Skye curled up in the corner of her new cell as the six inch thick concrete door slammed shut and rattled the walls around it. Bolts and locks slid into place and Skye pulled her knees tighter against her chest. There was no way she was escaping, she was sitting in what was basically a cement box, one without electrical locks. When they had walked her in they took off the hood to reveal a massive vault-like contraption that locked the door along with several other places requiring keys.
Skye pressed her forehead to her knees and let the pent up sob claw its way out of her throat. Skye needed to stop trusting people, she realized. She always tried to connect with people her entire life only to have people hack away at the bond with an axe. Why did she trust Jemma? What made her any different from Miles, why didn't she have the sense to recognize that she needed to stop this reckless pattern?
Skye figured it was because love is a drug, one that Skye has a terrible addiction to, and a drug that's illegal for her. It's hard to get, hard to possess, and hard to take. Its side effects were especially deadly. Blindness. Confusion. When you're in love you can't think straight and things that would normally make sense don't even occur to you.
When Skye realized she was comparing love to a drug in a very Jemma-like fashion, she was even more frustrated. Without thinking, she stood up and punched the concrete wall beside her until her knuckles bled. Why did everyone betray her? Skye felt so abandoned.
She sat down on the pathetic mattress, the only object in the room, and cried into her hands. She never wanted to see Jemma again. She felt like it was Miles all over again. When was SHIELD going to start experimenting on her like they did? Skye hoped they would just kill her. Everyone else would be better off. Skye knew she was a burden, anyone who had her in their possession could end up dying to protect her when it would be so much easier to just destroy the weapon.
Again Skye's thoughts wandered back to Jemma. How could she do this to her? Skye was still wearing Jemma's clothes and although she wanted nothing more than to rip them to shreds, it was cold in her cell and she was almost positive an expertly hidden camera was watching her.
A camera?! Skye got to her feet and began feeling the walls with her fingertips, searching for a smooth surface that could indicate a camouflaged lens.
Skye searched for hours, but couldn't find any evidence of cameras anywhere. She was beginning to get paranoid, sure someone was watching her, but not sure where from. There was one positive to that though. Skye hoped the room would drive her mad so she wouldn't have to feel anymore.
"What the hell did you do?!" Ward shouted at Jemma, walking right up to her and roughly grabbing the collar of her jacket, yanking her upwards so she was standing on her toes.
"Ward! Stand down!" Coulson ordered immediately upon entering the scene. Fitz ran over to Jemma and tried to hug her as soon as Ward released her.
"I had to, they weren't going to stop until she... until she was..." Jemma sobbed. Ward was still seething. He knew he should have done something sooner to separate the two. Now, because of Jemma, Skye was locked up, never to see the light of day again.
"I don't know what you thought, but Skye would rather be dead than in confinement." Ward told her. It was clear that everyone in the room was pissed at Jemma. Except for May. She could see the strategic reason for temporarily placing Skye in protective custody.
"We can get Skye out if we convince them that Skye isn't a threat." May said. She could feel the anger in the room and wanted to cool it before something went south and people turned to violence, as it often happened in that line of work.
"Skye will always be a threat in SHIELD's eyes if Hydra is out there." Fitz piped up.
"Then we wipe out Hydra, then get Skye." Coulson said. The hopefulness on Jemma's face was enough to inspire them to get a head start. Though they were all angry with her, they knew Jemma loved Skye so much more and in a different way than any of the rest of the team ever could.
Jemma wasn't blind, she knew she wasn't forgiven when Coulson announced that they would be taking down Hydra. She also knew that it probably wouldn't happen just because Coulson said that they were going to do it. They'd been trying unsuccessfully this whole time. Things are easier said than done.
Coulson decided to give everyone a few hours to blow off some steam before they regrouped to discuss where they were going to start. Fitz offered to keep company with Jemma, but Jemma politely turned him down, saying that she needed to be alone.
When everyone else left to their own devices, Jemma lingered in the hallway by the closet door, where she had last seen Skye's horrified face. Coulson and Ward had thrown the soldier's unconscious body into the honeycomb cell until they could find a place to drop off their inhabitants, the ones that Skye so cleverly trapped. Jemma bent over with tears in her eyes and picked up Skye's laptop, which was hastily thrown on the floor earlier. A big dent remained on the underside, one that Jemma doubted left the hardware undamaged. Jemma almost smiled, remembering Skye's words in the closet before she left and the determined look on her face when she bashed the man over the head with her most valued possession, ruining it to protect her.
Jemma had royally screwed up. This is why she usually avoided relationships at all costs: they made her stupid.
Jemma hugged to broken laptop to her chest and glided back to her bunk, where she placed it delicately on the bed and sat next to it.
In Jemma's mind, Skye could have still been sitting with her. Her bunk still smelled like Skye, and Skye's clothes, embarrassingly enough, were still on the floor. Jemma couldn't leave the mess, no matter how much she wanted to leave the room unchanged to keep Skye's presence, so she picked them up and threw them in the drawer along with her own things.
A knock at Jemma's door startled her; Fitz would probably be the only one willing to talk to her right now and he knew she wanted to be alone.
"Oh!" Jemma exclaimed when she opened the door and Ashley pushed past her inside and sat on the bed. Jemma reacted badly and clenched her fists at her side, but Ashley didn't appear to mean any harm. But then again, you can never know with undercover agents.
"I brought her on as a consultant." Coulson informed Jemma from the doorway.
"You WHAT?!" Jemma shouted at him. Ashley seemed mildly amused and continued to play with the sheets on the bed with her fingers as Jemma and Coulson argued.
"She can help. And I think she may actually have some redeeming qualities." Coulson gave Ashley a small, hidden smile over Jemma's shoulder.
"She works for people that want to destroy SHIELD!" Jemma yelled at him.
"Just like Skye did." Coulson countered. This hit center with Jemma, but it only had the power to silence her for a matter of seconds.
"Coulson, you can't-"
"I can. And I did. Ashley knows more about Skye than any of us." Coulson told Jemma. He hadn't meant to hurt her with the comment, but Jemma felt a stabbing feeling in her heart. He was right; Ashley definitely knew more about Skye's technology and probably even knew more about her personality.
"You two should talk, she and Skye are more alike than you would think. And the two of you probably have some differences to sort out if you're going to be working together in the lab." Coulson ordered her before leaving Jemma and Ashley alone.
She was going to have to share the lab with this woman? Jemma was righteously furious. She couldn't even stand the sight of Ashley, how was she going to learn to get along with her? Jemma could only imagine how annoyed Fitz would be when he found out there would be another engineer in the lab with them.
"Relax. I don't want to be a part of your little lab club. I'm only here for Catherine." Ashley informed Jemma. Jemma refused to sit down next to Ashley, she paced the two steps she could in the bunk, trying to calm herself down.
"You don't get to be here for Skye. You betrayed her." Jemma spit.
"And you didn't? Coulson told me what you did. Catherine is going to equally hate both of us forever." Ashley told her. Jemma couldn't stand the thought of Skye hating her as much as she hated Ashley. She refused to believe it.
"And her name isn't Catherine." Jemma told Ashley in an annoyed tone.
"To me it is. Just like to you her name is Skye. That's just how she introduced herself. I've been calling her Catherine for six months and I'm not about to stop." Ashley made her argument.
"Did you guys ever..." Jemma began. She had to ask the question, she just had to know. But the end of her sentence drifted off, she felt awkward asking.
"Date?" Ashley guessed the end. Jemma nodded. Ashley burst out laughing. Not just an amused chuckle at a stupid joke, but a full on laugh attack. Ashley threw her head back and just couldn't stop the noise.
"Never. No way." Ashley laughed. She couldn't even imagine dating Catherine, they were strictly best friends. Jemma felt an immense amount of relief, but she knew still that Skye would probably never talk to her again, if they could manage to get her back. Jemma wasn't done though, she had other questions.
"Was she happy?" Jemma asked, finally sitting next to Ashley on the unmade bed. The feeling in the room changed from tense to slightly gloomy. Ashley took a deep breath and placed her hands in her lap.
"From what I could tell. We had a lot of fun together." Ashley answered truthfully. Jemma felt almost guilty that they took Skye away from her new home, but then she remembered again that the whole thing was a hydra setup. Most of it was probably made up.
Ashley could see the sad look on Jemma's face.
"I don't know if she's told you, but she loves you. I can tell. She used to talk about you." Ashley told her.
"Really? What did she say?" Jemma asked, genuinely curious to know what Skye thought of her before they first kissed.
"She loved you from the start. She never mentioned anything specific, because she was hiding her past. You know how she does that. But anyways, she always said her favorite person in the world was a really kind, funny, goody-two-shoes, adorkable woman she worked with." Ashley babbled.
"Adorkable? That's not a word." Jemma laughed.
"Precisely. That's exactly why it's something she would say!" Both girls shared a small laugh before realizing again that they were enemies.
"How did you know she was talking about me when she said that stuff?" Jemma asked.
"Probably her reaction to me punching you in the face." Ashley said blatantly. Jemma couldn't help but smile a little bit, despite the fact that what Ashley said was completely true; she had punched Jemma. For some reason Jemma admitted that Ashley did remind her of Skye. Very much. It only made Jemma more miserable though.
"You were Skye's engineer, weren't you?" Jemma asked, recalling her interrogation.
"Yes, I was." Ashley said. "Probably the only reason Coulson wants me here instead of locked up." Ashley shrugged.
"I think something may be wrong with her." Jemma said.
"What makes you think so?" Ashley asked, concerned.
"The other night while we were-" Jemma stopped mid-sentence and blushed. Ashley rolled her eyes and signaled for Jemma to continue.
"Well, out of nowhere, she completely froze for a few seconds, staring off into space. She would wake up a moment later and not be aware of what she'd done." Jemma told her. Ashley appeared to be thinking for a minute, then she furrowed her eyebrows, causing Jemma to worry.
"Has Catherine had any head trauma lately?" Ashley asked. Jemma clenched her jaw with worry.
"Quite a lot more than the average person, it seems." Jemma sighed. Ashley brought her hand up to her forehead and dug her thumb and middle finger into her temples.
"I think something may be wrong, but I can't know until I see for myself." Ashley told Jemma.
"Is she going to be ok?" Jemma asked.
"Not if she hits her head again."