Skye went from the picture of calm before the yellow 'cloud' to the picture of agony afterwards. She started clutching at her ears, curled up into a fetal position and rocking back and forth, desperately trying to soothe herself. It seemed like Skye was finding comfort impossible.

Ward looked to Lanie, pleading with the Guardian like he was the one in pain. "Do you...can you..." he begged.

Lanie scrambled to Skye's side, pushing Ward aside in the process. She slipped into a healing trance...then flew back across the room as she was thrown out of Skye's mind with a massive amount of physical force. "That stone has embedded itself at the base of Skye's brain," she explained, pushing herself up from where she landed near a bank of cabinets. "Whatever it's done to her, it won't let me in to check on her."

Ward approached Skye tentatively, as if he feared the younger woman would break solely from resting his eyes on her. He righted his folding chair, preparing himself to resume his bedside vigil, then gently caressed her arm...

The physical connection seemed to send a jolt through them both, freezing Ward and Skye in place as if time itself were standing still around them. Lanie approached Ward cautiously...

and couldn't get closer than the foot of Skye's bed. She put up her hands, feeling a bit like a mime doing an 'in the box' routine. Except that the 'invisible box' underneath her hands was most definitely real. Completely transparent, completely invisible to the naked eye...but solid enough to her touch that if she closed her eyes, Lanie was sure that she would swear that the enclosure that was surrounding Ward and Skye was inches-thick plexiglass. She turned to the only other conscious being in the room. "Thor?" she asked, "this...this isn't you, is it?"

Thor shook his head as he tore himself away from Jane's bedside, curious about the scene that was playing out in front of him. "I could not create such a shield," he replied. "The only being that can is the Master Sìfāng...or so I thought." Thor called Mjölnir to his side, and the hammer flew into his hands as the wires attached to the weapon all snapped loudly. He attacked the barrier with the hammer...only to have the weapon bounce back with equal strength and a loud THUD!

Three of the other four Guardians ran into the lab like somebody was chasing them into the room. "Is it here?" asked Ryan breathlessly. "Phoenix said he saw it float in here."

"Nice of y'all to finally show up," Lanie snapped back, leaning on the invisible enclosure. "Leave me to have to witness all this hella sorta crazy all by myself..." Her teasing died out, though, when she realized who was missing. "Wait, where's Castle?"

Beckett reached through her connection to her soulmate. "I think he might still be in Sokovia," she exclaimed. "I barely feel him."

"That's probably where Stark is, too," Esposito chimed in "HYDRA got the jump on us."

Lanie's eyes went wide. "Does that mean what I think it means?" When three heads around her nodded in unison, her thoughts went to the civilian among them. "Are we sure Stark's okay?" Lanie didn't give her fellow Guardians a chance to answer the question. She pushed past her friends and called down the corridor. "CRUSHER!"

Alexis peeked her head out of one of the training rooms. "Yeah?"

"I need you to do a recall on DW and Master Sìfāng," Lanie called back. "I think they might be injured."

Stark landed in the lab with a loud crash of metal on cement. Lanie turned at the sound, ran over to Stark, and fell to her knees to pull the 'Iron Man' helmet off of Stark's head. She cradled the man's limp head in her hands, instantly diving into a healing trance. Lanie pulled out of the trance a few seconds later as Stark regained consciousness. His eyes flew open in a panic as he drew one giant, gasping breath. "God, I hate an ambush like that..." he groaned. It was only then that he recognized where he was and who he was with...and who wasn't with him. "Wait, where's Castle?"

"Right here," said Coulson. He had Castle's arm slung over his shoulder and was hauling the unconscious man into the lab, letting the wizard's feet drag along the ground as they moved. "He reappeared on the launchpad a couple of minutes ago."

Lanie put her hand on her fellow Guardian's deeply burned shoulder and instantly came to a difficult decision. "I need somebody to snap his neck."

Stark's eyes widened at the comment. "What..." he exclaimed. "Why?!"

"It would take me half a day to heal his injuries," Lanie insisted, "and I've got much bigger problems to worry about."

Coulson's eyes widened as he scanned the larger scene that surrounded him and immediately noticed the situation with his agent and 'former' agent. He grabbed Castle's head and twisted it as requested, letting the Guardian's body fall to the ground before allowing himself to devote his full attention to what, he assumed, qualified as Lanie's 'bigger problems'. "What's going on with Skye? Is she all right?"

"To be honest," Lanie admitted, "I can't tell."

The way Lanie worded her response to the question left a nervous knot in Coulson's stomach. "Don't know or can't tell?"

"Can't tell," Lanie repeated. "See for yourself."

Stark watched the absurdity of the scene, completely stunned at the way that stick-in-the-mud 'Agent' Coulson simply murdered a Guardian in cold blood. "What the...?' A million mixed emotions flew through his being as Castle's 'body' rolled over and sat up with a groan. "Castle?!" he exclaimed. It was then that Stark remembered a comment that Cap had made to the now-living and rapidly self-healing Guardian...and Stark was quickly overtaken by embarassment. "Son of a..."

Lanie sympathized with what she figured Stark was probably feeling. "Didn't know or forgot?"

"Forgot," Stark replied matter-of-factly, pinching the bridge of his nose to hide his blush and relieve the tension building behind his eyes.

Coulson ignored the exchange as he crossed the room, trying to reach Ward and Skye...only to find a massive, invisible obstacle blocking his path. "Master Sìfāng can't be doing this," he mused, "he only just came back."

"Aye," Thor agreed. "And this is a shield with greater force than any I've ever scene the wizard create."

The eyes of each Guardian all widened in a unison expression of surprise. "Stronger than one of mine?" Castle exclaimed.

Thor nodded. He showed the hammer in his hand, then flung the hammer against the barrier. The weapon bounced off the barrier, doing no damage to the shield before it retreated back to Thor's keeping.

Coulson's face paled as he watched the demonstration. "This isn't you, Master Sìfāng?" Castle shook his head, which only served to confuse Coulson further. "Then what is it? Is it the scepter?"

Thor shook his head. "This is not the power of the mind stone," he replied.

"So the scepter made it here?" asked Castle.

"It did," Thor replied.

Ryan found the look that crossed Thor's face to be impossible to ignore. "What happened?" he asked.

"I have ne'er seen anything like it," said Thor. He backed up toward Jane almost instinctively when, in the back of his mind, Thor realized that his beloved might be headed toward a similar fate. "I have always been told that a sentient being can only touch one of the stones for but a moment. Even those that legends say were carriers wielded the stone within a weapon or kept the stone in some sort of protective casing..."

"Like the Tesseract?" asked Coulson. Thor nodded.

"But the mind stone has fused itself to the base of Skye's brain," Lanie declared. "That was all I could discover before she kicked me out."

Ryan studied the pained expression on the face of his friend. "Is she in that much pain?" he asked.

Lanie shrugged. "I couldn't tell you," she replied. "I know that Skye looked like she felt better when Ward touched her arm. But that's also when the barrier went up. Since then I can't do anything but look at them, same as you guys."

The offhand comments seemed to light a fire of inspiration within Ryan. "Skye felt better when Ward touched her?"

"As far as I can tell..." Lanie replied, curious as to where Ryan's thoughts were headed.

"And the barrier went up at the same time?"

Lane nodded. "Almost exactly, why?"

Ryan turned his attention to Ward, a thousand emotions crossing his face all at once. "Goddamn it," he finally cursed out, "I hope the gods know what the hell they're doing..."

Coulson was taken aback by Ryan's sudden frustration. "What is it?"

Ryan turned his attention away from his 'grasshopper' and toward Coulson. His expression softened as his heart filled with compassion for his friend. "I hate to tell you this, AC," Ryan replied, "but I think your 'traitor' just might be Skye's soulmate."

Coulson's eyes flew wide again. "Her soulmate?"

Ryan nodded. "The idea first crossed my mind when Skye got sucked into Ward's memories."

Esposito started to understand his partner's logic. "Even though she was only a projector before then..."

Ryan nodded again, then turned to Lanie. "He hasn't shown any interest in leaving her side since we let him out of that padded cell, has he?"

"Are you kidding?" Lanie agreed, her voice clearly showing her nagging frustrations with the man. "I've been having to heal him to keep him going because he's being so stubborn. Part of me wishes you guys would just put him back in that damn cell."

"There's just one problem with this theory," said Beckett. "Everything that we know about soulmates has limited the idea to us."

A knot formed in Coulson's stomach as the pieces came together. "The barrier. You think Ward's creating it, don't you?"

"From what you guys were saying about the mind stone fusing with Skye's mind," Ryan explained, "that would have generated more than enough energy to flip Ward if he has the gene."

"Well, if you're right," Coulson declared, clearly showing his persistent skepticism, "I hope that wherever they are, he's taking good care of her."

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