A/N: Hey everybody! Welcome to "Shaken"! Each chapter will have a different title, all synonyms for "shake" or "shaken," and each will somehow relate to the chapter's content.

As it said in the summary, this was originally conceived as a complete reversal of "Assumptions" by PanicMoon15. I combined it with half of a plot I had bubbling around in my brain (it was mostly Skye + powers + pregnant) and it ended up a little less funny and a lot darker (typical me), so here's the first part of that.

Thanks in advance to everyone who reads/reviews/favorites/follows! I hope to live up to your expectations. Enjoy!

For the fourth morning in a row, Skye bolted out of bed, the acrid burn of vomit stinging the back of her throat. She stumbled the fifteen feet or so to the bathroom adjoining her bunk and managed to make it to the toilet before she had to throw up.

Several long minutes later, she sat back on her heels, sweaty, her stomach churning.

It was time to face facts. She could no longer pretend it was the flu, or a reaction to the sushi Hunter had "cooked" for dinner the week before.

She was almost positive, nearly completely definitely sure.

She was pregnant.

The thought twisted her stomach and she vomited again.

Her head roared and the world got wobbly. When she was able to straighten up again, she realized it wasn't just inside her head.

She was shaking the base.

Again.

And she couldn't stop.

Again.

"Skye?"

It was May, her voice carrying through the locked door.

"Skye, I'm coming in," May said.

Skye's head swam and she thought she would vomit again. Undoubtedly May was at her door to ask about the shaking, but Skye didn't trust herself to not blurt out two horrible words – I'm pregnant.

She took a deep breath and forced the shaking to stop. It burned her chest and she saw bruises pop up on her arms, heard the crackle and pop of her finger bones. The room went still and her head stopped roaring.

"Oh, God," she whispered, her throat burning. "I'm so sorry."

She had no idea if her earthquake powers would hurt her baby.

"Oh, God." She was thinking of it as a baby. She was apologizing to the baby.

"Skye?" May was in her room.

Skye took another deep breath and felt her stomach settle. "In here," she called weakly, pulling down her sleeves to hide the bruises she'd just caused.

The door opened and May looked in at her. "What's going on?"

Skye looked up at her SO. "Uhh…"

She didn't have any words to describe what was happening and she knew that the longer she looked at May, the closer she was to blurting out those two damning words.

May took a few steps into the bathroom and crouched down next to Skye. "Are you… sick?"

"Uhhh…" Skye felt the room start swimming again and she forced down the quake that was rising up in her chest.

May put her hand against Skye's cheek. "You're burning up."

Skye leaned into May's cool fingers.

"Let me help you back to bed," May said, and leaned in to help Skye to her feet.

Skye winced as May's hands grasped her arms and her SO pulled back. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Skye said quickly. "Nothing."

She stood up on her own. "I'm fine."

She wobbled on the first few steps and then forced down another quake.

"Skye," May said, her voice clearly concerned. "You haven't lost control like this since… since before everything that happened with your mother and…"

Skye quenched another wave of nausea. "I'm just… not feeling well," she got out. It wasn't technically a lie.

May nodded. "Well, let's cancel training. Why don't you lay down?"

"Okay. Okay."

"Can I get you anything?"

A pregnancy test, Skye thought. "No… uh, no."

"All right." May gave Skye a look that clearly stated she knew there was more going on. "I'll be back to check on you."

Skye waited until May had gone, and then grabbed her laptop and pulled up the security camera feeds. The base was relatively quiet, and the video feeds showed her fellow agents cleaning up the damage from her round of shake-and-quake moments before.

Still glancing at the security feeds, Skye grabbed her wallet and the keys for one of the base's SUVs. She couldn't talk to May and she obviously couldn't ask Simmons to run a pregnancy test – she would have to get off base, find her own pregnancy test, and…

Her head roared again and she forced the quake down. Her chest burned and she heard more crunching noises ricochet up from her fingers.

"Shit, shit, shit." Skye's head was spinning.

She took a deep breath. Things settled around her.

"One step at a time," Skye muttered.

She checked the security feeds one last time. The hallways were clear, and she made a run for it.

Skye stared down at the little white stick in her hands. It was such an inconsequential thing. It didn't even look worth the effort to get it.

Somehow she'd managed to get from her bunk to the car without being seen, which was a miracle in and of itself. The middle part of the ordeal, that of getting to the pharmacy, finding the test, and buying one, had gone smoothly. On the way back into the base, one of the junior agents working on one of the quin-jets had called out to her, asking her several questions about something she couldn't even define, let alone answer for him. She'd smiled and told him to ask Mack or Fitz, and then bolted away from him as fast as she could.

Now she was locked in her bathroom, staring down at the stick.

At the two little lines on it.

They matched the two little lines on the diagram on the back of the box, the simplistic black-and-white picture with the caption "Pregnant."

Two lines on the stick. Two lines on the diagram.

No matter how many times she looked back and forth and back and forth, they stayed the same. Two pairs of two lines.

It was real.

Skye tossed the test on the counter. Her stomach was roiling again.

Her phone rang. "Skye? Are you feeling better?"

"Uh, sort of, sir," Skye said to Coulson.

"Good. Can you meet me in my office? I have a few questions about the mission to Fiji."

"I'll be right there."

Skye sighed and looked down at the test. At some point she was going to have to tell Simmons. Or May. Or, really, anyone. It might not hurt to have some concrete proof so they didn't think she'd totally lost her mind.

She groaned and shoved it into her pocket.

On her way down the hallway she felt the nausea rise up in her throat again, and her slow walk turned instantly into a sprint back to her room, to her bathroom.

She was blind with nausea and heat and fear, and she couldn't be bothered to stop when she ran into someone, barely able to blurt out, "Sorry" as she went by.

And she didn't notice when something from her pocket clattered to the floor in her wake.

May tried not to take it personally when Skye broadsided her. She could see illness and panic in the girl's face, and she knew Skye had left the base for… for something. Medicine?

Then May realized what Skye had dropped.

A pregnancy test.

A positive one.

May had just enough time to grab it up before the base started shaking again.

"No, no, no," Skye whispered, frantically grabbing her head as though by holding herself steady she could hold the rest of the world still around her. "Stop, please, stop."

She'd stopped vomiting only to find that she was shaking the base. It didn't make her any less panicked, any less worried, and the fight to control the shakes only caused more bruises to appear on her skin, purple and blue like angry fingerprints. Underneath she could feel her bones cracking and warping; pain ran up her arms and brought tears to her eyes. Things were quickly spiraling out of control.

The door to the bathroom banged open and May was standing there.

Skye looked up at her, sobbing and shaking now, her mouth lamely trying to get words out. "I… I can't…"

"Breathe," May ordered.

"Can't… I can't… I can't… stop…" Skye pressed her palms against her ears, trying to block out a world that in less than three hours had gone from predictable to absolutely upside-down.

May knelt down next to her, putting a hand on Skye's shoulder. The gentle touch sent pain ricocheting up and down Skye's arm, and she whimpered. The shaking grew stronger.

"I can't… I can't stop…" Skye gasped.

May looked down, seeing for the first time the bruises spreading across Skye's hands and arms. "Skye, did you…?"

"Please…" Skye whispered. "Please… make it stop."

"I don't know how," May said, feeling helpless.

Skye's panicked eyes jerked to the concealed weapon at May's belt, the ICER just out of reach.

"Skye, no," May said. "It might hurt the…"

Something shattered in the other room.

"Please," Skye wailed. "I don't care. I don't care! Just make it stop!"

She was practically screaming and May could hear things toppling over in Skye's bunk.

"Oh, Skye," May whispered.

Skye reached for the ICER.

May beat her to it.

Bright blue light arced across the bathroom and Skye slumped to the floor.

The base immediately stopped shaking, but May couldn't shake the feeling that something deep inside Skye had been irreparably broken.

May carried Skye to bed and put a garbage can on the floor next to the bed. On the bedside table she placed a box of Kleenex and a glass of water. As she stood at the door she realized she still had the pregnancy test in her pocket. Unsure of what to do with it, she eventually settled for wrapping it in Kleenex and tucking it into Skye's sock drawer.

That accomplished, she let herself out into the hallway, closing the door to Skye's bunk behind her. She nearly ran into Coulson, and jumped when she saw him.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Uh, yes," May replied.

"Are you sure about that?"

She nodded. "Just, uh… thinking about something else."

"What's going on with Skye?"

"She's sick. I guess that set off the tremors."

"I thought she said she was feeling better."

"She is most definitely not." May tried to breathe, tried to slow her heart rate. She was suddenly desperate to get away from Coulson, to bolt towards the lab. She had to find out if the dendro-toxin would negatively affect a pregnancy.

"Oh. Well, okay. I had a few questions about the mission to Fiji, but they can wait. It's more important that she rest and feel better."

"She's resting now."

"Good. I'll have Simmons check in on her and…"

"No!" May blurted before he could finish the sentence. She went red-hot and tried again to control her breathing. "Um, what I mean is, I have to ask her about something anyway. I'll ask her to check on Skye."

Coulson gave her a long look. "Okay," he said, and began walking away from her.

Then he stopped and turned back. "Melinda."

She met his gaze.

"You know if there's something you need to talk about… I'm always available."

"I know." She suddenly felt terrible about lying to him. "I… um… I'll let you know."

"Okay."

When she was sure he had gone, she headed for the lab, her heart still pounding in her ears.

"Agent May!" Simmons greeted her. "Fitz and I were just having some tea."

May looked at Fitz, who was using a roll of paper towels to mop up what looked like two extremely broken cups of tea.

"Well, we were having tea," Fitz muttered. "And now we're not."

"Oh, Fitz. There's more tea," Simmons said.

She sounded so happy that May couldn't help but ask: "Something exciting going on, Simmons?"

"Oh, no, it's just… it's Tuesday."

May had to admit that Simmons had been abnormally grateful for every little thing since being pulled out of the Kree monolith. It was strange but May figured if she had been sucked into nowhere and then spat back out three weeks later, she'd be happier about most things too. Maybe not coworker-induced tea-shattering earthquakes, but… most things.

"Did you need something?" Simmons asked, still smiling.

"Uhh… I had a question. About the dendro-toxin in the new ICERs," May said.

Fitz pushed tea mug shards into the garbage can. "Perfectly good mugs," he grumbled. "Might as well just start buying them in bulk."

He laid another layer of paper towels on the spilled tea and began sopping it up.

"Yes?" Simmons prompted.

May flicked her gaze to Fitz again, still grumbling and sopping.

Somehow Simmons understood. "Oh! Yes, please, step right this way."

She led May over to another corner of the lab and gave her an expectant look. "This is a personal matter, then?"

"Well, somewhat personal. And somewhat… hypothetical. Sort of." May was babbling like an idiot and she knew it.

"Of course. Anything I can do to help you. Or a hypothetical someone," Simmons said, her smile gentle. "It will remain confidential, I assure you."

May took a deep breath and thought of Skye's terrified face, of the bruises dappling the girl's arms, of the absolute loss of control she'd witnessed earlier. "The ICER… can the dendro-toxin… can it…"

She couldn't finish the sentence. Too many unnamed emotions were choking her.

Simmons put a careful hand on her arm. "Whatever it is, Agent May, I assure you that it stays between us."

"Can it negatively affect a pregnancy?" May asked, keeping her voice low.

Simmons' face froze. "Oh. Uh! Well. Goodness. I don't actually know."

"Hypothetically speaking," May stressed.

"I'm not sure it's ever come up before," Simmons said. "I could ask Fitz, but…"

"No!" May said, then realized how loud and panicked her voice had become.

"… but I think it would depend on how far along the mother was," Simmons said. "Closer to full term, it would carry many of the same risks of sedation or electrical shock."

"But if it was… hypothetically… only a few weeks…?" May had no way of knowing how far along Skye was.

"Then I would be less concerned," Simmons said. "I'd still want to do examinations and tests, and I would advise avoiding something like that happening again."

"Oh." Something like relief flooded through May.

Then she realized Simmons was still looking at her.

"What?" she snapped.

"Is this because of what happened last week?"

The morning had been so difficult that May actually had to think about the events of the previous week. Then she remembered – on a recon mission, Hunter had aimed for a fuse box, intending to short out the security lights around the facility they were inspecting, and missed, getting her right in the side.

And because of that, because Simmons had no idea that Skye had begged to be ICEd to stop the shaking…

… Simmons now thought May was pregnant.

Shit.

"Uh, no. It definitely is not," May said. "It was a hypothetical situation, as I said before."

"Yes, you said that many times," Simmons agreed. She tilted her head, and suddenly she looked very wise. "I'm more than willing to support you through any situation, hypothetical or not."

"Oh. Uh, thank you. That's very generous."

"I'll support both of you," Simmons said.

For a moment May couldn't figure out how Simmons knew about Skye, and then she remembered…

Shit. She's talking about me and a hypothetical fetus.

"And we're fully capable of doing all your exams and ultrasounds here," Simmons went on. "We have so much equipment, we're basically like an underground hospital. It's reassuring, really. We can handle almost anything, from…"

"Thank you, Simmons," May said firmly. "I… uh… have a meeting with the director."

"Oh, of course," Simmons said, the smile back on her face. "If you need any ginger, let me know. I've got a lovely ginger tea."

"Ginger," May said, hoping the answer would come to her.

"Works wonders on nausea," Simmons said. "You know, for morning sickness."

"Ginger," May repeated. "Good idea. Thank you."

Simmons beamed.

"Simmons, I've made more tea!" Fitz called. "Nothing's been shaking in about twenty minutes, so I figured…"

"Thanks, Fitz!" Simmons replied cheerily.

She turned back around to see only May's back as the woman hurriedly exited the lab.

Fitz approached with a mug of tea, which he handed to her. Carefully he went back for his mug. "What's that all about, then?" he asked.

"Oh, May's pregnant," Simmons said.

Fitz dropped his mug of tea.

Skye swam back to consciousness slowly, as though she was rising to the surface in a pool of thick syrup. The first thing she registered was the sour taste in her mouth. The second was the pain radiating up from her sternum and down through her arms.

The third thing was that May was sitting on a chair next to her bed, her SO's eyes trained on her.

"Um, hi," Skye said.

There was something sad and broken in May's gaze.

"I am so sorry," Skye tried.

"Never ask me to make that decision again," May said finally, her voice steel. "I never want to shoot you again."

Pain swelled through Skye's body, emotional and physical, and tears flooded her eyes.

"I hate seeing you like that," May went on, her voice soft and emotional, and she wrapped her arms around Skye.

Skye sobbed into May's shoulder; May rocked her back and forth until the sobbing slowed.

At last Skye pulled back, her eyes red and her face sweaty. "What are we going to do?"

Though May was fairly certain Skye meant herself and the baby, she mentally expanded it to include all three of them in the room. "I don't know."

Skye's expression suggested that she was expecting her SO to have a plan.

"But we'll figure it out," May continued.

She hesitated.

"What?" Skye asked.

"I figured one thing out," May said, still seemingly reluctant to speak. "We have to figure out how to contain your powers, because…"

She trailed off, indicating Skye's abdomen with her chin.

Fear radiated down Skye's spine. Her hands shaking, she pulled her shirt up.

A mass of bruises covered her stomach and radiated up her ribcage.

"I… I did that," Skye whispered, nausea sloshing in her stomach. "Oh, no. No, no, no. I'm so sorry!"

May could obviously see Skye was close to losing it again. "Hey, hey, look at me," she said hurriedly. "Don't think about that now. I want you to rest, and then we'll talk to Simmons and figure it all out."

"But they're… but they're… she'll think I'm…"

May gripped her hands. "Shhh, shh, sweetheart," she said softly. "Right now you're here, and you're safe, and I won't let anything happen to you."

The fight leached out of Skye's body and she leaned into May.

"I won't let anything happen to either of you."