Everybody gathered for breakfast the next day. The interns came out of their bunks scratching everywhere.
When they got back on the bus the previous day May and Tilly had provided a distraction in the form of sparring with each other, while Ward spiked the interns' bunks with itching powder.
To everyone's amusement Tilly actually beat May, who was impressed. She had sparred with both Ward and Romanov, and while she lost more times than she won, Tilly fought using both of their styles, so it was difficult to predict what was going to happen next.
"Ok. Who the hell spiked my bunk with itching powder?" Amber asked as she used her nails to scratch a particularly painful itch.
Unfortunatley Ward came out of his and Skye's bunk at that precise moment. To everyone's surprise, he was also scratching his body.
"It was you!" Amber nearly screamed at him, realising he'd caught himself with the itching powder. The face he pulled made him look like a deer in headlights.
As her and Kain went to shower off the itching powder they walked past Ward and punched him in the shoulder.
Skye wasn't sure what woke her first, the fact that Ward's body felt as if it were on fire or whether it was that fact that he was wheezing. As he let out a shiver Skye suddenly realised that things weren't right. She got up and turned the light on. As she looked back to check on him she nearly screamed.
There was a rash covering most of Ward's body. In some places, where it was obviously worse the rash had been opened and was seeping small amounts of blood. What scared her more was that his eyes were half open.
Skye dragged him out of the bed and hauled him onto her shoulder. She tried to help him towards the showers but he was too heavy and that out of it that she could barely move him a metre.
As she dropped him the door to Simmons bunk opened.
"Skye. What on earth are you and Ward doing?" She asked sleepily. Clearly Skye hadn't been very quiet when trying to move Ward. She caught sight of Ward on the floor and seeing the sore, red skin covering his body she bent down to touch him.
"Jees, he's burning up. How long has he been like this?" She asked Skye.
"He was warmer than usual when we went to bed, I woke up and he was on fire. I was trying to get him down to the shower to cool him down before coming for you." Skye said, tears in her eyes.
Simmons looked at her and grabbed Ward under one of his armpits. Skye mirrored her on the other side of him. Together they managed to half carry half drag him to the shower room.
They placed him on the floor of the shower in a sitting position and turned it on so that it was lukewarm.
"Why don't we turn it onto cold?" Skye asked, both her and Simmons keeping Ward's body upright in the shower
"Cold could send him into shock. Besides, with the temperature of his body as it is this will feel icy" She replied.
"What happened? Is it the itching powder?" Skye asked, tears starting to fall down her cheeks.
"It definitely looks like a dermal allergic reaction. But I don't know what to."
"What do we do?"
"Cool his temperature and get anti-histamine into his system. I'm going to go and prepare a bed for him. Skye, make sure he doesn't drown in the shower."
Coulson woke early and decided he would have a work out. It had been a while. He dressed and sneaked into the lounge. It was 4am so he didn't want to rouse anyone. As he approached Ward and Skye's bunk he noticed the light was on. He didn't see that Simmons bunk was open and empty as he walked past it. As he got closer to the light he notice the door was open and the bed sheets had been dragged to the door.
"They better not have been having sex" Coulson thought as he walked up to the door to catch them.
When he got there he noticed that they were both missing.
"They can't have got very far" he continued to think as he set off looking for them.
As he passed the showers he heard Skye's voice:
"Maybe we should go wake Tilly. She'll know what this is."
"We could. But I think we need to get him to the med room and stabilise him first."
Coulson, getting worried opened the door to the shower room, jaw dropping at a scene he didn't expect to see. Simmons and Skye in the shower, propping a barely conscious Ward up, panic on their faces.
Between the three of them they managed to carry Ward to the medical room, where they placed cooling blankets on him and started him on oxygen and a drip.
By the time they had stabilised Ward the occupants on the bus were staring to wake up for breakfast.
May immediately noticed Ward and Simmons bunks were empty. This got her worried. Simmons was usually the last to stir. She wanted to go look for her, but there was a beep from the tablet she used to control the plane. They were approaching the Hub.
"Guy's, were half an hour from landing" she told them, heading to the cockpit.