My SkyeWard writing hasn't exactly been up to par lately, I've been in a bit of a rut...sorry about that, guys. This one isn't the best and it kinda sucks but it's out there, so that at least makes me sorta happy.

Enjoy.

"There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds." -Laurell K. Hamilton

He's in the wind for two straight months, with no contact, no news, no nothing. But slowly and surely, his appearance begin to come back into light; there's a little mention of him on S.H.I.E.L.D's radar, followed by a flash of a news crew capturing a picture of three heavily armed men robbing a bank not two blocks from the Avengers' building. In hindsight, for them, that was rather stupid. They were swarmed within minutes, she saw through the television, as she sat cross-legged on the motel's bed with Jemma anxiously pacing beside her. Her heart nearly stops when she sees his cold eyes staring at her through the scream and her eyes slam shut as her nails dig into her palms, leaving little crescent shaped circles.

After, she can't get the image of him out of her head.

It's another month after the bank robbery (he had escaped, he being the only one) before she finally sees him in person, a blur of gunfire and shouts. She had only been out grabbing groceries when there was a robbery at the store; she ducks down, her hand flying immediately to where she carried a concealed knife in her back pocket. But she doesn't get much chance to do anything to help the people cowering behind the register before she's begin jerked up and slammed against the wall, crumbling like a can.

Before she blacks out, she catches glimpse of his panicked face looking down at her, his hands reaching downwards.

She wakes up two blocks away in a dirty little alley, unsure whether or not it was a dream. Her head is screaming in agony while she fights to keep the sharp pain away, so she doesn't truly dwell on it until the team pulls up in a van, having tracked her through the GPS she keeps in the sole of her right shoe.

But when they finally meet, it isn't in a fight, it isn't in a whirl of pain; no, it's two weeks after the alley incident, when she's lying alone in a motel room not far from where she had first met Mike Peterson — not far from where everything had started.

She wakes to the sound of a window clicking open, followed by a painful grunt; her eyes are flashing open as her fingers grasp the gun she keeps hidden under her pillow. The rest of the team is gone, having been sent away on a mission not thirty minutes earlier. She had expected to take a nap, to get some sleep, something that hadn't been coming easy in the past months.

She's jerking up from the bed, the pistol pointed firmly at the intruder. She expects a robber, someone looking for quick cash.

She doesn't expect him.

He's breathing hard as he stares into the line of fire, his eyes flickering. One of his palms is rested over his middle, covering large blood stain. He looks pleading as he speaks. "Skye," he croaks. "Help," he finishes barely, before crumbling to the ground, catching himself slightly with his free wrist.

Her thoughts are screaming at her that it's a trick, that she'll be swarmed any moment by HYDRA agents ready to capture and contain her; but moments pass and there's only the sound of his heavy, ragged breathing so she slips out of the bed, keeping the gun pointed firmly at the back of his head.

He's looking up at her as she carefully steps towards him, her hands trembling. "Skye," he repeats her name, saying it as it would be the last thing he would do. "Please."

Her eyes narrow. "What do you want?" she spits, stopping a foot or so away from him. When he doesn't answer, she grits her teeth. "What do you want, traitor?"

The name seems to gather a flash of anger inside him, and he clenches his fist pressed against the ground. "Bullet to the middle," he tells her, his voice tight. "Your team — they're engaged in a fight a few blocks from here."

It's then he removes his hand; she sees the blood dripping down, sinking into the carpet, and she barely manages not to turn her head away, to keep the bile back.

She doesn't know if she should trust him — not now, not after everything that's happened. Her battle weary mind tells her that she should put one in his forehead and bolt.

But her heart tells her different.

Keeping the gun trained on him, she motions for him to sit back. He does so gladly, stretching his legs in front of him as he slumps against the wall. She gets down on her knees then, one hand slowly reaching for the wound.

When she touches the blood soaked area though, he hisses, one of his hands flying over her own. She freezes, her heart beat rising. Her eyes flicker to meet his though, and they're full of pain, of regret. It's an expression that she's never seen on him before; that's what keeps her sitting there on the carpet, his hand tightening over hers.

"Skye," he whispers. "I'm —" he's cut off then by a bout of coughing, a bit of blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.

Panic begins to rise within her and she focuses on the task at hand, her eyes scanning the wound. The bullet didn't go in very deep, staying carefully near the surface; it must have been blocked by something, she muses, as she scans it.

"Okay," she says, trying to keep her voice steady. "Lemme just grab the first aid kit."

She rises and can feel his eyes raking her as she, with trembling hands, removes the white box from underneath the bed. She opens it and she pulls out a wad of fabric, moving to press it to Ward's side in order to stop the bleeding.

"You need to go to a hospital," she tells him, her voice quiet. "I can't do anything much."

It's then one of his hands is slipping upwards, cupping the back of her neck and running a thumb among her ear.

"Skye," he chokes, his eyes flickering. "I'm sorry — for everything. I'm —" he dissolves into heavy breathing, his eyes filling with panic.

"Breathe," she nearly screams, one hand moving to his cheek. "C'mon Ward, breathe."

He does manage to calm himself down and takes one last deep, shuddering breath, before he's able to talk again. "Skye," he whispers her name with every intent of a desperate prayer. "I love you."

Now it's her turn; she can't breathe, staring at him in shock. Her mouth parts to say more, but she's cut off as his eyes slam shut, his breathing coming down to null.

She remembers with shaking fingers, dialing 911.

She remembers the panic rising within her as she screams his name over and over again.

She remembers the paramedics loading him onto a stretcher, doing compressions, flowing electricity to try and revive him.

And she remembers they having to sedate her when she wouldn't calm the hell down.

When she comes back into full consciousness, she's with the team. Simmons tries to force her back down as she screams his name, full of panic and pain and agony, not akin to anything she had ever felt before.

They tell her that he survived and is now in police custody.

She breathes.

He's alive, she swears to herself, trying to calm her quickly rising heart rate. He's alive.

But she can't get his words imprinted away from her thoughts.

Poor Skye.