Chapter 2

And So It Begins

"No, no, no, no and NO!" Fitz shook his head as he walked from point to point in the new lab. He picked up forms and tapped panels as he traveled.

"Come on, Fitz," Daisy urged. "I'm not asking you to recreate the whole thing, just a little piece. Like that demo you showed us." She leaned forward on the stool where she sat.

The man shook his head. "I cannot believe you, you of all people, would even suggest for a moment that we revisit that fiasco. Damn it, Daisy we almost ended the whole world! What is wrong with you?" He was failing miserably in his attempt to hold his temper. "You, yourself said it would take years…years, I remind you…to get over all the insanity we experienced in there!" He stopped and took a breath. "You almost died in there, Daisy. I…I almost killed you."

Daisy rose and walked closer to the man she considered more than a best friend. If she ever had a brother, a big brother, she'd want him to be Leopold Fitz. "But you didn't." She spoke softly. He refused to face her.

"I can't Daisy, I just can't." Fitz shook his head and picked at the staple in the stack of forms he held.

"You know about the DNA match, don't you?" Daisy asked and sighed as he nodded. "This is the only chance I…we have to create some kind of…of…"

"The memories won't be real and you'll still have all of those already in your head." He warned stoically as he stared at the blipping machine on the counter.

"But they'll be mine…mine with my parents, Fitz…my real, really my real parents." She tried another avenue.

Fitz spun around facing her. "It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Growing up is tough, Daisy, even with parents. And what if they turn out to be not so good? What if that changes you? What if that changes you into something you'd never thought you'd be? What if it lets you do things you never thought you'd do? What if you become the monster you've always feared?" Now he was shouting, projecting on her all the anguish he still harbored.

For a moment they merely stared into each other's eyes. Then she did something she hadn't done in a very long time. She pulled him into a hug and whispered close to his ear. "You have to forgive yourself Fitz. Like you said, it wasn't real." He hugged her back, then moved away once again checking and rechecking his machines.

Daisy slid back and sat on the table. "Besides, this is May and Coulson we're talking about. How could they mess things up? There the closest thing to perfect we have." She laughed at her statement. Fitz laughed through his nose in spite of himself. "They don't even know I'm asking." She looked down at her feet as she curled her fingers around the edge of the counter.

Fitz shook his head and laughed. "Already sneaking around behind your parents' back."

"Not off to a great start, am I?" Daisy smiled back. She slid off the counter and stood in front of him, placing a hand on his arm. "Please Fitz, just a little piece. You'll be in total control. No one else needs to know about it."

Fitz placed a hand over hers and marveled at how soft it was despite her tremendous power. "I covered for you once before, remember? It didn't turn out so well." Daisy nodded remembering how much he had done to keep her safe after she changed…changed and became, no realized she was inhuman. It made her think.

Daisy turned away from her friend and tapped a finger on her chin. "Fitz, did you run the DNA tests on your new machines?" He nodded. "There's no chance they're wrong?"

"Perhaps," he answered, causing her breath to catch. "A one in one hundred million chance of error and that would only be in the case of an operator's error." He continued. Daisy raised her brows. Fitz smiled. "I entered the data. I don't make mistakes…well, not mistakes of that kind." He frowned.

"When I thought Jiaying was my mother it made sense that I would…that I am inhuman…but she's not so how…" She wondered out loud.

"Genetics are tricky, they can skip around, bounce from generation to generation, dribble into one person, completely skip another and almost drown a third." Fitz shrugged. "Look at Senator Nadeen. Her brother survived for months in that cocoon and yet she had not a shred of inhuman genes, none whatsoever.

"But wouldn't that still mean that at least one of my parents had to carry that gene?" She inquired.

"Probably both," he replied automatically. "Given your enhanced ability and the fact you could hold the diviner without reaction."

"Do you think that's why Coulson didn't have the same reaction to the G-325 as all the others, I mean until much later?"

Fitz thought for a moment. "That certainly is possible. Although we might want to keep it to ourselves given that he may have survived terragenesis and not lost his arm."

Daisy grimaced. "All the tests were done on older samples, do you think…if everyone agrees you could run the test again on fresh samples?" Fitz nodded as he moved to pull a printout from one of the machines that had pinged its completed signal. He peered at it for a moment, deep in thought.

"I've already requested that May and Coulson provide samples. You'll need to do the same." She nodded her agreement.

"But won't my…I mean the change in my DNA won't that alter the results?" Daisy inquired.

"No, we're looking for something else. Some things stay the same Daisy, no matter what?" He assured her.

"Exactly my point!" She smiled getting back to their original conversation. "You let us into the new and improved framework, build some nice cozy, mommy and daddy time memories and we stay the same, no matter what. Just like you said."

Fitz shook his head. "That is a very bad idea, Daisy. All memories are not good ones, some things are quite painful." He warned. "Kids do dumb things and parents make a lot of mistakes." He stopped and took a breath. "And what about those things that hurt so much the first time? Are you truly ready to go through those things with your parents, to live their hurt? How much of your hurt are you willing to put them through?"

Daisy thought for a moment knowing the biggest hurt she ever had was not having them. Sure she'd done some dumb things as a kid. She broke her arm falling off a bike much too big for her to ride. She got caught shoplifting when she was ten and ran away at sixteen. Yeah, she made a lot of stupid mistakes but with a mom and dad maybe she wouldn't and if she did, well she'd take the consequences they doled out and love them anyway.

"But you need all those memories, Fitz. You take the good and the bad. All that stuff makes you who you are. Please, think about it."

"You're right," he agreed, "and different experiences make you a different person. Here you'll stay the same, but there…and how will you live with that when this is over?"

"You're born with your temperament, Fitz. Someone told me that once. Temperaments don't change, they just get pushed around a little."

"Daisy," Fitz looked at her over his brow. "You are nothing like were before you…since you became Daisy. Skye was an entirely different person."

"And she is still right here," Daisy slowly tapped her chest. "I'm still her and she's still me, but I've grown up quite a bit, Fitz and a little faster than most, but believe me that part of me is still alive and well."

"You hide that very well," Fitz shook his head.

Daisy smiled. "She's here when I need her."

"And what about your parents?" Fitz pondered. "They'll never to agree to this. I do not believe either of them will be any more anxious to do it than I am."

"But," she pointed a finger at him, "they might. If I can convince them, will you consider it?"

Fitz shook his head. "I will talk it over with Simmons, but I'm sure she will concur."

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"Have you lost your mind?" May sneered as she paced across Phil's office. "We're lucky we got out of there alive and you were not there as long as I was."

"May," Coulson attempted to make his case.

"No," she shook her head. "No, there is no way in hell I am going back there, Phil. I am not going back to hell. I've been there…twice…and I don't much care for either version and damn it, now I have to live with both. You want me to deal with a third?" She stood in front of him and sliced the air with her hand. "There is absolutely not one thing you can say that will convince me we should even consider such a half-assed idea!" She walked away, turning her back to him. She was done. There was nothing left to discuss.

He smiled at the back of her head. "Daisy…Skye…"

May pursed her lips and let out a breath through her nose. She turned and raised a finger to him, shook it then let it drop. "I said one…one thing." She dropped into the nearest chair.

Phil moved to the chair next to her, sat and continued to plead his case. "I know it's a terrible idea, May, but it's the one and only chance we have to relive…or live what we didn't get a chance to have the first time."

"And that turned out so well the last time…" May rolled her eyes.

"Radcliffe set out to help people with his crazy parallel world. He wanted to take away people's regrets. He somehow neglected to realize that even our regrets make us who we are. It was Aida who turned that into a living hell. She's gone May, and so is that damned book. Fitz will be in total control. You know he won't let us down."

"I can't believe he's even agreed to this stupid plan of yours." Melinda let out a disgusted sigh. "The poor kid can barely live with himself after what happened in there." She stared into Coulson's eyes for a beat. "Try telling him it was just a computer program."

Coulson turned away from her, suddenly finding the palms of his hands very interesting.

"You haven't even discussed this with him, have you?" May shot at the man next to her. He continued staring at his hands. "You haven't. And what about Daisy? Did you talk to her? Damn it, Phil, she was beaten within an inch of her life in there or did you forge that?" Her heart beat faster knowing she was instrumental in the beating the girl had received. Hell, she'd taken part in it and relished every minute, relished punishing the girl she adored for no other reason than she just wanted to do it. May hated that part of herself and would never, ever forgive it.

"It won't be the same." Coulson spoke to his hands. "That…that hell is gone. Aida destroyed it herself. Fitz will keep it in house." He glanced up at May hardly able to hold her gaze. "We'll be the only ones involved. No one can tap in because we won't be connected to anything outside the base. We'll develop safeguards."

May was already shaking her head. "No, Phil, it's a bad idea and a risk we can't take."

The argument paused at the soft knock on the door a second before Daisy let herself in to the room.

Coulson rose and smiled, "Come in, Daisy." May simply shook her head.

"We need to talk." The girl announced. "I need your help."

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May lay in her bunk staring at the ceiling. She tossed to the side and pushed the thoughts from her head. For years she fought the terrors of Bahrain, reliving the incident in every nightmare she survived. Thanks to the framework she could now also relive the nightmare of what could have happened had she not chosen to end the gifted child's existence. And yet tonight still another nightmare nipped at her consciousness. She almost laughed at the fact that her nightmares rarely woke her they simply kept her from sleeping in the first place.

After losing her baby all those years ago she had spent almost every night in tears, aching for the little form she would never hold. She refused to allow Phil to comfort her and only now realized how he must have mourned as well. But she had carried that little being all those months, sang to her baby every night and scolded when the kicking kept mama awake every time she attempted to rest. Feisty, that's what she called the little nameless being that lived inside of her.

May wiped a tear that escaped from her eye as she thought about the conversations she had with her unborn child both in English and in Mandarin, knowing she would teach her child both. She'd looked at apartments in several cities close to SHEILD bases, shopped for furniture and smiled at the tiny clothing in the baby sections of several department stores. Already deciding she would be a working mother she'd checked into several agencies that provided nanny services vowing to find the best for her child. She almost told her parents about her condition but decided it was best for all that they meet their grandchild in person before making any rash decisions. To this day they never knew how close they came to becoming grandparents.

She planned to tell Coulson before her time came. He deserved to be there for the birth. He deserved to hold his child. She would tell him she expected nothing from him but knew he would insist on being part of the child's world. Phil was that kind of guy. He'd want to be there for every second. Hell, if he could actually give birth he'd do it. She'd rub her stomach and tell the baby all about its daddy and although they couldn't have a life together, he would always be there.

Then Xiangtan happened. Something told her not to take that mission, to insist on starting her maternity leave despite Fury's guarantees that this would be the last. Promises that she could take the time she needed to be with her child were all she had. She was young and believed everything would always work out for the best. That horrible night shattered every belief she had. Everything she hoped for was gone in one breath, the breath her child never got to take. Two years later Bahrain sealed the deal.

Melinda shook herself from her thoughts. It wasn't her child that died that night. It was another tiny nameless being whose own mother never held her. Had Jiaying even known the baby girl she held was not hers? Did something tell her that little being was not her blood? Had Cal kept that secret from his wife?

She squeezed her eyes tight and let the tears fall for that tiny form she and Phil laid to rest in a small cemetery in the Hunan Province. The grave was unmarked, never to be found and probably covered over by years of neglect in that missionary village that no longer existed. She never told Phil, but every year on that date she burned paper representations of toys, placed fruits and vegetables in a small shrine set up at the nearest Buddhist Temple and for twenty four hours thought about what could have been. It was the one day in the year she allowed herself to remember, to mourn for that tiny being she never got to love and yet never stopped loving.

Now, both Coulson and Daisy believed that going back into that mind warping program could give them the time that Cal Johnson had stolen from them all those years ago. The thought of going back there turned her stomach and she raced from her bed as it retched and forced its contents free. She brushed her teeth rapidly, swished mouthwash and wiped a cold washcloth over her face.

May sat on the edge of her bed and for the first time since that night felt the empty ache of her loss but now it only brought anger. Coulson assured her that Fitz could control their re-entry into the Framework, that the hellish world of Radcliffe and Aida was no more. Could she deny him…Daisy…herself the chance to get all of it back…all the time…all the life they'd missed.

She looked at the small clock on her nightstand and rose to dress. A few hours in the gym would burn off the anger.

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Jemma rested her head on Fitz's chest, happy for the time to spend together. Happy she was slowly regaining his trust and watching him gradually become the man she knew and loved. He twirled the end of her hair around his finger deep in thought.

"It isn't fair to ask you to do such a thing," Jemma sighed. "There must be another way."

"Would it be crueler to deny them this opportunity?" He asked himself more than her.

"Don't put yourself through this, Fitz. Let it go once and for all." Jemma was close to tears.

"I made their lives a living hell, Jemma. I did that. This is a chance to give back a little bit, to take away the pain and give them something they should have had all along." He dropped his hand to her back and gently caressed her. "How can that be wrong?"

Jemma turned her head and looked into his eyes. "Are you trying to convince me or you?"

Fitz looked down at her and smiled a weak smile, something he rarely did these days. "It wouldn't be the same. I'd have something I hadn't before."

Jemma furrowed her brow.

"I'd have you, Jemma Simmons. I'd have you by my side. Together we can make this work."

She pulled herself up to meet his lips and kissed him deeply. He wrapped her in his arms as she nuzzled into his neck and both drifted into much needed sleep.

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"It will take me a few days to prepare everything we'll need and there will be several conditions you will have to agree to, with no exceptions." Fitz informed the three people who sat before him.

May held a cotton swab in her bent elbow as Coulson rolled down his sleeve. Jemma labeled then dropped a vial of freshly drawn blood into a small metal grid. She turned to the last patient and motioned for her to extend her arm. Daisy groaned at Jemma's smile and hesitantly put out her arm. She watched as the doctor tied an orange tube-like cord around her upper arm and pulled it tight. The girl gasped as Jemma pressed against the soft inside of her elbow.

"Oh, I didn't even do anything yet," Jemma laughed at her friend's plight then quickly inserted the needle.

Daisy drew a quick breath and panted through her teeth until Jemma released the semi-tourniquet and gently pushed her lower arm up. "Ouch!" Daisy exclaimed with a grimace.

"Baby," Jemma countered in a gentle tease. She placed the sample in the grid with the first two, then handed each of the trio a small plastic container.

"You've got to be kidding," Daisy spluttered as she held the yellow capped object in her hand. "I don't even have to…" Jemma handed her a bottle of water with a smile.

"You will," the doctor smiled as Fitz turned with a quick blush and May shook her head. "We'll be as thorough as possible," she informed them. "We've already collected hair, nail and blood samples. We just need a tissue sample and these," she tapped the cup in Daisy's hand.

"Tissue?" Daisy spun in a circle watching Jemma move across the lab. "Tissue as in skin?" She balked. Jemma nodded and smiled. "Just how do you expect to get that? And really, do you have to be that thorough?"

"Stop being such a baby," Jemma laughed as she manipulated instruments out of Daisy's view. "It's not very painful. You probably won't feel a thing."

"Probably?" Daisy's eyebrows went high.

Coulson and May smiled at the irony of the girl's fear of medical procedures. She could bring down a mountain with the wave of her hand and yet she trembled at the thought of a small pin prick.

The doctor turned with a long skewer in her hand, the top covered with a plastic cap. Jemma stepped forward. Daisy stepped back. Jemma used her thumb to pop open the capped instrument and pushed a large cotton swab from within. "Open wide," she grinned at the wide eyed girl before her. Daisy exhaled in relief then rolled her eyes and complied. Jemma rubbed the swab on the inside of her cheek, pulled the plastic cap into place and snapped it closed. "All done," she smiled. "Now be a good girl and fill that cup for me."

"Yeah, well," Daisy smirked. "I can just do that on demand."

"Daisy" The name rolled off May's tongue in a quiet reprimand as the woman raised one eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Guess that depends on who's doing the demanding." Daisy turned down both sides of her mouth as she grabbed the small plastic cup and headed for the lavatory.

Jemma watched her go then turned to the superior agent. "Well, I guess that proves you can indeed scare the p…"

"Enough," May growled effectively silencing the girl.

Phil smiled at the camaraderie still flowing in his team then turned and laid a hand on Fitz's shoulder. "Are you sure about this, son?"

Fitz stopped flipping switches on the mechanism in front of him and held onto that one word – son. He focused on the immense difference between Phil Coulson and the man who was Alistair Fitz. There was really no comparison. Coulson was everything his father was not, everything a father should be and Sk…Daisy deserved every bit of him. Part of him felt a pang of jealousy toward the girl. She'd found the parents she searched for…longed for…even though it was by accident, they'd found each other. He imagined the monster that was the man he never hoped to see again, the man he hated for as long as she could remember. Yet that was the man his mind conjured in that hell hole he helped to create. He allowed him to manipulate his mind and turn him into the evil brute his Framework self had become. There were times he hated himself much more than he hated Alistair Fitz.

Then Phil Coulson called him son. He was not repulsed by his presence or unwilling to touch him. He laid his hand on his shoulder, encouraged him, gave him the choice, and most importantly trusted him even after all that had happened.

"I've got this, sir. I won't let you down." Fitz replied without turning around.

"And you understand what I need you to do?" Coulson asked.

Fitz nodded. "Don't worry sir, you will be totally aware the entire time you're there. You be able to pull the plug anytime." Coulson smiled and patted his shoulder affectionately.

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Three days later Fitz stood before Coulson, May and Daisy. He'd move the equipment he needed to the Cage, certain now that it could not be tapped into by any outside force. He disconnected all electronics from the grid, operating them only within the confines of the room. Three beds were set next to each other, with devices for monitoring vitals next to each. Three simplified headpieces rested on the pillows of each bed.

Everything was ready.

Jemma smiled as she flicked a switch and displayed the results of the intense DNA testing she had done over the past few days. Every test displayed the same conclusion. There was no doubt that the three people eyeing the new equipment in the room were related. Phillip Coulson and Melinda May were indeed the parents of the girl now known as Daisy Johnson.

"Six hours," Fitz spoke as Jemma began connecting May to the monitors next to the farthest bed. "Six hours a day, not one second longer." He was serious and speaking directly to Daisy. "I control your time clock from here. No matter what, I pull you out after six hours and you'll not go back for another full twenty four hours." She nodded realizing he meant her. "And you won't relive every second of every day, but you will get bits and pieces," before Daisy could protest, he continued. "The best of the bits and pieces, but remember your own thoughts will direct what happens and how you deal with it. That I cannot control." He adjusted a few items on his tablet and waited for Jemma to finish attaching all the monitoring equipment to Daisy, then to Coulson.

Each of the trio pulled their headpiece onto their heads then allowed Jemma to adjust the fit. "The time is twelve twenty two," Fitz announced as Jemma made a quick note. "I will pull you out at exactly six twenty two. Not one second past." He nodded at them over the edge of his tablet as he punched in the code needed to start his program.

Daisy laid back and relaxed into the pillow then reached across the short distance to take May's hand. She hoped May would take hers but prepared herself for being rejected. The girl smiled as her mother's warm fingers laced with hers. She closed her eyes and let herself drift into the blackness of the controlled Fitzwork, as she liked to call it. May watched as the girl's eyes closed then allowed her own to do the same.

Phil nodded toward Fitz, gave him a quick thumbs up then closed his eyes and joined his family in the world they'd build themselves.