AN: My first trip into the Agents of SHIELD fandom. I needed to write Skyeward, and finally got an idea while listening to Let Her Go by Passenger (where I got the story title). If you're ever writing romantic angst, listen to that song.

Everything you touch only dies

He thinks that her name must be tattooed across his heart in blood and pain.

He had tried to kill his own brother once, had sat in a cell knowing that his parents were planning to see that he would be kept up locked up forever. He had lived a thousand days in pain and anger, yet not one of those days managed to cut him as deeply as the look in her eyes when she told him he disgusted her.

If his heartbeat makes a sound, it is her name, and every time it beats out – SkyeSkyeSkye – he bleeds a little more. In all the plans he and Garrett had made, in all the plots and orders he received, he could have never predicted her. That is her nature, to be utterly unpredictable. It was his downfall, she was his downfall. Had she never been there, he could have –

But it's better not to think about that, about the what ifs and could have beens. The fact is that Skye does exist, and she hates him and he bleeds for it. Raina had said she was born of monsters, believed that eventually blood would show and she would become a monster, but Ward knows that the girl in the flower dress knows nothing.

If Skye is a monster, then Ward is saint, and there is no universe in which that would a truth.

He sits in interrogation, Coulson sitting across from him with cold, distant eyes, and Ward's only thought is Thank God. Thank God they don't know, that she didn't tell them, because if they really wanted answers, really wanted to break him, they would have sent her in to question him. It would be Skye and her dark, anguished eyes – eyes filled with hate and betrayal, all things that Coulson's eyes hold, but they don't have nearly the effect on Ward that Skye's would have. He wonders why it is that she didn't tell them, didn't tell them that despite all the lies he had told, would continue to tell, he truly did love her – was it because part of her felt the same, or because the disgust for what he felt was too much for her to face?

Ward hopes it's the latter. If she feels so much hatred for him, so much disgust, then perhaps it's possible that, someday, he might be able to feel the same disgust for her. That the feelings that he feels so strongly, that heartbeat that beats solely for her – SkyeSkyeSkye – will someday turn to bitterness, and the consequences of what he's done will hurt a little less.

Coulson is speaking, asking questions, and Ward just stares at him. What does Coulson expect him to say? Ward was a soldier, a pawn, beholden to Garrett, but never loyal to HYDRA itself. He knows nothing about how far the beasts head delve into SHIELD, and he had no interest in finding out. Good soldiers don't ask questions, they just obey orders, and Grant Ward is nothing if not a good soldier.

Loyal to the bitter end to the man that forged him, even though his heart beat for someone else.

SkyeSkyeSkye.

Ward stares at Coulson and the other man sighs, getting up from his seat on the Bus to open the door. Ward wonders who it will be – May with her time tested techniqes? Or perhaps Simmons with some creative invention? He knows now that they survived – both Simmons and Fitz, though the latter was severely injured. He's sure that Simmons wants vengeance for that, for the partner that always seemed more a part of her than separate person. Ward will welcome that hate and vengeance, will revel in it even.

But it is not May and her stoic expression, or Simmons with her heated, angered gaze.

It's Skye, looking small and utterly wrecked and trying to look anywhere but him, and Grant feels his stomach fall and his breath catch. The only piece of him that remains working is his heart, and it pace increases.

SkyeSkyeSkyeSkyeSkye.

Did she tell them then? Or is this a gamble based on what Coulson has observed? If it's the last, then Ward has to almost be impressed with Coulson's ruthlessness, not just toward him, but also toward Skye.

It's clear she wants to be anywhere but there.

"They want me to ask you what you know," her voice is dead, her eyes are tired, and her shoulders slumped. She has shadows, and Ward knows that most of them are caused by him. Him and his betrayal.

She was never supposed to be hurt in this. She was never supposed to be involved in this. There wasn't supposed to be a Skye. She was never accounted for, and Ward aches with the desire to reach out and soothe her.

But she wouldn't accept it, not from him.

"But we both know you won't say anything," Skye says, continuing to speak. Her eyes finally meet his, and though her voice is dead, her eyes spark with life – anger and hurt and dozen other dark feelings that say she doesn't want to talk to him. She wants to hit him, to make him hurt as he hurt her. "You're a good soldier, aren't you Ward? You won't say a word without the order… but your master is gone. Tell me, what does a good guard dog do when he's finally let off the leash?"

Ward wants to tell her that he's sorry. He's sorry that she got caught up as collateral, and that it wasn't supposed to be this way. She wasn't supposed to be there, to have gotten under his skin. He wants to say that he never should have let her kiss him, because he'd known even then how easily she could wreck him…

There are a dozen apologies on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn't let any of them free, instead…

"They attack until they're put down," he says, leaning back in his seat and hoping that her anger is enough to blind her to what he really feels. That she doesn't look at him with those dark eyes and see right through to the rotten, wretched core of him that wants nothing more than to love her. "They do exactly what they were always taught to do."

"Yet you sit here, looking pretty meek. Not trained properly?"

"I'm a patient man, Skye."

Skye doesn't say anything. Her fingers tap on the table between them, beating out some sort of staccato. At first Ward thinks it might be Morse code, but it doesn't take long for his trained ear to realize there's no pattern to the taps but her own nervousness.

"You said something about my parents," she says at last, and the reason for her being here dawns on him. It's not because Coulson realized this would break him, it's not some sort of strategic plan… it's merely Skye wanting the answers she's always searched for.

"Stop looking," Ward says, and he's no longer the hardened HYDRA guard dog, but instead the man who is recklessly in love with a woman who is at the start of a dark path she would be better not pursuing. His chained hands reach forward for her, and Skye recoils violently. The movement reminds Ward of where he is, what he is, and why he is there, and he pulls back.

"If you don't actually know anything, just say so," Skye replies, her voice soft, and once again she is looking anywhere but directly at Ward.

Ward considers retracting his statement, letting her walk down that path… the path that leads to monsters and darkness. Maybe then she'll come to him and beg for his help, because she'll recognize he is the only one who could possibly understand her. It's tempting, to let her fall into her Hell and wait for her to come to him.

But his beat heart beats out her name – SkyeSkyeSkye – and for all that he likes to think he can destroy his weaknesses, destroying her is so utterly beyond him that it's laughable.

"They're monsters. Your parents are monsters, Skye, but you aren't. And family… family is the people we choose" – he had chosen Garrett all those years ago, and though many people would say it was the wrong choice, Ward will always claim it was a better choice than his blood family – "you have a family already. You don't need whatever you'll find in the darkness. Don't look."

Skye looks at him again, and though there's still anger in those dark eyes, there's also confusion. She's trying to read him, to determine if he speaks truth or not. He's not sure what she sees there, doesn't ask, and she doesn't say. Instead, she gets to her feet and knocks on the door.

Ward doesn't know what choice she'll make as she slips out of the interrogation room. If she'll listen to him or write his words off as belonging to the devil, but he has done his best. He has wrecked her, and now he hopes his words will stop her from wrecking herself.

He knows it's very likely they won't.

AN: And there it is. I can't wait to see where they go with these two next season! There's so much potential, and Skye's parents are being brought in, and I'm so freaking excited!