Chapter 20

Skye looked out the window of the base waiting for Trip to come down from whatever he was doing. When he did finally meet up with her, he was wearing his jacket from the mission before.

"Whats with the jacket?" She asked when she saw him.

"Can't a guy wear jacket?" Trip responded. "Actually just a little cold. I think Billy messed up the air conditioner temperature again."

Skye just laughed as they begun to walk towards the bus where Mack was working at. They had planned to ask him a few questions about the cloaking.

"Agent Parker, Agent Triplett." Mack said addressing them both.

"Skye is just fine, Mack. Agent Parker is more my husband's name then mine." The hacker answered.

"Very well, Skye."

All three of them looked at the cloaking device, studying it. Mack tried to resist touching it but eventually he did anyway.

"So should we take a look under the hood?"

Skye, at first didn't realize what he had said until a few seconds later. Mack always liked to speak in car terms for some reason. But when she looked up to look at Mack, she nodded her head for him to do so.

Mack grabbed his screw driver and began to tinker with it. He eventually changed tools to get a better look at it.

"Fitz would be crushed if he saw this, Skye." Trip said watching.

"I know, he was working on it with Drew a bit before he and Simmons left."

Mack looked up from the cloaking device. He held the screw driver in one hand and and the device in the other.

"Its a shame they both left. Can't believe they would abandon you and him." Mack says.

Skye shook her head. "Simmons abandoned all of us. My husband didn't leave, he's recruiting other agents."

"Then why isn't he back yet?"

"Coulson said it was going to be a few months. Drew is trying to help get S.H.I.E.L.D. up and running again."

The three agents continued to talk about the cloaking device among other things until they saw Fitz walk in and stand watching them.

"You could ask him." Trip told Mack referring to what they were just talking about.

Skye walked over to Fitz and gave him a quick hug. The hacker knew she should have checked up on him a bit more then what she has. The engineer was a brother to Drew. If the agent could he would check in with him every chance he had. But his locations every time were a secret and Coulson seemed to be the only one that knew where he was.

"How are you doing, Fitz?" Skye asked.

Fitz ignored Skye's question and stared over at the cloaking device. He walked over towards Mack and studied what he did to it.

"So that's the, the um..."

"Cloaking device, yeah." Skye answered.

Mack sat the device on the table so Fitz could get a better look. The engineer ran his fingers along it and began talking to himself. He walks away from the table back towards the entrance he came from moving his hands in a way.

Skye heard exactly what she thought out of Fitz's mouth earlier times when she would check up on him. Her husband's name. Even though she heard Parker, the hacker knew he wasn't referring to her. The three scientists had always called each other by their last names since they met except sometimes their first names every so often. Simmons called Parker by his first name now more often then not.

The hacker pulled out her notebook and tried to tune everyone but Fitz out. She was determined to figure out what was preventing her friend from recovering now then what he was before.

I'm worried for Fitz, he mentions you sometimes when he talks to himself.

20AOS20

Andrew ran up the stairs to his and Jemma's apartment quickly skipping a few steps before ultimately tripping at the top. He knew he could be a klutz sometimes but falling up the stairs wasn't something he expected to happen.

His supervisor, Sunil Bakshi had dismissed him early to pack a bag for a few days. Something about escorting him for business and that Mr. Whitehall requested that it was him. Somehow Bakshi gave him a few hours to pack and tell his 'wife' that he was leaving. Meaning Andrew was going to have time to tell Jemma.

Once the agent got in the door, packing a bag wasn't too hard. Just the basic needs really. Clothes and weapons were all dumped into the bag. When Andrew was finished he zipped it up and threw it on the couch.

Andrew was already dressed in all black, the typical Hydra guard uniform. He never saw the biochemist this morning as he ducked out early enough after falling asleep on the patio. The agent didn't want her to see him struggling here. He wasn't meant to struggle. Andrew had learned that from his father, who was a soldier.

The agent went to the kitchen and grabbed a beer stashed away in the refrigerator drawer that his ex wouldn't look in since he announced it was his. Jemma had her own directly above his and everything that wasn't in either drawer was fair game for either one of them.

Andrew had twenty five minutes until Jemma was supposed to come home. He walked out to the patio, popping off the cap of the beer and pulling out the cigarettes he had in his jacket. The agent wasn't big on drinking beer at all nor did he really had the interest after he turned twenty one. It wasn't till after hearing that Skye was dead that it happened. He would drink away the pain every night when he came back to his hotel room. It wasn't until Maria made surprise visit saying that Skye actually somehow made it, that it was put to a stop.

The smoking on the other hand, he couldn't remember exactly how that happened. Maybe it was just being on his first mission for a few weeks that made him use them to remove the stress. He thinks it might have been Bobbi that gave him a pack but he could be wrong. Andrew stopped when he came home to Jemma when they were dating. After their breakup, Miles gave him a carton when he came back to San Diego.

He was only half way through a cigarette when he heard the sliding glass door to the patio balcony open. The agent didn't look up as he just checked his watch to see that Jemma was right on time. Andrew could feel her standing close to him watching his every move.

"How long has this been going on?" The biochemist asked.

Andrew knew she was referring to the cigarette in his hand that was nearly gone. The tone of her voice meant she wasn't too happy to see what path he was heading towards.

"Too long." He answers not looking up in the process.

Andrew puts out the cigarette and then flicks it into the coffee can sitting on the small table next to the wall. Jemma immediately starts to protest after peaking inside to see how many he has gone through.

"You know this is bad for you, yet you do it. You've always told me you wouldn't dare pick one up. I don't know why you must do it." She's rambling on to him.

The agent listens to her for a couple minutes until she eventually stops realizing that it's done no effect to him.

"You've changed a lot, Andrew, since you left. You wouldn't have done all this back then." Jemma tells him.

That gets Andrew going. All of a sudden he's yelling at her right on the spot. Something he's never done towards her.

"Of course not. You expect me to just live my life in the past, Jem. Kind of like you are the moment you saw me back in Seattle. I moved on, I got married."

"I tried to move on too! You know that. Why do you think Fitz and I joined Coulson's team. We were trying to escape the lab. I was trying to forget you."

"Is that so? Not even cleared for the field yet you go. And now Leo is never going to be the same."

"That's not my fault! That was Ward."

Andrew smashed his beer bottle against the cement balcony below them. Glass was shattered everywhere. He knew it was Ward's fault that Leo was like this. But what he had heard what both Fitz and Simmons had said about each other, he wondered if coming back was the right choice. He felt like that he was the road block in some way.

The agent pushed himself towards the door past the biochemist. He left her watching as he grabbed his bag pulling it over himself. He looked back at her.

"I have to go. Mr. Bakshi has requested that I go with him for a business trip."

Jemma didn't say anything as she watched her ex boyfriend walked towards the door.

"Leo is in love with you and I know you feel something too. Maybe you get your happy ending with him." Andrew tells her as he leaves the apartment.

Before she knows it, the biochemist is alone and stuck cleaning up the mess that Andrew left.

20AOS20

After meeting with Coulson about trying to help May, Skye finds her way to Hartley's assigned room in the base. She was told to pack up the agent's things putting them in boxes. Hartley doesn't have many things laying around as most of its neatly placed.

A few things are already in the box when Skye picks up a picture frame. It was Hartley and another girl standing next to each other. Before she got a chance to really study it, the hacker heard footsteps behind her. She turned around to find the one and only Lance Hunter standing in the door frame.

"Thats Jane, Izzy's sister in the picture. Her favorite person in the world, after me." Hunter told her before sitting on the bed taking the frame from Skye.

"Looks like they liked each other." Skye said.

"Yeah they did. You have any siblings?"

Skye shook her head no. "As far as I know I'm an only child. I grew up in an orphanage. Drew doesn't have really any siblings either."

"He's an only child?"

"Yeah, his dad was in the military so he wasn't home much. I never got to meet him though. He died shortly before Drew left for the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. He has Miles though, his step-brother but that seems far fetched sometimes."

"His mum remarried I'm guessing."

"Yeah, a few years before he and I met actually. The only thing I'm happy about Miles, is that he introduced us. Do you have any siblings?"

"Yeah, just a sister. See her from time to time."

Hunter reached over to the side table and grabbed the necklace that was sitting next to the frame before. Skye didn't question it when he placed it in his pocket after handing the frame back to her so she could put it in the box.

"Everything can change in an instant, Skye." He tells her.

The hacker just nods and continues with a few other things, placing them in the box too.

"You know, you remind me of her. Could easily earn some money in the private sector."

"As a mercenary, I'll have to pass." Skye says looking up again.

"We prefer a term called 'private military contractors' instead." He answers. "Everyone needs an exit strategy sometimes."

"All I need is S.H.I.E.L.D. right now. It seems to be a safe place for both Drew and I to be at together right now. I have no plans on leaving."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't a life style, Skye. So when you and Agent Parker do have a chance to leave, I would take it." Hunter tells her from the door way before leaving.

Maybe he was right, Skye thought. Sometimes you have to escape it.

Hey everyone. Sorry for the long wait. This past week was a busy week at work and I celebrated my birthday on the first. We had a band called the Rolling Stones come for Fourth of July so I worked during that but I had a nice view of the stage. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter as I hope to have another one up soon. Please leave a review and let me know what you think along with any ideas you may have. I do have an upcoming huge spoiler that may change some of the story around in a couple of episode chapters. If anyone wants to guess what it is and take a crack at it, I'd love to hear what you think. Just think up to episode ten for season two. Anyway that is all, and I hope to have a new chapter up soon.