When Phil Coulson gets the report, he sighs deeply. Rubbing an absent hand over his prosthetic limb, his mind tries to grasp the impact the information will have.

Grant Ward is alive.

Lincoln Campbell is alive, too.

The villain and the hero.

He listlessly shuffles through some papers on the desk in front of him, trying to keep himself busy. No. Stalling. He is stalling and he knows it. His presence is needed. He needs to go down to where they brought the two - make that three, there's a strange half dead alien with the two others after all - into containment chambers, down where the newly rebuilt playground is.

Forcing himself up, he walks toward his door, determinedly now, thinking of Daisy as he does. Someone has to tell her about this, and it can't be anyone but him.

He sighs again, this time a little more wearily. She had only just begun to come around again. Working with them again. Fitz had finally forgiven her for leaving, she was bantering with Mack again, sparring with May, going on missions.

Eating pancakes at the diner with him.

Coulson doesn't want her to break all over again. She deserves some peace and quiet, but he knows that more than anything, she will want to know about Lincoln, about Ward, too, and he can't keep their return from her if he doesn't want to jeopardize his own relationship with her.

No. It needs to be him.


A chuckle breaks the silence in the hallway. He has almost made his way over to the lab, where FitzSimmons are supposed to be working on finding out what that bluish gel-like mass is they found on their latest mission, when he hears the sound, as light as day. Soon, the chuckle turns into full blown laughter and he feels a pang knowing that he'll probably switch the sound off with his news.

Sure enough, the moment he enters the room, everyone turns toward him, smiles still on their faces, but no more laughter. Fitz looks amused, when he catches something in Coulson's face, and his smile freezes and he squints at the director.

"Uh, the… tests are not completed yet, Sir" he says, even though he can sense that Phil is not here for any reports.

"Sir?" Simmons questions, but it's Daisy he focuses on. Her eyes are wide as she frowns at him.

"Coulson, what is it? You'd think you've seen an alien or a ghost or something - if we didn't know that that wouldn't phase you." She tries to joke but it falls strangely flat. Something is not right. "Coulson?"

"Daisy…" He doesn't quite know how best to say this, so he decides to go with the direct approach. Shooting poor FitzSimmons a glance, too, he gently puts a hand on Daisy's arm, making her frown deepen. They're not exactly touchy-feely normally and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know something is up.

"Okay, Coulson, now you're scaring me. What's going on? Shoot. Is it zombies? Are the dead walking the earth or something?"

"Something like that," Phil mumbles, then clears his throat when he hears Fitz start explaining that zombies simply couldn't and don't exist. He raises a hand, shushing the younger man, never taking his eyes off his surrogate daughter of sorts. "Lincoln and Ward just returned. On an alien spaceship."

"What?!" Daisy breaks into a loud laugh, patting Phil's arm. She throws back her head, hair flying, then looks over to her team mates - her friends. "Did you hear that?" she asks them, before turning back to face Coulson. "You had me there for a moment," she informs him, laughter turning into a smaller chuckle, but clearly still amused.

...

Until she sees his serious expression. His way too serious eyes. The line that is his mouth.

"You are not…" joking, she probably wants to say, but can't even finish her sentence.

Lincoln is alive?

And Ward?

"Excuse me, Sir, did you just say… did I hear that correctly? Are you saying that Grant Ward and Lincoln Campbell are both… back here on earth. Alive?" Simmons stares at him, her eyes almost bugging out of her head. There's a sudden build-up of tension in her body, mirrored by Leo Fitz's reaction. The two scientists look positively shocked. Daisy, though, she looks miles away…

"Ward? Not Hive?" Fitz asks as Simmons fidgets next to him, his arm coming around her shoulder protectively.

"It seems like it, yes."

"Where is he?" Daisy's voice sounds hoarse, urgent. For just a second Coulson is confused who she is referring to, before she repeats, "Where is Lincoln. I want to see him."

"Daisy."

"Coulson, where?"

He sighs. There's no use for discussions. Not with her. So he gives in. He nods, almost resignedly, then waves a hand in a "follow me" gesture.

They're already both walking, him leading the way, when Fitz pipes up behind them.

"Are they here? Is… is Ward—" There's incredulity in his tone, and something else. Shock perhaps, or doom. But Coulson cuts him off with a quick, "Not now, Fitz," then walks Daisy to where she desperately wants to go.


It can't be true. Her life had felt so shattered when she had realized - too late, way too late - that she did love Lincoln. She didn't have a chance to say it back because… because he frigging exploded into a million tiny pieces, soundlessly, up there in space above her.

And now she is supposed to believe that somehow he made it out of there alive after all? That he is here? So close?

"Confinement chamber," Coulson whispers calmly, taking her by the shoulder to steer her in the direction, or maybe to steady her, she isn't so sure now. She only knows that she feels almost faint, nauseous, not a trace left of her usual toughness.

She's back to being that broken girl that she didn't want to be anymore. That girl she had finally left behind fighting side by side with Robby, and then… when she went back to SHIELD…

He's alive…

And not just him, either. She wants to ask Coulson so many questions. She tries to. But he tells her "later," every time.

"What happened?"

"Did they just appear out of freaking nowhere?"

"How? How, Coulson? This isn't possible. Are you sure it's him? Them?"

"Is he okay? Is he… What about Ward? Are you sure he's not Hive anymore?"

It's that question the man eventually graces with a reply, and she can't help but notice a significance in that. Just what that significance is, she doesn't know.

"Hive is gone. We've had a team examine him and Lincoln. May was overseeing everything. There is no doubt."

"But… How is that even possible? And what 'team?' Coulson. This is our business. Lincoln is our team member. And Ward… We should have dealt with them."

"We will, Daisy."

She huffs out, angry now. Angry at who or what, she can't say. Just angry. At the world perhaps. What a cruel cruel joke.

All she wants now is to wrap her arms around Lincoln and—

What if he's broken somehow?

Suddenly, she stops in her tracks, pulling lightly at Coulson, making him turn around to look at her. His features soften, there's a small smile playing across his face, and it makes the sudden shaking of her body quiet down a bit.

"I know," he breathes. Just that. "I know." He gently pulls her closer, until he can wrap her in his arms, her face coming to rest against his shoulder. She barely notices that she's crying, and when she does, she can't stop.

"You need to know something."

His words make her tense. Carefully, she pushes herself off him, staring into his warm, concerned eyes.

"Tell me." He doesn't need to spare her or coddle her or put her in bubble wrap. She can take it. She needs to hear it, needs to know the truth.

Coulson sighs. "It appears that they have been subjected to extensive…" He clicks his tongue, pausing for just a half second before softly saying the terrible word, "torture. From what we could gather so far, they've been held captive by a previously unknown alien species. And they are obviously - understandably - distraught about being confined yet again."

Daisy presses her lips together, swallowing hard.

"Okay," she says, because she doesn't know what to say or think or do. She remembers finding Lincoln when Hydra had tortured him. Flashes of the incision in his side, of his heart not beating appear in front of her eyes. His panic when he woke back up...

"It's not okay." Coulson smiles sadly when he says it. Giving her one last squeeze, he urges her on. "Come on, let's get you to him. Hopefully a friendly face will help him…"

Oh god, she thinks, how bad is it?


"Let us out!" he yells, for what seems like the thousandth time, his voice already hoarse, his throat sore and achy. Behind him, Ward sits on the nice white bed with its fluffy blanket and pillows and grins over at him. He can see the man's reflection in the window pane he is currently slamming his fists against.

"Take a break, kid. Sit down. They won't do it. Definitely not when you keep screaming at them like a lunatic."

Ward has the audacity to chuckle, and Lincoln whirls around to face him, an anger in him that quickly dissipates when he notices how weary Grant actually looks. Which, of course, is just a mirror of his own appearance.

With a sigh, he gingerly shuffles over to the small white couch on the other side of the confinement unit, making an upset face as he flops down on it.

"Why are they keeping us locked up in here?" he asks, although of course he knows why. They should be dead. They could be a danger. He can't really blame them, not objectively. And yet he does.

He woke up in here, with Ward already sitting up beside him, as if watching over him.

Someone had come and patched them up. Their feet are thickly bandaged. There is a patch above their ears, multiple bandages and patches on the rest of his body, and surely on Ward's too. They are wearing clean clothes again, too, something way more comfortable than the scrub like garments they had been made to wear by their tormentors. But they're locked up. They are not free...

"Coulson is thorough," Grant casually explains, "You can't blame him. I mean, I can't. You… probably could. But me… I wasn't a good man when I last interacted with him. He has all the reasons to hate me, so…"

Lincoln hisses in air as he shifts his position. He is still in pain, but overall his body hurts less. They might have given him something for it. But he still feels too alert, too on edge, too tense, too sore to forget what happened. What they've been through.

"You okay?" Ward looks worried, but Lincoln shrugs it off with a scoff.

"The hell I am. If I have to spend one more freaking day locked up like a freaking—"

"Easy, easy."

...

Ward chuckles again, genuinely amused to suddenly hear his cellmate swear so much. Hell, even talk so much. It's actually kind of refreshing. And it eases his mind a little bit.

He was worried about the kid. Lincoln barely said anything when they were still in that godforsaken place, he talked even less on their way back to earth, until Grant had started to wonder whether the kid was just broken beyond repair, too far gone, too tortured to stay with him in the here and now.

But Lincoln Campbell's fighting spirit isn't dead, yet. And that gives Ward hope.

Which is peculiar, really. Like the whole thing is peculiar, their entire strange relationship, built from similar experiences, despair, loneliness. Lincoln has become a brother in misery a long time ago, but now, it feels like he truly is a real brother. Someone to care about deeply, someone he wishes to see happy and healthy and whole, someone he would give his life for.

The realization hits him hard.

Briefly, flashes of his actual, his biological family appear in front of his inner eye. Thomas, the kid he wanted to do everything for. Christian. His parents…

He grimaces to himself, shaking away the memories just as he hears Lincoln's concerned voice call his name, and then…

"Skye?"

Out of the corner of his eye he sees his cellmate turn around where he was just sitting, slouching back, sees his face contort into a pained grimace of… love, loss, and a too deep ache, and Grant wants to go and pat him on the arm, encourage him to go up to the window to talk to her, but of course he doesn't have to.

The kid is already on his way there, more hobbling than walking now, his gait all awkward and slow, the name "Daisy" on his lips, but so quiet the girl probably can't hear it. Ward can tell that she is bewildered to see them both together, her boyfriend and her crazy evil ex, and he half smiles to himself at the thought, looking down on his legs, half hiding his expression behind one hand, before he sees Coulson appear beside her.

He tries to sit up more erect, facing the man, saying his name softly.

"Coulson…"

Lincoln shoots him a glance. He looks unsure, frozen on the spot, not quite at the window, but far from the couch, and Ward is looking from him to Coulson and back.

Skye, or Daisy he should say, because everyone says Daisy these days, has a hand placed against the window pane in that cliché gesture, surely waiting for her boyfriend to put his over hers. But Lincoln's chest is heaving, his face lost and forlorn, and Grant suddenly realizes he needs to get up and go over to the kid before Lincoln manages to hyperventilate himself unconscious.

Daisy looks concerned, she is yelling something at Coulson, that fearless leader, that Ward can't hear because the comms are not on, which is probably just as well.

"Lincoln?" He walks toward the younger man, slowly, his feet searing with the strain, but he tries his best not to show them a weakness. It's ingrained, he can't do anything about it, not even as "New Ward." This is still him, a fighter, someone who doesn't like to show weakness. "Thought you had waited for this moment," he casually remarks, walking ever closer, half amused to see Daisy growing frantic out there.

She is yelling and gesticulating at Coulson, then tries to enter the confinement chamber. She probably thinks he is about to attack her boy toy and in all honesty, Ward can't even blame her. All she knows is the old him, and the old him might have just done what everyone thinks he would do: use Lincoln as bait to get out.

Little do they know…

"Come on." He puts a hand on Lincoln's shoulder, feeling something like an electric jolt go through him. Looking down, he notices a crackle emanating from the Inhuman's hands. "Aw, don't do that, kid. Try to calm down. It's really her, okay? I know it. This won't be forever. Just wait. They'll run a few more tests, then we'll be out in no time. Well… you will be. You're their shiny hero, remember?"

Lincoln is still breathing too fast, his body is too tense. He is looking from Daisy to Grant with growing panic. Ward closes his eyes, sighing. When he opens them, he tries to signal to Daisy. And Coulson. Before returning his attention to Lincoln. "Look at me kid. You gotta calm down, okay?" He looks at the window, motioning toward the door, then Daisy. "Come on, Coulson, we both know it's me you really want locked up in here. Let the kid out. He's done nothing to deserve this. In fact, he's done everything to have you roll out a goddamn red carpet for him. Let him go and meet his girlfriend, and I promise I'll be at your service."

He watches as Coulson thinks. Clearly, the man could hear him, or at least understood what he said somehow. The muscles in his cheeks twitch, then he gives someone invisible a sign and the next thing he knows, Daisy enters their little cubicle and Mr. Crackles beside him calms down the tiniest bit, slowly backing away as his fellow Inhuman walks toward him, shooting wary glances toward Grant.

"I'm warning you," she briefly says and he smirks, backing off, arms at his side, with an excusing shrug.

"Believe it or not," he whispers, "I've changed. I'll let you two have this moment." With that, he walks back to the bed, heavily slumping down on it, all the while grinning at a slightly wary, slightly flustered looking Phil.

"Lincoln?" Her voice is about to break. She is about to break, but she doesn't. She can't. He needs her, her strength, her love, just her.

Her chin begins to wobble, and she hates that she can't keep it under control, but the pain in his eyes and the injuries visible on his body are too much to bear, and she can't help but cry. Hot tears are pooling in her eyes as she walks toward him, while he stumbles slightly back.

Raising both her arms, she tries to smile a teary smile. "It's alright," she whispers, vaguely noticing Ward watch them from the bed. She knows Coulson has him in check, an invisible tac team waiting outside to intervene if need be, but for some reason she believes they won't need it.

"Daisy?" It sounds like a question. As if he isn't quite sure it's really her, and maybe he isn't. She doesn't know what he's been through. The things he's had to endure and see. But if her own experiences are anything to go by, he's damn smart to question whether she is real.

Nodding, she comes closer, noticing that he finally stopped walking away from her. He is standing frozen to the spot, swaying a little, looking more broken than she could have ever imagined.

"What did they do to you?" it escapes her, and she bites her lip when she sees him flinch.

"Nothing I'd care to go through again," he suddenly says, surprising her, a lopsided grin fleetingly lighting up his face.

He's not gone. There is still hope.

She's almost reached him. Arms still up, she moves her head in a half nod. "Can I…" hug you? Touch you? Kiss you? she wants to say, but falls silent, words not wanting to come. But in a bold movement, she eventually just wraps her arms around him, first gently, then, when she feels him tense more before slowly easing up a little, more fiercely, until she can feel his arms come around her, too, holding tight, their embrace turning into something so fierce, so desperate that she feels like she can never let go again.

They were drowning, but now, clinging to each other, they finally emerge out of the waves, taking a few struggling breaths, deep, filling their lungs, and they know nothing is over yet, not the pain, not the desperation, but also not their love. Not their lives.

"I love you," she chokes out, finally, after all these months, after it was already too late, after everything fell apart and got put back together slowly.

"Daisy."

"You came back to me…"

His breath against her face, his nose close to hers, that look in his eyes: there's love mixed in with the terror. There's hope.

"I missed you," he rasps, before her lips find his, smooth skin on cracked. She can taste copper, but she closes her eyes, not wanting to think about it now, not in this moment.

Right now, all that matters is that she is here, with him. Sharing tears, sobs, pain.

And love. They have each other back.