A/N: Wow, okay. It's been a month :/ Sorry, guys! This chap's just about the mission prep. We'll see Ward again next chapter :)
Oh, just so those of you (the ones who don't read Change Is Terrifying) know, I looked up Lash on Marvel Wiki, and it turns out he has powers of energy conversion, channeling it through his palms. So I'm saying that it's probably Lincoln. :)
Thank you to annavale23, Skyeward MusicLover, Alkeni, FaithfulBeliever, Fandoms8, VMars lover and Brenda for your reviews! :3
Brenda - Thank you :) And that particular memory is going to take time.
As Coulson drove Lola into the garage above the base, Kara clung to Skye with more vice in her grip than before. Skye turned to her, placing her free hand on Kara's. Coulson glanced in the rear view mirror with a worried smile. He was so proud of how Skye had handled the situation – better than anyone else in the agency – but he was concerned at Kara's capability to heal after her trauma. No doubt there would be improvement, but the question of how much was possible weighed very heavily on his mind.
He saw May look at him through his peripheral vision and glanced at her gratefully. She didn't say a word, but placed a hand on his wrist with an intense look. He in turn placed his right hand over hers, giving her an appreciative smile.
In the back seat, Kara watched all of this with an attentive eye. Skye flicked her own gaze between her surrogate parents and the girl she'd promised to help, smiling as Kara looked to her for confirmation. They locked gazes for several moments before Kara's softened in relief and the beginnings of trust, and she relaxed.
"Are you all right with an elevator?" Coulson asked the pair. Their heads snapped over to him, Skye raising an eyebrow at the question, Kara blinking in confusion. Neither said a word. "I'm just asking 'cause it's close quarters, and it's the only way into the base without taking a plane." Kara nodded slowly, then glanced at Skye again.
"We don't all have to go down at the same time." Skye assured her. Some of the tension leaked out of Kara's posture.
"Okay." She whispered, but made no move to get out. "After them."
"Sure." Coulson looked at May, who merely agreed by stepping out and walking over to the lift. The doors opened with a ding and Coulson followed May inside, pressing the button to the main floor as he turned around. "We'll see you at the bottom." Skye nodded and turned back to Kara as the doors blocked their view.
"'Only way in without taking a plane'?" May asked as they started descending. She looked at Coulson like she didn't know what to make of him. "What happened to gaining her trust?"
"She's not an agent, and the mere fact of having one way in for the enemy to get at her would make her feel safer here." Coulson replied, refusing to meet her glare.
"Despite the fact that she would have no way out. And when she finds out you lied to her right after promising you wouldn't?" she demanded.
"One step at a time, May." He said softly. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
She returned her face to its original position. "That didn't answer my question."
"Please don't fight me on this, Melinda."
"No."
When Kara and Skye stepped out of the lift, greeted by Coulson and May, Kara couldn't stop looking round at anything but the people in front of them. Skye, amused, did nothing to hinder her and gave Coulson an angry look.
"Atta girl." May muttered approvingly. Coulson's calm features fell. He cast a worried glance at her, only to get an amused glint in her eye. Turning back to Kara and Skye, he attempted to rearrange his face into a comforting expression. Kara stopped staring at the scale of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s underground operation when she almost walked into Coulson, backing up rapidly into Skye's arms.
"Kara, I get that this might be a bit much for you take in all at once, but I assure you, there will be plenty of time for you to examine every detail. For now, I'd like you to go the infirmary, to get checked over by Agent Simmons." He said softly, radiating sincerity with every word.
Kara shared a glance with Skye before speaking up. "But…what about Grant?"
"I promised that we would try to help–"
"No, you can't wait!" she blurted out, her desperation colouring her voice. "You can't, they're torturing him!" When Coulson and May only shared a look, she turned despairingly to Skye. "Please, Skye, you said you wanted him free of Hydra!" Her voice rose to a high pitched shrill, tears pouring out of her eyes.
"I know." Skye grasped Kara's arms, and kept her own tone low. "Coulson. We have to get him out." Her eyes begged her surrogate father to listen. "Kara knows exactly where they are, and what's needed to save him."
"I'll lead it." May spoke up, her gaze challenging Coulson to stop her. "We don't need many. A couple of quinjets, one as back up and cover. I'll take Skye, Morse, Simmons and Hunter as the raiding party. If we leave in an hour, we can be back by tonight." She didn't need to look over at the girls to know that they were watching her with mixtures of fear, respect and admiration. May felt like the hope she had instilled in Kara would go a long way in her recovery.
"Okay." Coulson agreed, but he felt as though May left him little room for choice. "I'll select your pilots and get the TAC team ready." May nodded at him once, glanced at the girls and left, Kara and Skye trailing after her.
"I'm not sure about this, May." Simmons said worriedly as she packed her medical supplies into her field suit. At May's raised eyebrow, she continued. "You know what Ward has done, to more than just us. Why would we risk our lives to save him?"
"You saw the footage that Skye found, Jemma." May spoke soothingly. "I agree that Ward doesn't deserve our trust. But he also doesn't deserve Hydra's treatment."
"Plus, you have to admire his resilience for torture." Bobbi pointed out as she walked in, already fully dressed. "That Hydra gifted is brutal, but he only slipped up twice, and that second time gave Kara her chance to escape."
"You admire Ward?!" Simmons stared aghast at her friend.
"He's the best since Romanoff, on any and all S.H.I.E.L.D. records, perhaps even Hydra's. It'd be an insult to my own training to not even acknowledge that level of skill." Bobbi retorted. "And most of that torture that we saw was because he refused to give up knowledge or get Kara hurt."
"What history do you have with her?" May asked.
"Met her a few times before the Fall. But Whitehall was brainwashing her while Jemma and I were there. I feel responsible for what she's suffered." The blonde agent turned her gaze upon Simmons once again. "We need her to trust us, and we need to trust her. She is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent through and through, and if helping her recover includes granting Ward the second chance he's been striving for, then I say we give it to him." At that, she turned and walked out. "I'll see you in the hangar."
Simmons attached the last piece of her equipment to her outfit and straightened up, only to find May watching her intently. Uncomfortable, she shifted on the spot.
"I hope I can trust that you can be professional about this, Simmons." The older agent said warningly. "Not just for Kara and Ward, but for Skye and the reason that S.H.I.E.L.D. exists."
"Yes, Agent May."
May kept her gaze on Simmons for a moment longer. Then she blinked once and left. Simmons let out the breath she'd been holding, dropping down onto the bench beside her. Slumping over, she placed her head in her hands and fought back the urge to cry – with frustration or compassion, she wasn't quite sure.
"Jemma?" Fitz's voice interrupting her mini-mission caused her to jump and she looked up, trying to hide her despair. That part didn't quite work. "Have you been crying?" he asked worriedly, reaching out to cup her face in his hands and brushing just below her eyes.
She pulled back, confused, but didn't miss the flicker of hurt across his face as she did so. "No." she said indignantly.
"I-it's just your eyes seem a bit red…" he trailed off uncertainly, pulling his hands back to clasp them tightly together in front of him.
"Oh, uh…" she looked away, not sure if she should answer, but decided that he deserved to know at least that. "I was trying not to."
There was an awkward silence. Then, "Why?"
"I don't know." She grumped, still not looking at him. He moved into her view and sat beside her. She averted her gaze, looking ahead of her now, to where he stood before.
"If your angry at me for helping Skye get out–"
"Yes!" Simmons snapped her head in his direction, but kept her eyes looking at the floor. "That's exactly why." It wasn't, really, but his actions the day Skye nearly destroyed the base had been niggling away at her since then, disrupting the careful dynamic they'd been building. She had a feeling that Fitz was silently calling her bluff, but he spoke as though he believed her.
"You shouldn't be." Surprised, she made eye contact with him. Fitz held her gaze firmly and continued talking. "Skye was upset, and it was partly my fault. If she'd stayed at the base, it probably would have…uh…" he pinched the bridge of his nose as he couldn't get the word out.
"Crumbled?" she asked tentatively.
"Yes! And, uh, Coulson and May weren't really trying to calm her down nicely. Besides, if she hadn't gone out–"
"I wouldn't be trying to save Ward's ass." Simmons bit out, her posture tensing.
"Kara wouldn't be here. And it's not like saving him would be the first time that's happened." He wrinkled his brow at her, like he didn't recognise the woman in front of him.
Simmons was saved from answering him by Skye, who popped her head round the corner. "Jemma, we really need to go. Come on." Without a backwards glance at Fitz, the biochemist hurried out of the room, pulling Skye after her. "Fitz, Kara's in the lab, and I've emptied it of everyone." Her friend called out, twisting around as much as she could in Simmons' grasp. "Could you take care of her until we get back?"
"Sure!" Fitz faintly called back, emerging from the room as the two women moved down the hall. He sent Skye a thumbs up, and she turned around to hurry to the hangar with Simmons.
Suddenly nervous, Fitz halted at the entrance to The Playground's labs. He could see Kara off to the left, sitting on the edge of a stool, and she held herself tightly as though she was afraid that she would fall apart if she didn't. Taking a deep breath, he moved past the threshold towards the lone girl, her eyes following his movements as he approached. She stood up abruptly when he walked around the corner of the closest lab bench and he froze, both of them staring at each other like deer in headlights.
Seeing that he would have to make the first move, Fitz moved another couple of steps closer and smiled gently. He felt silly, and somewhat hypocritical to be doing the exact same actions as the others did after he woke from the coma, but he realised that he was treating her with caution because he didn't know how she would react to normal behaviour.
"Would you like some tea?" he asked, only faltering slightly in his speech as he hastily tacked on "Or coffee?" Kara glanced around to her sides like she was looking for someone, Skye or Ward, perhaps, then cast her gaze at the ground and shook her head. "Okay." He said gently. "Did you get checked?" she glanced up with a fearful gaze. She nodded, her jaw clenching. "I found it...helpful to know that there was nothing else wrong with me."
At those words, her eyes widened and she stared at Fitz with something other than wariness.
"I had brain damage from a lack of oxygen." He explained, and said the next word slowly. "Hypoxia. Sometimes words are hard to-to get out."
"Grant." She whispered, and opened her mouth again, but no more words came out. Fitz waited patiently though, curious as to how she made the connection. After a couple of minutes, she tried again, this time successful. "He talked about Garrett wanting him to kill you, and Grant said he couldn't. Said it was a weakness, and I asked if that made me one too." Fitz remained where he was, listening intently, his face a calm mask of encouragement. Kara relaxed a little and sat back down on the stool. "He said he wasn't sure if it was a bad thing anymore." Carefully, she judged his reaction to the small reveal, but she was mildly pleased with his surprised smile. "He said he was sorry for what happened to you, but he couldn't think of another way of keeping you alive without Garrett finding out."
"And then we'd die anyway." Fitz murmured. Taking a chance, he moved over to one of the stools nearby and dragged it closer to Kara, sitting on it. Kara eyed him warily, but nodded at his statement. "What else did he tell you?"
"Not much." She muttered, frowning.
"You were together for three weeks." Fitz frowned as well, eyeing her worriedly.
"I mean that I don't remember much." She insisted. "Hydra's still messing with my head." She looked at him sadly. "Those words stand out. But when I try to remember the time that he told me, I get a mish-mash of images."
"So he told you more than once?" he asked. She just nodded absently. He moved the conversation along. "And so you stayed with him?"
"He was always there." She replied. "He didn't tell me to do anything, he just asked me what I wanted. All the time."
"It's like he's really trying not to be Garrett."
She shrugged. "I don't know that guy. I barely know this one, but he's better than most."
A/N: What do you think? A good chapter to come back to? Anything to improve on? Please review! :3