Skye was in her bunk, door shut, knees pulled tightly to her chest. She wasn't normally one to freak out, so she wasn't as familiar with the effects of sheer, blind panic as she might have been. Other, more nervous, people knew from experience that tunnel vision is the natural side effect of crisis, that there's something about the unexpected and awful that makes leaves the brain blind to possibility.

As it was, Skye was sure she could actually feel herself counting down to detonation. Was she ticking? She was pretty sure she could hear herself ticking.

She had to decide what to do. She had to figure this out. She had to think like an analyst. Coulson had been training her, pointing out how situational variables could be calculated using the same techniques she had honed on digital data.

What had he said? Start with what you know. Your facts. Your 100% statements.

So what was a fact? Well, she was sure that killing a million people was wrong, that she would do anything to prevent it, even…make herself die. (She balked at thinking the word 'suicide'.)

And then, it's not just facts, but who knows those facts. So did Ward know that she would rather die than let herself be used for murder? Yes, he had plenty of time to get to know her and she always was pretty direct about her feelings.

Which meant he either told her a lie because he wanted her to kill herself (and the initial refusal was just a ploy) or the initial refusal was genuine because he wanted to protect her from the truth and its obvious implications. Two possibilities. Possibility A: Ward is a liar and she's not a bomb. Possibility B: Ward wasn't lying this once and she will cause millions of deaths if she doesn't do something about it.

Okay, that line of reasoning didn't help. Start somewhere else. It's like a search algorithm. Have to go to a new node.

Was Ward telling the truth? He seemed sincere, but then he'd seemed sincere when lying before. That was no use.

Was Ward committed to fighting the alien invasion? He didn't exactly have a great track record on protecting human lives, and if he really wanted to make sure his intel was used, he could have told May or Coulson. So, probably not.

Did Ward care about her? Of course not. He had murdered and terrorized the people around her, frightened and threatened her. But he never hurt her directly. Went out of his way to protect her. Maybe he didn't care about her in a mature, empathetic way, but what if he did have some kind of immature, limited feelings for her?

She tried a new starting point. Ward does not take actions that he believes will hurt her. She thought back to everything she knew about him, ever mission they'd been on, every time they'd faced off, and yes, it was true.

So, if he doesn't want to hurt her, and he knows that she can't live with being a bomb, so he refused and refused to tell and then…Possibility B. She is a monster.

She really can feel herself ticking.

Well, she doesn't know what might set her off, but she knows that getting shot is safe, since she's done that before. It's easy enough to get a live gun, not just an ICER. She's an agent. She has access. Who should pull the trigger? She can't ask any of the others to do it. It would break them. That's not an option.

She has to write a note and do it herself.


This is the dream that Grant Ward is having.

He is an adult, shirtless in the heat, sitting on the hard, dry ground as he pets Buddy. He hears someone singing, so he stands and looks for the source of the sound, but he sees nothing.

Buddy is gone and Fitz is in his place, sitting cross-legged on the ground and eating a sandwich.

"Did you hear that?" Ward asks Fitz.

"Hear what?"

"Someone was singing." Ward spun around. "There it is again!"

"Are you sure you don't have a concussion? Head injuries are…well, they're something, aren't they?"

Ward snaps at Fitz to get up and follow him, then he takes off into the woods, branches scraping and whipping behind him. The singing is louder, but Ward can't recognize the melody or the words. He can't even tell if the voice belongs to a man or a woman.

He clambers easily over some boulders, but before he can continue running, he hears a voice from behind him yell, "Slow down!" It's not Fitz's voice. It's younger, higher, and a little slurred. "I can't go that fast," says the boy.

Ward knows what he will see before he turns around: his younger brother feebly trying to make his way over the rock formation. Ward wants to keep running, to follow the sound and find the singer, but he turns back and picks Dana up. "I'll carry you," he says.

But Dana is hot to the touch. Too hot to touch. His soft features seem oblivious to the fact that there is a fire raging beneath his ribs and he has no idea that there are people trapped in the burning structure, struggling against the sinew and flesh.

Ward could put the fire out, by shoving Dana into the pond, by holding him there until the waters choked the flame, but then-

The door was opening. Ward woke up.


Ward stood to greet his visitor.

It was Skye. Alone. Clutching a pistol.

Was she here to kill him? He had figured that if anyone was going to cross him off, it would be May, but he wasn't exactly shocked at this development. After all, he'd given them his last piece of information. Now he was just a liability, a risk who might talk to someone else. Better, easier to just put one in the back of his head.

But why did she come alone? She had to know that he could take the gun from her in such close quarters. Did she think that he wouldn't fight? Did she think that-

Ward took a good look at Skye and he could see that she had been crying. She wasn't crying at the moment, but there were tear tracks running down her makeup.

"I couldn't do it," said Skye. "I tried and I just couldn't make myself do it. And I won't make one of the others do it. They don't deserve that. I don't know if you do or not, but you owe me." She held out the gun to him, handle first. "If you do this for me," she breathed, "I'll forgive you."

Ward didn't take the gun. "You're not thinking straight. You shouldn't be in here without a guard."

"You knew that this is what would happen, didn't you? That either the CIA drags me off and vivisects me or I die. That's why you wouldn't tell. Because you wanted to help me. Well, I need you to help me one last time. Just close your eyes and pull the trigger."

She held the gun out again and he took it, more out of reflex than anything.

"Skye, you can't ask me to-"

"Don't tell me what I can't ask you to do! Think of everything you've asked of me, and all the while you were…" Skye turned around and knelt on the floor. "I already left a note. Just do this, and I can forgive you. You have to do this. You have to-"

"Skye, I-"

"Hurry! Please! Before I change my mind!" She was trembling, but her voice was resolute.

Ward looked at the gun, then looked at her. She would forgive him. This would, if not make up for the things he did, would at least be a start. The others wouldn't believe it, even with her note, but that was okay. He could do one good thing in his life. He could fulfill her dying wish. He could make it quick, almost painless. She would forgive him.

Grant Ward leveled the gun at the back of her head and closed his eyes.


Phil Coulson was exhausted. His whole team was exhausted, long past burning out and well into the listless ashes stage. They were trying to do the work of a whole organization (while keeping a high-risk prisoner on board!) and the impossibility of it was setting in. He hadn't slept the night before, running an op that turned out to go nowhere. And his sleep wasn't as restful as of late. He almost suspected that he had returned to his childhood habit of sleepwalking. He finally asked Simmons for some muscle relaxants for his back to take advantage of their sedative side effects. So, he was very deep asleep when he heard it.

The sound came from the monitor on his desk which displayed continuous video of Grant Ward's cell. The man was yelling and banging on the walls. And there was someone else in there, lying motionless on the ground. Was that-?

Coulson jumped out of bed, bad back be damned, grabbing his sidearm and rushing through the corridor, not caring at all that he was only dressed in basketball shorts and an undershirt. When he came to the cell, he found the door open and unlocked. There was a gun on the table, mag lying next to it, but Coulson couldn't see from across the room whether it had been fired or not. Ward was rolling Skye onto her side.

Coulson couldn't see any blood.

He cocked his weapon and aimed it at Ward. "You have five seconds to tell me what the hell is going on here."

Ward raised his hands in surrender. He didn't look cocky. He didn't look victorious. He looked small and lost, the way he had when he was exhausted by the berserker staff. "She's just unconscious," he said.

"Keep talking." Coulson didn't lower the gun.

Ward didn't know what to do. He had a long history of people threating him with violence. That wasn't new. But he had this secret. And he had been trying to protect Skye, but instead, she almost died, by her own hand or by his. It would be his fault either way, for giving her that terrible burden to carry alone.

Coulson wasn't like Garrett. Ward remembered the day they took down Mike Peterson in the train station, risking thousands to save one man. Coulson wasn't like Garrett. He took Amador back. Brought her in without killing her. Coulson wasn't like Garrett. Ward couldn't imagine Garrett moving heaven and earth to find a miracle drug to bring his protégé back to life. Coulson wasn't like Garrett.

So Ward told Coulson everything. His secret, how he knew it, how he told Skye, and what she asked him to do.

Skye regained consciousness while Ward was speaking. She looked up at him. "You're crying," she said.

"No, I'm not." Ward never cried. He couldn't remember the last time he cried.

Skye got to her feet, slowly and unsteadily. She touched his face and yes, those were tears. "You are," she said. "I don't think I've ever seen you cry."

"I don't think I ever have." Which was, as far as he could remember, the truth, because the last time he cried, he was four years old, sobbing and wailing as he arrived at the terrible realization that his sister was gone and was never coming back. He was so small and it was so long ago that he has no memory of that day.

Skye wobbled, still dizzy from the concussion, and decided to sit down on Ward's cot. Coulson sat down on one side of her. She gestured for Ward to sit on the other side.

Ward looked to Coulson for permission before sitting down where Skye had indicated.

"He told you," said Skye to Coulson. "He told you what I am."

"He told me what he thinks you are. First, we have to find out if it's true."

"I don't think he's lying," said Skye. "I don't think he wants to hurt me."

Skye's words made Ward's stomach clench.

"Just because he's not lying," said Coulson, "doesn't mean he's not mistaken. Someone could have lied to him." Coulson looked over Skye's head to meet Ward's gaze. "I think a lot of people lied to him."

"What if it is true?" asked Skye. "What if I really am a bomb?"

"Then, we'll find a solution. I happen to know some very brilliant people." Coulson put his arm across her shoulders. "I know what you're made of. I know who you are and that's what matters." He looked at Skye, catching another glimpse of Ward in the process.

Ward looked away.

Coulson thought back on everything in Ward's file, on everything he knew when he brought the man onto his team and everything he had learned since. He thought about exhaustion. He thought about Hydra. He thought about Eric Koenig and the rest of the people Ward had killed. He thought about five years in the woods with only the occasional visit from John Garrett to break up the loneliness. He thought about Ward, angry and humiliated, stubbornly keeping his secret until Skye overwhelmed him with news of his nephew and the possibility that his younger brother might think on him with affection or even gratitude. He thought about Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov and Akela Amador and all the other agents who had been turned from less-than-reputable circumstances. He thought about Skye and her relentless optimism and her relentless empathy. He himself had become desensitized to the alienation, neglect, and misery that filled so many agents' files, but she looked at Ward's records the way a normal person would, with sympathetic pain and righteous anger. He thought about Fitz. Coulson thought about all of these things.

Skye thought about ticking and bombs and the fact that only a few minutes ago, she had been sure she wanted to die.

Ward tried not to think about anything at all.

"I want you to pay for the things you've done," said Coulson. He wasn't looking at Ward, but he was clearly talking to him. "I want you to pay for what you've done and you can't do that from in here. I'm going to have you fitted with a tracking device, one that will disable you if you step one toe out of line. We'll be watching you. We won't trust you. But I honestly don't think that more isolation is helping anyone. And we need more hands in the field."

"I-" Ward was grimacing deeply, his eyebrows pressed so far forward that they touched.

"Just take the deal, Not-Really-Like-Feelings-y Man," said Skye.

"That's…not even a good nickname." Ward looked over at Coulson. "She should really get checked out for the concussion."

"He's right," said Coulson, helping Skye to her feet. "Let's get you down to the infirmary." Ward didn't have to say he was taking the deal. Coulson knew he would accept. They walked out of the containment cell. Coulson looked back at Ward before shutting the door. "Get some rest," he said. "I'll see you in the morning."

It wasn't much of a promise, but Ward felt confident it would be kept.