"Jemma, darling, it's time to wake up." A gentle, caring voice broke through the dark oblivion of sleep. Jemma's eyes closed tightly before they slowly opened, hesitantly welcoming the pain and blinding white light of the world. A beeping sound was coming from her right, and she could feel the sensation of foreign objects on her skin. Her hand wandered up to her face, slowly running her fingers over the bandage on her cheek and coming to rest on the tube extending from her nose.
"Leave it be." Jemma's mother carefully moved her hand back down to her side on the bed and held it gently.
"Is she awake?" A frantic voice came from the left as the door opened, and Jemma immediately felt some relief when she recognized it.
"She is, but she still seems groggy." Her mother said. Skye hurried over and sat on the bed, taking up Jemma's other hand in her own.
"I'm sorry, I wanted to be here when you woke up, but your mom made me go get something to eat." Skye apologized and kissed the back of Jemma's hand around her IV. Jemma made some noise of response, but she couldn't quite register what Skye had even said.
"Your father is taking the first flight home from his business trip, he should be here by the afternoon tomorrow." Her mother added, but Jemma just gave a weak sort of half-nod in response. They sat there for a long time waiting for Jemma to regain her senses. When she did, her words made Skye give a soft laugh and a sad smile.
"You cut your hair." It wasn't really a question or a statement, it was more of a sad observation. She reached out and grasped a strand of Skye's much shorter hair between her fingers. It had been longer before, but now it barely extended past her jawline.
It made her remember. A quick hand reached for her own hair and realized it was no longer than Skye's. She remembered Ward ambushing her, the three of them attacking her, beating her, and Ward calling them awful names. She remembered being pinned down and kicked as Ward cut her hair. It made her cry. She began to sob, and large tears ran down her cheeks. Her heart monitor began beeping wildly, alerting everyone of her situation.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you!" Skye began crying too. She leaned over to hug Jemma herself before Jemma could panic and try to get up on her own.
"We're going to fix this and you'll be alright." Jemma's mother added, but she knew only Skye was what Jemma needed, so she left the room to find a nurse while Skye comforted her.
"Was it him?" Skye asked. She didn't want to make Jemma talk about it if she wasn't ready, but she needed to hear it. She needed confirmation before she set on her warpath. She got a nod in response. She felt it against her shoulder rather than saw it and she knew there was no putting out the raging wildfire in her veins.
A nurse entered the room followed by Jemma's mother, and the nurse separated the two girls before connecting a syringe to her IV.
"What is that?" Skye demanded protectively, still wiping tears from Jemma's cheeks.
"It's a sedative to help keep her calm, it will make her feel better in the long run." The nurse explained as she pressed down on the plunger. Jemma's eyes closed after a few seconds and she drifted off into peace yet again.
"Will you give this to Jemma for me?" Bobbi slid into the seat next to Skye and handed her a blue envelope with the words "get well soon!" scrawled in the front in Bobbi's handwriting.
"Of course." Skye accepted the card and slid it into the notebook she had in front of her. When she finally looked up at Bobbi when she didn't leave, Skye's eyes widened. Bobbi's long blonde hair was gone, replaced by a shorter cut not unlike her own.
"You..." Skye didn't know what to say. She hadn't realized until now that she was not the only one who had cut her hair over the weekend. As she looked around, there were quite a few girls who had cut their own hair to match.
"How is she?" Bobbi asked. Other students began drifting over until it was Skye, Fitz, Bobbi, Hunter, Trip, and Mack at the table. They had never been close friends, but they were all connected in some way and Skye was thankful for their concern. She was most thankful for Bobbi, who had probably saved Jemma's life by finding her so quickly.
"She's healing well. The surgeons had to remove her spleen, but they tell me she'll be alright." Skye's eyes were glued to her notebook. There were tears in her eyes that threatened to spill if she moved. Several more cards and notes were passed to her and Skye stashed them all in her bag. Maybe they would help Jemma start to feel better mentally as well as physically.
"I have to go get Jemma's makeup work, but thank you guys, really, I'm sure Jemma appreciates all of this." Skye shuffled all of her things together and left the cafeteria to make her rounds between Jemma's classes. Skye supposed it was a good sign that she wanted to keep up with her studies, but Skye was still concerned about her.
It would have been easier for her to decide to come back to school if Ward had been taken away, but he wasn't. The police had come to question Jemma and she had explained what had happened, but Ward's soccer coach, John Garret, had pointed out that Ward and Jemma were always at odds and it was a convenient setup to blame Ward if it hadn't actually been him. He was claiming that it could have been anyone who had a problem with her relationship, and even her witness testimony was questionable because she had a concussion that could have affected her memory. The school's cameras didn't reach the back parking lot, so other than Jemma's word, there was no evidence against him and he had the administration on his side. It didn't matter that May and Coulson strongly vouched for Jemma being truthful.
The investigation was stuck at a standstill. Jemma's friends said he had done it and Ward's friends said he hadn't, so with no proof and division between teachers as well, nothing much could lawfully be done. It was a battle of word. The one positive was that Ward was given a temporary restraining order to stay at least one hundred feet away from Jemma at all times until the investigation was complete. Skye supposed this was better than nothing, but it wasn't justice.
As much as it annoyed her, every time Skye thought about him, there he was, and sure enough, he was bothering some scrawny kid down the hall, shoving him around and being a general dick. For a split second Skye imagined him doing the same to Jemma, knocking her to the ground, and the vein in her temple just about burst. She dropped her bag and rolled up her sleeves before stomping over to him.
"You son of a bitch!" Skye yelled. She had caught him off guard and managed to slam him into the lockers, pinning him at the throat with her forearm.
"Temper, temper. I like it when you're feisty." Ward grinned. Skye let him know what she thought of that by ramming her fist into his stomach. She wouldn't mind if she burst his spleen as payback. He doubled over and a satisfied feeling passed over her.
"Skye, cut it out!" Bobbi grabbed Skye's arm and yanked her off of him, pulling her back into the middle of the hall.
"You saw what he did to Jemma! He deserves it!" Skye pulled against her and Bobbi had to wrap an arm around her waist to hold her back as Ward laughed. If she hadn't been so tall, she wouldn't have been able to. Skye was fighting pretty hard.
"I know he does! But you can't sink to his level, and it wouldn't help the investigation if you were found attacking him. The less he looks like a victim, the better. Jemma is the victim and you can't let people see you attacking him." Bobbi spoke with reason and it wasn't until the end that Skye finally calmed down. Skye didn't care about her morale or reputation, but she did care about revenge, and justice was as close as she was going to get.
"Don't be a tease, I like this version of you. Simmons doesn't have that fire in her eyes." This made Skye snarl at him and Bobbi had to tighten her grip on her to keep her from lunging like a wild animal.
"Just walk away." Bobbi said quietly.
"You know we'd be better off, we have things in common she couldn't understand." Skye bit her tongue and ignored him. Instead she followed Bobbi's lead down the hall. She knew he was talking about being a foster child. Ward seemed to think that was an excuse to be a terror, but Skye had higher hopes. She was so close to having a family and Ward wasn't about to mess it all up.
"Nuh-uh, I brought your work so you have it when you're better, not so you can dive into calculous with your poor injured brain." Skye plucked the papers out of Jemma's hand when she opened her textbook. Skye took that too and put them on the rolling table just out of Jemma's reach.
"Skye," Jemma pouted and reached for them, but Skye grabbed her hand and pulled it back to her body.
"You had a major surgery three days ago and you have a concussion. The homework can wait a few days." Skye reprimanded lightly, squeezing her hand to let Jemma know it was ok. She seemed surprisingly okay on the outside, but Skye knew lying in a hospital bed instead of at school made her uneasy.
"I don't want to get behind-" Jemma whined.
"You can catch up."
"I'm perfectly fine-"
"You know you're not."
"There's nothing to do here, it's boring sitting around here waiting for my next dose of pain medication." Jemma complained, and this finally made Skye quiet. It had to be hard for her. She was a thinker, and her concussion had taken away all of her pass-times.
"I tried to read a book my father brought me, but the doctor took it away, can you believe it? I'm not allowed to read." Jemma continued. Skye just gave a sad, sympathetic smile and sat there listening.
"They're just trying to help. Your concussion needs time to heal along with the rest of you and you just have to be patient." Skye explained. It felt odd having to be the mature one. She was used to her and Jemma's normal dynamic where Jemma was the one talking her down, not the other way around.
"Besides, I can think of something you can do besides wait for your meds..." Skye trailed off then, watching with a grin on her face as Jemma finally truly smiled for the first time since the attack on Friday afternoon.
Slowly and ever so carefully, Skye leaned over and pressed her lips against Jemma's. It was soft and quiet, just enough to have them both relax without any kind of pressure. Jemma shuffled over a few inches and in the wide hospital bed, Skye managed to wriggle in between her and the guard on the edge of it. Skye's touch was feather light, afraid to touch her worn out body. She continued to lightly kiss Jemma, no matter how anxious Jemma seemed for more.
She slowly shifted and began kissing the corner of Jemma's mouth, and then down her jaw and to her neck. The fingers of one hand played with Jemma's shorter hair, letting her know how much Skye still liked it. Her other arm naturally fell over Jemma's abdomen, but when Jemma flinched, Skye retracted it immediately. For a moment she had forgotten where the long incision was located, but once she was reminded she made sure to avoid the area entirely.
"Jemma, dear, some students sent you flowers." Jemma's father walked into the room unannounced and all three of them froze, her father in slight bewilderment, and Jemma and Skye in mild horror. Skye had yet to see what Jemma's father thought of her, and despite Jemma's assurances she was still worried.
"You two need to be careful, I'm sure the nurses won't appreciate it if you reopen your wound." He reprimanded, half joking, and it made them both breathe a sigh of relief. Skye was amazed at how relaxed Jemma's parents seemed to be, not only at Jemma's apparent sexuality, but at this whole accident. Maybe they were freaking out inside like Skye, but they were good at hiding it.
Jemma's father put the flowers on the table along with the textbook and homework, giving them a questioning look that made Skye shrug. Skye settled down in the bed, fully laying down on her back next to Jemma, who gingerly moved so that she could rest her head against Skye's shoulder instead of the pillow. They both practically hummed in contentment and Skye didn't miss the soft smile her father was giving them from the chair next to them.
"Oh, that reminds me. Everybody gave me a bunch of cards for you." Skye reached over the edge of the bed and grabbed her backpack, pulling it up onto the bed and into her lap. She dug in it with one arm for a while, refusing to let the other move from its place around Jemma's waist.
She finally did pull out a stack of envelopes and notes of varying colors and sizes, and she placed them on Jemma's lap for her to open.
"Everybody's really worried about you, but I told them all you're okay." Skye added. She wasn't going to tell her about everyone cutting their hair for her. She didn't want to upset her like last time.
"This is sweet of them." Jemma said quietly, but Skye could tell by the way she wasn't eager to open the cards that she didn't really care. Other than Fitz, they were from people she hardly knew: Bobbi (her lab partner), Hunter (Bobbi's boyfriend), Trip (Skye's buddy from P.E.), and Mack (some guy in computer club Fitz may or may not have a crush on). Jemma didn't even know the name on the card on the flowers, and they weren't the only ones she had been sent. Nobody knew who she was until she had been attacked.
There was only one thing about school Jemma wanted to know, but from the way Skye and Bobbi had been texting her, it wasn't what she wanted.
"Is Ward still at school?" She asked, despite already knowing the answer. At this, both Skye and Jemma's father tensed. Hesitantly, her father explained the state of the investigation, and Skye held onto her her a little more firmly when she saw the beginnings of tears on her face. Skye didn't want Jemma to have to go back to school with him there and she didn't want Ward to walk free, but they had nothing on him besides Jemma's word, and it couldn't be guaranteed that it would be valid as evidence.
"I'll find a way to get him. I'll make sure he gets what he deserves." Skye grit her teeth as she promised. She wasn't sure how she was going to do it, but she was going to make sure Ward ended up in a cell.
"I need to change Ms. Simmons' bandages now." A nurse knocked as she walked in, holding a few supplies. Skye shifted despite Jemma's protests and got up off the bed so the nurse could do her job. She watched in horror, unable to peel her eyes away, when the nurse lifted Jemma's hospital gown up over her stomach and peeled off the gauze pad, revealing a long incision down her abdomen that was at least as long as her hand and stapled shut in way too many places to look comfortable.
Jemma's eyes were on the ceiling, and she refused to look at her own wound. Skye finally snapped out of it and rushed back over to hold her hand as the nurse changed the bandage, squeezing every few seconds and whispering assurances into her ear.
It made Skye even more furious with Ward for doing this to her, and she swore to herself as well that she was going to find a way to incarcerate him. She was already beginning to form a plan, but she was going to need help from Fitz and his tech friends.