A/N: AoS right now is feelings on top of feelings. And on top of that, I had the worst day ever at work. So here's more of this.
She runs down the hallway of the Playground, the ground fissuring and fracturing under her feet. She feels sick and dizzy and she can't figure out where everything went so wrong. There's lights and darkness and that damn music box –
Daisy, Daisy…
Overhead an alarm starts blaring. Skye can feel her breathing speed up, getting ragged in her chest. Her hands feel numb and she looks down at them, unsurprised to see the bruised and mangled arms she possesses in real life.
"What am I looking for?" she murmurs. It's getting harder to breathe.
A door opens behind her and she whirls around, everything in her body tensing to fight.
"Coulson?"
"What are you doing here?"
"I… I don't know."
"Who gave you permission to be here?"
"Uh, no one, I guess… I was just…" She can't breathe. The hallway gets spinny around her and she wants to throw up. "Please, Coulson…"
She's sinking to the floor and he's looming over her, hands out as though he's going to choke her.
Skye sucks in one last ragged painful breath and surrenders to oblivion.
"She's not responding to the treatment," Simmons says softly, watching as Coulson shifts in his chair. His hand is still looped in Skye's, even though the girl has been unresponsive for several hours. "We're running out of options."
"There's always… always something," Fitz says. "You'll figure it out."
"I don't understand it at all," Simmons says.
Fitz touches her shoulder gently. "Let's talk it through. We'll find a solution."
Simmons sighs and shakes her head. "I can't think about it, Fitz. I can't…"
May comes up the hallway behind them and hands Simmons a folder full of printouts. "Test results," she says. "Any progress?"
"Not much," Fitz says as Simmons buries her head in the information. "She's been… um…"
He waves his hand at the window separating the three of them from Skye and Coulson.
"Sleeping?" May offers.
"No," Fitz says, and touches his chest. "Um… the…"
"Coughing," Simmons fills in, still focused on the paperwork.
"Yes," Fitz agrees. "Coughing. A lot of coughing."
May looks from scientist to scientist. "Is it safe to go in there?"
Fitz nods.
"Go ahead," Simmons agrees. "Coulson could use a break."
Coulson looks up as May enters. He looks haggard.
"Go get some coffee," May says.
"She wants me to…"
"She's unconscious, Phil," May says, not unkindly. "Has been."
He rubs his face with his free hand.
"She won't know the difference," May goes on. "For ten minutes."
Coulson gives her a look, but eventually he disentangles his fingers from Skye's and stands up, straightening his rumpled suit. He runs a hand through his hair. "We're going to lose her. We shouldn't have sent her away."
"Go get some coffee," May says in a voice that brooks no argument.
Apparently somewhat chastened, Coulson leaves the room.
May sits down in the chair he's vacated and looks at Skye. Under the plastic sheeting of the oxygen tent Skye looks tiny, like a child. Her lips are split and cracked, and May can hear a whistle every time Skye breathes. IVs are sunk into both of her bruised hands, threading down beneath her casts. A clip on her ear pulses with red light, sending Skye's vital signs to a monitor beside the bed. Her pulse bounces between 140 and 150 beats a minute, and her temperature reads as 104.5. Despite the oxygen tent, her saturations are dropping, heading through the high 80's and lower – though May knows that for a young, healthy person like Skye, they should be 100%.
It's all wrong.
The door opens and Simmons comes in, looking worried.
"What is it?" May asks.
"She's working harder to breathe," Simmons says.
As though responding to the Brit's words, Skye's body jerks in on itself as the girl starts coughing. It's deep, ragged, gut-wrenching coughing, and it sets off all sorts of alarms.
Simmons steps forcefully around May and swiftly detaches the oxygen tent from the hospital bed. Skye is still coughing, her eyes open and wild. She looks up at Simmons, fear and pleading somehow conveyed in one look. Simmons takes the suction wand from the wall above the bed and tries to clear Skye's airway.
Skye coughs and gags as the suction tube brings up clots of mucus and blood. The blinds in the window start to shake, setting off little tings as they come in contact with the glass.
May leans forward and takes Skye's hand firmly in hers. "Skye, breathe," she says firmly. "Focus and center. It's all noise in the background."
Simmons finishes clearing Skye's throat and mouth and steps back. The coughing seems to have stopped, and Skye looks up at her, as winded as if she'd just run a marathon.
"Dark," Skye rasps out. "In the dark."
"Skye, I've just spoken with the doctor," Simmons says, choosing for the moment to ignore Skye's fever-driven rambling. "He's concerned about your airway collapsing because you're trying so hard to breathe. He wants to give you some support."
"What does that mean?" May asks quietly.
"We can try a positive-pressure system," Simmons says. "That'd be a mask over your face."
"Or…?" May senses there's more.
Skye grips the side rail of the bed and her next breath brings tears to her eyes.
"Or we sedate you and intubate you," Simmons goes on, somewhat reluctantly. "The way we did when…"
And there she stops, unable to go any further.
Skye shakes her head, whipping it back and forth. "No, no, no," spills from her mouth.
"Skye," Simmons says, and she shakes her own head, trying hard not to cry. "You need help to breathe."
"Not… in… the dark," Skye spits out. "Not… back…"
She coughs and gags, but before she can tell Simmons not to put her on a ventilator, pain slices through her chest, so deep and all-consuming that it blinds her, and she sinks back into the waiting void.
When she opens her eyes again she's strapped to a table, a bright spotlight shining down on her and blinding her. She can tell there's someone walking around the outside of the light, and there's something menacing about the footsteps.
"Well, well, well. We meet again."
And there's something menacing about that voice – it's Ward.
"Funny how power changes people. Last time I saw you, you had all the power. I was a rat in a cage and you could do anything you wanted."
Skye tries to wiggle an arm free, but it's as though she's been glued to the table.
"Cut off my food, deny me water, even let Fitz turn off the ventilation system. Videotape me, shock me – hell, who knows? You held my life in your hands."
His voice gets slightly louder as he approaches her head. "And now the tables have turned."
He leans in and Skye can feel his breath, hot against her forehead. Her stomach roils and she wants to run.
"I've learned things about you, Skye."
He's said that before, but now Skye knows it's true. He knows exactly what has happened to her, who she is.
Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he's bluffing. Skye can feel her power surging through her veins, that torrent of bees aching to be free, and she wonders how much time it would take for her to kill Ward with an earthquake.
It starts slowly, building like a rolling boil, and she can feel the walls around them wobbling. Then the floor joins in, and the table she's on starts moving in tiny increments, side to side. Overhead the light sways.
Daisy, Daisy…
Ward's leering face leans in. "I knew you were a monster," he says.
Daisy, Daisy…
Monster!monster!
The bees surge, the earthquake builds, and everything comes crashing down around them.
It's late when everything finally settles down. Simmons doesn't realize Fitz is next to her until he holds out half a sandwich. "'S peanut butter 'n jelly," he says. "Not as good as yours, but I'm very pleased with my knife skills."
Simmons takes the sandwich wordlessly.
"You made the right call," Fitz says quietly.
"It doesn't feel like it."
"You heard the doctor," Fitz says, still trying to fix this. "Her saturations were tanking and she was… uh…"
"Oxygen-starved," Simmons finishes for him. "I know, Fitz."
"And she has pneumonia," Fitz goes on. "She wasn't going to get better without some help."
Mechanically Simmons raises the half sandwich to her mouth and takes a bite, considering Skye's immobile form on the bed in front of them. Their friend is now tethered to the bed with a mélange of tubes and wires, and a big gray machine next to the bed pushes air in and out of Skye's lungs through a tube dropped down her throat.
"She didn't want it, Fitz," Simmons says around the mouthful of sandwich. "She asked me not to."
"She's delirious," Fitz says, and he squeezes her hand.
"She's scared," Simmons murmurs. "And now she's in the dark for good."
"Not for good," Fitz says. "Just until she heals."
"Skye doesn't know that. She only knows she's in the darkness – it could be a day or it could be forever, but it'll feel just like forever. I don't want her to be scared, Fitz."
And Simmons rests her head on Fitz's shoulder, and finally allows herself to cry.