Chapter 1
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Skye woke up with a groan. Everything hurt. Her head was pounding and she couldn’t breathe properly. Groaning she sat up and tried to remember what happened. Last she could remember was leaving the bus with everyone apart from Fitzsimmons. They had needed to stock up but the science duo were in the middle of an experiment. As they were on a Shield facility Coulson said it was safe to leave them on their own so they had headed out. That was the last thing she could remember.
Glancing around she didn’t recognise where she was but it felt oddly familiar. While looking around she spotted the rest of the group. Ward was already sitting up and crawling towards her. May and Coulson were looking around confusedly.
Ward reached out and cupped her face,
“You OK?”
“Yeah. Does this feel familiar to you?”
He just looked at her sharply. That would be a yes then.
Coulson moved over to them after helping May stand, asked,
“Do you know where we are?”
“No but it feels familiar.” She replied.
She looked at what they were wearing the boys were in leather trousers, shirts and a waistcoat with cowboy boots. The girls were in dresses with corsets that were extremely low cut, yet their skirts reached to the floor.
Glancing at Ward she saw he had come to the same conclusion as she had. Crap. This was not going to be fun. Plus they were going to have to explain everything from the last time. They were going to be in so much trouble.
“What is it?” Questioned May, noticing the looks between Skye and Ward.
“Of course we would be sent to an place where I have to wear a corset again! I hate this thing!”
“Skye focus!”
“We are in the machine. Our minds have taken over somebody else’s body.”
“You mean we are in a virtual reality? That was what Jemma said the machine did.”
“Yeah about that.”
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It had taken Skye and Ward a little while to explain about how they had been sent back into the past the last time they were in the machine. Ward wasn’t sure that they had convinced the other two, especially as they couldn’t tell them the main evidence that they had got somebody else pregnant. However, the older two had appeared to accept it for now. As they had told the story they had begun to head towards to the small settlement that was visible from where they had woken up.
It was a bunch of wooden buildings with lots of cabins and horses outside. Looking around Ward recognised the type of buildings and guessed what era they had been sent back to. It was exactly like the westerns his grandfather had liked to watch. They were in the wild Wild West. He felt like he was in back to the future 3. He loved that film, not that he would ever admit it to any of the team. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to look at it the same way again.
Following an instinct that he wasn’t sure was his he led the rest of the team to a building that appeared to be a bar. Entering they soon discovered that May owned and ran the place and was married to Coulson, the town’s sheriff. Skye was their daughter, helping out in the bar and was married to Ward. He was the deputy sheriff. They all lived in rooms above the bar.
Meeting in the common room they met to discuss the situation. It was quickly agreed that they had to pretend to be these people otherwise they would raise suspicion. Skye and Ward quickly agreed that it would be fine with them they had managed last time. Neither of them would look at each other, fearing that it would betray their thoughts. Since coming out of the machine, every night one of them would sneak into the other’s room. They had got used to being close together. Now they would have to pretend or get up early to avoid detection by the team.
Fortunately both Skye and May both had experience in bar work. Ward agreed with Coulson that being sheriff couldn’t be too much different to what they did back in the present. Now that was a weird thing to say. No one could remember what had happened after leaving the bus. It seemed that someone had got the drop on all of them, which was extremely strange. Very few people could sneak up on May.
Coulson then went on to give them some background on the era they were in and what would be expected of them.
“Sir if I may ask how do you know all this?” He inquired.
“When I was the handler for Hawkeye he once had to go undercover in an area that still lived like this. I gathered all the information for him on the lifestyle. I’m still proud of that. He fit in so well he got asked to take part in a music video that was filming in the area.”
“You mean that…?” exclaimed Skye.
“Yeah. He still hasn’t lived that down.” Coulson laughed.
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Ward had quickly come to the conclusion that this time he was going to end up fighting somebody. He had been watching Skye serve in the bar most of the night, while he sat with Coulson watching. The entire night he had to watch other guys flirt with Skye and it was testing his patience. When somebody grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap it was the last straw.
Marching over to the guy he grabbed him by the shirt hauling him up. Holding him close to his face he asked,
“Do you mind? That is my wife you are mishandling.” If he kept to the cover story then maybe he could stay out of trouble with Coulson. At the look on the man’s face he thought it was going to descend into a fight but this friend grabbed his arm and spoke to him,
“I wouldn’t. That’s the deputy. He has yet to loose a fight.”
Hearing that the man immediately backed down. Apparently the guy who Ward had taken over had quite the reputation. Hopefully that would safe him some trouble. At least this time he wasn’t going to have to fight with some unknown weapon. He had a gun and could use his fists.
Hopefully this time would be easier to deal with than the last time they were in the machine.
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After closing the bar, everyone had headed to bed. Although their rooms weren’t next to each other they were still close enough to hear most of what was happening in the other rooms. This was a fact Ward had to keep reminding himself as he looked at his beautiful rookie. Having removed her dress with some relief she was now wearing one of his shirts to bed. As he was so much taller than her it reached down to her thighs, however when she reached up it rode up revealing she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. And she kept reaching up a lot. He was now convinced she was doing it deliberately. All he wanted to do was run his hands up her legs but he knew where it would lead. They definitely couldn’t do that, Coulson and May would definitely hear.
Grinning at him when she caught him looking, she faced him before stretching one more time before climbing into bed. Leaning towards him she pressed a kiss to his lips before whispering,
“I’m sure at some point we can both slip away and get some alone time. In fact I’m looking forward to it.”
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