a/n: okay i loved writing this chapter<3 does anyone want to tell me how they think this story should end? should y/n try and get her loki back or should she stick with 2012 loki? i'd love to say i plan my endings before i start writing but that would be a huge lie :/ happy reading! x

...

You slowly regain consciousness, wondering as you do so how you're still thinking. You were pruned, does that not mean you're dead? Maybe this is life after death, and if it is, then Loki might be here.

The thought makes you scared to move. You're lying on your back and the air is cool; there's a breeze blowing across your cheeks. Your fingers inch across the ground, finding grass beneath you, and you can hear trees rustling.

You're scared, but you're more curious. Slowly, tentatively, you let your eyelids crack open. There's a woman stood over you, looking down at you with furrowed eyebrows. You don't move; for some reason this woman doesn't alarm you. She tilts her head, and smiles.

'Hi.'

She has short, dark hair with a fringe, behind which sits a faded yellow headband. She's wearing gear which doesn't look dissimilar to the gear Sylvie had been wearing, except hers is so faded that you can't make out what colour it once have must been.

'Hi,' you reply, and she holds out a hand for you to take. She pulls you to your feet, and you find yourself surprised at her strength. She looks as though she's in her mid-to-late forties, indicated by the lines on her forehead and around her eyes.

'You alright?' she asks, watching as you brush yourself off and touch the small of your back where you'd felt yourself get pruned. It feels normal; there's not even a tear in your gear.

'I – yeah,' you say, looking around in a mix of disbelief and fear. You're standing on flat, open terrain which stretches for miles around you, random objects strewn haphazardly around the place.

It's misty, and all of the colours seem to be strangely muted, as though there's a filter on your vision. The sky is an angry looking grey colour, and you can't see another living creature apart from the woman stood in front of you. You look back to her.

'Where are we?'

'This? This is The Void. The place where the TVA dumps all its rubbish, everything it prunes,' the woman tells you, already beginning to move off towards... nowhere. 'Come on.'

You follow her quickly, not wanting to be left behind in this strange environment.

'You know about the TVA?' you ask, almost tripping as you try to keep up with her strides.

'Course, it's where I came from. Where everything here came from,' she tells you, gesturing out across the never-ending misty plain.

'I need to get back there,' you say, and she chuckles.

'You can't get back there,' she laughs, and then looks upwards sharply as a loud rumbling, growling noise echoes across the sky.

'What was that?' you ask fearfully, following her gaze and seeing nothing.

'Alioth. That's your reason for not being able to escape from this place,' the woman says solemnly, quickening her pace.

'Where are we going?'

'Somewhere safe.'

'Are you alone here?'

For some reason, this makes her laugh again.

'No, not unless I want to be.'

'What does that mean?'

'Hey, I get that you have questions, but can we save them for when we're safe in the bunker?' she asks you, almost running now.

'Sure,' you reply, out of breath from how fast you're now having to move.

It's only another ten minutes before you arrive at 'the bunker'. The woman stops at a large, circular metal doorway built directly into the ground and kicks the handle so it starts to spin, until it stops abruptly with a loud clunk. Then she crouches down and wrenches it open, revealing a ladder descending into darkness.

'Go on,' she tells you urgently when you hesitate, so you step onto the ladder and move down into the blackness. When your feet hit the ground, there's a little light emitting from a slightly ajar doorway, and you pull it open tentatively to reveal a large room which isn't far from reminiscent of a circus ring. But it also looks like a bowling alley. And a Santa's grotto. And...

'We'll be safe in here,' the woman says, sounding a lot more relaxed now that you're not out in the open. She crosses the space and flops down into an armchair next to a paddling pool, grabbing a drink from a mini fridge which sits next to the chair.

'Come here, sit down,' she calls over to you, and you obey. You've never been in a stranger, more random space. The woman sees you staring and smiles.

'It's a bit chaotic, but that's sort of how we do things around here.'

You look back at her and nod, taking the drink that she offers you. 'Thank you.'

'So, you had questions?' she asks, knocking back half of the drink in her hand in one go.

'Yes,' you say, and then realise that you can't think of a single question you want to ask her.

'It's okay, I remember what I was like when I first found myself here. Take your time,' she smiles. There's a sadness behind her eyes which makes you a bit uneasy. She thinks you'll be stuck here forever, like her.

'Has anyone ever escaped from here?'

'No, not that I know of. And believe me, there have been some pretty elaborate attempts,' she tells you, gazing off into the middle distance as she seems to recall them. Panic rises in your chest all of a sudden, and you fight to push it down.

'I have to find a way out,' you tell her, and your voice must have sounded different because she looks back at you suddenly. Her eyes widen, and then soften, her mouth slightly open as she looks at you. You frown, but then realise that it's probably your eyes. People tend to react strangely when they turn purple.

'You never told me your name,' the woman says gently.

'Y/N,' you tell her, and then realisation hits you in the chest as she smiles widely. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again they're the exact same shade that yours are.

'Oh,' you breathe.

'Where's your Loki?' the Y/N variant asks you, and you can't bring yourself to say that he's dead. He might not be, yet, although it's looking more and more likely that he'll stay dead by the minute. Your lack of a response seems to speak for itself, and her face falls.

'Oh, you poor love,' she says, reaching across to hold your arm tightly. 'I can't imagine...'

'That's why I need to get out of here. I think I can bring him back,' you tell her desperately, and she falters, frowning.

'Bring... him back?' she asks. And so you tell her everything, from the afternoon Thor had showed on Asgard during Loki's play. By the end of your recount of your last few days she's practically radiating sympathy.

'I've never heard of a more stressful chain of events. How are you still on your feet?' she asks you in awe.

'I'm not,' you say, gesturing at the chair you're sat in.

'You are! Maybe you can be Resilient Y/N,' she muses, looking at you in interest.

'What?'

'Well, there are a few of us here. Y/N's, I mean. And Loki's, so we all have to have our own titles. You can imagine how confusing it would get, otherwise,' she tells you.

'There are Loki's here too? And more of us?'

'Of course. This place is riddled with us, the TVA can't get rid of us fast enough,' she smirks, seemingly pleased with this fact.

'What's your... title?' you ask her.

'I'm Classic Y/N,' she scowls, pulling a face. 'Me and my Loki variant are the oldest here, so we got lumped with the senior title.'

You head is spinning with all of this information, but at the same time you can't get enough of it. It's oddly exhilarating to know that there are so many different variants of you and Loki, here.

'Are you hungry? You look famished,' Classic Y/N tells you, standing up suddenly, and you suddenly realise that you can't remember the last time you had anything to eat.

'I'll make you something up, don't worry,' she says, before you've even opened your mouth.

'Tell me about you and your Loki,' you say, and so she does. This variant of you had grown up on Asgard, with variants of your parents, and had been friends with her Loki variant from childhood.

When he disappeared and was later pronounced dead, and then alive but a mass murderer, she tells you how she used to enchant the guards and sneak down into the dungeons to speak with him every day, unable to believe that he was capable of what everyone was accusing him of.

Then he escaped and disappeared with Thor after their mother's death, and was pronounced dead again, until he revealed to her that he was disguised as Odin. Here your timelines seem to align slightly, living a double life for a year on Asgard, until Thor showed up to expose Loki for who he really was.

She stayed on Asgard until Ragnarok, managed to escape first on the large refugee ship and then on a smaller one when Thanos attacked. They set up camp on Midgard, started to create 'New Asgard', and then the Snap happened, taking her as one of its victims.

Classic Y/N falters slightly as she tells you this part of the story. One minute turned to dust and the next waking up five years later having lost a chunk of your life.

'Of course, being Asgardian helped slightly, because what's five years out of five thousand, really? But it was still disconcerting. So much had changed.'

'Just a few days after everyone returned, Loki arrived, in disguise of course. I was thrilled to see him, but then the TVA showed up. I wasn't about to lose him again without a fight, so they took me too. We were both pruned almost immediately, and wound up here, found each other again, and that's that.'

She deposits a bowl of something not bad smelling on your lap with a fork, and you barely stop to look at it before starting to devour it.

'Whoa, easy. Don't make yourself ill,' she tells you, sitting back down, and you slow down marginally. Once you're finished you wipe your mouth on the back of your hand and place the bowl down with a clatter.

'Thank you,' you say, feeling the indigestion coming on already and rubbing your chest, reaching for your drink.

'It's the least I could do,' she smiles.

'So, you got here and just gave up?' you ask, disbelief evident in your voice.

'No. We tried everyway possible to get out of here, and we couldn't. Which is why I'm telling you with utter confidence that it can't be done,' Classic Y/N tells you gently, but firmly.

Before you have a chance to reply there's a commotion from the ladder which you'd entered by, and you're halfway to your feet when a man wearing a ridiculous yellow and green getup with comedic horns strides into the room, talking to Classic Y/N.

'Ah, you're back, we...'

The man stops as he sees you, but you're looking past him at the figures which have followed him through the doorway. There's a huge bald man with a large mallet wearing fur, a kid with black hair, green, gold and black gear with Loki's horns, but smaller, and...

'Loki?' you ask, and four heads turn towards you. Your Loki, but not your Loki, TVA Loki, sees you and his eyes widen.

'Y/N!' you rush towards each other, but stop before you make contact, unsure of what it is you should be doing.

'Are you okay? What happened?' you ask him, and he nods.

'I got pruned, but not before we found out that the Time Keepers are robots. They're not real,' he tells you, and you stare at him.

'What?'

You suddenly become aware of four sets of thoughts, on top of your own, entering your mind, and quickly put a wall up around your mind, grabbing your forehead and wincing.

'Oh, yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned. Always have that wall up when you're here,' Classic Y/N calls over to you.

'Who's that?' Loki asks you, looking over your shoulder.

'A variant of me,' you reply, and he stares.

'I'm sorry, but did I just hear you say that the Time Keepers are robots?' the kid Loki asks him, and TVA Loki nods, looking down at him.

'Yeah.'

The kid looks wide-eyed over at who you can only assume to be Classic Loki, in the stupid costume, who shrugs.

'What difference does it make? We can't get out of here to do anything about it,' he says, sitting down next to Classic Y/N and picking up her hand. She smiles at him and you have to look away. That's when you see the crocodile in the paddling pool. It's wearing Loki horns.

You open your mouth and point, and Loki puts a hand on your shoulder to lower it again.

'Don't question it.'

You look back at him and can see your own confusion and fear reflected back at you in his eyes, and suddenly you're so glad that he's with you.

'Sylvie?' you remember suddenly. Loki shrugs, at a loss, letting his hand drop from your shoulder.

'I didn't see what happened. Renslayer pruned me and that would have left just her and Sylvie,' he tells you.

Your conversation is interrupted by more voices entering the room, and when you see who they belong to you're rendered speechless. First comes a tall woman with wavy black hair wearing fur and wielding another mallet, then a kid with long plaits which reach almost to her waist. Last is a guy who looks as though he's in his late twenties with a huge scar across one side of his face.

More of you. Because they're Y/N variants, you're sure of it. Even the guy.

'Whoa, who're the new guys?' Kid Y/N stops abruptly and points at you and Loki.

'More variants. Resilient Y/N and Loki,' Classic Y/N pipes up from the corner.

'We – we aren't from the same timeline,' Loki counters, and for some reason it hurts that he'd felt the need to correct her.

'What shall we call you, then?' she asks him. Loki looks thoughtful for a minute.

'How about Resourceful Loki? No, wait... Mischievous Loki? No...'

'We had a Mischievous Loki,' your variant with wavy black hair tells him, moving to sit down.

'...had?' Loki asks.

'Alioth got him. And we'll be saying the same about Mischievous Loki the Second if you try and get out of here like he did, so don't bother,' Kid Y/N says matter of factly. Kid Loki scowls at her.

'Shut up. You weren't even here when that happened.'

'Neither were you, dimwit,' she retorts, and Kid Loki flips her the bird. None of the adults in the room bat an eyelid, settling into chairs and cracking open drinks.

'We need to get out of here,' you mutter, turning to Loki.

'Please, you two. Come and sit down,' Classic Loki says, and Loki looks over at one of the sofas, and then back at you.

'I could use a rest,' he says.

'And then we escape?' you ask.

'Yes,' he replies.

You don't look anyone in the face as you move and sit down with him on one of the vacant sofas, not wishing to see anymore sympathy in anyone's eyes. You are getting out of this place, just like you got out of the TVA and Lamentis.

You have to.