So Long

Chapter 7: Have It Your Way

When Skye woke up again, she was alone in her cell, absolute darkness surrounding her. She had completely lost her sense of time and couldn't even tell if it was day or night, as no light from the outside made it into her room.

While she had never been particularly afraid of the dark, she had to admit that this complete blackness around her was starting to take its toll on her. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest as she kept glancing around, imagining that she had heard a sound.

It must have been over an hour later when there was actually a faint noise coming from one of the walls, a shuffling and the scurrying of small feet. Skye almost jumped out of her skin before she realised that rats were probably the least of her problems right now.

Time seemed to crawl as she kept sitting in silence in her pitch-black cell, knowing that screaming for help wouldn't do her much good. If there had been anyone close enough to hear her, they would have certainly alarmed the police by now, after all the times she had screamed in pain during Jack's last visit. Her throat still felt sore at this point and the fact that she hadn't had anything to drink in ages certainly wasn't helping, either.

Her mind kept wandering, as there wasn't really anything else to do, and as Skye thought about Ward and the rest of her team, her friends, she couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking about her right now. Had Jack's ruse really been so effective that they all believed her to be a traitor? She still remembered vividly how much it had hurt to face Coulson again after she had deceived the team to warn Miles. However, it hadn't been nearly as bad as the silent treatment she had received from Ward for weeks afterwards.

Still, she had been able to fix all of that, more or less at least. She had worked hard to make it up to everyone and if their last exchange before the mission was anything to go by, Ward had finally forgiven her for her betrayal.

Now, however, they were right back at the start, or probably even worse. Skye realised with horror that should she die in this cell and the team never found her, Ward's last memory of her would always be how she had betrayed him in the worst possible way: By abandoning him in the middle of an operation. And all she could do about that now was hope and pray that this wasn't going to be the end for her.

Ripping her out of her thoughts, there was a noise coming from outside and Skye realised after a second that it was the sound of footsteps quickly getting closer. A moment later the door opened and the bright light from the hallway blinded her once more until her eyes slowly adjusted to it.

As Jack entered the room, Skye blinked at him, her vision only gradually returning. It took her a moment until she noticed the bottle of water in his hand. Once she had noticed it, though, she found that despite her best efforts not to, she couldn't stop staring at it. She was so thirsty by now that she was afraid she might pass out again any minute, although the next round of torture she knew was coming hadn't even begun yet.

After he had set the bottle down on the ground, Jack faced her again, his arms crossed in front of him.

"Are you feeling a little more like talking today?" he asked, although he didn't seem very confident to find the young woman more cooperative this time.

"Depends on the topic, I guess," Skye answered quickly, sounding almost like her usual cheerful self. "You wanna talk about clothes, or hacking maybe? Politics' a bit boring if you ask me and I'm sorry, but I don't do sports; but other than that I'm sure we'll find something to talk about." She was doing her best not to let her real emotions shine through, but Jack wasn't falling for the act.

"You're a funny girl, aren't you? Putting up this brave front, but I know deep inside you're already shaking with fear."

As Skye was determined to defy her kidnapper for as long as possible, she replied in a brisk tone, her voice unwavering.