Hi, sorry, I had an insane amount of homework and then had to go away at the weekend which I wasn't expecting :(

Oh my god, I can't wait to watch the next season, not many hours left now!

Also, the receptionist is an OC, if there are any characters in the Marvel universe called Wires I don't know about them, I was just staring at my keyboard box trying to think of a name so I made it up.

Also, I do talk about hell in this chapter, I'm not making any connotations to religion, but he thinks he's dead, so where's the logical place to be if he wakes up? I hope I haven't offended anyone.

Wolf's edge: Thank you! Well, that is going to happen soon. Thanks so much for reviewing again!

Protection

Ward woke to the sound of incoherent mumbling and a strange numb sensation in his chest. His bed was strangely comfortable, were Hydra trying the nice technique now? Unless they had actually invented something to mess with his senses and he wasn't really lying on a soft mattress, his head supported by fluffy pillows and he didn't have a thick, warm blanket draped on top of him. When was the last time he had actually been warm? The smell of antiseptic was strange though…antiseptic? Suddenly the events of the last couple of days came rushing back to Ward, he wasn't with Hydra, he had escaped with Fitz and Skye and had found Buddy, the dog he had believed to be dead…Buddy! What had May done to him? If he had rescued Buddy just to allow him to die, Ward did not want to think about it; Buddy had deserved to live out his possibly very long life.

What happened to me though? he asked himself. My ribs punctured my lungs, I was meant to die, hell seems pretty comfortable at the moment though; when am I going to get to the part where…

"Skye look, his heart rate's speeding up, I think he's waking," Ward could hear Fitz talking excitedly, but he couldn't understand the meaning. It didn't make any sense, Fitz and Skye weren't meant to be in hell too, for one thing, they hadn't died, two, they were too nice to end up there.

Ward forced his eyes open, blinking furiously at the glaring light and trying to make sense of his surroundings.

"Yeah, he's awake," Skye agreed and Ward turned his head towards the sound of her voice. Skye was sitting in a chair next to the bed he was lying on, in what seemed to be a hospital room.

So, they had taken him into a hospital to heal him, but, why did they bother? Probably something to do with their consciences being too large, Skye was looking at him in concern, could she care about him? He didn't know, he had never been too great with human emotions; although he had learnt to sense anger and come up with a convincing lie from an early age, he'd never really understood people, he had learnt more about normal reactions to things at the Academy, but sometimes he still read things wrong. Like Coulson said, Skye still hated him, didn't she? Well, if she didn't, she was stupid, and Skye might be immature and irresponsible sometimes, but she wasn't stupid.

"How are you feeling?" Fitz asked.

"A little strange, where's Buddy?" Ward cut straight to the point, desperate to know what had befallen his first and only best friend.

"Trip's taken him to the vet's, but he seems alright," Fitz replied. "May hasn't done any lasting damage,"

Ward nodded, looking slightly more relieved, but not completely relaxed.

"But you'll need to give us more information than that, or Simmons is going to get mad," Fitz told him.

"Fine," Ward rolled his eyes. "I feel a little dizzy, but I'm not in pain, presumably from the painkillers you gave me during the operation…why am I in a hospital?" he asked, not being able to wait any longer.

"Because we didn't have the technology to heal you on the Bus so Simmons ordered for you to be taken here," Fitz explained, which confused Ward even more, he was pretty sure the biochemist hated him, but at the same time she was basically really nice and didn't have the heart in her to let anyone die. That may become a problem for her in the future, Ward thought, but I guess I'm glad that she's still a nice person.

"Why didn't you let May kill me?" Ward clarified.

"Because we care about you," Skye said, as if it should have been obvious, Ward's eyes widened at her complete one-eighty.

"Besides, I don't think she actually wanted to kill you…" Fitz reasoned, but trailed off when he saw both Ward and Skye's incredulous expressions. "She could have just wanted to hurt you, a lot…"

"You two shouldn't care about me," Ward tried to explain. "I betrayed you and I'm a horrible person who's done terrible things to innocent people,"

"Ward, everyone cares about you," Fitz contradicted. "May's still a bit pissed off, but she'll come round,"

"And you're not a horrible person," Skye put in.

"Really?" Ward smirked. "Because Coulson made it clear to me that no one on this team liked me, and I told you what I did to my younger brother Skye, and you've seen what I did with Hydra."

"So this is the incredibly worried Coulson who has kept trying not to yell at May all day then?" Fitz questioned. "Trust me Ward, he cares about you a lot, always has done,"

"I think that's why your betrayal hurt so much, because we all cared about you so much," Skye explained. "But now we know more about the situation, we understand, plus it wasn't really a betrayal anyway if you were with Garrett before you even joined SHIELD,"

"Skye, I could have lied about all that," he pointed out. "The one thing you know I did to you very well before was lie to you,"

"Stop trying to push us away," she smiled sadly, and wrapped her arms around him. His eyes widened and he stiffened at her touch, but in a few beats he relaxed into it, Fitz leaning towards the two to join the hug as well. "Because it won't work," she promised.

Then the lights went out and the sound of an explosion was heard.

Five minutes earlier…

Agent Melinda May strode past Simmons angrily, planning on going back to the plane and practising tai chi and beating the crap out of some inanimate object as soon as possible.

"I don't trust him either," Simmons called out to her and May swung round to face the young scientist.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because he can't be trusted," Simmons answered simply. "He betrayed us before and is perfectly capable of doing it again. What if he actually manages to seriously hurt one of us this time? Maybe he's telling the truth, maybe he really needs a second chance,"

"But the others are letting off the hook too easily," May finished.

"Exactly," Simmons exclaimed. "They're just excusing him for what he did because he had a bad life, it doesn't mean he's not still evil,"

"What I like about Coulson is that he thinks everyone is redeemable, everyone deserves a second chance," May told her, he voice was mostly blank but held a hint of fondness and exasperation. "But sometimes I worry he takes that a little too far. He tried to be harsh to him at the beginning, but I guess he just couldn't do it,"

"I don't blame you for what you did," Simmons said. "I just wish you hadn't nearly killed him, I don't really want him to die,"

May nodded, seeming to agree with the young scientist.

Then the lights went out and the sound of an explosion was heard.

A.O.S

"What was that?" Ward asked as the three of them sprang instantly apart and looked around wildly.

"I don't know but, Ward what are you doing?" Fitz yelled in frustration to the specialist who was attempting to sit up and climb out of bed. "You just had an operation on your lungs, they need to heal!"

He sighed. "I know, but how am I meant to protect you from whatever's out there from here?" he questioned frantically.

"You don't have to," Skye replied. "You'll have to trust us to protect you this time. Anyway, you'll only get in the way if you try to fight and then find you can't breathe,"

Ward nodded grimly, lying down again unhappily.

A.O.S

Fitz and Skye stood adjacent to the door, backs against the wall and waiting silently, ICERs in hands.

A light tapping came from the window and the two nearly jumped out of their skins, pointing their guns towards a surprised Trip, who was standing outside.

"What the hell's happening here?" he questioned as he passed Buddy through the window and clambered in after him. Buddy bounded happily over to Ward as Triplett carefully scanned outside and slowly closed the window. "The whole west wing's been reduced to a pile of ash!"

"Fitz gently pushed Buddy away from Ward, the dog having been attempting to jump on top of the man, which wouldn't have done his broken ribs any good; so instead he placed his paws on the edge of Ward's pillow and whined.

"You're alright!" Ward exclaimed ecstatically, stroking the dog's left paw.

"What do you think happened?" Skye asked and Triplett looked at her curiously. "No one normal would blow up what I think are the pregnancy wards. We're clearly dealing with some psychos,"

"Can't we just hack the CCTV feed and see what's going on?" Trip asked.

"She disabled it," Fitz groaned. "We should probably go out and…"

A quick knock came again, this time from the door.

"Who is it?" Skye called.

"It's the receptionist," a woman replied. "I need to check on the patient,"

"Don't worry, I'm fine," Ward said loudly.

"Yeah, we're all in here and he's doing okay," Fitz explained. "You should probably go check on the other patients now, they'll probably be needing some answers!"

"Okay," she agreed, and the door came crashing down, the once seemingly nice receptionist now held a gun.

She shot Skye and Fitz in one swift move, before moving on to Trip, who disarmed her before she could shoot him too. He held his gun to her head.

"Don't move," he ordered and she smiled sweetly at him, then touched her wrist to his stomach, causing him to fly across the room and slam hard into the wall.

Ward muttered comforting words to Buddy and gripped the dog's new collar (courtesy of a pet shop) tightly, hoping that Buddy wouldn't do anything that would get the dog hurt.

"Hail Hydra," the woman introduced. "I'm Agent Wires and I'm afraid that your interrogation didn't go according to plan last time. That's a nice dog, Buddy, isn't he?"

"Yes," Ward replied icily. "What did you do to them?"

"Those two should be okay, just in a lot of pain for a few weeks, exactly like we promised," she smirked. "And that one should be fine, providing he hasn't sustained any brain damage from the wall. Coulson, well, I think he died when we blew up the west wing, pity really, he probably knew some stuff; and around two dozen agents are engaging in combat with Agents May and Simmons, there's no one to 'protect' you,"

She picked her gun up off the ground and pointed it at Buddy, Ward was still reeling with worry for his teammates, and loss, for Coulson, but he barely felt any of that compared with the panic he felt for Buddy when he saw the gun pointed at the dog's head.

"No, no, please," he begged, not caring that pleading with anyone like this was a weakness. "Don't shoot him, please, god no, I'll do anything, I'll tell you anything, I swear I will! Just don't kill him!"

She looked down at him in fake pity and waved the gun around, pausing casually on Ward and Buddy in turn.

"I think we've discovered your weakness," she smirked and he nodded. "Oh, is the poor little specialist crying?" she said spitefully and he blinked rapidly in shock. He never cried, not ever, not in a long time anyway, but here he was, unshed tears building up in his eyes and threating to roll down his cheeks.

"You'd better be able to walk," she told Ward commandingly and he nodded, trying to sit up and swing himself out of bed.

"When you leave here, you'd better not be able to," Melinda May said icily, standing in the doorway, a broken IV pole in her hands.

The receptionist swore and shot a bullet towards her, but May dodged it easily, then used the IV pole as a javelin to knock the gun out of her hand.

"You killed Coulson," she stated, advancing towards the woman menacingly.

"That wasn't me…that was…" Wires tried to think of an excuse but failed, freaking out under the piercing eyes of the cavalry.

"You're in charge of the Hydra division in this hospital and you killed him," Melinda practically shrieked and Ward had to marvel at the loss of the pilot's usually calm demeanour.

May slammed Wires into the wall and proceeded to mercilessly punch the woman senseless.

"May!" a voice from the doorway yelled, but she ignored it, completely focused on her task. "May," it repeated and she swung round, letting the unconscious body of the Hydra Agent drop to the floor and staring at Phil Coulson, standing in the ragged remains of his suit, covered in cuts and dirt, with Simmons leaning awkwardly, using his shoulder to try and stay upright, her ankle clearly broken or sprained.

Please, please, please review; it was great until the last chapter, when the amount dropped drastically :(