A/N: Hello, all! Sorry it's been so long since my last update. As the season went on, I found that the cognitive dissonance between trying to track with the show AND stay immersed in my own AU was too much for me. I expect to be updating more frequently now that the season has finished. :)
Cryptically vague note: We are officially NOT Age of Ultron compliant, since I plotted and wrote the pertinent parts before seeing AoU. You'll see.
Coulson rose to his feet from examining Agent May, looking around as if a little lost.
Skye just watched him helplessly, taking in the pinched expression of anxiety on his face. If there wasn't love between May and Coulson, there was at the very least a deep mutual dependency she could only observe and guess at.
"What are we going to do?" Skye asked quietly.
Coulson's jaw set as he appeared to make a decision, and he peered back down the hall toward the group of other agents. "We're going to bring them back with us," he replied curtly. "All of them."
Skye's eyes widened, but it wasn't as if they really had any other good option. They couldn't leave Bobbi's people there, as tempting as that was.
She, Coulson, and Fitz quickly assessed the fallen agents, stabilized them as necessary, and were about to begin transporting them onto the plane when Coulson stopped short, a quizzical look on his face as he peered at the WCA tac team in a heap.
"What is it?" Skye asked, alarm prickling all over her skin.
Coulson shook his head. "We're missing one," he observed, tilting his head toward the agents. "There were eight when they got here, right?"
Skye nodded.
"There are only seven now."
Skye felt a little embarrassed that she hadn't noticed.
"Did one break off from the main group, maybe?" Fitz speculated, looking up and down the hallway.
Coulson nodded slowly. "I think so."
Fitz glanced down at the agents, then back at Coulson. "I brought the DWARFs along just in case," he suggested. "I can have them scan the building for the missing one while we move the rest."
"Do it," Coulson agreed.
Amongst the three of them, they managed to carry everybody back to the Bus, placing the unconscious May and Bobbi into an improvised quarantine chamber where the storage room of the lab used to be. They laid out the rest of the agents in the garage, zip-tying the wrists and ankles of the WCA agents for good measure, but trying to make them as comfortable as possible. Skye pilfered seat cushions from the lounge to place under their heads - though she was vaguely aware that she was handling her own team a little more gently than Bobbi's.
By the time they finished, the DWARFs had located the missing WCA agent in a side hallway that branched off from the main one.
Skye and Coulson approached slowly along the dim corridor, but this agent was down, too, collapsed in the shadows, his helmet and gas mask still on. Coulson stripped them off to assess the man's condition, and Skye caught the peculiar expression that flickered across the Director's face. She raised her brows in curiosity, but Coulson didn't volunteer any information.
"I wonder what he was doing over here?" Skye mused aloud as Coulson did a cursory examination of the man.
Coulson's face was grimly set. "He was heading for the upper level of the main warehouse."
"How do you know?"
"Some people see better from a distance," he mumbled. Skye glanced at him in puzzlement, but he didn't seem inclined to elaborate, instead bending down to heft the agent's torso off the ground. Skye joined in, and between them, they carried the unconscious man back to the Bus, zip-tying his hands behind his back and laying him down gently alongside the others.
As Coulson punched the button to close the cargo hold, Skye blinked. "Both of our pilots are unconscious and in quarantine," she realized aloud.
Coulson nodded. "I'll get on the line with HQ and have the technicians talk me through the controls." At Skye's incredulous look, he added flippantly, "I've watched May fly this thing plenty of times. How hard can it be?" He flashed a grin, and Skye couldn't help but snicker. They were both faking normalcy, but it made the whole situation more bearable.
The ride back to base was a turbulent blur, as Jemma directed Skye and Fitz via video feed through initial treatment of the agents and taking blood samples from each of them using the emergency medical kit stashed below the spiral stair - because, Simmons noted, they'd already been unconscious an unusual length of time, and if there was a chemical factor in play, she wanted to know, and the sooner the better. Skye was grateful for the experience she'd gained in drawing her own blood. It made it a heck of a lot easier to draw someone else's. She moved automatically, with the mental sharpness and focus that she found always came to her in high-pressure situations.
Everyone was still unconscious when they arrived at the Playground, and an unskilled, bumpy landing later, Jemma's team was moving the agents by gurney into the lab, no longer in need of Skye's assistance. Skye found herself sitting on one of the fold-down chairs in the cargo bay, gripping the seat tightly with both hands as the events of the last two hours began to sink in.
Her eyes wandered to the spattered drops of blood on the floor of the cargo bay, and she watched as an oblivious lab tech trod through them, smearing what was still wet across the metal ramp. The image of the humanoid creature crumpling to the ground flashed back into her mind's eye.
A heavy, painful lump settled into her chest. Coulson and Fitz had dragged the creature's body further up into what used to be the lab, and Skye knew Simmons would be running an autopsy as soon as all the agents were taken care of. Skye suddenly, desperately didn't want to know what she was going to find.
Her hands began to shake, and almost unconsciously, she unlocked her fingers from the fold-down seat, stood, and quickly climbed the spiral stairs. She crossed the catwalk, pushed aside the shattered door to the hallway and stepped into the Cage, breathing a sigh of palpable relief as she closed the door behind her.
It was strange how her prison had come to feel like her safe place.
She sank onto her cot, cross-legged, and found herself staring at her trembling hands - the hands she had extended toward a living thing, then watched it drop to the ground, lifeless.
Icy horror crept up on her mind, threatening to overwhelm her, and with effort she pushed it aside. Abruptly she stood, moving to the chair. She closed out the still-dark video feeds from the mission, then randomly opened a few Internet channels, looking for she wasn't sure what - anything to keep her thoughts occupied.
Over in the lab, where the counters were strewn with unconscious agents, Fitz hefted the gun that had been wielded by their downed adversary, examining it carefully.
"I've never seen this kind of tech before," he mused. He brought it closer to his face, squinting at it. "I honestly couldn't tell you what exactly it shoots."
"Well, it hurt like hell; I can tell you that much," Coulson said crisply, walking in. He handed a small piece of electronics, about the size of a book of matches, to Fitz. "The garage guys found this on the cargo ramp. Since nobody's ever seen it before, I'm assuming it came in with our visitor." He looked at Fitz evenly, a hint of caustic humor on his face. "Figure out what it does for me, will you?"
"Yes, sir," Fitz agreed, examining the little piece of tech with a furrowed brow. "Hello there," he murmured to it softly. "What are you?"
"Simmons, I have a gift for you," Coulson went on briskly, beckoning through the lab door to two of the mechanics, who proceeded to wheel in a gurney covered by a sheet.
Coulson made eye contact with Simmons meaningfully. "This is what we discussed on the trip home," he clarified, and she nodded in understanding. "Keep it under wraps."
"Yes, sir," she replied soberly. She paused for a moment, thinking. "Let's move it to a separate space," she directed, beckoning the mechanics to follow her as she led the way into a windowless side room. At her nod, they engaged the brakes on the gurney and left the room, Coulson following them out of the lab.
Once alone, Simmons slipped on a pair of gloves and pulled back the sheet, exposing the green, scaly, gilled head of the humanoid. She let out a slow breath, then studied its face for a few minutes before a look of resignation came over her features.
She stripped off her gloves, then turned and went back out to the main lab, where Fitz was busy turning the little box over and over in his hands, examining it carefully. Simmons cleared her throat, and Fitz startled, looking over at her. "I - I suppose I'd better get started on this," he mumbled.
Simmons' lips pressed together tightly. "Actually, Fitz, I'm going to need your assistance with this," she said, nodding toward the back room where the alien body lay.
Fitz blanched. "Jemma, I - you know I don't do well with - "
"Fitz," she interrupted. "All I'll need is for you to hand me instruments and document the findings on the tablet. You can manage that, right?" Her voice was pleading. "You won't even have to look, I promise. You can keep your back turned the entire time."
He turned halfway toward her, his blue eyes burning into hers accusatorily. "That's what you said about the fetal calf a - at the Academy," he reminded her in clipped tones. His voice pitched higher in a hideous impression of her own. "'Oh, no, Fitz. You won't even have to look. I'll do it and you can document it, we'll both get the credit, and then you'll be finished with all the dissections for your biology coursework.' And I ended up with - with my bloody fingers in it!"
"I promise not to do that this time," Simmons declared solemnly.
He stared her down, unblinking.
"Come on, Fitz," she said softly. "Coulson doesn't want anyone else to know about this creature yet, and I need a second pair of hands. Plus..." She bit her lip, her hazel eyes suddenly shinier than usual. "I don't know that I'm ready yet to have you out of my sight."
Fitz's demeanor abruptly shifted, his resistance softening as his eyes widened with surprise.
Simmons pressed her lips together, then smiled self-consciously. "When everyone came in unconscious like that, it - " Her voice broke, and she continued in a whisper. "It reminded me of what you looked like after we pulled you out of the ocean." She clenched her hands into fists on the countertop, looking at them unseeingly.
Fitz's mouth dropped open slightly as he realized what she was reliving.
"It was the worst moment of my life," she went on bravely, her voice trembling, "thinking that I might have lost you, that you had sacrificed yourself for me. I didn't..." Her voice broke again, and she took a deep breath before going on. "I didn't think that I would be able to live with that."
Fitz took a step closer, hesitantly placing one hand on top of hers. "Well, you don't have to," he reminded her gently. "I may not be...just the same as before. But I'm still me. And we're both still here."
Simmons turned to look at him, one tear dropping down her cheek as she blinked. "I know," she whispered, attempting to manage a smile. When it wouldn't come, she gave up and took a step forward to wrap her arms around him instead.
Fitz blinked, taken aback, and lifted his arms around her to return the hug.
He was even more taken aback when she pressed an impulsive kiss to his cheek.
About an hour later, Skye jerked awake when her laptop bleeped. She lifted her head from where it had been resting on the table and groaned at the kink in her neck. Apparently, she had been more tired than she realized after the events of the day and their accompanying adrenaline rush.
Incoming transmission from Director Coulson
She clicked it open. Coulson was standing in the lab with Simmons and a rather ashen-faced Fitz.
"Simmons has finished her evaluation of our team. I thought you might want to hear this," Coulson explained shortly, and Skye nodded, a little apprehensive. But Simmons smiled, and Skye felt a little bit better.
"Well, to begin with, everyone's vital signs are reassuring," Simmons opened. "Hunter lost some blood from that gash on his forehead, but he should recover nicely." She glanced at Skye, who managed a tight smile.
Simmons' brow furrowed as she flipped through test results on the tablet. "Blood tests do indicate the presence of an unknown substance in all the agents' bloodstreams except for one of the WCA agents - my guess would be that they were exposed to a knockout gas of some kind to prolong their loss of consciousness. I'm currently analyzing the chemical properties of the substance, as it's nothing I've worked with before. It seems to be very sophisticated, and the dosage very precisely calibrated." She looked up at Coulson. "Knockout gas in any form has always trod a very thin line between effective and lethal. But I'm not seeing any negative side effects in our agents at all."
"What does that mean?" Coulson clarified.
"Well, between that and the unfamiliar tech we've found, it would appear that whoever planned to ambush you has made advances in both technology and pharmacology that we have yet to discover."
"Alien?" Coulson clarified.
Simmons tilted her head uncertainly, hedging. "I'm currently running a full DNA scan on the humanoid. We'll have a better idea in a couple of hours."
Coulson nodded.
Simmons held his gaze for a moment, then looked back to the tablet. "As far as Agent May goes, apart from the knockout gas, every blood test has come back negative. I'll continue to run the same protocol on her and Bobbi as for the others. But..." She trailed off, looking back up at Coulson. "We may be facing a significant period of quarantine."
Coulson let out a heavy sigh. The lines on his face seemed to deepen as he replied, "I understand." He ran a hand absently through his hair. Simmons and Fitz exchanged a glance, then looked at him empathetically. Skye wished she could reach through the screen and give him a bracing hug.
After an awkward moment, Simmons glanced back down at the tablet, as if reminded of something. "I...also have the autopsy results, sir, if...?" She looked over at Skye questioningly, as did Coulson.
Skye swallowed, her lips pressing together tightly, and nodded.
"What did you find out?" Coulson asked calmly.
"Well," Simmons began, "the cause of death was relatively easy to determine. Technically, I suppose, the creature - he - died of a massive internal hemorrhage. But it's more like his organs literally disintegrated. His entire abdominal cavity is -" Simmons caught the queasy look on Fitz's face and hastily self-edited. "Well, it's a mess, really. It's as if everything inside exploded under the force of -"
"A shock wave," Skye finished for her, fighting down the panic that threatened to well up in her.
"Very powerful vibrations, yes," Simmons admitted, glancing at Skye cautiously.
Coulson asked something, and Simmons responded, but it was as if they had retreated to a far distance, their voices muffled. Skye stared unseeingly at the screen, until her fingers moved almost unconsciously to disconnect the transmission.
She wasn't entirely sure how, but she ended up on the cot, sitting cross-legged with her back against the wall, her fingers twined tightly into the blanket with both hands white-knuckled. She was vaguely aware that only that firm, almost painful contact with something tangible kept the room from spinning.
She desperately tried to reel in her thoughts. It was no different from Donnie Gill, she tried to reason with herself. In the heat of a mission, sometimes you had to go for the kill shot. She relived that moment on the Maribel del Mar, the calm, controlled response she'd had as she squeezed the trigger of the sniper rifle, knowing she was taking out Gill and saving May and Hunter's lives in the process.
Controlled.
That was the operative word.
God.
She had disintegrated its internal organs.
The room started to spin after all, and Skye cried out softly, doubling over so that her head was between her knees.
Through the rushing in her ears and her own ragged breathing, she barely heard the beep and click of someone opening the door of the Cage. Fear poured over her like a bucket of ice water, and she looked up to see Coulson coming in.
"Please go," she whispered.
He shook his head, his eyes full of compassion.
Anger flared up in Skye. "Coulson, you need to get the hell out of here. It isn't safe for you to be in here. It isn't safe -" her voice broke, a sob threatening to burst forth - "for anyone to be in here."
Coulson smiled sadly, moving closer to the cot. He sat down heavily beside her. "I'm not going," he replied matter-of-factly, meeting her eyes with his own steady gaze. "I'm staying, because you need to know that you are not a danger to me, nor to anyone you care about."
That strangled sob escaped Skye's lips, and she shook her head violently, inarticulately. Slowly, Coulson reached over to pull her into a hug, and she fought it, pounding against his chest with her fists. But he was stronger than she expected, holding her tightly until she stopped fighting him.
The words began to pour out. "What if it had been you?" she sobbed. "Or Simmons or Fitz in the lab at the Party House? Or Hunter when - when he came to wake me up from a nightmare?" Her body shook with the sheer terror of who she had become, what she was capable of doing without meaning to. What she could have done.
"But it wasn't," Coulson reminded her quietly. "You've had this ability the whole time, Skye, but you've never used it this way until now. Why do you think that is?"
Her trembling lessened somewhat as she thought about it. "I don't know."
Coulson kept his arms tight around her, reassuring. "I think that it's because, subconsciously, you knew you never had to until now."
Skye swallowed hard, weighing his words.
"I know you feel out of control," he went on firmly. "But the control I watched you demonstrate today is beyond anything I hoped to see from you at this point. You employed stopping power, appropriately targeted and at just the right moment, to decisively change the course of a mission."
Skye blinked. She hadn't seen it from that perspective. She allowed herself to be swayed, just a tiny bit - to consider whether maybe he might be right.
"In the wake of that shock, you pulled yourself together and got it back under control. You were able to generate vibrations just strong enough to give our enemies a scare and then keep it together for the rest of the mission, despite a very stressful situation and injuries to people you care about."
Skye blinked away tears, thinking about both May and Hunter. He has no idea how much.
"If Simmons is right," Coulson continued, "and you're able to continue to make progress at the rate you have been, I'm optimistic that you'll be out of this room and back in the field much sooner than later. And that's a day that I, frankly, wasn't sure when we'd see."
Skye blinked up at him. That was the first time she'd heard him express anything but utter confidence in her ultimate mastery of her powers. Somehow, hearing him admit now that he'd had doubts, just as she had, made his newfound optimism more compelling.
"Really?" she murmured in a broken voice, her eyes searching his.
Coulson nodded. "Look around you. Notice how nothing is shaking?"
She glanced around, actually noticing that for the first time.
"I know your emotions are tearing you apart right now," Coulson said, "but you're keeping yourself under control. Because you are under control, Skye. You've worked hard, and you're mastering this, instead of letting it master you."
Skye squeezed her hands into fists, willing his words to sink in, willing herself to believe them. She tried; she really did; but she found that she couldn't get his encouragement around the terrible accusation that hovered in her mind, demanding to be addressed.
"I disintegrated his internal organs," she whispered, almost to herself. She squeezed her fists even more tightly as her hands began to tremble again. And then, as if her subconscious mind voiced it almost without her consent, the thought slipped out: "I'm a monster."
"You're a monster. A murderer. A trail of death wherever you go."
Maybe the apple hadn't fallen too far from the tree after all.
The trembling spread to her whole body.
Coulson held her firmly by the shoulders, moving her back so he could look her in the eye. His brow was deeply creased with concern, his gaze piercing. "You're not a monster, Skye."
"Just like my father," she forced out through chattering teeth. "Bearing gruesome death wherever I go. Poison tree, poison fruit."
Confusion swept briefly across Coulson's face at her words, but his eyes stayed locked on hers. "Listen to me," he said firmly. "You are a good agent. You're a compassionate woman. You've received a gift of great power, which can be used for good or for evil, and today, you used it to save the life of every person on your team." His eyes burned into hers. "You're far from a monster, Skye. If there's anyone I would trust with this kind of power, it's you - because I know that you will be a powerful force for good."
Skye crumpled into him, fisting her hands into his shirt. Coulson folded his arms around her in a protective embrace that was at once both tender and bracing, and Skye let her heart open up to the paternal affection that oozed from him more openly than usual.
"I just wish it would end," she mourned weakly. "Every time I think I might be getting used to it, something else happens." She drew a ragged breath, suppressing hiccups. "I just want the awful things to stop happening long enough for me to start figuring out how to live with them all."
Coulson nodded, then, after a moment, added quietly, "I can understand that."
They sat in silence for a little while, the chaos in Skye's mind slowly subsiding into a kind of aching resignation.
In the stillness, the sound of Coulson's phone buzzing seemed unnaturally loud. He fumbled for it, glancing apologetically at Skye.
"Yes?" he answered, rising to his feet and moving closer to the door. "Oh, good."
Skye breathed a sigh of relief.
"What is it?" he asked, more sharply, and Skye's hackles raised again.
Coulson stood still, listening, a serious look coming over his face. "What do you advise?" he asked after a moment.
He nodded slowly as the person on the other end responded. "We'll be there in five minutes."
He hung up, turning to face Skye directly. "That was Simmons," he explained tersely. "She needs us both in the lab."
Skye's face must have reflected her alarm, because Coulson added reassuringly, "No one's in danger. They're starting to come around."
Skye nodded hesitantly, rising to her feet and dashing the tears from her cheeks to follow him.
They made their way swiftly toward the lab. As they came down the hallway, Skye saw through the glass walls the still-unconscious bodies of most of the agents. Only a few seemed to have roused - two of the WCA agents and, over in the quarantine chamber with a still-unresponsive Bobbi, Agent May.
As they approached the door, Coulson stopped her. "Wait here a few minutes," he said, and she nodded, just barely restraining her desperate need to know.
Coulson entered the lab and spoke with Simmons, who was checking the blood pressure of one of the conscious WCA agents. When she was finished, they both went over and spent a few minutes talking with May. Skye couldn't help but notice that the crease on Coulson's forehead got deeper the longer they spoke together.
Finally, Coulson turned to where Skye was waiting in the shadowy hallway and nodded to her to come in. Skye did, moving quickly across the lab to join them.
As she entered the lab, she saw May's eyes go wide with shock, and by the time Skye joined Coulson and Simmons, May was visibly fighting back tears. Skye, surprised speechless by the uncharacteristic show of emotion on her SO's part, glanced from May to Coulson and Simmons, confused.
"Skye," May breathed out quietly, her jaw working as the tears shimmered in her eyes, but didn't fall. "I thought we'd lost you in San Juan."
A/N: Reminder, in case the place names have gotten muddled: San Juan = alien city. :)
Okay, all - just being real: I've been out of the swing of writing for a few weeks now AND struggle generally with valuing my own story when it departs too much from canon (which is weird, because I totally love other people's non-canon stories - just not my own), and canon blew a whole bunch of my ideas out of the water in the last few weeks. Knowing that YOU value the story would be really helpful for me, so if you've got a minute to leave any positive and/or constructively critical feedback, I'd sure be grateful! TY! :) Also - thanks to those who newly followed/favorited/reviewed in the last week or so; you helped re-kick-start my motivation! ;)