Day 113 – Lighthouse Base – Med Bay

Coulson stood for only a second staring at the limp form in May's arms. Daisy was pale making the crimson stream that ran from her nose brighter than it really was. Although he was moving faster than he imagined he could it seemed as though everything was moving in slow motion. Even his own voice sounded dragging to him as he ordered anyone listening to alert Simmons he was on his way there with an extreme emergency. He took Daisy in his arms and pulled May to her feet in one fluid move a moment before they both headed for the lift that would take them down two levels.

Simmons was waiting with a gurney and a small team as the doors opened. She had no idea what to expect but from the down of the alert it was intense. The young doctor did not expect to see the almost lifeless child in her father's arms. Her breath caught for second before she sprung into action, ordering the man to place the child on the stretcher and commanding her team into action. Two techs rushed the small patient toward the treatment room as Jemma put a hand to Coulson's chest. He looked down at it, wordlessly questioning her while gathering an abnormally shaken May in one arm. The look in her eye told him she would do everything in her power. It told him to stay with May, to give her time. With a soft smile she assured him she would let them both know as soon as she could.

Coulson looked the woman in his arms. He had not seen her look that way since…no, he would not even make that comparison. Giving Jemma an almost invisible nod he pulled May closer and watched as the doctor disappeared into the room where their small daughter had disappeared.

It would be a long wait.

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May had stared down at the little girl in her arms. A trickle of blood ran from the child's nose and across her lips appearing to stem from her mouth. A vision of another child lying dead in her arms flashed; a child dead by her own hand. The feeling of the world crashing around her woke in her memory turning her numb. As this child's head lolled back and her face went pallid, May froze. For the first time since that horrendous day, she froze. Her mind frantically searched for what to do, where to turn and somehow something prevented the scream that was attempting to tear from her very soul.

And then she was on her feet, racing to keep pace with the man who had stolen the child from her arms. The flurry of activity that met them as the lift doors opened only served to jumble her mind further. She fought to find her center of control but now that small body was on a very large stretcher…and the blood…why was there blood. Now, he was pulling her forward, following them as they ran…yes ran with that stretcher and disappeared into another area. Jemma? Yes, it was Jemma, standing in front of them…holding them back…a small smile…was she smiling? And then she was gone and only he…Coulson stood next to her. He was saying something but she did not understand until he wrapped both arms around her and held her…brought all the pieces back together…and she exhaled…unable to hide the soft sob that came with it.

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Coulson drove both of them to the only two chairs in the lab. He pulled May down next to him and took both her hands in his own. He had no idea what to say or how to ask what had happened in the very short time he had left his office. May was taking deep breaths, exhaling slowly, pulling herself into a stoic state with each inhale. Coulson felt it was better to remain quiet but supportive and could not help drawing breaths himself as he stared at the door where Jemma had exited.

"She just collapsed." May finally broke the silence.

Coulson turned to her, squeezing her hand that he still held. He was surprised when she did not pull away.

"She was ranting on about not being sick. Her nose just started bleeding and she was in my arms." May stared in the same direction Coulson had been looking.

The both fell silent as the door opened and one of the techs exited then quickly moved across the lab and out the door opposite the room without so much as casting a glance toward them. A few seconds later the same tech returned. Coulson and May rose to their feet, expecting some kind of update, but the serious tech hurried past and back into the room she had exited a few moments before. A second tech exited and hurried back a few seconds later, also ignoring the two anxious agents in the room. When the door opened a third time, May was on her feet before Coulson could stop her. Enough was enough. She intended to shake some kind of information out of whoever stepped through that door.

Jemma pulled the door closed and turned nose to nose with May. She smiled slightly as she stepped aside and faced both of her superiors. Coulson stood and stepped next to May. Jemma swallowed once and gave a small nod.

"She's resting." She said simply, oddly unable to make eye contact with either.

Yet she felt the looks on their faces and knew they needed much more than that short statement.

"I've given her something to help her relax. She'll sleep for a bit." Jemma continued.

May easily noticed the young doctor wringing her hands and slowly moving away from them. She put out a hand laying it gently on Jemma's arm. The girl stopped, stared at the hand for a moment then took a breath before lifting her gaze to meet the woman and the man, anxiously awaiting some sort of reassurance. Perhaps she could sidestep Coulson but May would see through any fallacious sugar coating.

"I…" she hesitated for just a second but the increased pressure of the soft hand on her arm told her to continue.

Jemma shook her head just a bit, just enough to let both parents know that what she had to say would not bring them comfort. "I'm afraid there's not much I can tell you…"

May's lips formed what Jemma knew would be a stern 'what!' She quickly added. "I can't find any reason for what's happening. She had no fever, no signs of any illness or injury and yet…" She paused and bit her inner lip to halt the quiver in her voice.

Coulson took the young doctor by the shoulders, gently turning her to face him. He smiled lightly, wordlessly telling her she had his trust. "Whatever it is Jemma, we need to know. We've been through so much…" He paused almost chuckling at the understatement. "We can…"

"Yes…yes…" Jemma agreed as she softly pulled away. "Perhaps we…you can get through it together. I'm just not sure I can. I'm not sure I can watch you get through…" A tear slid over the young woman's cheek, as she drew a shaky breath and let it out with a soft sigh. "…through whatever this is because I can't tell you what it is and…" She turned away again, struggling to compose herself, quickly wiping the tears that were coming to quickly to suppress. "And I don't know how to stop it…" She breathed quietly without turning back.

For several moments time seemed to stop. The room was silent except for Jemma's soft sniffles. Coulson stood frozen trying desperately to make sense of what the doctor had said. Stop it? Stop what? What was happening to his small daughter? She was fine just a few hours ago and now…now…couldn't stop what? He barely felt May step past him and drop into one of the few chairs in the small area. He turned to her seeing the color drain from her face. He'd seen that look on her face once and only once. He'd seen her shut down completely once…just once.

He fell to his knees in front of her taking her hands in his own, immediately noticing the chill in them. Their eyes met but he knew she was not there…not sharing the moment with him but lost in a horrendous memory…memories…loss. She looked away toward the door to their small daughter's room. He squeezed her hands tighter and turned to Jemma.

"Are you saying…" he swallowed, unable to say what his mind was trying hard to deny.

"I can't explain it, sir." Jemma answered in a shaky voice. "Her major organs are shutting down." She shook her head. "I cannot find a reason…everything says she should be fine and nothing I've done is helping."

Coulson stood and wrapped his arms around the young doctor, offering comfort. She mumbled apologies that he said were unnecessary. Jemma pushed away, wiping her eyes and gaining composure.

"Fitz," she smiled. "Fitz…he's got to know something about all this de-aging nonsense."

Before Coulson could respond, Jemma exited the medical bay and headed toward the research lab. He did not stop her. She was right. If anyone had any chance of making sense of this insanity it was Fitz. He'd bet his own life on that.

Coulson drew a breath and turned back to May who had stood and moved toward the treatment room door. He stepped to her side. She held up a hand.

"No," she said quietly, but firmly. "This is not going to happen. I will not lose her again. Simmons has to be wrong."

"May," he replied softly almost begging her not to go there.

"No," she repeated with more intensity. Shaking her head, she took a breath and turned to face him. "Whatever hocus pocus Liu did…" she drew another breath and let it out slowly, sounding more like the May he knew. "Whatever he did…however he turned our Daisy into a child…" Now she was pacing back and forth in front of the door. "Simmons has no idea what or how that works…"

Coulson stepped in front of her stopping her as she tried to bypass him. He held fast to her biceps even when she tried to pull away. "She knows that, Melinda and maybe Fitz…"

She drew a quick breath, stopping him, but said nothing. They merely stared into each other's eyes for a heartbeat before she broke down collapsing against him. "We can't lose her, Phil."

They cried together, clinging to each other until they found the strength to open the door.

xxx

Jemma stopped at the lab doors and quickly wiped the last of her tears away. Losing Daisy was unthinkable. Losing Daisy because she herself could not find a way to help was unacceptable. She drew a breath and pushed open the door. Fitz sat with his back to her across the large sterile room. Its white brightness assaulted her eyes. The young doctor blinked a few times and smiled at her other half bent over a large microscope. She purposefully made soft noises to alert him of her presence. Fitz normally became so engaged in his research he blocked out everything outside of it. Startling him could mean a loss of important data. She smiled as he raised one hand to let her known that he was aware of her approach.

As Jemma walked across the room, Fitz backed away from his close study and slid across the floor on the rolling chair he usually occupied. He mumbled something to himself as he rapidly typed into a large mainframe then rolled quickly back to the microscope. Jemma felt comfort in the familiarity of his routine. She stopped behind him, waiting for him to finish before stating her reason for visiting.

"There's no change." Fitz mumbled more to the instrument than to his partner.

Jemma wrinkled her forehead in confusion only for a moment before realizing he was probably thinking out loud to himself as he always did when deep in thought. She nodded and continued to wait.

"The samples from the Zephyr and these are exactly the same as those you took when this whole bit of insanity started." He raised his head and laid his hands on either side of the large device, speaking without turning to face her.

Now Jemma was confused. She tilted her head to one side and opened her mouth to speak but was cut off when the room went dark and the large microscope screen lit up on the monitor attached to the wall. She recognized immediately the three images of blood samples. Small tabs on each read, Johnson, D. and were followed by dates she remembered well. The word 'where' or perhaps 'how' formed on her lips.

"All of the data from medical goes to the main computers here and on the Zephyr." Fitz answered before she could ask. "And the original is one of the samples you had for each of us stored there just in case the worse happened in the field."

"But how did you know…" She asked, staring in disbelief at the samples that showed no change whatever since Daisy had…well, had become Daisy.

Fitz turned to face her for the first time. "It is rather hard to keep a secret around here and when it comes to our young conundrum that news travels even faster." He paused for a moment. "And Yoyo was down here not long after Coulson and May rushed her to you."

Jemma nodded. She absently chewed the inside of her lower lip. "It doesn't look good, Fitz." She could not help the crack in her voice as a tear snuck over her cheek. "She's failing and I can't find a thing wrong."

He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to his chest, allowing her to release the feeling she could no longer deny. "Oh, Fitz we can't lose her, not like this."

He wanted to tell her that they would not lose her but he was as helpless as she in this battle. Nothing in anything he researched showed any reason for the child to be…well, to be like she was right now. Whatever Dr. Liu had done was lost with his slamming of the door between their dimensions and he'd gone through every bit of research every published by Hugh Everett and even some he'd found on the dark web. Nothing even mentioned what they were or had been dealing with since this whole thing started.

Jemma stifled and brought him from his thoughts. She stood back and wiped her tears with the Kleenex she had shoved into her pockets. "Maybe we can send her back…maybe the answer is there…you can…"

"Jemma," Fitz spoke softly and rested his hand on her shoulders. "It's all gone, the Playground, the computers, the program…everything. And even if it weren't, you know Coulson told us that Liu told him there would be no going back. He didn't want the…whatever the hell Hydra equivalent there to get their hands on what he discovered."

She shook her head. "But you have an eidetic memory, you could…"

"No, Jemma." Fitz pulled her back into a soft embrace. "It was fluke…one chance in a million that I found that doorway. Even if I rewrote the program everything is different. We can't recreate the circumstances that existed in the original situation. All of that had to have some effect on what happened. And May…" He forced a small chuckle. "May would never allow us to send that little bugger anywhere."

Jemma half laughed through a sniffle then drew a short breath. "But we have to do something, Fitz." She said into his chest.

Fitz held her close and nodded. "And we will…right here. I will go through every test until I find an answer."

Jemma smiled and hugged him back.

xxxx

The room was dimly lit by only a soft blue illumination. Medical machines beeped in a slow rhythmic tone telling anyone who entered that the small child in the bed was hanging on to the strange life she was forced to live. May moved to the bedside and gently brushed the stray hairs from Daisy's face. The little girl stirred a bit but did not wake. Coulson took one of her hands in his own and frowned at the coldness of it. If they had not known how serious the situation was, they would have thought the girl was sleeping peacefully.

xxxx

Very early morning - Day 114 – Lighthouse Base – Med Bay

This was really weird cuz I definitely remember being in Coulson's office and May was pretty mad. I was pretty sure she was gonna set my butt on fire. Cept' now I was standing in a hallway that looked really familiar. It smelled familiar too, like furniture polish and Spic-n-Span. When I heard that scratchy voice call, "Mary Sue!", I knew exactly where I was but had no idea how I got there. I looked at my feet and wondered what happened to my shoes and why the hell was I wearin' one of them damn gowns that don't close all the way in the back.

Damn! I just grabbed the opening and pulled it closed about two seconds before Sister Robert Ann was standin' right in front of me SMILING. Geez, she never smiled at any body. But there she was all toothy smiling down at me and not even noticing my weird get up.

"Isn't it wonderful, Mary Sue?" She was almost laughing and she clapped her hands twice. "We've found your parents and they are here to take you back home. Isn't it wonderful?"

Okay, that was really weird. She found my parents? And now she was kinda pushing me toward this big door that I really didn't remember and tellin' me they were right there and so happy to know I was safe. Then she pushed the door open and hot damn it was Jiaying and Cal. They were all smiley too and reaching out for me. I just shook my head and stopped right there. I tried to tell her they weren't my parents but she was all happy and telling them I was ready to go. I tried to run but that damn gown kept opening and I had to grab it and then I saw Coulson and May watching from across this big field and HOW THE HELL DID WE GET OUTSIDE?

It didn't matter. I had to get away even if it meant tearing across that field in my birthday suit. I let go of that gown and took off. I could feel them chasing me and I was screaming for Coulson and May but they were walking away. They looked so down it almost made me cry and no matter how hard I tried to run it felt like my legs were made of concrete or stuck to the ground. Jiaying was getting closer and I was crying and screaming for May and…

xxxx

Someone pushed a couple comfortable chairs into the room. Coulson moved them closer to the bed and spent a few hours alternately pacing and nervously sitting in one, while May sat in the other watching. Despite trying to remain awake, the rhythmic beeping of the monitors and soft breathing of their child lulled them both into a restless almost sleep. Jemma slipped in twice to check on her patient and softly smiled when both parents woke immediately. She assured them there was no change and that Daisy was now sleeping soundly. May glanced at the small clock on the wall noticing it was only an hour until sunrise, a sunrise just like so many they would not see almost thirty levels beneath the surface. Coulson let out a soft snore that on most night would earn a smile and an even softer nudge. Tonight she drew a shaky breath and let her head drop to his shoulder. Their chairs were side by side, allowing them to comfort and support each other. She wouldn't sleep, merely listen to her child's breathing and despise the fact she could not beat this enemy senseless.

A moment later the sound of monitor blips was drowned by the scream of the little girl in the bed. Daisy sat straight up, eyes pinched closed but shrieking with all her might. May was at her side in a heartbeat with Coulson a half step behind. Alarms sounded from every machine in the room but none over powered the child's desperate cry. May's eyes widened as her heart beat faster that the bleeps of the heart monitor next to the bed. Coulson pushed what little hair he had back into place and turned as Jemma raced into the room trying to push them aside.

Daisy's wordless scream turned into a word, one word as her eyes opened… "Mommy!" long and drawn out as one long syllable. She spied May immediately and reached out, squirming to the edge of the bed. May pulled the little girl into her arms, ignoring leads and wires. Coulson wrapped his arms around both as the child's pleas continued.

"Please don't leave me…please Mommy…Daddy…" She dug her small fingers into Coulson's sleeve, never releasing her hold on May.

May rocked side to side, kissing the little girl's head over and over. "Never, bao be, never…" she whispered into Daisy's ear.

"We're here, angel eyes," Coulson assured her, "right here. We aren't going anywhere."

Jemma watched as all monitors returned slowly to normal and both parents comforted their child. There would be no getting Daisy out of their arms and back into bed and this crisis was far from over, but for now that was all this family needed.