Summary:
The dream is coming to an end…
Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated: please, let me know what you think!
Chapter Text
She tried to say something to break that embarrassing silence:
"You really changed a lot, you know?
…
You told me once about an intense experience you had of God.
I would like to know something more about that, if you don't mind…"
He sighed, but answered:
"Do you know how I died, on Maveth?"
"I made Fitz confess me that. And I was horrified.
I will never forgive Coulson for what he did to you!"
He shook his head in denial:
"Don't say that.
While Coulson was crushing me … while I was feeling my life going out inside of me… I don't know how… or why… but I myself forgave him.
So you can forgive him, too, for what he did to me… and for what he did to you."
And he stared severely in her eyes, giving her the time to let those words sink in.
Then continued:
"While I was dying and I had still impressed on my retinas Coulson's full of hatred face, I found myself standing outside my body, looking at it from… outside."
Skye gasped:
"Really?"
"Yeah…
It was the strangest sensation I ever felt!
I was so light, and my body lying down seemed so… tridimensional!
It's hard to explain… quite impossible, if you have never experienced it…
But I realized, also, that I was completely alone, in the middle of the Universe.
I never felt so alone in all my life, even in the woods… or in captivity…
That was awful."
Skye started caressing his arms at those words, trying to comfort him.
"Then I was attracted and sucked in a white tunnel, out of time and space, and I saw in an instant my entire life as in a movie... And I felt guilt and remorse engulf me, and regret, and the wish to return back in time to undo and fix all the bad I did!
But I felt also a great compassion for myself, because what I suffered all my life, especially in my early years, when I was a clean slate ready to be written, had been beyond tolerable.
I had been ruined. Literally.
I simply always wanted to belong to someone, to be deeply loved and to deeply love myself, but I never was given the chance or, if I was given, the people that I cared for and that cared for me were ripped away from me… always cruelly… always through violent deaths…
I felt like, anytime I managed to grab something valuable and really important, it kept slipping away from me like sand between my fingers."
And he reinforced the image taking a handful of sand in his right hand, raising it and then letting it fall down between his slightly parted long fingers, like light impalpable rose powder.
His eyes were so sad and lost in memories, when he looked at the sand falling down and piling into a small mound…
She felt her heart ache for him and reached for his hand, interlacing her fingers with his.
"This time it'll be different."
"I hope so" he answered, but his sad look didn't leave him.
She brought his hand back on her lap, keeping it snugged in hers.
"In that moment of truth I sent to God a request of forgiveness so pure, so true, so powerful I think I felt the Heavens tremble.
But, nevertheless, I was thrown in a huge, enormous black hole: the Hell.
And there I was pushed, all folded on myself, inside a very tight hole carved in the mountain, like an oven. There the pain was terrible, and was inflicted on every part of my body by somebody I couldn't see. And I couldn't move, nor change position, nor sit, nor lay down, nor stand, nor alleviate the pain in any way…
I felt it was the right punishment for all my sins: I was a murderer and I was receiving the right wage for my awful acts.
Believe me when I say that there's nothing comparable, in our lives, to that pain.
It is unbearable.
The pain inflicted by the fire, too, is insupportable: it's like it burns you, but without consuming you.
But worse than all of that is the desperation you feel inside: you clearly understand that you, for all eternity, have lost God, the only fundamentalperson in your life, the only source of happiness, love and life for you, for the people you care about, for all mankind.
You feel that it would have been better if you had never been born.
You feel like you wasted your entire life, for your own fault.
And the very soul rips itself in pieces for that!
It's beyond terrible.
And continuously a voice resounds in all those infinite, deeper than the deepest valleys of tortures, saying:
'This is forever.
This will never change.
This will never become more bearable.'"
Skye was looking at him with her eyes wide open.
He was trembling.
"There I saw my father.
And Garrett.
They were continuously mashed, together with me, by an enormous wheel.
That was the specific punishment for murderers."
At that Skye made a hissing sound.
"But I didn't yet see the worse."
"And what could be there worse than that?"
"Satan."
Skye at that point covered her mouth to stifle a scream.
"He… or She… was terrifying.
Think of all the most hideous revolting monsters and all the most dreadful grisly nightmares you can imagine, and all together they could not even scratch the perfection of horror that's Him… or Her… I don't know…
But the most frightening thing was His look: it was pure hatred. It alone was enough to chill my blood.
He promised me to bring to Hell even Coulson.
But I wouldn't want Hell for anyone, even for my worst enemy!"
"But how could you manage to escape from Hell?"
"It was thanks to my Guardian Angel, who rescued me from there.
He brought me up, far from Hell…
And suddenly, without warning, my heart was filled by an inward state of peace and joy and assurance indescribably intense… a sense of being bathed in a warm glow of light. The culminating experience was one of transcendental peace, with visions of supernatural beauty and the sound of celestial music… and ecstatic feelings of timelessness, weightlessness, serenity and tranquility.
And then He embraced me and I felt what belonging, what home, what ecstasy really meant and in that instant I was truly, thoroughfully, immensely happy, like any time before.
As I wept with joy, feelings of love became so intense that I knew they could only be of divine origin.
I had not realized before to what extent such feelings as rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, awe, devotion, reverence and holiness could reach in intensity!
I was beginning to see what it was all about.
In the culmination of that mystical ecstasy, for an eternal moment, all contradictions seemed reconciled, all questions answered, all wants irrelevant or satisfied, all existence encompassed by an experience that was the ultimate reality: boundless, timeless, and ineffable.
Any descriptions and definitions, however, necessarily use words that we associate with the phenomena of the three-dimensional world; they are therefore incapable of conveying the essence of this ultimate transcendental experience.
I felt the heart of God: it is absolute, divine joy, colossal gaiety, and He is immeasurably beyond all that our most rapturous visions ever conceived.
Being dead was not a problem.
I was happy to spend eternity in that state.
Then it was like a voice spoke without words, but burning right into my heart:
'I love you, Grant.
Immensely.
And I desired this encounter for a long time!
You are not alone, you never were.
I was always with you, even if you missed it.
I always protected you.
But I had to prepare you, all your life, to endure pain and control, to be able now to accomplish this particular mission. You will fight to defeat an evil creature whose goal is to sway the Earth and to be declared the mankind's God, in spite of Me.
It is not.
I am.
I am the Beginning and the End.
I am the Origin and the Goal.
I am the Alpha and the Omega.
So go on and keep faith and hope and love in this great heart of yours.
I will be your strength.'
After this and other things I was catapulted back on Maveth and I reentered into my body."
Skye was all ears and all eyes and encouraged him to go on:
"Oh, goodness! And then? What happened, then?"
"Then I saw, while I was still adjusting to my own body, this thing, tentacle like, approaching me, and then entering into me starting from my mouth, pushing inside and going down and filling me completely!
And that was pain!
So mind blowing pain!
I was petrified, forced to feel this thing penetrate me, every cell of my body, twisting every nerve, engulfing my brain with its horrific memories…
I thought I was evil, until I saw Its memories! I was forced to give to the word 'evil' a whole new set of meanings!
I couldn't scream, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe…
I thought, also, before, I knew what being controlled meant!
Well, I had to update also that meaning, in my vocabulary!
Then I felt my body moving on its own, having no agency on it, and sprint to the closing portal at neck breaking speed and dive in it.
That was how we returned on Earth."
"So you were still alive, deep down in your body, while Hive was possessing you!
It was probably the most undercover op of all your life, but you were still alive!"
"Yeah, I was alive, you can say that!
And I felt everything: the pain of its tentacles and of its parasites, the shoots, the kicks, the blows, the punches, the stabs, the cracked bones…"
At that, Skye lowered her eyes.
Ward continued, deadpanned:
"But still the experience of death was the most extraordinary of all.
It has been real.
It has been extraordinarily real.
I never felt things so directly, instantaneously, and deeply.
I really think our bodies… they are a medium in between, and greatly slow down the perception.
Even communication was instantaneous.
Words were unnecessary.
It was all through thought, telepathically."
Then he stopped talking, looking at her and at her puzzled expression.
And continued:
"Look.
I understand that I must seem crazy.
You can think it was all a hallucination.
But I can show you it all, if you want."
"Really?" Skye was incredulous.
"And how could you do that?"
"I will connect with your mind, more or less like Hive did with you, and then I will open mine, so you will be able to see everything I want to show you."
Skye remained perplexed for a moment, but then she understood that he really wanted to share the most important experience of his life with her.
"Do it" she said.
She kneeled in front of him and Ward cupped her face with both his hands, closed his eyes, leaned their foreheads together and let his memories go.
A gasp escaped from Skye, and an instant later she was panting with her eyes wide.
He let her go.
"Oh, my God!
That was both awful and wonderful!
What they teach you about Hell and Paradise, and Satan, and God… this is really all true!"
"Yes, it is.
And that changed deeply my perspective about life.
It made me see everything under a different light."
"For sure it did!"
The two of them remained silent for a while.
Then she resumed her position with her back against his chest and slowly, quietly, asked him:
"You were so sure I would change my mind about us, because of what God said to you? That he created you for me and me for you?"
At those words Ward became embarrassed, because he didn't foresee that she would hear also that…
But it was too late to regret his choice and, in a certain way, he was happy that she, too, was finally aware of God's will about the two of them.
"Yeah" he said.
"But sons and daughters… plural!
It means at least four of them!"
"Yeah"
"I'm not so young!
I'm almost 29!
It means we must start working on that early on!"
"Yeah"
The last "yeah" was said almost breathlessly.
She could hear his breathing becoming labored, felt his hands more and more boldly caress her, so she turned her face towards him and kissed him, deeply, savagely, putting in the kiss three years of desire, three years of pain and nostalgia, three years of anger and hate, three years of love; he kissed her back, with all the passion and enormous love he felt for her. She had still her head resting on his right shoulder and with her right hand she stroked and caressed his hair and his neck.
Then she turned towards him, kneeling down, because she felt it wasn't enough: he cupped her face with his hands again and looked at her with adoration, with awe, with so much love she felt like her very soul was embraced by his.
She never felt so loved, before.
She too cupped his face with her hands and the two started kissing again, slowly, sweetly, savoring every sensation, every shiver, every thrill…
It was fantastic to be with him, again, in his arms, kissed by him, feeling his strength and his solidity, feeling his care and delicacy for her every need… it was like he could read her mind and could anticipate her every desire…
It felt all so right!
Soon she wanted to be closer to him, and straddled him, so that both were sat, but could embrace each other completely.
Oh, yeah, that position was much more comfortable and allowed her to feel all the upper part of his body embraced to hers.
They continued kissing while their caresses kept warming up their bodies more and more.
He started kissing her neck and reached her pulsing point licking and biting it.
She shivered.
Then they started perceiving their clothes as something really annoying, so she didn't complain when he took her shirt off, almost tearing it apart, and she also got rid of his vest.
Oh, the sensation of skin on skin was mesmerizing! He was hot and the heat of his body was warming her deliciously, more than the fire that was barely illuminating them.
In the meantime, his undoubtedly expert hands where doing wonders to her...
By the way, where did he get so much experience?
A pinch of jealousy gripped her heart…
But soon all thoughts were swept away by such pleasurable sensations that she could hardly believe them.
Really the guy knew how to use his hands!
She was incredibly turned on and would gladly have continued in that activity… if in that moment they didn't hear the sound of an airplane in the distance, which was fast approaching.
What the bloody hell?!
It was a... a Quinjet! A Quinjet from Shield, which was landing on the beach a few meters away from them!
Damn!
They had managed to find her!
Suddenly her mind became confused and began to spin faster and faster, until she woke up in her own bed, sweating, panting and looking around to try to get back in touch with reality.
She was at home, in her room, in her bed, with the sun peeking through the cracks in the window.
Oh, crap!
It had all been only a dream!
Only a dream...
But such a fantastic, exciting, unforgettable dream...!
And somebody had to explain to her why... dream or not dream... Shield had always to ruin everything!
Swallowing a bitter feeling of lost opportunities she tried to calm herself down.
But whenever it happened her to think back about it, in the following days... and about him... she felt her cheeks redden violently.
Every time.