I'm SO glad you guys liked the chapter. It was a big one, right? Ahh! You're all amazing for your kind words.
NOTE: I edited the last chapter the day after I posted and updated it so reread if you want. It's really not all that different, I just had a few issues with it and wanted to fix them.

Return of the Q&A:
Jae: Very, very soon! ;)
Guest: They couldn't leave together because they wouldn't make a good story! It'd make everything too easy. Trust me.
(Other) Guest: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you cry.

Chapter 19

Skye should have followed the air duct, but didn't. She tried, but the moment there was enough room to turn around she took it and returned to the grate Grant shoved her in just a minute ago. He had replaced the armchair in front of the duct again, but left a sliver of an opening, probably on accident in his haste. She could only see about an inch or two of the room but what she saw was many men dressed head to toe in black with their weapons out. Hydra was there.

"My Lethal Weapon doesn't look so lethal anymore." The voice was unmistakably John Garrett. He certainly was a big gun.

"Go fuck yourself, John." Grant was held on his knees by three Hydra agents. He was shuffled into view and she half-wished she couldn't see him. His face was bloody and there were dead bodies on the floor around him. She hadn't heard the shots ring out—he probably had a silencer in place for surprise.

John chuckled before raising his arm up and began to pistol whip Grant. Skye bit down on her lip so hard it drew blood. Her heart flew to her throat as Garrett repeated the action again and again. But she couldn't start an earthquake, not yet. She had to be strong for her husband. Her hand covered her mouth to keep from making any noise.

"Now, you're going to tell me where your little girlfriend is," Garrett insisted.

"Uh, Sir?" Another man spoke and raised Grant's left hand.

"Ah, your little wife now, huh? Congratulations."

Grant's hand formed into a fist as the elder man touched the gunmetal wedding band. "I'll never let you near her," he growled.

"Well, that just won't do," John sighed and ordered a few men beat on Grant for a few minutes. He fought back when he could, but too many men had him restrained and were doing too much damage. "If you won't tell me where she is, then tell me how she flung a few of my agents across the hall with a wave of her hand a couple weeks ago. Will you settle for that?"

Skye's only shred of sanity was that Grant was still conscious which meant he was at least coherent and speaking. It was proof he was surviving this, a testament to how strong he was. Her own body began to ache at his beating, but now she welcomed it, wishing she could take his pain on as her own. They were doing this because of her. They had found out she was a 'power person.' Of course Garrett was interested in that.

Instead of answering Grant just spit out a mouthful of blood and coughed. He made a show of not saying anything.

"Tell me where she is or you're getting a bullet in your fuckin' brain," his S.O. demanded.

Grant just looked up and grinned as blood oozed from his lips. "You're getting soft, John. If you were really going to kill me you would have done it when you got here. Don't forget you taught me everything you know."

Garrett responded by connecting his boot with Grant's face. Her husband could take a beating that was for sure, and in their line of work that was something to be proud of.

Grant chuckled from the floor and more blood came from his mouth and nose. "Now you're just desperate."

The older man looked like he wanted to kill Grant, and she wished he wouldn't hit all the right buttons. John Garrett was crazy and she didn't want him to do anything rash—like killing him. No matter what happened Grant had to make it back to her, he promised, but he knew his S.O.'s limits and she had to trust that. "Pick him the fuck up and get him to the car. Do what you gotta do to restrain him, but keep him alive. Now search the area and find that bitch wife of his. We need her to make this plan work."

Skye woke up with tears in her eyes in the med bay. She'd dreamed of nothing else except Grant and his beatings. It was a horrible memory she wanted to stop remembering, stop dreaming about. Seeing Grant in pain... she'd rather be in pain herself.

How she managed to not set off an earthquake was a mystery even Skye didn't know. In the air duct she'd shot herself with the ICER to keep calm and not reveal herself. When she woke and hadn't been found she followed through with Grant's plan. Sort of. She called Coulson, told her location, and turned on a tracker then drove because she couldn't just sit there. She needed something to focus on, or at least try to, or she'd set off a quake. The biggest one.

With blurry eyes and tears rushing down her face she ended up driving the car into a ditch where SHIELD found her knocked out not long after. When Skye finally woke she was back at HQ and Fitz was sleeping beside her bed. She instantly started crying and the room began shaking, waking Fitz and setting off alarms. It was only when she felt safe she allowed herself to react to Grant's abduction.

The quake slowed as Fitz explained things to her—she had a concussion but was otherwise okay. He'd spotted the rings on her finger before anyone else and took them in case she didn't want anyone to know. It began again in full force when a pain tore through her and she knew they were torturing Grant. They wanted information about her. They wanted to know what was so special about her. They wanted her and were using Grant to get her.

The quake got so bad that Jemma had to sedate her. She hadn't been sedated in a long time. All that improvement just to fall back into the old routine. If Skye had time or energy to care she might have been upset about it.

The following days weren't much different. Skye would wake to blinding pain in different parts of her body and set off a quake. When it got bad enough Jemma would stick a needle in her arm. It wasn't living, it was surviving and one of the first few conversations she ever had with Grant continued to reverberate through her mind, almost as a source of comfort.

"Money is low on my priority list."

"What's high on your list?"

"Surviving."

With a shaky breath Skye leaned back in the bed and stretched. Her body was sore from being still for so many days and probably the phantom pains. It had been so long since she'd eaten Jemma was forced to hook her up to an IV, one she didn't pull out upon waking like normal. Skye was weak and she hated it. She should be strong for Grant, try to find him, anything to help him, and instead she was bed ridden, unable to stay awake for long periods of time without causing an earthquake.

It was the middle of the night. Skye knew this by how no one was around, even Fitz who never seemed to leave her side. While she thought it would become annoying it was the opposite, Fitz had become a permanent fixture that she could rely on even more than normal. When he was around he would give her the truth straight and cover for her. Skye was beyond grateful. Fitz had even made a necklace to put the rings on for her, so they were still close to her heart. It killed her not to wear them, but she also didn't want to reveal the marriage either.

Skye had tried several times to bring it up. But to speak of the bond was incredibly uncomfortable for some reason. Only with Grant did the words come easily—it had to be a side effect that to talk about it with anyone else besides a bondmate was just plain weird. She'd even tried to at least bring up the marriage, but only tears came then and that certainly didn't help. She was a full-on mess.

Coulson and May were worried about why she wanted to leave again, to take time alone again. They wanted to know how she ended up in Vegas, what happened when Hydra found her, ask why she was so upset and what was causing her to act the way she had when she first found out of her ability. But they didn't. They were worried it would make the situation worse and for some reason that bothered her. They weren't treating her like an agent, they were treating her like a fragile little girl and in part she was acting like one.

It was annoying. This wasn't who she was. Skye wasn't the kind to just take a beating, she learned better from her team, but also Grant. He'd been tortured for almost a week now and still no one stormed HQ. He would never give up her location and yes he now knew it. She'd told him everything. Isn't that what husband and wife were supposed to do? The problem remained that there were numerous places Grant could be. He'd told her about a handful and their security measures, but with the new knowledge of his betrayal (again) he wouldn't likely be taken somewhere he was familiar with or could have told her about. That was just being a good spy and John Garrett was a lot of things—an asshole, a traitor, and a good agent. Unfortunately.

Skye pushed the scratchy blankets off of her and took to the floor. Her knees almost gave out, but with the IV pole in hand she managed to stay up right. All the quakes and pains and meds really were keeping her weak. Before it was just an assumption, untested, but as she slowly made her way around HQ it was definitely proven correct. It was fucking annoying. For Grant she would do better.

It took almost ten minutes longer than it should have for Skye to get to her super computer set-up but she got there and instantly went to work. She searched for anything that was suspicious, anything that could help her find where Grant was. The tentative plan was to find him, then offer herself over. Either they would die together or escape together. Skye would not let him die for her, especially alone, and they wouldn't live without each other. And by now she was good enough at getting out of HQ and to him—it was to knowing she was leaving and may never see them again that would be hard. There had to be a covert way of saying goodbye, but she lived in a building full of spies, they weren't stupid.

Skye was watching yet another searching algorithm come up with nothing while biting her nails when someone approached from behind.

"If Jemma saw you up she'd probably tell you to get back to bed."

Fitz. Of course. She didn't even look away from the computer. "I left the IV in to appease her."

"Well, she'll certainly like that. How are you feeling?"

Skye still didn't look away. "Like half of me is missing."

"We'll find him. I told you I'd help. Now that you're better-"

"I'm not better, Fitz," she cut him off more harshly than intended. "I'm- I have to find him. He'd find me. I don't care what it costs me."

The rocket scientist sat in silence for a few minutes, offering silent support because he didn't know what else to say. "What if we just told everyone-"

"No." Her tone was firm, final. "They won't- we're not- just no." She looked over at him, finally, and met his eyes.

His eyes were wide and knowing. "You two... you're different, aren't you? Like how you're different?"

Skye's mouth dropped open. "I-I, um-" she didn't know what to say, or rather, she didn't know how to say it.

"Why haven't you told anyone? It would have made them understanding a lot easier."

"Easier?" she questioned. "Fitz, when we learned I was able to control earthquakes I was in quarantine for over a week 'just in case'. When Simmons found out I healed fast I was poked and prodded. What will they do about this? I won't let them touch Grant. Our relationship is different because of me, not him, and I'm not in the mood to defend it just like how I've defended my every action since all this happened. This isn't something that's wrong with me, this is the one right now I have going for me."

"You don't have to defend it to me, Skye," Fitz assured her.

"And you're the one who when I was in quarantine came by to hang out and play games, and as soon as I was released, even though my DNA changed or whatever, you hugged me. No one else did all that. You're the one I'm trusting with this. I love them, but immediately they try to dissect what I'm going through rather than just support right away. Eventually they support me, but it's not the same."

"We are family though, Skye, we all love you."

"I know that. I don't doubt that," she told him with a nod. "I just- this isn't something I'm willing to reveal right now, okay?"

Fitz nodded. "So, this different thing with you two, how does it work? Can it lead you to him, do you feel stuff, is it like a spidey sense that tingles?"

Skye felt like every bone in her body needed cracked in order to talk about it. It was that kind of weird discomfort she felt when talking about the bond with someone other than Grant. But, it also wasn't as bad as she'd felt before, it was something she could fight through. "It's- we just- I don't know, you just feel things."

"So how do you know it's a thing? Cal?"

She nodded again. "Yeah, it was why I went to him alone. He had it with my mom. That's why he's so crazy now, they had it and she died. It changed him because they were so connected—there was no real him without her."

"So if something happens to Ward...?"

"I won't be the same, that's why I need to find him. Nothing can happen to him, and it's not even that I care what I will turn into, it's that he can't di-" Skye wiped tears away. "He's barely had a chance to live and he's in this mess because of me. It's not fair."

"We'll save him, I promise," Fitz stated and held onto her hand for support. "Tell me what I can do."

-xo-

Two days later Skye rubbed her eyes and blinked away the burn. She'd hardly slept in the two days she's become stable, as Jemma concluded at least, and was no closer to finding Grant than she was before. She ran countless algorithms, searched different databases numerous times, looked for any out-there stories because usually Hydra was behind those, and came up with nothing. They'd been apart for closer to two weeks and with every passing moment all she wanted to do was crawl out of her skin. Grant was hurt, she could feel it. Nothing had been too bad for days and she was beginning to think that wasn't good. What if they were doing thing to him, experimental things, Deathlok type things? Maybe they tried more brainwashing. What if Whitehall was intrigued by his inability to be brainwashed and was doing something to him like he did to her mother? Garrett knew about her abilities now too, so what if Whitehall knew and thought he had a power and they were doing horrible things?

Skye shook out of her head and did her best to keep a cap on the anger overwhelming her. What was the point of this stupid bond if she couldn't find him when he needed her most? What was the point if all it caused was pain because they couldn't be together? Her heart hurt thinking about not having the bond—it was a part of her—but she couldn't help but think that all it brought to them was more hurt. It was maddening. She had this new title—Inhuman—and she was supposed to be more sophisticated than regular people yet all she felt was hopeless. It wasn't doing her any good—all the earthquakes did was ruin everything around her and she did that well enough without them.

She was two more empty searches from just packing a bag and disappearing, hoping her feet would just let her to him.

"How are you doing?"

Skye jumped and turned to find Simmons with a worried-doctor look. "Um, alright. Tired. Doing work, you know." Actually, Jemma didn't know what she was doing at the computer for the last few days. She hoped the bio-chemist just thought she was doing regular SHIELD work, not finding missing husband work. Fitz had been trying to run interference when possible, but he had the luxury of sleeping once in a while.

"You've been really committed as of late," the (slightly) elder agent commented too-casually.

"Just trying to get stuff done, especially with how I keep messing it all up."

"It's not like that, Skye; we all know you've been going through some things."

Skye let out a long breath. "You have no idea." She rubbed her eyes again. "Just wondering how many chances I'm going to get before I get thrown back-"

"What?" Simmons questioned. "Thrown back into the orphanage? That time has passed, Skye."

"Yeah, well, old habits die hard," she mumbled and then felt a pang at her choice of words. "I just- mistrust of home is my other super power, you know." Until Grant. But rather than getting kicked out he kept getting taken away. "Sorry, I'm tired. I haven't been able to sleep lately."

"Want me to give you something? Sleep is really important, Skye, especially with the quakes. You do better at controlling them when you're taking care of yourself."

It was true, but she didn't want to be knocked out for hours. She wanted to be in control of herself and she needed to be searching for Grant. "I don't think so."

"Nothing too strong, I promise, just something to relax you," Simmons compromised.

Skye shrugged. She did need rest so she could search for Grant in full force. Maybe she would get one last night's rest, good rest, and then set out to find Grant. "Yeah, okay, sure."

"Who the hell knows about this location that we aren't aware of?" Melinda May demanded to know of the agents surrounding her.

No one answered, half scared of just answering, the other half terrified of getting shot for saying the wrong thing.

"Doesn't matter," Director Coulson stated as he rounded the corner, making himself known.

"It doesn't matter? Phil, he shot out the cameras, knows all of the codes, and is about to be inside SHIELD's secret headquarters and it 'doesn't matter'?" she questioned, her tone biting.

Anyone else would have shuttered at the Cavalry's voice, but Coulson just stepped forward with a shrug. "You're right, he's here, and he does know all of our security measures, so we might as well let him in and see how and why he does," he said simply to his second in command. "Now, weapons hot, this guy's good and if we need him taken down you'll get my signal. But it's to take down, not kill, got that?"

The agents nodded and took their positions as May nodded to a Koenig through the security camera to open the doors from the control room.

The steel doors began to part and revealed a man covered in gear which was essential for the extreme Canadian weather. He was prepared. Aware. It only made May more anxious about the situation. They had enough to deal with on base without this intruder making things more difficult or making everything worse.

"Who are you?" Coulson called from behind the wall to not show his face.

The unknown stepped into the underground base and unzipped his jacket before taking off his thick hat. "You got a lot of seismic activity going on for the Canadian wilderness, you know that?" he replied in an uncaring way.

May cocked her gun and came out from hiding. "Hands up or I'll shoot and this isn't an ICER," she warned menacingly.

He complied lazily.

"Now who are you and why are you here?"

Ignoring her previous commands he began to take off his gloves. "Grant Ward, but you might know me as the Lethal Weapon," he introduced himself casually. "And I'm here for my wife," he announced a moment later. "Skye," he told them with a knowing grin as they blinked repeatedly back at him. "Skye Ward."

Skye was being shaken awake. Roughly. "Ah, what?"

It was Fitz. "Something happened. You have to come with me."

She shot up in bed. "What? What happened? Is it-" she stopped. Something felt different. She felt better. "What?"

"He's here."

Skye was already across the room opening the door.

Grant came home, to her.

Okay so we're caught up! Who's happy? I am!
No, this story isn't over. I have more planned for after this.

Review what you think although not much happened...filler-ish, but hey, I got us caught up right?
Still review for me, hah, please.

-Kay