A/N: Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Enjoy!


"Did Coulson say what he wanted us to do when and if we found this mysterious Institute base?" Ward asked.

"He wants us to bring down the Scientist."

"The two of us?"

"I'm sure he's nothing we can't handle." May looked out the window of the small van they'd rented. "Besides, he gave us the name and location of the woman who will lead us right to the Institute. What else do you need?"

Ward sighed. "I still don't like this. Leaving them at the medical facility…"

"What else was there to do?" May demanded. "Have FitzSimmons traipsing along behind us? Or Coulson, with his head worried about Skye and that girl we not-so-delicately kidnapped?"

"Two of us against the entire Institute, with God knows how many Clarion soldiers? Sure, a fair fight."

"The Lisbon compound was shut down," May said. "SHIELD forced their hand and they had to abandon the place. FitzSimmons got the majority of the vials of the RED serum – without it, and without Kat, they're unable to get the Clarion soldiers running. The hard truth of the matter is that we'll be dealing with humans. Sadistic, depraved humans who tortured a little girl for years."

The doors to the palatial apartment building across the street opened, and a well-dressed woman exited. She wore a red pantsuit, carried an expensive-looking leather briefcase, and her blond hair was twisted up into a tightly-wound chignon. As May and Ward watched, she removed a cell phone from her jacket pocket and began speaking into it.

"There she is," May said. "Helga Wong, wife of Felix Wong."

"That's who's running the Berlin arm of the Institute? She looks like a stockbroker," Ward commented.

"Felix Wong was the one capable of developing the psychoactive drugs that would have been able to augment Kat's alien system, rendering her extremely suggestible," May said. "Helga's people took over from there, and you've seen what they did to her."

Helga got into a waiting sedan at the curb, and as she left the apartments, May and Ward followed behind in their van.

A short drive took them to the Viola Munchen Institute, a well-appointed building that rose like a glass-and-stone castle from the surrounding office buildings. Helga's sedan disappeared into an underground parking garage.

Ward noticed the sign for deliveries and carefully steered the van towards that entrance. In the back of the vehicle, they had placed some well-chosen scientific equipment from the Bus. Nothing that FitzSimmons would miss, but odd enough and interesting enough that guards would instantly recognize it and allow May and Ward entrance to the building. Some twill jumpsuits and caps and a few faked ID badges completed the ruse, and though the entire plan had been thought up on the fly and carried out in even less time, it was the only solid, plausible idea they'd had, other than storming the building, which seemed an excessive task for just two of them.

A large gate stretched the length of the road behind a guard post. As the van approached, a guard exited the small building and waved at their vehicle. Ward pulled the van to a stop. The guard came closer with a clipboard. "Guten morgen," he said.

"Guten morgen," Ward replied. "Do you… speak English?"

"Ja, ja, English," the guard said. "Who are you here to see?"

Ward leaned forward and pulled the newly-created delivery invoice from his own clipboard, stashed on the dashboard. "Says here these are for Dr. Helga Wong."

The guard looked up. "I am sorry, sir. I do not have any deliveries scheduled for today for Dr. Wong."

Ward held the invoice out to the guard, pointing to the large red "RUSH" sticker at the top. "These just arrived this morning from our base company in the States," he said. "They were originally supposed to get here last week, but there was some screw-up at the plant. You know how it is. We're just supposed to get these to Dr. Wong as fast as possible."

The guard looked back down at his clipboard. "Ah, well, I can understand the urgency," he said, flipping through the pages. "Dr. Wong does not like to be kept waiting."

"Hey, who does?" Ward gave the guard a smile.

"I suppose you are right, sir," the guard said. "Please, go through the gate and park in Lot A. Dr. Wong's office is on the third floor."

"Thanks."

The guard opened the gate and waved them through. Ward rolled up the window. "We're in," he said to May.


"Coulson," Skye whispered.

The man at her bedside looked up. "Skye?"

"I hurt," she whispered.

"Okay," Coulson replied. He had a little paper cup with two pills in it at the ready, and a glass of water. "I can help with that."

Her hands reached up, blindly, and he carefully put the pills in one of them. Then he wrapped her other hand around the glass of water and guided it to her mouth. She winced at each movement.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be sorry," Coulson said. "You have nothing to apologize for."

Skye brought her hands up to her eyes and pushed in, as though she was trying to turn them back on. "I can't see," she croaked.

"I know," Coulson said. "We're working on it. I need you to stay calm, though, okay? When you got really upset earlier…"

He paused, looking down at her arms. At some point – he couldn't really say when – the blue lines and whorls on her skin had disappeared. Now, in their place, at least on the exposed parts of her arms and hands he could see, were bruises. Purple and blue mottled her skin, and it was so painful-looking that he reached forward without thinking. As soon as his fingertips made contact with her arm, Skye gasped.

"No," she whimpered.

"I'm sorry," Coulson said. "Can I… can I look at the rest of your arms?"

She nodded, and Coulson gently leaned forward, trying not to cause any more harm. As he tugged her sleeves up, he fought back the urge to weep. Skye's arms were completely covered in bruises, stretching from her fingertips and reaching to her shoulders. "What happened, Skye?" he asked. It was a stupid question, since he'd been in the same room with her experiencing the same things she had for the entire day, but he couldn't believe that an injury of this magnitude had somehow occurred right under his nose.

"Hurts," she whispered.

As Coulson watched, she scrubbed at her eyes again, wincing and whimpering. Then she brought her head back up and blinked, hard, a few times. "My eyes," she got out.

"I know," Coulson said. "Dr. Manning is bringing someone up to look at them. He was going to talk to a specialist about Kat's skin first, and then they'll come back."

"No..." Skye said, and she blinked a few more times. "I can… I can see."

Coulson moved towards her. "You can?"

She nodded slowly. "It's blurry, but… but it's coming back."

"Good," Coulson said, relief flooding through him.

Skye looked down at her arms. "What'd I do?"

"I don't know," Coulson said slowly. "But we'll figure it out."

He stood and crossed the room to where Simmons and Fitz stood next to Kat's bed. Fitz was folding gauze squares into a tight pad, and Simmons wore gloves, preparing to attach the gauze to the port on Kat's shoulder. As Coulson watched, the girl moaned and flinched away from Simmons' touch.

"We just want to cover it," Simmons said to Coulson, "in case any other intern decides to get handsy with it."

"Good idea," Coulson said. "When you're finished, can you come and take a look at Skye?"

"Of course." Simmons finished attaching the pad to Kat's back and took the gloves off, disposing of them in the nearest trash can. "How are her eyes?"

"She's getting her sight back," Coulson said.

"Oh, that's wonderful!"

"Yes," Coulson agreed, "but there's something else that's troubling."


As they made their way through the Institute, Ward rolled the small trolley filled with the scientific equipment, and May walked behind, holding a clipboard. With their badges and their get-it-done demeanor, they proceeded smoothly down the main corridor, heading for the elevators. Their string of good luck continued as they rode up to the third floor.

On the third floor, the elevator doors opened onto a small reception area. A well-attired young man looked up as they approached. "Guten tag," he said. "You are the representatives from the Banner Corporation in America?"

Ward nodded.

"Thank God," the executive assistant said. "Dr. Wong, she had been very impatient for your supplies. Please, for all our sakes, get in there."

He pointed to a dark wooden door at the end of a short hallway. "Go, go."

May and Ward moved towards the office. "What's the plan?" Ward asked, his mouth moving marginally.

"Get to Wong, get her to lead us to the Scientist," May said.

They stopped outside the office door and May knocked.

"Enter," came a commanding German voice from the other side.

Dr. Helga Wong was even more beautiful and well-sculpted up close. The office she occupied was richly appointed, with a thick Oriental carpet underfoot and lavish paintings on the walls. Bookshelves lined the walls, heavy with leather-bound books, trophies, and small framed photos. Three large windows looked out onto what seemed like a verdant courtyard. The doctor sat behind a desk as big as an island, dark cherry to match the rest of the wood in the room. As May and Ward entered, she stood. "Good morning."

Ward nodded briskly, moving the trolley into the office. May followed behind, closing the door.

"You are from the Banner Corporation? Good, good," Dr. Wong said. She came around her large desk and approached the boxes on the trolley. "Show me the Grafstaad Device, please."

May gave a short nod and took a box cutter from the pocket of her coveralls, sliced into the top box on the trolley, and pulled back the flaps. Dr. Wong took another step forward and reached into the box. She lifted out a large barrel-shaped item and turned it over in her hands, obvious pleasure on her face as she inspected it.

"Oh, beautiful," she breathed. "You have no idea how much easier…"

Her sentence was cut off abruptly as a crackle of electricity surged through the device and into her body through her hands. The scientist dropped to the floor, unconscious.

"Effective," Ward said.

"FitzSimmons knows what they're doing," May replied.

For the next few minutes they worked stealthily in the office, gathering as much information as they could. Ward stuck a flash drive into the doctor's computer and while the hard drive was being copied over, he and May both rummaged through files, pulling out anything related to the Scientist, the drugs produced by the Institute, or Kat's care. It was a sizeable pile once gathered, and Ward put it into one of the empty boxes on the trolley. May grabbed the flash drive, and they were back on their way out of the office before Dr. Wong had even started to come around.

In the hallway they gave nods to the executive assistant. May pressed the button for the elevator while Ward leaned on the young man's desk. "Dr. Wong requested that she not be disturbed while she goes over the new materials."

"Of course," the assistant said. "Have a very good day."

It took only a few moments to ride the elevator down to the main floor, exit the building, put the trolley and the boxes back into the van, and leave the Viola Munchen Institute. The entire operation had taken less than an hour.

"We didn't take down the Scientist," Ward observed as they drove away.

"No," May agreed, "but now we're better equipped to go up against him."

"And now?"

"Now we head back to Spain," May said. "Give Coulson the information, regroup, and shut down the Scientist for good."

It was the kind of simple plan Ward couldn't argue with.


"Skye, hold very still," Simmons said. She stepped back, now even with the radiology tech that had brought the portable X-ray to the small ward where Coulson's team was located.

Under the overhang of the X-ray camera, Skye let out a short whimper, but didn't move. Simmons nodded to the tech, who clicked the button. There was a pause and then the tech stepped forward to move the camera out of the way. "It'll take a few minutes," he said. "I'll bring the films up as soon as we have them."

He wheeled the machine away, and Simmons moved forward to attend to Skye. "You can lean back now."

Skye let out another whimper, but she acquiesced, shifting her position on the bed, trying not to move her arms. "What happened?" she whispered to Simmons.

"We'll know more soon," Simmons said. "Can I get you anything right now?"

Skye shook her head.

"How are your eyes?"

"Things are getting sharper."

"Good. Good. That's progress." Simmons brought over two pillows and carefully lifted up Skye's arms, placing a pillow underneath each one. Skye grimaced at the movements, but didn't fight it.

"I'll be right back," Simmons said to Skye, who was already closing her eyes.

At Kat's bed, Fitz and Coulson were still holding vigil. The girl was moving restlessly, moaning as she turned her head from side to side. Simmons noted her heart rate and oxygen saturations. "She's tanking again," she said softly. "There's got to be an infection we're not seeing."

"Or it's a side effect from the drugs," Fitz suggested. "From the chemical breakdown we know they're some serious stuff. There's no way her body could have blasted through the detox period yet."

"What are our options?" Coulson asked.

"Broad-spectrum antibiotics," Simmons said. "And some sort of strong sedatives to counteract what's in her already while we try to figure out what exactly that is. We can treat the symptoms, but without all of the information, that's all we can do. The withdrawal process is going to be very difficult to watch."

She checked one of the readouts. "The fever's going to spike again, and my guess is she'll start sweating, which is going to make her skin condition even worse. She may experience anxiety and paranoia, and I wouldn't be surprised to see confusion, lethargy, and inability to tolerate light and sound."

"And that thing she does, where she grabs someone and throws them into a memory?" Coulson asked. "Is that going to get worse as well?"

"I have no way of knowing," Simmons answered. "There are so many variables here, sir. I can't even begin to quantify them."

She rubbed her forehead.

"It's all right, Jemma," Coulson said, and patted her shoulder. "We'll do as much as we can for as long as we can."

"It won't be good enough," Simmons whispered.

The door opened and the radiology tech returned, holding a large envelope with X-rays. Coulson headed over to talk to him, and Simmons looked at Fitz. "I want her to live."

"I know," Fitz said. "I want that too. And what's more, she knows that's what we want."

Simmons shook her head, trying hard not to get emotional. "We should have left her with the Scientist and his people. They knew what they were doing with her, and…"

Fitz cut her off. "If we'd left her there, she would be dead. They abandoned her, Jemma, remember? We saved her. You saved her."

Coulson returned before Simmons could reply. He held out the X-rays. "I can't explain this," he said.

Simmons took the films and slapped them up on the light box next to Kat's bed. She bit back a gasp. Skye's bones were there in sharp black and white, and each bone from her fingertips to her shoulders was marbled and cracked in multiple places.

"Fractures," Simmons said, her eyes scanning the X-rays. "More than fifty of them."

"How did they happen?" Fitz asked.

"I don't have any answers," Simmons said, and she felt tears rushing to her eyes. "I can't fix any of this."

Fitz squeezed her hand. "You don't have to have the answers. We'll figure it out."

"Pieces solving a puzzle," Coulson said.

"We can't solve a puzzle if we don't even know what the picture should be." Simmons yanked the X-rays down from the light box.

"Take a breath and we'll take the first steps," Fitz said. "I'll figure out something to keep Skye's arms from further damage."

"And I'll work with you to produce a plan for Kat," Coulson said. "We're in this together, Jemma, and we're not going down without a fight. At the very least, we can keep Kat stable until May and Ward get back with more information. That's all anyone could ask of us right now."