Three weeks and two days after the last nightmare, when he dared to hope they were at last behind him, Loki woke up screaming.

Drenched in sweat, his heart hammered triple-time in his chest, and it was more than a moment before he realized that someone was clinging to his arm and calling his name, pleading with him to wake up, wake up! Hands on his shoulders – he wrenched his body sideways, frantic to escape.

Darcy clutched at his shirt and kept one hand strong on his shoulder, swallowing down the terror at seeing him like this. She would never get used to it, but she was learning to handle it more efficiently; for a while, the nightmares had ceased altogether, and she'd dared to hope they would stay in the other world where they belonged. "Wake up, Loki, you're dreaming, wake up," she repeated, her tone calm and firm.

His eyes met hers, wide and panicked and filled with horror, and she spoke his name again, released the handful of his shirt to cradle his cheek in her palm. "You're okay. You're here with me. Come back now."

She kept her eyes on his, reached up to stroke his hair as one might quiet a child. This touch was familiar, warm, welcome, and he closed his eyes and turned his face away in a mixture of relief and shame that he should be reduced to such an object of pity.

"Come back now," she repeated, bringing her hand back to his cheek to turn his face gently back toward her. He allowed it, reluctantly, watching her hand as it slipped along his jawbone, coming down to rest lightly on his chest. "Are you with me?"

Her voice was that strange mixture of gentle and firm that always calmed him, and he managed a nod, still avoiding her eyes.

She stared at him for a few long moments anyway, assessing, before reaching over to turn off the lamp and sliding back under the blanket to pull him to her. He wrapped his arm around her waist and let her cradle his head against her chest, closing his eyes as she raked her fingers slowly through his hair. It was humiliating, letting this woman see him shake and cry like a child. Yet his pride had no place with Darcy.

"The same?" she asked at last. He had never told her the details of his nightmares; she knew only that they had to do with Thanos. It hadn't seemed necessary, when the effects were clear enough.

He stiffened, but gave an almost imperceptible nod.

She was silent for a long time. Her fingertips made a slow gentle dance across his scalp, soothing, lulling. He breathed deep and closed his eyes.

Her efforts were admirable. Sometimes, they were almost effective. But he wouldn't sleep again tonight.

Darcy knew this.

She had never asked, uncertain she could bear the answer, and quite certain he didn't wish to speak of it. But with each sleepless night the sense of helplessness grew, along with the increasingly urgent feeling that she must do something, anything, to ease his pain.

"What did those…creatures…do to you?" she whispered.

His breath stopped, his fingers tightening around her waist. He didn't wish to speak of it. To remember it.

"Torture," she surmised, her voice low and pained.

He shivered. Nobody had ever asked him what they'd done, what he'd endured; not Thor, not Odin, not Heimdall or Fandral or Sif. Not even Frigga. Though he would never have been able to torment her tender heart with such things, even had she asked.

Odin and Thor were different, though. They didn't want to know, and he didn't want to tell, even if the explanation might have inspired some mercy. Mercy. Pity. He scoffed at such things, though perhaps it might have been nice to know they were curious about what happened to him when he fell.

Darcy liked to talk. She was a great believer in talking, about everything. Professed that it made things better, to talk about them. When he lifted an eyebrow at such an absurd sentiment, she merely shrugged, and did not press, but made it clear that should he ever change his mind, she also understood the value of listening.

He swallowed noisily, conceded the truth with another barely appreciable nod. "Yes."

She blinked back sudden, furious tears. This much, she had always known. But the sound of his screams tonight, the way he'd flinched and clutched protectively at his right hand when she finally woke him, had provoked a storm of visualizations that burned behind her eyes – hideous monsters, laughing as they broke his beautiful fingers into splinters.

For the first time, she understood the phrase murderous rage.

He never spoke of it, never hinted at what horrors had been visited upon him. She could only guess, and she had a sickening feeling that her worst imaginings would pale beside the reality. Loki was the most strong-willed, stubborn being she had ever known; she could scarcely imagine the savagery that must have been required to break him.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, her voice thick with shame that she would even consider asking him to relive it, when all he wanted to do was forget.

He glanced up at her, puzzled at both the apology and the regret in her tone, and his heart lurched to see her eyes full of tears. Tears for him…he'd never seen that from anyone save his mother.

It was strange, and rather terrible.

"I shouldn't have asked," she said quietly. "I know you don't want to talk about it. I just…I want to help you. So much."

"You do. More than you can ever know." He shifted onto his shoulder a bit, looking up at her with worried eyes, and she felt a fresh spate of guilt – how had this morphed into him comforting her?

"Darcy," he sighed, reaching up to cradle her jaw in one hand. "You needn't…my trials are my own, you cannot…"

Sorrow darkened her face. "I know."

"You cannot imagine how much it means that you…care," he said softly.

She nodded, but her smile was the saddest thing he had ever seen.

She shifted a little to bring him back to his previous position with his head tucked under her chin. "Try and sleep," she murmured.

Her fingers slid to the base of his skull, thumb and forefinger finding precisely the right spot that uncoiled something tight within him. His eyes slid shut of their own accord, his grip on her waist loosening abruptly, and he felt her lips curve into a smile against his forehead.

He'd teased her occasionally that she did have magic, she just didn't know it. Her touch was like no other. He'd felt it the first time their skins met, months ago, when she seized his hand in a moment of escalating tension between himself and Thor; something unique, soothing, a balm to his soul.

Inexplicable. She was so perfectly ordinary in so many ways. Not even really his type, historically speaking. He'd generally preferred fair women, or redheads. Yet it wasn't her beauty that drew him, in the end; it was her sharp tongue, her quick wit, her utter lack of fear even in the face of his nastiest snarls, his most cutting insults. Strange that such a creature could enable him to let his guard down, but there it was.

She had come to know things about him that he had never shared with anyone. He found it shockingly difficult to lie to her. Not that she was particularly savvy to dishonesty – in fact she was trusting nearly to the point of gullible – but because something about her made evasion seem… unnecessary. She viewed him with clarity but no judgment. She neither ignored nor focused upon his faults, but accepted the entirety of him, good, bad, indifferent.

For the first time in centuries, with her, he felt he could relax and be…himself. Whatever that even was, anymore. It was a bit disconcerting to realize he wasn't entirely sure.

Darcy watched the deceptively slow rise and fall of his chest, and knew he wouldn't sleep again. He would wait until she dozed back off, then slip out of bed to read in the living room until she woke, when he'd smile and present her with freshly-bought (conjured) bagels or doughnuts as if he'd simply gotten up early. She knew he was lying, and he knew that she knew, but she would smile and kiss him and pretend not to notice the dark shadows under his eyes.

For a long time, she managed to stay awake with him, moving her fingers through his hair with practiced expertise, but it was an unequal contest. As always, she fell back to sleep before him.

When the thin line of sunlight slanting through the gap in the curtains woke her just a few hours later, she slid one groggy hand to his side of the bed, knowing it would be cold but unable to stop herself hoping, and snapped wide awake as her fingertips collided with the warm flesh of his shoulder.

She pushed herself up onto her elbow to gaze down at him, careful not to touch him again for fear of waking him. He made an indistinct noise deep in his throat and shifted onto his back, flinging one arm over his eyes in a pose that reminded her way too much of her grandmother's afternoon naps, and a moment later, the rattle in his throat became full-on snores.

It was music.

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