I.
"So what's our play?"
"Don't remember inviting you to this briefing, Mr. Coulson," Jeffrey Mace replied.
The Inhuman Director of SHIELD, Jemma, and Grant Ward were clustered around a smartpad in the Director's office, reviewing possible scenarios for Daisy's extraction from the Triskelion.
"You didn't," Coulson replied. "But, like I said before, you need all the help you can get. And I think I did alright in the field yesterday."
Jemma gave him a small, encouraging smile, while the other two exchanged reluctant nods.
"We know she's being held in The Doctor's lab," Ward explained. "Highest clearest levels are needed to get past security. Now I can get in, but getting her out…"
"Is damned near impossible, it looks like," Jemma muttered, eyeing the layout on the smartpad.
Ward nodded in agreement.
"Especially with May guarding her," he said.
Coulson blinked. For some reason, that information put him at ease.
It did not make any sense. Why would that reassure him?
"Who's May?" He asked.
Jemma handed him the smartpad reluctantly, watching his expression with unguarded curiosity. He took the pad and looked at the readout. A petite, Asian woman glared back at him from the screen.
Melinda Q. May: Clearance Level 7
"I know this woman," he breathed.
"You do?" Jemma exclaimed.
"Yeah," he said. "It's been awhile, but I remember seeing her picture after the Cambridge Incident. She was linked with it somehow, but the press never gave any details. I thought she was with SHIELD."
Jemma's face fell while he spoke. She crossed her arms and looked down at the floor.
Before he had a chance to ask what he had done wrong this time, Mace broke in.
"She was SHIELD," he explained. "Defected to Hydra after the Incident. She was the one who brought Katya Belakov back from Bahrain. Unleashed her on an unsuspecting populace."
Coulson did not know why, but that explanation seemed wrong, like one of those news articles he collected in his file. There was a piece missing. Or something was left just out-of-frame.
"Yeah, and she's been doing her damndest to make up for it ever since," Ward growled. "If she is the one guarding Skye, she's going to be impossible to extract."
Coulson took another glance at the picture on the screen. Melinda May's eyes were cold and her lips seemed to snarl at the photographer.
"She looks scary," he agreed.
"I'm sorry," Jemma said. Coulson was startled to see that her eyes were wet with tears. "I can't—I just need a moment. Excuse me."
Jemma jogged out of the room, leaving the three men behind her speechless.
Coulson found her in the kitchen, draining a glass of water in gulps with tears running down her face.
"Jemma?" He asked.
The girl jerked at the sound of his voice. She put the glass down on a counter and steadied herself against it with both hands.
"That Hydra agent, May, you knew her, didn't you?"
Jemma sniffed and wiped her cheeks with her shirtsleeves before turning to face him.
"I know her," she answered. "So do you."
"I'm sorry," he said, for what seemed like the fortieth time in the last day. "I don't remember."
"She's your best friend!" Jemma yelled. "You two would do anything for each other! The only reason she even joined our team in the first place was to watch out for you! You dragged us all over the world trying to find her after she had been taken! How can you not remember that? How could anyone forget something like that?"
Coulson shrank back, feeling the now-familiar stab of guilt for letting her and Daisy down. Didn't they understand? It wasn't his fault! He wanted to remember! Of course, he wanted to remember someone like that!
"Jemma, I—
"This world changed your memories, but how could it change your feelings?" Jemma demanded. Tears were pouring down her face now and her voice was shaking, but she could not stop. "How could a world made of 1s and 0s change who you are? How could it make him forget me?"
The realization hit him like a punch in the chest.
Poor Jemma.
Not eight hours ago, she had watched the man she loved murder a woman in cold-blood. Whoever The Doctor was before, it was not the man she had come to rescue. Neither was he, Coulson supposed. None of them were who they were supposed to be, and Jemma and Daisy were the only ones who knew the difference. They must have felt like they were going crazy. He knew a little something about what that was like.
Jemma slid down the counter and sat with her knees curled up in her folded arms.
Coulson groaned as he took a seat across from her.
"I must be pretty disappointing, huh?" He asked. "I'm not who you expected to find when you came here."
Jemma gave him a tight-lipped smile through her tears.
"It's not you who's a disappointment, Sir," she said at last. "You've always been there for us. Daisy and I should have planned better. We should have known."
Coulson put a hand on her knee.
"So, we'll do better together," he promised. "We'll get Daisy back and figure this all out. We can only take this one step at a time."
Jemma took a shaky breath and nodded.
"Get Daisy back," she repeated. "Right."
"Now, this Melinda May," he began. "She's supposed to be watching Daisy. You think she's a threat to her?"
"I would have never said so before, but I honestly don't know now, Sir," Jemma admitted. "She's more than capable of doing her harm, if she wanted to."
"But you said we were best friends?" Coulson asked. "You think she would listen to me?"
Jemma's smile did not reach her eyes.
"If anyone could reach her, it's you," she said.
Coulson heard what she was not saying. She had lost her hope when The Doctor fired that shot. No one could be heard in this dark place. No one would listen.
"Then that's what I'll have to do," he said.
Jemma did not reply. She concentrated on mopping the tears from her cheeks with the sodden, tattered sleeves of her shirt. Coulson reached across and wiped the remaining moisture away with a careful brush of his hand.
"I'll get Daisy back, Jemma," he promised.
These girls had risked everything to break him out of this digital prison. The least he could do was return the favour.
II.
"Ward, what's your position?" Jemma asked.
Over their coms, Coulson heard nothing but static. He turned around to face Jemma from his seat in the passenger side of the van. She adjusted a dial on the jerry-rigged circuit board in front of her.
"Ward, come in!" She repeated. "Damnit, Ward!"
Coulson winced as she slapped the electronic display with a frustrated sigh.
"What happened?" He asked.
"I don't know," Jemma said. "I can't tell if something went wrong with these antiquated coms or if he cut the signal."
"Why would he do that?" Coulson asked. "You think he was captured?"
"That would be the best case scenario," Jemma muttered.
Coulson chewed on the inside of his cheek. If Ward was compromised, they were screwed. He was supposed to extract Daisy and call Coulson in if they ran into May. Ward was the only one with clearance in the Triskelion. Without him, they had no choice but to wait.
Jemma crawled through the narrow space between the seats and fell onto the driver's side.
"How long do we wait before we head back to the base to give the Director the good news?"
Jemma started to reply, but then something caught her attention from the side window.
"Maybe not that long," she said.
Two figures were running toward them in the dark. From their silhouettes, Coulson could see that the one closest was a girl with long hair. She was limping.
Daisy.
The other figure was gaining on her.
"May," Jemma whispered.
Coulson swallowed and reached for the gun in his holster to steady himself.
"I've got this, Jemma," he said.
"Sir, are you—
They watched as Daisy was overtaken by her pursuer. In a motion so quick, he almost missed it, Coulson saw the woman come from behind, swipe Daisy's legs from under her, and drag her to her feet in a chokehold.
Coulson was out of the van before he had a chance to think.
"Let her go!"
He pointed the gun at the entangled pair and walked toward them at a steady pace. The woman named May drew her own weapon and pointed it at Daisy's head.
"May," Daisy choked. "Ple—please don't do this."
"Listen to her, Agent May!" Coulson commanded.
He did not recognize his own voice. His hands did not waver on his grip on the gun, and even though he should have been panicked, there was nothing but carefully-controlled adrenaline pumping through his veins.
May's face twisted into a smirk.
"I know you," she spat. "You're the teacher. The subversive that eluded capture yesterday. Phil Something?"
Coulson blinked as his vision clouded.
"Not now," he thought. "Don't do this now."
May disappeared from his sight. She was not in front of him anymore. She sat beside him in a cherry red corvette. They were in an alley somewhere. Sunlight flooded the crowded street in front of them.
May looked every bit as stern as she did in her Hydra ID photo, but he wasn't afraid now. She did not seem intimidating. She seemed almost sad.
"I know you, Phil." She said. "And I knew you before…"
He shook his head and she was in front of him again, not holding a gun, but sitting across from him in a darkened office.
"May, nostalgia's fine," he heard his voice tell her. "But then life happens. It's time to deal with reality."
She clenched her jaw, hiding unshed tears behind a mask of determination.
"Phil, please..."
She was so sad.
Was she always like this? Why?
"You're not allowed to be gone, not yet."
The scene had shifted again. This time, she spoke with her back to him, as if he was not there. They were in the cargo bay of a quinjet. She talked to him, but did not acknowledge that he was standing right beside her. His skin crawled with frustration as he tried and failed to get her attention.
"What the hell are we waiting for?" she asked.
When she finally looked up at him, his heart froze in his chest. He did not think he ever seen anything as beautiful and broken as her face at that moment.
"Yes, it's me, May," Coulson said aloud.
The sound of his voice brought him back to the present. He looked up at the pair in front of him in shock. What was happening? Why was May holding a gun to Daisy's head?
This was all wrong.
"I don't care who you are," May growled. "You're not getting her. And reinforcements will be on the way soon."
Coulson squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make sense of the situation.
"You're not looking so good," May goaded.
He opened his eyes and looked back at her. It was still there behind her anger. That unquenchable sadness.
Ward said that the Cambridge Incident was her fault. She was doing everything she could to put things right again. But it would never be enough.
Coulson maintained eye-contact and placed his gun on the ground.
"This won't fix anything, May," he said calmly. "You can kill every Inhuman in the world and it won't change what has happened."
She scowled and pressed her gun into Daisy's temple. Coulson frowned as Daisy's face twisted in pain.
"You don't know what you're talking about," May said.
"I know that you don't want to do this. Not to D—Skye," he corrected himself. "She's your friend, your colleague. You care about her."
"She's a traitor!"
"She's a scared kid!" Coulson retorted. "She looks up to you, and you fed her to the wolves!"
May pressed her lips together and shook her head.
"I'm doing what has to be done," she whispered.
Coulson sensed her hesitation. He took a few careful steps forward with his hands up, palms facing towards her.
"Not like this," he murmured. "Please, May. Let the girl go."
May's eyes widened a fraction and her expression lost all of its venom. Daisy pitched forward to the ground as May's grip on her slackened. Coulson kept his eyes trained her as he caught Daisy and pulled her into his arms.
He cradled her head against him, watching May to see what she would do next.
She seemed to have lost control of her actions. The gun that has been trained on Daisy hung limply in her hand.
"May?" He asked.
"Go," she said, at last.
Coulson nodded and limped with Daisy back to the van. When he turned back to look at May, she was gone.