Sometimes things happen for a reason. Some people call that fate, for Skye it was just another part of life. She had always been able to empathize with people, but it went further than that. She didn't have to imagine what others were feeling. She felt it.
She felt people's happiness, love and joy, their hope and excitement, their fear and disappointment, but worst was their grief, hatred and rage. She felt it all, she always had. It was one of the reason she had never stayed in a foster home more than a month. She couldn't bear their disappointment, when she failed to be the child they dreamed of. The resentment that came from some, the annoyance from others, and from time to time rage, which usually preempted an alcohol fuel beating.
When she turned 18, she had tried to live in an apartment with some people she had graduated with, but the constant barge of feelings was too difficult. It was too hard to pretend she didn't know exactly how they really felt about her, the charity case. From there she had bought her van, the first place she had ever felt at home, but then came AC and Ward.
She had assumed that living on the Bus would be difficult, but she was surprised to find that she felt comfortable. Fitz and Simmons wore their hearts on their sleeve. They were as sweet and driven in their hearts, as they seemed in life. May was a little more difficult, she had bouts of such crippling depression that Skye had woke one night crying the older women's tears, but May also had a great deal of caring and devotion in heart, that gave Skye comfort. Ward, well Ward, was Ward, he had a full spectrum of emotion, in less time than most could even think to react, but he was honest with her. When he was annoyed she felt it in her heart, but she also heard it in his voice and saw it in his actions.
Phil had been great at first, he was filled with so much hope and light, that Skye felt herself smile every time he entered a room. Recently, though, he had been going through something, not that you would have known by his carefree smiles and dorky jokes. The first time Skye woke in a cold sweat, not her own, she knew she had to check on her team. She walked by each bunk picking up hints of happiness and excitement from Fitz and Simmons, sadness from May and strangely lust from Ward. When she got to Coulson's door, there was an over whelming sense of panic that caused her to curl into herself, shaking with fear. After that night, it started to happen more and more, sometimes even during the day, but she kept his secret, just like he kept hers.
Then one night she woke to the familiar feeling of utter animalistic panic, but this time it was mixed with barely controllable rage and hatred she had only felt one other time.
Grant, she knew it was him instantly. She had to go to him, make sure that he was okay. First, she looked in his bunk, but it was empty. Then, she checked the longue, but still nothing. She closed her eyes and focused on his feelings pouring into her. Before she knew it her feet were carrying her to their place, the cargo hold.
There he was, rocking uncontrollably in his sleep on a mat in the corner of the room. Her heart broke for him.
"Grant," she called moving to shake his shoulder, only to be grabbed by the wrist and in a moment she was flipped over and trapped beneath his taught body.
"Grant, please, look at me, focus on my voice, I'm here for you," she called as calmly as she could. His eyes flashed, but he was still clutching her tightly.
"I know this isn't you," she promised, "I know you are stronger than this."
He looked at her again, this time his grip loosening. "Skye? What are you doing here?"
"One could ask you the same question, if you weren't crushing the last oxygen from my lungs?" she replied tartly, though she really liked the way his body felt pressed to hers, he was getting heavy.
"I, uh," he rolled off of her and moved to put some space between them. She felt his emotions calming slightly as he regained himself, but there was still so much fear and helplessness. Her chest ached, urging her to hold him, love him, just do anything to take his pain away.
"What are you doing here Skye? This isn't where you are supposed to be," he insisted, he had started sleeping in the cargo hold, because his bunk was suffocating and he wanted to stay away from temptation that lay just through the next wall. Now she was ruining his plans, hunting him down.
"I," she debated telling him the truth, but she doubted he'd believe her, "I couldn't sleep," she settled on a half-truth.
"You should go, I'm not good company right now," he bowed his head, and she felt a wave of shame wash over her.
"I'm not going anywhere," she challenged.
"Skye," he growled, "you are going to get yourself killed one of these days."
"That's why you're always there, tough guy, to save my big mouth," she grinned at him, but all she got in return was a wave of sadness.
"I am no one's Savior," he muttered.
She couldn't ignore the ache anymore, so she closed the distance and wrapped him in a hug.
"You are so much more than that," she whispered. "I wouldn't be here if not for you, and I imagine there is a long list of people behind me who wouldn't be here either, the first of which being our sweet English rose."
Her speech brought to mind a picture of Jemma, sweet and caring, but it was quickly replaced by others. Men he has killed because their name was in a file, because some else decided their time was up. He thought of all the lives he had taken, and sadness so dark he felt like he was drowning, continued to surround him, but her voice just kept pulling him back.
"Please, Ward, please just don't let this beat you. I need you. I need you to stay with me. I can't become the next amazing badass ninja without you," she was holding him tightly, stroking his face, looking into his vacant, haunted eyes, trying with everything she was to pull him back to the snarky SO she has come to care so much about.
She kept talking until her voice is sore and her arms ached, but she couldn't leave him in this alone. She had felt this desolation before. It was the worst moment of her life. She was just fourteen, living in a group home, surrounded by broken souls, when she felt it.
She searched for the person the feelings were coming from, but when she felt close, the feeling was suddenly gone. She opened a nearby closet, only to find the lifeless body of her only friend. Joy had come to the home a few months before. Skye had quickly been drawn to her sweet quirky sense of humor, but she knew that her friend harbored a deep sadness as well. Joy had fought so hard to be happy, but in the end the darkness had taken her. Skye couldn't live through that again.
She would not let one more person she cared about be taken from her. She would keep pushing him to fight the darkness, because she knew he was strong enough. He had to be.
At some point in the early morning, they both feel asleep. In the morning, Grant woke up with a crick in his neck and Skye in his lap. Her arms were still wrapped around his neck so tight that he was surprised she hadn't strangled him.
"Hey, come on, time to get up," he tried to rouse her.
"I'm tired," she rasped, her voice nearly gone. He remembered her voice anchoring him through the darkness.
"It's okay, I gotcha," he promised, picking her up and carrying her back to her bunk. When he tried to put her down though, her arms would not cooperate. "Come on Skye, let me go so you can sleep."
"I can't, you can't leave me," she almost begged.
Ward was at a loss for what to do. Surely it couldn't be right to hold her like this, but she wouldn't let go. She said she couldn't and she had been there for him, so what was he supposed to do? He gave a resigned sigh, lay down on the narrow bed, and held her while she slept.
When Coulson came to ask Skye if she had seen Ward, he was greeted by the Agent himself laying in her bed, Skye curled into his chest like a kitten. Coulson shook his head. If this was what they need, then he would ignore it until it became a problem. After all, when he woken the night before in a cold sweat, May had been there for him, so who was he to judge.
A/N: this is a response to Wolf's Edge, who asked me to try to write something where Skye comforts Ward from a nightmare about the Well. Not really what I set out to write, but here it is. hope you like it.