long chapter. enjoy!

The ride back to headquarters took nearly 4 hours. By 7:30, we had landed in New York. I, like others, was stunned in silence over the events that had occurred within the past 12 hours. I hadn't slept in 24. During the ride, I struggled to keep my eyelids open.

While the spinning blades of the helicopter came to a halt, I reached across the aisle of space and shook Kat gently awake, telling her that we had arrived. She opened her eyes and looked at me in a daze.

I smiled weakly at her. "Home sweet home."

As we were escorted off the helicopter, we were greeted by at least 5 guards and a few white coats who urged us inside of the building. I shivered against the brutal morning cold and scurried inside, desperate for warmth. Within minutes of entering, our backpacks were confiscated and we were escorted to the infirmary on the third floor, to be tested for major gamma radiation. Nervous prickles traveled down my skin when I wondered if my picture of Megan would be destroyed because it was exposed to gamma radiation.

For the most part, we were all exposed to little to no gamma radiation. I, on the other hand, received a stronger blast than most because of the Tesseract. Obviously, I chose not to tell them why. The doctors stripped me of my suit, disposed it, and scrubbed my pale skin until it was red and raw. The specialist on call surmised that I had been exposed to 1 to 1.5 Gray of radiation, which might cause a headache, fatigue and stomach pains, but wouldn't kill me.

"Can I just have my backpack back?" I said wearily as the specialist filled out a prescription in front of me. Just being in the infirmary is irritating. I don't like hospitals. They smelled clean, too clean, of medicine, and radiated sickness. Waiting for his response, I scratched my back, the gown material completely intolerable.

"I don't know where that is, Pedagia," he sighed with boredom. I felt uncomfortable sitting on the cold steel table in the hospital room. "But here. Take this, get it filled out, it'll help with the sickness." He placed it in my hand, pocketing a small book.

"What do I do now?"

The doctor shrugged. "I expect you'll be thoroughly debriefed." With a curt nod, he exited the room, moving onto another patient.

I had figured we were going to be debriefed once we arrived, but I still hadn't figured out a plan of attack. Withholding the assignment Sullivan gave me or the information I'd learned could keep me from being implicated in anything. I knew they would want to know everything.

Did I have an alibi?

Shit.

I chewed on my nails worryingly. If they question any of the white coats about my whereabouts, they'll say I was with Sullivan heading towards the super computer. But what if they don't question the white coats? This entire group of people is full of computer technicians anyway. They were all upstairs.

I wasn't entirely sure if it was the gamma radiation or the nerves, but I felt like I was going to throw up.

"Ms. Pedagia," a woman's voice crooned from nearby. In a flash, I sat up, swallowing the nausea. Standing in the doorway was Helen, one of my many superiors in the command center in New York. She was a shell of a human, all skin and bones, a fact she prided herself on. The plum pantsuit she wore hung off her body like a man's jacket would a child.

"You poor thing," she crooned again, opening her stick thin arms as she walked towards me, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. "Are you okay?"

I blinked, and on a beat, said, "Are you okay? You never show emotion."

Just like that, the fake sympathy disappeared and was replaced with her usual stoic face, and her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Good point. What happened to you? One too many x-rays?" She adjusted her glasses, which had slipped down her pointy nose again.

I exhaled. "Sure, Helen."

"Imagine mysurprise when you get sent off to P.E.G.A.S.U.S..." she murmured, shaking her shiny hair that cost her a "fortune to have dyed the color of chocolate."

I lowered my head, looking at my raw knees. "I didn't ask to go."

"As much as I insult you, Pedagia, I do admit that it is good to have you safely here."

That was a sentence I never expected to hear from her mouth. "What happened to P.E.G.A.S.U.S.?" I asked, raising my head to look her in the eye. "Did everyone escape alive?"

Helen's normally sharp face suddenly became soft and her eyes filled with sorrow. "No, Pedagia. The complex imploded on itself from the Tesseract's energy." She cleared her throat gently. "There's nothing but a crater full of blood, bones and steel."

That piece of information, like most things nowadays, didn't surprise me, but it still hurt the same to learn that the complex was gone and that all the research had disappeared. More than ever, I was glad that I wore the silver disk around my neck. I couldn't help but wonder what the S.H.I.E.L.D. supercomputer was doing in a temporary base, considering that it wasn't official headquarters.

"Do you know what happened to Dr. Selvig?" I tried, searching her face. "The astrophysicist who worked on the project?"

"He disappeared," Helen said frankly, returning to her usual self. "Fury returned only half an hour after you did. The man doesn't show emotion other than hate and disappointment, but he actually showed sadness in that one eye of his. Selvig and Fury's associate disappeared."

You had the chance to save them both and you failed? What the hell happened?

"You look like you want to stab me, Pedagia," Helen noted, raising her thin eyebrows.

I lowered my eyes immediately. "I'm just very tired, Helen, and I'd like to go home and rest," I admitted. That, and I wanted to phone Katie as soon as possible. I had a slight realization on the flight to New York: if I'd died in that complex, my family would have never known. Currently, they assumed I had disappeared.

I began to make plans to visit Katie and my parents and explain everything. It might be difficult to get Katie to stay quiet, but I'm sure my parents could. Then maybe they could understand. At least know where I am so that if I died, they would be able to take me home.

"You can't go home," Helen said obviously, crossing her arms. "You need to be debriefed and you're going straight to command. Fury has issued an order for every available agent to look for the Tesseract."

"I'm not an agent."

"Don't play games with me, Pedagia," Helen warned me, pointing one long, manicured finger in my direction. "From now on, you're all agents. From here until the end of time, if need be, your immediate objective is to locate the Tesseract. As we speak the computer system is being updated with new tracking software and S.H.I.E.L.D. bases all over the globe are putting in all their resources to find the Tesseract. This is a big deal. It has energy to destroy the planet, and it slipped through our fingers."

Helen vividly painted a picture for me of what occurred last night. The Asgardian took Selvig and the archer through mind control, and then somehow managed to subdue Fury and escaped with the Tesseract. At the last moment, the complex exploded.

"But what's done and done and all we can do is move on. So sit tight and wait until someone comes to get you for debriefing, and then report straight to command. Understood?"

I nodded reluctantly and Helen turned on her heel to strut down the hallway. My plans had been rearranged without my knowing.

A new suit had been given to me and I wasn't really happy about it. I rubbed the spandex material against my forearm, wishing I could scratch an itch on my arm, but it was impossible through the fabric. I glanced up at the mirror on the wall of the interview room, knowing full well that someone was standing behind it, probably watching me to see how I was reacting to being questioned. With a yawn, I closed my eyes and rested my head in my hand.

The rapid pounding of my heartbeat alarmed me and I inhaled deeply to calm down.

After a few precious seconds of sleep, the door opened and when I raised my eyes, I met the eyes of Maria Hill.

Her face was very calm as she closed the door and then slid in the chair across from me. I noticed the cuts and bruises on his face. Maria was Fury's second hand, so it figured that she was there. I felt a wave of relief rush through me to see her. At least it wasn't someone entirely intimidating.

Still quiet, Maria set up a gray touchscreen computer and began opening files. Then she exhaled and leaned back in her chair.

"Hi."

"Hello," I said quietly, looking at her defeated expression. "Um...are you alright? You look really banged up."

"I'm fine, it's nothing I can't handle," she responded, waving the matter away. "I've had worse. You look unscathed." I gave her a tight smile. "We'll make this quick, kay?" She smiled quickly at me as she opened another file. "Just give me a run down about where you were last night."

"After Selvig informed me that he needed to call an evacuation I spent the night in the command center. Sullivan informed me that Selvig wanted to see me so I went downstairs to the lab."

"And what did you see?" Maria murmured, her eyes not on me.

"The Tesseract exploded and then a man appeared. He seemed to have a spear that controlled minds," I explained, listening to my pounding heart beat. I kept my eyes on her face for any sign that she didn't believe me.

"What did you do after that?"

"I left the lab because I saw the energy gathering, and it was a lot. I went to my room, gathered as many personal items as I could, and then I went up to the landing pad."

"Okay." Maria nodded in approval. "What was the man's name? Did he say?"

"Um...something..." I looked up towards the ceiling. "Loki. Said he was from Asgard."

"Being that you read the research, I assume you know of Asgard." I nodded in affirmation. ' "Anything else you can tell us?" Maria sighed, focused on the screen.

"No, that's all...it all just happened so fast. One minute the Tesseract is just acting up and the next the entire thing explodes." Hill nodded in agreement. "Did Sullivan survive?"

"No," she said curtly. "We recovered as many bodies possible and his was one of them."

Inwardly, I sighed with relief. If that's the case, then I'm safe. The system and doors are gone, which means that his I.D. card can't be traced to opening the room.

"As you know, now our main priority is to locate the Tesseract," Maria explained, closing down the screen and pulling out a pad of paper. "Contrary to what your supervisor said, you are being recommended for two days bed rest in order to cope with the exposure to gamma radiation. During your bed rest, you are not expected to leave your house unless it's necessary. And necessary," she added, peering up at me under her eyelashes, "Is like...radiation sickness gets worse. Family, of course, is permitted. Obviously leave gamma radiation out of the equation."

Family's permitted. I can have them come over and explain everything.

"Elle," Maria said softly, her change of tone surprising me. "I know you've been through a lot these past three weeks." She set the pad down and leaned forward to look at me. "And it's been a lot to go through. But please try to keep these...under wraps. We don't need to alarm the American people...or the world about this. This moment in S.H.I.E.L.D. history is just..." she sighed, looking defeated again. "Really tough. We need you to come through for us. Please keep things quiet until we figure things out."

It was as if Maria knew my plans all along. Her green eyes disarmed me and I realized that I liked her...and wanted to make her proud of me, so I nodded firmly.

"Understood."