[orientation part 2: season 5, episode 2]
*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*

        Deke turned to Coulson, "The others, they're still on the trawler right?"

"Yeah should be, they were gonna try and send a message to Earth," Coulson answered.

Rose and Deke sent each other panicked looks, "They're not gonna be able to get anything out. I mean, nothing lives on the surface, it's completely desolate," Rose explained. "We should get to them before the Kree do, without Metrics, they'll probably get thrown in a cell again."

"Good plan," Deke commented. "Let's go."

The three of them rushed down to the level of the lighthouse where the entrance to the trawler was right in time to see Jemma and May climbing out of the trap door.

"This is earth!" May said quickly.

"We're in the future," Coulson said at the same time as her.

"It's all destroyed," Jemma said sadly. "Coulson, please, tell me it's impossible."

Coulson sighed, "I think we can all agree at this point that anything is possible," Coulson admitted. "Glad you're alright." He turned to Deke and Rose, who were standing there awkwardly. "Your guy, Virgil, he didn't tell you anything else about his plan to bring us back from the future?"

"I'm just still trying to fit all these ideas inside my skull," Deke hissed.

Coulson looked at Rose, expectantly. "Oh, don't look at me. I already told you guys everything I knew before we got captured by the Kree. I know nothing else, I swear."

"So you haven't heard anything about a gateway? A rock that transports people?" Coulson said, trying to jog their memory.

"If I had, do you think we'd still be here," Deke said gesturing between him and the girl standing next to him.

"There was no second monolith when I landed on Maveth," Jemma said, which did not make any sense to Rose, who was still utterly clueless.

"So we'll have to find our way back," May said nodding.

Jemma blinked, "Well I'm a biologist, but sure, I can invent time travel. Just give me a minute," she said sarcastically.

"Well without some miracle, then we're stuck here, and we need to stay alive," Coulson said, as the whole group looked back over to Deke and Rose.

"Oh, and you, you, you all want us to help you with that, yeah," Deke said shaking his head. "Well that's a big surprise," he said digging into his pocket. "All I can offer you is these." He said pulling a pile of metrics out of his hand. "Who's first?"

May looked horrified, "You think I'm gonna let you do that to anyone else!" she said loudly.

"You are lucky that I am even offering," Deke retorted. "The only way to not die is to blend in and work hard, and you can't do either of those things without these," he placed the metrics in Coulson's hand.

Rose bit her lip, "Deke, here me out, okay. If we help them, right? The sooner we help them not die, the sooner they can return to their time, and life here will be back to normal. Right, I mean, they'll get killed out there by themselves," she said quickly. "No offense," she added tilting her head at the group.

"They almost got you killed!" he hissed.

Rose shook her head, "No they didn't. I'm fine."

"Yeah, what would the Kree guards have done with you before I showed up," Deke said quietly. "Probably tore you limb from limb, Rose, they hate it when people questioned their authority."

"You don't think I know that," Rose responded, just as quiet. "Look, all I'm saying is that, if we help them blend in. The less likely we are to get into more trouble, and then they will be out of our way. Life as normal, right?"

Deke sighed, knowing that the brunette was right. He glanced back at the other three behind them. "Come on," he said to them, as they began to walk throughout the hallway.

"What do they do, track us?" Coulson asked as they lead the group down the hallway. "I don't think we want that."

"I don't think you have a choice," Deke responded coldly.

"Deke?!" A voice behind them called. "Deke, Rose? Is that you guys?"

A short brunette which curly brown hair rounded the corner. She was carrying a pipe in her right hand, twirling it around as she walked up to the group. It was Tess, another one of Rose and Deke's friends who lived on the lighthouse.

"Tess, yeah, sure, join the fray," Deke said, annoyed.

"You took out the damn trawler?" she accused Deke. "I know you didn't Rose," she added as she patted Rose on the back. "But Deke, on the other hand, it seems like the exact thing he would do." Tess looked around. "Where's Virgil? If you lifted off in that thing without.." Tess stopped talking, noticing the looks that Rose and Deke were sending each other.

"What?" Tess asked. "What's wrong with your faces?"

"I'm sorry," Coulson chimed in. "Virgil's gone."

Tears began to well in Tess's eyes, she blinked. "This true?" she asked Deke and Rose.

"Yes, I'm so sorry Tess," Rose expressed, she knew how much Virgil meant to Tess.

"How-" Tess started.

"Roaches got him on three," Deke said.

Tess's sadness turned to anger. "What was he doing on three, Deke?" she asked. "That's supposed to be a sealed-off level," she asked pushing Deke in the chest.

"This wasn't mine-" Deke started but Tess cut him off, enraged at his actions.

"What did you get him into?!" she asked angrily, pushing him once more.

"Guys, stop," Rose said to the pair, but their fighting continued.

"I- he hired me," Deke said.

Tess shoved him again, harder this time, "What?"

"Listen-" Deke said, getting her to stop shoving him. "He hired me to hide these people," he explained, gesturing to Coulson, May, and Jemma.

"From where?" Tess asked.

"Well, that's the thing. Remember all that deranged garbage Virgil was always spouting about people arriving from the past," Deke said in a hushed voice. "I think you're looking at them."

"Not think," Rose corrected him. "We know. I mean the names are the same and everything. They're real, Tess."

Tess scoffed, surveying the other three in the room, "That's insane," she concluded.

"Doesn't mean it's not true," May spoke up.

"We came through a gateway, some sort of temporal shift," Jemma explained.

"I don't want to believe it either," Deke started. "But look at their clothes. They got matching buttons. Not exactly locals," he pointed out.

"And they're practically spotless," Rose added. "I mean, when is the last time you've had a perfectly clean shirt since you were born."

Tess raised her eyebrow, it was obvious that she thought the pair were joking and messing with her. "How can we prove it to you?" Coulson asked her. He reached into his pocket a pulled out a shiny quarter, the cleanest coin Rose had ever seen. "Here, it's from last year," he said holding out his hand, so Tess could examine it. "Still shiny."

But Tess looked past the coin and directly at Coulson's wrist. "You don't have a Metric," she said stunned. "Never did." She looked between Rose and Deke, and then back at the agents in front of her. "That's, too weird. Virgil said you'd be Agents of-"

"S.H.I.E.L.D," Coulson finished for her. "Pleased to meet you."

"Then there should be more of you," Tess stated.

Rose nodded "There is," she said. "I've met them, they just got separated after the attack on level three."

"Yeah, there's one girl that went to go pry the others away from the Kree guards," Deke informed Tess.

"You let them go face the blues!" Tess exclaimed.

Deke shook his head, "I didn't let them d-" he exploded. Deke took a deep breath, not wanting to yell at his friend. "They do whatever they want," he hissed. "It's like herding rats."

"Just go get them," Tess said exasperated.

"Me?" Deke questioned, trying not to laugh at the idea. "No!" he said instantly. "No," he repeated. "Think again."

Rose sighed, "Deke, come on, remember what I said earlier."

"Yes, I know what you said earlier," Deke responded. "But- I've, I've changed my mind. They are radioactive," he said pointing wildly to Jemma, Coulson, and May. "Virgil already got himself wasted. I intend to learn something from his vacancy."

Rose reached for his hand, "Deke, stop, we have to help these people."

"No, Rosie, we don't. We don't owe them anything. Sometimes you need to worry about your own skin more than others. You can't save everyone, and you shouldn't" Deke said harshly, relinquishing her grasp, starting to walk away.

Rose staggered backward but didn't say anything. She knew he didn't mean it, he was probably just reacting to Virgil's death in a different way than everyone else was, but still, those words made her heart hurt, and she wasn't sure why. "What the hell is wrong with you!" she said loudly.

"Nothing," he replied. "I don't care what happens to them, okay so I'm done with helping these people. You should make the same choice, Rosie." He continued to walk away, effectively ending the conversation.

"I'll double his price," Tess said.

Deke turned back around to face her, "You don't even know the number that you just agreed to," he sighed and walked back towards the group. "You," he said to Tess. "Stash these people, you make them blend in. I'll see if I can, talk the others out of certain death," he pushed past them in a hurry.

Rose frowned at the silhouette of the retreating man. "Go with him," Tess said to her quietly. "Rose, you are the only person I know that can talk him out of doing something stupid. Just go, he didn't mean what he said."

"It sounded like he meant it," Rose said, watching the spot where Deke disappeared. "I just don't understand why he's acting like this."

"He's just being a dumbass, like always," Tess reminded her.

Rose sighed, "You're right," she admitted quietly. "Just stay safe, okay? I don't wanna see you get hurt either, Tess."

"I won't, just make sure your other idiot friend doesn't die either," Tess added, pushing her lightly towards the direction that Deke retreated towards.

Rose followed the brown-haired man throughout the corridor, "Deke!" she called.

Deke turned around, and sighed, "You should've stayed behind, Rosie," he said, not looking at the girl behind him.

"No!" she said furiously. "What is this Deke, do you not trust me?" she asked him, quickening her pace to keep up with his strides. "Seriously, what did I do to earn this coldness? You weren't like this ten minutes ago. So why now, it's like something clicked in your brain and now you're shutting me, your best friend, out for no reason."

"I'm not shutting you out," he said instantly. "I just thought about it, and Rosie you could've died, trying to save those people on level three," Deke expressed, looking down at her. "You could've ended up just like Virgil, and maybe you're fine with that, but I'm not. I've lost too much, and I'm not gonna lose you to a bunch of strangers."

"But I'm not dead right now. I'm very much alive, okay?" Rose persisted. "You don't need to worry about me, Deke."

"It's my job to worry about you," Deke stated. "And it's very much a full-time job. As you said earlier, you're my best friend, and it was my fault that I pulled you into this job, and I couldn't stand the thought of you getting hurt because of something I dragged you into," he said quickly.

Rose titled her head at him, stopping in the middle of the hallway. "It's not your fault, I agreed to it okay, and I'm not going to get hurt. I can protect myself as I did on floor three, I don't need someone to rescue me. Promise, so are we good now?"

"Yeah, we're good, we were always good," Deke clarified. "I think they're stuck in here," he said, whipping open a door to their right.

The room looked extremely cold, covered with frost and bits of ice. Rose instantly press her arms to her chest, "Shit," she breathed as Deke shut the door behind them.

Out of nowhere, someone ran at them with an axe. "No, no, no, no!" a voice said instantly. "They're alright, they're alright." Rose looked up to see Daisy Johnson, standing on the upper level of the room.

The girl lowered the axe, it was Elena. "Oh," she said recognizing Rose instantly. "It's the girl from earlier."

"Yeah, hi," Rose said, giving her a small nod.

"How did you get that Keeper's axe?" Deke asked Elena. "Please tell me he was sweet on you," he snapped, walking over towards Daisy. He looked down at the ground in front of her. "You killed a Kree?" he asked her.

Rose peered around the corner, and sure enough, there was a dead blue body laying in front of Daisy's feet. "Oh, god, this is not good," she said quickly. "By being here, we aiding and abetting in their crimes. Fuck, we're dead."

"We had no choice," Daisy explained. "It was either us or them."

"Well, you made the wrong choice," Deke stated.

"Is there gonna be a problem?" Mack asked from the corner. Rose looked over at him, and there was another body of a dead Kree next to his knee.

"Two?" Deke practically shouted. "You killed two? It's only a problem for the people they will kill in retaliation."

Rose took a deep breath in, "Okay, okay. It's gonna be fine, just everyone stay calm, we'll figure someone out," she said, more to herself than the others.

"Rosie, this isn't gonna end well," Deke told her. "We've got to cover this up."

"What do you think we're doing?" Elena asked.

"We could just make it look like an accident," Daisy suggested.

"That's a good idea," Rose responded. "Accidents happen all of the time here, it's believable and easy to stage."

"Okay, if you move this here-"

"Shut up!" Deke exclaimed. "Just let me think."

Mack looked up, "Wait a minute," he started. "What if we leave them upstairs with the other bodies. Use the elevator."

Deke closed his mouth, thinking deeply about Mack's proposal. "We can't exactly be seen in the lift with a pair of dead guards."

"Well, maybe we don't use the elevator," Mack said.

"Alright, well, I hope you saved some of your energy there, Tiny," Deke commented snarkily. Rose sniffled a laugh, Mack was anything but tiny.

Mack grabbed the bodies of the Kree, and swung one over his shoulder, as he dragged the other one behind him.

"Okay, so the elevator is approximately fifty feet from the room we are in now," Rose said, pulling out a blueprint from a pocket of her utility jumper and laying it out in front of her on the ground. "So, all we have to do is make sure the pair is clear for you to drag those two into the lift, and boom, no more dead blues," she said finally.

Deke looked down at her, stunned, "When did you have time to make that?" he asked.

"I have a lot of free time on my hands, Deke," the brunette replied smiling. "Plus, it's the best way to know your way around the lighthouse. I basically have every floor mapped off, besides those that are sealed off to the human population. Which is why I don't have the third floor mapped out, but I digress," she explained rolling up the blueprint and sticking it back into her pocket. "They come in handy."

"Okay, Sunshine, let's hope your map is accurate," Mack said, opening the door and marching out into the hallway. Rose was a little confused by the nickname, but she brushed it off. It wasn't the worst thing someone's called her.

Mack easily made his way through the hallway and into the elevator in about thirty seconds. The other four trailed behind him, Rose and Deke looking behind the group, making sure that no one was following them. Once they had decided they were in the clear, they entered the elevator with the others.

Mack opened up the small hatch, Rose really didn't know how to describe it, and pushed the bodies of the Kree inside. The five of them looked up. "Great," Daisy expressed, sighing.

"You couldn't have told us there was a skylight," Mack asked Deke and Rose.

"What's a skylight?" Deke asked, confused by Mack's terminology.

"Yeah, I've always called that a hatch," Rose said scowling at the outlines of the bodies. "Like a see-through hatch."

"Oh boy," Mack said quietly as the elevator began to move upwards. "It is what it is."

The elevator shrieked to a halt, as the door opened slowly. "Okay, let's get them down and haul ass across this hallway," Rose said instantly.

And that's exactly what they did. Mack holding one of the bodies, pulling it behind him with ease. While Deke held the other one. Rose would've offered to help them, but she had a personal rule about touching dead bodies. And that rule was that she would never, ever do that, so she lingered behind the group.

"We've got to come up with a better system," Mack complained. "Cause I'm not doing this every time we take out a Kree."

"The system is, 'No more dead Kree!" Deke said loudly. "We're two past minimum. Hopefully, the bodies are still warm enough for the roaches to take 'em."

"The door should be the first on the right," Rose said.

Deke nodded, "Yeah, right here," he said stopping in front of a small door. "That's the door."

Rose waited outside as the four stuffed the bodies into the room with the roaches, it seemed like Daisy was lingering behind a bit. "Daisy the door," Mack said, wanting her to close the door.

Daisy appeared at the sound of her name, shutting the door quickly.

"Daisy?" Deke said looking at the girl in front of him. "Pretty name, like the flower?" he asked.

"Does that line work in the future?" Daisy asked him, a hint of laughter in her voice.

"I guess not," Deke mumbled to himself.

Daisy turned to Rose, as they began to walk back to the elevator, "He ever use that line on you?" she asked casually.

"Hmm, what?" Rose asked, a little confused.

"Well, your name is Rose, which is also a flower, so I'm just wondering if he tried that with you at all," Daisy said.

"Oh, oh! Me, no, no," Rose said quickly shaking her head. "No, he would never," she added.

"Huh," Daisy sounded, a little surprised at the girl's response. "Well, I would if I were him, you're gorgeous," she admitted.

"Thank you," Rose said smiling.

Rose didn't understand why Daisy was saying this. She acted as if there was something happening between the two friends. Daisy seemed like she knew something that Rose didn't, but Rose brushed it off as one of the weird things that the group would say in the past. Besides, her and Deke, that was a crazy idea, right?

loving you's the anecdote,
golden ☼