"First years. Please get your weapons belts and meet Toby in the Atrium in 15 minutes." Principal Dockerty announced at breakfast that morning. He had announced that the first years would be excused from classes Friday, but they would be expected to train during the weekend the previous night.

There was a murmur spreading through the first years as they went to collect their weapons belts.

Tilly and Carl strolled into the Atrium just as their allotted time was up to find everyone was whispering excitedly.

"What's going on?" Tilly asked Sarah, one of the girls in her class.

"Looks like we're going on a field trip, with Agent Ward."

"What?" Tilly asked, trying to crane her neck to see.

"I know. He is awesome, not to mention he is fine."

"I don't see it." Tilly told her as Toby climbed up a few of the window panes to make an announcement.

"Guys and girls. You are going on a three day survival exercise. These will be done twice a year and you will be expected to leave from here with nothing more than your weapons belts." Toby announced.

"Great. Three days in the wilderness with nothing more than ourselves." Sarah moaned.

"You lot are very lucky. You are going on your first survival with none other than Agent Ward, one of S.H.I.E.L.D's finest. He has the best hand eye coordination that the academy has ever recorded so for God sake, don't piss him off."

"That makes things better." Sarah brightened.

"Alright. Get into your pairs and follow me. Don't forget to check out with Toby before you leave." Tilly heard Ward call from the front of the Atrium.

There was an excited bustle as the students located their partners and made for the door. Tilly raised her eyebrows at Carl and they joined the back of the group gathering around Toby.

"Tilly and Carl." Carl told him when it was their turn, while Tilly looked around. She felt a tug on her arm and Carl pulled her forward.

"I wonder why Agent Ward is leading this. I mean, he doesn't usually." Carl said to her.

"How do you know?" Tilly asked.

"The second years were bitching about it as we left. So why do you think he's leading it?"

"Maybe he's injured?" Tilly asked, silently hoping that he was and that he wasn't checking up on her.

"Maybe. But I've heard there's no one better than Agent Ward at this. I heard he once spent six months surviving in the woods when he was younger." Sarah said, joining in with their conversation.

They talked as Ward led them away from Phys Acc and over the rolling hills surrounding it. Tilly could hear the students moaning in varying degrees about their feet hurting, or that they needed to stop for a drink.

After they had walked for three hours Ward stopped them all by a creek.

"You lot don't think I can hear you moaning behind me. But I will tell you this right now. I have ears like a hawk." Ward told them.

Sarah put her hand in the air

"Yes?"

"We need water. I mean, we haven't had anything to drink since breakfast."

"So why don't you get some?" Ward asked, nodding behind them to the creek.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Nope. This is survival 101. You literally have nothing on you but weapons. If you want to drink I suggest you do now. We aren't going to stop for another couple of hours." Ward warned them.

Tilly, having been on multiple trips with Ward had already drunk some water from the creek and cooled her neck in the unusually hot September heat and was now playing with a newt.

She moved out of the way to allow her classmates access and found herself stood close to her brother.

"You better not be checking up on me." She warned him quietly.

"Would I?" he asked her, just as quiet.

"Yes."

"Alright everyone, back into your pairs, we're leaving." Ward shouted. Tilly went to find Carl.

"What is that?" he asked her as she continued to play with the newt.

"Newt."

"What are you going to do with that?" Carl asked her.

"I'll think of something." Tilly replied with a smile.

An hour into their walk Tilly was still playing with the newt.

"I thought training with Agent Ward would be more fun, I mean I've heard the stories." Sarah complained in front of them.

"Really? I must've been living under a rock, I've not heard anything." Tilly said catching up to them.

"I heard he was amazing to train with. Really knows his stuff and has a wicked sense of humour." A boy, Tilly thought his name was Harrison, said.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Overheard a couple of third years talking."

"I think I better listen more!" Tilly said, moving back to Carl.

A few minutes later there was a very loud scream from Sarah as the newt crawled over her shoulder and into her field of vision. Ward stopped to group to investigate.

When he saw Tilly and Carl laughing and the shaking girl who was babbling something about a newt he shocked everyone by grabbing Tilly by the collar and dragging her to the front of the group. Carl had no choice but to follow.

Tilly walked behind Ward, wondering what she could do to him for the next hour and a half until they reached a clearing in some woods by a stream.

"Alright everyone. We are here. This is where you will spend the next two nights camping." Ward shouted.

"Camping?" someone in the middle of the group asked while others thought he was joking.

"Yep. Camping."

"Do we have tents?" someone else asked.

"Is this called lets go and sleep in a tent 101? NO! This is SURVIVAL 101. The whole point is to survive!" Ward shouted to the group as he sat on a rock and unpacked the kit he was allowed, as the instructor, to bring.

"What do we do?" Carl asked, voicing the question a lot of people were wanting to ask.

"You have one to two hours of light left. I suggest you find shelter as it's due to rain tonight and source some food." Ward told them unwrapping his tent.

"Try not to get frozen this time." Tilly whispered to him as everyone else was panicking about spending the night in the wilderness.

"Don't hide behind the pee tree if I do." He joked back.

"Tilly, We have to find some shelter." Carl said after he had wondered around the clearing a couple of times.

"Well, let's go and look." Tilly said, gripping his arm and guiding him to a space on the floor. Looking back at Ward she saw him subtly nod his head down a path.

"Let's go an explore." Tilly said starting down the path.

"Tilly. We need to make a shelter."

"No. We need to find shelter, there's a difference."

"What do you know?"

"Why this clearing? I mean, we've passed a few in the last hour and I'm pretty sure there will be another one within thirty minutes, so why this one?" Tilly explained, crashing through the undergrowth.

"Because they've hidden shelter. But how do you know this is the right path?"

"A hunch."

Ten minutes later Tilly and Carl arrived at the outskirts of a house. They approached cautiously as they didn't know who the house belonged to or even if they were welcome. Tilly walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

Within a few minutes an elderly man answered the door.

"Can I help you?" he asked them.

"Hi, we're doing an exercise in the woods and we were wondering if there was a chance you had a tent we could borrow?" Tilly asked in the voice that usually meant she gets what she wants.

"I may have a tent around here somewhere. I haven't been camping in years." The man said as he let them into the house.

"Thankyou Sir."

Five minutes later he returned with a small, old tent.

"Thankyou. I can return it when we leave in a couple of days." Tilly promised.

"Don't worry about it dear. I don't have the joints for camping anymore. You and your boyfriend will get more use out of it than I will."

"I'm not her..." Carl started to say but Tilly cut him off.

"Thank you so much Sir. I'm sure we will."

They left the house and set off back towards the clearing. When they got there, there were many feeble and crude attempts at shelter.

"I think we should source some food before we put this bad boy up." Carl suggested.

"Yeah. I think you're right. We may come back to find it stolen."

"You ever been fishing?"

"A long time ago, but I used a rod."

"That's not fishing!" Carl told her, taking his boots off, rolling his trousers up and wading out into the stream. Tilly laughed at him as he splashed around, but an hour later he had caught two fish large enough to feed them both for a couple of meals.

"Only question is. How do we cook them?"

"I tell you what. You de head and gut them, I'll build us a fire." Tilly told him as she went looking for wood.

She worked building a fire for the best part of 45 minutes. When it was built and stuffed with flammable leaves she stood back to admire her handiwork.

"Looks good Tilly, but how do we light it?"

Tilly pulled a book of matches out of her weapons belt.

"Nice!" Carl said as she struck one and threw it onto the fire which ignited immediately.

"It's going to take about half an hour before we can cook on it." He continued.

"Why don't we put the tent up?" Tilly suggested as the sun was starting to set.

They worked together to put the tent up. Even though it was an old one it was relatively easy to put up.

As they had a fire and tent Tilly and Carl were starting to get some really dirty looks from the other students.

They saw Ward approach them and started smirking. They would be in trouble now.

"Where did you guys get the tent?"

"We found a house. Knocked on the door and asked the lovely old man if he had one." Tilly told him with a straight face.

"And the fire?"

"Tilly had some matches in her weapons belt."

"Nice job." Ward made to walk away from them but paused when he saw the fish. "How did you?" he asked pointing at them.

"Carl. Apparently he is a fishing rod." Tilly said with a laugh.

"Excellent job guys."

The rest of the class were all sat under their pitiful shelters watching as Tilly and Carl appeared to get away with murder.

It was late and everyone had gone to bed, well, almost everyone. Tilly was still sat up by the fire with Ward.

"You volunteered for this." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"I did."

"Why? It better not be so you can check up on me."

"No. There's something I needed to talk to you about. Thought this would be a good way."

"And dinner was out of the question?"

"Getting you out of the Academy is harder than you realise."

"So what do you want to talk to me about?"

"You promise not to scream and wake everyone up?"

"No, but I will promise to try."

"I shouldn't be telling you this yet, but if I don't do it now it won't get said."

"Will you just say it?"

"Skye's pregnant."

"What?!"

"That's not the biggest news."

"You meant there's more?"

"Yeah. We're kind of having triplets."

"Did you just say triplets? As in three?"

"I did"

"Awesome! So why aren't you supposed to tell me now?"

"She's only nine weeks. We were warned not to tell people until she's twelve."

"Oh my GOD!" Tilly exclaimed, raising her voice.

"Tilly, quiet! You'll wake the whole camp!"

"This is so exciting!" Tilly exclaimed dropping the volume of her voice back down to a whisper.

"Exciting? Terrifying more like! Anyway, you best get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be a long day." Ward said pouring water on the fire.

"Thanks for the heads up on the tent. Coulda warned me about the undergrowth though!" Tilly said to him, kissing him on the cheek and heading into the tent she was sharing with Carl.

Ward chuckled to himself and climbed into his own tent.