Something to Fight For

Chapter 2

    "May! May!" Daisy put her hand on the specialist's shoulder. "You alright?" May opened her eyes to the younger woman leaning over her. Melinda immediately noticed the IV in her wrist. It pumping some kind of food substitute, May reasoned, reading the Arabic words on the IV bag.

    The light was dim in the tidy room, The window shades closed. May could make out Jemma and Bobbi laying on their own beds. The room seemed like any other, with beds all lined up and a bookshelf-like cabinet in the corner with gowns folded on the racks.

    She tried to sit up, but an unfamiliar weight and tightness in her stomach stopped her.

     "Holy-" May breathed, and scanned her surroundings. Or more specifically, the other S.H.I.E.L.D. women around her. Daisy nodded. "We all are..."

     "Pregnant." Jemma finished, making the situation real. "By my estimation, about six or seven-months along." The biochemist was also obviously uncomfortable, her arms wrapped around her extra-large stomach, which seemed bigger than the other women's.

    "How?" May asked, yanking out the IV. "I'm fifty-four. Fifty-four-year-olds don't get pregnant."

    "Uh. Well, that's where you're wrong. Women have had healthy babies in their fifties." Jemma humphed.

    "You're fifty?!?! Like, I can see Coulson as fifty, but you.... Wow, you're an immortal goddess!" Daisy ignored the look that May sent her.

    "So how?" May returned to the former conversation, pulling herself up into a sitting position, her back scraping against the wall. She could tell that she no longer had her weapons, and they had taken her hijab too, letting her hair down. Melinda's breasts hurt like hell, and she wracked her brain for any information that she had retained over the years on pregnancy.

    "The 0-8-4 somehow did it." Bobbi replied with sign language. The warrior women might be listening. "How long have we been here?"

    "I can't tell until nighttime, when the stars can come out." Jemma told them.

    "But how do we fix it?" May asked. The women around her gasped. "Uh, we have the babies..." Jemma slowly told her.

    May stood on her shaky legs, and put a hand on her new baby belly. "What the hell? Is this immaculate conception? What about the father's?" May waited.

    "I'll do a DNA test on us when we get back." Jemma whispered her offer to May, barely audible. "But I have no clue."

   'I've already 'accidentally' destroyed the camera in the corner.' Bobbi signed in ASL.

    'Good.' Yo-yo nodded.

    A knock sounded on the door, and a younger woman walked in she might have been seventeen or eighteen, Melinda couldn't tell. "Hello." She smiled. "Forgive me, sisters, for my English is not very good. The queen has permitted me to be your assistant for the next few days and all they way until before your ceremonies."

    "Our ceremonies?" Jemma asked for clarification.

    "Oh yes. The same day you give birth. The child is your right of passage, unless you birth a boy, in which you will have to try again." She smiled. "I'm Shareta."

    "What's it with the names?" Daisy asked. "And what happens to the baby boys?"

    "Our names are direct translations of words in our language, which you will learnt in time." Shareta smiled, ignoring Daisy's second question.

    "Learn." Jemma corrected her.

    "You are permitted to walk around the house and villages with an Amazon companion, but no communication with anyone who is not Amazon." Shareta said, and asked, "Are any of you hungry?"

    "Yes." Several of the agents groaned, and Shareta Smirked. "I'll be back in a small time." She said before walking out the door.

    As soon as she was gone, Bobbi said what they were all thinking. "We're not gonna need to be undercover as long as planned."

    "Yeah, if they're letting us in this easy...." Melinda added.

    "Easy?!?!" Daisy retorted.

    "Believe me. This is the easiest cult I've ever infiltrated." Melinda huffed. "They're practically handing us important information."

     Several minutes later, Shareta returned again, this time followed by two other girl with platters of food. "It's all vegetarian." Shareta said. "We believe in a meat-free pregnancy."

     "Why?" Daisy asked frowning as she inspected her plate.

    Shareta shrugged. "Because we believe that dead flesh is bad for the baby."

     Melinda was handed her own plate, which was, as explained, full of vegetarian food. "Where did you get this?" She asked.

    "We captured a farm several moons ago." Shareta answered. "Raids are so much fun!" She sat down next to Daisy, smiling. "What's the fun part?" Daisy engaged the girl.

    "The adventure!" She giggled. "I've been going out on raids since I was seven."

    "Impressive." Daisy nodded. "Do you fight?"

    "Oh yes." Shareta responded. "What, Do you?"

    "I know a little self defense." Daisy responded. "Wanna spar sometime?"

    "I don't know about that during the pregnancy, but maybe."

    "Done deal."

-:x:-

    With Daisy's connection with Shareta in place, all the women had to do was wait until nightfall to get the date. There was no way that they could get through six months of pregnancy in only a day, right? Because The guys would have come for them by now, breaking their cover.

    When Evening fell, Jemma confirmed the impossible. "It's still summertime." She told them. "And the moon's initial shape hasn't changed."

    "But we had a few days before the micro-trackers we ingested eventually made their way out..." Yo-yo reminded them.

    "So Fitz should still be able to pinpoint our location." Bobbi added.

    "Yes." Jemma confirmed. "But I don't know if we can fight if we're pregnant." She said. "And if this happened in the span of one to five days, it's more than obvious that the circumstances are far from normal." She said pointedly at May and Bobbi.

    Silence followed.

    "So... you're saying that for all we know, this... circumstance may be accelerated with alien science." Daisy summarized.

    "Exactly." Simmons nodded.

-:x:-

    After the women formed a plan, Melinda changed into one of the provided gowns, and stayed in the bathroom longer than needed. May scanned her reflection in the mirror. Before the Bahrain, she had been hopeful to someday carry a baby. But now . . . she wasn't fit to be a mother.

    She reached her hand down, snaking it over her new bump. The life within squirmed in response, and Melinda froze. It was an odd sensation, and she couldn't really describe it with words. The movement just made the situation more real.

    Melinda let herself smile. If this was her baby or not, whatever voodoo magic that 0-8-4 did had caused her to be pregnant, and that had to mean something.

    The little baby moved again, pushing against Melinda's spine.

    Maybe they could get out of here along with the surprise babies.