Reunited

Chapter 1- Together

Noelle Smith pulled the lever of the Quinjet, shooting herself and Thor Odinson up high into outer space, now miles away from the Earth's atmosphere. It was the first time in almost a year Noelle had been to space. She was a little rusty, but she still remembered how to fly a ship.

"I'm impressed," Thor stated. An excited smile was written across his face, causing her to smile too.

"I told you I knew how to fly." Noelle was delighted with his praise. "But I suggest you buckle in."

Thor did as she suggested. "How do you know where we're going?" he asked, fumbling with his seatbelt.

"Fury gave me the coordinates," she responded, as she punched them into the Quinjet's navigator.

"Fury? When did you speak to him?" Thor frowned.

"Before you came back," Noelle said shortly.

Thor gave her a quizzical look as she tried to avoid his eyes. She didn't particularly want to dive into the topic of Fury for... various personal reasons.

She cleared her throat. She hadn't meant to sound snappy or curt towards him. "I'm not sure exactly how long it's going to take us to get there, but if we follow Fury's map, hopefully it'll be no longer than a couple of weeks." She lowered the thrusters, bringing the ship into a steady straight line, and launched them into their first jump point.

Thor nodded, still watching her. "Well, you only brought enough food for that long." He stood up.

"Only if you don't eat it all," Noelle teased. She glanced up at him briefly, relieved that the tension from his earlier question had passed. Thor seemed to have forgotten all about it and was smiling at her in his natural, easy-going way.

"I will try not to," Thor joked. He gave her a quick kiss on her temple and headed off to the back of the jet. She was too distracted to care about whatever he was doing, as she turned her attention back outside the window with a shy smile on her face. She wondered just how long it was going to take for Thor not to have that effect on her. After all, they had only been together for a few weeks, so she wasn't counting on it going away anytime soon.

Yeah, I wonder how well that will work out for you in ten, fifteen years, a little voice inside her head whispered.

Noelle quickly pushed away the intrusive thought and sighed. She didn't want her thoughts of Thor to distract her from finding the last of the Infinity Stones. What was important was the mission, she told herself, not her personal problems.

Three had shown up on Earth in the span of less than a year, which was alarming to Noelle. The Infinity Stones represented the six aspects of the Force and each corresponding stone held that power. They were immensely powerful– she had never seen anything like them in her entire life. And she had been to countless worlds even though she was only twenty-six years old.

Noelle mentally listed the Stones off. Mind, Space and Reality she had already encountered up-close and personal. That just left Time, Soul and Power.

The only way three of them scattered across the universe could show up in one place at a time would have to mean someone else was looking for them, and Noelle meant to find out who that was. Hopefully she and Thor were able to locate the other three stones before this mystery person did.

She had no idea where in the universe they could possibly be, but she had a feeling they had to be close, and there was no better place she could think of to start to look for clues other than the place she had originally first heard of them– through the Jedi Order.