Hi, I am so sorry, I had exams and I decided that for once in my life I was actually going to be responsible. Next chapter should be quicker though, seeing as I am going on holiday in a couple of hours!

Replies to guests:

1st: Thanks and oh my gosh, sorry I didn't realise! When I type it on word it is all nicely arranged, with a double space between each scene, I have never read my stories once I have uploaded them! Thank you so much for the help, I really needed to know that! I am now using a 'Line break' so hopefully that comes up on the screen :)

2nd: That is totally my plan, as you will see as the chapters continue! Hey, don't put yourself down, clearly you must have some talent as you enjoy reading, skills you pick up from stories are transferrable into writing, you should have a go sometime, I'm sure it would be good :) To be honest, I thought the first chapter was rubbish and debated not publishing it, but people seem to like it for some strange reason :) Thanks for the review!

Which reminds me, the response from the last chapter was incredible, seriously, you guys are unbelievably fantastic, this fandom is totally the best, keep it up guys!

Chapter 2 - 'Is Ward Evil?'

Jemma pulled Leo along the corridors, the others just ahead and Hydra, now only a few feet behind. Simmons careered round yet another of the corridors in the seemingly never ending complex and nearly slammed into Skye, who stood pondering the crisscrossing of intricate shiny red lasers.

"So they have rubbish security up until now, and then they go decide to get lasers?" she complained.

"The automatic slamming doors and the knockout gas didn't count?" Fitz asked frantically, whilst May calmly wove her way through the deadly lights.

"Get behind me!" Coulson ordered the team, they flattened themselves against the walls and Coulson got ready to shoot anyone who dared put a foot round the corner.

There came a low droning sound from behind them and the team (sans Coulson, who was still concentrating intently on the bend) swung round to see the lasers powering down, May having already run on to take on whatever was in the next corridor.

Following her they found a giant hanger, stuffed to bursting with new weaponry, probably due to be tested, and inept guards in the process of being knocked out by May.

"Guess that's why they needed the security," Fitz figured and Coulson took no time in selecting the most heavily armoured (and coolest looking) plane.

A bullet just missed his head and Simmons screamed; apparently Hydra had finally caught up.

"Come on!" Fitz yelled, dragging Jemma this time and diving towards the plane, ducking to avoid the rain of bullets.

Coulson threw the gun to Triplett and jumped over seats to get to the cockpit and start the engine. Trip alternated between gunning down Hydra agents and urging the team to run faster. May was last on board, having been in the process of disarming many agents, and indicated for Trip to close the ramp, racing to help Coulson take off the plane.

The plane lifted off in a whirl of engines and broke through the hanger doors, the younger agents wincing at the sound, although nothing happened.

"We're safe now, right?" Skye questioned, Fitzsimmons looked hopeful but everyone else remained impassive.

"Hopefully," Coulson replied. "This plane looks like it should withstand a small missile, however…"

"They're gonna shoot missiles at us?" Fitz exclaimed.

Suddenly there was a rush of air and everyone was jolted backwards.

"Not anymore," May clarified and Coulson started obsessively inspecting the console.

"This jet can go supersonic!?" he said in amazement and the plane zoomed towards the horizon.

Line Break.

The sunset found Fitz and Simmons sitting opposite each other in Simmons's bunk, both leaning back against the wall, a cool box with alcohol in the middle. They sat in companionable silence and stared out the window, looking down at the clouds that flowed serenely below them; Fitz took a sip from his glass and then gazed thoughtfully at Simmons.

"Do you think Ward's evil?" Fitz asked her and she frowned.

"He threw us out of a plane Fitz, after everything we've been through," she replied gently. "Yes, he helped us this afternoon, but that doesn't mean that we can trust him, he didn't just help us because he cared about us, if he cared about us he wouldn't have betrayed us for Hydra, I don't know what his motives were, but if he was trying to worm his way back into the team, it won't work, everyone hates him. Why are you going through this again, I thought you gave up your brainwashing theories when he left us at the bottom of the ocean to die?"

"That's just it," explained Fitz. "He said that it was between shooting us or putting us in a metal box where we'd be safe, do you think he meant it?"

Jemma put her glass down on the floor and reached over the box to give Fitz a hug. "No," she sighed. "He spent the better part of a year lying to us Leo, he didn't mean it, he was just manipulating you again," she removed her arms from around his neck and slumped back against the wall. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

He nodded and they went back to staring out the window. "But Jemma," he reasoned, after about a minute of silence. "The escape route he showed us was really good,"

Simmons smiled ruefully at him. "He probably just wants us alive so we can be pawns in one of his future plans,"

"Yeah," Fitz agreed reluctantly. "So how are we going to guilt trick Coulson into getting me a monkey?"

Line Break

Fitz left Jemma's bunk an hour and a half later, his mind full of plans of what he was going to tell Coulson tomorrow. The sun had almost fully set and the sky outside was dark. May had landed the plane and had probably gone to bed, seeing as she got up most mornings at five, Trip was undoubtedly fanboying over Howling Commando gadgets with Coulson, who was most likely in his office, reorganising SHIELD and Skye had gone straight to her bunk and hadn't been seen or heard from since they had arrived back at the bus.

As he was about to open the door to his bunk he froze in thought, then weighed up his options. After having a quick debate in his head he spun around and headed down to the labs, although Simmons had a point, surely it wouldn't hurt to hack into that Hydra base. He realised he needed answers, definitive proof of whose side Ward was actually on, Jemma was right, he probably shouldn't worry about it, but he wouldn't be okay until he had answers.

Although Fitz was nowhere as good as Skye he wasn't bad, he worked with tech after all and the Dwarves had had to have been programmed, so he may as well try. He booted up his computer and went to fetch himself some coffee, if he was going to be up a while, he was going to need it.

"Hi," Skye greeted from a darkened corner of the kitchen and Fitz couldn't help jumping and letting out a gasp of alarm. Skye raised an eyebrow. "Cookies?" she offered, holding out a plate.

Fitz took one, munching on it gratefully whilst looking for the coffee, Skye watched him curiously, whilst thinking dejectedly about what Ward would say if he caught her eating this many cookies, apparently, having a healthy diet was important for a field agent, well, screw him, she didn't care.

"What's with the coffee?" she enquired. "Surely you want to be going to sleep not keeping yourself awake with…whoa that's insane amounts of caffeine!"

"Uh, I'm working on…something," answered the scientist vaguely, reaching out for another biscuit. "Do you think Ward's evil?"

"Honestly, I dunno," Skye admitted. "When he betrayed us, I was confused and hurt, so I was angry, but now, I've had time to think it through and I'm just confused, nothing makes sense, and seeing him today, it just…uh…I tried to forget about it this afternoon through Netflix but every character reminds me of him and then beating the crap out of a punching bag, which didn't work either, the cookies are nice though,"

"I don't believe Ward set the ambush," Fitz told her thoughtfully.

"Coulson didn't either," Skye agreed.

Fitz nodded. "When he rescued me he looked like hell, you commented on it, do you think that something happened to him or that it was just a rouse to make it look like he was rescuing us and was really on our side?"

"I dunno, it kinda reminded me of when he showed up at providence so I freaked out because he tricked me with that last time, bad memories," she shrugged.

Fitz took another cookie. "You wanna hack Hydra?"

"Yep," Skye replied, grabbing what was left of the cookies and heading down to the lab. "If it means I can finally prove to myself that all he is is a lying son of a bitch,"

Line Break

Once Skye had grabbed her laptop, they headed down to the lab and began the hack, Fitz was grateful for the fact that Skye was with him, everything went more smoothly and about a hundred times quicker than he had anticipated with her on his side, effortlessly moving past Hydra's firewalls to locate the mainframe.

"So, what do you want to check first?" Skye enquired and Fitz thought for a moment, all he had planned was getting into Hydra's secure data, not actually what the plan was when he had achieved this.

"The CCTV footage, I want to see if he managed to get out, or if he's in some business meeting with Red Skulls replacement," Fitz decided and Skye manoeuvred her way towards the cameras. She hesitated before she entered the last few pieces of code though.

"Fitz," she said quietly. "What if we see him…and he's dead, do you really want to see that?" Leo got the feeling that the question was directed towards herself just as much as it was to him.

He nodded decisively. "Yeah, if he is, it's kind of closure right? We don't have to worry about it anymore, and it means Jemma will stop fussing all the time, so it will be good for her too,"

Skye bit her lip and hundreds of little squares of light appeared on the screen.

"Uh…" Fitz said helplessly but Skye was already at work, zooming in and eliminating anything trivial.

"Oh my god," Fitz gasped and Skye swore, wishing that she'd either found this earlier instead of moping, or had it in her to dismiss it.

Fitz was pale. "We've got to do something!"

"What do you want me to do, mind control them?" she snapped, drawing in a shaky breath and tapping a few more keys.

Fitz ran a hand through his hair and searched around the lab, his eyes flicking over every cupboard, every surface, for something that might help them. "I dunno, but we've got to stop them,"

"Come on," Skye argued, falling back into her more confident persona. "He probably knew we were going to hack the cameras, he spent time on the bus, he knows what we'd do, he's just playing us,"

"How can you say that? They're torturing him Skye!" Fitz argued frantically, frustrated at her now calm response.

She shrugged. "Apparently, SHIELD train specialists on how to deal with torture and he has a stupidly high pain tolerance because of his insane brother!"

"His what?" Fitz asked.

"Doesn't matter," she brushed his question away and continued with the hack. "But if you wanna go do something stupid, you're on your own,"

Line Break

One and a half sickening hours later and Fitz (and Skye, although she was trying not to show it) was getting desperate.

"We've got to rescue him," Fitz decided for the 50th time and Skye looked like she wanted to agree.

"He could still be tricking us, he's been trained for this kinda thing, remember?" she argued. "Besides, the rest of the team would never agree to it,"

"Then why don't we go now?" Fitz pointed out. "Look, he may be tricking us, this might all be just a ruse, but what if it's not, do you really want that on your conscience?"

"He chucked you out of…" Skye started but Fitz glared at her. She glanced at the clock, 1:30 am, and nodded hesitantly, downing the rest of the cup of coffee in one gulp.

"Suitable clothing, weapons, including icers, some of those odourless food thingys, water and a med kit, obviously, bullet proof jacket, uh…" she ran through the list, wondering what Ward would have told her to bring.

"We should also leave a note for Coulson, telling him where we're going, with some of the stuff we've uncovered," Fitz suggested.

"'Cause that will make him worry about us less," Skye replied sarcastically. "Meet here in fifteen minutes," she agreed and rushed off to find her stuff.

Line Break

"We're five miles away, cut the headlights," Skye ordered, sitting shotgun in an armoured jeep, curled up with a tablet resting on her lap, giving off the air of being completely relaxed.

"And what if we go off the cliff?" Fitz demanded.

"The moon's out, we can see," Skye told him and Fitz did as she'd asked, letting Hydra know they were there would be certain suicide anyway. "Faster!" Skye urged Fitz, who was driving at about five miles an hour. He sped up a tiny bit and Skye began her hack, she was in range of the Hydra base now. "Cutting all feeds, including satellite, heat sensors and CCTV… and replacing them with feed from two hours ago," Fitz gripped the steering wheel tighter as she began her running commentary. "If it worked and Hydra hasn't sensed anything's wrong, we should be able to get in and out within two hours, so, we'd better not take longer than that. Oh and GPS linked with the blueprints of the Hydra base say stop…here,"

The car screeched to a halt and the tablet almost flew out of Skye's hands.

Once they had figured out a safe place to hide the jeep they used the Backscatter Glasses to search for the hidden entrance. After Skye had disabled all the alarms Fitz dropped down into the tunnel (which was really a secret escape route for Hydra agents) as he had all the technology and Skye followed.

"This is such a bad idea," she muttered.

Line Break

After trekking down the never ending silver corridor they eventually came to an open air vent; if senior Hydra agents wanted to make a good emergency escape tunnel, they wanted to make sure it was accessible. Fitz looked at her questioningly so Skye flicked a few buttons on her tablet.

"You've memorised the route right?" she asked, and he nodded.

"It was so much easier than some of the tests SHIELD did to help me recover," he told her. "Stupid really, I could probably have remembered stuff like that at eight,"

"Great, because this one heads straight into the heart of the complex, so lead the way," she gestured to the vent and Fitz climbed in, Skye put the tablet into the specially designed pocket on the back of her bullet proof vest before following him.

Line Break

"What's taking so long?" Skye hissed after they had been crawling for about twenty minutes, her neck was beginning to hurt and she was grumpy from the lack of sleep.

"Unlike you," Fitz responded quietly. "My field of expertise isn't the field, it's engineering, and my technology is telling me that we're coming up on a room of Hydra agents so shut up!"

They both lapsed into silence and they wriggled as noiselessly as possible, hopefully Hydra would put down the bit of clattering to hot water pipes.

At long last Fitz crawled over a grate and pointed downwards.

Line Break

Ward was exhausted, after long giving up finding a comfortable position to lie in, he lay curled up against the wall in his cell, trying to ignore the pain and sleep. Sleeping may have not exactly been the most sensible of choices, but if he had any chance of withstanding his interrogators, he needed it, besides, he was a light sleeper, he'd hear the door opening.

A quiet banging-scraping sound came from above him and Ward tensed, ready to attack, whatever that was could not be good.

He listened to the scrape of a vent being lifted off and frowned in confusion, who was it, an old enemy of his, SHIELD wanting to take him away from Hydra so they could question him, their methods would probably be more gentle, but then again, he had betrayed the team, and as far as he was aware, the majority of them still hated him.

Which was why it came as a surprise when Fitz lowered himself through the entrance; landing with considerable less precision than Ward, he fell backwards onto the floor. Ward, reacting purely on instinct, jumped on top of him and almost slammed the side of his fist into Fitz's head. His eyes widened when he saw who it was.

"What the hell are you doing here," Ward demanded angrily, but looked bewildered and terrified.

"Fitz got it into his head that we had to rescue you," Skye replied casually, jumping down after Fitz, the scientist glared at her.

"You have to leave now!" he exclaimed frantically.

"Not without you, Ward," Fitz pleaded. "Come with us this time, look at what they did to you,"

Ward was suddenly aware of crippling pain, now that the rush of adrenalin had died away and Fitz had pointed out his injuries again. He swayed slightly but otherwise showed no discomfort, instead raising an eyebrow. "No," he said firmly. "You and Skye have to get out of here now! I'll slow you down, the guards could be back any minute and…"

"Ward, we spent all this time figuring out a way to break you out so you're damn well coming with us!" Skye shot back angrily.

Suddenly the door flew open and Hydra guards swarmed the room.

"Why couldn't you just have listened to me?" Ward groaned as the three of them pressed against the wall with their hands behind their heads.

Please, please review, I love reviews, also, if you review I will seriously update sooner, quite significantly sooner (I didn't foresee the exams but I am going on holiday soon so I'll have time to write so I swear it's the truth this time), I even love one word reviews!

On a different note, I have PTSD and I really can't tell my parents or my friends, the internet's crap at ideas, and seeing how I've had it for about 1 ½ years I think I really need to see a psychologist, yet psychologists cost money (I don't have a job – I'm fourteen), you guys are creative, got any solutions/suggestions/anything really that may be even slightly useful, honestly, anything!