there's a time-skip like probs a year from the last chapter. and okay, is anybody even reading this? *raises one eyebrow curiously*

...

day five; secrets by onerepublic.

She wakes him up in the middle of the night.

She knows he needs the sleep. He knows she needs the sleep. Her head's too much right now, filled with things she swears she'll never say, up to the things she doesn't think she could possibly even remember back when it happens, and it's cold wherever they are, and for a moment she doesn't know what's going on, what's to happen, how do they get here. How does she get here.

It's scary.

It's the terror, she blames. The terror of being tied up and beaten half to death and staring him in the eyes with mouthful of oh-he-can't-know-this-not-yet's because as much as SHIELD's been stripped away from her (damn, damn HYDRA), right from her fingertips, the secrets remain. It's an oath she takes, a vow she swears she holds until her last, dying breath. And she hates it. Hates that there so much everybody deserve to know, but don't. Hates that he's one of the everybody she's talking about. Hates that it's her and it's him and— wait a minute. How is that sentence even possible?

Her? Him? And?

(She lets this get too far. Whatever this is.)

It's been months, she thinks. Years, when she rounds it off. She's kept mountains of secrets from each one of them. It shouldn't bother her. It shouldn't. She's trained to for these stuff: keep a straight face, lie without batting an eyelash. Too much that's happened for her not to be good at it. It's easy.

Until she stares death directly in the face and all that she could think about is how they're (he's) going to hate her for all the things she's supposed to say sooner.

(It's not supposed to matter, how he's going to hate her, or love her, or whatever. It's not. That's now how it works.)

But.

She says she'll tell him everything; everything he wants to hear. Just don't, she says. Don't hate her. Try not to. Because she knows deep down she could deal with one more person loathing her guts, but it's him. And she doesn't think she'll ever want to experience that. Not even a second.

(Like she said: she let this gets too far. He's messing with her principles, and it's not good.)

"Maria," he starts, and she could already feel her stomach clenches, because here it goes. Here it-

He hugs her.

Strong and warm and calloused fingers catching her before she stumbles. (The trembling lessens, she notes, when she sighs into the crook of the red scarf on his neck and his coat that's wrapped over his shoulder, closing her eyes pathetically at the contact.) He pulls away only to touch her jaw, looks straight into her eyes: "I won't—" he starts, looking sad even though he shouldn't be. He shouldn't be. "I'll never hate you." He tells, low and quiet, barely a murmur. "I mean," he shakes his head, "Not like that. I won't hate you like that. Ever."

Then he looks a little mad, like he's disappointed; eyebrows crooked together to support the frown. "You should know better."

(Sometimes it scares her how much she notices this stuff he's expressing through his face.)

"So you don't have to tell me anything if you're not supposed to," he brushes a gloved finger down the slope of her bottom lip, and she wonders if he's doing this purposely to see her breath catches in her throat. "I know how... important these things are to you. I may not fully support it, whatever you're hiding, but." He shakes his head again, like that's supposed to explain what he couldn't finish.

She swallows, clenches her jaw.

"I won't hate you." He tells again, "And," he adds, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

She nods, sniffles under the cold. "Okay," she whispers back.

"Okay," he tells her, and smiles.

Maybe today's not the day, not the moment. It's not right anyway. It'll be too rushed, too hasty, and she's too messed up under the bandages and fresh stitches. But one day she'll tell him everything.

And maybe one day, she thinks quite possibly, she actually will.