"I would be very careful," Raina said, smiling sweetly.
May cocked her head. "About what?" she asked bluntly.
The woman was standing handcuffed in front her, she had a gun pointed right at her. Hardly a threat. They had taken over Ward's last little safehouse, and had found Raina and a handful of CENTIPEDE soldiers standing watch. Quinn and Deathlok were nowhere to be found.
"About leaving them alone." Raina said. "Together."
They all looked at one another slowly. Nothing registered. Except for May. Her jaw had tightened.
"Who is she talking about?" Trip asked, although having a guess.
"Coulson, he is a good man," Raina answered. "But, the Clairvoyant was right. He will do *anything*..."
May was recalling the Clairvoyant. The taunting to Coulson about Skye, about how much she meant to him. How Coulson had played right into Garrett's hands each and every time... Damn.
"Garrett is dead," Trip said to Raina. Speaking what all of them were thinking.
"Oh, that's the best part!" Raina said conspiratorially. "Garrett is not the real Clairvoyant."
"Trip, radio Coulson," she said, reaching with her free hand and handing him her phone.
Trip dialed, waited a moment. Shook his head.
"Did you do something to Skye?" Simmons asked Raina. A hint of threat in her tone.
"Oh, no. It was already there. I thought it would come from them," she said, giddy, looking up. "But, it will come from *us*. It will be like the big bang all over again."
"Extremis?" May said. "You mean, like that?"
Raina just blinked at her.
"No," Simmons said, "I think she's talking about their DNA, Skye's blood, and Coulson's. She had our samples, she was playing with them..."
Raina brightened and turned towards her. This was the smart one.
"You mean like them getting a blood transfusion?" Fitz started, "Or..."
"That's a more complicated way," Raina said, nodding slowly at Fitz. "I was thinking something more...primitive..."
May's eyes narrowed.
"You mean like 'blood brothers' when you're lads and all that..." he continued. "Who would have time for that during all of this?!," his tone exasperated.
"Fitz," Simmons said, briefly closing her eyes, "She is talking about them..."
"Does anyone maybe feel the need to clue me in on all of this?" Trip asked. He knew he was being held back from something.
Fitz looked aghast, suddenly understanding. "He's so, older..."
May rolled her eyes, turned to Raina. "What do you get out of this?"
"Just to be a witness," she said. "To the birth of a new age."
***
Coulson had his hand pressed against his shoulder, took it away for a moment, bloodied. Wound looked pretty clean. Had probably gone straight through.
Ward. Dead. He wondered how Skye was doing with all of it. At least she hadn't had to pull the trigger. Ward had done it to himself in the end. Coulson was just relieved that she was here, with him. Even if here was this obscure little village. They'd driven from New Mexico all night and crossed the border into Mexico. He'd got the room, she'd left to get more supplies. Here no questions were asked.
What had shocked him was that he had agreed to any of it in the first place. Her going with Ward in order to learn more about her origin, make sure he didn't get away this time, then leak the location at the right moment. Ward had given her the opening by baiting her with it when they'd tracked Garrett and his team after Cuba.
He remembered the fear in the pit of his stomach, when she'd proposed it. But, the look in her eyes, how far she'd come. How far they had both come. Ward seemed very hesitant to kill her, even under extreme duress. He thought he would win her, ply her over time.
So, she had agreed to put on a show, appear to desert the team, fake an argument with Coulson (just to really sell it), and Skye dropping the right breadcrumbs for Ward to pick up her trail.
He'd lead what was left of Garrett's team: Raina, Deathlok, Quinn. But their new M.O. wasn't cracking the Guest House formula. It had changed. They instead focused all their effort on learning about Skye. He knew about this because part of the plan was he began meeting clandestinely with Skye.
The best parts were the clandestine meetings with Skye. Coulson smiled to himself. He was actually nervous the first time they met. That was also part of the plan. Ward, when he questioned whether Skye was meeting with Coulson, would be told outright that yes, yes, she was. And when he asked why, Skye would say that she wanted info from Coulson, and this was how you got info out of Coulson, and that this was the best and easiest way to keep him and his team off of their trail.
Ward, of course, had threatened and fumed. Skye said that was the day she'd won Raina over, because Raina both saw a way out, and because Raina thought Ward was just a pawn, in the end. She'd told her this when she'd taken her blood to run experiments on it.
Ward started to have her followed, but Skye didn't care. This had been Raina's idea, actually, Skye had told him. She had subtly suggested it to Ward, had wanted to rub it in. And Raina had described to her, in detail, the look on Ward's face when she had shown him the video feed from the tracking device planted on Skye. Coulson and Skye, in a luxury hotel room, the flowers, the champagne, Skye pressed against the wall, Coulson grabbing tightly onto her hips, lifting her off the floor. And then all of that kissing.
Hmm. He was going to miss clandestine. They'd have to talk about it, at some point. He was too far gone now, he'd stopped playing a part after their second meetup. Actually, they had all felt like dates. I mean, spy dates. He had tossed aside the cheap motels and started taking her to the kind of places he would take her if... If. Because, this was dangerous work, and if they were going to risk it all, then why not?
He took off his shirt, then his undershirt, and went to the tiny sink, splashing water on the wound. Rubbing at the dried sweat on his body.
The front door clicked, his ears tuned to the familiar footsteps. It shut. Relief.
"Back," she said, putting the bag on the end of the bed. "I got some stuff to dress it, and a needle, some thread, I hope..."
She stopped, looking at him standing there with a black eye and his shirt off.
Her mouth was twisted into a slightly different expression.
"Hey," he said, looking over at her, quizzically. "Are you alright?" he said walking towards her.
A little flush came across her face as he got closer. She stepped backwards as he put his hand on her arm, then, she touched his chest slowly, ran her hand over it, his scar, the flush on her face brightening.
Oh. All the flirting and kissing, they'd still never...Never seen each other...
He motioned back to the sink where his shirt lay, "I can put it back..."
Skye crashed her mouth against his, pulling his head down toward her, trying to pull him into her more. But, something...something was missing.
She stopped to breathe. "Guess that shirt was pretty handy after all," she said. How many times had she grabbed him by his shirt as the end to those evenings? Her little island in the middle of craziness. Pretending she might actually not ask him into her room. Oh, please.
"I guess that you're okay with this, then?" he said, feeling a bit encouraged by the force of her kiss. "Continuing?"
"To the farthest reaches of the galaxy," she said with a smile. That was so nerdy, but she couldn't help herself. She knew he would like it, and the grin was already spreading across his face. "And you?" She asked, already knowing the answer.
But she loved it when he was at his most expressive.
"You," he said, kissing her lightly on the lips, and then on her nose, "Are about to pleasantly discover," he kissed her forehead, "What happens, when a man has," he picked her up in his arms as she laughed, "All the time in the world."
"Ouch," he said, remembering his shoulder.
She kissed him on the cheek as he let her feet touch the floor.
"Let's take care of that first," she said. "And then, I'm all yours."
***
Simmons was reviewing Coulson and Skye's blood samples. What had Raina seen that she hadn't? It had to do with the alien drug. Skye could assimilate it rapidly. Why?
Raina was like her shadow self, curiosity taken to its darkest place.
And Skye's 084 status was unresolved. But May had shared that story about the village in the Hunan province of China. Awful. Oh, poor Skye! But why would they go to all of that trouble to kill for just one person?
A new age. Genome mapping. Algorithms predicting changes in Skye's DNA when alien elements were introduced. Raina had experimented on her. How far they went, she wasn't saying. It would take Simmons weeks, maybe months to review all of it.
Simmons just couldn't find anything unusual about Skye. Anything at all.
***
"Welcome back," said May, standing in the hangar of the Bus. "Let me guess, you dropped your phone in the toilet."
"Oh, that," said Coulson breezily. "Yeah..."
"For two weeks?" said May, with a raised eyebrow and not without a hint of aggravation.
"It was very remote."
Skye was hugging Simmons and Fitz, shaking her head at whatever Fitz was saying to her. Lightly ran her hand over Lola. Walked up to May.
"Hi!" she said. May just nodded at her.
"There are some things we need to discuss," May said sternly. "As a team."
Coulson and Skye looked at each other and followed May into the briefing room.
Trip was already there, had pulled up readouts of both Coulson and Skye's bloodwork.
"Coulson," Trip said to him, with a bit of a chill. "Skye," he said. She just waved at him.
Guess this was as good a time as any.
"I sent Skye undercover with Ward's team. She has been acting as a double-agent this whole time," Coulson fessed up. "She's only been reporting to me, it had to appear a certain way to protect her cover and to let Ward buy the whole thing."
"And you felt no need to share this with any of us," Simmons said angrily. She didn't like the way Coulson had been doing things lately, making overriding decisions.
"And Ward?" asked Fitz.
"Ward is dead," Coulson said.
"How?"
It was May, she wanted the details. Wanted to be sure. Hear it from Coulson himself.
"Two in the back of his head, sir?" said Fitz bitterly.
"No," Coulson said, knowing what the ask was about. "I gave him a chance, and he didn't take it. I think he was being controlled by someone, something else. They were using Ward to get to Skye. It was below Dulce Base in New Mexico." It drew a blank. "Come on guys, don't you ever look at conspiracy sites?"
Fitz shook his head. "No, they write mean stuff about SHIELD."
"They're Kree," Coulson said. "And they've been there a long time."
"The Clairvoyant?" asked May.
"What?" Coulson asked.
"The real one? A Kree?" she said.
Coulson hadn't really thought about that. Who was pulling Ward's strings? Maybe even Garrett's.
Skye looked over at May, "Why do you have our bloodwork pulled up?"
The team looked around at each other, not sure how to ask this.
"Raina told us that if your DNA *combined* something *explosive* would happen," she said hinting, thinking she was being subtle and really, very not.
Skye looked over at Coulson, "Raina was running tests on my bloodwork. She had Coulson's as well. I know she was after something that would activate 'gifts' in ordinary people. Unlock them."
"Raina certainly loves to set herself up for disappointment," Coulson said dryly.
Everyone looked a bit relieved.
"I mean, nothing exploded, anyway," said Skye, looking a bit put off, stared back and them. Coulson practically swallowed part of his lower lip. "The aliens had tried to experiment on me, but they couldn't crack my DNA. That's why I was being hunted."
"Hold up," Trip interjected. "What is all this with aliens and experiments on humans?"
"You know the Guest House?" asked Coulson. Trip nodded. "SHIELD had a captured alien and was using its blood to experiment. I'm one result. After the Battle of New York..."
"Heard this part already," said Trip, waving it away, "That was our people. What I want to know is about the aliens messing with human DNA."
"Why?" asked Coulson, curious.
"Because I got theories, man."
"Experiments that worked on other humans, didn't work on me," said Skye.
"So, what *is* Skye?" asked May.
"Perfectly human," Coulson said, with a smile. "I think that frustrated them a bit."
"That's why they hunted her down, tried to destroy her?" Simmons asked. It made sense now, about Skye's DNA. She had been looking for it being alien all along, when she should've looked...
"Yes. It's kind of messy. Some of them were protecting her, some of them wanted to destroy her. They're pretty hardcore. They kind of make HYDRA look like Boy Scouts."
May raised an eyebrow.
"Knew it," said Trip. "Did the Red Skull and HYDRA get all their stuff from these guys? The Tesseract, the super soldier formula...?"
"Quite possible," Coulson said, getting a bit excited where Trip was headed with that. "Let's just say that after hearing their leader talk, I feel pretty good about our planet right now. For all of our flaws. And I'm really proud of this team."
"And what about you?" asked Simmons, looking at Coulson. "What are you?"
"I'm complicated," he said, with a smirk.