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Rhodes glanced over into the passenger seat and grinned.
“He wasn’t kidding,” he said. “You really do hate being the passenger.”
“Habit,” Aeslin responded, hands on jittery knees. “Or maybe I’m just a control freak. Take your pick, and remember I can kill you with my brain.”
Rhodey laughed. “Can doesn’t mean will, Doc. Pretty sure I’ve got your number on that. But seriously. How much caffeine have you had today?”
“Not quite enough?” She looked down at her leg and seemed to notice its jolting for the first time. She stopped it with some effort. “Just nervous, I guess.”
“About what? It’s not like it’s the prom. You’ll be fine.” At her dubious expression, Rhodes sighed. “You’ll do fine. It’s all right. I bring people here all the time. Soldiers. Civilians. Victims. Survivors. People just like you.”
A gentle scoff as she stared out the window. “I’m not people.”
“You’re people.” His voice was firm.
“I’m not, though,” she replied a little helplessly. “I don’t even know what I am anymore. What happens when one of them gets a whiff of my half-assed telekinetic semi-Asgardian sort-of-mutant biology and flips out? The whole place could be chaos in seconds.”
“Then we'll have an exit plan,” Rhodes told her patiently. “And they won’t. They don’t care.”
“They’ll care.”
“Look, city kid. Horses… they’re like this weird cross between people and dogs. They’ve got a whole spectrum, just like we do. On one side you’ve got the smart, sassy ones; on the other you’ve got the ones that are dumber than a box of rock candy and three times as sweet, and then there’s every kind in between. They don’t care what you are. They’re more interested in who you are inside and how many treats you’re hiding. Give them a chance. Give you a chance. It was your idea, after all. You have to have researched this inside and out. I’m pretty sure that’s how you operate.”
“I didn’t research,” she admitted to the window. “Not really. It just seemed appealing, so I went for it. Emotional decisions, you know. Random outbursts. Disorganization. Impulse control issues. I’m practically the poster child for the grief diagram I threw away right after that stupid appointment. Maybe I should have kept it. Framed it. Put it on a pillow. Something. I don’t know.”
“All completely acceptable activities,” he answered, not bothering to elaborate as he pulled into a parking spot. “Come on.”
***
“Hey, Maggie.” Rhodes approached the woman waiting in the doorway with his hand outstretched. “Good to see you, and thanks for meeting us here.”
“Not a problem,” replied the woman. “You know me. Any excuse to hang around after hours.” She turned to Aeslin. “You must be Doctor Kindle.”
“Aeslin,” she said, shaking her head. “Just Aeslin, please.”
A friendly smile. “Well, then, Just Aeslin. Welcome to World’s Edge. Colonel Rhodes said that you were interested in work, not any of the programs. Correct?”
“Yes.” She fell into step beside the older woman as they worked their way through the facility. “Nothing formal. I just want something to do with my hands and time to think.”
Maggie nodded. “You wouldn’t be the first. We can always use an extra set of hands around here.” They stopped at the edge of a paddock where a few horses milled around. “Much experience?”
“I lived in upstate New York until I was about six. My dad and I would sometimes visit one of the farms near the edge of town. I think I’ve ridden a pony or two. The little ones. You know, where you stand up, pony walks out from under you, and you go your separate ways?” She grinned, and Maggie chuckled in response. Aeslin looked out across the small field. “Nothing like these, but I’m a quick study. I’ve got quite a bit of history in archaeology, too, so I’m not scared of mud or the outdoors or repetitive work. You’ll find I’m pretty hard to bore to death.”
Rhodes watched as Aeslin’s shoulders softened a little, a bit of stress leaving as the two women talked. He knew exactly what Mags was doing, and with any luck, the doc wouldn’t notice for a few more minutes. He looked past them to the horses in the paddock, and noticed one, a huge buckskin, lifting his head to regard Aeslin curiously. Rhodey smothered a smile. Of course Trig would notice her first. Of course he would. Almost seventeen hands, smart as a whip, fast as lightning and curious as a toddler. He was sweet, gentle and an absolute pain in the ass when he wanted to be. Like one or two other beings Rhodey knew.
The horse ambled over casually, ears pricked forward in interest. Still chatting idly with Maggie, Aeslin reached up as the giant beast approached her, and her hand came to rest on the horse’s neck. He snuffled her experimentally, bunting his head against her shoulder for the gentle scratch she handed over without question, and Rhodes met Maggie’s eyes with a massive grin and a wink.
If Rhodes were any judge (and after six years of hauling wounded warriors to Maggie’s doorstep, he thought he might be a pretty good one), Kindle was going to fit in just fine.
***
Rain has fallen the night before, a brief, soothing storm that has left just enough water to make a mess of things. She doesn’t mind in the least; it’s nothing compared to the sopping mornings and cold nights of the field work she’s accustomed to. She pulls on her boots, zips her jacket and heads toward the stalls. Her training has been minimal; a few safety discussions, fewer demonstrations, a signature or two and a compromise. She spends ten hours a week at headquarters, usually helping in a lab or reviewing and editing articles for scientific journals. The rest of the workweek is hers to spend at the stables as she pleases.
She smiles as she picks up a box of bits, putting it on a chair and pushing the whole thing over to the spot outside Trig’s stall. The horse whickers in greeting, and she gives him a quick rub on the cheek as she settles comfortably to her seat. He leans over the gate, nuzzling her hair roughly as he does every morning, and she bats him gently away, as she does every morning, smoothing a hand over her head as he moves a few inches away.
She begins to clean the first bit, fingers nimble in a rhythm that is already becoming as familiar to her as sorting artifacts or labeling potsherds. Her first tasks done, she moves on to cleaning the stalls. Trig munches comfortably on his breakfast, and after a long while, she begins to talk, as she does every morning. There is nobody to listen but he and the other two horses in the row, dozing before their turns in the ring, but it does not matter. She speaks of everything and nothing, of her father, of the articles she edits, of vectors and germs, of manuscripts and diagrams. She tells them of her mutation and of her powers, though she never shows them. She talks to them of canyons and gardens and the once-god. She sometimes even talks of Phil, laughing amid her tears, and through it all, there is a comforting silence and the occasional bunt of a massive head on her shoulder.
She smells of hay and earth and warm metal when she comes home, tired to the bone and later some nights than others, and Loki invariably finds an excuse to knead the knots from her shoulders while they tell each other of their days. Sometimes she falls asleep mid-story, and he lets her rest against him until she wakes with a start and picks up where she left off while he laughs and works his knuckles against her loosening muscles.
She returns the next morning, and the next, and the next, and slowly, ever so slowly, the gash through her soul begins to heal.