Bobbi Morse was hung over.

Not enough to impair her ability to do her job, certainly not enough to stop her from kicking someone's ass, but enough for her to be grateful for the tint on her sunglasses. Inside. The morning sun glared her from where she had nestled herself in the copilot seat, May to her right with the cup of tea she'd brought the older Agent along with her own bitter coffee.

"I fucked up." The words tumbled out when the silence had stretched long enough and she was awake enough to form the thoughts. May didn't ask, and Bobbi knew she wouldn't, but she didn't tell her to leave either, which was good as an invitation as any. "I kissed her." May didn't look away from the sky, "I mean, it was just on the forehead, and she was faking sleep pretty good, but there was lips to skin contact that definitely shouldn't have happened." It was actually, an admirable attempt at faking sleep, and in her slightly inebriated stats, she wouldn't have known if not for the sharp intake of breath when she'd kissed her.

The silence stretched, blanketing them as the morning began. Bobbi knew what time it was, knew that Skye would be up and getting ready for training. She also knew that it had been four weeks since Skye's first S.H.I.E.L.D medical and the start of her training, which meant she was due for another physical to make sure she was doing everything right. Muscle gaining and endurance and stamina had been the focus of the first month to make sure she wouldn't drop dead in the first week, but now they actually had to start with real training. Training like sparring and fighting techniques, and things that meant way too much physical contact than Bobbi was entirely ready for.

The blonde sighed, glaring at the dregs left in the bottom of her coffee cup. "Don't you have somewhere to be, Morse?" May's question was in a pointed tone, but held no real venom, Bobbi got the message anyway; 'stop hiding and do your Goddamn job'.

"Right." Hiding was too easy, especially when she was trying to hide with May, but she was the one that volunteered to train Skye, and be responsible for Skye, and she couldn't very well do that from the cockpit,

Skye was already in the gym when she got there, waiting With badly taped hands, and not meeting the blondes eyes when she entered. Bobbi knew she had no logical right to be angry, and that she'd been completely unfair yesterday and nearly jeopardised a mission because of her own stupid feelings. She was actually lucky that Coulson had brought her up on report for what happened. But, how was she supposed to keep a logical head when Skye - her Soulmate - openly admitted to sleeping with that piece of shit sell-out hacker, but wouldn't so much as react to the Bond that she knew must exist. Skye was fine with running around having sex with people like Miles Lydon, but wouldn't even admit that they were Soulmates! It pissed her off!

When Skye finally did look over it was with an accusation on her lips. "Took you long enough, Barbie." The words didn't hurt, but the look in her brown was a mix of defiance and confusion that left Bobbi guilty and angry all over again.

"No training this morning." Bobbi said instead of snapping again. "You have a medical With Simmons at eight, and you can't compromise the results by already being worn out." She turn on her heel, there was still an hour and a half before the medical, and she didn't even need to be present for it, so her job was done for the morning.

"That's it?" Of course it wouldn't be that easy to leave. " I don't know what I did to piss you off, but you could at least have the curtesy to tell me instead of being pissed, getting drunk, and kissing me." And just like that, it was out in the air. Skye was admitting to being awake and witnessing her kiss, instead of keeping to her story of being asleep. "You want me to admit something, but I don't know what the Hell that is, so whatever I did, fine, this is me admitting to it." No it wasn't, and Bobbi could feel the frustration rising in her again, threatening to come out in a burst of angry words. "So get the stick out of your ass and decide if you want to play good cop or bad cop because the constant back and forth is getting real old, real quick."

When is too early for day drinking?


Turns out her avoidance of Skye was cut short because whilst Simmons was giving the hacker her physical - because Bobbi wasn't allowed to for obvious reasons - Coulson came out with a story about his doctor calling and feeling rusty, which Bobbi knew to be a lie because for all intents and purposes, he was in better shape than anyone on this plane. Including her!

For someone who had been dead for however long the real story was, and in recovery in Tahiti for nearly two years, Coulson appeared to have come back stronger than before with a healthy heart, an impressive deadlift, and stamina that she was sure would rival an Olympian. And he was holding a conversation with Skye as they ran in tandem on the treadmills. That Skye was able to hold a conversation as well made Simmons nod and smile and mark it down on her tablet.

Morse checked her stopwatch when Coulson started panting more, and marked the time down on her own tablet, "okay, Sir, you can stop now." Coulson slowed to a walk before getting off, patting at the sweat with a nearby towel as he caught his breath. "Very impressive, whatever your Doctor thinks, you're in the best shape of your life." Simmons told Skye she could stop as well as Bobbi consolidated all of Coulsons results. "... well, afterlife." The man cracked a grin at that as she went over to take the electrodes off his chest.

"Good." He nodded, taking a gulp water before continuing. "And Morse," he waited for her to acknowledge before adding; "you don't need to put this one on my file." He waited until she nodded before pulling his shirt over his head.

Bobbi paused; not on file meant no-one had to know, he didn't want anyone to know. Including his Doctor, because his Doctor would get the report if she filed it, but he was telling her not to. "Yes, Sir." Because Hill said to keep her eyes and open, her mouth shut, and to do what she was told. And right now she was told not to file the results.

Coulson was out of the room before either of them could say anything else, before Skye had finished slowing down the treadmill, even. Simmons was a hummer, Morse mused, as the Englishwoman completed her input. "So, what's the damage, Doc?" Skye was still panting, still glistening with sweat, as she came over to peer over Simmons' shoulder.

"No damage at all." Simmons announced brightly, "you, Skye, are impeccably healthy." Skye leaned against a desk and took three gulps of water in quick succession, drawing Bobbi's eyes to the heaving of her chest, and the sheen of sweat on her skin. "You've gained a pound of muscle, you just ran five miles, and with just a few more weeks of nutritional supplements, you should have put your malnutrition in the past." Skye grinned and Simmons smiled back at the girl. "Agent Morse-" the blonde snapped her eyes to the biochemist. "-you are officially clear to begin self defence and offence training."

"Woohoo." Skye was the one to respond in a monotone. "Can I go now, or do you need to poke and prod me some more?"

Simmons was already wondering off in a distracted state, finalising the report before sending it off and heading towards where Fitz was tinkering in the lab, leaving Skye and Bobbi alone. "Still got that stick?" Skye crossed her arms, eyeing her.

The loudspeaker crackled to life before she could respond. "All personnel to the briefing room." Coulson announced, Bobbi let out a breath, long and slow.
"Saved by the bell." Skye muttered, following after the blonde.

Bobbi stops just outside the briefing room, and holds Skye with her, her fingers tingling at the contact. "I'm-" she had never been good with her feelings, Izzy always said she was 'an emotionally stunted, over-compensating-by-overachieving, wreck'. Lance had been the feelings one in their relationship, he had also been the first one to run after a fight, but that was beside the point. "I'm pissed about a lot of things right now, but..." Skye denying the Bond, Lydon, know there was something she didn't know going on in the Bus, and Skye denying the Bond. Amongst other things. "It won't affect your training, okay?" Skye searched her for a moment and Bobbi wasn't sure what for, but she must have found it.

"Don't want to be late." The brunette muttered, brushing past her.


Bobbi could feel the static in the air as they approached the crime scene. Her hair could feel the static too, trying to rise from her head, but only really succeeding in making a few stray hairs in her ponytail lift. Then she saw the body-

"Holy shit!" Skye stumbled into her back and swore when the blonde found herself stopped right in front of her shadow, staring at the body.

The body that was floating in mid air.

Holy shit was right!

She could feel Skye moving from behind her, "no way! That is so cool!" Coulson pointedly cleared his throat at that. A man was dead. "I mean, not cool that he's dead, but are you seriously telling me this isn't freaky?"

"Why do you think S.H.I.E.L.D is here?" Coulson shook his head, turning to debrief a local L.E.O.

Bobbi had to admit that this wasn't something she would have seen if she had gone into any other profession. Still, when Skye reached out to touch the body, her hand already half raised as Simmons did the same on the opposite side, she knew it was a good idea. "Don't touch it!" She was close enough to slap Skye's hand away, but not Simmons'.

It happened quickly; the body dropped to the ground, Simmons jumped back with a gasp and a shake of her static-shocked hand, and Skye turned away from the scene and straight into the blondes chest. The static in the air was abruptly gone, and Simmons went about business as usual as she examined the now dormant body. Skye quickly stepped away from Bobbi again, muttering a quiet 'sorry' before heading over to where Fitz was using the D.W.A.R.F.S to scan the car battery that was definitely not in the car.

Simmons was examining the body, Fitz was frowning and poking at the D.W.A.R.F.S control pad, and Skye had come back to her to 'shadow' her S.O. "Clearly a targeted attack since no-one else was hurt, didn't care about leaving a troop of Boy Scouts as witnesses, and for all intents and purposes the victim was a model citizen-volunteer firefighter, troop master, family man..." Coulson told them when he was finished talking with the officer.

"Model citizen with at least one enemy." Bobbi muttered, furrowing her brows. "Weren't the other victims firefighters too?"

"So we have a connection." Coulson nodded, turning his attention to Skye. "When we get back to the Bus, look into that, see what they worked on together, and who is after them with the ability to do this."

"Pretty sure the list of people that can do this, is a short one." Skye gestured to the scene with a scoff.

Coulson shot her one of his bland smiles. "You'd be surprised."

Bobbi ended up circling the scene for the next two hours, making notes to Skye as she followed half a step behind. Notes like the lack of blood at the scene, the disturbances in the trees high above them, the lack of wildlife in the are meaning that they'd been scared off. "Keep your eyes open, the big, obvious things, anyone can see, but you need to look at the details, see what even the L.E.O's and Feds would miss." Just because Bobbi was both ready to kiss Skye, and kill her, didn't mean she was going to waste a teachable moment. "What do you see?"

Brown eyes flickered about, darting around the scene like a caffeinated squirrel. "Your eyes narrow every time one of the officers over there moves." Not exactly what Bobbi had been expecting. "And you keep checking to make sure Fitz and Simmons are okay, Simmons more than Fitz, though, and I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's because she got zapped by the flying dead guy. Then, you'll look over to Coulson and you get this little crinkle between your eyes-" a finger reached up and on instinct the blondes eyes closed when it reach her forehead. "-right here." Her touch is warm, and gone far too quickly. "You don't look to where May is 'cause you know she can take care of herself. You always make sure that wherever the non-Shield people are, you're between them and me, even though you're pissed at me for no reason. And you tried to stop both Simmons and I from touching the body when it was in the air, but you chose to stop me instead of Simmons when you could have reached either one-or even both-of us."

That was a lot of observations.

A lot of observations about her.

"Am I wrong?" The smug tone and quirk of her eyebrows meant Skye knew that she wasn't wrong on any of what she said, but just wanted to confirmation.


It's small things at first, easily unnoticeable. Things like a static shock, or a spark when handling the scanner to check the body. Bobbi keeps ignoring it, though, because a static shock or a spark from a device isn't important when there's a growing number of deaths with floating bodies.

Except it's not exactly a static shock, and it's not a malfunctioning scanner, and the reach of Loki of Asgard's villainous rampage across the globe two years ago is still hurting people - killing people - today. People like well-meaning volunteer firefighters. The Chitauri are still attacking, their weapons now, though, are unintentional on their part, but deadly none-the-less.

It takes them too long to figure out that it's not an alien weapon, or someone intentionally targeting the dead men. It's much worse. It's something they have no defence or precaution against.

An alien virus.

Blue eyes watch in horror as a pen passes between Jemma and Skye with a bright spark that makes them both flinch back from each other.


Simmons and Skye are quarantined separate from each other.

Simmons is at least a day more infected than Skye, and she's locked in the lab with white mice set for death. Fitz paces outside the glass doors, nearly as On edge as his English partner.

According to everything they learned, Skye should begin showing symptoms any time from an hour ago. All Bobbi is allowed to do is watch through a security camera as the girl sits in the holding cell, arms around her knees and looking so much younger than she is.

For the first time since meeting her, Bobbi can see a scared child being rejected time and again, being sent back to whatever orphanage the state deemed appropriate this time, hoping for love and being kicked down and spurned instead.

May slips into the seat next to the blonde, placing a cup of coffee in front of her to go along with her own tea. "I should be in there with her." The words tumble from her lips more broken than vehement.

"Which her?" May quirks an eyebrow, eyes flitting to the camera overlooking the lab. Bobbi can't answer that because she doesn't know the answer. She'd be useless to Skye, nothing more than someone else to possible become infected. She could help Simmons in creating an anti-serum, but at the same time she would just be in the way and at risk of infection. Simmons would work better alone instead of having her hover at her shoulder while she worked.

Bobbi sipped at her coffee, but couldn't bring herself to revel in the bitterness. Not when Skye and Jemma were in danger. "I could at least help. I have the exact same degree in biology that Simmons has. I may not be as smart, or have spent the last ten years in a lab like she has, but at least I'd be doing something." The blonde ranted, doing anything would be better than sitting and waiting.

"Another person in the lab, is another person at risk." May pointed out, "and Simmons has pretty good motivation to work quickly."

"And I don't?" Bobbi scoffed, no motivation at all. Just her Soulmates life. Before either of them can say anything, an alarm goes off and they're both on their feet, watching through the cameras as Fitz takes the Chitauri helmet and breaks into Simmons' quarantine. They're both too far away to stop him, and too late to extract him.

Coulson tries though.


Skye is in the holding cell, alone and uninformed, waiting to find out if Simmons made an anti-serum or if she's going to die.

Of all the ways she thought she'd die, a space cold hadn't been on the list.

The last mouse is floating it's cage, Fitz is unconscious on the floor, and Simmons is being pulled out of the open cargo hold.

Bobbi jumps.

Bobbi jumps because the anti-serum worked and the last mouse is alive. Bobbi jumps because Jemma isn't going to die. Bobbi jumps because Skye is alone in the holding cell waiting to find out if she's going to die.

Bobbi jumps.

Finding Simmons through the wind stinging her eyes and the speed they were travelling, and the freezing air seeping into her bones isn't easy. But, as with Simmons and the anti-serum, she has good motivation, and despite the fumbling and near miss of letting the English woman go, she manages to hold on and pull the chute before it's too late.

Treading water in the middle of the ocean with a distrust scientist, Bobbi manages to jab the injector into Jemma's neck and push down. "The anti-serum worked."

"Oh." Simmons gasps, letting out a breathless laugh. "Well, I suppose my reaction was rather premature then."


It's a long wait in the icy sea as May redirects the Bus to come pick them up.

When they're back on the Bus, Bobbi catches Simmons looking wistfully out the window as she's swaddles in blankets and yelled at by first Coulson and then Fitz.

Bobbi doesn't even get changed, or so much as grab a blanket before heading to see Skye. Skye, who Fitz had already given the anti-serum, Skye who is sitting in her bunk hugging her knees with shiny eyes, Skye who she knows she was little more than a day away from losing forever.

Skye, who despite Simmons presenting symptoms - though they initially ignored them - after one two hours, had never shown any symptoms

Bobbi ignores that piece of information in favour of grabbing the strongest alcohol she can find and heading to the bunk next to her own. "Hey." Brown eyes peak up at her, standing in the doorframe.

"Hey." Skye mimics, "after several weeks and multiple opportunities of experience, I realised something." It piques Bobbi's interest to say the least.

"What?" She twists the cap off the bottle and passes it to the brunette.

"Almost dying isn't fun." The revelation is followed by a mouthful of alcohol and the blonde is more than a little disappointed that it wasn't the admission she was hoping for, but she covers it with a laugh and swallows it with alcohol.

"No." Bobbi agrees, "it's not."


I'm an asshole, and an awful person, and I'm about a year late in updating this, so if anyone is still reading this... sorry for the wait!

hopefully it won't take so long with the next chapter!