AN: I've changed my mind... THIS is my favourite chapter. Without further ado, I produce: THE RESCUE! yyyyaaaaayyy *children cheering* Enjoy!


Within ten minutes, Coulson had organised a S.H.I.E.L.D. SWAT team and they were driving at way-too-fast-miles-per-hour to Cameron's research lab. The lab itself usually would have been half an hour away, but due to May's extreme driving, they reached it in less than ten minutes, Fitz looking slightly worse for wear.

"Do you know what?" he muttered, "I don't care how drunk he was, it was definitely May's driving that made Ward feel sick last night."

"Fitz can you hack into the system and get the doors under control?" Coulson asked, checking his gun before holstering it.

"I think Skye's beat us to it," Fitz muttered, nodding towards the front door of the building, which had swung open as soon as the last car door was shut.

As Simmons pulled on a bulletproof vest, she turned around to see Ward holding a gun out for her. She frowned, "But... I haven't had any training." Ward shrugged.

"It's easy," he told her, "This is the simplest model you can get. Just aim and shoot. Easy." Simmons looked worried. Ward placed the gun in her hand and closed her finger around it, "You'll be fine," he assured her, "It's only a precaution anyway. With Coulson, May and me, I doubt you'll have to use it."

"Famous last words," Simmons muttered, trying to ignore exactly how wrong the gun felt in her hand.

As Ward walked over to Coulson to discuss their entry strategy, Fitz slowly edged his way over to Simmons, "So... you're going in with them?" Simmons nodded, looking worried.

"They shouldn't be letting me," she said quietly, "I think Coulson's turning a blind eye because he knows how much I want Skye back. God, Fitz, what am I doing?!" she leant against the car, her head in her free hand. Fitz reached out to comfort her, pausing slightly with his hand halfway to resting on her arm before carrying it through.

"You're trying to help a friend," he said quietly, noticing how she lifted her head to glance at his hand, which was now resting comfortably on her upper arm, "You'll be great out there and you'll get Skye back. I believe in you, Jemma." Simmons smiled.

"That's... that's really sweet of you," she said quietly, bringing her own hand up to rest on top of his, "Thank you."

Fitz smiled, "Any time," he said, letting his hand drop, "And, hey, maybe afterwards... we could, maybe, get a drink or something?" Simmons smiled properly, glad that he'd taken notice of Skye's goodbye message.

"Why, Fitz!" she said, faking surprise, "I never knew you thought of me that way!" Fitz blushed slightly as Simmons laughed, "I'd love to go for a drink with you." She kissed his cheek, smiling at him once more before joining Ward, Coulson and May.

"Well, it's about time."

"Seriously, the amount of time it's take you two..."

"Congratulations," Coulson said, smiling at her, "But we need to get going. I reckon we've got about three minutes to get to Skye and this compound is huge." Everyone sobered up immediately, their faces turning serious as they made their way in.


As the guards around her started taking orders from their earpieces, several of them leaving the large room, Skye took that as her cue to start opening and closing doors all over the compound. Yet another advantage of Cameron using a single system: she knew exactly where to find the door controls.

Glancing around sweetly, she spoke to the guards behind her, "Is there something wrong?" she asked, faking innocence.

"Shut up," one said gruffly, "Keep working." Skye saluted him sarcastically, turning back to her control screen.

"Come on, Ward," she muttered, hoping he didn't hate her so much that he wouldn't come to rescue her, "I've got a score to settle with you."


"This is way too easy," Ward muttered as yet another door opened for them, "We haven't come across anyone. Not a single guard."

"Maybe they're all concentrating on guarding Skye?" Simmons suggested, "Whatever she's doing is obviously important."

"That's possible," Coulson agreed, "But there should be other staff. We should have alerted someone, anyone by now."

"Maybe we're just lucky," May said, "Don't question it. If we run into trouble we'll deal with it."

"Was that Melinda May being the optimist?" Ward smirked, "Skye leaves and everything's backwards..."

"Stop." Coulson said suddenly, "Listen." Beyond the door in front of them, they could hear the raised voice of Graham Cameron.

"What do you mean S.H.I.E.L.D. are outside?! How did they get our location?"

"I think we may have jinxed it," Simmons said quietly, trying to keep her nerves under control.

"New strategy," Coulson said, "Everyone, find a hiding spot. We'll have to make a memorable entrance for the founder of the Rising Tide."


It wasn't long until Cameron burst in with a face like thunder.

"What did you do?!" he shouted across the room, "What have you been doing in my system?!" Skye couldn't help but smirk slightly at his ignorance.

"You know absolutely nothing about S.H.I.E.L.D.," she said, not being able to stop the venom in her voice (as if she wanted to), "Yes, you may be an ex-agent, and maybe you know how they used to work. But things are different now and no matter how much you torture me, no matter how many times you think you've got something over me, I will never betray S.H.I.E.L.D., much less my team. Not again."

She only just caught May sneaking in through the still open door before the woman disappeared, and Skye could have collapsed from the relief that her team had found her (or maybe that was just the concussion finally beating her. She couldn't be entirely sure). Cameron smiled evilly, moving to the wall next to the door and hitting a button, causing the lights to go down before blaring red, claxons wailing.

"I've just locked down the entire building," he told her, "Your team can't get to you, even if they're already past the front door. And even if one of them can get through eight layers of reinforced steel, I doubt any of them can take on all twenty three of the guards in this room. You're trapped Skye, and I'm going to make you pay for what you've done."

Skye smiled slightly, "You're never completely trapped," she said, letting the smile widen, "And you've obviously never heard of the Cavalry." Before he could do so much as frown confusedly at her comment, he was collapsing to the floor unconscious. Never before had Skye been, a) more happy to see May, and b) more appreciative that Ward had been an insistent (which was code for pain-in-the-ass) SO.

As a guard tried to grab her from behind, she jabbed her elbow into his stomach, kicking him in his private area for good measure, knocking him unconscious with a well-aimed kick to the head. When she looked around, she found eight of the twenty-three guards already unconscious, and she hurried to lift the lockdown from the control screen.

It took her a full thirty seconds (twenty four seconds longer than her personal best, which astounded and worried her at the same time), but eventually the door opened and Ward, Coulson and... was that Simmons?! ran in.

The threat finally dealt with, and the realisation that her team had arrived, lifted a weight the size of Mount Everest from her shoulders, and Skye was dizzy with relief (or, again, was that the concussion?!).

"Skye." The way Ward said her name made her open her eyes, though she couldn't actually remember closing them, nor how long they'd been shut. All twenty-four of the people in the room were unconscious, and Simmons seemed to be having far too much fun tying them up.

Not being able to shake the feeling that it was beginning to feel like a scene from a movie, Skye moved to run to Ward, only for her legs to completely betray her as her body decided that, no, enough was enough. Ward caught her easily, making Skye grin.

"Don't tell me," she said, barely hearing her own voice, "You catch girls like this every day."

Ward smiled, "Only the pretty ones," he retorted.

"You don't hate me?" she checked. Ward shook his head.

"You don't hate me?!" he asked, frowning worriedly, "We were assholes to you, Skye..."

"Shut up." She said, pressing her lips to his, "I'd say you're family, but that would make this weird."

"Well, for a second there I did think that this situation was normal..." Ward said, his face so serious that it made Skye giggle.

"Ow," she said, clutching her ribs, "Note to self: don't laugh. It causes pain."

"What did they do to you?!" Ward asked, "I'm not going to lie... you look like crap."

"Ever the romantic," Skye teased, "You'll look after me, right? No matter what?" Ward looked confused as he nodded.

"Of course," he said immediately, "Always."

Skye smiled, "I was hoping you'd say that." She managed before finally passing out, succumbing to her body's wishes and drifting into the darkness.


Et voila! (Ha! More French :3) The Rescue is complete! I hope it lived up to your expectations and, don't worry: Skye isn't quite out of the woods yet :3

Not going to lie: the interaction between Skye and Ward at the end there is my favourite piece of writing since I started my novel eighteen months ago. I'm now compelling myself to write a sequel just for the sake of writing more stuff like that. OH and if anyone got the slight Harry Potter quote/reference and was overcome by feels, I apologise... I really couldn't resist :D

Remember, remember (the fifth of November - guess who went to a fireworks display tonight :D) reviews are the universe (not literally... well, maybe literally.) and they mean as much as a thousand cute little baby dragons ^-^ Thanks for reading everyone! (TTFN... I just couldn't end a chapter without it :D)