Skye knew what she was doing. She knew so well, in fact, that she was confident her plan would work. She clutched her laptop against her side and took a deep breath before taking off running, whooping and hollering the whole way to attract attention. Her actions caused the expected, Skye could hear large footfalls slowly gaining on her. Skye opened her laptop after taking a right turn and began to furiously type on it with one hand while holding it with her left arm.
Skye always saw hacking as a series of doors, doors that needed to be unlocked or locked, or even doors that needed to be made. But this time, she was opening and closing them. Literally. Most of the locks on doors in the bus were connected to the mainframe, so she could easily control them. Skye was leading their attackers to a place on the bus that she could lock them into.
She found what she was looking for, a large storage room with two exits, exactly the type of location she was looking for. She darted inside, closing all doors that allowed access to the other door, the one she planned on escaping through, so that they couldn't trap her inside.
So far she had executed her plan perfectly. And Ward thought hacking wasn't just as useful as fighting. When Skye heard the soldiers coming, she jogged to the other side of the storage room and stood just outside the door, waiting.
As soon as the last soldier entered the storage room and began searching for her between shelves, Skye pressed a button on her laptop, causing the door to swing shut behind them.
It was then that they spotted her. One soldier called out to the others and soon Skye had at least a dozen guns aimed at her. But Skye just smiled. She had won.
The mischievous smile on Skye's face quickly bubbled into a little laugh, one that had the soldiers extremely confused. They figured Skye was barking mad.
Skye gave them a little wave and an air kiss before pressing another key on her laptop. The door swung shut and gunfire immediately rained on it, but the metal door wasn't going to budge. Skye heard a satisfying bang that meant the bolt had slid into place and the soldiers were trapped inside. Skye smiled to herself.
She ran back to the closet she left Jemma in, but stopped short when she saw a soldier right in front of it. Probably someone the others left behind to continue searching. Skye didn't have time to lure him away, he obviously heard Jemma inside because he held out a gun when he reached for the door knob.
There was no way Skye was going to let anything happen to Jemma, so Skye charged to stop him in time. The man opened the closet door and Jemma's scream sent a chill down Skye's spine. The soldier held up his gun to shoot her, but Skye got there first. She held her laptop high above her head, and swung it down against the back of his head so hard that she heard a crack. Whether it was his head or her laptop, she didn't know, but it got the job done. The man collapsed and Skye quickly yanked his body off of Jemma's and enveloped her in a crushing hug, pulling her out of the closet.
"I've got you, it's ok. I'll protect you." Skye promised Jemma. It was Skye's turn to comfort someone else, and she took it, grateful that there was still a Jemma to comfort.
"Skye, I'm sorry." Jemma whispered.
"Don't talk like that. What do you have to be sorry about?" Skye said to Jemma as she pulled out of the hug and held onto Jemma by the shoulders, searching her eyes for some clue.
"This is SHIELD, you have relinquished command." A voice came over the speaker as the girls felt the plane start to land.
"What's going on?" Skye wondered out loud. Skye could tell by the lack of the usual curiosity in Jemma's eyes that she knew exactly what was going on, or at least more than Skye knew.
"You have to understand why. I have to protect you." Jemma told Skye, grasping her hands.
"Jemma, what did you do?" Skye asked her. But Skye had a feeling she knew what Jemma did, and she stepped away, horrified. Jemma tried to follow her and take her hand again, but Skye took another step back.
"You have to understand. The only way you'll get the protection you need is if SHIELD wants you protected." Jemma told Skye. Skye put her hands over her face to try and block Jemma out for a minute, so she could try to understand what was going on. But it was also to wipe away a few tears.
Numerous agents clambered into the room and quickly placed handcuffs on Skye's wrists. Skye couldn't stop staring at Jemma, and Jemma felt like Skye's pain-filled eyes were burning a hole through her head.
"What are you doing? She's not a criminal!" Jemma questioned the restraints, but Agent Hand, the woman in charge of the transfer, was not about to walk with a weapon of Hydra without some security.
Jemma flinched when she saw the hate on Skye's face.
"Protection?! Jemma, they're locking me up!" Skye screamed at her. Skye's face was red and her eyes were slightly puffy from the tears.
"Skye, I had to." Jemma said. "Because I love you." This seemed to set Skye off, and she tried to take a step towards Jemma, only to be stopped by several sets of hands that grabbed her forearms to tightly.
"On the list of lies I've been told in my life, that one's pretty high up there. Right next to 'I promise, Mary, you'll get adopted someday'!" Skye shouted.
Jemma couldn't even describe how terrible she felt. She still knew it was the only way to protect Skye, but having Skye tell Jemma something like that in response, Jemma regretted her decision to call SHIELD and inform them of Skye's status.
The name Mary suddenly made sense to Jemma. It was her old name, from when she was in the system. And Skye had just compared what Jemma said to the worst part of Skye's life. Jemma knew then how much she just hurt Skye. She realized that while she was protecting Skye physically, she was pretty terrible at protecting her emotionally.
"Tell Ward I'll be a little late for our next training session." Skye spit at Jemma sarcastically as the SHIELD agents got impatient and began to drag her off towards the cargo hold. It hurt Jemma even more that Ward was the subject of the last sentence Skye would speak to her.
"Skye." Jemma choked on her tears, but Skye was already out of earshot.
May knew the SHIELD agents were on the bus, they had been the ones to free them of their bonds. She had wanted to go find Simmons and Skye, but Agent Hand told them not to.
That's why she was so confused when she saw Agent hand bring a restrained, hooded figure into the cargo hold.
"Skye, is that you?" May ran over and put a hand on her arm. What was obviously Skye under the hood jerked away from May's touch angrily and the agents holding her guided her into the back of the van they had arrived on.
"What are you doing?" Coulson questioned them.
"You should be more like your team member, Simmons. This should have been reported to me weeks ago." She said angrily. Agent Hand climbed into the van before it backed out of the cargo hold and drove away, containing their teammate-turned-prisoner.