Author's Note: So, not the length I'd originally hoped for, but hey, it's a chapter! Enjoy!

Chapter 11: Doctors make the worst patients

Loki watches Thor lead Dudley to the bathing area, though he's mostly focused on the pulse beating out a steady tempo under his fingertips.

"He is not what I expected," Frigga murmurs once the two disappear from sight.

"You only heard Evelyn rant of their childhood together," Loki informs her. "She was very adamant that he was just as much a victim of his parents behavior as she was. The abuse they dealt him only became apparent once he stopped blindly following their lead."

"Abuse?" On the other side of the bed Hogun has to swiftly steer Sif to a chair as her legs finally give out on her. She'd rallied after the mention of the soul shard in Evelyn's forehead, but adding on the knowledge that she was abused is apparently too much for the female warrior.

"She is a wee little thing," Volstagg comments, brow furrowed in clear distaste. "You say her relatives were not kind to her?"

Loki barks out a bitter laugh, unable to help himself. "In her own words she told me that she was treated no better than a thrall. She was kept in a cupboard underneath their stairs until the age of eleven, was made to do most of the household chores when she reached age five, and her aunt forced her to keep her hair cropped short. All because she has magic while they do not, and they never even had the decency to tell her that. They just acted like she was the same as filth underneath their boots until she grew up and came into her own."

"Loki, she is a child still," Fandral says slowly.

"In body only," Loki throws back with a sneer. "Or are you so inept that you haven't yet heard of my usage of Soul Magic?"

Hogun speaks before a red faced Fandral can. "We've heard. We simply didn't know that she," he nods at Evelyn, "was a part of it. All we knew was that you and Thor remembered years not yet passed."

"She is the main reason my son used Soul Magic," Frigga interjects, sobering Fandral immediately, "so we are all a little protective of my future daughter at the moment."

All of the Warriors Three blink and look at Evelyn in mild disbelief, but only Hogun and Fandral glance in the direction Thor went. Volstagg, instead, fixes a rather knowing look on Loki, much to his surprise. "My congratulations, then, my prince. She makes you happy?"

"Very," Loki chokes out, his grip on Evelyn's hand tightening minutely. It's then that he remembers that Volstagg is the only one of the three married. That for all their keen eyes on the battlefield, Hogun and Fandral don't quite know the tells of marriage just yet.

"Goo 'ser."

Evelyn's slurred words make Loki fly out of his chair, nearly elbowing his mother in the face as he goes.

"Alskling?" He hesitantly reaches out to touch his fingertips to her still flushed cheek. Her lashes flutter as she attempts to open her eyes. Glazed over green darts around aimlessly trying to place where she is. "You're in the Healing Hall," Loki informs her softly.

Her nose crunches up. "Why?" she whines in clear displeasure.

"You're sick, sweetling," Frigga says, having moved so she can settle on the other side of the bed opposite Loki. She tenderly runs a hand over Evelyn's sweaty brow. "You collapsed after developing a fever."

Evelyn blinks up at Frigga in obvious confusion. "'Ki, Mum's with Mum. Did I die?"

Loki has to briefly squeeze his eyes shut to try and fight back tears. "No, lovely, you didn't die. I used Soul Magic, remember? My mother is still alive and well."

She jerks her chin down. "'Cept mine isn't. I'd've gone splode otherwise." She wrinkles her nose again, pouting heavily. "'M never gonna have a mum, am I? Just a freak."

"Go to sleep, alskling," Loki murmurs, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead and slip a minor sleeping spell over her. She's still tired enough that it takes effect almost immediately. Her eyes drift shut again and Loki hefts himself back upright. "Stars, I didn't think that'd ever slip out again." He drags a hand tiredly down his face.

"Loki, what did she mean by that?" Frigga all but demands.

He huffs out a small sigh, never liking remembering this. "She has never had a true mother figure. Of the two who might have been, one was apparently ridiculously overbearing, and the other fled to reclaim her life shortly after the conclusion of the war. She never begrudged the second woman that choice, but she refused to bow to the whims of the first." He reaches out to brush a stray curl away from her sweaty forehead, only for Frigga to grab ahold of his wrist. He looks up at her, startled.

"My son, why did she think she had died when she saw me?"

Loki abruptly feels his stomach heave.

Apparently, neither he nor Thor have mentioned the fact that Frigga herself had died. A quick glance shows that, no, Thor is not coming back anytime soon, and he knows his mother too well. She will not wait.

"Leave us," he bites out through clenched teeth, locking eyes with Sif. A look of dawning horror has already started to slowly slip over her face, but it disappears behind a blank expression as she jerks her head downwards. She manages to kajole the Warriors Three out of the infirmary without too much protesting on their part. It only takes one pointed threat from Sif and an equally pointed look from Loki to do the trick. Once they're gone, he throws up a subtle muffling ward. "You died," he states bluntly, for all that the words tear at his heart. "You died when Malekith tried to take Asgard, and Evelyn never actually met you in the time before. Hela had shielded her from sight against everyone but me, and Evelyn only knew what you looked like because I showed her illusions of you at her request." He sighs, an uncomfortable lump having lodged itself in his throat. "On top of all of that, she has the unfortunate habit of seeing people long since departed when she has a fever."

Frigga regards him silently for a moment. "So that is why you refused my touch that morning," she murmurs. "It would have broken you utterly, would it not have, my son?"

Loki blinks furiously, refusing to give into the tears threatening to fall. "It did." He'd just managed to escape the worst of the fallout simply by falling asleep(He refuses to admit that he actually fell unconscious from the overload).

His mother sighs delicately. "That does explain why your brother seemed torn between never leaving your side and refusing to allow me to leave his line of sight." She gives him a sad smile. "I had simply assumed that we had not been able to see each other given the situation, not that there'd been a more permanent separation."

He badly swallows the sob that tries to claw its way out of his throat. "Thor—Thor is the one who saw your body. I was never given the opportunity, seeing as I was in a cell at the time." He inhales sharply, relieved to feel the familiar tingle of Thor's lightning brushing up against his magic. He lets the muffling ward drop when Thor hesitates to approach.

Thor, most likely upon seeing Loki's wet eyes, immediately hurries over. "What happened?" he all but demands.

Loki scrubs at his face, annoyed at his lack of composure for all that the subject discussed would be enough to reduce anyone to tears. "Did you know, brother, that neither of us informed Mother of her death? That she just now found out because my wife sees dead people when she's feverish?"

Thor blinks at him, then abruptly sits on the bed nearby. "I—I thought—"

"Yes, well, so did I." He sighs, letting his gaze drift back to Evelyn. She's shifted onto her side and curled up into a ball, all while facing him. Her magic, what isn't fighting off the fever, is still reaching out to him. He doesn't doubt that she'd wake if he tried to leave.

"I apologize that I wasn't here for that," Thor murmurs.

Loki immediately waves away the apology. "So long as you handle Sif later, I don't particularly care."

"Sif?"

Loki shoots his brother a rather unimpressed look. "Yes, Sif. Your friend who was here just a few minutes ago? I sent her and the Warriors Three away to talk to Mother in private, but Sif appeared to have already worked out what I was going to tell her."

Thor exhales explosively, jerking his head down in a nod. "Aye, I'll speak with her the first chance I get." He pointedly doesn't appear to look in Frigga's direction. She graciously doesn't comment on this, simply letting the two of them converse while she continually runs a hand through Evelyn's curls. She's who Loki learned to watch and listen from, after all. It's how she's always on top of whatever gossip is circulating through the palace.

"My thanks."

"May I ask, brother, what your plans are now that Evelyn has come to Asgard?" Thor inquires after a moment's pause.

It's a reasonable question, given that he hadn't been willing to discuss anything beyond Evelyn's arrival until now. "Firstly, after she's recovered from this fever, I intend to do something about Sirius Black."

Thor leans forward, hands clasped together in front of him. "Her godfather, wrongly imprisoned. Why do I get the feeling, brother, that you don't intend to just inform the local authorities and have them deal out the proper justice?"

Loki snorts, a wry smile tugging at his lips. "He's been imprisoned for ten years at this point, Thor. The local government isn't about to admit to a mistake that drastic. It took Evelyn four years to get his name cleared after the end of the war, and that was with her being a celebrated war hero. If nothing else, we ought to just steal him away ourselves. They all believe him to be a murdering raving lunatic as it is."

"That is the second time such a description has been used in regards to the man who is my future daughter's current male guardian," Frigga interjects, voice soft yet vividly unhappy. Loki, of course, gets a tiny thrill at her claim to Evelyn, small that it is. "Is such a description true?"

"Mother, Sirius Black gave his life to keep Evelyn safe. He is no more insane that…" Here Loki trails off, a bitter frown twisting his expression. "He has been shoved and pulled into situations that would break a lesser man and yet he held firm to his sanity, which is more than I can attest to."

"Brother, what happened on Midgard—" Thor begins.

"I knew exactly what I was getting into, Thor," Loki spits, eyes ablaze. "I set out to subjugate an entire people! Again, I might add! That blasted staff only cemented my belief that what I was doing was justified!"

"It is behind us and we need no longer focus on it," Thor states firmly. "Furthermore, on Midgard it has never actually occurred. Simply learn from the experience so it does not happen again."

"If I even remotely consider it, Evelyn will hex me within an inch of my life," Loki states dryly.

"Which is why it won't happen and you've nothing to worry about." Thor nods decisively. "And brother, I would cease comparing your experience with that of Sirius Black. Your two situations are entirely different. The dementors that Evelyn spoke of are fearsome creatures, but you were at the mercy of the Mad Titan for a year. And on top of that, he wielded the Mind Stone. You were already in a precarious mental state of mind when he came upon you."

Loki near about jumps out of his skin as Frigga grabs ahold of his wrist again, only this time her grip is painfully tight. "You were in the company of the Mad Titan?"

"Aye, he was," Thor answers for him, reaching out to gently but firmly make Frigga release her hold on him. "This was after he fell off the bridge."

"Thanos is moving again?" Frigga demands, letting go but fixing the both of them with startled looks.

Thor exchanges a glance with Loki before pulling their mother to her feet. "Walk with me, and I will tell you all that I know of Thanos. The Healing Hall is no place for such talk. If we need my brother's expertise, we can call for him."

When she's woken up in the middle of the night, it's from a restless sleep.

Frigga throws a robe over her nightgown before making her way towards her sons' chambers. Her thoughts are all a jumble from the talks that happened throughout the course of the afternoon. To learn that the Mad Titan Thanos is moving about in the shadows is unnerving, to say nothing of the fact that her son was at his mercy for a period of time. That thought makes her blood boil.

Of course, now she has to go inform said son that his future wife is missing from the Healing Hall. Thankfully, Eir alerted her first, and not Loki. Frigga doesn't even want to begin to imagine the catastrophe that would've occurred has Eir been the one to wake Loki and deliver the news. Still, she is concerned at what his reaction will be. The loyalty and connection between the two is formidable.

The door to Loki's chambers is slightly ajar, worrying Frigga even more. She slips inside, only to stop in her tracks at the sight of Evelyn curled up peacefully in Loki's arms. Her hair is a shock of red in the otherwise dark room. Loki has an arm slung over her small body, holding her firmly to his chest.

Then something rustles and Frigga startles as gold eyes lock onto her. So great is her shock that she actually takes a step back. It takes a moment, but then she recognizes the winged woman who had come with Hela two nights ago. Said woman steps out of the shadows while sparing a passing glance towards Frigga's sleeping family.

"I knew you'd eventually show up," she murmurs, coming to a stop just out of arm's reach. Moonlight shimmers off her silver armor, casting soft beams of light up onto her face and over her flared wings. A whisper of magic has an invisible barrier going up between and the bed behind. "I just wasn't sure how long it'd be."

Frigga draws herself up, dignity draped over her for all that she lacks the material markings of a Queen. "Who are you and what exactly are you doing in my son's chambers unannounced?" She frowns. "For that matter, how did you manage to enter without waking him?" Even before the Soul Magic, Frigga has not been able to sneak into Loki's chambers with him unawares for years. She would've expected for her son to react with deadly force to any who dared entered without his explicit permission, yet he lies deeply asleep still.

An amused smile spreads across the woman's lips, and Frigga wonders at the familiarity of it. "I am a Valkyrie for Lady Hela. As Evelyn Rosalie Potter is Lady Hela's Avatar, I am well within my rights to check on her wellbeing. Besides," Here the woman's expression softens into fond longing as she looks back to the sleeping pair, "I wanted to be able to see her one last time before I continued on my way." She sighs, feathers shifting silently when she turns her back to the bed. "As to how I managed to get in here without waking your son, well…" Frigga is now graced with a smirk she normally only sees on Loki, yet does not look misplaced on this unknown woman. "We Queens do have to have our own little secrets, do we not?"

"You are Royal?"

"By blood and by marriage. Not that it truly matters either way."

"And I suppose you will not give me your name?"

"I will not. Not yet."

Frigga exhales sharply, instinctively knowing no matter how hard she presses, she will get no further answers. For now, she'll just have to make due with the knowledge that, as the woman claims to be a Valkyrie for Hela, she can hardly expect her to be a threat to Evelyn and Loki. "You knew Evelyn was here," she states plainly instead, although the look she gives demands an answer.

The Valkyrie just snorts, entirely unfazed by the silent demand. "Healers do tend to make the worst sort of patients, and Lady Potter had a rather strong disdain for staying in a Healing Hall long before she trained to be a Healer herself. She went to the one person she feels safest with."

Now it's Frigga's turn to sigh, although hers is filled with exasperation. Somehow, she imagines that this will be an ongoing battle for a good many years that she is going to fight her future daughter over.

The Valkyrie laughs softly. "I wish you all the luck of the Realms on that front. You are going to need it."

"I survived raising a Jotun son with all of Asgard unawares," she retorts. "A stubborn daughter will be nothing new to me."

The Valkyrie openly grins at her. "Perhaps, but you've no experience currently with a member of House Potter. Hela likes to bemoan that they are a force unto themselves."

Frigga hums in the back of her throat. "We shall see." They stand in silence for a moment before she inquires, "You mentioned wanting to see my future daughter one last time before continuing on."

This sobers up the Valkyrie rather quickly. "Yes, I did." Her shoulders rise and fall as she draws in a deep breath before releasing it. "I have now witnessed the new beginning. Therefore, so too shall I witness the new end." A bittersweet smile graces her face. "It is something I alone must face, as I have no daughters yet to call my own. However, even if I did have them, this is not something I would let them experience."

This, of course, immediately puts Frigga on edge. "What end do you speak of?"

The bittersweet expression remains. "I cannot say. Just know this. I will be beside Evelyn Rosalie Potter every step of the way when the time comes." With that rather mysterious and frankly alarming parting shot, the Valkyrie inclines her head before disappearing back into the shadows.

Frigga remains standing where she is for a long moment, just soaking in the sight of her two children safe. Only once her heart has calmed somewhat does she too leave to find Eir and inform her that Evelyn had been found.

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