Prompt: What if…. Skye's 0-8-4 origins are awakened, trigger by her instinct to survive as a gun is pointed at her? T.R.A.C.K.S taken in an alternative route…
Like a deer, she found herself staring at the barrel of the gun like a deer would headlights, unable to pull her gaze. She felt her frame freeze as her spirit seemed to lift from her body, as if she were a ghost watching her own death.
She awaited the gun shot, the crack in the atmosphere that would certainly deafen her, but it never came.
"What… the…"
He pressed down on the trigger again, aiming lower than before as his eyes focus on the gun, unable to figure out why it had jammed. It was no ordinary weapon, and yet, it was unable to fire as if it were any ordinary Glock. He shook it in his hand, hoping to shake back into place, aiming at her heart once more before just as before, the trigger refused to budge.
Skye breathed out a sigh of relief, a short one, though, as she was still in proximity of imminent danger, but at least she counted on not dying via firearm. Her wide doe eyes searched desperately for an escape, glancing towards the cracked door to her left leading to the stairway upstairs.
Just run for it Skye! She ordered herself but her feet were shaken, unable to move no matter how much her mind protested her vulnerable state. She tried to shift the weight of her feet but the heavy paralysis was too much, and she found herself once again the weakest link of the team, so useless she couldn't even move.
Resorting to plan B, he tossed the gun aside, and her eyes strayed for a second to watch it glide under the container Mike had emerged from moments ago, before flashing towards the new movement of Quinn charging forward.
Stupid Skye! She screamed at herself but the scream that left her lips was cut short, leaving only her pale lips widely ajar. Quinn's hands had wrapped around her throat, cutting her air supply, but she wasn't stupid enough to accept this as her demise. She would fight this for as long as she could, counting on the quick response of her trusted team. She had to play her part, and that meant distracting him long enough to spare them the time they desperately needed.
She thrashed, ducking low to throw off Quinn's aim, but his upper arm strength held her up high, leaving her to rely on her clawing hands. He kept his face out of reach and her nails barely scraped his cheek. She kicked low, aiming between his legs, and that rendered him incapacitated for the few seconds she needed as he doubled over to tend to his agonizing groin.
Now physically able to move with adrenaline rushing through her veins, she took her opportunity to run, no longer bound by paralysis that had frozen her reaction time. She still felt slow, climbing the staircase, with the sweat lining the back of her neck as she pictured Quinn not far behind her. Her thundering heartbeat pounded in her head, silencing any noise outside the panic of her mind. She turned to the main entry, hoping it would be cleared, as she did not any more time to spare and needed a direct exit.
Unfortunately, her luck had dwindled and she found herself in the target range of a dozen or so more pistols, aiming right at her face. One gun was one thing, and even then she would have been a goner had it not jammed, but this would certainly be her undoing, her final moment before darkness –or whatever afterlife –consumed her.
But, the adrenaline was still hot in veins, and the fighter under her clammy flesh was had fervent as ever. Call is delusional is she must, but she was grateful that she felt some sort of hope under her panicked heart pattering, however false it was. She would not die broken, she assured herself. She would die proud, she would die fighting with ever laboring breath. She would do her team justice. She would do right by her S. O. and prove their hours of labor and intense training did not go in vein.
She may die, she decided, but she wouldn't go easily.
Time stood still, the overwhelming silence looming over their heads like heavy suspense, ready for something massive to drop, but nothing followed.
Not a bullet.
Not a yell.
Wide eyes searched one another, and then to the guns, that had miraculously been disabled. Just like Quinn, the guards had waved their weapons, hoping the quick fix would reset their hand guns, but still, to no avail.
One of them discarded their weapon and came at her, and she narrowed her eyes, set with a fierce determination that had been scraping from inside to get out and reveal her inner ferocity.
They were caught off guard when the gun that had been disabled suddenly discharged, piercing his leg. He screamed and chaos erupted from the soil of confusion. They aimed their weapons but the firearms themselves seemed to disagree with the direction and they struggled to control their handguns. The barrels shifted, something gravity could not do on its own, and aimed at one another, striking a new sense of fear in the guards as their own weapons turned against them.
Behind her, she heard Quinn gasp, but she did not feel his presence near her or his dreadful, violent touch. She glanced over her shoulder and found him paralyzed with a fear that had consumed her in the basement area, as if a ghost had possessed him. She looked back at one of guns, guided by her own hated for the man that had bruised her neck, and to her own amazement, saw it move from the shaking guard's palm towards her. But, she discovered, it wasn't aiming towards her, but past her, over her shoulder where Quinn loomed only a few feet behind.
"What are you doing?" Quinn cried, staring at the barrel with the same terror Skye once had in her own eyes.
Then the deafening gunfire she dreaded erupted.
Skye relived those moments, mind racing over the massacre she had been rescued from days ago. They haunted her conscious, unable to cope with the span of death that had somehow found her company after years of unknowingly running. She thought she had escape the cycle of rejection and torment when she ran from St. Agnes, but the refuge behind the thick double doors of the Catholic orphanage were a much safer place than the death that had been destined to consume her existence.
The team had been grateful for her safety but she question more so to herself, what cost? How many lives would die at her hands? She thought back at the possible toll she had tallied since her birth, counting with Agent Avery and her fellow team members that had smuggled her out of the decimated village, and then counting its massacred population, and then the most recent mission and its casualty report. She bowed her head, hiding her face between her knees and letting her hair fall to curtain her cheeks. She felt sick to her stomach, nauseous from the heavy weight pitted in her stomach.
Coulson understood without any trading of words. He examined the dead bodies on the floor briefly, assuming it was the work of Grant's rapid response, before guiding Skye out with a gentle hold on her arm. He embraced her, relieved by her stable condition after he assumed the worse.
She then confined herself in her small quarters, accompanied only by her computer and her regret.
Simmons and Fitz checked up on her, knocking on her door here and there to invite her downstairs, but eventually gave up after too many failed attempts to coax the scarred agent out.
"She just witnessed a massacre, how else would you expect her to respond?" Coulson argued her case in the briefing room.
"She doesn't have the agent training," Fitz contributed. "She doesn't have the mentality to prepare her."
"Exactly," May rebutted hotly. "She didn't follow procedure, she went in there alone, she combatted the target unarmed, and miraculously survived by the stroke of luck. She isn't an agent, she's a liability!" May slammed her palm on the table in a fit of frustration. Agent Ward shot her a weary side-line look before adding his own observation.
"She is exactly the new set of perspective this team needs," Coulson persisted just as hotly as his female counterpart. "This team doesn't need narrow thinking, it needs a vision. She thought on her feet, risked her life for the greater good of the mission, and we're lucky she survived. She has the heart and the potential and if Grant continues her training, she will be invaluable to this team and this organization!"
Grant looked down for a moment, organizing his thoughts. "I agree with Coulson," he announced, stunning May who assumed the strict agent would prefer protocol over Coulson's protégé. "Skye may not be an agent but she had agent material, but," he added lowly, folding his hands together to rest his chin in passive thinking, "we agree she isn't an agent yet and she is suffering the consequences of PTSD that could have been avoided had she followed through with the appropriate training. It was my downfall for not preparing her accordingly."
Coulson shook his head. "No, Agent Ward. You did everything right. It wasn't the training that faulted. She's too empathetic. It was unavoidable."
"She's unfit for combat," May argued.
Coulson shook his head, objecting, and ready to further his defense of the new agent when a new presence surprised them.
Skype, dressed casually in a t-shirt and jeans, walked into the main room, with a sense of stealth unseen by the rest of the team. "I'm sorry," Skype apologized weakly. "I… I did everything I could… but May is right," she complied. "I wasn't ready, and it's not your fault, Ward," she cut in, anticipating Agent Ward's objections. "It was mine. I don't think I'll ever be able to…" she played with her hands trying to compose some kind of understandable response, "to grasp this. I don't think I'm cut out for this," she shook, mourning her words, her family, and ready to abandon any sense of stability she had for the brief time they shared for the greater good. She was sacrificing her own happiness to preserve a selfless cause, to prevent more death.
There was too much blood on her hands.
"You can debrief me and erase my memory, whatever you need to do," she surrendered. "I won't burden anyone anymore." She felt her voice tremor has her bottom lip trembled, ready to slip a sob as burning tears lined her eyes, threatening to breach her lashes and slip onto her pal, sunken cheeks.
"Skye…" Coulson whispered, deep in disbelief. He moved to follow the upset girl but was beat by her S.O, a surprising move by Agent Ward who intercepted Skye before she could vacate the room. Simmons followed closely, gripping Skye's shoulder warmly in a tender touch of support.
"You're not a weakness, Skye," Agent Ward argued, using his stature to prevent Skye from walking around him. Simmons aided him, holding Skye back in an embrace that held her in place, but Simmons did so out of love and concern rather than to just to keep her still.
"You're important to us," Simmons supported, leaning her head onto Skye's shoulder. "You're just as much as an asset as the rest of us. We won't give up on you."
"You should," Skye muttered darkly, bowing her head.
"No," Simmons rejected. "We won't!"
"You weren't there. You didn't see what happened. Men are dead," Skye burst, throwing off Simmons. Fitz immediately jumped to grab Simmons, stepping in between the two girls as Skye demonstrated a rare fit of rage. Agent Ward, on the other hand, was trained for worse, and braved Skye's verbal assault. "Men died, because of me, always because of me! Don't you get it? Death follows me everywhere! How many people have to die before everyone gets it?" Skye turned from the stunned team back to Agent Ward who, despite being confused by Skye's confession, remained in place. "Get out of my way, Ward!" She commanded. Agent refused silently. She pushed him back but her physically strength was much weaker than his, and he barely budged. She let out a screech of frustration similar to May's earlier hiss, and extended the palm of her hand, hoping he would shift slightly to the side just like the guns had.
No such luck, unfortunately. He remained in place and struck his own arm out to hold her wrist in place to prevent her from possibly harming herself or anyone else in her uncontrolled emotional state.
Skye fought his hold violently, just as she had with Quinn, and the memories of the similarities startled her. Her eyes faded back into the abyss of her dark memories, and Agent recognized her dilating pupils in his own experiencing of delving into the dark, locked parts of his mind in her rare weak moments. He shook her out of it.
"Skye! Snap out of it! SKYE!" He hollered. She screamed, falling back but his hold prevented her from hitting the ground. She looked up at his dark eyes, scared at first before the anger that had once possessed her returned with a new vengeance. Her lips formed into a snarl.
"Let go Ward!" She ordered.
Sensing the tension erupt, May prepared a stun-gun, aiming it at the volatile Skye. Sensing the click of the gun securing ammo in its chambers, Skye was triggered into another unexplainable state, focusing on the barrel and narrowing her eyes.
May felt the gun shake in her steady hands, before it forcefully lowered. Skye glared at the device, and May felt it burn her flesh as if it had been dipped in searing boiling water. May screeched at the sensation and dropped it to her feet, where it jumped like a fish out of water for a moment, until it exploded. Everyone jumped back, both in fright and awe at the unexpected occurrence.
Fitz was gaping in awe, while Simmons screeched in his arms, burying her head into his neck. Coulson and May turned to Skye who was unable to pull away from her cold, icy trance.
Ward was equally confused as the strange series of events and tried to shake Skye present, back into reality rather than the relive awful memories in her mind. Eventually her state subsided and she felt herself become faint, weakened. Agent Ward supported her in his arms, and held her close to his chest, while keeping one hand behind head, fingers tangled in her limp brunette curls, compressing her cheek against his shirt,
"What was that," May demanded. Skye couldn't reply, still out of it, as she came back to reality. She hummed some incoherent response against the fabric of Ward's shirt, blinking away the hot, searing tears in her perplexed eyes.
Coulson, on the other hand, suddenly connected Skye's buried past and the recent events. She was a 0-8-4, but other than that, no other detail describing her abilities were present in her slender file. Now, though, he saw for himself what was so valuable about her.
"Perhaps, it's time the team knew," Coulson announced, eyeing Skye. She tried to move her head to face him but Agent Ward kept her confined tightly against his chest. She curled her fingers into fists between them.
"Knew what," May demanded, glaring at Coulson.
Fitz and Simmons shared a look of curiosity not uncommon in scientist.
"That I'm a freak," Skye mumbled, but even Ward couldn't understand the mumbled words.
"You're an oh-eight-four," Coulson explained, before facing the rest of his team. "Skye wasn't just looking for her parents, she was tracing her origins, which we discovered, were unknown. We don't know where she came from and who she is, but I think she us a hint."