Missing Scenes, "Seeds"
by Sammie
Summary: Twenty-four years ago, a 5-person SHIELD team ran the back end and died in attempt to secure a baby 084. (AU - "Seeds" rewrite)
A/N:
- This is both an episode rewrite and a missing scenes FF for "Seeds". Most times, TV shows kill these side characters because no one bonds emotionally with them. I was very impressed with Boyd Kestner, because despite having short, exposition scenes and little screen time, this actor really made me feel sad for Richard Lumley and Linda Avery. I wondered if he and Avery had had family, loved ones, etc. What did it cost them to do what they did? Out of that came this FF.
- VERY AU: no Hydra at all (for Ward or Garrett), and AU in timeline.
- italics signify quotes from episodes; bold refer to flashbacks.
- I am making up for killing Fitz in another FF. He's alive! The whole time! :-)
If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.
~ William Shakespeare, Henry V
Garrett grinned down at Skye. "You know what an 0-8-4 is? An object of unknown origin. Kind of like you."
+ seeds +
Garrett paused, looking down at the consultant, sitting on her bed. "I didn't forget about what you asked me... The un-redacted file about your past. I found it." He took a deep breath. "It was about the person who dropped you off at the orphanage. Turns out, it was a SHIELD agent."
+ seeds +
Garrett strode along, Akela Amador and Antoine Triplett on either side of him. "Skye's trying to ID the agent that dropped her off at the orphanage."
Triplett replied sharply, "We agreed to protect her from the truth."
+ seeds +
Akela gripped Skye's arm tightly, her voice sharp. "You have to decide why you're here. If you can't put aside your personal attachments, then you shouldn't be here."
Amador continued down past the kitchen, heading up the stairs into Garrett's office. "Touchdown in twenty," she said, popping her head into the small office. "We'll drop off the other four, then we're headed straight out."
"Trip going to be all right on his own with this?" Garrett asked, looking up from his paperwork.
"'This' being Loki's big mess or 'this' being in charge of the kids?" Amador asked with a straight face, raising an eyebrow.
Garrett snorted, a big grin crossing his face. "Point taken. He'll be fine." He nodded, tossing his folder onto his desk. "You want to tell me why we're flying to Mexico City?"
"Trip and I have been looking into Skye's past, like you asked - into the agent who dropped her off at the orphanage." Amador came in then and dropped the folder onto his desk.
"Thought the agent was killed," Garrett replied, opening up the folder.
"So did I. When I floated the possibility that our person of interest didn't die but simply went off-grid all those years ago, a lot of the discrepancies we've seen started lining up."
Garrett frowned, looking at the file. "And Mexico City?"
"A few days ago, a Mexican teenager posted a selfie of himself on Facebook, managed to capture our guy leaving a grocery store in the background."
Garrett frowned and shook his head. "Look, 'Kela, if this agent was good enough to avoid SHIELD all these years - "
Amador finished, " - we have a short window to intercept."
"Please tell me you're not looking to do shopping while we're here." Garrett gave her a look as he peered through the binoculars at the storefront.
"Do I look like Skye?" Amador gave him a look and took the binoculars from him without a word.
"Why do you even need binoculars?" Garrett huffed at the younger agent as she pointed her gaze towards the dress shop. "What about your Superman eyeball?"
Amador pulled away the binoculars to glare at him. "And whose fault was that?"
"Look, you came to me after your accident and said SHIELD wouldn't let you do ops any more with only one eye. I offered what I thought was a good solution! I didn't know Cybertek was going to implant that weirdo back-scatter thing, all right?! I already said I was sorry!"
Amador rolled her eyes at him, then shoved the binoculars back. "Dario Marquez's dress shop. Marquez doesn't do the best papers in town, but he also doesn't use a computer.."
Garrett nodded in understanding. "So, if our guy's going to make a run for it, your guess is he might pass through that door."
"It's worth a shot, so we wait."
Sure enough, after a half an hour, the agent in question slipped out of the doorway, a baseball cap pulled down low over the face. Garrett lowered the small binoculars and quietly climbed out of the car. "Here we go." He started down the stretch of sidewalk, moving quickly but trying to keep a lower profile.
Ahead of him, the presumed-dead SHIELD agent slowly turned, slightly, as if looking at the clock on the street - and caught Garrett's eye. The other took off.
"I got made! He's running," Garrett radioed as he took off in pursuit, trying to keep the target in sight. "Headed your way. Heading down the alley."
Far ahead of him, Garrett saw Amador burst out of a storefront, veering into the alley in pursuit. The fleeing agent, their target, grabbed at something on the large watch on the left wrist but didn't get a chance to do anything with it before Amador kicked it into the air, neatly catching it in her hand.
The other agent took off, nimble and quick, climbing up a ladder with speed. Garrett ran around the back and up the back stairwell of the building, taking the steps two at a time. He came out on the floor and heard the bang of shoes on the metal stairwell outside, then quickly crossed the floor.
Just as Garrett hit the wall, he leaned out the window and pointed the gun down, just a few feet from the face of the presumed dead SHIELD agent. He grinned, wide. "Howdy. Let me introduce myself. I'm Agent John Garrett, with SHIELD."
At that, the curly-haired man suddenly relaxed, his eyes closing in relief, the death grip on the bars relaxing. "Oh, thank God," he muttered, his Scottish accent bleeding through. He shook his head, then said, "It's about the baby girl, isn't it?"