Chapter 10
Somehow, you successfully manage to protest any blood tests, so the hospital doesn’t have any record of your pregnancy on file.
You've only known for a little over a week now, and you're already feeling maternal. Take now, for instance, the way you wrap your arms around your stomach in the car.
Agent Romanov, your escort for the trip, doesn't notice. She doesn’t try to make conversation, either, mercifully enough. The thirty or so minutes of silence pass quickly, too quickly, as you find yourself retreating into the corridors of your mind. Since the day you woke up in the hospital, scarcely a minute has passed without you reviewing and re-reviewing the facts of the situation, which are these:
- You were “rescued” from the palace by a team of operatives who still believe Loki is a threat to the realm (how exactly they managed to learn the layout of the grounds and security measures, you don’t yet know).
- Loki has not been captured yet. Somehow he figured out the threat sometime between when you were taken down and when they began hunting in earnest for him.
- You are pregnant.
Out of these three givens, somehow it’s the third one that is weighing most heavily on you as the car pulls up in front of—
Well. Not home. But the house you used to call home.
You don’t say a word to your mother as you cross the threshold.
For the next few days, actually, you don’t say much of anything to anyone.
From your kidna—sorry, rescuers ’—perspective, the events of your wedding day went something like this:
The dizziness you felt was the result of a sedative that your mother had stirred into your morning tea. You must have had a remarkable constitution, the doctors said, considering how long it took to kick in, and how little you remained unconscious for. What they didn’t know was that you hadn’t been able to keep most of it down—morning sickness, of course. Between the drinking of the tea and the actual ceremony, you had discreetly been ill in the bathroom. But you didn’t throw all of it up, and so—lucky for the rebel/rescue team—the drugs eventually did kick in at the end of your walk down the aisle.
They hadn’t been successful in finding Loki or the Tesseract, which, you were learning now, was some kind of magical battery?
“There is an item they could use. An energy source. It’s in the palace, under lockdown, heavily guarded.”
At least Loki had been honest with you about that. Semi-honest, anyway.
Every day, multiple times a day, you try reaching out for him, across the mental link you’d formed, the way you did during your hometown visit so long ago. But it’s been so long since you’ve been separated from him for any length of time, you receive nothing back. Not even a weak pulse in response. You assume the connection must have fizzled out from disuse. A rational explanation, sure, but it does nothing to soothe your nerves.
You feel so angry. And not just at your parents. Not just at the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Not just at yourself.
You’re angry at Loki.
Livid, really. Much as you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, he left you behind. He evaded being caught at your expense. The grief feels like a living thing trying to claw its way out of your chest, and you have no idea how to make it stop. There’s nothing you can do to rid yourself of the sting of abandonment. You’ve never been through a breakup before.
Is that was this is? A breakup?
The thought just makes you want to scream into your pillow even more.
You’ve been stewing silently for a week when Carlie knocks on the door.
"It's me."
You don’t answer right away. When you do, your voice sounds unfamiliar, raspy from disuse.
“Come in.”
She shuts the door quietly behind her. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
You stare at each other for a few moments, unblinking. Carlie isn’t the child she was when you left home. She’s twelve—no, thirteen now. Still young, but old enough to understand at least some of the intricacies of your absence, the competition, your "rescue."
Neither of you seem to know what to say.
“Did Mom send you?” You drag yourself into a sitting position, flipping back a cover and swiveling your body so that your legs hang off the side of the bed. You pat the space next to you. It’s a damn thin olive branch, but it’s an olive branch all the same.
She accepts, crossing the short distance from door to bed. You see her nose wrinkle slightly as she sits. You can’t exactly blame her. It’s been a while since you’ve changed your sheets. Or your clothes. Or showered.
You don’t seem to have the energy for much these days.
“She did,” she admits.
“I figured as much.”
“I would have come on my own, but, like, you just...you seemed like you needed some space.”
You give her a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks.”
Another silence. She checks her phone, compulsively pressing the lock button. Your fingers itch to grab it. You haven’t been allowed Internet access yet. You’ve been doing your best to avoid seeming like a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome, but it’s a hard sell. Your house is under constant surveillance; it’s not like you could run away if you wanted to.
“I didn’t know,” she says quietly, turning her phone back over. Your gaze returns to her face. She looks guilty. Guilty, and confused. “About...I didn’t know what they were planning. Dad, and Mom, and Erik.”
So Erik was in on it, too.
Actually, you’re less surprised by that than you are by the revelation that Carlie wasn’t in on it. Like you said, she’s thirteen. That’s old enough to participate in a coup, right?
There’s another long pause. “I’m sorry,” she finishes lamely when you don’t respond.
“No. Me too.” You shake your head. “I promised I would be around more, and I—” You look back up, and see her eyes are as teary as yours feel. “God, did I even say goodbye the last time I was here?”
She laughs bitterly. “Not really."
“I’m sorry,” you whisper.
The silence that follows is considerably more companionable than before. But you still have a feeling she wants to ask—
“Do you…” She bites her lip. “Do you think...”
Somehow, you know what it is she’s trying to ask. Do you think you can forgive them, Mom and Dad and Erik? Do you think things will work out?
Do you think things will ever go back to the way they were?
You open your mouth to respond, then close it again, eyes fixed on your hands in your lap. In the seven days since you’ve left the palace, all of your bad habits have come back. You bite your nails. Your perfect posture is nowhere to be found. It turns out all that was really standing between you and your sixteen-year-old-self was a sudden removal of autonomy.
But that’s not Carlie’s fault.
“I don’t know.” It’s the only honest answer you can give. “I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“But I’ll try,” you hurry to add. “I’ll…” You can’t say you’ll try to talk to the rest of your family. You just can’t. Carlie nods, like she gets it.
“Okay,” she says again. To your surprise (and slight disappointment), she stands to go without a hug. But then, at the door, she turns around. “I get it if you don’t want to talk to them. Cool. But do you think you could at least, like, take a shower? Maybe?”
You can’t help but laugh at that, and you see a matching twinkle in her eye. “Yeah.” For a moment, everything feels normal—you in the bedroom that used to be yours, getting dunked on by your bratty tween sister. “Yeah. I can do that.”