Fallen From Asgard

Mother?

I sit on my bunk, idly sketching on the cover of my writing portfolio. My door rattles from a knock, and I permit my guest to come in.

I'm slightly surprised to see my "mother" walk in. Regardless, I leap off my bed and in the next heartbeat I'm in her arms, a few tears dancing on my face.

"Mum," I say. "You're here."

She nods into my shoulder. "Yeah, baby. I'm here."

One hand holds her close, and the other combs through her hair. I'm simply glad to see, hear and feel something so familiar, so . . home. She releases me after a while, stepping back to look at me.

"Honey," she says, with a strange look on her face. "You look . . different." I look down at myself. Same me. Different? I give her a curious glance.

"Maybe it's the lighting," she says, her voice more familiar and her smile more genuine. "How are you? Are you doing okay? Are they treating you well? Why do they need you so bad? When can we all go home? Do you think we'll be able to just . . go on with our lives?"

Her eyes, so drastically different from mine, search my face. Ignoring all the questions momentarily, I look at her. A surge of affection washes over me, for this woman who has taken such wonderful care of me. Then a wave of wonder breaks over my emotions. I realize that she thinks of me, recognizes me, as her daughter, flesh and blood.

She has memories of me. Memories of bearing me in her womb for nine months, memories of my first word, my first steps, my first Christmas. But none of them are real. I was never her baby, never her blood.

She found me lying in the street in the middle of the night, a girl that seemed around nine or ten, bloodied and confused. Her memories became severely altered by S.H.I.E.L.D interventions, and so were my dad's. We were all recalibrated; undone and knit back together with false memories and false bonds. We were pushed back into real life as a "normal" family, because all connections with my realm failed.

But after all that's been done, all that's happened . . I don't feel like anything should have been different. I don't feel incomplete, or like I've missed something. She's my mum, and her husband's my father.