The call came at two o'clock in the morning because even if SHIELD was no longer SHIELD, the employees of the shattered organization had retained their awful sense of timing. Claire had been annoyed, groaning as the buzzing of her phone against the coffee table jarred her awake from where she passed out on the couch only an hour earlier, the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack playing as her movie marathon came to an end without her having been around for the final leg. Bleary-eyed, she had grunted instead of saying hello.
Five hours and one sunrise later, she was pulling into the medical base. One of the few places not taken down during the civil war (for which she was abundantly grateful), everyone still walked around as if dancing on eggshells. The American flag was the only one remaining on the flagpole in the center of the compound, organization logo painted over on the external wall that greeted visitors to the base. At the front desk, she signed in as only Claire Wise, leaving off the title of Agent that she had grown so accustomed to using despite never having officially earned.
She sat in the waiting room for half an hour before she realized how utterly unprepared she was for his release, knowing better than to greet Felix Blake empty handed. Claiming desperation, she talked her way into gaining access to one of the nurses' break rooms, walls and tiles and countertops as white and drab as everywhere else, but with one notable silver focal point all other rooms lacked: a coffee maker. She made four cups before anything turned out to be the right color, two more after that before she remembered to add the caramel, but by the time she returned to the waiting room, it was ready and steaming, complete with cardboard strip so it would not be too hot in the recovering man's hand.
Even still, she was not ready for the way her heart would leap into her throat at the sound of a wheelchair clattering down the hallway, rising on miraculously steady legs the way a courtroom might greet a judge.
"A--" No, she cut herself off. They were agents no longer.
