25thDecember 2014
'On the first day of Christmas Grant Ward gave to me, a vow to stop his treachery…'
As far as Christmas days went, it was shaping up to be a good one, or so Coulson thought mid-morning, as he sipped at his coffee on the couch, surrounded by his younger team mates and their piles of opened presents. FitzSimmons were positively buoyant now that the big day was upon them, Skye was managing to keep her spirits up well despite a difficult year, and even May had cracked several smiles that had not been the direct product of maiming someone viciously.
Whilst the majority of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were spending the holiday with family, effectively shutting down the base, Coulson's team found themselves together – almost unanimous in their realisation that they didn't have much in the way of real family left. There was only each other. It was perhaps a sobering but not altogether unpleasant thought, considering they had grown as close over the previous eighteen months as any old regular dysfunctional family could.
Coulson had plans to cook, or at least to attempt to whilst he fended off Fitz, who often insisted on lingering in the kitchen to 'taste test' whatever was being prepared. Simmons had vowed to keep Skye content with a steady supply of wine and an afternoon of board games, and May might actually find herself able to slip off for some uninterrupted meditation time, given the sudden emptiness of the Playground. All in all, things promised to be bearable at least and mildly enjoyable at best, although Phil still couldn't shake the feeling he had woken with that morning; something was missing.
But whilst the S.H.I.E.L.D. director had successfully managed to shrug off this vague sense in favour of enjoying the festivities, Skye was secretly struggling with the very same; except that she knew exactly what or, to be more precise, who had created such a hole.
Releasing a sigh that seemed to rise from the pit of her stomach, she swept her thumb over the screen of her phone. She bit her bottom lip, that familiar sting present at the back of her throat as she skimmed the few photographs of her and Ward that she hadn't deleted; a training session selfie she'd insisted on, a group cook out at the Sling-Shot, and a candid shot of him simply smiling at her. Each brought a surge of anger and sadness over the young woman, who was still reeling from her heartbreak some three months after Ward had escaped S.H.I.E.L.D.'s custody.
"Everything alright?" Jemma enquired, noting the expression that had befallen her friend. She looped an arm around the hacker's shoulder, hugging her tightly. "I know just what you need."
"Jem, no… seriously, I'm not a big drinker. I'm still working on that one," Skye gestured down to the almost full glass on the table to support her protest.
Jemma waved a hand dismissively as though the thought hadn't even crossed her mind, although behind Skye's back, Fitz discreetly set down the wine bottle again. He was certain they would need it later.
"No, silly," Jemma chided, her eyes positively shining. From where she sat, on the arm of the easy chair at Skye's side, the biochemist wiggled her unicorn slipper clad feet in a demonstration of her excitement. Obviously, the footwear had been a gift from Fitz, and it had been received with rapturous gratitude.
"Another present!" Jemma trilled, clasping her hands to her chest and actually letting out a little squeal. Skye arched a brow, tilting her head as she watched the scientist. Of course, Jemma had been exactly the same the previous year during their first Christmas together as a team. It was a curious sight to behold to Skye, who had never really been surrounded by anyone who viewed the festive period as anything other than painful. Orphans didn't tend to receive many presents, and it was rather difficult as a child to be carried away by the Christmas spirit when there were no loving parental figures present to stir it up within you. Most of the kids at St. Agnes' had been told the truth about Santa Claus from the moment they were old enough to talk themselves, since that was the way things tended to work when you grew up surrounded by a bunch of damaged teens who didn't think twice about shattering innocent illusions. Skye had never done the same herself, preferring instead when she was older to try to help the nuns make things just a little bit more magical for those younger children who stubbornly insisted in holding onto their beliefs.
"I really don't think a …" Skye began, poised to turn down the offer, since she could only feign excitement so many times in one morning when presented with another pair of novelty socks.
"Pish and nonsense," insisted Jemma, tugging her friend up off the chair and beginning to herd her towards the door. "There's one for you in Coulson's office. It was delivered yesterday through internal mail. I think perhaps you may have a secret admirer! Although I must admit, he has rather… interesting taste in romantic gifts."
"Really?" Skye furrowed her brow, "Coulson hasn't mentioned it. Anyway, it's not a secret admirer, okay? It's probably that guy at the Hub I helped out with a little coding, that's all."
Her curiosity getting the better of her, Skye pursed her lips and headed for the door a little more willingly. "I'm just gonna take a look. I'll be right back."
Jemma nodded, although she had already become caught up in assisting Fitz in selecting a suitably festive movie. Skye managed a smile as she listened to dreamy sighs of 'oooh, 'Miracle on 34th Street' and squeals of 'no, no, It's a Wonderful Life!'
Pulling her sweater sleeves down over her hands, Skye strolled the hallways of the base, noting how eerily silent the place had been rendered. She'd never figured international spies as the type to take Christmas off, and yet the Playground had been plunged into the kind of quiet that made her uncomfortable.
She wasn't sure why she knocked on the office door before she entered but, after she slowly swung the door open, Skye let out a noise of surprise as she spotted the giant fruit basket sitting atop her boss' desk. Whoever the mystery gift giver was, it certainly wasn't somebody who knew her well. Skye's fruit intake was generally nothing more nutritious than an orange Gummy Bear.
"Somebody's worried about your fibre intake, huh?" Coulson quipped, causing Skye to start as he appeared behind her soundlessly. She placed a hand over her chest to still the thundering of her heart and shot Coulson a look that conveyed her displeasure.
"Trying to gift me a heart attack on Christmas day?" demanded Skye, eyes rolling as she noted Coulson was struggling desperately to thwart a smile.
"Wouldn't have to be so concerned by that if you ate a little more of this," he said, tapping the fruit basket before finishing, "and a few less cheese fries and slices of double pepperoni pizza."
Skye winced, appearing to mull over his suggestion. Digging her hands in her pockets, she cocked her head as she replied, "Yeah, but cheese fries and pizza are like the most delicious things ever, and fruit is… you know, an acquired taste. Kind of like me."
Coulson laughed before gesturing to the basket on his desk, "Sorry, with all the excitement this morning… well, I mean mainly from FitzSimmons, but still… this slipped my mind."
Walking behind the desk and plopping into the leather chair, Skye plucked the gift card from the side of the basket and tore open the envelope. Something about the handwriting was familiar but she couldn't immediately recall from where.
"Who's it from?" Coulson asked, watching as Skye digested the brief message with an expression that changed so rapidly he struggled to keep up. Over less than a ten second span, her features conveyed a spectrum of emotion from apathy, to shock, to something that resembled sadness, before she appeared to finally settle on anger.
"'To Skye, I am sorry. Yours always, Ward'," Skye read aloud before crumpling the note up in one hand with a curled lip.
"Are you kidding?" demanded Coulson, lunging forward for the wadded-up paper that Skye had dropped onto his desk, and beginning to scramble to smooth it out again so that it was readable. "This is a joke, right? A little whacky Christmas fun? Did May put you up to this?"
Wordlessly, Skye picked up the trash can at the side of Coulson's desk and swept the too large fruit basket into it with one arm. It barely fit half in to the receptacle and Skye scowled at the injustice with renewed fervour. She was miserable enough as it was; today of all days she did not want to think about Grant Ward and his latest mind game, whatever that might prove to be.
x-x-x
26thDecember 2014
'On the second day of Christmas Grant Ward gave to me, two armoured trucks and a vow to stop his treachery…'
The sudden sound of buzzing against the wooden nightstand dragged Skye abruptly from a troubled yet deep sleep, and she fumbled for the phone as she came back to consciousness.
The impromptu gift from Ward, the man who was responsible for her current heartbreak, had soured her festive mood even further. His promise to change his ways and make amends was likely to be just another bluff - a play in whatever twisted game he was now orchestrating, and Skye wanted no part in it. Ward had done enough damage, and she hated the tiny voice in her head that allowed her to be even remotely hopeful that the man could somehow change.
Huffing out a sigh, she swiped her thumb across the cell phone and winced against the light the screen emitted. A text message icon flashed up from an unknown number and she blew out a breath before she pressed on it.
The message was brief; only the words 'a gift for Coulson, more to follow' along with a set of coordinates that might have looked familiar had Skye been properly awake.
Pushing the covers aside and swinging her feet onto the floor, Skye hurried out of bed, already tapping away at her cell phone in order to put a trace on the number. She highly doubted that Ward would be stupid enough to lay down a tangible trail for her but she would be a lax hacker and agent indeed if she didn't at least try to bust him.
In the darkness, Skye fumbled for the clothes she had discarded the night before just minutes prior to crawling into bed. Coulson's dinner had been delicious, although a somewhat ambitious attempt at festive perfection for a novice chef, and so Skye had found herself retiring after having well and truly eaten her feelings. The name 'Grant Ward' had been on loop in her mind for the rest of the day, aided in no small part by the fact that Fitz had insisted on fishing the fruit basket out the bin in order to devour it. His reasoning straddled the facts that there were children starving somewhere in a distant land, and that Ward had once tried to kill him and so the very least he owed Fitz was a couple of apples and a carved pineapple.
Skye's thunderous mood had certainly put a dampener on the day and Simmons had been especially disappointed when she had refused point blank to take part in charades in favour of listening to 'Last Christmas' on her i-pod on repeat. No matter where she went, no matter what she did, it seemed that Ward was determined not to grant Skye any peace – and apparently that now extended to bedtime too.
A quick glance at her watch told Skye that it was just shy of 2 a.m. as she exited her room, not bothering to stop and lock the door. She had nothing much worth stealing anyway, unless one was to count her hula girl.
It hadn't been hard to retrieve the keys to one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. cars from the electronic safe. What had proven more difficult was getting out of the main gates. Thankfully the two guards on duty happened to be male, and a hasty story about the need to purchase certain 'feminine products' had them both ushering her through before she'd had time to finish her fictional tale of menstrual woe.
"Men are so pathetic," she sighed in disdain, managing to keep one eye on the road as she eased her foot down on the accelerator and programmed the coordinates into her phone's inbuilt satnav. Placing it down on her lap, she cast a cursory glance in the mirror, glad to see she wasn't being followed.
A rising sense of trepidation began to swirl low in her stomach, but she quickly realised it wasn't out of fear of Ward himself but of unease at whatever it was he was up to. No matter what, she knew he would never physically hurt her. He'd promised her that he was going to redeem himself, but just how he planned on going about that was making Skye decidedly nervous.
Thirty minutes and several red lights later, Skye pulled up in front of what appeared to be a private garage, and she found her anxieties replaced only by curiosity.
She kept one hand on the holster secured to the top of her thigh as she approached the closed garage doors, where she could see a piece of paper flapping in the wind. The lock for the door was electronic and Skye gathered before she even snatched up the note that it would be some sort of clue as to the combination code. She almost rolled her eyes when she saw the words 'you sank my battleship' scrawled in red marker pen staring up at her from the page.
She didn't even really have to try to summon the memory from the recesses of her mind. She often dreamed about that moment anyway – the two of them, still friends and teammates with the potential for so much more spread out in front of them – passing the time with a game and a few laughs.
Skye tapped in the code quickly, and wondered not for the first time how a small sequence of letters and numbers could seem like a punch to the gut; G7G4. The blinking light on the security pad flickered and then turned green before the door began to slide up. Skye swallowed down the lump in her throat and resolved to shelve her sadness for another time.
As the door lifted, the lights inside the garage flickered on, bringing the contents into view.
"Son of a bitch."
The sight before her left Skye both confused and strangely admiring of Ward's apparently ballsy escapade. There in front of her stood two enormous, armoured cars; brand new – if their gleaming hoods were anything to go by – and just waiting for her with two oversized red bows attached to each windshield.
A tag was attached to the first bow, and Skye struggled for a moment to pluck it free. The now familiar cursive brought an impromptu smile and exasperated laugh to her lips as she lifted the label up to read.
"'For Coulson, two shiny, fully loaded, Hydra combat vehicles. Software included.'"
She rolled her eyes at the winking face he had somehow found time to include at the end of the note, and then she slid the card into her pocket for safe-keeping. It was evidence, after all.
As she paused to radio her discovery in to base, her heart fluttered just a little in her chest, before she managed to steady it with a deep breath. Ward was persistent, she'd give him that, but he was a million long and obstacle strewn miles away from forgiveness.
x-x-x
27thDecember 2014
'On the third day of Christmas Grant Ward gave to me, three henchmen, two armoured trucks and a vow to stop his treachery…'
The next time Skye's phone hummed from its position in her pants pocket, she was curled up on the couch with Fitz, watching a holiday movie that Simmons claimed she was too sick to possibly sit through. The biochemist had come down with a major head cold in the wake of the Christmas festivities, which Skye supposed was what too many late nights, glasses of eggnog and ugly Fair Isle sweaters did to an overly excitable Brit.
Fitz shot her an annoyed look before turning his attention back to the movie and using the remote control to crank the volume up by several bars. He too seemed oddly crotchety following the holiday, although Ward's fruit basket had gone some small way to cheering him up. He had already ploughed halfway through the contents of it and was throwing out jokes about hoping next time that Ward might spring for the luxury muffin basket instead. Skye highly doubted the former Specialist would ever even consider something so unhealthy - penance be damned.
Noting Fitz's somewhat testy huff and how he jabbed at the buttons on the remote, Skye smiled as she held up her phone. "I'll just…"
"Yep. Magic, long as you stop that infernal buzzing!" Fitz agreed, digging his hand into the bowl of popcorn between them and pausing to chuckle at the TV screen before cramming food into his mouth.
Observing the number with surprise, Skye cleared her throat and stole a moment to take a deep breath before she swiped her finger across the connect call icon.
"Well, if it isn't Santa Claus…" Skye said sardonically, hating herself for the smile his responding laughter prompted. Not wanting him to detect her amusement, Skye quickly sucked in her cheeks. "What do you want, Ward? I'm kind of busy right now… got a hot date with Chevy Chase."
"I see your taste in men has changed," he quipped, self-assuredness and narcissism practically dripping from his voice.
"Arguably it's improved," Skye retorted, irritated by the chuckle that echoed from the other end of the line.
"Ouch," Ward replied, his teasing tone still present as he added, "I deserve a lot of things, Skye, but losing the girl to Clark Griswold?"
Inexplicably, Skye felt her anger rise from her chest without warning, and she gripped her cell phone tighter as she slid into the hallway.
"Can we cut the fake pleasantry crap, please?" she demanded, her voice lowered to a hiss that conveyed her annoyance well enough, "this little self-imposed mission of yours is bullshit and we both know it. This team will never forgive you for what you did, and you're more deluded than I ever imagined if you think you can buy us like… like a divorced dad on visitation."
Ward sighed and, as much as it pained Skye to admit it, he sounded genuinely melancholy.
"I'm not trying to buy you, Skye… any of you. I just want to earn your trust back. I want to prove myself and I'll do whatever it takes to do that, especially to you. For what it's worth? I'm sorry. If I could change the past I would, but this is all I can do now. Just try to make amends."
Skye rolled her eyes at the sentiment, trying to disregard the way her chest seized painfully. It came along with a barrage of other complicated feelings she'd been trying to subdue and shut away for the last few months.
Ignoring Ward's apparently heartfelt plea, she snapped, "So what is it this time, Ward? You want me to go on a midnight treasure hunt again? Cos there's only so many times the guards on the gate are gonna buy my 'women's things' crap before I wind up in a S.H.I.E.L.D. gynaecologist's office."
"I… uh…" he began, laughing in obvious mirth at her total lack of filter. It wouldn't be appropriate or well received to say he missed her, but he did; her easy smiles and wide eyes, her goading, her teasing sense of humour, and a billion other things about Skye that ensured she featured in his dreams most evenings, and controlled more of his waking thoughts than was pertinent given their currently strained relationship.
Skye winced when Ward suddenly began to cough, and she moved the phone slightly away from her ear as she felt her eardrum vibrate uncomfortably.
"Jeez, Grant…" The scolding died on her lips as she detected a pained groan from the other end of the phone and, despite her brain's feelings on the subject, her heart leapt at the possibilities. "Are you okay? Pretending I like, you know, care about your treacherous ass. But seriously… are you okay?"
"Just a couple of cracked ribs, I've had worse," he assured her, his voice oddly gentle.
"Not that I care," she quickly reiterated, refusing to acknowledge the fact that she was comforted by his assurance.
"Of course," he replied, and his tone was all business again as he continued, "I got you guys another gift."
"Is it better than that cheap ass fruit basket?" demanded Skye, half wondering if she might actually get that selection of luxury muffins after all.
"Just go outside, you'll see," Ward directed, falling silent as Skye stalked down the corridor towards the exit, her cell pressed to her ear still. She could hear the sound of Ward breathing on the other end of the line, and she was loathed to admit that it was an almost comforting sound to listen to again.
"What am I looking for?" Skye inquired with real interest as she ducked out of the exit and paused only long enough to slam the heavy metal door closed behind her. It locked automatically but her ID and a quick fingerprint scan would assure her ability to enter again when she wanted to.
She shuddered as the cold December evening air wrapped around her, and she barely managed to resist the urge to stamp her feet against the ground in an effort to warm up. Had she been thinking, she would have stopped to pick up a jacket from her room before indulging Ward.
Realisation suddenly striking her, Skye halted in her tracks, her hand flying up as though Ward could see her.
"Wait, you were on the base?" she demanded incredulously.
She could almost imagine the smug grin plastered across his handsome face. As much as it pained her to acknowledge it, he was still perhaps the most freakishly hot guy she'd ever set eyes on; an excuse she'd been using lately to justify to herself the fact that Ward had once again managed to worm his way not just into her thoughts, but also her dreams.
"Skye… come on, now," he teased, chuckling as he heard her release a snort of disdain.
Skye hunched over against the freezing cold wind, her eyes narrowed as she peered through the light snow flurries. "Alright, what exactly am I looking for? No big, red bows this time?!"
"Turn the corner by the recycling dumpsters," he directed, pausing as he listened to her moving. He also couldn't fail to hear the string of muffled expletives she released against the cold.
"Holy… shit," Skye exclaimed, her eyes widening as she found three uniformed Hydra operatives, all wearing the distinct shoulder badges of the organisations' elite operations unit; essentially, Hydra's best and most lethal Specialists. All three of the men looked as if they'd been on the receiving end of a brutal attack, and she could now guess the reason for Ward's broken ribs.
"Are they…"
"Dead?" Ward guessed, "no. I just gave them a little something to keep them subdued. Didn't want them waking up before you found them."
There was silence on Skye's end of the line, and it stretched on so long and uninterrupted that Ward began to think that the connection had dropped. However, just as he was poised to call Skye's name, a string of profanity left her lips that left him under no illusions as to her feelings on the matter.
"Jesus Christ, Ward," she snarled, her anger actually enough to begin to keep her warm, "this is fucking deranged… this is beyond deranged…"
"I don't see the problem here," Ward countered, obviously perplexed by Skye's ire, "Coulson wants inside intelligence and I don't have access to that anymore. These guys do. Problem solved."
"Problem solved?" Skye repeated, staring at her phone askance, again forgetting that Ward couldn't see her. "You straight up kidnapped three men and dumped them on our doorstep. That's just…"
"Because, historically, Hydra have never kidnapped anyone, right?" Ward retorted, scoffing at Skye's indignant tirade, which really was bemusing to him.
As if to further prove his point, he added, "And you forget how you and I first met, right?"
Skye swallowed thickly, determined not to let the fresh pang of heartbreak escalate into yet another emotional breakdown.
"I'll never forget that. That's when I thought you were one of the good guys."
Ward was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was gentler, his tone conveying nothing but his desire to be honest, and perhaps even a touch of rare vulnerability.
"I want to be. I want to be one of the good guys. I want to be everything you thought I was… and that's why I'm doing this, to show you, to show Coulson, that I'm serious about wanting to make up for what I did. Those three men are assassins, Skye. They've killed men, women, even kids – not to mention their fair share of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents too. All three of them are on the 'most wanted' lists of every intelligence organisation in the country and even a couple of international ones. They're not good men." He paused before adding, "And I should know, right?!"
He waited for what seemed like a lifetime, until Skye finally replied. "Alright. I guess I'll let Coulson know he has a… delivery."
She lifted her fingers to her forehead and rubbed her skin wearily. The cold or else the reminder of Ward's betrayals was beginning to stoke the fires of a headache.
"And Ward?"
"Yeah?" he sounded vaguely hopeful yet guarded. No doubt he was expecting another insult, put-down, or smartass quip.
But when Skye did answer, her words took him by surprise.
"Be careful out there, okay? I don't know who you're pissing off to do all of this, but… you can't make amends if you're dead. So just… don't get your sorry ass killed."
"Careful, I might start to think you care," Ward replied, although his mocking tone was gone, replaced by a soft hopefulness. Without another word, Skye stabbed the disconnect button on her cell and focussed her attention back on the three men, who were beginning to groan and show signs of stirring.
She could worry about Grant Ward and his suicide missions later. Right now, she had three trussed up henchmen to drag inside.
x-x-x
28thDecember 2014
'On the fourth day of Christmas Grant Ward gave to me, four passwords, three henchmen, two armoured trucks and a vow to stop his treachery…'
Skye had gotten precious little sleep after dealing with Ward's 'gift' and the circus that had preceded it, which included being present behind the scenes for Coulson's interrogations. The three Hydra Specialists had, as expected, remained tight lipped, but that could potentially have had something to do with the varying levels of swelling present on each of their faces. Despite their stoicism, Coulson had elected to continue the interviews long into the early hours of the morning, meaning that Skye had barely managed to grab a couple of hours shut eye before her alarm had gone off again. Although she knew Ward was only trying to help, his constant gifts were hardly conducive to a restful Christmas period, and Skye was beginning to think that she may need to book herself a holiday to allow her to recover from the holiday.
Consequently, her bad mood from the previous few days had only grown darker, and breakfast had been an ordeal conducted almost totally in silence. That was, until Jemma had strolled into the dining room with a box clutched to her chest and a hesitant expression on her face.
Offering Skye a smile, Jemma hugged the box closer and sat down in front of her friend. Jemma cleared her throat, the bags under Skye's eyes not escaping her notice.
"Well, Ward is… persistent, that's for certain," Simmons began, raising an eyebrow as she placed the large, shiny, golden box down on the table and slid it towards Skye. "This arrived just now. For you."
Propping her head on her hand, cheek pressed to her palm, Skye groaned. She reached out with her free hand and placed it on top of the box as if too tired to even contemplate opening it.
Casting her eyes down, away from her friend, Skye asked with some hesitance, "Do you think this is for real? Ward saying he wants to make amends and… and not be a treacherous douchebag anymore?"
Jemma sighed and folded her arms, signalling that even thinking about Ward was still wholly unpalatable to her. "Well I suppose even lying, duplicitous, underhanded, no good, morally corrupt, murderous, scheming arseholes are occasionally capable of feeling regret."
Sitting up straight and twisting her lips into a frown, Skye toyed with the box and began to peal the gold leaf sticker from the sealed edge. "So, you believe him?"
Jemma shrugged, her lips forming a perfect pout. She avoided looking at Skye as best she could, hoping to resist providing an answer to the question, which made her uncomfortable to say the least. Feeling the weight of Skye's stare upon her still, Jemma huffed out a reply.
"Yes. I suppose I do. Although I still hate every bone in his no good, lying…" realising she'd already employed those particular terms, Jemma shook her head, desperately searching for more words, "hideous, square jawed, body!"
Skye smiled, opening the box as she shot an amused glance at the Brit. "He's a lot of those things, Jem, but hideous? Ward's stupidly hot. I know it, you know it, and he knows it."
Jemma tsked in disdain, "Yes, well treachery can make people so much less attractive, don't you think?!"
Skye nodded her head in agreement, only just managing to bite back a laugh. She tipped the box slightly so that she could peer over the rim inside at the contents, which slid forward at the disturbance.
"Hershey's Turtles!" Skye enthused, her eyes actually lighting up as she fished a handful of the chocolates out of the box and plopped them onto the table. Jemma leaned over to allow herself a better view of the contents, and even her lips quirked into a smile as she pulled out a bag of candy.
"Oooh, Reese's Pieces, my favourite," she cooed, shooting a questioning glance at Skye as though seeking her permission.
"Knock yourself out, Simmons," Skye replied, already tearing the foil off her first victim with relish.
"What else is in there?" Jemma demanded almost hopefully, through a mouthful of chocolate nonetheless.
Mouth bulging, Skye shrugged back at her friend and reached inside the gift box again. Her mood and blood sugar were both so simultaneously low that the chocolate shaped reptiles really had been enough for her in that moment. However, given Ward's track record over the last few days, she highly doubted that he thought he could buy his forgiveness with candy alone, although it was an excellent start to Skye's mind.
"Oh my God, there are Twizzlers in here!" Skye placed her hand over her mouth, hurriedly chewing to avoid spitting chocolate over her friend. "Tootsie Rolls? Gross. I thought you were looking for forgiveness, Grant."
Letting the use of his Christian name slide for the moment, Jemma cleared her throat and replied slightly unwillingly, "They're Fitz's favourite."
Skye's lips pressed into a tight line, "Right. I guess he was paying attention back then, huh?!"
Jemma reached into the box to retrieve the candies, which she placed down on the table before her, absently fiddling with the wrapper of one. She watched Skye rip open the bag and jam the end of a Twizzler into her mouth with relish.
"Oh my God, so, so good," she enthused, freezing as she spied something in the box she hadn't been anticipating.
Noting her friend's surprise, Jemma sat up straighter. "Oh bloody hell, what is it? Is it a bomb? Oh no! A severed finger? An ear?"
"Worse," Skye deadpanned, realising the nature of the item meant it was more than likely that she would have hours of work ahead of her. "It's a USB stick."
Holding up the offending token, Skye used her other hand to fish out the note that lay underneath it. Squirming in her seat, Jemma practically crawled across the table in order to look into the box.
"What do you think is on it?"
Skye held it up before her eyes and sighed, her fingers curling around the stick with more force than was necessary. All she wanted to do was sleep – and perhaps eat her way through half the candy in the box – but Ward had thrown a proverbial spanner in the works already.
"I really hope it's porn or his music downloads files, but something tells me… like the note I'm holding in my other hand … that this is a list of Hydra mainframe log-ins and passwords."
Jemma's mouth fell open and she almost choked on her own saliva as she found herself turning over Skye's words in her mind.
"Why would he…?" she spluttered, screwing her eyes closed and shaking her head, "I mean, what would he…"
"Forgiveness, remember?" Skye said with a tired sigh that seemed to almost rattle her bones. She really needed a nap. Curse Grant Ward.
"Well, I suppose Coulson will be pleased," Jemma managed after gathering her wits, "if he's quite recovered from his excitement of Hydra tanks and half of the America's most wanted list."
Skye glanced sharply at her friend, hearing the edge to her voice easily.
"Coulson isn't going to forgive Ward just because he throws a couple of bones our way, Jem," she declared with a note of confidence ringing in her voice. However, Jemma peered back at her, one eyebrow raised and one hand poised on her hip.
"It's not Coulson I'm concerned about," she explained, and she immediately looked away from Skye in favour of gathering up the candy she intended to take to Fitz.
Skye cleared her throat, unable to formulate a suitable retort due in no small part to the fact Jemma was more than likely right. Though Ward had a long way to go to earn back her trust, the fact she was willing to allow him to at least try spoke volumes. But now wasn't perhaps the best time to admit that to Jemma, whose hatred of the man in question had settled somewhere at 'quiet loathing' - though some may argue that was an improvement from 'actively murderous'.
Snatching up another Twizzler, Skye bit off the end whilst she contemplated the day ahead and the sleep deprivation it invariably held.
Jarring her from her thoughts, Skye's phone vibrated on the table and she swiped it up quickly to read the message. She already knew who it was from.
Jemma watched with a knowing expression on her face, which was quickly replaced by one of disdain and something akin to exasperation. Deciding not to push the hacker further on the subject, she picked up Fitz's candies and made a swift exit.