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As she gently touches the package the team was tracking in order to get to Quinn, something else catches Skye’s attention. It is an enclosed chamber. As she inches towards it, she sees what is inside. Not a what, but a who. “Mike?” Skye is stunned to see Mike Peterson in this weird chamber. She can’t tell if he is alive or dead, but either way, he doesn’t look to be in good shape: half of his body is burned and his right leg is gone below the knee. As Skye is trying to figure out a way to get Mike out of this situation towards safety and to possible medical care, Quinn and a Cybertek guy sneak up behind her. “Hello.” Skye turns around with the night-night gun pointing at Quinn, but since she is caught off guard, the man with Quinn overpowers her and takes the gun out of her hand and holds her by the throat against the chamber. “Skye. The Clairvoyant told me to expect you.” Great. The Clairvoyant name drop again. And apparently while the team was looking at Quinn and Co, they were looking at them with their night-night technology. As Quinn is saying this, he opens the door to the chamber and slides Mike out. Skye sees Mike stir and wake up. “Mike. Oh God. You’re alive.” He glances at her as Quinn states, “Oh that’s right you know each other” and then he brings up Mike having orders. Quinn goes towards the package and says this will help Mike complete them. The man who had the night-night gun pointed at Skye gives it to Quinn as he undoes the package. “Orders? Mike. What is happening here? Mike.” Mike doesn’t say anything back to her, he just gives her another glance. She has so many questions running through her mind that she can’t say aloud since he doesn’t seem to be answering her. Did they turn Mike against them? What are these orders and how did they capture him in the first place? Quinn’s accomplice pulls out a rounded piece of technology from the package. Skye hasn’t seen anything like this before. He makes his way to Mike and puts it on his leg that is missing. Mike stands and with painful grunts and screams of pain, it turns into a robotic leg. Quinn thanks the man apparently named Mancini and gives him back the night-night gun as he heads upstairs awaiting his payment. Quinn tells Mike that is the best money can buy, and that all the technology in him is top of the line and knows Mike gets his orders from the Clairvoyant. Yet another question runs through Skye’s mind: Technology in him? Oh God. What else has this poor guy gone through? He is a good person, who has had bad breaks. He can’t turn into a bad guy. As she is thinking this, Quinn pulls out a real handgun, points it at Mike, and asks if he would stop him from pulling the trigger on him. Mike responds that he wouldn’t. Skye can’t stand it anymore and has to speak up.“Mike. Listen. I do not know what they are doing to you, but we have to get out of here. Now.” As Skye finishes her plea, Quinn gives Mike the handgun and asks him if he would kill Skye. “What would hurt Agent Coulson more than to lose his pet project?” Skye feels more terrified now because not only is it a real gun, but also because she’s afraid Mike might actually do it, since he doesn’t seem to be in control of his actions or his own free will. “Those aren’t my orders. She’s not who I’m supposed to kill.” He gives the gun back to Quinn as he heads out the door up the stairs. “Wait. Wait Wait!” Skye says this as she starts to follow Mike to try to stop him from doing something he might regret later on, but there’s no use, he won’t listen to her. As she gets to the door, she turns around because she can’t leave Quinn by himself to get away again, especially since he is a part of a big scheme that she doesn’t know the full gist of yet. She asks, “What the hell did you do to him?” And then the gun goes off. Her eyes grow big. Did he just shoot her? She didn’t think he had the guts to pull the trigger. Yeah he is a bad guy, but he didn’t seem like the type to want to get his hands dirty. He seemed like he was just a talker, while others did his dirty work. She is in shock and looks down to find her hand automatically on her stomach and sees blood seeping through her fingers. That’s when the pain hits, and she starts to become pale, sweaty, and gasps for air. Quinn slowly makes his way over to her and grabs her and pulls her into a hug. He then shoots her again in the stomach as she lets out another gasp. He lays her down on the floor and tells her he is sorry and has his orders too. He just leaves her to bleed out and choke on her own blood.
Once Quinn leaves, Skye gets enough strength to lift her head up from the ground and grunts out “Help.” She needs to get out of there or at least try to make her way out of the cellar, so that Fitz and/or the team can find her soon. She starts dragging her body towards the door, leaving a trail of blood. As she gets to the door. She cracks it open and tries to call out, but her voice is weak and she can only gasp out, soft, whispered helps. She is too exhausted and can’t find the energy to move more, especially not up stairs. As she leans against the brick wall, struggling and trying to stay awake, she immediately starts thinking of Jemma. She would be telling her it was adrenaline that gave her the strength to move after getting shot, and then she would go into the science behind it. Thinking of Jemma then leads to her thinking about the team and how she wants to see them again. Even though they have only been working as a team for a few months, they have become closer recently. She liked Coulson from the beginning. Even though Shield seems to be his whole life, he still has a sense of humor, a friendliness, and a warmth to him. Maybe it’s that aura that attracts her to him. Not in a romantic relationship kind of way, but there just seems to be something about their relationship that seems to run deep. He trusts her, even when it might not have been smart to in the beginning. No one has put that much trust or faith in her ever. It certainly makes her want to prove herself to him, and be who he thinks she is or has the potential to be. As for Jemma and Fitz, they became friends after the first couple missions. She may not be a genius like them, but she has grown fond of them and it seems like they have taken a liking towards her as well. It’s as if their bond is one of siblings, or at least on her end. She can’t help but think Simmons and Fitz belong together and can’t believe they haven’t figured it out yet. Ward and May were tougher to get through to because they both are so focused on the job and being badasses. It was hard to get a smile out of either one, but Ward has lowered his defenses some, and May seems to be warming up to her more these last couple of missions. The members of the team are her last thoughts as the world fades away.
Bang! Crash! Thud! Fitz looks over as a body lands a few feet away from him. He is under Quinn’s SUV, disabling it so he couldn’t get away. As he rolls out from underneath the car, the sounds continue from the inside of the mansion, and it dawns on him- Skye! She was inside too. Crap! He needs to get in there and make sure she is alright. The thought her being in the chaos and possibly injured leaves him breathless. As he starts to make his way towards the house, he hears the sound of a night-night gun go off behind him. Fitz turns around to find Ward shot someone who was about to shoot him. The rest of the team comes towards him and Coulson asks where Skye is. All he could do at that moment was point to the mansion and say “she didn’t want Quinn to get away.” Ward and Coulson run towards opposite sides of the mansion to take down any enemies, while Jemma, Fitz, and May stay behind for a few minutes until it is clear to come in. They hear the constant rounds of the night-night guns and then there is silence. Fitz, Simmons, and May decide it is safe to enter the house. As they are walking in, they see Coulson push Quinn onto a table roughly, see him glance at Quinn’s hand, and pulls him up by his hair as Ward has a hold of him as well, and asks where Skye is. Quinn menacingly says, “You know Agent Coulson, it’s dangerous to keep sending her in like that all alone. When she means so much to you.” The smugness of Quinn makes Coulson sick and he pistol whips him, and both him and Ward slam Quinn down onto the table again. With a threat like that, Coulson can’t help but let a little panic rise up in his voice as he tells the team to search the house and find Skye. Everyone immediately jumps into action. Fitz and Simmons go up the stairs, Ward runs down a hallway, Coulson goes down another hallway, and May stays behind to put Quinn in handcuffs and put him on the Bus in lockup, before helping in the search for their missing team member.
A little bit into the search, Coulson heads down some stairs that leads to a basement or cellar. As he opens the door, he looks down and sees Skye leaning against the wall right next to the door. In one glance he takes in the sight. She has blood coming out of the corner of her mouth, a massive amount of blood that is pooled on her shirt, and she is very, very pale. “Oh…no. Oh, no. Oh God. Simmons! Get down here!” He says as he crouches down to bring Skye closer to him. He definitely can’t help the panic that rises in his voice as he yells up to Simmons for help. Even though she is unresponsive he tells her, with tears in his eyes, “Oh God. Hang on. Just hang on ok? Oh God.” He can’t stand the thought of losing one of his agents or team members and doesn’t want to think about it. He knows it is a very real possibility, especially with this job, but there is just something special about Skye. If he loses her, he doesn’t know if he can rebound from it. He can’t explain the love and respect he has for this girl already. There was just something about her that drew him towards her in the first place. She might have been considered a risk or threat in the beginning, but he saw through everyone else’s words and saw that she is an empathetic, good, kindhearted person. She has had a tough life so far, but to him, her overall goodness outshines everything that her upbringing could have potentially turned her into. Yes, she has broken laws, but even with the Rising Tide, she was just trying to get information out to the public and was not doing it for the money. Since she has joined the team, he has seen her willingness to help, learn, and grow. It also seems like she has found a family with them. Not least of all, she was also a huge reason the team found him, when Raina and Poe held him captive in the desert. He can’t lose her. She saved him, he needs to do the same for her.
As Ward and Fitz run into the room, they can’t believe their eyes. Skye is in Coulson’s arms unresponsive and not looking good. They don’t really know what to do. Ward has seen agents die before, but seeing Skye look like death hits differently. Not only does he have feelings for her, but why didn’t Garrett say anything about this being a part of the plan? Would he have stopped Garrett from ordering it, if he knew Skye was going to be shot? He would like to think so, but then again, he is loyal to and owes Garrett everything. He thinks this is why Garrett told him to never get attached. It is a sign of weakness. He shouldn’t feel this conflicted about seeing her looking so lifeless. Although, maybe it was good to not know his plan. That way he doesn’t have to act his way through feeling upset that this happened. Fitz is speechless as well and stands back. He was hoping that Skye would come out of the commotion he heard unscathed. Even though he heard all the chaos and was worried about her, there was always a thought in the back of his mind that told him that she will be fine because she is able to get out of situations by talking or distracting people. Like when she first went undercover at Quinn’s compound in Malta. She was able to get inside his office and then when her earpiece went dead for a few minutes, she was able to somehow distract Quinn long enough to enable the signal back to the team so Coulson and Ward could enter the compound. And even on today’s undercover mission, she was able to steal the set of keys off the conductor’s wrist without him knowing it, even though Fitz has technology that would have done the job. Even though it was initially just the two of them on site and not having a solid plan, with her smarts and her couple months of training to become a field agent, he thought she would be okay for long enough for the team to show up to help them out. So when he heard Coulson call for Simmons panicked, he knew it couldn’t be good, and his hope that she would be fine disappeared.
Simmons races down the stairs right behind Ward and Fitz. She immediately drops down to Skye’s other side to assess her. Coulson tells her she’s been shot. Seeing the injuries, it is best to keep her upright. It’s a few seconds later that Coulson says she doesn’t have a pulse, this rattles Jemma and she starts to panic and get tears in her eyes. She wants to save her friend so bad, so why is she stuttering and having a hard time coming up with a solution? Maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to admit to herself and everyone that they might be too late. If Skye wasn’t shot, she would do CPR to try to get her heart beating again. But since she was shot in the stomach, doing CPR would create even more blood loss and prove to be pointless. She can’t give up on her friend yet. She looks around at the team members and spots the hyperbaric chamber. That should do the job to at least keep her alive or halt the bleeding, until they get her to a medical facility. But they have to act fast. As she takes authority and says put her in there, Ward questions her about what it is. “It’s a hyperbaric chamber and I said put her in there. Now.” As the team carefully pick Skye up and put her in the chamber, Jemma thinks she never wants to see her like this again. She and Skye have grown close. They are completely different people, Jemma likes to play by the rules and do what is expected of her, and Skye basically makes a living thinking outside the box. They have even gotten into some bad girl shenanigans together, even though she didn’t want to at first, which ended up turning out to be quite thrilling and fun. When faced with her own brush of death, Jemma saw how devastated Skye looked. Even though she hated to see the pain and devastation on her face, she knew she made an impact on Skye’s life. Jemma just hopes that Skye knows that she has already impacted her life too and in the short time period of knowing each other, feels like Skye is her best friend, other than Fitz that is. And she will do everything she can to keep her alive. Even though she is on the verge of tears, she can’t break down now. Not when the team is relying on her and her knowledge to keep Skye alive.
After May locks Quinn in the holding cell on the BUS, she runs back to the mansion to help search for Skye. As she is making her way back through the front door, she hears the end of Coulson’s panicked cry and sees the back of Simmons heading towards a flight of stairs. Based off of Coulson’s voice, she knew it couldn’t be good. She hasn’t heard him sound like that ever. He is usually so calm and collected, nothing seems to faze him, but obviously whatever happened to Skye did. May hurries down the stairs to find Simmons and Coulson beside Skye and Fitz and Ward nearby giving them space. May stands by Coulson and takes in the sight. You would think that after seeing so much combat and action over the years that this sight wouldn’t startle her, but that’s not true. Even though Skye and her have had their ups and downs, she never wanted to see anything bad happen to her. When May first joined the team, she wanted to be distant from everyone, to not become attached to the team members because if something like this happened, she didn’t want to go into a deep spiral like she did after Bahrain. But as the weeks on the BUS went on, and as the team became closer, she couldn’t help but like what she was seeing from them. She technically put Coulson’s team together in order to watch him, but he added Skye on his own. Even though she thought it was the wrong move, Coulson’s gut has seemed to be right about her. She has proved herself to be useful on their missions, so much so, that is one of the reasons why she helped Coulson look into Skye’s past. Not only has she seemed to be useful, but she is also seeing why Coulson liked her from the get-go. She does want to do good and help protect the public. She has a different style of doing it than the rest of them, but that isn’t a bad thing. Skye is still young and has so much to learn, but she could make a great agent one day. Her time cannot be up yet. As she is ruminating in her thoughts, she gets brought back to the present when she hears Simmons yell at Ward. They pick Skye up and May tells them to be gentle as they settle her into the chamber. As Fitz and Simmons stabilize the pressure and temperature, everyone holds their breath and wait to see if it’s working. This is too much. May breaks first and asks in a sad and softer tone than usual, “Is it working?” Coulson repeats it in a louder, worried tone. Skye’s mouth opens as she takes a breath. Simmons confirms that it is working for now.
Once they move the chamber to the BUS, Simmons tells them that they need to get to a medical facility soon or else Skye could have permanent brain damage due to her temperature hovering around 44 degrees while in the hyperbaric chamber. Simmons will do everything she can to keep her stable and safe. She says this in such a professional voice and then excuses herself. Fitz knows Jemma is going to break down soon, so he gives her a few minutes of alone time, before he sets out to go comfort her. To be honest, he needs Jemma’s comfort as well. He feels guilty and like it’s his fault that he didn’t go in the house with Skye. Maybe somehow he could have prevented this from happening. They will never know, but if Fitz was with her, he very well could have been injured and shot as well… Coulson hasn’t said much since they have been back on the plane and hasn’t taken his eyes off Skye or his hand off the chamber. Even though he can’t hold her hand directly, it’s as if he is trying to tell Skye that he is there, that they are all there for her. Ward still looks upset and mad. He leaves Coulson with Skye and heads to the cargo hold, which is just outside where Skye and Coulson are. May is ever observant and even though she is distraught and upset herself, she feels like she needs to be with Ward or let Ward talk it out. She closes the door as Ward slams his fist into their SUV. She has a feeling that he thinks it’s his fault that this happened. Because Ward is her S.O., he may feel like he failed her or didn’t prepare her enough, even though this wasn’t supposed to be a combat op. “She should have never gone in there alone.” “You can’t blame yourself..” May tells him. “I don’t blame myself.” May feels like he is implying it is on Coulson, even though it isn’t his fault. It is none of their faults. Do they all wish they could go back in time and change the events that have occurred? Of course. But if anyone deserves the blame, all they need to do is look at the monitor to see Ian Quinn sitting in their custody.