A/N: Because I am a horrible terrible person, I planned out the rest of this story and it's going to be equal parts heart-breaking and soul-stomping. Once the ideas starting coming, they just wouldn't stop. I think I'll have about five or six more chapters, so buckle in for the ride.

Thanks to all the readers and reviewers, and everyone who takes the time to add this story/me as an author to their alerts and/or favorites. I love getting reviews and messages. This chapter and the narrative for the rest of the story was partially inspired by a review from Salkri Kachemench, so thank you!

Enjoy!

Skye opens her eyes in the familiar landscape of the Cage, and for a long moment she wonders if she's been dreaming. Wonders if everything has been a complete fabrication of her mind.

Then she realizes she's tied to the bed. Restrained somehow, and as much as she wiggles, she can't get the tight straps to release even a fraction of an inch.

She wonders if it would be wrong to call for help, wonders if she really wants to find out who would be coming to "help" her.

As it turns out, she doesn't have time to make a decision before the door opens, revealing Simmons.

"Jemma! Thank God!" Skye says. "Someone tied me up. Can you help me?"

"Oh, I can help you," Simmons says. Her voice is odd. Too flat.

Skye furrows her brow. Simmons carefully approaches her, pulls the table away from the desk, and sits down, facing Skye.

"Could you… um… perhaps help me get up from the bed?"

"Why do you need to get up?"

Skye doesn't have a good answer to that. "I'm thirsty," she hazards.

"Me too," Simmons replies.

Her behavior is more and more puzzling, and Skye can't figure out what she's supposed to be doing. All she knows is, everything about this scenario feels wrong.

"I'm thirsty for a new kind of world," Simmons goes on. "A world where people like me don't have to be afraid of people like you."

Icy fear stabs into Skye's heart.

"People who could kill us with their bare hands, with a single movement, maybe without meaning to but still with some kind of malice in their hearts."

Skye wriggles, trying to loosen the straps around her.

"Freaks. Weirdos. People who were not meant to be. You're anomalies in the system and you're dangerous. You're a threat. And threats need to be eliminated."

Now Skye thinks she's going to vomit. This isn't her Simmons. This isn't any version of Simmons.

"Jemma, please," Skye says, her voice weak and cracking. "It's me. Your friend. Skye."

"You're not my friend," Simmons spits. "You're not anyone's friend. You're a threat."

Skye can feel the angry bees sensation starting in her toes, and the nausea increases. The Cage spins around her and she feels hot and sweaty and, oddly enough, embarrassed.

"And threats need to be eliminated."

Simmons stands up and walks closer to the bed. "I promise it won't hurt. Much."

Without further discussion, Simmons raises a gun Skye somehow missed in her terror and fires it. Skye's heart leaps in her throat and adrenaline courses through her body – she only has a second of panic, though, and then everything goes black.

It could be minutes later, it could be years later, but she blinks her way back to consciousness. She's still restrained, but now she's in the Bus's lab, looking up at the ceiling, her eyes burning from the bright lights.

"Oh, good, you're awake." Simmons' voice sounds cheerier, but she approaches Skye with a large syringe and an ICER, and both look menacing in her hands.

"Jemma, please," Skye tries again. "Please don't do this."

"I'm a SHIELD agent," Simmons says. "It's what I have to do to keep the people I love safe."

"I am the people you love," Skye protests, and hot tears flood her eyes. "Back in the real world… or… wherever it is, you're taking care of me. I'm sick and you came to help me."

"We are in the real world," Simmons says coldly. "And you are sick. And I am going to help you."

Skye tries to trigger an earthquake, trying to see if she could drop something on Simmons' head. Nothing happens, and panic must be evident on her face, because Simmons smiles the coldest, angriest smile Skye's ever seen. "I see you trying," Simmons says. "It won't work."

She raises the ICER, dead level with Skye's eyes.

"I've been ICEd before," Skye says. Desperation and nausea are sloshing in her stomach and she can't tell what feels worse, those awful feelings or watching Simmons' eyes.

"Yes, that's true," Simmons says. "But never with this version of the dendro-toxin."

Skye tries to take a deep breath.

"I'm going to paralyze you," Simmons says. "Take away your ability to move but leave you able to feel everything. I want you to realize what it's like when someone I love gets hurt by a freak like you."

She uses the ICER to gesture to a table next to Skye's restrained form, indicating a large syringe. "And then, when you're locked into your own horrible body, I'm going to set you free. Stop your heart the way you stopped Trip's."

Acid arcs up Skye's throat and she thinks she's actually going to vomit. "Jemma…" she manages to get out. "Jemma, you know that wasn't my fault."

"Just like you to never take responsibility for your actions. Trip went down there to save you, and you killed him."

"No, no," Skye cries. "No, it wasn't my fault. I had nothing to do with it."

"Lies!" Simmons yells. "All lies!"

"No," Skye chokes out. "Please, it wasn't my fault. It wasn't. I didn't want any of this."

"None of us wanted any of this," Simmons says. "But we all have to make choices now."

She raises the ICER again and fires. The blue pulse sends jolts through Skye's body and she squeezes her eyes shut, feeling tears run down her face. "Please," she whispers.

It's just as Simmons had claimed – within seconds Skye can no longer move. Her breathing gets slower and slower and she can't blink. All she can do is watch Simmons, the Brit moving around the lab, gathering supplies and putting things away.

Skye tries to get her mouth to move, tries to start an earthquake with her mind. All she feels is emptiness and rage.

"I won't let it last long," Simmons says, and her voice is oddly gentle. She moves closer to Skye, so they're looking directly in each other's eyes. "Trip didn't deserve to suffer and neither do you, no matter what I think."

Skye feels the needle slip into her arm and then it's as though she's exhausted, as though she's been awake for thousands of days. She finds that she's able to blink, though all she wants to do is keep her eyes open.

Blink.

Simmons standing up.

Blink.

Simmons standing back.

Blink.

Simmons crossing her arms.

Blink.

Can't breathe. Can't breathe. Can't –

Simmons with some sort of smug satisfaction on her face.

And then one final blink, lowering her down into the darkness.

When the alarms start blaring, Simmons startles awake, jerking her head up from Fitz's shoulder. It takes a minute for her eyes to clear and focus, and then she realizes the issue – on the hospital bed before them, Skye's body is jerking and twitching, the girl lost in a seizure. She's setting off all the alarms – heart rate, the oxygen sensors on the ventilator, the apnea alarm – everything is ringing and dinging and blaring.

A doctor runs in, followed by two nurses, and they fly into motion. Simmons watches, feeling completely helpless.

"Her airway's pinching off, Doctor," one of the nurses says.

"Give her a moment," the doctor replies. "Let's get some Ativan on-board."

The other nurse nods and briskly goes about getting the medication. She slips it into Skye's IV port and they stand, watching for any change in the monitors.

Simmons doesn't realize that she's standing, shaking, until she feels Fitz's hand slip into hers, squeezing it tight.

On the cart next to the bed, bottles of medication and packets of supplies begin to wobble and rattle.

"Skye," Simmons says, her voice cracking. "Skye, you have to make it stop. Keep breathing. Think of May. May wants you to make it stop."

She doesn't know if Skye can hear her, lost in the fugue state of seizure and fever, but it's worth a try, before the quake brings the room down around them.

Fitz's voice joins hers. "Skye, relax and stop the shaking."

There's no way to know if it was their voices or the medication, but the medical supplies stop shaking. The room falls still around them, still ringing with the noises of the panicking monitors and equipment. Though the quake has stopped, Skye's still seizing.

"Another mig of Ativan," the doctor directs.

"Her airway, Doctor," the first nurse says.

Simmons knows what will happen if Skye's airway collapses, leaving her unable to breathe – they'll do an emergency tracheotomy right there in front of them, slice a hole in her neck and shove a breathing tube down it. The thought of it makes her weak in the knees.

Fitz senses something's wrong, and he pulls her back to a seated position. "What is it?"

Simmons shakes her head. She can't explain. The possibilities are too terrible to even speak aloud.

And then there's silence – the monitors falling quiet. Skye's body jerks one final time and then lies still on the bed.

Simmons finds the ability to stand and makes her way across the room, her whole body aching with fright. "Oh, Fitz," she whispers before she can stop herself.

Fitz is beside her in an instant, and she hears a soft gasp as he sees what she's seen – new bruises all over Skye's arms and neck. "She stopped the shaking," Fitz breathes in disbelief.

"But she couldn't make it stop on the inside." Simmons covers her eyes with her hand, hoping fervently that she'll wake up from this nightmare.

"We'll monitor her closely for seizures," one of the nurses says, touching Simmons' shoulder gently. "Her fever is still dangerously high, which could have triggered this one. Doctor Ullman is speaking to the treatment coordinators; he wants to use a cooling blanket to try and bring it down."

She says something else that Simmons can't process, something like an apology for Skye's condition, and leaves. It's just FitzSimmons in the room, feeling as bruised and battered as Skye's body looks as it struggles to survive.