Summary:
Skye and Ward talk… under the stars…
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Chapter:
Skye said:
"You know?
I find this situation peculiar.
We have been enemies for more than two years, and now, suddenly, we are together and alone, on a deserted island, under a sky full of stars, half naked and sharing the same makeshift bed…
If Coulson could see us right now, certainly he would have an heart attack!"
Ward smiled at the image that formed in his head, but didn't say anything.
After a little while, he spoke quietly:
"Do you remember what you said to me the last time we saw each other?"
She knew exactly what he meant:
"That I hated you?"
"Exactly.
Do you still feel so?"
"I don't know.
I'm confused.
For sure Hive and the addiction messed a lot with my brains…
But time has passed and I don't feel so lost anymore.
I'm starting to think you were right.
Hive was trying to exploit me: It didn't really care about me.
And the drug addiction was certainly a way to escape from reality… and to annihilate myself…"
"I'm glad you finally got that: this is very important for your mental health.
I've been were you are now, you know…
When Garrett died I felt terribly lost, too."
"I can imagine.
You tried to kill yourself three times for that!"
He remained silent for some instants, then said:
"I already told you this: I was almost relieved when Shield put him down.
He wasn't himself anymore…
His death was not the reason I tried suicide…"
"It… wasn't?"
"No."
He sighed, then added:
"Where they brought me after capturing me… that was one of the most fearsome prisons in the world.
Even Garrett was terrified of it.
And I ended up just in the terrorists wing: that was worldwide known to be a real hell."
"Oh…
I didn't know that…"
Skye's voice was shaking, as if a chill had passed through her back.
Then she reasoned:
"In that period I wondered what could have happened to you… but I never dared to ask Coulson.
It had been a tough period, especially for him: Shield had to hide in the shadows; Coulson had to travel a lot, to try to reconstruct a net of supporting relationships; we had to set up everything in the Playground… on my side all the security protocols, all the informatics infrastructure…
It had been a period of hard work.
But then, one day, after about three months, I went to the gym and started punching the bag… and it reminded me of you… and, as every time, thinking of you made me suffer, and I punched and punched and punched… imagining the bag was you… remembering all the good things you did and all the good memories I had of you and trying to destroy each and every one of them, because all them where lies, covers, pretenses…"
At that Ward reacted immediately:
"No! This is not true, Skye! Those weren't all lies!
When I was with you I really felt to have a family!
I really cared about you, all of you!
But…"
"But we weren't on top of your value list…
Anyway… in that moment I started reasoning on what could have happened to you, on where you could be, on what they could be doing to you… if you where still alive or if you were dead…
I let the gnawing sensation that something wasn't right bite me… and a pang suddenly reached my heart.
I had to know.
I had to discover where you were.
So I went to Coulson and asked about you…
He sincerely didn't know, but he promised me he would investigate."
Ward looked surprised at her.
"So you had been the one that made Coulson search for me!
Skye…
Probably you are the reason I am still alive!" Ward said in awe.
"You saved my life!
Again.
Thank you."
Skye smiled at him, then continued her story:
"In fact, after a few days, out of the blue, I saw May going to Vault D with a pair of scissors and a razor, saying that we had a prisoner that needed to be cleaned up, but that he couldn't be trusted in being given such tools… for his own safety.
Coulson told us that the prisoner was you, but nobody was allowed to come to see you…
Then after a couple of months Coulson told me that I had to talk to you… to get Hydra intel from you…
I was scared of you, but I put on the mask and went down to you…
I cannot explain to you the emotions that took me when I saw you in the flesh!
I had always seen you so strong, invulnerable, confident, while there you were imprisoned, bound, restless as a caged lion, although you still had a great mastery of your demeanor…"
Ward traveled back with his memories, too:
"I was so happy to see you again!
You were so beautiful I couldn't almost believe my eyes…
A ray of light in the darkness…"
Ward's voice was dreamy…
Skye tried to remain focused and continued:
"Then I saw the cuts on your wrists…
I was really impressed by those… terrified, even, by the thought you tried to end your own life… that I actually risked not to see you again, forever…"
"Well, remember me to compliment May for the work she did on you!
None of those emotions showed up on your face!"
Skye stare was low, now.
Her voice too:
"I said you should have tried harder…
I told to a suicide survivor that he should have tried harder to kill himself!
I hadn't the right to treat you that way.
I would like to apologize with you for that sentence.
I was a real bitch."
"It was a normal reaction towards a filthy traitor.
I knew perfectly well that you hated, that you detested me."
"No.
It wasn't normal.
You were first of all a human being.
A human being that tried to end his own life.
I was cruel.
I was inhuman.
You didn't do that with me when I was in your same situation, even if I shot you four times!
On the contrary you forgave me, supported me, you encouraged me, you helped me, you saved me from that damn barrel on my temple!
A decent person does that.
But I wasn't a decent person, at the time…
I simply knew Coulson and May were seeing and hearing everything, and I wanted to prove them that you didn't affect me anymore. Exactly as when I told you that I was glad I shot you, when we were around the holotable.
I was a coward.
But you forgave me and you subsided everything and helped me nevertheless.
You are a good man, I'm sure of that, now.
I, instead, was a bitch."
"Skye… we both are humans… with our weaknesses and strength.
Life is evolution and the most important thing is to evolve in the right direction."
"Yeah…
I lost the direction, in the last two years… and you, of all people, got me back on track.
It is still hard for me to believe that!"
She remained pensive for a moment, then added:
"Thank you."
Skye's eyes bore in Ward's ones for a while…
The tension was palpable between them.
But then she regained control and spoke again, hurriedly:
"But I didn't want to interrupt you.
Please go on: I wanna know what happened in that prison and why you tried that extreme solution."
Skye was resolute: she wouldn't waste this occasion to talk to him and hear from him all that she didn't know, about his mysteries and his secrets, at least the ones regarding that period.
So much time ago she regretted not having talked to him, but it was too late: he was dead. Or at least she thought so.
It won't happen again!
She had been given a second chance with him, and this time she would not have blown up everything!
Nope!
Ward sighed, but then answered:
"I tried to kill myself because I couldn't bear the tortures anymore."
"Oh, God! I didn't know that!" Skye became paler.
"I felt I was losing my mind.
After three months of daily 'treatments' I couldn't resist anymore and needed a way out, fast.
Moreover, it was like something happened to my mouth: I couldn't speak, even after my fractured larynx healed…"
His expression was contorted in pain.
"Do you remember when you were my rookie?"
"How could I forget that?"
"I told you that we should start doing some training about torture."
"Yeah."
"Well, I don't know if I would have been able to do that to you" and he looked her in the eyes intensely.
Then continued:
"I dreaded that, to be honest.
I cannot bear to see you suffer.
Garrett, instead, seamed to enjoy it."
"Garrett trained you in enduring torture?"
"Yes.
What I had to bear with him is also the reason why I don't want anybody to touch me."
"But how Shield could allow that?"
"It didn't happen during the Academy.
It happened before, during the time I was in the woods."
At that Skye jumped up, the sleeping bag slipping down along her torso baring her bra covered breasts. Ward had to force himself not to stare.
"What?
How much time you were in the woods?"
"When I was 17 years old, I burned down my family manor and then I was captured and sent to juvenile to await for the trial.
I met Garrett there: he rescued me and put me in the Wyoming woods.
Then, at 22, I joined the Academy."
"17 years old… till 22… it means… five years!
You remained five years alone in the woods?!
I can't believe that!"
"Yeah."
"Oh, this explains a lot of things!" Skye exclaimed.
"I wasn't totally alone. Buddy was with me."
"Buddy?"
"John's Labrador."
"A dog?
And you think to be left in the woods for five years with only a dog is not being left alone?
You have been deprived of human company for five years, the five most important years after childhood!
I knew Garrett was evil, but the treatment he inflicted to you redefines the definition of evil!"
"I was not always alone.
Every two or three months John came to teach me."
"Teach what, for heaven's sake?"
"Combat, shooting, espionage, war strategies and tactics, all the most effective harming and killing techniques with guns, knives, garrotes, explosives… interrogation techniques... torture... inflicting and enduring it...
He was very demanding.
And he punished me hard if I disappointed him."
Skye appeared distraught and said:
"You know… after I saw what Garret did to you, that he was ok with killing you, in risking your life that time he made Mike stop your heart… I started wondering what could your life have been in those years he was your SO…
But I couldn't imagine anything like this!"
Ward remained pensive, then said:
"Fifteen years…
He had been my SO for fifteen years… for a half of my life...
Is it enough, fifteen years of conditioning and abusive reinforcement, for developing such a strong dependence to a mentor, to a father figure?"
"I think it would take a lot less for any person…
I fully understand, now, why you chose him instead of us…" and it wasn't clear if she was talking about the team or about… the two of them.
After all… 'us is a strong word'…
"One of the things he tried to impose me was to fight my weaknesses.
For weaknesses he intended love, affection.
I had to be careful not to start caring for anyone... anyone but him.
He always said I was a soft touch.
The only reason I disobeyed him, a few times, was because I cared for someone else."
At that he looked at her not adding anything else.
She had to divert her eyes from him.
"You have to understand that I was torn between these two loves.
Oh, Skye, do you have any idea how HARD it was?
I felt myself tore apart so many times!
When I saw you, after you were shot, fighting to stay alive… and I started suspecting in that moment that it was all Garrett, in an attempt to punish me, because I was starting to care about you… oh, how strong was the temptation to go to Coulson and tell him everything, of me, of him, of Hydra!
But every time I thought about betraying him, numbness engulfed me and all my thoughts became foggy…
Furthermore, on Garret's side there was this debt I was compelled to pay back: he probably cared nothing of me, he was a deranged narcissist devoured by his vanity and, moreover, terrified to die.
But I couldn't forget that he saved me; that he saved me from the downward spiral I was entrapped in.
He saved me from myself.
You have no idea how screwed I was, when he rescued me from the juvenile..."
"I dug down in your files and I never found anything about all of this…"
"Yeah.
Of course you couldn't find anything!
Garrett erased all the evidences! He certainly couldn't afford to leave traces of all he did to me.
Especially torture."
"It must had been dreadful…"
"It had been."
"But how could you resist it?"
"Garrett taught me how.
The most effective way to endure torture is through mental dissociation.
And for him it was killing two birds with one stone."
"Why?"
"Because with that he achieved two objectives: teaching me how to endure torture…"
"And the other?"
"Brainwashing me.
I understood that only lately."
A gasp escaped Skye at those words.
"Any time he ordered me to do something dreadful, something I didn't want to do, that my mind refused, like, for example, the silent command he gave me to kill Victoria Hand and her soldiers when we were flying to the Fridge, I felt numbness engulfing me, so that I couldn't think clearly anymore.
I was like under the effect of a drug and I did what I was ordered mechanically, robotically, detachedly."
"See? I wasn't wrong in calling you robot!"
"I guess you weren't.
Returning to our nice 'interrogators', considering that they couldn't make me talk, they continued torturing me harder and harder, to break me.
But they didn't know my secret."
"And what was that?"
"They couldn't break me, because I was already broken."
At those words his voice almost cracked.
"Oh, Skye, if you only knew what I had to endure in my life and what despair engulfed me to bring me to suicide!"
He had closed his eyes and had covered them with one hand.
She answered softly, covering his hot hand with hers, more fresh:
"Ward, I know something about desiring death, and you know that.
I tried to commit suicide, too, and you are the only reason I'm still alive.
I felt despair, when Hive died.
I felt despair at looking at the heap of ruins my life had become.
I felt despair and shame for my parents.
I felt despair at looking at my sins.
I felt despair for the withdrawal from krokodil.
But you were there and gave me your hope, your faith… your love.
I will never forget that.
And I must say this…
I don't hate you anymore."
After her admission, Ward looked at her with an incredulous expression, but feeling finally his heart light as a feather.
"Thank you.
I really appreciate you saying that" he said with awe.
She had to avert her eyes, because his incredibly intense stare made her uneasy.
And in that situation, too… both half naked, so close and warm… alone in the middle of the ocean, in the silence of the night… under a sky full of stars, sharing the same bed… she was starting to feel on all thorns!
She was scared by the strength of his feelings.
She was scared by the strength of her own feelings.
So she put herself together and joked, as always, with a faked sigh of relief:
"Ok, T-1000.
I think this over-sharing is enough, for the first night…"
"The second…"
"Ok, the second.
Now go to sleep.
You are tired and so am I."
And with that she rolled on her other flank, giving him her back.
Ward understood perfectly she reacted in that abrupt way to hide her emotions from him, and didn't feel offended at all.
On the contrary he was happy, incredibly happy, even if he would have preferred to interlace his fingers with hers and bring both their hands under the cover on his belly, to keep them warm.
But he already felt he had been lucky enough, that evening… with this heavy burden of her hate finally dropped from him!
And nothing… nothing! … could now make his smile disappear!
"Good night, Skye!" he said her, exultant!
"Good night, Ward…" she answered, while silent teardrops fell from her eyes.
Teardrops of joy.