Day 118 – Lighthouse Base – Med Ward – early morning

Jemma drew a vial of blood through the port she had added to Daisy's IV without waking the small girl. May let out a quiet breath and squeezed her daughter's hand gently. She looked at the young doctor who offered a weak smile before silently exiting the room.

It had been a non-eventful night. After the second transfusion Daisy slept peacefully allowing both parents to rest as well. Coulson and May slept as well, using the more comfortable chairs that Mack had found somewhere in one of the base storage areas. There were no nightmares or outbursts, no tossing or soft sobs to alert them. All of this gave a glimmer of hope that the blood transfusions had made a difference. The most recent draw would hopefully give proof of just that.

Coulson had gone to Command. This early morning routine gave him the opportunity to confer with Mack on any incident that may be a sign of trouble but also allowed him to update the rest of the team on Daisy's condition. It worked both ways. May was alone with Daisy listening to the soft perpetual blips of the machines in her room. She watched the child's chest rise and fall with each breath, telling herself that this was normal for someone so small and weak.

After Jemma left May held on to her little girl's hand, wishing she had the ability to transfer her own strength to the child. Weak was something that she never imagined would describe Daisy. Even as a street-smart hack-tivist the girl was never weak. She exuberated strength. In all their time together Daisy had never backed down or away from any challenge. Yes, there was that sway incident with that bastard Ward turned Hive but she could not ever be held responsible for that. If forced her away from them and broke both her and Coulson's hearts but in the end made her even stronger. Daisy always bounced back. May held on to the belief that she would do so again.

She almost smiled when her thoughts were interrupted by the soft squeeze that met her own. She squeezed back as the child stirred before emitting a soft sigh and a little stretch.

"Mom," Daisy whispered without opening her eyes.

"I'm right here, baobei." May whispered back.

"Okay…" the little girl sighed back as she rolled to her side and snuggled into her pillow.

May brushed the hair away from the little girl's face and placed a soft kiss on her temple. "Okay," she repeated around a sob. "You're going to be okay." She whispered as she kissed her child a second time then turned as the door opened.

One of the med techs entered carrying what May knew was another transfusion. She wondered why it was being administered so soon after the last. The tech seemed to understand the mother's look. She explained that Dr. Simmons wanted to try warming the transfusion, hoping it would help raise the child's core temperature as well as dissolving what she and Fitz felt were ice crystals in her hemoglobin. May nodded her understanding and agreement that it might be a wise move while trying to ignore the feeling that the last blood test had not been promising. She watched as the tech did her job then exited as silently as she had entered.

May slipped her hand free, watching the dark liquid slip down the IV tube and into the port on the little girl's arm. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms as she paced away from the bed and then back, quickly swiping away any tear that dared to sneak across her face. She wondered if Phil had made another trip to the lab insisting they take more of his blood. He'd done so twice during the night only to be told it could not be done so soon. Her thoughts were again interrupted by a soft sigh from Daisy. She turned in her pacing suspecting the child was in the midst of a growing nightmare but found her daughter staring up at her.

"Hi," Daisy whispered hoarsely. She struggled to form a smile.

"Hi," May answered softly as she sat on the edge of the bed and once again took Daisy's hand in her own.

Daisy looked at the tube that ran to the bag hung above her. "More blood?" She yawned as she scrunched up her nose at the thought.

May nodded. "Mmm hmm, Jemma's trying something new."

Trying but failing to push herself up on her pillow, Daisy continued to stare at the transfusion. "New blood?" she asked.

"Not exactly," May shook her head with a small grin and tucked a second pillow behind the girl's head. "She thinks heating it might help warm you up." She gently moved the little girl to a more comfortable position and used the controls to raise the head of the large hospital bed.

"She cooked it?" Daisy's brows went high, giving her 'just woke up' face a comical appearance.

"I doubt that." May almost laughed. "But we can ask her when she comes back."

Daisy thought for a moment then shook her head. "I don't think I wanna know."

May grinned and brushed a few more stray hairs away from the girl's brow. For a moment it was silent as Daisy stared at the IV and May stared at her.

"Do you think it'll help?" Daisy asked softly without looking May in the eye. She knew May would never lie to her but she just didn't want to see the hurt if there was no hope it would.

May followed Daisy's gaze and once again took the little girl's free hand in her own. "Jemma thinks it will. She says there's been no change in your temperature all night."

Daisy swallowed hard and gave a small nod. "That's good?"

"Well," May began, then waited for the little girl to look at her. She smiled a small smile. "We're hoping it is but you don't have to worry about it. Fitz-Simmons is working on getting you back to normal."

Daisy gave a small pout and looked down at her body. "So far that hasn't been very good." She shook her head. "I'm still a peanut."

May reached forward and again moved that stubborn strand of hair from the little girl's eyes. "You know that isn't what I meant."

Letting out a soft sigh, Daisy sunk back into her pillows. "Be nice if they could fix both problems. I'm real tired of being a kid."

May drew a breath and nodded. She knew Daisy was tired and frustrated by this situation that had lasted more than three months. Still, having her daughter, her little girl, although exasperating at time, was almost a gift. In all honesty she had enjoyed the last few months and really wouldn't trade them. Yes, she missed the stubborn young agent, intrepid to a fault, but holding her child was something she never dreamed would happen. No, that wasn't true. She had dreamed about it hundred of times…every birthday, every Christmas, every time she wondered what her child would look like, sound like…how she would act and which of them she would be more like. Through all of this she had never been disappointed. Even when Daisy was at her worst, she was overjoyed with the opportunity to be this child's mother and for every time she held her in her arms.

"I know baobei. I know it's hard." She sympathized with the little girl.

Daisy's cheeks flushed bright red. "Is it okay if I like it when you call me that?" She asked in an almost whisper.

May leaned forward and carefully took the child into her arms, holding her close she kissed her temple and rocked gently. "Absolutely, baobei, it is absolutely okay."

Daisy snuggled into the embrace as well as she could while still attached to the IV. "Wo ài ni, mama." She whispered softly.

May nodded but did not answer, not wanting her daughter to hear the sob in her voice.

Day 118 – Lighthouse Base – Science lab – early morning

"Damn!" Fitz spit, slamming a fist on the table next to the large microscope.

Jemma jumped, a bit startled by his sudden outburst. She recovered quickly. "There's no change?" She asked hoping to be wrong.

The young man stood and let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes, yes," he answered with a bit of sarcasm. "Yes, there's a change." He threw his arms in the air and paced away from the machine. "The healthy blood is dissolving the crystals but they just reform. It's like the bloody damn things are feeding on the new blood."

Jemma let out a disappointed sigh. "Perhaps this new warmed transfusion will be more successful," she suggested, handing the vial she had been holding to him. "Daisy seems to be feeling a bit better. Her core temperature is steady and she's slept through the night without any problem."

Fitz blew a long breath as he ran both hands against his head. He slowly took the vial and spoke to it. "I guess we'll have to wait until the next blood test before we consider this pointless."

"It isn't pointless, Fitz." Jemma encouraged. "Something must be working, she is improving."

Placing his hands on both hips, Fitz looked to the ceiling. "But we don't know why," he looked to the floor. "We don't even know why any of this is happening." He spoke softly.

Jemma took one of his hands in hers. "No, no we don't but that has never stopped us before."

Fitz stared at their hands. "It hasn't and I am not stopping. I just…" He stopped and drew a quick breath, releasing it slowly. "I just thought this was the answer and now we are right back where we started. But I cannot believe it is not something in the blood and those damn crystals that definitely were not there before all of this started.

Giving Jemma's hand a firm squeeze, he moved to the large screen and flipped a switch once again showing the previous samples of Daisy's blood.

"I've compared all of them on the mass-microscope. There are no traces of these crystals in her blood from the Zephyr's records or in the tests you took after this debacle started a few months ago. Everything was as normal as it could be."

Jemma thought for a moment. Fitz had checked every blood test including those she took when Daisy fell ill and both times she used her powers. The crystals were not present in any of those tests but what if all of this had something to do with her regaining her former self. What if they weren't made to stop it? What if it was meant to be part of that?

"Maybe we aren't supposed to stop it," Jemma said, thinking out loud.

Fitz's jaw dropped for a moment before he spoke. "Jemma, it's killing her." There he said it, said what everyone was thinking but unwilling to admit. The sound of it actually brought a chill to the air. Fitz felt his insides churn. He drew a breath and found his strength. Turning toward Jemma, he spoke through his teeth. "And I am not going to let that happen."

Jemma smiled as she pulled back her own tears. She gave a curt nod.

"Have the techs bring me a sample of a heated blood donation. I have an idea." With that he went back to his microscope.

Jemma smiled at his determination then turned to retrieve the sample.

Day 118 – Lighthouse Base – med ward – mid-afternoon

I can't believe they finally let me sit up. Maybe it was cuz I told May I was kinda hungry. I don't think I ever saw her so happy. She said I could have anything I wanted but I thought ice cream was pushing it and then Jemma said it had to be something light or I'd probably puke. Well, she didn't say puke exactly. She used all that medical blah blah, but she meant puke. They gave me some kind of oatmeal with no sugar or anything but I was used to it cuz I think they got the recipe from St. Agnes. It tasted exactly the same as I remembered. It didn't make me puke so I guess that's a good thing.

I wanted to walk to the bathroom but my legs were kinda wobbly and anyway I gotta drag that dumb pole with all that dumb medicine on it with me. The med tech said she'd get the bed pan and then I really was gonna be sick, but May saved me and said she'd get me there. Being carried like a toddler is pretty embarrassing but not as much as a blasted bed pan. I needed a lot of help but it was May so it wasn't too bad.

Davis came to see me. Davis! How about that! He was kinda funny cuz it was like he didn't know what he wanted to say. He brought me a coloring book. Damn! Like I'm some little kid. He had crayons too and said maybe it would give me something to do other than counting ceiling blocks. I told him there were there were twenty-eight not counting the lights. We all laughed.

The book wasn't too bad and coloring was kinda relaxing. There really isn't much to do with only one hand when you're strapped to a big beepy IV pole. Anyway they won't even let me put my legs over the side of the bed let alone get out of it. So I gave in and picked a picture of a big old mean faced tiger. The crayons kinda make a cool nice when you rub them on the paper and the pictures weren't bad either. They weren't like cartoons or Disney princesses. They were places and lighthouses and dragons that were pretty cool. I figured they weren't letting me out of this bed any time soon so might as well start coloring. I wondered for about half a second if I could quake a whole bunch of crayons to all color at once, but I was pretty sure May would nix that idea.

Jemma came with that damn thermometer and I started crying like a stupid baby. I just hate it so much and May asked her if there was any other way. She said this was the easiest and I told her it wasn't easy for me. She explained that they could put a tube down my throat but then I couldn't talk or there was a way to put something right in my heart that would measure it or she could use this big ass needle to stab my stomach like I was some Thanksgiving turkey ready to come out of the oven. Geez, some choice! I fought her off for a bit with a lot of dopey questions and another trip to the bathroom where May gave me mom glare cuz she knew what I was doing. I even tried telling them I thought I was gonna puke, cuz really I felt like I could. But finally I gave in but kept crying the whole time even though May held my hand and tried to shush me. I made her promise not to let Coulson come in til it was all over. She crossed her heart. Can you believe it? May crossed her heart and promised. I almost stopped crying. Even when Jemma was done I couldn't stop. I don't even know why I was crying. May held me for a long time and just let me. Then they came with more blood and I cried so much that all that oatmeal just came right back up and all over the floor. I told them I was gonna puke.

I wished I was tired cuz I wanted to close my eyes and make all of this go away.

When things calmed down…for me…Jemma was talking to May really quiet. I watched for a little while then I told them I thought they should tell me what was going on cuz after all it was going on with me. Even though I was still a shrinkie dink and sometimes my head forgot it was not a kid, I really did want to know what the hell was going on. I didn't say that cuz, well May probably would give me that stink eye look and right now I'd probably just start crying all over again and my eyes were puffy and my nose was stuffy and I already felt like crap.

Jemma said that my inside temperature wasn't getting worse but it wasn't getting better. It was kinda just stuck but not where it should be. She said the new blood was helping cuz I was not so tired and she smiled when she said I was asking for food. So that was a good thing, but they had to keep giving it to me cuz it didn't last. When she told me about the crystals I kinda pictured snowflakes floating around in my blood. It was kinda pretty, actually. She told me she and Fitz were really working on solving this so I didn't need to worry. I didn't say anything about them not solving the me being kid problem cuz she looked like she was gonna cry and if she did well I would too and well…you know. Then she told me I was lucky because I was getting May and Coulson's blood so there was no way it wouldn't help. Then she winked at me and said Fitz donated too and it was a match. May said maybe I'd get a little smarter and not pull so many dopey stunts with that.

Day 118 – Lighthouse Base – med ward – early evening

Coulson placed a soft kiss on Daisy's temple then stepped back and smiled at the sleeping child. Lost in slumber the little girl looked like a picture of health…as long as he didn't look at the transfusion running into her left arm. He tucked the blanket a little closer to her chin.

"That's the fourth one today." May nodded to the IV pole, forcing him to look at it. "Jemma says it's helping a bit, but she's still pretty weak."

"I'm sorry I didn't get here earlier. I thought she'd still be awake." Coulson sighed. "Whatever Hale and Sitwell were up to still has repercussions."

May moved closer and wrapped an arm around his waist. "At least it doesn't involve her." She nodded at their daughter. "My mother has probably buried those two so deep they're probably warming their asses on the earth's core."

Coulson laughed through his nose imagining Lian May venting her anger on the two morons that attempted to kidnap her grandchild. He wrapped May in a one armed hug. "Anything from Fitz?"

May shook her head. "Simmons says he has an idea but he hasn't said anything more."

"Maybe I should give him a little nudge." Coulson remarked with no sign he would be leaving Daisy's side. He had yet to take his eyes from her small form.

"Might not be the best idea." May disagreed.

Both parents watched their child sleep, neither saying a word. The blips and beeping of the monitors were the only sound in the room.

Day 118 – Lighthouse Base – Science lab – evening

Fitz paced back and forth in front of his large microscope, mumbling to himself. He'd formed a theory earlier in the day that wasn't the best but perhaps not the worst. Using the heated hemoglobin he experimented with the crystals from Daisy's blood that he had isolated. He watched intently as the blood slowly engulfed the crystals causing them to disappear only to reappear several minutes later. It frustrated him beyond measure and the string of obscenities he fired through the lab sent a few techs running.

He placed isolated crystals in Petri dishes subjecting one to extreme heat and the other to extreme cold. Neither seemed affected and both replicated exponentially. Antibiotics had no effect on the damn things and while he considered radiation he could not subject Daisy, especially child-Daisy, to that. With no other avenue to follow, the young scientist merely watched the crystals multiply assuming they would fill the small dishes and begin to breach the edges. However, once those damn snowflakes reached the sides of the dishes they began to retract and while not disappearing, every one of them shrank to uniform size and merely drifted in the saline solution Fitz had placed them. Amazed by the action, Fitz added the heated hemoglobin to another Petri dish and observed the same reaction. The crystals expanded to the limit then retracted and remained small and calm. The chilled blood evoked the same response.

Fitz was baffled.

For a second…

Hurrying to the med labs storage, he retrieved a sample of Daisy's blood that had been drawn immediately after her arrival in the quickly deteriorating Playground Base. He took a small amount and spread it across yet another Petri and slipped it under his super-scope. Staring for a moment, he then sat back on his chair and shook his head then leaned forward and peered into the scope again. Fitz jumped from his seat and prepared another sample, adding the heated blood to it. He placed it under the scope and stared again as he watched the reaction. Again he sat back in his chair, merely staring into space as more than a dozen theories crossed his Fitz-brain until it paused on one…the only one that made any sense.

"Bloody hell," the young man exhaled.