Chapter 11 – Rocky

Enjoy.


"What do we tell the team? She was fine a few hours ago." Skye barely said, her words finally reappearing to break the silence in the waiting room she and May sat in, the silence that had been the loudest sound for the last half an hour apart from the faint hum of the lights.

May didn't shift her eye-line from the door. She had let her guard down when Bobbi was lying, barely conscious, in pain, and she wasn't prepared to make a habit out of it. Not once did she reply to the persistent everything okay's and I'm sorry's from the nurses that continued to float about. What were they sorry for? Did they cause this mess? Were they really that sorry? May didn't think so.

Skye continued to passively murmur her thoughts, "Why didn't they just let Maria cut off the cast? Then she wouldn't be…"

"She is not dead, Skye."

May spoke, finally.

"Right." Skye agreed.

"She'll be okay."

"She will."


Maria walked down the seemingly never ending corridor. Her voice as a professional told her she shouldn't be delivering this news. Her voice as a person, a human being, told her she should be because these people were relying on her to take care of their agent at a time when they could not. Bobbi's stubbornness and attitude was surprisingly intriguing and Maria had formed a closer bond with her than other patients for as long as she could remember. But that also meant that she felt a little more emotional when Bobbi deteriorated, the other nurses could tell and even the doctor had his suspicions. As she finally approached the waiting room door, she braced herself for the moments to come, knowing the news she had wasn't some they were going to be fond of. However, she was a nurse and that was what her job entailed sometimes.


It had been another hour. May had heard the footsteps coming and was already standing when Maria entered the waiting room, a regretful look on her face. It wasn't the most comforting sign.

"I won't sugar coat anything here. Bobbi still has a leg which is extremely lucky. Her recovery time for that leg has been extended, especially because the cast wasn't cut off earlier, so physical therapy will only be on one leg until it's healed. There's a possibility that if we can get her one leg strong enough, she could use crutches then but it really does depend on her body." Maria explained.

"What about right now?" May inquired. Maria sighed but answered,

"There were complications. She should be staying in the ICU for longer because of that but I managed to pull a few more strings so she's back in her room. I know I'm going to end up going way overboard for all of you." The last part was said mainly to herself, disbelief at what she'd already done for them so far.

Skye picked up on Maria's tone, "Why do you do it?"

The nurse offered her a warm smile and answered with a hint of humour in her voice, "I honestly have no idea. Bobbi is manipulating like that, I guess."

She changed the subject before Skye could continue to question, "I suggest you go back to… wherever you go to, Bobbi can't have visitors just yet. Eat, drink, rest. Just get out of here, we'll be in touch if anything happens."

May nodded stiffly – though the relief was evident on her face from the news Bobbi was okay – and left the room while Skye hesitated.

"Everything okay, Agent Skye?"

Skye nodded, "Yeah, I just have a question," Maria gestured for her to continue, "Why are you a nurse?"

Maria looked taken aback, "Why am I a nurse?"

The agent nodded to confirm. Maria glanced around, cautious of prying ears of gossiping nurses. She then turned back to Skye and replied,

"Look, I'm not meant to be here," She motioned to her surroundings, "It isn't my environment but helping people is my passion and this place is the closest thing I can get right now. In reality, I need more than this job, I want more. I just can't risk it."

Skye listened carefully and an immediate thought had surfaced in her mind but she didn't vocalise it to Maria, not before she could be sure. Meanwhile, the nurse seemed to realise she was sharing information she wouldn't usually, and probably shouldn't with someone she barely knew.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be talking about this. I need to get back. So do you, I think." Maria disappeared to join the hospital traffic, leaving Skye a lot to think about.


"Jemma," Fitz called for the biochemists attention as she walked into the lab on the Bus, "Can we-can we talk?"

Simmons nodded enthusiastically, "Of course."

They moved to a quiet corner of the lab. It had been a while since either scientist had been working on the Bus's lab, it almost felt foreign to be standing in it as the people they were – how they'd changed. Fitz wrung his hands together and fiddled with them as he tried to find the words. Simmons reached out to place one of her own on his,

"It's okay, Fitz. What do you want to talk about?" She encouraged.

Fitz sucked in a breath and rushed out his words, "I just wanted to say sorry for back in the interrogation room, I was just, uh, thinking more about myself I didn't think to check with you on how you felt about Ward but I was just a bit angry…at him."

Fitz frowned. He wasn't planning on saying that. He was supposed to tell her-

"That's okay. You don't have to ask me when you want to tell someone how you're feeling. I mean, you can always talk to me but you don't need my permission. Especially when it's Ward." Simmons couldn't help the disgusted tone of voice and expression that greeted her when she spoke of the man that had betrayed them.

"Right. Yeah…"

Simmons caught Fitz's eye, "Was that all?"

Fitz ran his hand down the back of his head but nodded, "Yeah, that's everything," He slid past Simmons to resume his lab work. However, Simmons could feel that there was something else so she called back to him,

"Leo!"

Fitz looked to the left, then back over his shoulder at Simmons, "Yes?"

"You know you can tell me anything, right?"

He gave a small nod and returned to his work, Simmons furrowing her eyebrows in confusion and thought as she went in search of Skye.


May and Skye had decided to return to the Bus. Coulson's advice of rest and food had flew straight out of the window by now considering Bobbi's condition, plus Skye was driving May insane with how she was banging on about talking to Coulson urgently. There was literally nothing she could do to drive faster, the speedometer needle would actually break.

"Alright, we're here. Get out of my car." May ordered however resignedly. Skye shot her a look of concern but she remembered when her S.O had once told her that she preferred to stew with her emotions alone. With that thought, she left the vehicle to enter the Bus and find Coulson.

The man was spotted fairly quickly, Skye collared him and dragged him back to his office.

"AC, I know we've been a bit short on medical field agents lately…"

Coulson sighed and leaned back in his chair, preparing for an incredibly long conversation.


74 minutes later and Skye was chucked out of the office.

"You promise to think about it?" Skye triple-checked. Coulson internally screamed, "Yes. I'll definitely think about it!" But it came out much calmer, showing his eternal patience for this woman.

The office door closed and Skye made her way down the spiral staircase, hoping she'd done enough to get her point across to the Director. She walked towards the open cargo door to leave the Bus, get some air when a voice hollered from behind,

"Skye!" It was Simmons, of course, "I've been looking everywhere!"

The hacker half-shrugged, apologetically, "I had to talk to AC, something happened at the hospital."

"I really think you should consider changing Director Coulson's 'nickname' from AC to DC…or would that be too much like the comics…" Simmons pondered before suddenly digesting what Skye had said, "Wait, what happened at the hospital? Is Bobbi alright?"

Skye eyed the agents around them that were either in their own conversations or on guard of the Bus. Despite knowing this information, it still put her on edge. The scientist picked up on it and took Skye's arm,

"We're going to the bunks, clearly you would rather not talk in front of other people." She explained.

They weaved their way throughout the Bus to enter Skye's old bunk. Nothing had changed here, it was still small, simple and bland. She had never felt comfortable enough to personalise it, not that she had much to do that with. Simmons sat herself on the bed and Skye followed.

"What happened?"

Thinking back at the events of the past few hours, Skye felt a sting in her eyes, "Um…" Her voice cracked and wavered as she tried to find the words. She swallowed back the lump in her throat in an attempt to speak more coherently, "Jemma, I think Bobbi almost died."

Simmons' eyes widened as Skye reached a hand up to cover her mouth, realising the reality of what she'd said.

"What on earth do you mean?" Came Simmons' shocked reply. Skye released a shaky breath,

"I don't know, she had compartment syndrome. They didn't let Maria – the nurse – cut off the cast straight away and then there were some complications. I genuinely thought we'd lost her. She was supposed to be in ICU but Maria had her moved back to her room with the equipment in there."

Simmons nodded slowly in understanding before launching herself at Skye to embrace her friend in a much needed hug, "Compartment syndrome is okay. Not okay, okay but as long as there are no clots from her broken leg spreading to her lungs then she should make a good recovery. There will be some mighty scar there though, just to add to her battle scars. I'm really sorry you had to be there to see everything." She spoke into the hug.

They parted and Simmons asked, "Does Lance know?"

Skye shook her head but stopped and shrugged, "Maybe May told him but she wasn't in the best of moods so I don't think so."

The scientist gave her a pointed look, "You know what we need to do, right?"

"Yes, I know. Just dreading it like hell. You know, we had just been talking about their relationship before…" She didn't return to the topic, "It just sucks how this has come up."

Simmons only had time to nod when the bunk door slid open and one of the last people they wanted to see stood there, a frown fixed on his face and arms crossed over his body. Skye immediately stood to face him, it was all or nothing now.

"Hunter-"

"What's going on? May has a face like she's been slapped by a brick wall and you two are gassing in here like there's some top secret mission happening. So cough up." Hunter interrupted. Simmons stood up and placed a supporting hand on Skye's shoulder, giving it a squeeze before excusing herself from the bunk.

"Skye?" He prompted expectantly.

Skye knew she couldn't put it off any longer, "May and I went to the hospital to see Bobbi earlier. We were just talking-"

"Please get to the point." Hunter said, a worry becoming evident on his face.

"She complained of leg pain, it got really bad. Maria came in and she said it was compartment syndrome. Then there were complications during the surgery…" Skye trailed off at Hunter's expression.

"Is she alright?" He asked. Skye barely nodded and was about to speak to explain further but Lance was gone, racing to see Bobbi – he wasn't going to let her go again.


Well, the chapter is finally here, thanks for your patience if you read.

Apologies for the cliffy! Thank you so much for the reviews from Sanctuaria, Guest and Spitfire303!

I was just wondering if I should do a time skip? At some point? Because, in reality, the injuries that Bobbi has are a very long working progress to recover from, I could write for months on end. So I'm not talking anything too major but just enough to change the scenery a bit. Please let me know what you're thinking out there!

Thank you and until next time.