Hey guys! I've just been spilling out fics lately, haven't I? I think I've posted like eight in the last five days, which makes me really happy. I love seeing everyone's reviews and their responses. It just makes me so incredibly excited to know that people like my writing.

So this is a little fic that is set after Skye is shot. It is AU though, Ward isn't HYDRA. This is just a piece that hopefully gets your SkyeWard feelings up again until the rest of the season of AOS plays out.

"I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you." -Cassandra Clare

Her breathing is soft, slow, and gentle, a rather small fact that does wonders for his peace of mind; because every moment, every glance, flashes back to the image of her lying on a bare concrete floor, bleeding out with gray lips and a hand covered in blood over her wounds. Those wounds are revealed now, in the dim light, because her gray tank top is up a few inches, revealing bare skin. His hand reaches out, his thumb rubbing itself over the small, yet visible wound; it was a miracle, a blessing, that she was beside him now, her breaths coming into the air and reaching his ears. Because by all means, they should've lost her. She shouldn't be here right now. He didn't know if it was luck or God that made that happen, but he had closed his eyes every night since that fateful day, giving thanks to the world that she was alive and most certainly not dead, buried five feet under a headstone with no last name written on it.

Yet even that one thought forces him to clench his teeth sharply, his top back teeth rubbing against his lower ones. His finger is still touching her middle, his eyes focused on her wound. It would be a while until his mind wiped the red from his vision every time Ian Quinn came to his thoughts, but until then she was still beside him, living, breathing, laughing. Because her laugh was one that spilled into the souls of many, his especially. He'd never formed such a bond with someone; he's never formed attachments, period. He'd always been a wandering loner, the boy on the outskirts.

His eyes travel upwards then, to her slightly parted mouth covered in a light beige color. He had known she worn makeup — he'd never seen her without it, even now, when she was asleep to the horrors of the outside world. She's curled up beside him, his elbow propping him up on the pillow, with her fingers gently spread across his clothed chest and the other hand giving herself an extra cushion underneath her head. The plane flies by, quietly, with the roar of the jets long since having flown away in the wind. Until they landed the plane would be silent, something that allows him to relax his shoulders. Because she needs her sleep; ever since the events of her near death she had been terrified to even blink for fear she would be shot at again.

It's nice to know sometimes that under all that humor, under all those masks of indifference, that she's still a child at heart. At twenty-four she's lived far more than most people have in a lifetime and sometimes that scares him; because someone as pure as her shouldn't have had to gone through the things she has. That's the reason he was so…empty when she was shot. He wasn't sure that she would be alright again.

But she is still here, lying gently beside him, her eyelids flickering. She's waking up, he can tell, so he moves his face over gently, capturing his lips with hers. He nips her bottom lip gently, a fact that forces her fingers to curl across his chest. Then she kisses him back, her eyes fluttering awake, revealing the deep brown mixture that he knows all too well.

She's still blinking away sleep when he pulls away, forcing a noise of regret to escape from her throat. "Ward," she moans, slipping her hand away from his chest and around the back of his neck, bringing him back down to meet her. His lips slant over hers again. But then he's pulling away, brushing a curl out of her face.

"Morning sleepy-head," he whispers, his voice low. "I'm glad you slept."

She removes her hand from him, rubbing her fingers through her hair and down her face. "I must look awful," she sighs, drawing her lips between her teeth and falling backwards fully on the mattress.

But then he's moving, on top of her in a second, a coil of heat rising in his middle. She blinks up at him as he leans down to kiss her again, this time slightly more eagerly than before; she responds just as urgently though, slipping her hands underneath his white tee-shirt. Fifteen beats pass (he counts) before he's pulling away, lifting his hands from her hips — where they had found themselves during the short make-out session — and moving them upwards, cradling her face.

Her cheeks are flushed from their little morning greeting and she doesn't react when he rubs his thumb over a scar on her cheek. She props herself up with an elbow after retreating her hands from his chest, a nicely finished feat while under his weight. Her free hand moves to brush against the side of his eye before she pulls away, revealing a tiny black eyelash on her finger.

"Make a wish," she whispers, bringing it up to his lips. He hasn't believed in wishes since he was little, before his brother became a sociopath, but he humors her and blows gently, the little piece whisking itself into the air and vanishing from view.

"There," he replies, removing his hands from her cheeks and clasping them together, stretching them outwards. He can feel the exhaustion moving through his whole being; his brain is wide awake though, but that has more to do with the brunette that had been sleeping beside him.

"What'd you wish for?" she asks, her eyes flickering to the glowing clock beside them. There's a small window to his right that reveals the brilliant oranges, yellows, and reds of a sunrise, slashing light over both of their faces. It had risen quickly, within a span of ten minutes or so.

"Wouldn't you like to know," he answers coyly, moving off of her and slipping his feet onto the hardwood floor. He pulls off his white tee in favor of picking up another strewn carelessly over the footboard of the bed; he can feel her eyes raking him as he does so and takes no care to hide his smirk. "See something you like?"

Her cheeks flush even more than they already were. "Shut up," she groans, grasping the pillow and throwing it at him. Her aim is getting better, he muses, as he barely dodges the moving projectile. They'll have to work at that later in training.

But then she's stepping out of the bed, following his manner as he slips on a pair of jeans on. She slips one of his operations' sweatshirts over her head and a pair of his boxers on. It falls to mid-thigh and he squints at her. "Skye," he says, crossing his arms. "Take it off."

"Make me," she replies, her eyes mischievous. But she clearly doesn't expect him to pick her up and toss her over his shoulder; because that's what he does and she squeals, pounding on his back.

"Ward!" she yelps, but then he's spinning her around before tossing her back on the bed. She lands with the slightest breath escaping her lips. He looms over her, his own expression one of humor; hers, however, is decorated with a rather sulky one. "That wasn't very nice," she tells him, her eyes flashing in false anger.

"You deserve that," he tells her, before flickering his eyes to her messed up hair that is spilling down her shoulders. He turns to leave, but not before saying, "You might wanna run a brush through that hair before you come out."

He's joking, of course, and she knows it, but that doesn't escape the yell of "asshole!" that follows him out into the commons area.

His mind flashes to the wish she had asked him to make earlier, but he hadn't needed to make one, he knows that. Because everything he had ever wanted was standing in his bunk right now, with a brilliant laugh and a wide smile. She was the one variable he hadn't accounted for in his lifetime; yet it changed his world forever.

*silently pretends that Ward is not HYDRA at all and this is how the season ends*