A/N: Sorry, this is quite a short chapter. I just wanted to get something up because I haven't updated in a while.

I'm taking a sort of break from writing right now. I've got quite a bit of schoolwork to do and there's just so many sports events or whatever going on that I can't seem to find the time to write. Right now I'm in bed half-asleep after a two-night swimming gala.

Also, has anyone read the Black Widow book yet? I'm about halfway through and am not quite sure what to make of it ... to me it just seems almost like an OC Avengers FanFiction. But then, I spend a lot of time on here, so it's not really surprising. Let me know.

So it might be a while until the next update - but please bear with me, because I'm certainly not finished with this story yet. And hey! There's a 1000 word update for you right here! Right now!

Please review!

"Skye. Skye."

She groaned. "What?"

"I need your help."

"I'm sleeping," she mumbled.

"So was I, until I ruptured my stitches."

Skye shot up. "What? Are you kidding? You'd better be kidding. There is no way I'm going through that again!"

"I'm kidding," he said. "But it does need cleaning. And we both need to eat, which means I need to get up so I can cook."

"I can cook," Skye said indignantly. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, I can sort of cook. I lived by myself for - "

"You can cook instant meals in a microwave," he interrupted. "And I don't have any instant meals, so go and fill up the bucket. And bring the dressings, bandages and iodine."

"Iodine?" she asked incredulously. "Nobody uses iodine any more! We use antiseptic and stuff!"

"Or we did, until you used it all up yesterday by dropping it on the floor."

"Cr -"

"If you say that one more time after yesterday," he threatened, only half smiling, "I will open the wound myself and bleed to death."

"Damn," Skye said instead. "I'll go and find the iodine."

She found it. It was near a bag of more gauze dressings and bandages, which she grabbed too, and tried not to look at the bloodstained floor. How could one human being produce that much blood? She shuddered.

When she got back, Ward was sat there without a shirt on, trying to undo the bandages. She walked in and slapped his arm. "Stop it! You'll open it up again!"

"Relax," he said. "I know how not to rupture stitches."

She choked. "Excuse me?! Pretty much all of my memories of the 'bus begin with Simmons telling you - "

She stopped. They were both quiet for a moment, thinking.

"I haven't thought of that in a while," Ward said.

"Simmons? Or the 'bus?"

"Why would I be thinking about Simmons?" he asked, and Skye turned away, trying to blink back tears.

"Simmons - " she croaked, "Simmons ... she ... "

She started to leave, but Ward grabbed hold of her arm. "She didn't make it?"

Skye ripped the bandages off with more violence than was necessary. "That's the thing," she said bitterly. "We don't even know. There wasn't a body, any trace of her, any clue that she was dead - but there wasn't anything that proved that she was alive, either. She just ... disappeared. We have footage - "

She realised that she really was crying, now - tears pouring down her cheeks. She sat down on the bed next to Ward. "Hydra?" he murmured, so quietly that she barely heard.

"No," she said. "No. She was swallowed by an alien rock, and we never saw her again. It's been, what, four weeks now? Maybe more - I lose track of time here."

"I'm sorry," Ward said. "Sim - Jemma was a good woman."

His grip on her arm tightened considerably as she began to apply the iodine.

Coulson was there to meet her when she landed.

"May," he said, by way of greeting. "Are you injured?"

He was looking at the tremendous bruising blossoming across her eye, she could tell. Was she injured? Yes, and it hurt like hell. She could barely bend and straighten her knee, but she was doing a good job of hiding the limp.

"No," she said. "I'm fine."

She made her way towards the base entrance. "I take it the others are in the jet?" Coulson called after her.

"Most of them can't walk," she replied briskly.

She heard an "oh" behind her but didn't bother to turn around.

May walked into the safehouse (it was an ugly building - small and squat and made of concrete, just like Ward's) lost in thought. Skye ... couldn't be dead. It just didn't add up. But where else would she be? If she'd escaped, she would have called by now, but she hadn't called. She was ninety-nine percent sure that there were no secret passageways; it wasn't SHIELD'S style. Well, perhaps a little, but the place was so secret anyway that there would be no need to have one, and she'd never experienced one. So she wasn't inside the house.

Perhaps Ward had passed her on to the highest bidder - sold her off to someone who wanted intel.? That would be brutal, even for Ward - like a slave trade - but anything was possible, and she wouldn't necessarily put it past him. But to Skye? He always claimed that he loved her, and despite the fact that he was a lying, traitorous bastard, nobody really doubted that. The man was obsessed with her, wouldn't talk to anyone but her.

Did that make him want to dispose of her? Did he think she was a weakness?

She pushed open another door, not really knowing where she was going, and was met with a fierce head of red hair and a unsurprised-looking face.

"Well, hey," said the face. "It's the famous Cavalry."

She knew, she damn well knew not to call her that. Coulson was her handler, for goodness' sake. "Oh, look," May snapped back, "it's the infamous Black Widow. Now there's a surprise."

"May?" Hunter's voice rang out from behind Romanoff. At a glare from May she stepped out of the way. Hunter stood up from what appeared to be a beanbag. "Bloody hell. At last. I've been going insane."

"What, no sex in over a week?" May replied coolly. "You astound me."

Hunter didn't react, instead just saying, "What's got her all upset?"

A Scottish voice called from the kitchen. "What do you think?"

Fitz appeared with a steaming mug of coffee - no, tea, Fitz still drank tea - in his hands. "May," he acknowledged. "Good to see you."

"Well, isn't this nice," said someone else, and it was Hawkeye.

May turned back and started walking the way she came.