Another chapter up for you!

Agent Mackenzie of SHIELD had been working there since he was a legal adult. As a kid, his parents indoctrinated him in Hydra's teachings to the point of him hating Hydra, so when he finally turned eighteen, he spent two years working out the logistics to find SHIELD, the Resistance, and become an agent.

Now, here he was, one of their best mechanics and field agents.

Agent "Mack" was sitting in the old Director's office, looking through some paperwork. Ever since the rise of Hydra and the fall of most of SHIELD, though, it didn't exclusively belong to the Director. Heck, everything was so informal now that there wasn't really an official director.

Mack yawned. He'd barely gotten any sleep last night. He'd read an article about a new project of The Doctor's and it made him sick to his stomach. How could civilians possibly not question Hydra's methods?

Someone knocked on the door. Without looking up from the paperwork, Mack said, "Come on in."

Jeffrey Mace entered, two unfamiliar people in-tow. Mack stood up immediately upon seeing the Hydra logo on the woman's clothing. He pointed his gun at her. "What are you doing in our SHIELD base?!" Mack knew SHIELD couldn't afford to lose their only security, their base.

May raised her hands in surrender.

Mace raised his hand to stop Mack. "Mack, it's fine. She's with us."

Mack narrowed his eyes but lowered his gun nonetheless. "Who are these people?"

"We just want to help," May told him.

Mace butted in: "She and this civilian saved two women from Hydra's experiments. If it weren't for them, two innocent people would be dead right now at the hands of Hydra."

Mack clenched his jaw, glaring at May. "I'm sure many more than two people have died at the hands of her. She's one of the highest-ranking Hydra agents!"

May kept her hands raised in surrender. "I assure you, I am on your side. I realize how inhumane and blatantly wrong Hydra's methods are, and I want to help stop them."

After a few moments of intense stare-down, Mack spoke: "How are the victims?"

"We're not sure yet; they just got here a little bit ago. But I'm sure they'll live," Mace told his fellow agent.

Mack nodded. "Good. I'm glad you all got them out of there." He squinted at Coulson. "By the way, man, what's your name?"

"I'm Phil. Phil Coulson," he told Mack, holding out his hand to shake hands. "I'm a—well, I used to be—a history teacher at the high school. Hydra brought me in for a report of insubordination, and then I stumbled across a cell and...well, here we are."

"Thanks for joining our side, brother," Mace said to Phil, patting the smaller man on the back.

Mack sighed, looking back at the article from last night. "We'll have to get some more information out of the victims you all saved, if they're not too traumatized when they wake up. Maybe we can stop these experiments for good."

May nodded. "I have a lot of intel as well. I'd be glad to help."

Mace seemed on-board with May's statement, but Mack remained skeptical.

When Daisy awoke, she was so surprised to see that she was in the Playground that she sat straight up in her bed.

"Hey, easy, there," someone said to her, their hand moving to her chest and pushing her back to a laid-down position. Daisy turned her head to see an unfamiliar man wearing a sweater with a clipboard in his hands. He was seated on a swivel stool and recording something on the chart.

Next to her was another bed, and she could see Jemma in it. The other girl was still asleep, and Daisy silently hoped she was alright.

"Why..." Daisy began, then started to cough violently. She hadn't drunk any water for days, and it was finally starting to show in her voice. She noticed an IV in her hand, and her eyes trailed up to the drip bag. She guessed it was fluids to help hydrate her.

"Here you go," the man in the sweater said to her, grabbing a water bottle with a straw and handing it to her without looking up from his clipboard. Daisy took a shaky hand and held the bottle as best she could, but she couldn't find the strength and somehow she ended up spilling it all over herself.

The man sighed, annoyed, and finally set down his clipboard. He got up for a minute and came back with a towel, tossing it to Daisy.

Seeing that she didn't even have the strength to dry herself off, he grumbled angrily to himself before helping her dry off. He must've been too rough with her because he made Daisy wince from her cracked ribs.

"God, you're covered in..." He scrunched up his nose in disgust. "Prison stuff. I'd better get you both a change of clothes."

He reached into a drawer next to him and pulled out some spare t-shirts and running shorts, setting one set on the foot of Simmons's bed and holding the other.

Barns sighed, not wanting to have to deal with changing the girls, but he knew well and good they were both too weak to do so themselves and that there weren't any other med agents—he'd been hoping female—available to help.

"I've got it," came a woman's voice. Barns turned around to see Melinda May, the former Hydra agent, behind him.

"Ma'am..." he started.

"Don't worry. I've done this multiple times before. I trained to be a nurse a year before I decided to switch jobs," May explained to him.

Barns swallowed, but took the opportunity to receive help. "Thank you. I have to go check their bloodwork anyway," he mumbled, handing the clothes to May then leaving to go do as he said, shutting the hospital curtain behind him.

May walked up to Daisy, noticing her soaked shirt and jumpsuit. She grabbed another water bottle for her, holding it up to her lips and letting her take a few sips. "Not too fast," she told the young woman.

Daisy nodded, understanding, as she gratefully swallowed the water. Everything felt a little fuzzy, but she was glad to be awake.

"Do you need help with this?" May asked Daisy, pointing to the clothes in her hands.

"N..." Daisy began. In real life, she'd trust the woman with anything, but this May was different. "You help Jemma first. Let me see try on my own."

May nodded, handing the clothes to Daisy and going to the other, unconscious patient and gently changing her into the clean SHIELD clothes.

Daisy reached down, trying to get the hem of her wet tee over her head, but her arms just felt like noodles. Her muscles were nearly unusable. She pulled and yanked, frustrated when she got nowhere. She huffed and pulled one more time, but felt a sharp pinch in her hand as she did do.

"Crap," Daisy mumbled when she noticed her IV had popped out from all the force. She took the bedsheets and pressed them to her bleeding hand, hoping to stop it before someone noticed.

"Everything okay?" May asked Daisy. She was done changing Jemma. She turned around and gasped when she saw Daisy's situation.

"Not exactly!" Daisy shouted. Her frustration was getting the better of her. She hated to be so weak. She tugged at her shirt with all her might and managed to rip it over her head, screaming in frustration as she tossed the damp thing to the floor. She shouted a few curse words as she started to work on her socks, with no luck.

"Daisy, hon, you need to calm down," May said to her, putting firm hands on the girls' shoulders to get her to stop. She knew Daisy had multiple cracked ribs and injuries and didn't want her to hurt herself more.

Daisy just yelled, "NO!" as she struggled against May. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she struggled with her emotions. This was all too much. First, she got brainwashed and hurt her friends, then Lincoln died because of her, then she abandoned her family at SHIELD, then she started harming herself, then she came back to SHIELD and was discovered for it, then Aida kidnapped her and shoved her into the Framework, and then it all led to this. Being weak all over again. "THIS ISN'T EVEN REAL!" she screamed.

Daisy felt like rolling off the bed and curling up on the floor forever. But she didn't have the strength to break free of May's grasp. The tears poured out then.

She was out of control of her life all over again.

"BARNS!" May shouted. A moment later, the man in the sweater reappeared.

"What is it?" he asked May.

"She won't calm down!" May answered. "She ripped out her IV and..."

Before she could finish, Barns had already injected Daisy with a sedative. The girl's head lolled to the side and her body relaxed.

May leaned back, taking her hands off of Daisy. She sucked in a deep breath, taking in the havoc her organization had wreaked on this girl's body.

How could she have ever signed up for that?!

May didn't know what she was doing, but she found herself stroking Daisy's head affectionately. Once Barns had re-inserted her IV and was gone, she very gently pulled off the rest of Daisy's jumpsuit and slid on the running shorts. Barns had told May to leave Daisy with just her sports bra on so he could put ice packs on her to let her ribs heal and breathe a little.

May rubbed Daisy's shoulder one more time before leaving the little room, shutting the curtain behind her.

Coulson found May in the break room, sipping water from a clear glass. She was staring off into the distance, contemplating everything that had led her to this moment.

How could she have ever been so cruel? Where was her sympathy when she watched her colleagues toss those girls into that cell to die? Where was her sympathy as she watched hundreds of Inhumans die simply for a gene they had? Where was her sympathy when her colleagues took thousands away from their families just for thinking differently?

"Hey." Phil's voice interrupted her thoughts. May turned to the man and mustered up a small smile.

"Hey, Mr. Coulson," she said.

He seated himself next to her at the bar. "I heard Daisy wasn't doing so well."

"She's just frustrated," May told him. "From the start, she was one of those prisoners deemed mentally unstable."

"Oh..." Phil began. Daisy hadn't seemed insane when he first met her.

May shook her head. "I wish I could know more of her story. Back at the Triskelion, I had been brainwashed to think everything that girl said was nonsense, was bullcrap. But today, it's really made me think there might be some truth to her words."

Phil squinted. "What kind of things did she say?"

"Well, from her reports, I know she said some things about another world besides this one. That this world is only a simulation."

Coulson swallowed, raising his eyebrows. "Now that's something to chew on."

May nodded in agreement. "I didn't believe her at first, either, but here I am now."

Coulson sighed deeply. "I just don't know what my students are gonna think. It's like I just disappeared from my old life."

"To join a better one," May mumbled, paraphrasing her own thoughts.

Phil nodded. "Yeah, yeah, that's a good way to put it."

When Simmons awoke her first thought was, Am I dead?

Secretly, she'd been wishing for death ever since she'd been eternally locked in that Hydra basement, but she had to admit she was a little scared of it right now.

When she opened her eyes, she was elated to find herself:

A. On an actual bed

B. In clean clothes

C. Being tended to medically (the IV)

D. Not at a Hydra base! (At least, she didn't think so)

Simmons turned to the bed next to her. She saw Daisy, her newfound friend, asleep. She didn't appear to be sleeping peacefully, though. A scowl was across her face and her breathing looked painful, as usual. Cold ice packs covered her abdomen and chest and a similar IV was inserted in her hand. Her facial wounds had been tended to and fixed with Steri-Strips.

Jemma felt bad for Daisy. She was clearly in worse condition than her, all because she was a potential Inhuman.

Simmons had a feeling there was more to Daisy's story than she was letting on. She was eager to find out what.

That's all for now! Please review; it really, really helps! :)