A/n: Last chapter! Sorry for the delay with this one.
Refresher: Hydra found the Playground. Payne was torturing Coulson for information when Ward, Skye and Simmons saved him and defeated the Hydra agents. In the process, Skye was shot in the leg and Ward shot badly in the chest.
And... here we go.
~
Chapter Eleven
Beauty Lies in the Eyes of the Beholder
Grant Ward did not have a funeral.
Apparently this was per his request, as said in his files. His S.H.I.E.L.D. files. Skye didn't know if it was true or if it was just his undercover persona.
But she'd wanted him to have one.
Ward had been no one's priority that day. When he died. Or, the day he started to. Fitz had gotten untied and helped the other agents, who in turn helped get Coulson to the infirmary on the BUS. With Skye's heated insistence they helped Ward too. They had tried to attend to her first, but she'd been persistent. His horrific condition might have tugged their heartstrings and caused them to go to his aid as well. It might have.
Still, he'd been losing blood too fast. Skye watched buckets of it pour out of him as a few agents carried him out. She couldn't carry him out.
She'd been impaired, again, and had sat uselessly on the ground. She'd tried to carry him. Tried to help. But his muscled body was too heavy for her to lift on her best days, and even with the adrenaline pumping through her she couldn't move the man an inch. Not with a bullet in her leg.
She wanted to cry when they took him. She didn't.
That came later.
They'd patched her up. A bullet wound on the right leg, to match her knife wound on the left thigh.
What's one more scar on this body, right?
This body, her body, that was marred. This body that couldn't save him. That was useless with anything that really mattered, and mediocre at anything else.
She insisted to see him. And though her wound was non-lethal (because like some sick joke, she was the one to acquire all the undeserved luck) they told her no crutches quite yet, for how weak she'd been still. They wheeled her there. She was broken now, but she knew she'd be fixed.
He wouldn't be so lucky.
She hadn't known that, then.
Then, when she sat at his bedside. Held his hand. The two broken people she believed could both be mended.
He looked so fragile, lying unconscious in the medical bed that looked dwarfed beneath him. She didn't see super-spy S.H.I.E.L.D. agent or the traitor for Hydra, just the Ward that she'd come to know was actually a bit of both. The one she'd learned to care about.
And he was fading.
"Fight," she'd willed at him. "Please, fight."
She didn't know how to help him. Not like he'd helped her. She didn't know how to make him better. She didn't know if her words were getting through to him. She didn't even think her words were getting through to him, because she didn't believe a person knew what was going on when they were unconscious.
But what else could she do?
She visited him everyday to whisper things to him. Plead with him, demand from him.
The only thing she ever got in return was the rhythmic beat of the heart monitor.
But she would not cry for him. He did not need tears shed. Because she'd convinced herself, you see. And she would not feel release until he could too.
She didn't want it to be the release he'd ended up with.
Coulson was fine. After they'd parked the BUS at another S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Germany (which could hardly be called a base, compared to the Playground,) she got to see him.
With the blood gone, Skye saw all the new additions to his face.
Many of the cuts were shallow. They'd heal in time. But others… well, he'd never look exactly the same.
Skye knew something about that.
"If you ever want to talk, I'm here," she offered. A little awkwardly. Because the way she'd handled it… not exactly the best role model.
She wasn't even sure if that fact mattered just for talking, for moral support. Still.
He'd smiled. It seemed to pain his face. "Thank you Skye. I may take you up on that someday."
He didn't. But she thought her presence helped, sometimes. Like the comfort of knowing someone understood. Had gone through something similar. Maybe reminding himself not to fall as far as her. It didn't matter, as long as she did something.
That had all happened when she still had hope.
It was precisely three days in that her world shattered.
She went to visit him. She'd just been granted crutches and wanted to show him, because she did things like that. It really wasn't like her, or at least didn't seem like something she herself would do. Have something new to show the unconscious. Still, she did.
But Ward was not there.
She blinked at the scene. Someone changing linens. Someone German and unknown to her.
Where was Ward?
"Oh Skye," she heard Simmons say. Skye turned. It was a slow movement, due to the crutches. "I didn't mean for you to come here. I wanted to tell you, before..."
Her throat got very dry.
"Please just say it," Skye said, water pooling in her eyes. "You have to say it."
Simmons mouth became a thin line.
"Ward's dead."
Skye just froze.
And because there was no reason to wait anymore, that was when she cried.
She felt like a zombie after that. Lifeless. She had no drive. She'd hack when they asked her to, but didn't push it. Frankly, she was happy that she was too laid up to go in the field.
"Poor Skye" she'd heard them say. It seemed she heard people whisper about her more often then not. Either they weren't very careful, or they did it fairly often.
But what about poor Ward?
"She's been so hurt." "She's not the same." "It's almost worse than the first time."
"How could she have loved him?"
Of course. They wouldn't mourn him because some wouldn't give themselves a chance to like him.
It was a lot like the first time she'd gotten hurt, crutches and all. No Ward. But the promise of Ward had at least been there before, she'd just been wallowing in her own misery enough to convince herself not to see him.
The only promise at present was that she'd never see him again.
Her Hydra brand was old, and she'd gotten used to it on her body. But now it served as a painful reminder. Not of the organization or being owned, or any of those things she'd overcome. Just of him.
Because they'd both been marked, by Hydra. Her scar was merely the physical semblance of what Ward had been a part of, at least for a time. They went together like a pair. A matching set.
Hydra was a part of them, but they'd learned together it didn't define them.
S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't define them either. She was loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., but loyalties would not define her. And, she realized, both organizations had a part in his death. She learned to resent S.H.I.E.L.D. just a little for that.
Not as much as she resented herself.
"Skye."
This was why Skye didn't believe in god. If there were a true deity, surely her life wouldn't be so screwed up as this.
"Skye."
God wouldn't let her fall for someone, have him betray her, and make her despise him. They wouldn't then allow her to work all that trust and understanding back into place, only for this person to leave her.
It was stupid. It was unfair. It was-
"Skye!"
"Hmm?"
She lifted her head from its position of staring blankly down. Looking at the food she hadn't touched.
"Are you going to finish that?" asked Trip.
Skye looked down at the complete chicken breast.
"Or you know… start it?" Hunter chimed.
"Um." She swallowed, her throat thick from lack of speaking. "I'm not sure I have an appetite."
"You do realize you have to eat to avoid, well, not dying?" Hunter said.
Maybe I want to die.
No. You know you don't, so don't even think it. Don't spit on Ward's grave like that. You learned to be better than that with him. You're going to get better, even if you allow sadness in now.
Mourn, fix yourself, move on with normality. Those were the steps she intended to, and would, follow.
She was just still on step one.
"And you'll heal faster," Bobbi piped up. God, when did all these people even come in? "So you can start working up your muscles again."
Again. Again and again. Just like her last rehab.
"Maybe I don't want to be a field agent anymore," Skye mumbled. And she might have meant that for real. "I'm obviously no good at it."
"C'mon," Triplett urged. "You know that's not true."
"I've probably been shot more than anyone in this room," she said, with almost zero emotion. "I suck."
"You can't think that way, Skye," urged Bobbi.
"Yeah," said Hunter. "You're probably just…" his voice trailed off, but Skye managed to raise an eyebrow in intrigue, "depressed," he finished. Lamely, but Skye didn't mind.
She shrugged. "You're right," she conceded. "Doesn't mean I'll change my mind though."
If Skye had cared at all, she might have left then. But she just sat. She felt the awkwardness stir around her, as they all managed to find something to do all of sudden.
When Skye looked up, only one person remained looking at her.
Skye hadn't even realized Simmons was there.
But there she sat, in the opposite corner of Skye. Her hand kneading anxiously through a strip of hair. She was staring at Skye, and Skye wasn't even sure she realized it. A nervous, worried stare.
Then, she got up and left.
And for once, Skye felt compelled enough to follow her.
She watched Simmons go straight into Coulson's little office at the German base.
Skye limped over there. She didn't need the crutches now, but she moved awkwardly still.
"She has a right to know!" Simmons was saying when Skye got close enough to hear. "This isn't right. We're putting her through so much emotional turmoil at the moment it could have lasting effects on her. And if she never hears the truth, there's no doubt in my mind that she'll always be affected by this."
Truth?
"We're doing this for everyone's own good. If you remember, Agent Simmons, this was a request, not an order."
"He was not in his right mind!"
"He is now," stated Coulson. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s keeping tabs on him. We're not letting him out of our sight."
Simmons was quiet. "Then… perhaps you shouldn't tell her where he is. But she should at least get know that he's alive."
A jolt went through Skye. Right up her spine.
"Who?" she asked in a croak from the doorway. Both of the agents turned to her. Shocked, would be the optimal word for their expressions. "Who's alive?"
Coulson and Simmons shared a look for a few good seconds, until Coulson finally nodded. Jemma stepped forward.
And she told Skye everything.
She didn't know what to think when she heard the news. Relieved, almost certainly. Angry. Somehow sad, but a different sad than the mourning that had been gripping her for weeks.
Coulson offered to drive her there. He also offered to phone ahead, but she decided Ward didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve to know anything when he'd kept her in the dark for so long.
"He asked us to tell you that," said Coulson.
She didn't look at him. "And you jumped at the opportunity."
She wasn't mad at Coulson. She wasn't.
"I wouldn't have allowed him to leave, actually," Coulson said, and then Skye did look at him. "I believed he was too dangerous and unstable to be out in the real world on his own. FitzSimmons were the ones that convinced me otherwise."
Skye's brow scrunched. "What?"
"They told me to give him a chance. That they'd seen him do good in a position when there were other options open." He stopped the car and gestured outside. "I guess you can go see for yourself if they were right."
Skye's eyes moved to see out the window. They were at a crappy motel. A crappy motel with yellow grass and overgrown trees.
Points for style, Ward.
"Do you want to go in with you?"
She was still staring out the window. "Actually," she said, "there are some choice words I have for him that I'd rather you didn't hear."
Coulson smirked at that. She tried not to notice the way the movement stretched his knife scars. She did notice. But it didn't change the amusement that built up in her from the gesture.
"I'll wait here then."
"It may be a while… but I don't know," she said. "Stay close?"
"Sure. There's a diner just down the road."
"Right, an old-timey one." She paused. "You just want to see if they have any Captain America paraphernalia, don't you?"
"It's possible." He shrugged, grin definitely present. Skye didn't move for a moment then, and Coulson hit a switch at the front of the car. Her door swung open. "Good luck."
This was probably Ward's worst gunshot wound.
He'd had injuries that were unduly hard, even worse when they happened in the middle of an op. That dragged on for days while he was in unforgivable climates or waiting for an extraction.
But he'd never had a pain last so long.
He wanted to start being productive. But it was difficult, when breathing felt like lighting fire to gas in his veins and moving sent him to hell in the condition.
But he was good at managing injury, and he was able to start his mission. In less physical ways, but still.
He was sitting down to watch the Morning news, turning on the TV that had to be one of the few square ones left in North America, when there was a knock at the door.
His gun was on the nightstand. (They'd given him an ICER.)
He moved so quickly to pick it up he nearly gasped at the ache. Even before he got a glance through the peephole her voice rang through loud and clear.
"Open the door, asshole."
He snapped, suddenly stuck, as his feet wouldn't seem to move.
She shouldn't be here. Not yet. Not for a very, very long time.
There was a brusque sound of blunt force on the door. "You gonna let me in? Or are you going to make up some other shit story. Dead men can't answer the door, Skye," she mocked in shrill tones.
He found his footing.
When she was revealed to him, he found her expression hard to read. Impatient, sure, shown by her jutted out hip, cocked head and crossed arms.
He must have look like a gaping fish.
She pushed straight passed him. Hmm. Maybe her hip was jutted for support. She was favoring her left leg.
She sat down on the bed and tilted her chin up to appraise him. Long and hard and unwavering.
"You look good for a ghost."
He swallowed.
"Are you going to start, or am I gonna have to? Because honestly, I don't even know where to begin."
Just stay calm. You have good reasons. Just lay them out, one by one, and maybe she'll understand. She has in the past.
He unsteadily moved towards the desk near the TV, grabbing a handful of papers he'd acquired. He held them out for her.
"These are actually for yo-"
She slapped him. His hand, to be precise.
The ruffled papers drifted gently to the floor.
"What the hell were you thinking?" she exclaimed as she stood. Shook her head. "I decided I'm starting. Because, what the hell were you thinking?"
He maybe would have grit his teeth, or some other tell. But training, training that was steadily coming back to him since his stint in the vault, told him to be stoic.
"I thought it was for the best."
"I mourned you, you creep!" she said. Her voice had taken a turn for the desperate, cracked and sad along with angry. "I was shot, you were shot. We could have healed together and instead all I had was Everest-sized mountains of grief to help me through the process!"
There were so many tears. So much anger. This was not how he expected this reunion to go, if it ever happened.
"I'm sorry," he offered.
"You're sor-?" She scoffed. "Sorry? Doesn't apologizing ever get old, Ward? Why don't you try doing the right thing for once."
"I was. I am."
She huffed air out her nose. Not unlike an angry bull.
"How is telling me you're dead the right thing? Because, maybe you didn't know, but I sat with you every day. I wanted you to wake up so freaking bad that I would sit and talk to lump that couldn't move, hear or speak. I know you weren't there very long, but I would have done it for hundreds of days if you were!"
He nodded. "I did know you came. Simmons told me when I asked about you."
Skye just scoffed, the information only angering her further. She turned around to try and hide the tears. "Then how dare you?" she spat.
"I needed to go out and prove myself," he said to her back. Saw her head tilt up in interest towards him. "I needed to make sure I could be good without you, because that's the only way I deserve..."
To be with you. He did honestly mean with her at all. Her friend. Her co-worker. Someone she passed by every Sunday at the grocery store. But she wouldn't see it that way. And in the back of his mind, he knew he wanted something more too.
She spun around. "Then you wait until the hole in your chest fills in, pack a bag and say 'hey Skye, I'm gonna go on a crazy spirit quest to find myself and see how many old ladies I can help across the street.' And I would say, 'that's cool; make sure to get the Boy Scout badge for campfires while you're at. See ya in a couple months!'" She glared at him. "It would have saved a hell of a lot of unnecessary tears."
The thought of Skye shedding tears for him was strangely bittersweet.
He shook his head. "This way I had no attachment to you. No matter what, I wouldn't be able to see you, and I could see how to do things for myself. I've never done anything, decided anything, for myself Skye. I've never not had a plan mapped out for me of what I should be doing. I needed to find out what that feels like."
She seemed to be accepting the information. Standing there, waiting for more.
"Then, if I failed I would have never come back." He paused. "Well I'd come back to S.H.I.E.L.D., only so they could give me the proper repercussions for my actions. I'd never come back to you." He sighed. "You thinking I was dead could have helped you move on. Coulson agreed with that."
"I'll bet," she muttered.
"I also had a… slightly more selfish reason." He spared a look at her. She nudged her head, a go on gesture. "If I never came back, I'd have realized I couldn't be the person I'd like to be on my own. And I wouldn't want my failure to be your last memory of me."
Her eyes were full of tears begging to be released. She shook her head. "That wasn't your decision to make," she said quietly.
"I'm understanding that now," he said. "And I'm sorry." He winced, realized he apologized for doing something wrong again. He huffed in frustration. Maybe he was incapable of learning how to make the right decisions. Because- "You're right. I apologize too damn much."
Skye stared at him, almost puzzled as he made his way to sit on the bed. She followed suit.
He was so obsessed with "being good". Proving something to someone, mostly himself. Very few things were that black and white in this world, and Skye wondered if he realized this. It was as if he thought he had to either be the good person that gave up everything for anyone, or he was the evil villain with a deathray behind all the schemes.
Had he thought Hydra was on the "good" list of things, before trying to impress her? Before Garrett died, before trying to help S.H.I.E.L.D., for real?
The psyche of Grant Ward was a difficult puzzle to put together, for certain.
Gently, she put her hands up to cup his cheeks, guiding him to look at her.
"You are good," she assured him. "You're a good person, you just weren't sure how to do it before." She dropped her hands in favor of looking down on them. "I know a grown man shouldn't get to push away the blame his actions, just because someone taught them the wrong way… but you're trying to prove that you can do the right thing, not for warden or overseeing power, but for yourself."
She placed a light kiss on his lips.
"Because we both know you're doing it since you know what's right. Not for S.H.I.E.L.D., or even me," she said. "But if you want my help along the way, that's just a bonus to make things easier."
Ward nearly felt embarrassed, but he smiled. When he lifted a hand to press back her hair, he saw how the Hydra skull popped out from behind the strands.
That reminded him.
He shot off the bed suddenly, leaving Skye near reeling. She was expecting a move for her mouth.
Her lips pursed in small resenting scowl.
"I have something for you," he said. "It was the only thing I was going to do for you while I was gone, because I think you deserve it. And-" he said, strained as he tried to kneel down – "I've been a little too laid up for the other things I was planning."
He was trying to retrieve the papers she'd knocked out of his hands earlier, she realized. And he was in real pain doing it.
She hopped off the bed to help him, and they gathered the sheets together. Ward held out his half of the pile.
"Here," he said. "I was going to have Simmons say she had found it for you…"
Skye hesitantly took the files, sitting down as she flipped through them. There were pictures, before and afters of burn victims.
Wait…
The before images were the burns, and in the afters… they looked almost completely healed.
"What is this?" Skye whispered.
"This woman," Ward pointed to a picture, "has a clinic in Toronto. Her specialty is para-medical scar camouflage."
Skye shook her head. "I don't…"
"She uses tattooing to help burn victims get their natural skin pigment back," Ward continued. "I went to Canada and met with her office to tell them about your situation. They said they'd help you, but the process takes a few visits-"
Skye pressed the file back in his hands. A pang of guilt settled in her stomach as hurt crossed his face from the gesture. She made sure to smile. That usually brightened him as well.
"Thank you," she said. "But Coulson said I can't go to any doctors, because it would draw too much attention with all the technicalities. And they couldn't do it at the base – "
"Because S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have enough resources to use any on cosmetic surgery." Ward finished. Skye stared. "Simmons," he answered her unasked question.
"Right," she said. "So no skin grafts or anything."
"But this is a private clinic," he stressed. "No insurance or names need to be involved. They said they understood the confidentiality. Even if they most likely thought it was due to embarrassment for the burns, and not working for a top secret organization."
Tears were slipping through her eyes again by the time she chuckled lightly at his comment.
"This is amazing Ward, really," she said, taking the pictures back to look at them again. Her head turned up to him. "But I'm going to have to pass."
"What?"
"Just for now," she continued. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is… well, kinda crap at the moment. Hydra took out our biggest base. I can't really just move to Toronto for daily treatments while we've got so much to do. And besides," she tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing her neck boldly, "I'm ok with it."
God, she'd come so far.
It was almost like he couldn't help it. He wrapped her up in a hug, feeling her hair brush his cheek as she eagerly pressed into his shoulder. Her arms stretch around him. It felt as though she was holding on for her life.
"You should come back," she said. He put himself at arms length to see her eyes. "To S.H.I.E.L.D., I mean. I know you've got this whole prove-yourself-to- yourself gambit, but… we really need people."
"Coulson wouldn't-"
"I've talked to Coulson, and he's… open to it." She sighed. "I'm not gonna lie, it'll be shaky. But we need all the help we can get, and you proved something, that day. People don't take jumping into a bullet for them lightly."
Even if it takes them a while to realize it, she thought bitterly.
Because no, having Ward back would not be easy for many of them. He'd be criticized, watched, and judged every moment he was there. Not that it was unwarranted. Skye just knew it was unneeded.
And she believed that, given time, they would see what she did.
"Maybe," he told her.
She nodded. She'd accept that. Wouldn't plead with him any more. It was his decision, after all.
"Payne's not there anymore," she said finally to break the silence, a little quietly.
Ward's head jerked. "He was moved?"
Her face was a mask. Though she wasn't sure what she was trying to hide.
"He's dead."
Skye had never said this before out loud. Because she knew it had been her fault. She had been so void of… anything. Any emotion, feeling or drive since Ward's death.
(Fake death.)
But she'd thought it was real. And the feelings - or lack or denial of - had been real.
Then they asked her to help with Payne's interrogation. The only person she'd ever interrogated was Ward, and that was under special circumstances. She'd had surface level training on the topic.
She was special in this situation as well.
"He thinks you're unstable," Bobbi said. She was the one running the interrogation. "He doesn't believe I'll hurt him. Says it's not my style, and he's right."
"I'm not going to," Skye mumbled. She hated Payne, but she'd never felt less bloodlust in her life.
"I don't think you should," Morse clarified. "But he believes you will."
And something clicked in her head. Just play tricks on his mind. Make him think she was desperate, that she'd do anything. When she'd, in the best case, never have to lay a finger on him.
It was the only time she'd been determined since Ward had gone. It wasn't just the autopilot she'd go on missions with when she'd first been hurt. It was something to hold onto, a purpose. She could feel her mind healing of the traumatizing emotions from Ward's absence.
Payne then believed her theatrics. He told them the information. They got what they needed from him.
And then, out of fear of her, he killed himself.
Ward listened to her story without seeming to pass any judgment.
"You shouldn't blame yourself," he told her.
"I don't," she said. And she hoped it was true. "I mean, I know he did it because he was scared of me, but I didn't tell him to commit suicide. I was the cause of it. That doesn't make it my fault."
Ward smiled at the wise words.
"Did it make you feel satisfied?"
"Honestly? It's nice to have him gone. But I think I'd be just as relieved if he'd just been transferred to prison."
Maybe, said the voice in her head. And then, because this is Ward, she said it out loud as well.
"I do feel like he got what he deserved though," she admitted. "Like, justice and all that. Which is nice."
It took her a few moments to realize she'd been unwaveringly staring at his gentle face. Because no matter how much she was angry with him, felt hatred for him lying to her that he was dead, she couldn't help that that above it all…
"Damn, I really missed you."
She ran into his arms, letting her buried emotions burst forth all at once as she barreled into him. He winced as the momentum hit – still recovering from two bullets in his chest and all- but she didn't stop. She sent a barrage of kisses his way.
She kissed his face and his arms and his neck, even his chest, lightly as raindrops in spring. The soft touches took almost all his pain away. Then she stopped.
"Too bad you're such a good person, getting yourself shot and all," she said, gently tracing the wounds in his chest. "Because I'd have liked to put this motel room to good use."
He let out a small chuckle at that. He wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe to hide just a slight letdown of what they could have been doing. What they'd almost done, before in his cell.
But honestly, doing anything with Skye would be thrilling to him.
"Or maybe if we're careful, and I do most of the wor-"
"How long do you have?" he decided to ask.
She looked a little shocked at the question, probably because he'd cut her off. And Skye had been tapping him suggestively while she spoke, he realized. But maybe this was better.
"Coulson's waiting at a diner down the road," she said. "But if you have a car… well, he said I could take the day."
"Alright. Would you want to go to the zoo?"
Now that had her reeling.
"What?" she giggled out with an almost deranged stupor. The request was just so… ordinary.
"I'd like to take you to the zoo," he clarified. "There's one nearby, I think. I noticed a pamphlet in the lobby-"
"No no, I got the zoo thing. Animals you gawk at while you pretend you're traveling to Africa or the Amazon or whatever. I was more stuck on the why, maybe a how…"
Because this was Grant Ward. Trained specialist, undercover super spy man. He may have had a thing for board games, but cutesy animals did not seem his forte. (Even though at times he did remind Skye of the fluffiest of puppies.)
"I'll come back to S.H.I.E.L.D., if you really believe I can be of help," he said. "I just think you should try doing something for yourself. We can do something for ourselves."
Skye was loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., and Grant didn't think there was much that could stop that. But since their fall, Skye didn't seem to do anything that wasn't for their benefit. He wanted to give her something that was just for her. He wanted to give himself something that was for him. Something that didn't exist in a world of bullet wounds, burns, and espionage.
Something normal.
"Ok," she agreed. Ward felt his own face brighten at the smile on her face. "One condition though."
"Of course," he said stiffly, and the worry that suddenly lined his face had Skye stifling a laugh.
"There have to be tigers."
It took a moment, maybe just a half of one, but then he was chucking. Nodding. "Tigers it is then," he said.
"You have a favorite?" she asked.
"Zoo animal? I guess you could say I'm a bear guy."
"Of course you are." Screw puppies. Big, ferocious, fluffy, cute things? That's Grant Ward. "In that case, we need to see lions too."
"Do we?" he asked, sounding puzzled but amused.
"Sorry, I was trying to make a funny. You know… lions, and tigers, and bears-"
He pulled her into an abrupt kiss. Long and forceful and unrelenting, that seemed to be the way with everything the two of them did.
"Oh my," Skye whispered breathlessly when they parted. She felt him chuckle beside her.
Felt because Skye couldn't seem to open her eyes. Not right now. Not when what she thought she'd never feel or the laugh she'd never hear was happening right before her.
She sighed, resting her forehead on Ward's.
"Don't die again, ok?" she whispered a plea.
"I'll try my best," was all he could promise. It was all he had that could hold to the truth in their line of work, and maybe being truthful would lead to less apologies.
She nodded. He put a hand to her face, which she met gently, her cheek brushing against his hand. He felt the burn under his fingers, and slowly stroked at it.
Swept it away, under a rug. Today was not a day for Hydra, or S.H.I.E.L.D., or blameful co-workers and manipulative SOs; it was for them.
It was a day when he heard Skye laugh, truly lighthearted and carefree for the first time since his betrayal. Her hair in a ponytail. (He hadn't seen her so happy in one of those since before the incident.)
The day Skye convinced him to smile wearing kangaroo ears for a picture. (She saw him smile genuinely, too.)
It was a day they kissed, and when they got back to the car, a day they did a little more. (The little part courtesy of gunshot wounds, though Ward admittedly surpassed Skye's expectations.)
A day of crappy zoo food, campy souvenirs, out of control goats at the petting zoo, parrots that didn't know a low volume setting and a ridiculous multi-colored train ride Skye refused to pass up.
And tigers and bears.
One day out of their whole lives that was irrevocably for them.
And maybe it was selfish. Or silly. Ridiculous. But there was one thing they both knew that day had been for certain.
Good.
A/n: And that's that! :D Sorry I gave you a scare, but what's this story without its angst? And look at that sweet ending! (sugary sweet. vomit inducing sweet... look, I have a hard time with romance). But yeah, both ends of the spectrum. Honestly, the reason for the delay was that I could never get this chapter quite right for an ending, but... there it is.
Thank you guys so much for reading, favorites follows and reviews!