"No honestly I literally haven't been near the fucking stuff okay? I'm clean for good y'know. Being good to my liver and that." I grinned as I pressed the phone between my ear and shoulder and took one last swig of the whiskey before screwing the cap on.

"No no, stay there I swear you're good. I don't need babysitting all the time i'm taking good care of myself-" I rolled my eyes, smiling despite Abby's fussing, as I finished up clipping my laundry onto the line.

"No I'm not alone okay. Steve was here for a few nights and i've been going out with Elle now and then. She's back here for a bit. I'm fine okay?" I sighed, collapsing onto the sofa as Abby's concerned voice rose a little, a hopeful hint in her tone that I was getting better.

I hated deceiving her like this. Her and Jack. Slowly convincing them I was healing, when in truth I was no less empty than the day I lost myself. I didn't think I ever would heal. Not after a loss like this, this pain so chronic and parasitic in its nature, that begged to be felt above all else. It begged to draw every hint of hope and every ounce of energy right through my heavy feet and slowly wound a cutting wire around the sickened, twisted shape of my soul.

It would never get any easier than this.

"Did little Rory get my gift?" I asked smirking. Stifling my laughter when Abby began trying to reprimand me through the phone, but her voice was shaky with a light laughing as I grinned and rolled my eyes.

"It was only a toy dagger set, Abby. You literally got him lightsabers and a foam sword! What do you mean...oh oh it's too realistic is it?" I tutted, walking back inside and slowly shutting the door behind me.

"Probably a good thing I didn't spray it with fake blood as well then righ- Oh my god I'm joking obviously I'd never do that!" I snorted, shaking my head as I plucked a coffee
mug off a nearby table, grimacing at the mouldy contents.

"Of course not. I'm the best Auntie the worlds ever seen...I- oh no don't worry about it Abby. I'm doing great stop worrying about me okay? Ok i'll let you go. Goodbye, love you all." I hung up the phone and let it drop as quickly as I did my forced smile. It was like all the strings tied tightly to me had been cut as soon as the phone line had, and I was quickly back in the same state I'd been for a couple of days. Lay there on my couch, limbs listless, staring at the ceiling as I stewed in my numb silence.

I hadn't been back in my room since coming home. Too much history, and too many artefacts from it. Too many sensations I wasn't hoping to feel again anytime soon.

With a sigh I buried my head into the couch, hoping it would maybe starve me of oxygen enough for me to get light headed enough I'd find myself just a little reprieve from the neverending ache I was paralysed with. But all it really did was blind me, reducing my sight to darkness and in turn, triggering my mind into conjuring some of its own imagery...imagery I didn't entirely welcome, with its painful memories and the sting of tears that threatened to scar my cheeks.

I almost wanted to cry again, if only for the warm comfort of allowing this beast of a throbbing agony, inside me, out for a little while. It seemed relieving in a way.

But I wouldn't let myself, and I hadn't since the day Id been given the news regarding...everything...

The simple reason for this being that...I was so damn shit at comfort and consoling. Once I started I'd never find the means to stop and I'd cry myself into exhaustion and fall asleep at the wrong time again. After I'd spent so long getting my schedule back on track.

I think I knew why.

I don't think I trusted myself enough to be vulnerable. Like no one before. My whole life, there'd been no voyeur for my cheap tears, and no heavy weight of an unfamiliar arm against my shoulder to calm their shaking. No one had seen such a fragile thing as my steely eyes reduced to a brittle shimmering glass as I was torn with a hollow pain, and half cut.

But it was just him. He'd seen all of this I'd willingly shown him. He'd calmed and comforted, and watched on with cool gazes of mirrored pain and turbulence that made me almost feel a little less alone.

He'd held me in my vulnerable cracked mess, and watched each wretched tear track my skin like it were golden sacred, in lieu of its blackened corrupt.

I'd never find another like him, and I'd never feel whole again.

I didn't even get to tell him I loved him... I loved him so fucking much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Woohoo for me finally cooking an actual meal for myself. Something I hadn't had the strength to do since Steve had been here kicking me up off my ass and getting me to complete my little daily tasks that I supposedly had to tick off to be seen as a fully functioning human being. Granted the shit stirring in the pot looked just like that...actual shit stirring in a pot. Hot shit at that.

It didn't smell too bad I supposed, maybe I'd just have to wear a blindfold whilst I ate it? But then again I worried it might trigger a certain few memories that would probably make me cry again. I took a long sip of my whiskey and winced at its taste. I hadn't been working recently and I'd worried the money from my work in P.A.C And shit I'd stolen from corrupt companies was beginning to run out. So I'd turned to the more cheap spirits that I was convinced was actually pure surgical spirit with a little flavouring.

But it worked I guess, and usually by three p.m I could barely feel the lips on my face let alone the sharp pain that chronically cried out to be felt inside me. So it was a necessary inconvenience.

I spat out a hissed curse as I turned to stir the gloop again, noticing my spoon had actually stuck to the bottom with all the food that had burnt there and was now caked in carbonised black shit. I sighed to myself and dumped the whole pan into my sink of water which I'd prepared for this exact problem. Simply because I guess I knew myself too well.

I folded my arms over my chest after turning the cooker off, just staring at the plumes of smoke tauntingly emanating from the half submerged pan as I mentally debated on throwing it through a window, or just leaving it til I'd calmed down enough to scrub it clean and order a pizza.

Thankfully, as drunk as I was, I still had the common sense to know the second option was probably best, and so I rolled my eyes, picking my cell phone up from the counter and grabbing my whiskey bottle before turning around and halting dead in my tracks.

....

I stood stock still, my eyes focusing and unfocusing on the sight before me as I swayed where I stood. My heart flew into a beating rate of something that could've been considered 'high chance of heart attack' by any medical professional I was sure. And as much as I wanted to, I just couldn't move. And what's more, I couldn't quite trust my vision was all that reliable, especially after I'd sworn I saw a painting of a woman move earlier today.

My hands shook and I felt my breathing shake as my chest tightened and I looked at the bottle in my hand, swallowing thickly before I placed it on the side. I couldn't tell if I wanted it to be gone when I looked back, or the complete opposite...but goddamn I wanted to be sober.

"I hope...for your damned sake...that your existence is simply a mixture of sleep deprivation and the contents of this toxic bottle." I muttered quietly, my voice as shaky as my whole body when I threw the pained words into the quiet body of cloying silence.

There was a moment where nothing moved whilst I stared at the label of the knockoff whiskey and chewed my cheek. The silence continued on its determined life and there was no reply that reached my ears. I released a breath and closed my eyes for just a moment, believing it was simply a cruel trickery of my own inebriated mind.

Until it spoke back.

"I would hope I am very much real, darling."

My head snapped back to him as I felt all the breath leave my body, tears stung my cloudy eyes as I allowed my fervent gaze to track over his cut up face and scruffy clothing. I felt my knees give way almost completely and I staggered forward with a quiet moan as he quickly rushed over to keep me from crumbling to the ground.

But as soon as his hands had grazed my skin, and a striking bolt of pure energy crawled up my skin at lightning speeds, a true proof that he was real and here with me, I simply lost it. My vision blurred over with a screen of perpetual tears as I held him to me, so tightly I lost the feeling in my arms. But I didn't care, he wasn't going anywhere now that I had him back in my arms. I would take my own goddamn life before he left it first.

My shoulders shook with sobs that wracked my entire body, and I clawed at him like he was the last grip on my sanity, and he really was. All he could do was hold me just as tightly, like my broken heart begged him to, and quietly hush me in his calming tone. Until my sobs had faded away and I was just heavy, held up only by his arms, exhausted with the weight of my relief, and all the shock and pain from the last few weeks finally seeping out of me with a euphoric finality.

My breath spasmed and shook in short gasps as I pressed my face into his chest and he pressed a light kiss to my hair and waited patiently for me to surface...and probably slap
him for the sheer fucking pain he'd let me dwell in for weeks now, despite him being alive.

His hand curved around my cheek, brushing tears from under my eyes as I sniffed and kept myself pressed tightly into him, unable to be torn from his form by even the strongest force on this fucking earth I was sure. But there was something in his quiet gasp, and the sudden incline of his heart rate, and the stilled hand at my face, that had me frowning, opening up my sore eyes. And at this he let out a shaky breath, muttering a quiet 'gods'.

"Ora! dear gods what happened to your face?" He breathed out, his voice cracked and shaky with surprise as a solid, dead weight hit my stomach, and I frowned, pulling back from him with a sudden cold fear spilling through my veins.

Surely he remembered, surely he couldn't forget something like that? Surely?!

No...he couldn't...he couldn't have forgotten everything since our reunion years ago. I refused to believe it. I couldn't. I began to open my mouth, if only to ask with a paralysing terror, what exactly he remembered of us, when something about him caught my eye.

I took in his dark outfit, the green outlined seams and gold trim reminiscent of a time far too long ago. A time of light hearted fun untainted by the weight of my love for him, and only just bittered by my intrigue of his persona. The cuts on his face flashed deep in my memory, identical to ones I'd seen from across the way, smiling and mouthing my peace before he'd been struck with light and taken to Asgard.

A heartbreaking breath of fear left my lungs and I let go of the tear clung to my lash line, dropping my head as it grazed my cheek and fell onto my thigh.

"Loki...h-how did you get here?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ora, please. What the hel do you mean."

"I mean, you're not him! three years of our existence together gone!" I cried out, throwing my hands to my skull as I slid down the wall.

"Ora you're not making sense, and you still haven't told me what happened to your damned eye." Loki hissed back, looking all the more worse for wear and confused at my incoherent yelling and babbling.

"Loki..." I began, my voice weary with its overuse and shaky with my pain.

"I'm from the fucking future...8 years in to the fucking future in fact. And the Loki I lost years ago...my loki. We've had months together that you haven't yet experienced, and never will. Because this wasn't the way it was meant to be." I uttered quietly, my own words spinning in my head as Loki stood above me, his forehead creased with the lines of his confusion and obvious hurt.

"In that time I went through...a lot. I got this fucking thing fighting with yo- with him...in battle. I died and came back to life and y- he'd gone...he was dead." I swallowed thickly and watched as his eyes flashed with something painful, quickly seeping into a look of light humour once he'd shook it off.

"Well at least he's gone, now I know I'm not going to encounter a future me at some point." He raised an eyebrow, hissing in pain when I rammed my heel into his leg, tears pricking my eyes.

"Go fuck yourself, Loki. His death fucking ruined me and here you are taking the goddamn piss." I grit my teeth, frowning as Loki sighed and bent down to sit in front of me, his eyes flashing with a sympathy.

I took in a deep breath, my restless hands self soothing as they rubbed my arms, and my heart racing as I tried to calm myself down, staring deep into the eyes in front of me. The eyes that hadn't seen what I'd seen...

"My death, Ora. The girl I saw only days ago for me is the same girl that's sitting before me now...only you're maybe a little more mature." He smiled softly, cupping my face.

"Scar or no scar, you're still my Ora." He sighed, a breath of softened sympathy as he leaned closer and brushed the hair from my face, smiling lightly once he'd exposed the ugly scar and the sightless cloudiness in my eye.

"This isn't what was supposed to happen." I uttered painfully, my heart crying as it began to tear once again, aching with the thought of my Loki being taken from me again, going back to where he should be because he wasn't meant to be with me...this version of me...not yet. But he just let out a tired breath and took my hand in his, tracing the scar in my palm as he watched over it.

"I spent days in the desert, this remote desert on a desolate planet. Trying to find civilisation, trying to get somewhere, trying to make a life for myself away from the damned avengers." He began to speak, quietly, pausing to press a kiss to my hand before looking up right into my glassy, teary gaze.

"And I asked to be taken to you. That's where I went, that's where I'd asked to go when I took the tesseract back into my hands after days of finding nothing of worth in that barren place."

I frowned, looking up at him through crystalline lashes as he spoke and watched me, carefully observing me, my new form he hadn't gotten quite used to yet.

"It could've taken me back to you in that hospital, after the battle of new york. Could've taken me here to you five years ago on the day you died. It could've taken me to your grave, Ora. But it took me here. To you. Now." He took a soft hold of my jaw and lent in, pressing a kiss to my lips as I let out a breath and blinked a tear from my eye, leaning closer into him and sighing at the memory of his safe scent.

When he pulled back I was a mess, cheeks still sticky with the mass of tear tracks, eyes half shut with my weariness, and the weight of everything that had fallen and festered on my shoulders.

"Say what you will about it, but I believe this was meant to happen. You're my Ora. And I'm still your Loki." He smiled sadly, his eyes alive with the hope I'd take him as he was, a foreign minded Loki, but my Loki despite. I swallowed and nodded softly, safe in the knowledge that even without his memory of the times we'd shared, without our history, I still loved him. I loved him as much as I had the day I realised it up on that floor in Stark tower, both of us soaked in my blood as I'd pressed a weakened kiss to his lips with the very few breaths of life I'd had left.

"You're my Loki."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"How...in the nine realms...." He breathed out in shock, his hands quickly falling to my abdomen as he softly felt the roughened skin around my scar and I grimaced lightly, hooking my dressing gown over the counter as Loki leant beside it and took in my entire form, frown deepening with every light scar and deep purple gash littering my flesh.

I lent over to start the shower running, sucking in a sharp breath when his cool hands encompassed my waist and his light thumbs ran over the scarred letters branded deep into my stomach. I smiled sheepishly and looked back at him, swallowing nervously when I saw the hot white fury clouding his gaze, and the ragged breathing that shook his whole chest. He grit his teeth and looked up at me through thick, furrowed brows.

"My secret's out." I attempted light heartedly, shrugging, but his narrowed glare proved he wasn't all too impressed with my humour in it.

"Ora...Who did this to you." His voice was low, sharp and cold like a blade crafted of dry ice and venom. And goddamn it was almost frightening, the slightly gravelly cruel tone that held me almost paralysed in my nervous stance. But I pushed his hands off me and held them tight in my own, rolling my eyes as he frowned even deeper.

"Steady on, greensleeves. They're long gone." I shrugged, noting Loki's quirked brow as he waited for my elaboration, still strung tight with tension but the anger in his gaze had relieved a little.

"Should've seen the massacre you caused after finding them. Not a single soul still living. Not a spot on the ground that wasn't stained with corrupt blood." I smirked a hooked half grin and cupped the side of his face, letting out a quiet chuckle when I watched Loki's entire being relax, his mouth returning my half smile.

His hands circled my waist and slid over my ass as he pulled me in closer, securing a cool, eager kiss against my lips, before pulling away, his hand drifting to the base of my ribs as he sighed again.

"Good, I'm glad to know even my future self had the sense to destroy any life foolish enough to try their hand at taking yours." He sighed, his brow quirking almost curiously as I rolled my eyes and chewed my cheek, the sight of the room I'd walked into after being freed from that place still fresh in my mind. Gruesome and bloodied as the clothes on his body. And the pool of blood I'd doused my hands in, in a show of a our sinful corruption that we were tied into together.

"What about this one?"

I looked down, my mouth curving into a wide smirk when I saw the thick white stripe just above my lower ribs. My mind flashed with a familiar memory that made my heart swell a little as I ran my finger over the healed skin. Looking back at Loki, his eyes seemed to be clouded in fury again and I had to bite back a laugh when he looked back at me, awaiting a name of who exactly caused me such a mark. Probably so he could pay them a visit and give them a gruesome ending. Good luck for him with that then.

"This scar was caused by someone I hated above anyone else I'd ever met." I sighed, almost unable to keep back my laughter when his eyes narrowed and a low breath of a growl rumbled out from his throat as he clutched my waist and pulled me closer, so our lips were a hair apart from each other.

"Who." He demanded quietly, gaze dark and frighteningly angry, directed at whoever had been there to leave such a mark on my body. I pushed back a bit, brushing a strand of hair from his face as I smiled affectionately.

"It was you dumbass."

The surprise on his face was enough to send me over the edge and I let out a quiet chuckle, taking his hand and pressing it over my ribs at the site of the scar. He frowned and ran his thumb over it, letting out a shaky sigh as his pupils dilated once again, and his shoulders relaxed.

"We were still at each other's throats back then, nothing changes I suppose." I shrugged, shivering when I felt his cool lips press lightly against my neck.

"I didn't forgive you for faking your death, and you were sick of me stabbing you every five minutes." I sighed, smirking when Loki chuckled lightly, peppering my jaw with his lips before landing one long kiss on my open mouth.

"And I assume you refused to allow me to heal it." He grinned once he'd pulled away. I laughed, flouncing away to step into the steamy stall with him close behind me.

"You know i'm not too susceptible to change, Loki." I sighed as he turned me in his arms under the spray of water, kissing me gently and chuckling lightly.

"I don't believe that." He pressed his forehead to mine, smiling lightly as I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulled tight and close to me for fear of him leaving again. I hadn't let him leave my sight or my arms for the past few hours, and I could tell he was a little surprised with the sudden affection.

God knows I hadn't exactly been the most doting lover before and after the New York battle, and I could sense a look in his eyes when he watched me pull him to me, follow him with a close gaze, and clamber all over him. Almost as if he thought I'd jump up and thrust a blade deep into his stomach at any given point.

I just couldn't stomach the thought of him leaving me again. I knew that another blow like that would surely lead me to lose my life, and I was so over the pain. Lord help me he was back and he was here to stay now. No one and Nothing would be able to take him away from me again.

"Ora?" His soft voice broke through my reverie. I looked up, my eyes focusing back in on my surroundings to notice just how tightly I had my arms wrapped around him. I relaxed a little and placed a soft kiss to his lips.

"I'm here." I sighed.

"So am I. And I'm not going anywhere." He smiled lightly, his eyes regarding me softly like he knew exactly what I was thinking about. I released a breath I didn't know I was holding, and chewed my cheek, my heart swelling with an overwhelming sense of feeling. A filled out sort of warmth I'd been hollowed out with the absence of for so long.

"Loki..." I swallowed, my eye blurring over a little with a light sheen of tears. He frowned, his hand coming up to cup my face as he waited for me to speak

"I love you." I uttered at a whisper, sinking into his embrace as a single tear fell from my cheek.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

forgive me yet?
Everything fixed up for u?

*smooths jacket*
yeah i'm somethn of a handy man myself

Im gonna pretend I never saw the Loki series bc i'm mad at the ending, and it RUINED MY PLOT FOR THE END OF THIS BOOK. So the TVA don't exist... unfortunately for us that means no mobius in this book- that hurts- honestly...
and no sylvie- bc sylvie x loki makes me want to lie in the tracks of a combine harvester with a bunch of wheat in my hand.

umm....so like...not to cry on you guys an all but...we one chapter off the end of this entire book. I'm not rEADY.
Idk if i can say goodbye to my babies
guess i'll just accidentally make a new MC with an almost identical personality to Aurora as it turns out i'm unable to make new characters 😌✌️