Author's Note: This story is an AU set sometime before the midwinter finale. Coulson was never taken but the Myles thing did happen. It is kind of a slow start getting everything set up.

PS. I have never actually written a story before so please be patient with all of my mistakes & any constructive criticism is welcome and I will try to improve.

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Can't even say I wish I did. Just attempting to borrow them and see how it goes.


Prologue…

"Look Skye, we know it was you that hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s level 8 server to retrieve the information on Agents Fitz and Ward's mission," said Agent Burke. He and Agent Walkerson had caught Skye on her way to a mission briefing at the Hub and demanded she sit down and talk with them. That had been almost an hour ago and as it turned out Agent Burke was more interested in talking than listening. Agent Walkerson hadn't spoken a word since Agent Burke had finished presenting his offer. He was staring and Skye found herself starting to get annoyed with the whole situation.

"So?" Skye questioned disbelief evident in her tone. "I've done worse before and Director Fury never felt the need to pull me off a mission to bring in the big guns for questioning. What's changed?"

"You have" Burke responded "when you chose to look for the files on your teammates instead of on your parents, yes Skye we know all about your search for information on your heritage. That showed remarkable loyalty to your team. It proved I was right and that you were the right kind of person for this job."

"As you pointed out," Skye said through gritted teeth, not entirely happy with how the SHIELD agent was carelessly throwing around her deepest secrets, "I do care about my team. I am just starting to regain their trust. Why would I let them think I had betrayed them yet again?"

"Because, " Burke said solemnly, "Agent Coulson didn't ever go to Tahiti. He needs you now and he doesn't even know it. So if you turn us down, you go back to the bus, rejoin the team and things will probably go back to normal, at least for a little while. But when everything does go down. And it will. You will always wonder if you could have stopped it. So what do you say Skye? You can be part of the team or you can work to keep Coulson one step ahead in the battle he doesn't even know he is fighting."

Skye knew she owed Coulson a lot. He had given her a second chance when no one else would. He had given her information on her parents when she certainly hadn't deserved it. That meant the world to Skye. If Coulson really did need her help, well that that was the only thing Skye could think of that would cause her to give up her new-found family to accept the agent's offer.

"Alright, fine. I'm in."


Chapter One- Lights out.

It had been nearly six months since Fitz had accidentally discovered the encrypted data leaks being sent out from the Bus computers. It had taken him a week to conclusively link the activity to Skye and an additional week before he convinced himself the leaks could have no other rational explanation; at which point he brought the information to Coulson. Fitz wasn't stupid. He knew what a betrayal from Skye would do to the team, especially since they had already given her a second chance so he had waited till he was 100% sure before he brought the information forward. Even the hardened agent Ward seemed like he was finally starting to come around to the young hacker's charms. Fitz hadn't been wrong about the toll it would take. It had destroyed the team though no one would show it in the difficult months that followed.

Skye had never seen Coulson look as angry as he did the day Fitz had finally reported the planted info leaks to him. In a way she had been almost relieved. She had been waiting on this day for almost two weeks since Agent Burke had texted her and told her that things had been put in motion for her transfer. She hadn't understood why joining Burke's team or "going dark" as he often referred to it required such a drastic severing of ties with the people she considered to be her family but as weeks passed and then months she began to understand. Families didn't give up on one another and as long as she was considered a part of the team neither would they have given up on her. She was willing to hack into level 8 security to make sure Fitz and Ward made it safely home and that kind of loyalty worked both ways. That much was evidenced by FitzSimmons and how like clockwork whenever the Bus was in town the two would head down to the prison level to visit her. They were always told the same thing that Skye wasn't accepting visitors but the visits continued anyways. If those two were willing to show such loyalty to someone they fully believed to have betrayed them—twice; Skye couldn't imagine that they would have been able to accept her transfer to a department known for its highly dangerous and highly classified missions.

Granted, the last six months had been pretty light on missions and pretty heavy on training. Agent Walkerson had turned out to be her new S.O. and his training tactics made Ward seem like a teddy bear. Skye trained 7 days a week from 4 a.m. to 12 p.m. rain or shine and then the afternoon was filled with either class (which Skye hated) or gathering information from the nets (which Skye loved). Skye's marksmanship had drastically improved. She had come a long way from the young civilian who reflexively said bang every time she pulled the trigger. To her surprise, Skye found that once she stopped goofing off that she was pretty good with a gun. She hadn't been at the compound long before she and everyone else at the shooting range knew she was capable of hitting what she aimed for. Skye hadn't forgotten Quinn's words and honestly wasn't sure she could pull the trigger if her target was alive but for now she kept that fear to herself. Her hand to hand had improved as well courtesy of sparring sessions with Agent Romanoff whenever the woman was at the hub. Romanoff scared Skye but she was a fantastic teacher and Skye progressed rapidly under her tutelage.

Skye now lived and operated out of the dungeon, which was what they called the lower level of the hub where all the "dark" agents slept and trained. They were considered dark; Skye learned because that is where they operated—off the grid. Dark agents didn't get loud fancy extractions or the luxury of SHIELD badges opening closed doors. Any contacts they had were their own. Dark missions were long, the sort of operation where the covers were so deep it could take weeks to get an alias in place and months before an agent was able to start feeding back any useable intel. Some of these agents had maintained the same cover for years while they worked their way up to the inner circles of various companies and governments. Skye sometimes wondered how the agents remembered their real identities after pretending to be someone else for so long. Sometimes she could relate.

No-one called her Skye anymore. No one here knew her real name besides Burke and Walkerson who could only use it when they were alone. Upon transferring, she had been forced to adopt a last name and she had become Agent Caelum to all those who addressed her by name. Yes, she was an agent now. Fury had made it official about a month after the transfer. He, Skye, Burke, and even the ever-silent Walkerson had celebrated with cheap champagne served in paper cups. Skye briefly wished that Coulson could have been there to see it and wondered if he would have been proud of her but it had been a fleeting thought. It was too hard to think of Coulson, Jemma, Fitz, May and especially Ward. She missed her burly former S.O., how he had seemed to genuinely care about her and the team and if she was being honest she missed the butterflies in her stomach she had gotten when she was around him. Agent Walkerson was more the strong silent type. It had been six months and Skye still didn't know much about him. If Skye were to be honest with herself she would admit that she still thought of Ward as her S.O., Walkerson was just a placeholder.

Much to Skye's frustration, she still hadn't been given any more information on Coulson or Tahiti. She knew he had died and been brought back but not the specifics or how her going dark was supposed to help him. She had brought it up to Agent Burke on several occasions but his answer was always the same

"Patience, Agent Caelum. You aren't on the bus anymore with their mission of the week." He always said. "Things work different down here. "

Skye couldn't disagree there.