Jiaying composed herself in the space of a breath. The years had made her very good at that.
"Welcome, Mr. Smith." She stepped back from the doorway. "And your guest?"
Smith said, "This is Skye. Based on what my investigation has turned up, she's very likely your and Hyde's daughter."
Jiaying's attention snagged on the second half of that sentence. "You know Hyde?"
"I do. Is he here at Afterlife?"
"He visited recently. He's back in the compound." Jiaying glanced toward the window briefly, something turning over behind her eyes. "He'll want to know about this. He'll want to see her."
Skye stood just inside the doorway, taking in the cabin, the woman, the scars running along Jiaying's jaw and cheek. She was running some kind of internal calculation — looking for resemblance, bracing for disappointment — and not entirely managing to hide it.
Jiaying crossed the room to her. She stopped close and studied Skye's face with the careful attention of someone reading a document they had been waiting a very long time to find. Her eyes moved from the line of Skye's jaw to the shape of her brow, back again.
"You have features from both of us," she said quietly. "The resemblance is there. I'm quite certain, but —"
"We should confirm it properly," Gordon said from behind them. He was already holding a small collection kit. "May I?"
Skye extended her hand without hesitation. Gordon pricked her fingertip, collected the sample with practiced efficiency, and withdrew.
Smith settled onto the sofa and reached for the fruit bowl on the side table, content to let the room breathe without him in it.
Jiaying took Skye's hand and led her to the chairs by the window. "The results won't take long. While we wait —" She paused, choosing the right starting place. "You were born in China. Your father ran a clinic. We were happy, the three of us, for a very short time."
Skye's throat moved. She could feel the shape of the life she'd never had, rendered suddenly in a few words. "Then how did I —"
"You weren't lost," Jiaying said. "You didn't wander off. A team came to our home and took you."
Skye's brow pulled together. "I was a baby. Why would anyone —" She stopped. Followed Jiaying's gaze across the room to where Smith was calmly working through a piece of fruit, apparently uninvested in the conversation.
Smith looked up. "Go ahead. Tell her everything." He set down the fruit. "My team is already moving. Whitehall will be in custody shortly."
Jiaying looked back at Skye. "They were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."
The color shifted slightly in Skye's face. "S.H.I.E.L.D.?" She shook her head slowly. "That doesn't — they're supposed to be —"
"Organizations are not their mission statements," Jiaying said. "An institution is just people, and people cover the full range. There are good ones and bad ones inside every structure, including that one." She glanced at Smith again briefly, confirming she hadn't overstepped. His expression didn't change. "Mr. Smith himself is proof that the institution has people worth trusting. So is Agent Coulson. But the people who came for you were not those people."
Skye sat with that. She thought about Coulson in the coffee shop, the easy humor, the genuine patience he'd extended without needing anything back from her. She thought about Ward standing at attention like Smith had reached down from a ceiling and handed him a reason to exist. She nodded slowly.
"Why did they want me?" she asked. "I was an infant."
"Because of what you come from." Jiaying straightened slightly. "When they came, keeping people like us hidden was still a matter of survival. The world didn't have public superhumans yet — no Avengers, no televised tournaments. What we were, we kept quiet and protected fiercely." She held Skye's gaze. "I am what some people are now calling enhanced. What we call ourselves is something different. We are Inhumans."
Skye blinked. "Inhumans."
"A people," Jiaying said. "Not a condition. We have different DNA — specific genes that distinguish us from baseline humans. Those genes don't announce themselves. They need to be activated through a specific process. Without that activation, you would never know what you carry." She paused. "Which means the absence of abilities doesn't mean the absence of potential."
Skye had started to draw breath to say she didn't have powers, that maybe the whole thing was a mistake. The words died before they formed. She stared at Jiaying.
"So I might —"
"You carry our blood," Jiaying said simply. "What happens after that depends on whether you choose to find out."
The Austrian branch's finance department was quiet in the way that rooms go quiet when the people inside them know they're being watched. Sharon Carter's team was already spread through the floor, pulling records systematically, saying nothing unnecessary.
At the front of the building, Daniel Whitehall had led the three of them inside with a smile that had been constructed years ago for exactly this kind of situation and had not once been allowed to slip.
He was confident. He had spent two days running containment, and the account that would be found was a clean one — clean enough, at any rate. The things that actually mattered had no paper trail because he had made sure of that personally, every time, for thirty years.
Natasha shook his hand in the lobby. Her grip was professional, her smile was professional, the whole thing was professional. He appreciated professionals.
"I'm not sure this is a spring breeze," she said.
Barbara, standing at her shoulder, said, "Let's hope you're still smiling when we leave."
Whitehall absorbed both of those without visible reaction. He gestured toward the corridor. "Whatever you need. Finance is on the third floor. Archives are in the basement. My door is open."
The three teams dispersed. Sharon took finance. Barbara took archives. Natasha's people fanned through the building and took the corners.
Natasha took Whitehall's office.
He poured two whiskeys without being asked, which told her something. A man who anticipated the social gesture before it was requested was a man who had done a great deal of high-stakes entertaining. He set one glass in front of her and settled into the chair across the desk.
"Try it," he said. "It's a good one."
Natasha picked it up and drank. It was, in fact, excellent whiskey. She set the glass down and looked at him pleasantly.
Whitehall turned his own glass in his fingers. "I have a question, if you'll indulge me."
"Go ahead."
"Have I somehow managed to offend the Inspector General?"