Chaos theory is the field of study in mathematics that studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions - a response popularly referred as the butterfly effect. This effect evaluates how a small change in one state can result in large differences in a later state. In simpler words, the theory describes how even the smallest of changes in present conditions, like the flapping of a butterfly's wings, can cause a chain reaction and have a significant effect in the future, like a hurricane.
Two weeks had gone by since Skye and Phil's visit to SHIELD's facilities. Melinda had been continuing her routines of keeping Inhumans relaxed, and had been helping them in their transition phase. She didn't know what was going to happen but it'd be best that, whatever their upshot was, that everyone could at least control their new found abilities. Therefore, the break room was quiet; a large number of Inhumans was gathered in a circle in the middle of it. They all had their eyes closed and were breathing in and out slowly.
"Good breathing patterns," Melinda praised as she walked among them. "Try to maintain deep, slow breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Count to five as you relax your muscles."
A nurse approached Melinda, gently tapping her shoulder, "Deputy Hill wants to have a word with you."
The woman nodded and further instructed the remaining Inhumans, "Keep up with the exercise, gradually move up to other muscle groups. And remember, listen to your body."
The nurse guided Melinda to an access-restricted area. After walking along a few halls, the nurse finally stopped, eased open a door and gestured Melinda to walk in. There was nothing else but a table and two chairs; not even cameras. Hill was sitting at one of the chairs with her hands resting over a file, fingers intertwined. Melinda looked back once the nurse closed the door and left the two alone.
"Is everything alright?"
"Take a seat," Hill gestured to the chair across from her. "We need to talk."
"Maria," Melinda's eyes started welling up, "is everything okay with Phil and Skye?"
"Yes. There's nothing to worry about. What I have to talk with you is business. SHIELD would like you to be a consultant for us."
"A consultant?" Melinda wondered aloud.
"Yes," Hill said, opening the file and showing it to Melinda. "This is the Cocoon, a training facility that SHIELD developed in these past weeks. SHIELD can't, and won't, keep the Inhumans in here forever. But it's not like we can send you back to your houses and let you resume your lives. People still fear what they don't understand and we have to assure tranquility -"
"Tranquility?" Melinda furrowed her brows, closing the file. "Isolating us will bring tranquility?"
"Yes," Hill responded, unfazed. "Humans will feel that the government agencies is keeping up with their promise of protection and the Inhumans won't be harassed everywhere they go. It's the best suggestion we've got to offer. For now."
"Alright, I can understand that. But I still don't understand why you are telling me this. What does me consulting for you has to do with this training facility?"
"Melinda," Hill's tone was now softer, her lips drawing into a small smile, "you had a small community of Inhumans under your command and we've seen what you're doing with the Inhumans we've got here. Everyone is calm and cooperative. If it wasn't for you, things wouldn't be so easy. We'd like you to transfer all the Inhumans we have here to this training facility until the end of the week, and we'd like you to be their guide; lead them, keep order, help them master their powers."
"And what happens when I feel that they're ready?"
"We don't expect people to adapt to their abilities overnight, so, when the time comes and they're ready, maybe humans have more acceptance for you and you'll be able to live a free life again. Our goal is to contain, neutralize or recruit. We are not holding anyone captive. SHIELD just means to please all the parts involved the best we can."
Melinda smiled faintly as she looked at the table surface. Shifting her gaze back to Hill, she affirmed, "Thank you for keeping up with your promise. It was hard for me to watch Phil doubt everything he ever believed in. I think he'll be very pleased to know that he can still believe in SHIELD and in what it stands for."
"I can't blame him," Hill admitted. "He had to powerlessly watch you being taken away. He always tries his best out there in the field to keep the world safe, and suddenly the world start eyeing him differently. It must have been hard on him."
"What will be his role in all of this?"
"He'll be in charge of picking up new Inhumans from around the globe and taking them to the Cocoon. Even though the fish oil pills were withdrawn from the market, a lot of people have consumed them; many have changed and remain hiding. We need to bring everyone together."
"Have you talked with him?"
"Not yet. I'm on my way to Wisconsin this afternoon," she slid Melinda's phone over the table. "But you can talk with him now. I'm sure you'll want to. The timing may not the ideal, but I'm sure you two will make it work," Maria told her, handing her a small envelope before grabbing the file she had brought and walking to the door.
Melinda looked back, watching Maria leaving out the door without further explanations. Once she was alone in the room, she opened the envelope, not sure of what she would find in it. Tears immediately dropped from her eyes when she pulled out the ultrasound. She grinned widely staring at it, running her fingertips over the scanned image of their baby.
She reached for her phone and called her husband. She couldn't stop grinning, impatiently waiting for him to pick up.
"Hello?" he said in a wary tone. He didn't know if it was Melinda calling or someone else using her phone.
"Aìrén –"
"Is it really you, Mel? What's going on? Is everything alright?"
"I have great news."
"Tell me," he nearly begged. "Are you coming home?"
"Sort of. Maria is on the way to meet you at your parents' today, so she'll tell you about it. What I have to tell you is something else… Remember how we've been talking about expanding the family for almost four years now? It's… it feels surreal the time it has passed. After New York, it never seemed to be the right time. It never felt like it was safe enough to bring another child into the world. And even though now it's the best time –"
"Are you…?" Melinda could literally hear him smiling.
"I'm holding the ultrasound right now. Five weeks long, apparently."
"We're having another baby. I…" he was so ecstatic he couldn't find the words to speak. "I can't believe it. I can't wait to see you and to hold you and… You know I love you more than anything in this world, don't you?"
She bit her lower lip, "Wǒ yě ài nǐ. But tell me, how are you and Skye?"
"We're doing alright. We've been talking with your parents. They're alright too, worried, but alright. Your mother has been talking with Hill. From what I picked up, she wasn't too nice with her."
"When is my mother nice?"
Phil had a small chuckle. "I can't wait to tell Skye about the new arrival. She's gonna be so excited… When are being released?"
"By the end of the week. We're being moved to a training facility. SHIELD offered me a job as consultant. They want me to be a transitioner, help them control their abilities, be their guide."
"There's no one better than you to help them."
One week after being moved to the Cocoon, all the Inhumans were settled and were starting to adapt to their new routines. Melinda was in charge of helping with the transitions processes, and she was trying hard to make everyone feel comfortable in their own skin, helping them control their abilities. She was more than suitable for the task as she could intuitively understand the exactness of everyone's powers, and could manipulate emotions and the nervous system in order to keep everyone relaxed. Phil and Melinda talked about exposing Skye to the mist and agreed that it'd be beneficial if she'd undergo Terrigenesis. They were under a controlled environment, Melinda could help her daughter through the transition, and Skye was at the right age to transform: old enough to understand, young enough to learn.
Melinda and Skye were sitting on the couch in one of the training rooms of the Cocoon, waiting for Phil. Even though the oil fish pills had been removed from the market, it was SHIELD that kept them locked and contained, away from the general audience's hands. The man was on the way to the storage room to get Skye one of those pills that would put her through Terrigenesis. In the meantime, Melinda tried to explain the process to Skye, and was still ascertaining if that was really the girl was willing to go through. Skye was Inhuman, but that didn't mean that she'd want to be one, and if that was the case, Phil and Melinda wouldn't insist. Skye was only seven-years-old, but she had the right to decide if she wanted to transform or not.
"There's no right or wrong answer, Skye," Melinda explained, holding the girl's hands on hers. "I know that you can't understand much of this but you have the right to choose and now it's the best age for you to transform. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I wanna be like you, mom," Skye confessed in a low voice but with a big grin.
"Alright," Melinda pulled Skye to her lap. "What's going to happen seems scary, but it isn't. You will form a cocoon around yourself. Do you know what a cocoon is?"
"No."
"A butterfly isn't always a butterfly. It starts out as a larva and it then forms itself into a cocoon. A process called metamorphosis happens and the larva becomes a butterfly. The same will happen to you. Once your metamorphosis is finished, the cocoon will break and you'll be changed. You'll feel sick and nauseous. There'll be this intense pulsing, like your heart is in your head. You'll feel different and you'll release all the accumulated energy trapped inside you. And then you'll feel relieved." Melinda tucked a lock of hair behind Skye's ear, "You don't have to be scared. Your father and I will be here."
"Mom?" Skye crooned, "Is the baby in your belly Inhuman too?"
"I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. We'll only get to know after he or she is born."
"But you're Inhuman and I'm Inhuman too," she mused.
"But your father isn't, and maybe this baby will take after him and be human. But that won't mean anything," she put a kiss on Skye's temple. "Your father and I love you and this baby the same way, human or Inhuman."
Phil was back with a fish oil pill and a glass of water. Melinda put Skye down on her feet and grabbed the pill and the glass of water, approaching her daughter. She went down on one knee, being at her eye level, and placed the capsule in her palm. Skye grabbed the glass of water and looked up from the pill to her parents; both offered an encouraging smile, and so Skye pushed the pill down her throat with a big gulp of water.
Melinda gently pulled on her husband's arm so that the two could back away a few steps. Skye's body started to slowly cocoon. She looked down at her feet as they turned into stone, feeling her heart pulsing fast. Melinda had assured her everything would be alright, and that that was a normal reactions, but Skye couldn't help but to feel fear swallowing her. Stone completely covered the girl's body and Phil felt anxiety flowing through his bloodstream.
"Melinda?"
"It's alright," she told him, eyes fixed on the stone figure of their daughter. "The cocoon will break."
Just as she said it, the stone started to crack slowly. Skye arched her back, violently breaking the cocoon. The girl clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms, as she breathed in thoroughly, everything around her shaking. Melinda and Phil hold onto the doorframe until the tremors stop and watched Skye's body going limp. Phil rushed to his daughter, squatted in front of her and hugged her before she fell to her knees.
"Did it work?" she asked.
Phil had a small chuckle, kissing her hair, "Yes, angel eyes. It worked."
Melinda caressed Skye's hair, "You did well, bao bei. I'm so proud of you."
Skye clenched the fabric of her T-shirt, "I wanna throw up."
"It's normal," her mother explained. "Let's get you to your room. You need to rest."
As soon as Skye was tucked into bed, she drifted into a dreamless sleep, feeling absolutely exhausted. Her parents watched her sleep for a while, making sure that she was okay. They'd have time in the morning after to talk about Skye's transformation.
"So," Phil blurted out, "earthquakes?"
Melinda smiled, "I guess Maria knew better when she nicknamed her quake."
Two weeks later
Lincoln and Skye hopped and laughed as they ran around the training room, attempting to catch a baseball out of the air while Seamus was moving it around with his telekinetic powers. Melinda entered the room and stopped watching the two kids happily playing. She watched them with absolute delight, knowing that they were finally at a place where they could be themselves, a place where everyone was the same.
"Seamus?" Melinda called, drawing the man's attention to her. "It's time for Lincoln and Skye's training. Could you give us some time?"
"Absolutely," he promptly replied, letting the baseball fall on the floor. Lincoln and Skye raced to catch it, competing to know who was faster.
"Excellent control of your powers," Melinda praised. "I like what I saw."
Seamus couldn't hold back the proud smile that graced his face, "Thank you. Take care, kids," Seamus said as he walked out the door.
"What are we learning today?" Skye asked ecstatic, running in little hops to her mother.
"Today you're learning control and focus," she explained. "There's no use in exploring new aspects of your abilities if you can't control them. You'll be learning the basic commands between brain and body: it's important that you are able to execute what you imagined in your head. You need to have control over your powers and you need to be able to direct them to what you intend. You still remember what happened last week, don't you?" she turned to Lincoln.
"I almost burned the place down," Lincoln confessed.
"And I knocked down a wall," Skye said after feeling her mother's gaze on her.
"So, to avoid hurting people or damaging things, you need to practice. Let's use the baseball," Melinda continued, receiving the ball from Lincoln. "I want you to pass the ball between you two using your powers, without harming each other or destroying things. But before," she raised her tone as the two kids were already poised to run to opposing sides of the room, "let's do some relaxation exercises; you two are too excited. Come on, back to back."
Skye and Lincoln leaned back to back, as they were told, and closed their eyes. They were familiar with the exercise already, and were completely at ease with each other. Melinda squatted by their side, resting her flat hand on their chests, so that she could control their breathing patterns and nervous terminations.
"I think we're having a boy," Melinda mused aloud as she changed her shirt, gazing herself in the mirror. "I didn't put on this much weight when I was pregnant with Skye."
Phil came up behind Melinda, wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek, "Or maybe it's just a big girl growing in there."
"As long as this child doesn't sit on my bladder like Skye did, I'm okay," she said, causing the two of them to smile. "What's got you worried?"
He sighed deeply and took a seat on the bed behind them, "The meeting with the President is in two days. I don't think Fury is going to convince him to let SHIELD handle the Inhumans matter."
"Worse comes to worse, the President decides that SHIELD and the ATCU should work together," Melinda said as she turned to him, buttoning her shirt.
Phil snorted, "I'm pretty sure President Ellis will give all authority to the ATCU. He created this task force, and for all intents and purposes, SHIELD doesn't seem so reliable anymore. The Avengers parted ways, Stark and Captain are on different sides about the accords, -"
"Fury can do it, Phil."
"If there's one thing Fury is incapable of is diplomacy."
"That's why he always has Maria by his side," Melinda offered a small smile. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pecked his lips, "Don't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, Phil."
He smiled weakly, wondering, "How can you always be this calm and optimistic?"
"You give me strength. Skye gives me strength. This baby," she grabbed his hand and placed it over her small pregnant belly, "gives me strength. Helping these people who saw themselves as monsters, who didn't understand who they were, helping them finding their purpose gives me a purpose. Sometimes it's not easy to be this optimistic and strong but thinking about you and our family is like an instant shot of hopefulness."
Phil grabbed her hands on his and kissed its palms, "You are the strongest person I've ever met in my entire life. That was one of the first things that made me fall for you." He peppered her face with kisses, "I love you so much it hurts sometimes."
She kissed him deeply, "I love you too."
Phil feared the days that followed the President's decision. As he expected, he handed over the Inhumans emergence problem to the ATCU, the special task force he created to neutralize alien threats. Phil didn't feel comfortable with President Ellis' decision of giving the ATCU full license to act with whatever authority necessary. Moreover, the fact no one had the slightest idea of what Rosalind Price's agency was doing concerned him. He couldn't sleep after the President's press release, fearing the hour that Price would stroll through the halls of the Cocoon and take everyone to their labs.
He awoke on the floor, feeling woozy, his world seemingly spinning around. He thought that he had passed out because of lack of sleep. The training facility was too quiet and when he picked up his phone to check the time, he realized he had been blacked out for some long hours now. Phil tried to get up quickly but wooziness forced him to fall back on his butt and get his bearings. Once recovered, the man started walking around the halls of the facility.
There was a strange odor in the air; it smelt like chemicals. The first room he inspected was his office room. The whole room was trashed, his computer was gone, and so were all the files he had on the Inhumans, including the files that contained information about possible Inhumans that he and his team were going to pick up. Panic took over him. He started running through the halls of the facility. He found SHIELD agents lying on the floor. Approaching them, he realized that they were in deep sleep. That was when he recognized that the odor in the air was of a knockout gas.
All the rooms were empty, no signs of any Inhuman. They had released a sleeping gas through the ventilation system that put everyone to sleep. After that, it was easy to get pass the security measures and take away all the Inhumans. Phil didn't know how to react. He leaned against the wall but his legs felt so weak that he ended up sliding down wall, sitting on the floor. He had been through that once; Phil didn't think he was strong enough to go through the same situation again. And this time was worse: he lost everyone, including his pregnant wife and their little daughter.
A thousand apologies for not posting earlier; I did set up a schedule but as usual, I don't do well with deadlines… xD The truth is that I'm rewriting the chapters I had already in advance, meaning, plot is going to be different than what I originally planned. I will start incorporating some of the things that happen on the show on this fanfiction.
On an unrelated but still relevant note: how awesome it is that Muse have a song called "Butterflies and Hurricanes" and Agents of SHIELD had an episode called "Chaos Theory"?