Well, I guess it was about time for a proper chapter, sorry about the dely. This- amongst a few other of my fanfics are my slower updates and I cannot guarantee a new update as I have a few that I spent a lot of time focusing more on. I can't believe it's taken me two years to update.
Originally I was gonna have a Sky and Fits Paring but now I am having doubts, as you can read I have changed style over the last two years, (hopefully improvement) and longer chapters. I love getting constructive revied, it always encourages me to write more.
I am in the autism spectrum so I got though fazes of obsessions of certain shows, they can last hours, weeks to months, hence the long gaps between updates. Thank you again my lovely readers.
Until next time….
xx
Sky sighed as she drank her coffee, curled up on the sofa staring out at the window blankly. Her heart was fluttering nervously in her chest, doubt was taking the route. And on top of that distrust.
The image of Ward gasping her neck and yanking. It was a dream, but it was downright terrifying. Fitz wasn't to blame though; it was her subconscious. Her inner hostilities at him were taken form in the dream. Perhaps a word with Fitz to have them wear masks next time. The cold eyes and smirk on his chiselled face were enough to plague her peace of mind.
Was SHIELD her card to her past? Her parents? At first perhaps yes. But she screwed up like she always does, ever since she was a kid. Get tossed aside at the first sign of trouble. But Fitz... He was becoming her lifeline. A light in the dark.
If he wanted out, then she would follow. But the baggage would follow her. SHIELD would now be over her shoulder, even if she did leave her tech and private life would be in a record somewhere for someone to look through.
"Skye!"
A hand clamped down in her shoulder, alarmed she saw the familiar black hair of Ward and reacted in an instant. Her coffee cup tumbled from her hand, the hot content spilling on her shins as she wrenched herself from his grip and off the other side of the sofa.
Clambering to her feet she hastily made her way to her bunk, her heart hammering in her chest, borderline a panic attack as she slammed her door shut, she tripped on her PC, cable and tumbled to the floor. Her knee broke something, but she was too busy keeping her breathing straight to care.
She vaguely heard her door sliding open and her name being called, a smaller set of hands grasping her shoulder and pulling her upright. May's voice echoed in her ear.
"Breath, Skye. Breath and hold. Let go."
It took a few attempts to follow the advice but eventually, her heart began to level out. The shakes in her hands were still there but reality was coming back to her now.
"Is she-?"
"Just give her some space." Melinda snapped to Ward. "Give me five minutes and leave her alone until we land."
X
Out of all things to see on the bus, after coming from the cockpit was the reaction of Skye was strange. The flash of fear in her eyes, the flight or fight instinct taking control.
Melinda knew first-hand what those feelings were like. It was a panic attack from PTSD.
But what had caused the trigger with Ward? They had done no recent missions, let alone life-threatening ones in a few weeks.
The bewilderment on Ward's face as Skye wrenched herself from him and bolted to her room. A nasty crunch of something breaking soon followed.
She was fast though, Melinda yanked open Skye's door to see her curled up on the floor, a broken laptop under her knees while her breathing ragged as a panic attack was kicking in, her eye wide but unseeing. With a growl under her breath, she pulled the hacker upright, her hand grabbing her wrist. She could feel the fast pulse beating under her skin. It was a genuine reaction, not an act for attention.
"Breath, Skye. Breath and hold. Let go." She commanded; the girl seemed to listen as after a few minutes her breathing levelled out.
"Is she-?" Ward asked as his head popped into the cabin.
"Just give her some space." Melinda snapped to him; he would make things worse.
"Give me five minutes and leave her alone until we land."
"Alright," Ward grumbled as he walks off.
Closing Skye's door, she turned back to the younger woman.
"Sorry May," Skye mumbled quietly, pulling her knees to her chest.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Melinda asked stiffly, trying to keep her tone soft.
Skye chewed her bottom lips for a moment. Uncertainty flicked over her face.
"I...I.. Uhm.." She coughed, trying to cover up her unease, in the end, she turned her gaze down.
"I have been having bad dreams for the last few weeks." Her voice seemed to nearly crack as she tried to reign in her emotions, making an effort to keep her breathing level.
"Ever since I got this thing-" Skye waves up her arm with the tracker bracelet, "it been getting worse. I went to ask Fitz earlier about it but he didn't know about any side effects."
That would explain why she was in his bunk earlier then.
"I just took a nap but the... Dreams felt so... Real. They all have." She whispered her grip tightening over her knees.
"I dreamt that it was having a nice coffee then I was... Sparing with Ward. I just keep remembering him grabbing my neck and... Twisting. But... It hurt. Dreams aren't meant to hurt but I felt it. It felt real." Her hand absentmindedly rubbing the side of her neck in discomfort.
"Perhaps it would be best for Simmons to prescribe you some sleeping pills. You don't dream under them." May suggested, there was something odd going on but it would explain her behaviour.
She had assumed it was Skye withdrawing after she betrayed the team, but it wasn't normal to have such a reaction over a dream.
Skye nodded blankly at her request, without a word she left Skye to clean up and change. Her now wet coffee-stained jeans would be discomforting to wear around the hub.
Xx
Skye let out a breath of relief as May left. Mixing half-truths was risky with her, a spur of the moment idea and with how she was feeling... She bought it thankfully.
After a few long minutes, she got up off the floor, groaning with irritation as she saw her broken laptops. Kicking her useless pc under her bed, she grabbed some spare clothes and changed. Dumping her coffee spilt one in the laundry cubby to wash later.
Not feeling like she wanted to venture out she curled up on her bed, to mull about her future.
Eventually, she grabbed the remote to the TV on the wall she flicked through shows and movies playing about.
Skye snorted under her breath as she watched The Big Bang theory. This particular one had the time machine one. But it wasn't until that last scene that caught her interest.
Sheldon's dream within a dream.
Which sparked an idea.
Leaving her cabin, instead of going straight to Fitz in his new room, she went to the canteen. To make two strong coffee's. A reason to see him.
Xx
Leo smiled as she entered, two cups of coffee and from what he could see was a packet of biscuits tucked into her pocket.
"Thanks, Skye," he said accepting the steamy hot beverage. By her body language, she was waiting to tell him something. She was practically bouncing in her steps as she took a seat on his bed, he notice she had one of her own books tucked under her arm but he could assume it was for show if someone came knocking.
Just two people chilling out.
It was three biscuits down when Sky brought it up. A dream within a dream.
It brought up a well of possibilities. Would the mechanics stay the same? Five minutes there is another three hours.
Three hours in the dreamscape would be...108hr so 4 and a half-day. And keep timing... They could theoretically be put under for years... Decades perhaps? And wake up young but with the intelligence still there.
What could take people all those years to learn would be hours in the physical world. They were still scratching the surface with what they could do with this, but if he were to constantly use it then he would have to find a way to tell the difference between reality and dreams. It was becoming too real in the dreams. Especially using colleagues faces in spars. No wonder Skye freaked out when Ward went to talk to her. Lesson learnt. And not to be repeated.
"Alright but pull yourself out if you are uncertain of anything or if it becomes unstable." Fitz relented after Skye non-stop volunteered to see how far they could go down. He knew how to pull her out manually while she didn't know much about his device. She may pull a wire that could make it explode by accident.
"See you in ten!" She grinned, her honey-brown eyes slipping shut as she relaxed into her bed.
He pulled a blanket over Skye gently manoeuvring the dreamscape under the bed, shoving his bag in front of it using the blanket to hang over it to hide the white wire from sight before writing up notes and ideas in his pad at his desk.
"Fitz?" He flinched as he heard May's voice and her knocking at the door.
He shoved his notes to the side and grabbed Skye's book as the door opened.
"Have you seen Skye-?"
May's sharp gaze looked curiously at him before switching to the bed with a sleeping Skye in it. The coffee cups and biscuit package on the side.
"She's been having trouble sleeping in her cabin. Too small to breathe right now. And she didn't want to nap on the couch, too open apparently and 'didn't want a repeat of earlier' she said." Fitz mustered up. Pretending not to know about her panic attack in her room.
May said nothing, her emotions were carefully hidden but to his relief, she decided not to pursue this conversation, instead, she simply turned back around and left him to it.
Closing the door, he left out a sigh of relief. That was too close.
Skye gasped sharply, Fitz jumping at her abrupt awaking.
Skye awoke to a strong headache, the image of the walls falling on her head was rather disconcerting.
"Skye? You alright?" Fitz asked, Skye jumped as he quickly shoved a rag under her nose. Blood slowly stained the fabric as he pulled it back out from under the bed.
"Yeah. Yeah. Just a headache," she grumbled taking the cloth from him, he removed the wires and put the dreamscape away under the bed again to take more notes.
"Four levels was what I could manage but it became very unstable after level four. After a few minutes, the building collapsed on me, so I woke myself up from the other levels. Apart from a killer headache, I'll be fine."
Fitz's hand was jolting fast across the page. She explained briefly that the time was the same on the levels. Five minutes in the dream, the dreamscape was an additional three hours. Which was a revelation as they could, in theory, spent years in a matter of hours learning each other's skills. And perhaps others as well. Language. Other departments skills like tactical and espionage.
Right now, they were only at the tip of the ice burg with what it could do. But now it would have to wait as May's voice broke through the speakers.
They were going to land in ten minutes.
Xx
"Oof," Skye grunted as her shoulder clipped the glass door clumsily as they enter the heart of the Hub.
"You need to pay closer attention to your surrounding Skye," Ward said rolling his eyes as they went.
"Yes sir," she grumbled under her breath. Part of her was wishing she had stayed on the bus, but Lines had decided to remain and train up.
She was pleased to see the door didn't stop her this time as they passed through.
Skye stood stiffly as they arrived at the room, agents around her were busy at work. Her hands felt cold, clammy and tingly. The lights were feeling particular bright as she looked around.
Agent Hand and Coulson were off to the side busy talking to each other as she and the rest of the team waited to meet Agent Munroe, who was running late. Typical.
Something warm and wet dripped onto the back of her hand, looking down she was greeted with the familiar crimson red, it took a moment to click to realise it was coming from her nose.
Pain burst into her skull, the world falling deaf as she realised the floor was getting closer to her face then...
... Nothing.
Leo watched wide-eyed as Skye crumped to the floor. Simmons was the first to jump in as Skye body seizure, her limbs shaking as May and Ward held her down so she wouldn't hurt herself.
After a very long painful minute, Skye's body falls limp. The medics were immediately called while Simmons began to examine her. Blood was trickling from her ear which was a major concern. Coulson and Simmons helped pull Skye onto the gurney and within a matter of minutes the silence of the room as Agents slowly turn their attention back to what they had been doing before Skye became a spectacle. It was only him, Ward and May now. Coulson and Simmons had followed the gurney to the med bay.
A few cleaners had been called to wipe up the blood from the floor.
Fitz excused himself from the rest of the team. He needed to know what had actually happened to Skye.
Agent Munroe would have to meet Ward and May on her own.
X
Hours past and Sky had been wheeled into surgery.
Coulson had emerged to tell them that she had suffered from a ruptured Brain Aneurysm and surgery would take a few hours.
Coulson pulled him aside a little while later after a dinner with May and handed him a small plastic bag that contained Sky's tracker bracelet. He requested him to fully examine it as a precaution. Leo held his tongue and nodded, went off to the labs at the Hub.
Setting himself up in a quiet area, he pulled it apart while down downloading all the data onto his tablet.
Pulling up the schematic he crossed referenced it to Skye's.
Not seeing anything out of the ordinary yet he went through the data.
His body stiffened as he checked her records. Not the records of her recent electronic usage but her biological.
Her bodily reactions to the dreamscape. The surge of adrenaline and spike in heart rate were all collateral to her time under and awakening from it.
The first instinct was to delete it, but something held him back from that impulse. Remembering what Sky had mentioned to May. How her 'nightmares' had been getting 'worse' over the last couple of 'weeks', it brought an opportunity.
Instead, he backtracked the records from when it was first activated and began to read it for an opening.
Trekking through her night schedule, he slowly began to alter them when Sky would wake up very early to train.
Gradually making them show up frequently until the last day or so where it was at its worst. Sending and rewriting it all so it would appear in Coulson log too. He only got the electrical alerts rather than her bio. So, the likely hood of him noticing was minimal.
But all that would come to nought if there wasn't a reasonable explanation on why Skye with a ruptured Brain Aneurysm.
Turning his attention to the bracelet, with tools he pulled out the tiny chipboard. Under a microscope he examined it, reading it. Using fine tools, he reshaped the flow of a few things. Enough that it wouldn't compromise the effectiveness and efficiency of the bracelet with also adding a new thing into it. The remnants of a virus that disintegrated when the bracelet was cut. A nasty one that made a flow around the body that messed with electrical impulses. The nightmares, the stress. Her collapse. The blame would fall on the faulty bracelet.
With that now sorted, he wrote down what he 'found'. Making sure to add it to the paper copy to filing later.
Checking his phone, Skye was still in theatre, and he was feeling exhausted he would let Coulson know what he found later. Right now, he needed a nap. A proper one and a room to sleep in.
The hub, fortunately, did come with its own quarters. Tiny living quarters for a temporary amount of time. His room, fortunately, was closest to the Medical Bay, so as soon as Skye was out of the theatre he would be there.
A computer expert he was, a hacker, definitely not but was it wasn't hard to have Skye's private room put within 15 meters of his room. It was the furthest distance he could have to allow them to attempt a wireless connection device to the dreamscape without issue or detection.
Of course, it wouldn't be as efficient. One dream level would be all it could be able to manage in a shared dream. He could go down further on his own after sorting out any other side effects. The projections would keep him company and stop him from going mad from loneliness.
He had smuggled his dreamscape within a mixture of boxes and luggage to his room.
He had drafted up the specs for the wireless connection. He just needed to make it.
Fitz knew he had the time, and he was desperate for a distraction from worrying about Skye.
But first a nap.