Chapter 15
"What happened." Loki stubbornly stayed half sitting despite his exhaustion when Thor laid him back on his bed. "I didn't miss the looks going on out there. There's some big secret nobody's telling me, and that makes me think it's something about me." Thor paled under his tan, and Loki knew he was right. "Is it about how I was injured? Are you trying to avoid traumatizing delicate little me with the details of some ordeal that I can't remember?"
Thor sank down on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. Of course Loki would pick up on such things. How he never could be sure, but that was why Loki picked up on these things and he did not. And how did he even explain it. How did he avoid recreating the monster that had been absent since their return? They couldn't not tell him. If he regained those memories without them intervening somehow, the monster would come back.
"Brother?" Loki jolted him from his panicked thoughts, "Or are you trying to protect yourself from those memories by pretending they didn't happen?"
"Both." Thor forced himself to raise his head and look at his brother, so clearly frail, skeletal and pale but looking at him with such determination and bravery. He had no choice. "Terrible mistakes were made, though many of them we didn't know about until very recently. Chains of events with catastrophic results were begun." He struggled for the words, Loki watching him sharply. "You were a victim of these mistakes and the events they caused. You suffered greatly, and we failed you. I don't know that I can ever truly forgive myself, or Father and Mother, or even our friends, for not recognizing sooner what was happening and doing something to help you."
The struggle to understand was clear in Loki's face. "But what was happening? Was there no battle but something else? Or was there a battle and I was weakened such that I could not defend myself?"
"No, there was a battle, and you put up a splendid fight." He assured him, leaving out a few details. "You don't know the relief I felt when you woke with neither symptoms nor memory of your previous ailment." He felt tears welling up in his eyes, a fact not missed by Loki, who nestled against him in a weak attempt at hugging him without falling over. "You were losing your mind. We didn't recognize the signs until it was too late. We should have called a mind healer the first time you did something out of character, the first time one of your pranks crossed the line from funny and impeccably planned to reckless and dangerous."
"They think I'm still dangerous." Loki whispered, "They're worried the madness will return." He looked up at Thor, jade eyes very round, "Why did you allow me in battle if I was not right in the head? Your choices of words imply that you knew by then."
Thor held him closer, suddenly unwilling to let go of him. "We did not allow you in battle. You simply showed up from we know not where." Loki looked quizzical, and Thor took a deep breath, bracing himself. "We thought you were dead until you showed up. You tried to kill yourself some time earlier and disappeared, and we believed that you had succeeded. We don't know how you survived or where you were between then and the battle."
"Father said you thought what I saw during the seizure might be a memory." Loki's voice was muffled against his brother's body. "Is that why it was so scary, because I was seeing insanity through sane eyes?"
"Almost certainly. Do you remember what you saw?"
"No. Just that it was upsetting."
"Based on the fragmented description as you were coming out of it, I think what you saw was your suicide attempt." Loki whimpered. Thor awkwardly petted him, not daring squeeze him tighter for fear of causing him pain. "Are you regretting asking questions?"
"Kinda. I need to understand what happened in the time I can't remember to make sense of the changes in the world. But I wish I didn't. I was happier not knowing."