Trigger Warning: This chapter references sexual abuse. Like... barely. Like the fact that I said that phrase just now is probably worse than whatever's in the chapter, but just so you know!

Chapter Six
Making Mountains Out of Molehills

"You're not Ward," she said dumbly to the tormenter. Blinked. "I didn't even…" I didn't even know you were here. She'd stopped herself from finishing the sentence. She shouldn't appear so ill-informed in front of him.

"Oh, I haven't been here all the time since we last saw each other," Payne informed her, reading her thoughts. "Politics and such brought me back to this S.H.I.E.L.D. base. But I'm more concerned with you! How have you been holding up?"

He smirked, gave that tiny laugh after his words that were laced with fake pity. Skye scowled.

"You're pathetic," she spat at him suddenly, not knowing what else to say. That was just the first thing that came to mind. She never thought she'd encounter her only remaining torturer again, and somehow had never thought of what she'd say to him. It was strange. She might have expected that would be something victims dwell on.

She'd dwelt on other things.

"I just do what I enjoy," he told her, stepping closer to the barrier placidly, hands behind his back. Skye stayed in place. "That's what they say, isn't it? Enjoy your work and it's not like work at all!"

"Why?" Skye asked, finding her curiosity sincere. "Why would you enjoy… that?"

He near giggled to himself, obviously excited to explain his work. Skye's skin crawled.

"How to explain… Well, it's as though every person works differently. Has a different tick, a different…. code, working for them on the inside."

"Let me guess. You like the inside to become the outside?"

"Hah! That is funny!" he exclaimed, and he sounded truly amused. "Eh, sometimes, but not exactly. Some people don't even need that. You sure didn't!"

Skye glanced at her neck, brought her eyes quickly back to the man.

"Some people won't break without a lot of physical excursion, some people without the psychological aspects and such. It's all a matter of figuring… out… who... needs what."

He said this, having become very pensive, playing with his fingers and pressing one against his thumb as he punctuated each word. His mind seemed to be somewhere else. Then his eyes snapped up to her, and he continued.

"I did guess you would break faster under physical duress, actually. Hmhm, so, I lost that round."

Lost that round. Like hurting people was a game. Like scarring people for life and giving them mental disorders or PTSD was just a sick, twisted, game. Just seeing how fast they can break, if he could choose the right method first.

Skye felt nausea mix with the fury inside of her.

"So, have you been feeling it?"

She scrutinized him. "Feeling what?"

He grinned. "Oh, little wittle girl, that itch. That feeling you can't scratch, can't get rid of. That we're on you, watching you. Everyone and anyone is looking at you at any given moment but you don't know what to do it about it. And surely, the thing blaring off your very skin can't help with the paranoia."

Skye felt lost. Her head shook slightly…

"The drug I gave you. The one that I pushed inside you over and over again. It wasn't just…" he smirked, "pain."

"Kept me awake…" she mumbled bitterly, the memory stinging her: the thought that her only wish was to be gone from the world in that moment. But she wasn't able to even find escape in her own mind.

"That too." He chuckled. "Still, it opened something. Right… here."

He placed a pointer finger into his temple.

"What?"

"It opens the mind!" he explained gloriously, gesturing around himself. "All those little fears and thoughts that you try to lock up, the drug opens up possibilities. Has you dwell, has you stew, more than you could even think possible on a subject."

Skye stared, comprehending.

Did that mean she wasn't crazy?

She'd found herself slipping before, but it was just a drug. It wasn't her mind. She wasn't losing it. Maybe without the drug, she never would have asked Ward to give up the information in the first place!

"Now, don't go taking too much solace in that," he told her, as he proved once again he must be some sort of mind reader. "You still would have broken."

She crossed her arms, as though putting up a defense. "What makes you so sure?"

"Well, the drug is more of a… parting gift. If you manage to walk away alive. It's not necessary to gaining information, really. Maybe if you'd been there longer to allow it to sink in, but in your case, it was just for fun!"

Skye stood still. She was afraid if she moved, she'd attempt to ram the barrier to claw this man to death. Though her scowl deepened with every word.

"And it really only works as well as your mind allows it to. How much the individual permits it inside."

"I thought you said it opens the mind?" Skye asked.

"Only if the door isn't completely locked," he explained pointedly.

He laughed. His voice was excited, sing song. Disturbing. So unlike his old partner, a cool wit to that man who held stock in the information he'd been trying to gain. This one just wanted to see her suffer. Just a kid with a magnifying glass who got to watch the ants writhe.

"With the small amount it took to break you, you should consider yourself lucky we hadn't moved to more… degrading tactics faster. If you believe you're disgusting now, and don't bother denying it as I know you do," he took pause to look her with pity, proved to be false from the grin he just couldn't seem to keep off his face, "just think of what a mess you would be then."

He was right.

She'd thought about it, briefly, when Blackwell had torn apart her shirt before he obviously got distracted by her bullet scars. About what could be coming, and she honestly didn't know how to prepare. Especially after they'd just put her through multiple rounds of the burning pain serum, she couldn't get her mind to meditate. Not that she believed she could stay locked in her head when that was happening. If they had gone in that direction...

She'd be even more pathetic than she already was now.

"I don't go down that particular road usually but… Blackwell might have. He was an interesting fellow. I myself still believe withholding ones clothes can be a particularly powerful tool." He chuckled, as though caught in a reminiscing something pleasant, not watching people's dignity flit away. "You would not believe what easy access you can gain to the mind when people are preoccupied with something as simple as modesty."

Skye realized she was snarling. "You're a coward. You're ten times worse than Blackwell, and he's the one that put this on me." She gestured roughly to her neck as she stepped up to the barrier, wishing she could spit in his face. "You were a terrified mess when that plane was going down. You talk about all these ways to break people down and how it's all a game to see what it takes… when all it takes for you is a little turbulence? Guess you can't handle a taste of your own medicine, Payne."

Skye's words came out harsh as she could muster, but the man looked at her placidly. No trace she offended him in the slightest.

"I thought I might die, and I don't want to die. There's too much fun to be had in life!" he exclaimed, lifting his arms like a child excited to play.

Skye's hands tightened into fists, and for the first time since she'd been down there, she remembered the knife in her hand. It was hard to think she ever forgot about it, the small weapon suddenly felt heavy with a weight of importance in her hand.

She lifted it.

"Want to feel fear, Payne?" she growled out slowly. "Want to experience terror?" She flipped the knife in her hand. "I mean, I could try to draw it out best I can, but no promises. I'm not as talented as you."

"Aw, are we playing pretend? How exciting!"

"I'm not bluffing," she spat. And… she was bluffing about not bluffing. Still, she was sure her voice had sounded sincere with the pure rage directed behind it. Because had she had any absence of a soul like the creature before herself, if she didn't care about losing herself in the process, she would like to jab the knife into the defenseless man's flesh.

But she wasn't that low. Not yet. And she was not intending on getting there anytime soon.

It irked at her when he called her out for it, though.

"Ah, you're not going to kill me, little one," he told her, waving dismissively. "You're not even going to open that barrier, hmhm."

"Why's that?" she said through grit teeth.

"For the exact reason that itty bitty symbol on your neck is slowly tearing you apart. Blackwell really had you pegged... You're loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., and you don't even know what I'm here for. Of course, I'm probably important." He shrugged. "I could be the best lead your fragile organization has on a main case. I'm here for a reason and you won't do anything to me so long as you feel the need to prove your loyalty. Prove that thing seared into your skin doesn't define you. That it doesn't own you. And maybe you'll be able to convince them..." He smiled. The toothy smile worthy to rival the snarl of a wolf. "But you'll never be able to convince yourself, Skye."

Skye.

She shivered.

The way he said her name… he used it so sparingly it ensured the word to have impact. He kept it hidden like a secret for the most meaningful moments. She wasn't even sure this man had known her name, as he never stated it during the interrogation. Blackwell was the only one to do that, waiting for his speech of property to take place before piercing her name into the proclamation of taking her for Hydra.

And Payne was using the same tactic.

He may have been a kid ripping off butterfly wings, but he was smart. Observant.

He seemed overjoyed at her shocked expression. That he'd managed to catch her off guard, managed to hit her true feelings dead on.

"I read people for a living, darling," he told her. "And you're one of the most open books I've ever met."

It was true. Goddammit, everything he told her was true.

"How long will it last?" she asked fiercely.

Mild confusion swept over his face. "How long…?"

"How long is the damn paranoia going to last! Am I just going to be a freaked out, anxious and angry mess forever? I want to be normal again."

She let more vulnerability into her voice than she'd intended. But then, maybe that was just the drug and what it did to her making her lose herself. Not keep her feelings in check. Maybe she couldn't help it.

A smile twitched at the side of his mouth as he stared at her. Near in awe.

Then he began to laugh. He was laughing at her.

It wasn't the strange breathy giggle he put at the end of his sentences sometimes. It was a full blown guffaw. And she'd heard it before: he'd thought her screams during the injections were particularly amusing.

"Shut up!" she screeched over his triumphant laughter. "Just tell me."

"That influence should be gone," he told her bluntly with the utmost amusement. Skye tried to process. "Granted, usually people find something to hold on to and it guides them through the process of finding themselves again, but I've never seen it last more than a few weeks. It's been over three months, hasn't it? You are almost fascinatingly pathetic if you're allowing it to linger this long!"

Skye nearly drew blood from biting her lip at how angry the comment made her. How badly she wished it was him who was bleeding. But he was right. She couldn't attack the man, not with her limited information.

She tried to keep a passive face - most likely an utter failure - as she stormed upstairs. His laughter echoed off the walls until the door was shut, and then the noise still reverbed in the confines of her mind.

Skye didn't waste a moment. She went straight to the cameras of the vaults. She saw Ward. Though the sight of him stirred up relief in her stomach that he was still in the base, it did nothing to her current physical stance. She was barely holding it together through her grit teeth and squeezed fists, her rage only increasing when she saw where they'd moved Ward: Vault E.

A smaller vault. They'd moved him to a smaller vault.

How could they do that? How could they do that to him? She pleaded for them to give him a chance and all it had earned him was punishment. She cursed herself for not looking into his state, even if she was trying to be good enough to lose her place on Coulson's radar. But she would have done something. She wouldn't have allowed his condition to worsen!

No wonder they didn't tell her.

She marched to Vault E, the knife firm in her hand as she strutted through the base. If anyone saw her, they could come to some very bad conclusions.

She's crazy. Lost it.

But to her, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Not that woman at the bar, not her team, not what a bitch she'd been to them these past weeks. Not even hating herself and what she'd become. All that mattered was Ward, her rock and island and all she felt herself gravitating towards these past weeks, because now she knew why.

And she knew she didn't deserve it, but god help her she was going to at least try to ask it of him.

She opened the tiny vault's barrier to the point where it was see through, and the point where Ward could hear. Despite her toting of the knife, he didn't look scared. Or concerned. He looked relieved to see her.

Which then turned to concern, but Skye thought the emotion was present for her well-being.

"Skye, does Coulson know-?"

"No," she stated firmly, stepping right up to him. To what the barrier would allow. "But the cameras are on. I don't care if he knows..."

With an element of abruptness, she turned off the barrier. Completely off. Ward could walk away now, if he so pleased. Oh she had a knife, but Ward was more than capable of getting passed her if he wanted to, even with her training.

"Skye!" he exclaimed, seeming concerned at his own freedom. "No, what are you doing?"

"Please Ward," she begged him as she began to close the vacant space between their bodies. He only increased it, hid back into his cell. He looked physically repulsed. Her throat felt thick and she knew the sound would come out the same. "Please get it off of me Ward. Please. I can't have it on me and I can't do it… Please, please just take it off!"

She knelt down crying now, holding up the knife's handle to him like a ritualistic offering. Her eyes focused on her shoes as she let her hair fall over her face. She could try to hide the tears, evident as they were in her voice.

"What the hell?" he barked, incredulous. By the time she looked up, he'd retreated to the very back of the cell. "No. No I am not slicing your neck!"

"Well I can't!" Skye shouted. "My hands shook… and… and I'm too weak to do it myself."

No Skye, you're too smart, thought Ward. You know better.

"You can't be serious!" Ward exclaimed.

"As the plague," she growled. "I need it gone. It's ruining me Ward! It's ripping me apart!"

Ward felt his heart break. Shatter, more accurately. How could he have done this to her? He thought Skye would have hated herself for letting the team down… but it wouldn't have been her. It would have been him letting down S.H.I.E.L.D. And he was a traitor, he'd done it before. He should have saved Skye. He never should have let that thing press into her.

But couldn't she understand? It wasn't ruining her. It was nothing but a reminder of the repulse she'd created and was stirring up inside her own mind, and only she could be the one to put a stop to that.

Though Ward couldn't find the words to say this, for in a few moments the girl was trudging to the corner of the cell he'd ducked into, opening his palm and forcing the knife into it with rough fingers.

He let it clatter to the floor.

"Ward!"

"No, Skye." She wouldn't look into his eyes, so he ducked down, searching for them. "It's your neck. You have to realize how easily you could hit an artery, or even just the thought of doing such self-harm-"

"It would be self-help," she snarled in argument. "I know you know how to avoid an artery."

Ward was shaking his head. Slowly. The movement weighed down by sadness and mourning, as he missed her. The old Skye. The Skye who knew better than this, who was better than this. He knew, really, it was the same Skye and her judgement was just misled, but he hated seeing it.

"It's too big," he told her simply. "There's no way to safely do it. Especially with this kind of knife."

He near regretted his words, as he feared she may have thought that an invitation to go find some sort of medical tool. A scalpel.

But she didn't. She just looked defeated. Put out. Tired too, near exhausted. She sort of stumbled away backwards, until her legs hit the cot, prompting her to drop down onto it. Skye then brought her hands to her face, fingers covering the most silent tears he'd ever heard someone attempt.

"I hate it, Ward," her muffled voice came through at barely a whisper.

It was barely a notion, though it was enough to be noted, that Ward could walk out of there now, as Skye's eyes were covered. The tablet feet away from her. He could walk away and try to make his way from this base. He would have to leave Skye locked in that cell. Yes, it was a notion.

It wasn't a remote possibility though.

"I know," he whispered as he sat down next to her. She didn't even flinch, his body just an inch away. "I'm so sorry."

"Why?" her voice cracked out after only a brief pause. "Why are you sorry? For what I've become?"

Honestly, the answer to that could be yes, as he hated seeing her in this state. But Ward knew this wasn't something she'd become. It was just something she needed to work through. This moment, how she felt, the Hydra symbol did not define her; she just believed they did.

"No, not for what you've become. You're still Skye," he told her, yearning to wipe a large tear hinging on her cheek. He held back. "I'm sorry I let you down. And… I'm sorry I can't help you more now."

Her water stained face looked up at him, and he felt his hands go somewhere they shouldn't.

He touched her.

He allowed his hands on her face, to hold her tenderly, because he feared if he didn't she may have fallen apart at any moment. His thumbs brushed over her fragile cheeks, wiping away the tears in a near unnoticeable motion as he made circles on her skin, just so she knew she wasn't in this alone.

Her face was a mix of shock and gratefulness at the gesture, which was as understandable a reaction as any. And relieving. Their wasn't a trace of disgust in her features. For his hands' placement, or even just at herself.

Ward was touching her. She'd vowed never to allow that to happen again. She remembered the vow, remembered with how much sincerity she'd told herself she'd stick to it. Still, allowing him there didn't feel like a betrayal to herself in any way. But that wasn't the most important thing.

He was touching her brand.

It felt so intimate, so sweet and so welcomed. The way he… it was like he didn't even notice it at all. She felt his palm over the curves and edges of the scar, warm to the touch. Not like when Blackwell had strangled her over top of the thing, boiling her tender skin with a scalding hand, but comfortable. Safe. Like she was home. At peace, for the first time in such a long time.

She let out a slow breath, letting the calm take her in as a welcome embrace. The tears had stopped. Her mind felt… clear. As though his hand covering it up made it as though it'd disappeared.

But no. It was more, as though his hand pressing into the forbidden place had made it so the thing was… accepted.

Euphoria filled her mind to the brim. She'd forgotten what it was like to feel this way. To not feel sad, scared and pitied. She gurgled a watery laugh, and for a moment thought she may start crying again.

Ward smiled. It was so full of actual sincere relief and happiness she grinned ear to ear back at him. Then, she let her forehead fall against his, reveling in shared reprieve.

And he was so warm and wonderful and good, that she forgot everything. She forgot her life, up to this moment. She forgot who the man in front of her was, what he'd done, what she'd been through, what she looked like. If she had a scar. What color her hair was, what her childhood had been like. She was just a girl, and he was just a generous man reminding her that life was something to be lived and not live through or put up with. With nothing so much as his touch. It was because of this that she didn't feel any pangs of guilt when she ignited something that was supposedly so forbidden.

She pressed her lips fully onto his, the feeling as pleasant as whatever he'd caused her to forget. As she'd forgotten, she couldn't recall what it was.

Skye didn't know anything then, in that moment, anymore. Because it was just them. And the universe wasn't showing them some sign or scar or mark to remind the two what they should or shouldn't be doing. It was just Skye and Grant, unknowing of more than the first names. Unknowing of what doors they'd just opened, or the impending mess they'd gotten themselves into.

A/n: It's funny cause Skye doesn't even have a last name. Hah... sorry I suck at fluff in the sense that I don't know where to try the line between "aww" and "dorktastic". (See? That word was probably where the line should have been.) Actually I'm 99% sure I crossed the line up there too, but ah well.

Apparently tomorrow EVERYTHING CHANGES on the show according to these cryptic cast members on twitter, so I wanted this up before that aired. This is AU anyhow, but just incase.

OH and POV will get blurry here. (The barrier has come down... both literally and metaphorically.) So we'll be switching between Ward and Skye between chapters :)

Anyhum... thank you for reading! Let me know what you think. :D Reviews make for faster chapters, ya know! (Inspiration and all that).