Hi everyone!

Merry Christmas, happy holidays for those who are in vacations!

Today, new chapter! I hope you'll like it!

Enjoy!

Ward stared at the map. It was almost there. They were almost there. It was 563 miles away from the Playground. 563 miles away from Skye. He couldn't hope she had forgiven him, after all he had done. But he had to admit that after her answer to his mail… He didn't know what to think. Being in love was definitely bad, for his willpower and for the easiness feelings blossomed in his chest everytime he heard her name. He hated that. But he loved it at the same time. Love was one thing he hadn't really experienced in his life. Until her.

He closed his eyes tightly and sighed. 563 miles. How many deaths until they reached them? How many innocent would he kill to save his own life? As many as Hella wanted. Because she was the villain of the story. She was the one commanding him to kill. and because he was a complete and utter coward, he did. Because he valued his own life, and because he couldn't die without knowing what she had meant by 'surprise of a lifetime.'

He snapped out of his daydream. Footsteps came towards the room he was in. He recognized them easily. Loud and at a steady rhythm. It could only be Hella. He discovered more and more about the psychopath he accompanied. She was half robot for a good reason. He had once caught her without her mask on. She was burnt. The covered part of her face was burnt deeply. It was ugly to see. It had been a good idea to cover that up.

"Mortal. Your lonely ways are making me paranoid. Shall I? Are your loyalties lying somewhere else?"

"My loyalties surely don't lie with you."

He scoffed. What was she thinking? That he was going to follow her twisted and demented plans? He wasn't like that anymore. He had stopped following blindly.

"Are we close?"

"Yes."

"How close?"

"12 hours. How many people are going to die before we arrive?"

"I do not know. You'll kill when I tell you to."

He gritted his teeth and grumbled. Her head swapped in his direction, her cruel eyes following her every motion and every emotion passing on his face.

"Are you disobeying?"

"Oh, I wouldn't dare!"

His voice was sharp and full of sarcasm. She caught it. How dared he? Her left hand shot towards his neck and soon she felt flesh under her metal-clad fingertips.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you…"

She hissed. He felt the cold material pressed against his trachea and arteries. He was feeling the lack of air in his system. It was painful and he was starting to feel light-headed. She squeezed a little more. He bit his lip to keep from asking her to stop. She was ruthless and didn't accept when people begged for mercy. She considered it weakness. He had to admit he agreed on this point.

"Now, mortal. I shall advise you to be careful. I am no little good-hearted princess like the Thorsdottir was. We are not from the same seed. I do not do cute. It is time you learn the difference. This is the last time I warn you. Next time, you will pay. Not necessarily by your own life. But I know how to hurt you deep, human."

He couldn't answer. He wasn't going to, anyway. He had people to see again, people who kept him alive. Like lights at the end of a tunnel. She let him go just at the moment his vision was going dark. His legs couldn't support him and he fell to the ground. He looked up to find a really sharp-looking blade at mere centimeters of his face.

"You heard me, mortal. No second warning. And no second chance."

She walked away, leaving him behind. Her blade grazed the side of his face, a cut formed along his cheekbone, the blood wetting his cheek. It was not deep but it will leave a mark for some time. As the others had done. When he saw himself a mirror in the morning, he was often horrified by all the scars all over his body. All the little cuts from Hella, and the big ones from the Fridge and Garrett, the wounds from the gunshots on the field. No wonder Skye would be afraid of him. Everybody, who saw him as he really was, was afraid.

He stood up, put his finger on the cut to judge of its depth and the speed of its future healing. It would just need a little band aid. As the others had. Hella had that surgical precision with her wounds that was scary. She knew exactly where and how strike to hurt, was it psychologically or physically. It meant she was used to inflicting pain. He was afraid of what she had meant by 'not necessarily by his own life'. What was she planning?

He took the Glock tucked in his belt. It was the second charger he used since the fight. Already more than 15 bullets. 15 deaths. 15 innocents. He hit the table, angry. How many people were piling up in his trail? He didn't know. He didn't want to know. They were the things keeping Skye away from him. A trail of deaths marking the path of his life.

A soft knock resounded against the door of his office. He sighed. He had just dismissed the last agent. Who was going to bother him this time?

"Come in!"

A tall young woman, strict-looking with her dark blue suit. Agent Carter. He had met her a couple of times since the story with the mails. She was extremely professional, almost too cold and detached.

"Good morning, Sir."

"Good morning, Agent Carter. You got anything for me?"

"We located the computer from which came the mail. It led us to a town called Nampa, Idaho, about 500 miles from here."

"Too close..."

He sighed. They were coming. They were faster than he had thought. It was not going to be pretty. It was going to be difficult for all of them, because they had Skye, who was preparing something nasty, and Torunn who really liked Ward, and sided with Hella. So they had to be aware of everything. Threats from outside AND inside.

"What measures do you take, sir? Do we send a team to eliminate the threat?"

He looked up at the woman and her tablet. She seemed ready to send the mission to one of their high-risk teams. There were only two ready for that kind of mission. He trusted both. But he didn't know what to expect from Hella.

"Which one would be ready? We're dealing with a massive threat there."

"We got the team with Agents Morse and Hunter. But I heard that these two don't really get along anymore."

"Agent Morse?"

"Code name Mockingbird. Or we can have Agents Romanoff, Barton or Rogers, we just need to join them from the safehouse in New Mexico."

"Keep them where they are for now. We don't need Avengers."

He wasn't going to risk his best assets on that mission. Maybe Mockingbird. With May. No, he couldn't risk Melinda either. At this precise moment, he wished Ward was still with them. He bet he would have done a good job on that one. But Ward had gone rogue. And he was the reason they had to send a team to end him.

Carter was waiting for an order. That woman was the example of calm and cold-blood. He had never seen or heard her get angry at somebody. She just stood there with her fingers ready to send the orders.

"I'll come back to you about it in an hour."

"Yes, sir."

Neutral. She never even showed what she thought. She walked away in complete silence. Unbelievable.

He just hoped Skye wasn't going to go completely insane on this one. He knew she was always impossible to manage when she was now… She had the chance to face her enemy. She had the chance to make him pay. So she was going to. He sighed. Why now?

It had been two days. Two days since she had fallen asleep. It was crazy. She was supposed to be stronger than humans. She was supposed not to be sick. He was switching with Sif when he needed to sleep, Jemma came sometimes to check on her but he didn't talk to her. Right now, he couldn't believe how she dared look at him in the eyes.

"I can't believe how you can stay with this… Girl…"

He closed his eyes. He wasn't going to yell at her. He just needed to stay calm and focused.

"Her mother is there. I don't understand why WE need to take care of her."

Because she was a human being. Well not exactly, but she was a living breathing creature, who looked damn well like a human. They took care of living creatures. Even if they were criminals, murderers. She had feelings. She was a person. How could Jemma not see that?

"Are you deaf, Fitz? I'm talking to you."

"And I'm not."

He bit back. She looked at him with wide eyes. She wasn't used to him being so aggressive towards her. He usually shut up and let her speak and be mean at him without talking back. But this time, he was really pissed at her. She had thought she wouldn't be blamed for not taking care enough of Torunn. Because she thought nobody cared about a murderer and a psycho. But he cared about that girl who was maybe a murderer but not a psycho. She was maybe a little crazy but who wasn't? Maybe Miss Perfect Jemma Simmons.

She left quickly, she couldn't stand the silence and the atmosphere of the room. He looked at Torunn who was still sleeping. She was normal today, no nightmares, no fever, nothing. She should have been awake by now. He sighed and sat more comfortably in the chair, put the music on in his earphones and waited.

He fell asleep somewhere during the first hour. It was a deep and calm sleep, one which was the result of all these sleepless nights. He didn't remember his dreams, but they hadn't got that vivid sense of reality like his memories/nightmares usually had. He was awaken by a little tug on his sleeve. And he was supposed to be sleeping deeply. One girl was looking at him with sleepy eyes. She was awake.

"Hey, Leo."

"Hi, princess. Slept well?"

"Like a log."

She smiled. How long had he been there? She remembered her mother being at her side, once, when she had come back to the land of the living for a couple of seconds. She moved to stand up. Maybe a little bit too briskly.

"Hey, easy there. You just slept for two days…"

"I should be rested then…"

"You were sick."

"Never happens to me."

God, she was one stubborn girl. He stood up, put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back in a lying position. She opened wide eyes, looked at him with surprise. She surely wasn't used to that kind of behavior towards her.

"Now you stay there, ok?"

She nodded, seeing he wasn't going to change his mind on that. That was the first time in her whole life somebody cared enough to try to keep her resting. Maybe her mother did that too, before, but it wasn't the same anymore. The dreams she had had during her sleep… It was old memories coming back, of a time she was happier. When her mother still cared. She had never really seen her father, she knew she wasn't important in his eyes. But her mother… Sif had been there, at least partially for the first years of her life. How could she forget the love she had and how she had been ripped away from it, to stay there in the dark, alone and forgotten?

"How are you feeling?"

She looked at him. He was worried. Like really worried.

"I'm good. Don't worry. You look tired."

"I've been watching over you."

"You didn't need to."

"Of course I did."

He scoffed and smiled at her. He was glad she was back. She tried to sit up again, but the look he sent her made her go back to lying position immediately. That girl… He didn't understand how people couldn't see that she wasn't a bad person.

"What is that thing you put in your ear?"

"It's an earphone. I put music on my player and I hear it in the earphones."

She looked at him as if he was crazy. Well, maybe he was for her. Everytime he said something like that, she didn't understand. It was all new and intriguing for her. He gave her the earphones and helped her put them in her ears. She was clumsy with it, it was funny to see.

"Don't laugh at me!"

"I don't! Here you are…"

He turned on the music. She tensed and blinked a couple of times. It was strange. The music was really different than what she used to listen to on Asgard. How was it contained in a so little device? She stared at the player with a curious and suspicious look.

"That's… strange."

"You like it?"

"The sound is… unusual. But nice. And the system… So different."

"I get Earth is different than... "

He stopped and frowned. What was the name of this planet/country/thing she came from? Realm. Realm was the word, but what was the name? Seeing him search, she finished his sentence.

"Asgard."

"Yeah right. Asgard. Asgard is different."

Thanks for reading.

Don't forget to review, don't hesitate to tell me what you thought!

Until next time,

The Queen of Heart.