Chapter 26

The interior of the abandoned tavern was pitch black and eerily silent as the door opened, a shape entering and closing the door behind it. After a moment a ball of green light appeared held in Loki's palm, casting a glow around him. Searching for the switch that controlled the far from magical overhead lights, Loki, dressed in his mortal guise, located one set near the door, flipping them on and illuminating the room as the orb in his palm vanished.

Everything appeared exactly as it had the last time he had been there only days before, the St. Patrick's Day banners and streamers decorating the walls. Loki stood in place for a few moments, unable to help recalling the memory of six years previously that Boda had enchanted him to revisit along with Boda's far less pleasant one he had not originally been present to witness. Loki looked at the floor where Will had breathed his last before starting forward, walking over it towards the bar.

Stepping behind the bar, Loki approached the register, crouching down upon reaching it, examining the shelf below to find it empty except for a single cassette tape. Puzzled, Loki straightened, touching the drawer of the register which glowed green before popping open. Lifting the empty till, he found nothing. Closing the drawer, he lifted the entire register, revealing only a fine layer of dust. Setting it back down. Loki took the tape from the shelf, stepping over to the stereo and powering it on, placing the tape in it and pressing the play button. After a few seconds of blank hissing, the sound of a piano began filling the room accompanied by the same female voice who sang Will's favorite song.

"I don't wanna talk about the things we've gone through, though it's hurting me, now it's history…"

Turning from the stereo, Loki stepped to the shelves of liquor, lifting a bottle from the top tier.

"I've played all my cards and that's what you've done too, nothing more to say, no more ace to play…" the song continued.

Moving to the bar, Loki located a glass under it, setting it on the bar and pouring a drink, lifting it to his lips before setting it back on the bar, staring into it as he listened intently.

"The winner takes it all, the loser's standing small, beside the victory, that's her destiny…"

Loki downed another drink from his glass before beginning to search the rest of the shelving under the bar. Finding nothing but mugs, glasses, a few towels, cleaning supplies and other odds and ends one would typically come across behind a bar along with a box of cassette tapes, Loki returned to his drink.

"The gods may throw the dice, their minds as cold as ice, and someone way down here loses someone dear…"

Finishing his drink, Loki held the empty glass, studying it for a moment before throwing it to shatter on the floor.

"Another!" he called out loudly with feigned exuberance to no one.

Grabbing another glass from below the bar, Loki filled it almost to the rim, throwing it back and emptying it in one gulp, filling it once again, as the tavern door opened, a tall man of African heritage sporting a closely clipped mustache and beard stepped inside out of the chilly March night air, closing it behind him.

"I'm sorry, I thought I locked it…this establishment is closed…permanently, I'm afraid."

"Anne's closed up shop? Last time I was here she seemed to be doing pretty well, had a full house," the man stated in surprise.

"There was an accident," Loki replied.

"Is she all right?"

"I'm afraid not…she…she's passed."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't see anything in the paper. I keep up on the news around here."

"She was on a trip…out of town."

"Damn shame…she was a nice girl."

"Yes…she was."

"Is there going to be a service?"

"It's taken place already. It was a simple affair."

"That's the way she would have wanted it, I'm sure. She wasn't one to toot her own horn. She was more the type to applaud while she let another play theirs, no matter how badly," the man replied.

"You knew her well?"

"Not all that well. Never saw her outside this place. I wouldn't say we were friends...just friendly. We knew each other's names. Mine's Nathaniel, but you can call me Nathan…yours?"

"Lo–Luke…Luke. "

"Luke. Like in the good book…Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Were you kin with her?" Nathan inquired.

"No, no…I was…just a friend. We met as children. Her father serv–worked for my father. She didn't have any family. She was an only child. Her mother and father passed away some time ago."

"I remember her saying something about that. Her mother died from a brain disease, her father in the war…Vietnam, I guess. That's the only war we've been involved in over the last twenty years. Anyway, I'll leave you to–"

"I assume you came for a drink. Would you like one?" Loki interrupted.

"I wouldn't want to intrude."

"It's all right. On the house. If you'd lock the door so we don't have anyone else pop in ...."

"Sure thing," Nathan said, locking the door, crossing the room to the bar, seating himself across from Loki.

"What can I get you?" asked Loki, a sense of deja-vu coming over him, "If it's anything complicated you'll have to walk me through it. I'm not a bartender."

"Whatever you're having will be fine," Nathan replied, Loki procuring another glass from under the bar and pouring a second drink, sliding it in front of him, Nathan lifting the glass, "To Anne."

"Anne…" Loki repeated in a subdued voice, raising his own glass before taking a swallow.

"Ahhh….that's the good stuff," Nathan remarked after taking a drink.

"Top shelf. Best she had."

"I brought this for her. I guess she won't be needing it now," Nathan said, pulling a cassette tape from his coat pocket and setting it on the bar, "Last time I was here I was giving her trouble over her taste in music. Like alcohol, I prefer the hard stuff. She said if I put something together she'd play it."

"I could use a break myself from morons mewling about being alone," Loki replied, taking the tape from the bar to the stereo, stopping and removing the tape he'd found under the bar and setting it aside, replacing it with Nathan's, the hard driving guitar and percussion of AC/DC's 'Shoot to Thrill' flooding the room, both listening for a few more moments.

"That's more like it," said Nathan with a grin, looking across the bar at Loki who continued listening.

"I've heard this somewhere before I think," Loki said, appearing as if he were trying to grasp hold of a memory that kept slipping away just out of reach. Of course it had to have been during one of his previous sojourns to Midgard but he couldn't recall exactly, a fact that strangely nagged at him.

"I'd be surprised if you hadn't. It's ten years old. I didn't say my tastes were any more recent. Their songs all sound the same, but when you do a thing well, why mess with the formula?" Nathan said with a smile as Loki returned to stand across from him at the bar.

"So…what is it you do…for a living, I mean?" Loki asked, attempting to change the subject away from Boda and engage in the Midgardian tradition of small talk, also finding the music and company had somewhat lifted the melancholy he'd been laboring under, at least momentarily.

"I'm a scientist."

"What sort of scientist?" Loki asked, curious, as the man before him didn't seem to fit the mold of other scientists of Midgard he was familiar with, as well as the fact it struck him as strange that someone with such a high level of education, by Midgardian standards, would visit a hole in the wall tavern in that section of Boston.

"A physicist, quantum mechanics. I don't suppose you know what that is."

"I'm somewhat familiar. That must be an interesting job."

"It's boring, tiring honestly. Every day's the same. I know what's going to happen, the same thing, over and over…until the end of time."

"Why not do something else then?"

"I can't. I wish I could. Someday, maybe. I made a mistake, a big one. It took some time to fix. Now I have to ensure everything continues the way it's meant to...or else we'll all be in trouble." Nathan explained, Loki not comprehending his answer but not interested enough to inquire further.

"I've made my own mistakes. Unfortunately I haven't been as successful at fixing them," Loki confessed.

"Some mistakes can't be fixed. You'll just make things worse by trying. Sometimes all you can do is move on, start again from where you are," Nathan advised.

"That's easier said than done in some cases."

"You know what they say, if it was easy, everyone would do it. Too many people let themselves become bogged down by their mistakes, their regrets…they get stuck…can't move forward," Nathan replied, Loki remaining silent and thoughtful for a moment, "So what do you do?"

"What do I...? Oh you mean….a little of this, a little of that…whatever tasks my father assigns me," Loki answered.

"The family business?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"He'll hand it off to you then someday?" Nathan asked.

"I believe he's had my brother in mind for that honor for some time now," Loki said morosely, staring down into his drink, "I haven't yet found my purpose. I thought I had recently…it didn't work out."

"Enjoy your freedom while you can. I miss those days before I found mine, or it found me, depending on how you look at it. Sometimes your purpose seeks you out," Nathan finished his drink, "I should be getting down the road."

"Would you like another?" Loki asked, taking hold of the now more than half empty bottle.

"No, thank you. I'm sure you have things to do putting Anne's affairs in order," said Nathan as AC/DC ended followed by a moment of tape hiss before the next song began, Judas Priest's 'Breaking the Law,' Rob Halford singing the first verse amidst the cacophony of sound.

"There I was completely wasting, out of work and down. All inside it's so frustrating as I drift from town to town. Feel as if nobody cares if I live or die…"

"Keep the tape. I have a copy," said Nathan, rising from the stool, walking to the door.

"Nice meeting you," said Loki cordially, "I'm sure you'll find another tavern to visit, there are enough around."

"So much for the golden future, I can't even start. I've had every promise broken, there's anger in my heart. You don't know what it's like. You don't have a clue…" Halford's voice continued.

"It was nice meeting you, Luke.. Maybe we'll run into each other again in the future," Nathan said, unlocking the door and stepping out of the tavern, closing it behind him.

"I highly doubt that," Loki said, finishing his drink before sliding his and Nathan's glasses down the bar off the end of it, shattering, as he drank from the bottle, stepping over to the stereo, cranking the volume up.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The steady beeping of a heart monitor was all the man lying under stark white sheets and a heavy blanket in the hospital bed could hear or process at first as he felt his consciousness rising as if he had been in the darkest depths of the ocean and was now slowly surfacing. As the nerve endings in his body reconnected to his brain, he felt the weight and warmth of the blanket. Now aware of the murmuring of voices along with the beeping, he attempted to open his eyes, at first everything in his vision melting together in a snowy blur.

"I think he's coming to…thank god," the middle aged woman in the gray skirt suit sitting in a chair beside the bed said, leaning forward and placing a hand over Dario's.

"I'll page Dr. Lofton," the nurse who had been changing the IV bag hanging on a stand on the other side of the bed said as she attached it, moving swiftly from the room.

"Mr. Ager….Dario…" the gray clad woman said, squeezing his hand, Dario turning his head slowly, trying to force his eyes to focus.

"Who…where…?" Dario said hoarsely.

"You're going to be alright. If you'd been found any later you wouldn't have been. You were lucky those kids were on a fieldtrip."

"Who…are you? Where am I?"

"Rachel…Rachel Kohlmorgan. I've been your PA for the last seven years. Don't you remember me?"

"No…I'm sorry," Dario replied.

"You flew to Norway, I don't know why. You didn't say. They said you had a driver drop you off, that you told him you were going for a hike. That's the last anyone heard from you until yesterday when they found you. You were suffering hypothermia but they haven't been able to find anything else wrong. I had you flown back here to Boston. What happened?"

"I…I don't know. I don't remember. Norway?"

"Yes."

"Why would I go to Norway?" Dario questioned.

"I don't know. I was hoping you could tell me," Rachel replied.

"Why did you bring me to Boston? Where's Dina?"

"Dina?"

"My fiancee. Did you call her? Is she coming?"

"Your…" Rachel began as a lanky man in a long white coat, a stethoscope around his neck entered the room.

"Welcome back," Dr. Lofton said cheerily, approaching the bed and doing a cursory examination, "Everything under the hood seems to be fine. We'll keep you here for another day, let you rest, and you should be good to go."

"Doctor, can I speak with you?" Rachel said, lightly touching the doctor's arm.

"Yes, of course," Dr. Lofton said, following Rachel to the door.

"He doesn't remember me. He was talking about Dina. He called her his fiancee but they were married. She was murdered ten years ago along with his parents," Rachel informed him in a hushed voice.

"It's not unusual under the circumstances to experience temporary amnesia. It will most likely all come back to him in time. Due to the traumatic nature of such memories, however, you'll want someone to be with him until they do and he's processed it. It would be difficult enough to learn your family's gone once, let alone twice," Dr. Lofton explained.

"Is it normal to lose over ten years?"

"No, but it's not unheard of either. He was out there for some time from what I understand. The brain scan came back normal, no signs of trauma or a stroke or tumor. The wound on his back is healing nicely. Considering there were no other injuries...I was told he had nothing of value with him, it's doubtful he was attacked. He likely took a fall, landed on a rock with a sharp edge or something. He may be able to tell us eventually. The best thing for him at the moment is rest. I'll check in again in an hour or so."

"Thank you," Rachel said, returning to the room and Dario's bedside.