President Loki's grin does not improve with proximity.

He and his entourage clatter down the ladder like a pack of poorly coordinated pirates, boots ringing against metal. The bunker suddenly feels much smaller, the air thick with cologne, sweat, and the faint, oily tang of too much magic used badly.

The weave inside Oridia roars.

It's been humming ever since she arrived in The Void, but now, with this many Lokis in an enclosed space, it sings so loudly she almost staggers. Each one is a different thread, a different possible life, a different version of the same sharp, impossible soul. Every glance, every smirk, every curl of lip echoes with a ghost of an Oridia they once had and lost.

And then President Loki sees her.

He stops halfway into the room.

All the easy arrogance drains from his posture and reconstitutes into something focused, hot, and unsettlingly soft around the edges. His eyes sweep over her quickly, hungrily, landing finally on her face like he's just spotted land after drifting for years.

"Well," He says, the word exhaled more than spoken, "Now this wasn't on the ballot."

He steps down off the last rung and into the bunker fully, his followers fanning out behind him. His campaign jacket is torn, tie askew, crown dented, but his attention is precise.

"Our gracious host neglected to mention," He goes on, gaze never leaving Oridia, "that he had an Oridia tucked away down here."

Her Loki shifts closer by instinct, just an inch, but it's enough. President Loki clocks the movement, clocks their proximity, clocks the way her fingers twitch like they're used to finding his hand.

The smile that spreads over President Loki's face is almost fond. Almost.

"Relax," He says lightly, eyes flicking to Loki and back, "I'm not going to steal your toy. I had one of my own."

The weave slams through Oridia at that, an image, short and sharp: this Loki in a gilded office, Oridia at his shoulder in immaculate white, hand on his arm as he gives speeches about a glorious new order. Later, that same hand slipping from his fingers as she falls through a time door he opened himself. Sacrifice. Optics. Betrayal dressed up as strategy.

Her stomach flips.

President Loki steps closer. He's careful not to touch her, yet, but he stands near enough that she can smell the sharp alcohol on his breath, the leather, the faint metallic tang of old blood.

"You look like her," He says softly, pitched for her alone, "My First Lady of Lies. She used to stand right there," His eyes drop, marking the space by his side, "Always made me look taller."

"It didn't work," Oridia says before she can stop herself.

A few of the other Lokis snort. Even Alligator Loki gives an approving huff.

President Loki's eyes spark. Interest, not anger.

"There she is," He murmurs, "The mouth on you. Saints, I missed that."

He leans in just a fraction, voice dropping further, "You know what the problem was with my Oridia? She wanted me to be better. Wanted to fix things. Didn't understand that some of us are built for the throne, not the chapel."

His gaze cages her as thoroughly as any collar. Every word is a little wall around her: mine once, mine again, mine if you let me.

"You don't belong in a bunker," He says, "You belong beside a crown. Any version of us will tell you that."

Oridia feels her Loki tense at her side, magic prickling along his fingers like he's trying very hard not to let it flare. His jaw works once, twice.

"Say something stupid," He warns quietly, "and I'll personally introduce you to the alligator."

President Loki doesn't look at him. He keeps his eyes on Oridia, like they're in a conversation with only two participants.

"Tell me, love," He says, head tilting, "Is this one treating you better than I treated mine? Has he promised you a universe he can't keep, yet?"

The weave screams. She feels the grief and guilt in him, twisted around desire and hunger and a desperate need to re-stage a scene he once ruined.

Her palms glow faintly, an involuntary response.

"Yes," She says.

He blinks, "Yes, which part?"

"Yes, he's treating me better," She answers, because she can't lie.

For a heartbeat, the room holds its breath.

Then Classic Loki rises from his chair, eyes flinty.

"You bastard!" He snaps, "You led the wolves to our door."

President Loki tears his gaze from Oridia at last, turning toward the older variant with a swift, irritated grace, "We prefer snakes to wolves."

Kid Loki lounges back on his throne, unfazed.

"I've eaten both," He says, "They die just the same."

Boastful Loki shifts, guilt scrawled across his features, "Apologies, my liege. I betrayed you, and now, I'm king."

President Loki's smile returns, sharp and thin, "About that..."

Boastful Loki straightens, hackles rising, "You can't be serious."

"Come on," President Loki replies, almost gentle "What did you expect?"

Boastful Loki gestures wildly, voice booming, "That was not the bargain! I gave you our location. In exchange for shelter and supplies, you give me your army and I take the throne."

"Ah, yes. Not so good a bargain," President Loki tuts, "How about this one? My army, my throne?"

One of the other follower Lokis, standing behind him, clears his throat, "About that..."

President Loki stiffens, "What?"

Then all of them, all his supposed followers, turn, blades and batons shifting, their faces smoothing into variations on one theme: Loki being Loki.

"Why you beef-witted, half-faced scrubs," President Loki snaps, fury finally breaking through charm, "We had a deal! Why the hell is there an alligator in here?"

There's a beat.

Then, in perfect ragged chorus, Classic Loki, Boastful Loki, Kid Loki, Loki and Oridia all say, "He's a Loki!"

Alligator Loki chooses that moment to launch.

He barrels out of the kiddie pool like a scaly missile, jaws snapping shut around President Loki's outstretched hand. For one exquisite half-second, everything is silent.

Then: crunch.

President Loki screams as his severed hand, still wearing the campaign ring, hits the floor. Alligator Loki thrashes victoriously, chewing, blood splattering across the concrete.

Chaos explodes.

Every Loki in the room lunges for every other Loki, like someone kicked over a hornet's nest made of narcissism. Blades flash, magic crackles, insults fly. Illusions pop and vanish. The bunker becomes a blur of green and gold and shouting.

"Of course," Loki mutters, "Of course this is how this goes."

He grabs Oridia's wrist, pulling her toward the ladder, "Up. Now."

The weave is a shrieking storm inside her, every Loki's proximity hammering against her chest. She stumbles once, nearly colliding with a variant in a fur cape who's trying to strangle another in a leather jacket.

"Watch it, sweetheart," The furred one snarls.

Loki's magic snaps, sending the man sprawling.

"She's busy," He snaps back, "Die somewhere else."

Kid Loki darts through the melee like a dart, Alligator Loki clamped proudly to his arm like a grotesque bracelet.

"Move!" The boy barks at a helmeted variant blocking the path.

Classic Loki lifts his hands, eyes narrowing. Green energy spills from his fingertips, and suddenly the bunker is full of duplicates, dozens of Lokis and a few Oridias flicker into existence, crowding the space. Half are illusions: some laughing, some fighting, some just standing there looking unimpressed. The real combatants snarl, confused, stabbing at phantoms that vanish on contact.

"Quickly!" Classic Loki shouts, "While they argue with their reflections!"

Classic Loki,with arms outstretched, weaves something large. The air at the far wall shimmers, coalescing into a swirling green aperture, a portal, ragged at the edges but solid enough.

Loki shoves Oridia toward the portal. He comes right behind her. Kid Loki scrambles through next.

The wind hits them hard, hot and metallic. In the distance, Alioth rolls, a monstrous storm-creature sniffing the air where all that magic just flared.

"Damn it!" Classic Loki snarls, hands clenching, "Animals. Animals!"

He kicks a broken signpost, sending it spinning into the dirt.

"We lie and we cheat," He goes on, voice rising, "We cut the throat of every person who trusts us, and for what? Power. Glorious power. Glorious purpose!"

His laughter is short and bitter.

"We cannot change," Classic Loki spits, "We're broken. Every version of us. Forever."

Kid Loki looks at him from under his too-big crown, eyes suddenly very old.

"And whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves," He says quietly, "they're sent here to die."

The wind carries his words out across the dead landscape.

Loki stands still, the weight of their self-loathing settling over him like another kind of storm. Oridia watches his profile, the set of his jaw, the way his eyes scan the horizon as if trying to spot a different ending hidden in the rubble.

"That's why I need to get out of here," He says at last, voice low but steady, "Nothing can change until the TVA is stopped."

Classic Loki turns that tired, razor-sharp gaze on him, "And you trust her?"

The question hangs between them, heavier than any weapon.

Oridia steps forward before Loki can answer.

"We do," She says.

Every Loki in radius feels the weight of it, the way the weave hums in agreement. She doesn't look away.

"And right now," She continues, "I believe she's our only chance of stopping the TVA."

Kid Loki studies her for a moment, then nods, "That's good enough for me."

Classic Loki sighs. The fight drains out of his shoulders by degrees, leaving a different kind of resolve behind.

"Okay, okay," He says, "We'll help you. But approaching Alioth is a death sentence."

He looks out at the distant storm-beast, the way it devours a crumbling castle in a single, silent gulp.

"We'll get you to it," He finishes, "But that's as far as we go."

Oridia steps closer to Loki, their shoulders almost touching, both of them staring at the thing that's supposed to end them.

—

The walk toward Alioth feels like walking toward the open mouth of a beast.

The ground under their boots is a collage of dead realities, half-melted asphalt, shards of glass, scorched grass that crumbles when you step on it. Above, the sky churns: a bruise of violet and black, the cloud-creature roving along the horizon, sniffing, hunting.

They move as a strange little procession: Classic Loki at an angle ahead, Kid Loki with Alligator Loki cradled in his arms like a sacred relic, Loki and Oridia in the middle.

And every single Loki keeps half an eye on Oridia.

Classic Loki drifts closer whenever the terrain dips or cracks, ready to catch her elbow. Kid Loki constantly adjusts his pace, making sure she's never at the back of the line, never exposed. Even Alligator Loki swivels his head periodically to check she's still there, yellow eyes unblinking.

Loki notices all of it. His mouth flattens into a line, but he doesn't say anything.

Oridia notices too, and hates it.

Not because she doesn't like being cared for; she doesn't know what to do with being cared for. Her whole existence has been observation, not protection. It grates. It scratches.

But worse than that is what it does to the weave.

Every time one of them glances at her, every time the thought of her flares in another Loki mind, the threads inside her erupt into song. On Lamentis it was a relentless, dizzying chorus; here, in the Void, it's that same song turned up and distorted, like the universe is holding the speaker right against her chest.

Her palms glow even when she wills them not to. Tiny suns pulse just beneath her skin. She curls her fingers into fists and feels the heat press into her own palms.

"I have to say," Classic Loki remarks, breaking the silence, "it feels odd walking toward the gargantuan creature. Do you have a plan of action?"

Loki squints at the distant storm-beast.

"Get inside," He says, "Find its heart or brain or whatever, and then, you know, do it in."

Kid Loki makes a face, "I mean..."

"Just because it's not complicated doesn't mean it's bad," Loki counters.

"It also doesn't mean it's good," Kid Loki replies.

Alligator Loki rumbles something low and unhappy.

"See?" Loki says, "He's on board."

Oridia sighs. The weave shifts, translating the alligator's intent, not in words but in a sinking certainty.

"He's praying," She says, "He thinks we're going to die."

Classic Loki glances at her, brows lifting, "You speak alligator?"

"No," Oridia replies, "I just understand him."

Loki's head tilts. Of course. Gator Loki is still Loki, a version of the soul tethered to hers. The bond doesn't care about species. The realization hits like a strange, bitter joke: even the reptile is hers, in some impossible way.

The wind shifts, carrying ozone.

Ahead of them, the air tears open.

With a sound like steel being dragged through space, a massive battleship drops out of nowhere and slams into the barren ground not far from where they stand. It's enormous, grey metal bristling with guns and antennae, hull stamped with numbers from a vanished navy.

The impact shakes the earth under their feet. Oridia throws out a hand, catching herself on Loki's arm. Kid Loki staggers; Alligator Loki digs claws into his leathers to stay anchored.

The ship groans, metal straining. Human figures swarm its decks, shouting in a language and style of uniform pulled from some mid-twentieth-century war film. They look terrified. They have no idea where they are.

Alioth knows.

The storm-creature twists, massive head turning. The air pressure drops; the hairs on Oridia's arms lift, her glow flaring without her consent.

Loki swallows.

"Alioth is like any animal," He says quickly, as if talking might control the panic, "He'll go after the big meal first. And while he's busy with that, we can sneak around the back and--"

He doesn't get to finish.

Alioth surges forward, engulfing the battleship in a rolling wall of smoke and teeth and lightning. There's a flare of light, a roar cut off mid-scream. When the cloud passes, the ship, and everyone on it, is simply gone.

The silence afterward is louder than the destruction.

"...Okay," Loki says, voice thinner now, "Maybe we, uh... think a bit more about this, huh?"

Before anyone can answer, the weave in Oridia sharpens so suddenly she flinches.

It's like someone plucked a single thread in the vast tangle of everything and it vibrated straight through her bones. Not Loki, this time. Not any Loki.

Sylvie.

Oridia's heart jumps. It's the same note she felt on Lamentis before she heard that voice in the superstore, a resonance she didn't have language for yet. Now, there's no mistaking it. The world tastes like green magic and stubbornness.

Far off to their right, something small and utterly ridiculous barrels over a hill: a pizza delivery car, rooftop sign still attached, tires skidding on the broken ground.

It comes to a stop in a spray of dust.

The driver's door swings open and Mobius steps out.

He looks absolutely, perfectly wrong here, tie askew, hair wind-tousled, expression torn between grim focus and incredulous delight. For a heartbeat, Oridia thinks it's another mirage, another cruel reel image.

"Mobius," She breathes.

Before Loki can even move, she's already running.

The weave is screaming, Alioth is prowling, her hands are glowing, and she runs anyway, boots pounding over the dirt, lungs burning. Mobius spots her, his face slackening with relief, and opens his arms without thinking.

She collides with him, hard enough to knock a grunt out of his chest, and wraps her arms around his neck. For a weird second, they both smell the TVA, the faint citrus of the mints, recycled air, ink and old paper, like home and lie at once.

"You're alive," She says into his shoulder, half accusation, half prayer.

"Didn't feel very alive for a minute there," He answers, holding her tightly, "But, yeah. Turns out pruning's not as final as advertised."

Loki catches up just as the passenger door opens and Sylvie steps out.

She looks rougher than he last saw her, hair wilder, arms dust-streaked, but her eyes are sharp and unbroken, flicking immediately to him, then to Oridia in Mobius's arms.

"Mobius!" Loki says, "How did you--"

"We thought you could do with some backup," Sylvie cuts in, stepping around the car, boots crunching on gravel.

Behind them, Kid Loki, Classic Loki, and Alligator Loki finally arrive, drawn by the commotion. The scene looks like a very specific nightmare: three Lokis, one Sylvie, one Mobius, one Oridia, one killer smoke god, and a pizza car at the end of time.

"How best to put this," Loki says, gesturing vaguely at the trio behind him, "Us as a child, us in the future, and us as an alligator. It's best not to question it."

Mobius shakes his head, a breathless laugh slipping out, "You throw a rock out here, you hit a Loki."

Sylvie's gaze tracks over the mismatched group, then back to the roiling cloud on the horizon, "So you're all after the giant cloud monster, too, then?"

"Well," Loki says, "we haven't decided how we're going to kill it, but--"

"Come again?" Sylvie's head snaps toward him, "Kill it?"

"Yes," Loki answers, like it's obvious, "We're gonna kill Alioth."

Sylvie closes her eyes briefly, as if asking some higher power for patience, "Oh, my God. That was your plan," She looks past him at the others, "And you went along with it?"

Kid Loki shifts Alligator Loki in his arms, "I had my doubts."

"Probably unsafe," Classic Loki adds dryly.

Loki bristles, "All right, well, what's your plan, then?"

Sylvie lifts her chin, eyes steady on the storm-creature, "I think the person we're after is beyond The Void, at the end of time. And if they are, that thing is just their guard dog protecting the only way in."

"Okay, so, um..." Loki grimaces, "How do we get past the guard dog?"

"I'm gonna enchant it," Sylvie says.

Loki actually laughs, a slightly high, incredulous sound. He turns to Oridia, as if expecting backup for his disbelief.

She just stares at Sylvie, the weave ringing in her chest like a bell. Sylvie looks back, and there's that familiar ache again, recognition that doesn't make sense to either of them yet, but won't be denied.

"That's insane, right?" Loki says.

"No," Oridia says, "It will work."

The silence hits like a slap.

Every Loki's eyes swing to her. Even Mobius looks mildly alarmed; Alligator Loki blinks and lets out a contemplative grunt.

Oridia rolls her eyes, jaw clenched. She can feel their attention like heat on her skin, and the weave responds by surging, solar energy flaring under her fingertips. Her palms glow brighter, small halos of gold leaking out between her fingers.

Mobius clears his throat.

"Um, Ori?" He says gently, "You're leaking sunlight."

"I'm aware of that!" She snaps.

The flare she's been holding back punches upward, a beam of concentrated solar light shooting into the sky like a flare gun from a dying star. It burns for a heartbeat, slicing through the purple clouds.

Alioth notices.

The creature shifts, that massive smoke head turning, nostrils tasting the sudden surge of power.

Before Oridia can fully process what she's done, Loki grabs her right hand, forcing her fingers closed. At the same instant, Sylvie catches her left, doing the same. Their grips are firm, mirroring each other, closing her fists like they're capping a leaking reactor.

The light stutters and dies, leaving spots in everyone's vision.

For a second, all three of them are locked there, Oridia in the middle, both of her soul-bonded tricksters anchoring her, hands intertwined. The weave doesn't sing now; it screams, every thread between the three of them pulled taut.

Then Oridia yanks her hands back, breathing hard.

"No more arguing," She says, voice low but steady, "We find shelter. Then she enchants the guard dog. Then we deal with whatever remains."

She turns and starts walking toward a cluster of ruined structures, a half-collapsed diner, the skeleton of a gas station, the husk of some alien tower with a hole through its center.

There's a pause, like the universe itself is surprised she just took command.

Then they follow.

Loki falls into step on her right, a little closer than strictly necessary. Sylvie walks at her left, matching her stride. The two of them keep just enough distance not to jostle, as if they've wordlessly agreed not to pull at her threads more than they already have.

Kid Loki pads along nearby, Alligator Loki content in his arms for once. Classic Loki brings up the rear, muttering under his breath about suicidal plans and the indignity of dying for other people's character development.

Mobius walks a little ahead with Loki for a few steps, then drops back to walk beside Oridia, the old instinct reasserting itself.

"You sure you're up for this?" He asks quietly, eyeing her still-simmering hands.

"No," She answers honestly, "But I'm here anyway."

He nods.

"Yeah," He says, "That sounds about right."

—

The shed they find looks like it fell out of a suburban backyard and straight into the apocalypse.

Its tin walls are bent, one door hanging at an angle, but it holds. Someone, probably Kid Loki, has jammed bits of scrap metal against the gaps. A small fire burns in an oil drum just inside, painting Mobius, Classic Loki, Kid Loki, and Alligator Loki in flickering orange.

Mobius sits on an upturned crate, hands wrapped around a dented mug, posture trying to relax and failing. Classic Loki hunches in a battered lawn chair like a melancholy king in exile. Kid Loki perches cross-legged on a workbench, Alligator Loki sprawled comfortably at his side, tail twitching now and then at the heat.

Outside, Oridia stands in the dark.

A little way from the shed, close enough to see the firelight, far enough to pretend she doesn't, she stares out at the violet-black sky. Alioth prowls in the distance, thunder without rain. The Void hums like a dead power line.

Inside her, the weave will not shut up.

Every breath she takes feels threaded through with other lives: the way Loki looked at her in the Honda, how Sylvie looked at her in the train, Classic Loki's voice when he said light of my life. It's all stacked in her chest like stones, and she can't seem to breathe around them.

Her palms glow softly at her sides. She curls her fingers into fists. The light leaks out between them anyway.

"Thought you might be out here," Sylvie says.

Oridia doesn't jump, but it's a near thing. Sylvie's footsteps are almost silent on the broken ground. She stops a few paces away, cloak shifting in the breeze, green eyes catching stray firelight.

"Congratulations," Oridia says tightly, still staring at the horizon, "You found the only patch of rock that isn't already occupied by a Loki."

Sylvie huffs a quiet laugh through her nose, "Give it time."

The silence stretches. Alioth growls somewhere far off.

"You shouldn't be out here alone," Sylvie says, softer, "If Alioth changes its mind about what's appetizing--"

"Please don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do right now," Oridia snaps.

Sylvie goes very still.

"Okay," She says, "What do you want me to do, then?"

Oridia finally looks at her.

"Stop," She says, "Stop looking at me like that. Stop... feeling at me like that. I can't think. I can't breathe. I'm not--" She breaks off, shaking her head, "I'm not built for this."

"For what?" Sylvie asks, "For being loved?"

The word hits like a slap. Oridia's jaw clenches.

"You think this is love?" She says, "You and him and every version of you--" she gestures wildly toward the shed, toward the Void, toward everywhere "--staring at me like I'm some missing piece in a puzzle you've all been trying to solve for centuries?"

Sylvie's face tightens, "You are a missing piece."

"I'm not a piece," Oridia fires back, "I'm a person. And apparently I belong to all of you."

Sylvie steps closer, something raw in her eyes, "You don't belong to anyone."

"Oh really?" Oridia laughs, short and helpless, "Tell that to the reel. Tell that to the boy with the crown who called me 'darling' like he remembered the way she died. Tell that to him" her chin jerks in the vague direction of where Loki sits on the other side of the shed, alone on the grass, "who looks at me like he's already lost me and he doesn't even know why yet."

Sylvie flinches, that landing too close.

Oridia keeps going. She has to; if she stops, she might shatter.

"I watched it," She says, "I watched us. Over and over. Every universe, every version... Loki and Oridia, doomed on a loop. We find each other, we fall apart, we die. Sometimes I kill him. Sometimes he kills me. Sometimes the universe does it for us. Apparently that's my... function. The truth that breaks you. The lesson the story needs."

Her hands are shaking now. The glow brightens.

"And that would be bad enough," She goes on, "if it were just him. But it's not. It's you too. It's all of you. Every Loki gets an Oridia. Every Oridia gets a Loki. Except the ones who get pruned. Except the ones who get turned into TVA puppets and told they're special because the Time-Keepers 'chose' them."

She spits the last words out like they taste wrong. They do.

Sylvie's voice, when it comes, is quieter, "You think I don't know what that feels like?"

"You think you know what this feels like?" Oridia gestures at herself, at the faint halos around her fists, "I am literally wired for you people. For your chaos, your lies, your stupid, stubborn hearts. The closer I am to you, the louder it gets. On Lamentis, I thought I was going to burn right out of my own skin. In the Honda, in the bunker--"

Her voice cracks.

"It doesn't switch off," She whispers, "There is no off. There is just... all of you, everywhere, all at once, and me in the middle, trying not to fall apart."

Sylvie takes another step closer. She's trembling, too, but with something older, grief layered over years, hardened into anger, now cracking.

"I had one of you," She says, "Once."

Oridia's throat works.

"I've seen her," She says, "Pieces of her."

Sylvie's breath stutters, "They took her from me. Took everything. And I've spent my entire life trying not to think about the way she looked at me before she fell. Trying not to remember how it felt when she--"

She breaks off, jaw clenched.

Oridia says softly, "When she loved you."

Something fragile flickers across Sylvie's face. Her eyes shine in the dim light.

She moves before she can talk herself out of it.

One sharp, angry step forward, then another, and she's got both hands on Oridia's collar, fisting the fabric to drag her down, and her mouth is on Oridia's.

It's not gentle at first. It's years of bottled grief and fury, of stolen timelines and stolen chances. It's how dare you be here in front of me wearing her face and her light. It crashes into Oridia like a wave, knocking the air from her lungs.

And the moment their mouths meet, the weave detonates.

The Void drops away. The shed, the fire, the storm, all gone.

Oridia sees a different world behind her eyes: a girl-Sylvie younger, wild-eyed, hand in the hand of an Oridia in soft golden armor. They're hiding behind a column in the Asgardian library, whispering plans for running away, for stealing a ship, for seeing the stars their way.

She sees them older, on some forgotten planet's rooftops, dancing under fireworks Oridia conjured from astral light, Sylvie's laugh caught between them like a secret.

She sees Sylvie waking up alone on a cold floor as TVA hunters drag her Oridia away through a door. She feels the break that never healed.

The kiss shifts.

The anger bleeds out, replaced by the sheer, staggering weight of how much Sylvie loved that version of her. How much she still does. It radiates through the bond like heat through metal.

Oridia kisses back.

Not as a ghost or a replacement, but as herself, hands coming up to cup Sylvie's face, thumbs brushing the hinge of her jaw. The light in her palms softens, no longer flaring outward, just warming their skin.

When they finally tear apart, they're both breathing hard.

Sylvie's eyes are huge and wet. A single tear escapes, tracking down her cheek before she can swipe at it.

Oridia's expression has changed. The edge is gone. What's left is devastatingly gentle, like she's looking at something precious and breakable and wants, desperately, not to be the one to hurt it.

Sylvie swallows. Her voice comes out hoarse, "You love him."

The question isn't really a question.

Oridia's hands remain on her face. Her glow pools against Sylvie's jaw, not burning, just warm.

"Yes," She whispers.

The word burns on the way out. Admitting it makes it more real, pulls it into the weave so tightly there will never be getting it back out. She feels the way it hits Sylvie, the flinch in her shoulders, the flicker of pain behind her eyes.

Oridia sees it, winces.

"But I..." She swallows hard, "I think I love you, too."

Sylvie's eyes squeeze shut.

"Don't," She says, "Don't say that."

"I don't know what to feel," Oridia says, and now it all comes pouring out.

"I don't know where she stops and I start," She continues, voice trembling, "I see her with you, and I feel it like it was me who stood on that rooftop, like it was me who promised you the stars. Then I look at him and it's the same. Every you, every him, every version, all woven through me like knots in a net."

She lets her hands fall from Sylvie's cheeks, pressing them into her own ribs as if she could hold herself together.

"I am supposed to be truth," She says, "That's what I am. I don't get to choose the truths I carry, I just... contain them. And this one is so big, Sylvie, it's... it's too big. I am full of all these lives I didn't live, all these loves I didn't earn, and I can't tell where obligation ends and feeling begins. I don't know if I love him because the universe decided I should, or because I actually do. I don't know if what I feel for you is mine, or hers, or... some horrible, beautiful combination."

Her palms flare again, light seeping through her fingers. She looks down at them like they're betraying her.

"I can't lie," She whispers, "So I can't even comfort you with something softer than the truth. The truth is I am pulled toward him and I am pulled toward you and it feels like being torn in half and stitched back together at the same time. The truth is I want you both safe and I want you both happy and I don't know if I get to exist in whatever that looks like."

She takes a ragged breath.

"The truth is I'm terrified," She finishes, "And I'm so tired of being the thing that destiny uses to make a point."

Sylvie looks like someone stabbed her with her own knife. The tear tracks have dried, but new moisture glints at the corners of her eyes.

She opens her mouth, closes it, then shakes her head.

"I can't--" She starts, then cuts herself off, "I don't know what to do with that."

"Join the club," Oridia says softly.

She takes a step back. Then another.

"I need to think without..." She gestures helplessly between them, "Without this."

She turns and walks away, deeper into the wreckage. Not toward Alioth, not toward danger, just away from the shed, from them, from the noise in her own chest.

Sylvie watches her go until the darkness and the broken silhouettes of dead timelines swallow her up.

Then she scrubs both hands over her face, hard, as if she can wipe away the last five minutes.

When she turns, she can see Loki sitting on a strip of grass just beyond the shed, knees drawn up, leaning back on his hands. He's watching the sky like he's trying to find patterns in the chaos.

Sylvie walks over and drops down beside him, leaving just enough space that their shoulders don't touch. She keeps her eyes forward, not trusting her face.

"So..." She says, voice thinner than she wants, "Mobius and his theory about..."

Loki glances sideways, picking up the thread, "Right, right. About our nexus event."

"Total rubbish, right?" She asks.

"Absolutely," Loki says, "Of course. I mean..."

He trails off. They both remember Lamentis. The hand on hand, the impossible calm in the middle of annihilation, the way the universe itself seemed to lean closer to watch.

Sylvie says quickly, "I don't mean that it wasn't a nice moment."

"No, it was great," Loki says, "It was really nice."

"Just sounds like another TVA lie," Sylvie adds, "Labeling things so they can box them, control them."

"A hundred percent," Loki agrees, "I mean, totally. Yeah."

They sit there for a beat, the awkwardness hanging between them like a curtain.

Sylvie pulls at a blade of dead grass.

"I don't know how to do this," She admits.

"I don't even know what we're doing," Loki says.

"I don't have friends," Sylvie says, "I don't have... anyone."

"That's not true," Loki says automatically. Then he catches himself, glances toward the darkness where Oridia vanished, "Well. It didn't used to be true."

Sylvie's jaw tightens.

"You're in love with her," She says.

Loki opens his mouth to deflect, then stops. The Void has a way of stripping away the lies that don't matter.

"Yes," He says quietly.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Sylvie mutters.

"I'm not surprised," Loki says, "I'm... aware that it's inconvenient."

She snorts despite herself, "Understatement of the century."

"And you?" He asks, not unkindly, "Still in love with the ghost they stole from you?"

Sylvie stares at her hands.

"She's not a ghost," She says, "She's standing out there, glowing, trying to hold herself together while the universe screams at her. And she doesn't even remember why."

Loki's throat works.

"You want her happy," He says.

"So do you," Sylvie replies.

They look at each other, just for a moment, a truce forming in the space between their matched pain.

"There are other important things, right?" Loki says after a moment, voice a little rough.

"Right," Sylvie say,. "Yeah. Like bringing down the TVA."

"Saving the universe, even," He adds.

"Well, there's no need to be dramatic," She says, "But, yeah. Kind of."

Another silence. This one isn't quite as sharp.

"So," Sylvie says quietly, "how do I know that, in the final moments, you won't betray me?"

Loki stares at his hands, fingers flexing like he's counting every wrong he's ever done.

"Listen, Sylvie," He says, "I... I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father. My brother. My home."

He swallows.

"I know what I did," He says, "And I know why I did it. I was scared, and small, and furious, and I thought pain meant power. That's not who I am anymore."

He turns his head, meets her gaze.

"I won't let you down," He says, "Not you. Not her."

Sylvie searches his face, looking for the sliver of deceit she's learned to expect from everyone.

"You sure?" She asks, "Cause if we make it, and the TVA is gone, there might be a timeline for you to rule. Your own little kingdom, no oversight, no Time-Keepers. Just you and your glorious purpose."

"Ah," Loki says, "And then I'd finally be happy."

He lets the sarcasm sit there a moment, then lets it go.

"What about you?" He asks, "What will you do when this is all over?"

Sylvie shakes her head slowly.

"I don't know," She says, "I've spent my whole life trying to kill a lie. I don't know who I am without something to hunt."

She hesitates.

"And Oridia?" She asks, "What happens to her in your grand plans?"

Loki looks back out at the storm, at the impossible guard dog they're about to try to charm and conquer.

"I don't know," He says honestly, "But I know what won't happen. She doesn't get to be a prop in someone else's story anymore. Not the TVA's. Not the Time-Keepers'. Not mine."

Sylvie nods once. A tear slips free anyway. She wipes it away before he can pretend not to see.

"We're very bad at this," She says.

"Feelings?" Loki asks, "Or heroism?"

"Both," She says.

He huffs a quiet laugh, "Good thing we're stubborn, then."

They sit there together on the dead grass beneath the boiling sky, two broken gods, loving the same impossible woman, sharing the same impossible goal, and somewhere beyond the ruined horizon, Oridia stands alone under the roar of the weave, trying to decide whether fate is something she can finally tell no.

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