Title: Surge

Author: Annaliesegrace

Rating: K

Summary: Ward finds out about Skye's powers the hard way.

Pairing: Ward/Skye

AN: This came out of my own tumblr blog (annaliesegrace) where I was speculating how Ward would find out about Skye's secret. So out came this one shot. I hope you enjoy.

Please leave a review on the way out, as a new AoS writer it gives me warm fuzzy feelings.

It was supposed to be an easy op. Get in, get the intel on the Clairvoyant, get out. But something had gone very wrong and now May and Ward were running through the maze-like facility, sirens blaring and lights flashing around them.

"Which way?" May asked as they came to a dead stop at an intersection. In an attempt to avoid security, the pair had been forced to abandon the path they knew took to the outside and instead try and navigate with Skye's help.

"Left," the hacker said through their earpieces and they made the turn at a slow jog, guns up.

Skye and Coulson were watching the action from an SUV a half mile away, through the facilities own security system that Skye had hacked. In addition she had managed to snag the building blueprints, which were currently coming in handy as she guided her SO and May through the winding halls.

"Next intersection hang a right, then about two hundred yards and you are home free," the hacker said, a wave of relief flowing through her.

It was a short lived feeling however, as suddenly the already loud alarms changed and a clanging sound could be heard.

May and Ward paused to assess the potential new threat. It took a moment to identify the source of the new noise but when they did the pair shared a concerned look.

A large bulkhead door ahead of them had started to close, which would effectively trap them in the hallway.

Then Skye's voice through the comms, "Security is coming toward you."

"Go!" Ward shouted and May took off, hearing Wards footsteps behind her. But as she approached the rapidly (too rapidly) closing door, a gunshot ricocheted off the frame 6 inches from her head. Looking back, May realized that Ward had stopped to return fire, one man was already down, and the other was quickly losing a hand to hand fight with the agent.

The door was already halfway closed; there was no way Ward would make it. None.

"Ward!" Skye was yelling, clearly having come to the same conclusion.

"Skye…stop the door." May said.

"I…I can't…" Skye responded, the anguish clear in her voice. "It's closed circuit, I would need to be onsite to disable it."

Just then Ward dropped the second guard to the ground and turned to May, realizing the problem.

"Go!" he yelled at her again and raised his gun down the opposite side of the hall, clearly intent on making sure she made it and stopping anyone else who may come around the corner.

For the briefest of moments May considered stopping and staying with him but it would do the team no good to have them both captured. This way, they could come back for him. With a slight nod she dropped to the ground and slid under the door, mere seconds before it crashed down and locked behind her.

"NO!" Skye yelled from the SUV and looked at Coulson. "If I can get in there I can disable it. I can do it, Coulson."

The older man seemed to consider her words before quickly shifting the car into drive and speeding through the woods toward the facility, which was unprotected - the unassuming nature of the building in the middle of nowhere provided enough protection that extra security was unnecessary.

"May, we are coming in, hold your position."

"Yes, sir," came the reply.

As Skye looked down at her laptop she let out an, "Oh no."

"Oh no?" Coulson and May said in tandem.

"Ward, security figured out where you are even though I disabled the damn cameras. Three minutes…maybe."

"Roger." Was his only response then they heard him checking his weapons.

"Which way Skye?" Coulson asked.

"Umm…they are near the north east doors."

Immediately the car was turned to the left and in a minute they had pulled up to a set of doors. There was only one ill-prepared guard standing there whom Coulson quickly knocked out.

Clutching her laptop, Skye led them through a series of three turns, after which they found May, who had been inspecting the door for a way to breech it.

"Look out," Skye said and practically shoved May out of the way to get to the control panel.

Which was completely flat.

Her heart sunk.

The door mechanisms weren't on the servers she had access to, and there were no inputs on the panel for her to hook her computer to hack it open, not a USB, not an SD disk…nothing. It was completely flat and black, no visible buttons to press. Again she looked at the screen that tracked Ward and security. The guards were maybe a minute and a half away.

"Shit," she hissed and shoved her computer at Coulson, who only just barely managed to keep the device from falling to the floor.

The hacker scrutinized the panel even as she could feel her anxiety rising. She had to save him; she couldn't let Ward fall into the Clairvoyant's hands, who know what would happen to him. Have his mind torn to shreds while they searched it for information on SHIELD. In her head she saw Ward strapped down on a cold table…

Taking a deep breath, she pressed the button-less panel, expecting it to light up. Nothing happened.

"No…"

Now she placed her palm on it, hoping that the device would try and scan her hand. Again nothing.

"Please, no…"

"Uhhh, guys," Wards calm voice came over the comms. "I'm out of time here."

Then a shot rang through the air. And another.

"NO!" she yelled again and desperately ran her fingers over the display, trying to activate something, anything.

"Get her out of here," Ward said, his voice strained.

"Skye," Coulson said. "We will come back for him."

She didn't respond, just kept pressing the panel with increasing frustration - they weren't going to leave him.

This time May, "We have to go."

"I'm not leaving him!" she shouted. And until her last day, Skye wouldn't know what possessed her to do it. What told her to do it.

But as Coulson grabbed her arm Skye placed her hand flat on the display again. At first nothing happened.

Then her entire body started to warm, it wasn't uncomfortable, just an odd sensation that covered her from head to toe. Then she could see it, lines and lines of computer code. But it wasn't displayed on the screen; she was seeing it in her head. Closing her eyes she focused on the code even as pain started tearing through her head.

She let out a strangled scream and heard Ward yelling but she couldn't makes out the words.

Keeping her eyes tightly closed she watched the code go by again, and when she found the line she needed, stopped the scrolling. The pain in her head was increasing with every effort she made but Skye pushed through, in her head she changed the code to what she needed.

Abruptly the pain in her head eased and she was able to open her eyes long enough to see tendrils of blue energy moving from her hand into the display, which was now lit up.

Oh…that's interesting.

"Come on," she hissed.

That's when the door suddenly made a loud clicking noise and began to slowly open.

"Ward!" she heard May yell.

The other agent turned to see the gap between the door and the floor, sent off another couple shots and then dropped and slipped through just as a shot hit the door where he had been standing two seconds prior.

Skye was only peripherally aware of Ward sliding through the door, but as soon as he stood on their side she mentally went back into the code, this time slamming the door back down, separating them from the guards.

Then blackness overcame her.

Ward stood just in time to see the blue light coming from Skye's hand to the display suddenly cut off and the hacker drop to the floor in a heap, unconscious.

In an instant he was kneeling at her side, looking up at Coulson and May. "What the hell is going on?" he asked as he pulled her up so her upper body was lying across his thighs.

Banging could be heard from the other side of the door.

Coulson shot him a look and said, "Discuss later, pick her up, let's get out of here."

Wordlessly Grant picked up his junior agent and carried her bridal style; as they ran, he felt Skye twitching in his arms, her face buried into his chest - at some point she had become aware enough of what was going on to loop her arms around his neck.

May opened the back seat door and Ward slipped in with Skye still wrapped in his arms. The twitching had reduced in frequency but increased in severity, her entire body shook with the tremors.

"Someone want to tell me what happened in there?" he asked tersely as Coulson sat in the passenger seat, May slipping into the driver's side and instantly starting the SUV and pulling away.

"When we get back to the bus Agent," Coulson responded just as sharply and shared a look with May. Then, softer, "How is she?"

Grant placed his fingers on her neck and tilted his head slightly. "Pulse is elevated and she keeps shaking." He tried to pull her away from his torso but she clung tightly to him. "Skye…come on Skye, talk to me. I would really love to hear that voice of yours."

But there was no response from her.

"Still unresponsive, sir." There was a bit of a bite on the "sir", which did not go unnoticed by Coulson. But the senior agent chose to ignore it.

The remainder of the ride was spent in silence, with Grant holding onto Skye, constantly checking her vitals. As they approached the Bus, she finally started to still, the twitching coming only every couple minutes.

As they pulled into the bay, May disappeared up the spiral staircase to get the plane in the air before anyone could catch up with them.

"Take her to medical, we alerted Simmons. I'll meet you there."

Ward carried Skye to the small medical bay and laid her carefully down on the small bed, Simmons instantly at his side.

"What happened?" she asked while taking Skye's vitals.

"I wish I knew…" Ward said, the venom in his tone causing Simmons to pause momentarily.

"It wasn't something you needed to know, Agent Ward." Coulson said from the doorway before taking a step in, his eyes on the woman in the bed. "Until now."

"What didn't I need to know?"

"Skye's entire reason for getting into SHIELD was to find her parents. Until recently the only thing we knew was the agent that dropped her off was killed shortly after doing so. Execution style."

Ward glanced at Skye, still motionless on the bed. What had happened to her?

"May and I went to Mexico to find that agents partner. He had been in hiding for 22 years, ever since they found an 084 in a small Chinese village. Someone had killed every person in the village -"

"Sir, what does this have to do with Skye?"

"She was the 084 they were looking for, Ward. The agents that recovered her never saw any evidence of powers but clearly, they exist."

He flashed back to a conversation he'd had with Skye where she had said that CS just "came to her naturally".

"She reprogrammed that door to open-"

"With her mind." Coulson finished. "She put her hand on that panel and it was…it was like she went into a trance. May and I tried to get her to stop but I don't think she heard a word we said and we weren't sure if pulling her off would end up killing her…and us for that matter. Then the door opened and you know the rest."

Immediately Simmons scanned over Skye's head and a small "oh" came from the woman.

Ward turned. "Oh?"

"Well, um…the electrical activity in her brain is…off the charts, really. I've never seen levels so high."

"She's been twitching…" Ward supplied.

"That would be expected, it sounds like she produced significant energy to…do what she did. That energy has to go somewhere."

"Is she going to be ok?"

"She should be fine. The activity is swiftly slowing to normal levels, and I am not seeing any damage caused by…" she frowned a moment before continuing, "the event."

Relief flooded his body, when he had seen her fall to the floor Grant had the horrible thought that she was dead. That his rookie had died trying to save him, which was simply not an acceptable outcome for him. It wasn't how this worked, if anything Ward was prepared to die to protect her, to protect all of them. And now…he didn't give a shit if she had special magical powers, she was still his responsibility, his to protect.

Which he would do now.

"This was the first time she's…shown powers?" He asked Coulson.

"Yup," he responded, eyes still on the girl on the bed.

"Are you going to notify HQ?" It was procedure after all.

"Nope." Coulson's eyes moved up to meet Wards. "Right now this stays on the bus, am I clear? The reports will show a sudden, unexplained electrical surge that happened to open the door."

He nodded in understanding. "I'd like to stay with her until she wakes, sir."

Coulson looked between Ward and Skye and for a moment the younger agent thought he saw a small, knowing smile form on the senior agents face, but as quickly as it was there it was gone.

"Fine. Just stay out of Jemma's way and notify me when she's conscious."

Ward had been sitting patiently at her side for nearly three hours. Jemma came every thirty minutes or so to check her vitals and brain activity and each time assured him that all was well and Skye would wake when she was ready. Despite her calm, confident tone, Grant could see the concern behind her eyes, concern that even though Skye's brain no long showed increased activity and was back to normal levels she still hadn't woken up.

Coulson had stopped by twice. The second time the man had also looked concerned that she still was unconscious. Ward had a bad feeling if she didn't wake soon, SHIELD would find out about Skye before they wanted, because they would be forced to take her to the medical wing at the Hub.

An unpleasant feeling settled into the pit of his stomach at that thought. If they showed up at the Hub with Skye in this condition there would be a lot of questions. Questions that would have to be answered truthfully; and then they would probably never see her again.

Ward sighed and leaned against the bed, his fingers reaching out and just ghosting over hers.

Awareness came slowly to her, her head hurt, her memory muddled and confused. Bits and pieces of something came together, running into a building, pressing her hand to a panel-

Ward!

Instantly her eyes snapped open and she sat up, startling the man sitting next to her.

"Skye!"

"Ward…" she breathed. Then again, this time with relief, "Ward…"

Of its own accord the hand not still resting on her hand came up and cupped her cheek, grounding Skye to the here and now. Her eyes scanned the room quickly.

"I'm on the bus."

"You are."

Then those dark browns settled on him. "And you're here."

"I am."

"Something happened…I…" she frowned but Ward could see her trying to remember and remained silent. "I couldn't connect my laptop to the door... You were on the other side." She looked to him and he nodded. "Guards were coming…lots of them. I…I don't know why I did it, but I put my hand on the panel and I could just…see the code, you know? In my mind. It was just…scrolling by." She laughed a little and his hand squeezed hers gently; the other one was still touching the side of her face, but had slid down some, so the tips of his fingers pressed into the scalp behind her ear.

"You opened the door," he said.

Skye leaned into his palm, the warmth bringing immediate calm. "In my head, I changed the code. And it happened, I could see the light from my hand to the panel…the door opened and you were there. After that I don't remember anything..."

There was silence as Skye realized what she had just revealed to her SO.

"I guess we need to talk," she finally said.

"I guess we do," he responded and dug his fingers farther into her hair. "But we'll do it another time. Right now you need to rest."

"But…" she tried to protest but a headache chose that moment to make its self known, pounding behind her eyes.

It must have shown on her face because using the hand in her hair he carefully guided her back down onto the small bed and removed his hand. As her head hit the pillow she shifted her body to lie on her side, facing him.

"No buts…get some sleep, that's an order."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she whispered and closed her eyes against the pain.

"Don't apologize; you did what you had to. And I look forward to hearing the whole story. Later."

"Ok…night, Grant."

The use of his rarely-heard first name startled him briefly but Ward recovered and pushed some hair that had fallen over her face back behind her shoulder. "Night, Skye."

And he settled in for another couple hours of sitting in the chair.

END?

Ok, I intended to leave this as a one shot, but if there is any interest I might do a second chapter of their conversation.