A/N: I really couldn't afford the time I spent writing this, but I couldn't let what happened stand.
Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review.
It seems to take hours for the shaking to stop. In fact, it's probably only about ten minutes.
For a moment, everything is still and silent. The air is heavy with dust, and Phil is horribly aware of the solid walls in front of him, still closed. Even with Mack's help, he doesn't think he'll be able to pry the temple back open. It's solid rock, and even if it weren't—they've already learned how dangerous touching things in this city can be.
"What happened?" Mack asks, and it spurs Phil into action.
He starts to stand—leaning heavily on Mack, who's leaning heavily on him—but they're both knocked off their feet again as the ground shakes once more. It's less this time, however, and over much faster. When it is—when the rocks stop falling and he opens his eyes again—the temple is open.
He forgets his injuries and surges to his feet.
"Director?" Mack says. He's still on the ground, but Phil can't spare the time to help him up.
Actually, it might be better if he doesn't move. He was fine while he was possessed—by the city?—but now that he's himself again, who knows whether the injuries he must have sustained in his hundred-foot fall might make themselves known.
"Stay there," he warns, and stumbles forward, alone.
He can hear shifting behind him—Mack's disobeying him, which is not a surprise (Phil's a lot of things, but he really doesn't demand the same unthinking obedience as Nick—though not for lack of trying)—but doesn't pause.
For a moment, when he enters the temple, he thinks it's empty. It's dimly lit, and there's rubble all over the ground. He knows a brief moment of despair, and then realizes that the sound he's hearing isn't his blood pounding in his ears, but instead uneven breathing.
He moves farther into the room, past the short pedestal in the center, and finds Trip slumped against the far wall.
"Trip," he says, and hurries to his side. The pain in his…well, everything…spikes as he kneels next to Trip, but he ignores it. This close, he can see the blood soaking through both Trip's shirt and the bandage on his arm. He barely has the chance to worry about that before he sees the stone shards embedded in Trip's gut, and for a moment all he can do is stare.
"Skye," Trip chokes out, and Phil jolts.
He looks around the room helplessly, but there's no sign of Skye—or Raina.
"Where is she?" he asks, hands hovering uncertainly over Trip's various wounds. He doesn't know where to apply pressure, or even if he should. He knows better than to remove the shards in Trip's stomach—all that will do is let the blood out, and Trip's already losing enough of that—but beyond that…
There are sounds outside the temple, distant shouts that he can't resolve into words, and then Mack's reply:
"Here! We're here!"
"Stone," Trip wheezes.
"Yeah," Phil says, grimacing. "There's a lot of it. Don't worry, I'm sure Simmons—"
"No," he interrupts, clutching weakly at Phil's arm. "Skye. Turned to stone. Then…"
"Then?" Phil prompts anxiously.
Trip is fading fast, and Phil has the absurd urge to yell for Simmons, as though his voice alone could summon her from wherever May's taken the team. He's not a doctor. He took field-med training at the Academy, decades ago, but even if he'd taken it yesterday, field-med doesn't cover what to do when someone has a formerly severed artery that looks suspiciously like it's tearing apart again.
He's considering yelling for Simmons anyway, just to make himself feel better, when she appears at his side.
"What…"
"Move," she orders, and he gets out of her way.
He hangs back, watching helplessly. He can't help but think of another time he was in this position, when Skye was shot and the whole team stood around, staring uselessly as Simmons worked to save her life. There's no miracle cure this time, though. They don't have any GH-325, and even if they did, he wouldn't use it. Not even to save Trip. Not when he knows the cost.
But the memory is horrible in more than one way, because where the hell is Skye? Turned to stone and then what? He looks around the room again, at the rubble spread over the floor, and something in his stomach twists. No. It can't be.
It seems to take forever for Simmons to finish with Trip. By the time she has, the whole team has joined them in the temple. Fitz and Bobbi are hovering over Mack, who's bearing their fussing with a patient smile. There's an open first-aid kit at Bobbi's feet, significantly smaller than the one Simmons is using, and if her ease is any indication, Mack's only injuries are minor.
That's good.
May is next to Phil, still and silent. She doesn't make any move to see to his own injuries, which is wise of her, but she's radiating a disapproval that suggests she won't be catching him if he succumbs to them and passes out. Her worry for Skye is written in every solid line of her face, but she never says a word.
Hunter is in the doorway, watching all of them. The fact that he hasn't bolted speaks well of him; he's come a long way since Hartley's death.
Finally, Simmons takes a deep breath and sits back on her heels.
"He needs a proper hospital," she says over her shoulder. The words are clearly aimed at Phil, and he takes a step forward. "But he'll live."
It's as though everyone in the room has been holding their breath, and they let it out as one. Some of the weight on Phil's shoulders lifts away. But it's far from gone.
He manages to hold the question back until Bobbi and Mack have helped Trip to his feet, and then he can wait no longer.
"And Skye?"
Trip is swaying on his feet, leaning heavily on Bobbi, but he meets Phil's eyes steadily.
"I'm not sure," he says. "She turned to stone, but it kind of started to…flake away. Then there was this—light."
"Light?" May asks. "What kind of light?"
"Blue," Trip says, with a one-shouldered shrug (followed immediately by a wince). "It just…covered her. Then she was gone." He nods at the rubble on the ground, the broken stone Phil's been trying (and mostly failing) not to think about. "Not like Raina. Raina just broke."
Blue light and disappearance, as opposed to out-and-out shattering. That's something, isn't it?
"What do you think?" he asks Fitz. "Teleportation?"
"It's possible," Fitz acknowledges. He looks around the room, at all of them watching him, and shrugs. "But…to where?"
x
It seems to take hours for the shaking to stop. In fact, it's probably only about ten minutes.
She feels…different. Lighter, somehow—but, at the same time, weirdly heavy.
But that might just be grief, because Trip is in pieces on the ground before her. She sinks slowly to her knees. It's just too much. After everything—after Ward, after her father, after Whitehall and her mother and her name—it's just too much. She doesn't know what to do. She can't even cry.
All she can do is kneel there, next to the empty clothes and stone pieces that are all that's left of one of the only truly good men she's ever known.
The shaking starts again, but it's less, and she doesn't let it move her from Trip's side. She sees, from the corner of her eye, that the walls are opening. She can't move, though. How could she? She already left Mack, and who knows what happened to him. She can't leave Trip.
She doesn't know how long she kneels there, staring at the space where Trip used to be, like just by looking she can put him back together. Eventually, though, the sound of footsteps pulls her eyes away from—from that.
She doesn't know who she's expecting it to be. She doesn't know who she wants it to be. All she can do is hope, distantly, that it's a member of her team and not her father.
It's not her father. It's not a member of her team, either.
The—person? alien?—standing in the doorway is tall. He's at least seven feet. He's dressed in what looks like some weird, futuristic version of chainmail.
And he's entirely blue.
"Welcome," he says, in a voice that echoes painfully in her skull. "We've been waiting."