Chapter 1
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Ward came to consciousness suddenly, with his mind fogged. His body ached, recognising that lying on cold hard ground wasn’t good for it. His hair was constantly being ruffled, which felt wrong to him. Going from the dampness of his clothes and the water running down his face he was outside. But that couldn’t be right. The last thing he could remember he was in doors. Something had happened but he was definitely inside. Squinting he looked around and tried to get his bearings. He was lying on what looked like a concrete slab, turned black by the water bouncing down onto it. Even the small amount of light that the grim weather allowed hurt his eyes. Reaching up he gingerly checked his scalp. No bumps so that ruled out a head injury. What had just happened?
SKYE!
He jumped up and saw the scene before him swim before his eyes. He remembered what had happened. Skye collapsing, running over to her with Coulson. Nothing they had done had been able to revive her. Then, as they were standing over Skye he had watched as both May and Coulson had collapsed without a sound. Then there was just darkness.
Getting his bearings he noticed that he was near a house, he’d been lying in what appeared to the back garden with a strange iron structure covered in grass in front of him. He wasn’t sure where he was but it was clear he was no longer in the Wild West. He wasn’t sure he was even in the same country, the house behind him looked different to what you normally found in America.
Turning to get another look at the house he noticed someone lying on the ground beside the house. He must have missed them when his vision was spinning. Hurrying over to them, he game them a quick once over. Although he wasn’t medically trained he had been on enough operations to assess if someone was seriously injured and needed help. Fortunately whoever was lying here wasn’t seriously injured. As they were face down he had difficulty identifying who they were but his instincts were telling him he would recognise the person. Carefully, cradling their head he rolled them over till he could see their face. He was right. Sitting on the ground he placed her head in his lap and began trying to wake her up.
“Simmons. Jemma.”
After a couple of attempts he saw her eyes begin to flicker. Good she would be conscious soon. Maybe she could shed some light on where they were or at least how she had ended up in the machine. A siren went off somewhere near by, but as he couldn’t see any danger he ignore it. He could deal with that later.
“Hey. Take it easier I don’t know how long you’ve been unconscious.”
“Ward?”
“Yep.”
“Fitz? Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I’ve just found you, nobody else.”
“Where is everybody else?”
“Don’t know that either.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“In the machine at a guess. As for anything else I’ve no idea, I don’t know where or what decade but I’m sure we can find something later to tell us.”
“There may not be anything to tell us. It’s a virtual reality remember. I know you’ve been in here a while but it isn’t real.”
“Yeah about that. Actually it is. We have taken over someone else’s body. We are actually in whatever time period this is. Before this we were in the Wild West. Then something happened. I assume that was when you appeared here.”
“It can’t be real. It’s impossible.”
“Oh I wish it was impossible. Things would be so much simpler.”
Seeing she was looking more alert he lifter her until she was sitting up, though still leaning against him for support.
“How did you end up here?”
“We went looking for all of you when you didn’t return. We found you hooked up to another machine again, with Skye, May and Coulson. When we tried to release you there was a box that emitted some sort of gas. Then I woke up here.”
“That’s clearly what Charlie was talking about.”
“Charlie?”
“I’ll explain in a bit. If you’re ready we’ll go and try and find the others. Hopefully they will be nearby.”
“I recognise this place.”
“Really?”
“Yeah not sure why though.”
“Could be a side affect of the machine. Though from what we’ve learned you have to be in it longer before it has that affect. What is that noise?”
Ward looked around exasperated. While they had been talking a low droning noise could be heard. It sounded sort of like a plane, but something was off with the pitch for it to be that. Turning back to Simmons he saw she had lost all colour. Grabbing his hand, she practically dragged him to the weird garden feature.
“Come on.” She ordered sounding panicked.
“What’s wrong?”
“If we don’t get in here we will die!”
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May came too quickly, like she did after she had slept. Almost automatically she surveyed the area around her for danger. Her head was spinning yet she could break the automatic reaction. She didn’t recognise her surroundings but it was very clear she was no longer in the Wild West. She noticed a familiar figure lying not far from her so slowly crawled towards him. She wasn’t ready to walk yet.
“May?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we? Where’s Jemma?”
“I don’t know Fitz. Are you all right?”
“My head hurts and my throat is irritated from whatever gas we got hit with but otherwise fine.”
“Gas?”
“Jemma and I went to find all of you after you disappeared. But once we found you we got hit by some gas.”
“You went alone? Without backup?”
She didn’t mean to take her anger out on him but she was worried. She had no idea where they were, other than in the machine and didn’t know where the rest of the team were. The fact that they had put themselves in danger for them annoyed her. She couldn’t wait till they found Charlie again. He would pay for this.
“We were worried. We told others what we were doing and measured Director Fury.”
“Next time take backup.”
“Yes Mam.”
“Now come on we better find somewhere to hide and fast.”
She could hear what she instantly recognised as a plane coming towards them. Without knowing what time period they were in or what country they were in, planes were not a good thing. They needed to hide and once it was clear find the rest of the team. Then they could make a plan to find Charlie and find out why he had put them in this machine.
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Skye woke, finding herself on the ground again. She was really getting fed up of this. At least this time she could breathe. Peering down at herself she could see that she was wearing a flowery dress, something she normally wouldn’t be caught dead in. But anything was better than the corsets. Yes they may make your figure better but they hurt after you wore them for a long time, plus they weren’t easy to move around in. There was also the bonus of the skirt not being to her ankles, it was past her knees but she should be able to move now.
“Skye!” Hands belonging to the person who said her name grasped her shoulders. She was turned to face them and quickly saw it was Coulson.
“A.C! You’re alright.”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Once she had calmed him enough so he released the death grip on her shoulders she could see him properly. He was in a weird outfit that almost seemed to be a uniform, with dark blue trousers and top with a white band on one arm. There was some sort of emblem, which Skye couldn’t read. He even had an iron hat, that was painted black and had a large white W painted on the front.
“We’re in a different era.” She guessed.
“Judging by the clothes yes. I don’t know where the May and Ward are though.”
“Me neither. What happened?”
“You collapsed so we tried to help you.”
“I could hear you calling my name but couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Then everything went black. I then woke up here.”
“Not much to go on then. I wonder if Charlie is in this era?”
“I hope so. We need some answers.” He replied but seemed distracted.
She turned to look where he was facing. In the distance she could see a plane heading towards them. She wasn’t sure why he was so fascinated by it. He had seen planes before. They lived on one for god’s sake! As she watched him she saw him pull the patch on his clothing closer to his eyes and read what was written there. All colour drained from his face.
“A.C?” He was beginning to worry her.
He looked around wildly before grabbing her hand and dragging her towards a set of stairs descending near them.
“We need to get down there now!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I know where we are Skye. This is an air raid Warden’s uniform. They were used in the UK during heavy bombardment of the country.”
“You mean…”
“Yes. We are currently in the second world war.”
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