My Sweet Flame

Chapter 63. A Glimmer of Hope

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" A muffled Irish accent came.

My eyes slowly fought their way open. Everything looked hazy and it sounded like my ears weren't working. As my vision began to clear I saw that Sam was hovering over me trying to wake me.

"Don't make me give you CPR Y/N, don't make me do it." He said. "Come on, wake up."

My eyes went to shut again, but Sam pushed on my chest. I coughed a few times.

"There we go!" He laughed triumphantly.

I coughed and sputtered a little bit and rolled to my left, expecting to roll into Loki's body. Realizing I was back behind the rocks again, I rolled back onto my back. I felt a sharp pain in my side and abruptly tried to look at what had caused it. To my surprise, Sam was sitting there holding the Elven dagger.

"What?" He asked, "Someone was going to have to take it out, and I don't think you were going to do it."

I grunted and moved back a little bit to prop my head up on a rock.

"I thought I was dead." I coughed out.

"Yeah so did I." His face dropped, "If you die, then I die. Keep that in mind if getting stabbed is going to be a regular thing."

"So what happened?"

"Your clone over there didn't have any energy left because," He cleared his throat, "Newsflash, the original wasn't doing too great."

"You gonna do your demon stuff and heal me?" I grunted.

"Why else why I be here?" He bent down and pulled small-scale medical equipment out of the air.

"Where'd you get that stuff?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He pulled out a small syringe filled with a clear liquid, "Hold still."

I laid in silence as he went to work fixing up the wound.

"Once again, let me remind you that if you die, I die, so please stop with this getting hurt stuff. It's just old, man."

I nodded slowly, coming to terms that my Loki was gone. Not gone, not forever, just....dead.  The problem was that I wasn't. I wanted to be, and at the same time, I didn't. I didn't fear dying, but I resented it unimpressively.

"What am I going to do?" I whined softly. I brought my hands up to cover my face.

"Well, considering that Loki's fine, you could jus-"

"What?" My mind went blank and my heart stopped.

"Did you really think- You know what? Never mind. Come here, I'll help you up." He sighed.

He slowly and carefully pulled me to my feet. I leaned heavily on him as he guided me to a gap between the rocks. It was then that I saw him. He was alive. I gasped in relief as my eyes met his form.

Then my heart began to sink. He was bent over my double's body, cradling it in his arms, sobbing. I couldn't quite hear what  he was saying, but I knew that if I could I wouldn't still be behind the rocks. I tried to call out to him, but my throat gave no answer to Loki's desperate plies. I looked away from the sight, knowing I didn't have enough energy to get there.

"When you're strong enough," Sam said, rubbing my shoulder gently, "In the meantime, we'll keep tabs on him. Come, I'll finish patching you up."

--

Within hours, I was laying in the bunker on the Falcon. Loki had left Svartalfheim not long after I noticed him, taking my decoy's body as well as his own, with him. I suspected he would stage something to make up for the disappearances. But how?  The question bounced around in my head, as if somewhere I might have the answers. Anti couldn't think of anything, and as he was flying, I didn't disturb Sam with my thoughts.

What could I do? Where would I stay? Would Loki even want to see me by the time I made it back to him? Where was he now? Why did he take our bodies? Was he going to Asgard? Was I?