Hi there! So I'm back with an Agents of SHIELD fic! It is post-TRACKS. So, naturally, there will be spoilers for TRACKS [01x13], and the next chapter will have spoilers for TAHITI [01x14]. This idea had been floating around in my head since I saw the episode, I just hadn't been able to put it in words until now. Um.. There's two main ships for this fic, SkyeWard, which is the really main one, and FitzSimmons, which is a little less prominent in this chapter, but should crop up a lot more in later chapters. So yes, R&R would be appreciated, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

-KHC

Simmons ripped open a packet of cotton wool from the medical supplies room, her hands shaking uncontrollably. Her breath came in sharply as she tried to scrub Skye's blood off her hands. The events of the day were catching up to her, crashing over her head all at once in a huge tidal wave. She gritted her teeth together and felt the warm tears boil up into her eyes. She heard footsteps follow her into the room, and the moment she felt Fitz's familiar comforting hand on her shoulder, she turned to him, looking at him before choking out, "Oh, Fitz…"

Fitz moved his arms so that he could cradle Simmons to his chest, allowing her to cry, resting his chin on the top of her head reassuringly, kissing the top of her head as he waited for her heavy sobs to turn to soft sniffles.

Meanwhile in the garage of the Bus, Ward was staring blankly into the lab. May had long since left his side, knowing that trying to speak with him was a useless idea. After a while he shifted his eyes to where Agent Coulson was standing over the large metal chamber where Skye's temperature was being maintained. Skye, enclosed inside, barely hung onto life. It was a long time before Agent Coulson left. It was clear he felt an innumerable amount of guilt, and frankly, Ward felt the same way. His words replayed constantly in his head. She shouldn't have gone in there alone, she shouldn't have gone in there alone, she shouldn't have gone in there alone. Grant Ward had always considered himself indestructible. Immune to feelings or fear.

He realized now, that he was not. If feelings did not affect him, to Skye getting wounded. In a fit of anger, he banged another dent in the SHIELD vehicle. At the sudden noise, Coulson flinched and turned. His eyes were rimmed in red, or so Ward noticed as he straightened his dress jacket and tie. He looked straight at Ward as he walked out of the lab, the doors sliding shut behind him. He dipped his head solemnly at Ward, and then jogged up the spiraling stairs to the furnished area of the Bus.

This left Ward alone with the woman he was supposed to protect. And, as much as he hated to admit it, the woman he had slowly been falling in love with. He finally realized why he sought out Agent May: he needed to stop falling in love. He knew now that any resistance on his part was futile. His Rookie meant the world to him, and at that moment he knew he could not let her go. Ian Quinn had to answer for what he did; he only wished that he could be the one to make him do so.

For the first time, Ward looked at Skye's face, rather than her wounds, and he really wished he hadn't. She was as white as a sheet, her lips a soft bluish color. Her dark hair was thrown around her face like a crown, which was covered in dried blood, sweat, and running makeup. It emotionally injured him to see her like this. It was a stronger possibility that she would die rather than live, or so Simmons said. Well, tried to say. Fitz had to say it for her; her speech was too tight with tears to understand. Apparently, the bullets had punctured her stomach and both intestines, deadly shots.

Ward gritted his teeth. "God, Skye. You had to go in there alone. Why couldn't you have waited outside with Fitz, huh?" He blinked hard, and was only able to manage a few more words. "Was that too hard for you to accomplish?" And then, he did something very un-Ward-like. He began to cry. He could not remember the last time he had cried over an Agent. Perhaps he hadn't. But he knew that he didn't like the feeling. The tears came softly and silently. In desperation, he tried to make the tears stop, but they just kept coming. He placed a hand over his eyes, the other on his knee, hoping no one would see the light shake of his shoulders or heart the soft gasps of breath coming from his mouth as the events of the day finally sank in.

Underneath the glass chamber, one of Skye's fingers twitched. She could hear Ward from behind the glass, and more than anything she wished she couldn't. She wanted to reach out and punch his arm playfully, to tease him as she would on a normal day. She wanted to say, "So, my S.O. isn't a robot after all!" with one of those winning smiles she saved just for him. But she couldn't. She felt trapped in between life and death. She wanted to show her team, her family, that she was going to be okay. That they shouldn't cry, shouldn't worry.

However, she wasn't even sure if she was going to be okay. So she lay in the chamber listening painfully as her S.O.'s muffled cries went on for what seemed like an eternity. After a while, a soft exchange went on between Ward and one other person Skye could not recognize. She had a feeling it was Agent May, however their voice was so soft that she could not place it to a face.

Then there was silence. When Ward and Coulson were there, she could bear the silence, because there was sound. Now, the silence was excruciating, and the dread had returned again to haunt her. The nightmares came in fragments, torn apart by the pain emanating from her abdomen, silent. The sound came later.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I hope to get the next one up tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, sometime next week, if I have time! Thanks for reading!