Summary

Coulson is jealous…

Ward is jealous …

But they both love Skye, so they have to work to overcome their differences…

Comments are greatly appreciated: please, let me know what you think!

Chapter

Coulson took a calming breath and said:

"Ok, Ward.

We can handle this topic like grown up people.

Just continue talking, before I rip your head from your body!"

Ward quickly said:

"To tell the truth, in that patio nothing… crucial… happened, but after that we went to the car… and from there I took her to my home.

My intention was to take her to a safe place, to be able to better study her and understand exactly her situation."

"And deflowering her in the meanwhile!" Coulson ears were smoking steam!

"I didn't deflower her!" Ward protested, offended.

"And, since you're so worried about her virtue and her chastity, you'd have to worry before about that electric guy, that sea wave hair blondie… what the hell is his name?"

Ward was fuming!

And he also pretended not to know the guy's name, even though he knew it very well, because the thought of him with his hands on Skye had been quite disturbing during the period he was Hive's hostage, and only the fact of remembering his name put him on edge.

"Lincoln?" asked Mack.

"Precisely!" spat Ward.

"Uh, uh! The situation promises to become... tangled!" Mack muttered amused to himself.

"Skye is free to do whatever she wants with her sentimental and sexual life!" declared Coulson.

"Except when I am involved, uh?" asked Ward.

"If you had not betrayed us, if you hadn't preferred Garrett to us, if you had not sold yourself to the dark side, I would have had no objection to a relationship between you and Skye!

She loved you and you have no idea how much she suffered because of you!

She tried to hide her true feelings, but I know her well, and I will never forgive you for the pain you inflicted on her!" yelled Coulson.

At that Ward remained silent.

So she suffered for him… she hadn't been indifferent to him…

Guilt was menacing of suffocating his heart, but at the same time consolation flowed like a balm on his soul… He had always been convinced that Skye had been able to quickly forget him and to turn out of the blue her attraction to hate.

Instead… what Coulson was saying depicted a completely different situation…

He took another deep breath and answered:

"I know. And I'm so sorry about everything.

But I'm trying to compensate, to fix all the bad I did.

And about Skye in my house, I wouldn't ever take advantage of a situation like that, even if I have been desiring her for more than two whole years!

She wasn't in herself!"

"Just keep talking!" Coulson said a little calmer, but still hardly holding back.

"Ok, ok…

I'll go on.

Before things got warmed up again, but this time beyond the point of no return, she asked to go to the bathroom…"

"And then?" Coulson urged.

"Well… I clearly understood that she was in withdrawal and she was suffering, a lot, so I indicated her a bathroom without a key on the door, and then simply waited, straining my ears.

She had with herself a suspicious little bag, which could contain the necessary for a shot.

At a certain point I heard some suspicious rattle, like the noise of a glass put on a hard surface, and sprinted in."

"And?"

"She was in her underwear, had a syringe in her right hand with an orange liquid in it, a tie on her left arm and was trying to inject herself on her belly.

The vein on her left arm was black…"

"Oh, my God!" Coulson whispered.

Mack, too, had a concerned face.

"Because of the startle that my sudden entrance had caused her, the glass bottle had fallen to the ground, breaking and overturning the rest of the liquid, spreading a smell of iodine and phosphorus all around.

She was terribly shaking, hyperventilating, sweating and started crying desperately, for the pain and for the embarrassment and humiliation of having me watching her in that desperate condition.

She also collapsed down on the floor, because she couldn't stand straight.

She started begging me to let her take a shot…

I was trying to understand with what she wanted to inject herself and, from what I was able to extort from her and what I saw on her belly, I got the full picture."

"What did you see on her belly?"

"Several little abscesses…

And, from that and the smell that has spread around, I understood she was addicted…"

"… to krokodil" Coulson finished for him, in a single breath, becoming white like a sheet.

"Yeah." Ward confirmed, darkly.

"I gave her two powerful painkillers, because I knew that withdrawal from krokodil is extremely painful, then I put her into bed, more dead than alive.

But at least she would have been able to have some rest.

She was exhausted, spent…

In the meantime I called Thomas to come and help me, because I couldn't manage that situation alone."

"Why didn't you call me?" Coulson was a lot calmer, now.

"I don't know…

Probably because I felt more comfortable with a person that I considered family, in such a delicate situation…

I know you love Skye… but you despise me, and you probably would have brought her in some Shield hospital to cure her, far away from me.

I couldn't allow that: Shield is not a safe place for her anymore, especially now.

And, frankly, you interfered with my sentimental life too many times for me to trust you."

"But acting in this egoistic way you endangered her life!"

"No, I didn't, if only you would allow me to tell you the whole story!

I was the only one that could totally understand her in that precise moment of her life.

And not only in that moment…

Nobody at Shield ever experienced what she went through in that period.

But I did.

So, also from a strategic point of view, I was the optimum choice. And what you said is not true: I wouldn't ever put her in danger for egoistic reasons!

That night I destroyed completely the drug market of the city, to prevent her getting some more drugs when she would go out from my control… and also because that was the right thing to do…

The following morning she woke up and grabbed, with my permission, some money from my wallet and then went away."

"She was going in search of drugs…" Coulson reasoned.

"Of course.

But she would have been unable to find even one crumb of that.

And she, for sure, discovered that soon enough, becoming mad at me.

So she bought with my money a gun and returned in the late afternoon to kill me.

I was waiting for her…"

At that Mack couldn't restrain himself and asked, hurriedly:

"And what happened, then?"

"She came back to me pointing the gun straight at my head.

If she had fired in that moment I wouldn't have survived, for sure.

But, at the end, she couldn't pull the trigger… she said it was stronger than her… and fell at my feet, crying, asking me, instead, to kill her, which, of course, I couldn't do."

Coulson and Mack looked heartbroken.

"When I refused to kill her, she pointed the barrel at her own temple and fired."

In that moment they stopped breathing.

"But I was quick enough to dislocate the barrel and to point it towards the ceiling, where the bullet stuck, forcing her to let the gun fall on the ground.

She was so mad at me and started slapping and punching me...

And I let her...

Then she started crying again and I embraced her and encouraged her to vent all the pain she had inside.

We talked, a lot, about very important matters, like what happened to me when I died, and then she, after having calmed down, fainted in my arms.

I brought her back on the bed and…"

At that Ward did a long embarrassed pause.

"And?" Coulson urged.

"… I healed her."

"What?" Coulson and Mack asked together, incredulous.

"I felt in me something, like an inner voice, commanding me to heal her, telling me that I have the power to heal.

So I did it, transferring on me all her pain and withdrawal symptoms and bodily harms, leaving her completely healed.

Then I entrusted Thomas to bring her back to St. Agnes, where she could get back in touch with some people that could put her back on track and instill in her, again, some true values, like faith, hope and love for life.

And I learned that, at the end, when she was there, she confessed herself.

I was in contact with Sister Bertha, an important mother figure Skye had left at St. Agnes, and she told me everything about her return back into the light.

I healed her body, yes… but, more importantly, God healed her soul."

At that Mack looked at Ward with a renewed respect.

"You can understand that in that period I couldn't follow her…

I had to fight against withdrawal myself, and that was tough.

When I finally get rid of all that, I learned that she left St. Agnes and targeted some abortive clinics around the US, destroying them with her powers.

I could stop her, in that moment, but I didn't.

I agreed with her.

And all that brings us to this moment."

And Ward looked to both Coulson and Mack, to see their reaction, and adding:

"I hope I made you see why I say that the worse is over."

Coulson sighed:

"I guess I cannot contradict you…"

In that moment a phone call caught Coulson's attention: it seemed something important and very urgent, so Coulson said to Ward, hurriedly:

"I'm afraid we have to leave you, now.

There are some urgent matters that need our attention."

"Ok. Stay safe."

Ward greeted the two with a nod and watched them exiting the bar and disappearing in the maze of streets…