"Where did you say her signal was when it went out?" Ward asked as the team made their way through the hotel, which was suspiciously empty after taking down the few rounds of guards on the way. They were beginning to wonder if it was a hotel at all.
"On the left." Fitz pointed when they reached a split in the hallway. The same split Jemma and Skye had been at not too long before.
"Here?" Ward asked. Fitz nodded without taking his eyes off the tablet in his hands.
"This is a window Fitz." Coulson said. They were all afraid to look outside for fear that they would see Jemma below, dead. They could all imagine Jemma possibly being pushed out of it.
"Simmons." Fitz croaked when he finally looked out the window. There was a woman's body, wearing a lab coat, floating face down in the pool below. The team stood there staring for a few horrifying seconds before rushing back to the first floor.
"Jemma!" Fitz screamed as he ran out into the pool area with the rest of the team on his heels.
"I'm over here, quit yelling." Jemma called softly. Utter surprise and relief flooded over Fitz when he saw Simmons sitting on the ground to his left, with Skye in her lap.
For Ward, the relief of seeing Simmons alive quickly dissipated when he saw what she was doing. Tears were sparkling on Jemma's cheeks as she returned her attention to Skye. Skye was resting one side of her face on Jemma's thigh and her fists quivered as one clutched the material of Jemma's jeans above her knee and the other crushed Jemma's free hand.
Jemma was gently smoothing Skye's hair on her head, keeping it away from her exposed ear.
Skye's neck and chest were coated in blood that wouldn't stop flooding from her ears and a look of pain and agony was twisted on her face.
"What's wrong with her?" Coulson asked as he knelt next to her and ran a finger along Skye's cheek affectionately.
Ward received an unexpected glare from Jemma as she explained.
"Skye transferred every single SHIELD file and program into her own head because she didn't want everything we thought about her to be true." Ward knew it was directed mostly at him with May and Coulson tying in second place. He had been the hardest on her about it.
"Dear god." Fitz breathed. "We need to get Skye back to a main computer on the bus to dump all that info before her brain dies." Fitz told them. Simmons choked a little at the last statement.
May gently forced Skye to release Simmons so Ward could lift her, but before long Skye was softly whimpering. An unidentified negative feeling passed over Ward when his words of comfort didn't quiet her, but she hushed up and relaxed a little when Jemma took her hand again.
It took Fitz longer without Simmons' help, but he managed to get his hands on a wire that would fit Skye's needs. A makeshift hospital bed was in the computer room that held the main frame on the bus. Jemma refused to leave Skye's side. Neither did Ward, but he couldn't really play a part when it came to medical affairs, so he sat to the side and watched.
Jemma continued to clean the blood off of Skye until Fitz entered with the wire.
Ward stood and took a step closer when Skye cried out in pain. She was progressively getting worse. It was the simple act of lifting Skye's head to plug in the wire that made her cry out, and Jemma hated that she was hurting her.
As soon as Skye was plugged in securely, her eyes began to glow again.
"What's-"
"It's supposed to do that. That means it's working." Jemma interrupted him.
She didn't really like Ward right now, her jealousy was running wild. She was afraid that what happened between her and Skye didn't mean enough to her to stop her from running into Ward's open arms when she got up.
Jemma hadn't told the others about her second fear either, the fear that Jemma's guess may be correct. Jemma was worried what damage may be done to Skye's brain. She wished she was ignorant, that she wasn't a biochemist, so that she could believe, like Ward, that plugging Skye into the computer was a magic solution. Jemma had many theories about what might happen to Skye, all of which she hoped weren't true.
Skye might have to live the rest of her life plugged into a computer, her brain may not be able to function without it. Skye might have extensive brain damage not only from being a human flash drive, but from her near drowning. Jemma knew Skye's brain would be damaged, a brain doesn't hemorrhage as much as hers did without damage being done. All Jemma could hope was that the damage wasn't too bad.
Ward, Fitz, and Simmons all jumped in surprise when Skye let out an ear piercing shriek.
"It's downloading! Everything!" Fitz exclaimed as he furiously typed on his keyboard to see if he could help Skye along any.
Skye kept letting out awful screams. Her hands flew to her head and she curled up into fetal position on the hospital bed, wailing louder than humanly possible.
"Do something, Simmons!" Ward yelled at her as Jemma stood there, dumbfounded.
"There's nothing I can do for her medically at this point." Jemma winced as Skye let out another screech.
"Make her stop! Make her stop transferring the files!" Ward begged Jemma as he reached for Skye's hand, which she took gratefully and starting squeezing to death. Ward even cringed a little at the force.
"If I do that she'll die, she can't keep all that information in there!" Jemma yelled as she grabbed Skye's other hand. She was scouring her mind looking for a solution, but there was none.
"Sedate her?" Ward suggested. Tears were in his eyes as Skye writhed on the bed before them.
"If I do that she can't make the transfer." Jemma said quietly, defeated. She pressed a light kiss to the crown of Skye's head as the screaming continued. It felt like hours went by, the wails deafening everyone in the room.
Jemma felt useless, all she could do was comfort Skye while she was in so much pain. Seeing Skye screaming and sobbing while trying her best to finish the task was heartbreaking. None of this would have happened if they had just gone for her when she first went missing. It was all their faults, and Jemma knew Skye really had been betrayed by all her friends. Jemma didn't feel worthy of her any more, she felt that if she really did love Skye she wouldn't have listened to Coulson and Ward when they told her to turn off the tracker.
Jemma remembered when she first met Skye, she walked onto the bus from her van carrying a box and a few bags. From the very start Jemma had been intrigued. She remembered thinking that Skye didn't look like she lived in a van. She saw Skye's beautiful, brown, wavy hair framing her even more alluring face. Jemma realized she was whipped from the beginning.
Finally, it stopped. Skye's screams came to an end and her body was still, except for her heavy breathing. Her nose was bleeding very badly, but other than that she didn't seem any worse for wear.
"She did it! Skye did it! It's all here, SHIELD is back!" Fitz jumped up and down happily, but Jemma and Ward remained silent. Skye was unconscious.
Comatose was the first word that entered Jemma's mind.