Their little star

Melinda

Phil suddenly says, as he opens the car door and as Melinda turns her attention towards the building across the street, she sees the man they are looking for. Opening her own door, Phil starts to head for the man as she decides to take the side road, to cut him off if needed and judging from the way Phil has been acting of late, it will be.

Staying out of his way, Melinda let's Phil trail the former agent among the sea of people.

"He's heading your way."

Phil informs her through the earpiece, and she moves out of her hiding spot and into the masses. Making sure to take a turn just to divert the feeling that someone might be following him. She sees how he looks over his shoulder, before he runs, and she rolls her eyes. He's a good agent but not good enough.

"Looks like he's heading down the alley."

She informs Phil as she starts to run after Lumley. As she enters the alley, he's gone from her sight. She makes sure to take it easy as she starts to look for him, only to have him slam into her. For being a man who have gone into hiding, he has made sure to keep up his fighting skills, seeing has he's able to keep up with her.

As she knocks him down, she sees how he reaches for a blue pill, which she quickly kicks out of his hand. Which left her open for him to take advantage and get her down. As he tries to run away, Phil decides to show up at this point with the car, blocking the exit. It forces the now scared man to start climbing up the building, which makes Phil use one of his favourite functions on that car. Melinda rises from the ground as Lola does.

"I'm Agent Coulson. With S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Oh, thank God. This is about the baby girl, isn't it?"

Hearing Lumley mention that it's about a baby girl, Melinda looks up. She knew he and his partner had been the once assigned to location where young Skye had been found, but she could never get any more information about it all. And she knows the rest of Skye's family have been looking for the information too.

"How about you come with us back to our base and we can talk about this."

Phil suggests and Melinda can only assume to former agent nods his head as she sees Lola descend and Lumley climbing down the wall. She makes sure to keep her emotions in check and she enters the back seat of the car and lets Lumley sit beside Phil, easier to keep an eye on him in case he tries to escape. The drive back to the BUS is a silent once and it's not until they are in the main room before anyone breaks the silence.

"Cyanide? What did you think we were donna do to you?"

Phil asks, not jumping directly into questions about Skye, which surprises Melinda.

"What they did to her."

Lumley explains, placing a picture of a dead woman on the table.

"Agent Linda Avery?"

"She wasn't the first to die. We were headed into the Hunan Province of China. A senior agent called in an 084."

"An object of unknown origin. We've dealt with those before."

"He said the entire village had died trying to protect this one. Avery and I were just fresh out of the Academy. There were five of us running the back-end. Until we lost communication with the first team. We went searching. Found the senior agent under a bridge. He managed to escape with a gunshot wound to the neck, but he bled out. He was still holding on to the 084. Poor thing was covered in blood. We thought she was dead, too. But she was just asleep in the dead agent's arms."

"The baby? The girl was the 084? "

"If she had powers or something, we never witnessed it. The five of us helicoptered the kid out."

Melinda can feel how Phil is turning his attention towards her, but she makes sure to keep her eyes locked on Lumley, it's taking all of her will power not to show any of her feelings in this moment.

"Headed home. After we landed, we started getting crossed off."

"Executed?"

"Tortured. Heads bashed in. When it came down to Avery and I, we realized the only way to keep our people and the kid from being hunted..."

"Was to erase her from existence."

Which didn't help, Melinda wished to add, but she keeps silent. She knows fully well that what ever was trying to get to young Skye had managed, she has the scars to prove that.

"Avery was smart. She used to lead agent's credentials to fake a Level 8 clearance. She'd set up nearly invisible protocol. The foster system was ordered to move the child around every few months."

"But they still got to Avery."

"She died protecting that secret."

"And you left town."

"Oh, I left everything. I mean, whoever killed that kid's family, and all those agents, was a force to be reckoned with."

"That girl..."

Melinda finally speaks up, only to have Lumley lift his hand.

"Don't tell me a damn thing about her. I don't wanna know. You understand? Just tell me... Is she OK?"

"She's safe."

Phil answered the question as Melinda crosses her arms. She can understand that he doesn't want to know anything about her, not after what he has been through to make sure she was safe.

"Then maybe it was all worth it. You taking me in?"

"Yeah."

She says, moving towards the former agent, only to have Phil say no and she turns to look at him.

"I'm not sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is the safest place for you right now. We'll get in the air and drop you somewhere along the route."

He explains and Melinda starts to collect the papers on the table. She should report this to Maria, just to make sure they have some type of eyes on this man.

"Bit of advice. Stop digging. And stay the hell away from that girl. Cause wherever she goes, death follows."

Lumley informs them and Melinda is tempted to laugh, death haven't been following that girl for a long time, Fury had somehow made sure that whatever was following her got scared by the security net that had been created around her and Melinda was going to make sure nothing was to happen to her for as long as she is still breathing.

"It's best no one knows about this. For Skye's safety and ours. You can never tell her."

Melinda informs her long-time friend, adding some of the anger that is still in her in the last five words. Once she is sure that her warning has gone through his thick head, she heads for the cockpit. The faster they can get into the air and out of this place, the quicker they can get to the Academy. She makes sure to land halfway so Lumley could be dropped of before flying off again, the story he had told them is going through her mind as she tries to pick it apart, and what to tell Maria and Victoria and how much of it she should tell Skye. She might have told Phil he's not allowed to tell Skye anything, it doesn't mean the young woman has a right to know what happened to her.

Once they have landed outside of the Academy, all of her thoughts about what had happened that they are gone as the team enters the BUS.

"How could I have been so stupid?"

Hearing Fitz say something like that never meant anything good and things were about to take a turn for the worth. And for the worth it took. With Ian Quinn behind it all and the lost of one life and a bright cadet in custody, nothing about this day had turned into what they had thought.