A/N: Two things: one, this is me, trying to write a soulmate story without an actual soulmate mythology. I've always liked the dynamics soulmate fics explore, but I could never fall in love with the lore itself (it might be a cultural thing, I don't know). So I decided to play with this scenario a bit, cross out the soulmate myth, and replace it with (an implied) something that is more grounded in this universe. Thing number two: originally, this was supposed to be a one shot, but I couldn't decide how to end it–the fact that I told myself that it should be concluded in about 1000-1500 words didn't help a bit–, then I stressed about it, let the unfinished draft lie around for weeks, I started lose faith in the story… So in the end I decided the publish what I have now–especially since it ends at a point where the story itself could end–, and then work on the ending separately. On one hand, it allows me to think bigger, to come up with an arch I can feel satisfied with, while on the other hand, it frees me from the stress of an unpublished story (not to mention that the publication might give me the confidence boost I need to finish the whole stuff). So… There'll be a second part to this story, only I can't tell you when. And please forgive the lame title. My mind refused to cooperate when I demanded a better one. Also, big thank you to Airaze for the beta'ing, and to Stargazerdaisy for the early cheerleading :)
Rating: T
Disclaimer: [Insert funny text here that tells you I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.]

The Letter

Grant is twelve years old when one day on his way home from school (taking the longer route; it's better being scolded for being late than going with Christian) he bumps into a man on the street. Or the man bumps into him–the details are kind of fuzzy, but the sure thing is that the impact makes him lose his balance and sprawl on the pavement.

But before he can get up and apologize, there are hands–firm, but not unkind–helping him to his feet and dusting off his backpack.

"Sir, I'm awfully sorry…" he starts anyways, facing the stranger.

"Nothing happened," the man answers in a tone that sounds strangely familiar, and then he is already turning away, before Grant can take a good look at him. So all he gets is a quick glance and a fleeting impression of this strange man–tall, very tall, dark haired, young-ish.

The encounter leaves Grant strangely intrigued; he stands there for a moment longer, watching the man's retreating form, then mentally shakes himself, and continues his way home.

Later in his room, as he is taking out his textbooks to do his homework, he finds a letter in his backpack.

Well, at least he thinks it is supposed to be a letter–there is no envelope or anything, or even an addressee written on the outside; it's just a piece of simple, white paper folded in half, slightly creased, with some strange, unknown, adult-like handwriting on the inside.

It's his name in the first line, though, so he decides to read it.

Grant,

You don't know me, but I know you and there are a lot of things I'd like to tell you, but it's for the best if I don't–mostly for your sake. And I know that this will all sounds crazy, but I need you to trust me, because I have some important things to say.

First of all, I know what you are going through. I wish that I could say it will get better, kid, but it won't for a long while. But it's okay, you can take it. You are a survivor.

There will be times when you won't be the master of your fate–when you won't be able to do anything to help yourself–and it will feel terrible, but remember this: it won't be your fault. Alright? It won't be your fault. And when you are finally able to choose for yourself, try to listen to your heart, okay? Stop for a moment, and think it through. The right way might not be the one that first comes to your mind.

And here comes the real deal, buddy. You will meet a girl–I'm not sure where or when or how, but I'm sure you will. Some things are just meant to be, you know? Her name will be Skye, and I know this might be the most difficult part to believe–especially once you've met her–, but she'll be the most important thing in your life. The center of your universe (you must think now that I'm being cheesy, but you'll see that I'm right).

You'll need to do everything in your power to keep her safe and to keep her by your side, do you hear me? Absolutely everything, even if it feels like going against everything you thought right. But believe me, it'll all be worth it in the end.

And until you meet her… Hang on. It'll get better, eventually.

-A friend

He reads the letter through at least four times. At first, he is sure it's just a stupid prank, one that the kids at school like to torment him with; but then he decides that the handwriting is too adult-like to be written by some assholes from school (but, at the same time, Christian could have easily paid somebody to write it…).

Still, by the fourth reading he convinces himself it's not a joke (at least he hopes so). It sounds too… helpful to be a joke. Too true. (And not too promising.) And anyway, the guy (he's sure it's a guy) who wrote it seems to sympathize with him, and it's almost as if he really wants to help him, and it feels nice–to be cared for–, so he decides to believe the written lines, as absurd as they seem.

He reads it one more time, then folds it back in half, and slips it into his desk drawer for safekeeping.

A week later he knows the whole letter by heart.

It swiftly becomes his comfort–the one thing he turns to whenever things at home start to get too much.

…You can take it. You are a survivor…

It's a nice promise that there is something in his future, after all, that is worth waiting for.

…You will meet a girl… Her name will be Skye…

And although sometimes he feels like he doesn't have anybody on Earth, it's nice to know there is somebody who cares for him, even if the only thing this person has ever done for him was to write him a letter.

…Hang on… A friend…

Still, he spends a lot of time thinking about who might have written that letter and how it got into his backpack.

He goes through all the adults he knows, trying to figure out who would want to help him that way–who would write him such a cryptic letter. He even all but spies on some of them–his English teacher, the school's janitor, his father's secretary–, yet he sees nothing that would point to one of them being his "friend." (And anyway, the letter says he doesn't know the sender.)

Weeks pass and no other letter comes, and he slowly comes to the realization that maybe the most important thing is not who wrote the letter, but how they could know the things that are in it.

So he decides that maybe he is not supposed to know who wrote it.

As things start to become even worse at home, he takes on the habit of carrying the letter everywhere with him. It's a strange source of comfort–it never promised that his troubles will ever end, after all–, but it's all he has. (Also, there is a smaller chance this way of Christian ever finding it.)

He also–he might be desperate–starts looking for Skye. He keeps telling himself that even the writer of the letter didn't know when or where or how he'd meet her, so he might even run into her tomorrow, so keeps his eyes and ears open.

When he starts high school, he hopes she will be in one of his classes. He has no such luck–there is a Schuyler in his Chemistry class, but that's the closest he gets.

In Sophomore year he even breaks into the administrative offices to check the database, and it turns out that there is not one single Skye in the school.

Christian is particularly cruel to him that week, and he starts losing hope.

Still, it's the letter that he first packs when he is sent to military school.

It's in his pocket when he sets his family's home on fire.

"Hey, kid, I thought you might want this," Garrett says after he breaks him out of juvie, tossing him a plastic bag with his personal effects inside. "Take it as a sign of goodwill."

He opens it quickly, but as unsuspiciously as he can, rummaging through it. The letter is there.

He thinks a lot about the letter during his first couple of months out in the woods, trying to focus on the parts that tell him that it is okay to be lost and feeling like drifting. That it will eventually get better. That it's not his fault. But as the months go by, he starts to come to the realization that he has been a naive idiot and the letter is total bullshit.

(Especially because it's all his fault.)

By his third year in the woods even the notion that a girl–who he will never meet, obviously–loving him seems incredibly ridiculous.

(Who would love him, anyway?)

By the time he is at the Academy he simply shakes his head at the thought of the letter, because it's simply unthinkable that anything could be more important to him now than to pay his debt to Garrett.

The girl in the interrogation chair looks at him almost mockingly, with a sardonic smirk, determination and stubbornness set on her features, with only a hint of fear lurking in her brown eyes. He replies to it with an annoyed, impatient glare, locking eyes with her, almost challenging her.

"What's your name?" Coulson asks her.

"Skye."

Grant wants to laugh.

He has a locker at the Triskelion, like most operatives do, filled with clothes, weapons, and the like–and a strongbox, with his most important documents inside.

The letter is there, gathering dust, as he didn't feel the need to touch it for years.

But as they are stationed at the Sandbox, waiting for the Bus to be repaired, he puts in a request for the strongbox to be transported there–he just needs to take a look, needs to check the letter to make sure that his memory is not playing a trick on him.

(As if he didn't still know the whole letter word for word.)

His package arrives seventeen hours after he submits his request, and once it does, he hides away in his bunk to read through the letter, away for the overly curious gazes of his teammates. It's creased now, yellowed, and taped together where it ripped, some of the words smudged, barely legible, but he can still read it without trouble, and it's still there, clear as the day, just like he remembered it: Her name will be Skye.

He has no idea what he was expecting–the words somehow changing over the years? All of it just being a big misunderstanding, a trick of his memory? Of course the words haven't changed, and his memory is just fine, and now it's happened, and he has met the Skye he had been looking for so much as a kid. (Well, at least a Skye.)

Now he really feels like laughing, so he does, not caring if someone hears him.

As if his life wasn't difficult enough already.

(Not that he believes in the letter the slightest anymore.)

The next couple of weeks–during which he spends an uncomfortable amount of time with Skye–just serve to prove that the letter is wrong: there's just no way on Earth that she could ever become the "center of his universe."

She is… She is just… insufferable. Reckless and annoying and irritating. She never takes anything seriously, she never stops talking, she thinks everything is a joke, and she keeps talking big, thinking that she is invincible, but always tends to take bigger bites than she can swallow.

She is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

A catastrophe he is still intent on preventing (because that's what an S.O. does).

But time goes by–as it always does–, and he soon starts to see a different side of things.

She is smart, sometimes annoyingly so. She thinks outside the box, often seeing connections and solutions everyone else is too well-trained to notice.

She is bold and brave and feisty, not afraid of taking risks if it means helping others.

She is determined, fighting tooth and nail to reach whatever she's set her mind on.

She wears her heart on her sleeve and has so much love to give it makes him uncomfortable. She smiles and hugs and teases and makes people smile, like it is her mission, simply because she wants them to be happy and feel loved and cared for.

Sometimes it feels like a privilege being with her.

And so at first he realizes that he doesn't shudder at the thought of spending time with her anymore.

Then he starts enjoying the time they spend together.

Then he starts looking forward to it.

And then it becomes the best part of his day.

When it hits him, the realization is so anticlimactic–subdued and calm–that it's almost ridiculous.

It's a Tuesday morning on the Bus after a long night, and Skye stumbles into the galley, still in her pajamas, her hair a mess, eyes barely open; she almost bumps into the couch, and then all but collapses onto the stool at the counter, head falling forward so quickly he's half-afraid she'll crack her skull open on the marble, but then her forehead lands softly on her forearm and she groans, looks up at him, and says, pleadingly, "Ward, coffee, please?"

(She is not even awake enough to speak in full sentences.)

And he just chuckles to himself, because she is disheveled and whiny and pitiful and utterly and endlessly adorable, and as he reaches for the pot he smiles, and the words are there on the tip of his tongue, ready to be said out loud–

I'd walk through fire for you.

He stops. Freezes. Shakes his head.

No.

But the thought has been formed, it's there, it's true, and he can do nothing about it.

He quickly pours her coffee, slams the mug in front of her, then flees from the galley without another word, before she can ask anything.

Somehow he thinks that the best way to deal with it is to avoid the problem altogether.

Because it is a problem–Skye and the fact that he would be quite literally ready to sell his soul to the devil just to be with her is a problem, because it's an obstacle in front of his real mission: to save John. He just can't let himself indulge in such fancies as love and selfish hope when he has such an important task to accomplish.

So he avoids her. Passes their training sessions to May. Barely speaks to her, and when he does, it's in curt sentences, no teasing, no making jokes. When she tries to talk to him, he leaves the room with some flimsy excuse.

(It hurts, but it's the best he can do in this situation.)

A part of him genuinely hopes that Skye will be hurt and angry at his sudden change of behavior, that she will let it go, write it off as him being a T-1000, won't question it, and won't come after him, demanding answers.

But she is Skye, so of course it's not what happens.

"Alright, out with it," she says with her arms crossed as she corners him in his own bunk one morning, brazenly invading his personal space. "What did I do?"

He blinks up at her as he sits on the edge of the bed, a shoe in hand. Does she really think…?

"You didn't do anything," he replies simply, slipping his foot into the shoe, avoiding her gaze.

"Then why are you cutting me off cold turkey?"

There is something in her voice that makes him look up; she sounds pissed and tough, as if nothing could penetrate her skin, but he can see how her lower lip quivers slightly. (He hates causing her pain.)

He sighs. "It's not you, it's me."

She lets out a shaky laugh, dripping with sarcasm. "That's the lamest line in history, Ward," she says and stomps with her foot like a child, frustrated at the conversation not going anywhere. "This is the best you got? 'It's not you, it's me'?"

"You might think it's lame," he replies, torn between shutting off completely and taking her into his arms and tell her that everything's okay, "but it's the truth. And… it's complicated."

"Yeah, sure, just add another cliché." She sniffs, half turning from him. "I thought… I thought we were closer than that. I thought I deserved more of an explanation than that."

"We are. And you do." He runs a hand through his hair and stands slowly, not even caring about the fact that he has only one shoe on. "It's just–"

"You know what?" she interrupts him, even raising a hand to stop him. "Save it. I don't care."

"Skye–" he calls after her, but in vain. She has already stormed out of his bunk.

Their fight haunts him whole day, eating away at him. It gets worse with every passing hour, with every denied look from her, until he just can't take it anymore.

To Hell with all.

He'll listen to his heart.

He finds her in the backseat of the SUV in the cargo bay just after nightfall, typing away on her laptop, eyes glued to the screen. He almost expects her to tell him off when he opens the car's door, but all she does is look at him expectantly (he can't ignore how red her eyes seem).

"If I show you something," he starts carefully, slowly, weighing every single word, "will you promise you won't think I'm crazy?"

She regards him with slightly furrowed brows. "That highly depends on what you're planning to show me."

He didn't expect anything less from her.

One corner of his mouth pulled into a slight half-smile, he nods towards the spiral staircase leading to the main deck. "Come with me," he says, and she does.

He hands her the letter–yellowed, creased, torn–with slightly trembling hands in the safety of his bunk. Sitting on his bed, facing him, she takes it carefully, intuitively knowing how precious it is.

He watches her face closely as she reads it, registering every single, tiny movement she makes–how she raises her brows, how she squints, how her lips twitch. She seems to spend an eternity reading it all, much longer than he'd have thought–he sees her fighting with some of the smudged words, and read a couple of the lines several times.

When she does finish it, resting the letter on her lap, she doesn't say a word for a long while, only looks at him, her bottomless eyes searching his face.

"How long have you had this?" she asks at last, quietly, her voice subdued.

He swallows. "For eighteen years. More or less."

"Eighteen years…" she echoes. "That's a long time."

He can only nod, his voice lost somewhere.

"And…" she continues cautiously, "is this your problem? Why you've been avoiding me?" She waits for an answers, so he nods again, never taking his eyes off her face. "I still don't understand."

He lets his eyelids drop for a moment, thinking it through carefully.

"It's just… I've never thought it would come true. I might have hoped… a long time ago… but…" He sighs, opening his eyes again. "It's just eerie how accurate the letter is, that's all. And… it scares me."

She is silent for a moment, processing his words.

"So you're saying that what's written here… it has all come true? Like that part that says that…" She casts her eyes down, looking for the line in question. "The part that says that I'm supposed to be the most important thing in your life, the center of your universe?"

It's strange how easy, how utterly effortless and painless it is to answer this question once it's been asked.

He shrugs, and, not even thinking about how he could scare her away with this, he simply says, "Especially that part."

There's a moment of complete stillness, then Skye does something he would have never expected–she leans forward and kisses him.

(It's slow and sweet and innocent, and it's the best kiss of his life.)

"So what am I now, your soulmate?" Skye asks later, her head pillowed on his chest, fingers playing with his hand.

He sighs, eyes closed; he doesn't want to deal with the world, he only wants her. "No," he replies.

"No?"

"I don't believe in those things. Soulmates, I mean. It's just… implausible."

"How… pragmatic of you," she says solemnly, but he can hear the smile in her voice. "I guess I really shouldn't have expected anything less from you."

He entwines their fingers, lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it. "But you are very important to me. You are…"

"Yes?"

He doesn't answer right away.

"You are…" He places her hand right above his heart. "...Right here. Always. Every minute of every day. I love you. So much it hurts sometimes." He takes a breath, his chest rising. "I hope it's enough."

She rises from him and looks into his eyes. "More than enough." And she kisses him.

"Have you ever thought about who could have written that letter?"

He doesn't answer right away. "Of course," he says at last. "A lot. A long time ago."

"And?"

He sighs, unconsciously drawing her closer. "The day I found the letter in my bag, I bumped into a man on the street. I think… it might have been him. And…" He stops, not sure he should continue, but she is looking at him expectantly, so he decides to tell her. "It might seem crazy and all, but… I think he might have been, well, me. An adult me, I mean." He waits for her to start laughing, or shake her head, or tell him that he has lost his mind, but she just keeps looking at him, unblinking, so he goes on, the need to explain burning under his skin. "I mean, I spent a good deal of time trying to figure it out, and as unbelievable as it sounds, it seems like the most logical explanation. I never got a good look at the guy, and what he wrote in that letter? It really felt as if he knew me, and what was going to happen to me, so–"

"I get it," she interrupts him suddenly, sitting up. "Like in Harry Potter."

"Sorry?" he blinks.

She pushes her hair back from her face. "In one of the Harry Potter books, Harry is saved…" she pauses, looking for the right word, no doubt trying to dumb the story down so he'll understand. "...He's saved from a some really, really bad creatures, and he only sees his savior from the distance, and he looks familiar, so he thinks it was his own, very dead, father. But the the story goes on, and he goes back in time a bit, and realizes that he saw himself, and that his savior was actually him." Skye shrugs. "I just never thought it would actually happen in real life. But," she smiles, "stranger things have happened, I guess."

He could kiss her, again and again and again.

"So you don't think that I'm crazy?"

"No, of course not," she shakes her head, then reaches for the letter lying in the nightstand. She gingerly brushes her fingertips against the worn paper and the words written so long ago. "And… Whether it was you time-traveling older self, or somebody else entirely, this guy must have had a very good reason to write this letter. So we might as well listen to him."

And so, he decides, that's exactly what he is going to do from here on out.