Skye and Ward were training again, but I figured it was more for him than her this time. I stood back, leaning on the railing at the top of the stairs to watch. He was acclimating perfectly, his muscle memory still very intact. But something else was catching my eye. It was the look of affection he had for her. I felt a twinge of jealousy hit me hard. From the start of the show, I'd known their chemistry. It didn't elude me that just because I was here, they would just hold all their feelings back. And now Ward didn't really have a memory of me and was rebuilding. So then, if given a new chance, would he choose Skye?

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. Since he didn't have his memories, Tristan and I could leave and he could have the life he was supposed to have here with Coulson's team. The portal was fully functional at the Walk and even if Holtz had scrambled it, the pattern could be found again.

Simmons put a hand on my shoulder. "Sita? What is it?"

I shook myself and forced on a smile. "Nothing."

Her mouth quirked. "That's not a 'nothing' face."

"What if he lost his memory for a reason?" I watched him with Skye, teaching her another disarming move, her body close to his, their eyes meeting now and then.

"What reason would that be?" She didn't sound like she liked where this was going.

"Maybe this is a sign that Tristan and I should go." There. I'd said it out loud.

She gasped. "Sita… no…" She hugged me tight. "You can't think that."

I held back tears as I hugged her back. "I can't help it. It's like his own reboot that sets things the way they should have been."

She pulled back some so I could look at her face. "You've seen that there are multiple dimensions. There are multiple ways that things can be. We can't begin to think we know what should be in this one. You are where you are because you're supposed to be."

I wiped my eyes. "Thank you, Jemma."

The irony of talking about a reboot at this moment was not lost on me. I was flung back so hard with pain that I fell from the top of the stairs, landing on my back next to Skye and Ward, new images flashing into my head from a new episode in the Normverse. Everything up to Simmons' self-sacrifice and Ward's saving leap. As my head bounced off the mat, I blacked out with even more respect for the team.

()

"She's coming around."

I opened my eyes, my entire body aching.

Simmons was perched over me, flashing a penlight in my eyes. "Pupils are reacting normally." She clicked off the light. "Sita, can you hear me?"

I groaned. "Yeah."

She held up her fingers. "How many fingers?"

I squinted. "Two… twice."

She sighed. "Mild concussion. She'll need to stay in bed a bit."

I tried to sit up. "I'm f…" The room spun. "Okay, maybe not." I lay back down, closing my eyes.

I heard Coulson's voice next. "You fell off the stairs."

"Yeah," I confirmed. "Had another reboot. They seem to be getting more intense."

"What was this one?" he inquired.

I felt tears. "It's not important. Just some more insight into how much I love and appreciate you all." Man, I sure got sappy with a head wound.

There was shuffling around me as the team moved. The next voice was full of concern. "You hit the floor hard," Ward informed me. "You're probably going to be pretty bruised."

"Not really, thanks to Solution 42," I corrected. "Regeneration." And it was working on my head, too. I opened my eyes to meet those gorgeous deep brown ones.

He took my hand. "We heard a crack when you fell. I thought it was your neck."

I grinned. "You once told me it would take a wooden stake and a silver bullet to kill me."

He smiled at that. "Hopefully that's true."

I sat up, my head clearing. "It's healing. I'm okay."

Simmons shook her head in disbelief. "If we could harness just the healing properties of Solution 42..." She paused. "We might actually be able to do that." She rushed to a case. I was evidently laying in the lab. "I have your blood samples still. If I can identify which parts of your DNA were effected by the solution, we may be able to recreate it."

"Isn't that a little dangerous, though?" I puzzled. "I mean, we find a regeneration cure thing and bad guys get it and suddenly can't be harmed."

Coulson pondered this. "Let's just see what Simmons can find."

()

I knew what Simmons could find. I still had the latest episode replaying in my head. Over and over I watched her fall from the cargo bay. I sat in my bunk, curled up and confused. Why were the reboots becoming more and more harmful?

Ward slipped in, Tristan in his arms. "There's Mommy," he informed our son.

I smiled, happy he was getting back into the father role. "Hey there."

He set Tristan on the bed beside me. "You sure you're okay? You've been cooped up in here most of the day."

I shrugged. "I'm okay. Just trying to get my thoughts back into place." I sniffled a little and let Tristan hold my pinky. "How about you? Any progress?"

Ward nodded. "Actually, yes. When I was feeding Tristan, I had flash of his birth." His eyes held worry. "I saw how much you went through. I remember the fear that you were dying or that something was wrong with him. I remember seeing all that blood and not knowing if there was anything I was going to be able to do to help you."

"Hey, it's okay. I made it through." I gave him a little grin. "Anything else coming through?"

He grinned. "Yes. I remember our first kiss. When you did Morse Code on the wall."

I laughed. "You were so annoyed with me."

"Uh, yeah. I was trying to get to sleep." He smiled to me. "It's coming back. So that's a good thing."

"Agreed." I picked up Tristan and held him close.

He glanced to the left and down. That was a liar's tell, accessing the part of the brain that creates fiction.

"What aren't you telling me?"

He snapped his eyes back to me. "What?"

"One memory you should have is that I can read you. You have something you're not telling me."

He sighed. "I remember almost everything. I just didn't know what to do next. I've been talking it out with Coulson first."

My jaw dropped. "What triggered the memories?"

"Your fall." He swallowed. "Seeing you hurt like that. It snapped me to attention."

"Huh." I pondered this. "So, intense emotion worked. But, it wasn't intense enough to give you something to really focus on until then."

"I didn't want to bring it up yet because I wasn't sure about a few of my memories."

"Like what?"

"I'm sorting it out with Coulson." He steeled himself.

I chewed my tongue. "Is it about classified stuff?"

A flinch. "Yes and no."

I took a deep breath. "Okay. I trust you."

()

We were headed to Egypt. There was another team there that requested some backup in a string of strange animal deaths. I was kinda stoked to be able to see the pyramids.

Closing the door to the nursery, Tristan sleeping, I turned my attention to my hunger. The kitchen wasn't void of life though. As I approached, I heard laughter. Ward and Simmons. Hanging back, I listened in.

"Fitz's impression is much better," Simmons insisted.

"I don't know. You really have it down to a science."

"Science? Really? Are you making fun of me, Agent Ward?"

"I would never, Agent Simmons." There was a silence and I felt something hanging in the air.

I turned the corner, feigning a yawn. "Man! Putting Tris..." I trailed off, seeing Ward and Simmons quickly move to opposite sides of the kitchen. "Everything okay?"

They both nodded and assured me in unison.

"I should get back to the lab." Simmons picked up her mug. "See you all soon." One last glance at Ward and she left.

He continued making the sandwich he had in front of him. "You want one?"

I nodded. "Yeah, sure." What did I interrupt? No, I didn't interrupt anything. That was silly. They had just had a moment recalling the tragedy that almost befell them. That had to be it.

I stepped behind him and wrapped my arms around him from behind. "I love you," I whispered against his back.

He set down the sandwich and hugged my arms. "I love you, too." Turning in my embrace, he folded his arms around me and looked into my eyes. "More and more each day." Softly, he kissed my lips.

I closed my eyes and kissed him back. My paranoia was unfounded. He was just becoming comfortable with the team. That was all. It wasn't anything else. We really were becoming a family. It was just that with the recent reboot, I was once again reminded how much I didn't belong here.

He deepened the kiss, his hands sliding down my back to cup my rear and pull me more against him. I whimpered some, letting my tongue trace his lips. He turned us, pinning me against the counter and lifting me a little to sit on a clean area. I wrapped my legs around his waist and threaded my fingers through his hair.

"Ahem," Coulson cleared his throat. "Are you done with the mayo?"

I broke the kiss, biting my lip with a smile. "Sorry." I pushed Ward back some and hopped down off of the counter. He grunted his disapproval but let me go.

Coulson grabbed the loaf of bread. "I take it the memory retrieval has hit a new high."

Ward nodded. "Yes, sir. And you can have my sandwich." He took my hand. "I have a different lunch today."

I giggled as he drug me to our bunk, shutting the door behind him. "Now where were we?" He pulled me to him, kissing my neck.

I groaned. "We were at that point that we can't have sex."

He froze. "Pardon?"

"I'm still fertile Myrtle," I complained. "And we didn't really make a pharmacy stop this last time."

He sighed, slumping. "Oh, yeah. Forgot about that."

I grinned. "Cheer up. There are other things we get to do." I pushed him back on the bed.

()

"Dude, it looks like a chupacabra did this," I mused as I squinted at the dead goat.

"A Mexican goat sucker in Egypt?" Ward scrunched his nose.

I stood up from my position near the goat. "I was just saying..."

One of the dwarf bots buzzed by my head. "Whoops! Sorry!" Fitz called out.

Skye held her phone. "There was a meteor shower here a couple of weeks ago. Then there was a raid in Cairo over stolen goods. Not too much else."

Coulson looked up at the sky, the sun glinting off his sunglasses. "Meteor shower. Hmm."

"Eh, I don't think that was it," Fitz interjected. "I'm reading a portal signature that was registered with the Walk."

That caught my attention. "Any particular dimension we know?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Yes," Simmons piped up. "I mean, sort of. Solution 57 came from there."

"Did the subjects from 57 have a proclivity to eat livestock while it's still moving?" Coulson asked.

"I'll have to pull up those files as soon as we get back," she advised.

I didn't like this. If Solution 57 was the one from the cannibal group, then something very deadly could have been unleashed. "Wait, if there's portal energy, where did the portal go?"

"Maybe the same place that yours did when you appeared on the plane," Ward offered.

"We've found that a mini-portal can open to release something then dissipate," Fitz advised.

"So it's a random anomaly?" I questioned.

He nodded. "They really don't have a pattern. Although, you seem to have been the first."

"I created a rift," I whispered softly. "I made a tear outside the Walk."

"We don't know that for sure," Fitz was backtracking his words, obviously seeing that I was starting to look a little upset.

"It makes sense. There's a fabric in time and space. The glue that was holding it together was pulled apart when I came through." I looked around at the dead livestock around. "I left the door open."