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It's early morning, and the waves that lap the shore are freezing, leaving Loki's bare feet tingling as they wash over his toes. He doesn't mind; he's focused on something else entirely.
He feels him, maybe even hears him—if the incessant rhythmic sloshing of the tide would just quiet for a second, he's almost certain he could—and he's driven, endlessly, to find him.
His knuckles twitch, his fingers at his sides itching, aching to grasp something, to hold and to feel.
Something solid. Something warm. Something present.
He finds himself drawn to many items as he passes them, the desire to pick them up and hold them in his hands growing stronger with each sighting. He even does hold a few, rubs his thumbs over them—a damp piece of driftwood, an impossibly smooth shell that's been worn so thin it cracks under the barest pressure of his fingertip, a dulled, unrecognizable bottlecap, a beautiful piece of seaglass that he nearly pockets.
It's the color of Mobius's eyes.
This one he raises to his cheek, just to feel its cool, smooth surface, but despite the emotion it rouses in him, Loki drops it.
It's not what he's looking for.
Mobius is here somewhere, he knows it in his bones. So he keeps on.
He knows it when he sees it, though he doesn't know how he knows.
He knows it all at once.
Mobius isn't here, or anywhere.
But this stone…
It's what he was looking for.
It's heavy, much heavier than it appears, almost perfectly round, and most definitely perfectly smooth.
It's warm.
Instinctively, Loki presses it to his chest.
He knows.
He wakes himself with a whimper, his fingers curled at his chest, clutching nothing at all.
Without thought, he reaches for Sylvie.
Sylvie.
Because he knows.
Loki pulls her to him, scoots in against her, too, pressing their bodies together urgently, the relief of it minute, but instantaneous. He wraps himself around her, willing himself to feel her breathing, her beating heart.
“Mmh,” she mumbles sleepily into his hair, “what's wrong?”
“I had a dream,” he replies, directly to Sylvie's collarbone, where his face is resting.
Sylvie just hums and begins stroking his hair, trusting that he'll elaborate on his own terms, which he does after only a moment.
“I was alone on the beach, our beach, looking for Mobius.”
Sylvie's fingers in his hair tighten just slightly.
“I… I was certain he was somewhere nearby, but…” He threads one leg between Sylvie's, slotting himself in even closer to her, and takes a deep, slow breath. “He wasn't anywhere. I kept seeing things, random things. Shells, sea glass, just regular kinds of debris, but they all seemed… significant.”
“Mm,” hums Sylvie, pressing a few gentle kisses to the top of his head.
“They weren't, though, at least not… not in the way I was looking for.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Loki turns his face in closer to Sylvie's warmth. “I did.”
“What did you find?” she asks, her hands still, now, just splayed across his back, warm and reassuring.
“The rock.”
Sylvie breathes out an empathetic little sound, pulling back from him to peer into his face, one hand coming to tuck some stray hairs behind his ear.
“I'm sorry,” she whispers.
“It was so warm and heavy when I held it,” Loki continues, his eyes fixed on Sylvie's shoulder, really just someplace, anyplace, where he wouldn't have to look into her eyes. “Like it was… more.”
Sylvie nods.
“But it's gone. I felt it, I felt… him. And they're gone.” His face is wet, and Sylvie's shoulder is nothing more than a blur the color of her navy blue tee shirt.
She pulls him close again, holding him in silence as he's overcome by tears.
“I can't…” he begins, weakly. “I don't know how I keep doing this. Still. When it hurts this much, even now.”
She takes in a breath as if to respond, but he's speaking again before she can.
“I'm sorry, Sylvie. I know that's… foolish.”
“It isn't foolish!”
“I only mean…” Loki sighs heavily. “It shouldn't feel so… empty. You mean everything to me. I know I can miss him, still, but… I have you, and I don't… Sylvie, you're enough, you're wonderful, I shouldn't—”
Sylvie nudges his head up just enough so he'll see her rolling her eyes. “Loki. My love. We worked this out over a century ago, did we not?”
He barks out a tiny laugh, and his eyes re-fill with tears right away to balance it.
“We did, yeah.”
“Why would it be any different now?”
Loki shrugs. “I… don't know. It just seems like… He always said we'd still have each other. And we do. And the children… It should be enough, shouldn't it?”
Sylvie shakes her head. “Listen.” She places a hand over Loki's heart. “When I told you I was leaving, and you asked me to stay, and you kissed me. Was there room in your heart for me, then?”
Loki nods; his throat is tight and his eyes are burning. It was Mobius who'd told him to go to her, who'd encouraged him to be honest about his feelings. Mobius all along who'd just… loved him, loved them both, with a fierceness that had always made him feel so secure in his choices.
“And was there a place for Mobius, too?”
“Of course,” he chokes out hoarsely.
“And now, for each of our children? For your brother?” She pauses. “And for your mother, too, even though she's also gone?”
He nods, still holding back the tears.
“Then why wouldn't there still be that place for him as well? Of course it feels empty. It's a piece of you missing.” Her voice is lowered to a terse whisper now, her own eyes shining with tears. “It will always be missing,” she breathes, and then they're left holding each other, silent but for their shaking breaths and sniffles.
Their bed is still big enough for three—four or five, even, when their children were small enough that one or two might find their way into it after a frightening dream in the middle of the night—and there's always a spot that seems cold.
They'd never had assigned places, so it isn't as though it's his spot that's always empty… but it is. It's the space he'd be taking up if he were still there, just like there's always one chair at the kitchen table that feels more empty than the others, a sparse drawer in their wardrobe that would once have contained some very unfashionable slacks or otherwise garish beach attire, which now holds just a few of those items, held onto for the memories they embody.
Loki feels the cool of the sheets on the way out of bed, and the world tips upside down again. It's several more minutes, all spent sobbing into a pillow, Sylvie by his side, before he makes it out.
“Did we ever check the back of the cellar?” Sylvie asks quietly while they dress.
“Sylvie, it's been decades. We've checked literally everywhere at least twenty times.”
She sniffles. “I know.”
“I know,” Loki echoes mournfully.
“It's just that I could swear we brought it home.”
“I know, I know, I think so, too, but…” he takes a steadying breath, “...it's gone.”
The words still hurt.
“We'll never find it,” says Sylvie, sinking down to flop onto the floor at the foot of their bed.
Loki seats himself next to her, and she rests her head on his shoulder.
“Almost certainly not.”
They know it.
The damned rock, the one that Mobius had picked up on their last walk along the beach together.
Maybe he'd dropped it. Maybe they were mistaken and he'd put it back. They had never talked about it, and it had never seemed important until he was gone.
“Do you want to go?” Loki asks suddenly, and Sylvie raises her eyebrows at him.
“Now?”
Loki shrugs. “I think so.”
She gives a watery smile. “Yeah. Let's go.”
It's not at all early morning when they arrive, but even so, the surf is cool at their feet, not icy as before. It's pleasant.
They find several rocks, but none that are quite like That One.
Which, of course, only makes sense.
They'll never find it, and they'll never fill the empty space he's left behind.
They walk the length of the beach for the better part of the day, returning home exhausted and empty handed, except for one another's hands.
They shower, they eat a dinner that Loki can hardly taste, and, back in the silence and darkness of their bedroom, they hold each other in their grief once more.