The character of Loki and all recognizable material from Thor are not owned by me. This is a fan-fiction intended for enjoyment only.

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He literally fell out of the sky, or so she liked to believe. There had been a crash, she was sure of it, though it was probably just the sound of him collapsing in a normal, non-sky-style on her doorstep.

Why her doorstep? Rachel couldn't imagine. It wasn't even a real doorstep, it was the fire escape. Twenty floors up, in the crappiest Manhattan high-rise single three thousand dollars a month could buy. He must have climbed the stairs, she knew, but how? He couldn't even walk when she found him.

Rachel didn't tell any of her friends the true circumstances of her first meeting with Loki. How he'd been barely conscious, bruised, with half his clothes burned away. She was sure the marks on the cloth were burns, though later, when she saw him shirtless, she was surprised to find the skin underneath was only reddened.

He was moaning quietly when she ran outside to see what the crashing noise was. The sun was just setting; the man lying at her feet opened his forest-green eyes, reached out a slender white hand to her, then gasped, grimaced, and pulled back. He curled in on himself in fetal position, his dark hair hanging lank and ragged in his face. The metal of the fire escape landing was bent beneath him. He must have fallen impossibly hard to have dented it.

Even then, mess that he was, Rachel found him blindingly handsome.

That was the main reason why she didn't call the police.

The other reason was that she was a romantic at heart. Not the romance novel-reading type of romantic, but the type who secretly still held her breath and made a wish as she drove through tunnels. Who had believed in Santa Claus until she was thirteen because she really, really wanted it to be true. She thought life – at least her life – was a story, and she believed wholeheartedly in destiny.

She was the type of person who believed that if a beautiful man fell out of the sky onto her doorstep and begged her for help, she must have been chosen for a reason. Not for a sexy reason, necessarily, though she wouldn't have minded. But she believed she, and no one else, was the one meant to help him.

He couldn't walk at first. Rachel had to half drag him inside, one or two steps at a time, and he barely seemed to realize there was someone else with him. Eye contact was impossible; his gaze kept roaming past her, seeing worlds, people, that weren't there. He spoke to them sometimes. Rachel distinctly heard the word "Brother" at one point, spoken like a plea, and a few minutes later, something about a bridge being destroyed.

An English accent, she noted with fascination. A crisp, educated voice to match his obviously expensive (if ruined) clothing. Who was this man?

Once she managed to get him on the couch and found she could not communicate with him, she took a moment to seriously consider calling some kind of mental health service. Not for rescue – she wasn't afraid of the man, though she knew darn well she should be, and that she was as crazy as he was for pulling him into her home. She was twenty-seven, pretty, and alone.

There were friends she could ask for help. Every one of them would scream at her to call the police. And what if they took him away?

At last his enormous eyes with their childlike lashes met hers, and he seemed absolutely lost, confused by her presence. She didn't move for fear of seeming like a threat; his gaze grew deeper, leaving her mind foggy for a second, before he whispered in his clipped but weak voice, "Rachel."

Had she told him her name? She didn't think so. And she was sure she would have recognized this man if she had met him before…

"You will help me," he said, grasping her hand between both of his. His grasp was sweaty and pitifully weak. "I can see that you will. Thank you."

Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she would go to the police station and ask in a roundabout way if any green-eyed Englishmen had been reported missing. If they said no, she would keep him. Better her apartment than some mental hospital.

Right now he needed ice for those bruises, some food and water, and a good night's sleep on her couch.

After that small effort, he didn't speak a word for a week. It seemed to have taken everything out of him. His face went blank, and though he accepted the water she gave him, she could not get him to look at her.

He didn't move. Just sat, staring at the dead fireplace, mouth slightly ajar, while she pressed a baggie of ice to his bruised forehead and asked him who he was, how he had gotten these injuries.

The open-mouthed expression made him seem very young. He had excellent posture, too – he didn't lean back on the couch. Rachel was reminded of the way her two-year-old nephew watched TV with a straight back and that peculiar expression mixing extreme interest and extreme emptiness. The man even had the pink dew-drop lips of a child.

The man's timing in falling from the sky was awkward. Rachel had work in an hour. She was the pit pianist for the Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate, a job she absolutely loved. Tonight she could almost dream of calling in sick for the first time ever.

She didn't. She left the man on the couch with a blanket beside him, after carefully explaining where the bathroom was and that he could help himself to anything in the fridge. All that went into a note, too, left on the coffee table in front of him in case he snapped out of his reverie and couldn't remember what had happened. Luckily she had a man's T-shirt and sweat pants in her pajama drawer; these went on the coffee table as well. He would want to change out of those charred clothes.

She made one small concession to caution by taking her computer with her. It was the only thing of real value she owned besides her upright piano. As for that, if he could get it down twenty floors without help, he deserved to keep it.

Of course he wasn't a thief. When she returned from work, sprinting to the door in her eagerness to see if he had magically vanished, or recovered, or torn her apartment to shreds, she found him exactly as she had left him: Staring.

The circles under his eyes made him look haunted, hollow. She wished she knew him well enough to hug him. At least he was willing to accept a few more sips of water from her ridiculous Mickey Mouse mug, the only cup she owned besides a plastic glass with a chewed rim, currently in the sink.

At midnight-thirty she got up enough courage to remove the remains of his coat and scarf. The number of layers she found underneath was disturbing. It had been a hot day and night; he must have been roasting in all that. She removed a cardigan, a vest, and a tie before confirming that, yes, he was completely soaked in sweat.

Pouring out promises that she didn't mean any harm, and requests for him to say something if he had a problem with it, she removed his button-down dress shirt and undershirt. He neither helped her nor protested.

His torso was as thin and pale as his hands, with smooth skin mottled by extensive bruising and reddened in patches, but not a single freckle or scar. Not that Rachel was looking. She shimmied him into the T-shirt as quickly as possible.

Shoes and socks next. The shoes were shiny, real leather, and bore no brand name. The socks were silk. No tag on them, either, or on any of the clothes when she checked. Nor was there a wallet or ID in any of his pockets.

The pants, she decided, could wait until tomorrow.

A gentle hand pressed to his forehead was all it took to convince him to lie down. Rachel closed his eyes for him.

For two hours she lay in her room with the door locked – admittedly with a pathetic lock that couldn't have kept him out for a second if he turned violent. She had never been more awake. Cold crept into the apartment; at four she scurried out to check on the man and toss the blanket lightly over his long, sleeping form. He was out. Just the sight of his utter unconsciousness was enough to bring home to Rachel how very tired she was, and after seeing him that way, she immediately returned to her room and crashed.

Morning (nearly afternoon – she was a theatre person) found him sitting up staring again. Still he didn't speak.

Rachel made a real breakfast for the first time in forever. Pancakes and cut-up bananas.

He accepted the food one bite at a time, and more water. She shrieked a little when he rose with no warning, eyes still empty and fixed.

Without a word he turned and went into the bathroom. A minute later he returned to the couch. There he sat.

And there was their routine for the next three days.

She had to leave him a few hours every afternoon. Her second job was also as a pianist, though the nature of it varied. Hotel lobbies, day gigs like weddings. Right now she was making, to her, a ton of money helping workshop two new musicals, one good and one terrible. They were meaningless to her. Yesterday they'd been the focus of her existence. All her mental energy was consumed with wondering who this strange man was and what he was doing in her life.

She really did come to believe he'd fallen from the sky.

Those three days, he never moved on his own except to use the bathroom. He drank and ate what she gave him, never asking for more, never commenting on the quality of the cuisine, even on the night she served him Trix for dinner because, being a true bohemian, she hadn't gone grocery shopping in three weeks. If he hadn't shown up she'd have lived out of a jar of peanut butter for another week. With him to cook for, she finally got up the shame required to shop.

At no point did she tell anyone of his existence.

Aside from groceries, she bought some men's clothes at a thrift store, plus brand new boxers and socks. They weren't as fancy as what he was used to, but she was poor, and she figured he would prefer them to anything used.

Every day he slept when she laid him down, woke before she did, and, when he wasn't eating, stared. She read a lot into that forlorn expression, probably a lot that wasn't there. She imagined him to be the saddest person in the world.

On day three she had to insist he take a bath. Talking to him did no good. She had hoped it would; he was apparently smart enough to know how a bathroom worked and sane enough to use it when he needed it. But he seemed unmoved by her repeated suggestions, and later orders, to get clean.

Yet he accepted her guidance when she pulled him to his feet and led him into the tiny room. She never had to use force, in this or anything. A gentle push in the direction she wanted him to go, and he would get the message and walk there.

He let her sit him on the closed seat of the toilet while she ran the water, getting it the perfect temperature and adding a ridiculous amount of bubbles.

His shirt came off without a problem; she was used to changing it by now. She hesitated at the pants, partially because she noticed that for the first time in forever he was actually looking at her, seeing her, his expression curious.

One leg, then the other. His legs were long and white, as she'd known they would be. She stood him up. He was still a little unsteady from his injuries and sickness; he balanced himself with his hands on her shoulders as she peeled off his underwear, desperately averting her eyes.

She was very proud that she managed to not peek once while sinking him into the tub.

The staring blankness returned to his eyes. He sat completely upright, as if unaware he was in water. Rachel bathed him without attempting conversation, running a washcloth over his narrow back as gently as possible, whispering apologies when he flinched at the contact with his bruises.

Twice she shampooed him, marveling at the feather-softness of his hair. No conditioner, she decided. If she used that, he would get greasy and they'd have to do this again in a day or two.

She rinsed him with the showerhead on the lowest possible water pressure, loving the way the suds slid down across his thin shoulders and in slick lines down his chest and back.

The most challenging and exciting part of the experience was shaving him. His eyes followed the razor with fascination, and she was thrilled to have his full attention for once. His beard wasn't long for three days' worth of growth. It was just a shadow, really. But it didn't suit him at all. This man was a class act in his other life, Rachel was sure, and class acts did not have facial hair.

When she stood him up and toweled him off, he raised his arms wide to help her get his armpits. The profound silliness of the gesture hit her right as she was recovering from her extreme nervousness, and she got the worst case of the giggles she'd ever had, collapsing into near helplessness. He stood over her, towel around his waist, head cocked to one side.

At the corner of his mouth, a tiny, one-sided smile cracked.

After that his eyes followed her everywhere.

The next day he fed and dressed himself, and even got up once to refill his mug of water at the sink.

He began to sit at the window instead of on the couch, pressing his forehead up against the glass. A puppy waiting for his master to come home. His green eyes were so clear and huge, Rachel swore she could see Manhattan's skyline reflected in them when the morning sun first cleared the rooftops.

She talked to him all the time, though he didn't talk back. Now that she was over his novelty, she was able to focus on her shows again, and she would prattle to him about her worries for the new numbers, or stories of what had gone wrong onstage in Kiss Me, Kate.

To her delight, she discovered that he loved listening to her practice piano. He would come and stand behind her, almost close enough to touch, sometimes even bending over to watch her fingers move. She scooched over once to let him sit by her on the bench, and he eagerly accepted.

They spent several hours like that over the next few days. Rachel had only to begin playing, and in seconds the man would take his place beside her, alert and interested for those brief periods, after which he would quickly sink back into his staring melancholy.

But he was getting better, Rachel was sure.

He had been living with her a week and a day when she closed her score, rested her head on his shoulder, and reflected out loud, "I don't even know your name."

"Laufeyson," was his strange response.

Rachel jolted a little. He had spoken! But the word was so muddled, it didn't sound like English. "What?" she asked stupidly.

He blinked once, twice, appearing surprised at himself. "Forgive me," he said, his voice syrupy-smooth, his diction perfect. "I don't know why I said that. My name is…" Now he hesitated, frowning at the word that came next. "Loki."

"Loki?" Rachel repeated, one eyebrow raised high.

"Yes," he said. "I think so. It's a strange name, isn't it?"

Rachel found she had been gripping her score since he spoke. Now she released it, smoothing the crinkled cover. "Not what I was expecting. You're English, I was expecting a Benedict or a Percy. But it fits you." She kept her voice gentle. She was always gentle with him. He was so fragile. "Since you dropped out of the sky, I've been wondering if you weren't some kind of angel. A god is even better. God of mischief! That's you, Trouble. It's perfect. Do you remember anything else about yourself?"

His mouth flattened as he thought, and Rachel could see the effort he was making to dredge information out of his damaged mind.

"Very little," he said at last. "I remember I had a brother, but I can only see him as a child. He was blonde. He wanted to be a king when he grew up. There are flashes of strange… things that can't be memories. Fantastic creatures, castles in the sky."

"A bridge?" she asked. "You hallucinated a bridge on that first day."

"Yes! A bridge made of…"

He stopped.

"In any case. I know several other facts. We are in Midgard, on Earth, in the United States. Manhattan. Your apartment. It is 2011."

Rachel carefully did not react to the word Midgard, which the man, Loki, threw out with as much matter-of-factness as the word Manhattan and an obvious unawareness that it was a strange thing to say.

"I know that I could play every note of the song you were practicing. I know equally well that I have never had a piano lesson."

Rachel stepped aside and let him demonstrate. It was not the least bit surprising to her that he played beautifully, better than she did. His long, tapered fingers danced over the keys with care and control. The song had been written only days before for a new musical; he could not have learned it before coming to her apartment. Noting his posture once again, she wondered if he had been a concert pianist in his other life. He'd look terrific in tails.

"Yet," he said, dropping the song after she'd gotten the picture, "We are no longer equally ignorant. I fear I've not had the pleasure of your name."

"You have," Rachel said. "You know it. You called me by it the first day you got here. Don't you remember? You called me by my name and told me you knew I was going to help you. And thanked me in advance."

"I have no memory of that."

"Oh." Rachel didn't know what to think. All this time she had assumed that he knew of a connection between him and her, and had been keeping it secret. She had been eager to learn it – to learn why her, of all people in the world. There must be a reason, she decided, and he must have known it at one time. The trauma of whatever happened Before (she was sure now that for Loki the time Before meeting her must come with a capital B) must have erased it from his memory. Maybe it would return.

"My name is Rachel," she said. "And tomorrow I'm going to get you your own key."

Hours later Loki slipped into another staring funk, but Rachel knew he would come out of it soon. And sooner the next time.