Hi there! I was watching the season one episode "Turn, Turn, Turn," and I heard a few lines that prompted this little idea. Hope you enjoy, and, as always, lots of love to you all!

~FiTeamFreeWill~

Prompt: "You haven't taught me how to hold up under torture yet."

"We'll get to that. It's real fun."

"Fifteen push-ups, because you were two minutes late," Ward instructed as Skye entered the training room. She groaned, rolling her eyes.

"That's the kind of greeting I get? Come on, Robot, you can do better than that," she replied. He gestured to the floor, and she dropped to her knees with a harrumph. "I don't understand why we're even training right now. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gone to hell; HYDRA is everywhere. Plus, you can barely move without hurting. We should be relaxing, trying to sort things out," she added after she completed two.

"Yeah, well, normally I'd agree with you, but this is important. You mentioned something at the base that worried me somewhat. You said I hadn't taught you how to hold up under torture, and I realized I should touch base on that, seeing as any one of us could be captured and tortured at any given moment," Ward replied with a slight smile. He didn't tell her about Garrett's instructions: "...after that, cross off the team and bring the girl to me." He'd told Skye about his affiliation with Garrett and HYDRA, and about how Fury had had him acting as a triple agent, but he still hadn't told her why Garrett had sent him back. He didn't want to scare her at such a delicate time.

"Oh, well, this should be fun. How exactly is this going to work? Are you going to torture me?" she asked teasingly. To her surprise, Ward nodded.

"Not directly, but in a way, yes. Providence has all kinds of new toys, including one that simulates torture. I just have to hook you up and it'll be just like real life."

Skye looked increasingly terrified with each word. "Um...won't that hurt?"

"No! It won't cause you any harm, I promise. It just tricks your brain into thinking it's in pain, that's all," he said in an attempt to reassure her, silently cursing himself for scaring her in the first place. She nodded, but still looked nervous. Taking her hand, he led her through a door adjoining to the training room. A scary-looking machine sat in the center of the room, humming gently.

"Jumping right in, aren't we?" Skye tittered nervously.

"We don't exactly have a lot of time on our hands, do we? And anyways, I want to get this over with. Now, this is untested, so we're going to start off slow."

"Untested? I'm the guinea pig?"

"You'll be fine. I've dealt with things similar to this. Basically, I plug this into your arm, and you're put into a sort of 'lucid dream.' It will seem as if you are being held and tortured, and you're going to have to withhold information from your captors. Your brain is going to try and trick you into thinking that you're in excruciating pain, but you should be aware that it's fake the whole time," Ward explained. She regarded him skeptically, but sat in the chair anyways.

"Alright. I trust you."

He smiled at her words. It meant a lot to him that she still trusted him, even after all he'd told her, even after he'd given her plenty of reasons not to.

She hummed nervously as he set everything up. "I'll pull you out after about five minutes. You'll be fine," he promised. She leaned her head back into the headrest, closing her eyes. A slight prick of pain made her wince, and then everything was still and silent. She opened her eyes.

Skye was strapped to a chair in the middle of a dark room. A man with a hood shadowing his face stood in front of her. "I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I suggest you cooperate, or this will not go well for you," the man warned. "First," he continued, "you're going to tell me anything you know about the T.A.H.I.T.I. project."

She glared up at the man, resisting the urge to spit in his face. That would only make her situation worse. He tutted her as one would a disobedient child, and turned his back to her. When he turned back, he was holding what looked like some sort of hand-held torch. Her throat went dry.

"I'll ask you again: what do you know about T.A.H.I.T.I?" the man growled. She said nothing. He smiled, flicking on the torch. A stream of white-hot flame spurted forth, near enough to singe her eyebrows.

She wasn't sure what, exactly, happened next; it was just a lot of pain. She felt like her blood was boiling, like her bones had liquefied and were running out her body through her eyeballs. She screamed and screamed and screamed, but the pain didn't stop for even a second. The next thing she knew, she was sobbing, "I don't know anything! I swear!" Nothing existed except the excruciating, horrible pain.

Something was wrong. Ward had known it was untested, but he'd used untested machines thousands of times, and nothing ever went wrong. He didn't know how, but something was wrong. Skye was twitching and crying out, with tears rolling down her cheeks. Hurriedly, he unplugged the machine and yanked the plug-in out of her arm. She jolted awake, screaming and sobbing.

"I don't know! I don't know!" she cried.

"Skye! Skye, you're okay. It isn't real. It isn't real, I promise. No one's going to hurt you," said Ward soothingly. Skye glanced around, still terrified.

"It...it seemed so real," she whispered, hugging herself. "I thought I was dying."

"You're safe, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't realize it would be so bad." She nodded vacantly, and Ward wrapped his arms around her. "You're safe," he repeated softly.

She rested her head on his shoulder, trying to forget what the pain felt like. It wasn't working. But, even though she couldn't forget, it was easy to believe that she really was safe, there in Ward's arms. She trusted him to keep her away from harm. As long as he was there, she didn't have to worry about the pain. As long as he was there, he'd keep her safe from any pain that came her way, and she knew that for a fact.