusing either of us for the part we played. We were both just pawns in a cosmic chess game, set up by someone we didn't even know existed at the time. And boy, did we let ourselves be played."

"You were doing what you thought was the right thing," she finally says, almost inaudible. "I knew I was doing the wrong thing, and I just didn't care. We're not the same."

"Maybe, but the outcome was pretty similar. Good intentions don't save lives. You killed hundreds of TVA agents, and I pruned hundreds of timelines. And somehow…somehow we both have to learn to live with that. For all time."

"I've been trying," she whispers.

"I know." He tilts his head, and smiles, gesturing up and down at her cozy ensemble. "The haircut looks nice, by the way. Wasn't expecting purple, but it suits you. Very enchantress."

She blushes, and scuffs a worn sneaker along the violently orange rug. "You're using flattery on the wrong Loki, Mobius. It's not going to get you anywhere with me."

"Well. It sure can't hurt anything, and I like to hedge my bets." Mobius sits back, relaxing slightly. "So do you really have to get going in ten minutes, or was that just to run me off quicker."

She snorts. "I really do, I have a shift and I'm well shut of doing any time-traveling. I'm a manager now. I have a key to the building, even." His obvious wariness produces a sharp bark of real laughter. "They're all basically children, Mobius. I'm not plotting a revolution or something equally nefarious, just trying to make a living without cheating at it. Like a real person."

"Well, that's reassuring." He smiles. "It's been ten years for you, then?"

"Midgardian time, yeah. Surprised it hasn't been that for you, though. I thought you were living on a branch, somewhere in the 2000s?"

"I was, for a while. But not anymore. I'm working on something new. Something big."

"Hence the favor for Loki."

"Hence the favor," he agrees easily.

"Is he even still out there, really?" she asks, almost wistful. "I talk to him sometimes, you know. But I've never gotten an answer. Not that I was expecting one, I'm not about to start praying to him. I just…wish I'd said thank you, at least."

"If it's any consolation, we do think if he's still aware of anything, that it's likely he can see the timelines. If he focuses hard enough, or something gets his direct attention," Mobius says gently. "I'm sure he heard you, at some point."

"I'd like to hope so." She looks back at him, shaking off the emotion in the almost physical manner of one who has had to do so far, far too many times to survive; the action is ingrained instinct now. "So. You need a favor. I'm not going back to the TVA. I have no desire to walk through a Time Door ever again."

"I don't need you to go back," Mobius reassures her. "And it's a pretty simple favor, if that last part is actually true."

Suspicious, Sylvie squints at him. "What, then."

He pulls a Tempad out of his pocket and tosses it on the coffee table. "I need you to trade me," he says, nodding at the instrument.

"You what." Her hand goes almost unconsciously to her wrist, where He Who Remains' temporal device sits, cleverly disguised now as an oversized wristwatch. It's been months since she used it, years since she used it for anything more than personal convenience, but it's safest in her possession and there it has stayed, for all this time.

"I need that," Mobius repeats, pointing at the device. "And I don't want to leave you stranded here, so I'm suggesting a trade for one of our latest Tempads. If you really are living as a human here, it shouldn't be more trouble than adjusting to a different user interface."

"Why would you need it? If you're trying to get to Loki, the Citadel isn't there anymore," she says. "I checked, once, years ago. The coordinates go to nothingness, not even a barren asteroid. It's of no additional use to you or anyone at the TVA."

"See, that's where you're wrong." Mobius stands and re-buttons his jacket. "I need it because it's tied to the user's willpower. Not tied to science, like the TVA's Tempads are." He nods at the device on the table, and continues, "In this particular angle of the project, I've kinda gone as far as I can with science, and I need something a little more intangible."

"What in all the worlds are you up to."

Mobius ignores the question, knowing it will irk her more than she shows. "You'll still be able to go anywhere you want, and I'm trusting you enough to leave TVA tech with you. I'd never strand you here, Sylvie. But I need that device in return."

"Why."

"I can't tell you that, not here."

"Then you'll have to take it off my body," Sylvie snaps.

"I could," he replies coolly, and something in his voice makes her pale, just a bit. "For that matter, I could take it off you without the dramatic death speech, in about ten seconds. You remember what a Time Collar feels like, I'm sure."

Her eyes widen. "I thought you people had gotten rid of your torture devices."

"Well, let's say I've been operating a little off the beaten path, lately," he replies. "But. I was hoping we could cooperate, instead of resorting to immediate threats and violence. And that you might want to take a look."

"A look at what."

"What I'm working on." He pulls a second Tempad out of his pocket, and inputs a set of coordinates. "But if you won't, you won't. Maybe your 727-branch variant will take pity on a tired old man and help him out. She has green hair, you know. And she's actually nice."

"Nice." Sylvie spits the word like it's soured milk.

"Mmhm. Got a great karaoke voice, makes a mean martini. Doesn't hold grudges like someone I could mention. She's real fun to be around, when she's not feeling stabby. Anyhow, I won't keep you, if that's your final answer. Guess I'll see you around." A Time Door opens behind him, and he turns toward it with an air of resignation.

"I still do not understand what Loki ever saw in you. You are the most unconscionably, unreasonably, intolerably annoying human I have ever met," Sylvie snarls, stalking past him through the opening without a look back.

Grinning, he pumps his fist in the air unseen, and follows.

-ONE HOUR LATER-

He'd meant to give her a tour of what little there is to see right now, but instead gets pulled down to Research & Advancements as soon as he arrives, because O.B. is about to fire three temporal engineers-in-training for the eighth time this week, and someone has to keep hold of the big picture right now. There's always going to be mistakes made when doing something new; but in a project of this scale, mistakes can be deadly, so Mobius isn't exactly unsympathetic to O.B.'s frustration level.

However, they also need to develop solid working and personal relationships from the ground up with these people, or Mobius' newest brainchild is going to be running on a skeleton when the time comes.

It's not easy to figure out where you fit in the world, when you've been told that world is actually a lie of truly cosmic proportions; and while determination, courage and open-mindedness are helpful, practically speaking, they only take a person so far into that Unknown. You have to be tied to your own sense of self, your own humanity, when trying to navigate such a void. Find those connections that keep you tethered to the Now, not the Past – whether that's a connection to people, or hobbies, or the Work, or something as mundane as a slice of pie. Tangible reminders of your own individuality are actually vital to maintaining your sanity and keeping your cool, when everything you know and love has been wiped away against your will.

He should know.

But these young agents are still finding their way, many of them. And the organization is going to need all the soldiers they can find in this war, particularly since service is now voluntary, and Mobius himself needs this particular cog in the war machine to eventually be self-sufficient, so that he can somewhat justify spending more time on a…personal side project, is what he's calling it right now.

Anyway. The engineers get a time out, a written warning, and a safety refresher back at TVA Central. O.B. takes a walk to cool down, and comes back rambling about an idea for a complicated communications portal in the main foyer of the archives wing. And Mobius detours to the Quiet Room for a five-minute breathing exercise, something that's become far too frequent a habit, of late.

Maybe his next recruitment from HQ should be an actual therapist, because he's likely to burn his task force out if this keeps up.

He has a newfound respect for Ravonna and her ruthless but eminently practical ability to maintain a flawless regime of pure order amid such chaos. So far, their task forces have been unable to locate her here in the Void, but Mobius would bet a year's worth of meal tokens that she's still out there, methodically working her way through anyone stupid enough to come up against her, and plotting a long game that's going to come back to bite them when the War comes.

But that's a problem for another day.

It's only when one of the perimeter agents hesitantly messages him and rambles incoherently for sixty seconds about stranger authorization, that he remembers he has an errant Loki variant who currently favors pale purple hair and acid wash jeans wandering around the premises completely unescorted. Not his smartest moment, but it's not the end of the world, and the poor kid on the perimeter gets a gold star for recognizing a potential threat, so. Everyone wins. Sort of.

Fortunately, any mischievous tendencies this particular variant might have were stamped out long ago, and the murderous ones are well-controlled by now (not so long ago, but hopefully for good). Mobius finds her in what will be the main Atrium, staring up at the starlight. The cupola is just bare bones, currently framed by unsightly scaffolding but indicating what will someday be a modest but beautiful interior.

A chilly breeze whistles through the open walls, and the faint shudder of distant thunder adds a menacing bass note to the chorus of noise coming from all over the complex.

"I was lying," Sylvie whispers into the night wind as he walks up beside her, juggling two clipboards and a notebook into something resembling a plastic-and-paper sandwich.

"About me being annoying?"

She elbows him, lips twisting in a small smile. "About not understanding what Loki saw in you."

"I'm not so sure about that," he mutters, shuffling uncomfortably and finally tucking the stack under his arm. "What do you think, though? C'mon, honest opinion. I can take it."

"It's a bit rough, but it has potential," she answers lightly. "And it's completely bonkers. What are you thinking, Mobius?"

"Oh, don't you start, I get enough of that from headquarters."

"I'm not surprised."

"It's only just begun, anyhow, you just wait 'til we finish. It's gonna be amazing. I hope."

She side-eyes him, and raises a blonde brow. "You're building a temple fit for a god."

"We're a long way from that." He allows himself one barely audible sigh. "But one step closer than we were, maybe."

She looks up at the deep purpling sky, and shivers at a distant crack of violet lightning. "Alioth is still out there."

"Sure is. Faithfully guarding nothing but the ghosts of Time Past."

"I'm curious why you haven't asked for my help. I would think you'd want to reprogram the guard dog." The observation seems genuinely curious.

"That was my first idea, but I decided it's of more use like that," he replies, waving a demonstrating hand across the darkening horizon. "When the war comes, and it will, the advance force will probably head first for what they think is the man at the top."

"He Who Remains," Sylvie supplies, and Mobius nods. "But the Citadel is gone. And even if it wasn't, the person they're expecting to find is dead."

"Correct. But they don't know that, and we're trying to make sure it stays that way as long as possible. So they'll probably spend a lot of time and energy trying to get past Alioth, which definitely won't go unnoticed. That advance warning could mean all the difference between destruction and survival, for the TVA and the timelines."

"Mm."

"So for right now, Ailoth still serves its original purpose, just with a couple intermediary steps. A necessary-but-kinda-dangerous canary in a mine shaft, if you're familiar with the earth metaphor."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"Exactly. Alioth will consume a HWR variant as easily as it will anything else, and I'll take any protection I can get right now, however risky it might actually be." Mobius pulls his jacket closer as the wind picks up. "Can't afford to be choosy, not right now at least."

"I could help with that." Sylvie steps away from him and spreads her hands, green light flickering at her fingertips, but tilts her head to wait for permission.

Allowing her entrance to the place when magic isn't completely dampened was already a risk, and he hopes she isn't seizing the opportunity to take advantage of it. He's totally screwed, if so; but after all this time, he trusts his own judgment where Lokis are concerned.

And trust goes two ways. He nods, and in an instant a wash of soothing, cool green energy floods the atrium, radiating upward and outward. It gathers speed as it swoops throughout the complex, ending in a shimmering curtain that glows and then vanishes against the time-locked dome which hides them temporarily from outside perception.

"It won't last forever," she says, shaking her hands out and moving back toward him. "But like you said. Any protection is still protection. I'm assuming you have a permanent plan for defense, but this will cloak you from any surviving variants and from Alioth for a couple of decades at least. No one in the Void should know you're here until the enchantment fades or you drop the barriers intentionally."

"Thank you," Mobius says quietly, because that's more than he'd hoped for when he invited her here.

She shakes her head, her tone ebbing back to stone-cold business and nothing more. "You said you'd done all you could with science, and now you need something more. Why do you need this," she asks again, pointing at her wrist.

"Why do you think?" Mobius scuffs a foot aimlessly along the rough, unfinished flooring. "If nothing else…I'd like to let him know where we are, and that it worked, that we're all right. And that we haven't forgotten him."

He doesn't bother to add if he's even still aware of anything, because he refuses to even manifest the possibility. Karma is a thing, on the timelines; and he's not bringing those bad vibes here, no sir.

"And how will this help you accomplish that better than a Tempad? Both require you know your destination, which you don't."

"Because He Who Remains' device is fueled primarily by the willpower of the user, not primarily by coordinates and the laws of temporal physics," he says, shrugging. "And I've got a hell of a lot of willpower where he's concerned."

"You could dump yourself on another planet, or into empty space, if you're not precise," Sylvie says dryly. "If your coordinates are off by a micron, if your willpower isn't quite strong enough to properly direct it without the help of magic? You could end up with the wrong Loki, permanently. Or at the least, somewhere or sometime you didn't intend to. It's incredibly dangerous. Even I mucked it up the first time, and overshot the Present TVA when I was trying to send him back to you. Remember?"

"I do, and that's all true. But I could also get eaten by Alioth on my next recon mission. Or run into a handful of variants I pruned decades ago who are happy to take revenge on an unsuspecting analyst out here alone in the Void. I get it, Sylvie, there's definitely risk involved. But we've gotta take the chance. What's even the point of being given free will, if we don't?"

"Free will which you're throwing away on a Loki, who might not even still be him. He doesn't know you're waiting for him, working for him, Mobius."

"I'm aware."

"You're just a - a human devotee, blindly serving a god who may or may not even acknowledge your existence when it's all said and done. It's a worship offering on the altar of eternal futility."

Mobius sighs, feeling all of a sudden the hundreds of years old he actually is. "Maybe you're right, and this is a waste of time," he says quietly. "Maybe it's all for nothing. Maybe the multiversal war happens and it all ends with a bang and a whimper, no matter what we do. Maybe I should've used that spark he gave to burn the TVA to the ground after all, instead of trying to relight the fire from the inside." He shakes his head, rueful and self-deprecating. "Ravonna always said I had a dangerous soft spot for broken things."

"She wasn't wrong," Sylvie murmurs.

"But you know what? I don't care. Maybe Loki's not alive, or even out there somewhere, after all." A brief swallow. "But until I know for sure? I'm not going to give up hope."

"Hope is for children."

"Well." Mobius glances sideways at her, a pointed flick of painful empathy. "Some of us never really got to be children, did we."

Her lips tighten, unsteady and almost trembling.

"And I can't – I won't make you help me, Sylvie. But I've done my homework. It'll be decades before we figure out some other way to even get in contact, much less anything more than that. Not without outside assistance from very powerful sources, which we're trying to avoid because there's no way in all the realms I'm letting a variant of Stephen Strange loose in this place.

"The war that's coming is bigger than all of us, and I just don't have the capacity to make more headway on my own without compromising our safety. So yeah. We're decades away, at minimum."

"That's a long time to spend in solitude. No one to talk to, no one to listen. No one to touch," she whispers thickly. "It's truly awful, Mobius. I can vouch for that."

"I know you can, and I'm sorry. But that's if you're feeling time pass on just one individual timeline." He looks up at the endless, eerie stars, and prays with every ounce of feeling he has that he's wrong. "If you're feeling more than one timeline? Thousands, millions of them?"

Sylvie sniffles, and hastily turns away to swipe a sweater sleeve across her eyes.

"No one deserves to be alone," he says, and the words drift heavily away on the night breeze. "Not like that. Not for that long. And, well…you didn't deserve to be either."

A congested snort. "A bit too little, too late, Mobius."

"I know. And I'm sorry there was no one waiting for you at the end of it." Unable to do more to justify the Past or Present, he can only put a hand on her shoulder, careful and hesitant.

"I'm fine," she snaps, bristling under the gentle touch.

"Easy. I'm just wondering."

"Wondering what."

"How long it's been since you had a hug," he says quietly, and then holds her as she finally, finally cries.

-TWELVE HOURS LATER-

"Whoa." O.B.'s eyes are even bigger behind a new pair of dark-rimmed glasses, and they sparkle with excitement as he examines the small device from every angle. "I've never seen anything quite like this before. You said it belonged to Timely?"

"He Who Remains," Mobius corrects him. "Timely's still harmless, as far as we can tell. Our Timely, at least. This was the big man himself. The OG HWR."

"Ooh, I like that." O.B. scribbles the letters in a corner of the whiteboard that isn't covered in equations and sticker notes.

Mobius snorts, amused. "Happy to help. Look, O.B., I know it works off of willpower. The user just thinks about what needs to happen or where they need to go, and it happens. I just don't know how."

"Hmm. It's radiating a very mild form of temporal energy, so it's possible you can only use it if you can control Time, or have pre-existing, natural magical abilities," O.B. says absently, turning it over in his hands. "Though if it actually feeds off of brainwaves, you should be able to harness it with enough practice and willpower. Hypothetically."

"It worked in TVA Central when the magic dampeners were still on," Mobius points out. "And willpower I can handle. So I'm hoping it's the brainwave thing, and that there's just a learning curve."

"A big one, if you're right."

Mobius resists the urge to apply his head to the desk top repeatedly. "Obviously. So hypothetically, how would I go about confirming that and figuring out how to control it."

"Like anything else in science," O.B. replies cheerfully. "Trial and error. Lots and lots of error, usually."

"Error with a Tempad usually involves missing limbs and/or walking into traffic on a planet lightyears away," he says dryly.

"So…very careful, trial and error."

That's helpful. "You think you might have time to assist with some of that?" he asks, already knowing the answer.

O.B. taps the device experimentally. It spits a single purple spark at him in warning, and he yelps, dropping it back into Mobius' waiting hands. "I think it's chosen its new master already," he says, wary. "Besides, I can help you with Loki, or I can help you build this place." His hands fly all around in a wildly flailing gesture. "Not both. Not right now, at least."

"Understood."

"Just be careful, Mobius," O.B. adds, as he turns back to writing on the board. "Come back to me when you've figured out how to use it and I can at least help you calibrate it, figure out a game plan for safely testing it the way I assume you intend to."

Mobius nods, turning the device over and over in his hands. "Yeah, of course. Will do." He pockets the device, and firmly puts it out of mind for now. "How are we coming with the perimeter construction?"

"Slowly, like I said this morning. And I still haven't made much headway into solving the time differential you want to have between the living quarters and the main working hub. Is that absolutely necessary at this stage?"

"No, no. If it's causing a delay, forget about it. It was just a thought, and there's plenty of other interim solutions. You can kick that particular rock down the road a while."

"Okay, then I'll put my main focus on the perimeter defenses. Sylvie just bought us some more time, which is great; but at the same time, a display of magic like that in a place like this might draw some attention. You should probably be on the lookout for rogue Variants sniffing around, even if they can't see or sense us yet."

"Got it. I'm on my way back to HQ now for a resource allocation meeting, I'll mention it to B-15. Field Observation's been chomping at the bit a little for something to do, since we're not actively hunting anymore, maybe they can spare a couple dozen minutemen for active patrol duty."

"I'd definitely feel better if we had more security measures in general," O.B. agrees, though he seems optimistic enough about the situation. "Also, better coffee. If you're taking suggestions. We do suggestions now, right?"

Mobius chuckles, and scribbles briefly on one of the clipboards. "Sure do. And noted on the coffee."

"I'll have a final time and labor estimate for you when you get back on the first construction phase, and I'm working on a new idea for resource allocation with Casey. Might have that outlined for you by tomorrow morning."

"Great."

"Oh, I almost forgot!" O.B. scrabbles among the mechanical detritus for a second and then hands over a Tempad, shaking it a little impatiently when Mobius doesn't immediately jump to grab it. "Don't forget to swap it when you get there. I've done everything I can to maximize power conservation, but the variance between the main TVA and the Void is always going to drain it substantially. We may need to redesign the power cell completely if it only gets three jumps before empty."

Mobius winces. "The Council will toss me on my ear straight into a dying timeline branch if I suggest another fundamental tech change at this point. Can we manage for now?"

"Sure." O.B. shrugs easily. "You're the boss."

"Huh. I guess I am." Mobius grins, almost to himself, as he pockets the Tempad and retrieves the stack of files he needs to bring with. "Imagine that."