A/N: This is canon-compliant and follows straight from the mid-season finale so beware spoilers.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Title is from Hozier's (very skyewardish) Take Me To Church.

Also posted on Tumblr and AO3.

The woman with May's face – whose name Ward doesn't yet know – pulls him to his feet once they've reached an understanding of a sort and leads them through the back corridors, away from everyone else, only stopping for a minute to pick up some things which look like medical supplies.

"You've been shot and you won't be much help if you bleed out. What's your escape route?" she explains when she notices him looking at her quizzically.

"There's a car two corners from here."

She nods and they continue, her carrying most of his weight as his feet start to drag behind him and his head is fuzzy and nothing makes any sense. He can feel his side throb in pain but he can also feel his other side ache because he's having trouble wrapping his head around the idea that Skye actually shot him.

He keeps seeing her face right in front of him, the steely determination, the coldness. It was like looking at May because he didn't recognize in her the girl who used to say bang when she fired her weapon or confused the trigger with the magazine release. No, that girl is no more.

He must be veering on the side of consciousness because they're suddenly in what looks like an abandoned bodega. She lets him fall to the floor, making him stay on his uninjured side, and eyes him for a second.

"I will take care of your wounds here first. I have medical training."

She rips his shirt apart from the seams to access the wounds.

"This is going to hurt. A lot. I can only apply a local anesthetic."

"I don't mind pain."

A moment later there's more searing pain as she pokes at the wounds, probably assessing the damage.

"Hmm. One only grazed you, the other is a through and through; I can see the exit wound. How's your breathing?"

Ward takes three deep breaths and while his ribs protest the movement, he doesn't feel like choking on air which he knows to be a good sign. "Probably no lung damage."

She nods. "Yes."

He feels a prick of pain as she administers the local anesthetic and accepts the numbness gladly.

For the next few minutes, Ward holds himself perfectly still and doesn't let on how much he dislikes the feeling of the needle and thread in his skin; it might not hurt but it is still quite uncomfortable. The thread tugs on his skin once and he lets out a sharp hiss, not able to hide his discomfort.

"Told you this would hurt."

He would roll his eyes if he had enough energy for that; instead, he addresses the one thing he doesn't yet know. "What's your name?"

Her hand freezes for a moment. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I want to call you by it."

"I was Agent 33."

He gently shakes his head and she looks at him, the needle poised in her hand but not moving. "Not your agent designation. What is your real name?"

"I don't remember."

He knows that she is deliberately not telling him; Faustus doesn't make people forget their past, so she would remember. But he won't push if she's so unwilling to do so.

"Okay. But how could I call you then?"

She starts sewing the wound again, not responding and he lets it go. It's not until she's finished that she speaks again. "You can call me Lynn."

"Alright."

Once she's finished sewing and bandaging him up, they find the car and he tells her to drive to Guanica where he has a boat waiting to take him to Panama. She doesn't question anything he says and that makes him worried.

"Why are you helping me?"

"I lacked a purpose after Whitehall died. I needed a new one. And I am happy to comply."

The phrase makes him cringe; brainwashing is one of his least favorite Hydra practices – if he was to compose a list of them all – and he doesn't want to be another Whitehall for her.

"Don't say that."

"What?"

"The...compliance part. I don't want you to comply. I want you to do things because you want to do them."

Lynn is quiet for a long time, and when she finally speaks, her voice is the least like a computerized sound that he's ever heard. "I don't know what that means."

Ward closes his eyes against the pain in her voice. Serving Whitehall was her primary directive and now that it's been taken from her, her mind will try to compensate and accommodate for the change, instead of breaking free and embracing her individuality.

"It means I don't want you to be loyal to me. It's not...healthy."

She scoffs at that and he doesn't understand what she could possibly find funny with that.

"Do you really love that girl?"

Her question catches him off-guard, and he flashes back to when Raina let everyone know where his loyalty really lays. He thought he had seen something in Skye's eyes when the word love was mentioned but now he's not certain he didn't imagine it. Still, he's tired of lying and hiding and who is she going to tell anyway?

"Yeah, I do."

She inclines her head to look at him for a moment and her gaze feels just as piercing as May's. "But she left you behind when you were attacked?"

He grits his teeth together but corrects her. "She shot me."

"She shot you. And you still say you love her?"

"It's...complicated. We have some unresolved issues."

"She clearly doesn't love you back."

The words only serve to make him angry and nothing else, and he really does not want to be discussing Skye right now.

"Did she make you compliant?"

"What do you mean?"

Lynn shrugs her shoulders. "Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. can do what was done to me. Maybe she did it to you, so she could be certain you would come to save her and when she didn't need you anymore, she decided to get rid of you."

The proposition is so ludicrous, Ward can't even begin to contemplate it. To wonder if Skye had brainwashed him is beyond preposterous.

"Of course not! It's not like that, I'm normal."

"Like I'm not?"

And now he's clearly stepped in it, in his rush to justify his decisions and actions and he really shouldn't antagonize someone who just saved his life.

"I didn't mean it like that. But to suggest that she has messed with my head is just...it's not possible."

"So you just followed her blindly, without any regard to your own safety and in the end, when she was already aware of your feelings and you tried to help her, she shot you anyway because you held no more meaning for her. I don't think that's too different from me."

"I'm not having this conversation."

"Suit yourself."

Lynn quiets and doesn't try to speak again for the length of their drive but the thought keeps circling around in Ward's head. Of course he's certain that he wasn't brainwashed because that seems beyond S.H.I.E.L.D.'s capabilities and they would never entertain even such a thought.

Then again, he also didn't think they would detain someone in a dark underground cell for months and then agree to release them into the custody of a horrible person.

But he's always held Skye to be above all that, to transcend all those follies and be reasonable, to understand what he's done. He wouldn't have asked for her to forget but he was counting on her eventual forgiveness.

The four shots, aimed from behind and with absolute intention to harm, made it clear that he might have miscalculated her.

The captain of the ship barely gives them a glance and waves the two of them on board the boat. The security is lax in the Caribbean and Ward is confident that the money he paid the captain is more than enough to guarantee them safe passage to Panama where he has a safe house waiting. He doesn't talk to Lynn anymore as she gives no indication of wanting to carry a conversation and they separate to their respective rooms – small and dingy but better than dying in San José, he supposes.

He looks in the mirror for the first time since forever and can see the fatigue and blood loss evident on his face; he's still pale and struggles to walk faster than necessary but at least the blood flow has stopped.

He doesn't recognize himself in the mirror. There is something weary and sorrowful about the man looking back at him and when he lets the thought of his last conversation with Lynn sneak back into his head, his face becomes pained without him even realizing.

Because Raina was right; Skye was supposed to be his salvation, his way out of this endless cycle of death and violence and betrayal. He always hoped he could make her see what he meant with everything that he'd done; that he could explain to her how she was never a part of the plan; that she was the weakness he was never supposed to have.

That she made him question who he was for the first time in over ten years.

And the worst thing is, she gave him hope. She made him believe he could do better and when John died, it was clear what his next step would be. He had to make Skye believe that he could be the man she expected him to be.

Ever since John died. Ever since he lost his purpose, his loyalty. Ever since he didn't need to comply with his orders anymore.

He physically jerks back when the thoughts form in his head. He didn't let himself admit his love for her before he was taken into custody, before he saw her again and felt like his life mattered again.

With horror, he realizes that Lynn was right. Not about being brainwashed but about being compliant; he took his loyalty to John and transferred it to Skye because he couldn't let go of it. She was the reason he woke up every day, followed every order, answered any question, didn't shy away from any uncomfortable truths.

He wanted to make her happy, so he gave her everything, waiting for her to be his absolution.

He gave her pieces of himself and never realized that she rejected each and every one.

He looks back into the mirror and feels the words on his tongue; the words he's kept inside of him, the words he's always wanted to tell her and lets them out, just this once. "I loved you, Skye." Past tense.

He doesn't believe in those words yet. But he has to start somewhere.

A/N: To clarify: this is still skyeward, I just don't want them anywhere near each other for awhile. Ward's love isn't healthy. Skye can't even let herself contemplate what she might still feel for him.

I definitely do not promote a romantic entaglement for Ward and Agent 33/Kara Lynn Palamas.