Chapter 2
The next morning after the boys had left Skye dressed and headed down to help May in the bar. It needed restocking and cleaning from the night before. Which would be fine if she was able to move properly. She used to like corsets but now having worn them for longer periods of time she never wanted to wear one ever again. She saw May beckon her over to her and stood while she fussed around her dress. May quickly changed the ribbon on the corset and adjusted Skye’s skirt. She now could move without being hindered.
“Thank you. Where did you learn to do that?”
“I had a varied past with Shield. One of my missions involved wearing a dress like this, but I had to also be able to fight in the dress. So I quickly found a way to adapt it.”
Skye looked at the woman in awe, was there anything she couldn’t do?
As she was tidying up the bar she came across a jacket that clearly had been forgotten. It looked no different to any of the other jackets she had seen the men wearing here. There was nothing distinctive about it so she simply placed it behind the counter. If they wanted it back they would just have to ask for it.
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“So how are you?” Ward was surprised by the question from Coulson. They were both walking towards the jailhouse to see what work there was to do and to try and get acclimatised to this reality. Seeing his confusion, Coulson elaborated,
“I know this has to be difficult for both you and Skye.”
“Yeah. Fortunately Skye has taken it fairly well. Hopefully Fitzsimmons will figure out we have disappeared and we will get out soon. It’s a bit easy now that we actually know what is happening.”
“I can imagine.”
They had arrived at the jailhouse finding a simple building. It consisted of a single room containing two desks filled with paper and a railed cell at the other side of the room. Heading towards a desk Ward quickly realised that he recognised the desk. Apparently this time he retained some of the memories of the body he currently had control of. That was going to get strange. It was bad enough knowing you had taken over somebody else’s body, but having some of their memories was worse. He felt like he was violating them. He hoped they found whoever had created the machine. He had some interesting idea for when they capture them.
Breaking away from his dark thought he started sorting through the paper on his desk. There was nothing that was urgent or appeared to need anything doing to it. Glancing up to see how Coulson was doing he saw his boss was staring out of the window looking at something to the back of the jail. Seeing Ward looking at him, Coulson indicated he should follow him and headed outside. At the back of the jail there were a series of targets set up at different distances. They had clearly been well used as they had a lot of holes in them. Turning to his boss with a grin,
“Shall we do a bit of target practise sir?”
“I think that might be a good idea, Ward. We wouldn’t want to have problems as we are not used to the guns.”
Both agents had training with different types of guns, including the old types they currently had. Shield liked their agents to be trained for anything. Ward had at first thought they were being paranoid but having now been in different situations and sent back in time twice he was beginning to reconsider that thought. When he got back he might make a request to Shield to include more training. Horse riding and jousting suddenly had become more important skills. Not that the gun he was using now was particularly hard to use, it wasn’t that much different from his normal gun. Not to fire anyway. It was a six shot revolver. The only different was that you had to reload by hand instead of inserting another magazine. It was a while since he had shot one of these but he quickly found his rhythm and could once again reload it quickly. Both agents had a great time practising, quickly making bets of who could make the best shot and who could hit the furthest target. It was a relaxing way to spend the morning even though they were still stuck in a weird situation.
A noise behind them caused them both to turn. Stood beside the jail was a woman, clearly out of breath from running.
“Sheriff. Someone has stolen our horses.”
Glancing at Coulson he quickly left him to get more information from the woman, while he prepared their horses. Just as he had finished saddling the horses Coulson came around the corner. Mounting the horse he called over to Ward,
“Four men on two horses. Carrying guns. Heading towards the outskirts of the town. Lets try and keep them alive if possible.”
Nodding his agreement he follow Coulson at a gallop to catch the thieves. How he was supposed to take them alive when they had guns he wasn’t sure. He had a feeling he was going to do something he would regret later, or would cause Skye to yell at him, or both. He was quickly able to pick out the thieves; the dust clouds created by the horses gave it away. They were able to gain on them, nearly being level with them, before the thieves saw that anyone was chasing them. He saw one of them turn around and notice him, grabbing his gun. Ward had time to duck as the thief fired toward him. Drawing level with the thieves he launched himself from his horse, tackling them both from the horse. One guy had knocked himself out with the fall, the other Ward quickly dealt with, dealing a swift punch to the head. Turning to see how Coulson was doing he found him with the other two thieves in hand, point his gun at both.
“Seriously Ward? A flying tackle?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
He knew he was going to pay for it later. He could already feel the bruises forming on his ribs where he had landed. Oh well at least they had caught the thieves and got the horses back. He wondered how much he was going to get yelled at by Skye when she found out what he had done.
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Skye was run off her feet in the bar. Apparently most of the town came into the bar in their lunch breaks, meaning that the bar was packed. It didn’t help that everyone had appeared all at once. Something had happened in the town apparently and it had caused much excitement. She hadn’t time to find out what had occurred properly as she was running around serving people. All she knew was it was something to do with horses and a spectacular leap. Somebody showing off probably.
There was a great commotion as one of the members of the town entered. Shushing the crowd he began to speak.
“As you probably have already heard earlier my horses were stolen. Thankfully they have been returned due to the Sheriff and his deputy. I wanted to say thanks to the good people who looked after my wife during the incident. Also when you see him please pass on my thanks to the deputy. I’m sure you have all heard versions of what happened. I can confirm that he did indeed take a leap from a galloping horse to stop the thieves escaping. So hopefully you can join me tonight in saying thanks to them and commending our deputy on his skills on a horse. Not many men could make a leap from a horse like that.”
It took Skye a minute to remember that Coulson and Ward were the Sheriff and deputy. Hang on Ward was the deputy. He was the one who had done the stupid leap from the horse. Of course it would be him.
“I’m going to kill him!” She muttered.
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