Jenna asks about her uncle ever few hours after they return to the palace. Thor brings her updates until she knows Loki is comfortable in his own rooms. She wants to run to him, but her father tells her that he must rest, she can see him in the morning. She waits, but not patiently.
After breakfast, she dashes to his chambers and knocks on the door. He calls for her to enter, and she finds him sitting up in bed, his breakfast tray set to one side. She does not wait for an invitation, but climbs up beside him, tucking her legs under his blankets and snuggling against him.
"I have never been so scared." She wraps her arms around his waist.
"I am sorry to have been the cause of it." He embraces her, resting his lips against her hair.
"Are you going to be OK?"
"I will be, little one. I will. How are you?"
"Still freaked out. Somebody tried to kill you."
"Not just any somebody, my dear."
"Father's advisors. He told me. I am horrified. And terrified."
"They cannot hurt you. They will spend the short remainder of their days in the dungeons."
"I know. But they had you shot...."
"And I will recover."
"But will you really? Or will this just make it harder for you in the long run? And I am so sorry. I asked you to reveal your nature to them...." She starts crying.
He gently rocks her, "No, Jenna. Do not blame yourself for this for an instant. They made their own choices."
"But-"
"No. No buts. This is not yours to take blame for."
She sniffles and then steals a piece of sausage from his breakfast try, "Thank you. I love you."
"And, apparently, my breakfast."
"I will call for more, if you wish. I can smuggle pastries from the kitchen, too. I know where they keep them."
"No, but thank you, I am finished. Help yourself. Did your father teach you where to find the pastries?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"He used to sneak them in the evenings when we were children so we could have picnics in the nursery. You are so much like your father."
"Father says I am so much like my mother and grandmother."
"You learned well from your parents, and your father learned well from your grandmother."
"Did you?"
"Yes. And I am trying my hardest to be better than my worst nature."
"Father says you are more like your mother than you realise. You feel everything deeply and that means you hurt big and you react big."
"He is probably right."
"I don't want anyone to kill you. I like you. And you are kind. They cannot kill someone who is kind, can they?"
"My little love, hatred for Jotunheim runs deep."
"I hope Father can change things."
He strokes her hair and tries to smile for her, "I hope so, too, my darling niece. But change cannot happen overnight. You may not see as much of me in the near future. I will need to rest and recover, but also to stay quiet so this passes by."
She is quiet and unhappy with his answer, but there is little she can do about it. She nestles a little more comfortably against him and falls asleep. Loki adjusts his pillows and settles down beside her, dozing off shortly after. When Thor gets no answer from his knocks at the door, he lets himself in and finds the pair sleeping cuddled together. He sits down on Loki's couch to wait and picks up the book left on the end table. "A Hat Full of Sky". The cover is interesting and he recognizes it as one of Jane's books. While they sleep, he reads. When Jenna wakes, they leave Loki a note and leave him to his rest.
Loki's shoulder heals slowly and, as this is the second time he has experienced this, he wonders if there is something about this body from Jotunheim that is responding more slowly to Aesir medicine now that he is older. It would not surprise him, but there is little on the anatomy of Jotunheim's creatures in the library, so he is left to ponder.
A few weeks after the attempt on his life, he has convinced himself that not only is revealing himself to anyone else far too dangerous for Jenna, but possibly seeing her at all is too risky. His self-imposed isolation increases his paranoia. So he tells Thor that he needs his rest, that healing is taking far too much of his energy, and that there is nothing left of him for reading. He sleeps far longer than he should and he cannot concentrate on his books or on Jane's books. The loneliness gives him far too much time to think and his thoughts are nearly all difficult ones to linger on, but linger on them he does.
After not seeing her uncle at all for three weeks, Jenna is restless and worried. She selects a new book from her mother's shelves- "A Study in Scarlet"- and goes to his chambers. When she knocks, there is no answer, so she knocks again. She hears a shuffling from somewhere in the room.
"Uncle? Please answer."
A few moments later, the door clicks open, "Jenna."
"May I enter?"
"Is it not dangerous for you to do so?"
"I see no reason why it would be."
He opens the door and she bounds in and throws both arms around him, "I have missed you so much." He looks tired, and she wonders when the last time was that he brushed his hair.
Loki hugs her back, "I know. I have missed you as well. But I thought it best that I not see you for safety's sake."
"Why would it not be safe?"
He sits on the couch and she follows, placing the book in his lap, "If I am a target, and you are with me...I cannot endanger you and if they told anyone.... No. You are too dear."
"And this is why you hide?"
"It is not hiding. It is seclusion."
She shrugs, "It is the same thing. You may call it what you like. But I love you, Uncle. And the only others outside of our blood and built family who know of your heritage are in the dungeons. Two have been executed, two await it. No one else knows."
"I never said my reaction was a rational one."
"No, you did not." She smiles a little, "But I am still going to come for you. You have been alone for far too long." She taps the cover of the book, "Now, read to me."
"You are not afraid?"
"No. Not of you. Not of anyone trying to hurt you. You are my uncle and I love you dearly."
"I love you as well, dear niece."
She kisses his cheek, "I know. Come, let's read this one. If you like it, there are many more stories that follow it." He opens the book and begins to read.
Late that night, long after Jenna has returned to her own rooms and been tucked into bed, Loki lays awake thinking. Part of him wants to stay hiding, to reduce his existence in the palace to merely a rumour no one can confirm. There is temptation to blame himself for what happened in the square, to tell himself that had he not wanted to leave the palace, none of this would have happened and Jenna would not have seen him with an arrow protruding from his shoulder, blood trickling down his arm. But after speaking to her and seeing her so unafraid, there is also a very small voice of doubt that has begun to chip away at this plan to never leave his room. And he has been so very lonely these three weeks. Scholarly pursuits occupy him well for a while and he has plenty he can study, but having had a family after being alone for decades, he does not really want to return to being by himself. Jenna and Thor fill a hole he has been yearning to fill since Odin rejected him on the Bifrost. A hole he filled by quests for power, and fear instead of love. And then there is Sif, who has asked to spar with him every other day for the past three weeks, returning despite rejection after rejection. He misses how things were before when they would spar and she would sometimes sit with him after for a cup of tea, occasionally staying the night when their conversations lead to them both dozing off on the couch.
"No one else knows...." he mutters. There is something reassuring about it. He can go back to before, to when the only person who showed him hostility was Odin. Suddenly there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, a reason he can leave the room, at least, and still be safe.
The next morning, he surprises Jenna by showing up at Thor's door for breakfast with a book. She is elated. She curls up against him on the couch and slips the book from his hands- one of the Pratchett books. She has been practicing making different voices while storytelling and she is excited to try it with him. Thor sits at his desk, listening to the story while he works.
That evening, after Jenna has been tucked in bed by both her father and uncle, Loki retreats to his rooms to find Sif waiting for him there, "Shall we spar by moonlight? It is full and bright in the training yards, and there is a nice chill to the air."
"I do not know." She follows him into his rooms, "But I do know that you were right. I must not stay secluded for the rest of my life."
"Did Jenna convince you to leave the room?"
"Yes. She is not afraid of being with me. So I will at least travel to Thor's quarters and back."
"You will be safe in the training yards as well. And, as always, I will be mindful of your injuries."
"Are you certain?"
"Of course. Who would dare attack you there?"
He turns to face her and realizes they are closer than he thought. She has been standing slightly behind him to one side while he absentmindedly tidies around the couch. He goes to step back, but she takes his hand and does not let him.
"Sif, for propriety's sake, we are too close."
She smiles and shakes her head, a finger raised to his lips, "No."
"But you always slip in and out of your visits as though you fear someone will see you. You cannot tell me that these things do not matter."
She laughs a little, "No, I leave quickly because I have tea with Fandral every morning and have done so for years. I leave quickly because I like my large soaking tub. I leave quickly because there are these things I like to keep constant. But I am not ashamed of someone making assumptions. You are my...my...my friend. Now, shall we take to the training yards?"
"If you insist."
"Yes. We will keep things slow, as you are one handed. But it will be nice, even if we do not challenge one another." She steps back, but keeps his hand. "Come." He follows.
The training yards are bright with the full moon and Sif has brought knives to train with. Their fights are quick and close. He is skilled, even with only one hand, and she delights in testing just how much he can do without his second weapon. When he bests her, knocking her to the ground, she waits for a moment, grinning, before grabbing his arm and tugging him down to his knees.
"Were I to have done that faster, you would have fallen flat and I would have won."
"Having no spare arm to catch myself with, I am glad you did not."
She pulls herself up and they are nose to nose, so close they can feel the warmth from one another's breath, "I told you I would be careful."
"Lady Sif, ever gentle- I do not think I have heard you given that title before."
"If you were not injured I would shove you over backwards just to disprove you."
Loki grins, "Oh would you now? And what, dear lady, would you do once you had me on my back?"
She playfully nudges his good shoulder, "Beat the living daylights out of you."
"I could take that in such a deliciously dangerous direction...."
"Dangerous for you, you mean."
"Oh yes." He rests his hand on her hip and waits for that promised beating to come anyway. He knows he is pushing boundaries- even when she stays the night, they merely cuddle close and hold hands at most. He wonders if the full moon has done something to him. His mother one told him that people became moondrunk when the night looks as the day and they do foolish things and take risks they would not otherwise take.
But she does not bludgeon him, push him away, or snap at him to take his hand off her. Instead, she wraps her arms around him and rests her head on his shoulder, "Not right now. Right now, I need what we had at Midsummer's Eve. For one brief, terrible moment, I thought I had lost you. And then again to yourself when you refused to leave your chambers for weeks. And as much as I loathe to admit I do not have a heart of stone, I need you, however you are."
He is certain that this must be moondrunk, "What are we, Sif? We are not simply friends, nor are we lovers."
"Would you like to be?" she asks, nuzzling against his neck.
He is stunned that this is even a possibility. Since he discovered his heritage, he has assumed that he will live and die alone. No partner, no family, no deep and abiding friendships. It has only been since Thor rescued him from death at Thanos' hand that he has even considered that he might not. He has since accepted a new truth- that he will be part of Thor's family, but never have a branch of his own. He will have a built family, constructed of a few close friends in addition to Thor and Jenna. And he has chosen to be happy with this. Sif's question is, to him, asking the impossible.
He sits her back and looks her in the eye, "What did you ask?"
"Did I offend you? I asked if you would like to be my lover."
"I...I do not know if I can answer that."
"Why not?"
"Because until this moment, I did not even think such a thing possible."
"Think what possible?"
"That I might ever have someone."
She moves to sit beside him and takes his hand, "Why would you not? Did you not dream as a young man of taking a partner? Of having a someone to share this journey with?"
"Not after I discovered what I am, no. Every dream ended there."
"Oh."
"So while I would love to see where we will go, you are asking a question that I did not think I would ever hear, and I have convinced myself that should I hear it, I should decline immediately."
"But you did not."
"I do not want to."
"Then why should you?"
"Because I do not want to ask another to deal with all of what is in my mind. I do not want someone else to be burdened with my secrets. And I do not want to pass any of this on to children, so there will be none."
"I already know some of your secrets. And you have trusted me with pieces of your thoughts and thusfar I have not fled. So I do not see that as an impediment."
"And the last?"
"The last is the most difficult. I am undecided on whether or not I wish to bear children."
"Sif, choosing me would be making that decision for you. I cannot do that to you."
She stands and offers him her hand; he accepts, "I know."
"I'm sorry, I should end this. You are the Lady Sif, shieldmaiden of Asgard. I am Loki, no-one's-son, child of Jotunheim. While I am deeply indebted to you for all you have done for me, I cannot ask you to tie your fate to mine." He lets go of her hand and begins to walk away.
She follows him, "You said you would love to see where this goes, that you did not want to end it."
"Want and should are two very different things."
"Loki, stop."
"I cannot."
She grabs his good shoulder and forces him to turn towards her, "Yes. You can."
"Sif, please...."
She cups his face in her hands, "You are not going to act against your own heart. Not this time. I am no air-headed lady of the court. I am, as you said, shieldmaiden to the king. And I know what is in my heart and mind. You asked what we are? I do not know. But I want to find out. And if that means I bind myself to you, then so be it. The question will be answered. You are pushing back because of what happened in the square. And I am pursuing for the same reason. Loki, when I realized you had been shot, I felt as though my own heart had been shattered. This will not simply end because you are afraid."
"I am sorry...."
Instead of answering she softly kisses him.
"Oh my...."
"Now speak your heart."
"Yes. We will see where this goes."
She smiles and takes his hand. She walks him to his rooms and then says goodnight, her own down bed waiting.
Loki falls asleep wondering what it would be like to have someone next to him at night.