Ave Maria

Ten

Chapter 10

"You are to stay there, until I instruct you otherwise. Deal?"

Maria's eyes glared for a moment. "No way in hell."

She moved to rise from her cross legged sitting position on the couch, before she caught Thor's gently warning eye and froze. Maria pursed her lips.

"I'm not going to just sit here," she half growled. "And you can't make me."

Thor's stern face broke in an instant, his lips spreading in an arrogant smile. He folded his strong arms across his chest, and raised his eyebrows challengingly. "Really? You think I, Thor, prince of Asgard, God of Thunder, with Mjolnir's power at my command, could not restrain a single mortal woman?" He let out a bark of laughter, his eyes shining gleefully.

Maria stuck her tongue out at him.

Thor laughed harder.

"You will do as I say." he finally managed, steadying his chuckles and stepping forward, ruffling his hand in Maria's hair as if she were a little kid. She swatted at him, but couldn't bat him away before his hand had latched onto the side of her face tenderly, his thumb hooking under her chin to lift her face upwards. "You are injured and need rest. I will take care of duties for you until I deem you fit. Do you understand?"

"I understand that a stupid little cut on my eye doesn't count as an injury. I need to get to the hospital." Maria unfurled her legs and stood up from the sofa.

Thor's hands travelled to her shoulders and pushed her straight back down again.

"You are not working today." he commanded. "Today, I will take care of you."

Thor was rather enjoying this. He could see by the look on her face that she hated this, the idea of being rendered useless and helpless, no matter how long it was for. From he'd seen of her, she liked to do things, to move, to keep busy. For him to tell her she was to do nothing, and he would be doing it all for her she must have been livid. And every inch of it showed on her scowling expression. True, he conceded in his head, a cut didn't merit the title of injury, but he was thinking more of the wounds he couldn't see.

Maria was defiant now, and that was a good sign in Thor's mind. At least everything that happened, traumatic as it was, hadn't broken her will. Her spirit was intact; the rest of her would heal in time.

Satisfied she would stay put - if only for a little while - Thor moved to the kitchen to fix her some food. He tried to remember where things were, having stood with Maria so many times before while she cooked, and soon had a decent collection on the counter to get to work on.

He'd just lifted the bread knife, when Maria's voice from the living room distracted him.

"I'm not coming in today," Thor heard her say, frowning: who was she talking to?

He set the knife down and went back to the living room to investigate. Happily, Maria was still sat on the couch, though Thor could see her fingers tapping the arm rest irritably, her other hand held up to her ear.

Her fingers stopped tapping, splaying out in front of her haltingly. "No, he didn't do anything!" she said in a quick voice. From behind, Thor watched her head tilt to the side. "...well, he did, but it's nothing serious. Just a little cut, that's all. I swear. Thor patched it up fine."

Thor had just folded his arms across his chest, ready to announce his presence and confront Maria with why she seemed to be having a one-sided conversation with herself, when the penny dropped. He'd seen something like this the last time he came to Earth. Mortals had a device which allowed them to talk to people as clearly as if they were right there with them, when in reality they were far apart.