Chapter 1.2
The flight back to the HQ is subdued, even by the standards of S.H.I.E.L.D. True, lately the mood in the agency has never been very cheery, but right now? The mood was largely confused and worried than anything else. Considering that it was agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that one was talking about, this was not a good combination.
Skye (well, Daisy as she took to calling herself lately), for one would've liked to blame it all the new guy - well, sort of a new guy. So far he wasn't doing anything S.H.I.E.L.D.-like, he just did his best to blend with his new surroundings - considering that he was one of the biggest men (and InHumans, too) it was no easy feat - but somehow he managed. He didn't loom or anything, he just was there, in the background, this was it.
...For some reason Daisy found this to be very annoying. Well, not 'very', but still annoying. It was her second non-Li Shi gifted, and so far he was... avoiding her? Doing his best not to communicate with her? What? (And 'princess', seriously?)
"What did you find?" Melinda spoke up, quietly but firmly.
"Well, Andrew has-got sources of income beyond even what he made as a teacher, a psychologist, etc," Skye admitted, licking her lips, feeling naturally nervous in Melinda's presence. "But for most of his life he had been largely hoarding them, not spending anything beyond his obvious means. Judging by the lack of IRS reports, he got away with them, too. In the last months, however, this changed - he has become much more active, he is more travelling around the world, he is actually living up to his finances-"
"Any conclusions?" Melinda interrupted the younger woman, who was working herself into something suspiciously like a rant.
"It all began after our mess with the Iliad," Skye confessed. "After the new InHumans began to appear, you see? Melinda, did Andrew work with the Index for S.H.I.E.L.D. somehow?"
"Andrew? No," Melinda frowned, clearly thoughtful now. "He...didn't like S.H.I.E.L.D. very much. He didn't have too many problems with me working for it, at least until Bahrain, but he himself? He had no intent of becoming an agent. Why do you ask?"
"You mean besides the obvious connection?" Skye (well, Daisy, she had to remember to call herself that), "some of the money that came to him came from S.H.I.E.L.D. - the old S.H.I.E.L.D., rather than us. See these accounts and transfer numbers?"
"Yeah?"
"They're S.H.I.E.L.D.'s. Believe me, I recognize the old agency's electronic signature after I've hacked them- it- you a few times."
Melinda thoughtfully looked at Skye's data, thought about it, and began to leaf through a folder that Skye didn't remember seeing in Melinda's possession back in the hospital...but admittedly, she wasn't paying the older woman too much close attention - May was acting too OOC for that...and for a good reason, obviously...
"Some things do not add up with the others, not yet," she spoke mostly to herself, than to Skye or anyone else. "I need to talk to Andrew; I need to talk to Phil; I need to talk to - Morse?"
"Yes?" the blonde asked, as she approached Melinda, Daisy and the gifted, who was still sitting near them (but was currently involved in some weird stare-down face-off with Hunter).
"Well, you're here, rather than over there, with Naomi," Melinda pointed out reasonably. "I'm guessing that you have a reason why?"
"Oh, of course!" Bobbi said belatedly. "Blonde moment... never mind," she finished quickly, when she saw Melinda's gaze. "I came over to tell you that your daughter is ok - in a matter of speaking. She's going to live."
"Can you elaborate?" May ground out.
Bobbi opened her mouth, met - gaze-first - the big gifted, her former (or not so former?) friend, closed her mouth, exhaled and started again:
"Agent May? Your daughter is suffering from dehydration, muscle degeneration, and substance abuse - primarily alcohol. She is young an healthy and we've reached her just in time, so the damage is reversible and we're going to reverse it. Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with her - physically. I'm not sure about the mental state. Someone had been keeping her drunk and 'out of it' for a long time."
"Five years, maybe?" May said in a tone-neutral voice, but Bobbi blanched and looked around, apparently wondering if she could hide somewhere after this.
(Skye, for one, thought that Bobbi just might accomplish this. If Hudima had just blended into the background and became little more than a shadow on the wall, then Bobbi had became a ghost - the reappearance of this face from her past had clearly shaken her, making her fall silent...and more May-like...as she hovered around her new patient in a brisk and professional manner - but also a silent one. Morse may not have it as bad as her man did, but she generally didn't do silence either, but now - she was as silent as May would be on a bad day...such as today. Until today, Skye never understood how much May had mellowed out since their initial meeting on the Bus. Now, between her and the older generation she understood; she understood and she wanted the 'new' May back. She also had few questions for Andrew herself - ever since he returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. and began to cooperate with them, he seemed a friendly and amenable man, so this sort of OOC behavior for him was...disturbing. Star Wars level of disturbing, actually...)
"Perhaps," Bobbi admitted. "Certainly more than two. May, you rescued her just in time-"
"It wasn't me. It was Ward," May said with venom. "I think he is still on his redemption kick."
"Maybe. But you still owe him one - we owe him one this time, honestly," Bobbi looked uncomfortable. "What did he want?"
"He never told me," May twitched slightly (but for her it was a lot). "He said... never mind, what he said."
"Ok, do you want to check on your daughter?" Bobbi decided to change the topic - ever so 'subtly'.
"Do I?" Melinda immediately got onto her feet in one smooth, sinuous movement, and walked forth towards the other side of the plane, leaving Bobbi and Skye on their own with the big man. The fact that he was gifted didn't make it any easier - at least not for Skye. After the final fight with her mother (and the run-in with Lash) she would rather not fight another InHuman so soon, especially with an ill civilian so close at hand...
"So, long time no see," Bobbi, apparently, decided to break the silence first. "I'm surprised that you've emerged-"
The big man, Hudima or Hellfire, gave her a look and stayed silent. Seriously, after Ward and May he was probably the quietest person Skye has ever met. "The princess has found something interesting about Andrew Garner and S.H.I.E.L.D.," the man had finally replied. "Maybe you can check it out for yourself?"
"What?" Bobbi gave a brief look at Skye's tablet, then took a second, longer one. "Oh. This is interesting."
"What?" Skye involuntarily echoed Bobbi. "What's so interesting?"
"Those sums - they're stable, compatible, for what assets, civilian agents used to be paid in regards to the Index," Bobbi blinked. "I didn't know that Garner was with S.H.I.E.L.D."
"He isn't," Skye replied. "May said just now that he didn't like the agency-"
"Ah," Hudima rumbled, startling the smaller woman. "Victoria Hand, Morse?"
"Possibly - yeah," Bobbi nodded, clearly growing further upset by this revelation. "She was my supervising officer, but she knew, she could do what I never could, seduction or otherwise, you know?"
"Are we talking agent abandonment here?" Skye grimaced. It was bad to speak ill of the dead, especially where Grant Ward was involved, but still. "The same agent Hand-"
"Believe me, we do," Bobbi confessed. "Hunter calls me a she-demon on occassion, this is almost a term of endearment between us now, but Morse? She's the original she-demon, she could eat me, and still have plenty of room to use Lance as after-dinner entertainment."
"Well, thank you very much!" Lance joined the other three. "Bob, I don't know what you've done-"
"Gave May Jr. an IV drip to flush all the remaining resident alcohol and soporific pills out of her system-"
"But it is working miracles," Hunter shrugged. "Good for them. I'm giving the May family some privacy. Mack has notified that we're going to land soon, BTW."
"Good. The sooner we can get Miss May into the medbay, the better," Bobbi said firmly.
There was a pause - evidently neither Hunter nor Morse knew how to break it, until-
"So, who are you to Bob, exactly?" the former SAS-man asked the InHuman.
"Hunter," Bobbi's voice was almost as lifeless as May's normally was. "Remember me telling you about the one who got away? Well, that's him. You're looking at him."
There was a pause as two men alternated between looking at each other and at Bobbi. (Skye felt some annoyance about being ignored, but she didn't mind. Honest.)
"So, why didn't it work out?" Lance finally spoke in an odd tone of voice.
"I don't know; we just never fully clicked," Hudima replied. "The last I heard of her in a while was that she married you, apparently, and had your child? We had enough history together to make any encounters between us uncomfortable, as you can see, and besides? She had vanished in the Hydra uprising, so - yeah?"
There was an odd look on the British man's face as he regarded first the other man, and then Bobbi. "Bob, we'll need to talk," he began - and then the quinnjet landed, and they went to help get Naomi May (Garner?) into the medical wing of the HQ.
TBC