Unexpected

To Play the Nurse

"It's not as bad as it looks." Loki tried to assure me, his tone oddly casual though I could see that the hand that wasn't hovering over his chest was now gripping my wall in an attempt to stand up.

"What happened?" My eyes flicked between his face and the gash as I gently tried to pull the cloth of his tunic away from his skin so I could get a better look at it. The wound seemed deep and I didn't feel good at how the blood seemed to ooze sluggishly from it.

"Well, that's a bit of a long story." Loki hissed as I pulled away a piece of cloth from the wound, the fabric sticking to it with dried blood. This wound wasn't quite fresh. I hoped that no infections had set in. "Let's just say that it was a bit harder getting here than I thought."

"How did you get here? You were imprisoned on Asgard! How did you escape? How did you get to earth? How did you get hurt like this?" The questions bubbled out of me in quick suscesion as my brows furrowed in worry.

"You see, Darling, all that would fall under that long story I was talking about." He chuckled, some of his hair falling in front of his face as he bent over a bit.

I was not amused. In fact I was a bit frantic! Loki was in need of serious medical attention and here he was trying to be funny! Now I understood why his face had taken on a certain greyish pallor! He had probably lost a great deal of blood and he was still losing it! I needed to fix my priorities. Help Loki now, question him later. "We'll talk about that later, then! Come in, we need to take care of this now before it gets worse!"

"Don't panic, Love. I swear to you, it's fine." He tried to wave my hands away, standing up off the wall and stepping towards me to caress my face when his face scrunched up again in a pained expression and he stumbled back against the wall, "On second thought... I think my trip here might have taken more out of me than I expected."

"Don't push yourself," I mumbled, trying to pat down my panic at Loki's injury. What was I going to do? Loki was bleeding out right in front of me, wounded from some sort of craziness that he wouldn't tell me about! He needed medical help ASAP! He needed a doctor, but I couldn't rush him to a hospital! How could I explain that? Even if he put up an illusion to hide his identity, he was technically an alien! Would the doctors know what to do? I had to do something and quick! "Here, let me help."

I shuffled over to him, pulling Loki's arm over my shoulder so that I could take some of his weight as he clasped his free hand over his wound to apply pressure. I then led him across my apartment to my couch where I propped him up.

He grunted as I helped him sit down, "I'm sorry, Penelope, this is not how I imagined our reunion. I was planning for it to be a bit more romantic and a lot less bloody."

It was miracle enough that he was here at all! Even though he had promised to return to me last we spoke, part of me simply couldn't believe it and I feared to hope that the day would come, but here we are! "Well, you fulfilled your promise." I looked down at him as I helped him lean back against the arm of the couch, propping one leg up on the seats so that he was in a lounging position. Quickly wiping the drying tears from my face with the back of my hands so as not to smear Loki's blood on my face, I stood up, "You're here... back with me, and that's what matters," I assured him, placing my hand on his forehead seeing if he may have a fever. He didn't, he was cool to the touch, which meant that infection probably hadn't set in, but also that he may have lost more blood than he was trying to let on. He was always kind of chill, but there was a kind of clamminess to the skin of his forehead that made me worry. Putting on my best assertive voice I said "Now shut up and let me help you."