She always thought that a 'defining moment' was something that happened to you. That it was an actual 'moment'. For Coulson, it was the moment his father died. For May, it was Bahrain. For Simmons, the moment she contracted the Chitauri virus. For Fitz, the moment he realized he couldn't live without her. For Trip, well… Skye never really did find out his defining moment, and now she never would. And for Ward…he told her his defining moment was his big brother beating him to pulp.

For Skye…she thought her defining moment had been that night 25 years ago, when a single SHIELD agent brought a little baby girl to St. Agnes Orphanage. And then she grew up, went through foster homes faster than some kids went through shoes, and that was her definition. Mary Sue Poots, the girl who just wasn't a good fit. For the longest time, she thought her family didn't want her, and that why no other family wanted her. It wasn't until she was 24 that she learned how she ended up in the temporary care of Agent Avery.

That's when Skye realized she wasn't just a girl that no one wanted… she was a girl that people protected.

'If that's not my definition, then what's my defining moment?' she wondered,' Who am I now?'

"I had to learn how to protect us," wow, his voice was like a long ago dream. An entire year, she realized, had gone by since he told her those words. A year in which defining moments were made and all of them grew up a little bit more.

"You have to make a choice," seriously, why couldn't she get his voice out of her head? He didn't belong there! "Decide whether you want this or not," how come, even after he became the face of evil, did he always have to say the right thing? Why did he always have to be so right?!

But maybe he was right. What if a defining moment…wasn't a moment? What if it was a choice? A choice you continued to make every day, a choice in who you wanted to be. What if… every morning, Phil Coulson wakes up and decides to be a good leader, like his dad? That he'd be willing to die for them, the same way his dad did for his team?

Then that meant after Bahrain, May made a choice… It was easier not to feel things, than to feel happiness only to know it'd be taken away. And when Simmons jumped out that plane, it was her choice. Her choice to not let the virus destroy everything she loved. She wasn't about to let the electrostatic discharge destroy the plane, and in the end kill all of the people she cared about. Then Fitz made the choice that no matter what…he'd never leave her side, that he'd stay with her because she meant more to him than anything in the world.

And Ward… Grant…he made the choice to be a protector. For the longest time, she thought he chose to be her protector too, but she was wrong about that too. He didn't protect the team, he didn't protect her…he made the choice to protect John Garrett. And that's what defined him: Grant Ward was the protector of the Clairvoyant. Simple as that.

She liked it better when he was just 'protector'.

….

"Shoot her!"

Garrett's voice was a boom in the tiny room. Funny, Coulson's office never seemed that small to Skye before, but right now it felt like no more than a broom closet. She was all too aware of Jemma in the corner, cradling Trip's upper body in her lap and crying tearlessly. (He's dead, Skye. Deaddeaddead) Three HYDRA bodies surrounded the two, all elite soldiers, all taken down by Trip before a lucky bullet pierced his heart. He died staring into Jemma's eyes, a tear rolling down his cheek and a smile on his face, as if he was staring into the eyes of an angel.

"Ward! Do you hear me? SHOOT the bitch!"

Why was Ward hesitating? He never hesitated before. He didn't hesitate to shoot May in the shoulder (the right one, and Skye wondered why he shot her there when they all knew he could've easily put the bullet between her eyes) before swinging the gun around and pointing it at her. But now he was just staring at her, his eyes wide and bright, and for a moment it looked like he had no idea where he was.

"Shoot me, Grant," she said quietly, just to see if she was perhaps right. Ward followed orders; it was all he knew. He didn't know how to think for himself. Ever since he decided that protecting Garrett was his definition, he basically programmed himself to just follow orders.

But he didn't. Not this time.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she saw his eyes widen and he sucked in a breath through his teeth. His hands holding the pistol…they trembled. He was terrified.

("All of my feelings for you," he once said, holding her face gently in his hands as if she was the most precious thing in the world," They're real, Skye.")

She hadn't believed him then. She thought it was just another trick, to make her trust him. She thought everything that came out of his mouth was just another lie. Just more lies, lies, lies.

In the end, the only liar had been her. She said she didn't give a damn about him, that she didn't love him back. That was a lie. 'This is just so fucking messed up.' Why did they have to be defined like this? He loved her, she loved him, but they both made choices that put them on opposite sides of a bullet. Grant was defined by Garrett, and Skye was… well, she didn't know what defined her.

"It's okay, Grant," she told him softly, missing the way his first name sounded on her tongue. For so long, he had just been Ward, or Agent Ward, but the few times she called him Grant it was…special. It had a way of grounding him back to her, of bringing him from whatever Berserker rage had a hold of him, and it made her feel like maybe it was grounding him to her. It made him fight just a little bit harder, just to keep her safe (from Scandinavian radicalists to 12 HYDRA agents outside of a utility closet) because he was a protector.

A tear fell down her cheek, hot and burning a trail across her skin like acid and she felt the pain roil in her stomach. Once upon a time, she could've been happy with him…

"If anyone, I'd rather it be you who killed me," she admitted. Because she loved him, and she knew he loved her, and that was poetic justice, right? Some stupid, tragic love story thing, about two people who loved each other but they couldn't love each other and so one or both of them had to die.

And maybe this was her defining moment. When she made the choice to let the man she loved shoot her in the heart, because she couldn't bear to see him in pain anymore. Her eyes never left his, seeing the pain, the love, there. And then… she saw the choice…

BANG! His arm moved so fast she barely even saw it, and then there was a thud as Garrett fell to the floor behind Coulson, a neat little hole in between his eyes. Her eyes turned back to Grant, wide and disbelieving.

There a small little smile on his chapped lips: a bitter, broken smile that made her heart ache that much more. That smile was just as broken as he was.

"I love you, Skye," he told her, his voice breaking on the 'love', as if he tried to pour his entire soul into that one word and it just couldn't fit. "I'm so sorry."

Then he put the barrel of his pistol to his temple and all she could think was 'No, no, no, no, no, no!' Don't take him away from her! Not just when she's realized she wanted to be defined by him. "Grant!" she screamed.

A tear fell from his eye.

"I love you, too!"

And he pulled the trigger.

He jerked.

His entire body just…twitched, when the word 'love' came out of her mouth. The bullet didn't pass through his temple like he planned, like she feared, instead passing (almost) harmlessly by his forehead. The very edge of it must've grazed right around his hairline, the force and speed of the bullet passing so so so near to his skull causing the skin to split jaggedly and blood to trickle down his face.

The pistol fell limply from his hand, a fraction of a second before she could knock it away, but that didn't matter. In the two steps it took her to reach him, her arms were around his neck, pulling him close to her, where he belonged.

Grant fell to his knees, and Skye followed him down, making sure he never left her embrace. "You can't love me," he was crying, the tears now flowing freely down his cheeks and Skye realized that this was the first time in his life he had broken down," I'm nothing. Nothing."

"You're everything," she whispered into his hair, holding him tight and hoping he could hear her heart beating in her chest. The heart he decided was too precious to stop. That was his choice. That was their defining moment: when he decided to not be defined by John Garrett and she decided to be defined by Grant Ward.

"You can't love me," he repeated, his voice cracking," You deserve someone real. I'm nothing."

Why does he keep saying that? Why does he say that he's 'nothing'? With a strength she didn't know she had, she pulled his back just enough to see his face. God, he looked so broken. Blood and tears mixing over his skin, his eyes bright and hopeless, and his lips parted to take in deep shallow breaths. But he looked at her with such awe, such love, and in that moment she couldn't have loved him more. "I love you," she repeated, her hands steadying him when he jerked again and she reached up to wipe the blood off his eyebrow before it fell into his eye," You, Grant. You are not 'nothing'. You're the man I love, as dumb as that is, but it's true."

"I don't deserve to be yours."

"But you are," she shot back and she rested her forehead against his, not caring if the blood squelched and it smeared onto her own skin. She hoped it mixed with her own, something to connect them further, to have their blood mixed and it would show the universe that they're bound to each other. "And I'm yours."

And that…was what defined them.