Well, I've probably kept you all wallowing in misery and feels for a while. It's not going to get much better though in this chapter. The final dream scene isn't going be as gut-wrenching as Leo's was, but it may make some want to curl up and cry.
I had a really scary idea for Philinda the other day while I finished this chapter based on things I've heard. It might be up in a week or two, and it could crush some hearts.
On a happier note, What happens at the Academy and Once upon a SHIELD are getting updates soon! Writer's block decided to descend on me, and it was a killer.
If you want to listen to any music to add to effect, I advise Salvation (Gabrielle Aplin), Safe and Sound (Taylor Swift), and Say Something (A Great Big World). Any other sad music also works.
Please review! Reviews=love, and they make me feel happy and loved.
Part 2-Monkey
She tosses herself into the driver's seat and pulls out the gun. But once again, she screws up and the magazine clip falls into her lap. Her two other companions are trying to keep calm, but Leo's voice is high and panicked. Skye can only scream as Amador rams her truck into the Short Bus and gravity shifts.
Her body aches after she falls against the passenger door, but nothing feels broken, and she can still move her limbs. Exhaling, she thanks her luck before remembering FitzSimmons. They've got to be okay. He's got to be okay, or she'll never forgive herself.
"S-s-simmons?" Skye stutters, working to remain calm. "L-l-leo?"
A single groan of pain is her only answer. Skye crawls up on the passenger seat and looks to the back of the van. She winces a little when she sees all of FitzSimmon's incredible gadgets and whatnot broken from impact, and feels pity for them as a technology junkie. (Plus, they were pretty sweet too.) Simmons lies unconscious nearby the overturned blue cooler. Skye breathes a quick sigh of relief, but her heart hammers against her chest when she can't spot Leo anywhere. "Leo?" she calls again, climbing higher on the seat to get a better view of the back seat. "Leo?"
When she finds him, Skye screams and fight the urge to puke. Leo's fallen behind the seat. There's a piles of gadget bits on his lap, some of which that have pierced his torso. But the worst is his head, bent at an unnatural angle. Leo's bright ocean eyes are dull and lifeless. Skye wails and sobs as the van dissolves around her and changes into something else.
Now she's standing underneath a staircase outside some big building. Skye recognizes it as the place where they rescued Leo and Ward in South Ossetia. "Oh God no!" she says to herself as she watches heavily armed soldiers appear in her line of sight and move toward an exit of the building where Skye knows they will be coming out of. An exit that suddenly burst open with the boys running out and slowing to a stop once they see the guards.
"Where the heck is the Bus?" Skye thinks, intently watching the empty sky closely. "Come on, May. Where are you? They need help!"
She tries to step forward to get a better view of the scene, but her legs are glued to the spot. Leo looks terrified at the approaching men, but Ward's face is cold and calculating. It's scaring her, especially when he looks over at Leo and smiles cruelly. She can almost see the gears turning in his brain, and realizes what he plans to do the moment before he grabs Leo's body.
"Noooo!" shrieks Skye as Ward holds the struggling engineer's body in front of him as a shield as he runs toward the line of men. Leo's body jerks twice before going completely limp. Ward discards him the second he gets behind the lines and begins to continue to do what Ward does best: hurt people. The monster she used to call her SO ignores the body of the person who got him there. Finally, Skye can move, and he takes off running toward the still, red-spattered body of the boy she loves.
"Skye, Fitz! Run!"
Coulson shouts the order, and Leo grabs her hand. Together, they run out of the room in the Hub as Coulson and May take on the Hydra agents. Hopefully, they'll be okay against them. After all, what chance do they have against the Cavalry?
Leo's trembling a little and looks a bit on the pale side as they run down the halls. She doesn't blame him; she'd be the same way if someone threatened to shoot her in her knees. They slow down once they can no longer hear the sounds of gunfire or any other noises that indicate danger. "I-I think we're safe now," he says, and she nods.
A click sounds, followed by a low chuckle. "Nope."
They turn around as Grant Ward emerges from a shadowy corner, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. There's a gun in his hand that is definitely not an ICER. Leo wraps his arms protectively around her. Under different circumstances, she would be enjoying it a lot more.
"Ward," Leo says, his voice even and firm. He's trying to hold it together for her, Skye can tell. "What are you doing?"
"Following my orders." The gun is raised toward them. Leo holds her tighter.
"Could you at least put the gun down?" He asks timidly. Skye can feel his heartbeat. It almost reassures her. Almost. "I'm afraid you'll hit us."
Us. It sounds so good. But the circumstances right now suck.
"Exactly," The way Ward says this sends chills running through her body. "It's a shame you have to die, Fitz. You could have been such a valuable asset. But Garrett did give you a chance, and you turned it down."
Leo's eyes widen. "You're….Hydra?"
Their former friend nods. "Now hand over Skye. Garrett's going to need her. She's special, and Hydra is going to need what makes her special."
How did she ever see good in that monster, that Nazi?
Leo stares defiantly at the creep in front of them. "You're going to have to get through me first."
She looks up into his eyes, those beautiful eyes that remind her of the ocean. They're full of love and affection and care. He isn't going to die for her though. She's already responsible for so much already. No one else should die for her anymore, especially him.
Ward laughs. "Have it your way," he says before aiming the gun at Leo's forehead and pulling the trigger.
The embrace she'd been held in falls away, and the halls shift into the supply room at Providence. A tablet's in her hand, but the dot next to hers isn't Eric Koenig's. Instead, it says Leopold Fitz. A drop of blood obscures the –pold part of his name, and she looks up. Her stomach lurches threateningly when she sees the gruesome sight. Leo's body is face down on the grate above, a scarlet smile on his throat and ocean eyes blankly staring. Ward did this.
Skye struggles to breathe properly. More drops of his blood fall down. They make contact with her face. The entire room suddenly begins to fill up with blood quickly, consuming her whole. It's horrible and she just wants to die. She can't live if he's dead.
The blood becomes clear, changing into water. She can breathe normally now, as though she was still breathing air. Skye realizes she's underwater and a muffled screech emits from her when she sees a box resting on the ocean floor. It's her med-pod, the same med-pod that Ward used when he dropped her sister and the love of her life out of the Bus. Swimming closer, Skye peers into the glass panel, fearful of the scene she might see inside. Leo's finger reach for a button as Simmons screams something at him.
The next thing she knows, the glass is blown out and a stream of bubbles reduces her visibility slightly. However, Skye can still pick out Simmons losing her grip on Leo as she swims toward the surface. He's falling to the ocean floor, but Skye grabs him. She swims as fast as she can to the surface while holding the engineer close to her. 'Don't let him die, don't let him die, don't let him die' goes through her brain.
Finally, her head reaches the surface. Skye makes sure Leo's head is above water as she treads. All around them, there is silence. Simmons is missing, but whether or not she's here right now doesn't really matter to Skye. The only thing that matter right now is Leo, and making sure that he's okay.
But he's still. No rise and fall, no gasp for life. No angry swearing in a thick Scottish accent Nothing.
"Leo?" she questions, placing her fingers against his neck, praying for a pulse. "Leo? Monkey?"
Her fingertips are met with silence.
"LEO!" Skye begs, tears streaming down her face. "No, please, no. Y-y-y-you can't die."
Her pleas are meaningless. This can't be happening. She never got to tell him how much he meant, how much she loves him. Skye kisses his head before throwing her head back and letting out a wail.
Skye's eyes snap open, and she sits up on the floor, crying. During the middle of the night, she must have fallen out of her bed. Her sheets are a tangled and twisted mess, probably from all the thrashing she's done.
Standing up, Skye throws a sweater over her tank top and sprints out of her room, hoping she's going the right way. When she reaches the medical wing of the Playground, she breathes again. Leo's alive, not dead by Ward's hand. But he's been in that coma, and every day he doesn't wake up makes her nightmares worse.
It's taken her too long to figure out that it's Leo who she truly loves, not that ass of a Nazi. Skye hates herself for being too shallow and blind to fall for a good-looking con man when there was someone else in front of her who was just as handsome, but also sweet and brave and caring. And it was because he cared that he went after a traitor and ended up in coma. "Nice, Skye" she tells herself angrily. "The guy you really love is in a freaking coma and it's your fault."
Swallowing, Skye sits down in the chair pulled up next to his bedside. Usually, Simmons has been occupying it, but Trip finally got her to sleep in her own room tonight, so for once it's free. With the constant presence of his best friend, it's been difficult to tell her friend what she's really wanted to say. How she's liked him a little more than a friend since they first conversed over the comms. All of the Doctor Who episodes she's been watching since he got her hooked on the show. The numerous pictures of monkeys she's been drawing as practice so she can draw the perfect one on his cast when he wakes up. Now, she can finally do it, but Skye doesn't know what to say anymore. Her hand reaches out and brushes back the curls falling on his forehead.
"Sometimes I like to do things with my bare hands." Skye bites back a sob as his words echo in her head. A tear traces a path on her cheek as she remembers the mission, especially wanting to kiss him on the lips like a proper girlfriend. But everything had spun out of control, and she ended up bleeding out on the floor of the cellar. The whole time she'd been down there, all Skye had been able to think about was Leo, and whether or not he was safe. When she pulled through, she promised herself that once they were all back on their feet, she would tell him. Unfortunately, Hydra decided to strike and she lost her opportunity in the resulting mess that was called staying alive.
Skye swallows again. "Hey, Leo."
She's met with the almost silent beeping of machines that only Simmons, and maybe Trip too, know the functions of. Despite it all, she gives a little laugh. "Wow, I think that's the first time I've ever called you by your first name. I like it. I mean, don't get me wrong, Fitz is still pretty great. But calling you Leo feels….better."
"Garrett's dead. Death- Mike took him down, but then he wasn't exactly quite dead. Coulson told me later that he'd found him up and being Mr. Crazy, so he blasted him with the 0-8-4 we found in Peru. Oh, and Fury came and spoke with AC and May. Actually, AC's going to have to be DC now. Fury made him Director and told him to rebuild SHIELD. May's helping him out with it, and they're spending lots of time together. It's pretty cute."
"Speaking of May, she was pretty kick-ass in the Cybertek facility. They were actually holding people's loved ones to make them do stuff for Hydra. Anyway though, May did a number on Ward. Nailed his foot to the ground before she knocked him out. She fractured the cretin's larynx too, so he won't be hailing Hydra anytime soon. You've probably heard all of this though. Simmons has been down here almost every day, but I haven't been able to talk to someone who speaks the same language as me in forever."
"Kind of like we do," Skye wipes her cheeks as she repeats the words he said to her so long ago, when everything was still normal and nice and innocent-ish. "I get it now, Leo. I finally get it. For so long, I didn't get it, but now I know. I'm so sorry, I was so shallow and I hate myself for it. But now I understand who you meant, and I want you to know that I feel the same way."
"I finally figured it out between leaving the Hub and when I found out what Ward really was. After I left Providence, I started to have nightmares. The scenarios always varied, but in the end it was always the same. You would die because you were protecting me. They terrified the hell out of me, but every time I woke up screaming, the one thing that calmed me down was knowing that you were still safe with the team and not stuck with a Hydra agent. It reassured me, but then…"
Just thinking about it makes Skye break down and start sob. When she calms down, she takes his hand in her own, interlacing their fingers.
"I need you so much, Leopold Fitz. You are unlike any other guy that I've loved before, and it is because you are so pure. My life is full of darkness, and you are the light in it. Every other guy who I've thought cared about me has turned out to be working against me and betrayed me But even when you guys caught me with Miles, you still saw something in me and forgave me. Leo, you are the only guy who I love who isn't working against me. It's because of your forgiveness of me, along with so many other wonderful qualities that you have, that I am deeply in love with you."
"Please don't let me have realized this too late," Skye pleads, sniffling. "When you wake up, I swear I will be there, and I am going to tell you how much I love you. And you've gotta wake up too, because I'm going to go crazy if I don't hear your beautiful accent soon. I'll be at your side the whole time when you wake up and recover. Everybody misses you, Leo, especially Simmons and me. So please wake up. I need my monkey back."
Skye leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to his temple. "I love you," she whispers, her tears falling onto his face. "Please wake up, Monkey."
For the rest of the night, Skye remains by his bedside, eventually falling asleep in the chair. The next morning, Trip and Simmons come down and find her snoring softly. Both of them smile when they notice Skye is still holding the hand of the boy she loves.
He wants to get out.
For God-knows-how-long, Leo's been trapped in a land of shadows. There's no one around, just him and his thoughts. He can't stop thinking about the team, especially two girls. His best friend, almost sister and the love of his love. Jemma and Skye.
Leo's getting tired of hanging on when there seems to be no hope. He can let go whenever he wants, but he's scared to since he doesn't know where he'll go if he does. Now, he's ready to fall away, because what comes next is probably better than eternal darkness.
Until he hears a voice, a sweet American princess's voice. It resonates through the shadows as a feeling of warmth fills his body.
"I love you. Please wake up monkey."
Leo's grip grows stronger and the shadows slowly begin to recede. A smile comes to his face as he whispers a name. A name of a princess he can't wait to see again.
Simmons looks in awe at the machines monitoring Fitz's vitals. Overnight, his brain activity has been rising steadily. "He's waking up," she tells Trip, looking over at the dozing girl with a fond smile. Simmons remembers a time long ago when Fitz was the one standing guard over Skye. Now, the favor, unknown to Skye, is being returned.
She and Fitz would be good for each other. Simmons has the security footage to show it.
Well, that was harder than I expected to write. But you all get a sort-of happy ending. I just about started crying while writing the Hub scene. When I wrote this, I almost considered doing a sequel where Leo did wake up, but didn't remember Skye and she didn't take it well. But then I decided it would be too cruel to you guys, so you won't see that. Probably.
Also, if I screwed up any of the Doctor Who or Brave references in the previous chapter, forgive me. I haven't seen either of them.
I would not be opposed if something like this happened in Season 2. Sue me, I love Skitz.
