Thanks for the reviews!:-) Here's Chapter 2! Enjoy and Please Review!
She comes to her senses around twenty minutes later, her body jerking to life with a sharp almost convulsive start.
And then she elbows him right in the stomach.
"Ow," he growls.
It takes her a moment (a longer than normal one thanks to the pain radiating through her skull) to realize who's holding her from behind. "Ward?" she mumbles, her chest becomes painful as she takes rapid breaths. "What happen? Where are we?"
"Easy," he says. "Just…take it easy. Slow, deep breaths. In...and out..."
"It hurts. My side, my...head..."
"I know it does."
He covers her hand with his, which is gripping her right side. "You probably have a few broken ribs," he tells her, "and you took a nasty blow to the head."
"How...How did we get here?"
Ward starts to explain.
The job seemed simple, check out a man named Shawn Wilson, who may or may not have acquired some type of alien technology. Such an assignment is typically a two-man job, and May would have gone with him, but he wanted Skye to come because she needed the experience (or so he tells himself).
They'd reached the warehouse, and check of the perimeter. They were about to call it in when Ward's spidey senses (as Skye calls it) started warning him about something not feeling quite right. It led them to a small room in the back. Turned out, his senses had been right.
Shawn Wilson had been inside. Unfortunately for them, he'd heard them coming.
Even more unfortunately for them, they hadn't seen him standing in the shadows.
Hence the blood still running down Skye's face, her broken ribs, and the fact that they're now handcuffed together.
"And that's what happened," he concludes.
"But...why are we like…this?"
"He made us go left-left. You were out cold. It was either like this or facing you."
"And that would have been bad because…"
He sighs again, and when he answers, his voice low. "I wanted to make sure...that...you were okay."
He's so earnest when he says this, that it almost completely takes her breath away. She's always thought of him as a robot, a man without emotion. But he's trying to be considerate, trying to look after her. Truth is, she hasn't had a lot of men in her life who have really tried to do that.
"Oh," she smiles. For a moment, she slumps against him, and he feels a spark of panic, wondering if she's lost consciousness again.
"Skye?" he asks.
"What?"
"You okay?"
"No! My head hurts, I can't breath without being in pain, and...and..." she cries, letting her tears fall freely.
"Hey, it's going to be okay," he reassures her. "The others will find us. And I promise...I'm going to keep you safe."
"This...sucks," Skye mutters.
"Yes, it does," he agrees. "But by now, Coulson and the other have realized something is wrong. They're probably on their way here now."
"And if they're not?"
"You've got to learn to trust the people you work with, Skye."
"I trust you," she blurts out, "I mean...I trust the team. Coulson, May, FitzSimmons, and you..."
She and Ward both clear their throats and blush. "So...What do we do now Robot?"
Ward chuckles at her attempts to be funny. Even though they're in a bad situation, she still tries to be her bubbly and goofy self. "Why don't we turn our energy towards getting the hell out of here."
"Have you noticed the situation we're in?"
"So we try something new and work together."
She wonders if his words sound as laughably ridiculous to him as they do to her. She's guessing from the intense look on his face that they don't.
"Okay. Great. You think you can stand up and walk?" he asks.
"You serious?"
"Yep. Now stand up. We'll do it together and we'll walk out of this place."
"And then what? How far do you think we're going to get like this?"
"As far as we need to. Now get up."
She considers arguing with him, but he's the Agent, and has been in these situations before, so she keeps quiet. She just hopes he's right.
It doesn't take very long to figure out that this time, unfortunately, he's not.
Getting to their feet together is difficult, but not impossible. It just takes them about four tries. It's the first step forward however, that does her in. She moves forward and suddenly, she's swaying, and just about fall.
"Ward," she whispers as she reaches back for him, her hand clutching at the loose fabric of his shirt as she tries to keep herself from collapsing.
"I got you. Hang on." Arms circling her, he pulls her back to the ground, and then back against his chest. "There we go. Just…breathe, okay? Breathe," he tells her, listening to her gasps for air with more than a little bit of concern.
She does just that, sucking in several deep breaths, both to calm and steady herself. The stale warehouse air does little to relieve the nausea sweeping through her, but she welcomes the intake of oxygen just the same.
They fall into silence for several minutes after that, neither doing much more than breathing. To his ears, hers is a bit labored. Enough so that after about ten minutes of this, he reaches around her with his right hand and touches the pulse point on her left wrist. "You doing okay, Skye?" he asks, worry peppering his voice.
"Don't...feel...to...good," she admits. Her eyes closed and voice slurred.
"I bet. He hit you pretty good."
Ward tears the bottom of his shirt and tries to wipe the blood off her head and cheek.
Her eyes open at this, and despite the pain and discomfort from the action, she tilts her head back, looking up at him, "You're worried."
"Head injuries are nasty business."
"I'm fine, Ward."
"Just keep telling me that."
"Grant, I'm fine."
He considers arguing with her, but quickly decides not to. It doesn't really matter who's correct right now. They're in the situation they're in, cuffed together until backup arrives. Until then, there's not a whole hell of a lot that they can do about it. "Okay," he tells her. "But you'll have to forgive me if I check on you every now and again."
"As long as you be gentle," she jokes.
"I'll do my best," he assures her.
She nods at that, then rolls her head and buries it into his neck. He tries really hard to controls himself when he feels her breath.
"Skye," Ward says.
"Yeah..."
"Just checking."
"Seriously?"
"Yep."
"Fantastic."
He chuckles at that.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What so funny Agent Ward?"
"It's just…as long as you're talking like that, I know you're okay."
"Whatever," she rolls her eyes. "Just, stop talking."
"Only for a few minutes."
Her only response to that is decidedly unladylike grunt of annoyance.