TW for presence of a gun (not fired), broken bone, mention of blood

It was hard work breaking the windows, not that Skye would ever admit that to Jemma. Jemma had done the work of coming up with the plan, now it was her turn to do the work of putting it into action. Skye had broken plenty of glass before, usually on accident, but not always. The big difference now was that the windows were up above her, sitting just at her shoulder level when she tiptoed on the chair, so she had to stretch to get the angle right to hit the glass. Well, that and her racing heart, which made it hard to screw up the strength she needed. She wasn't normally a nervous person, and even when she got scared, she was usually able to convert her fear into action. Fight, rather than flight. But now, with so much on the line and so much spiraling so far out of control, she was finding it hard to do anything.

She had felt so helpless and hopeless when she'd finally given in and let herself collapse into uneasy sleep, but then Jemma had woken her up. Jemma had a plan, had hope for their escape. Skye could work with a plan. A plan gave her something to do, and she had to confess, as hard as it was, breaking windows certainly felt good. Every crack of the glass, every shockwave scorching up her arms, every shard that shattered reminded her that she could make things happen. That she could do something that impacted their fates. That there was a chance they could get out and run and run and run, never looking back, forgetting about Cal once and for all. Learning about her parents wasn't worth all this.

"That's the last one," she finally said, once the third window had been cleared out as best as she could manage. There were still some jagged edges lodged in the concrete around where the wood frames had once rested, but there was enough space that a person (or, at least, a middle-school-girl-sized person) could wriggle through and, hopefully, drop down on the other side, free to disappear into the frozen night air.

"Do you want to go first?" Skye offered. "I can boost you up."

"How will you get out?"

"I can stick the chair on top of the cot, I think. That should be high enough. I'll be okay."

"Are you sure?" Jemma's face was all scrunched and worried. Her fingers fiddled with the collar of her sweater, tapping slightly on her collarbone as they danced back and forth across the fabric.

"I'm sure."

"You promise you'll come right behind me?" Skye blinked hard, slowly processing what Jemma was really worried about.

"I promise," she assured Jemma. "I'm right behind you. I'm not staying behind. We're getting out of here, both of us."

"Okay."

Skye made room for Jemma on the chair and laced her fingers together, creating a step for Jemma to boost herself up to the window with. Jemma eased herself up there with surprising agility, taking care to avoid most of the jagged shards that peppered the edges. She had to go through the window on her belly in order to fit, and a few pieces of glass snagged on the fabric of her sweater as she wiggled through. She grimaced, no doubt feeling the sharpness of broken glass on her arms and stomach, but it looked like the thick wool of her sweater was serving as a decent enough buffer.

"You okay?" Skye checked as Jemma swung her legs up into the window, trying to situate herself so that she could drop feet first down to the other side. Jemma let out a small hiss of pain.

"There's a lot of glass up here. You have to be careful when you come through."

"Try to find a spot to put your hands now, before you're ready to drop. That way you can pick one that won't cut you up too bad."

Jemma nodded stoutly and anchored her palms on the most glass-free section of the empty window before swinging herself around the rest of the way. Skye got one last glimpse of her pale, determined face before she disappeared from sight, her hands vanishing from view along with the rest of her as she dropped. Skye strained her ears for the thud of Jemma's feet hitting the ground, which came a moment later, then held her breath as she waited to hear if Jemma cried out in pain from the landing. She didn't.

"Jemma?" Skye called quietly. "Did you make it?"

"It's a long drop," came Jemma's tense voice. "Maybe six or seven feet from the window. But it's not impossible. Bend your knees when you hit. That will reduce the risk of fractures or breaks. And try to hurry, Skye. I don't see the other car, the one those men came in. They must have left."

"I'm coming," Skye told her. She hopped down from the chair, grabbed the army cot, and dragged it over to the window. Once she had it in place, she balanced the chair on top of it, giving her a high enough step to get her up to the window. She thought about pulling her sweatshirt back on, to protect her arms and stomach the way Jemma's sweater had, but the thing was full of glass from breaking the windows, so she decided against it. No need to add extra glass shards to the maneuver.

The chair wobbled as she climbed back onto it, and she could feel the army cot buckling slightly under the awkward weight of her plus the chair. Planting her hands firmly on the windowsill and disregarding the pricks of pain that popped up in the places where her skin met leftover glass, Skye hoisted herself up into the window. Just as she swung a knee up and starting inching through the window on her stomach, the door to the room she was desperately trying to leave swung open with a bang. Skye whipped her head around and looked over her shoulder to see Cal standing in the doorway. Her stomach felt like she had swallowed a cannonball, and she felt her eyes go wide in horror.

Cal had shed his jacket and tie, leaving him in a short-sleeved button-down. His hands and arms were streaked with something that looked suspiciously like blood to Skye, and a wave of nausea crashed over her at the sight. Frantically, she started wiggling through the window as fast as she could, ignoring the searing sting of jagged glass and rough concrete that scraped across her arms and stomach as she scrambled to clear the window before Cal had time to realize what he was seeing.

"Hey!"

She wasn't fast enough. Her other leg hadn't found its footing in the window yet, and before she knew it, a rough hand was wrapped around her ankle, tugging hard.

"Come back!" Cal insisted, pulling Skye back across the windowsill. Tears sprung up in her eyes as the glass made a second pass at her body. Her t-shirt was going to be full of holes after this. Desperate, Skye kicked out wildly, trying to free herself from Cal's grasp. She couldn't see behind her, but she felt her sneaker connect with something solid and fleshy, maybe his shoulder or his chest. The grip on her leg loosened just enough that she was able to wrench herself free and squirm back through the window. There wasn't enough time to reposition herself for a graceful landing, so Skye just rolled, twisting herself around as she started to fall and hoping that she would land on her feet.

"Skye!"

The cold near-dawn air zipped past her face as she fell, and the sounds of Cal's angry bellowing and Jemma's worried cry blurred together in her ears until she hit the ground with a horrible thud and everything went sideways. It was like every sense of hers stopped working for a second – no sound, just buzzing; no sight, just blurry grey; no feeling, just shock.

"Skye! Skye! Get up, please. Please get up." Jemma's voice was the first thing to break through. Skye blinked and let the world return to her, tried to give her brain a second to catch up. She was lying on the frosty, gravelly ground, and the world around her was hazed in the gauzy heather film of a world on the verge of turning over towards a sunrise, and Jemma was bent over her, desperately trying to drag her to her feet.

"Come on, Skye, he's coming. We have to go." Cal. Cal was coming after them. Skye gave herself a little shake and tried to push herself up into a sitting position. As soon as she moved her right arm, she knew it was a mistake. Electrifying pain splintered up her arm, from her wrist all the way to her shoulder, and she let out a gasp of pain.

"My arm," she whimpered, cradling it into her stomach and using her left arm instead to clamber to her feet numbly.

"You fell headfirst and used it to break your fall," Jemma said. She took Skye by her good elbow and pulled her in the direction of the gate at the front of the lot. "It's probably broken, but you at least saved yourself from hitting your head on the ground."

"Silver lining," Skye muttered through gritted teeth. They were picking up speed, but she couldn't run as fast as she wanted to without sending shooting pain up and down her arm. Her vision blurred with unwelcome tears that she tried hard to blink away. She needed to be able to see clearly, broken arm or not.

Somewhere behind them an engine roared to life, and the sound of gravel crunching under tires barreled towards them. Skye looked around wildly for some alternate way out, a hole under the fence or a side exit they could dart over towards instead of the main gate, but there was nothing, so she set her jaw and forced herself to run faster, feet pounding the slippery gravel and the thin, cold air cutting the inside of her throat as she sucked down gasping breaths. They couldn't outrun the van, of course, but maybe, just maybe, if they could get off the lot, they could slip into some dark corner and shake Cal before he had a chance to get to them.

They had no such luck. The van careened alongside them, then pulled ahead and skidded to a stop between them and the gate, blocking the exit completely. Gravel sprayed out from under the tires as the car screeched to a halt, and Cal swung himself frantically out of the cab, the engine still idling.

"Please, just stop," he instructed them. He held up his hands like a traffic cop, but his erratic movement and frenetic tone reminded Skye that he was just about the farthest thing from a crossing guard she could meet. Orange streetlight bounced off the dark metal of his gun, which Skye's eyes immediately caught in his hand. All thoughts of dashing off to the side or trying to slip around the van before he could catch them evaporated. "Just stop. I don't want to have to use this."

"Then don't," Skye countered, filled with a sudden surge of impudence that was probably a stupid idea, but that she couldn't filter out before she spoke. Her arm hurt and she was out of ideas, so blurting out her challenge was all that was left. "Put it away. Let us go."

"I… I can't do that," he said. He didn't lower the gun, but the look on his face was pained, almost like he was the one with the broken arm instead of her. "I can't have you disappearing on me, Daisy. I can't lose you again, not this fast."

"You can't just force us to stay," she told him quietly. "It's not right. You can't use fear to make people stay or love you. It doesn't work like that. It takes… time. And trust."

"You sound so much like your mother," Cal murmured. His eyes got a faraway look, like he forgot they were standing there for a minute. He chuckled softly. "I've always been impatient. Impulsive. I get these big ideas and can't wait to start. Your mother, she… she helped me remember not to jump into things before I had my water wings on."

"What would she say to you right now?" Skye asked. "If she knew how you got us here and wouldn't let us leave?"

Cal smiled sadly. "Oh, she'd give me an earful, no doubt. She was good like that. Responsible. Duty-bound. Determined to do the best she could for other people. It was one of the things about her that I fell in love with." He paused, cocked his head to one side, studied Skye carefully. "I wasn't always a bad man, you know. I was a pretty good man at one point, actually. And we managed to bring the most potent versions of ourselves out from each other, your mother and I."

"Where is she now?"

Cal's face twitched and clouded over for a moment. "Gone," he muttered. His fingers flexed on the handle of the gun, and Skye took an instinctive step back, moving in front of Jemma. Cal blinked and rearranged his face back into the unsettling, stiff smile that looked too big for his face. "That's why it's so important that I've got you back," he said, his tone shifting with frightening speed. "Because we're putting our family back together."

"He's totally unstable," Jemma whispered from behind Skye. Skye didn't disagree, but she wasn't sure what good that knowledge was going to do them.

"Come back inside," Cal coaxed, either ignoring or not hearing Jemma's comment. "It's freezing out here, and I can take a look at that arm. It doesn't look so hot."

"I'm okay," Skye lied. Her arm hurt so much it was making her feel lightheaded, but she didn't want to give him any more vulnerabilities to exploit.

"I'll put the gun away," he offered. "You come back inside and let me take care of your arm, and I'll put it away. I already told you I don't really like guns. I'd rather not use it at all. Come in, I'll fix you up, and we'll talk. If… if you really don't want to stay… well, it's like you said – I can't scare you into wanting to be with me. I have to earn that. And I'd like to start now."

"No gun?" Skye asked suspiciously.

"No gun." To demonstrate his good will, Cal tucked the gun into his belt and held up his empty hands. "I'll put it down for real inside. Please. I can tell you're in pain. I just want to help."

She could feel Jemma breathing on the back of her neck, hot, anxious breaths. Jemma thought this was a terrible idea, she could tell, but Skye was at a loss for what other options they had. At least he could be reasoned with, so long as Skye kept giving him what he wanted, which, as it seemed, was her. If she was the bargaining chip, then the only logical thing to do, as far as Skye could see it, was to keep using it. She'd managed to talk him into putting the gun away. Maybe she could manage to talk him into letting them go at some point, too. "Okay."

Cal steered them back towards the building, back through the door with all the locks, back down the dark hallway. He led them to a different room this time, though – one without any windows, Skye noticed. An overhead lamp dangled over what looked like a makeshift operating table in the center of the room, and shelves full of first aid supplies lined the walls – bandages, tweezers, medicine bottles, and dozens more things that Skye couldn't name, but that she was sure both Cal and Jemma would be able to identify and use at the drop of a hat. The table in the middle didn't appear to have been cleaned since it's last patient, who Skye assumed had been Vinny, the man from the SUV with bullets in him.

"Um, don't… don't touch anything," Cal said nervously. "It's not sterile. I haven't been able to clean up yet, and Vincent… well, I don't want you getting his blood on you. Just… stay over by the wall for a minute." True to his word, he slid the gun out from his waistband and deposited it on the table. Then he flitted around the room for a few minutes, bundling up dirty towels and sheets, wiping down surfaces, and dunking used surgical tools in a bucket full of something that smelled vaguely antiseptic to Skye.

"I know a back-alley surgeon doesn't exactly conjure up images of safety and cleanliness," Cal said in a sheepish, half-joking manner, "but I do try and at least keep the contamination to a minimum when I can. Especially when my next patient is such a VIP." He finished by scrubbing his hands vigorously at a small basin in the corner with a leaky faucet. The red streaks that had been on his hands and arms earlier slowly melted away, spiraling down the drain with soapy water, and soon Cal's hands were spotless. He grabbed a stool from one corner of the room and plunked it down under the light, just to the side of the table. "This won't take long," he said, indicating that Skye should sit on the stool.

Cautiously, she obeyed, perching on the stool precariously. It was hard to balance when her body felt so lopsided without the use of her arm, and when her head was swimming from the throbbing pain that pulsated up and down her arm like a beating heart that grew closer to bursting with every pump.

"May I?" Cal asked, gesturing to her arm. Skye shrugged the shoulder on her left side, her good side, and gave him a little nod. She didn't really have much choice, and she didn't expect that he would make things any worse than they already were. Gingerly he inspected her aching, swollen arm, and she tried not to wince too much as he prodded and rotated her arm.

"Can you move your fingers at all?" Skye shook her head after trying, and failing, to wiggle her fingers for him. It hurt too much. She blinked hard a couple times to clear her stinging eyes, and she could practically hear Jemma's voice in her mind telling her to breathe. Cal frowned and made a thoughtful humming noise.

"It's a pretty bad break," he muttered, maybe to her, but more likely to himself. He moved his hands along her arm a final time, and she sucked in a sharp breath each time he put too much pressure on the spots around her wrist where most of the pain seemed to be seeping from. "Daisy, I'd like to set your arm. I think it's the best thing to do right now. If I don't, it might start healing incorrectly and then another doctor will have to rebreak it when it's time to get you in a cast."

"Rebreak my arm?" Skye cut her eyes over to Jemma, who was tapping in the corner, and checked for confirmation that Cal was telling the truth. Reluctantly, Jemma nodded, and Skye felt her nose scrunch at the idea of someone breaking her arm all over again on purpose.

"It's going to hurt," Cal warned. "But it will help in the long run. I won't do it if you don't want me to, though."

"Okay," Skye agreed, after a long pause. "Do what you have to do, I guess."

"I find it's usually easier for patients if they have something else to think about during this part," Cal mused, as he situated himself in position to set her arm. "I don't know how much you know about our family—"

"Nothing," Skye admitted. She turned her face away from Cal so she couldn't see when he was about to start and set her jaw firmly. She didn't want to be a wimp about this. "All I know is I got dropped off at St. Agnes when I was a baby. My file said I had a blanket from Ames' Memorial, which is why I was snooping around there the day I saw you. I was trying to get a list of people who had babies there around the time I might be born."

"Clever," Cal said proudly. "I knew you'd be smart like that. Your mother was so bright. You get it from her, I'm sure. Raina was convinced you'd need more clues, but I had a hunch…" He trailed off. "The flower? Did she give you the flower?"

"The daisy," Skye murmured. "She drew one on my hand. When I saw the baby named Daisy on the list, I wondered…"

"My daughter's a genius," glowed Cal.

"So that is us, then? On the birth certificate? That's… that's me?"

"That's you," Cal confirmed. "July 2nd. Eight pounds even. Best day ever."

"July 2nd," echoed Skye, almost in a daze. "My birthday is July 2nd."

Suddenly, Cal's grip on her arm tightened and there was a rough tug as he forced the bones back into place. Against her will, Skye let out a yelp of pain and her eyes watered.

"Sorry," Cal apologized. "It's better if you don't have any warning. It was a clean set, though, so you should be all right until we can get you into a cast. We can splint it for now." He quickly instructed Jemma to pull down supplies from the shelves – cardboard, tape, and gauze, from what Skye could gather – and Jemma obeyed silently. Once she had handed over the materials (taking care not to touch Cal, Skye noticed), she retreated back to her corner of the room and resumed the rapid tap she'd been maintaining since they entered the room.

"Do you always fidget like that?" Cal asked curiously, swiveling his head to look back at Jemma as he began folding and shaping the cardboard into a thin rectangle, several layers thick. "Or is it just because I make you nervous?"

Jemma didn't say anything, but her eyes narrowed in anger and suspicion. She shoved her hand into her pocket, tapping finger out of sight and muffled by the fabric. Surprisingly, Cal laughed.

"You don't like me much, do you?" he chuckled. Again, Jemma remained silent, much to Cal's amusement. "That's okay, you don't have to like me. You're not the one I'm trying to impress here."

"She's a pretty good judge of character," Skye said starchily. She never liked people who laughed at Jemma, and she wasn't about to give Cal a pass just because he was her dad or had set her broken arm.

"Oh, I don't doubt that," Cal said breezily. "We've already established that I'm not a very good person these days. But a man can change, don't you think? After all, I changed once before, who's to say I can't do it again?"

"I don't know," Skye admitted. "Sometimes change isn't as deep as people want you to believe it is. Sometimes it's just for show, but the real problems are still there. Fresh paint on rotten wood doesn't change the fact that the house is going to fall down soon."

"I suppose that's true." Cal guided her aching arm onto the cardboard splint and set to work wrapping it, anchoring her arm to the stiff cardboard so she couldn't move it too much. "But what about when you build the house back up and fix the things that made it fall down in the first place? That's what I've been trying to do all these years, Daisy. I… my world fell apart the day I had to leave you on those steps. My house crumbled, I had rot all inside me. But now, for the last thirteen years, I've been trying to rebuild it. Did I sometimes use the hammer or the saw the wrong way? Maybe. But you have to cut down a few trees to build something new. You make sacrifices to protect your family."

"What are you talking about?"

"The day you were born was the best day ever," he explained, tightening the gauze around her arm and adding a layer of tape. "The next few days after were some of the worst. Everything that had been so good got… taken from me. I had nothing. I… I lost my head a little bit, I admit that. But who wouldn't go a little mad after losing everything that mattered in such a short amount of time?"

"I don't understand," Skye said slowly. She pulled her arm back from Cal's grasp and tucked it into her stomach, avoiding the cuts and scratches left on her belly from the glass in the windowsill.

"Well," Cal said thoughtfully, "I suppose… you wouldn't have had any way of knowing, would you? You don't know my story. Your story." He paused, looked hard into her eyes with something almost like eagerness. As much as Skye wanted to tear her gaze from his, something kept her from turning away. "What would you say to a little trip down memory lane?"

I hope you enjoyed these chapters, and that this cliffhanger wasn't too painful! I've already made a lot of progress on the next round of chapters, so hopefully I can get those up before too long - I know I say that every time lol, but I'm hoping this time it will actually be true :P

Thank you all so so much for reading and being such a bright spot in my day :)