Skye's hands pressed up against the dirty glass of the window, admiring the rolling waves stretching so endlessly on either side of the banged-up old freighter. Beyond that, the silhouettes of small islands dotted through the water. She wiped the fog of her breath away to peer intently at the passing dots of land.

"You think Hydra's hiding out on one of those?" Skye asked. "Canada's got way more islands than I thought. And all of them look freezing, not tropical."

Coulson stepped behind her, glancing out the same window with a small smile. "And we get to find out which island." For once, his standard suit was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he looked every inch the grungy ship's captain that their cover required.

Lance gestured with the glass in his hand toward the nearest island. "And hopefully we find out with our radar before they find out how far we are from the nearest shipping route."

As one, all eyes turned to the final member of their team. Fitz blinked hard. "I don't, I mean I'm working-"

"That's my department, actually," Skye cut in. Watching Fitz struggle was already too painful. She spun her laptop so the rest of the team could see her screen. "I've had radar pinging this whole time, but so far? Nada. Not even a blip on that super secret Hydra channel."

Coulson nodded, taking it in stride. "We'll move the moment anything changes. Until then..." He stared pointedly at Skye.

Instantly, she recoiled. "No way. He already said he didn't know anything about this base."

Raising a single eyebrow, Coulson didn't bother saying anything further.

Skye gestured futilely at her computer. "But radar! And pinging!"

Lance ambled over, bending down to squint at the display. "So if anything shows up, it'll beep." He watched Skye skeptically. "I think this non-hacker here can handle that for a few minutes. Hurry back though, I might die of boredom."

Muttering under her breath, Skye stomped off toward the stairs down to the lower deck. Only two steps down the narrow steel stairway, frantic beeps burst from her computer.

Lance leaned forward. "The bloody hell-?"

An explosion slammed into the side of the ship. It knocked Skye off her feet, tossing her into the wall of the stairwell. She felt nothing, only blackness.

...

Sound was the first to return. Only brief snatches of voices filtered through to her. They sound angry, she realized. Why would they be angry?

Her head swam as it finally cleared a bit. A square of light above her was all she could see. Nothing about it made any sense.

Lastly, she felt her body. A shallow puddle of freezing water lapped against her sides. One arm sprawled, twisted behind her. Something sharp bit into the other. Skye tilted her head to look, but it lolled bonelessly from her neck. Squinting, she could finally make it out. A step dug into her arm. Now her surroundings made sense. She was lying at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. The light came from the stairwell up to the bridge, where the angry voices were. Still, the step dug into her arm, grabbing her attention.

A simple matter to solve, she thought. Inch by sluggish inch, her arm moved. At least it still responded. Her arm flopped off the step, clanging against the metal floor.

Instantly, the angry yelling from atop the stairs cut off. "There are others?" a deep, humorless voice asked. After receiving no response, something smashed. The crunch of bones was lost amid a yell of pain. Coulson.

"SEARCH THE SHIP!" the humorless voice bellowed.

Instantly, a strong hand clapped her mouth shut. "Try not to struggle," he whispered. His words were wasted. Had she been capable, she would have fought for her life. As it were, she writhed as far as her recovering body would let her.

Grant Ward didn't seem to notice. He draped her over his shoulder, dropping both of them through a breech in the hull of the ship.

She never even felt the water, instead slipping back into unconsciousness.

...

A familiar voice filtered through over the rhythmic slapping of the waves. "Come on Skye, stay with me. You've had a concussion, don't you dare fall asleep..."

But her body instantly disobeyed the doctor's orders.

...

Something hard hit her face. "Skye!"

Instantly she jerked awake, spluttering and coughing seawater up onto the hard, rocky beach.

Next to her, Ward let out a deep sigh of relief. "You scared me there for a second."

Everything came back to her in a rush. She yanked her knife out of her boot, skittering backwards across the rocks. Dripping wet and chest heaving, Ward raised his hands in surrender. Burns and scratches showed through tears in his prison garb.

"Get the hell away from me," Skye snarled.

"Absolutely," he calmly agreed. "You won't even know I'm there."

Anger poured through her veins. "What?"

Still infuriatingly calm, Ward shrugged. "Whether or not you can see me, I'm still going to do everything I can to keep you alive."

She gritted her teeth. "I don't get any say in the matter?"

"I will follow any orders you give me." His eyes met hers with all the seriousness he could muster. "But you can't stop me from protecting you."

Skye shuddered. "I could tie you up."

She'd been joking, but Ward held out his wrists anyway. "I don't have any rope," she muttered, looking away.

With a resigned nod, Ward stood, walking toward the treeline.

"Stay."

The single word from Skye stopped him cold. He turned, shocked.

Skye's face was icy and unflinching. "I want you where I can see you."

Unsure how long his leash was, Ward sat, carefully far out of arm's reach.

She gestured to the smoking remains of their ship, slowly sinking nearly a mile away. "What do you know about the people that attacked us?"

He squinted where she pointed. "Not much. That was a torpedo that hit us, so they clearly have heavy defenses. I'd guess Hydra, since we know they're close by. After they grabbed Coulson and the others, their boat docked back on this island."

That would make it nearly a mile that Ward swam, injured, and carrying her unconscious body. Skye stuffed the thought aside. "Did you see where the boat headed?"

"Somewhere around the back of the island. I don't know precisely where."

Skye stood, stretching her aching limbs. Her left arm still felt like limp spaghetti. "Good. Then we know which way to head."

"Skye…" Ward started, but she rounded on him.

"You have something to say, prisoner? Not up for following my orders if it means helping other agents? People who aren't me?"

A frown creased his brows. "I was going to say that it'll be dark and cold faster than you can imagine on an island like this. We need to find shelter."

She looked at him in puzzlement. "They give you survival training in Hydra? I thought their goons were expendable."

"Not Hydra: Garrett." Ward's mouth drew tight. "We really need to find shelter before the sun goes down. If you don't want to, that's fine. I'll-"

"What kind of shelter?"

He looked around. Tall Canadian pines covered the island with dense underbrush growing between. Even now, with the sun well above the horizon, a light fog settled. "A cave, preferably. If we can't find that, I can make thick tree cover work. But we'll be exposed if any patrols come searching."

"Got it. Caves, lots of trees, I can handle that."

Ward raised an eyebrow. "You sound like you're planning on splitting up."

"I…" The words died in her throat. With no supplies, no way to contact each other, and a very high likelihood of being caught by a Hydra patrol, splitting up was about the best way to ruin any advantage they had. Her stomach writhed that she even considered Ward getting caught a bad thing. But right now, she'd be stupid to throw away her best asset. "Nope. Lead on, Hydra."

...

Coulson squinted as the bag was yanked off of his head. Light flooded in, assaulting his senses. That was probably the point, he noted dryly. Being tied to a chair facing a flood-lamp tended to do that to prisoners. His nose felt broken, its dried blood caked across the lower half of his face. It wouldn't be the first time.

A silhouette stepped in front of the light, far too heavily-muscled to be reassuring. "Your team had one more member. Where is he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Coulson fought to hide his relief. He didn't know what fate awaited Fitz or Lance, but Hydra didn't even know the slightest detail about Skye. And if he had to have an agent out there...well, he'd pick May. Second to May...he'd pick Tripp.

But Coulson had faith in Skye.

Still nothing more than a silhouette, the smile of his interrogator gleamed. "Your agent has an 0-8-4 on him. Hydra will stop at nothing to get it back."

Despite himself, Coulson returned the smile. His agent was the 0-8-4. And that 0-8-4 wasn't about to go down without a fight.

Thanks for reading, I'd love to know what you think! :)