Chapter 36 - New Territory

Events in this chapter occur during Season 2, episode 13, and may use portions of dialogue from the episode.

It really hadn't occurred to Skye that the shrink would want to see them both separately. Andrew Garner turned out to be a charming, handsome older man with a very pleasant manner, and in any other situation she'd probably have felt at ease with him at once. But the fact was that May led Brock off to take him to Fitz's lab to go get fitted for his visor, leaving Skye alone with Dr Garner.

She immediately started panicking. "So!" she leaned forward, eyes wide. "Tell me about the wedding. I'm thinking May could go either way - understated or a full bridezilla. She can be a control freak."

Garner saw straight through her attempts at deflection. Called her on her try at joking her way out of a corner. Started drilling gently down into her psyche.

"You're an agent," he said gently, "and I imagine you must be afraid you're going to lose that."

Skye froze. And he saw in her face that it was more than just that. More than the fear of losing the team that was the only family she'd ever had.

"Tell me," he said quietly, and it exploded out of her, the fear she hadn't dared acknowledge even to herself.

"It's not me I'm afraid for. It's Brock. If SHIELD won't let us be agents any more, what do we have left? Where could we go? HYDRA know that he betrayed them. They'll be hunting for him, they'll never give up, there would be nowhere safe for us…" She had to stop and take a deep breath. Try to calm herself before the buzzing under her skin got too intense.

"I see," Andrew said softly. And the Cage door burst open.

"Skye!" Brock was across the room in two strides, grabbing her into his arms. He held her tight, keeping his body between her and Andrew, turning to peer over his shoulder.

"Whatever the fuck you said to her, back off."

He looked massive and darkly intimidating with the blue-glinting lenses in the black visor that wrapped around his head. Andrew sat very still and tried to look as unthreatening as possible.

"Actually she was telling me about you," he said quietly. "And I'm going to confess something I'm not sure either of you know; you are the first soulmated pair ever to both be on SHIELD's Gifted index. We're entering new territory here."

Brock took a deep breath, but Skye's silent confirmation that Andrew was telling the truth did more to calm his anger than anything else. She burrowed into his chest for a moment longer, then pulled back. Responding to her unspoken request, Brock turned so when Skye shifted to lean her back on his chest that they both faced Andrew.

"I think we've also just demonstrated that there's absolutely no point in separating us for these sessions," Skye said, calmer with Brock nearby. "We're going to know how the other is feeling no matter what, and we're less likely to have a repeat of this if you keep us together." She sighed. "I know that standard procedure is meant to allow a person to feel like they can open up about anything, because no one's there to hear but the doctor… but with us…"

"We don't always discuss everything, but Skye and I don't keep secrets from each other if we can help it," Brock finished for her.

Andrew studied them, silently taking in details of their body language and how much more relaxed Skye was with her soulmate there, then nodded. "Alright, we'll work on this together," he agreed in a calm, steady voice. "And I will make one more thing clear to you both." He paused, considering his words, then continued. "I'm not here for SHIELD. Yes, I know, an evaluation is mandatory for the Index. But my priority isn't Coulson or Melinda or your team. It's you, the pair of you. Your mental health and well-being."

Brock met Andrew's gaze, quietly assessing and weighing the truth of his words. Slowly, he began to smile. "Well, that's a change," he said after a moment. Skye chuckled quietly but didn't interrupt. "I'm pretty sure my well-being has been on the bottom of just about every priority list for the last decade or better."

"Not mine," Skye insisted in a low tone, and Brock squeezed her reassuringly. She smiled up at him and went to close the door. Brock settled on the bed and Skye sat beside him, leaving the chair for Andrew. "Alright. Let's blaze some new territory."

Andrew just looked at the pair of them for a long moment. "Why don't you tell Brock what you just told me, Skye?" he asked. "It's obviously something you've been holding in, perhaps something you hadn't even acknowledged to yourself until just this moment, am I right?"

Brock shook his head. "You don't have to say it out loud again, baby, I caught the gist from your mind," he said gently. "It's a fear I share," he admitted to Andrew. "If we can't stay with SHIELD - I well and truly burned all my other bridges when I turned on HYDRA and helped Captain America take down Project Insight. The only possible place left for us to go is the Avengers, if we can no longer be useful here. That said, I actually think they'd take us in, if we can get a handle on our powers. If we can't, we'd only be a danger to everyone around us."

"Especially me," Skye said bitterly. "I can't imagine Tony Stark would like me shaking his tower down if I got upset over something. They might take you, love…"

"You know as well as I do that we're a package deal." Brock pressed his lips against her hair, uncaring of Andrew watching them.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

"Tell me what you think." May fixed Andrew with her best basilisk glare. Even though she knew very well it wouldn't work on him.

"I think you absolutely must not attempt to separate them in any way," was the calm response. "If they were anything other than soulmates, I'd call it the worst case of mutual codependency I've ever seen, but since they are… I'll call it the tightest, deepest soulmate bond I've ever seen instead. Which is incredible considering you've told me how little time they've actually spent together."

May sighed. Poured another shot of whisky into Andrew's glass. He smiled and sipped.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Skye was dreaming. And in her dream, she was standing behind a glass window, watching while Brock was led out, blindfolded, and stood up against a wall opposite a firing squad.

"Any last words for your lover?" a low, familiar voice said in her ear. She turned to see Ward standing behind her, a HYDRA patch on the shoulder of his combat uniform.

"Don't do this," she said despairingly.

"This is how we punish traitors, Skye," Ward smiled mockingly. "HYDRA does not accept failure. Fire," he gave the order to the men lined up with their rifles, and Skye screamed.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Dragged slowly down into nightmare with her, Brock's dreams were even worse, because he knew only too well what HYDRA did with Gifted. He saw von Strucker's face in his nightmares, saw the man's smile as he cut slowly into Skye's skin.

"Discovery requires experimentation," Whitehall's skull said from a jar on the table.

Brock screamed.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

"Wake up! Wake up, Skye, Brock, for God's sake, you have to wake up!" Andrew and May shook them both frantically, barely able to keep their feet as the Bus shuddered, Jemma standing behind them, a syringe of sedative in her hand.

Brock's eyes snapped open first, and he curled around Skye protectively before realising what was happening, shutting his eyes with a pained wince and reaching out to her with his mind, soothing her as quickly as he could. Skye opened her eyes to look at him uncomprehendingly and he kissed her, reassuring her silently that everything was all right, that they were both safe.

The tremors subsided, and May collapsed back to sit on her heels, waving Jemma back.

"Go," Andrew said quietly. "I'll stay, talk with them."

It was so far outside May's realm of experience that she just nodded silently, getting up and sending Jemma out ahead of her. "Go back down to the base," she told Jemma quietly. "I know you've not been sleeping well. Get some rest." She collapsed to sit down on one of the couches in the lounge once the younger woman had left, head in her hands. "What the hell are we going to do?" she asked herself quietly.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

"What were you dreaming about?" Andrew asked point blank.

Skye shrank down into herself, and against Brock, who held her tightly, trying to soothe her, but his mind was still too full of his own nightmare. He could see the scalpel winking in the light as it cut into Skye's pale skin, as the blood began to flow…

"Stop!" Skye begged, and Brock took a deep breath, though he still didn't dare open his eyes.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry. I don't know which one of us was nightmaring," he addressed Andrew.

"I think perhaps you both were. You need to deal with these terrors, both of you. You need to deal with the issue that you have abilities now, abilities triggered by pain, and either you face that or you don't sleep again."

"How can we deal with it? How can we?" Skye cried out. "The fact that the fear of losing Brock cripples me isn't something I'm ever going to be able to change!"

The plane began to tremor. Andrew put a hand out towards her. "All right, Skye. I need you to stop. Just calm down. Take a breath."

"It isn't me," she said blankly as the shaking increased.

"Skye!" Andrew said, alarmed.

"It isn't her," Brock insisted. "It's the plane. We're taking off."

Andrew blinked. And then a scowl settled over his handsome features and he leapt to his feet and ran out of the room.

There was no way that Brock and Skye were going to sit quietly in the Cage and wait once they found out that Coulson was facing down Skye's crazy father and whatever violent lunatics he'd convinced to join him in his quest against SHIELD. Brock insisted that he could use the visor Fitz had made for him - it was uncomfortably tight around his temples and his view was severely constricted, but he'd manage - and Skye swore she'd ICE herself again if she felt her abilities start to break loose of her control.

In the end, May agreed, looking at Brock. He could almost feel her worry for Coulson, guessed that she was thinking she might need backup. And after all, even with his vision restricted, there was no-one better equipped to provide that backup than Brock Rumlow.

"How are we going to get Skye's father to back down?" Andrew asked practically. "He might listen to Skye - and he might not."

"He'll listen if you threaten me," Skye said steadily. "I saw him in San Juan. He went berserk whenever he thought I might be in danger."

Brock growled under his breath. She laid a gentle hand on his wrist. "Not like that. I have a plan. He doesn't know who you are, yet."

He was very much not okay with the idea of holding a gun to Skye's head. Even an unloaded one. But she convinced him, eventually, that he could just look big and threatening and she and May would do all the talking. All he had to do was put a hand around her throat and hold the empty gun to her temple, and eventually she talked him into it.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Brock tried very hard not to think that Skye's father belonged in an asylum. After all, his family hadn't exactly been anything to brag about, quite the opposite. But he knew the thought distressed Skye. Not as much as having to pretend to threaten her distressed him, though she'd been quite correct in that her father clearly had second thoughts when he saw the gun to her temple.

"Daisy," Cal said softly. "What have they done to you?"

"We put her on the Index," May said coldly. "Now we decide. Contain her, or put her down. Your call." She nodded at Brock, who took a deep breath and cocked the gun in his hand. Skye held very still against him. He could feel her pulse through his fingers on her throat. She was calm, her pulse still thudding along at 70 beats per minute. Of course, she knew that she wasn't in any danger. Cal knew no such thing.

"I can't lose you again!" Cal cried, eyes wild. "Don't you see what they do? You've been changed, and it scares the hell out of them. And I think it's wonderful! I can help!" he'd changed, in a moment, from panicking to manically excited. "Tell me, what's your thing? I was hoping it was wings."

Skye's heartrate was increasing, under Brock's fingertips, as Cal moved a little closer.

"Stop right there," Brock growled, departing from the script. "Or she dies."

Cal stared at him. At the visor over his eyes. Cocked his head slowly, curiously. "You won't kill her," he said, a note of discovery in his voice. "Though the truth is, you're capable of such things." He held out a hand towards Skye. "Come with me, Daisy."

"No," she squeaked out, barely able to speak with Brock's firm grip on her throat. His fingers loosened instinctively, but fortunately Cal had already turned away.

"You won't listen. Well - maybe you'll listen to him." He threw the microphone to Angar.

The next minute was a blur, as Phil and May leaped into action. Brock instinctively let go of Skye, tossing his useless gun aside and leaping forward to join the fight. He left the others to the unenhanced agents and took on the strongman, who turned out to be not all that strong after all. Turned back, feeling Skye's distress increase, raced towards her - only to stop in shock as there was a sudden explosion of blue light in the middle of the field.

"What the fuck is that?" he gasped, astonished, as a blue force bubble exploded around Cal and a guy in a trenchcoat was suddenly just there, grabbing the other man. Trenchcoat looked straight at Brock - and Brock saw, with sudden shock, that he had no eyes. Just smooth, unblemished skin from his cheekbones to his brow.

The force bubble vanished with a hissing crackle of energy, and Cal and the man with no eyes were gone.

His shock, his horror, transmitted across to Skye, and combined with her upset over her father's actions, tipped her over the edge. The ground began to tremor beneath her feet.

"No," she whispered, clenching her fists. "No!"

Agonising pain exploded from her hands up her arms. The last thing she saw was Brock racing towards her before the world went dark.

"Skye!" Brock screamed as he sprinted towards her, easily outpacing Coulson and May. The pain in her hands and arms was terrible, he could feel it overwhelming her body as she sagged towards the ground, and it poured into him, overloading the heat behind his eyes. He had just enough presence of mind to turn his head towards the last enemy still upright, the tech guy, before the visor over his eyes exploded with the incredible force of the beam that escaped, shards of sapphire and black composite bursting outwards from his face as white light seared the unfortunate computer expert.

May and Coulson froze with shock, staring - and Bobbi, just sprinting up out of the locker rooms after taking down Karla Faye Gideon, took one look, pulled her recently-reclaimed ICER gun and shot Rumlow with every round it still contained.

So there is a downside to the soulmate bond after all. What affects Skye, affects Brock, and that goes for good as well as bad.