Time: Approximately Warehouse 13 early season 3, S.H.I.E.L.D. mid season 1

I own none of the characters for either Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or Warehouse 13. I refuse to put all the dots every time I say SHIELD.

Skye's phone didn't get a lot of incoming calls these days, especially not first thing in the morning when nobody was out on a mission. They were parked at a quiet airfield about an hour outside of Washington while Coulson was in meetings. Everything she was supposed to be monitoring and everything she wasn't supposed to be monitoring was quiet, so she was completely at loose ends and getting antsy. The number was blocked - messing with telemarketers would give her something to do, so she answered the phone.

She found May in the cargo bay handling tools and cable for Fitz, who had disappeared entirely into the walls of the Bus. All Skye could tell her was she needed the day to go help a friend with an alien problem. "She's about an hour away from here. SHIELD has no record of any extraterrestrial activity in the area," she explained, "but she swears her partner's been taken by aliens and she really needs help."

May's raised eyebrow said it all, but she had no good reason to say no. "Take Ward with you," was her only requirement.

Skye bent down to look into the access hatch. "Field trip to look for aliens?" she asked.

"Sure" echoed Fitz' voice, and he started to wriggle his way out.

"Not until you put everything back together," ordered May.

Skye couldn't make out Fitz' grumbling, but he stopped wiggling and the pace of noises behind the wall picked up.

Simmons just smiled and waved when Skye stopped off at the lab to ask if she wanted to come. She was listening in on a exobiology conference, taking tidy lines of notes in a lab notebook.

Ward was in the kitchen with a bagel, reading the news. "You look bored," Skye observed. "Come help me hunt aliens. May said I can't go without you, so please? My friend needs help."

"You have friends?"

"Ha ha. Well, sort of a friend. Someone I know." She trailed off. "Someone I owe a very big favor to. Not Rising Tide, I promise. But that's not the point. Are you coming?"

"As long as we take the SUV and I'm driving."

"Fine, I get shotgun."

"Cargo bay, ten minutes."

Twenty minutes later, Fitz joined the now-impatient Skye and Ward at the SUV. Skye had her laptop and a change of clothes. Ward had his tactical vest and a full complement of firearms. Fitz had a backpack and was dragging a rolling case. At Ward's raised eyebrow, Fitz bristled. "I packed light. Just open the back."

Twenty minutes after that, they were speeding down the Shenandoah Valley, Ward quizzing Skye on evasive driving scenarios and Fitz dozing in the back seat. Claudia's marker on Skye's GPS took them to a surprisingly fancy coffeehouse in a small town near the edge of the valley.

Skye had never met Claudia in person, but the redhead was hard to miss. She was nursing a very large coffee, and had scratches on her arms and face. She smiled when Skye walked in, then looked surprised as Ward and Fitz followed her through the door.

"You said it was an emergency, so I brought backup. Also the boss wouldn't let me out without supervision." She wrinkled her nose and shrugged toward Ward. "Agent Ward, Agent Fitz, meet Claudia."

"I can be Agent Donovan if we're being formal. Did you pick a last name yet?" she asked Skye.

"Nope, still enjoying being rid of the last one." Skye smiled. "We did a good job, even SHIELD couldn't figure out who I was."

"Until we captured you," put in Ward. "I thought this was an emergency?"

"It is," answered Claudia, no longer teasing. "My partner Steve and I were on the way to pick up an item from a cabin about ten miles up into the mountains from here. We were just walking from the car into the woods when this huge wind came out of nowhere."

"Rapid weather changes can be common in mountainous areas," interjected Fitz.

Claudia shot back, "spinning wind, followed by triangular blue lights from the sky? The Weather Channel doesn't report alien abduction forecasts. One of the blue lights was shining on Steve. It got so bright I had to blink, and he was gone. I took off running," she gestured to the scratches on her arms, "kind of fell down a hill, and didn't find my way back to the car until dawn. The car was fine, but Steve hasn't answered his phone since."

She fell silent and everyone looked at her for a moment.

Fitz asked, "Is it just me or does that sound suspiciously like the -"

"First episode of the X-Files." Claudia finished his sentence. "Yes, exactly like that. Eerily like that. Didn't keep it from being terrifying and doesn't mean Steve isn't missing."

"Sitting here isn't going to find anybody. Let's go look and hopefully he's just walking to town with a dead cellphone." Ward got up and headed for the door.

Claudia led them to a trailhead parking area in a clear spot halfway up the mountain. Fitz had spent the drive up scanning for Steve's cellphone with no response, but when they parked he pulled a small hard case out of the back of the SUV. "You didn't bring the dwarves?" asked Skye.

"They're more than we need for this," answered Fitz, unpacking a single tiny helicopter from the case. "Optimus here is a reconfigurable testbed for experimental sensor suites." Claudia watched over his shoulder, curious.

"And what's he for today?" She asked.

"Particle sniffer." He answered. "High-tech hardware. Should be able to track any airborne compounds that don't belong here." The helicopter whirred into the center of the clearing and started spiraling just above ground level.

"Using ground effect to stir up a trail, nice!" approved Claudia.

"Exactly," agreed Fitz. He looked sideways at Claudia, then back at his controls. "And there we have it. That's an Asgardian signature." He looked to Skye. "Do we have a record of any activity here?"

Skye put down her tablet. "Already checked. There's no report from SHIELD of any Bifrost activity since Sif or any active Asgardians anywhere in the U.S." She shifted attention to Claudia. "Why would Asgardians want your partner?"

Claudia looked pointedly casual. "Is this something Asgardians do a lot?" Skye noticed she was evading questions

"No, just the opposite." Fitz put in. "They show up here whenever they bloody want but none of us get to see Asgard."

Claudia asked, "Is there some way we contact them and ask for him back?"

Before anyone could answer, Fitz' drone exploded, spraying tiny burning shrapnel high into the leaves. Fitz' indignant shout was answered by a barrage of energy bolts coming from somewhere in the woods. Claudia grabbed for her Tesla, but fumbled it as Ward knocked her to the ground. "Stay down," he hissed. Silently he signaled Skye and tossed her his holdout gun. She nodded and he slid off into the woods toward their attacker.

Claudia looked over to Fitz, who had no weapon or cover but had hidden himself nearly invisibly in the leaves. She pointed to her dropped Tesla, and he began to inch over toward where Claudia and Skye hunched behind the SUV. He snagged the gun on the way, and finally allowed himself a deep breath when he reached Claudia. "That part of my field assessment I passed!" He said quietly but triumphantly, pointing at Skye for emphasis, and then started digging through his bag. Several unrecognizable metal pieces, a notebook stuffed with Post-Its, and a sandwich in a plastic bag spilled out onto the asphalt. "Aha!" He pulled out a surprisingly large gun. He went to pass Claudia hers, then noticed what he was holding. His pupils dilated with excitement as he focused on the Tesla. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Hand it over, mister grabby." She had to tug to get it back from him. "Tesla gun. Show and tell comes after Steve is safe. Not while we're being shot at by Asgardians."

He stopped and thought a second. "Actually, that's not likely. They prefer giant medieval weapons, glowing runes, sometimes giant lava blasts. Generally indistinguishable from magic. If I didn't know better, I'd say this looked Chitauri."

The forest fell silent as the barrage shut off, the shush of pine needles drifting from the broken trees suddenly audible. The three huddled behind the SUV until Ward came back for them. "The area's clear, but you're going to want to see this." His gaze fixed on Fitz, who immediately stuffed the sandwich back in his bag. Ward just winced and took off into the woods.

When they caught up with him, he was standing over a Chitauri warrior lying mostly intact on the forest floor. Fitz dug a pair of gloves out of his pack and started searching the body. Claudia pulled out her own and knelt next to him. "What are we looking for?"

Fitz detached the Chitauri's faceplate. "Clues. We know they don't show up alone. So why is this guy here by himself?" The search moved from the head down to the chest, which was clotted with unidentifiable goo. Both Fitz and Claudia recoiled, and looked at each other. Fitz said, "I really hate the squishy parts. Simmons usually deals with this." Across the clearing, Ward snorted at his squeamishness. Fitz took offense. "I can verify that it's dead, but that's as much exobiology as you get out of me."

"Don't look at me," responded Claudia. "You're the alien expert."

Fitz' face twisted as he looked back at the slimy mess. "Expert, right. I don't do bodies, I do mechanics. Flip it over and we'll check the tech first."

Halfway down the spine, he was audibly confused, his internal dialogue breaking into running commentary. "That's not right," he mused, prodding the creature's back as Claudia continued removing armor panels. "The implants are all wrong. Half are missing and the rest aren't connected to anything."

"Maybe it's a different kind than the ones that attacked New York."

"That might explain how it can function on its own, but not why it has implants that make no sense."

"Do you actually know what they all should do?"

"About sixty percent of them have to do with communications and situational awareness, twenty percent with environmental controls, another fifteen percent with weapons systems. There were only a handful we couldn't figure out."

"What if this is a scout type? Less communications, less weapons, more stealth?"

"That's . . . not a bad idea, but look! Look at this!" He twisted a piece protruding from the Chitauri's arm and it slid out with a small sucking pop. "It's not even attached! It falls right out!"

Skye squeaked, and everyone turned to look. She was horrified by the alien goo, but delighted at Fitz and Claudia getting along so well. Not everybody got him, but Claudia took him right in stride. "I am so telling on you when we get back to the Bus. You're totally Fitzsimmonsing with another girl."

Fitz clamped his mouth shut and glared at Skye. "Would you all please focus?" hissed Ward. "We're too exposed here for this. Honestly, who trained you people?"

Fitz and Skye responded simultaneously, "You," and Claudia added "nobody." Ward ground his teeth, and the only word Skye could catch through his growl was "babysitting."

Distraction over, Claudia turned back to the alien corpse to find it gone. Body, armor pieces, and blood were gone, leaving just an indentation in the leaves.

Fitz recoiled, falling back and dropping the piece he was holding. It skittered into the leaf litter and was gone as well.

"So we have an episode of the X-files, Asgardians that left a trail without being there, then a Chitauri that makes no sense and doesn't exist anymore." Claudia summarized what they knew. Fitz looked angry, and even Ward's blandness was starting to look a bit strained. Claudia, however, looked more confident the weirder things got. "Let's get back to somewhere safer so Skye and I can do our magic. I think this may be in my wheelhouse after all."

Ward fell in next to Skye on the walk back to the car. Fitz and Claudia pulled away, deep in discussion about possible solutions to the ongoing problems he was having replicating the dendrotoxin grenades Centipede had used so effectively against them.

"None of this makes any sense. She's not telling us something important, and this doesn't bother you?" Ward asked Skye.

"She's in the business of the weird and unexplainable. If what we're dealing with is magic, she's going to know what to do better than we will."

"And you're not going to tell me any more than that?"

"Need to know, Agent Ward," Skye smirked at him. "It's not my secret to tell."

Back at the coffee house, Claudia explained to the others what they needed to be looking for. "The item we need to find causes aliens to appear, but only what the person using it believes about aliens. Whoever has it knows enough about Asgard and Chitauri to make them show up here, but not enough for all the details to be right. That should be enough for us to find him or her, and let's hope they're not thinking about anything scarier than E.T." She cut off arguments from both Fitz and Ward, "You two just sit there and look pretty. Hackers got this." She and Skye bumped fists.

Fifteen minutes of Skye and Claudia's two-pronged attack on the SHIELD benefits system and Virginia property records singled out Mary Carroll, a former SHIELD Communications employee with a last known address right up the road. Skye went with Claudia to ring the doorbell, the two of them realizing at the last minute that neither of them had any official affiliation or badge to present. A tired-looking woman in her thirties answered the door, and Claudia led off with the simple truth. "Ms. Carroll, there have been a number of alien sightings in this area lately. If you know anything about them, we might be able to help."

Mary Carroll stared at them long enough for what Skye was beginning to recognize as a standard SHIELD threat assessment, then coldly invited them in. "Of course it's aliens again," she complained. "All my life it's been aliens, aliens, aliens. I joined SHIELD all excited to know the truth, to do my part to protect the earth. Five years I wrote reports and filed papers in the most boring office in D.C. Then I finally got my chance, transferred to the Helicarrier. Sure I was still writing reports, but I was doing it where things actually happened, you know?" Claudia and Skye nodded politely, Skye cringing inside as she realized where the story was going. "Not even two weeks after I got there came Loki's attack. I broke my leg when the engines went out. The guy I was dating was one of the engine techs - they never found his body. I quit the day my feet hit ground again and I never want anything to do with aliens again. I still have nightmares." She seemed to be done talking, so Skye asked, "That explains the last five years, but how was it aliens before that?"

Mary sighed. "My grandfather saw UFOs back in the 1940s, and became a celebrity for it. It was a point of family pride, something my father never let us forget. They were so proud when I got into the Academy - Carrolls were once again on the front line of vigilance against the unknown. That's nearly a quote, by the way.

"They gave me that picture when I graduated." She gestured toward a shadowbox display next to the fireplace. "I almost want to take it down. Granddad wouldn't be proud of me anymore." Claudia got up to look at the picture, while Skye looked for a way to reassure Mary.

"Five years of SHIELD service is nothing to be ashamed of. You were part of a team that saved lives, part of a team that turned back the largest alien invasion ever! How could anyone be disappointed by that? I'm honored to be a part of it."

Mary eyed Skye, who flushed slightly. "You didn't show a badge. Not SHIELD protocol. And she's definitely not SHIELD," she added, nodding toward Claudia.

"I'm just a consultant now," Skye said. "But I'm learning, and I'm going to be an agent."

That got a tight smile from Mary. "Hang onto that enthusiasm, kid. You find something interesting over there?" She asked Claudia, who was examining the photos minutely.

"Maybe. Do you own anything of your grandfather's? Anything he might have had with him when he saw a flying saucer or talked to people about it?"

"There's a compass he always used to keep with him. He used to hold it up to show people how large the UFOs looked, just the size of the needle at his arm's length. It's not magnetic anymore, but I've still got it."

Claudia smiled. "May I see it? This is going to sound very strange, but it may be what's causing the alien sightings around here." She slipped a foil bag out of her pocket while Mary was getting the compass. "Why does it always have to be compasses? Things freak me out," she said to Skye while Mary was out of earshot. "We have a history," she added. That didn't explain anything to Skye, but Mary was back and there was no time to ask for an explanation.

The piece was a military compass with AC inscribed inside the cover. "Don't freak out, I'm going to test this," Claudia warned Mary and Skye. She carefully lowered the compass into the bag, where it sparked and fizzed. Artifact bagged, with no ping and no intel from Artie. She couldn't wait to see his face when she handed it over, but first she had to get it out of there and find Steve.

Mary cut her off before she could ask, "Take it. I don't want it anymore." She looked over to Skye. "You're right, I did my part, I was part of the team, and maybe I can forgive myself now. And the last thing I want to see is any more aliens."

"It might help with the nightmares too," added Claudia.

"If only," responded Mary flatly. "Now, if that's what you came for, I think I'd like my peace and quiet back. I hope it helps."

"So do I," said Skye, and they headed back to the door.

Halfway down the sidewalk, Claudia's phone rang. She beamed as she saw the caller ID. "Jinksy! Where you at?"

Before picking up Steve from parking lot where he'd disappeared, Claudia wanted to pick up the Artifact she'd come for in the first place. Mary Carroll's next-door neighbor had a truly impressive James Bond memorabilia collection, which is what had attracted Artie's notice in the first place. Claudia disappeared into the trophy room with a wrapped package and emerged with a fishing pole swaddled in purple plastic. Walking back to the car, Skye asked, "So what's this one do and what was a fishing pole doing in a James Bond man-cave?"

"It belonged to Ian Fleming, you know, the author? It supposedly attracts dangerous women."

"Seriously?" Skye thought about Agent May and the Black Widow for a second, then broke into giggles. "We'd better not tell the guys, then. SHIELD must never know about this."

Back at the coffeehouse and under the influence of chocolate chip cookies, Steve Jinks didn't have much to tell. He remembered lights and wind but couldn't account for the twelve hours he'd been missing. "Probably better that way," Claudia assured him.

While Claudia and Skye chattered about common online acquaintances and the difficulty of keeping up with the hacking state of the art, Ward and Jinks eyed each other suspiciously and Fitz took copious notes about Claudia's Tesla. His fingers were twitching to take it apart, but Skye smacked the screwdriver out of his hand every time he forgot himself.

Jinks got up from the table but Claudia snagged his elbow on the way past. "Ants in your pants, Jinksy?"

He responded in a low voice. "I've been around deep-cover agents before, and everything out of their mouths is at least partly a lie. Talking with him is just too uncomfortable. I'm going to take a walk."

"Yeah, it's fine. I'll be out in a minute and we can get going." She turned to Skye, clearly understanding that conversation had sounded weird but not prepared with an explanation.

"It's cool. It's been really nice to see you. Maybe we can manage a visit sometime without having to defeat aliens or rescue anyone. I'll look you up if we're ever in South Dakota." She smirked, knowing Claudia had hidden her location well and not just anybody would know where she was living.

"Given how much you move around, you've got to stop there one of these days. I'll show you all the highlights of glamorous Univille." Claudia smirked right back. The two girls shared a hug and the Warehouse and SHIELD teams went their separate ways.

Just as the SHIELD SUV was pulling back onto the Interstate, Skye's phone rang again. She turned on the speaker to answer. "Hey Simmons, what's up?"

"Skye, where is everyone? You said you wanted to watch Aliens with your friends today, but you're not here and May said you took Fitz and Ward with you. I've got the movie - are you going to be back soon?"

Skye suppressed a giggle. "I think Aliens would be a very bad choice for tonight. Pick something else and we'll be there in an hour."