Disclaimer: If you couldn't tell by the name of the website, this is a work of fan fiction. I do not own any characters depicted.

Trigger warnings: abortion.


Skye could feel her heart rate rising as she knocked on the door to Simmons' bunk. When her friend answered, she slipped inside as quickly as she could and blurted out, "Jemma, I need your help." Like ripping off a band-aid, she noted as she felt her heart slow.

Jemma looked tired. She'd looked tired since they got to the Playground. Even now that Fitz was awake she was wearing herself out spending every spare moment researching ways to help him recover. But she always rallied when there was work to be done, and she did the same now. "Of course, Skye, what's wrong?"

Uh-oh. Bigger band-aid underneath the first. "Um . . . how are you doing? Did you get any sleep last night?"

Jemma shrugged. "Enough, I guess. My dreams haven't been exactly pleasant recently. Turns out surviving attempted murder can be traumatic." She smiled, but tensely.

Skye sighed. "I know the feeling. I keep dreaming about Mike Peterson jumping on the hood of my car and getting handcuffed to the stairs in the BUS."

"I think a lot of the agents here are having trouble processing the collapse. We could start an insomnia support group," Jemma said with a nervous laugh. "Is that what you need help with? Sleeping pills?"

"No, no, it's not that. It's . . . uh . . . well, remember how I told you I found out Ward was Hydra because I found Eric's body while we were the only two people at Providence?" Jemma nodded, and Skye continued. "Well, there's something I didn't want to share with the class. Before I went looking for Eric, Ward and I were having a drink, and he was opening up to me about his family, and, uh, one thing led to another and we . . . hooked up."

Jemma's face went through confusion, surprise, and disgust before the realization hit. "Oh God, Skye, are you telling me what I think you're trying to tell me?"

Skye hesitated, but it was too late to deny it. "I think I'm pregnant," she said quietly. Jemma had never heard her sound so small. "I mean I'm not absolutely sure, it could just be stress and travel throwing my body off, I haven't been puking up my breakfast or anything though I have been craving cherries all week and I don't even like cherries that much—"

"Skye, stop babbling," Jemma ordered, taking her friend by the shoulders. Ok, we can deal with this. It's a science experiment. Question: is Skye pregnant? Proceed to information gathering. She grabbed her phone off the bedside table—it was a clunky international burner but it still had a calendar function. "Let's approach this logically. What day did all this happen?"

"It was just three days after Hydra's big coming-out party. So . . . April 6th, maybe?"

It was May 27th, that made it . . . "Almost seven weeks ago? Do you remember the last time you had a period?"

"Not exactly. I have no idea what I did with the calendar I had with me on the BUS. But I remember what mission we were on when I had it, so I pulled up the reports and it looks like it was the week of March 23."

Information gathered. Hypothesis: Skye is pregnant. Now we experiment. She glanced at the clock; it was almost midnight. "There shouldn't be anyone in the lab right now. We've got every chemical under the sun down there. Come on, I can draw a blood sample and fix up an hCG test for you." After peeking to make sure no one was in the corridor, the two young women quietly slipped out the door.