Melinda wakes up, vision blurry and head throbbing. She hears the muffled sound of Phil's voice shouting outside. She couldn't make out the words he's saying. She looks down and begins to panic when she realises the baby isn't with her. She looks around the room, and tries to sit up but is held back by the pain in her abdomen and head. She groans and breathes heavily, trying to calm herself from the panic of her missing newborn.
Phil walks in the room, eyes red, shirt disheveled, and expression a mix of worry, anger and distress. He stops when he sees Melinda awake, looking at him.
"Phil…" Melinda calls out softly. Phil doesn't say anything and just stands at the far end of the room, unwilling to enter. His eyes look tired, and he starts breathing heavily. "What happened?" Melinda asks. Phil shakes his head.
"I should've stopped him…" he mutters, but Melinda hears it clearly. Her head is throbbing and her heart is beating fast against her chest. She furrows her eyebrows, feeling tears start to form in her eyes.
"Who?" she asks softly, her voice breaking. Phil's eyes suddenly fill with tears again.
"I saw him and I should've stopped him…" he says, a little louder than the last one. "I should've stopped Stoner." He walks a few steps forward from where he was standing. "He took our baby, Melinda."
Melinda's brows furrow further and she swallows down her throat. She shakes her head, closes her eyes and tries to comprehend what Phil had just said. She couldn't understand. "What do you mean, Phil? Please, tell me." she begs, ignoring the pain in her abdomen as she sits up, reaching her hand out to Phil. Phil looks away as tears flow down his eyes. He balls his fist on his sides.
"I saw a nurse injecting a serum to the both of us," he says, still not looking at Melinda. "She was fast, and I didn't have any time to react. It was a heavy sleeping serum, and we both fell asleep, but before I did, I saw Stoner enter the room and that was the last of it."
Melinda bites her bottom lip and swallows again. "It may not be Stoner, Phil." she whispers.
"I spoke to the other nurses when I woke up," he continues. "And I panicked when I didn't see the baby anywhere. They said they saw him walk out of the room with the baby, and just fifteen hours ago, he had resigned from being director and disappeared."
"And he took our baby?" Melinda asks, completely not understanding this. "Why would he take her when he will resign?"
"I don't know, Mel, I don't know," Phil says loudly, finally looking at Melinda, his cheeks stained with fresh tears. "I've done everything I can but this happened twenty hours ago and…"
It's like as if all sound from her surroundings had faded. Melinda looks down at her hands and tries to focus on it, feeling her surroundings spinning. She doesn't understand. She doesn't know what to feel. Twenty hours ago, she just gave birth to her and Phil's beautiful baby girl, and not even an hour with her, she was taken away from Melinda, without her even noticing it nor feeling it.
Why would Stoner do that? What does he want from the baby? From Melinda? From Phil?
Melinda tries to mentally list down every question she has, and the worst thing out of all the questions she is forming in her head…
She doesn't feel anything at the moment.
There's no ache in her heart. There are no tears in her eyes. There's no driving and flaming anger in her head. There's no urge to stand up and punch the nurses in the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility for following the resigned director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. There's not even a bit of an urge to hunt him down.
She just wants to be with her baby again.
She looks up at Phil. "Phil," she says softly. Phil looks back at her, the same expression still on his face, only this time, it's way, way worse. "She's gone." she whispers.
"And you're giving up just like that?" Phil asks softly, but with a tone of accusation in his voice, ridicule even. "That's it, 'she's gone'?"
Melinda opens her mouth to say something, but there's nothing to say. She doesn't know what to say. She feels helpless, and she absolutely dislikes the feeling of being helpless. Perhaps she is still trying to recover from the shock that her baby is gone, kidnapped by the resigned S.H.I.E.L.D. director Rick Stoner, who had gone into hiding, with a newborn and with God knows what plans he has in his mind.
She needs time, time to think all of these through. She needs time to understand that the one good thing that's left in their lives is gone. The last and only shot of her having something both good and normal is gone, taken away from her. What had she done for her to lose her love of her life the first time and lose her own flesh and blood? Does she not deserve any of those?
She doesn't notice Phil leaving the hospital room, leaving Melinda alone drowning in her own thoughts of self-accusation and emptiness. What had she done?
"It's my fault." she mutters to herself, staring at the open door of her hospital room.
A/N: This story is drama, right? Something bad had to happen :( review away!