Chapter 12

Skye wakes up a crank formed in her neck. She pulls off the blanket that hadn't been there when she fell asleep. She yawns and spots Coulson in the kitchen making something. "Coulson?" She mumbles still half asleep. "Did I…"

"You fell asleep here last night." He explains while flipping something over on the stove. "I decided it be fine to just let you stay." Skye yawns again and walks off the couch to see what Coulson is doing.

Skye grips her left arm. "Thanks for listening last night; I'm sorry you had to hear all that." Coulson offers a smile to Skye.

"I'm happy you were willing to open up, just remember you'll always have a friend in me. Now do you feel like an omelet or pancakes?" Skye already smells the bacon on the stove sizzling.

"You know both would be nice." Skye suggests. Coulson cracks an egg into a pan.

"Why not?"

Skye takes a seat at the counter. His room was a fancy looking apartment, and it well fit the man Skye pictured Coulson to be. She hadn't known him that long but if Skye had a dad she'd picture Coulson to look like the dad she'd want.

"So how long have you ran this Academy?" Skye asks to start some small talk.

"Oh about six years, Nick Fury was the headmaster before he became the head of Shield."

"Cool name." Skye remarks, peering at Coulson's artwork around the room. "He's the director of Shield now, right?"

"He sure is." Coulson confirms while flipping the omelet over, and then onto a plate. He hands the plate over to Skye. "Sunday morning breakfast." Skye smiles looking at it.

"Thanks, you know you didn't have to do this. I mean you've already given me money and stuff for the cafeteria, and even a chance to come here." Skye bites into her omelet. "Whenever people do nice things like this for me they always end up wanting something in return." Skye squeezes her fork trying to repress over a dozen different bad memories. Skye looks at Coulson, the memories evaporating. He flips a pancake over onto her plate.

"Well don't worry Skye, all I want from you here is an effort to try and get good grades." Skye chuckles, hoping that he wasn't serious, but judging by his face, he was. Coulson takes a seat beside Skye at the counter, digging into his own pancakes and passing a plate of bacon to Skye.

"If things ever get too much for you Skye, come and talk to me. If anyone, and I mean anyone— teachers included— make you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, talk to me." Skye remembers Professor Raina from the beginning of the week. She'd creeped Skye out a bit, but that was her own fear talking and the horrible image of the idea she had when people wore lab coats. But Coulson had asked her, and he seemed like a pretty great guy here, so she had to trust his judgment.

Skye finishes her breakfast with Coulson, and helps him clean the dishes afterwards. "Thanks again for all this." Skye dries off the dishes. "I guess I should head back now though, huh." Coulson pats Skye's back.

"I actually have to fly down to the hub today." Skye stacks a dish in the counter. "Do you want to come with me?"

"The hub?" Skye asks, not sure what that is.

"It's a shield base, I have some stuff I have to do there, but you can come along if you want, see what it's like." Skye smiles brightly.

"Seriously, that'd be so awesome." Skye reacts. "And you said fly, does that mean we get to go on a plane?"

"Well it's a small aircraft, but I guess it counts as a plane."

"I've never been on a plane before." The seventeen year old says.

"Well I guess you will have now."

XxXxXxX

Skye left for her room to go get ready, upon coming back Coulson was waiting in a car outside the school. Together they drove to an air field. In the car Coulson told Skye about his Captain America card collection, which Skye poked fun of for being nerdy.

After the car ride, they arrived at an open field, with a plane already waiting. It had the shield symbol on it, and Skye was super stoked to ride it.

After getting on it, Skye did get a little scared before they took off, but her worries disappeared when she was above the ground. She stares out the window at the sky. "You know technically this isn't your first plane ride." Coulson explains. "After Ward… sedated you, we took you to our school via a plane we nicknamed the 'bus'."

"Well that doesn't count." Skye explains. "I just meant I've never been on a plane where I get to properly enjoy it." Skye sighs. "It's kind of hard to ride on a commercial plane without a birth certificate to get a pass port. Technically I don't exist."

Coulson puts his hand on Skye's shoulder, something Skye imagined a real father would do. "You do exist Skye, and standing here right in front of me is that proof."

Skye smiles. "You act as if you met me before Coulson, have we met?" Skye asks him. Coulson shakes his head.

"No we haven't met, but I have heard about you from shield reports. I've been keeping an eye on you Skye; I actually had wanted you to come to the academy last year." Skye frowns, feeling a small tension like Coulson was lying. "Though you were a bit busy running away to get the offer."

Skye rubs her neck. "Sorry about that." Skye mumbles.

"You're at the academy now, that's the important thing."

The plane is in the air for another forty minutes or so before touching down. Skye watches as the plane lands in some sort of underground garage. After getting off the plane, Coulson talks with a few agents while Skye waits patiently taking in the surroundings.

When Coulson's done talking with the pilot and a few others, he calls over someone. "Ah Agent Koenig, do you mind getting my friend a Lanyard?"

"Ah of course Agent Coulson." The short man cries out.

"Agent Coulson?" Skye repeats. "What happened to Headmaster Coulson?"

"Only my students call me that." He explains. "Once you graduate you have permission to call me Agent Coulson." He states

"So Coulson doesn't work?"

"Nope."

Skye watches as Agent Koenig returns with an orange ID. "Here you are miss." He says handing off the lanyard. "I don't just hand these out to anyone." He explains.

"Clearly." Skye mumbles putting the necklace on.

"Thank you Agent Koenig, now let's give you a tour Skye."

Coulson takes Skye around this hub place, showing her all the cool aircrafts and weapons being built or stored at the facilities. They went by some labs, and other rooms filled with computers and Skye in a way wished that her bracelet wasn't on her. Hacking into shield would be so easy now. She couldn't do it that easily before, but now—here it would be a piece a cake. She could get the files, she could find him.

Coulson takes Skye to a large office lastly on the tour, after finishing up some business with a few guys in suits. The office was overlooking some forest and it was nice view, Skye could admit. The office itself was modern and fresh.

Skye walks in following Coulson. A man with dark skin sat in a black spinney chair. Skye could see the outline of his eye patch.

"Good afternoon Director Fury." Coulson offers.

"Coulson." Fury says spinning to face him. "And I see you've brought a guest."

Fury gives Skye a look, which Skye guesses is an intimidating way to say 'introduce yourself'. "Oh...ah…Skye." She says awkwardly.

"Well, Coulson said he'd be bringing a guest, but I didn't expect this." Fury gets out of his chair, and Skye thinks that Fury's going to make his way over to Skye to shake her hand, but Fury turns towards Coulson. Fury presses a button on his desk. "Agent Koenig, I'd like you to show an agent in training the Wall of Memories."

"Wall of Memories?" Skye asks the intimidating man.

"Something that I believe every future agent should see." He gives Skye a sort of glare with his one eye. "You do want to be an agent right?"

Skye can't find the words to answer, so she simply nods. Even though she still wasn't sure if she wanted to be an agent of shield, as of yet.

A few moments later Agent Koenig comes into Fury's office. "Skye follow agent Koenig, I think you want to see this." Skye nods, unsure of why she'd been brought into Fury's office in the first place.

"Alright." Skye agrees, knowing that whatever Coulson wanted to say he couldn't say in the room with Skye. Skye follows Agent Koenig out of the room, and he takes her down a few levels to the front entrance. Upon arriving, there was a wall that was dedicated to all the people who'd lost their lives in the line of duty.

Skye drags her fingers across the stone as Koenig explains some of the heroes who'd died there. Apparently there was one located at their academy as well, but Skye had yet to discover it.

Skye looks back at the elevator which they took to ride down. She wonders what the real reason Coulson had for bringing her.

XxXxXxX

"That's the girl" Fury asks.

"That's her." Coulson confirms.

"Dang." Fury says taking a seat in his chair. Coulson sits adjacent. "I wanted to discuss her with you, not have you bring her here to me. Coulson what are you thinking?"

"I want her to become a Shield agent." He says.

"A Shield agent? Coulson, you really think that's a good idea? The Academy is one thing, but a shield agent?"

"We need to keep her safe, being a shield agent allows us to keep an eye on her and also gives her a place to belong." Coulson explains. "We can't just keep treating her like some rogue criminal or child."

"And you don't think she's dangerous?" Fury asks Coulson. Coulson shakes his head. "I worry you're letting your past with her cloud your judgment. This girl isn't like Ward Coulson, this girl is dangerous."

"That's the thing Fury, she's not. Don't you think the documents we recovered would have warned us against her? There's never once been an incident with her." Coulson grips the handle on his chair.

"Coulson the documents we recovered were only about 10% of them." Nick Fury crosses his arms. "As for incidents, you really don't think China is one?"

"That was never confirmed to be her." Coulson defends. "For all we know the scientist who took her were wrong."

"Even if they were Coulson, there is no proof she exist anywhere. Skye is a ghost, and because of that she'll always be an 0-8-4. Objects of unknown origin are always dangerous."

Coulson couldn't disagree more. Last night talking to Skye made him realize that she was just a normal human being, and he had to treat her like the normal person she was.

"If you've read my report, you know that I'm willing to take her in, and bring her protection under my wing."

Fury taps his nails on his desk. "Oh I read the report, and as long as you know the risks you're welcome to keeping her at your precious Academy. As long as she doesn't endanger the students in any way she can stay. But Coulson, if things get out of hand with her…" He trails off.

"I know" He replies. "That's why they won't"

Super long chapter guys, YEAH! It's a nice long one thanks to my inspiration for tonight's episode. Anyway, no more daily updates after this. I had like four chapter written ahead when I started this and had always been ahead before this chapter, but now I'm caught up. So chapters might take a bit more time to be published. Hopefully this long one will satisfy you till the next one.