DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership of Marvel's Loki or affiliated branding (sadly).

SUMMARY: Three hundred and fifty eight TVA cycles after Loki's unexplained disappearance into the Void with the timelines in tow, the universe begins to collapse. Metaphysical horror. A fix-it (of sorts).

NOTES: See end.

Chapter Three: Reunions but it's giving skype

Attempt one takes an inordinate amount of planning, because, for some reason, 'no, Mobius, you can't just hop out of a timeline as it's disappearing' seems to be a sentiment shared by most of the department.

However, a lot of the preparation is simply refining their initial technology from the first white timeline drop-in. Extending the radiation protection time, increasing readings accuracy, ensuring the return coordinates are on the correct y-axis so the suit does not transport the wearer to six feet above the floor of the Observation Room.

Mobius is particularly glad he won't have to deal with that last one.

He shrugs his shoulders in the suit, now more lightweight than ever. L-23 keeps fussing over it, a line in her forehead as she wraps protective tape around the wrist joints.

"Hey," he says. "I'm gonna be fine."

"I know." She gives him a faint smile. Her anxiety visibly grows. "I – uh, I wanted to give you something though." She fumbles in her pocket and pulls out a small object – a talisman. Taking it in his hand, Mobius can make out a wooden carving in the shape of a tree, set in a tiny circular ring of metal. Ignoring the patches of amateur workmanship, it's a similar shape to his tree. L-23, wobbling on tiptoes as she awaits his reaction, explains, "It's a good luck charm. I've been trying to do an activity that isn't –"

"Did B-15 find you overworking yourself and tell you to get a hobby?" Mobius asks wryly. He gets a sheepish nod. "Happens to the best of us." He studies it, taken with the tiny branches and, in the centre, a winking green light. "This looks amazing."

"It's also an emergency beacon. Will broadcast a signal to our hub if radiation dips above safe levels, so you can carry it in normal uniform."

Mobius fails to hide his grin. "Now that's more like you. A good luck charm? Whatever you say."

"I'd class it as lucky if it saves your life," she replies, deadpan.

O.B.'s voice fills the room. "You guys ready?"

"Coming up now," L-23 answers. She waits for Mobius' to place the beacon in his pocket, then gives a thumbs-up. "Godspeed."

"Yeah, he better speed." Mobius huffs under his breath. She ascends the stairs with muffled laughter.

He flexes his fingers in the suit gloves. Helmetless, because now it's retractable he can easily activate it if necessary. He wants to breathe normal, non-recycled oxygen for as long as he can when he drops in.

Choosing the timeline took hours of hefty debate, but he's happy with the result. Given they're enticing the destruction of the whole branch, it's something of a miracle they've found a timeline entirely devoid of life. Multiple potential options in fact. His drop-point is Earth, but a never-inhabited Earth. Nobody will miss a reality that's never had anyone in it.

That's how he's justifying it to himself, anyway.

"Mobius, all systems look good. Are you set?"

"Absolutely." Mobius has never been so sure of anything in his life. His heart seems to skip every other beat.

"Remember to be careful. No matter what happens." O.B.'s voice is unusually firm. "Don't lose focus."

He taps his foot. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be back in one piece."

There's a crackle of silence before O.B. starts the countdown.

Mobius breathes. Four seconds in, four seconds out. Four seconds in, and then the floor disappears.

A moment of nothing.

A horrible, terrible feeling of being untethered. His body breaks apart. It reforms.

A second nothing.

His feet land solidly on sand. He loses balance, falling to his knees with a groan.

"Mobius?" O.B., loud in his ear.

Placing his hands firmly into the wet silt, he staggers to his feet. "Yeah, rating that zero stars. Top ten worst experiences of my life." He exhales, clenching his fists tight as if he can hold his particles together. "Send my regards to B-15 for her stoicism last time."

"It's a fractional equivalent to Loki's timeslipping, including the particle bond degradation. Sorry about that."

"If that's fractional, I do not want to experience the full thing. Why didn't we just do a TemPad drop in and then use the suit to get out?"

He's met with a thick silence. Then a quiet "oh" from L-23 in the background. "Okay," he sighs, "We didn't think of that? Let's note it for next time guys."

He shields his eyes. The sun is low, directly in his eyeline, over a stretch of empty beach. Pockmarked with rivulets of water, the sand stretches both in front and behind. Salt and driftwood fill the air with a distinctive seaside smell. "This is nice."

"West of France." L-23 says, "Take it in, because it's not this quiet on any other timelines."

"Yeah. Shame, we could've used this as a holiday spot."

"Please don't back out of the mission because you think it's a pretty beach."

Mobius laughs. "It's a tourist hotspot for a reason."

He does a quick reconnaissance of the area. He's not sure what he's looking for, but the stalling aids his exponentially increasing anxiety. The location reveals precisely nothing other than the expected lifeless dunes. "Where's best to do this?"

"Wherever. Right where you are is fine."

Mobius stills, arms falling useless by his sides. "Okay. Right."

"You have to get his attention."

"I know that," Mobius flares. "It's not so easy when I've got you two in my ear."

"Self-conscious?" The static is loud enough to distort the timbre of the voice, but Mobius is definite that O.B.'s humour doesn't lean in that direction.

He barks a sarcastic laugh. "I'll get B-15 to demote you if you're not careful, Hunter L-23."

"Don't fret. We can turn the comms off if you want to finish your love confession," she answers, unperturbed.

Oh, Mobius is so, so glad B-15 isn't here. He would never hear the end of this.

He doesn't humour L-23 with an answer. Instead, he casts his eyes to his feet, watching indents form and fill with clear water. He takes a breath. He looks to the open sky, tinged with yellow, and thinks about Loki. "Uh… hey there."

Muffled laughter from the comms. He suppresses his own smile.

"I'm testing something out here, so if you can give me a little sign if you're hearing me, that would be great." The air, still and cool, betrays nothing.

He feels like he's shaking a bag of kibble to convince the cat to come inside. The cat is horrifically stubborn in this scenario, as most cats probably are. "I'm not sure how much influence your Highness has over worldly events, but if you can, I don't know, pull a rabbit out of a hat, that would be pretty great."

Nothing. He waits a few beats. Still nothing. "Have we missed a variable somewhere?"

"Hm." O.B.'s fingers draw audible clicking sounds from his keyboard. "I'm not sure. The only connection between the two interventions is he was either being spoken about or to."

"How would he have picked that up though? I know he's all-seeing, but that's a lot of universe to see. He can't actually register everything, it would drive him mad."

"Did you say his name? When you were on your timeline?"

Mobius furrows his brow, fighting to recall the details of those adrenaline-soaked memories. "Yes. Yeah. Right before my branch blinked out."

"It's possible he's filtering as much information out as possible, to preserve power. If he's looking at every single time someone says his name in the multiverse, that's a much smaller collection of events to scan."

Mobius gives an impressed whistle. "Sounds pretty damn reasonable, O.B.. I'll give it a shot."

Gingerly, with an experimental caution, he looks back at the sky. "Loki?"

No fanfares. No trumpets blaring or thunder rumbling to announce a godly presence. Only a vacuum. A vacuum where there should be put-on arrogance, should be a keen voice muttering in murderous jest, should be the sound of hushed laughter.

The world remains a desolate flat of endless, glassy quiet.

"Loki?" he tries again, wetting his lips when his voice comes out soft and jaded. "I'd really like some kind of sign. Just… anything. Please." He nudges his foot deeper into the sand, creating a ridge. There's a seed of loss, blossoming into a shoot in his chest. Rooting itself in his arteries and veins. He'd been so sure. So sure this would work. "I, uh – we've all been trying to find a way to get to you. Got a whole team back at the TVA. O.B., Casey, and of course you saw B-15 a month ago on that branch, when you saved her life. Our lives. I mean, we think you did anyway. But she's helping out too. And there are some new folk I've roped into the department, they're great too. They annoy the shit out of me. You'd love them."

A choked, muted noise resonates from the comms. That'll be L-23.

"We've not given up on you. I've not given up on you, and I don't have any plans to." He clasps his hands behind his back, wringing them tight. "And your jaunt into the unknown of spacetime isn't going to stop me, though it has royally pissed me off. I'm this close –" he pinches his forefinger and thumb together "– to needing an actual physics degree."

"Mobius –" There's a universe of defeated hesitancy in O.B.'s voice, so Mobius ignores it, rambling onwards with full force.

"'Sides, that was a pretty impressive display when you tore the Loom up. Can't spare an old analyst a party trick? I'd point out you're a showoff, but –"

"Mobius."

Mobius falls silent, listening. "We've not picked up any change. At all."

He rubs a hand across his forehead. "Goddamnit. And, yes, I mean damn you, Loki. If you're listening." For a second, as the water turns over in a lapping wave, Mobius can pretend he is listening. The rush of the miniature swell and the imagined sound of a bird's wings in the distance build a fabrication of a living branch. One a god of Time might dwell on.

Evidently not.

Relenting, he pats his belt. "Ah, shoot, I didn't even bring my TemPad. You'll have to recall me." He gets an affirmation, then background noise as they begin to load the process, without haste given the lack of extreme radiation.

He turns to the sky again. "See, I got all dressed up in my best suit for this," he says, not without humour. He stretches out his arms and turns his palms skyward. "It's nicer than when I wore it to pull you from the Loom, but maybe not up to your high dress standards. I'll let O.B. know he needs to pretty it up for next time." He lets his arms drop. "Functions well enough, though. Protects me from that funky timeline thing you've got going on. We've run it on a couple of test rounds now, and not a drop of radiation gets through this thing –"

A flicker in the corner of the sky. Briefly, a spark of colour.

The edges of the world fold inwards, like paper, the turned over sides a flawless white. Slower than before, an encroaching void like ink.

Mobius fingers tingle with anticipation, the smallest flare of hope igniting in his ribcage.

He looks down to the vanishing branch: still, the sea and the sky a lightening blue, the sun's orange rays dipping and fading.

And there, on the sand, an imprint. A child's scrawl of a word carved into the ground. A wash of water fills it and, caught in the sun, it gleams gold.

[Hello.]

Forward from first contact, things become an endless stream of progress.

Mobius starts with a relieved, bordering on hysterical laugh.

Really he feels like crying, but laughter works as a substitute.

O.B., stabbing in the dark with startling perception, suggests Loki held out from interfering out of fear he'd disintegrate the branch as Mobius stood there. Given he'd not seen the suit in action, and given the timing of his message, Mobius feels a bit stupid for not thinking of that beforehand. Of course, they've got no way to check this, but if he knows Loki anywhere near as well as he should do – which is very – it sounds characteristic.

He wants to go again instantaneously, but O.B. errs on the side of caution in terms of daily radiation dosage. Nobody is entirely sure what the radiation is capable of, given no experiments got the definition further than 'weird'. Mobius can hardly fault his care, but he's practically vibrating out of his skin.

He puts the energy to good use. He updates B-15, back in for administrative work only, by being a terrible distraction and forcing her to sit and listen to him talk for the near equivalent of hours. He does give up his meal token in exchange, which still carries a symbolic weight despite the fact they don't tend to use them anymore, and she pockets it, an exasperated smile tilting the corner of her lips upwards.

When she finally kicks him out the automat and tells him to go to sleep, he swings by the archives and requests all the files available on empty branches. The librarian returns with several stacks – if he tried to carry them all he'd look like a character in a cartoon skit – so he asks for them to be filtered down to timelines showing least temporal activity.

He returns back down to near the Observation Deck, slipping into the side room he now considers his workspace. It's a stone throw away from O.B.'s lab, which comes in handy given how much quantum entanglement he's had to decode in this long pursuit of rescue.

He slumps into his chair, opens the first file, and begins to read.

Three cycles later, they attempt round two.

A similar timeline and another Earth-based spot. An optimal choice – no life in the branch no matter what time selected. Entirely disposable, if Mobius squints as much as he did last time to avoid thinking about it too hard.

He drops in with his TemPad, leaving the whole team gathered around the monitors back in the TVA. B-15's curiosity grew sizable over their last chat, and Casey certainly wouldn't miss a chance to see the technology he worked so hard to build helping further their advancements. Most recently, he's added a semi-functional, incredibly blurry visual element to the suit's visor. It's not real-time yet but, pushing aside the thirty second lag, it gives everyone back at the TVA an idea of what he's seeing.

Summoning Loki takes mere seconds. Clearly O.B. struck gold on the initial diffidence.

"Hey there," Mobius murmurs, a smile creeping onto his face as the rock below him contorts into a greeting. The carving is only an illusion, because when he presses a finger to it gently it distorts and fades into normal rock. Already, in the corner of his eye he can see the timeline tearing apart. Slow, not imminent. They have a minute.

"So… how've you been?" he asks, hesitant in the midst of overwhelming triumph and a burning cluster of things he thought he'd never get to say. He can almost hear Loki laughing across the aeons.

[Quite wonderful.]

The reply, succinct and heavy with sarcasm even through the medium of stone masonry, draws a chuckle from Mobius. "Yeah, I bet."

[Time is short.]

This reads as a warning. The branch unravels nearby, but he responds with a sharp incline of his head. "Yeah, yeah, don't worry. This suit gives me about three minutes in the void."

[I can't see empty branches.]

"Shit. Okay. O.B.," Mobius says into the comms, "can we sort out some mechanism Loki can access that won't disintegrate when the timeline goes?"

"I can certainly look into it. Good chance we'll find something."

He returns his attention to Loki. "We'll get that sorted out for next time."

[Thank you.]

It's with a heavy sigh that he straightens, aware of time closing in. Quite literally. "O.B. has me under penalty of death to shoot off before the branch gets too bad, 'cause this suit takes like a month to fix. And it's about a million times less painful for me if I use a TemPad." He pauses. "Whatever's wrong with the timelines, it's big."

The rock yields less easily, as if Loki is tiring. Still, the reply is as sardonic as previous.

[I hadn't noticed.]

"No need for that attitude," Mobius huffs, so fondly it's less than heatless. A prickling of frustration builds, followed by a wave of apprehension. He doesn't want to leave. He'd stay here, suspended forever if he could.

But he'll return to the TVA, to the warm company of friends and life. Loki will return to nobody and nothing. Alone. He exhales, softening his voice. "How you doing really?"

A pause.

The word barely scratches the surface of the rock, and vanishes within a second.

[Alive.]

Alive.

Mobius can work with that.

Attempt three follows in a similar vein, but it's evident the proximity of the meetings to each other timewise isn't sustainable. Loki's too tired to give more than singular word responses, the illusions flickering out. Mobius has no idea of the extent of his magical outpouring into the Tree, but it can't be pleasant to maintain both that and an illusion on a distant branch. He utilises the time as effectively as he can, which amounts to interrogating Loki on unfilled factors: rate of entropy, physical position of the Tree centre, recent changes in the physiology of the structure. Between each question, he mumbles an apology, hopeful he'll forgive himself given it's for the sake of bringing Loki home. He knows Loki, always too lenient on certain boundaries, forgives him before the apologies pass his lips.

Loki doesn't appear on attempt four. Mobius allows himself a moment to worry, then buries it under a layer of rationality. Go figure he needs time to regain energy.

Waiting for attempt five drives him up the wall. But, within that time, he and Casey put together a handheld monitor, similar to a TemPad but with no capability beyond text-display. Deep into the artificial night, Casey gives a little whoop of joy, waking Mobius up. His elbows ache where he's slumped over the desk, his joints stiff. He runs a hand over his head to tame his hair. "What did you do?" he asks, voice heavy with sleep.

Casey, across O.B.'s office with his feet resting on the desk, is beaming. "The signal generator software integrated. Means I don't have to code it from scratch."

"So it'll hold even when the branch fades?"

"Yep," he replies, popping the 'p'. "It should analyse and replicate the original timeline's signature, so Loki can effectively lock onto and see within close proximity to it. I'm calling it the LC-One. The Loki Cellphone. Number one."

Mobius blinks back sleep, yielding to that horrible suggestion with a "– right." He straightens, smoothing his jacket down with a self-conscious particularity. "Nice. Thanks, Casey. I'll go give it a test run –"

"Now? Mobius, everyone's asleep –"

He waves his concern away. "Can you do the recall for me? I gotta get O.B. to put a manual field command for that."

He heads downstairs. Glowing a soft off-white, the dimmed lights barely provide enough illumination to see by. A reluctant Casey tails after him, apprehension softening his features.

From the filing cabinet, he selects the first tabbed entry. Tosses the sheet over to Casey, whose demeanour suggests he'd rather not be entering empty branch coordinates at this hour.

Suiting up has become second nature. Even barely awake, Mobius moves through the motions in a dreamlike state. It's no more difficult than lacing his shoes in the morning.

He arrives unceremoniously, and sits cross legged in the long grass. As far as the eye can see, rolling hills, like waves cresting across the landscape. In the middle distance, the white of sunlight, dampened by the cover of thick grey clouds above.

Mobius has barely placed the new device – he is not calling it the Loki cellphone – on the ground when words appear in TVA orange on the screen, the purpose of the device not lost on its recipient.

[You look terrible.]

"Gee, thanks," he replies, infusing his voice with mock hurt. In reality, it comes out as gentle as usual. "I just woke up. Were you waiting for me or what?"

[Waiting.]

"Maybe I didn't even come out here for you," he teases. "Maybe I wanted to bask in the sunshine for once."

[It's cloudy.]

Mobius leans his head back. When he looks straight above, he can ignore the threads breaking apart on the horizon. He can pretend the banter isn't occurring through a technological medium, that they're just joking around like normal.

Silence falls for the first time since they made contact. It's nice. Companionable. And, arguably, a waste of time. But Mobius can pretend that's not true too.

He looks back to the natural skyline. "I swear the timelines aren't vanishing so fast nowadays."

[I'm trying a new method.]

"Oh, do tell."

A hesitant pause. As frequent as these meetings have already become, Loki's retained a sense of conciseness. All too aware about a lack of time and a lack of energy. Mobius wishes they could speak without the barrier of his dwindling magic, but that will come in time, with practice and advancement. They'll get there.

As is, his replies are often unbearably cryptic, but understandably so.

[I focus on you. Not on the timeline.]

"You think it's really so simple that you thinking about the timelines is making them disappear?"

[Yes.]

"Why d'you reckon this has all come on now? As far as we could tell, the Tree was stable for a year or two."

Mobius waits patiently, knowing Loki is mulling over how he can convey his message with the least magical expenditure possible.

But when it arrives, it's different.

[Something's wrong.]

"That's – that's ominous," he says. The pause suddenly reads as reluctance to admit an affliction, not hesitation over wording. "Care to elaborate?"

[I cannot.]

Loki senses the unvoiced question sitting behind Mobius' teeth.

[I don't know what's happening.]

An overwhelming barrage of fear seeps through the cracks of those words, terror echoing through the distance between them until it reaches Mobius in an exponentially muted form. Quietly, it takes root in his chest.

He lets out a breath. "Okay." And then, some time later, when the timeline is clinging on to its final lucid existence, "We'll find out. You'll be okay."

"Mobius? A word?" B-15, leaning against the doorframe, beckons him over. She doesn't wait to see if he's following, insteading heading back out of the canteen, slow enough that he can catch up.

"Ah, geez." Mobius tilts his mug up and almost chokes as he tries to down his coffee in one go. "That's her I'm in trouble voice."

"As in you are, or she is?" L-23 asks, taking the half-complete page of radiation decoding he waves at her as he stands.

"It's usually both," Casey interjects, eyebrows vaguely raised over his manual. There's a lurid vermilion grapevine on the front, not one of an Earthly-kind. "But I'm going to guess it's just him this time."

"Hey." Mobius nudges his chair in with his foot, wincing as it scrapes along the floor. "Have some faith, will you?"

"Good luck," comes the reply, in a tone that indicates his initial impression stands.

He does an awkward jog to reunite with B-15 at the end of the corridor, shoving his hands in his pockets. "So. Which transgression have they finally got me on?"

"They haven't got you on anything. I'm here to tell you that they will if you keep up with this." She's walking briskly, forcing him to take strides slightly longer than comfortable to keep up.

He wonders if it's worth playing innocent, if only to get her to spell out exactly what she's deemed him doing wrong. But he's more rational than that, and certainly not one to falsify a sense of righteousness when he's been pushing morality to its absolute limits recently. "It's… it's just until we have a better solution."

"What if that takes months?" Her voice is filled with an unsettling amount of passion. "If the best option we have is erasing timelines just to talk to him, I don't even want to think about where we'll get if we –"

"I wouldn't dare do any of this if there was even a hint of life on those branches. But we've been finding empty ones, B, actual empty ones."

"And that makes it okay? To destroy whole universes? Whole histories and futures?"

"Of course it's not okay," Mobius says, surprised at how gratingly steady it comes out, when on the inside it's been tearing him apart. "But we're playing a racing game here. The whole multiverse is falling apart, and the only way we might figure it out is if we can talk to Loki, and get some real answers."

"And that gives us permission to choose which branches live? How's that any better than pruning them to keep the Sacred timeline alive? How's that better than before?" A hint of desperation, muted under several layers of authority. "I thought we were trying to change the system."

Mobius is well aware she's right, and also well aware he's fighting the uphill battle on justification, but her words irk him – dismissive of a best-option scenario. "God, you sound like Sylvie."

Unexpected is the faint stiffening in her shoulders, visible through the material of her jacket.

Mobius frowns. The pieces slot into place. "Medical leave in Oklahoma, was it?"

Even a few steps ahead, apprehension flits visibly across her face, a tinge of embarrassment to it. "Nineteen eighty-two," she replies, shooting him a sad smile. "Nice fast food place."

"Huh." He doesn't have an immediate reply to that revelation. They walk in silence a little further, heading in a vague route through the archives. "How is she?"

"She's getting there. Not happy, but… heading in the right direction."

"And you?" After a hesitant pause, he reaches ahead and places a careful hand on her elbow, halting their amble in a tucked-away corner of the bookshelves.

Her face indicates a myriad of conflicts, settling on something close to acquiescence. "Lagging behind." A motionless stretch of consideration. "I thought it would be easier to talk to someone who knows both… both versions of me, without really knowing me, if that makes sense."

"Did it work?"

"Not really. But she says things tend to get worse before they get better. So, here's to hoping."

"Well, we're all navigating a very new way of doing things." Mobius manages a slight smile. "Old management would've put us down for even talking about this, so go figure that's not helping some already not great feelings. Anything I can make easier for you?"

"As much as I appreciate the offer, probably not. Just –" she pauses, letting out a breath, "promise me you won't look into getting any memories back until after this has all stabilised. It really throws you off, and we don't need you out of it right now."

"Yeah, don't have to worry about that. 'S bad enough seeing what's there from an outside point of view."

Quiet falls as an analyst appears, rifling for a folder nearby, spurred on by an evident feeling of intrusion. Mobius tilts his head to invite B-15 back into a walk, and they continue on their way, looping back around to the emptier passageways. "D'you know what prompted this? Or was it an everything hitting at once kinda thing?"

She lowers her head, brow creased in thought. "When you're on the timelines, and they're… they're disappearing, do you feel…"

"It?" Mobius supplies, when it grows clear she's looking for a word she doesn't know. "Yeah, I feel it. I figured you might too."

"I thought I was imagining things. But it feels exactly like –"

"The memory wipes?"

She gives a grim nod. "I don't have that solid boundary between old and new memories anymore, but I remember the empty space. Being on that white branch brought it all back."

Mobius furrows his brow, rubbing the back of his neck. "Glad it's not just me. I really don't want to know why the universe is undergoing anything even vaguely similar to a memory removal, but if both of us have picked it up, could be relevant. I'll pass it on to O.B.."

"Good plan."

Halting, having circled back around to the canteen without much thought, Mobius turns to face her properly. "You sure you're okay? You want to get a coffee while you're here?"

"Duty calls," she says, though her eyes are brighter, edges of her lips tilted upwards. "And by duty, I mean covering you so the Council doesn't shut down the whole operation."

He raises his arms, relenting. "Okay, fine, I'll get a report put together or something. I'll bring them around somehow. Cover me until then?"

"Always." As she says this, her expression crumples into something startlingly sincere, gratitude evident without words. He hopes he's returning the sentiment in kind.

It's nice to know they have each other.

God knows it's the only thing keeping him sane.

The first time Loki manages to appear in greater capacity than basic illusions – visit six – he almost gives Mobius a heart attack.

It's sweltering on the planet – a non-Earth based meetup for the first time – and the moment Mobius steps through the Time Door and onto the sand he's washed away by the searing heat, a gust of it like magma borne on wind. "Holy crap. Was this really the best option?"

"Sorry, boss." L-23 sounds vaguely bored, the exercise veering more towards routine than danger. "We're running out of good ones."

"Don't remind me." he replies grimly, B-15's words flickering into life in the back of his mind. He currently possesses absolutely zero plans to breathe even a word of the issue to Loki, who is probably very much aware already, and doesn't need that sort of reminder weighing down on him.

From his belt he unhooks the LC-One (god, how he wishes he protested the name more fervently at the time, but it's stuck) and hops about ungracefully until his feet adjust to the temperature of the dunes radiating through the soles of his boots, waiting for a greeting of some form. None is immediately forthcoming, which is odd. They've found a good balance of meetings-to-recharge time, and Loki's strength has been improving with each miniscule conversation held.

"Loki? Don't leave me hanging, or I'll cook to death out here."

Still no answer.

"Huh. Maybe he's not in a chatty mood."

"When is he ever not in a chatty mood?"

The corner of his lips twitch upwards despite the mild worry curdling in his chest. "Hey, you've never even met him."

"B-15's stories are enlightening enough, believe me."

"That's horrifying," he replies, raising a hand to shield his eyes against the glare of a multitude of colourful suns. "I hope she didn't tell you about Vormir, because that was a –"

Loki materialises. In-person. Out of thin air.

Mobius lets out a strangled yelp, heart hurtling into his throat.

He disappears as quickly as he arrived, a phantom afterimage stationary barely inches away from Mobius' face.

"What is it? What's happening?"

Mobius chokes down some air, gasping, hands on his knees. "Loki, what the shit." But then he's laughing, unable to help himself, delight overcoming the fact it's barely possible to breathe through the pounding of his heart against his ribcage. "I'm gonna kill you."

Only now does the LC-One spark into life, on the ground where he'd slung it in surprise.

[I apologise. I was aiming about two metres to the left of that.]

"I genuinely think you almost sent me into cardiac arrest."

[Your fairly undignified scream signified such.]

Mobius straightens and folds his arms. "You're going to pretend you didn't hear that."

[A relatively easy task given I think you've temporarily deafened me.]

Mobius manages a second more of pseudo indignation before it dissolves back into a grin. Illusion projection of that plausibility is an unbelievable leap of progress in such a short timespan, be it more ghostly than corporeal looking. "How much did doing that take you out?"

[Not as great an amount of energy as expected.]

Watching the faint glimmer of nothingness on the horizon, slowly building, he narrows his eyes. "You reckon you can give it another shot? I think we got a few minutes or so, and it didn't seem to accelerate the branch reversal."

[Your expectations flatter me.]

Still, a tense silence falls, stretching between them across the ages. Mobius takes a measured step back, allowing a wide berth in hopes the jumpscare may be less terrifying.

Loki flickers into view again, not quite so close, then winks back out.

Once the startle wears off, Mobius gives an enthusiastic, "That wasn't half bad!"

On the third attempt, the image remains as more than a shadowy indent in the air, a half-solid illusion lingering with a translucent sheen to the edges.

He looks exactly the same as when he left, and then again, a million miles from anything he used to be. Hair the same length, face sharp with unchanging angles, still long-limbed and stiltedly elegant when he shifts. A familiar furrow forms between his brows as they upturn, his face an aching mixture of sorrow and quiet glee. But his clothes are too commonplace, a simple TVA shirt rolled up at the sleeves, absent of the dark robes and horns he'd worn on his departure. His face, too, as intimately as Mobius knows it: he can see changes in the planes, deep worry lines paired with a dark shade under his eyes, painting a frightfully anachronistic expression when compared to anything from before.

"Hey," Mobius manages, mouth dry. And not just from the heat.

The illusion blinks off before resurging, Loki's face one of mild exertion. "Hi," he whispers, voice rich with the strain of being there at all. Not quite real, but very much not dead.

Mobius takes a step forward. It's very close to being a stumble. "I –" he breaks off, swallowing back a handful of words that would take too long to say right – to say with the sincerity they deserve. What with the universe ending – and this branch in particular about to die – now is not the time to waste on things that have remained unsaid for plenty of time already.

Or, rather, this is not the scenario on which those things should be wasted.

They can wait. As they always have.

Loki, battling with a similar conflict if the several times he opens and then closes his mouth are anything to go by, settles for a hushed, "I did not think we would ever get a chance for this, so I am rather unrehearsed in any profound reunion." Each word takes a second too long to sound from his lips, the delay underlining his struggle to maintain a strong image.

"Well, you got about a minute and thirty to figure it out," Mobius replies lightly, "so best get cracking."

Loki exhales in a miniscule laugh, and it's the most welcome noise. "Perhaps we can save the heart-to-heart for a better time?"

"Sounds like a plan."

For far too long they simply look at each other.

The illusion fades out, and returns weaker. "I don't think I can hold it," Loki whispers, voice thick.

"That's okay." Mobius, a slight surge of radiation-based heat in his face, reaches up to the neck of his suit to activate the visor. "Save your energy for next time."

He nods, wringing his hands together. "It's nice to see you, Mobius."

"Nice to see you too."

It's a lot more than nice, but the word acts as suitable substitute for far greater feelings.

"Mobius?" A tinge of worry infecting his tone.

"Yeah?"

The illusion extinguishes and dies. This time he doesn't reappear.

Mobius stays staring at the place he'd stood for long after the sands disintegrate into nothing.

A/N: Feel free to leave a review if you enjoyed! :D