Raina was not happy.
And the whole castle knew it.
An unearthly roar ripped through the air, shaking the already bruised castle down to its very foundations. Plaster mouldings started coming off the walls in large chunks. Paintings fell. A few of the weaker columns came crashing down. Most of the remaining living and mobile HYDRA agents decided on survival being the better part of 'valor' and ran for their lives.
Raina ignored them all. Her sole concern was the one thing that should have been left in the castle. The only thing in the castle that she was concerned about. The only thing on the planet that she was concerned about.
And it was gone.
"SEARCH THE GROUNDS!" she called out to the few men who were unlucky enough to cross her path. "I WANT THAT SCEPTER FOUND!" Raina grabbed one of the men who was trying to run away from the area. "Find that scepter," she growled, starting directly into the man's terrified eyes, "or this will be your last day in the mortal realm."
The man fell dead on the spot. Raina grunted out her frustration as she threw the body off of the third floor balcony. "Useless mortals," she grumbled.
The mind stone was gone. Protected by those...Guardians. Or no longer on the planet at all. Either way, I'm back at...square one, I believe the human expression goes, she thought.
Raina knew she only had one thing left that she could do.
She could only hope it was enough.
#
Skye smiled as she heard someone come up from behind her. Only one man in the temple has boots like those, she thought with a smile. "Pull up a seat," Skye told Ward. "Great view of the sunset from here."
Ward's smile matched Skye's as he sat down on the grassy hill. "You watch a lot of sunsets from here?" he asked her.
"More than you'd think," Skye replied with a smile. "How's practice going?"
Oh, fantastic, Ward drolled to himself, but only If I think about being your knight in shining armor every ten damn seconds..."Good," he said out loud. "Your...uncle?" Ward continued when Skye nodded. "Your uncle says that every time I successfully cast a shield it cleans out more of my aura." He scooted close enough to Skye to lean in for a mock 'conspiratorial whisper'. "I think that when your dad heard that, he decided he wants me to drill 'til I drop."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Skye agreed with a chuckle. She turned back to appreciate the red and orange colors of the slowly setting sun...and to appreciate Ward's profile out of the corner of her eye. "How are you doing?" she asked.
"Better," Ward sighed, never taking his eyes off of his view of the horizon. "I mean, don't get me wrong, at first it was beyond weird. But after a while..."
Skye wasn't about to let Ward's voice trail off at that point. "What?"
Ward's gaze moved from the sunset to his boots. "It felt...right," he admitted. "Like I was always supposed to be doing this." Ward was finding it next to impossible to look Skye in the eye. "When I was a kid, I had always believed I would be a cop when I grew up. Or FBI, a soldier...something. Someone who could protect people the way I wasn't protected as a kid."
"What happened?" asked Skye.
"The fire," Ward replied. "You can't get into a law enforcement career with a record."
Wait...thought Skye. "What about..."
Ward had no problem deducing what Skye's question was going to be. "Garrett. He had someone 'erase' my criminal record so I could get into SHIELD." He stared out at the last rays of the sunset and thought about how distant those days felt in light of his current circumstances. "I will say I never expected this would be the way that I could protect people..."
"Don't forget who you're talking to," Skye sympathized with a wide smile.
Ward matched Skye's smile, placing his hand over hers and giving it a gentle squeeze. His face fell, though, as he let his thoughts wander further down their logical path. He pulled his hand away from Skye's and rested both hands on his knees. "I just hope that I'll get the chance to use it in the 'real' world," he said.
Skye frowned in confusion. "You know that's why they're putting you through all this practicing, right? So you'll know how to control your gift when you get..."
"That's not it," Ward insisted.
"I know," agreed Skye. She put her hand on top of Ward's, squeezed his hand, and left her hand where it was. "We will get through this. I promise."
Ward looked down at Skye's hand covering his. "We?" he asked hopefully.
"You're supposed to be my soulmate...right?" Skye replied.
Ward nodded. "So they tell me," he replied, smiling shyly.
"Then we will figure this out. Even if 'figuring it out' means moving to some crazy non-extradition Central American country where they use coconuts for phones," Skye teased.
Ward twisted his hand around until he could interlock his fingers with Skye's. "Thank you," he whispered.
Skye took her free and and used it to pull Ward's chin up before joining their lips together in a sweet, gentle kiss. "I love you too, you know," she admitted.
"Really?" Ward asked, his voice sounding innocent and hopeful.
"Really," Skye replied with a wide, joyful smile.
Wangchuk coughed behind them, clearing his throat to get the couple's attention. "Skye, my dear," the Guardian announced, "it's time."
Skye turned to Ward before turning back to Wangchuk. "Time?"
Ward caressed Skye's cheek with his hand. "Skye...I didn't just come out here to take a break. The next thing they want me to do is take down the shield so that you can get used to focusing through the stone."
Skye drew in a deep breath and let out a shaky, nervous exhale. "We do this together?"
"I promise," Ward reassured her, taking both of her hands into his own. "Together."
#
"Hey."
Thor looked up to see Jane's loyal intern and best girl friend leaning in the doorframe, much as the son of Coul had earlier. "Lady Darcy," he greeted her. "Please, enter."
Darcy pulled up a chair alongside her friend. "I gotta admit," she declared, smiling and blushing at the same time, "I really like it when you call me 'Lady Darcy'."
Thor matched Darcy's smile. "On my world, milady, you would be treated as nobility."
Darcy's eyes widened and her blush deepened. "Really?"
"Ladies in waiting often are of noble blood," Thor explained with an offhanded shrug. "You would be treated as no less if Jane were my queen..."
Darcy's face fell. "Or I would be treated as some little peasant wannabe because Jane is not your queen."
The spell broken, Thor's face fell back into his grim mask of determination. "Aye," he agreed. "I take it Jane has told you of her time on Asgard?"
Darcy nodded. "Some. Mostly what your father thought of her..."
"My father's opinion is not one that I share," Thor insisted.
"I never thought it was," agreed Darcy.
"Nor is it the opinion of my people or the rest of my family," Thor added. "My mother..." His voice trailed off when he realized that the words he was about to use were no longer correct. "My mother adored Jane," he explained, his voice catching on the need to speak of his mother in the past tense. "If it had been her choice and not my father's, Jane and I would already be wed."
Darcy head tilted to the side as her thoughts stuck on Thor's last sentence. "It's your father's choice who you marry? Not yours?"
"Aye," replied Thor, his entire being radiating his disdain for the ancient tradition. "My mother was able to convince him that I should marry for love and not for an alliance of families, but now that she is gone...now that she is gone there is nothing to stop him from arranging a union for me."
"Wow," Darcy exclaimed, disappointed on her friend's behalf. "That sucks."
On that point, Thor was in full agreement. "Aye. It does quite suck."
All further conversation ceased as Jane sat up with a start, pulling her legs up into her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. Darcy jumped to attention as quickly as her friend had jumped to a new state of being. "Jane!" she exclaimed. "Jane! Can you hear us?"
Thor recognized the symptoms of Jane's behavior...and also what it meant. "Jane is not conscious. She is behaving as Skye did before..."
A stream of letters and numbers started to spill from Jane's lips. Darcy's eyes widened with every second that her friend said something new.
Thor noticed Darcy's distress. "You know what these letters and numbers represent?!"
Darcy's eyes went even wider at Thor's comment. "Don't you?!" she exclaimed. When Thor shook his head, Darcy ran across the room, grabbing a notebook and pen from the nearest available desk. She then carefully took down every number and letter that Jane was saying, waiting through two 'repeat cycles' to make sure that she got every digit correct. Once Darcy was certain that she had everything in order, she ran for the door and called out down the hallway. "HELP! MASTER XIĀNZHĪ!"
The Guardians instantly appeared in the lab, responding with an urgency that matched Darcy's call. "What do you need?" asked Esposito.
Darcy practically shoved the notebook into Esposito's hands. "Jane just started spitting out these coordinates," she declared excitedly. "Do you guys have a computer that can access star charts around here?"
Esposito's face paled slightly as he recognized the coordinates he was holding in his hands. "Darcy, are you sure that these are the coordinates that Jane gave you?"
Darcy nodded. "I checked and re-checked them three times."
"Lanie," Esposito called over to his wife, "I need your terminal!"
"Okay," Lanie agreed, standing up and stepping back as she reacted to the stress she heard in her husband's voice.
Esposito slid into his wife's desk chair. His fingers sped across the keyboard. "One thing about having read Doctor Foster when she first came here," he told the group, "is that I have all of her passwords."
"Oh, that's not a disturbing thought," Darcy exclaimed.
Esposito ignored the comment. His focus was solely on the coordinates that were sitting by the keyboard, and he only stopped typing when the correct celestial chart shows up on screen. "Darcy," Esposito asks the younger woman. "Are you sure that these are the coordinates that Jane gave you?"
Darcy nodded as her face drained of what little color it had. Her thoughts turned to the one being in the room who wasn't crowded around the lab's computer. "THOR!" she called out.
Thor stood and pulled himself away from his beloved with the greatest of difficulty. "What is it?"
Darcy spun the monitor around, having to resist the urge to rip the screen off the desk and stick it directly in front of the Asgardian's face. "Please, please tell me that this isn't telling me what I think it's telling me."
Thor wasn't able to grant Darcy's wish. His face started to pale as he recognized what he was seeing on the monitor. "By the gods," he exclaimed, "are you certain that these are the coordinates..."
"YES!" Darcy insisted. "For the thousandth time, these are the coordinates!"
The Guardians turned to the Asgardian. "Thor?" asked Castle. "Do you know where Jane is directing us to?"
"Aye," Thor replied. "Those coordinates are pointing in the direction of Asgard."