A/N: I don't know if it's the amazing weather or all the things going on in my life, but I'm more inspired than ever. Here's some more exposition and awesomeness.
Thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, and/or adds this to their favorites/follows. You make me so proud of what I write and I can't wait for you to read more.
Enjoy!
Maria let Phil into the house, greeting him with a glass of scotch. "We're having a team meeting in Melinda's office," she said.
"So we're a team now, hmm?" Phil took the glass and slipped off his shoes.
"We're something," Maria replied.
"How are the girls?" he asked as he followed Maria down the hallway.
"Jemma's rattled but obviously trying to stay strong for Skye," Maria said. "Skye's absolutely numb. Didn't get a whole lot out of her, and I've been working on my sign."
"Surprised you're not fluent, house you live in."
"We like to communicate in other ways."
"Don't tell me any more, or I'll need another one of these," Phil said, raising the glass of scotch.
"You can have as many as you'd like." Maria opened the door to the office and Melinda looked up at her friend.
"Thanks for coming."
"And miss scotch and no shoes?" Phil took a seat in an armchair and crossed his sock feet. "You know I love scotch and no shoes."
"You know what we love? Not having dirt ground into our carpets, then not having to rent one of those carpet vacuums from the Pick-and-Save," Maria said. "You converse amongst yourselves; I'll get the snacks."
"Ooh, we're a team and we have snacks?" Phil looked excited. "I like this team."
Melinda rolled her eyes as she sat back in her chair and studied Phil.
"You know, I'm glad Maria clued me in on the shoe thing," Phil said, taking a long drink of scotch. "I always thought – and this might be a tad racist, but it's late and you've plied me with scotch – I always thought it was an Asian thing."
"With theories like that, you're never going to be team captain," Melinda said.
Phil settled his glass on his knee. "Maria thinks our girls are in rough shape."
Melinda liked the way he said our girls. It really did make them feel like a team. "Skye's shut down. Somewhere deep inside… I haven't even seen her in a place like that, not even when she was in the hospital. Jemma thinks it's about Ward, at least that's what she's shared with me, but something's telling me there's more to it."
Phil shifted in his chair. "You think it's Katia."
"If she went looking for information on Ward and Garrett, is it that much of a stretch that she'd eventually dig up… what happened?" Melinda asked. "You've seen yourself what that girl can do with a computer."
"If she figures out what happened, I hope she'll tell us," Phil said, giving a mirthless chuckle. "Been years and we're still trying to figure out how the hell everything went off the rails like that."
"I don't know how to reach her, Phil," Melinda said, and for a moment Phil couldn't remember if she was talking about Katia or Skye.
He tilted the glass on his knee, watching as the ice cubes slid from side to side. "Don't reach her. Not right now. Not tomorrow. Let the panic attack wear off. Give her space. She'll figure out how to talk to you about it – or she won't. There's nothing you can say at the moment to make her feel any better about any of this. Skye's… she's very much inside her own head. She's planning, she's thinking, she's setting things up in forty different directions at once. I think today it just got to be too much for her, and she lost control."
"Jemma says Skye hasn't been sleeping."
"It could be that too." Phil sighed. "After seeing what that asshole Ward left at her dorm, I wouldn't want to sleep either."
As though reminding himself, he took his phone out of his pocket and set it on Melinda's desk. "I called the campus police after I'd taken pictures and reminded them that Skye has a restraining order against this guy. They said that as long as Mr. Ward wasn't within fifty yards of Skye, he hasn't violated it. And since she wasn't in the dorm…"
"He gets away with it."
"And since there were no witnesses to him leaving his sick display of affection, they can't do a damn thing about it."
Phil put the glass down on the desk and picked up his phone. For a long moment he scrolled through the photos he'd taken at Castell Hall earlier in the day. A large anatomically correct heart, so realistic that it had taken Phil a long two or three minutes to eventually determine that it was plastic, had been stabbed to the door with a long-bladed kitchen knife. For dramatic effect, "blood" (the red paint that had ended up on Phil's suit coat) had been splattered everywhere – the door, the walls, the floor. More stalker-esque pictures of Skye had been taped around the heart, and there were several images of the same page of a calendar – December 1st.
"What do we think he's going to do on December first?" Melinda asked.
"Perhaps that's when his next shipment of startlingly realistic body parts comes in."
"Or it's something worse."
"Probably that."
Maria returned with a tray of cookies and fruit. "We figure out how to get this creep off campus yet?"
"You were only gone six minutes," Phil said. "We're not your genius think tank, you know."
"Thank God for that," Maria said, sliding into the other armchair.
Melinda reached forward and took a slice of melon from the tray. "We need a plan, Phil. The girls are welcome here for as long as they want to stay – but after seeing the way Skye looked at me today, like she was terrified of what I could do to her – I hardly think that's what she'll want to do."
"And we know Jemma would follow Skye to the ends of the earth."
Melinda nodded. She frowned and then turned to Maria. "What about the Loft?"
"The guest suites have been empty for years," Maria replied. "It'd be the perfect place."
"What's the Loft?" Phil asked.
"It's the code name for a series of apartments built into the basement of the think tank," Maria said. "We used to house our guests there – mostly scientists, engineers, and politicians, so they're fairly nice digs."
"Could the girls stay there?"
Maria nodded. "I'd have to clear it with the big guys upstairs, but they know I basically run the place."
She put down the ginger cookie she'd been nibbling at. "It's extremely safe. The entire place is patrolled by security day and night and all doors are key-carded. Cameras everywhere. Nobody gets in or out without approval or being seen by at least two human eyes and approximately twelve lenses."
"They might think it's like a prison," Melinda said hesitantly.
"A prison with cable." Maria shrugged.
"It would just be until we could get this situation resolved," Phil said.
He took a drink and looked at Melinda, seeing her struggling with a variety of unspoken emotions. "I know it's not what you want," he said gently. "I want them to be out and in the world as much as you do, but I think we both care about them too much to let them get hurt any further. Ward is clearly gone full crazy-pants, and with Garrett backing him we're all as safe as paper airplanes in a fire factory."
His analogy got a smile from Melinda.
"Yeah, yeah, I know there's no such thing as a fire factory. Again, it's late and you've plied me with liquor," Phil continued. "Okay, so, a fireplace. A paper airplane in a fireplace."
"Go on," Melinda said, her voice gently teasing.
"They can still go out, they can still go to school and the mall and wherever it is young people hang out – the malt shoppe? But at night, instead of returning to an unsecured building run by other young people whose interests run mostly to beer and good times, they'd be going to a well-protected fortress."
"They might not want our protection," Melinda pointed out.
"And we'll tell them it's an option," Phil agreed. "There are lots of problems we can't solve for these two – Skye's seizures and Jemma's odd devotion to gluten-free cookies despite having no issues with gluten at all are the ones that come to mind – but this one we can at least attempt to rectify."
"I'll talk to Nat," Maria said, pulling her phone from her pocket. "She lives in the building too, so she'll have to have the last say about the girls staying in the Loft."
"Call her in the morning," Melinda said. "It's almost one o'clock."
"She doesn't sleep," Maria said, rolling her eyes. "She's either training or thinking up new ways to make life miserable for everyone else on her team."
Phil grinned. "What was last week's epic prank?"
It was common knowledge, at least between Melinda and Phil, that one of the geniuses at Maria's think tank was a master prankster. Natasha Romanoff was a brilliant mind, working on a variety of projects ranging from new modes of transportation to high-density ballistics-stopping materials, but she adored playing practical jokes on the other scientists on her team. Phil's favorite, a story he never got tired of hearing, was when Natasha had filled an entire conference room with Ping-Pong balls, intending only to get a rise out of Bruce, another scientist who was using the conference room to prepare for a lecture. What Natasha hadn't known was that on the day she filled the room with Ping-Pong balls, Bruce had brought in a colleague, Dr. Naresh Gupta, who was visiting from India. Upon being swept down a hallway by Ping-Pong balls, Dr. Gupta had soundly declared never to return to America, and had refused to collaborate any further with Bruce. Three weeks later Dr. Gupta was caught trying to smuggle exotic birds into Portugal and had been in jail ever since, so "it all worked out" was how Maria always ended the story.
"Nat hired these two kids to come in and pretend they were interns," Melinda replied. "She gave them ID badges and everything – fake, of course. They pushed mail carts around all day and left packages on people's desks that exploded confetti all over once opened."
"That doesn't sound like a Natasha-level prank," Phil observed.
"Oh, did I mention that the two 'interns' were identical twins? And every day they dressed identically, wore the same ID badge, and did their hair the same way? Most of those scientists can't remember the last time they saw their kids, let alone keep track of people in the building, but they were convinced they were hallucinating. Add in all the confetti and you've got one jittery group of super-brains."
Phil laughed and drank the rest of his scotch.
It was quiet in the office for a moment, the only sounds soft murmurings from Maria as she spoke into her phone. Melinda gave Phil a thoughtful look. "Did we do everything, Phil?"
"Last time?"
Melinda nodded.
Phil considered this. "We did everything we could with the resources we had."
"And you believe that?"
"I have no choice but to believe it," he answered. "We can't go back. We can't fix anything. The only things we can do are here and now, in front of us, and we have to go out and fight with the weapons we're given."
"God, you're good."
"So Audrey tells me."
"You know that's not what I meant."
"Well, it's late and…"
"We plied you with alcohol." Melinda gave him a smile.
Maria hung up and turned back to face Melinda and Phil. "Nat's onboard," she said. "We just bring the girls by tomorrow and she'll set the whole thing up."
"Thank you," Phil said. "This is very generous."
"I just hope they'll agree to it," Melinda said.
Phil nodded, reaching for his glass.
A scream shot through the quiet office, ringing through the silent house, and instantly all three were on their feet.
"Skye," Melinda managed to get out, and she bolted out the door.
She was being held prisoner somewhere – somewhere dark. She wasn't sure how she knew, but they'd taken her sister already, were hurting her sister. And they were going to hurt her too. She had something they wanted, but she didn't know what it was.
The vibrations in the floor got closer and Grant Ward loomed out of the darkness. He didn't say anything, merely reached behind him and pulled open a curtain. A sudden beam of light illuminated Jemma, tied to a chair and unconscious.
"No!" Skye protested.
Ward leaned to one side and picked up a power drill. It looked so out of place that for a long moment Skye couldn't figure out what he was going to do with it.
Then he took a step towards Jemma and she felt sick.
She couldn't hear the drill's whir, but she saw it shoved into Jemma's kneecap all the same.
Skye woke up screaming and flailing, her throat raw, shoving herself away from anyone or anything touching her. For a long series of seconds she was falling, tumbling from the bed and stumbling towards the bathroom. Her hands hit the door and her forehead banged against it as she fumbled with the doorknob. The door swung open just in time and Skye fell to the tile floor, vomiting.
When the spasm of nausea had passed she pulled herself into a ball, tucking her knees up against her chest, sobbing.
A light clicked on and Jemma was on the floor next to her. She reached for Skye's hand and Skye pulled back, screaming "No!"
Jemma jerked back, signing Sorry, sorry.
Skye looked up, seeing the shocked look on Jemma's face, and then Professor May and Mr. Coulson in the doorway. Another wave of nausea shot through her body, and Skye retched. I can't save any of them.
Professor May moved towards her. Skye was too numb and sick to do anything, including move, and she just watched the professor sit down next to her.
You can save anyone, Professor May signed, and hot shame ran down Skye's spine as she realized she'd signed her previous thought.
The nausea rose up again and Skye leaned over the trash can, vomiting again. The bathroom was suddenly very small and she was sweaty and disoriented.
Sick, she signed to Professor May.
I'm sorry, the professor replied. Can I get you something? Do you want Jemma to sit with you?
"NO!" Skye screamed out again. She couldn't let Jemma get near her – she was only going to get Jemma killed. "Not safe, not safe," she babbled.
You are safe here. I promise, Professor May signed.
Jemma isn't, Skye signed jerkily. Jemma isn't safe with me.
"Well, that's a load of nonsense," Jemma said.
Can't sleep, Skye signed, though her eyes were drooping closed. Bad dream, can't sleep.
I promise you are safe here, Professor May repeated.
Go back to bed, Skye, Mr. Coulson said from the doorway. Maria and Melinda will be here to make sure nothing happens to you. If they screw that up, they answer to me.
Professor May got a washcloth from the cupboard and ran it under some cool water. She handed it to Skye, who wiped her face with it. By that time Professor May had filled a glass with similarly cool water, and Skye rinsed her mouth, spitting into the sink.
She felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut, as though she was going to tumble to the floor.
Mr. Coulson took a few steps towards her and scooped her up, carrying her back into the guest bedroom. By the time he placed her on the bed, Skye was asleep, albeit fitfully. Her hands had clenched into his shirt, and gently he pried the cotton free from her fingers.
When he turned back around Jemma was looking at him. "Why would she say something like that?"
"Like what?"
"That I'm not safe with her."
"Maybe it's what she dreamed," Mr. Coulson replied. "And it might be…"
A noise from the bed caused them both to turn. Skye was blinking sleepily, holding one hand out towards them. As they watched, she mumbled, "Jemma."
"And it might be that wants to keep you safe," Mr. Coulson went on, "because you're something very precious in her life."
"Jemma," Skye repeated, a little more insistently.
"You're precious in all our lives," Mr. Coulson said. "Good night, Jemma."
"Good night," Jemma replied a little distantly, and got back into bed.
"Sorry," Skye slurred as Jemma settled down next to her and Mr. Coulson closed the door.
Why?
"Stupid girl," Skye mumbled.
Not stupid. Beautiful. And mine.
Are you talking?
Jemma shook her head. No, but you're so tired that you are.
"Oh." Skye took Jemma's hand in hers and closed her eyes again.
Jemma shaped her fingers into I love you and let that rest in Skye's palm.
"Luh. You. Too," Skye garbled out, and her breathing got slow and regular.
Utterly confused and feeling like she hadn't studied for an exam that counted for 105% of one's grade, Jemma turned the lights off again and waited for her heart to stop pounding in her ears.