Skye goes to the defensive almost unconsciously, Bobbi's bruised and bloodied return to the Playground sinking harshly into the back of her mind. Her body screams danger and she feels her muscles tensing unbidden, molecules buzzing frantically against her skin.
It has been so long since she has last lost control that she nearly doesn't recognize that the massive presence violently blocking all her senses are the clinging molecules of the ground beneath their feet.
"Skye—"
Mentally, she knows Lincoln's hand has reached instinctively to her, clutching at her upper arm—but physically, there's nothing. It's like when she stands too long and her feet go numb and it almost feels like she is a part of the ground stretching beneath her—only in this scenario she is.
Ward hasn't moved from his position but Layla steps cautiously back—a movement neither Lincoln nor Skye can possibly miss.
"You need to calm down," Lincoln says. His voice is firm and steady, but his eyes twitch nervously between her and the fear the girl is exhibiting. He has only given Ward the slightest glance, but it wasn't wariness of him he had reacted to when Skye's heart plummeted and she shifted anxiously away—it was her movements that prompted him to move subconsciously closer to her.
"I'm interested in your full potential, Skye," Ward says, moving forward in spite of Layla's anxious movements back. His eyes have only drifted from her to take in Lincoln for a moment, and he seems unphased by the still soft vibrations of the earth beneath his feet, aside from the slightest intrigued glance down towards it.
Layla takes two more steps back, and slips silently away into the darkness of the house—and Ward continues his advance forward.
The world around them shakes faster, and the creaky old farmhouse lets out the angry screech of thousands of planks of ancient wood being urged from the positions they've held for hundreds of years.
"You tried to kill Bobbi," she finally hisses, loud rumbling backing her every syllable. "Coulson was going to give you a chance. He was going to give you another opportunity to live a life unmanipulated and you and Kara betrayed all of us and tried to kill her."
His smile is bright and unsettling but her words have the effect she hopes—he stops moving.
She breathes in deeply, trying to focus on Lincoln's hand on her arm, willing the turmoil inside her to settle.
It doesn't.
"Bobbi betrayed Kara. And Coulson, for that matter. We just were carrying out the fate she deserved."
Lincoln squeezes her arm harder, and she knows she has to be hurting him—she has absolutely no control over what her powers are affecting. But his expression doesn't show it— his eyes trained on her wide and full of concern.
"Whatever this is, it is not worth losing control over," he hisses, tone urgent and begging, "Skye, you will regret it."
She feels another shiver of anger rage through her and somehow, he only grips on to her tighter as the ground shakes and the house cries out again.
When Ward begins to advance forward again Lincoln's eyes are still trained on hers, reading their movements with apt attention.
The vibrations are getting harsher and the more Skye attempts to internalize it, the more her molecules protest and her bones ache—sending her further and further out of control.
She forces a particularly violent quiver through her veins and nearly cries out when the pain courses through her.
She can't control it and no, she isn't scared of Ward—but her power has her terrified.
And then Lincoln changes his tactic. He releases her arm, taking his own step towards Ward and raising his hands all in one swift movement. She hears the electricity crackling before she catches a glimpse of the sparks over his shoulder.
"If she doesn't calm down, someone is going to get hurt," he tells him with a fierce defiance she didn't know Lincoln possessed, sparks flying.
She's seen him use his power before, but never in this capacity. Little sparks and shocks and jolts here and there—even in the battle with the Afterlife he'd underplayed himself, with no intention of hurting anyone. She can't even see fully now, with his back turned to her—but the sparks glowing around his arms and flickering into her view are like slithering white flames, whipping around and seeking out a target.
"Thunder and lightning. How sweet." Ward mocks—but an odd uneasiness has settled in the back of his eyes as he watches the sparks ignite around Lincoln, gaze flicking up and down him almost indecipherably.
He takes another step and Lincoln jerks a hand forward threateningly.
Skye is squeezing her fists tight together, muscles tense as she continues to fight the shaking. It has been stopped, no longer intensifying since Lincoln moved into the line of fire—but every time it begins to settle Ward speaks again and sets her nerves racing out of control.
But now he stops, still watching Lincoln with that look of mild uneasiness that isn't fear but something not altogether different from it.
"Chill, fire boy. I'm not here to hurt anyone," he says in an uneasy tone, holding up his hands in mock surrender.
Skye is dubious, but the aching calms, if only slightly.
"Then why are you here?" Lincoln asks without amusement, still sparking.
He smiles, and Skye purses her lips in disgust, taking another slow breath and feeling the shaking beneath her feet begin to settle.
"Same reason as you, I imagine. Recruiting a premonitionist…" He lets out a low whistle, "what a prize."
Lincoln's power crackles harsher at the words, and Ward takes a half step back.
"Somehow I have trouble believing 'recruit' is the word to describe what you intended to do to get her to join whatever twisted team you are creating," Skye hisses through clenched teeth.
"Lucky for me," he snaps back, ignoring her words, "you two arrived just in time to screw up all my work. She's long gone. Now neither of us get her."
Neither Skye nor Lincoln reply and the three stand in awkward quiet, listening to the ground still softly rumbling and static crackling.
"Go back in the house," Lincoln finally says in that same authoritative tone from earlier. "Stand in the doorway and don't leave the doorway until we are gone. Don't try any shit. I get the impression you like yourself too much to want a stray spark to send the place up in flames."
Ward looks over his shoulder, surely noticing now if he hadn't already the dry, brittle wood composing the farmhouse.
The white electricity flaming in Lincoln's hands crackles threateningly, and Ward looks back at him with a vague amusement that makes Skye feel ill. She's finally contained the shaking of the ground but her body is still quivering with the force of the outburst.
She feels safe behind Lincoln.
Ward slowly moves backwards, stepping back into the doorway still displaying the chilling smile. Lincoln doesn't take his eyes off of him till he is settled there, then only steals a brief glance over his shoulder at Skye.
"Alright?"
She nods, curling her shaking arms tightly around her. She thinks she should be embarrassed about her outburst—and probably will be later—but now, she is filled with relief.
She watches Ward in the rearview till he disappears as she speeds back down the gravel to the street.
Xxx
There is an inn in the next town that they check into, and despite its small size they earn many uneasy stares for their disheveled states. Lincoln's shirt is charred and his hair more sloppy even than usual—Skye's arms bruised and legs still shaking.
They didn't speak at all in the van, spirits low and energy lower—neither willing to bring up something that would turn the silence from exhausted to tense with no escape available. When they get to the room she only speaks to offer he take the shower first, which he accepts with a wordless, dazed nod.
When she hears the shower flip on, she grabs her bag and drops it on the bed, digging beneath the underwear and wires to find her phone—dialing the number by heart.
It rings three times.
"Skye?"
"Fitz." Her voice comes out breathily and it feels like she's been holding it in for a while.
She hears the clicking of keys in the background and imagines her friend in the safety of the lab on base, working away like usual.
She tries to imagine Jemma beside him, and her heart thuds.
"D' you need the Director?"
It's her turn to stay silent, staring at the dizzily over-flowered wallpaper, sifting through the overlapping designs till she finds a daisy.
"No. I just… wanted to check in with you."
He makes an indecipherable noise and the clicking grows heavier a moment before stopping.
"I still 'm getting unnatural readin's from the rock," he says, "'s just hard to work ou' why. 's all alien, couldn' tell if there was any biological base 'n it at all."
Silence for a moment.
"'s Jemma's specialty, really. She'd have it figured ou' by now."
Skye doesn't know how to respond and Fitz doesn't seem to know how to continue.
"'s Lincoln there?"
His voice has a hopeful edge—the two had become unlikely friends in spite of Fitz's new perpetual grumpiness and Lincoln's time being split with the Afterlife. It was something the rest of the team had been remarkably relieved to watch develop.
"We just found our first inn," she says with a dry laugh, "he's showering. Living in a van is gross. I would know."
"Ah."
The clicking has begun again, faster, and Skye imagines he's set the phone on speaker on the shelf beside his ridiculous TARDIS statue so he can focus on whatever his newest idea to crack the rock mystery is.
If she closes her eyes and just listens, she feels like she's back. They sit in amicable silence for a few minutes, listening to the quiet noises at either end of the line.
"I lost control again."
The words fall past her lips before she can stop them, and Fitz's end goes silent.
She immediately thinks she should regret telling him, but for some reason sharing it with him makes the frustration lessen, if only slightly.
"I thou' Lincoln was meant t' help so you didn'?"
She can tell he is carefully controlling his voice, trying not to show his concern.
The shower suddenly goes silent and Skye bites her lip.
"I have to go," she says. "My turn to shower, and I don't intend to miss my shot." She laughs but doesn't think the dryness if it fools Fitz.
She moves to hang up, but then she hears him again.
"Jus' stay safe, yeah? Everyone here… we need y' back 'n one piece."
She lifts the phone back to her ear slowly, listening again to the quiet lab on the other end.
"Nothing is going to happen to me," she assures him, thinking of the fiery flames that could barely be called electricity that Lincoln had produced earlier. "I promise."
She believes it.
Xxx
She showers until the water runs cold, knowing it is the only thing standing between her and Lincoln and the inevitable. She'd screwed up and it had nearly cost them both—she was hardly fit to be in the field and now it was clear to both of them. She has yet to experience Lincoln being disappointed in her but the anxiety churning in the pit of her stomach assures her she is not going to like it at all.
She reasons with herself as the cold water soaks through her hair and down her body—that it was Ward, that it was an unforeseeable condition that she could not have possibly controlled.
But it still stands that she lost control.
Regardless, she cannot stay in the bathroom forever.
She finishes washing the rest of her hair and has to use the rest of the tiny bottle of shampoo provided, even if it hardly seems touched by Lincoln. She still doesn't feel clean but she flips the faucet off anyway, reaching for the towel she'd hung nearby—suddenly in a rush to dress and escape the tiny bathroom.
The room isn't large, either. There is a bed with a nightstand and a couch that pulls out (that Lincoln has already managed to claim with his typical gentlemanly grace). The only other thing in the room is a rickety old desk near the door—and it is what he is standing at when she comes out of the bathroom, with what appears to be all of the files they've brought along spread sloppily in front of him.
She has never known Lincoln to be sloppy.
He looks up when he hears the door and shocks Skye by smiling softly when their eyes meet.
"Turns out I'm not the only one with some crap in my past, huh?"
She smiles weakly and manages a slight shrug. He watches the movements closely, something she is becoming accustomed to, before speaking gently.
"Your powers are still new to you, Skye. It hasn't even been a month—you're gonna have incidents. It's no good to beat yourself up over them."
She stays quiet, running a hand through her wet and tangled hair and dragging it over one shoulder. He's still watching her, and when she doesn't answer he moves a step from the table, nearer to her.
"I've transitioned a lot of people. No one is ever in the field this quickly, much less under control. No one was hurt, and Layla wasn't going to join us no matter what actually happened. You shouldn't feel bad—you ended up getting it under control and everything was okay."
His gentle tone and careful wide eyes only make her feel worse, running her hand through her hair again—getting frustrated when her fingers get tangled and letting out an angry spurt of breath.
"How can you just stand there and say it was okay?" She snaps with an angry shake of her head. "Lincoln—I was out of control. Anything could have happened, and it was just luck that I calmed down. I could have hurt someone; I could have hurt you. It was not okay."
Her frustration in herself and his utter refusal to join her in the feeling is overwhelming, and she feels the familiar uncomfortable tinge beginning to numb her senses starting in her fingertips. She squeezes her eyes shut hard, fighting against it.
She doesn't hear him move towards her but suddenly his hand is on her shoulder, squeezing softly.
She jerks away.
"Don't touch me," she hisses, eyes still pressed firmly shut. "I told you, I don't have control."
He lets out a soft breath but doesn't reach out again.
"Just listen, Skye. Please. Let me help you have control."
Her fingers are shaking and she takes a deep breath, focusing on his voice.
"Don't think about it," he says, voice still steady. "Focus on something else. If you think about it, you're giving it the energy to gain power."
She isn't sure how the hell she is meant to not think about the immense tingling overcoming her but she tries, tuning herself instead to the rough timbre of his voice and the cool drip of water from her still-wet hair soaking her spine.
She almost doesn't notice when he touches her shoulder again.
Almost.
This time, however, she doesn't pull away.
"Good," he praises in the same soft, even tone. The tingling is receding, slowly, and she opens her eyes gingerly to find his, wide and watching. The corner of his lip twitches slightly upwards. "See—you're doing fine."
She squeezes her fists at her side, but finds herself unable to tear her eyes from his.
"Your definition of 'fine' concerns me," she tells him with sarcastic slowness, and he laughs, ducking his head and breaking whatever connection was between them—hand dropping from her shoulder.
There are still remnants of the tense stare in the air, however, and Skye forces a smile across her face.
"So, I totally saw a pool that only looked half sketchy downstairs. How about a swim?"
He shakes his head, and she could swear a splash of red color his cheeks. She raises an eyebrow.
"What? It wasn't that bad."
It actually was, but she gets the sense the condition of the pool is not his motivator—and now she's curious.
"Somehow I doubt that," he tells her with a look of dubious amusement, "however, even if it was of Olympic standards I would not be joining you."
She grabs at her heart dramatically, smirking.
"That cuts deep, sparky," she tells him, watching as he rolls his eyes before continuing, "What, does the water not agree with your circuits or something?"
He gives her a look of contempt that only makes her smirk harder.
"I'd rather avoid bodies of water bigger that I am, thanks."
It takes all Skye has to bite at her lips to fight the immense bubble of laughter that rises in her throat.
"Oh my God, you're afraid of water," she says, probably entirely too gleefully.
He looks entirely unamused, and she has enough decency to feel slightly bad.
"I'm sorry," she amends, still smirking, and his glare hardens, "no, really—" she bites hard at the corners of her smile to demonstrate, and finally his glare breaks into a heavy roll of his eyes.
"Try to avoid drowning," he tells her, turning back towards the desk, "I refuse to save you if you do."
She watches him return to the piles of messy files, working to soften her still wide, amused smile before speaking.
"What are you doing? I'd rather help you instead."
