Written for a prompt on Tumblr, which will be at the end so as not to spoil :) Slight spoilers for 1x09 but very slight as I've not seen it myself yet.
Her hands were beginning to hurt but she kept on at it, relentlessly hitting the punching bag in time with the rhythm of her thoughts.
It was early, too early really. Everyone else was still asleep and Skye wished she could join them but her thoughts were too loud, too jumbled, to let her indulge in the luxury of an undisturbed night. She knew from experience that forcing herself to sleep would mean opening a door for the nightmares to creep back in and she wasn't about to do that.
She'd tried reading, but gave up when she realised she'd read the same sentence five times and still hadn't taken it in.
She'd tried surfing the web but, mindful of SHIELD monitoring her every move, hadn't been able to lose herself in the activity as she once had.
She'd tried to watch a movie on her laptop instead but had felt too restless, too twitchy, to settle and get lost in it.
So she'd left her bunk, creeping about like a criminal, and had snuck downstairs.
Her SO, she thought as she punched the bag with a little more force than necessary, would either be proud of her or he'd haul her ass to FitzSimmons if he found her down here. Probably the latter, Skye thought with an unladylike snort; if anyone had told her two months ago that she'd be working out at three in the morning – willingly – she'd have thought they were mad or she was under the nefarious influence of some alien technology, too.
Ward.
He was more than partly to blame for her bout of insomnia and she knew it.
She was worried about him and didn't know how to handle it. Didn't know what to do. She'd given him the chance to talk and unburden himself and he'd turned her down. She knew he'd gone to May instead, the pair of them choosing to drink themselves into oblivion rather than face down the demons tormenting them with the aid of a bottle of whiskey – maybe two if the hangovers they'd been trying to hide the following morning were any indication – but the therapeutic effects of that had worn off after a few days back aboard the Bus.
May seemed as okay as she ever was but Ward... Skye sighed again and punched the bag, biting her lip against the pain in her knuckles that shot up her arm.
Her SO was distancing himself, cutting himself off. She knew the others were as concerned as she was but no one, not even Coulson or May, seemed able to reach him.
It hurt her that she couldn't, and scared her that no one could.
She didn't want to lose him. Couldn't bear the thought of it. And that... That terrified her.
Skye didn't need anyone. She didn't rely on anyone. She tried not to let herself care too much about other people because she knew they'd all leave her or let her down in the end. Miles was a prime example of that, and the memory of her former boyfriend's actions and what they'd almost cost her made her eyes sting with angry tears.
She'd lost Miles, let him go in fact, and though he'd been the person she'd allowed to get closest to her, it still didn't hurt as much as the thought of losing Grant.
Ward.
Ward, Ward, Ward. Her SO. Not Grant; she couldn't let herself think of him as Grant.
It was too personal, too telling, too –
"Skye? What the hell are you doing down here?"
Damn it.
"Sleep walking. Punching. Whatever." Refusing to let herself look at him, Skye focused on pummelling the bag instead of the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. "Shouldn't you be recharging your batteries, Robot?"
Insults. Jokes. Barriers to protect herself from getting hurt if – when – he pushed her away again.
For a long time, Ward said nothing. For so long, in fact, that she started to wonder if she'd hallucinated his voice and lifted her head to glance in his direction.
He stood watching her, his expression unreadable and his eyes... Skye's breath caught in her throat and she quickly looked away. Her heart raced in her chest but it had nothing to do with the work out and everything to do with the look in his eyes.
"I couldn't sleep." She spoke because she needed to fill the silence, because she was sure he'd hear the pounding of her heart if she didn't. "So I thought, hey, why not get a head start on the day. That's what you super agent types do, right? Get up at crazy o'clock and put yourself through hell and then have breakfast and do it all again? When you're not taking out the bad guy and saving lives and all..."
"You should be sleeping." His voice was closer than she'd expected but she managed to keep herself from jumping. Just. "You should be in your bunk. Damn it, Skye." The anger in his voice surprised her. "I didn't know what to think when you weren't there. I thought –"
He cut himself off but it was too late.
"Wait – what?" Skye stopped and turned to face him slowly, her eyebrows rising. "You looked for me? In my bunk?"
Busted.
Ward lifted a hand and ran it through his sleep mussed hair, avoiding her gaze as he tried to think of something to say. He couldn't tell her the truth, could he? Couldn't tell her it wasn't the first time he'd checked on her in the early hours of the morning or that he'd felt a terror he'd rarely known when he'd looked into her room and found her bunk empty instead of occupied, paralysed for a moment with fear that the nightmare he'd had was actually the truth...
"Ward?" His head snapped up at the sound of her voice and he swallowed reflexively at how close she'd gotten. "You looked for me? Why?"
He didn't answer straight away. Couldn't. He shook his head instead and watched as something akin to disappointment flittered across her face before she schooled her features into a neutral expression.
"Okay. Well, if you don't want to tell me, I guess I'll just head upstairs. Enjoy your work out."
"I didn't come down here to work out." She was halfway to the stairs when he spoke and even without glancing over his shoulder to check, he knew she'd stopped. "I was looking for you."
"Why?" She sounded two-thirds confused, one third... hopeful? He heard her sigh when he said nothing but she made no move to keep walking away from him. "I can't... I don't know if I can help you, Ward, but I can't even try if you won't let me. If you want to talk, I can listen and I promise whatever you say will go no further than us. Or if you want to take advantage of the bar and get drunk, well I'll try to keep up with you but I'm no May so I'd probably pass out before you even start to feel tipsy but I'll take the risk if that's what you want. I might hate you for the hangover in the morning but I'd get over it. Eventually. Just tell me what you need, Grant, and I'll do it. Please. Don't shut us out. Don't shut me out."
He didn't know if it was the offer – all of them – or the plea in her voice or the fact she'd called him by his face name or the way she'd said it but Ward found himself doing something he hadn't expected to do. Something Skye hadn't expected, despite her words.
He started to talk.
He told her about his brother, about both of them. Told her what it was like growing up, trying to protect one against the other and always feeling as if he'd failed. He told her how powerless he'd felt against the rage when he'd been infected by the Staff, admitted how scared he'd been – of what he'd been capable of and of how he'd thought for a while that it's effects would never wear off.
By the time he'd started talking about the nightmares, they'd moved to sit on the steps. Side by side, he felt the warmth of her seep through his clothes, used it to remind himself she was there even as he spoke about losing her.
About being the one to hurt her.
"They're different. Every night, they're different. But they always end the same way. I lose control, here on the Bus. I... FitzSimmons don't stand a chance if they're there. Coulson. May. It's like watching a movie I can't stop, seeing myself hurt them all and then there's you and I... God, Skye. I can't stop. I'm screaming in my head but I can't stop myself from hurting you. I'm just so angry, I can't control it and I hear you begging me to stop but I don't and I see you die. Every night I see myself kill you." He stared at his hands, at the hands he remembers using to choke the life out of the woman sitting beside him, and fights the urge to throw up. "Sometimes the others are there, sometimes they're not. Sometimes it's my brothers instead but at the end, it's always you."
She was silent for a while, the only sound in the room his laboured breathing and her calm breaths. His vision blurred and he told himself he'd blown it, called himself all kinds of a fool for opening his big mouth and doing what he'd been worried about, scared her away...
He was still staring at his hands when he saw hers, move to cover them. Her fingers felt warm and steady whereas his felt cold and trembling. She laced them together, squeezing them reassuringly and Ward couldn't stop himself from looking at her.
Tears shimmered in her eyes but the distrust and fear he'd been expecting weren't there. Compassion, sympathy, understanding...
"And that's why you checked my bunk? And freaked out when I wasn't there?" He nodded, his throat too raw to force the words out. She moved one of her hands away, lifted it to his face and stroked her thumb over his cheek. "You're not going to hurt me. You won't. I know you, Grant Ward, and you're stronger than you think you are."
"What if I'm not? That kind of faith could get you killed, Skye, or worse –"
"It won't."
He opened his mouth to protest but found he couldn't speak, not when she moved so swiftly, kissing him before he could. A groan rumbled in his chest and he lifted a hand, tangling it in her hair to keep her in place as he returned the kiss, matching her fervour with his own.
When she pulled away, she was smiling slightly. Her eyes were bright and hopeful and Ward found himself returning her smile with a lopsided grin of his own. Just as he was about to lean in for another kiss, Skye got to her feet and held out her hand.
He took it without question, following as she led him upstairs to the living area. He balked at the sight of the open door to his room, remembering waking in a cold sweat with the blankets tangled around his legs but Skye led him passed it, into her own room, where she closed the door securely behind them and went towards the bed.
He watched her slip beneath the covers, still in her workout gear, shuffling over until her back was pressed against the wall. She patted the mattress next to her and arched an eyebrow in obvious invitation.
"You need to sleep, Grant. We both do." She tried and failed to stifle a yawn as if to prove her point.
Feeling his own exhaustion threaten to crash over him, Ward followed her example, wrapping his arms around her when she curled up against him.
"Sleep," she ordered quietly, head against his chest, ear above his heart.
"Yes, Ma'am." Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he closed his eyes and willed himself to follow her order, somehow optimistic that her presence would be enough to keep the nightmares at bay.
End.
The prompt was: Skye finally gets Ward to confide in her, they kiss.