Chapter 40: I Just Need You To Trust Me

They were back in the air by now and Skye was in the lab with Fitz and Simmons, watching the live feed from the cage on one of the monitors, where their guest was showing first signs of waking up, while the two scientists were busy analysing Hannah's vitals.

She would have much rather been in the command centre with Coulson, May and Ward, but as she had gone there together with her S.O. earlier, Coulson had immediately made it clear that she wasn't part of this mission and therefore didn't have any reason to be there.

A part of her obviously understood his reasoning, but that didn't stop the young woman from feeling utterly useless right now, like she was nothing more than a burden to her team. She had been fine with not going on field missions again for a while, but to be kept completely out of the loop like this, that was something Skye had not expected.

She knew of course that Coulson was simply concerned about her and didn't want her own recovery to be interrupted by the current mission, but it wasn't as if she didn't worry about what was going on with Hannah, just because she wasn't allowed to take part in any of the 'grown-ups' discussions. Or help with the case in any way, for that matter.

To see how everyone else around her had their purpose and was contributing to the mission only reminded the hacker of how fragile her team had to be thinking she was at the moment, which in turn made her wonder whether they were actually right or not.

It wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, and Skye would have wished that she could deny it, even if only to herself, but as she continued to watch the video feed in front of her in silence, she soon found that she couldn't. Because once Hannah was finally completely awake, and it quickly became obvious how terrified she was at her new, intimidating surroundings, Skye realised that she had to focus on something else for a while if she wanted to keep her own not so different memories from resurfacing.

"So, did you guys find anything?" she asked as she turned around to Fitz and Simmons, who were still working on one of the computers in the lab.

"Nothing unusual yet, no," Simmons replied, glancing back at Skye for a moment before she focused on the screen in front of her again. "Hannah's blood results have been entirely normal, and so far the readings of her brainwaves are completely ordinary as well. Maybe we'll get more conclusive results once Agent Coulson goes in to talk to her, but so far I can only tell you that she is upset."

"You need a computer for that?" Skye wondered with a raised eyebrow. "Of course she's upset. The last thing Hannah remembers is a mob in front of her house and people trying to shoot her. Now she's been knocked out, brought here against her will and just woke up all alone in a tiny dark cell with no idea what's going on. She's terrified," the hacker finished her observation.

She had turned back to the monitor showing the interior of the cage once more, so she didn't notice the concerned glance Fitz and Simmons were exchanging behind her back at this point.

"And I can't even do anything to help her," Skye sighed, her frustration growing. "Coulson isn't letting me anywhere near Hannah, so all I can do right now is hang out down here and watch you two work," she complained, briefly waving in her friends' general direction before she went back to watching the screen.

The tone of her voice was making it more than evident how upset she was about the current situation, finally prompting Simmons to abandon her work for the moment.

"Well, I'm sure that Agent Coulson is only doing what he deems best for your recovery by keeping you away from this mission, Skye," she tried to placate the team's rookie, prompting Fitz to quickly chime in as well.

"Jemma is right. After what you've been through, Skye, it makes perfect sense that Coulson wants you to take it easy for a while."

"Yeah, well, I am taking it easy," the hacker replied exasperatedly. "I'm fine with not going into the field for now – even though, if I had been there earlier, maybe I could have done something to prevent that police officer from getting shot – but how is feeling this useless going to help me get better?" she ultimately asked, not really expecting an answer from either of the two scientists. "Not that he seems to care much about how I feel about any of this…"

Skye sighed dejectedly once more while Fitz and Simmons exchanged another look, obviously trying to come up with a way of improving the young woman's bad mood. Ultimately it was the bio-chemist who seemed to have an idea first, as she suddenly walked over to an open case full of technical equipment and retrieved one of Fitz's drones from it.

"Happy," she announced optimistically as she handed the machine to the engineer, causing a confused frown to appear on Skye's face.

The young woman needed a second to realise that that was the drone's actual name, and not some kind of statement about her current emotional condition. During that short moment, she watched as Fitz placed the delicate machine on some kind of docking station on the holo table, obviously activating it.

"Particle accelerator data loading," the scientist narrated his actions absentmindedly while he entered a few commands on the table's display. A few seconds later, a holographic projection of the particle accelerator Hannah Hutchins had been responsible for as a safety inspector appeared above the glass surface, momentarily taking Skye's mind off her current situation.

Every since she had joined Coulson's team, she had been fascinated by the incredible technology SHIELD had at its disposal and their hologram devices were among her absolutely favourite gadgets so far.

She stared at the blue tinged visual with a genuine smile on her face, watching as Fitz started dismantling the complicated looking machine, until she ultimately reached inside herself and pulled out a small round part of the hologram she couldn't even begin to identify.

She had not anticipated the engineer's protective nature, however, as far as his toys were concerned, and flinched visibly as he suddenly slapped her on the fingers lightly, scolding her curious behaviour.

"No! You do not touch that!" he commanded decisively, but was immediately cut short by Jemma, who was glaring at him with an incredulous expression now.

"Fitz!" she protested, reminding her lab partner with that single word that they were trying to make Skye feel useful right now and not push her away even further.

The engineer looked from Simmons' disapproving gaze over to the young hacker, who still had a slightly shocked look on her face in response to him lashing out at her like that, and finally realised how awfully he had just been behaving.

"I'm…. I'm sorry, Skye, I didn't mean to…" he began awkwardly, but quickly gathered himself again and went on in a more collected tone. "What I obviously meant to say was, you usually need two semesters minimum of holographic engineering at the academy before you get to work with this kind of holographic device, but…" Fitz hesitated briefly at this point, as if a part of him wanted to stop him from saying what he was going to say next. In the end, however, he continued anyway, clearly caring more about the young hacker than about any of his valuable machines. "But I'm sure Jemma and I can show you a few basic operations. Right, Jemma?" he asked, glancing over at his lab partner with a faint smile, clearly hoping that she would appreciate his efforts to rectify his mistake and chime in accordingly. Which she did.

"Right," the biochemist quickly agreed, before she focused back on Skye, her demeanour completely professional once more. "Using this machine is actually a bit more complicated than it looks, Skye, but I'm sure that with some patience you'll be able to learn some of its more rudimentary functions very quickly, and –"

However, the young woman was not exactly in a very patient mood right now, and so she just rolled her eyes and stepped back from the holo table, her earlier fascination gone entirely.

"Just forget it, guys, alright? I didn't go to your stupid SHIELD Hogwarts or whatever, so I don't get to play with the cool stuff. I get it," she insisted, but couldn't quite keep her frustration from showing. "I'm just gonna go back upstairs and… I don't know… find something to do on my own computer, I guess. My boring, old, flat computer."

As she turned away from the two scientists, though, Skye's eyes fell on the monitor showing the cage once more and she noticed to her surprise that Coulson and May were in there by now, talking to their terrified prisoner. For a moment she was tempted to stay in the lab after all and keep watching the feed, but then she suddenly realised something else. Because if the two agents were with Hannah, it meant that the only person on this plane whom she might be able to convince of giving her a chance to get involved in this mission was alone right now, most likely watching the same feed as her in the command centre.

"Or I'm gonna go talk to Ward," Skye muttered quietly, more to herself than to Fitz and Simmons, but even though her eyes were still fixated on the monitor, neither of the two scientist apparently made the connection that the young woman was only thinking about their current mission at the moment.

"Well," Simmons began slowly, clearly trying to sound supportive, "I think that's a very good idea. You two have to talk about your issues eventually, and I have to say, you're handling this situation very maturely by giving Ward another chance to explain himself."

"What?" Skye replied immediately, taken off guard by Jemma's take on the situation. Just because her anger and disappointment at her S.O. had calmed down enough for her to talk to him again, it didn't mean that she was ready to put all of that behind her yet, so she shook her head decisively as she continued.

"No, that's not what I meant. It's just… if Ward's not in there," she began explaining, pointing at the interior of the cage on the screen, "then that means he's still in the command centre. And whatever he, Coulson and May discussed earlier that Coulson didn't want me to hear, Ward's the one who can tell me," she declared optimistically and quickly made her way out of the lab without waiting for a reply from either of the two scientists this time.

As Skye had left the room, Simmons sighed audibly and turned to Fitz, disappointment shining in her eyes all too clearly.

"'You do not touch that!' Really, Fitz?"

"I wasn't thinking, alright?" the engineer quickly defended his abrasive behaviour. For a moment he seemed noticeably guilty for shouting at the young hacker just a few moments ago, but then his expression suddenly changed as he continued in a considerably calmer tone. "And, anyway, don't you think she prefers us acting normal around her? The last thing Skye wants is for us to pamper her right now."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure she'd much rather have you shout at her for touching one of your precious machines," Simmons replied dismissively, a disbelieving expression on her face as she concentrated back on the hologram in front of her.

"Yeah, well, if Skye's already talking to Ward again after what he did, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be fine," Fitz muttered in response, as he, too, turned back to his work.

Simmons gave him a brief side glance in return and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "men" under her breath, but other than that she showed no reaction to the engineers words, a part of her already wondering how Skye's talk with her S.O. would go.

"I apologize for bringing you in that way. Things were escalating. It was for everyone's safety."

Ward was standing in front of the computer table in the command centre of the plane, his arms crossed absentmindedly as he watched Coulson talk to Hannah Hutchins, trying to gain her trust. He knew that the blond woman had to be terrified after everything that had happened to her, both back at her house and before, but as he also knew what a talent his superior had for connecting with people, the specialist was sure that if anyone was up to the task of reaching her right now, it was him.

He himself had never been what one might call a 'people person', but while he had never been particularly sad about that, either, he did sometimes envy others for the ease with which they could gain someone's sympathy and trust. It was a skill he had vastly improved over the years, obviously, mostly as part of his undercover training with SHIELD, but to win someone over simply by being who he was, that was just something he had never been good at. And every time he had somehow managed to form such a connection after all, he had also found a way to ultimately destroy in again, just proving to him that in the end he was better off alone.

"Wherever I go, things turn bad."

They were Hannah's words, but somehow they almost felt like his own as Ward kept watching the blond woman in the video feed. He didn't even exactly know why, maybe because her situation was slightly reminiscent of Skye's, which in turn brought back his guilty conscience, but for some reason Ward felt an incredibly protective urge towards Hannah and was more than glad that Coulson was being entirely honest with her. After all, he had just learned the hard way that lying to someone to protect them from the truth could easily cause a lot more harm than good and he wasn't willing to repeat that. Not if he could help it.

"Because of me, they're gone. I killed them," Hannah sobbed as she and Coulson talked about the men who had died in the explosion of the particle accelerator, but Ward's attention was suddenly distracted from the image in front of him, so he didn't catch what his superior replied in return.

"She's blaming herself for what happened, isn't she?"

Skye's voice asked from behind him, startling the specialist and causing him to turn around to find the young woman leaning against the entrance to the command centre.

"Skye…" he replied awkwardly, caught off guard for a moment by her appearance, but then he quickly focused again on the situation at hand and glanced back at the monitor in front of him as he continued. "Yeah, it seems that way. Coulson's explaining to her what's going on, how she got here, including that May took her out and everything else we know so far, but I'm not so sure that Hannah really understands what's happening to her."

"Well, neither do Fitz and Simmons," the hacker replied matter-of-factly as she now stepped forward to stand next to Ward, her eyes glancing up at him briefly before she turned back towards the large screen on the wall. "They're still trying to figure out what caused the explosion of the particle accelerator, but so far they haven't found anything unusual about Hannah."

Ward fully turned his attention away from the video feed at this point to focus on Skye, but without entirely knowing what to say at first.

Despite the fact that this was the second time that the young woman had come to talk to him today, it was still clear to him that she hadn't completely forgiven him yet after his confession yesterday. After all, how could she have so soon, considering the way he'd messed up?

He had let her down in the worst possible way and hadn't even had the guts to be honest about it to her from the start, so of course it would take more than a weak apology from him to fix this rift in their relationship.

But nevertheless, he was more than relieved that the young woman had at least stopped avoiding him entirely and even if they were only talking about professional matters right now, that was still a lot more than he could have hoped for just a few hours ago.

"Well, whatever it is that's happening to her, we're safe out here," he told Skye, wanting to make sure that the young woman knew she wasn't in any kind of danger again. "Apparently Fitz installed some kind of magnetic shielding in the cage after what happened to Simmons with that weird alien disease, so there aren't going to be any more incidents like what happened at Hannah's house until we drop her off at the Fridge."

Skye's brow furrowed noticeably at the specialist's explanation, as she clearly didn't find his words quite as reassuring as he had hoped for.

"But what about Coulson and May?" she asked in return, obviously concerned. "They're in there with her, so if Hannah can't control what's going on with her–" she began, but was quickly cut off by her S.O.

"Don't worry, Coulson can take care of himself," he assured her, only to add, "and, well, if he can't, May will. That's the other reason she's in there, aside from Coulson not wanting to hide anything from Hannah."

"The Cavalry, huh?" Skye replied slowly, her eyes fixed on the female agent on the screen at this point.

"Yeah," Ward agreed before he fell silent for a moment.

A part of him kept telling him that this was the perfect opportunity to apologise to the young woman next to him once more, to assure her how much he regretted both, not having enough faith in her before and not being honest to her about it after her rescue, but at the same time he couldn't help but be afraid that she would turn away from him again, just like she had done yesterday.

The fact that she was here with him right now, talking amiably, was obviously a rather promising indication that she was willing to give him another chance, but just as Ward was finally about to bring up the difficult subject, he remembered how Skye had pulled her hand away from him the day before, just as he had tried to reach for her, and the words suddenly caught in his throat.

It was in that moment, however, that he also remembered something else, something Fitz had said to him just before they had found out the truth about Skye's disappearance, and the specialist suddenly realised with frightening clarity that the engineer had been right.

As far as his rookie was concerned, he really was a coward. He always had been.

"I think I should be in there," Skye announced all of a sudden, interrupting Ward's thoughts and dispelling all intentions he had had of bringing up their personal issues right now.

"What? Why?" he asked instead, fully focused once more. "You do know that Coulson doesn't want you to get involved in this mission, right?" he wondered, one eyebrow raised as he looked down at the hacker.

"Yeah, I know," Skye merely replied, not showing any indication to say anything else on this topic.

"So, I take it you're not taking his 'no' for an answer," the specialist prompted, a slight hint of amusement in his voice. After all, he wasn't at all surprised that his rookie was too stubborn to follow their team leader's instructions, no matter how well intended they had been.

"Nope," she declared resolutely, crossing her arms in front of her chest in the process. "I mean, I know that Coulson just wants to protect me, and I am grateful for that, but just sitting by, doing nothing, that's worse than anything." The young woman seemed to be completely serious about her issues with being benched by Coulson, but as Ward shared his superior's concern for her, he wasn't quite ready to support her attempts at jumping right back into action.

"Trust me, Skye, I know the feeling, but sometimes it's just not up to you and you have to let others take care of things. Just… let Coulson handled this one, alright?" he implored her, no matter how slim he was aware the chances were for her actually listening to him. "You know he's good at this kind of stuff; he talked Mike Peterson down, remember?"

"Yes, of course I remember," the hacker admitted, the thoughtful expression on her face indicating that she was thinking back to the day she had met the team for the first time. "And I know that Coulson is going to reach Hannah eventually. I don't even have a problem with May being in there, not after how she's been supporting me these last few days, but still…"

"Still, what?" Ward asked gently a few moments after Skye had trailed off.

"I don't know, it's like… I feel like there's some kind of connection between Hannah and me. It's hard to describe, really, but I feel like I can emphasise with her to a degree none of you guys can, not you, not Coulson or May, and that that's why I should be the one talking to her."

The specialist sighed deeply at Skye's explanation, already having expected her to say something like that.

"Or maybe that is exactly the reason why you shouldn't." Ward knew that this was probably the exact opposite of what Skye wanted to hear right now, but the words had escaped his lips before he could have stopped himself. Not that he regretted them, however, and not even the slightly hurt look in his rookie's eyes managed to change his mind on that.

It took all his self-control right now for him not to reach out and take his rookie's hand in his, but he just didn't want to take the chance of her not hearing what he had to say due to what had happened between them.

"You said it yourself earlier, Skye, you can relate to Hannah, but are you really sure that you want to? That you want to be there in the cage right now not just thinking about what she's going through, but also about what you've gone through? Do you think that would be helping either one of you?"

This time it was clearly Skye's turn to be caught off guard and she just stared up at her S.O. in silence, unable to come up with anything to say right away. In the ensuing quiet, the voices from the video feed were clearly audible once more after they had been almost drowned out by their conversation before.

"God's punishing me," Hannah was declaring right now, her voice all but breaking as she looked up at Coulson. "He abandoned me. He doesn't protect me anymore. That's why this is happening."

"Protect you from what?" the agent asked in return. He was crouching beside the blond woman, doing his best not to appear intimidating. When he finally received his answer, however, Coulson clearly wasn't the only one visibly surprised by it.

"Demons, sir. I'm being haunted by demons."

In the command centre, Ward was staring at the video feed in bewilderment, his eyebrows risen as far as possible.

"Huh," he uttered in surprise and finally glanced over at Skye before he continued. "Sooo… you're still relating?" he wondered, knowing full well how insensitive his words had to sound, considering the situation, but not being able to resist the joke.

When his rookie punched him in the arm in response, the specialist actually grinned slightly, but he quickly became serious again as the young woman turned to leave the command centre and headed into the direction of the cage.

"Skye, wait!" he called after her, "I was joking, alright?"

"Yes, I know you were, but she's not," she replied, obviously talking about their prisoner. "I'm going to wait for Coulson to come out of that room again and then I'll convince him to let me talk to Hannah."

The hacker suddenly stopped halfway through the lounge area of the Bus, giving Ward the chance to catch up with her. As she turned around to him once more, he could easily see how invested she was in what was happening to the blond woman in their custody, and that she would remain that way no matter what he or anyone else had to say to that.

"Look, Ward, I know you're worried about me – obviously everyone on this team is right now – and I also know that there is probably nothing I can say to convince you that me being a part of this mission is a good idea, but I just need you to trust me on this, alright?" she implored him, but continued before he had the chance to reply immediately. "Everyone keeps telling me what I can't do right now; that I can't go on into the field, that I can't continue my training, that I can't even be a part of a stupid mission briefing," she complained, clearly especially angry about that last part, "but this, helping Hannah, that's something I know I can do, I just need a chance to prove it."

Ward was at a complete loss for words for a moment. A part of him was incredibly relieved, almost ecstatic really, to see his rookie this passionate for something again and he wanted nothing more than to help her in every way he could, but at the same time he knew that this wasn't his call to make. Even if he would make the according recommendation to Coulson, he wasn't sure if their team's leader was going to follow it, considering the specialist's recent lapses in judgement as far as Skye was concerned.

"I do trust you, Skye, and maybe you taking a shot at this wouldn't be a bad idea, but I don't know if Coulson's going to go for this. He's made it pretty clear that he wants you to take a back seat during this operation, and I don't think he's ready to change his mind."

The young woman was just about to say something to this in return, but before she had the opportunity to reply anything, the voice of the agent in question suddenly cut her short.

"Ward is right, Skye," Coulson pointed out in his usual calm tone, causing the specialist to look past the young woman and finally notice him and May approaching them from the direction of the cage. "I obviously appreciate your concern for Miss Hutchins, but I am not going to jeopardise your well-being in favour of hers, so I'm asking you once more to accept my decision on this matter. You are not cleared for active duty yet, which means that you are not part of this operation, understood?"

"And what about him?" Skye suddenly asked in a defiant tone, indicating her S.O. "I thought he was on probation or something."

Ward shot the young woman a speechless glance, annoyed that she would throw him under the bus like this, but Coulson clearly wasn't in the mood for Skye's objections, either, going by the no-nonsense way he responded.

"Agent Ward might be on probation for the time being, but as he has demonstrated his usefulness for this operation on the ground, he will continue being a part of it. You, however, are not, Skye, and I don't want to have to remind you of that again."

Ward was starting to get the feeling that this was quickly turning into a fight he didn't want to be in the middle of and even though the young woman's next retort to Coulson wasn't worded very strongly, he was still glad that he wasn't the one to have to reply to it.

"Well, on a plane this small there isn't really that much for me to do if I'm not allowed to help, so what do you want me to do, stay in my bunk, read a book?"

The look on Skye's face was completely incredulous as she posed the question, but it became even more so when Coulson ultimately replied.

"Actually, I don't think that would be a bad idea," he admitted, causing the hacker to stare at him wordlessly for an uncomfortably long moment.

In the end she simply shrugged and muttered a small, but angry "fine," before she turned away from her team mates and stormed off to her bunk, obviously furious.

Ward found himself looking after her for a few seconds, regret clouding his vision, until his attention was suddenly caught by Agent May, who spoke up for the first time now since she and Coulson had left the cage.

"Trust me, this could have been worse," she pointed out, although Ward wasn't entirely sure whether she was talking to him or Coulson right now.

To be continued…