Hey

‘You can’t be SERIOUS!’

Phil knew he wasn’t in control right now; both of the situation as a whole and of himself. It’s the reason he put Mack in charge – had to put Mack in charge – to prevent himself from doing something stupid, or rash. But right now, the man seemed intent on not letting him do anything, regardless of the rationally delivered argument he had kept himself calm enough to deliver.

‘None of this is a joke to me, Coulson. We go in as a team – together – and if I had anywhere close enough I thought could hold you, you would not be part of that team’.

Phil was already too raw to feel the sting of Mack’s words, and if he’d been thinking any clearer he might have approached the man in private to plead his case, instead of airing his grievances in front of their team as they were being briefed.

‘I’m not arguing that point with you – we go in as a team – but we have 2 people in that place and we should split up to look for them separately when we land’, Mack was visibly annoyed and he had to push forward before he had a chance to argue (again). ‘The teleporter took May – we may not know why – but it’s the only logical explanation!’

‘ENOUGH! – I’m not the one refusing to acknowledge all the facts here. We will take one team – check on Daisy and RULE OUT the teleporters involvement with May – she has left this base unauthorized on numerous occasions and we currently have no grounds to rule out the possibility that she left of her own accord –‘

Phil brought his bionic hand smashing down through the conference table, and if his legs were any steadier beneath him, he probably would have followed Mack out of the room – however unwise and unfruitful that was likely to be. He couldn’t imagine Melinda leaving by herself – being able to leave by herself. His mind replayed the grainy image of her struggling down the hallway, his earlier memories filling in what the security feed couldn’t capture; her stark pale skin, the sickening heat that radiated from her, her clouded eyes sunken above her hollow cheeks. He had to physically shake his head to try and push the images from the front of his mind. Most of the others had quietly excused themselves after Mack had given his official brief but he could feel all the remaining eyes in the room fixed on him.

Yo-yo gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm as she heads for the door, and he has to be quick as he follows her, catching her by the elbow before she takes off at Inhuman speed.

‘Jefe – don’t put me in this position..’

‘Yo-yo please – I know you saw her yesterday, I know you saw…..’ he let the sentence trail off; he didn’t really know what the Latina knew or had seen, just that Melinda had been in fresh clothes and bedding when he had checked on her, and Jemma had said Elena had helped her shower. ‘You know she can barely hold herself upright – there’s no way she went anywhere by herself – by the looks of the security feed she wasn’t even going to make it the end of the corridor, never mind out of the base’.

He could tell by the look on Yo-yo’s face that she didn’t really need convincing – her hesitance had far more to do with Mack’s firm opinion on the subject than her own.

Phil didn’t have time to offer his thanks when she finally nodded with weighty a sigh, before speeding after Mack.

There was a certain comfort, in being just one of many people falling apart.

Jemma remained glued to her seat in the conference room; Coulson’s pacing only further frayed her nerves but Fitz had been lingering close to her side all day, and she wasn’t ready to answer the concerns filling his big blue eyes.

Mack looked less furious, but no less tense when he finally returned to the conference room, a heavy duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Her eyes flickered nervously between him and Coulson, who only had eyes for each other. Some silent agreement seemed to be reached by the two men when Mack finally offered Coulson the weapon he had confiscated from him earlier that week, before glancing around at the remaining occupants of the room.

‘Everyone pack what they can, I’m not sure when we’ll be back – wheels up in 10’.

The remaining agent began filing out of the room immediately, and she was slightly startled when Mack stopped her as she made to follow them.

‘Take as much as you can – whatever’s portable, I want as close to a full mobile medical unit as we can get – when we land I want you to hang back on the Zephyr with Bobbi, I need you both to be ready.’

Jemma nodded quickly, already compiling a mental list of what she could take from the lab. Mack headed in the opposite direction, towards the hanger, as she headed to her bunk first, to grab a go-bag. She knew Fitz was right behind her, he held his silence as he followed into her room, closing the door quietly between them.

‘Jem, we need to talk before you get on that plane’.

She felt like her head might explode; scientifically it was improbable but the building tension in her temples made it seem like an impending possibility.

‘Fitz, please – I can’t tell you any more than I already –‘

‘Did you take this?’

Fitz’s voice trembled as he cut across her, and when she finally turned to meet his gaze, she found him holding an empty vile in equally trembling hands. Her stomach clenched as soon as she saw it, she didn’t need to read the bold letters plastered on the label to know what it had once held; MISOPROSTAL.

Her mind was reeling so fast that she almost couldn’t keep up with Fitz’s nervous rambling;

‘I figured I should probably take the laundry from here, seeing as most of its mine, and I found this in one of your pockets and I didn’t recognize the name so I googled it – and I wasn’t trying to be nosey or anything – and it’s not like I’d really have a say either way - but Christ Jemma, this really seems like something we should talk about’

Fitz was teary-eyed and slightly out of breath by the time he stops, and she finally meets his eyes, letting her own tears fall as she sinks onto the bed. To spite what he thinks she’s done, Fitz comes to sit beside her, wrapping his arms firmly around her as she buries her head in his chest.

‘It wasn’t for me Fitz, I wouldn’t – I wasn’t the one who needed it’.

‘Then who - ?’ She feels the moment the realization clicks into place for him, as he stiffens around her. ‘ Was that a uhm, necessary procedure – after – after what happened with Lash?’

Hot shame chokes her for a moment. She doesn’t deserve him, definitely doesn’t deserve the opportunity he had just handed her on a platter – to cave and tell him everything. Still, her body won’t let her utter yet another lie from her lips, so she settles for nodding as she detangles herself from Fitz’s undeserved embrace, rubbing the tears from her eyes as an excuse not to meet his gaze for a moment longer.

The hallway outside is bustling, and for once, Jemma found herself craving that chaos rather than Fitz’s quiet companionship. They both move quickly to gather their personal effects before heading to their separate workspaces; the lab techs had already begun packing up and Meyers had fortunately already begun moving her field gear to the hangar.

Fitz was relatively easy to find, to spite the unexpected crowd that had gathered in the hangar. With drier eyes and calmer nerves, Jemma allowed herself the small comfort that came when Fitz reached for her hand. An unexpected hush fell over the gathered agents as Mack emerged from the Zephyr, looking every bit of the active Director role he was currently playing as he addressed the crowd.

‘As of 1400hrs today, official orders have been issued for all agents to disband from this base. A team has been assembled to oversee the transportation of all remaining equipment and personal effects. Until we know if this teleporter can be trusted, this location should be considered compromised’.

‘This definitely used to be something – quite recently too by the looks of it, I can smell bad coffee’.

Wanda wasn’t ignoring the Captain on purpose necessarily; she was annoyed by the so far fruitless results of their expedition and his musings weren’t helping.

They came to a halt and he flashed the beam of his torch around the empty corridor;

‘This is the place?’

Finally, a useful question.

‘Yes – it’s hard to explain but – it’s like the smell of the coffee, I can feel traces of the power – I still can’t tell what it is exactly, just that it was here, and now it’s not’.

‘And it’s just – right here?’

She supposed she should give him credit for not ridiculing her outright, but it was frustrating; it was like she had an extra sense that the others did not, and trying to describe it to them was often like trying to describe music to someone who couldn’t hear.

‘The energy – the spike I felt – it happened right here, but now that we’re closer, this whole place has a stain – like an aura, or a lingering scent that’s soaked into the walls – I can’t really –‘

‘I understand.’ Steve cuts her off and she’s grateful, until he continues and sours her mood. ‘Do you think this has anything to do with your dreams?’

She tries not to bristle; she couldn’t condemn his ignorance on the subject when she had no solid inclination to share the whole truth with him – with anyone;

‘They’re not dreams! And they’re not any of your business – I spend 18 hours a day with you people, you think I’d at least earn some privacy when I sleep’.

Steve doesn’t look like he’s about to argue the point but Natasha’s voice floating toward them is a welcome interruption to the bubble of tension growing rapidly between them.

‘Hey! – Come check this out – I think I found something’.

They both walked quickly to the mostly empty workstation Natasha had commandeered, and Wanda tried not to be aggravated as Steve slowed his pace to keep in step with her; Captain Chivalrous as always.

The Black Widow seemed to have much better luck in her search from when they split up after establishing the location was deserted. She had successfully hacked (both literally and virtually) into one of the abandoned tablets, which was almost like finding a virtual key to their central command system.

Wanda ignores the look that passes between her colleagues as she takes in what appears to be tracking information for some sort of aircraft.

‘It looks like whatever – whoever – was here left in a hurry; but they might have left behind just enough for us to catch up’.