A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but here is the final part.

I hope you all enjoy!

It gets easier to forget over time, so long as Jane fills herself with enough college courses, thesis papers, and summer internships that she doesn't have time to think of anything else.

She never calls that guy back, but she does date a few other guys when her schedule permits it. One of them she could almost call a boyfriend. His name is Daryl. He has bright red hair and glasses, and most people think he's nothing but a bookish geology nerd until he takes his shirt off to go swimming. Jane sees him on and off for four months. They have sex for the first time at the end of the fourth.

It's not so bad for a first time, though Jane finds her mind wandering for the whole act (both of them). Whenever Daryl's awkward hands close painfully over one breast, she can't help remembering those gentle fingers from her dreams.

The dreams that were just a dream and nothing more. She can't afford to go back there.

Funnily enough, it's Daryl who does the dumping a week later, though he's very nice about it. It's not so much Jane as it is what she has down below. Sleeping with her has confirmed for Daryl that he's a man's man through and through. In retrospect, Jane's not surprised (she knew that Playgirl magazine under his bed wasn't his sister's). All that matters to her is that he was definitely her first.

He can't stop thinking about her.

Every time he has a moment alone, Jane's name plays at Loki's lips. He's called her so often that it's become second nature. Though he never gets the whole name out, sometimes he'll come as close as 'Ja-' before he stops himself.

It doesn't matter if he calls her or not. She won't hear him anyway. He's made sure of that.

It's what she wants after all.

Jane leaves the grueling, mind numbing years of university behind twenty pounds lighter and three doctoral degrees heavier. She also has a new boyfriend, a doctor she meet at a seminar right before receiving her Ph.D. in astrophysics. His name is Donald Blake. He looks like he was carved out of granite by an ancient Greek sculptors, and he has puppy dog eyes and a heart of gold to go with it. He's almost too perfect, when Jane thinks about it. He shines so bright that it takes Jane four whole years to figure out what his fatal flaw is.

"It's like you're married to your goddamn work!" Jane shouts at him in the middle of their seventh or eighth argument of the week, right after she's thrown a dirty dishrag at his head. "I'm pretty sure I've seen you a combined five hours in the last two weeks, and you were sleeping most of that time!"

"I can't help it if I have an important job, Jane," he shouts back. He always gives as good as he gets. "It's not my fault you're stuck around the apartment so much. Maybe if you'd get your head out of your crazy theories and do some real work for a change, you'd understand!"

He's also proficient at low blows.

Jane moves in with her cousin until she can find her own apartment. Then she vows never to see Donald Blake again after she goes to pick up what's left of her stuff. She's pretty sure she's missing a few trinkets he kept for his office, but whatever. She's still got his favorite shirt.

Perhaps in retrospect, Loki chooses ill his method of coping.

It's not new for him to look at Thor as the personification of a boulder rolling down a hill, crushing flat everything in its path to the bottom. Unlike the boulder, Thor's blundering and thick headedness is met with near unanimous love and admiration from the people. All because he can make a few storm clouds and hit things.

Meanwhile, Loki walks every day up the hallowed halls of Asgard, and the courtiers and servants who bow to him when he passes do so with hesitance and trepidation. They drop their eyes to the floor as soon as they think he's looked away, and the breathe sighs of relief that the second prince is out of their sight again.

They never do that to Thor.

They love Thor.

Everyone loves Thor.

Why does everyone love Thor?

That's not to say Loki hates Thor, oh no. He could never hate his brother. He just wishes he wasn't the only one in the entire realm to see him for the flawed creature he is, and not just a wholly supreme and infallible being of light like everyone else. If they could only see the truth about Thor, and stop looking at Loki like he's seconds away from a murderous rampage.

"Maybe if you smiled a little more," his mother once said. She's the only person he would ever confide in, and the only one who'd ever be honest with him, too. "You wish for people to see you as approachable. Perhaps you should help them along."

And because Loki is stubborn as an ornery horse, he turns up his nose and declares that they aren't worth the effort. If they've already made up their minds about him, they're unlikely to ever change them no matter what he does. He should trade his intellect for more muscle mass and turn his hair yellow. Then they'll stop hating him.

"They don't hate you," Mother says. "No one hates you, my son."

Loki spends many days in the library, reading and studying and avoiding Thor's stupid hunting parties as much as possible and definitely not sulking. Princes don't sulk.

And Jane wouldn't want him to…

Not that he cares in the slightest what she would want.

On days when she is on his mind, he accepts his brother's invitation to join him on whatever quest of arrogance he has planned today. If Loki is busy rolling his eyes at Thor, then he's not busy thinking about Jane.

He'll take what he can get.

Jane is twenty seven years old when her father keels over in the kitchen while making a sandwich. Cerebral hemorrhage, the doctors all call it. This was always going to happen to him, it was only a matter of when.

The funeral is packed with family and friends and colleagues. Jane speaks before the gathered masses, not sure what she's supposed to say when everyone wants to listen to some spiel about her father ascending to the kingdom of God, and Jane hasn't believed in that stuff since she was a kid. It's a nice thought that she wishes she could entertain, but even now she can't find it in her.

Maybe because she knew once what was really out there…

But no, there's no time to think about that. It has no place in the life of a scientist.

(It's been six years now, and she's almost completely convinced that it was a dream.)

Her mother holds her tight as her father is put in the ground, and her father's best friend stands behind her. He tells her that her father was proud of her. Jane likes hearing that. Her father wasn't the type to say it himself, but she always hoped that he was.

After the funeral, her mother makes her promise that she'll call more often, and then she kisses Jane's cheek and tells her how she misses her little girl so much.

(They haven't been close since Dr. Morgan.)

As she's leaving, a small, portly woman in black comes and speaks in a thick accent, telling Jane that she is Erik Selvig's mother. She assures her that her father is safe now in the halls of Valhalla.

Jane thinks she must be kidding. Scandinavian people don't believe in that stuff anymore, do they? When she dies herself a month later, Erik tells her it was just his mother's impending death making her sentimental. Jane shouldn't worry about it.

That night, she dreams of a beautiful garden.

Loki is one thousand and forty eight years old, but he doesn't look a day over nine hundred. That's what a dignitary told him while suitably inebriated and possibly mistaking him for Thor somehow. It would be the first time.

Tomorrow is Thor's coronation, and Loki's not so sure his brother is ready for the burden of ruling.

Of course, he expects Ragnarok to be upon them before Thor is ready, but that is neither here nor there.

Loki has a duty to Asgard, whether she appreciate his efforts or not. He finds that he cannot allow someone so blinded by bloodlust to be placed in a position of power over the realm eternal. He still holds that he doesn't hate his brother, no matter how many times he wants to wrap his hands around his neck and squeeze, but much as he cares for Thor, he fully expects him to send the realm into chaos within a month.

That's why he is all but obligated to show Asgard and, more importantly, Odin himself, just what kind of person they are looking to for leadership. He has to let the Frost Giants in, really. He holds no love for the creatures (how can anyone love such vicious monster, he asks), but they will serve their purpose today.

He stands among the bloodshed in the aftermath, half-listening to Thor argue with Father. Two guards died fending off the siege, and Loki feels but a twinge of regret. They were valiant men, likely to die in battle anyway the next time someone came to challenge the throne. Such it was for a soldier of Asgard.

'How would Jane feel if she knew about this?' asks an insidious voice within the depths of Loki's mind, a voice he would happily squash.

Erik is the first person she calls when her sensors pick up on the anomalies. Part of the reason is she needs someone to talk to. Darcy is a good intern when it comes to organization and negotiating with Culver for extra grant money, but she's not a scientist in the sense Jane had been hoping for when she advertised for an intern. Sometimes, she thinks if she'd set up shop in New York or L.A. instead of New Mexico, she might've gotten a more decent response, but oh well.

This is clearly the place to be anyway.

Erik is skeptical at first, but he agrees to come down for a visit. He's taking time off his new teaching job and could use a vacation. He's suitably impressed with Jane's findings when she explains them to him over coffee at Izzy's diner, and he shares an aside glance with her when Darcy makes a quip about her energy being the result of 'one million mega gulps and no sleep for three weeks.'

Jane's never realized before how much she missed him.

One the night that will make Jane's life, she starts thinking of him again. It isn't a conscious decision, like it is some of the other times. She wakes up that morning and makes herself cereal (saving aside some for dinner), and she's in the middle of going over equations and theorems, when his face appears at the forefront of her mind, grinning down at her in that sensual way of his when he would lay her on the bed and…

She shakes herself back to reality, but for the rest of the day, he invades at regular moment, all the way up to that moment in the middle of the night, when all of Puente Antiguo either sleeps or hits the local tavern. She keeps her eyes on the trackers, never blinking (she'll see him if she blinks), and so intent that even Erik worries for her, but Jane brushes him off. She's fine and she knows what she's doing. This could be the breakthrough she needs and no one's going to ruin it.

Especially not him.

The air temperature spikes, and then Jane's equipment goes haywire. The winds are picking up, faster and stronger every second as something forms in the sky. A tunnel of swirling light and color descends from the heavens, and though some base part of Jane knows she should fear for her life, all she can think about is getting her camera. She'll need as much visual evidence as possible.

(Lucky for her, Darcy cares more about surviving than the advancement of mankind.)

The man who appears is at first of no interest to her, just some drunk fumbling around in the desert. So long as he's not hurt and she won't get sued, the only weird thing about him is how he could have gotten so far out of town without her seeing him. Then Darcy points her taser at him. The man is highly amused.

"You dare threaten me, Thor, with so puny a weapo-"

And Jane honestly can't say if it's the name that shocks her more or the fact that Darcy actually tasered him, and it worked!

'Loki would've loved to see this,' she thinks.

Now he's going to be on her mind for days. Great.

He walks through the halls of the sacred vault to where the casket sits, and he wonders if this is how the damned feel as they walk the long road to the gallows.

The casket burns with cold blue light. His heart races when he sees it, and he feels sick knowing that it's not just his nerves. Odin used to bring him here with Thor when they were children, and tell them stories of the monsters he defeated when they were still in swaddling clothes. He always used to feel strange about coming here. It felt like something was calling to him.

But that's impossible, isn't it?

It can't be real what he saw. Surely it was a trick of the mind. There'd been so little light to speak of on Jotunheim, and so many of those foul beasts around, baring their hideous skin to the world. When one grabbed him, he must have been seeing things. A hallucination easily explains the lack of pain.

No, it wasn't real.

It couldn't be real.

It just couldn't…

His hands grasp the casket and he prays for pain that doesn't come. Instead its power that awakens his blood, changing him from the inside out into what he was always meant to be. He opens eyes that are sharper, looks down at hands that are and aren't his own. In an instant, he can see everyone he's ever known looking upon him with scorn and hatred, finally unmasked after all these years.

The people call him a monster.

Sif and the Warriors Three prepare to skewer him.

Frigga hides her face in fear.

Thor tells him he was never his brother.

Odin says he was never his son

And Jane… Jane… the Jane he sees shakes her head at him, pity and fear and disgust most of all. She spits at him:

'How could I have ever thought I loved you?'

Jane pauses putting away some paperwork and touches her chest, over her heart where it hurts the worst. She stares ahead with tears in her eyes, and she resists the urge to scream, break something, or do both at the same time.

However she wishes to ignore it, she knows that something terrible has happened.

It's hard to pretend that Thor is just crazy. Easy to believe, and Jane would if she didn't know better, but hard to fake.

It's especially hard when it's just them on the roof, after two days of Thor worming his way into her chaotic life and making sense of it. Two days of his smile charming her, in ways that she hasn't been charmed since…

Well, it's probably just a family trait.

She doesn't tell him why she believes him. Hell, she doesn't tell him she believes him at all.

She alludes to it in her words and actions, in the way she never condemns him as nuts like Erik does. They think it's because she has a thing for him (Erik sits her down after Darcy's gone to bed and gives her a variation of the 'some boys are dangerous and just want one thing' speech she got when she was a teenager). In a way, maybe they're right. Thor is definitely a sight to see, there playing with her handmade technology while displaying his ridiculous male model body. If she'd met him first, Jane imagines, she'd be all over him. Even now, she's not immune. He kisses her hand the second time they part and she giggles like a school girl before her first crush.

The important thing is that she knows he isn't crazy. She never would have driven him to that government base if she wasn't absolutely certain that he was who he said he was, nor would she have spent the night on the roof with him, listening to an abridged version of the story she learned years ago.

'Or dreamed you learned.' Her denial has gone on for so long that it's become automatic.

'Shut up,' Jane tells it. She's on the verge of sleep and Thor is placing a blanket over her. That's so nice of him.

He thanks her, and she's not exactly sure what for, but she thinks there's a little more than gratitude in his words, and splits her in half between the Jane that wants him, and the Jane that longs to hear Loki's voice one more time.

She doesn't hear his voice, but she does hear Thor say his name when a killer robot descends on Puente Antiguo and destroys the place she's come to know as home.

It helps not to think about it, all the destruction he's causing.

Or he could just tell himself that Midgardians are insects compared to him, and killing them is no different from killing an insect. The only difference is they're bigger, and they scream when they die.

The most important thing is finding Thor. If he can eliminate that false brother of his, a thorn in his side since he was old enough to stand; if he can just show Odin when he wakes that he is the worthy son and always has been, maybe that can erase the truth of the matter.

(But in his heart that he's begun to stomp out, he knows it won't.)

He fills himself with the rush of the battle, this one-sided attack on a horde of ants and their hapless defenders. He takes particular joy in dominating Thor's friends (never his friends). All the times they whispered behind his back, or laughed when he messed up a new move while training; the times when they belittled his magic and thought him the weak link for choosing wits over brute strength.

They won't be laughing now.

(The next time he sees them face to face, they'll be laughing in triumph.)

In the end, it's down to him and Thor. Loki has seen all through blinders until now. There is only another building to shatter, another fighter to defeat, another obstacle between him and his true goal, and then, there he is.

Thor—weakened, human Thor—walks to him with the gait of a warrior. There is no fear in his eyes, or in his heart, just sadness. There is sadness in those eyes that makes Loki want to kill him more.

How dare he look at him like that now? How dare he?

And in the background, held back from the action by a man in midlife, looking more grown-up than when he knew her, but still so much the woman Loki once loved…

Thor will die thinking that his pleas are what drove Loki to end the assault. The truth is something much greater than he knows.

"I don't know what happened on earth to make you this soft!"

'How dare you. How dare you go near her?'

"Don't tell me it was that woman!"

'How dare you touch her?'

"Oh, it was?"

'I'll kill you…'

"Well, maybe when we're finished here, I'll pay her a visit myself!"

'You can't have her!'

But he always loses to Thor in the end.

Thor leaves the same way he came, minus the truck. Jane is pretty sure that if she hits him again, he pingauzer is going to wind up broken.

After he's gone, Jane doesn't know what to do with herself. She waits for long hours against the setting sun, half-expecting him to return and sweep her off her feet. The rest of her is hoping for someone else.

But she shouldn't hope for him anymore, should she? Not after what he did today.

She can't say she knows what's happened in last ten years, other than that Loki appears to have been killed and replaced by an identical, evil double. That's about the only explanation her factual and logical mind can come up with.

(The idea that he was always like this deep down inside is absurd and she's not going to entertain it.)

When it becomes clear that Thor isn't coming back, she returns to her lab and to the multiple men in suits who are going to be a fixture in her life for the next few months. She has to spend hours that should have been used for sleeping getting 'debriefed' by that guy, Coulson, and his merry band of superspies. By the time it's all over, the sun is rising, Jane's entire lower half feels like jelly, and the only consolation is that Coulson has arranged for a truckload of high tech equipment to be placed in her lab for her to locate the Bifrost with, all on SHIELD's dime. For once, Jane would've preferred sleep.

Coulson drives away in his long black car, and Jane sinks into her mattress in the back of the RV. She's going to need a new cover, she thinks. This one is all worn out and flat as a pancake.

It's only when it's quiet that Jane can stop and think about what's happened.

Thor really was the god of thunder, but she already knew that (didn't stop her from being impressed).

Loki's gone berserk and he sent a killer robot to destroy the town.

SHIELD had promised the return of her research. So far, they were living up to their word. Jane could hear Erik outside directing a truck through the back door of the lab. What would she ever do without him?

She had kissed Thor. It was a spur of the moment thing, and even as his lips were on hers, she couldn't stop comparing him to the last Norse god she kissed. Thor was more tentative, less willing to go the extra mile. Jane didn't know if it was because he was in a hurry or because there were people around, but something told her it wouldn't have changed if they were alone and had all the time in the world. He wouldn't make her feel like he'd been waiting his whole life to have her.

As Jane touches her mouth that isn't tingling, her throat closes up. It travels up to her eyes, and they sting with tears. They're like the first springs of water through the cracks of a dam that is about to break. She hears in her head the last words Loki ever said to her interspersed with the mechanical sounds of that death machine he commanded, and she cries harder than she ever has before in her entire life.

Jane cries herself to sleep over Loki three times.

The first time was when she unknowingly destroyed him

The second time was when he unknowingly destroyed her.

And the third time was when he knowingly destroyed everything else.

The power Thanos wields is like nothing else, though Loki pretends when they meet like he's only a novice.

Thanos makes him pay for his insubordination in the slowest and most painful way possible (later on, The Other will tell him that this was nothing).

As his mind is ravaged, Loki must fight to the death to hold onto whatever he can. He hides away all that is still important to him in the farthest recesses, to a place not even Thanos can reach. When Thanos is satisfied that he's made his point, he withdraws, and Loki shivers and shakes like it's his entire being that's been violated, body and soul.

But Thanos never learns about Jane. That is all that matters.

What Thanos takes is his ability to feel, and his reason.

(No, he had already lost that, he knows in his heart that won't die.)

He attacks the earth, and he doesn't know why, so he makes up some story about the lie of freedom (the burn of Thanos's last session with him lingers, and he barely knows what he's saying at all). He feels a sick sort of joy in taking the minds of these mortals, and leaving behind nothing but the same inky blackness that makes up Thanos's world. Now he's not alone anymore.

It's the only time in the whole invasion that he feels any sort of sensation. He kills as many Midgardians as he can looking for some sense that he's alive and moving, but he finds nothing.

He goes about his plan and it's laughable how easy the mortals are to fool. He wishes success came with a sweeter taste.

He threatens Natasha Romanov, and when it's over, all he can be is annoyed that he fell for her games.

He drops Thor out of the flying fortress, looks him in the eye as he does it, and this, more than anything else, should give him pleasure. This is his ultimate revenge.

He should enjoy this.

But he can't.

He's almost relieved when he loses and gets taken back to Asgard in a muzzle and chains. At least now he doesn't have to pretend anymore.

The attack on Manhattan ends in a victory for earth, but Darcy will never understand why Jane refuses to come out of her room for three days after.

Months later, she starts dating again, and everyone thinks it's Thor she's trying to get over.

Two years pass before she sees Thor again, and she can't help but think he wouldn't have bothered to come were in not for whatever this thing is inside of her that sends cops flying into buildings and makes her feel like her insides are burning away.

He takes her to Asgard. It's a dream come true for more than one reason, and it's even more incredible than she could've imagined. She walks through the town, people going this way and that, using machines that could advance human civilization by a hundred years, but to the Asgardians are just simple toys. It's really no wonder the Vikings thought these guys were gods.

Everyone is nice to her, too, or at the very least civil. Sif is a little more standoffish than the last time they met. Jane chalks it up to her affection for Thor that is obvious to her from the start, but seems to fly right over Thor's head. She thinks it's because he's known her for too long, but that wouldn't explain the sidelong glances between Fandral and Volstagg whenever Sif says something affectionate to Thor, and he misses it completely.

Jane would feel bad, but she's beginning to think she might try and make it work with Thor. Sure, there's the issue of her lifespan, and Odin makes no secret of how worthless he finds her (she'd be back on earth before she could say 'Midgard' if it weren't for the aether, as she now knows it to be called), but Thor is the sort of guy she should have been going for all along. He's sweet, compassionate, brave, and a perfect gentleman. He won't suddenly discover his sexuality like Daryl did, and he won't make her feel inferior like Don.

He won't break her heart and almost destroy her world like Loki.

That's why she needs to forget about all of that. She needs to move on and focus on what's in front of her. There is a literal handsome prince who routinely saves worlds and has eyes only for her. She'd be an idiot to let someone like that go.

She and Thor share a kiss, their first kiss since New Mexico. It's quick, it's spur of the moment, it's all she's been thinking about since he came back.

And it's empty.

It's so, so empty.

Frigga dies.

It's a terrible day for everyone, and Jane wishes she could grieve more for the woman than just for her part in her death. It's unfair that this has happened; that she had to die to protect someone she barely knew. Even when the irrational side of Jane wants to blame her for whatever made Loki turn out like he did (she blames Odin more), she had looked to this woman who was everything her mother wasn't, and wished she could have met her sooner.

At least Frigga died with honor, or so Thor says. She died defending the realms like a true Queen of Asgard. It's a small consolation prize, but if it helps Thor cope, she won't complain. After that kiss the other day, Jane is starting to realize what a good friend Thor has always been to her. He's be a best friend if he stuck around long enough.

She wants him to know that he'll always be her friend.

They're going to Svartalhiem to defeat Malekith. Sif brings her to where Thor and their guide are waiting, and though Sif doesn't name any names, she doesn't have to.

For the first time in more years than Jane cares to count, a familiar twinge is tickling her, just by her ear. It's in the place where she always heard his voice laughing or whispering seductive nothings to make her shiver.

He's here.

She enters a hall where Thor is standing, talking to someone Jane can't see behind a pillar. Time speeds up, or her feet do. Then he's in view, and for a moment, Jane can't breathe. For all the maelstrom of emotions—most of them negative—coursing through her so fast that she might explode before the aether makes her, the first thought that comes to her is that this is the first time they've ever met face to face.

What he does next makes her blood boil.

He smiles.

Like it's nothing!

And he says: "You might have heard of me-"

She punches him as hard as she can. There's a red mark on his face, though it fades much too fast. She thinks this may have been building up inside of her for years, because she's not a violent person (slapping Thor twice notwithstanding).

"That was for New York," she says, with as much force as she can without it looking phony. It was for so much more than just New York.

Though Loki knows she's coming (Thor warns him not to lay a finger on her, or he'll cut those fingers off), he's not prepared for what he sees, now with his own two eyes.

Jane Foster has truly become a woman.

Mature, beautiful, infatuated with his fool of a false brother, and if he doesn't put on that cheeky smile that most want to club him in the face for, and be as mocking as possible when he speaks to her, he's going to act on those base instincts that tell him to throw her against the wall, rip the clothes from her body, and remind her to whom she belongs.

Then she punches him.

He feels it in his body and his mind. He's almost open for her again.

"That was for New York," she says. The little wisps he gets from her mind say different.

"I like her," he says, his grin impossibly large.

By Valhalla above, he loves this woman.

Jane makes a vow that when this is over she's done with Asgardians for life. If that means being done with Asgard and all its wonders, too, it's a sacrifice she's going to have to make. If nothing else, she's learned that her physical and mental health is more important than her dreams. She's already proven herself right, so that what she has to content herself with.

Being around Loki again means the return of all that she had strived to bury. With only Thor to keep them apart, she can feel his body heat, hear his every breath and every callous remark he makes when he thinks no one hears him. He never says a word and barely looks her way, but the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and she knows he is watching her, if not with his eyes.

Thor and Loki have a plan that she's not in on, a plan that involves saving her from a deadly inner fire, and making Loki even more of the villain. Jane won't find out about this until later. For now, the three of them stand over the mountain and Jane finds a sense of peace and calm that can't have come from within. She almost isn't bothered when Loki is ready to throw them to the wolves.

He catches Thor by surprise, sending him down the hill. Jane follows on principal. That and she doesn't want to be alone with Loki. She screams when a blade takes Thor's hand at the wrist. Loki looks so satisfied with himself, but that's the thing: he only looks it.

He picks her up. He's never touched her with his real hands before, only in dreams (and how could she have ever denied that he was the first one to hold her).

"I am Loki, of Jotunheim."

Jane doesn't know what that means, but Loki is revolted by it.

"I bring you a gift!"

He throws her to Malekith, and she lands with a gentle thud at the Dark Elf's feet. The next thing Jane knows, she's in the air.

She's floating.

She'd love to know how that works.

A long black mass emits from her mouth, ripping her throat to shreds, but releasing the rest of her from its brutal constraints. Her heart relaxes and beats strong once more. Her stomach settles, her bones cease cracking, her head clears. She can see again with her own eyes.

Malekith drops her, like a toy he has no more use for. He has what he wants now. Jane can see it, all the signs of the aether's possession (in a way, it's going to stay with her forever).

Then Thor calls off the illusion.

Jane is not shocked, not as much as she should be. She's thrown to the ground and Thor has Mjolnir. Now, Malekith will be stopped; he has to be. There's a hand on the ground over hers that she knows well. He's so close that she can hear his breaths, his heart, and everything in between.

She can hear his thoughts again.

He's thinking about her.

Jane chokes back a sob.

'It was real,' she thinks. She thinks it so hard and so desperately that he has to hear it. 'Please, tell me it was real.'

For a moment, just a brief moment in time when no one is watching, Jane places her hand on top of his and squeezes.

He squeezes back.

'It's real, Jane.'

And she loves him so much, she can't stand it.

She always has.

She always will.

But just because she knows she loves him doesn't mean she can say it. She can't even react properly when that monster takes Loki's blade and impales him with it. She can't cry out as Loki falls to the ground, shivering from blood loss, turning pale white as the light leaves his eyes, and he breathes his last words to Thor.

"I didn't do it for him."

A few moments ago, Loki pushed her out of the way of a grenade and almost got sucked forever into the void. She knows who he did it for.

Thor's cry reaches over the valley. It's empty now that Malekith has found his way to earth. They'll have to stop him on their own somehow. They'll have to leave Loki here to rot. Thor doesn't want to do it. He's like a scared child, his mother and his brother gone within hours of each other. Jane pulls him along, because she'll break down herself if she doesn't keep going.

She can't afford to wonder at the lack of pain in her chest. She's always assumed that if one of them died, the other would feel like they were dying, too. Perhaps she was wrong.

Unless…

Of course, they do win in the end. There is little to say about that.

The next few nights are plagued with dreams. They're all of him. All of them see Loki fall at the hands of his mother's killer, if not before turning the tables and taking Kurse with him. His corpse turns gray and gathers dust long after Thor has been forced to leave him. Time moves quickly, like a film on fast-forward. Suddenly, the body twitches. Loki's gray skin fills with color. He sucks in air and sits up. He looks all around; looks at his chest were his heart still beats.

He's alive.

He wasn't supposed to be alive.

This might be an inconvenience.

Of course, he wouldn't have the reputation he does if he wasn't adaptable. If both Valhalla and Hel have chosen to reject him, he'll simply have to work with the hand he's been dealt. In the guise of a lowly foot soldier, he returns to Asgard. He tells Odin of his false son's death. He thinks that might be grief that flits across Odin's face before he falls deep into Odinsleep, but it must be his imagination. No matter.

Odin's body hidden deep in the catacombs, Loki takes his form, and his rightful place on the throne of Asgard. He hears Thor give up his claim, because he's found a new calling that means more to him than power. That's just fine. Thor may leave believing that he has found a way to reach his unreachable father. He may even keep Mjolnir. Loki no longer has need of it.

So that's the end of it. His victory is complete. He has the throne, he has the power, and he has the respect and fealty of those who once scorned him.

All that he's lost is everything.

And Jane bears witness to it all.

Every night it's that dream, so vivid and strong.

Every morning, she wakes up sick to her stomach. She runs to the bathroom and keeps her head in the toilet until she has nothing left to expel. Then she spends the day walking around her London flat in a daze, barely speaking, barely working, only half-listening when Erik talks about the atmospheric anomalies caused by the Convergence.

Nobody understands what's bothering her. They never do, and it's better that way. Darcy can think all she wants that she's just a lovesick puppy pining for Thor, and Erik can believe she's suffering some kind of temporal jetlag. It saves Jane one hell of an awkward conversation.

Then one day, it happens.

It's a morning that should be like any other. Darcy lazes about with Ian; Erik wants to talk to her, but can't; Jane sits at the kitchen table until it's time for bed and one more dream.

All of a sudden, the Bifrost lands on her balcony. Someone is coming.

Jane may not be sleeping so well, those dreams take a lot out of her. She thinks for a moment that she sees green, and that's why she runs. She's forgotten herself for a moment. She's just so desperate, she needs to be right that he's alive and that what she sees when she sleeps is real.

She jumps into his arms. Kisses him. She knows instantly that she was wrong. This is not Loki holding her. This is not his body she's wrapped herself around.

She breaks away and it's Thor that's grinning at her with kiss bruised lips.

She feels like crying.

In the end, she can no longer pretend she can change the past.

She sits Thor down in the early evening when everyone else is out. She thanks him for all that he's given her, tells him that she'll never forget it, but what they have isn't what he thinks it is, or what she had wanted it to be. She tells him everything except the reason why, and in the end, he doesn't ask. Jane is grateful for that. He seems shocked and confused and maybe a little hurt, but Thor is a gentleman through and though. He says farewell with a shake of her hand, and then he is off, flying through the open window at warp speed. He's out of sight in seconds.

Jane is never going to see him again.

Darcy thinks she is absolutely insane. Erik is glad that there will be no more gods around, though he hides it well. Ian is new to this and doesn't really have an opinion.

Jane honestly doesn't care how they feel about it. She's relieved, and that's all that matters to her.

She avoids all contact with her friends for a few days. She stays in her room with her books and that letter from Stark Industries that she hasn't opened yet. She lays on a bed covered in notebook paper and that other letter from SHIELD that she did open. She has to answer soon.

There have been some exciting developments in her life, even more than getting to see another world and having the gall to break up with a physical god (who's really an alien anyway). It looks like Jane will be getting the recognition she so richly deserves. Tony Stark himself wants to meet with her to discuss manufacturing a bridge, and his emails mention another doctor interested in working with them. Considering all the recent articles about him and Bruce Banner hanging out, she has a good idea who he's talking about.

It's funny to think of how the old Jane would be wetting herself with excitement over all this. Her theories have been proven, she's being taken seriously, and some of the most famous and respected scientists in the world want to work with her, even ones not in her field. This is a dream come true. No, this is better than a dream. This is like dying and ascending to heaven. This is her life's work realized at last. This is all she has ever wanted since she first learned there were worlds out there like her own.

This should make her happy; so, so happy.

Only… it doesn't.

It doesn't.

Jane tosses the letters aside. She holds a pillow to her chest, so she has something to hold when she can't take it anymore.

She closes her eyes.

'Loki?' It's been so long, yet his name is still familiar. 'I know you can hear me. I know you're still alive. If you were really dead, I would have felt it.' She sucks in a breath. 'I left Thor. I told him I didn't feel that way about him anymore, but the truth is I never did. Everything about him, it reminded me of you. I know that now. I was just trying to hold on to whatever part of you I could. I thought it was fate that he fell into my lap, and maybe it was, just not in the way I expected.'

Jane rolls over on her side away from the door. She begins to speak out loud.

"Everything is going well for me, I guess. People are finally listening to me, and I feel like I should be out there now reveling in being right all along. I know that's what you would me to do, but I can't, Loki. I can't do that. Maybe I could have if we never met, but we did, and we can't take it back." Jane looks up. No one is there. She shakes her head. "I don't want it anymore, any of it. I don't want prestige or recognition. I don't want Asgard. I don't even want to be right. All I want is to be with you again. Do you hear me? I just want you."

It's coming now. She won't be able say any more. She'll be too busy crying.

"Please, Loki," she hugs the pillow so tight that the seams rip. "Please say something. Please, please, answer me."

She keeps repeating that well into the night.

He sits upon the gilded throne, looking out at the realm slowly returning to its former glory after a devastating battle. It's not the first Asgard has seen and it won't be the last. Soon, it will be roaring with life again as countrymen and soldier alike convene to drink and be merry. All will be well until the next war comes along. They all know this. It's a way of life for them.

Surely, they are grateful. Their king is stronger than ever. He's risen from the ashes of the Queen's death to usher Asgard into a new age. The only strange thing anyone notices—aside from Odin's shocking acceptance of the crown prince's abdication in the wake of the tragedy—is the way he takes time to stand by the window in silent contemplation, dull to the world around him.

Sometimes, a tear falls from his single eye. They can't see beneath the illusion, where two healthy eyes shed them as one.

They can't hear what he hears.

'I don't want it anymore-'

They can't feel what he feels.

'-the prestige, the recognition-'

They don't see his heart.

'I don't want Asgard…'

'I just want you.'

It's been three months since the Convergence. Jane has decided that the cold London fog isn't for her and is planning a return trip to Puente Antiguo. Everything about it reminds her of Thor, and everything about Thor reminds her of Loki. She doesn't want to be reminded of Loki, but at least New Mexico is warmer, and dry.

If she spends her whole life there doing nothing but staring out the window wondering what could have been, so be it. Her research is already off the ground and her name is in all the scientific journals. People will be talking about her for centuries to come as they plan their family vacations to Alfheim and Vanaheim. She's done her work, now she just wants to rest.

Only she can't rest, not yet. First, she has to get through all the meetings with Tony Stark regarding her contributions to the Stark-Foster project. He's a pretty cool guy, Mr. Stark, when he's not being a gigantic ass, which is often.

Jane thinks she would like him more if he wasn't already friends with Thor. He's nice enough not to bring him up (beyond introducing her to people as Jane the God Tamer), but just knowing that Thor could be in Stark Tower—or Avengers Tower as it's fast coming to be known—at any given moment is not something she's prepared to deal with. Needless to say, she takes a lot of walks by herself.

She sticks to the Central Park area, and only when the sun is out. She's depressed, but she doesn't have a deathwish. Happy families and businessmen with their phones and gossiping school kids alike file past her as she moves like a ghost, gliding more than walking. She never has a destination in mind, just 'away from Stark Tower,' 'away from Thor,' or 'away from everything.'

She can't wait to get out of here.

One afternoon, she gets lost. She'd been up for hours last night because Tony insisted on showing her some schematics he'd drawn up. She decides around five or six to sit down and close her eyes for a few minutes. It's 10:30 when she wakes up. All the families and businessmen with their phones and gossiping school kids are gone.

Jane feels a chill through her windbreaker. She walks until she's close to the park entrance, so all she has to do is get there without looking at or talking to anybody and she's home free. She keeps steady in case someone is watching. No sudden movements. The city lights blanket the stars in darkness. Not seeing them brings a sense of unease that all the mortal danger in the world never could.

She sees the gate, a few prostitutes stand around smoking cigarettes and eyeing their next john. In the next moment, there's metal pressed into Jane's back, and a hand over her mouth.

"Don't scream," says a raspy voice puffing smoke in her face. "Gimme your money and don't say a word."

Jane fights to stay calm. She hands him her whole purse. Reaching into it is liable to get her shot. He snatches it away and dumps her things out into the dirt. Keeping the gun trained on her with one hand, he goes through them with the other. He throws some important notes into the mud like they're garbage. In her wallet is one hundred and twenty dollars and some credit cards, most of which are maxed out. He takes them anyway.

"That's all I've got," Jane tells him. Why hasn't he removed the gun yet?

He grins with yellowed teeth.

"No, babe, that's not all you got."

He pushes her down. Jane screams and fights him off. She has a small knife in her back pocket. If she can just reach it…

But the man has decided he doesn't like prey that won't cooperate. The gun barrel moves to her chest.

Jane hears a bang.

And feels.

Nothing.

Loki feels everything.

He's in Odin's chambers, sleeping in Odin's bed after another day on Odin's throne. It's another day of ignoring Jane's pleas, and knowing she is better off never seeing him again. In the end, he'll only hurt her like he has everyone else. It's for the best that he stays in his world while she stays in hers. Really it is.

He feels the pain as if he's the one under attack.

He clutches his burning chest and rolls off the bed. It's excruciating, unlike anything he's ever felt before in all his years of warfare and magic. Not even a nearly killing blow felt like this. Not even falling off the Bifrost felt like this.

Nothing has ever felt like this, this feeling of a life slipping away through his fingers.

"Jane…" he gasps out.

The servant who comes to wake him an hour later finds only an empty room.

There's someone holding her, the cold of their hands seeping through her damp plaid shirt. She finds herself pressed into a hard body clothed in armor. A voice speaks in frantic tones, but she's long since gone into shock, and it's hard to focus.

"Jane, stay with me," she thinks it says. It sounds nice, that voice. She thinks she knows it.

"Loki…"

Is that her talking? It can't be. She sounds so weak.

"Jane, I'm here now. You're going to be all right."

She opens her eyes as much as she can. They've gotten really blurry. She may need to look into some glasses or just start eating more carrots. Someone is standing over her, but it's not the man who shot her. He's in a heap next to a tree, and that might just been pieces of him and not the whole. A bright, golden light sits on her chest, spreading warmth up and down her body, unless that's the shock again. Jane can't tell. Her head is spinning much too fast.

She opens her mouth, but her throat is parched. All she can manage is a hiss that sounds like his name.

'Jane, can you hear me?'

She can, and her head clears just enough at the sound of him. Jane doesn't know if that's his magic or her will or something else entirely, and she's not in a position to think on it.

'I hear…' she tells him. She fights to stay awake. She's getting kind of tired.

'Don't even think about going to sleep until I'm done, do you hear me? Do as I say!'

So authoritative, he is. Jane could laugh if it didn't hurt so much. She smiles anyway. She hopes he smiles back.

'I thought you'd never come,' she tells him.

'Forgive my lateness.'

The pain is receding slowly. So is the warmth. It's much too cold out. She should have brought a heavier coat.

'I'm sorry, Loki…'

'What?'

Jane fists the grass and the dirt. She thinks that whatever he's doing is helping, but she can't be sure if the lack of pain means she's healing or…

'I'm sorry…' Everything's getting dark. 'Sorry I… made you leave… sorry I said what I did… I didn't mean it.'

'I know, Jane,' he answered after a time. 'You have no need to apologize. Now don't close your eyes. I'm not yet finished. Stay awake.'

'I don't think I can.'

'No! Don't say that. You're going to make it, I swear to you.'

'I knew you didn't die… I knew we'd feel it… if the other-'

'Be silent! You are not dying, Jane. Do you hear me? Jane, answer me!'

'I love you, Loki… I always have… always… will…'

'Jane, NO!'

A blank white wall. A bed of silk sheets. A light breeze.

These are the sights and sensations that rouse Jane into wakefulness. She has no idea how long she's been unconscious, or if she isn't still unconscious and dreaming, or if she isn't dead and in some kind of an afterlife.

No matter where she is, what matters most is the hole in her chest, or lack thereof. Jane touches the area where she was shot. She feels smooth, undamaged skin that she's never known to be so flawless. There's a full length mirror in the corner of the room, which is decorated like a cross between an Asgardian parlor and her old bedroom. Above the bed is a panoramic view of the stars she saw every night above the Puente Antiguo sky, as if the ceiling had been removed to let in the night.

Jane approached the window by the bed. Outside was light in contrast to the ceiling, and it was definitely no part of New Mexico she had ever seen.

She didn't think was America at all. Or earth for that matter.

She steps into a magnificent garden, with rows of topiaries as far as the eye can see, and fresh fruit growing on every tree. The grass is the purest shade of green, like they've never known a day of drought. Jane's bare feet curl around the cool blades. She savors the feel of it as she does the breath in her body. She never thought she would feel anything again.

"I wanted to protect you."

Jane turns. Loki is sitting on top of a boulder, his back to her. He has shed his armor and wears the simple green tunic Jane remembers from their first night together.

"After everything that's happened, I thought it would be best if you never had to see me again."

Jane walks to him. He's too high up for her to reach, but she knows he'll come down. She knows everything about him.

"And now?" she asks.

He doesn't fail her. In an instant, he's beside her. With their minds fully open, she can almost drown in the feel of him. His thoughts and his feelings and his very essence flow through her with intensity that she can hardly fathom, and she can only hope that her own feelings are just as overwhelming.

From the look in his eyes, she imagines they are.

All of this, and they haven't even touched yet.

"Now," he says, his voice echoing in the air and in her mind. "Now, we will have all that we have ever wanted, for as long as we wish it."

Jane meets him halfway, joining with him at the fingertips. The barest of skin to skin contact is like an electric current that runs through them and makes them one. They hold each other for the longest time, just standing there at first. Then they are sitting, and then they lay in the grass. Never do they part, never do they move, until the day becomes night and a cacophony of stars Jane has never before seen is revealed. She watches them twinkle, their beauty enticing and their origins a mystery. So many new ideas about their names and properties fill her scientific mind with such speed that Loki can't keep up. He chuckles.

"Relax, my love, we have all the time in the world."

She buries her grin in the crook of his neck. He's right about that. This place, in this tucked away corner of the universe, with its bountiful garden and trees that shade them, belongs only to them.

Their world.

Their home.

"It's all ours," Jane whispers. She raises her head to meet his gaze and close the gap between them.

"Yes," he says at the last second before their lips meet. The final word projects into her mind.

'Ours.'

Padded footfalls mark Eir's entrance into the chamber where Odin sleeps. His remaining son stands vigil at his side, as he has for the past day and a half, since he was discovered in the catacombs after a long and tireless search. Though Thor asked to be left alone, not everyone chooses to listen. Those who don't are his closest friends, the ones he would not turn away. Eir doesn't know if she can count herself as such, but as a healer it's her job to be here. No magic in the universe can end an Odinsleep before it is time. Even so, she will see to it that her king remains as well cared for as he has been. If she could give Loki anything, it's this. He made his father comfortable while parading around with his face.

"My prince," she says gently, though that title might not be so fitting anymore. "Is he well?"

"As well as he can be," Thor says. His voice is heavy and older sounding, like Odin himself is speaking through him. He sounds like a man with nothing left.

Eir can understand that. The last of Thor's family lies on this bed, toeing the line between continued life and Valhalla. It can't be easy to watch so soon after the loss of the queen.

"Has he been found?"

Eir tenses. Though the name is unspoken (it has become forbidden among the people), her prince's meaning is clear. It stems from a love he will never be free of.

"They have found nothing," Eir says. "Not a trace of him. Even Heimdall can't find him."

"That is not surprising," Thor says. Years ago, he would have beamed with pride in his brother's ability. "He has always been good at hiding. If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be."

There is another explanation for Loki's disappearance, one that is perhaps more sensible than just another one of his tricks, but Thor has lost enough already. For now, Eir won't speak of it.

"And what of the mortals?" she asks.

Thor's wide shoulders heave.

"They are well," he answers, "well enough since Jane Foster's vanishing. They have ceased searching for her, and it is believed that she did indeed die in the spot where her blood was found."

"But there is no body," Eir says.

"It's quite odd, I know." A gust of wind filters into the room and tousles his hair. Outside is a cool night in Asgard's major city. The people in town are at a loss for whether to fear for the future of their king or celebrate his rescue and the ousting of the usurper, so in the end they do nothing at all, except for what they would on any other day. Eir finds she prefers this method of coping most of all. "I had an interesting conversation with my friend, Erik Selvig."

Eir looks up. She quietly scolds herself for getting lost in thought when her prince (her soon to be king) is speaking.

"I see," she says, though she can't say she cares for the words of a mortal. Jane Foster was a special case; she doubts the woman's intelligence spoke for the rest of her people.

"He told me something extraordinary," the prince goes on, hands clasped behind his back. "He told me that he had spent many nights fretting over Jane's fate and fearing the worst. However, the night before last, he had strange and vivid dream of her. He saw her, alive and well, walking through a garden in a land he didn't know. He said he had never seen a more beautiful place in all his life. He could tell me little else, but he felt that it was more than just a dream. He believes that Jane is well, wherever she is now, and that though he may never see her again, she is happy, and so should he be happy."

Eir says nothing. She's glad Thor isn't looking her way so that he can't see her scoff.

"The mortals have active imaginations," she says.

"That they do."

He goes silent, and Eir would take that as a sign to excuse herself and go, but when she is almost to the door, Thor speaks again.

"Had I not the same dream the night before my visit to earth, I would have taken Selvig's words for wishful thinking."

He spares Eir not a glance, though she is staring at him with wide eyes. He looks out at the sky.

"I think Darcy Lewis may have experienced a vision as well," Thor muses, mostly to himself. "She seemed brighter when I saw her, more like her old self. I was happy to see it."

He greets Huginn and Muninn as they perch on the window sill. While their master sleeps, they keep watch over the realm in his place. They observe Odin's inert form and unleash a series of caws that Eir cannot decipher. She doubts Thor can either, at least, not yet. His queer little smile as he sees them off has to have a different meaning.

"My prince, may I speak freely?"

"You may."

Eir clears her throat.

"Could it be that there is more to this dream than you are saying?"

Thor looks at her. She can identify that face for the knowing look it is. Eir is reminded of how much Thor has matured these last few years. He has never known so well the art of speaking without words. He will make a fine king.

"It's getting late," he says, standing. "I think you've left your apprentices without their teacher for long enough."

"Yes, perhaps I have," Eir says, and she goes in peace. He's given her all the answers she needs.

When he's alone, Thor takes his father by the hand, waits to feel his slow but ever present pulse, and then leaves him to his rest for another night.

He walks to the window, looking to the stars, away from the city. Out there is a vast and fathomless space that some mistake for empty. He knows that it's not, and he thinks that if he looks our far enough, for long enough, he might see a certain man and a certain woman locked in an endless embrace. If he listens, he might just hear their laughter.

And in the end, that's good enough.