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Chapter Eight
A Friend in Need is a Friend in Deed

"That's the one. The hacker."

"Bring her."

The man in loud leather boots and camo didn't even lower his weapon as he came forth. The gun was in Skye's face.

"Get up."

She stared. The order was harsh and cold, ringing through her to bring forth something like fear. But no, she couldn't be afraid. Her SO, the Director; they were both sitting next to her. All sitting against the plane wall bound and waiting like lambs for the slaughter.

She didn't move.

When he wrapped a hand through her hair it happened: May struck out like a cobra, kicking rapidly at the soldier holding a gun closest to her. She'd used the momentum to get herself up off the ground, and once the gun was gone she had easy access to get a roundhouse kick to his face.

Skye didn't see anything else. That much had happened so fast, but the fresh field agent shouldn't have watched one second of May's fight. But she had watched, so Skye's attack reflex was just a moment too late. Still, she tried.

She made to headbutt the guard who held her hair. He jerked her backwards brutally so she missed her mark, but it was distracting enough that he didn't see the sweep to his legs coming. They both tumbled to the floor.

Boy, he was persistent because she could still feel his hot, grubby hand laced through her hair as they fell. Even when she kneed him in the groin he held her. In fact, that attack seemed to be her downfall as it made the man angry. He picked up her head with vehemence just before he cannoned it into the floor at a startling rate, her face connecting with the floor so heavily that it dazed her mind and stilled her thoughts. She thought she heard something crack.

As the man forced her to her feet, frustration ran through with the thought that she'd been taken down so quickly. Her hands were bound behind her, but that shouldn't be a problem. That wouldn't be a problem for Melinda May.

Skye paled when she saw her SO.

It was a problem for Melinda May, because though there were two knocked out soldiers next to her, she was unmoving on the ground. And as Skye began to taste the first bits of tangy iron that lined the back of her throat from her bloody nose, she saw Coulson had moved as well. He was sitting beaten on the ground now, a battered Hydra agent in front of him that looked riled and angry, as Coulson just looked pained.

They'd tried. They'd both tried for her.

Christian's men tried nothing, though. Of course.

Two guns in her face. The man's hand still in her hair. That was beginning to grate her nerves.

"Ward doesn't really feel like talking," said the only man that held no gun, and looked like he belonged at some stingy country club, not hijacking a plane. Still, his demeanor held importance. Or at least the air that he thought he was important.

Skye's face was a solid mask as he walked over to the girl, hands tied up with strings and being held as though a puppet on them. He got too far into her personal space, smiled. She saw teeth that were white pearls, but Skye knew just by looking at him that if he were a wolf they'd be stained red from this man's bloodshed.

"But it appears that he enjoys talking to you," the man informed her darkly. "I wonder if he'll talk in exchange for your safety too."

Skye's breathing held steady. She hoped if she could look at her wrist's heart monitor it would be somewhere around seventy, but if she were honest, she figured it would be at least a little higher. What troubled her wasn't just this information that she was about to be hurt. No, it was that Grant Ward was doing this to her.

The traitor, Hydra, murderer, Nazi, bastard.

"You're evil," she informed him simply, as Ward was the one in front of her. It wasn't that other man, Blackwell. No, it was Grant Ward now.

"Skye I'm so sorry," he pleaded. Look at his face. Trying to be apologetic. Sincere.

What bullshit.

"You're a killer," she said, her wrists gaining a heartbeat from how firmly they were tied. The harsh grip served to remind her he was the enemy. "You'll never be good."

"I'm trying," he insisted. "I'm trying to learn."

"Is this how you learn?"

Her hands were free, and she pointed to the knife now prominent in her leg. It stung like a bitch. She hoped it stung him too.

"Or maybe these," she said, holding up the burn on her hand, showing off the one on her stomach. He opened his mouth to say something. Defend himself ever so weakly again.

She punched him.

"You're a traitor," she said, landing another blow even as he reached for his jaw. "Murderer and a Nazi." Two more.

When his face lifted it showed off reddened teeth, bloodied through a sadistic smile. He hid it quickly.

He wasn't good. He'd never be good. He could try all he liked but Grant could never be good.

She bore her neck to him.

"This should be on you," she insisted. "You're the Hydra piece of shit. This. Should be. On you!"

"You're right," he agreed.

She held the poker in her hand. The badge on the tip glowing red and yellow and harsh.

"Then let's remedy that," she said coldly, and pressed the thing into his neck without any other pretense. He let himself go and screamed. "This is how I'll teach you to be good, Ward."

She felt the rage build to boiling point under her searing skin for this man, but nothing could be better than watching this bastard suffer. He deserved it. He deserved it.

Traitor, Hydra, murderer, Nazi, basta-

Ward's eyes opened.

He didn't gasp, didn't spring from bed. Maybe his old reflexes were coming back to him. Trained specialist reflexes.

You can't change. You'll never be good.

The fresh dream rang through his head like echoes bouncing off walls, spouting hidden feelings he wondered were truths. He steadied himself and got up with a shaky breath, ran his hand through his hair and slightly through his beard.

What was Skye thinking? Could she really forgive him for everything he'd done?

He felt doubtful, and yet she was up there rallying for people to come to his aid. To try and see if they would give him the chance she felt he deserved to have.

Time would tell and he could only wait for it, as was the way with that particular method. He'd just have to let Skye be and agree with her, try to help her. More than anything, he just wanted to help her. Let her know she was safe.

Maybe he could learn to be good along the way.

"It's just so annoying. They can't do me one tiny favor and come talk to you?"

Skye was going off on a small tangent, but it was nothing compared to her outbursts of the frequent past. She had a handle on herself again, and her complaints now reminded him of the days when he'd been undercover; when he'd first gotten to know her. Of the plucky Skye who had a fierce determination to accomplish her goals and do what was truly right, in line with protocol or not. And at the moment those goals seemed to revolve around Ward.

"Shall we recount my sins… again?" he asked wryly, to which he was met with a scowling pout. Skye didn't like it when he'd treat this less serious than she deemed it. "How about you focus on yourself for now. If they think I need time to repent, it's understandable."

More than understandable. It was undoubtably deserved.

"How long did Romanoff repent, huh?" Skye asked. "Coulson raves about her like she's the teacher's pet. But she started out in the Red Room."

"I'm no better than Romanoff," Ward told her firmly. "Don't pretend like I did nothing wrong, Skye."

"I'm not. Trust me, I know you did things wrong," Skye said, allowing the memories of betrayal and disbelief to bite at her. In fact, wrong didn't begin to cover it.

But Skye believed that his mistakes were done under enough manipulation that there could be good in him, even if he'd been a grown man making those horrific decisions. Ideas that he'd been doing the right thing when it was truly the opposite were planted in him by Garrett since he was fifteen. And that man left Ward isolated in the woods for years…

Grant had told her that during one of their chats. She wondered if anyone else knew.

And Skye had witnessed glimpses of the good he harbored. If someone, anyone was willing to give him a chance, maybe she could see even more.

"It's just that I believe in redemption," she continued. "And based on his track record Coulson does too, so why won't he of all people give you a chance? People can't redeem themselves if they don't have a chance to!"

Ward's throat suddenly got very dry.

He remembered when Coulson had spoken to him just after Skye had been hurt. He remembered how cold the man had been, calling Ward sick. Psychotic. And it wasn't caused by the fact that he'd killed S.H.I.E.L.D. members, that he'd been a lying traitor to the team or left FitzSimmons in the ocean. No. It was because of how much he cared for Skye.

An unhealthy obsession, which Ward himself could recognize. But until he could learn to be a good person without having someone he truly wanted to do it for, he didn't care. She was his rock, she was helping him to find himself. The person he hoped he could be.

She was his anchor, too.

But all Coulson could see Ward as was the one who broke Skye. It was his fault they'd brought her into that room and his fault she'd been in pieces these past months.

Of which, Coulson was right.

Ward was trying to put her back together, help her in any way he could, but it was not for redemption. It was because he truly cared about the girl, and wanted to do something good. She made him want to be good.

What he wasn't sure of was if Skye realized that he was the reason she'd been tortured. And maybe she'd thought about it, maybe she hadn't, but now was the time to discuss it.

"You know the position you were put in… it never would have happened if it weren't for me," Ward said, as Skye cocked her head with intrigue. "They were on the plane to get me, and they'd chosen you to make me talk because they saw we had a connection when I'd only speak to you in interrogations."

"So Coulson doesn't want to give you a chance because he's pissed at you," Skye finished quietly.

Somehow, the direct connection between Ward and that they'd chosen her to torment had never quite clicked in her mind before. Sure, she'd known from the moment they sat her down in that cold metal chair that she was there as leverage against him. In fact, she'd never felt fury like that before. Especially not directed so steadily at someone.

All she'd saw him as was her psychopathic stalker, who for some reason idoled her above everyone else so much that she was going to take his punishment for him until he couldn't stand seeing her pain, and even then she wouldn't want him to give up S.H.I.E.L.D. information. So no matter what transpired, she would lose.

Skye hadn't deserved that. She had no reciprocated feelings that should make her liable to give him such a gift: her pain for his.

But when he didn't hand over information for no one but S.H.I.E.L..D.'s benefit…

Turned out they made a pretty good team. Ward kept the secrets while Skye took the repercussions, because without him to be their keeper, Hydra would have gotten their hands on them.

After that, any feelings of blame were just… gone.

"I'll admit, when I first had to come talk to you for intel here at the base… I wasn't too happy about it. It was sort of a weird request Ward," said Skye.

Ward knew he'd been a mess of confused emotions at that point. Dealing with the loss of Garrett, or even just in general, the loss of his entire life. Skye had been on the list of losses and he'd begun to see it as the only one he could make up.

"It was the only way I could think to see you."

"I get that now. At first I thought you wanted to talk to me because you thought I'd be the easiest to… get to."

Manipulate, corrected Ward in his mind.

"I had information about your family," said Ward. "And it's really no secret that I just wanted to see you."

She looked down, trying to hide a shy smile. She wondered what she'd ever done to warrant such praise from him. Praise that, at the moment he'd first wanted to see her, she couldn't think of anything that she'd wanted less.

God, their situation really was twisted.

"You do know you're kind of crazy, right?" Skye said, her tone light. "If I ever manage to convince somebody to let you out and be an asset, we're going to need tons of counseling."

"We?" asked Ward skeptically, cocking a brow.

"Oh yeah. I'm messed up too," she insisted.

And if she was honest with herself, as true as her feelings for Ward were becoming, perhaps that was another reason she was so hellbent on getting him out of there.

If she could fix him, maybe she could fix herself.

And maybe she could start with something simpler.

"You know… I rerouted the feeds this time," she said, picking herself off the bed and taking smooth, deliberate steps towards his leaning stance on the wall. "No one's watching."

"Is that so?"

"Stone cold fact."

She pressed her lips against his quickly then, silencing any calculated response about what they should or shouldn't be doing that he might have had. His scruffy beard tickled her as he returned the favor, causing her to grin under his tongue.

Skye broke off, dragging her teeth against her bottom lip with anticipation as she eagerly grabbed his hand and began pulling him to the other side of the room.

He was somewhat shocked and extremely excited, in more ways than one, when she pushed him hard onto the cot and clambered on top of him. The girl wasn't giving Ward a moment to think, her small form pressing against him after mere moments and smothering him with another powerful kiss.

She wasn't even coming up to breathe as she started to roll up his shirt, but the moment he felt the air bite into his bare skin he grabbed her wrists.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her eyes searching him under dark eyelashes. It made her look much more innocent than he'd ever seen Skye before, or guessed she probably was.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Skye cocked her head, thinking momentarily. "I don't take this stuff lightly, Ward. I know what I'm doing," she told him, shaking her wrists out of his grip, placing her hands on either side of him. What she'd said was true, sans that momentary lapse of judgement with Hunter, and there was no way Ward could know about that.

"But the drug…" Ward mumbled uncertainly. He knew for a fact he would never be able to forgive himself, or deserve such a thing, if the drug was actually still working her mind over as they did this. If one day she recognized her true feelings with clarity, only to realize a man she hated, a Hydra traitor, had left her more marred. More marked.

Skye sure didn't seem to think that was the case.

"Trust me; my mind has never been more clear," she said in sultry low tones, and he only caught her impish grin for a moment before her shirt was covering it up, the clothe coming free of her body as Skye brought it over her head. She whipped it into the corner across the vault. "And you helped it get that way." She brought her head down to layer soft kisses to his neck.

Ward stilled. Did she feel like she owed him this? Was she offering up her body as repayment for helping her through something he himself had caused? Had she convinced herself this was right when it wasn't, just to appease someone she felt indebted to?

That last part sounded familiar.

Ward willed himself to opened his eyes from the pleasure he was enjoying as Skye's tongue ran over his neck. He wanted to tell her to stop, to think, to talk to him about this.

She seemed to sense a change in him so she brought her head up, tucking but a small amount of errant hair behind her ear. He felt her gentle hands rest on his chest as he took in the sight of her, knowing that even if this went no farther he'd never forget this view of Skye on top of him: cascading hair, purple bra, nothing but extreme want in her eyes...

And the scar.

He didn't want to notice it. Not because it made him think any less of Skye or, what was to him, her pristine form. But he knew that if she could sense that he'd even noted it she'd be upset, even with the refreshed outlook on her situation.

But he was taking her all in at this moment. All of her. He did not feel anything resembling that of disgust by the scar, instead noting a sense of awe that Skye could make anything alluring, even something that represented what he'd now come to despise. On her, it was beautiful. She was beautiful.

Skye was quite aware Grant Ward was good looking. But if he looked good in tactical gear or even some lucky times she'd managed to catch him without a top on, he looked magnificent now. He may have been in prisoner's garb, had a beard that could warrant him to join the Duck Dynasty crew, but she knew this was right. It was right for them, and that fact just made the sight of him beyond perfect.

They may have been messed up people stumbling through life trying to decide what was right, making some bad decisions on the way, but to her, there was no way this was one of them.

Skye knelt down to land another mark on the his lips as Ward began bringing his hands up with the intent of telling her to stop, just to be sure for her, but both stilled in their actions.

The door opened.

Their attentions were momentarily drawn towards the source of the sound, and Skye looked back at Ward with something like panic.

She may have been ready for this, but ready for the team to know? They wouldn't even talk to the guy. Not to mention their exact current position… kind of embarrassing. Even if it wasn't Ward.

Training kicking in, she rolled sideways until she was off of Ward and the cot entirely, pressing herself into the ground. Her stomach was cold on the hard floor and she cursed herself for having thrown her shirt so far away in her excitement.

He sat up immediately, but not in a panic. He twiddled his thumbs and made himself appear bored, as though his whole world weren't being shaken five seconds ago at the thought of the woman he loved offering herself to him.

Loved.

Did he just admit that to himself? But of course, there was no other word for it.

Focus Grant, he willed at himself, bringing forth his training as a specialist.

He heard someone walking down the stairs, their approach echoing in his ears. He didn't hear Skye, at all. Not even her breathing just a couple feet away.

Ten out of ten for stealth.

"Do you remember what I promised you?" he heard the soft British voice, and he heard the undercurrent of emotions that came with it. The barrier opened.

Simmons stood, almost expectant, staring in at his little cell.

"Do you?" she asked, more firmly this time. She required an answer.

"Yes," Ward admitted after another moment of hesitation.

She didn't say anything. Just stared. And for how bad of a liar Ward knew she was, he could not read her face. It was cool. It was undecided.

That was it. He couldn't read it because she didn't know what to think either.

The silence was lasting too long. The girl next to the bed wasn't making a sound, but for whatever reason Simmons decided to make this visit, he hoped it was a short one. For Skye's sake. He decided to move the conversation.

"So is that what you've come here to do?" asked Ward. "Kill me?"

There was a twitch in her face. "Maybe. I'm not entirely sure yet."

Ward had an inkling she did know. Simmons, who for all he'd known had never murdered anyone, would not take such a thing lightly.

He hadn't taken the threat lightly when she'd said it, though.

"What are you doing to Skye?" she asked, a tremble of anger to her voice.

Ward thought she might elaborate, but when she didn't, he answered. "Nothing."

"Do you know she's trying to get people to talk to you? That she asked Fitz to talk to you? He gave you nothing but chances before and somehow Skye thinks you deserve more."

Skye set her forehead on the ground, wishing she could be anywhere but in this cell at the moment. Maybe asking Fitz had been too much…

"I didn't… try to get her to do those things, Simmons," said Ward, ever aware that Skye was listening in. "She just seems to think I help her feel better."

"I saw the feed," said the scientist, quiet and abrupt. "When she was suddenly so different and eager to help you I checked the log. I saw her kiss you, which was of course appalling." She took a moment to pause, as though thinking about it with renewed disgust. "Before this happened to Skye, I hope you know, she was physically repulsed by you, so I just don't understand how you getting her tortured has somehow convinced her to be snared by your lies again!"

"It wasn't-"

"Because she is not the same, Ward! My friends are not the same because of you. Because you're Hydra. Because of what you've done. Because of the bloody awful decisions you've made in life my friends are damaged!"

Skye could feel tears sting in her eyes. Then she could hear them in Simmons' voice.

"And I do want to kill you for that," Simmons admitted. "I'd honestly be pleased if there were a malfunction in this cell of some sort and you just turned up dead."

Ward didn't try to speak. Didn't want to provoke.

The scientist let out a shaky breath, and Ward could tell she was all but falling apart. "But I can't do it. Not just because you're unarmed and defenseless in there, because we all know you're anything but defenseless," she scoffed. "I just don't understand why you didn't leave."

When Skye left the barrier open.

Maybe Simmons felt doubt because she could see that it was all to help Skye, that he was just trying to do the right thing then. To atone for his actions, because he knew, he was fairly certain he knew, which ones had been wrong.

"And I think it's because you're really that crazy," said Simmons, crushing Ward's hopes of what conclusions she'd come to. "You're just an actual, deluded mental person. You told Coulson you were still a part of his team. You told Fitz you saved his life!" Simmons spat, and it was hard to miss the disgust in her voice. "And then you didn't leave. So that's it Ward. You're just that mad. You're mentally ill."

He didn't think he was crazy. Obsessed and confused perhaps, but not mentally ill. Then again, crazy people didn't know when they were crazy. Maybe Ward was sick. Well, he knew he was to an extent. But could it go further than his mind even recognized?

Was Skye crazy too?

Maybe that's why they fit so well together.

"So no, I'm not going to kill you," Simmons with an air of finality. She'd been standing, almost patiently waiting, a few feet behind the barrier. She stepped up now, and the cold look from when she'd made her threat in the past was present. "But you must stop pursuing Skye."

Ward almost didn't answer. Almost. "She's the one who comes here."

"Yes, and you're filling her head with delusions in her weakened state!" she insisted.

Skye felt her hands clench. Damaged and weakened, her friend just called her. And Skye remembered that Simmons had agreed that she should keep her neck covered, that she should hide herself. Her friend had less faith and worth in Skye than this man she was currently putting down.

"Ward, please, just… let her heal."

Simmons looked rather broken, as though she decided what she wanted her current emotion to be. Not angry, not determined. Just sad. Sad for her friend and what she determined he was doing to her. Of course he didn't want to do anything to Skye, though, he just wanted-

BEEP BEEP BEEP

The Brit looked around wildly as red lit up the room, alerting everyone to the danger. Something was happening. Something bad. Ward had never seen this alarm at the Playground before.

Neither had Skye, for that matter.

"Oh lord," Simmons mumbled. She looked at the tablet, and her eyes widened in fear. "Oh god!"

There was no way Simmons was going to clue Ward in as to what was going on, so it was with a dead set of realization and a sigh that Skye pulled herself swiftly off the ground.

"What's going on?" she asked firmly, hoping to put enough urgency in her voice that Simmons would ignore the sudden appearance of a third person.

It didn't work.

"Where did you bloody come from?" Jemma screeched after a brief, actual scream. This was before taking in Skye's appearance of no shirt, even as the girl was actively walking across the room to gather it up. "Oh god, Skye, you didn't…"

If her words of how she was damaged and broken hadn't already angered Skye, the utter amount of disappointment as she thought she'd slept with Ward sure did.

"We didn't but if we did that wouldn't really be the issue right now, would it?" Skye stressed. Maybe a bit snappily. She was hurt by a few of Simmons' words. "What's going on?"

The scientist regained focus. Her face turned to a hard mask as she held out the tablet for Skye -and most likely unintentionally, Ward,- to see. She'd changed it from the control's of Ward's cell. It held video feeds of the base now.

"Hydra. They're here. They're in the Playground." There was fear in Simmons voice, as well she tried to hide it.

But Skye couldn't hide the fear on her face. It enveloped her, bodily and complete as it wrapped her up like a cocoon. She froze midway through putting her shirt on. Didn't even bother to tug it down as it laid rolled up on her stomach.

They weren't supposed to come here. She was supposed to be safe here. Here, where she was unprepared in her haven, where she allowed herself to be vulnerable and not a stone cold agent as she'd been taught. They were not supposed to come here!

"Oh god, they've gotten the others," Simmons said in horror. She was looking at the screen, eyes glued. Unaware of Skye. Skye was unaware of Skye, even as Ward put a hand on her back. She barely flinched. She was unaware of Ward, or Simmons trying to talk to her. "Lord… Skye, what do we do?"

Skye didn't know. Because all she could think about was how the burn on her neck was starting to tingle, all too eager to reunite with the people who'd seared it there.

A/n: The whole beginning bit is Ward's dream, in which he was interpreting what she went through in his own head, and dreamt as though he were her. His psyche is a bit of a mess. Sorry if that's unclear, I do actually try to leave dreams a bit wonky.

Pleeease review, I'd love to hear from you guys! Thanks for following and favorites, but reviews make my day! (And life is giving me a rough go right now so it would really mean a lot to me!) I give thee virtual hugs to anyone who has, especially those who have multiple times. :D