DAY 91
I was pretty sure I'd be in my own bed when I woke up but there I was still on the couch in Coulson's office. Luckily I was small enough for it to be comfortable all night. It didn't look like anyone else had any sleep unless they just knotted off where they sat…or stood. Hell, I caught a couple winks leaning against a wall or beam more than once. You get it when and where you can, but yeah being small enough to fit on this old couch is a good thing.
May was working on something at the desk. She was probably there most of the night. She wouldn't leave me alone for very long especially with Hale Hydra out to get me. And that still gives me a shiver for some damn reason. Geez I could take her out with a little flick…why was this getting to me so much.
I guess I was squirming around too much or just breathing too loud because I looked at May and she was giving me that little 'I know you're up' look. I just smiled back cuz what else could I do. She asked me if I had a good sleep and I just nodded mostly cuz my voice wasn't awake yet. In fact most of me wasn't awake yet so I rolled over and scrunched myself up in the big blanket someone threw over me. May laughed a little snuffly May laugh that made me giggle. She told me it was probably a good idea to get up and get some breakfast. I thought it was a good idea to hit the bathroom…so getting up was probably the best thing to do.
That's when I felt it the first time…it was just a little snap of a pain, like getting hit with a pulled too tight rubber band. Except it hit me right inside my mouth…the back of my mouth, like right on one of those damn teeth Jemma said would probably fall out. I sat up an P! It was kinda like when the dentist jabs you with that stuff that makes you mouth all numb and you drool like a goof. Except nothing went numb and I yipped a little ouch and smacked my hand against the spot.
May looked up quick and then jumped out of her seat. Before she could get to me I shook my head and said it was nothing. I probably got up too fast and I really had to go so I just ran for the lavatory down the hall. And I ran fast…mostly cuz I needed to but I needed to get a look at what was going on with that damn tooth.
By the time I got done with what I had to do the pain was almost gone. It was only a little twinge and I figured it was just some fluke thing. Anyway I don't remember anything about getting or loosing teeth so maybe it was normal. With all that was happening I figured I would just keep quiet and hope it was just going to fade away.
HA!
Coulson made French Toast for breakfast. I love French Toast and I dove right it but that damn tooth started zinging again. I kinda ended up just picking at it because something about it made the little pain turn into a big pain. I tried just drinking the milk they insisted I have and that was like a spear went through my head. May asked me if I was feeling okay. She put her lips on my forehead. I kinda wriggled away and said I was okay, just trying to make the great stuff last longer. I ate it all but it was hard with the pain that was pounding against my cheekbone and right through my right ear.
The Hale thing was still an issue and Fitz had little TV screens set up in ops with all kinds of news broadcasts showing that same picture over and over. A policeman had a bunch of microphones in front of him and he was saying there were all kinds of calls coming in and they had a lot of leads. That really surprised me because nobody knew about this place so who the hell were they calling about anyway. But everybody was watching it and nobody was paying much attention to me and my pain so I guess it was a good thing. They were all glued to it. I guess I would be too if my tooth wasn't sending daggers through my jaw.
Nobody was watching so I just slipped out and headed for medical. There had to be aspirin or something there that could take away this damn pain. Hell, it worked for headaches and my tooth was in my head so… There was nobody hanging around in there. I checked every room and nobody. So I started looking though the cabinets. Everything had big dumb names, nothing simple like Tylenol or Advil, just words with a zillion letters that would take an hour to pronounce. Nothing looked right either. Hell, I might take something and end up even younger or damn nine hundred years old. Not that anything Fitz-Simmons tried did anything to help, but it would be just my luck to find some kind of pill that nobody would even think of using.
Then I remembered something from way back when I was a real kid and had a real tooth ache. It was winter and it hurt for a week before I told one of the nuns. It was Saturday and no way to get a dentist to see me. She gave me this red gummy stuff that tasted like those little things people stick into hams. It was supposed to go over my tooth like some kind of shell and it burned like hell but the pain stopped…for a little while but when it came back it was worse. That's when Sr. Emily put a finger over her lips and bent one on the other hand for me to follow her.
She took a bottle from under the kitchen sink and poured me a little glass. She told me to hold it on my tooth til the pain stopped then spit it out in the trash bin. Damn! It was whiskey and yep it took that pain away and a bit of skin as well. It lasted longer than the red gum. She told me to find her if it started bothering me again and I did…about ten times that day and twenty the next. By the time I saw the dentist on Tuesday it was pretty raw, but Sr. Emily's pain reliever was a life saver. The dentist yanked it out. Problem solved but I did not want to repeat that horrible time. Even the thought of visiting the dentist gives me an upset stomach, nightmares and makes me so nervous I end up crying all day. Nope, not doing that again.
And I just happened to have a bottle of Johnny Walker stashed in a vent on the seventeenth level.
I checked. No one was looking for me so I slipped into the first vent, found the ladder and climbed up three levels. Sunk on to the floor and into the lift and up three more levels then squirmed into the small opening and crawled on my belly to my stash. Yep, it was till there because Yoyo would never fit into this space…so yeah, being a peanut was good sometimes. I pulled myself into the hole and had just enough room to sit up with my head about two hairs from the top of the little place. I had to wrestle with the top on that damn bottle and it took a lot of doing but the pain gave me a lot of strength. It came off with a pop and I took a slug right out of the bottle, to hell with glasses.
I held it on that damn tooth until the pain just dissolved. Then I figured there was really no place to spit where I was sitting so I did the next best thing. I swallowed it. Yep, that could work too because whiskey could make you forget all your pain. I knew that because I used it more than once when I was a whole person and had a lot to forget. I shook my head to get rid of those memories. Now the problem was that it wouldn't last and I'd need a re-shot. I actually laughed at what May's reaction would be to me dragging around a full bottle of whiskey and taking a mouthful every hour or so.
I didn't swallow enough to even be tipsy but that mind picture had me giggling like mad. It was funny until I tried to figure out how I was going to get it out of here and stash it where I could get my hands on it…when needed. The bathroom on the twentieth level seemed like a good spot. Hardly anyone ever used it and the screen on the heater in the last stall was loose so I headed there. All I had to do was claim I needed to make a pit stop and I'd head there to my stash and my relief.
I took one more mouthful and held it there while I hid the bottle and made my way back to ops. I swallowed right before I walked into to the midst of them. I stopped and watched the biggest screen in the center of all the others. There was a man with his arm around a crying lady. He was telling someone that he really needed to find his little girl and he needed everyone's help. The lady didn't say anything. She just wiped her eyes with a tissue and sniffled a lot. Then there was that weird picture of me with that phone number under it and the policeman was back saying my parents were begging for somebody to find me.
Find me? Hell, I was not lost!
My parents?
Nope, they were standing right there watching that same big screen. May slammed her hand on the counter. She said a lot of words that would probably set this diary on fire if I wrote them down. I jumped and smacked my teeth together and that made the pain start all over. They noticed me standing there and everybody started telling me not to worry about it. It was all part of Hale's plan that they were not falling for now or ever.
Things were a little fuzzy which was silly after only three mouthfuls of Mr. Walker's tooth reliever, but then again I was pretty little. I tried to ask May who those people were and why were they saying they were my parents. But it came out all mumbly and mixed up. She shook her head and said they were nothing more than Hale's cronies, just pretending in order to fool anyone that was watching. Then she looked at me real funny and dummy me smiled and said, 'what'. Then I couldn't help it and started giggling again. I put my hand over my mouth and told them I was sorry cuz it wasn't funny but I just kept laughing and they were all looking at each other and then me and then each other again.
I stopped and blinked a couple times then I told them I had to go to the bathroom and took off before anyone could stop me. I didn't make it very far before May commanded me to stop right where I was. I just froze, like a statue with one foot in the air but kinda wobbly.
May walked right around me and stood there just staring at me then she put up that one eye brow and said, "What the hell, Daisy?"
I dropped my foot down and just shrugged, then hiccoughed a couple times but I remembered to say 'scuze me'. I just kept looking at the floor because everything else was starting to get a little spinny. I was pretty sure I was kinda wobbly too.
Then May said, "Daisy?" In a voice that was already saying I did something I dumb that was not gonna turn out very good. I just shrugged again, cuz for some dumb reason I was pretty sure I was gonna start laughing again if she said my name one more time. I kinda looked over my eyebrows at her and she was looking kinda mad and now Coulson was standing there too. I didn't even hear him walk over.
"You want to talk to us, Daisy?" He said with a real calm voice.
The giggle started real small. I told him he was s'posed to say, Skye. He said it before when that blue guy and the lady with the sword tried to take me and why the hell couldn't I think of her name. It wasn't funny but he said it the exact same way only with Daisy instead of Skye and that just made me laugh. I slapped my hands over my mouth to try to hold it in but it didn't help, it just made it worse.
Then Yoyo was there, just looking at me. She said something in Spanish but all I understood was Tequila. That made me laugh even more.
I heard Jemma say if she didn't know any better she would think I was inebriated. Yep, that made me laugh even more especially when I told her you can't get wasted on three, or was it four, mouthfuls of booze. And that's when I figured out I was surrounded. The whole team was all around me with the same faces and arms crossed over their chests. Nobody looked happy, even though I was still giggling.
Well, at least until May grabbed my arm and yanked me closer to her. I just said 'ouch' real slow and kept saying it even though she was asking me what the hell I thought I was doing and wasn't the shit with Hale enough to deal with and where the hell did I get liquor and where was it and what the hell was I thinking.
I kinda laughed and told her she already said that. She gave me a little shake and I tried to stop but the laugh came right out my nose and I didn't know you could laugh out your nose. May didn't say anything else just walked really fast back to our bunk. I kinda tripped a couple times but managed to keep up with her. Jemma was hurrying behind us saying she should take a blood sample because alcohol was really dangerous for kids and I yelled to her that I wasn't a kid. But she caught up and turned us toward medical.
She shined a real bright light in my eyes and asked me what I drank and how much. I told her it was not liquor it was for stopping pain and I couldn't spit it anywhere so I had to swallow it and I really didn't drink it, just swallowed it. Jemma just shook her head and tied one of those little rubbery tubes on my arm then took blood right out of my elbow bend and I didn't giggle anymore I just cried and couldn't stop just like the laughing. Now it was crying and May was just rolling her eyes and letting out angry breaths. Jemma told me to stay right where I was and not to move, so I froze like a statue again…a crying statue.
When Jemma came back she didn't look happy. She talked to May real quiet and they both nodded when they looked at me. A minute later I was on that damn examining table with a needle in my elbow bend cuz Jemma said I didn't have enough sugar and I kept telling her I could just eat a whole bunch of candy she didn't need to poke me. May just gave me a look that made me stop talking. They were talking again real quiet and I wasn't liking it. Before I knew it I got flipped over and jabbed with one of those knock out darts Jemma likes so much. When I woke up the needle was gone and my stomach was pretty sore. Jemma told me she had to pull everything out of my tummy with a long tube. I probably would have puked if there was anything left in me.
I didn't feel so woozy anymore and the pain was back in my tooth. I told Jemma that was why I used the whiskey, just to make my tooth stop hurting. She looked at it and shook her head. She said it was nasty and I needed to see a dentist and why didn't I just tell them about it. I just shrugged and she gave me some medicine she said would help with the pain. May and Coulson came back then and she told them about it. Coulson looked like he understood but May still had that 'boy did you do something stupid and are you gonna get it' look on her face. The fact that I didn't tell them kinda made her even worse. Jemma said I had to stay in medical for at least twenty-four hours so that meant all night til tomorrow. She said I could have a little supper but she had to keep stabbing my finger with a little needle and making sure I had enough sugar in me. She called it some kind of glue but it meant the same as sugar.
I really hated staying in medical but it gave me time to feel better and Jemma's medicine did make my tooth stop hurting enough to just be a throb.
Day 92
I had a little breakfast in medical and by lunch time Jemma said I was fine, no damage done. She said it was because they found out soon enough and I didn't get back to my stash. May made me take her to where I hid the bottle then made me pour the whole thing into the sink. She marched me back to our bunk and…well after a very long lecture from her and Coulson…I didn't think they could talk so long or so loud…I got my ass blasted. May really gave it to me for being so stupid. I probably won't sit for the rest of the day, but on the bright side it made me forget about my tooth.
Of course everything is another problem and now I needed a dentist. Mack said there had to be one in River's End but with all the crap going on with me being a missing kid, someone would sure recognize me. Hale would be on us in a breath, if the police didn't lock everyone up before then.
Yoyo thought Jemma could just pull it out but Jemma said she was not a dentist and was not taking any chances. Fitz tried to say it was just like any other surgery but she just stared at him til he stopped. Then Coulson said none of them could even take me to a dentist because even policeman was looking for them. He said it didn't matter if we went to a different city because that dumb missing kid story was everywhere.
Then Yoyo had another dopey idea. She said they could cut my hair, dress me like a boy and stick some glasses on me. Nobody would recognize me then. I shook my head and covered my hair with my arms. I said no, no, no…I was not going with that plan…no way were they cutting off my hair. May said we'd keep it as a last straw but for now they'd think of something else.
Coulson said there used to be a dentist at the Hub and everyone but May thought that was weird. He explained that the Hub had everything agents needed including medical services and that meant dentists too. Of course after everything fell apart who knew who was Hydra and who was S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson said he thought the guy's name was Godfrey but couldn't remember his first name. He said the guy might still be a dentist and they could look him up. May said his name was Aldrich and then they were arguing over it until Fitz said he found an Aldrich Godfrey in some little town in rural Pennsylvania.
Coulson calling wouldn't be a good idea and maybe we should just show up. Then May let out this long breath and shook her head. She said it wasn't worth the risk. If he was Hydra who knew what he might do. She had a better idea but she was pretty sure nobody was going to like it.
I already didn't like the dentist part of the plan. How could it be worse?
