Note: This is the shortest chapter (sorry!) but it seemed to pace better to have this section just in one chapter. I'll try and get the next chapter finished by tomorrow! Thanks as always for still reading :)

Based on events during Episodes 7x13 (and 6x13) of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

As she walked out onto the command bridge, Daisy almost immediately bumped straight into Fitz, who was guiding a still-confused Jemma along the corridor to join Yo-Yo and Daniel in the Quinjet.

Fitz looked relieved when he saw her. 'Daisy! I'm glad I caught you-'

'Yeah, I just wanted to…wish you guys luck, y'know,' Daisy said, swallowing nervously as she walked along down the narrow corridor with them.

'Y-yeah, well…same, I…oh, bloody hell, this hazmat suit is too big!' Fitz snapped suddenly as he barged straight into the wall, before glancing back at Daisy awkwardly and carrying on. 'Look…you know I said back at the safe house in New York that Jiaying was pivotal? Th-the reason was because…in the time stream I saw, w-well, as well as her convincing Kora, she…she could use her powers in reverse. As in, give life energy rather than take it. We were depending on that for…' He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Daisy put a hand on his arm as they came to a halt just outside the Quinjet doors. 'Fitz. It's okay,' she said gently.

'No, no i-it's not,' Fitz said, his voice shaking as he looked down and fidgeted anxiously with his hand. 'I don't think you understand what I'm trying to-'

But Daisy interrupted him earnestly. 'No, I do. I understand. I messed up with my mom,' she said, but then she thought of what Daniel would say if he'd heard her say that. 'Well, no, Malick did, but still…we went off script for what you had planned. But we've figured it out another way. I know what I have to do.'

Fitz began to shake his head. 'Daisy, no, you-'

Daisy grabbed his arms. 'Fitz. I know the risk. And I know what we're fighting for. You've got to let me do this,' she said fiercely, and as she took him in her arms and hugged him tightly, she whispered in his ear, 'For Alya.'

At this, Fitz's eyes welled up and he gripped her back tightly, trying to convey without words just how overwhelmingly grateful he was to her. They had been through so much together, all three of them. And now their story was almost at an end. When they broke apart, Daisy turned to Jemma. Jemma's memories may not have fully returned yet, and she still looked rather perplexed as to what was going on, but the tearful look in her eyes told Daisy that Jemma could at least remember some element of the plan for how to end this all. The two best friends embraced tightly, Jemma trying her hardest not break into sobs.

'Good luck, Daisy,' she whispered, and it was such a relief for Daisy just to hear Jemma call her by her name, to know that she remembered at least a part of her.

Daisy squeezed her hand tightly when they broke apart. 'You too.'

She looked back at Fitz and nodded; nodding back at her, his chin quivering slightly, Fitz then put his hand on the small of Jemma's back and guided her up into the Quinjet, helping her adjust the helmet of her hazmat suit. Daisy watched them go, and her gaze fell to the cockpit, her heart stopping for a moment as she saw Daniel at the far end about to take his seat as he talked to Yo-Yo, going over their plan. As if he could feel her eyes on him, Daniel turned back and met Daisy's gaze. They looked at each other longingly.

The soft smile that appeared on Daniel's face said, 'we'll see each other again.'

Daisy wanted to believe it. She so desperately wanted to believe it.

Exhaling shakily, she nodded at him; he nodded back reassuringly, just as the Quinjet doors slid shut for good.

'You good?' Yo-Yo asked Daniel; his eyes were still on the closed Quinjet doors.

'Y-yeah, I'm fine,' Daniel said distractedly, shaking his head as he tried not to think of the look in Daisy's eyes just before the doors had closed between them. 'Let's do this.'

'Strap in, everyone, prepare for take-off,' Yo-Yo announced loudly, and as Fitz and Simmons took their seats and buckled in, she turned to Daniel sat next to her with a raise of her eyebrows. 'You're coping pretty well with all this, you know.'

'Am I?' Daniel said with a weak chuckle as he strapped himself in.

'Well, look at where you are!' Yo-Yo pointed out, indicating the view of space from the front window.

Daniel nodded slowly; he couldn't argue with that. 'It's been one hell of a week, I'll admit.'

'Uh-huh, I'll say. You'll just go along with whatever it is we're doing, won't you?' Yo-Yo said with a chuckle, impressed. 'I can see now why Daisy likes you.'

Daniel scrunched up his face at her bemusedly. 'I…think that's a compliment?' he said, and Yo-Yo smiled to herself as she flicked the switches on the panels.

'Turtle-man's gonna be asking for that twenty dollars the moment we touch base,' she muttered, rolling her eyes.

'Wait, what twenty dollars? And sorry – 'Turtle-man'?' Daniel said incredulously; he assumed she was talking about Mack due to the fond look on her face – did Mack have some secret superpower at slowing down or something that no one had thought to mention to him before?

Yo-Yo merely grinned amusedly at him before pulling the lever on the flight deck and the Quinjet launched up from the roof of the Zephyr. They instantly began to fly towards Earth, Yo-Yo typing in the coordinates to the temple.

'She'll be okay,' Yo-Yo murmured, as Daniel watched the Zephyr carry on towards the main Chronicom ship through the window.

Daniel nodded as he turned back around. 'I know she will,' he murmured, but then he frowned as he looked at Yo-Yo; her fingers were shaking slightly as she locked onto the temple's destination on the navigation panel. 'Are you okay?'

Yo-Yo hesitated and exhaled deeply before answering. 'I will be once we get this over with,' she said heavily.

The aircraft began to rumble and shake violently as they entered the planet's atmosphere; they fell silent and Daniel closed his eyes while this happened, though he could still see the red burn of the flames through his closed eyelids. Afterwards, it didn't take them long to fly to their destination.

The Temple of the Forgotten was based in Yucatán, Mexico. They found somewhere to land in the middle of the surrounding jungle, though once the engine had cut out, it took a while for Yo-Yo to bring herself to get out of her seat. She looked in quite a state, and it only made Daniel more apprehensive about what they would soon be facing.

'Fitz, isn't this some sort of paradox or something?' Yo-Yo asked, as she and Daniel left the cockpit.

Daniel frowned, confused. 'Wh-what does that mean?'

'It…we'll explain later,' Fitz replied heavily.

The four of them put their visors on and left the Quinjet to hunt for the Zephyr – or at least, an earlier version of the Zephyr from a few weeks ago, rather than the one currently infiltrating the Chronicom fleet above them in space – which was apparently parked nearby. To say that Daniel was confused was an understatement of almighty proportions; he barely had any idea what was going on, other than that they were now in the 21st century and had gone back to an old point in the team's own personal timeline, to an event just before they had begun time-travelling, and would be soon interacting with their past selves. Daniel's heart lurched unevenly at the thought; would Daisy be there, in this temple?

'Remember, we just need to recover the team and get the time monolith sample,' Fitz said calmly through the comms. 'That's the white stone, guys, not any of the others.'

'May will need urgent medical attention,' Jemma remembered, as they approached the Zephyr. 'We'll need to take the stasis pod for her.'

They walked up to the loading bay of the Zephyr, and Daniel felt a sad pang as his eyes fell on Enoch, stood there with Simmons by his side as always, as if they had both been expecting four random people in hazmat suits to come wandering out of the jungle to assist.

'Thank you for coming,' the earlier version of Simmons said; her voice was so calm and collected that she sounded almost like Enoch. 'We must move quickly and calmly.'

'Do not speak,' Fitz whispered to them all through the comms as they all followed Simmons into the Zephyr. 'Do not engage.'

'I'm just trying not to throw up in my helmet,' Yo-Yo muttered, sounding rather panicked.

'It'll be okay,' Daniel murmured, trying to calm her.

The others looked at him, surprised that out of everyone it would be him to be the reassuring one, but then Simmons and Enoch turned to face them and provided them with their equipment and instructions.

The four of them followed Simmons out of the Zephyr and on towards the ancient pyramidal temple, so that they could get to work on what needed to be done for the team's rescue and the time drive's completion. Once inside the temple, Simmons led them all to the ceremonial hall and they set up the floodlights as requested. Whatever fight that had been occurring in here was most definitely over now; the hall was silent only for a few sniffles; someone was crying. Simmons then gave them the signal, and they switched on the lights, flooding the place with a blinding light. Daniel looked down through his visor, and felt his face fall in dismay.

Down the steps in the centre of the hall, Daisy was crouched on the floor, cradling May in her arms. May's skin was ghostly white, with blood pouring from her mouth and her clothes. There was a huge stab wound in her chest. Daniel was shocked; from up here, it looked very much like she was dead. And yet he knew she wasn't, because he had met her and talked to her and bonded with her, and that had all happened in this team's future…

Not far away from Daisy, Mack was on the floor holding Yo-Yo in his arms by a stone pillar. Yo-Yo looked equally as pale and drained, with dried blood that looked almost black on her face and clothes. This must have been where the Shrike attack had happened; Daniel had heard about this briefly a few days ago.

Daniel's eyes fell once again to Daisy. She seemed to have been given no time to mourn for the woman lying in her lap. She was shaking slightly, and he could see the tear streaks on her face reflecting the glow of the floodlights as she stared up, too shocked to process what was happening, at the new arrivals in confusion.

'Sousa. We need to keep moving,' hissed Fitz's voice in the comms.

'Sorry,' Daniel whispered, and he followed Yo-Yo down the steps towards the centre of the hall.

Daisy breathed heavily as they all approached. Her eyes were only on Simmons.

'She'll be fine,' Simmons said calmly, looking over at May's body.

Now that he was closer to her, Daniel could see that Daisy was still crying. He hated to see her so distressed and not be able to do anything about it. It was so hard for him not to be able to hug her, or even just speak words of reassurance. But he knew that he just had to walk past and get on with what needed to be done as quickly as possible. He couldn't say anything to her, no matter how much he wanted to. Fitz had said very clearly that they couldn't speak. And besides, Daisy had no idea who he was.

Fitz and Jemma in their hazmat suits were bringing the stasis pod over now to put May's body in. While the early version of Simmons bent down to inject May with a fancy formula to stabilize her, Daniel and Yo-Yo headed over to the white monolith, as instructed, where they began drilling to collect a sample.

Simmons hadn't told them much about the white monolith, only that it could transport individuals or objects across time. Daniel realised then that this strange piece of white stone, whatever it was, was the key to them being able to travel to the past. It all came down to this.

'We'll repair her tissue in a few hours when she reaches the correct core temperature,' Daniel could hear Simmons saying to Daisy, trying to reassure her.

There were still tears trickling down Daisy's face. She was confused. She didn't understand. What was going on? How could May possibly survive what had just happened to her?

The present-day Jemma and Fitz finished lifting May inside the stasis pod while the past version of Simmons urged Mack that they all needed to move and leave the temple as quickly as possible.

Daniel stored the monolith sample in the jar he'd been provided with, and began to leave, only to pause slightly. Daisy hadn't got up from the ground yet. She was still in shock.

Close to, Daisy didn't look any different, aside from an interesting purple streak in her hair. It was hard to comprehend that only a few weeks had passed for her since this moment here in the temple.

'Wh…I don't understand, what's happening?' Daisy was saying, shaking her head as she tried to make sense of it all. 'May-'

'May is going to pull through,' Simmons said firmly, gripping Daisy by the shoulder. 'But we need to move. The temple isn't safe.'

Simmons led the way, with Fitz and Jemma following close behind, carrying May in the stasis pod. It was bizarre for Daniel to watch, knowing that there were two versions of Jemma in the same room.

'Daisy,' Mack called, as he helped Yo-Yo up the steps.

'I-I'm coming.'

Daniel turned back to Daisy. She was still on the floor, staring with dazed, bloodshot eyes at the dusty ground. More tears were falling, though it wasn't clear whether they were out of relief that Simmons seemed so confident that May would be all right, or out of guilt, shock and trauma over what had just happened at the temple.

Daniel couldn't help himself. He reached out from behind and put a hand on her shoulder. Daisy jumped at his touch and looked up at the stranger in the hazmat suit with the visor covering his face.

'You need to move. Now,' he said firmly, glad that the visor muffled his voice somewhat; he couldn't risk her recognising the sound of his voice when she would later go on to meet him in Area 51.

Daisy stared up at him from the ground, bewildered. 'Wh-who are you?' she asked.

Daniel swallowed, wishing there was more he could say, wishing he could remove his visor so that she could see his face.

'Everything's going to be fine,' he told her, his voice steady and reassuring.

Before he knew what he was doing, he'd held his hand out to her. Daisy looked at his gloved hand for a moment, an uncertain frown on her face, her lips parted in confusion. She looked back up at his helmet, as if hoping that if she looked hard enough she might be able to see the face of the mystery man through the visor. And then, after a short silence, Daisy's frown faded. She tentatively reached up and placed her hand in his. Relieved, Daniel gently helped her up to her feet. Strangely, she kept her hand in his as she straightened up and looked at him. The tears had stopped falling now. For some reason, she felt a bizarre sense of calm wash over her.

'Go,' Daniel urged, resisting the impulse to give her fingers a squeeze.

Daisy looked at him for a moment, her hand still lingering in his, and she opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything Deke was calling her, urging her to hurry up. Daisy let go at once, took one last confused look at Daniel, and then hurried after the rest of her team.

Daniel smiled slightly as he watched her go, before turning to leave himself. It was only then when he noticed Yo-Yo in her hazmat suit still stood by the monolith, looking at him.

'What?' he said innocently. 'She needed to get out.'

Even though he couldn't see her face, he could tell that Yo-Yo was rolling her eyes. 'You guys are cute, you know, I'll give you that,' she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice as she said it.

Once they'd all left the temple and returned to the Zephyr, the past version of the team looked around the vessel in wonder.

'How did you do all this?' Daisy was asking Simmons in awe, stunned.

'We had help, and we had time,' Simmons replied, as she indicated to her future self and Fitz where to take the stasis pod containing May. 'Give Yo-Yo her breathing apparatus.'

Yo-Yo herself complied with this request, handing the apparatus over to Mack and her past self, who was sat on the seat looked weak, terrified exhausted…but alive.

'Set the chamber temperature to minus 68 degrees,' Simmons went on.

'Where's Fitz?' Deke asked.

'I don't know,' Simmons replied in an empty voice, her face hardening slightly as she looked away. 'I can't know.'

Daniel could sense how painful it was for Jemma and Fitz to see Deke now, knowing that this would be the last time they would ever see him; they had both appeared extremely forlorn when they had followed the rest of the team onto the Zephyr after bidding farewell to their grandson at the safe house in New York in the other timeline. The guilt was threatening to consume Daniel's mind again, but then he thought of what Deke had said to him back in the speakeasy…and he thought of Daisy's face when she'd known that he would be staying with the team after all, her soft smile, her tender eyes, her hands in his. A smile broke out on his face as he watched her past self through his visor now, completely oblivious of who he was under that suit and what was to come for them both, what a crazy adventure life had in store. It was incredible, really, to think how so much could change for a person in just a matter of weeks.

While the past version of the team continued to look around the upgraded Zephyr in awe and confusion, Daniel and Yo-Yo headed to the jump drive to insert the core sample he had taken from the time monolith, just as they had been instructed to do so. Daniel felt immensely strange as he secured the monolith sample in its allocated place – by doing this, he was fitting the final piece onto the modified Zephyr that would ensure that the ship would be able to continue to travel back in time, and thus for the team to meet him in Area 51 and for him to take an instant shine to Daisy in 1955. He was securing his own destiny. What came first, he wondered? How did it all work?

While he finished inserting the monolith sample in the time drive and pondered on the complex nature of space-time and fate, he overheard Simmons as she explained their complicated, mysterious situation to the team. The Chronicoms wanted to turn Earth into Chronyca-3, and they believed that S.H.I.E.L.D. was the only thing in their way, so their goal was to destroy everything within S.H.I.E.L.D. – which they had to prevent however they could, no matter what. The Lighthouse had fallen under Chronicom control, and Simmons and Fitz couldn't know where the other was in order to protect them against the Hunters. Listening to it put basically like this, it actually sounded rather simple to Daniel…but of course he knew that things wouldn't turn out as straightforward for the team as they were hoping in the days to come.

Once they had completed their tasks and Jemma and Fitz had finished treating May in the healing chamber, the four of them then headed to the loading bay to prepare to leave. Simmons met them there, and thanked them for their help. Daniel couldn't help wondering if this past version of Simmons knew exactly who was under these suits; she and Fitz had studied the time stream after all. Before he could try to determine Simmons' expression, however, he was then distracted by Daisy, who had emerged on the loading bay as well. She had clearly followed Simmons out of curiosity.

Simmons glanced at Daisy then turned back to them all. 'I wish you all safe travels,' she said to them pointedly. 'Thank you again for everything.'

Daniel and the others nodded and turned to walk away, but then Daisy's voice spoke up from behind.

'Wait, but who are those guys? Where did they come from, why…-?'

'Keep moving, don't look back, keep moving,' Fitz whispered to them urgently through the comms as Daisy continued to ask Simmons for more information; Daniel obliged, though it was hard to do so.

'Daisy, they need to leave so we can fly out of here before-'

But Daisy cut over Simmons. 'No, wait!'

Daisy hurried after the retreating suited figures and headed straight for the one closest to her; Daniel closed his eyes as she grabbed him by the arm and turned him around.

'How did you know to come? Who are you?' Daisy asked him loudly.

Daniel simply stared back at her. He didn't know what to do. He could hear Fitz', Simmons' and Yo-Yo's tense breathing through the comms in his helmet and yet none of them were coming to his rescue. They were all thrown.

Daisy exhaled sharply in frustration. 'Why are you here?' she demanded, her eyes fixed on Daniel's through his visor.

'You,' was what he wanted to say. But he couldn't. He couldn't say anything, other than the one thing he dared: 'Good luck, Agent Johnson.'

Daisy's mouth fell open, at a complete loss with how to respond.

Daniel then turned and left with the others; he could feel Daisy's confused eyes on them, too confounded to follow, and with that they disappeared through the trees into the jungle to return to the Quinjet.