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ijuststareatstuffhereok89 · 1 day

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"Time & the Trickster" a Loki/Doctor Who crossover

Chapter 15: Journey's End

With no other alternatives, you and Loki face destiny.

CHAPTER WARNING (18+): I cried like a bitch writing this, make of that fact what you will

Previous Chapter · Epilogue MASTERLIST

It took both The Doctor and Loki to calm you down enough that you could think rationally, even as you felt like you were dying inside.

It was all over. Despite everything you’d done, despite all of your efforts to try and make it right, you’d only accomplished what you swore you would never do: you led Loki back to where he started, facing down a great and terrible destiny. And no matter what the wise, skinny alien said, you still felt it deep within you: it was your fault. You should have let go yourself and forced Loki to take Sylvie.

What the hell were you even saying?

Almost two months ago, you thought you were letting a kooky, deluded street rat sleep in your bed. You were regretting paying his bail. If you could only go back…

“We have about ten minutes before we arrive at the…the TVA,” said The Doctor. “Once we land, you’ll only have a moment to do what you need to.”

Loki nodded, still holding you tightly. “May I have a moment alone?”

He nodded a moment, before something caught his eye: lying near the basin was Sylvie’s stone, having fallen out of your hand in the scuffle. He slowly picked it up, bringing it over and kneeling beside Loki to place it in his hand.

The crack in the stone began healing at Loki’s touch. It glowed a much brighter green.

“Y/N, look!” he said quietly, showing you how the stone was practically regenerating.

The Doctor got an idea, based on something he’d witnessed happen once before, some time ago. Taking your hand, he placed it on top of Loki’s and the stone.

Something flashed before your eyes, but you didn’t recognize it. You withdrew your hand as quickly as The Doctor had placed it. “What..was that, Doctor?”

“I saw it too,” added Loki. “What just happened?”

“With everything in time and creation so unstable, the stone is able to show you echoes of places you may have been in other realities…ones where you are both together.” The Doctor remembered once how he’d held onto a fob watch in another’s hand and experienced the same thing.

“It means you have about five minutes to live your lives together,” said The Doctor. “I’ll give you privacy.”

He left you alone with Loki in the chamber, and your god took a moment to gently wipe a tear from your face. You leaned into his palm, letting his warm hand comfort you. He was holding the stone in his other hand. “What do you say, Y/N? Shall we take one last journey together?”

You nodded, whispering a delicate “yes” as you slipped your hand over Loki’s and the glowing time stone.

You and Loki materialized on a cliffside, overlooking a massive golden city of rainbows, gems, and gilded splendor. As if you were watching a film, you found your variants sitting by a small fruit tree, pink blossoms floating in the wind and adding perfume to the air. You were sitting on a silk blanket, a wicker basket of fruit and nuts at Loki’s feet.

“I grew up in that wing, the northernmost spires of the palace were my playrooms…” Loki was explaining to you where he grew up, showing you Asgard in its full glory. He took a moment from his story to pluck a grape from the basket and slowly place it between your lips.

Your spectator self sighed romantically.

“Y/N?” the projection of Loki took your hand and kissed it delicately before repeating the pleasure with each individual finger. You could almost feel it for yourself.

“I know what this is,” Loki said softly. “I’ve only ever been here once.”

“What is it?” you asked.

“The place my mother and fa—Odin—became engaged. He showed it to my brother and I once, and I determined the next time I visited the spot would be to propose to my mate beneath that tree.”

As if on cue, Vision Loki whispered into Vision You’s ear. She gave an excited yelp and leapt on top of Loki, throwing him against the ground and littering his face with affectionate pecks. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her so tightly you couldn’t roll off if you wanted to. You

You almost hated to hear it. This was no longer your future. Perhaps it never was. This future belonged to the variants acting out the tableau. Their glee was not yours.

“That means we would have…” Loki trailed off. You squeezed his hand, the stone in between pulsing slowly, erasing the world around you and bringing up another.

A woman in sky blue twirled dreamily in exquisite gossamer. It was only through a few moments of careful study that you and Loki were able to determine it was you.

You were in a bedroom. Loki sat watching your dance from the edge of the bed, his formal armor cast aside, leaving him in a white undershirt and leggings. He was laughing, his gaze lingering on your body with desire.

“My bride, is the alcohol still in your head? The feast and dance have ended!”

You stopped twirling to pout playfully. “But I feel so beautiful!”

Loki got up and laid a hand on your cheek. “And so you are, my Princess.”

A hot tear slowly rolled down the side of your cheek as you realized what you were looking at: a lost wedding night. You didn’t know whether you wanted to stay and see more or leave before anything made you cry harder. Loki saw your sadness, and squeezed your hand just as you could see the bridegroom sweep the bride off her feet, the laugher reaching a crescendo as the room fell away…

A Realm-wide celebration was being thrown. The royals stood on a balcony overseeing a large, cheering crowd as banners and confetti were thrown everywhere.

Thor, Loki’s brother, stood strong and victorious, raising Mjolnir in the air, a petite brunette at his side you recognized as Jane Foster. He was giving a speech as you tried to find you and Loki. Only you were present, hands folded politely as you listened.

“My people! The Dark Elves and Malekith are fully defeated, with the help of my brother, Prince Lo—” he stopped short, looking around him before looking directly at you for answers as to his whereabouts.

You smiled and looked past Thor. Loki, in full regalia, led two young boys dressed in miniature versions of their father’s armor onto the stage. Thor glowed with a big grin on his face. “You’re late for letting my nephews see my triumph, brother! Did naptime run a little long this afternoon?”

“Perhaps my dear brother the King shouldn’t mock fatherhood until he’s won the title for himself!” Loki quipped back, releasing the toddler princes’ hands. Both made a beeline for your wide, waiting arms.

Thor chortled. “I am King of Asgard! I am the father of a Realm!”

Loki rolled his eyes and went to join you at your side. Each of you picked up a giggling, star-eyed twin and looked affectionate at one another. The warm contentment was almost enough to envelope you like a thick fleece blanket.

“We…we had kids, Loki,” you whispered, hardly able to believe it for yourself. “Those are…ours!”

And they were perfect. One with his father’s raven-black hair, the other had your unmistakable smile and laugh. How old were they? Three?

He wasn’t saying anything, but you got the feeling from the look on his face that he longed for what he saw, and yet understood the tragedy of it. When he broke the silence, it was to say, “Two lives that we will never see.”

“That will never exist,” you added, your face getting hotter.

Loki shook his head. “They exist,” he assured you, “This isn’t a hallucination. The time stone doesn’t show visions, it shows time and timelines, and what we are seeing is a timeline somewhere in the cosmos that is very real, I promise.”

You weren’t sure if you were more jealous or heartbroken. True happiness was so, so far away! “Still, I…I...I can’t see this anymore!”

The disembodied voice of The Doctor interrupted you. “Which is well enough because you’re out of time.”

The spell of the stone fell away, and you and Loki were back on the floor of the vortex chamber, holding onto one another.

The Doctor was once again in the doorway. He looked solemn. “The TARDIS has locked down the TVA’s coordinates. Means we have about five minutes. Take the stairs on your right all the way up to the console when you’re ready.”

After he left you alone again, you could help but swear at Loki one more time. “Goddamn you, what were you thinking?”

He spoke with conviction. “That I would rather sit on that lump of rock at the end of the universe for ten eternities than choose another over you.”

You were beginning to feel frustration mixing in with your sorrow. “I told you I didn’t want your fate to be on my head!”

Loki tucked a finger under your chin, drawing your gaze upward. He was smiling like a condemned man would, trying to save face on his way up the scaffold. “I made the choice. I would make it again every time, Y/N.”

“Loki…” you whispered, unable to finish your thought as he drew your lips into one last kiss, the bright light leaking from the sealed vortex basin silhouetting your faces and painting massive shadows of you against the wall, joined as a single shape, attached at the mouth.

The intensity, the pace, the eternal-yet-fleeting perfection of a final kiss was never lost on you. Whenever you were alone in the apartment, whether Joey was at work or otherwise unable to hang out, you watched romances. The ones that made you weep at the end were your favorite. They all involved a goodbye as bittersweet at this. And they all involved the most beautiful, earth-shifting final kisses. All five of your favorite kisses from fiction were tragic goodbye kisses, each one filled with more heartache and passion than the last.

This one left them all behind. You tasted paradise on his lips.

The unmistakable sounds of the TARDIS breathing as it made its final appearance at its destination began to echo about the room, an alarm clock signaling that the miserable time was upon you.

One your mouths parted for the final time, Loki pulled you against his chest whispering softly. “Don’t cry for me, please, my star. I have chosen this. I wanted to give you your life. Live it, live well. Just…never forget that you need real people. Not just films and television screens full of false heroes.”

“It’s how I met you,” you quivered from under his arms. “It’s how I got to know you.”

“No,” Loki answered, rocking you back and forth. “Those actors and writers will never know my greatest adventure of all. There will never be an episode of that Tom’s television show when a mortal from the most forsaken reality found the power within herself to lead the god Loki across land and sea and returned him to the stars to save us all.”

Loki helped you to your feet, but as you began to climb the stairs to the console, he stopped you one more time, taking your hand and holding it as if about to propose.

“Y/N, you’ve been the hero of our story this whole time. I want you to bask in the world you’ve saved and be fulfilled. Please promise me you won’t dwell on what we could have salvaged, and instead lull yourself to sleep with the dreams of what you have yet to do.”

“I’ll try,” you said weakly, before correcting yourself. “I will.”

“I am so proud of you, my star.”

After kissing your hand, he looked deeply into your eyes. “And if you do, I promise you in turn, that any time you need me, if you look to the night sky and see a green star streaking above…I am thinking of you, and in my mind we are already back in that hot spring, counting each twinkling light above until dawn breaks over us again.”

You threw yourself against Loki’s chest so hard he nearly fell back down the stairs. He kept his arm around you, holding you close as you ascended together, finally meeting The Doctor at the TARDIS console.

He was leaning casually against the railing, looking gently sad as you finally relinquished Loki to where he’d needed to be all along.

“Are you ready?” he asked. You both nodded.

Loki graciously stepped forward and shook his hand, and even The Doctor couldn’t help but smile again. “I still can’t believe I met the God of Mischief today! You’re brilliant!”

“So are you, new friend,” said Loki. “And…uh…” he looked around the ship. “Safe travels!”

“Godspeed to you, my friend,” said The Doctor. “We’ve landed.”

As the TARDIS doors opened for Loki, you felt a firm hand on your shoulder keep you anchored to your position at the top of the front set of stairs. The Doctor was lightly restraining you. “I don’t think you should go.”

“But, what if he needs me?” you said quietly, Loki turning at the open threshold to give you one more, reassuring smile. “This is so much…what if he needs me?” you repeated.

“He does. That is why this is a sacrifice,” The Doctor answered, looking you sternly in the eye. “But he wouldn’t want you to see it happening to him.”

“Y/N?” Loki called up to you one last time.

You couldn’t speak. Your mouth opened and air fell out. You felt The Doctor take your hand in his, giving it a supportive squeeze.

“I love you,” he said. “And I would make the same choice every time.”

You finally smiled back, even if just for his benefit. “No regrets?”

Loki shook his head. “Never.”

The Doctor’s grip on your hand tightened as Loki turned his back to you, slowly stepping out and into his world. You could barely make out a large, gray-and-brown room with tech and a few figures waiting beyond the doors for him. A blonde man in a brown suit was looking both stunned and relieved. Mobius, you thought.

You had the idea from the stories of Mobius that Loki had relayed to you that perhaps their bond was more than he let on, but you weren’t jealous of it. If anything, you felt a kinship with Mobius. You were both about to lose the man you loved.

In a moment that felt both instant and endless, Loki left the TARDIS to meet his fate. The doors slowly closed behind him just as he turned back to get one last glimpse of you.

“Well,” The Doctor said, adding a little perk to his voice to try and lighten the mood, “We both need to get off this timeline before Loki does his work, otherwise we’ll be trapped here.”

He ran back to the console and began speaking a mile-a-minute again. “We should have several minutes to get everyone back to where they need to be before the lines are fully repaired and sealed, so…”

You couldn’t hear a word he was saying. You felt every emotion drain from your body as you became a shell, barely able to hold it together.

The Doctor looked at you with some pity. Not long ago he was alone in the TARDIS, fresh off of a loss of his own. Unlike him, you wouldn’t have someone new literally beamed into the room beside you to fill the hole in your heart.

He chose to speak softly. “Y/N?”

“…yeah?” you said meekly.

“Let’s…let’s go get your brother. We’ll meet him at the park five minutes after we left.”

As soon as the TARDIS hit solid ground, The Doctor took your hand and coaxed you outside. “We only have a few moments before our window of opportunity to hop around realities, so let’s collect your brother and return you home.”

You were still entirely numb from your painful farewell. You only looked straight ahead of you with glazed-over eyes as The Doctor brought you into the open air. “Look!” said The Doctor with a sweet, encouraging smile. He pointed upward. “He’s already doing it. Brave man, brilliant man, that Loki!”

The deep green of the sky was giving way to light blue that indicated mid-afternoon. The people who were panicking seconds ago were beginning to rejoice. The Doctor had been true to his word: he’d returned you to only minutes after you and Loki found him in the park. Granted, it was only in order to retrieve your brother, who had sadly missed everything in his never ending quest for parking space for your stolen car.

Joey’s jaw fell open as he came up around a bend, finally spotting you.

“Well, fuck a duck! Sis, what the hell--?”

“Ssh!” The Doctor silenced him. Joey couldn’t believe who he was looking at, and thus clammed up. You were ignoring all of this, watching the sky paint itself blue again with a cold tear in your eye.

“He’s got us all in his hands at this very moment,” said The Doctor slowly. “He’s thinking of you and saving your life right now!”

The air around you grew cool, calm, and sweet, and you knew it was Loki blowing you one final kiss from his new perch inside a new Yggdrasil, where he had been meant to go all along. You sucked in your breath. Even the wind had the lightest reminiscent scent of Loki’s hair.

“Thank you, my love,” you said quietly.

The sky gave one last flash of green before dissipating back to its natural hue. The Doctor leaned in and spoke only to you. “He heard you.”

“Do you really think he hears me, Doctor?” you whispered.

But he didn’t answer you this time, with only seconds left to deliver you home. “Well, now that we’re all back together, shall we get you two back to America?” asked the Time Lord.

Joey was still confused. “Where’s Loki? What did I miss? It’s only been, like, half an hour!”

You found yourself standing in front of Gino’s Pizzeria once more. It was the last place in all of time and space that you wanted to be. The Doctor had delivered you to exactly where he promised. As the three of you disembarked, any evidence of the greened-over sky or collapsing realities was gone.

Joey shrugged and stuck out a hand to shake The Doctor’s. “What can I say, man? I got to ride in your TARDIS and meet you and…just…thanks for everything!” He may as well have been meeting God.

The Doctor grinned. “Oh, my pleasure, Joey! Always good to meet someone who appreciates my work!”

“If you ever find your way back to our little pocket of space, look me up! I want to see those swaying mountains one day.”

“Oh, you know it!”

Joey took out his key and opened the side door, dwelling in the frame when he saw you needed one more moment.

The Doctor looked at you, while you couldn’t keep your eyes off the sky. It was sunset. The TARDIS must’ve skipped around a few hours in time while you flew back.

“Are you going to be ok?” he asked. When you didn’t reply, he put a hand on your shoulder. “Remember, our duty is to live.”

Swallowing, you turned into The Doctor’s waiting arms, holding him close. “Thank you for everything,” you said. “I’ll be okay.”

“Good,” said The Doctor. The TARDIS breathed as the last remnants of Loki's magic began to fade. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my ride’s about to leave the station!”

He turned away, but had one final thought, compelling him to spin on his heels one last time. “Oh…and Y/N?”

“Yes?” you perked up.

“He can hear you.” He winked, and you waved with a sad smile.

You and Joey stood in the alley and watched as the TARDIS flew off, back to the reality where he was needed most. You cried quietly as you stood for a moment after everything felt silent, and the last traces of the engine’s noise were undetectable.

It was all over. Everyone was where they were always meant to be.

“Hey Sis,” Joey asked, still hanging out in the doorway. “I still have some weed in my drawer. Let’s get baked, order takeout, and watch Thor.”

You smiled as you looked down. You were beginning to fiddle with the tarot pendant, the last reminder of your summer of wonderful insanity. Loki had called you his star. No matter how many realities separated you, nothing would ever change that.

“No,” you said. “I’m feeling the bowl and the food, but let’s watch Captain America instead.”

Epilogue to follow next week!

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