Hi guys, sorry it's been so long since I updated! Life's been getting in the way and I had a bit of writers block for this story, but I have a few plot points in my head so hopefully there's more to come. Thanks so much for all the support and reviews, please drop me a line if you like this chapter or have any tips for improvement :) Decided to get back into this fic when a bought a Loki poster , it now hangs on my wall and looks down on my balefully when I don't update! I actually had this written a while ago but due to document submission problems, I couldn't upload it. Enjoy :)

You will never see your mother again.

Loki shut the book and closed his eyes, leaning back against the cold wall with a sigh. He let the cool hardness of the support calm him, the freezing walls of his prison an odd comfort. He had always found a strange solace in the cold, and since he had found out why, embracing it had become all the easier.

Odin's parting words had stung, hurt him more than he had thought possible. Frigga was the last thing on this forsaken rock that the god cared for, and to take away the possibility of seeing her was the single cruellest thing the Allfather could think of. It almost rivalled the day he had taken Loki in in the first place. Leaving the mewling Jotun baby to die on that icy pinnacle would have been a kindness.

Images flashed before his eyes, a city burning beneath him as he watched from the highest tower, the sky opening to unleash hell on the Midgardians below. Loki had been as cold and uncaring as a true frost giant that day, but he could never forget the fires that drove him to the coldness, the dark hole across the universe where he had spent night after night screaming in the flames...

Loki's eyes snapped open. His heart rate was elevated, fists clenched. A mirthless smile twisted his lips. Scared? Here? Of all the places they could get to him, Asgard would be that last. It had been his own decision to let go that had led him through the inferno, and now, it seemed, he had come full circle. Back to purgatory.

Imagining five thousand years here should have been too much to bear, but somehow, Loki couldn't bring himself to feel the devastation he should have. He had sunk into a cool, deep mere of apathy, and he had no desire to get out of it. Nothing held any interest for him anymore, not books, not magic, not...well. The sharp mind of the former prince was never truly at rest, and he always schemed, always plotted. There were many and sundry ways he could get off Asgard unseen, but the problem was getting out of this cell. For that, he would need a miracle.

A miracle like a wind starting out of nowhere, a whoosh echoing from some far off place in the cosmos. Loki looked up in wonder as the open pages of his book flicked one after another, a wheezing, groaning sound of engines filling the cell. He recognised that sound, though he had never thought he would hear it again. The memories of childhood came flooding back, memories he had supressed once he used them to harden his heart against the world. The space seemed to solidify in a hulking shape, pulsing again and again until a deep boom echoed across the dungeon and a blue box stood in Loki's cell.

Fast as a snake, Loki waved a hand and green rippled across the cell, hiding the box from view as the guards came running at the sound. Now, they could see only the green-clad renegade god sitting quietly and reading, as they always saw. In fact, he had slowly risen to his feet, pacing carefully towards the box with his hands clasped behind his back. Green sparks danced across his fingers, ready to defend himself if necessary. Loki trusted no-one, especially not those who had betrayed him as a child.

The door of the box slowly creaked open, and a man emerged. Loki was surprised, but hid it beneath a mask of cold suspicion. Bow tie. Floppy hair. Striped shirt, braces, tweed jacket...this baby-faced traveller was not the man who had come to Loki all those years ago. And yet...those eyes. The same eyes, older than life, had seen more than Loki could imagine. They held the same secrets, maybe even a darkness greater than when he had seen him last. Either way, those were not the kind of eyes you encountered twice in a lifetime. Different face, maybe, but the same man. In his world of magic and illusions, Loki could deduce that much.

"Well," he said softly. "After all these years...Hello, Doctor."