A/N: I don't really have a lot to say here, other than there was supposed to be more of this but I need to go to bed and so I'll split it up into two parts. I'd like to have the second part up tomorrow but no promises as I'm on the graveyard shift tomorrow night.
Thanks to everyone who reads/reviews/follows/favorites - you are amazing people and you make my days so much brighter.
Enjoy!
"I'm sorry. Run that by me again?"
Maria sighed into the phone. "We're at Skye's dorm room," she said, "and there's a letter here that was obviously intended for Jemma… they took Jemma."
"What?"
"And Skye's gone after her."
Natasha let out a weary sigh. "Where do you need me?"
"They're in the tunnels under the college," Maria said.
"Is there something else you're not telling me?"
Maria hesitated, watching as Melinda, Phil, Andrew, and Wanda debated about their best plan of action. "The note said they'd stop all this if a certain file was brought to them. A file that Melinda has."
"Oh, no," Natasha said.
"Yeah. Whatever else happens, whatever this file contains, it's not going to be good in any way," Maria agreed. "Bring something to help get us out of this mess."
"I'm on it."
Skye's chest burned and she could feel panic start flooding through her veins like an itch she couldn't scratch, an itch that threatened to knock her unconscious or cause her to tear all of her skin off in strips. She stopped running and bent over, putting her hands on her knees, squeezing her eyes shut tight as she tried to remember how to fight off the anxiety.
At nearly the same time, both of her hearing aids started squealing; she didn't hear it, of course, as it was too high-pitched, but the sudden loss of even her peripheral hearing pushed more anxiety through her body.
She let out a scream and ripped her hearing aids out, throwing them to the ground. They skittered away, but she was past caring.
Bobbi and Trip were several hundred feet in front of her, Hunter a few feet behind them, and at her scream they all turned to face her.
Skye put her hands to her head and tried to keep them there, steady, so she couldn't rip at her bandages or pull out her hair. She sucked in a breath, then another.
Jemma. Think about Jemma. Think about Jemma being with that asshole Ward. We have to go. We have to… I have to go to her. I have to fix this. I have to make it right.
A breath. Another. Another.
The rush in her head slowly subsided.
Skye felt a touch on her arm and looked up at Trip.
You with us, girl? he signed.
Skye nodded shakily.
You still want to go through with this?
Have to, Skye signed, her hands still shaky. Have to get to Jemma.
Okay, Trip signed, nodding.
Bobbi stepped forward and held out her hand, showing Skye's hearing aids tucked in her palm. Skye blinked back the tears she'd been fighting and took them, popping the aids back in her ears.
The world got a little sharper.
During her quasi-panic attack, Hunter had continued on a ways, scouting ahead a bit. Now he turned back towards them and looked at Bobbi and Trip, saying something. Trip nodded and then quickly relayed his message. He says there's some crates up above blocking the tunnel. They're not usually there, and he thinks this might be where Ward and Garrett have set up. He also says they can be moved easily, they're not heavy. What do you want to do?
Skye knew that "lie down on the floor and cry" wasn't the right answer to that question. She squared her shoulders. I want to go to Jemma.
Then we go, Trip replied.
He held his hand out to Skye, helping her stand upright.
Hunter had been right about the pile of crates. They were plastic boxes, neatly stacked in a knee-high wall of sorts, but they were easily removable.
Meant to slow us down, not stop us, Bobbi observed.
The group reached the greenhouses a few moments later, and were met with an interesting point of view – a doglegged corner showed a large view of the hallway up ahead, giving more visibility than would be expected from such a distance. And at the far edge of that distance, Skye saw someone she'd like to never see again.
Ward.
Skye stopped dead in her tracks. Instead of the itch of anxiety, she felt something even more powerful.
Rage.
And then the door leading into the tunnels from the greenhouses above opened, and that rage turned into something entirely different.
Natasha Romanoff opened the door and nearly whacked Skye in the head with it. "What the hell?" she bit out.
Skye turned to Natasha and began signing wildly.
Natasha shook her head and looked at Bobbi and Trip. They had their backs turned to her and had missed whatever Skye had said.
Hunter stepped forward and showed Natasha the iPod-like device that had translated for him.
What are you doing here?
Natasha glanced at Hunter. He shrugged. Natasha looked back at Skye and began to use pidgin sign and some charades. Me. Help. You.
Skye signed again, and again Hunter held up the translation. Do Maria and Melinda know you're here?
Natasha nodded.
Skye's face went pale.
Bobbi and Trip turned around. Seeing Skye's ashen face, Bobbi signed, What's wrong?
Maria. Melinda. Coming here.
Bobbi turned to Natasha.
"It's true," Natasha said. "And Phil and Wanda and Andrew."
Bobbi didn't know who Andrew was, but she was betting Skye did, so she relayed the message.
"Nnn!" Skye protested vocally. Why? Why would they do that?
They're worried about you. About Ward. About Jemma.
This is my fight!
Natasha waited until Bobbi relayed the message, and then extended her hand. "You want this fight? Go fight it."
The message went from her mouth through Bobbi's hands, and Skye nodded. Fine.
With no further discussion, she bolted forward.
"Shit," Hunter said. "I didn't think she'd actually do it."
"Then you don't know Skye," Trip said.
Bobbi turned to Natasha. "Tell me you brought something better than a slingshot and a bag of walnuts."
"Or four oranges," Trip added.
"Or whatever the hell this stuff was supposed to do," Hunter put in, holding out the Silly String.
"Who do I look like, Dennis the Menace?" Natasha rolled her eyes and reached into her pocket.
She handed each of them a pair of rod-shaped implements.
"Are these drumsticks?" Hunter asked. "Are we going to take down the bad guys with a sick drum solo?"
"They're blinders," Natasha said. "Point one at an unfriendly person, hit the button on the bottom, light blasts out. Causes disorientation and decreased vision for up to five minutes."
"You made these?" Trip asked.
Natasha nodded.
"Damn, girl," Trip said.
Skye's boots pounded against the concrete floor. Her footsteps were so filled with rage that she wouldn't have been surprised to see the floor cracking into fissures.
Ward had his back to her as she approached. She let out a yell and jumped on him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. As she had predicted, he let out a strangled yell and wobbled, then crashed to the floor. Skye leapt off him with some agility, rolling to avoid hitting the floor herself.
Ward looked up at her. His mouth moved.
"Can't hear you," Skye singsonged, using a voice that was generally reserved for Little Bear. She liked the way it made her feel, as though Ward was a child and she had all of the power.
And then she looked up.
"Jemma," she breathed.
Jemma heard thumps, and a crash, and then Skye's voice. She bolted to her feet, pressing up against the wall of the box. Fear sluiced through her body as she watched Skye standing over Ward, the man on the floor seeming very confused.
I don't want to see her, Jemma thought anxiously. She knew too much. She couldn't figure out how she felt about Skye, and she knew that if she had to look Skye in the eyes and tell her that the majority of her life had been a lie, that Summer might not even be her sister, that her parents had…
And then Skye was in front of the box, her hands slamming against it.
Jemma's heart cracked in two. Skye had somehow fought her way out of Maria and Melinda's house, probably without telling anyone. Skye had come down into the tunnels, risking her own personal safety and sanity. Skye was being reckless and foolhardy and all sorts of other words that meant "love makes you do stupid things."
But Jemma still couldn't look at her. Every time her eyes went to Skye, all she could see were those damning words from the newspaper articles. So she left her head down.
"Jemma," Skye said, her voice wobbly. "Jemma, get out?"
Jemma shook her head, tears forming in her eyes.
"Jemma, door opens?"
Jemma felt doubly bad – she wouldn't look at Skye and she was forcing Skye to use her voice.
"Jemma!" Skye's voice got sharper, and she hit the door again. "Open door!"
Jemma brought her head up just in time to see Ward getting to his feet. Before she could stop herself, her hands jerked up and she signed, Skye! Turn around!
Skye whipped around as Ward came at her, and she had just enough time to take two steps forward and kick him, rather successfully, in his private area.
Ward let out another tortured groan and dropped back to the floor, clutching the damaged region in a pained and dramatic way.
At that moment Natasha, Hunter, Bobbi, and Trip came around the corner. Mere seconds later, from the opposite direction, Phil, Melinda, Maria, Wanda, and a man Jemma had never seen ran in.
"Andrew?" Natasha asked.
"Wanda?" Jemma asked.
"God, all we need is Fruit Basket and it'd be a cluster and a half," Hunter muttered.
Phil shoved his way past Melinda and skirted around Ward's groaning body on the floor. He grabbed Skye by the shoulders, picked her up, and turned her to face him. What the hell were you thinking? he demanded of her.
Saving Jemma, Skye replied fiercely.
Without any backup at all?
"We have drumsticks," Hunter offered.
"I don't even know what to say to that," Phil said.
You think I'm fragile. You think I can't do something like this! Skye signed at her interpreter, hands angry slashes in the air. You were wrong!
No one thinks you're fragile, Phil signed, obviously trying to keep his composure. But last night you had an out-of-body experience where you screamed, clawed your skin to pieces, and broke a huge vase. Do you remember any of that?
Skye looked up at him, something between rage and terror in her brown eyes. Jemma told me I can do anything I want. Jemma told me I could win, and I did. See who's on the floor with his hands over his balls.
Phil turned around and looked helplessly at Melinda. "Any time now, 'Lin."
Melinda shrugged and moved so that Skye could see her hands. I know you were in my office. I know you took something that doesn't belong to you. That's a crime in the eyes of the university. Do you really want to pursue this further?
"Oh, God," Jemma moaned. "Don't tell her what it is, for the love of God."
Melinda turned to look at Jemma. "How do you know what was in that file?"
"Ward showed me," Jemma muttered.
"Jemma," Melinda whispered.
Jemma hung her head.
Are you threatening me? Skye demanded of Phil and Melinda.
I'm saying that you're not making some great choices here, Melinda replied. If you had told us what you were planning to do, we would have come along to help you. Instead you ran out, set off on your own, broke into my office, stole something, and now you're here – why couldn't you wait ten minutes and explain this all to us? You had no right to take anything from my office, especially not that file!
Rage spilled down Skye's spine, flushing out any traces of anxiety that had once been there. She clenched her hands into fists.
Wanda took a step forward and gently put her hand on Skye's shoulder. "Maybe now is not the good time for to talk to Skye."
"Do you know about what happened?" Jemma asked from the box.
Wanda looked over at her. "Happened with what?"
Jemma shook her head, seeming disgusted.
Before anyone else could speak, footsteps approached the group in the tunnel, and a moment later John Garrett appeared. "Well, well, well," he drawled. "Looks like we've got ourselves a party, Grant."
Bobbi didn't hesitate – she raised her blinder and pointed it directly at Garrett's face, pushing the button. Light poured out of the rod, a sharp, straight beam that blasted towards his eyes. The older man stumbled and let out a curse, ran into the wall and was knocked nearly immediately onto his backside, joining Ward on the floor.
"Damn, those work," Hunter observed.
Skye knew she should be happy that both of her tormentors were incapacitated. Instead she just felt empty. Phil and Melinda's anger, Jemma being so secretive and bizarre, the anxiety creeping back into her veins – none of it made sense. She wanted answers. She wanted to scream. She wanted to punch herself until she felt right again. She wanted to fling her body around to figure out if she was still in it, to cry until she was empty, to run out of the dank tunnels and not stop until she got home and could snuggle Little Bear.
A hand snaked into hers, squeezing it tightly.
"Is okay, solnishka," Wanda murmured.
"Let's get Jemma out of the box," Trip suggested, and he and Natasha went to work on that project.
"You should tell her!" Jemma called from her Plexiglas prison. "She deserves to know!"
"I think the first thing we should do is call the police," Maria said. "Get these two scumbags out of here."
Things began to move quickly. Maria called the cops. Phil stood guard over Ward and Garrett. Andrew and Melinda stepped a few feet away and began speaking in hushed tones. Trip, Natasha, and Bobbi worked on getting the box open while Hunter gave "constructive criticism" from a distance.
Wanda just kept her hand in Skye's, squeezing every few seconds.
Trip finally managed to get the box open and Bobbi offered a hand to Jemma to help her out. Jemma crept out almost shyly, as though she'd forgotten how the world was supposed to work.
As soon as she was free, Skye bolted towards her and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend.
Jemma froze in her embrace, suddenly feeling like her heart was going to explode. She couldn't process everything she was feeling. Your entire life has been a lie, she wanted to say.
"Jemma?" Skye said hesitantly.
Jemma shook her head. "I can't do this."
Skye pulled back. Said you weren't leaving for good. Said we had to figure out how to fight. I figured it out. We fought. What is going on?
Jemma cast her eyes down, trying to avoid Skye's signing.
"NO!" Skye shrieked. You tell me what's wrong, Jemma Simmons. This isn't fair!
Jemma just dropped her arms to her sides and pushed past Skye, walking away from the group gathered in the tunnels.
She opened the door leading up to the greenhouses, sighed, and disappeared, heading up to face the real world.