A/N: This is a follow-up to Like Forgetting the Words to your Favourite Song.
It is dark!skyeward to its fullest.
Warning: major character death(s).
"Grant?"
"Hmm?"
"I love you."
Skye has been wanting to try those words out for a few days now, has wanted to hear them out loud, to feel them on her tongue and see them on her breath; they are one of the select few words that are still familiar and right, in this language that isn't rightfully hers.
But they are a truth, the truth she doesn't want to hide.
His chest under her head feels like he's stopped breathing and when she finally hears the sharp intake of breath, she raises herself up on her elbows to check up on him.
Grant – Grant, another of those words that still make sense – looks at her like he's astonished and perplexed and frightened and surprised and possibly something else – emotional cues are beginning to melt together in her brain – and whispers, "You love me."
She doesn't understand his confusion. "Yes."
And then he smiles, so bright, so clear, so overwhelmingly beautiful and pulls her up towards himself and she's lost in his kisses, in that impossible feeling of rightfulness and calm and warmth. He kisses her like she doesn't remember ever been kissed before and she accepts it gracefully, and gladly.
When he releases her, he is still smiling, overjoyed. "I love you."
And oh, she understands it now. All the secrets the universe holds have nothing compared to this feeling; the beauty of the supernovas doesn't come close to the radiance permanently present on his face.
He rolls them over and kisses her again, and again, and again, and for about two counts, they live happily ever after.
One morning she feels the universe shift, something disturbing its very nature deep in its core. It is an unpleasant feeling and Skye finds her usual balance with the universe unsettled.
When Raina knocks on their door that evening, everything becomes clear.
"Hello, Skye."
She measures Raina carefully but lets her walk in; after all, she is human and what could she possibly do that could be dangerous?
But Skye doesn't forget that the universe has already shifted, and this is not a social call.
Grant stands beside her and glares at Raina. She smiles. "Good to see you too, Agent Ward. I hope your dreams have been pleasant."
The threat underneath is blatantly obvious and Skye knows that he has nightmares when she's not touching him, where he's pulled back into the madness that her father implanted into his brain, the darkness that still washes up. Grant blanches slightly but doesn't flinch.
"What do you want?"
She wants the woman out of their home as quickly as possible; something about her reeks of darkness and death.
Raina smiles as if they're having afternoon tea. "Your father has decided to give you the courtesy of making a better choice, Skye. I'm but a messenger."
"And what is your message?"
"There is still time for you to return to your rightful place, among the stars. He bears no ill will if you do what you couldn't do before, now that you've fully understood who you are."
She doesn't say it outright but Skye knows what those words mean: leave Grant. And that is even more non-negotiable now than it was before.
"I will have to decline. And you can tell him that I'm not afraid of his threats."
Raina shakes her head reproachfully. "He thought you might say that and so, here is another offer. If you won't leave, then he will have no choice but to burn your world down. Do you really want to go against him?"
Her father is dangerous and unpredictable and volatile.
But she is her father's daughter.
"Let him try."
Raina laughs and stands up to leave. "Then I guess this world will burn."
She doesn't realize that she's shaking until Grant covers her hands with his own and pulls her into his embrace.
"It's okay. I'm right here with you."
She is the universe, she bends it to her will, she commands the darkness, she is not afraid.
But in this moment, she needs him to just hold her.
When he finally comes, it isn't pleasant or quiet or slow. It's darkness and terror and fire and it surrounds her entire world, robbing the Earth of its sunlight and air and humanity. He tears through continents just because he can, raging up sandstorms and making it rain fire, crushing all and everyone that stands in his way.
She can feel the universe bend around it, can feel the change in her own self, and needs to break out of her human form, needs to be more to take him on but fears what will be left if she does that.
"Let me help you."
Grant is resolute and steady but she knows what she has to do him for this to work and she hesitates for a second.
He takes her face into his hands and kisses her, softly and slowly, and all her nerve endings welcome the sensations, her synapses firing off responses, connecting with him and intertwining with his own mind. He lets her in, guides her through the darkest crevasses of his mind and when she finds what he wants her to do, she recoils in shock.
The Asgardian rage is still thrumming in his bloodstream, the violence contained behind everything gentle and loving and passionate and he wants her to yank it out, to take advantage of it, to weaponize him.
"Are you sure?"
He rests his forehead against hers and she can see all the love on his breath, can feel the all-consuming sacrifice burning in his heart.
"I love you."
So she kisses him and transforms him into an ally, a weapon, a force equal to hers, and feels her own humanness fall further back, pack itself up, and give way to her true nature. The darkness engulfs his mind and heart and soul and the strongest, most violent creature emerges but he has plead his allegiance to her and this is merely the beginning.
Now they can be monsters together.
Skye tracks her father to a S.H.I.E.L.D. base and oh, it has been so long since she's last been in one of those. After everything that happened, Coulson only needed to look at her once to realize that the secret was out and never tried to convince her to go back, never tried to hold her down and mark her as S.H.I.E.L.D. property because he knew better than to try and contain this force.
The base seems deserted and quiet but Skye can feel the universe rumble and groan under her feet and remains vigilant, Grant right by her side, his eyes black and his skin red, the Beserker staff in his hand.
There is a growing sense of unease and even if she still feels her father's presence, it's faint and skewed but she doesn't quite understand it.
Everything becomes frighteningly clear once they make their way into a large hangar and the sight in front of them is drenched in blood.
And it's not just anyone's blood; it's her team, their former team, and she forgets to breathe as her eyes scan everyone quickly, too quickly, and she knows that there is no saving them. Without her consent, her mind catalogues the injuries and supplies her with the knowledge of just how painful all of their deaths were, how many bones he broke, how he made them suffer before and how he made sure each and every one of them knew that this was her fault.
She thought she was above human emotions by now but the pain that spreads through her system is a contradiction to that.
She vaguely feels Grant's hand on her back and knows that even through his Asgardian rage, he, too, is capable of feeling the loss and the devastation and the raw pain of it all. This was her father's plan all along; he didn't want to burn down her planet but he burned down whatever still made her human, kept her tethered. He burned her world.
She still loved them and he took that away.
She feels a presence and knows that Raina is behind the wall, making her way down a corridor, and realizes that her father has left her behind and she thinks she has escaped.
Skye materializes in front of Raina faster than she can blink and she is far-removed from human. The universe lends its pain and terror to her as she moves closer to the woman that will have to take the punishment meant for her father.
"Skye, I did not do this. You know that is was your father, he is responsible."
Raina tries to talk herself out of this mess but Skye is too raw, too devastated, too emotional, to care about reason. She raises her two, blood-dripping hands to Raina's temples and hisses words in a language she's heard before but doesn't understand.
She does understand the pain of a millenia of suffering and feels Skye invade her mind, feels her search and pull and push, until she finds the one small crevasse that connects Raina to her father and takes it for herself.
Raina burns with the agony of a million suns as Skye and Grant merely watch. This is not retribution but this will have to do for now.
Skye takes the obelisk in one hand, now knowing that this is what can lead her to her father, and holds Grant's hand in the other as they take to the universe.
It is bigger and brighter than she could ever imagine in human form but they have no time for beauty when they've come to burn it all down.
They travel between planets and galaxies, the universe accommodating their every move, guiding them along, never leaving them alone and all the planets burn in their footsteps. Grant's rage delights in all the violence it can bring and he is almost gleeful when someone fails to provide answers or pretends like they don't know the Doctor; everyone has to know him, so everyone that lies, has to die. There is no room for mercy in the darkness which they inhabit.
They search and hurt and destroy and burn until one day – even if this concept doesn't exist in these worlds – they are closest to him that she's ever felt. Skye knows that he's been hiding from them, that for all of his brag and destruction, he fears her and she is pleased.
And when they come face to face, she delights in the finality of it all, in the knowledge that she will have the retribution she has been searching for.
"Daughter, you made it."
She growls at his almost gleeful tone and the pain burning in her fingertips itches to be let out, to handle this. But to her surprise, he doesn't even look at her.
"I told you these worlds are not for his kind. And look at what you've done."
Skye frowns, confused in her anger, but when she looks at Grant, she sees that his eyes have turned back to normal, that his skin doesn't glow and he looks pained, far from the Asgardian warrior he's been all through this journey.
"Your precious human is, after all, just that – human. Not even the lingering power of Asgard could sustain him forever in here. You get stronger by the day but he weakens and you didn't even notice him disintegrating right before your eyes, so consumed by your wrongful vengeance."
With horror, she sees his skin glow a different kind and can sense the atoms in his body shift restlessly, trying to accommodate for the environment but failing to do so and beginning to disintegrate.
"I just needed you distracted and chasing through the universe for me until the inevitable happened. And now, daughter, dear, you have a choice."
She is only half-listening to her father, the bigger part of her concentrated on Grant as she calls on the universe to protect him and it bends to her will suspending him in stasis before his body can betray him.
"Oh, what an idea, daughter. But the universe can't do both: keep him and support you."
And he strikes her fast and hard, the force of the blow pushing her to her back, and she feels her body struggle to keep itself together, feels the universe groan under the strain of giving her power and keeping him alive, and this is not what she expected.
Her father smiles ruthlessly. "You thought you were better than anyone else, that you were better than me. But you are nothing but a pathetic human, so weak and incompetent, unable to use what was given to you, merely squandering the power you didn't know how to control. How disappointing."
And he touches her arm before she can pull it away and the agony seems endless, the power shifting to his favor and not hers, but she pushes back with the last vestiges of her strength and manages to knock him down, though she knows it won't be for long.
Skye gets back up on her feet and thinks, thinks, thinks. She needs to get them away, far away, and then she can come back later, without Grant, when he is safe.
"Skye."
Whatever of Asgard might still be left of him, is fighting through the power of her forced shield and when she turns around, he is looking straight at her, just like he did back on earth, a million miles away.
"Skye, it's alright. You have to let me go."
He whispers it slowly and brokenly but she hears him anyway, and wishes she didn't. She kneels on the ground beside him and caresses his face with her hands, seeing all the love and feeling it pour out of him – literally – and shakes her head, "No, no, no, you can't."
Grant smiles and lifts one of his hands to her cheek, sliding it into her hair. "You need to win this, and I can't let you die. It's alright. I love you."
Her heart rips apart at the seams which he has held together for so long as he turns into stardust and dissolves into the universe, dissolves into her being seamlessly.
She screams and the universe cowers in fear and submission and finds its way back into her blood and the agony that floods her veins is the sweetest thing in that moment.
When she rises again, she is nothing but terror and darkness, fire and rage, and her father is still standing in front of her, and smiles smugly. "I told you, you would be so much better without him."
But she calls the universe into her heart, lets the destruction fill her soul and forces everything to bend around her, tightening like a well-coiled spring.
"And I told you I would burn the universe with you in it."
The energy is unleashed and she has one moment of satisfaction at the look of absolute fear on her father's face and then-
Everything becomes stardust.