by C. Gockel
Amy looks down in amazement at her ID. “The DMV is open this early in the morning?”
Without looking back, Loki laughs. “This is the Aesir’s primary outpost on Earth. Odin likes for it to be efficient.”
Staring at the card, Amy just shakes her head. A DMV open before 6 a.m., single-payer health care—in the U.S.!—and nuclear waste removal? She’s not sure exactly what Odin’s involvement on Earth is, but maybe it’s for the best.
Chapter 5
Amy awakes to the slant of afternoon light coming through the blinds, and a queasy stomach. There is also a heavy thigh over her hips pinning her to the bed. Pushing the thigh away, she sits up.
Rolling over she eyes the nightstand. There is a plate of saltines, a cup of Miskunn’s tea, and Mr. Squeakers sitting there. Squeakers looks forlorn. She thinks he misses Fenrir. The mouse and her dog used to sleep together back home.
Willing her stomach to stay still, Amy sits up and pats Mr. Squeakers on the head. He rubs his little ears against her fingers vigorously, and Amy’s heart sinks for the little guy. Fenrir used to kiss his ears. She sighs. Amy misses Fenrir too, but at least she knows Fenrir is safe with Beatrice. Several people have suggested Amy enter Fenrir in the Ugliest Dog Competition. Between Fenrir’s looks and aggressive misandry, the little dog is an animal only family could love.
Her stomach gives a lurch. Sitting up, she grabs a saltine with one hand and the cup of cold tea with the other. As she nibbles, she looks to the window and the column of blue light in the distance, just visible through the blinds. It’s beautiful.
Once Beatrice had told her that what every parent wanted was a better life for their children. In this world humans and Aesir are working together to solve their problems. In the grand scheme, it’s marvelous, and in the slightly less grand scheme…
Amy’s eyes rove around the bedroom. The moldings and fixtures are as ornate as anywhere else in the apartment. There is a master bath more impressive than the ‘guest bathroom’ off to one side, and a walk-in closet. The bed is king-sized, the duvet is warm and luxurious, the linens smoother than anything she’s ever felt beneath her skin.
...It’s so far from what she had when she was growing up. She’d lived in so many places with her mother, sometimes in trailers, but most often in cheap apartment complexes with paper-thin walls. She finishes off her last cracker and idly brings her hand to her barely perceptible bump.
Beside her a lazy hand snakes out from the blankets and begins to make its way up her side.
“Feeling better,” Loki says, a smile in his voice, his hand on her light and teasing.
“Mmmmm....” she says, turning to him and raising an eyebrow.
He’s grinning now, his ginger hair charmingly ruffled, his chin dark with stubble. “You should lie back down again until you feel completely well,” he says.
Amy knows where this is going, but she doesn’t fight it. The bed is warm. So is he...so is she. She slips down into the covers.
Loki shifts beside her, trapping her legs beneath one of his own. “There now, rest,” he says, laughter in his voice. His fingers are dancing over her skin assuring that she won’t get any rest at all. He kisses the skin behind her ear and presses against her hip making her back arch.
Every morning, well afternoon, is like this. She tries to get out of bed, and he distracts her. He distracts her a lot, even when they’re not in bed. It was the same pattern she’d fallen into with him at the end in her own universe. A few days ago, in a haze of post coital bliss, she’d asked him, “Is it always like this?” She’d waved a hand vaguely in the air. “All the time...with...”
She hadn’t finished. He’d laughed and said, “Sex all the time?” Nibbling on her ear, he said, “With a fetching new partner? Of course.”
Her brow had furrowed. She’d been going to say, ‘with you’. Amy’s other relationships hadn’t been like this. Seeing her face fall, Loki had rubbed her stomach, and said, “Don’t worry, no matter what happens between us after...” He’d paused. Amy had felt a tingling low inside her. Amy had noticed he was cautious talking about the baby’s future, as though talking about it would jinx it. “I won’t abandon either of you,” he’d finished, his face very serious.
And what more could she ask of a man she’d just met when she was carrying a baby that is his, but isn’t? She told herself what they had was enough.
Moments like this, when he’s smiling at her, his fingers skimming nowhere naughty—somehow even more arousing than just making a beeline for the naughty places—well it still feels like enough.
Eyes slightly hooded, he leans in to put a chaste kiss on her forehead and brings his hand to cover hers where she is cradling her stomach. No matter what she has with Loki, she also has his memories. He isn’t lying—he will never abandon her child—he never abandons any of his children. And that means more to her than the luxury around her. Her own father had left when she was very young.
Loki gives her hand a squeeze. And then, leaning forward, he places a decidedly not chaste kiss on the side of her neck just inches below her ear.
Amy closes her eyes. Resistance is futile. Still, she musters up the will to tease him. “I thought we were going to the Field Museum this afternoon?” They haven’t been holed up in his apartment the whole time. Miskunn had declared light exercise good for Amy, and they go out everyday. Today at the Field there is an exhibit of Svartálfaheimr gems she really wants to see.
Huffing a soft laugh, Loki begins trailing kisses from her forehead down the bridge of her nose. “We’ll have time,” he says and she smiles.
From somewhere beyond the bed Loki’s phone starts playing the Darth Vader theme. The trail of kisses down her face abruptly stops. Loki falls back onto the bed with a very unmanly whine. Smirking, Amy rolls over onto her side and traces a hand up his thigh.
“You going to get that?” she says, raising an eyebrow. He never ignores the Dark Vader theme.
Loki lifts his head, looks at the trajectory of her hand, looks at the phone, and looks at her hand again. “You sweet, terrible, wonderful girl.”
The Vader theme gets louder.
Closing his eyes with another whine, Loki grits his teeth as though summoning all his willpower. Rolling off the bed, he lands on the floor with a thunk.
Amy laughs and leans over the edge. Loki snaps the phone open and puts a hand over his eyes. “This had better not be about the unicorns in Grant Park. If you can’t tell me where the gate is I can’t close it...”
Amy props her chin on her hand. Odin and Loki’s Cera-as-magical-power-plant-solution is supposed to be taking care of the extra-magic-world-gate-sprouting situation that exists in Amy’s universe. She picks at the bedspread. Loki’s had to close a lot of gates since she’s come here though. His tone is light, unworried; but Amy’s concerned.
On the floor Loki snickers. “And you know no unicorn will let me close enough to kill it.” Loki lifts his hand from his eyes and blows her a kiss. “Although, the one I have here is sweet enough I think she might be able to subdue unicorns for us...”
“Not if you’re going to kill them!” Amy says.
“See,” says Loki, still smiling, but attention back on the phone. “So sweet. Who needs Hoenir?”
Above him, Amy’s brow furrows. Loki and Odin don’t know where Hoenir is in this universe. Loki won’t talk much about it. All he’ll say is that Hoenir tolerated Nari, Valli, and Sigyn’s political aspirations and then changes the subject.
Loki scowls. “Afghanistan again? Can’t it wait?” He looks at Amy and grins. “I was just getting busy here.”
Amy can hear the muffled sounds of sharp words on the other end of the line, and then Loki snaps, “The oath is to obey you, not to obey unquestioningly!”
Amy lifts her head from her hand. Obey? Oath? She’s known that Loki has been working for Odin, but thought it was because they were on good terms. Her eyes slide to the side at the memory of her first day. What had Loki said? “There are t
erms...”
There is another bark on the other end of the line and Loki rubs his eyes. “No, no, I’ll be at the Bifrost site in three quarters of an hour.” Snapping the phone shut, he sits up without meeting Amy’s eyes. “I need to put my armor on. You’ll be fine for a day without me?”
Amy blinks. “Sure. Of course,” she says. He’s left every time a gate has popped open, but he’s seldom gone for more than an hour.
Standing up, Loki makes his way to the large walk-in closet in his room while Amy slips on his robe. She’s just cinched it at her waist, when there is the sound of banging at the front door.
Amy’s brow furrows. She just saw Miskunn the other day; it isn’t time for her next appointment. She takes a tentative step towards the door of the room anyway. From the foyer down the hall there is a crash, and then a bellow from a voice Amy’s heard before, but never in this universe. “Loki!”
Slipping on a pair of light trousers, Loki curses. “Thor, did you rip my door off the hinges again?”
The floorboards outside in the hall groan and then Thor himself barrels into the room. His eyes slide to Amy, but he doesn’t acknowledge her.
Amy cowers in the robe, the lack of acknowledgement strangely more unsettling than the times Thor has looked at her in rage. The comforting weight of Mr. Squeakers falls on her shoulder.
Training his eyes on Loki, Thor says in Asgardian, “Not ready?”
“What are you doing back here, aren’t you supposed to be with your father in Svartálfaheimr?” Loki barks in English. Slipping a shirt over his shoulders he mutters, “Breaking in my door again...”
“But I love fighting the Mujahideen!” Thor declares, slipping into English too.
“Why are you fighting the Mujahideen?” Amy asks.
Thor doesn’t respond. But Loki smirks and says, “They refuse to accept the constitution Odin has laid out for them. Their government is corrupt. Their holy warriors have launched suicide attacks on the peaceful nations that are friends of Asgard.”
Amy tilts her head. Their reasoning doesn’t sound horrible, and it sounds believable if it’s anything like the Afghanistan on her world. And yet...
“They treat their women like shit,” Loki says. “If I were you I wouldn’t feel sorry for them.”
Smiling. Thor says, “But they are the noblest of warriors on the battlefield. And the most challenging! Especially since they have their magical armor piercing bullets!”
“Magical armor piercing bullets?” Amy squeaks.
Thor doesn’t even raise an eyebrow in her direction. For a moment Amy wonders if Loki’s made her invisible. She looks down at her hands. She’s still solid though.
“Don’t worry, darling,” Loki says, throwing some pieces of armor on the bed and giving her a comforting smile. “I’ll be fine and back by evening.”
At his words, Thor’s eyebrows shoot up. He looks at Amy, and then says in Asgardian. “Darling? Back by evening? You’ve got a human pet now?”
Amy scowls. “I’m not a pet!”
Thor’s jaw drops and Loki snorts, but for a heart stopping moment Loki doesn’t contradict him.
Tilting his head, Thor takes a step forward, a smile on his face. “She has spirit. I like that. Will you share her with me?”
“Touch her and you’ll have my knife through your hand!” Loki shouts.
Amy draws back. Her eyes go to Loki. He already has a knife balanced in his fingers. On her shoulder Mr. Squeakers hisses in Thor’s direction.
Thor’s smile drops. A befuddled look replaces it. “You could have just said no,” he says.
Amy blinks at Thor, and then at Loki. “Magical armor piercing bullets?” she says again, her voice trembling a little.
Thor snorts. “They and the other rabble have a magical accomplice. He calls himself Prometheus.”
Affixing a shin guard, Loki says, “They’re fused bullets with the stuff you call Promethean wire.”
“That’s interesting,” Amy says. “But I’m not asking how, I’m just worried about you.”
Loki straightens. “Oh.” He smiles and shrugs. “Don’t worry, I’m the incarnation of lie detection and misdirection, remember?”
Thor snorts again and rolls his eyes. “Hurry up, get your armor on, and kiss her goodbye!”
Turning his attention back to his armor, Loki grumbles. “Less haste more speed.”
Voice sounding oddly almost plaintive, Thor says, “I don’t know how you’re not excited. I wish Valli could join us. He’d be keen to go.”
Loki chuckles. “If Valli were here he’d join the cause of the Mujahideen.” He winks at Amy. “If my son is the universe’s incarnation of anything it is the spirit of armed rebellion.”
Thor sighs. “Valli is a gifted fighter. I miss him.”
Snapping a piece of metal over his knee Loki mutters, “Valli without Nari is a psychopath.”
“Without Nari?” says Amy.
Not looking at her, Loki says, “Nari was the peaceful one.”
“Silly scholar,” mutters Thor.
Loki’s mouth twists into a grimace. “His books got him tangled in politics and politics killed him…” Eyes going a little distant, Loki says, “If Nari could declare himself the incarnation of anything it would be the spirit of democracy.” He shakes his head. “Could have...Would have been...”
Amy suddenly has a memory of Loki and Nari debating the merits of the Magna Carta. Nari in the memory because he was impassioned. Loki just because he liked to shoot ideas to pieces.
Attaching another piece of metal to his thigh, Loki mutters. “Hopeless idealists, both of them.”
“Aye,” says Thor. He puts his a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “But we love them both.”
Loki’s jaw goes tight, but he doesn’t correct the tense. Going to the closet he straps on a scabbard and slips Laevateinn into it. The blade isn’t glowing.
Amy’s head jerks in recognition. It isn’t her version of the blade. “Why don’t you use the sword from my—”
Loki’s eyes meet hers. Scowling, he shakes his head. Amy shuts her mouth, her brow furrowing. Thor straightens and looks curiously between the two of them.
“So do you think I should take my Glock and the M-16?” Loki asks.
“Yes, of course,” says Thor, his look of curiosity turning serious. “Don’t be flippant.”
Loki smiles and steps back into the closet, returning with a few heavy reinforced suitcases in his hands. Amy had seen them before but hadn’t really thought to ask about them. Laying them on his bed, Loki opens them to display wicked looking firearms and ammo. Amy puts a hand over her mouth and her eyes go wide, but she doesn’t say anything. A few minutes later Loki has a bigger gun over one shoulder—Amy thinks it is the M-16—and another smaller pistol-like gun at his side.
Thor drags Loki from the room by the shoulder and Amy follows them towards the door, arms crossed over her chest. Stopping in the kitchen, Loki puts money and a credit card on the counter. “Go ahead and order food,” he says. Stepping up to Amy, he puts his hand on her stomach and whispers, “And feel free to go crazy online with the credit card and order new clothes.” Kissing her forehead, he adds. “Stay here, be safe.”
Amy nods. She doesn’t like this. Not one bit. But all she says is, “You be safe.”
Clearing his throat, Thor says, “Loki, do you think you can lend me your spare Glock? I think I might like one for close combat situations.”
Loki grumbles but says to Thor, “Wait here.” And then he walks back towards the bedroom.
Thor’s eyes instantly zero in on her. Making a shallow bow he says, “Please pardon me, my lady, for my rudeness earlier.”
Amy draws back a little. “Um, okay,” she says.
Straightening, Thor says, “It is usually not advisable for us to get attached to humans. Still, I’m glad he has finally mustered the courage to be close to someone.”
“Why isn’t it advisable?” Amy says, her voice a little harsh.
&nb
sp; Thor lifts an eyebrow and smiles sadly. “Because you die so quickly.”
Amy suddenly is hit by a flood of Loki’s memoires.
Loki was leaning over Amy while she slept in the huge hotel room they shared in Paris. He raised a blue hand towards her. He wanted to stay, to start over. And then before him Amy’s skin, muscle and tissues melted away until nothing was left of her but clean white bones. Loki’s breath caught in his throat. He blinked, and Amy was real and whole. But he knew the message behind the hallucination. Even without his yearly allotment of the immortality bestowing apples of Idunn, Loki was magical, he’d live centuries...He pulled back and away from Amy, trying to rid the image of her sleeping form from his mind. His traitorous mind drifted to the night he spent with her at the bar with her university friends, joking about philosophy and quantum physics, and then to Steve laughing in a snowy alley. Loki wanted to stay on Earth, with Amy, with humanity...Clenching his jaw, he closed his eyes. But there was no future with the short-lived humans he’s become fond of...Loki’s only future was to see Asgard burn.
The memory is so intense Amy wobbles on her feet, the edges of her vision going black.
“Miss—” says Thor.
From down the hall, Loki screams. “Amy!” She hears the sound of running feet, but Thor is faster.
“I have her,” says Thor, a hand suddenly at her wrist, another around her back.
“I’m fine,” says Amy. “It was just—”
She doesn’t finish. She still hasn’t told Loki about his memories from another life. She knows she should tell him, that it’s just her paranoia holding her back...or maybe it’s insecurity. Maybe he won’t believe her, or think she’s imagining things. Maybe she is imagining things. Maybe she just doesn’t want to let go of the idea that her Loki gave her something precious on purpose, even if she doesn’t know why.
“Let her go!” says Loki, wrapping an arm around her.
Thor backs away, a smile of joy on his face. “Loki, she’s pregnant.” He turns to Amy. “Congratulations, Miss—”