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~Anonymous

Picking The Team: Part 2

"Skye," he says in a pleading voice, one that asks me to drop the subject while simultaneously cracking my heart. He makes it seem like I'm the one breaking his heart into a thousand pieces.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Focus Skye, I tell myself. If Lincoln won't talk about why he won't join my team, maybe he'll help me recruit members for my team. He has to.

I open my eyes and force myself to look at Lincoln. "Lincoln," I begin. He opens his mouth to speak, but I can see in his eyes that really doesn't have the heart to. I put my hand up and he closes his mouth. "I don't know why don't want to join my team, but I do know one thing. And that's that when I needed help, you were the one who saved me. It wasn't May or any of my Shield friends. It was you, Lincoln. For that, I'm grateful. Look, you don't have to join my team. You don't have to fight a single battle with us. I just need a friend to help me put the team together. Someone who knows a lot of the Inhumans. Most of all, I need someone I can trust helping me. Can you be that friend for me, Lincoln?

The room is deadly quiet. I feel like knives are cutting into my skin. I wait as the pained look on Lincoln's face disappears, only to be replaced by his brilliant smile. After what feels like ages, he looks up at me.

"I think I can be that friend for you, Skye," he says, smiling as if he never said no.

I resisted the urge to squeal as I stand up and walk towards Lincoln. "Thank you" I tell him as I wrap my arms around him. "You have no idea how much this means to me," I add as he hugs me back. I feel butterflies in my stomach. "You're not going to regret this."

"I doubt I will," Lincoln says under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing," he says as he takes a step back. His adorable quirky smile makes its way onto his face. I shake my head. Lincoln's just my friend, and I need to focus.

"There's just one tiny detail I might've left out," I say, giving Lincoln an apologetic smile.

"And what's that?" he asks.

"Since you'll be helping me, you're going to have to crash with us back at the Shield base. It'll take a while to get the team together so you'll get your own bunk. That way, you don't have to drive here and back every day."

"That'll be fine," Lincoln says, responding much faster than I expect him to.

"Great," I say. "Let's go."

"First, I have to get my stuff,"

"Right," I say, mentally facepalming myself for forgetting about that. "Let me help you with that."

Lincoln nods, telling me that he's accepted my help. We walk toward his suitcase, both grinning as if nothing ever happened.

Once we made it back to the car, I call Coulson to inform him that Lincoln and I were on our way back to the base. Coulson took that as his cue to get a bunk ready for Lincoln. After I shut down, I look over at Lincoln, who'd already put all of his luggage into the trunk and had proceeded to take his seat in the car.

I open the door and sit in the driver's seat. After I begin the long drive back to the playground, Lincoln speaks up.

"How did you get my room number? How did you even find me?" he asks.

"To answer your second question first, I was a hacktivist. No camera can hide you from my sight." Lincoln chuckled. "So," I continued, "a camera spotted you leaving this hotel, so I drove up here and stayed the night so I wouldn't have to wake you up in the middle of the night. The next morning, I went up to the receptionist and told her that you had an important meeting to go to and you left your speech in class." I gesture to the folder with one hand. "As a result, the receptionist gave me your room number. To be honest, I think she thought we were dating."

We both laughed awkwardly before looking away. I focused on the road, but eventually the awkward silence got to me.

"What's going to happen with your med school?"

Lincoln raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Since you've missed so much of it already, I just thought you were going to finish off the semester."

"Well, since I've missed most of the semester already there's not much I can do. I'll probably have to retake all my classes next semester anyway," he responds.

"Sorry for dragging you into all of this."

"It's not your fault Skye."

"But it kind of is, Lincoln. If I never came to Afterlife then none of this would've happened. My mother wouldn't be dead. Raina would be alive, Coulson would still have his arm, and the Inhumans would be living in secrecy where nobody would ever find them!"

"It's not your fault Skye," Lincoln repeats softly. "You didn't know any of this was going to happen. You didn't even want to get your powers. Jiaying was already evil. There was nothing you could do to change that. What happened happened, Skye, and we all have to live with it. There's no way to change that."

I shake my head. "I'm sorry," I whisper, trying to keep my gaze on the road.

Lincoln leans over and puts his hand on top of mine. I look over at him before glancing back to the road, just to make sure I wasn't going to crash into someone.

"You didn't do anything, Skye. There's no need to apologize. We all could've done better. It wasn't your fault, and it never will be, okay?"

I nod my head and turn on the radio. We sit in a comfortable silence, and Lincoln takes his hand off of mine, probably so I can do a better job driving. I smile a bit and try to enjoy the rest of the drive home.

Ever since Lincoln came to the base, the atmosphere changed for the better. At first it was a bit awkward, but his optimism changed that very quickly. That aside, it took Lincoln and I almost five months to get a second member on my first was obviously me. We went through a lot of people, and I was still considering about a few of them, but most of them didn't seem to fit the team's needs.

"Alright, we can find someone else," Lincoln says after I reject yet another "promising" Inhuman. We'd been here for four and a half months. We had been through hundreds of Inhumans, with five of them pending acceptance.

Suddenly, Lincoln smirks.

"What?" I ask, slightly nervous about what he's going to do.

"What about Alisha?" he asks with the smirk still plastered to his face,

"Who's Alisha?"

He laughs. "She's this redhead, and she had the most amazing power." His tone of voice is sarcastic. "She can clone her herself."

I glare at Lincoln, which causes him to laugh harder. "I don't think so," I say while giving Lincoln a pointed look. He was nodding through fits of laughter. "And stop laughing," I add with a smile as I smack his arm.

His laughter subsides as he suggests yet another qualified Inhuman. "How about Crystal?" he asks.

"Nice name," I say, "but I think you're forgetting that I don't know who Crystal is."

He chuckles. "She has the power to manipulate the four basic elements. She tends to be more affected by pollutants, but being able to control water, fire, earth, and air seems like a pretty good tradeoff to me."

"So, she's like Avatar?

"Yep," Lincoln says with a smile. "I watch TV," he adds after seeing the incredulous look on my face.

"That's awesome!" I say excitedly. Avatar was one of the only shows I watched at this one orphanage that had a single television, and that was because everyone else thought it was lame. "Does she help save the world? Does she wear this weird robe thing? Does she have this big blue arrow on her forehead?"

Lincoln laughs, and the sound brings a smile to my face. "Slow down, Tremors" he says. I stick my tongue out at him, and he laughs. "I don't think she has or does any of those things."

"She needs to be on my team," I say. It would be beyond cool to have a real life Avatar on my team. And they say that animated shows and movies can never come true. Well take that haters.

"Great," Lincoln responds. "It looks like we have our first official potential member."

"Time to tell Coulson," I say while standing up. I grab Lincoln's hand and pull him off the chair. As I grabbed Lincoln's hand, I felt a spark shoot up my arm. I glance over at Lincoln, who still looks amused by this whole thing. If anything, he's smiling more than he was before. It didn't seem like he shocked me. Strange.

I run all the way to Coulson's office, pulling Lincoln behind me. I let go of Lincoln's hand to open the door, and immediately miss his warmth. I walk into Coulson's office, and he looks up at us.

"Lincoln, Skye," he says, acknowledging our presence. "What can I do for you?"

"I think we've found the next member for the team," I begin. "Her name is Crystal. She like Avatar." Coulson gives me a confused look.

"She can control water, earth, fire, and air," Lincoln explains.

Coulson nods. "Since you finally got your next member, you'd better find her. She can hang out at the base to begin her training like Lincoln," Coulson says.

I nod. "You can take a quinjet to her her location," he adds. "If she says yes, call me so we can get some bunks ready at your new hideout. I'll give the pilot directions, and we'll bring all your stuff over there. It's a new training ground for your team. You'll all bunk there until you're comfortable working with each other and you've finished your training. Good luck."

It doesn't take me very long to find Crystal's whereabouts. Unlike some people, she's not trying to hide. The ride to her location is a rather silent one. I just sat there, thinking of ways to convince her to join my team. Lincoln sat next to me, but neither of us spoke a word. The only words we heard were those of the pilot, telling us that it was time to exit the jet.

We got off the jet a quarter-mile from her house, which was the closest landing area. Upon exiting, Lincoln and I begin our rather long trek to her neighborhood.

"Is she nice?" I ask Lincoln in an attempt to fight off my nerves and the silence.

"Yeah. Crystal's nice, pretty, and awesome. She's a bit of a ruler breaker, and she's very stubborn. It's what makes her so likeable. You two will get along fine."

I nod, and I can't help but feel a little jealous of Crystal. Lincoln spoke of her so fondly...no, it's silly. I'm just jittery because I don't know how she'll react to what I say. Maybe Lincoln will come with me to talk to her...no, I have to do this alone. For some reason, I really don't want Lincoln to talk to Crystal. I look up and notice that we're about to reach the small town that Crystal lives in. She lives in a house a block from the town's entrance.

"What's the matter Skye?" Lincoln asks me, breaking the silence.

"Nothing," I respond, flashing him a smile. Lincoln glances at me with a knowing look. A look that tells me that he knows that something's bothering me; a look that tell me that he isn't fooled by my smile.

I sigh. "I guess I'm just nervous about talking to Crystal. About what she'll think, or what she'll say." I'm afraid that she'll just laugh in my face. Afraid that Crystal won't be as great as Lincoln says. Afraid that Lincoln won't talk about me the way he talks about Crystal, but I feel like those things are best left unsaid.

"I know you'll be fine, Skye. You always are." Lincoln has sympathetic look on his face, but it's also one of understanding. One that makes me feel like he knows both what I said and what I left unsaid.

"I just don't know what to say." Frustration begins to claw at me.

"Hey," Lincoln says as he grabs my arm, effectively stopping me in my tracks. "Don't worry about it. Just relax and act natural. That's when you're at your best. You're an amazing person with a spectacular cause, and if Crystal can't see that, it's her loss, not yours. When the time comes, you'll know what to say. You always do."

As he says this, I feel my cheeks heat up, and turn away in an attempt to hide it. "You'll do fine, trust me." Lincoln squeezes my hand. "Come on," he says with a smile. "We're almost there."

We start walking again when I notice that Lincoln didn't let go of my hand, so I don't let go of his. Despite the butterflies in my stomach, it felt like it only took us three seconds to make it to Crystal's house. Lincoln and I joked around until we reached our destination.

"Ready to go?" Lincoln asks me as we reach the edge of the yard.

"Yeah. Thanks for cheering me up," I tell him with a smile.

"Anything for you, Skye," Lincoln says. He squeezes my hand one last time before letting go. I smile at him before making my way to the front door. I take a deep breath and knock. Like Lincoln said, it'll be fine.

As it turns out, Crystal was super chill. She was really eager to join my team and be a part of something bigger. Her response really helped boost my confidence. Over the last six months, Lincoln and I put together a pretty solid team. As of right now, there are eleven people on my team. Each one was willing to help, though some needed more convincing than others. Lincoln came with me to help recruit every member. I was still nervous about asking the Inhumans to join my team until after the fifth member said yes. Every time, Lincoln would comfort me by holding my hand. It was kind of a tradition,and we held hands before I asked every member to join my team. It seemed like neither of us ever wanted to let go.

So here we are, watching my team train in the training room at our secret base. My team members are Crystal, Arthur, Tom, Eobard, Roland, Pietro, Isabel, Linda, Alyssa, Ryla, and of course, me. As for a team name, I'm still partial to the Secret Warriors or the CATERPILARS,which was the name of our initiative, and is what all of our first initials spell when we put them together. The only thing we were missing was our second L.

I look over at Lincoln, who's standing next to me. Over the last six months he's become my closest friend. He's already done so much for this team.

"Thanks for all your help Lincoln," I say as we both watch over the training session. "This team wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for you."

"You were the one who convinced them. Not me," he responds, wearing his wonderful smile, one that I've grown to love. He turns to face me as I speak again.

"If you hadn't told me about them, I wouldn't have a team." I smile. We've both grown fond of all my team members. They were all good people. I was blessed to have each one on the team.

"Will you be leaving soon?" I ask Lincoln. Of course, it was expected, especially since the team was together now. Secretly, I'm hoping that Lincoln will stay with us. Stay with me. After all, we were missing our second L.

Lincoln blinks, taken aback by the question. "You know, I hadn't really thought about that. I guess I could go sometime next week." He scratches the back of his neck as he says this.

He seemed sad, as if he didn't want to leave. After all, he has grown quite fond of the team, even though he always tells me I'm his favorite team member. It was probably because I was the one asking the question. That aside, I know that I have to try to get Lincoln to stay. Who knows...maybe he changed his mind.

"Are you sure you don't want to join the team?" I ask Lincoln. "There'll always be room for you. Everyone on the team seems to like you. We couldn't be CATERPILLARS without our second L, could we?"

Lincoln tries to look thoughtful, but I can tell that he's already made up his mind. Yet, he still waits a few minutes before responding for who knows what reason. Each second passes by slowly.

"Well," Lincoln begins before pausing. He's trying to keep a straight face. The little rat was trying to bother me. I knew it! Lincoln broke out into one of his contagious goofy grins. "I think I'll take you up on that offer."

I grin and punch him in the arm. "That's awesome, Lincoln. I knew you'd join us. I had faith you." I hoped, but they were similar things.

"Come on," I say. "We need to get you registered." I grab Lincoln's hand, pulling him out the room. Crystal was capable of leading the training session. I glance back at Lincoln, who still has a big grin on his face, one that I'm sure mirrors my own. Who knew this kind of news could make two people so happy?

Lincoln and I busy ourselves by putting him on the team index. When we finish, we lounge around in the room that has been our cave for the past six months. We were the only ones who ever went in it.

"To be honest," I say, "I was wasn't sure that you'd say yes."

"At first," Lincoln responds, "I wasn't either. But after going through this whole journey with you, I couldn't dream of doing anything else."

"They're all great people," I say, trying not to think too much about the fact that Lincoln said that he went on this journey with me,

"So, who's your favorite member of the team?" Lincoln asks me, popping the question that I had so frequently asked him.

I spend a moment considering the question. Crystal is a wonderful friend and human being. Eobard was kind of creepy. Ryla was a great cook, and Pietro was a hothead. Isabel has a brownie obsession, and she loves to bake with Alyssa, who's shy and dedicated. Tom and Linda were both clowns, and our newest member Lincoln was an amazing friend.

"I don't know, Lincoln?" I say sarcastically. "How about everyone but you?" He laughs.

"I am still your favorite member of the team?" I ask.

"Of course," he responds. "You're my best friend on the base Skye."

"Same to you, Sparky." We both burst out laughing. I get up, and say, "Time to go back to training." Lincoln stands up, and turns toward the door. Before he can start walking I grab his hand. He turns and looks at me.

"Hey," I begin, not sure why I grabbed his hand in the first place. "I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done to help the team and the Shield agents at the base, especially Jemma. We all have to thank you for her return. You've helped me a lot. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you, just ask."

A mischievous smile makes it way to Lincoln's face, making me regret my last statement.

"Well," he says, "There is one thing…" Lincoln breaks off his sentence as he leans forward and kisses me gently. Kissing Lincoln makes me feel safe and at home, a feeling that I haven't felt in a long time. The last person I kissed is now the head of Hydra. That memory still causes me pain, but I know that this moment with Lincoln'll bring me the happiness I was afraid to obtain.

We break apart and I grab his hand. "Time to train," I say as I drag him out of the room. We run to the training area, both grinning like idiots.

I don't know what the future will bring. Maybe things will be awkward for a while, but what matters right now is the present. All our hopes and dreams begin with the now. And as of now I've found a way to be happy, to fit it, and that's what matters most.

Thanks for reading this story. I spent a while on it, so I hope you enjoyed it! I'll post the next one sometime next week. Feel free to PM me or review with a prompt! Don't forget to review

~DPR