Aiming for Misdirection

When Coulson reached the Bus, he immediately headed for the medical facility in the lab. He didn't know what those bastards had done, but he didn't want to run the risk of assuming Melinda was fine and then having spring up on them at an unexpected moment.

Skye was next aboard. He ordered that she take the doctor to the interrogation room, and then prepare the plane for liftoff. She looked at him like he was crazy, but he said that they had no choice since both of their certified pilots were out. Besides, she had been getting informal lessons from May, so she was going to have to do.

Skye left in a hurry, leaving Coulson alone with his long time friend. He looked down at her unmoving form. She was usually so wound and ready to strike, so to see her in this vulnerable state was… strange. Yes, strange. That time was long over, when he might have thought other things. He carded her hair with gentle fingers, as he had done in years past. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there," he admitted softly.

She didn't make a sound, much to his disappointment. It was too much to expect.

"Guh! Why is Ward so bloody heavy?!" Coulson didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

"Fitzsimmons, give Ward and May a check over, just in case Rappaccini did something," he said.

"Yes sir." Soft footsteps from Simmons grew louder as she approached, but he didn't take his eyes off of Melinda until she lightly touched his back.

"Sorry," he apologized as he moved aside. As Simmons did her duty to an expert degree, he allowed his gaze to fall upon Ward. He, for the briefest of moments, wanted to be angry with the agent. For not being able to protect Melinda, for allowing her to be hurt. He stopped the urge before it even had a chance to take root. He was hurt too, possibly even worse than Melinda. No, not possibly, but definitely. He knew that it wasn't right to blame Ward for any of this, so he didn't. They were his agents, on his team, so if anyone was to blame, it was him.

"She's all good, sir. She's just sleeping. Looks like Fluothane," Simmons said cheerfully. Or as cheerfully as she could bear to, given the circumstances. Coulson turned and raised an eyebrow when he saw that the deep cut on her chest was gone. "This healing gel is simply brilliant," she answered his unspoken question. "I'm going to find out what it is right now."

"After you check Ward," he said, as a parent would a too excited child.

"Right, right."

He sighed and lifted her light body into his arms. "I'm taking her up to her bunk so she can have somewhere comfortable to rest. Let me know how he checks out, then I'll do he same for him." With that, he left.

Carrying Melinda through the threshold into her bunk hurt. It reminded him of better times, when they were closer. They could have married. They should have. They were going to, on a summer day in Tahiti, of all places. They were happy and in love. Destiny seemed to have them paired for life. Then Bahrain happened. Coulson saw her at her absolute worst; bloody, shaken and scared. Not of the gifted terrorist himself, but of herself and what she as the Cavalry had become. The hostages were saved, but Melinda May as he knew her was dead.

All that was left was the woman lying before him. They fell out of love and moved on, neither bitter nor angry with the other. Their friendship remained as strong as it ever had been, evidenced by her leaving the dungeon at the Triskelion and joining his team, despite swearing of field missions forever.

She was just sleeping, not dead or dying. She was going to wake up soon, the same as Ward, hopefully. He reached over and teased through her hair again. It was soft, and slightly wet from sweat. His phone rang. He let out an annoyed sigh, but answered quickly when he saw that it was Simmons. "Hello?" She sounded frantic, and panicked. "What is it?" His eyes widened, and he took a moment to fully grasp what he had just heard. "What?!… I heard you the first time, Simmons. That 'what' was an exclamation." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. In the background, he could hear Fitz gathering supplies. "Disarm it and get it out of him, pronto.… Simmons."

He snapped his phone shut and returned it to his coat pocket. "Damn it." He was right to stop himself from being angry with Ward. Turned out that he saved Melinda from the worse fate. He only hoped that he lived to receive commendation. A soft moan from the bed snapped him to attention. Melinda was coming to.

Simmons held the scalpel in one hand and pressed down on Ward's chest with the other. "Time, Fitz."

"Three minutes, twenty-one seconds and counting," he answered. He placed an face mask over his nose and mouth and turned out the anaesthesia.

"Shite!" She quickly made one neat incision from his shoulder to his ribcage, and then another opposite that and then curving down to his pelvis. Blood bubbled from the wounds and poured down his sides. Luckily, Fitz was there to clean it up, or else it would have been messy. She quickly dissected the soft muscle tissue under his skin and then opened the flap covering his heart. "Okay."

Fitz grabbed a saw from the tray. "Okay… there, I see it. Right under left true rib five, six centimeters to our right of the sternum." With that in mind, Fitz sawed the appropriately sized piece of Ward's rib off to allow himself enough room to work. He placed it inside the tray. He next grabbed a pair of wire cutters. "I see one wire, so let's hope that's it." He quickly stole a glance at the holographic timer. Just one minute left. Sweat accumulated on his forehead and threatened to run down into his eyes. He took a second to wipe it away with his sleeve. "Here goes," he snipped the wire and the timer froze, "everything. Ha!"

"We did it!" Simmons cheered.

"We did it. Now, I'll get the bomb out so you can seal him up." He replaced the wire cutters and grabbed a pair of pliers. Quickly, but gently, he grabbed hold of the small explosive and gave it a tug. There was a soft click. "What was tha-" He stopped when the heart monitor started blaring, while Ward's body seized up. "What the hell?!"

His heart rate was suddenly erratic. They could see his heart beating too rapidly, convulsing and shaking with each beat. Then, cardiac arrest. The flatline was deafening. Simmons was close to tears. "NO! Don't you dare, Grant!" She pulled out a defibrillator and tried to attach the nodes to his chest, but her hands were shaking too violently.

Fitz took it and hurried to close the flaps of his chest and then attached everything while starting it up. "Clear!" Ward's chest rose up suddenly as electricity jolted through it, and then back down. Nothing.

When he closed it, Simmons saw a silver speck leaking out of the bottom right ventricle. "Mercury!" she shouted as she hurried to her kit to retrieve the antitoxin she made just in case.

"Clear!" Another shock, but still nothing. "Come on, dammit! Clear!" On the third attempt, his heart started back up, but the pulse was weak, almost nonexistent.

"Move, Fitz!" Simmons, syringe in hand, pulled back on of the flaps and stabbed the needle directly into the heart. The mercury antitoxin was injected into the mercurial organ. It was the most tense moments of their lives, waiting for it to calm down, and when it did, they both sighed with relief. "Oh, thank God!"

Fitz was about to say something when he was interrupted. "Is he… is he okay?" Skye asked from the door. She, Coulson and May must have heard the blare and rushed to see what was happening. They all looked from unnerved to outright scared. Even the usually stoic May was shaken. Shaken, and shaking. Visibly.

"He'll be fine," Simmons reassured in a shaky voice. "Just had a wee little scare for a minute. You know how rather dramatic Ward can be." She tried to laugh to off, but it came out half-hearted.

May quickly walked off, toward the cockpit. No one followed her. Simmons watched her with a deep frown. "Simmons, let's get him cleaned up." Simmons kept her eyes on May until she heard the cockpit slam closed.

Phil sighed deeply. He had very nearly lost one of SHIELD's best agents, and Melinda seemed to be taking it harder than everyone else. Anger? Maybe. Guilt? Definitely. He walked slowly to the cockpit. He knew that, eventually, he'd have to talk to her about it. She was going to listen to him, he didn't doubt that; whether she'd admit what was upsetting her, Ward being hurt or almost dying or everything, was an entirely different matter. For someone so wise, she could be absurdly stubborn.