AN: Howdie! We are finally here. I was so excited writing this and I hope you all like it! As always, many thanks to MegaDiary123, and a thank to all of you for the support. See you again in a couple of weeks. Until then...

All rights go to Mravel


Raina's POV

I was finally were I wanted to be. So close to the Clairvoyant that I could almost hear his voice. But Po would not let me. The mission to get agent Coulson was a success, and we even managed to get Mike.

But he was in a rough shape. And the Clairvoyant told me to tend to him. He and his gifts could see above and beyond anything I had ever encountered before. His gift was definitely one of the Angels. The stories that my grandmother used to tell me. And I was going to make sure that he leads me to my own destiny, to my own gift.

But I had to make sure that I was going to get it.

And if the Clairvoyant could see all, it would be a futile hope to trick him. So, having a backup plan would always be of use. For whatever happens, there was one sure path and that was Calvin Zabo and his missing daughter.

Daisy…

It was peculiar. A girl that he found, and then lost in a building that shook from the ground up. As had the Centipede Base back in Hong Kong. A girl that might as well be the same one on Coulson's team that Ian Quinn shot but didn't kill.

"It felt as if the air around me was heavy, pushing me away like an invisible force hit me on the chest. My men, dropped dead in one second", were the words he had used to describe his experience when we met after his meeting with her.

I was going to try and convince him to keep that information between the two of us, but I did want to keep my head. However, I did manage to get a photo from his camera surveillance from when she came to him undercover in Malta.

But things have been so hectic with preparing the Centipede Soldiers, and making sure they don't combust or drain too much. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been on our tail, and have been destroying our operations, forcing us to keep moving. We were so close to stage three, that maybe, if I helped get us there, the Clairvoyant would reward me.

I walked back into the room where agent Coulson was strapped in the Theta Brain-Wave Frequency Machine, only to see him bloodied and beaten down by Po and his soldiers.

"He doesn't look so good", I pointed out.

Po turned to look at me. "Raina, what took you so long? The persuasion skills I've spoken to the Clairvoyant so much about would be better served here with me, breaking this man", he said matter-of-factly.

I looked again at agent Coulson's face. Men and their brutality, thinking it is the only way to make someone talk or come around. "I would never use force to bend a man to my wishes"

"He's being difficult", he countered.

"He's being beaten", I pointed out instead.

He scoffed like he knew everything. "Into submission. The Clairvoyant requested it and will tell me to—", his sentence was cut short by his phone ringing. He took it out, very happy to see who was on the other end. "See?", I watched with hidden delight as the smile dropped from his face when he started excusing his lack of result so far. Then, his gaze turned to me, jaw slightly tensed. "Right here… Yes…", and the phone was extended in my direction. "The Clairvoyant would like to speak to you", he said even though it was clear he didn't like it one bit.

The smile on my face only grew as I took the phone from him. "This is Raina."

"Hello, Raina", his voice was smooth but had a rasp in it. "I can see that Po has not been able to get the key yet. Do you remember everything that I told you about agent Coulson?"

"Yes", I managed to keep my voice from shaking.

"Very good. I knew I could depend on you. Don't you think there is another way to convince him to cooperate? A new approach if you will…", he spoke with confidence, like he already knew that this new approach would yield the results he wanted.

There wasn't much point in saying a lot, especially with Po here trying to clearly listen in. "I agree"

"Very well. You are now in charge of this operation. I believe in you Raina, I know you can do this", his trust in me made my heart flutter.

"Thank you", I got out. If I did this, if I got the key, I would for sure be rewarded. Maybe even meet him.

"Now, there will be people that will come to save him. You won't have much time. They are already on their way. And you, or our soldiers won't be able to stop them, because Skye will come, and from what I understand she will come with company". Skye? I looked at agent Coulson who was still there, waiting silently. "My soldiers will give you as much time as they can, but it won't be enough. They won't last long. Don't hurt yourself, do as they say and I will find you and free you. I promise you that"

I was part delighted and frightened, because if she was going to take out the soldiers, then I didn't want to know what would happen to me. But I didn't let it show. I trusted in him, and he said I would be okay. "I understand"

"Good, now give me back to Po. His time has ran out", there was a finality in his voice.

"I'll put him back on", I extended the phone and Po all but snatched it out of my hand.

A smile was plastered once more on his face, but soon turned into a frown, as an electrical shock passed from the phone and onto his brain, killing his instantly. Edison Po was no more.

I caught the phone as it dropped. My turn.


Coulson's POV

I watched as Po fell to the floor, his chest not moving. My gaze turned to Raina, who had calmly moved to the panel of the machine I had been almost confined to for the past however-many hours.

"This is turning into an interesting day, isn't it?", she asked me. An easy smile on her face as she did.

So, this is how she was going to go about it. "So, you're my friend now? 'Cause I've seen what you do to your friends?"

She looked at me with an almost innocent look. "Mr. Po?" I nodded. "He was a murderer incapable of remorse"

Can't argue with that, I thought. "I was thinking of Mike Peterson, Chan Ho Yin", I started listing instead.

She stopped fiddling with whatever she was doing and turned to fully face me. "I gave them what they asked for. Mike wanted to be a hero to his son. Now he is"

"Now he is dead", I corrected her. While whatever they injected me with had momentarily stunned me, I saw the results from the explosion on the chopper they put me in. I saw the devastation on their faces, and didn't see Mr. Peterson anywhere. I could put two and two together. "What about Akela Amador? Did she want, as you so eloquently put it, a bomb in her head?"

She shrugged. "The people you work for are just as capable of using cruel means to reach a justified end. Don't pretend to be better", she scoffed in a laughing manner.

That gave me pause. She wasn't wrong, but also S.H.I.E.L.D. was better than that. "And who do you work for? The Clairvoyant? Who is he?"

She lifted the phone she was holding. "I don't know. Today was the first time I personally made contact. My heart's still racing", the excitement was palpable in her voice. Just who exactly was he?

He was the one that ordered Quinn to shoot Skye, based on the report. So, he worked with Quinn. But if he also worked with Centipede, then what was his goal? Was he using Quinn's money to fund Centipede's operations? The connection I had been looking for was right there, staring at me in the face but I just couldn't quite reach it, for there was no way that Quinn would be able to fund all of this, not in this scale.

There was another player and I was missing who that was. But if this Clairvoyant was the answer, there was one thing that was clear as day. "He has you building super soldiers"

"The Clairvoyant gives us guidance, formulas", she could see the question I was about to ask and so she continued. "For the changing world, agent Coulson. The world your organisation brought upon us. We're new to the business of what you've been doing for decades" she said like it was clear as day.

Changing the world… that has never ended well. And if their plans were so grant, then whatever this was, it was going far deeper than probably all of us had guessed. She was being awfully cooperative with my questions. Wasn't getting too much into detail with things, but maybe, reading between the lines would be enough for now.

Better to continue while she still answers then. "So now what? You have soldiers? You can make them strong, you can control them. In an instant, you can kill them." No questions asked, no evidence left behind. Easy to manipulate, easy to guide, promised of a better life for their loved ones, or the threat of their deaths. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't like that, I found myself thinking once more.

At that her eyes sparkled. "Yes, but we can't bring them back to life." Bingo. Here we are, this is what they want. "You were killed. Now you're here. We want to know how… don't you?" And if that same question hadn't been in my mind… She caressed the machine once more. "I'd like to turn the machine on again. It induces theta brain-wave frequencies to help uncover the secrets buried in the subconscious. If you cooperate, you can surf those waves"

I scoffed. "Surfing? Felt more like drowning" I countered.

She shook her head. "You've been resisting. Fight the waves and you'll drown, as you so eloquently put it. Your brain will cook. You'll stop breathing… again"

"You want to give you me agencies secrets. I won't give them to you. My team will find me, or I guess I'm going to meet my maker. And maybe stay with him this time", I shuddered. The small memory I had from the darkness for those few seconds I was dead never left me.

"I'm not interested in classified intel. The Clairvoyant can see within any agency, any government", she said, and the initial confident she spoke with when she spoke for this Clairvoyant remained. Unshaken. "He knows what the President dreams about at night. I want what you want… to uncover a different secret… the secret S.H.I.E.L.D. is keeping from you. You mean to tell me you trust them so wholeheartedly that you don't question them at all? Not the fact that it keeps you up at night, that there is this gap in your memory that no matter how much you try, you can never quite get it to fill? He told me that you asked for answers, and they didn't give them to you", she reached out and took my hand. "Why don't you look for those answers yourself?"

I was about to say 'I trust the system'… but then Skye came to mind. All the talks I've had with her about this, the mission where Fitz and Ward would die from my command without me knowing I was sending them to their death. "They keep secrets for a reason", I ended up saying. But it sounded weak even to my own ears.

"But why would S.H.I.E.L.D. keep details of your death from you? They're your family…" there it was. My chest wound started itching again, my hand went to rub it. But as soon as I tried to think more of it, it seems to be fleeting, like trying to hold onto sand. "Your only family since you've lost your mother, too. Now, after all you've sacrificed and they keep secrets from you". Maybe, if I used the machine, I would get the information I wanted. I could get that, get some answers.

Answers to so many questions I have had. So many question marks that have seemed to have filled my life ever since I woke up after I died. She seemed to know I had made up my mind, but she still pushed. "I know you don't want to believe it, but you can't tell me nothing makes you doubt, makes you wonder what happened in Tahiti"

"It's a magical place" I said automatically. Again… like I had done so many times in the past. Always the same, always there. "I keep saying that…"

Her other hand was placed on my shoulder. "Don't you want to know why?"

I sighed. "Turn it on", I said. I laid back down. "How are you so sure this will even work?"

She turned to look at me, as she went by the panel once more. "It worked on me… Now. Close your eyes and relax", she continued and I did as instructed. "I want you to think back to the first memory of your death", I only heard her.

I tried to picture it in my head. I thought about what lead me to be put in a black bag. I saw Loki in front of me, my gun trained on him. He was about to release the cylindrical glass cage with Thor inside. "Move away, please" I called out making sure he knew my weapon was trained on him.

He lifted his hands, as if to surrender. "Seems like you caught me just in time", he said sarcastically.

I took one careful step towards him. "Seems like I did, now, as I said. Move away from the pa—"

A pain erupted from my chest, looking down I saw Loki's sceptre had punctured me right in the middle. Then, it was pulled back, and with a small gasp I fell to the floor. Looking up, I saw what I always saw in my nightmares, Loki staring down at me, sceptre held in hand, a triumphant smile on his face, as Thor yelled on the background and before the cage was released and dropped from the sky.

The sky…

Lokis frame seemed to glitch, change momentarily, before coming back to his original form. I shook my head, trying to clear my eyesight, for there was something there. Something I was missing.

"What do you see agent Coulson? Something is happening isn't it?", I heard Raina call out gently. "Don't fight it, focus on the details".

I tried to do just that. Focusing on Loki's frame as it flickered back and forth, changing, but not staying on the other persons form, whoever that was.

Until it did.

And it stayed on Skye's form. Her eyes, a piercing blue, not looking at me but instead behind me. "Skye?", I found myself asking but her gaze still didn't drop.

"Sir, there are a couple more people approaching", she said and I saw her move towards Loki, giving him his sceptre. "You go to the exit point and I will deal with them", and like that she left the room.

I tried bring to back Skye's face in my mind, and saw how the scene seemed to be moving almost backwards. As she left, now she was back inside, my chest pierced and I dropped, looking up at her clearly. "Skye?" I called again.

I heard her voice in my head, from the first day we met, when she was still undercover in the Rising Tide.

You were supposed to be dead.

I know you because I was in the Helicarrier before the Battle of New York.

I was there when you died.

Then the image of the two of us in my office passed briefly through my head. "How did S.H.I.E.L.D. stab you in the back?", I had asked her, and saw for the briefest of moments, as her eyes dropped to my chest, right where my wound was. Pain in her gaze.

And just like that, it was like something was unlocked in me.

Images flashed through my brain, like a movie that was played in 5 times its normal speed.

Dragging off a younger Skye, unconscious, from the rubble of a fallen building. Natasha, Clint and Melinda there as well.

Me telling her goodbye as she started her journey in the Academy.

Reading the report that she was missing.

Spending months looking for her, only to see her again in a S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital after the events of the Stark Expo.

Watching as she trained, went on missions with Clint and Maria.

Gaps filling. And filling, and fillings, and filling. Whatever was missing was coming back, and my chest hurt. And it hurt, and it hurt, and it hurt.

"What's happening agent Coulson? What do you see?"

Learning she was compromised when Loki came.

The Helicarrier being attacked, panic everywhere, and Skye in the vents. She knew the layout by heart.

I went to the Cage to make sure he didn't escape. Only to get a sceptre in the back.

Skye left, and barely managed to shot Loki once.

Soon Fury came in and kneeled by my side. "I'm sorry boss. They got rabbited", I said and felt blood running on the side of my face.

I felt him tap on the side of my face. "Just stay awake. Eyes on me", he ordered.

I laughed, but ended up wincing. It hurt too much. "Oh, I'm clockin' out here", I half-joked.

He shook his head. "Not an option"

I smiled up at him. "It's okay, boss. This was never gonna work— if they didn't have something— to—" and then it was black.

For just a moment, before it rapidly changed to the familiar image of Tahiti. But I already saw one glitch and caught it as soon as it happened. The guy, that was getting us the drinks, changed, changed into… a doctor.

"Listen to him!", he yelled. Wait a minute, I knew that doctor. "Who ordered this?", Dr. Streiten asked to the woman that was over my head.

But as soon as I looked up, it was Dr. Goodman there, instead of the lady that was massaging me before. "Director Fury himself.

"W-what?", I chocked out, just as Dr. Streiten interrupted once more. "Listen to him!", he practically yelled.

"I need you to look at your surroundings. Try and describe what you see. Are you still in Tahiti? Tell me", Raina's voice came through.

I had to look more, but she couldn't know what I was seeing. "It's dark", I lied and hoped it was convincing enough. "There's nothing. Everything is dark". When in reality, I looked around the operational room. I took in the white light and the horror on Dr. Steiten's face.

I heard the two of them talk behind me. "He's drifting— This is wrong— Can you feel that?— Who ordered this?— This is wrong!— Listen to him—"

But my eyes were glue on the rounded mirror that was placed over me. I watched I was laying on a table, my skull opened up, exposing my brain. A machine working to reconstruct my brain in whatever way it did, zapping nerve end after nerve end. I didn't know when I started, but the words left my mouth without me willing them to.

"Don't. Stop. Let me die. Please. Please, let me die. Let me die. Please, let me die. Let me die! Let me die! Please! Just let me die!"