Skye woke up to find that she was no longer on the plane, but she was also not in her bed at school. She sat up and looked around the room curiously. Her bed was one of two, and while the other was empty, it had obviously been slept in. It was an older looking room, but certainly fancier than anything that she had been in before. She had a vague memory of leaving the plane and getting into some sort of car before coming here, but she had absolutely no memory of getting to where she was now. She suspected that she must have sleep walked through the entire thing.

The door opened quietly and Aunt May stuck her head in, obviously checking up on her. Seeing that she was awake, she entered the room and walked quickly over to her, throwing her arms around Skye as she took a seat on the bed beside her. Neither one of them said anything for a while, Skye was just enjoying the hug while Aunt May was sniffling quietly.

She finally let Skye go, and began to look her over. "How are you feeling? We were so worried about you."

"I'm a lot better now, I think. I'm sorry to have caused you any worry. I should have been more considerate."

Aunt May hugged her again. "No, sweetie, you didn't do anything wrong."

Tears were welling up in her eyes. "I did. I didn't think and ran outside even though I knew I shouldn't have. If I had obeyed the rules, I wouldn't have ended up getting taken." She couldn't stop the tears anymore, and they were falling down her cheeks. She wiped them away before Aunt May got up to get a tissue box when more just replaced them.

Skye hadn't had much time to dwell on the choices that she made that led to her kidnaping over the last few days, because the situation that they were in took precedence. However, now that they were safe and she was faced with Aunt May and the worry that was etched all over her face, guilt hit her hard.

Since they met her, Aunt May and Uncle Ben had been nothing but kind to her, and Skye felt like she had paid them back for their kindness by causing them pain and worry. Even now, when Aunt May should have been very angry at her for her actions, she pulled Skye close again and just held her while she cried. Skye didn't understand. Usually when she screwed up, people just pushed her away so that they didn't have to deal with her. This was new and it felt nice.

"Skye, listen to me. No one cares about that anymore. Ms. Romanoff told us that you were upset and that you might have left the building because you were losing control. Everyone understands." She smoothed Skye's hair comfortingly as she spoke. "Everybody makes mistakes, and in this case, your mistake might have saved the other kids from something much worse. If you hadn't gotten that phone message out, we might not have ever known where to look for you. I'm not sure the other kids would have thought to do that, or even known how."

Skye sniffled, but sat back and shrugged. "Any of them could have done that."

"Mr. Rumlow explained what happened. Your idea and ability to use the phone and cover your tracks combined with his ability to pick pockets and give you time to do it, worked. Any other combination, and anything could have happened."

Skye shrugged. "I guess."

Aunt May pulled back and smiled at her. "Ms. Maximoff was kind enough to pack you some things and I bet you'll feel better after a shower and change of clothes. You will also find letters from half of the school in the bag she gave me. Peter sent one of them. He tried to convince the other teachers that he should be allowed to come see you with me, but they wouldn't let him. Ms. Prince was up much earlier than you and so the bathroom is all yours."

Skye smiled at the fact that Peter was trying to come see her. "Am I the last person up?"

"Yes. All of you were rightfully exhausted."

"So where are we? I assumed that we'd be going back to school."

"You will be going back tomorrow. You are in Professor Xavier's home. It was actually the site of the school before it moved to its current location. He thought it wise to give you all some time to adjust and get checked out before taking you back to school. I will need to return soon though. Due to certain situations that have arisen, the kitchen is understaffed for the moment and Ben and I are helping out. He would have come to see you if it were not for that."

Skye looked at her curiously. "The people who took us were helpers in the kitchen?" Skye imagined Bob working in the kitchen all year long, before putting their plan in motion.

Aunt May smiled. "You catch on too quickly. Yes, members of the kitchen staff were helping them get on the grounds and helping them get you all out. The culprits have been caught and now the administration is working on the problem so that we can replace them without something like this happening again. There will be a lot of new security put into place in the coming days."

Skye threw her arms around Aunt May again. "Thank you. Thank you for everything. You all have been so kind to me. I appreciate everything you've done."

It was Aunt May's turn to sniffle. "I'm just glad that you are alright. I'll see you when you get back. Take care." Aunt May held on to her for a little longer before letting her go and placing the bag that Wanda packed for her on the edge of the bed.

Once Aunt May was gone, Skye opened the bag and pulled out another bag with folded letters in it. She set it aside and grabbed what she needed for a shower.

After she was clean and dressed, she combed her hair and put away her things before settling down on the bed to read the letters. No sooner had she unfolded the first one when Diana returned to the room.

"Hey! Glad to see that you are awake. We are getting ready to have dinner soon. Are you up for it?"

Skye looked at the letters and considered staying there to read them, but her curiosity about the house, combined with the rumbling in her stomach, made her shove the letters back into the bag and put them under her pillow. She grabbed Rumlow's coat, and walked out of the room.

She followed Diana down a formal looking set of stairs and into a large dining room. Professor Xavier was sitting at the head of the table chatting with Rumlow, Scott and Rogue. He smiled when they walked into the room. "Ahhh…I see that we are all finally awake and doing well, Skye?"

Skye nodded to him. "Yes, sir. It's nice to be somewhere with no bars."

Rumlow excused himself from the table and walked over to her. He had a large bandage on his forehead, and she guessed that Dr. Storm had gotten hold of him for stitches, finally. His eye was not swollen anymore, but it was black almost all the way around. He grinned at her. "Feeling better, sleepyhead?"

"Yep. I think so." She handed him his coat. "Thank you so much for freezing so that I could stay warm."

"Yeah, I wasn't that cold though. You just don't have enough insulation on your bones."

"Well, thank you anyway. I hope it doesn't smell gross or anything, given that we were in the same clothes for so long."

She laughed as he held it up and sniffed before giving her a disgusted look. "Ugh. It smells like girl. Yuck. I'll have to wash it as soon as we get back to the dorm." She took a light swing at his arm and he laughed at her. "Was that supposed to hurt, Sunshine?"

She stopped laughing and sighed. "My name is Skye. No, of course it wasn't supposed to hurt. I think we both know that I could have hurt you if I wanted to." She grinned at him smugly, but he just continued laughing.

"Fair enough, Skye, but I think we both also know you wouldn't. Besides, sparring back at school? No powers allowed, and I still owe you from that OPs contest. Don't think that getting kidnapped and stuck in a cell together somehow gets you out of the payback coming your way," he smirked at her.

"Like I'm ever sparring with you again!"

"Oh, it'll happen sooner or later. Just wait."

"Don't worry, Skye, this guy is easy to beat. Well, I guess you know that already. What was it, Brock? One minute? 30 seconds? It had to be a school competition record." Diana giggled.

Rumlow pouted at both of them. "Hey! What is this? Gang up on the injured guy night or something?" Diana and Skye both laughed.

Professor Xavier, who had been watching the exchange quietly joined in on the laughter. "This makes me feel like you all are recovering from your ordeal very well. I'm glad to see it."

Skye grinned. "Well, they say that laughter is the best medicine, right Professor? Brock here is just kind enough to be providing the subject of our laughter."

Professor Xavier smiled at her. "That they do. I don't think that Dr. Storm will be letting you or Ms. Prince out of your examinations, though."

Soon everyone else arrived and Skye was surprised to see that Principal Fury had joined them. He took a seat next to Professor Xavier.

Dinner was pizza and salad, all ordered from somewhere local. As they ate, Skye chatted with Professor Xavier. "Sir? Logan mentioned once that you had some sort of machine that allowed you to locate X-gene people. Is that correct?"

"Yes, I call it Cerebro."

"I was just wondering, with Rogue with us, shouldn't it have been easy to find us?"

"Well, sort of. If I had been here, it should have been possible. Unfortunately, my travels for school take me to some remote places, and it just so happened that I was in a small African country called Wakanda, speaking to a family about a new student who will be starting 6th grade at the school next year. It is a pretty remote area and it was difficult to contact me. By the time they did, and I returned here, your message had been received. This is something we will have to work on for the future."

"I was wondering how far we are from the school?" Diana asked.

"Actually, you are only about 110 miles from it."

"So when will we be going back?" Scott asked as he grabbed another piece of pizza.

"Tomorrow. Dr. Storm will need to meet with those of you she hasn't, and Principal Fury and I would like to meet with each of you tonight as well. Once that is done, and you've had a good night's sleep, we will take you back. I suspect absolutely no school work will get done on Tuesday, though, once your friends have you back." He smiled at them and turned to Principal Fury. "Perhaps we should consider cancelling classes for the day."

Fury nodded. "Not a bad idea."

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Later after dinner, Dr. Storm asked Skye to follow her for her medical check-up. "How are you doing, Skye? Feeling alright?"

"Yes, ma'am." Skye responded. "Relieved and excited to be going back to school, terrified to be going back to school. Can you feel both at the same time?"

Dr. Storm chuckled. "Yes, I think that is probably a perfectly normal reaction. Hopefully it won't be too overwhelming and things will return to normal quickly for you. Were you hurt at all?"

"No. Other than the bruises on my hands, I'm doing fine. Even they aren't really bugging me as much. This was nothing like Halloween."

Dr. Strom took her hands and inspected both of them again. She made her do a series of movements and finally smiled. "Yes, they look like they are already getting better. I think you should be fine. Just be careful, okay? Don't overdo it. Maybe not jump right back into archery, shooting and fighting as soon as you get back."

Skye suddenly felt sick to her stomach. "I don't think that first one is going to be a problem," she mumbled.

Dr. Storm looked at her questioningly, but when Skye didn't say anything else, she dropped the subject. "Listen, Skye. You seem to be dealing with this ordeal pretty well right now, but the time may come when you aren't. If that happens, and you'd like someone to talk to, my door is always open."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you."

Dr. Storm sent her out to wait for Professor Xavier. She walked into the formal living room and found Clark Kent there with a man and a woman that she guessed were his parents. Dick was also sitting with an older gentleman in a quiet corner. Clark stood up and waved her over and introduced her.

"Mom and Dad, this is Skye."

Skye shook both of their hands. "It's very nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Kent."

Mrs. Kent smiled at her. "We are glad to meet you as well, Skye. Clark was just telling us about you."

Skye looked from Clark to Mrs. Kent curiously. "Oh, nothing bad I hope."

Mr. Kent responded. "Not at all. He says that you're an excellent science partner."

Skye giggled. "Thank you, Clark. You aren't so bad yourself."

"I have a question for you, Skye, if you don't mind?" Mrs. Kent smiled from Skye to Clark.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Can you tell us anything about a girl named Carol? Clark seems to mention her a lot when we talk, but we can't get him to tell us much about her." Clark looked at his mother horrified, while Skye just giggled.

She assured Mrs. Kent that Carol was very sweet and pointed out that she was Diana's roommate. Skye also suspected that Clark had told his parents a lot more about her than just her science skills, but they were kind and didn't mention anything else.

She chatted with the Kent family a little more before being called over to meet Alfred, Dick and Bruce's guardian. He was very polite and his accent reminded her a little bit of Jemma. Finally, she joined the others on the couches and waited.

Rumlow was called in first, and he came out about a half an hour later looking a bit surprised. He mumbled, "You're up next, Sunshine," and walked on to where he needed to wait for his turn with Principal Fury.

Skye walked into a large office, where Professor Xavier was sitting in the middle of the room, and not behind the big mahogany desk that was in the corner. He motioned for her to take a seat in an empty chair across from his wheelchair.

He was very frank with her. "Skye, I'd like to ask you a few questions and conduct my own examination, if you don't mind. Before HYDRA was destroyed, at least we thought they were destroyed, they were experimenting with mind control and things of that nature. I would like to be sure that you are clear of such things, but it will involve an intrusion into your head."

"You mean like Wanda does?"

He nodded. "Yes, very similar. Do you mind?"

Skye shrugged. "I guess not. I'm pretty sure no one did anything to me, but I guess it can't hurt to check."

He just looked at her for a while. She waited to feel something, but there was nothing but the awkward silence of the room. She should have expected it though, because she never really knew when Wanda was in her head either until she sparked a memory or something.

He began to ask her a series of questions about her experience, the kidnappers, HYDRA and the other kids that were with her. He smiled when she said that HYDRA was a bunch of Nazi wannabes, and looked interested when she said that of all the kidnappers, she sympathized most with Bob because he was usually nice to them, but he was a horrible cook.

Then he asked her questions about her time at school and what appeared to be random questions about her hobbies and activities. Finally, he smiled at her. "Thank you, Skye."

"Wow. That was it?" Skye was relieved.

"Yes. Thank you for your cooperation. You can wait for Principal Fury in the recreation room. It is down the hall on the left. I believe that he is still meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Kent and Mr. Pennyworth. He will be with you shortly.

"Thank you, sir," she said before leaving the room. She walked down the long hallway and into the recreation room. Rumlow was already there playing on a fancy looking pool table. He looked up and smiled when she walked through the door.

"Hey, Sunshine, that was pretty strange, huh?" Skye ignored him and walked around to the other side of the room where a dartboard was hanging on the wall.

He tried again. "Something wrong? He mess with your brain too much or what?" She picked up the darts and said nothing. She threw a dart at the board hard, missing the target completely.

Once again, he spoke, obviously frustrated. "Okay, I give up. What did I do?"

Skye looked up at him with a blank expression on her face, and waited.

Rumlow stared at her for a minute and then groaned, "UGH. Hey, SKYE." He emphasized her name as dramatically as he possibly could. "That was pretty strange, huh?"

Skye gave him a big smile. "See how easy that was to say? I can't believe that I am going to say this, but it didn't seem all that strange to me. Then again, when you have Wanda as a roommate, stuff like that isn't shocking anymore."

"Well, it was strange to me," he shrugged and went back to the pool table while Skye continued throwing darts badly. She was finally getting them closer to the target when he approached her and spoke again. "You know, you can't just ignore anyone who calls you Sunshine, right Skye? Especially given that one of them is a teacher."

"I can certainly try, and while it's true that I can't ignore Coach Garrett, there is no reason that I can't ignore you or the rest of the STRIKE team when you all do it."

"I will try to remember not to do it, especially when no one else is around. Will that help?"

"Yes. I'd appreciate it very much. Now tell me, how many stitches did you get?"

"Seven. Hurt like heck too when she put them in, even with medicine to numb it."

Skye frowned at the bandage on his head. "Well, next time I tell you to stay back, you should listen to me. Still, I am so sorry that I caused you to get hurt."

He laughed. "It's alright. Between the stitches, bruises and the black eye, I'm gonna look pretty tough going back to school. It'll look like I was involved in quite a fight during the rescue. Maybe you just don't mention to anyone that the busted head was caused by you. I don't think my ego could survive it."

Skye giggled at him. "Yeah? How about you don't tell your team what I can do and I won't tell anyone that I caused that." She lifted her hand to his head and patted gently beside where the bandage was. He grabbed her hand away from his face.

"That isn't fair. You know the cat is well out of the bag on that, Skye. Everyone else here will go back and tell their teams. How is my team gonna react when they find out everyone knows but them?" He was looking at her hand and inspecting the bruises on her palm.

"I suppose you have a point, but maybe they won't tell their teams either. You could also just say that you never saw it happen." He grabbed her other hand with his free hand and began looking it over as well.

"Uh huh. If Garrett knows, I won't be able to get away with that. I'm pretty sure that he's been looking for a reason to make sure they know anyway. He'll expect me to tell the rest of the team everything." He flipped both hands over carefully and inspected the backs of her hands as well, running his thumbs gently over the bluish bruises there.

Skye looked up at him and their eyes met. "Maybe you need a new team, then."

He intertwined his fingers with hers and took a step toward her. He looked down at her for a moment before grinning slightly. "Maybe I do."

Skye smiled back up at him, but the sound of the door opening caught their attention. Principal Fury was standing in the doorway eyeing both of them curiously. "If I'm not interrupting anything, I'll see you now, Mr. Rumlow." He squeezed her hands gently before letting go and following Principal Fury through the door, shutting it behind him.

Skye stared at the door for a moment before resuming her dart throwing, and soon Scott, Rouge, Clark, Diana and Dick had all joined her. It was at least 45 minutes later when the door opened and Rumlow came stomping out, clutching a piece of paper. He walked past all of them without saying a word and made his way out of the room. Skye followed and yelled down the hallway after him, "Brock?"

He stopped and turned to face her, taking a few steps back toward where she was standing. She couldn't quite place the look on his face. It seemed to change from frustration to sadness to outright anger. She moved to close the gap between them. "What happened?"

He ran his fingers through his hair and just looked at her for a moment before sighing loudly. "Nuthin' I shouldn't have expected. Look, it might seem easy enough to you for me to just switch teams, but the fact is that some of those STRIKE kids are my friends, and I can't just walk out on them. It was stupid to even consider it. Another thing….You need to tell Ward to get lost. I can't play babysitter for him forever. Also, if Garrett knows that you used your power on the island, I will tell my team what you can do. Sorry, Sunshine. That's how it has to be. Now I'm going to bed."

Skye watched stunned as he turned and stormed down the hallway. After he was gone, she was just standing there in the middle of the hallway trying to figure out what could have possibly just happened when Scott stuck his head out of the door and said, "Fury's ready for you, Skye."

She walked into what looked like a small meeting room. Principal Fury was already seated behind a small desk that Skye suspected was left over from the days when this was a school. He motioned to the only other chair in the room, directly in front of the desk. Skye sat down and waited.

"I don't have too much to go over with you, Skye. I think we have a pretty good idea of how you got taken, and although I do not approve of you ignoring our instructions to not leave the building without an adult, I suspect you've been punished enough for your actions." He paused to look at her severely. "That said, we make rules for a reason, and in the future, please try to abide by them."

Skye nodded. She was tempted to try to make an excuse for herself, but she was pretty sure that Principal Fury wasn't the type of person who appreciated excuses. She decided that remaining quiet was the best option.

"Now, I'm not going to ask you to re-live every moment of what happened right now, but I do want you to please answer the questions on this paper to the best of your ability and turn it in to me by tomorrow before lunch. Consider it an after action report, if you will. Any follow-up questions or discussions that we need to have can be taken care of back at school. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." Skye nodded again.

"Anything you feel that I need to know right now?"

She shook her head. "Not that I can think of, sir."

"You and Mr. Rumlow took a real risk getting those messages out to us, but you both did a great job. You should be proud of yourselves for that."

Skye shrugged as guilt creeped back into her mind. "I guess so."

His one visible eye focused on her and narrowed. "Don't keep reliving past mistakes, Skye. You might have gotten yourself into the situation by making a bad choice, but you rose to the occasion and overcame it. Consider that, instead. Sometimes it is just about survival. Now, if you don't have anything else for me, I suggest you get started on that form and get some sleep. We're going back to school tomorrow after lunch and I expect nothing but insanity for the next few days."

He was silent, so she spoke again. "Sir? May I ask you a question?"

"Yes, of course."

She hesitated a few seconds before continuing. "Did Brock get in trouble for something? I was with him the entire time that I was there, and he didn't do anything wrong that I saw. He looked pretty unhappy when he came out of here a little while ago."

Principal Fury placed his elbows on the desk in front of him and rested his chin in his hands. Skye couldn't help but notice that he looked really tired. He considered her for a moment before he answered. "It isn't really any of your business, Skye, but to answer your question, Mr. Rumlow isn't in trouble for anything. I simply asked him to help me out with something and although he apparently had other plans, he's agreed to do it albeit quite grudgingly. That is all you need to know. Please send in Mr. Grayson on the way out. Good night, Skye."

Skye recognized that she wasn't going to get any more information out of Principal Fury, so she stood up to leave. "Thank you, sir," she said before she walked out of the room and told Dick that he was up next.

As she walked back to her room, she couldn't help wondering what Principal Fury could have possibly asked Rumlow to do that would cause such a strong reaction from him, but she supposed that he was right, it was none of her business. Rumlow certainly didn't want to tell her either.

When she got to her room, she placed the paper that Principal Fury had given her on the little desk by her bed and pulled out the bag of letters from under her pillow. There were a lot of them, and Skye suspected that Peggy had made letter writing an activity for the dorm when they heard that everyone was okay.

She laughed at Peter's plea to come home soon because he'd just gotten used to having her as a fake sister and he didn't want Aunt May to start looking for other girls to adopt, and Wanda's joking admonishment that she was busily doing homework because once again, Skye failed to die so that she could get straight A's.

Tony and Sam wrote an incredibly detailed story about a giant green monster that went crazy and smashed up half of Harlem that Skye suspected was supposed to be Bruce. That was confirmed when Bruce's letter was an incredibly detailed story about a giant green monster that went crazy and smashed up Sam and Tony.

Natasha's letter was full of questions that Skye suspected she would be spending a lot of time answering when she got back. Jemma's letter was full of concern for her well-being, and Felicity's was gushing over the e-mail that she sent.

Each letter was sincere or amusing and Skye read all of them a few times before moving on to the next. She couldn't help but feel completely overwhelmed by the support that she could feel in every one of them. She also couldn't help noticing that not one of the letters was from or even mentioned Clint.

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She was working on answering the questions on Principal Fury's sheet when Diana arrived. "Whew. I am glad all of that is over," she said, as she flopped on her bed.

"Tell me about it. Are you looking forward to going back to school?"

"Sort of. I mean I am happy to get back to normal, but I'm really not looking forward to all of the fussing over us that you know is going to happen."

Skye sighed. "Yeah, maybe we will get lucky and everyone will ignore the fact that we've been gone?"

Diana laughed. "I am sure that you got letters in your bag from people too, and know that isn't going to happen."

"A girl can dream, can't she?"

Diana sat up on the edge of her bed and looked seriously at Skye for a moment. "Listen, the rest of us were talking while you were in with Principal Fury. We don't know why you've chosen to be quiet about your ability, but we can respect that. We aren't going to say anything to the rest of our teams."

Skye shrugged. "Well, I'm not sure it matters, really. Brock has already made it clear that he intends to rat me out the minute he gets back. I don't want you all getting in trouble with your teams because you withheld information."

"Well, our team would understand completely. Most of us were reluctant to show off what we could do when we started at the school. It took Clark a month to show us that he could fly, and I swear we are still discovering new things that he can do every day." Diana giggled.

"That is Loki for us, I believe. He seems to be able to do something new all the time."

Diana grinned. "Well, anyway, Brock talks a good game, but he might surprise you. We'll see, I guess." She picked up her own form and began filling it out.

It took Skye the better part of an hour to finish her form. She read it over and sat it by her bed before climbing under the covers. There was a lot going on in her mind though and sleep didn't come easy for her. She stared at the ceiling for hours thinking about the events of the past few days and what they'd be returning home to, before finally falling asleep not too long before the sun began to rise.

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One of my daughter's 'rules' for this story was no kissing. Thank you to Principal Fury for interrupting and helping me keep that request. :)

I am just not as familiar with Xavier as I probably should be, because I haven't seen the first couple of X-Men movies in a while and I don't really read the X-Men comics with a few exceptions. Sorry if I messed him up somehow, but I tend to focus on Fury anyway, since Daisy is more involved with him.

Next time: Back to School!