Author's Note: so here we are, back with another chapter. Eepies! Who's happy to see me? Huggles to everyone, double-huggles, because I'm so glad to be updating. Hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see you at the end. Yay!

Oh, and I mention a song in this chapter you guys should totally listen to, it's so beautiful, it's from The Nutcracker. It's called "Pax de Deux Adagio," and you can find it on Youtube. It's so beautiful and sad (and, incidentally, it makes an appearance in this chapter and is Alex's favorite song).

Laters,

LA

PS - I struggled with the title for this chapter for awhile, but I was listening to the soundtrack for Fantasia 2000 (because it has Stravinsky's "The Firebird" on it at the end) and I decided on "Rhapsody in Blue" because…well, you'll see when we join up with Alex.

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Chapter Eight

Rhapsody in Blue

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Nick Fury wasn't an idiot; which, he told himself, was why he'd avoided his daughter's room most of the day. Ever since she'd yelled at him about watching that old recording of her dancing in The Firebird, and then crumpled to the floor, he hadn't known how to approach her to make amends for whatever had upset her so much. Give her time to calm down, Coulson had suggested. Letting Hill and Dr. Hopper handle Rory when she woke up had been Nick's own idea. Apparently neither one had really worked, according to the SHIELD psychiatrist, because Aurora had woken up and become agitated again when she discovered Hill had known about Nick holding onto the old dance tapes.

Why did it bother his daughter so much? She'd been so beautiful on the Firebird tape, so happy. Nick hadn't seen that smile on his daughter's face in more than seven years. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her smile—really smile—since she'd woken from her coma. What would it take, the SHIELD director wondered, to make his daughter smile again?

It was evening now; Aurora was probably asleep after the strains of the day. There was no point going to see her now. No point trying to talk to her about how the day had gone. She'd refused to speak to Dr. Hopper about venturing outside that morning. Coulson, however, had said he'd come to speak to Nick about what had happened after the work day ended. Until then, Nick wanted to watch the tapes again. It was the only time he caught a glimpse of Aurora looking even remotely happy.

He picked up the tape labeled Ondine '05 (Ondine)—Sea Shadows '05—Orpheus '05 (Eurydice) and slipped it into the VCR. The tape had been stopped during his last viewing near the end of Act 3 of Ondine. Swathed in ragged scraps of cerulean, aquamarine, and pale celadon, Aurora seemed to glide through invisible waters like an ocean sprite as she danced with the boy playing Hildegrim, as he guided her through the final pas de deux, or duet. Nick watched the young man fall in a carefully choreographed swoon as the curse of loving a water spirit fell upon him, and watched as his daughter silently and poignantly showed her crushing grief before the curtain fell.

Not the happiest ballet she'd ever done, but it was only a little more than five minutes of grief before the tape continued into Sea Shadows—a performance where Rory didn't smile, and didn't need to. Nick could see the joy of dancing radiating from her like a light as she moved gracefully, beautifully, one of the rare modern ballets she'd danced during her relatively short career.

She'd been so happy then. Why did seeing this make her so sad now?

A shadow drifted into Nick's awareness, but he didn't pause the tape. He continued to watch Aurora move with sinuous, serpentine grace under blue stage-lights as Coulson stepped into the room. His third-in-command stood in silence for a while, also watching the tape.

Finally Coulson spoke. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"She's still beautiful," Nick replied, rubbing a finger over his chin while Aurora's partner lifted her in his arms, easy as a bird taking flight. "What happened today, Coulson?"

"Well, Boss…she met someone."

Nick paused the tape. "She met someone? Who? What happened?"

Coulson cleared his throat. "I didn't ask for his driver's license, Nick. I didn't want to scare the guy off. He seemed okay, and he was good with her, from what I saw. She didn't freak out or signal me or anything."

"What. Happened."

The SHIELD agent sighed. Nick wondered absently if he'd expected his boss to ask these questions. Whatever he'd expected, Coulson replied, "When we arrived at the Park, she told me to wheel her over to this bench under a tree. There was an adult male, Caucasian, possibly early thirties, short black hair, reading a book on the bench. They ignored each other at first and Alex asked me to give her some space. I observed from about twenty yards away as the man spoke to her. Instead of panicking, as I expected, she responded shyly and then seemed to become engrossed in their conversation. As she seemed to be enjoying herself, I didn't interfere. They spoke for the rest of the thirty minutes she was scheduled to be outside. When I wheeled her back to the van, she was smiling. A real smile," Coulson added.

Nick understood the significance of that statement. Someone, a stranger, had made his daughter smile. When she'd been outside. He would've thought such a thing to be impossible. The thought of this man, whoever he was, catching a glimpse of Aurora's elusive but brilliant smile…A sharp pain sliced through Nick's chest to pierce his heart like an arrow. He swallowed hard. Rory never smiled for him. Or for Hill. Why?

"She wasn't happy about the wheelchair," Coulson added. "She told me to tell you…" He trailed off.

A rueful smile tugged at Nick's lips. "Let me guess—that I could go warm my toes in Hell."

Coulson winced. "Pretty much. She was really upset, Boss. Yet despite how much she really doesn't want to go out in a wheelchair, she's agreed to put up with it if she can go to Starbucks tomorrow. I talked to her about it a little while ago when I dropped off the new Cube photos. That should tell you something; she's willing to be in a wheelchair and have two bodyguards with her if you'll let her go to Starbucks with this guy."

Nick's single good eye bored a hole in the paused television screen for several interminable moments before he finally sighed and straightened in his chair. He pinned Coulson with his Cyclopean gaze.

"Get this guy's information, Coulson. Make sure he's not a HYDRA agent or something. I want her safe."

Coulson nodded, smiling a little. "Will do, but I'll have to be discreet. I got a photo with my phone when Alex wasn't looking; we'll run his face through our database and see if anything pops. I don't think it will, though, Boss. I've got a good feeling about this guy. He just gave off some good vibes. He was really good with Alex. There was a moment when she started to freak out a little, but he calmed her down before it could blow up into a problem. She seemed to really like him."

"Yeah, well," Nick muttered, "he could still be working for HYDRA. Run him twice, just to make sure."

"Yes, sir." Coulson turned to leave the room, but hesitated at the doorway. "Sir? Did Alex ever mention anything about going into the Tesseract Room about two weeks ago, at around three in the morning?" Nick frowned and shook his head. "Did Agent Hill or Barton mention it?"

Another headshake. "Why?"

"It's just…Alex asked me if she was in trouble for going into the Tesseract Room so late; she was wondering, since you hadn't said anything to her. She thought maybe you were angry about it. I told her that as far as I knew, no one had noticed her being there. I checked the security footage and didn't see her on the tape. No one who was on duty that night remembers seeing her."

Nick shrugged. "She probably just dreamed it. She's not exactly inconspicuous."

"Yeah," Coulson murmured. "Probably just a dream."

But Nick could tell that for some reason, the other SHIELD agent wasn't entirely convinced.

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Alex leaned back in her desk chair, studying the latest collection of photographs of the Cube that Coulson had brought her. The otherworldly blue box had been spouting nonsensical Swedish and German messages again, a whole new batch. Blue eyes roved over the first of the glossy snapshots included in this latest collection.

Her computer was already up and running, humming with electricity as she settled her headset into place and moved her microphone to her lips. This would give her something to work on so she didn't have a chance to freak out about her father lying to her, or about tomorrow.

About seeing Lukas again.

"Wake up," Alex commanded her voice-recognition program, the pre-coded phrase to activate the software. "Open program—Microsoft Word. New document. Save under 'Cube translations—Swedish—Two.'" She nudged her mouse until the cursor hovered over the fresh Word document. "Mouse click," she added to start the cursor blinking, a sign that she could start dictating. "Record the following. 'Translation of image two-dash-one through two-dash-six, as follows...

"And still she sleeps.
Why does she sleep?
Winter has come for her.
Grace is needed here.
Wake up. Wake up.

"Death has a lover.
Red death is not Death's lover.
Death and the lover are broken asunder.
Red death sleeps in cold darkness.
Death's lover is coming.

"The thorns draw their hearts' blood.
Blood has spilled across ice.
The solstice swine bleeds.
The love of a brother draws cold blood.
The love for a father brings the void.
Fear the voice in the darkness no longer.

"Black wolf prowls the thorn thicket.
Black bear rages for his lassling.
Emeralds burn with a cold fire.
East of the sun, west of the moon—
Shattered by the burning bridge.
He mourns in silence, unknown.

"The Sleeper must awaken soon.
You cannot remain in the tower.
Let down your sable hair.
Open your casket of glass.
You must heal the heart of winter.
The son of the hearth needs the Sleeper.

"Fire is ice.
Sleep is Grace.
We are waking up."

Alex stared at the screen after she finished translating the newest batch of messages. She still remembered that late-night rush to the Tesseract Room in the wake of her scattered, abstract nightmare. The electric blue words printed across the Cube's surface had sent a frisson of dread shivering down her spine.

You are the Sleeper. The black wolf watches you now. She hadn't wanted to think she might be the Sleeper of the Cube's sporadic messages. Had feared what it would mean if she was. Did the strange mazarine device know about her coma? What else did the Cube know about her? Did it know about what had happened at Thornwood? Thorns draw their hearts' blood…Black wolf prowls the thorn thicket. Alex's heart threatened to pound into her throat and strangle her at the thought, at what those words might mean.

Small bursts of pain lanced her right temple. She massaged the thick, pale scar that ran from beneath her hairline along her temple to the corner of her eye. The former dancer despised that scar, the way it pulled at her right eye more than a little and marred the line of her hair. How had Lukas overlooked it before? Would he notice it tomorrow?

I'm not supposed to be thinking about that right now, Alexandra thought. She pressed her fingers against the scar, stroking to soothe the pain that emanated from beneath the old, half-healed head injury. I'm supposed to be thinking about the Cube and whatever the heck it's trying to tell me. Not that I'm having much luck, she added with no little asperity. A sigh heaved out of her. She had no idea what these strange prose-poem stanzas could mean. Unless…Her eyes darted to the line Fire is ice. Eyes widening, she straightened in her chair.

"Computer, make notation. Quote: Fire is ice. End quote. Possible correlation to the line, quote, you must heal the heart of winter, end-quote, and quote, the son of the hearth needs the Sleeper, end-quote. Possibility that 'son of the hearth' and 'the heart of winter' are the same person? High. But what does that mean?" A sudden flash of insight had her scrabbling for the list of mythological figures she'd found online and in her books for whom the term "son of the hearth" could apply. Slapping the list onto her desk left-handed, she hastily scanned the names she'd printed there.

Potential son of the hearth—hearth gods/mythological entities: Jack-o-Lantern, Hephaestus/Vulcan, Loki, Nectan, Lugh, Dažbog.

How many of those gods and mythical figures had anything to do with ice or winter? Balance was a precarious dream as she stretched out and tried to grab one of the picture books in its stack near her bed, Dažbog and His Three Daughters. Dažbog was a Slavic sun and fire god who was also considered to be a household deity/patron. And he had something to do with winter, she thought…or maybe night time. She couldn't remember. The book would tell her.

The fingers of her left hand caressed the beautifully golden lettering surrounded by embossed silver stars on the cover of the picture book while she balanced the pasteboard book carefully atop her paralyzed right hand. Then Alex flipped it open and began speed-reading through the pages. As she read, she muttered into her microphone so the voice-recognition program would take notes for her.

"Jack-o-Lantern, Hephaestus/Vulcan, Nectan, and Lugh have no relation to winter or ice. Dažbog's relationship with winter or ice? Let's see…Dažbog is a sun god, blah-blah-blah, dies every night at sunset, uh-huh, then returns to his palace of ice and starlight in the far northern reaches of the heavens. His three daughters, the Zwezda, take turns watching over him, blah-blah, yada-yada."

She snapped the book the shut and set it aside. Another girl, in just as much of a hurry, might have tossed it, but Alex had been taught years ago to treat her books with care. They were all still in about the same condition that they'd been in when they'd been purchased. Most of her picture books were collector's items, as well, and extremely useful for research purposes, so she didn't exactly consider it a hardship. Settling back in the comfy computer chair, Alex adjusted her microphone and kept talking.

"So far the only mythological creature who fits both 'hearth' and 'winter' is Loki, the Frost Giant of Nordic myth. This fits with my theory regarding Jötunheim being the place found 'east of the sun, west of the moon.' May fit with notation of 'black bear' if so. Common icon found in Scandinavian fairytales is the 'brown bear of Norway' and the 'black bull of Norway.' Possibility that Loki is the son of the hearth, and the heart of winter, and the black bear? Unknown. And the question remains," she added softly, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, "who is the red death? And what did the Cube mean about Death's lover?"

Alex stared at her computer screen, hardly blinking, for several minutes without moving. She only shifted once, just enough to grab a bag of Skittles. Tearing through the shiny red package, she poured a handful of the chewy fruit-flavored candies into her palm and tossed them back the way she'd learned to toss back the Vicodin she sometimes had to take for the pain that sometimes flared deep in the joints of her left leg. Chewing thoughtfully, she frowned at the screen. Finally she spoke the words that had been sitting at the back of her skull for over a week.

"Notation, long-dash—am I the Sleeper?"

Her hands started to shake. Slowly, carefully, she lowered them to the smooth surface of her desk and pressed them flat to the cool, polished, whitewashed wood paneling. Closing her eyes, Alex forced herself to draw a deep breath into lungs gone viciously tight.

What if she was the Sleeper?

Is it strange, she wondered a little hysterically, feeling as fragile and hollow as a soap bubble, that the only reason I'm freaking out is because of what Dad might find out or say if I am? Or is that just really, really pathetic and stupid? Swallowing hard, she pushed her chair back, trying to get a little distance between herself and the screen, herself and the collection of photos. There were two sets; she'd only looked at the first.

She didn't know if she had the courage to look at the second set just then. Not with all the possibilities ricocheting around in her still-broken skull like bullets. Instead she pulled the music box she kept perched on top of her CPU down from its place and set it on her desk. Taking another steadying breath, she drew open a desk drawer. Inside, taped to the underside of the desk itself, hidden by the drawer, was a small key. Barely an inch long, it felt slender and delicate in her grip. Inserting the key in the keyhole, she turned it in the lock. The single tumbler clicked softly. Alex flipped back the lid of the music box.

A small oval mirror on the underside of the lid showed just the tiniest portion of her face. The pale mauve satin lining was cool and smooth to the touch; Alex remembered back when she'd been Aurora, and she'd stroked the lovely satin whenever she needed comforting or strength. Her father never went into this box. Neither did her mother, or Uncle Phil, or Dr. Hopper. No one was allowed to see what she kept inside this box. If anyone ever found out, she'd be done for. Her parents would never let it go.

With one finger Alex stirred the tiny, miniature ballet slippers. Each one was different; each one was hand-crafted, custom-made to order; each was a piece of her heart, representing one of the performances she'd done in her life. It was the one thing she allowed herself from her old life. She knew it was stupid…but she couldn't walk away. Not completely.

Tinkling chimes played her favorite, favorite song of all time—"Pas de Deux Adagio" from The Nutcracker. The slim ballerina figurine, painted with palest rose and swathed in white tulle, spun slowly on her tiptoes to the music. A single slipper atop the pile of tiny pointe shoes—a creamy rose so pale it was nearly white but dusted with silvery crystalline glitter like a sugar plum—matched the music. The sight and sound of the box's contents and lone mechanical inhabitant helped Alexandra slow down her thoughts. Helped her to think clearly. But it also sent an ache clutching at her throat so tightly she thought drawing another breath was going to be impossible.

This was why she didn't want her father to keep those recordings—because she could still remember each one perfectly. Because she'd never forgotten what it felt like to sweat beneath the heat of the stage-lights while she forced her body to bend and turn and glide as if she were made of air or water or light, not flesh and blood and bone. And the twenty-three-year-old knew her father would never understand that.

Once she'd managed to calm her racing heart and settle her thoughts, Alex closed the lid of the music box. Locked it up tight once more. She stowed the key, replaced the box atop the CPU. Then she went back to the Cube translations.

Putting the first six photos from the new batch aside and pulling out the second of the two sets of Polaroids, she adjusted her headset and said, "Okay. Computer, insert hard line break. Repeat." Her gaze focused on the first line of text on the first of the new half-dozen photos. What she saw made her swallow hard. Somehow her voice came out half-way steady as she ordered, "Record the following: 'Translation of image three-dash-one through three-dash-six, as follows...

"The Sleeper is the swan, black and white.
Black wolf hunts the white swan.
Black bear guards the black swan.
The clockwork doll is breaking down.
Need the fixer of broken things.
The Firebird smolders to ash.

"Death's Lover seeks us.
The pearl of the soul of the world.
The Katschei is coming.
He will fetter the black wolf,
Put jesses on the swan.
He will break the shield asunder.

"Do not let us be taken.
You must wake up.
Burn down the thorn thicket.
Tear down the tower.
End the curse as dark as night.
Winter has found the bear.

"Rosalinda wastes away in shadow.
Winter will not blight the rose.
Ice will be the rhinemaiden's sword.
He has heard the ghost's song.
He has seen her dance.
The wolf bares its teeth at hope.

"He bears the mirror shard.
Need black bear to be free.
Need black wolf to melt the shard.
Magic need black wolf.
Sleeper need black bear.
The hearth is naught but ashes.

"Seven sides to a glass coffin.
Shatter the glass to free winter.
Hope is red as blood,
Dark as ebony,
Broken as glass,
Cold as winter's heart."

Alex sighed. Stared at the new message, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth until it started to ache. Her right hand spasmed and twitched until she smushed it flat against the desk with her left. At last, she sighed again.

"Well…shoot." Her voice was no longer even halfway close to steady. Blue eyes snapped frantically back and forth between the words on the screen. Black and white swans, clockwork dolls, the Firebird, the ghost, the rhinemaiden…she'd danced those roles before. Swan Lake, Copellia, The Firebird, Giselle, Ondine…And she had been—for seven terrible years—the girl in the fairytale under accursed sleep.

Her breath caught in her throat when she said, "I guess I…I guess I am the Sleeper. Crap." She stared at her computer for another minute, then shut everything down. Once the hum of the computer had died to silence, she mumbled, "I'm going to bed."

She had a date in the morning. The rest of this crap could wait.

TBC

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Author's Note: this chapter is dedicated to my friend WhenNightmaresWalked, who I recently discovered was reading this fic. I was like, "OMG! Excitement!" So this chap is for you, dear. *hug*

Anywho, so what do we think of the Tesseract not only being more chatty, but becoming more coherent? We didn't get to see Loki in this chapter, but we did get more development with the Cube's messages, and some foreshadowing of things to come. What do you guys think is gonna happen next?

And yes, next chapter is date number 2! I was gonna have it in this chapter, but then I thought, "Meh. This is a good place to end it." What do you think will happen on the date, hmmm? Let me know in your reviews, okay? I love you all! Huggles!

- LA