The thing about Skye

She can't swim

Skye slips through the hallway, light on her toes and an odd combination of anticipation and panic sitting in her chest. The house is more of a facility with its hard floors and many rooms. She'd never been in a house so large before.

"This place is huge," Skye mutters to the empty hallway, creeping closer to the intersection.

"Take a right," May's voice comes calmly over Skye's earpiece. Skye immediately follows the direction, knowing that her SO has a better view of what's happening.

"This feels a little backward, doesn't it?" Skye chatters nervously even though she knows that she should be making as little noise as possible right now. Like many of their missions, it started off easy enough. Get in, download some files, get out without ever raising the alarm. But of course, these things are never so simple and never go according to plan.

"You're the one who wanted to test your skills," May retorts without even an inflection to hint at how she actually feels about that. She didn't argue too much when Skye suggested she be the one to make her way down to the lab to destroy the weapon, so she must have agreed somewhat.

Skye passes yet another window wall giving the view of expansive cliffs and a glittering lake. Because of course the bad guys aren't stuck underground without sunlight or fresh air, or with rotating pictures in place of windows and snow twenty feet thick outside their doors- they have billion dollar mansions overlooking glittering lakes. Sometimes, Skye is a bit jealous of the bad guys.

"Do you think anyone actually lives here?"

"Focus, Skye. You've got guards coming up fast on your six. Take the next left."

Skye ducks down yet another hallway, and wonders how big this place actually is. There's no way people don't live here. At least the head honcho guy does. He probably has an entire wing to himself (and this place has actual wings like actual fricken castles do).

"Stop," May's voice hisses in Skye's ear, suddenly tense, and Skye automatically follows the order, standing rigidly in the open hallway. "You need to backtrack. Quickly. Don't worry about noise."

Skye instantly wheels around, her anxiety spiking higher at the audible tones in her mentor's voice and sprint back down the hall. A shout from behind her alerts her to the reason of her change of direction. She nearly collides with the guard that were trailing her six as she bowls past them, and they shout too, followed by the static of their walkie-talkies informing all the other guards that they 'found her.'

"May…" Skye frets, voice feeling tight and strained. After that Gravitonium mission at the very start of all this, she's never been alone on a mission. Which, she's not technically, but May is an entire castle length away from her.

"Stay calm. You're fine." Her voice is smoothed over, like Skye merely imagined the tension in it and she's simply giving directions to a restaurant. "Take a right."

Skye's brain shuts off, and all there is are her boots on hardwood and the voice in her ear.

After a while, she comes to a stop in front of another wall of windows. There are no more hallways to dart down. It's a dead end. The sun scatters dazzling light over the lake far below.

"You need to jump, Skye. I'll meet you at the rendezvous," the voice in her ear buzzes in that calm, detached, familiar way. Skye stands rooted to the spot, though, the world rushing back in, and then out again. The water laps lazily against the cliffs holding up the facility.

"I-I can't," Skye chokes out, glancing behind her to see the hallway flooding with people in bullet-proof vests and guns. Maybe they were told to take her alive, because at least they aren't shooting at her anymore.

"Skye. Jump," May demands, the tension back in her voice. "The drop isn't far enough to kill you." And then, as if an afterthought, as if maybe she thinks it's the reason Skye is suddenly not following her directions anymore, "I'll be fine. Everyones' attention is currently on you- I can easily slip out unnoticed."

Skye has no doubt in her mentor's abilities, but that's not the problem. She can't even voice the problem because her throat has closed up completely as she turns back to look at the water far below.

She takes a slow calming breath, tuning out the shouts behind her to get her hands up, and then darts away from the window to face the dozens of guards standing between her and the exit.

"Skye!"

At least she doesn't have to listen to her SO's scolding as she fights, because her earpiece falls out somewhere between the first and fifth hit she takes to the face.

She manages okay at first. She has learned a lot from May, but there are well over a dozen guards crowding the hallway and she is alone. While they can't all attack at once, they still have batons and have her surrounded.

She finally goes down as one baton once again lands on her unprotected back and another hits her across the face, making the beautifully sunlit hallway go dark. Only half-conscious, all she can do is curl up as the rest of the men descend on her, hurling angry words. Their feet join their sticks and Skye cries as she tries to protect her head and organs.

This mission really did not go as planned. Fuck. She was supposed to impress May. Maybe then, Coulson would have started talking to her again.

The world slips out of Skye's grasp. She doesn't know if she passes out or not, but it slips away, leaving her hollow and not present.

Even when the angry shouts turn into pained ones, and their angry faces turn into that of the angry face of her SO, she still doesn't wake up.

Blood trickles into her eyes and May reaches for her, shouting, and she still doesn't move. Even if the world was working right, she doesn't know if she could move.

May's face swims in and out of focus until it fully fades away and she forgets that it was ever there.

Skye wakes up in the medbay. It's not a novel thing for her, waking up in hospitals, but the last time was from two gunshot wounds to the gut. She automatically reaches for her abdomen before she registers that the pain isn't coming from there. It's a pervasive throb in the entirety of her body.

She lets out a whimper before stilling herself. It doesn't help much. One of her arms is enveloped in a hard casing, and though the rest of her limbs are free, they are just as difficult to maneuver.

There is an audible sigh somewhere off to Skye's left, and then the sound of shuffling moving towards her head. She flinches, and then strains her neck up to catch sight of who is hovering over her.

She flinches again as May's stormy gaze flicks down at her. She fiddles with the IV stuck in the back of Skye's hand, and the pain eases slightly to a more manageable level.

"You stupid girl. What the hell were you thinking; you could have been killed."

"I guess we're getting right into it then," Skye mutters, her usual mutinous tone coming out cracking with pain.

The fury that flashes across her SO's face makes the heart monitor screech angrily as Skye quickly backpedals. "I figured I'd stand a better chance trying to fight through them than jumping."

May makes a visible effort of trying to calm down.

"I told you, jumping from that height wouldn't kill you. I understand that it might seem scary, but you will face much worse options in the field then that if you continue down this path. You cannot let fear rule you, and if you can't get over it, then maybe you should rethink wanting to be a field agent."

May's words don't do anything to calm Skye. Her head hurts, she can't move without pain, and her brain seems to be doing a weird thing of trying to leave her body. She distantly thinks, 'Well, at least she's only talking about pulling me from the field, and not kicking me out of SHIELD completely.' But Skye doesn't want to be a desk agent, stuck behind the screen while everyone she knows almost dies on the other side of it. Even Jemma is in the field, deep undercover, and she's a truly awful liar.

May shoots the heart monitor, and then Skye, a frustrated look.

"Skye, calm down," she orders, reaching out to maybe take her hand, but Skye's hand reflexively closes into a fist before she can touch it, and she abandons the attempt. "Skye." With another glance at the monitor that doesn't seem to be slowing any, she sinks down into the chair Skye hadn't noticed at the side of her hospital bed. It simultaneously puts distance between the two, and makes her mentor look a whole lot less threatening (that doesn't change the knowledge of just how dangerous the woman can be when she wants to).

Several minutes pass in silence except for the energetic beeping of the monitor, and Skye's urge to rip the cord out of the wall only grows even though her heartbeat slows. May doesn't speak again until it is back to normal, and when she does, it jolts again.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought all this up after you just woke up. You just… scared me. I didn't think I'd get there in time."

Skye averts her eyes to the opposite side of the room, hating that the stupid machine gives so much away. She irritably rips the electrodes from her body, and May reaches out to turn off the machine as it gives one long whine of death.

"I wasn't scared of jumping, I was scared of the water. I couldn't jump because I can't swim," Skye mumbles.

"What?" May scoffs; it sounds like by accident, but Skye doesn't dare glance over. "What do you mean you can't swim?"

"I mean I don't know how." She raises her eyes to the ceiling. "I never learned- who would have even taught me."

It's quiet for a long time- so long that Skye finally glances over to gauge her SO's expression. It's a futile endeavor because it's as expressionless as ever staring back at her. Skye wonders if May regrets, yet, choosing her to take under her wing.

Finally, May pushes to her feet with a sigh. "Get some rest. We start swimming lessons after your cast comes off."

Skye stares at her back as she treks to the door, questions burning in her throat. "Hey, May," Skye can't help but call just as she reaches the door. The older agent pauses but doesn't look back. "Has Coulson…"

"He sat with you for several hours while you were out. He left only just before you woke up. He was worried about you." May darts a glance over her shoulder. "We both were." Then she's out the door, leaving the drugs unhindered to drag Skye into a more sedate state of existence.

A/N: More are in the works, but we are on a struggle bus right now. Let me know what you think!

~Silver~