So I felt like writing a character study for basically every character in last night's episode (2x14 - "Love in the Time of HYDRA"). But Skye was the only one who stuck with me. So here's a little character study of Skye, leading all the way up to this episode and beyond (a bit). I'm really excited to see what happens next episode, especially with the showdown between "new SHIELD" and "real SHIELD". And I'm kind of hoping that the episode after that is where we meet Lincoln for the first time. (Any theories floating around out there?)

Also, I'm not sure how those gloves Simmons made work, other than the electrical shocks, so I improvised a bit. I got a strong "conceal, don't feel" vibe from the isolation and the GLOVES (Elsa, anyone?), so I sort of took some of my ideas from that and put them into words. Tell me what you think!

Anyway, hope you enjoy, and, as always, thanks for reading! Please review!

As a child, Skye enjoyed looking at the stars. The idea that there was something out there, bigger than she was, made moving from home to home in her youth almost bearable. She wasn't sure exactly what made the glimmering lights in the heavens so meaningful to her, but at least it was something she could hold onto.

In her teenage years Skye turned more and more often to technology when she needed a home base, especially after joining the Rising Tide. Instead of distant lights in the sky she had her computer and her community of hacktivists keeping her grounded. No matter where she went, as long as she had internet access, she could find somewhere to belong, could even make a place for herself instead of simply being pushed and pulled by the whims of the world.

Then SHIELD came into the picture and she was forced to grow up in a big way. As much as she had depended on herself, she suddenly had others who seemed to care for her. The Bus might not have been the most conventional home, but it had become more like home than her van had ever felt, the people and relationships giving her more of a foundation than her hacking, her van, or the stars ever had.

There was a trust, a bond they shared together and individually, whether it was going out on an op or playing board games in the lounge, that made it all real, that gave it a meaning beyond a temporary place of residence. Until everything fell apart.

It had started with the discovery of her 084 status, spiraling quickly into the GH serum and its alien origins – secrets she and Coulson were keeping from the rest of the team. All her life she'd been very opposed to secrets, disliking when they were kept from her, but hating how often they were kept from the rest of the world. It was the original reason she'd joined the Rising Tide – to expose the secrets being kept from the world at large, her focus only shifting to SHIELD when she'd dug deep enough to uncover the redacted document about her past.

Then it turned out that her whole existence as a SHIELD agent, consultant, whatever, was a lie as well. It was covering up something much bigger – an entire secret organization hidden inside another secret organization, deep enough to remain hidden for decades. But the results of that secret? The Clairvoyant, Ward's betrayal, the deaths of so many good people who needn't have died. It was an absolute nightmare.

And it only got worse when her father showed up. She uncovered more secrets – her father was a monster who paraded around as a doctor. Her mother had been murdered by a batshit-crazy scientist who vivisected her for his own ends. Said crazy scientist man was only alive and well because of her mother's pain and torment.

But then everything went to hell. Screw any sort of normal life she could have had, since the biggest secret of them all was about to be revealed – yes, she was an 084, but not only that. She was a Kree weapon created for mass destruction and given powers that were meant to only, destroying both herself and others around her in the process. She was different to the core, her DNA scrambled and mutated, her powers set off by the smallest loss of control, and there was nothing she could do about it.

So, as she sat on the porch of the cabin in the woods, surrounded by no electrical lights of any kind, and saw the stars clearly for the first time in a very long while, Skye felt that same worry from her childhood come back to haunt her. When a family had sent her away, every time she had moved house often because of "something she did", there was that feeling of not being good enough. And now, yet again, her family had sent her away because of something she had absolutely no control over. As she'd told Sif, she didn't want to have powers, didn't want to change, but fate or destiny or whatever had thrown it at her like a cannonball to the chest.

Which left her there in the cabin, alone, completely unsure of what the hell she was supposed to do. Lay low? Sure. Shoot an ex in the stomach? Great. But Skye not only functioned best with a family, but with a purpose. And that was falling down around her. She had expected to be pulled from active duty, but removed from the equation entirely? That was a different matter. She didn't even know who she was, who she wanted to be anymore.

She'd been a hacker before that was taken away from her.

Her "Agent of SHIELD" status had lasted for less than twenty-four hours until the organization had been overthrown.

Her place as May's student was gone.

Her friendship with Simmons had one up in flames that hadn't quite burned out.

Her standing with the rest of the team had been crushed the moment she'd come out of the temple alive while Trip was dust and rock on the ground.

Even her relationship with Coulson had changed drastically. She briefly replayed the hug with Coulson before he left for the thousandth time in her mind's eye, and finally realized why it felt different. Sure, he had initiated the hug as he had done in the past, but it wasn't the same solid bear hug she had come to associate with Coulson. It had been gentler, as if he thought that, had he hugged her too tightly, she would break.

It was worse than the walking on eggshells that had been happening for almost a week.

Skye curled her arms tightly around her torso underneath the fleece blanket she'd pulled off the couch, ignoring the shooting pains that ran deep through her arms. The ground around her started to quiver, but she hardly cared anymore. There wasn't anyone to hurt, not one she could injure so far out in the wilderness as she was. Perhaps that was Coulson's idea – give her an outlet, an escape, where she could "find herself". He hadn't seemed to be entirely on board with the idea of the gloves Simmons had created, and Skye wondered if he had an ulterior motive to allow her to discover her limits without restriction.

She looked to the railing on the porch, where she had put the gloves. She'd tried them on, only to take them off seconds later. Even though she'd told herself that the compression was only painful because of the stress fractures in her wrists and arms, if she was honest with herself it felt like she was constricting her ability to breathe, to function, to exist. Skye had assumed that the gloves only functioned when her powers were in effect, but when she tried them on it felt like they were trying to cancel her out, not her powers.

A few tears slipped from her eyes, blurring her vision, and the chair beneath her was trembling perceptibly. She had no idea what to do – whether to relax into the vibrations and let them come, try and suppress them, or something else. Nothing had worked so far, and honestly, was it even worth trying? So she decided to simply ride them out.

The effect was strangely calming, like a rocking chair sensation, or being lulled into oblivion on a long car ride as she had on her travels from one foster home to another. The dark haired girl slowly fell into a deep sleep on the uncomfortable wooden chair, the trembling of the ground slowing to stillness moments after she'd surrendered to unconsciousness.