"First things first," Fallon announced to the group, choosing to focus on the immediate needs. He pointed to the barely coherent man standing mutely in their midst. "Is this your prisoner?"

Coulson nodded. "Agent Grant Ward," he teased, knowing that the subject of their conversation was also incapable of hearing him, "Director Mark Fallon."

Fallon glared at Coulson, roiling his eyes before shaking his head with smile and a chuckle. "C'mon," he nudged Coulson. "Let's go get your man settled in." He then turned to Castle. "Master Sìfāng, would you help us create the perfect place to stash former Agent Ward here?"

"Sure," Castle replied with a shrug. He turned to Coulson. "Does your friend here need extra padding or just no knob on his side of the door?"

The three men pushed Ward down the hall. Simmons seemed frozen in place, her expressive face showing a thousand different emotions as she watched the rest of her team leave her behind.

Skye was the one member of the group to notice that Simmons had not moved. She noticed the other woman's internal conflict and walked back to check on her. "Jemma?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

Simmons hesitated for a moment before responding. "Why'd you do it, Skye?" she asked. She bit her lower lip, visibly shaken by the thoughts that were running through her mind. "What made you think you had the right to go inside my head and change what I think? Who I am?"

"Jemma..." Skye began.

"I thought we were friends, Skye," Simmons countered, her voice dropping to a harsh, angry whisper. "You didn't think you could trust me..."

"You are a part of SHIELD, Jemma!" Skye argued, matching Simmons' angry whisper. "Even before all of this went down it was no secret what SHIELD would do to someone like me!"

Simmons' face flushed red with barely suppressed frustration. "I am not SHIELD, Skye..." she insisted.

"Aren't you?" Skye inisisted. "Think about it. If we were talking about anyone else who could do what I can do, what would you want to do with them? To them?"

Simmons opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and sighed when she realized that Skye was right.

Skye sighed herself, mostly in sympathy for her friend's internal conflict. "Look, I understand why you're upset. But I didn't just do what I did to protect myself. I did it so you wouldn't have had to make that choice. Because you are my friend."

Simmons bit her lower lip, frustrated by the logic of Skye's counter-argument. "I'm still mad at you," she admitted.

"You have every right to be," agreed Skye.

"But that SHIELD? The SHIELD you needed to be so scared of? It's dead. Maybe gone for good. So can we make a deal? I'll agree to protect you and Agent Coulson and you agree not to re-wire my head without my permission?"

Skye smiled for the first time in the conversation. "Deal," she declared, extending her hand to affirm the deal with a handshake.

Simmons shook her hand, then pulled the other woman into an awkward embrace. "I hate arguing like that," she confessed into Skye's shoulder.

"Me too," Skye agreed with a chuckle. "So are we good?"

"For now," said Simmons.

The two women separated from their embrace and caught up with the rest of the group as they headed to the conference room.

#

John Garrett was not happy. While he had no particular affection for Grant Ward, Garrett had been able to draw a small modicum of comfort from the fact that if he sent Ward out to do something, the younger man would move heaven and earth to get the job done...

Until now.

Where in God's name is he? Garrett thought angrily as he prowled the floor of his Cuban hideout. They couldn't have found him out, could they? Nah, who are we kidding? Captain Oblivious and and his crew of needy mental patients? They wouldn't recognize a HYDRA man if one came up and smacked them in the face. So what could have happened to him? Garrett face flushed with rage as he realized the only thing that could have possibly been enough of a distraction to cause his 'partner' to drop off the map. It's the girl. It has to be. He's probably holed up somewhere with that goddamned girl...

"S-s-sss...sir?"

Garrett forced his attention to the present. "What is it, Jenkins?"

"I think I might have some information for you, sir. On Agent Coulson, sir."

Garrett crossed the room, his attention now fully focused on the man sitting in front of the computer screen. "Well don't just sit there expecting me to 'read your mind', son," he teased. "What did you find?"

"I didn't find anything exactly specific, sir," Jenkins replied. "But I did find quite a few references to a place called the Guest House in SHIELD's files. It seems to be where they did their most hush-hush top secret medical experimentation, sir."

"Like performing a resurrection," Garrett mused, looking over Jenkins' shoulder to study the information on the laptop's screen for himself.

"Yes, sir," said Jenkins. "If there's anyplace where SHIELD would have been able to pull off something like that, it's there."

Garrett, for the first time that day, smiled. "Gentlemen," he announced to the soldiers congregating in various spots around the room. "It seems we just may have found SHIELD's drug store. Anyone want to go see what kind of toys they might have in that particular toybox?"

The room instantly became a buzzing hive of activity. "Good work, Jenkins," said Garrett, patting the younger man on the shoulder.

"It's...it's Robertson, sir. Tyler Robertson."

"Whatever. Get me everything you can find on this Guest House. We're wheels up as soon as you find the location."

#

Beckett led the meeting in the Director's absence. "Phoenix told me..."

May stopped Beckett, confused by the reference. "Phoenix?"

"Director Fallon," Beckett replied. When the SHIELD agents nodded in acceptance of the identification, Beckett began her question a second time. "Phoenix tells me you've had dealings with the Kree in the past?"

"Not personally," May replied. "I remember briefly reading...a file...a while ago. It mentioned experiments that SHIELD performed on a race that matches the description of the Kree. That's all I know about them."

Esposito changed chairs to sit closer to May. "May I?" he asked, leaving his hands open, palms up. May hesitated, staring at Esposito's hands as the debate raged through her mind. It was a debate that Esposito was all too familiar with. "Director McPherson has made sure I have the highest level security clearances," he explained, "and I will only use any memories that are pertinent to the case. Now, may I?"

Reluctantly, May put her hands in Esposito's. He briefly closed his eyes as the memories flew through his mind, linking with other memories he had already collected. "Coulson's been there..." he declared.

"Where?" asked Ryan.

"It's called the Guest House," Esposito explained. "It's a top top-secret base used specifically for military experiments. The file that Agent May saw was the details of what SHIELD did to resurrect Coulson after the Battle of New York. What few memories AC has of that time match up with the details in the file as she remembers it."

May leaned forward, her curiosity piqued by what Esposito was telling them. "You're comparing my memories of the file with Agent Coulson's memories of what happened to him?"

"What memories he has of the time, yeah," replied Esposito. He turned to his team. "I have no idea if the Kree at the Guest House is the Kree that we're looking for, but there is one there."

Castle asked the one question that was on everyone's minds but no one else wanted to ask. "Is he alive?"

Esposito shook his head. "He's dead. Has been for a while. They're using the body as the source for their experiments..."

"Including the drug that resurrected Agent Coulson," May finally admitted with a sigh.

Fallon and Coulson stopped in the doorway to the conference room. Coulson noticed the grim, determined set of his spirit-brother's jaw. "What are you thinking?" he asked Fallon.

"I'm thinking we need to go break into this Guest House and steal a body," Fallon replied.