Early Enough
Chapter Ten

"their heart grew cold
they let their wings down"
~ Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

It took them over a week to get a trace on Garrett's whereabouts, even with Ward's knowledge of his safehouses and hiding places. He must have had a backup plan in case Ward turned on him. It stung a little when Ward realized that; he had thought his mentor trusted him. But then he realized Garrett was right to take precautions and that stung even more.

He had betrayed Garrett.

It was for a reason though and as he saw Skye's eyes grow in delight when Coulson gave her the S.H.I.L.E.D. badge, Grant felt involuntary smile tug at the corners of his lips. Maybe it was worth it.

Jemma and Fitz went forward to hug her, even May patted her on a shoulder. Then they all left and she stayed, alone in the center of the lounge, with Grant. She took two steps toward him and looked up with so much faith and trust, he felt that sting again, only this time it didn't hurt.

"Wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for my great and very patient S.O."

The praise choked him. "Yeah you would've," he managed to utter.

"No, I wouldn't," Skye breathed out. "You saved my life. Literally. I don't know if I can ever thank you enough."

"I'm no Clairvoyant," Grant found himself saying. "But I do believe some things are meant to be."

He did what he had to do. He made a choice and now he had to deal with the consequences – the good and the bad ones. He had to follow through and share everything else he knew, with his team. If there were more dangers – and he knew about a lot of them – he had to warn them.

Ward caught Coulson in his office. When he knocked on the open door to announce his presence, the boss invited him with a gesture.

"Garrett has people within Shield who would help him." Ward started right off the bat, without waiting for an inquiery. "They're high ranking people. It's like an organization within an organization."

"What are you talking about?" Coulson put away the folder he was reading and looked up, brow furrowed.

"You won't believe me." That was one of the reasons he hadn't said anything yet. Being laughed at was nothing compared to them getting hurt if he withheld the information, though, so it wasn't really that hard to decide to talk.

"Try me," Coulson spread his arms in a welcoming gesture.

"Hydra."

As could be predicted, Coulson did not believe. He didn't out right laugh, Ward had to give him credit, but the twist of his lips was patronizing.

"Hydra? Ward, Hydra was dismantled after Second World War," he explained as if Ward was a fresh recruit.

Ward only shrugged. "I figured I should tell all I know."

Coulson sighed and scratched his eyebrow, then sat on the edge of his desk.

"Well, I can certainly believe that some people might try to bring it to life," he generously agreed. "And that Garrett could be one of them. Who else do you know is in this secret organization?"

"I'm pretty certain about Agent Sitwell, Agent Brumlow, a few low key agents at the Hub. It's mostly on a need-to-know basis, the higher you are, the broader the picture and Garrett didn't exactly ask me to socialize. I will tell you if I recognize anyone. This is why I told you now, because Sitwell is here and I don't know his agenda."

"Well. Thank you. But Sitwell was just called off. By Fury. And... I don't know if we can go to Fury and tell him that Sitwell works for... Hydra." Coulson spoke the word with that special kind of stress that meant only crazies would mention it. "We need to have a proof."

"I am well aware of that. Which is why I was reluctant to reveal it even to you." Grant felt the tips of his ears burn, but he added, almost against himself, forcing the words out and forcing himself to meet Coulson's eyes. "I want you to know that you can trust me."

Coulson nodded and extended his hand without another word.

They didn't find Garrett. He tricked them yet again and substituted the Clairvoyant with a tetraplegic, unable to speak Thomas Nash – a man who had once been on SHIELD's index because of his near-psychic ability to predict people's behavior. The man, currently in an electric wheelchair, mocked them through a computer generating speech, but Ward suspected it wasn't him speaking at all. They arrested Nash and brought him to the Bus. Someone else would determine if he conspired with Garrett of if he was kidnapped against his will. Garrett was nowhere to be found.

Having secured Nash in the Bus's cell, Grant joined Jemma, Fitz, Trip and Skye in the lounge.

"No, but what did he mean?" Fitz was pacing back and forth along the table and scratching his head.

"He was just saying nonsense!" Skye erupted. "To throw us off. There are other things we should focus on, like – what the hell did they do to Mike?" She looked between Fitz and Simmons and then turned to Trip. "Do you know?"

Triplett shook his head and it did not surprise Grant. He knew, but should he talk? Before he decided, Fitz leaned to Skye and slammed both his hands on the table.

"He said a force beyond our comprehension is coming for you. And for Coulson. That you have something they want and that you will die giving it to them. And you think it's not important." He straightened up and spread his arms. He noticed Grant. "Is it not important Ward? Should we just ignore it?"

Ward shook his head. He remembered how he'd felt, like his blood froze in his veins, when he heard that. He couldn't let the man keep talking, hadn't mattered if it was Nash or Garrett himself, he'd had to shut him up. So he had shot at the computer generating speech and blown it to pieces.

It didn't bring them any closer to understanding Nash's premonition – the man acted like he was the actual Clairvoyant and they all knew for a fact it wasn't true. They wouldn't understand it either, just by talking about it over and over again.

"People at the Fridge have means to get it all from him." Jemma apparently thought the same and she tried to placate Fitz.

"Exactly." Skye backed her up. "Mike Peterson though, this is something we can and should solve. It's not just his leg or the eye implant. They did stuff to him. It's all under his skin, we saw it in the multi-spectrum overlay."

"Both those things are strange and important," Trip cut in. Apparently he understood where Fitz was coming from better than Skye or Jemma did. "And we should not focus on one and ignore the other."

Ward understood Fitz too. He'd rather they solved Nash's mystery, protected Skye. She wouldn't budge though, he knew her enough, not without finding the answer to her questions. He could provide some.

"Peterson is a subject in Project Deathlok," Ward revealed in a cold voice. "Garrett was the first one in that Project, twenty years ago. He should have died, then, but Hydra gave him a chance at surviving. Now his biomechanical parts are failing, he's dying and he thought..." his voice broke. This was not what he was supposed to tell them, at all. "I know this does not excuse what he had done to Coulson, what he ordered Ian Quinn do to Skye, but..." He shook his head. "It does not excuse him." He lost track of his own thoughts.

"Grant..." Skye stood up and placed a hand on his arm.

"I wanted to run a test on Coulson's blood sample." Jemma stood up suddenly. "Fitz, Trip, I will need your help with that."

"With what?" Fitz furrowed his brow at her. "It's a routine ana..."

She grabbed his hand. "You need to recalibrate the holotable."

Triplett simply nodded and stood up, ready to follow her out.

Grant and Skye could hear Fitz arguing that Jemma could well calibrate the holotable herself since she was in the second year of the Academy and Jemma convincing him that no one did that as well as he did, for a few moments longer, until their voices died down and the two of them were left alone.

Skye let go of Ward's arm awkwardly and returned to her seat on the couch.

Grant took the arm chair and sighed.

"You loved him, did you?" Skye asked quietly.

"Loved?" Grant wondered. "I felt something. He saved my life, saved me from myself. I owed him. Admired him. Yes, maybe it was love. I really don't know." Ward looked up to meet her eyes and shrugged. He wasn't sure she could understand if even he didn't understand himself. "I'm not a good person, Skye. I didn't tell you the whole truth, when I told you about my brother... He didn't beat up my younger brother. He made me do it. And I let him; I was afraid of him."

"Ward..."

"Garrett... He did the same. Whenever I cared about something... He would make me destroy it. I disobeyed him once..." Ward felt tears sting his eyes at the memory of what happened to Buddy, what Garrett did to Buddy, and he quickly blinked them away. "Twice." He realized. "You were the second time. I will never stop being afraid of what he will do to you if he ever catches you. So no, I did not love him. I love you."

"Don't." Skye shook her head and made a move like she wanted to get up and walk away, but she stayed. "Take your time, okay? You've just been through a lot, you're still going through a lot and so are all of us. There's still no rush on making big declarations. It's not like it's a good time to start anything."

Grant nodded. She was right. It didn't make his heart ache any less.

To say that Skye didn't feel anything for Grant would be a lie. She couldn't decide what she felt though. It was more than she should have felt for a Supervising Officer. It was friendship for sure, devotion, gratefulness. He saved her, literally saved her life, even if it was from himself... No, not himself, he saved her from Garrett.

But that's not when she started feeling something more than loyalty. It wasn't even when he trusted her to find Coulson, it was... When he touched the Berserker staff. Despite how he talked to her, how furious and hurtful he was, she worried about him more than she felt hurt. She worried more than she would about a colleague.

She offered to hear him out, to be a shoulder to cry on, if he needed that. Not that she thought – then or now – that he would ever cry, but maybe he really needed to. It wasn't more than that then. And now, it might have been a little more but she didn't think she was in love with Grant Ward.

She didn't want to worry about that. She was confused enough, what with everything that had happened to her in the recent weeks.

"Are you busy?" Coulson peeked his head through the door to her bunk, startling her.

"God. Do you want to give me a heart attack?" she snapped at him.

"I'm sorry if it's a wrong time. I can come back later."

"No. It's okay. What do you need?" Maybe it was about Nash, or something Garrett related. Skye was going to do her job, no matter what. Although, she thought looking at Coulson's flushed face, if it was about the job, he would be more forward.

"I got files from Fury," he admitted, sitting on the edge of her bed. "Concerning my... recovery. And I don't understand anything from them. It's like a riddle within a riddle and I don't have the key and can't solve it and I really need to know." He looked at her with such anguish, all she could do was lean closer and put a hand on his arm. She stroked it up and down, up and down. He remided her of that time he was in the machine and she begged him to come back to her.

"Maybe it would be better if you didn't know?"

"But I need to know. Raina opened that wound and it's bleeding and I can't close it again. I don't know if it's for better or for worse, but I wanted you to dig into those files. Take them to Fitz and Simmons, maybe they can decipher the medical jargon, or the references to those machines. Together, I think you can solve it. I don't know why Fury gave it to me now. He was against it for so long and now, all of a sudden, he changed his mind. But I think he took precautions. He didn't give it to me complete, maybe some pages are missing, maybe some data, but Skye, I can't ask anyone else to help me with it."

They didn't get far. In fact they didn't get anywhere. It took them two hours to even leaf through the big-ass brick of a file and the only thing Simmons said was even remotely interesting was some drug called GH-325. Fitz made a couple of calls and his buddy working in the archives at the Triskelion agreed to let them acces it throuch the echo-chamber set up in the cargo hold of the plane. It took them another half an hour of searching through files containing travel memoranda from the day Coulson was stabbed. They found data on Doctor Straiten's departure and finally located a file that was only ever opened once, by a level ten operative.

This could be it, but then again, this could be a dead end.

Of course the file was encrypted. Skye downloaded it to the Bus computer to try and decypher it later. They were almost at the Fridge and they wanted to find whatever else might be useful before they'd land. Unfortunately, that's when the contact with the Triskelion was suddenly lost.

Fitz and Simmons panicked. Coulson was upset and May was pissed off. Triplett tried to find the solution, he said there was some signal blocking all frequencies and Ward just stood, pale as a sheet, when the words "Out of the shadows, into the light" appeared on the screen in the command center.

t.b.c.