I turned to grin at Loki and I noticed a considerable amount of his armour had been singed and he was gripping his left arm.

"Are you alright?" He asked me, sliding off the roof and landing on the ground, not entirely steady.

"Alright yourself," I hurried over to him.

"I'll be fine," he said confidently and weighed the tesseract in his hands. A curious look clouded his eyes. "It is done."

"I know," I breathed. "Finally."

"I have the tesseract now."

"This wasn't the plan at all, though, was it?"

He shook his head, "It does not matter, we are all heading to Ragnarok."

I didn't even bother to ask. Handing back the sceptre, I said, "So this is it then. You go back now."

"Go back?" He looked up at me.

"You know, home. I mean. Asgard."

"I have no home in Asgard."

"Right, right. I know but," now or never, "but you have one here. With me. In Riverside."

He looked up at, frowning slightly. I felt small under his blue gaze. And then he turned around to retrieve the tesseract's case. What had I done? With me? Really? I could not have felt worse than if he had pushed me over a cliff and then sent the truck down over me. At least then I'd be certain of the end. But now, I just lingered by the truck watching him push the tesseract back into the smoking case. Failure was one of the reasons I rarely ever tried and I had just confirmed the hypothesis.

"Loki, I didn't mean-" I began and then stopped abruptly, wiping at my mouth. Oh gross, was I drooling? What an incredibly inopportune time. I looked down at my hand and groaned, "Oh no, not again."

Loki looked around at me as I frantically tried to wipe the blood dribbling down my chin.

"No," he breathed, crossing to me in three quick strides, "what have you done? What have you done?"

"I don't know," I gasped.

"I told you to rest."

"I'm sorry."

"Will you stop apologizing?"

"Sorry," I said, the metallic taste sliding over my tongue. "I don't know why I-"

"A medical facility, we need to go. Now."

"I don't have insurance!"

"It does not matter! Trust me. Please."

Please. Please. The word swam in my head like a foreign language. Pleasant to hear, but confusing.

I found myself standing behind South Dutton General, where the car park was and the streetlights were dim.

"Paton, you must." He said firmly, taking my hand in his. "I don't have enough time."

"Time?"

"I wish you had only listened. But please, don't argue with me now. I did not intend for this to happen to you. You do not believe me when I say I am greatly indebted to you. I cannot hope to repay you for your kindness, but please, allow me to do this one thing for you."

He pressed his hands to the sides of my face and looked into my eyes. Is this guy going to kiss me? I sure hoped not, I had a mouthful of blood and fears, I wasn't feeling particularly romantic. All the same, I never wanted to lose the feeling of his hands.

"When I look to Midgard I will know I have one friend, at least one friend in you," he said.

All I could do was gawk at him.

"Thank you, Paton. For everything."

"Loki..."

"You will be well looked after here."

"...don't go."

"Paton, don't."

"Please stay."

The depth in his eyes, it was beautiful. And it was the last thing I saw as he pushed my hair back and I felt his fingers against my temple.

Blurred white and olive-coloured skin stood in the blurred doorway. It scurried away down an invisible corridor, saying, "Call Dr. Mayhew. The Patient in 56 has woken up."

A little while later another blurred figure appeared at the door, followed by the white and olive.

"Quick clean-up, Maria," a male voice said, and I felt cold wet cotton against my eyelids. Blinking groggily, I waited for my vision to clear. A nurse was fiddling with a drip in my arm. I watched the needle slide out, and she plastered a band-aid onto my sore hand. The white of the hospital room was blinding, and there was something familiar about it.

"Good morning, Miss McAllister."

"Paton, please," I said cringing at my last name.

"How are you feeling?" The doctor asked me from my bedside. He was a kindly man, in his fifties or sixties, with dark hazel eyes.

"Fine, I'm fine," I said and then sat bolt upright. "What am I doing here?"

The doctor laughed and passed me a cup with tonic in it, "Drink this."

I did and waited for an explanation. He flipped through a file and smiled at me, "What do you remember, Paton?"

I racked my brains, "Ah, I don't know, I guess the last thing I remember was being in my truck- oh no! Did I crash my truck? Did I hit somebody?"

"Calm down, calm down! You didn't hit anyone. There was a nice gentleman who dropped you in the ER, said he'd found you just off the game-park with your truck rammed into a tree. Says he saw the whole thing happen. Deer jumping right across the road and you swerving to avoid it. Unfortunately you caused yourself some bad internal bleeding."

I blinked up at him.

"Do you remember any of it?"

"Yeah, I mean, sort of. I use the route by the game park all the time, to and from work."

"Do you remember where you work?"

"Delacroix's Delivery Yard," I said.

"Well, alright then. We just wanted to make sure you hadn't had a concussion and temporary memory loss or anything."

"So I'm fine then?"

The doctor chuckled, "Want to know when we're discharging you?"

I nodded.

"This afternoon, Paton."

"Uh, doctor, there's sort of a problem with the insur-"

He waved his hand, "Don't worry about it. The gentleman who found you made an arrangement with our billing department. You're completely covered. All we need to know before you leave is if you keep your food down."

The nurse set down a tray in front of me and bustled out.

"Thanks," I said, wondering which bloke would have actually spent money on a delivery girl who didn't know to hit the breaks in time.

Note To Reader: You are wonderful. I'd like to thank you for choosing this story and reading it all up to this point. I really hope I didn't disappoint with this ending. I know. It's over. It sucks. But I had a marathon writing session and then I decided this is how I wanted it to end. But please feel free to tell me what you thought? LokixPaton were hardly a soppy romance, but I wanted to also stick to the Marvel timeline, of which my OC is not a part (sad right). This has been my first fan fic and I'm actually glad I've been able to finish it. Like Paton, I lack drive sometimes :P Again. Thank you. NOW KNEEL. Haha, joking.

xoxo