She had been trained to deal with water. Ward had knocked on her door one morning and told her, "Training. Now. But, um, wear shorts under jeans and don't wear anything...see-through." It was a weird request but she complied and was glad she did when she got to the little make-shift gym to see Ward was waiting there with a hose.
"What are you doing, washing Lola?" Skye asked.
"No. Quite the opposite. Coulson wanted us to do this outside but I convinced him to let us stay indoors as long as we don't flood the place or get any water on Lola."
"Do what exactly?" Skye asked.
"Water training," Ward said and smirked at the look at horror on Skye's face.
"Oh heck no." Skye shook her head. "Nope, nope, nope."
"I don't think you have a choice," Ward said. He put down the hose. "You can swim, right?"
"Yeah, I can manage. There was a little pond behind the orphanage," she said.
"Okay, you have shorts on under your jeans, right?"
"That's what you told me to do."
"Right, good. Okay, so I'm timing you. Take your pants off," Ward instructed, looking at his watch.
Skye burst out laughing. "Is that a really weird pickup line?"
"No I'm serious. I need you to be mature here, Skye," Ward said.
"I am. I just like to have fun and I think you need to take a leaf out of my book. I'm sure you'd get a lot more girls to take their pants off if you don't scowl all the time."
Ward rolled his eyes and sighed. "Look, if I wanted your pants off for that reason, I wouldn't have told you to put shorts on, now would I? Do you trust me, Skye?"
"Yeah."
"Then just do as I say. I'm trying to save lives here."
"Alright, alright, fine," Skye sighed. Some days it was just easier to go along with it then fight.
Ward looked at his watch again. "Okay, I'm timing you. Go."
Skye hurriedly unbuttoned her pants and yanked them down. Skinny jeans were always a pain to take off, especially standing up, but she'd never been timed, so the pressure was on. Luckily her shoes were slip-ons so they were easy to get off. It took her twenty six seconds.
"Alright. That was almost thirty seconds. Now put them back on," Ward said.
She did but before she could ask why, he picked up the hose.
She saw what was coming. "Don't you dare!"
He dared. He pointed the hose right at her and even smiled a bit as she shrieked.
When she was completely soaked and dripping with water, he turned off the hose and smirked proudly as she pushed her wet hair away from her face.
"Why?" was all she asked, kicking the puddle of water at her feet in his direction.
"Well, I was going to let you do it yourself, but this was kind of fun for me. What was that you said a minute ago about me being more fun?" Ward smirked.
"You're despicable."
"I'm okay with that. Anyways, I'm going to time you again. Take your pants off. Ready...go!"
This time around, the pants were a lot harder to get off due to the fact that they were basically plastered to her legs now and were really heavy. She was no where close to her twenty six second record from before.
"Almost a minute," Ward said with disapproval. "Fifty eight seconds. People could die in that fifty eight seconds. The point of this activity is that wet clothes are very hard to manoeuvre with. So, if you ever are in a situation where you get wet, take your clothes off right away. This is also a good way to prevent hypothermia. And if you know you're going to get wet beforehand, take your clothes off before so you can move better."
Ward taught her some brief CPR techniques, how to use pants to make a floatation device and a few other things that he deemed important but she didn't think so. The only good thing about this training session in Skye's opinion was near the end when Ward accidentally slipped in the water and fell to his knees. She took the opportunity to kick more water on him and laugh. Even he laughed a bit.
The water was cold. Somehow, she remembered to hold her breath. She was pulled down but kicked her way up to the surface. She hadn't gone down too far thanks to the parachute. Pushing her mess of hair off her face, she looked around and took deep breaths of the precious air that smelled of smoke and gas. All around her was water and plane debris that was quickly sinking. This was really happening. The plane, her home, was gone. And so was her family.
"Ward!" Skye called, looking around for him. "Simmons! Fitz!" But she saw no one. She recognized a few things floating around, like a chair from the lounge and a few boxes. Everything else was gone.
The mountain they were traveling to wasn't too far and land was even closer. She could swim there. Though it's not like she had a choice.
Just as she had started to kick her way towards shore, she heard a yelp from behind her. It was somehow the best sound she had ever heard. She turned to see two heads that were just barely up. Each wave that came by engulfed them.
Skye swam over, going against the current.
"Fitz! Are you two okay?" Skye asked, happy to see them.
"Oh, Skye, thank goodness," Fitz said. "You have to help me. Simmons is the better swimmer but she must have hit her head and I can't..." He was crying and having trouble holding Simmons' limp body up. Their parachutes had been unclipped by Fitz and were floating away, but those weren't important now.
"Calm down," Skye said. "And keep her head above water."
"I'm trying," Fitz mumbled and splashed his arms around.
"Oh, wait, I have an idea," Skye said. Doing her best to tread water, she pulled off her pants, one leg at a time so she could make sure she didn't lose her shoes. With them off, she tied the pant legs off so they could hold air. She swung her pants up so air filled them and they acted like a floatation device.
"Here," Skye said, giving it to Fitz. "If it goes out of air just blow more in. I'll take Simmons. Go right to the shore."
"Thank you," Fitz said, and he meant it.
"We'll be okay," Skye said as if saying it equaled believing it. Skye took Simmons from Fitz's arms and pulled her on her chest so her head was tucked under Skye's. Skye turned so she lay on her back and she kicked her way backwards towards the shore. It was hard and limp Simmons was heavy, but she persevered and kept kicking.
"Are you doing okay?" Fitz asked after a few moments.
"Uh-huh," Skye grunted. She wasn't exactly in a great position to carry a conversation. She turned her head a bit so she could see how much further they had to go. Not far, as she was pleased to see. But she also saw Fitz suddenly turn and swim in the opposite direction.
"Fitz! Where are you going?"
Fitz pointed to a box floating a bit away from them. "See that box? I need to get it. Because we were in a plane, there were a few indestructible and unsinkable boxes where we put safely and survival things."
Skye managed a small grateful smile.
Fitz had managed to get two boxes that he was manoeuvring, and Skye still was making sure that Simmons' head stayed above water. But soon enough, they were pretty much at the shore. Skye was able to stand up in the water, which made supporting Simmons a lot easier, and that was great considering that she was extremely tired and in pain. Fitz was next to her, looking with worry at Simmons, and looking stressed out.
"Skye," Fitz said. He had taken a moment to take a breath and turned around to see the open body of water that was now housing the remnants of their plane.
"What?" Skye asked.
"Is that a person?"
Skye's heart jumped and she turned around quickly to see a figure in the distance.
"It's Ward!" Skye said, not even trying to hide the glee in her voice. She had been wondering about him, but had pushed away the worry and sadness until they got on land and she would actually be able to think clearly. "He's alive!"
"He doesn't seem to be swimming properly," Fitz said.
"I'm going to help him. Can you take Simmons?"
Fitz nodded. "I can carry her now that I can stand." They transferred the scientist carefully before Skye swam off to Ward.
It took her a few minutes to swim out to him. When she got closer, it was clear that he wasn't swimming normally.
"Skye?" Ward asked as if he couldn't believe it was really her. He looked glad she was there, though.
"Are you rusting up in this water, robot?" she joked and was glad she did because he kind of smiled.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine. Are you?"
"Um, not the best. My left leg is broken and I dislocated my right shoulder so I can't really swim that well," he said. Normally he would speak of injuries like that as being 'nothing', but things have changed now.
Skye swam over to his side and pulled his injured arm over her shoulder.
"Alright, this is like a weird three-legged race," she said. He didn't reply.
It was tricky, but they managed to move themselves towards shore.
"You're a good swimmer," Ward remarked.
She shrugged. "I read once that adrenaline makes the body do weird things. I'm surprised I'm doing this well."
"Are Fitzsimmons alive?" Ward asked after a moment. He almost didn't want to know the answer.
"Fitz is fine. A little shaken, but fine. Simmons is alive but knocked out. Getting her to the shore was hard."
"She'll be okay?"
"Don't ask me. I hope so. I hope this all has a happy ending because right now I think I want to drown." It was only half a joke. She was actually really tired and really wanted to get to shore and just rest.
Luckily, shore was close by now. And within another ten minutes, she and Ward were able to stand up. They could see Fitz tending to Simmons on the beach. There were tracks in the sand from where he dragged her, but he had her lying in some shade from an overhanging tree. She still seemed knocked out.
"Hey, where are your pants?" Ward asked. By now they were close enough that the water was at their knees.
"Oh, remember how you taught me how to use pants to make a flotation device? Yeah, I did that and gave it to Fitz."
Ward looked impressed. "Good job." Skye's sweater was now heavy with water and stretched down to make a mini-dress.
Finally they were at the shore. As soon as they were out of the water, Skye fell to the sand so fast that Ward thought she collapsed.
"Skye! Are you okay?" He kneeled down as best he could next to her and moved her sopping hair out of her face. Skye noticed his hands were shaking.
"Yeah," Skye breathed. "I'm just really tired." She opened her eyes a bit so prove that she was still alive.
Ward sat down more comfortably next to her slowly, doing his best to not groan in pain.
"You did good," he said. "But come on, let's go to the shade."
They kind of supported each other as they hobbled to the shade where Fitz and Simmons were.
A/N
Oooh chapter two! I've been so exited to post another chapter! :) Especially since y'all seemed to be liking it so far. As you can tell now, everyone is is alive (to some extent). I could never kill them off...or can I? Mwahaha. Anyways, see you on Saturday for chapter 3!
