AN- So I changed this chapter about five times over when I was writing it because I didn't know how much of Kate's past I wanted to write about and how much of Skye's past I wanted to write about but this is what I ended up with and I hope you like where I went with it. As you know I teased Kate's powers and I have added what I think is a huge twist. Some of you might have seen it coming, some of you might not. But let's just enjoy the story and enjoy the drama.
Kate stood, watching Skye panic as she spoke to Coulson; the scientist Skye had called Fitz biting his nails as he watched the scene.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Coulson asked, slightly hurt that she didn't trust him enough to tell him.
"You heard Simmons." Skye explained, raising her voice slightly. "She wants to kill anyone like me, like us." Skye glanced over at Kate, knowing that they would both be in danger. "I didn't want anything to break up the team."
"It wouldn't." Coulson frowned, reaching out to place a hand on Skye's arm.
Skye pulled away from his touch, crossing her arms. "Yes, it would."
That was when Simmons ran into the lab. "Sir, Skye shouldn't be out of quarantine. Her blood was affected, we need to try to find a cure incase she turns into something like Raina."
"I already have." Skye choked, before running out of the room, Kate following close behind.
"I need to get out of here." Skye breathed, trying to contain the tremor that was vibrating through the facility.
"Let's go. I've got my car in the hangar, no one's touched it." Kate offered. Skye immediately led her to the hangar, getting into the car. Kate jumped into the driver's seat and sped out of the facility, following the major roads, hoping they would lead out of whatever town or city they were in.
"We're in Tuscon." Skye spoke quickly, pointing out the road to the highway. "Head up there, we'll head toward Canada."
"You want to try and cross the border." Kate asked, slightly shocked. "I know somewhere else we can go. Somewhere I don't think Coulson would follow." Kate continued on her current course, getting ready to head onto the interstate. "New York. As far as the Avengers know, Coulson is dead. I don't think he would risk them finding out. Especially because of how pissed they would be."
"New York it is." Skye agreed. "That's like a two day drive."
"Thirty six hours." Kate corrected. "But if we're careful so that they can't follow us it will be three days, at least."
"I'd better get some sleep then." Skye shrugged, sinking into the chair. "Wake me up when you want to sleep."
"You're surprisingly trusting for a SHIELD agent." Kate remarked, glancing over at Skye.
"I just have this feeling that I can trust you." Skye shrugged. "Besides, we're both in the same amount of danger; it's safer if we stick together." Skye closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep.
"I guess it is." Kate mumbled, focusing on the road ahead of her.
After several hours Kate pulled into a gas station, filling up the tank and buying some food and water. She was more than happy to see Coulson hadn't touched her bag because she felt the need to change her clothes, and Skye probably did too. She pushed changing to the bottom of her list and continued driving for another few hours until she pulled over and swapped with Skye.
Skye and Kate drove like this for ten hours before the sun went down and it became harder to stay focused on the road in front of them. They pulled into a motel, quickly paying for the room before pulling the car into the lot.
"I'll keep watch." Kate offered, pulling her bags out of the compartment in the back of her car. She noted Skye's raised eyebrow when she saw the bag full of cash, but Skye didn't say anything and led Kate to the room.
"How'd you get the cash?" Skye asked once they were in the room. Skye seemed like she already knew the answer, she just wanted Kate to admit it.
"Heists. Many." Kate spoke quickly. "After SHIELD fell I didn't have the advantage of being with a team. I was deep under cover and having the entirety of my aliases published online made it hard for me to move around. I went underground, lived on the wrong side of the law for a long time before I called May for help. Most SHIELD agents turned that way; we're criminals so why not act like it."
"I'm not judging you. I was part of the rising tide; we actively tried to destroy SHIELD." Skye shrugged, fully understanding why she did what she did. "It's exactly like you said; I had a team and some help from Fur… some old SHIELD agents. It was easy."
Kate ignored her slip, fairly sure she knew what Skye was going to say. "Let's get some sleep. We have plenty of time to talk before we get to New York."
That was exactly what both Kate and Skye did. Skye wasn't sure about what she was going to do, if she could trust the former agent. They barely knew each other. But she could handle herself, and let herself fall into a deep dreamless sleep.
Kate opened her eyes. She wasn't in the motel any more, she was in a large white room, tied to a table. She pulled at the straps, praying that they would come loose. But they wouldn't budge. She looked around to see another person tied to a table, a man. Tall, dark haired, still unconscious. Kate looked closer, it was Grant Ward. "Grant." Kate called, trying to wake him up. "Grant."
"Kate?" Grant turned his head to look at her, blood running from a cut on his forehead. "Where are we?"
"I don't know." Kate admitted, fear starting to creep up on her. "All I know is that we probably won't make it out of this alive." Kate couldn't look at his face any more, too scared of what might happen to him.
"Hey." He whispered, his voice more tender than before. "I love you."
Kate laughed, more of a cry than a laugh, and looked over at Grant. "I love you too."
A large door flung open, several armed men walked in, their weapons aimed. When they stopped walking a man in a white lab coat walked to the foot of the tables they were tied to.
"You should be privileged that we selected you for this experiment." The man spoke in a thick German accent. He pulled out a long knife, rolling it over in his hands. "I've wanted to do this for a very long time and now I finally have the chance to put my hypothesis to the test." He smiled menacingly, slowly walking in between the tables until he was close enough to bend down by Kate's head. "You should never have betrayed us Katherine. I will take great pleasure in this."
"Don't touch her." Grant yelled, fighting against the restraints.
"Oh, don't worry. You'll have your share too." The scientist smiled, taking a few steps further down the table. He plunged the knife into Kate's leg, driving it into the bone underneath.
Kate let out a scream, unprepared for the pain that she was hit with. The scientist twisted the knife, making Kate's scream louder.
"Grant." Kate screamed, sitting upright in a dark cold room. She looked around to see the interior of the motel room she was staying in. She felt a hand on her arm and immediately grabbed it, flipping the person onto their back. "Skye." Kate breathed, letting go of her arm. "Sorry." She shook her head slightly, trying to clear the fogginess from her mind.
"It's okay." Skye shrugged, getting up. "You didn't really hurt me." Skye sat on the end of the bed, looking into Kate's eyes. "You were having a nightmare, you were shouting a name."
"I'd rather not talk about it." Kate snapped, sliding back until she was leaning against the wall. "It was something that happened a long time ago."
"I don't want to push but… the name you said." Skye hesitated, almost certain about the name she had heard. "You were dreaming about Agent Ward."
"Yes I was." Kate breathed, wishing that Skye didn't have so many questions. "It was a mission a few years before Hydra fell. We got caught. I don't really like to talk about what happened."
"That's not my question." Skye admitted, looking down at her hands. "How did you know him?"
"We met when I joined SHIELD." Kate started, thinking back to the first time they met. "I was seventeen, he was eighteen. I'd been recruited by Romanoff and he had been recruited by Garrett the year before. We didn't spend as much time at the academy as other agents, or at least I didn't. I'd been trained by the red room; that was how I got into this business. Romanoff found me going after the same target she was and she convinced me to go with her." Kate remembered the encounter like it was yesterday, the woman had a knife to her throat but she didn't take the chance. She'd let Kate go, and it was something Kate would always be thankful for. "I spent six months at the academy, mostly in private training sessions with Agents May or Romanoff. A few weeks in, there was someone else in the gym for a session. It was Agent Ward. We got to know each other but then we were assigned to different continents and that was the end of it. Or at least I thought it was.
"A few years back we were assigned to the same base in Europe. He was following a lead connected to another one of his missions and it led him to Italy. He didn't speak Italian but I did so I was assigned to help him get the artifact he'd been tracking. After that mission, things got intimate and six months later we were engaged." Kate took a deep breath, having reached the point in their story she wished she could forget about. "The last time I worked with him, we were in Russia. It was a routine job, go in, get the information, and get out. But we got caught and Fury had to pull a lot of strings to get us out. During the medical exam I found out that I was pregnant but I'd already lost the baby. Being in that place had taken its toll and I lost the child I didn't know I was going to have. That was when they found out about us and separated us. I was sent to Australia and Grant stayed in Europe, kept tracking the sellers of alien objects. We broke things off and last time I heard he was reassigned to a mobile command unit. Level seven, top secret, need to know basis only and I didn't need to know." Kate was trying not to cry, she hadn't thought about what happened for years. She didn't want to mourn the loss of a child she never got to know.
"Kate." Skye whispered, noticing the pain that the story had caused. Before Skye could say anything else she noticed that she could see her breath. Ice was forming across the bed, floor and walls, spreading out from where Kate was sitting. "Are you doing this?" Skye asked, pulling Kate from the image she was seeing.
Kate looked around, noticing the same thing Skye saw. "I think I am, but I thought I used fire. That was how I got out of the cocoon." Kate thought about pulling all of the ice back in and it collecting in her hand. She started to feel it, like another part of her body. She focused, pulling it in like she pictured. When she opened her eyes she saw that the ice was now in a small crystal clear ball in her hands. "This is amazing." Kate smiled; overwhelmed by everything that she was feeling.
Skye looked almost jealous, Kate's gift wasn't destructive, it was beautiful. All Skye could do was kill and destroy while the woman next to her could do truly amazing things.
That was when the ice shattered, sending shards flying in all directions. One of the shards hit Skye in the chest, sliding between her ribs. Skye immediately lost consciousness, falling from where she was sat to the floor. Kate sealed the wound with her ice and quickly typed in a phone number she hoped she wouldn't have to use into the phone.
"What happened?" The person on the other end asked, knowing that the number was only to be used in emergencies by one person.
"I don't know how to explain it." Kate started, trying her hardest not to panic. "The girl I'm with has been stabbed in the chest. Or at least that's the closest I can describe it. I can keep her alive for five hours, how quickly can you get here. We're in Tulsa Oklahoma."
"She'll be with help in three hours. I'll be there with a plane in twenty." The person on the other end spoke quickly, her change in breathing letting Kate know that she was running. "Keep doing whatever you are doing, hopefully she'll be okay."
Kate hung up the phone and let herself lose control. With a loud shout, thunder clapped and a flash of lightning struck the ground in the parking lot. A large storm had built up and Kate tried her hardest to make it dissipate, thankfully succeeding without disrupting the weather patterns in the area.
And so she sat, keeping Skye as cold as possible, keeping the blood running around Skye's body for as long as possible.