A/N: So, halfway through this chapter I stopped writing and was like, "Yeah, I'm done." And then I came back and wrote at least 1200 more words. I'm not a quitter, I guess is what that means.
Thanks to everyone who reads/reviews/follows/favorites.
If you'd like to watch me get slammed with tumblr prompts I haven't had time to write yet (gee, who knew I was so popular? it certainly wasn't me but now I have fifteen-ish prompts and it's very flattering and overwhelming all at once), please visit me on tumblr. Same username.
Enjoy!
Cal knocked on the door of apartment 9. The building was shabby and forgettable, and he didn't know exactly why his contact would want to protect her life this way.
At least, he hadn't, until he'd watched his autistic daughter stab a man to protect him.
"Who is it?" The door remains steadfastly closed.
"It's Cal."
"What do you want?"
"I need help."
"What else is new?"
Cal sighed. "That's fine. I'll go somewhere else."
He picked up his duffel bag and walked a few short steps down the hallway. He hadn't gotten far when he heard the locks slide back and the door open just a crack.
"This is about Daisy, isn't it?"
Cal turned around. "That isn't her name anymore. You know that."
"I know a lot of things. And if I know anything, it's that she's in trouble because of something they did to her when she was Daisy."
The door opened a bit wider. "And if that's true, which it is, you're going to need more help than just me."
Cal sighed. "I know."
"You're going to have to get her back first. Might as well make a deal with the devil."
"You've met Jiaying. I already made a deal with the devil."
"She killed a man," Jemma said to May and Coulson in the conference room. Somehow Jemma, Trip, and Mack had gotten Skye back up to the eighth floor. Bobbi was sitting with Wanda on the fifth floor at Pietro's bedside. The Sokovian girl still hadn't spoken to anyone but Skye, but when they'd tried to remove her from her brother's room, she had screamed at anyone who came near her, long enough and loud enough that Jemma was worried for her health and had eventually relented.
"She told you she killed a man," May said, pointing to Skye's speech device. "And she said 'Daisy' killed a man."
Coulson flipped through the large notebook that had come with Skye. "There's nothing in here about…"
"About her murderous tendencies?" Jemma asked, shaking her head. "I don't know what happened, and I don't know if she fully understands. I don't even know if what she said is true, or if the events are skewed in her head."
"The detectives are fairly certain it was her father who was responsible," Coulson said.
"That's what they thought. If she…" Jemma put her head in her hands. "If she did it, wouldn't it make sense for her father to try to protect her?"
"Well, the detectives will need to question her now," May said.
"Absolutely not," Jemma snapped, jerking her head up to glare at May. "She is too fragile."
Coulson and May shared a glance.
"You saw what she did to herself," Jemma went on. "The nurses reported she had a seizure, we still have no idea what the devices in her body are doing, and she dissociated far enough to tear her own skin off her face. To put her in front of detectives after all that… no. No. I won't let you. It's not medically advisable."
Coulson closed the notebook. "Let's wait until after she's had some time to rest, and we'll discuss it again."
"If you ask me, she's gone far beyond a psych case," May said as Coulson stood. "We're talking about something else entirely now."
Coulson sat back down.
"Think about it," May said, obviously ignoring Jemma's increasing frustration. "When she came in she had been found at a murder scene, covered in blood, with words carved into her body. The reporting officers were worried she had hurt herself or someone else, or that she would hurt herself or someone else. Then she attacked Audrey, and later on she bit Leo. But what has she done, other than that, to suggest she needs to be in a psych ward?"
Fear twisted Jemma's gut. "We can't send her out of here."
"I know that," May said patiently. "At least, until we find a better place for her."
"She's having panic attacks," Jemma pointed out. "She's still performing acts of self-abuse."
"Which could both be tied to her autism."
"Or the fact that she witnessed seriously traumatizing events recently."
"One of which she might have been responsible for."
"Which would make it all the more traumatizing."
"We might need to get a baseline on her mental state," Coulson interrupted. "That would tell us how we can best help her."
May and Jemma looked at him.
"I know we've all gotten attached to her in a short amount of time. None of us wants her to go back to a situation that will harm her. She's obviously suffered enough. But we don't actually know what's going on in her head. Why don't we find out?"
"Hi, Skye. I'm Dr. Banner."
Tall man. Not tall man. Small and unassuming man.
Lights.
Skye continued to look up at the overhead lights through her fingers, moving them back and forth. She was still trying to shake off the feeling of jerking back into her body after reliving that awful morning – or what she thought had happened that morning – again. And she could still hear Wanda's keening, anguished screaming as she found her brother.
Need to go back. Go back. Go back.
Can't go back. Go back. Go back.
Turn it on. Turn it up. Turn me loose.
"And this is Mr. Stark. We want to take a look at the devices in your body. Is that all right?"
Going to do it anyway. Can't ask. Can't ask.
No answers.
Not this way.
"Skye?"
I am not Daisy. I AM NOT DAISY.
"Just do whatever you're going to do, Bruce," Mr. Stark said. "It's obvious she's not going to answer you. I don't even know if she understands you."
Dr. Banner shot a glare at Mr. Stark and Skye almost laughed. They were like a show her father used to watch – The Odd Couple. "I know she understands," Dr. Banner said. "Skye, I'm going to run this scanner over your spine. It won't hurt – it won't even touch your body. I just need you to pull your shirt up."
How it starts. How it starts.
Scan first. Turn on. Turn on.
The bees come. The noise comes.
Black. Black. Black. Wake up.
Gingerly Skye pulled up the pajama top she wore – a clean one, not the one she'd come back from the fifth floor in, since that one had been sweat-covered and blood-soaked – and turned so that her back was towards the two men.
"Jesus," Mr. Stark said, and Skye froze. Her scars were such a part of her that most of the time she was able to forget they existed. Never around other people, though, since they generally reacted the way Mr. Stark just had.
"It's all right, Skye," Dr. Banner said, though his voice was slightly wobbly. "We'll be done in just a moment."
Skye held still, her fingers flicking up against her mouth. She was hungry and nauseous and confused and sad and –
Needles. Needles in my spine.
Make it stop. HURTS.
She screamed and crumpled to the floor, hands over her ears, slapping against the sides of her head.
Make it stop. Please don't. Please don't do it again.
No. No. Please. I'm sorry. I'll be good.
"Tony, go get someone," Dr. Banner requested. "Now would be preferable."
Mr. Stark bolted from the room. Dr. Banner knelt down in front of Skye. He knew better than to reach in and touch her. Instead he pulled a small remote control from his pocket and held it up, clicking off the lights in the examination room. He put the scanner on the floor, carefully holding up his hands to show her he wasn't going to continue.
I'll be good. I tried. I tried.
Dad? Dad?
"Dah," Skye managed to get out. "Dah."
Dad?
I am so sorry Dad. I will be Daisy if you want me to be.
If I have to be.
Jemma came in hurriedly, with Trip behind her. Jemma took Dr. Banner's place on the floor. "Skye? Can you tell us what's going on?"
She put Skye's computer on the floor and gently pushed it towards the frantic girl, hands still smacking her head.
Skye's arms locked against her body and the slapping sped up. "Dah," she whimpered. "Dah."
"Take a breath," Jemma said. "Breathe in."
"Dah," Skye cried.
A loud beep interrupted the quiet in the room and Skye howled, her body a frantic knot of pain and fear. Jemma whirled around to look at Dr. Banner.
"Her heart rate," he said, gesturing to the monitor behind him. "It's almost at 200 bpm."
"Skye," Jemma said again. "Listen to me."
Skye was gone, though, caught up in rage and desperation. Her hands against her head weren't enough – she jerked her knees up towards her body, trying to get them to smash against her face. When she couldn't, she began kicking her feet against the floor. Her breathing came in ragged gasps and the expression on her face was one of complete and utter dissociation. She was somewhere else, she was someone else, she was…
… back in the lab. Everything was cold and sterile, coming in flashes of blue and white.
Her mother. Mouth moving. Trying to explain.
(No explanation will ever be good enough.)
Strange instruments. Syringes. Alcohol wipes against her skin.
Bright light. Eyes hurt.
Searing pain against her neck. Flinching, crying, trying to get away.
Restraints.
Tiny scalpels.
Screaming, screaming, screaming…
… back into her body.
Before Skye could register the sudden change, she felt the pain rise up from her shoulder again, the device inside heating up. She only had seconds before it would shut down her system – would it be enough time to get to her computer, to explain?
She reached for it.
Her fingers grazed the edge of it before she collapsed to the floor.
"Never thought your precious Daisy would be in this much trouble."
"Skye. Her name is Skye."
"But this is because of what they did to Daisy. What they did to me."
"What's it to you, Flowers?"
"My resources are vast, Cal. Do you really want to insult me?"
"Tell me you've got more than an attitude."
"I've got a plan. I've got several, actually. And the phone numbers and addresses of the jurors who let your wife walk away."
"That's not enough."
Cal stood up, grabbed his bag, and headed for the door. "I'll just get her back without you."
Her voice was like a seductive wave of perfume as his hand touched the doorknob. "And I know where Jiaying is now."
Cal's fingers froze.
Her voice was one of satisfaction. "I thought that might change your mind."
"All I want is Skye back with me," Cal said, defeated, his shoulders slumped. "Just tell me what you want me to do."
"That's more like it."
"Jesus," Tony Stark repeated. His fingertips carefully grazed the device in Skye's upper shoulder, now surrounded by what looked like a constellation of burst blood vessels, except for the fact that they were bright blue. "This thing knocked her out?"
Bruce nodded. "It was like she'd been electrocuted, just keeled over."
"What the hell is it?"
"I didn't exactly get a chance to finish the scan," Bruce replied.
"If it hadn't knocked her out, her body would've done it anyway," Tony observed, nodding at the monitors. "Have you ever seen a heart rate sustained at that level for longer than a few minutes?"
"Yeah, but only in someone in cardiac arrest," Bruce said. "And she was definitely not – she was upright, still moving and screaming."
Tony gently released the girl's shoulder. She muttered something and turned her head. "Something's not right with her. And I don't think it's the kind of thing we're going to be able to fix."
"Let's do our best, then," Bruce said.
Jemma returned with Phil, talking softly. Phil nodded as they approached the scientists. "Gentlemen," he said.
"Dr. Coulson," Bruce said.
"Report on our patient?"
"The device in her shoulder sent out some sort of electro-chemical pulse that short-circuited her nervous system and caused her to become unconscious," Bruce said, showing Phil the scanner's readings. "When she collapsed the scanner was still recording, and as it happened the beam was right over the devices in her skull and her shoulder."
Phil dragged his finger along the touch-screen device, moving the scanner's focus back and forth. At the moment of Skye's collapse the device in her shoulder sent out massive waves of bright blue, which he knew meant an electrical presence, and smaller, stronger pulses of red, which he assumed was chemical. "Do we know what it is yet?"
"Not a clue," Bruce answered. "But I took some blood samples to analyze and we should be able to know in a few hours."
"She was hallucinating," Jemma said softly.
The doctors turned to look at her.
"How could you tell?" Phil asked lightly.
"She didn't respond to vocal prompts," Jemma said. "When I put her computer in front of her, she turned her head to one side and she seemed to be trying to push someone away. She was clearly frightened, whereas a few moments before her expression was one of anger. And she spoke."
"She spoke?" Phil was shocked.
"She was saying 'Dad,'" Jemma said. "It wasn't fully clear, but it was more of a word than I've heard her say since she got here. It wasn't echolalic, it was clearly and definitively a single word."
"I can confirm that," Tony said, and he turned one of the computer monitors towards the doctors.
One of the overhead security cameras had recorded the entire duration of Skye's episode, and as Phil watched he saw exactly what Jemma had described: the autistic girl was trying to fight with someone, her mouth moving in panic, her expression terrified.
"Damn," he whispered.
"So she's still a psych case," Jemma said.
"And we haven't got a clue how to find out what's in her head," Phil said.
"I might be able to help you there," Bruce offered. "But she has to be awake. And I don't think she's going to like it."
Jemma looked over at Skye's fragile form on the bed. "At this point we don't have any other options. We need to know what she knows, or we aren't going to be able to help her."
The unspoken subtext was that even if they could find out, there was still a huge probability that they would never truly know what was going on in Skye's brain, and the odds were not in their favor that they'd be able to help her.
It was the kind of situation Jemma hated.
"Wanda?" The therapist spoke gently. "Wanda, it's time for your medication."
Wanda turned desperately to the blond woman next to her, panicked.
"I'm not going to make you leave," the therapist said. "I just want you to take your medication."
Some of the fight left Wanda's body and she nodded, taking the pills and the glass of water from the woman.
Bobbi.
Things were sticking in Wanda's brain, things she needed to remember. But everything was still floating around her, distantly existing. All she could see, all she could think about, was Pietro, on the bed in front of her.
He was paler, and skinnier, and smaller than she remembered. He had a tube in his neck connected to a big machine next to the bed, and several other tubes and wires in other places running out to other machines. He looked like a robot. He looked dead.
Was he dead?
Wanda jerked upright and put her fingers on Pietro's face. He was still warm.
"You need to wake up," she murmured to him in Sokovian. "I can't be here anymore without you."
Pietro's eyes moved under his eyelids as though he was dreaming.
"There's a girl upstairs and we need to help her," Wanda went on, her voice low against Pietro's ear. "She needs us. We've never been needed by anyone before."
She bit her lip, trying to keep from crying. "And we've never needed anyone before. But now I need you, because she needs us."
There was no response, only all of the noises from all of the machines coming back to her like a robot echo.
Wanda laid her head on Pietro's chest and cried.