"...and Asgard. And that's where I come from."

Once he had framed her sketch of the exoplanets with his outline of Yggdrasil, Thor proceeded to write names next to six of them. One large, two smaller, then three smaller yet. Smaller, or only more distant? Jane Foster wondered. If she accepted the notion of a Worlds' Tree, her next best question might be whether its axis ran parallel with the page, or down into it.

More immediately telling, was that the script he was using wasn't English. The characters looked like nothing so much as a row of stylized trees, strung together in a swift, flowing print. Runes, she realized, thinking of the inscriptions in one of the books Eric had brought her from the library. Runes, written. Probably as no one on Earth has ever written them, because who alive on Earth has ever seen them, except carved?

"There," he said at last. He held the notebook out to her. "That's what I know. It isn't much from a scholar's point of view, but it's how it might be drawn in a first book for children."

"It's a start." She took the book back and looked at the drawing. "Relative sizes and positions of the—planets? If each realm is its own world?"

"Each realm is its own world, and most, I think, you would call planets."

"Does travel between them only take place using your Bifrost?"

"Yes, so far as I know." He smiled. "There are legends of other, secret paths among the realms, but I don't know anyone who believes them real."

"Uh-huh." She gave him a brief, sideways look, and he grinned.

"Indeed. Much as your people recall Bifrost."

"Working from the assumption that your Bifrost bridge is my Einstein-Rosen bridge," she said, "the next big question has always been whether such bridges would connect different dimensions—different universes—or only different parts of the same universe. Einstein and Rosen only went as far as confirming that Schwarzschild's solution to Einstein's general relativity equations predicted a black hole could form a bridge between two regions of flat space-time. They couldn't say where those regions might be."

"I couldn't say, either." Thor's tone was good-humoured, but she knew that note of hesitancy in his voice as the one that said, coming from any non-physicist, "You know, I only understood about half of what you just said."

Well, she would hardly have taken him for a physicist, anyway.

More of—well, now that the evening's adventures seemed to have shaken him into a more diffident frame of mind, perhaps just a large, not unlikeable young man. Large, handsome, and leaving aside the long blond hair, and even with the beard, very much too well-scrubbed and tidy, to be any random, homeless wanderer.

If he's delusional, it's an educated, well-spoken, fit and well cared for delusional. The sort of delusional you wouldn't expect to find running around in public, except perhaps with an entourage of expensive minders in tow.

But there was no lack of clarity or sense either, in those electric blue eyes now regarding her with a twinkle that suggested he might be more than half-way to reading her mind. Either that or—appreciating the view himself?

Whoa. Not so fast! Not when you can't even be sure yet—not a hundred percent sure, not really!—that he isn't just a nice but crazed human. Because for some values of crazy, all values of attractive have to go to zero.

In other words, you are not even potentially my boyfriend, unless you are an alien.

At that thought, she didn't even try not to laugh. On reflection, trying to pull all the pieces of this together, which of available possibilities should she consider the wildest?

"The fact that you're able to recognize a pattern derived from a long-range projection of extrasolar planets worked up from Hubble observations," she said, "would say, still within this universe. "

"If you say so." He smiled a little more easily. "I've never been much of a scholar, Jane."

"It also begs the question of how you could recognize any of it, from this perspective." She tapped the sketch. "An only slightly off Earth-centric perspective. "

"I've been here before." He tilted his head back to look at the sky. "Many times. I won't say recently, and the stars have turned slightly since the last time I was here for any length of time, back in what I think you would call the Viking Age, but we used to do a lot of sitting out by campfires under the stars back then. The patterns my father pointed out back then, are still familiar."

"If you come from Asgard, then does that make your people Asgardians?"

Thor nodded. "Yes. Gods, to most of the other realms, but that's what we call ourselves."

"Are you immortal?"

"No." He shook his head slightly, not breaking gaze with her. "Just so long-lived by mortal human standards, that we might as well be. That, and between our strength and our magic, extremely hard to kill. Although I'm not sure I am more than mortal, at present."

She stared into the flames, then swept her hand back through her hair. "You know, I need to stop asking questions like that."

"Why?"

"Because as long as I stick with my own evidence, I can just about believe you're—something."

She looked round at him again. "I know we observed something out in the desert last night, that was a lot more dramatic than anything I expected to see. Something that amounted to a hole opening up in the sky, that showed a view through to someone else's stars. That, and a tunnel effect with lensing around the edges like the theory says we should see at the open end of an Einstein-Rosen bridge. And then the best guess I can make is that the end of that tunnel touched down—spun up the dust like a whirlwind, but it was made of light, the readings from it were like nothing I've ever seen—and no twister ever left marks on the desert like that did.

"And right in the middle of it, I caught—had, until SHIELD took it!—an image showing a figure in the middle of that event. No detail, beyond the right general outline, and proportionately big enough to be you—and then Darcy whacks right into you.

"Your being the only man we found in the area, out there in a stretch of bald desert where nobody would have much reason to be any time, never mind all alone and in the middle of the night, makes it the least complicated assumption, that that was you."

"It was," he said. "I think your vehicle hit me just as I landed. It knocked me some distance from the end of the bridge."

"Uh-huh," she said. "I'm also not sure a human would have survived that first time you got hit with the car. Your slamming into the side window hard enough to break it—I suspect that hard a hit should have been hard enough to hurt you a lot worse."

"If I were human, probably."

"But honestly, the minute you open your mouth and we're off into all this stuff out of Norse mythology—" She cut off. "Actually, that's another thing. If you haven't been here since the Viking Age, how are we having this conversation in present-day English?"

"We aren't." he said. "I speak the All-Tongue. You only hear it as English."

"Not American English, though." She considered it briefly. "More British. Like some Canadians, or Australian. An educated native speaker, but more formal. I don't know."

"As a prince of Asgard, I should come out sounding like one, in any language I seem to be speaking."

She smiled. "Then maybe it's because the British still have royalty." She studied him again, thoughtfully. "But you read English, too. At least—sort of."

"That is covered by the spell also." He smiled back. "Sort of. If a character has more than one sound, I can translate the wrong one. Spoken language is easier."

"Then you come out with things like you're not sure you're more than mortal right now." She shook her head, closed her notebook and leaned forward across it. "What is that even supposed to mean?"

"Much of my power derives from Odin's magic, and Odin could take it from me at will." He gave her a less than comfortable look. "When he cast me out—he did. As I found out, when I woke up in your hospital and could not break the restraints they had on me. Or I could say, when Darcy was able to 'taze' me, because that shouldn't have been possible, either. If I hadn't been so nearly stunned at the time, as I was, I might have understand what it meant."

"Magic. Spells, and more magic." She bit down a yawn, then froze. "Wait a minute. Cast you out?"

"Yes." He folded his arms and looked down.

"So where does that leave you?"

"I retain my birthright strength and what I think you would call durability, but that's no more than—loosely, say twice that of an exceptional mortal man."

She eyed him dubiously. "That isn't quite what I meant."

And my God only knows what it says about you, that that's how you interpret the question.

"You know," she said, when he made no response beyond glancing at her, before staring blankly again into the fire. "I hadn't even thought to ask, what you might be doing here."

"I had no plans to be here, at all." He looked out across the fire, into the dark. "I—I have come a long way, since this morning. I acted in anger against my father's wishes, and his express command as my king, then magnified that error by condemning him as a fool for his temperance." His lips set, and she saw him swallow hard. "I had never seen him either so disappointed, or so angry with me, before. And now I am exiled."

For a moment she sat silent, watching him. "So how does your hammer fit this picture? If that was what crashed in that crater? Did you get to see?"

"Yes." He shook his head, not turning. "No satellite. It was Mjolnir, but it was embedded in the earth where it landed. I couldn't move it, and it drained the last of my powers as I tried."

"The last of what powers?" He didn't answer immediately, and she probed. "Are we now talking about you having anything to do with that rainstorm that blew up?"

"Yes." Another pause. "Odin had Mjolnir forged of uru by the smiths of Nidavellir, when I was in my boyhood. He invested it with additional powers over lightning and storm, and set it as a challenge to me then, to prove myself worthy of them. I did that, some years later. Ordinarily, I should be the only one who can lift the hammer. I can feel it, feel where it is, and I need only hold out my hand and call, and it will come. When I'm close to it, I can call on wind and rain, the powers of storm, and holding it, the lightning. Or if I set the strap around my wrist, I can spin it, then throw it into the sky, and it pulls me after."

"Now the physics of that," she said, "would just be too weird for words."

"Not your physics. Odin's magic."

I'm just going to ignore that. "So that's what you meant, with that comment about flying out."

"Yes. When we came over that ridge above the crater, I could feel the hammer as usual, and was able to call the storm. Once I touched it, though—everything went. That's when the people there were able to take me." He looked down, his expression going empty. "There seemed no reason to resist."

"And here we go again." She stared back into the fire. "What do you think happened?"

For a long moment he neither spoke nor looked up, and she wondered if there would be a response to that, past a headshake or a shrug. Even if only the parts she knew about were true, he'd had a long enough day to make some degree of shock understandable. Then he sighed, and for a breath his shoulders drooped, before he lifted his head and went on.

"When my father cast me out, he said he was taking my power from me. He called back the hammer, stripped me of my armour where I stood, and punched me out into the void.

"When I landed, though, I could still feel it. I thought he either hadn't made good on his word—which was stupid, Odin never gave his word on a thing, that he couldn't make good on!—or that he hadn't chosen to take everything, after all. Because when we first came over the ridge at the crater site, I could still feel the energy from Mjolnir, much as I might have expected.

"Now..." He shook his head. "I think I was meant to be drawn there, to try and fail to reclaim it. It was only when I touched it, that the last of my power drained away. Then for a few seconds a spellsign appeared on the side of it, and I heard my father's voice saying 'Whomsoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor'. Then the sign disappeared." He looked up again into the dark. "Clearly I no longer qualify as worthy."

"Which means what?"

"I don't know. More, now, I must guess, than it did originally." He turned, pulling a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Not looking to start wars with Frost Giants is almost certainly part of it."

"Frost Giants."

"More properly Jotuns, from Jotunheim."

"Oh, dear." She rubbed her forehead. "You do realize, Thor, that to anyone who wasn't there last night, every word you've said so far would line up just as well with the likelihood of your being a delusional human, as an Asgardian god. Or as Eric maintains, involved in some sort of con, which I don't buy for a second, because that really would make no sense. Or I might say playing a part in some incredibly elaborate practical joke—and I don't believe that either, because I don't think I know anyone that creative!"

"Based on your own reasoning, you do believe me?"

"I'd like to." She considered him again, and nodded. "Yes, I think I do."

"Then I will hold to that, that someone does. It seems that I must now make my way as no more than a mortal man, until I learn whatever my father meant that I should, by sending me here."

"Well, he can't have been out of hope for your doing it," she said. He looked at her in puzzlement, and she gave him a faint smile. "Thor, he at least put your hammer on the same planet with you, and not even all that far away."

"That's true." His expression lightened a little, and she went on.

"Find out what 'worthy' means, and your exile will likely be over."

"Ah. No." He sobered again, shook his head, and his gaze drifted back into the fire. "Even if I do regain Mjolnir, I can have no certainty of that. The greater likelihood is that I can never go home."

She might be tempted to reach for his hand, at that, but too hard to know how that might be understood. There was no real reassurance to offer against the certainty in his tone, but intolerable not to find words for the task.

"Do immortals say 'never'?" she asked.

"I came very near to starting a war, today. If the price of peace with Jotunheim is my remaining in exile, I cannot pretend it will not be—as long as I have. The Jotuns have ever been implacable enemies of Asgard, and they are as long-lived as we."

He gripped the edge of the lounger and pushed himself to his feet. Careful, she saw, not to tip it, with the kind of care that one might see as an alternative to facing anything else, beyond the need for such care. "Now, I think it is late, and time that I go."

"Go?" She blinked. "Go where? What are you talking about?"

"When Eric and I were talking, after he rescued me, he asked that I leave town tonight."

"He what?!" She shot to her feet, dropping her notebook on the lounger.

"I agreed that I would."

"You what?!" She gaped at him. "Why?—ohh, no!" she said, as understanding dawned. "Ohhh, no, you're not!"

He regarded her in mild surprise, and she caught his sleeve.

"This is about me, isn't it?"

"Ah—yes." Thor nodded, looked down at her hand on his arm, and gave a soft sigh. "He's worried about you, and me. I did promise him I meant you no harm, but I won't pretend I don't understand."

"He isn't entitled to be that worried!" She pointed at the lounger. "No! You just sit right back down there, while we sort out a few of the facts of life around here—starting with the one that says Dr. Eric Selwig does not get to decide who my friends are!"

He didn't move. "Jane, I am sure he is only sincerely concerned for you."

"Oh, I won't disagree!" She shifted her grip from his sleeve to his hand. "I won't pretend I don't understand, either! First why he'd ask such a thing, and then why he'd only do it behind my back! But no, I'm sorry, he doesn't get to be that concerned!

"Not after what you've just told me," she said, "which is something he doesn't know, does he?"

"No."

"He couldn't have asked what he did, it if he had." I hope, she thought, and rushed on. "Because where are you supposed to go? Never mind at this time of night, and alone? No home, no family, no money, no ID—and trust me, if you haven't been here in the past thousand years, you have no idea how hard it is now, to do anything when you can't prove who you are, with all the right bureaucratic paperwork! I mean, given how little you know, what do you imagine you are going to do here, even just to survive?"

"Well..." He looked past her into the dark. "Start by looking around. Possibly go back and talk to the owner of that tavern where Eric and I were, earlier. I could also return to the crater site, and speak with Agent Coulson about the possibility of my improving upon the training of his men. He did say that despite their being highly trained, I had made them look like minimum wage mall cops, in a manner that suggested this would not be impressive."

"Nooo..." she said.

"He also mentioned places, where he said there were people who would be prepared to pay well for a good mercenary like me. Afghanistan, Chechnya, possibly South Africa?"

"Oh, my God, you're not serious!" She gaped at him in dismay. "You are!"

"Jane, I have been a warrior most of my adult life." He smiled down almost indulgently, at her horrified expression. "After most of a thousand mortal years, I am good at it."

"Except that if you're mortal now, you have no idea just how mortal that could be!" She tightened her grip on his hand. "Not to mention, that if there's any chance your father sent you here to learn any better way of being worthy than being a warrior, that of all things isn't going to help!" She pressed her free hand to her eyes. "Arghh, it's Einstein's definition of insanity all over! Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and you are talking about a thousand years of it! Never mind that even a mercenary would expect you to have a passport, these days!"

"Jane—"

"No!" She dropped her hand, glared up at him, set her jaw, and pointed at the lounger. "No! No, damn it! Sit down! You are not going anywhere!" She caught a breath. "Dear God, if you have a mother, she'd never forgive me!"

Well, that did at least make him chuckle, if none too happily. "Right now, I wouldn't even be too sure of that." He smiled, again with that touch of hesitancy. "Look, I understand you would prefer that I stay. But do you understand, I owe Dr. Selwig for his kindness in helping me, also?"

"Not that much, you don't!" She lifted her chin. "Not enough to walk out on the only safe place you've got, right now, where you can do anything much beyond breathe, without your best case scenario being that you find yourself locked up—in hospital, only if you're lucky! No, especially not, given I was the one who sent him, and gave him very little choice about it! I'd say his kindness was fully repaid by your dragging him home from the bar!"

"You—?"

"Yes! Who did you think?" She gave him a brisk little push, and he sat down again, looking surprised. "He only went into the SHIELD base after you, because if he hadn't, I was going to."

"That does rather give your wishes precedence." He drew in a breath, and let his hand slip from hers. "What, then, would you have me do?"

"Right now?" She sighed and rubbed her forehead again. "Nothing. As you say, it's late. We've both had a long day, I'm guessing yours longer than mine. I wouldn't trust my judgement right now, any more than yours. So what happens next, is that I pull out one of the old sleeping bags I use to wrap up in when I spend the night up here, and another one for you, and we settle in for the night, right here. It's not that cold, and unless you see any objections to it, it's a lot less complicated than anything else we might do."

"I see no objections." He pushed up and followed, as she turned away to the deck box tucked behind the loungers. "Except, if it will mean your being more comfortable, you may want to keep both—bags?" He looked at the unzipped quilt she held out to him. "I hardly find it cold enough here, to justify wearing long sleeves."

"That part's up to you," she said, "but I'll say wrap up anyway, it'll be cooler before morning." She pushed it into his hands, patted his arm, and stepped past him to spread her own quilt on her chair, before sitting down again and pulling it around herself. "I know I'm dressed warmly enough, I don't need more."

She looked back over her shoulder, watching as he came back to follow her example. "Just one more thing I'll ask, though."

"What?"

"Just be here in the morning. Don't wander off!" She settled in against the chair's raised cushion, and covered a yawn. "I don't honestly know what we're going to do, then, Thor—but as long as I don't wake up and find I've been dreaming all this, we will figure this out. It's one of those things we've got a lot better at, in the past few hundred years." She yawned again. "In the meantime, until such time as we can do better for you...your home is right here."

He sighed, and she heard the other chair creak, as he sat down. Fabric swished as he swept the sleeping bag around himself, and a there was further creak, as he leaned back. She slipped a glance back over her shoulder, to see he was looking up now, at the sky. "I think you will find that neither of us is dreaming."

"Mm." She turned away again, into the chair's cushion. I wonder if you can see home, from here? she thought, as consciousness slipped. "We'll find out."

Impossible to say how much later, she felt her quilt pulled higher, from where it had slipped around her shoulder, and a softer sigh, and he said quietly, "Thank you, Jane."

Author's Note: When I posted this in the fall of 2012, I was happy with the first two thirds of it, but not quite so much with the rest. This re-post (20th February 2013) tweaks wording lightly throughout the scene, but doesn't change anything of substance.

This part is equally here to add my thanks to my kind reviewers, especially Misty Blue and idrathernot4, for their leads to that online copy of the script :D which I didn't know about! so that has since made REALLY interesting reading!

As background, almost everything I've got Thor saying here, about Asgardians, the extent of their immortality, Mjolnir, Odin's magic, even the All-Tongue and the other realms...if it doesn't come from the movie, it's straight out of the comic books from one era or another. My only "extensions" are the parts about his using runes as script, my extending the All-Tongue notion to cover the written word, and my implication that he and Odin ever spent much time out watching the stars from beside Viking campfires.

:D The physics stuff is real, too...