The following morning Erik rouses me for the last interview before heading home, sending me to shower while MJ, Flash, and Ned get ready to prepare me for the cameras. They're a bit grouchy from the late night at the party and Flash seems like he has a hangover. He keeps grumbling to MJ about how she "ruined his fun" by telling the bartender he was underage and stopping him from drinking.

"You're miserable enough as it is," MJ shoots back. "You wanted a worse headache?"

Flash just glowers at her and doesn't respond.

When I'm dressed in the same black suit from my first interview, minus the plan to transform halfway through, I meet Hela and Valkyrie, Valkyrie looking grim and Hela with a strange smile that makes me wonder if she's hidden daggers to kill me with in the interview room.

"Ronan has just spoken to me regarding Veers," Hela says. "He communed with the Supreme Intelligence and was told they have no interest in having Veers return to Hala or Starforce."

I furrow my brow. Where's she going to go, then? "Why?"

"Oh, they didn't like the fact that she killed Yon-Rogg to save you," Hela says, gesturing dismissively. "I think that was it. You know, Asgardian-Kree politics. They aren't too fond of you."

"That will also go for Asgard concerning her," Valkyrie tells Hela pointedly. As I look from one to the other in confusion, Hela just waves off Valkyrie's comment.

"Oh, you know the queen, she loves taking in lost little ones. Veers will be fine. She'll adjust."

"Adjust to what?" I demand, feeling my stomach twist into a knot. "What's happening?"

"Ronan is signing Veers over to me," Hela tells me with that infuriating, enigmatic smirk. "As her new mentor."

"Veers is coming to live in Asgard," Valkyrie clarifies with a frown when I still look confused.

I feel like someone just pulled the earth out from under me. My eyes widen and I actually have to create an illusion to mask my emotions.

Veers. Coming to Asgard. Coming to live in Asgard. With me. Her lover. In the palace. On Asgard. Where Gamora is.

Damn.

"Good news, eh, brother?" Hela says in a tone that suggests she knows my true feelings on the matter and she breezes past me, probably off to ruin someone else's day. Valkyrie, however, doesn't move.

"Loki?"

I take deep, slow breaths. It's not that bad. We're friends, allies, and I respect her. How bad can it be? With the crowds and cameras gone, things will die down, right? Settle down, right? Go back to normal? I'm completely ignoring the fact that normal is gone forever.

"Loki?" Valkyrie repeats, her voice low and surprisingly gentle. She lays her hand on my shoulder, disrupting my illusion which vanishes in a quick flash of green. When I can bring myself to meet her eyes, I see unexpected sympathy there.

"How can she come to live in Asgard?" I ask her quietly. "She's Kree."

"The Kree don't want her," Valkyrie replies.

"Asgardians don't like Kree," I warn. "How can she live in Asgard when she's Kree?" My voice begins to rise and I struggle to get it under control.

Valkyrie's eyes hold understanding and I don't know how she can comprehend what I'm dealing with. Maybe she's just drunk enough to not get the significance of the situation, or to think I don't love Veers despite my actions and declarations. But when I meet her eyes, I am forced to acknowledge that she's not drunk, that somehow she does truly understand my emotions, which means she must guess I don't love Veers like I say I do.

I don't even completely understand my feelings for Veers and I wish I did. It would make this moment, this changed reality, so much easier for me to step into.

"Boy, you've got a good girl who cares for you," Valkyrie tells me. "And you've got a Titan who would like to bring a moon down on you because of that girl. Because of what you did to save her."

"I know," I say quietly. My motives to save her...for my father? For her? Just to prove myself to my sister? I wish my motivations kept an inner log of their reasoning; it would make mental accounting tasks like this so much simpler.

"You don't know how you feel about Veers," Valkyrie states.

"I don't," I mutter, surprising myself with the audible admission.

Valkyrie's silent for a long moment, just studying me. Then she steps back. "Loki, you've got an interview with this girl coming up. Go settle your feelings before you're on camera."

The authoritative, kindly side of Valkyrie is surprising. I'm so used to her being drunk and sort of just out of it. Despite the fact that she lives in the palace, in the champions' wing, she's never been a part of life there, dwelling in her own world of alcoholic induced misery. After winning my own Contest, I begin to get a feeling as to why.

"How do I continue on at home playing the lover when I don't know how I truly feel about her?" I ask, wishing I could somehow order the rest of my thoughts into a coherent sentence. But the best I can do is assign one name to my jumbled thoughts: Gamora.

Valkyrie actually looks sad when she says, "You learn to lie." Her voice is filled with dread and apprehension and I wonder why lying is so abhorrent to her. It's just disguising information, misdirecting a person seeking what you wish to hide. At the most, it's a simple alteration of reality. Why the tone like she's sending me to my funeral?

Then she slaps me on the shoulder and it's like our talk never happened. "I've got a liquor cabinet to raid." And Valkyrie saunters off, leaving me confused and unsettled as I watch her go.

I have about an hour before Jane takes me up to the interview room, located on top of the tower, and I spend it on the balcony, pacing back and forth and thinking. Veers is coming home with me to Asgard. That means she'll be living in the palace, with Odin, Frigga, Thor, Valkyrie, and I, and Hela, whenever she comes to visit. She'll be in close proximity with Gamora and Nebula, and will come to know my home like the rest of us do. She'll become a part of my daily life.

The girl who stood up.

Who am I now but the boy who lied?

And there's Gamora. My best friend, my closest friend, the one who I fight and argue with and then gaze at the lake with, sitting next to her, admiring nature and admiring her? My one compass in the arena, the promise holding me to absolute victory, the girl who held me like no one else ever had before I left? Not even Veers has ever hugged me like Gamora did in that moment. Gamora...the one person I seem to feel anything for.

But we cannot be whatever we were in that moment – it was a mere shadow, a mirage flickering before us that drew us in like lost travelers in the desert to water. We bought into its shallow magic and then fell through the illusion like I've so often seen Thor stumble through one of my own magic visions in a moment of trickery. We were fooled by the magic. The two of us were drawn into an empty dream, our guards falling through an unexpected choice of death, and then the shattering of the colorful vision threw us out, back into the desert where reality was reinstated. Gamora is the daughter of Thanos. I am the son of Odin. We belong to different statuses, different worlds, and therefore can only be friends.

And maybe not even that, anymore.

Don't think like that, I reprimand myself. Just focus on getting through this last interview and the ride home. Things will work themselves out. They always have, between you and Gamora. This is just going to take some time.

It seems like no time at all before Jane, Thor, Hela, Valkyrie, and I are taking the elevator up to the interview room. Luis and the camera crew are already there and Luis greets me with a big smile and a slap on the back. "Wassup, Loki! Ready for this?"

I give a smile. "Oh, yes."

"Any illusions up your sleeves?" he asks.

"Not this time," I answer, just as the other elevator doors slide open and the Kree step out. Soh-Larr, Minn-Erva, Korath, Ronan, and Veers.

She's dressed in the same attire she wore for her first interview, the same white filmy shirt and loose white slacks. Her hair is messily arranged into a bun, purposefully looking haphazard and loose, and her arms are bare. I see only the barest hint of a scar reaching out from her shoulder, the only visible mark of the Contest on her.

"Veers, welcome!" Luis exclaims, heading over to her. "Let's get you two situated and then begin, okay?"

"Right," I say, walking up to Veers. She takes my hand and it feels foreign in mine, but I brush those thoughts away and guide her over to the sofa.

Luis begins, asking Veers how the multitasking's been going and she answers with a sly, "Well, I won the Contest and got myself a boyfriend at the same time, so you tell me, Luis."

"Loki, what do you have to say about your stupid fine girl?" Luis asks me and it takes me a second to work through his phrasing before I can answer.

"She's a fighter, that's for sure," I say, giving Veers a smile. "Always stands back up despite the odds. I like that in a girl." I lean forward, touching my forehead to hers as she grins at me, and then I straighten.

Luis asks about various aspects of the Contest and Veers and I take turns answering. Our first temporary alliance, which Veers states was "not temporary but instead the beginning of our alliance, hence why I couldn't let Yon-Rogg kill him. He had my word," my alliances with Peter, Pietro, and Cassie, our taking down of Carnage, the feast at the Gauntlet, and our final day in the arena, killing Wong and then fighting Natasha and Clint. Then our endgame comes up.

"Loki, what made you think to use your illusions like that?" Luis queries, and I take a breath.

"I've always liked playing with magic, as you saw before the Contest, and once I'd allowed myself to realize my feelings for Veers, I couldn't let her die."

"And you'd made a promise to a friend to make it home, right?" Luis checks.

Damn. I'd forgotten I'd told Luis about my oath. "Yes, I had. That was also part of it."

"Can we learn the identity of this friend?" Luis asks.

Not really. "A childhood friend," I answer vaguely. "Someone I grew up with."

"All right, all right, be mysterious, then," Luis says, raising his hands. "So, Veers, we've heard your mentor was able to get permission for you to live on Asgard under the mentorship of Hela Odindottir. What do you think about that?"

"Well, I get to be with Loki," Veers answers. "That's always a good thing."

Laying it on a bit thick, huh?

But I can tell by the way she responds she's not happy to be leaving Hala, her home, or Starforce. Asgard will be a strange place with strange customs and her feelings for me don't make up for that. That makes me feel comforted, in some small way, for my mixed emotions concerning her.

When the interview ends, Hela and Ronan hurry over to us and Hela's instructing us to get ready to head home. Ronan talks briefly with Veers as Jane and Soh-Larr have a quick discussion and then we're descending in the elevators, packing up our stuff, and then heading to the Statesman so we can fly back to Asgard, Veers with us.

I'm going home. I'm going home.

But I can't help wondering what exactly will change once I go home, for something has changed and there is no going back. The past is lost forever and the future stands bleakly before me. And I'm not sure I like what it is offering.