CHAPTER 6

Skye was devastated. She'd seen it happen but she couldn't do anything to change it. The Wraith had sent out darts to destroy the jumpers that were being used as a distraction. One had been hit and smashed into the ground. People were calling over the radio to see if anyone had survived but there was no answer. They tried to tell her it would be okay and that their radio connection might have been broken but she didn't believe them. Anyone inside of the jumper was dead. She later found out that Ward hadn't come back, because he was inside the jumper when it went down. It was official, Skye was past devastation.

She was sat with some teenager trying to get her to expand her mind and unlock her abilities but Skye didn't care at this point, she just wanted to keep Grant's memory alive.

"SKYE!" The girl shouted. Skye was immediately shocked out of her daze and was staring at the ceiling. "I know it can be boring but you need to stay awake and focused."

Skye sat up and looked at the girl's face. "Why don't you just tell me your name? I don't have crazy mind powers like you. Telepathic abilities don't even exist!" Skye was getting frustrated. She'd just lost the man she loved again, first to May and now to some weird ass looking aliens. Skye didn't have the energy to be developing her mind, she didn't even want her mind any more.

"You don't think telepaths exist?" The girl asked. She was getting very annoying very quickly.

'I don't think you'll believe that for very long.' The girl whispered? She wasn't moving her mouth but Skye knew what she'd heard. 'I'm not talking in the conventional manner of the word. No my mouth isn't moving but I'm forming words in the sensory cortex of your mind so that you can hear my voice not just think the words I'm saying. It makes it easier for people to know that I'm talking to them and not themselves.'

'That's enough!' Skye retaliated, thinking she'd screamed it out loud. Little did she know that she hadn't spoken out loud but her thoughts had followed the girl's. She was no longer sat but on her back nursing her head.

"I'm so sorry." Skye hurried over to the girl's side and was immediately helping her up. "I meant to say that. You know out loud."

"Thor wasn't kidding when he said that your powers would be harder to control than mine." Isabel muttered.

"Isabel!" Skye exclaimed. "Your name is Isabel!"

"Yeah. Did you find that in my mind or did you remember me telling you that when I got you out?" Isabel joked. Seeing Skye's face fall she quickly explained. "Don't worry, I never told you my name otherwise this exercise would have been pointless."

"So what now? Can I pick the brains of one of the freaks that took me and those other people?" Skye squealed excitedly.

Isabel shuddered at her memories. It was not fun hearing their thoughts, especially not when she was trying to get Skye out. She'd had to follow their thoughts through endless chasms and minds before she finally found where they were. But some of them were having dinner. It was awful, hearing the screams and remembering her own pain and then feeling the enjoyment the wraith had when they fed.

"No. It isn't pleasant." Isabel pushed through her lips. "They aren't like us. Their minds are connected, the second you step into one hosts of thoughts and realities mix and change before your eyes. It's not fun to experience; it's worse than unpleasant."

"You did that to get us out didn't you?" Skye asked.

"Yeah but I'd already gone through it before. The second time was easy compared to then." Isabel smiled. "Maybe because I wasn't the one they were feeding on."

"Is that why you look so young? Did you force it to give you your life back?" Skye was too hopeful about these things. "Did you save loads of people?"

"No, no and no. I'm sorry to burst your bubble Skye but they were giving me my life back themselves. They do that because it causes excruciating pain, they use it to try and make you worship them."

Skye shrank back. She hadn't realised how bad it would be, what she would experience if she unlocked her 'powers'. "I don't want them. I can't do stuff like that. I'm not strong I'm a hacker, I do things from safety. I don't put myself out there like you, I don't risk everything."

"But you want to be a SHIELD agent. You'll have to do that then." Isabel's face was completely straight and serious. "That's what you were doing with Ward so why is it any different now."

"Because Ward's dead!" Skye yelled, running from the room. She sped down the halls, knocking people aside as she went. She didn't care what they were saying or thinking. She didn't want it.

That was when she ran straight into May. Instead of being shoved aside like the others she caught Skye in a tight embrace, stroking the sobbing girl's hair. "I know that Coulson told you about the nature of the relationship that myself and Ward had. But it would never have worked, he loved you too much. At times he didn't want to but he did, I realised sooner than him. We all did, he just wasted his opportunity to be with you." Skye continued to cry, not just because he was gone but because of everything that they missed.

Coulson was watching the scene from just around the corner. He knew how Ward had felt about Skye but he had hated knowing that Ward was with somebody else while irrevocably in love with the woman he was starting to call his daughter. But it was too late now, one of the best agents SHIELD had was now dead on a planet too far from home. Nobody Ward knew back on Earth could know about what happened and neither could most of SHIELD. The only people who would know were Fury, Stark, Hill and Bruce; some of whom barely knew Ward.

Skye sobbed even harder after hearing Coulson's thoughts. It was too much for her, she was hearing people pity her and judge her inside of her head. Nobody knew that of course or they might have watched what they said. "I'm sorry May." Skye sobbed. She had slowly started to stop crying and let go of May.

"I'm the one who should be sorry." May smiled melancholy.

Ward shook himself awake. He opened his eyes several times trying to blink away the blur that he was seeing. Eventually he saw the puddle jumper that he was trapped in and outside of the window was a host of wraith that were trying desperately to break in. He tried his hardest to get it to fly but one of the engines had been taken out. He searched for weapons and supplies; they had to be a priority. Luckily he found everything he needed; the last thing was that he needed to kill the wraith that were trying to kill him.