When the dream touches ground, the demons walk in. And I know what awaits.
- In Vain (by Within Temptation)
A scream had died down, while another had torn through it. Loki's knees hit the ground, where he broke down in an instant. His hands shot to his head, gripped his hair, trying to hold himself together. The sobs escaped him before he could sense them coming. Salty tears gathered at his chin, fell. He wasn't a man, nor a fighter, he was the anxious young prince he'd been years ago.
His body ached, the sudden release of so much energy had left him sore to the core. Shame burnt in his chest, guilt, regret, loss. His heart bled, it had before - only this time, Loki thought it might bleed for real. He had killed his own mother, the only creature to ever truly love him. He had staked too much, too high. Had miscalculated. He had started a massacre, up there, down here.
Loki saw himself through the tears, his contorted reflection in the broken glass, crying back at him. Green eyes stared back - couldn't recognize the demon in there. Nothing of the heart remained. The sun broke through the clouds, but refused to shine light onto him. The bronze silhouette towering over him bathed him in shadow. Gravity felt a thousand times stronger, pressing him to the ground, seemingly engulfing him - that's what he wished. To disappear, without trace and memory, wiped out of minds and existence.
Just a heartbeat away, another scream sounded. His limbs were stiff and numb, and without knowing how he did it, Loki pushed himself off the ground at once. Unsteady on his feet, he had almost reached for hold to the bronze statue - before exhaling forcefully and hitting his temple repeatedly with the palm of his hand. Stay with me.
Loki pressed his ear to the bronze man's chest. Nothing of the heart remained. Cold and silent.
He snapped out if it, rushing up the source of the anguished screaming holding his spine upright. With every step, he felt himself sink deeper. The gates of hell had opened just underneath the ground, calling, singing to him, dragging him down. He had to resist just for a little while longer.
The force of the blast waves had wrecked his library. Without a care in the world, Loki pushed the shelves and ornaments out of his way until he reached the door where all the golden stripes met. This chamber.
Caroline lied on the bed, panting, screaming, crying. The hologram had reappeared over her, several parameters flashed red. Her abdomen - it had swollen bigger. Another faint groan sounded from the opposite corner - it was Xenia, whom Loki had completely forgotten about. Had she been there when it all happened - she'd be dead without doubt. Loki was in no state to deal anymore damage to anyone.
He hurried to Caroline's side. Time had left its marks on her - another addition to the endless list of faults by the God of Mischief and Lies. The realization hit him mercilessly - he had moved forward in time, and they had been too close.
"I- I don't know what's happening - "
Xenia slowly awoke from unconsciousness. Her head spun, but she managed to stand. Loki had taken Caroline's face into his hands, attempting to talk soothingly to her. His eyes gave him away - there was something too intense, too troubled about them. The mask was flawed.
"I will never let anything happen to you. I swear to you, on my life." Loki told once more. He doubted that he could protect anyone anymore - it was him, always him. There was nothing else he could've told her.
He turned to the drawer, where he had stored some sterile tools and anesthetics. The IV had come off, Loki threw it away and started installing a new one, before moving to the other arm and doing the same. She couldn't keep receiving saline solutions for volume, she needed blood - and there was only one unit. Loki cursed unrestrainedly. Could he bring Tom back, to get to more of his blood? He didn't know.
Xenia had made her way to the other side of the bed, still dizzy. "What's happening?"
She saw him inject the anesthetic into one of the IVs. Caroline's crying eyes fluttered shut in a matter of seconds.
"Loki, what are you doing?"
"Go get the ventilator." Loki ordered, nodding to a bulky looking machine on a trolley. His hand lied gently on her abdomen, his eyes flashed blue for a second. Loki fell out of it just as fast, other attempts to focus his sight inside her were futile. His outside acts had drained him.
"Placental abruption I think, once again. Her placenta was weak to begin with, and I cannot reconnect it this time."
Xenia rolled the ventilator to his side. "Why not?"
"My powers are drained. Cannot tell when they will come back. As for now - " Loki pulled intubating tools out of a small box. " - I will sedate her and deliver the child."
"What, now? Baby's too small, it'll die!"
Loki sighed and cursed again. He slid the tube into Caroline's throat, securing it with a band and turning the ventilator on. "Loki, you can't be serious!"
"Absolutely am."
"I won't let you kill her baby!" Xenia raised her voice, loud yet shaky. Unlike Loki, who was de facto magically powerless, her fingers produced sparks of energy. She had never been particularly good at it, and becoming a Fallen had left her more confused then ever about herself, but she sensed it still inside her.
Despite everything, Xenia was still a magical being.
Loki looked at her for the first time. He read it all in her face, without her having to say those words. She was willing to put up a fight if that's what it took. In another time and place, Loki might have tricked her even without his powers, but the situation was dire. Resignation washed over his sweaty face. He sighed.
"Listen. For one thing, this is also my child. Whether you want to believe it or not. And for another - " He gulped unnoticeably, staring at the scalpel in his trembling hand and back at the angel. "I have turned forward the time. Who else was affected, I don't know. Our child has matured, his chances of survival seem good enough."
"Time?" It was no more than a whisper in shock.
Something hit her skull from the inside. Something she had almost forgotten about as it seemed too impossible to consider. Something so decisive. "Where is Edward?"
Loki flinched, but ignored the question. He needed her on his side now. He lowered the scalpel to Caroline's freshly disinfected skin.
"Answer me!" She screamed suddenly.
What he was about to do required all of his focus. Nothing was more important than the child and its mother then. Mother -
Loki's lip started trembling again, he bit down hard, almost breaking his own jaw. There was no room for this now. No more of these suffocating emotions.
She sensed something was off, terribly off. Tom was nowhere to be seen. The God of Mischief had manipulated their time frame - when Edward had had only so little time on his hand.
"What did you do? Loki, what did you do!"
Loki withdrew his gloved hand and hit Xenia across the face with his other. She had been dizzy to begin with, the blow kept her down. The entire room was silent then, with only the rhythmic air flow of ventilator to be heard. Loki released a breath he had forgotten he'd held in.
The scalpel once again approached Caroline's abdomen. No hesitation, no delay this time. Time had become all too precious. He had to act fast - they were dying. The incision was performed quickly. He had to dab off the silvery blood, then continued to cut deeper. Through the fat, the muscle, to the uterus.
For one moment, a moment defying the laws of time, the gates of hell closed. The smothering pull had ceased. His feet felt light, almost as if he could float. He inserted his hand into the uterus and delivered the baby's black-haired head. It felt too fragile, too small and soft in his large hand. The umbilical cord had wrapped around its neck, Loki disengaged it quickly. Then, with gentle pushing just above the incision, he delivered the rest of his son's little body.
"Araziel." Loki breathed with a heavy lump in his throat. "Flightless angel."
There was only so much time to savor this moment. Araziel didn't cry, he was pale, didn't move. Loki could detect a heartbeat, but it was faint. He decided to cut the cord straightaway, it wasn't helping, due to the detached placenta. He proceeded to rub all over the child's back, occasionally slapping it gently.
Xenia regained consciousness with Araziel's first cry. The unearthly sound made the hairs on her body stand and Loki's blood run cold. He had made it. Without a word, Loki wrapped the child in a clean cloth and handed it over to Xenia. She understood perfectly, no need for an order. Forgotten was the outburst she'd had only minutes ago.
Xenia's eyes lingered on Caroline for an instant. A slashed shape of ashen color. She understood none of the red-flashing parameters on the floating holograms, but she knew Caroline was fading. The child's high pitched cries drowned her thoughts. She was of no use for her dying best friend, the best she could do was care for her son. She left the room with the child.
Loki had no second to lose. She was halfway immortal, her body could take things a human couldn't - but only so much. Her blood pressure had dropped due to the internal bleeding. He removed what was left of the placenta carefully yet urgently. The only blood unit dripped tirelessly.
What little magic his fingers could produce sufficed to stop the worst bleeding, no more. He injected some xorenaline into the IV, the Asgardian equivalent to adrenaline. It was much more potent, customized for the needs of immortals. Loki took thread and needle, proceeding to stitch the different tissues back together. She was so cold, it was unsettling. If he only had more of his magic, he could've closed her abdomen in an instant without so much as a scar to bear witness of the birth.
This had to do for the time being. A white bandage covered the fresh stitching. He couldn't calculate her chances of waking up with such a low blood supply. Before Tom, Loki had never seen a shadow before, no book ever described their physiology. Stronger than a mortal, weaker than a god. What a pathetically vague thing to cling to. Caroline appeared stable, considering the circumstances.
The anesthetic wore off soon enough due to the enhanced metabolism. Loki could remove the tube connecting her to the ventilator and ventilated her manually with a bag until her own breathing picked up. This emergency c-section could've gone so wrong, but it didn't. Loki had never felt more thankful for anything - perhaps even a despicable monster as himself had been granted a sign.
A sign that she would live.
Loki leant down to kiss her forehead. To him, she was the strongest. Always have been. He would've cried, if not for him maintaining an exhausting grip of iron on all of these feelings. If he allowed himself to shed merely one tear, he would break down for good.
The God of Mischief staggered away from the bed. A mirror decorated the repurposed chamber, seemingly floating, defying all laws of gravity. He risked a glance.
His clothes were stained with blood, almost as if he'd gotten straight out of a massacre. He hit his temple once again for this thought. Part of the shirt was torn and his face bore witness to the hundreds of deaths he'd died to get where he was now. He couldn't yield now, two living breathing beings needed him. He left the chamber with one last glance at Caroline.
The silver blood dripped to the ground all the way to his bathroom. Loki tore all the clothes from his body, not bothering to open anything, he would dispose of the shreds later. Mercilessly hot streamed the water over him, burning yet cleansing, gifting him a brief moment of solace. He didn't bother to lower the temperature - it hurt, and that was fine. Loki imagined the scalding waterfall bestowing im with some form of purity.
---
As he stepped foot into the main living room, he was a new man. At least, on the outside. No proof of the precedent emergency surgery could be seen on him. His hair was clean and neat. Color had found its way back into his face and his clothes. The water had washed this unsettling expression off his face. It almost made you forget the nightmarish black phoenix ever existed.
A newborn, untouched by all the cruelty of the world, lied in Xenia's arms, gently sucking on a bottle of formula. She had bathed him, dressed him, now she was feeding him. Some thankfulness was the very least Loki ought to feel. He stepped closer to the couch.
Xenia gasped softly, she hadn't heard him approach. This was all new to her, too. Also without a word, the new father sat down beside the angel and reached for his child.
"He needs to burp." she protested, but loosened her hold as to not hurt Araziel.
"I know."
He hugged the newborn gently to his chest, in a way it could burp - and puke all over his right shoulder, if it came to that. The hand which had slapped the baby's back only an hour ago to bring him to life now caressed tenderly. As he burped softly, Xenia reached out to wipe what little milk had flown out of his mouth and over Loki's back. He let her.
After a while, Loki took his baby off his chest to cradle him. Araziel's eyes were wide open, curious, almost knowing - unusual for a child this young. The magic inside him was perceptible, setting the air around him in vibration, he would grow up to be a sorcerer.
Despite the silver blood making him another shadow.
Loki couldn't process it. Something so pure amidst the vilest of creatures. A spark of beauty, goodness, a better version of himself. From out of ugliness such light. From out of darkness such a flame. He never knew how much he'd love having a baby until he had one. For one perfect moment, all was fine.
If only the madness could have stopped then.