Chapter Forty-Six

A/N: Hey guys! Back to the story 😄 The team is still juggling both Skye and Samantha, who are both dying, and they're administering the GH-325 and all that. Skye and Samantha are in adjacent pods and the team is making it work. I felt the need to mention this, since Samantha's comatose and Grant's pretty much only focused on her.

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I woke up feeling exhausted. My head hurt, all the muscles in my body were sore, and I had to force my eyes open.

On the bright side, I woke up.

When I was drifting off in Quinn's basement, I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. It had felt like the end. It was terrifying, and I never wanted to experience it again.

When I finally managed to open my eyes, I could see the ceiling of one of the SHIELD pods, and hear the beeping of a heart monitor (I assumed it was mine). I managed to look to my right and I saw Grant, dozing in a chair next to my bed.

I smiled. It was nice waking up to Grant, especially when waking up from a near-death coma. I wondered how long he'd been sitting there.

I wasn't going to wake him up, but the idiot snored and apparently scared himself awake. It was adorable.

"Samantha!" he shouted once he noticed I was awake.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Mean, I know, but I wanted to mess with him. I'd heard of people coming out of a coma with amnesia.

I immediately felt guilty when I saw his face fall. He looked heartbroken.

"I'm kidding! I'm kidding, I'm sorry, I'm kidding! I could never forget you Grant."

His whole body relaxed.

"That is not funny Slater," he said, leaning forward to give me a gentle hug. I leaned towards him, burying my face in his shoulder. "I'm glad you're okay."

"I'm glad, too," I said, smiling at him as he pulled back.

"So how many is this?" he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"What?" I asked, totally confused.

"How many near-death experiences?"

"This doesn't count!"

"What?" Now it was Grant's turn to be totally confused. "How can you say this doesn't count? This is the closest you've ever come."

"Well yeah, but it only counts if we almost die together. Our tally is 179, but we can't count it if only one of us almost dies."

Grant shook his head, but he was smiling.

"That is the most idiotic system..."

"Well, it wouldn't be a problem if the two of us just stopped almost-dying."

"I wish it was that easy." He stopped moving and stared at me. "You had me so worried. I thought... I thought I was going to lose you."

I reached out and grabbed his hand. "You will never, never lose me. You couldn't even if you tried."

Grant gave me a small smile and squeezed my hand. Then, he moved to stand.

"I better go get Simmons. She's gonna be happy to hear that you're awake."

"Sounds good." Grant started heading for the door, but I stopped him before he could leave. "Wait, how's Skye? It sounded like she got shot, too. I was trying to get to her before you found me."

"She's okay too. I haven't heard if she's awake or not yet, but she's alive."

"Good. As soon as I can stand again, I'm visiting her."

"I wouldn't expect anything else. And I haven't mentioned it since you're still in bad shape, but we're going to have a long conversation about how you handled that whole situation."

My eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"Later. I'm going to get Simmons." He walked out the door without another word. I decided to spend my downtime coming up with arguments to defend how I handled things. As far as I'm concerned, I handled it right. If everyone had followed my plan exactly, Skye wouldn't have even gotten hurt.

After a few minutes, the door slid cautiously open.

"Samantha? Are you still awake?" asked Simmons, peeking into the room.

"Yup," I said, giving Simmons as big a smile as I could muster. As far as I knew, our resident doctor was the only reason I was still alive.

"You seem to be feeling better," she commented, sounding a little worried.

"Yeah, I'm feeling much better. Thank you, by the way. I'm sure I wouldn't be feeling at all without the help of Doctor Simmons."

"Well, it wasn't just me," she said, coming closer to the bed to check the readings on my heart monitor.

"I'm sure, but I'm also sure I wouldn't be alive without you. So thank you." I reached out one arm as best I could and pulled her into a hug.

"I'm very glad you're alright," she said, pulling back to check some more instruments. I thought I noticed her wipe a tear, too, but I pretended not to see.

"So? Am I healthy as a horse now?" I asked. Remarkably, I actually was feeling better. I'd only been awake for twenty minutes tops, but I felt less sore and my headache was going away.

"I don't know about that, but you're doing much better," she said. She sounded extremely distracted as she added, "It's almost unbelievable."

She turned around with a needle in her hand, which I was not excited about.

"Oh crap, Simmons, is that really necessary?"

"Of course it is! We need to analyze your blood to make sure everything's as healthy as it seems."

"Alright, alright. Just do it." I turned away and tried to relax. I'd learned that a needle penetrating tense muscles hurt much more than relaxed muscles. Sometimes, when I relaxed, I couldn't even feel it! Unfortunately, since Simmons was drawing blood, I definitely felt it this time.

"And... done!" said Simmons, finally pulling the needle out of my arm.

"Finally. That hurt!"

"I'm sorry. Will a High School Musical bandage make it any better?"

"Simmons, you know me too well." She put the band aid on (it was Troy and Gabriella) and started to head back to the door.

"Wait! Has Skye woken up yet?"

"No. She should be waking up soon though, her injuries weren't quite as severe as yours."

"Okay. Thanks Simmons. Will you let me know when she's up?"

"Certainly."

"One more thing?" Simmons nodded. "How long am I going to have to stay in bed?"

"Really Samantha?"

"Really. I'm already getting bored."

She gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head. "I don't know. It depends on how fast you heal, but don't expect it to be soon."

"Simmons..." I whined.

"You almost died! You need time to rest!"

I sighed in defeat. "Fine. But please send somebody down here with some books or something."

"I will," she said, giving me a final smile before heading back to her lab. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Short of counting ceiling tiles, I really had nothing to do. I was being reminded of my hospital stay after Siberia.

At least that time Grant had been in the hospital bed next to me to keep me company.

Fortunately for me, Grant was back pretty quickly. He brought me a bag of books and headphones to keep me sane, which I appreciated. He still insisted on waiting to have our argument about the whole plan thing, but I didn't really care. It just gave me more time to come up with infallible counter arguments.

Fitz was the next to visit. He came bearing chocolate.

"Hey. I thought you could use something to beat the dementors away," he said sheepishly, sitting down next to my bed. Grant had gone to do something or other, so the chair was empty.

"Oh my gosh, thank you Fitz! You're officially my favorite team mate," I said, immediately tearing open the first chocolate bar I could get my hands on.

Fitz didn't respond, so I looked up to see what was wrong. He wasn't looking at me, and he was acting weird.

"Fitz, what's wrong?" I asked.

"I shouldn't have let you go in alone, and I shouldn't have let Skye go after you alone," he said suddenly, looking at me with tears in his eyes.

"Oh no! No, Fitz, no," I said, pulling him into a hug. I had no idea he felt like this! "Fitz, you're being ridiculous. Please, don't blame yourself. I shouldn't have gone after them in the first place, all three of us were outmatched with Mike Peterson on their team. You were the only one of us with the sense to stay outside and not get yourself shot. Coulson and the rest of the team probably wouldn't have come in if you didn't tell them we were in there, at least not in time. Besides, I was in a crazy headspace. You wouldn't have been able to stop me, and I'm guessing Skye was the same way."

Fitz took a deep, shaky breath.

"Thanks Samantha," he said, sighing as he pulled away. He didn't look a hundred percent convinced, but he did look a little better.

"Sure thing. And I mean it. Now, how's everything coming in the lab? Any new earthshaking projects?"

"Well, actually, I'm working on a more advanced version of the Night Night Gun, called an ICER. It stands for Incapacitating Cartridge-Emitting Railgun. It's going to pack a much bigger punch."

"Awesome! I can't wait to see them! Maybe I can help you test the stopping power of one of them by shooting Grant."

Fitz let out a small laugh. "Yeah, well, depending on if he mentions the ounce again, I might take you up on that."

"Well, just let me know. Seriously. Any time."

"Will do," he said as the doors slid open to reveal another visitor. This time, it was May.

"Glad to see you're awake," she said, coming over to stand by me and Fitz, "I thought we were going to lose you there for a minute."

"Nope. I'm hanging in here."

"Good, because we're going to have to start training again. Obviously Ward and I didn't teach you everything you need to know."

"May, Deathlock got the jump on me. I was kicking Mancini's ass."

"Mhmm. We're still training as soon as you're standing again."

"Okay May," I laughed, "Whatever you say."

Before May or Fitz could say anything else, Coulson arrived.

"Samantha. It's good to see you're alright," he said, looking worse than I did. He was acting weird, like he was really shaky, but I didn't want to call him out in front of May and especially Fitz. "May, Fitz, could you excuse us for a minute?"

"Sure," said Fitz, and May nodded before the two headed out the door. Once they were gone, Coulson took up the chair next to my bed.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, sounding like he was barely holding it together.

"I'm feeling good, but how are you feeling? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"No. No, not a ghost. Are you sure you don't feel... strange, at all?"

"Yes... you're starting to freak me out."

"It's nothing. We can talk about it later."

"Okay... but Coulson, are you sure--" I was cut off by Simmons rushing into the room looking frantic but happy.

"Skye's awake," she announced. Coulson shot out of his chair.

"And how is she?"

"Good, so far as we can tell. I don't want to overwhelm her, but she can handle a few visitors."

Coulson nodded. "Alright. Samantha, I'll be back soon."

"Okay," I said with a smile before turning to Simmons, "I don't suppose I could talk you into letting me out of here to go see Skye?"

"No! Of course not! You've just barely woken up from a coma after being shot in the stomach twice! You're not moving for a week, at least!"

"Simmons! A week?"

"Stop protesting! You're lucky it's only a week! Now I need to go tend to Skye, so save your complaints!"

"Okay," I called after her, "I'll save them all on pieces of paper to give to you when you get back!"

She didn't respond.

I leaned back in my bed. Once Skye got a phone and felt a little better, I could just FaceTime her or something to talk to her. Thank God for technology.

Until then though, I decided to kick back and relax. Despite how much better I was feeling, I was still getting tired after talking to everyone. I closed my eyes and fell back asleep, this time feeling much safer and much more confident that I would wake up again in a few hours.