A/N: Yeah, so, this was overdue for an update. I think there will be two more chapters after this.
Thanks to everyone who reads/reviews/follows/favorites. It means a lot to me, and I'm sorry that this story has been somewhat neglected while I cause havoc in other stories (and apparently break hearts and ruin lives, but...).
Also, I watched a video earlier that informed me that two-ish days ago, our favorite cast received the first script for the third season, and I've been nearly dancing around the room while trying to write this, so... that's my excuse.
Enjoy!
Within ten minutes Skye realizes there was something wrong with the food. Her nausea returns full force and she can't sit up, vertigo spinning the room around her in a way she likes not at all. There's something else, too, something running up her earthquaked arms and pulsing at her earthquaked ribs.
"Simm…" Skye tries to get out, but her throat is no longer her own. "Simm…"
Pain shoots fire up her spine like an electrical charge and her head jerks back, hands clenching into fists nearly immediately. She can hear the crackle and pop of her arm and finger bones and cries out from the pain. "Jemm…"
Simmons bolts upright on the bed and looks over at her, immediately panicked. "Skye? What's going on?"
"The food. The food… something…" Skye whimpers. "It's bad… the food is bad!"
She forces herself off the bed, away from Simmons, because she knows what's going to happen. She can feel the quakes like bubbles trapped under her sternum and she's terrified. They're bigger, they're stronger, and they hurt.
"Please… run," Skye begs Simmons.
"Don't be ridiculous," Simmons says, and she moves towards Skye.
"NO!" Skye screams at her, flinging her hands up.
Simmons is knocked off her feet and Skye feels like she'll vomit. "I'm sorry," she stutters.
The quake bubbles pop and boil under her sternum. Her head hurts and she curls into herself, trying hard not to vomit.
"Skye, it's going to be all right," Simmons says.
"Hurt… you…" Skye wheezes.
"No, I'm fine," Simmons insists, moving closer to Skye.
A beep sounds from the heart rate tracker on Skye's wrist and she moans as she pulls her arm in.
300 bpm.
That's really fast.
No. That's inhuman.
"It's going to happen," Skye whispers. "Simmons, go!"
"I don't want to leave you," Simmons says. "You're sick and I don't want you to hurt yourself."
"Go away!" Skye screams.
The entire building is shaking, the floor cracking, the walls crumbling. Skye knows she can only hold in the big quake for a little longer.
"Please," she begs Simmons.
"I'm not leaving."
Skye lets out a wail and attempts to drag her battered body towards the door. She has to get out of there, has to protect Simmons, has to keep someone safe.
The wall closest to Skye shatters into pieces and she whimpers, crawling towards the double doors. As it turns out, the heaviest of locks are no match for her powers and the doors burst off their hinges as though they had somewhere else to be.
Out in the night air Skye falls forward, her body unable to support both movement and quaking. The ground rolls and ripples under her and it feels like punishment, it feels like a hug, it feels like she deserved it –
- so many feelings and she can't figure out which ones are real.
"Well, ain't you a sight for sore eyes?"
The smartass British accent, even when it's wobbling like a Weeble on a storm-tossed boat, has never sounded so beautiful.
Skye manages to get her head up and smiles at Hunter for what might be the first time in her life. She doesn't even care that he's got a gun pointed at her. Heck, she's glad of it. "Help," she grits out.
"Your wish is my command, doll-face," Hunter says, and he shoots her.
As soon as the shaking stops Simmons bursts out from what remains of a small shack-like building to one side, and she looks aghast at Hunter.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"'S that any way to talk to a man who came here to rescue you?"
"What did you do?" she demands, looking down at Skye.
"Saved your damn life!"
"You shot her!"
"With an ICER!"
"Hey!" a sharp voice barks from somewhere behind Hunter. "You two want us to get caught?"
May strides up and looks down at Skye. "Damn it, Skye," she says, but there's no malice in her voice.
Simmons throws her arms around May, completely ignoring the fact that the older woman is still holding a weapon and is completely unprepared for the embrace. "How did you know we were in trouble?"
"We didn't know you were in trouble," May says, gently attempting to get Simmons to release her. "Coulson asked us to follow you."
"Wait, you're in trouble?" Hunter asks.
Simmons nods, her movements still jerky with adrenaline and fear. "Skye's mom is here. And she's… they're going to do…"
"Skye's mother is dead," May says.
Simmons shakes her head. "No. She's the woman from Coulson's office."
May and Hunter exchange glances.
"That woman can't be Skye's mother."
"But she is!" Simmons says fiercely. "And she did something to Skye. I think… there was food in the room and I didn't eat any but Skye did and then…"
"Calm down, Hermione," Hunter says. "We're here now. Things will be all right."
"Is that so?" a voice from behind them asks.
May and Hunter turn with their weapons raised; Simmons instinctively moves in front of Skye.
It's the woman with the scars, Jiaying, and behind her, a throbbing mass of other people, other residents of this odd mountain village, other Inhumans. "Seems as though the only one in trouble here is Skye. Again. You people won't rest until you've put her down, will you?"
Those words arc like flash bombs through Simmons. They're the same ones Skye said to her the day this all started, when she was burning up on the floor of the cabin. "We don't want to put her down!" she says hotly. "We care about her!"
"We are just like her," Jiaying says as she moves towards the foursome. "We know everything there is to know about her DNA, her body's changes, the way she can and will adapt to her powers. You have…"
She waves her hand dismissively. "Nothing."
"We're her family," May says. "And that's enough."
"More than enough," Simmons agrees.
"I just work here," Hunter says.
"You're her family?" Jiaying snorts. "That's rich. Your family was responsible for treating Skye like a criminal. Kept her in a cage. Sent her away. And why? Because you were scared."
"You poisoned her!" Simmons retorts.
Again Jiaying laughs. "Poisoned her? Why would I do that?"
"You wanted her to lose control," May says. "Wanted her to kill Simmons."
"And she would have, if you hadn't shot her," Jiaying says bluntly.
Fear reaches up and grabs Simmons, pulling her to the ground as surely as a tugging fist. She collapses in a sitting position near Skye.
"She deserves to be here, with us, learning control and direction," Jiaying says. "SHIELD wants to study her, to dissect her, to figure out what makes her special so they can use it on their people."
"Lady, please," Hunter says, despite May's glares in his direction. "There is no way in hell anyone at SHIELD wants anything roaming around in them that Skye's got. Girl scared the shit out of everyone on the base. And almost got kidnapped by a Kree, but that's a different story."
Jiaying holds her hands up. "Clearly you're not here to take her back. So what are you doing here?"
"Oh, no, we're taking her back," May says. "She's not safe with you."
"Or with you," Jiaying says.
"I don't care if you're her mother," Simmons says softly. "You don't deserve her."
Jiaying steps forward, pushes her way between May and Hunter, and crouches down in front of Simmons. She reaches up and brushes Simmons' cheek with her fingers. "Such a pretty girl. Is my daughter in love with you?"
"She's nothing like you," Simmons says, meeting Jiaying's eyes with fierce anger. "She's kind, and gentle, and funny. She works hard. She cares about people and she wants what's best for them. All of them. And all she's ever wanted was a family. And where were you? Where was her father?"
Jiaying reaches in and yanks Simmons to her feet, shaking the younger woman. "Trying to get her back!"
"You should have stopped," Simmons gasps, feeling as though the life is being sucked out of her.
Jiaying releases Simmons, dropping her to the ground. "She's mine."
"She isn't anyone's," Simmons chokes out. "She chose to stay with SHIELD. Chose to be part of our family. And though we're small, and we're broken, we're something, and that's more than you ever were to her."
"You don't know anything about me."
"And you don't know anything about her," Simmons fires back.
"Fine," Jiaying says. "Take her with you. Take her back to SHIELD. Cut her up. 'Fix' her. She'll understand when you're through with all of that, understand that you were never her family."
"We're not you," May says.
"Convince her of that. Brainwash her so she believes it. Do whatever you want with her – she's clearly yours for now," Jiaying says. "But this means war. This is not the last you've seen of us."
She turns her back on the agents, and everyone gathered in still and staring silence follows her back up the hill.
"So… we're not invited to karaoke night?" Hunter asks.
On the jet Simmons holds Skye's hand, saying what she hopes are comforting things in a low voice. Skye's dreams are torturous; she jerks back and forth on the pallet Hunter made up for her, her heart rate pounding at that inhuman rate, her fever rising.
"D' you know what they gave her?" Hunter asks.
"No," Simmons says, her eyes not leaving Skye's face. "But I'm going to find out."
"How d' you figure that?"
Simmons finally turns to him and indicates one of the bags they'd loaded on. Hunter looks into it, seeing two completely ordinary-looking Tupperware boxes.
"That's what they fed her," Simmons says. "And what they wanted to feed me."
"And you can get it from there?"
"Give me twenty minutes," Simmons says grimly, turning back to Skye.
"We're headed back to the cabin," May says over the intercom. "Things got a little… heated at base, and I have to wait for Coulson's all-clear before we head back to base."
"Yeah, apparently 'real SHIELD' caused a whole lot of bollocks for everyone," Hunter mutters.
"And you're surprised that your hell-beast of an ex-wife was in on it?"
Hunter shakes his head. "No. More surprised that she didn't take more of us down with her."
At first it's not so bad. There's pain, and struggle, and medicine, and everything else Skye hates. But none of it hurts as much as finding her mother, realizing her mother is a monster, and waking up several hours later back in the cabin where the entire shit-storm started.
"Go away," she grunts at May, who's sitting on the bed next to her.
"Not a chance," May says without looking up from the book she's reading.
"I'm dangerous."
"Like hell," May snorts. "In case you haven't noticed, you're casted up to your elbows and you've got more painkillers running through your system than Dr. House."
Skye wonders how May knows that reference, but isn't inclined to get to the bottom of it. "I could have killed Simmons. I was supposed to kill Simmons."
"And yet you failed." May turns a page. "Tell me again how dangerous you are."
May's talking to her like she's normal, and Skye likes that. She doesn't like the nausea rising up her throat.
May doesn't even bat an eye as Skye shoves herself upright; her SO merely holds out a bucket with one hand, the other still holding up her book. Skye heaves and retches, the food that tasted so good going down definitely burning on the way back up.
She lays back down and finally May turns to her, placing a wet washcloth on her face.
"Thanks," Skye whispers.
"You're welcome. Now, get some sleep."
"Hmm?"
"We've got a war on two fronts to fight," May says shortly. "And Simmons is almost done with the medicine she's going to give you to get the rest of the poison your mother fed you out of your system, and you're definitely going to want to be rested for that."
Skye turns to look at May. "She's not my mother."
"She seemed awfully convinced of it."
"She's not," Skye repeats, and she holds May's gaze.
May purses her lips but says nothing.
"She came to get me when she needed me for something," Skye goes on. "You came to get me because…"
"Because we love you," May says quietly. "Now, I'm serious. Sleep."
Love you too, Skye thinks, but her eyes close before she can get the words out.