Skye stared at herself in the mirror, observing the bruise on her face. It had turned a light purple, which only seemed to intensify the death glare she had near perfected since coming to the academy. It worked pretty well at warding of any unwelcome advances, especially since five students turned up in hospital. Skye sighed. The bruise had also had faded some, thanks to Simmons, and some cream she had given her, but it couldn't fade what had happened from her thoughts. She kept running what her attackers had said through her mind, the anger she felt at them insulting Simmons, the strength of the protective feelings. Maybe there was some truth to it. Skye quickly shoved her thoughts to the back of her mind, not wanting to distract herself from the mission at hand.

Skye shoved her laptop, a couple changes of clothes and a few other necessities into a bag, making sure she had everything. She gave one glance around the room before she picked up the bag and left the room, ready to meet the rest of the team for the mission. Skye was the last to be tested, and the other 4 students had all returned with varying degrees of success. The pressure was on.

Skye reached the main entrance where she was greeted almost instantly by Simmons' excited chatter. 'Skye! I can't believe this is happening! You've come so far since we first met. I wonder what our mission is.'

Skye grinned, her smile transforming her face as she saw the young scientist, before saying, 'Woah, breathe Simmons.'

Simmons let out a giggle, before she saw Fitz waddling over carrying a crate of different mechanical devices.

'Umm, Fitz, you do realize we are only going to be gone 3 days, right? You didn't need to pack your whole lab,' Skye said teasingly.

Fitz gave her a look, before he put down the crate, answering seriously, 'You never know what will come in handy.'

Skye shrugged, as the rest of the team approached. Trip smiled at her, and Coulson addressed the group.

'Okay guys, we are taking the bus, lets head down to the airfield and we can stow our gear. We will meet in the conference room for the debrief once we're set off.'

Everyone nodded, and left the building, piling into a large black SUV. The drive there was uneventful, FitzSimmons sat arguing about the name of some new invention, whilst trip and Coulson sat upfront driving and giving directions, and Clint and Natasha (not that Skye would call them their first names to their faces) sat, quietly talking as they polished their arrows and knives. When they reached the airfield, Skye was astounded by the shear size of the 'bus' which turned out to be a huge plane. That didn't compare to the excitement Skye felt when she saw the computer system in the conference room. She couldnt wait to get her fingers on it. Remembering why she was there, she quickly dumped her stuff into one of the bunks and returned to the conference room with her laptop, and waited.

She was soon joined by trip, Natasha and Clint, before she heard a familiar voice over the Comms. 'We are taking off now, everyone find a seat.'

'Wait, Agent May is here?' Skye asked, remembering the woman from administration.

Clint grinned, as if knowing something she didn't, before answering, 'She's just the pilot.'

Skye nodded, before they were joined by the rest of the team, and the tone in the room suddenly became serious.

Coulson assumed the head of the room, and began the debrief.

'This is a simple retrieval mission. The organisation lead by Ian Quinn had come across the blueprints to build missiles that Stark Industries determined to dangerous for maintaining peace in the world. Once fully built, a single missile has the power 50 times that of a hydrogen bomb. We need to enter the facility, wipe their servers and destroy any hard co-'

Suddenly, the screen on the wall started flashing red, signifying a message from the HQ. An urgent voice ran through the speakers.

'Coulson! Your team need to get to the location I'm sending to the cockpit. Your team are the closest to the location at the moment, but we are sending in back up. The mass murderer, and leader of the religious cult, The Divine, just escaped the facility he was being detained at. He had escaped prison time on the grounds that he was mentally insane. There are documents of his ramblings, at times its incoherent, but at others... Hes planning a massacre, a sacrifice of children to the gods he believes he follows. He and his men have taken over an orphanage and are going to murder the children at dusk. You need to interfere. Use deadly force if necessary.'

The team sat in silence, stunned at the turn in events. Finally, Coulson spoke up through the comms to May, 'Did you get that, May? Where are we headed?'

May sent through the co-ordinates to the main computer, and Skye quickly researched the area. When she brought up a satellite image of where they were headed, Skye let out a 'Fuck,' under her breath.

'We're going to St Agnes Orphanage. Currently, there are 20 children staying there, most under the age of ten, and also 14 nuns who work there.'

Skye quickly brought up the schematics for the building, and as Coulson, Trip, Clint and Natasha began working on a plan of action, Skye was working on finding any information on 'The divine' and its leader. The results were not nice. Their leaders name was Marcus Ashcroft. They had been behind the murders of over 100 children, each in ritualistic sacrifices, to the gods of War. Finally, Coulson spoke to the team.

'Okay, Fitz, I want you to stay on the bus with May, you need to keep in contact with HQ, and run the comms. Simmons, I would have asked you to stay too, these men are extremely dangerous, but we need you for medical assistance if anyone is injured.'

FitzSimmons both nod, before Coulson continued.

'Skye, Trip, Tasha, Clint and I will be going in. From what we can tell from surveillance cameras, there are 15 of them, but we are better trained and better armed. Fitz, have you and Simmons finished with the Icers?'

Fitz nodded, before going to the crate he had brought, and pulled out a box of guns. 'The bullets contain a dendrotoxin that will knock out the target, when in close proximity. There are fewer bullets in each round, so make every shot count.'

Everyone nodded, before grabbing two icers each.

'Now, there are two ways in, a door by the kitchen, and a-' 'There are three.' Skye interrupted.

'What?'

Skye looked at her shoes, slightly embarrassed. 'The window on the roof, it opens wide enough for me or Agent Romanov to get through.' Everyone gave her an odd, questioning glance, before she explained, 'This is the orphanage I stayed at when I was a child, I used to sneak out the house at night.'

A look of understanding, and what looked like pity ran through the group, before Coulson continued, 'Okay, given that information, I want Tasha and Clint to take the front door, Trip and me will take the kitchen door. Skye, you to take the roof, you know your way around better. I want you to only take action if it is absolutely necessary. They wont know you are there, hopefully we will keep it that way, but if need be, you can be our last edge on them. We want to draw them out, hopefully away from the hostages. The children are a priority. No one is dying today.'

Next to her, Skye heard Tasha mutter under her breath, 'Except the bad guys,' and Skye worked hard to maintain a straight face.

'Coulson, we'll be landing in 5, I've got you as close as I can.' May said from the cockpit.

'Okay, team, take your earpieces, and head down to the van, Fitz, get us online.'

Everyone jumped to follow Coulsons order, and placed the earpieces on, before heading to the ramp. Tasha insisted on driving, saying she would get there quickest, and whilst Coulson took shotgun, the rest assembled in the back. As soon as the ramp had touched ground, they were off. Tasha drove like crazy, and they were outside the orphanage, just as they heard a crackle through their earpieces, and then the thick Scottish accent, saying, 'Okay, we're online. Back up is 30 minutes away.'

Everyone left the van, except for Simmons, and split up. Coulson and Trip, round the back; Tasha and Clint to the front door, and Skye to the tree in the back garden, that overhung onto the roof. Climbing it, she heard a crack through the comms, as tasha kicked down the door. She reached the roof with ease, and looked back to the van for a second, seeing Simmons staring at her through the window. Giving her a thumbs up, she whispered into the comms, 'I'm in position.' Skye went to the window, and stuck a knife in the crack, gently moving the lock open.

Meanwhile, inside, Tasha picked up a photo from the wall, and dropped it to the floor, a couple of meters away. Almost instantly, a man came charging out a door to the left, running towards the noise. Without hesitation, Clint pulled a trigger, and watched the man drop to the floor. On the other side of the house, Trip and Coulson were repeating the same process, each team moving deeper into the large house. They had taken out 7 of their men, keeping track over comms so as not to miss anyone out.

Finally, both teams came round a corner of opposite sides of a corridor, almost taking each other out in the process. In between them, stood a large double door, that would lead to the main room, where the rest of the enemies and children were. Coulson signaled to Clint and Tasha, who lined up against the wall on either side of the double doors, for cover, and on the count of three, Trip and Coulson kicked the door down.

Skye pushed down the feelings of nostalgia, as she navigated her way around the house. As much as she hated it, this place was still her home for a large part of her childhood. Now was not the time, She had a mission. Skye worked her way down the third floor stairs, making sure she avoided the step that creaked, until she heard Coulson through the comms, counting down from three.

A crash, and the sounds of shouts and gunfire filled the house, and Skye doubled her speed, making her way down the stairs in a flash. She was right above them now, the stairs would open up into the main room, where they were keeping the hostages. She made her way down, but stopped at the corner, waiting till she was needed.

Clint shot a man as he took aim at Tasha. She returned the favor as she took out the enemy who had snuck behind Clint. Coulson and Trip were making their way through the group of opponents, drawing their fire away from the children and nuns, who were all tied up in the corner, terror filling there eyes. Through their comms, they heard Fitz say, 'Back up is ten minutes away.'

Nearly all their men had been taken out at that point, leaving just the leader and two others. Just as Tasha raised her gun, the leader, Marcus, yelled, 'Stop. Put down your guns.'

Coulson and the team looked at Marcus and froze. He had grabbed a child, a little girl, 7 years old at most. She looked terried, letting out little whimpers through the hand clamped over her mouth, as the mans other hand held a gun to her head.

'Put your guns down,' he repeated, and after a brief look to Coulson, they all complied. The two other men took their weapons, one in each hand, and pointed them at the team.

'On your knees.' They all sank to the floor, forced to follow the order in fear of hurting the child. With out warning, Marcus gave the command, 'Shoot.' Before any of the team could react, they pulled the trigger, and their four bodies sank to the floor.

Around the corner, Skye's breath caught in her throat, till she remembered they had been using icers. Skye controlled her emotions, as she realized she was the last hope. Skye pulled out her weapons and checked the safety was off on both her icers. She took a deep breath and peeked around the corner. The last three had their backs to her, and Marcus was no longer holding the gun to the child's head, but instead had it in a relaxed grip in his hand.

Counting to three, she readied herself. On three, she jumped out, taking aim on the two men closest to her. Bang. Bang. They were down. In the time it had taken to redirect both her icers to Marcus, the man had spun around, bringing the gun back to the girls temple. He narrowed his eyes at her, and pressed the gun closer to the girls head.

'You killed my men.' Marcus growled. He doesn't know the guns aren't real, Skye thought.

'And you killed mine.' She countered, bluffing. 'Who do you think has the faster draw.'

He growled again, and raised his gun to point at Skye, shoving the girl to the ground. Skye watched the girl in the corner of her eye, as she crawled over to the rest of the children.

Skye flicked her eyes back to Marcus, and raised her eyebrow. He didn't seem to seem as confident anymore. Suddenly, he pulled the trigger. Skye jumped to the side, and shot at him, ignoring the burn in her arm as the bullet sliced through flesh. Marcus ran. As soon as he had left the room, Skye ran to the one of the nuns, and cut her loose. Through the comms, she commanded, 'Simmons, he's getting away, I need you to make sure all the children are fine, while I get him.' With out waiting for a response, she turned to the nun she had just untied.

'Help the others, tie up any bad guys, they're only knocked out.'

'But you were shot! You cant go after him!' The nun argued.

'Its just a flesh wound, I have to go. Back up will be here in 5 minutes.'

Skye ran out of the room, racing through the house to get to the front door. Skye suddenly stopped, when she realized she hadn't heard anything from Simmons, all she could hear on the other end of the comm was panicked breathing, before finally, Simmons responded,

'Skye, he took the van.'

Skye's heart began to race, as she almost shouted, 'What?!'

'He doesn't know I'm in the back, for now. I have an icer with me, but that it.' Skye could hear the strain in Simmons' voice to try and keep calm.

'Simmons.' Skye paused, trying to control the shaking in her voice. 'Jemma, I'm coming to get you.'

Skye ran out the house, and looked around. Next door, in the drive, she saw a large black motorbike. 'Perfect.'

Running over, she pulled out an object from one of her pockets, and began to hot wire the car. As she did, she spoke down the comms to Fitz.

'Fitz, I need you to track the signal from Simmons' earpiece.' She heard the affirmative from Fitz, just as she got the motorbike to rev its engine.

'Fitz, I need directions. Now.' Skye straddled the bike as Fitz responded, 'Okay, go left for a mile, then take a right.'

Skye weaved between cars, the black van just in sight.

'Fitz, I see it.'

Skye sped up, taking her gun and shooting out the cars wing mirrors. This seemed to scare Marcus, the van turning a hard corner. Skye shot the passenger window, whilst she heard an 'Oof,' through the comms, from Simmons.

'Sorry,' Skye said, through gritted teeth, before Skye rode up next to the van.

'Simmons, just a heads up, I'm gonna be on the van in a sec.' Skye warned, as she got a knife from her belt, and stuck it in the gas peddle of the bike, jamming it in place. Slowly, Skye got to her knees, on the bike seat, and then on to her feat, in a crouched position. Just as she saw the van was going to turn another corner, Skye jumped. Shooting upwards, Skye landed on the roof of the van, as the bike continued in the same direction, crashing into a wall.

Skye let out a mix between a sigh of relief, that she had made it onto the van, and a groan of pain as she landed on her arm. Ignoring her pain as best as she could, Skye made her way to the front of the van. Crouching near the edge, which would allow her to swing into the open passenger window, Skye took a breath. She was eerily calm, she wasn't scared. All she knew was she had to save Simmons.

Skye suddenly hopped of the edge of the roof, swinging through the window into the passenger seat. Ignoring the shards of glass as she landed, she punched Marcus, hard. The van slowed down as he took his concentration of the road. Marcus gave a yell, and reached to his waste band for his gun. As he swung his arm up to point his gun at Skye, she grabbed his wrist and twisted it, to such a point that she felt it snap as he dropped the gun. Skye brought the mans broken arm to his back, and shoved his body forward, till it was pressed against the steering wheel.

'Stop the car, and I wont kill you right now.' Skye threatened, her voice cold like stone.

The man gave a whimper as skye tightened her grip on his broken wrist, and felt the car slow down to a stop as the man moved his foot from the peddle. Skye picked up the dropped gun from the floor, and swung it down, knocking the man out on its handle. Skye let out a sigh of relief, before she spoke into the comms to Fitz and Simmons, 'The target is down. Simmons, are you okay?'

She heard an affirmative from Simmons, before she said, 'I'm going to take us back to the orphanage, back up will be there now, and the team should be waking up.'

The next couple of hours flashed by, Skye making it back to the orphanage, Simmons hugging her hard (Skye blamed the loss of breath from the hug on the pain in her arm, NOTHING ELSE) before patching up the gunshot wound in her arm, being debriefed by the back up team, getting thanked by the nuns and children in the orphanage, who were shocked when they recognized her as Mary Sue Poots. Eventually, the team made it back to the bus, to recuperate.

As soon as they settled in, Coulson called her into his office.

'You could have been killed! What were you thinking?!'

'I was saving my best friend and catching the bad guy!' Skye argued.

'You should have waited for us to wake up. Or at least for the back up team. You aren't an agent yet, you have to follow orders!' Coulson shouted.

Skye looked at him incredulously. 'I was following orders!' Skye shouted. 'You said only take action if it is absolutely necessary, well, it was pretty damn necessary! The man was a psycho! He had no reason to keep her alive, he wouldn't have wanted information, or keep her as a hostage, he would have killed her. He was crazy and he would have murdered Simmons as soon as he found her, painfully. There was no time to wait and regroup. No time for orders. I did what I did to save a life, and I will never regret that, even if you decide I don't win this stupid competition. I will never regret saving Simmons.' Skye angrily brushed away her tears, before storming out of his office. Ignoring the stares from the rest of the team who were lounging around on the sofas outside Coulsons office, Skye stormed into the bunk where she had left her things, and collapsed on the bed, screaming into a pillow.

Skye remained in the room, till she heard a quiet knock on her door, and Trip telling her they would be landing in 10 minutes. Skye grunted in response, and was soon left alone again. She gathered her things, and left the bunk as soon as she felt the plane land. She ignored everyone in the drive back to the academy, from the airfield, and left as soon as the car stopped. She only just heard Coulson call after her, 'We are revealing the results at 10 am on Friday, in lecture hall 1,' before she was out of earshot. Running up to her dorm room, she sank into her bed and finally let herself cry.

She had saved Simmons, and for that, she felt so overwhelmingly happy, but she couldn't help feeling like in doing so, she had lost all chances she had of being with the team... Of being with Simmons. She didn't know what to feel, she was so confused. Finally, exhaustion, from the mission and combined with the drowsiness from the pain medication, won out, and she fell into a fitful sleep.

Over the next few days, Skye avoided everyone. She went to her classes, and took her meals out side, and then she disappeared. Rumors began to spread about what happened on the mission, people mostly believing that she had killed someone. No one spoke to her for days, until Fitz.

Fitz had been watching her, seeing her everyday, heading off in the direction of the car park. Initially, Fitz thought she was sneaking off campus, but then he remembered the van Skye had told them about, that she had been living in.

On the Wednesday, two days before they received the results from the trials, Fitz decided to confront her. He looked in every van in the car park, till finally, he found the right one. He climbed in, without waiting for a response from Skye, who was sitting in the drivers seat with her laptop balanced on her lap. He gave her a long, unreadable look, before sighing. 'What are you doing, Skye?'

Skye looked at him, before choosing her words carefully. 'Distancing myself.'

'Why, you do realize you are going to win?' Fitz questioned.

Skye scoffed at him, 'You're kidding me, right? Coulson was furious. He wont let me on the team after I just left them to chase Simmons. I am distancing myself, because you are are all leaving. If I distance myself now, it wont hurt as bad when you're gone.'

Fitz shook his head, 'No, you are wrong. Coulson forgave you the moment you stepped out of his office. He was just worried that you and Simmons could have gotten hurt. You were hurt! You were shot! Coulson cares about his team, and he included you in that, long before these trials were ever involved. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why he started the trials, he knew you could win.' Fitz gave Skye a grin, and Skye offered a small smile back.

'Why are you being so nice to me?' Skye asked, 'I thought you didn't like me.'

Fitz chuckled. 'You saved Simmons, in ways that I never will be able to. You will always be there for her. I wasn't sure before, but now I know.'

Skye thought back to what Trip had said. He had taken a bullet from her, she had saved him from a psycho. Fitz carried on, 'But that's why you are really hiding, isn't it? I know you like Simmons, in a romance kinda way.'

Skye blushed, before Fitz added, 'She likes you too, by the way. She told me. She somehow got it into her head that you were in love with trip, which is ridiculous, because anyone with eyes can tell you are the gayest thing since Pride.'

Skye laughed, before asking, 'How do I let her know how I feel? What do I tell her?'

Much to Skye's surprise, Fitz answered, 'Nothing. Don't tell her anything.'

Skye gave Fitz a hurt look, confused.

'Wait till Coulson confirms definitely that you are joining the team,' He continued. 'When he says you are, go for it. If, for what ever reason, he says you aren't on the team, you don't want to give her the hope of What If, it would only hurt her, and make it harder to get over you.'

Sky nodded, understanding his logic. 'I guess I can wait 2 days.'

Skye rejoined the rest of the group, after that. No one said anything. Just that one day, Skye was with them again, being dragged in by Fitz. They hung out at lunches, and Simmons helped with Skye's homework. Skye trained with Trip, and everything was back to normal. That was, until two days later, Skye was joining the rest of the school student body, in Lecture hall 1, for the results of the trials. The 5 final contestants were seated at the front, whilst the rest of the school filtered in from the back. There was a buzz of excitement in the air. It wasn't often that a student would graduate early, and Skye was pretty certain there were a few bets running. Skye was excited, but she was also nervous, her knee shaking as she waited for the news. Finally, Coulson stood up, silencing the crowd.

'As you know, we have been conducting trials, to find an operations student to join my team. We narrowed down our contenders, to five students, who we took out on real life missions. We have made our decision, based of our results, and one of the five students will be graduating today and becoming a level one, junior agent of Shield. The rest of the five will be earning extra credit for their hard work. The Student, graduating today, and joining my team is...'

Skye's heart stopped. She waited, that moment seeming to last minutes, until finally,

'Agent Skye! Congratulations.' Skye was stunned, she didn't know what to do. Frozen in her seat, the person next to her shoved her up, to stand with Coulson. Coulson presented her with her own badge, over which she swore an oath.

'I, Skye, swear to serve when everything else fails; I swear to be humanity's last line of defense; I swear to be the shield.

Skye didn't notice when the rest of the students gave a halfhearted applause, she didn't mind that none of her class mates stopped to congratulate her, she didn't care, she was walking on air. She got what she wanted. The moment was almost perfect. Her thoughts turned to Simmons, and she looked around the hall, trying to find her. The crowds were to thick. Skye almost groaned in frustration, she didn't know how much longer she could wait.

As if reading her mind, she heard Fitz say from beside her, 'Go, pack your stuff, we leave tomorrow. I'll make sure she comes to you.' Skye hugged Fitz, thanking him, before running through the crowds, racing to get to her dorm.

Skye didn't have many things, but packing still took a long time. That probably had more to do with the fact that Skye would stop to stare at her new badge every 10 minutes. She was an agent... A secret agent. She was a spy, for god's sake! She had just graduated spy school! If only her high school bullies could see her now.

Skye couldn't help but grin stupidly at the ridiculousness of the situation. Skye was doing just that when there was a knock at the door, and before skye could even think about answering it, the door swung open, and she was suddenly engulfed in a long hug.

'Simmons. You're here.' Skye whispered into the other woman's hair, recognizing her warmth instantly.

After a while, Skye pulled away and smiled, as she saw the pride in Simmons' eyes.

'Congratulations, I knew you would win,' Simmons whispered, still wrapped around Skye.

'Simmons, I need to tell you something.' Skye started, her voice shaky with nerves. Simmons nodded, sensing Skye's serious tone.

'I had to wait before saying anything, till I knew I was joining the team.' Simmons was starting to get worried, but she didn't say anything, not wanting to interrupt Skye.

'I couldn't get my hopes up, just to have them taken away... To have you taken away.' Skye's voice was barely a whisper now.

'I like you, Jemma. I really li-'

Skye was stopped by the sudden lips on her own, and she completely lost all thread of what she was saying. Simmons was kissing her! Jemma Simmons! Skye pulled Simmons into her, deepening the kiss, till they were both tumbling on the bed, Simmons practically on top of Skye. Finally, breaking up for air, Simmons looked down on Skye, whispering, 'I like you too,' before pulling her into another kiss.

Fin.

Guys that's it! Its over. Sorry for making you all wait so long, I know, I'm an awful human being. Thank you everyone for your kind feedback, and reviews.

I will be writing another skimmons fic soon, I'm thinking a high school AU, so keep your eye out for that. Hope you enjoyed this final chapter, send a review of what you thought. Thanks :)