II.

Betrayed

…

Coulson gathers them in the conference room - what's left of it, anyways - to tell them that Ward is a traitor.

Agent Hand is dead, he says flatly. Ward killed her. He's been working for Garrett this whole time.

A silence hangs heavily in the air. She waits for the punchline, but it never comes. Ward, a traitor? Grant Ward? She wonders if Coulson's even talking about the same man, because the Grant Ward she knows would never do something like that, would never betray them like that. Hysterical laughter bubbles up in her throat and she clamps her mouth shut, so hard she can taste blood. The very thought is absurd - there's no way, there's no way he would ever, no, no, he wouldn't.

Would he?

No, he wouldn't.

But he did.

A hand brushes her arm and she flinches. Coulson stands beside her, and when she lifts her head to look at him, she sees a quiet fury in his eyes.

Skye, he says, his gaze softening. Are you okay?

She blinks at him dazedly. Is she okay, knowing that a member of their team betrayed them? Is she okay, knowing that her own SO had been working for the enemy this entire time? Is she okay, knowing that the man she cared about was lying to her all along?

Is she okay? No, she's not.

What she says is, I'll be fine.

Coulson squeezes her shoulder gently. I'm here if you need to talk, he murmurs before he leaves.

She gives a wry chuckle as she sinks into a chair. Ward had offered to talk too, and now, she wonders what they would have discussed, what he would have said to her, whether or not it would have been true. Was any of it real? The man that he was when he was with her, did he ever exist at all? She thinks back to everything he's ever said to her, every moment they've ever shared, as if she could analyze her memories like a black box and pinpoint the exact moment everything went wrong.

But there is no black box. There is only her, left behind in the wreckage.

She sighs as her foot absently kicks a piece of glass, then leans forward and picks it up. Tuning it over in her hand, she winces when it scratches her finger. This isn't the first time she's been hurt. This isn't the first time she's felt this particular mix of devastation and disappointment. She felt it before when she bounced around foster homes, when she found out that Miles had sold information, but this one, this one cuts the deepest.

The shattered glass falls from her hand as she leans back into the chair. A wave of exhaustion hits her and she closes her eyes, curling her feet up on the seat. This is the worst part. This is the worst part of this whole tangled mess - the moment when she lets go of the pain and realizes that deep down, she just misses him.

She misses the way he laughs, how he's always protecting her, the safety and care she feels when she's with him.

She just. misses. him.

Her eyes snap open as she sits up in the chair. There it is, the thing that's been gnawing at her, the thing she's been too afraid, too ashamed to admit. Despite everything he's done, all the lies he's told, she still misses him.

Coulson called him a traitor, and the rest of the team will too. But it doesn't matter what they say.

She still misses him.

She still believes in him.

…

The footsteps wake her up. So soft she thinks she's imagined it, or maybe dreamed it, but then they get closer and closer and then, they stop just outside her door.

It's him. It has to be. She would recognize that sound anywhere, all heavy and light at the same time.

He passes through the door with a quiet shuffle and there's a faint click that seems to echo in the darkness. She knows that sound. It's his gun, and she doesn't need to open her eyes to know that he's pointing it at her.

This isn't the reunion she hoped for. This isn't how she wanted to see him again, but she can't say she's surprised either. Ever since he left, she's known it could come down to this, a gun between them, and silence. She's just glad she's not the one who has to pull the trigger.

The seconds pass by as she lies in her bed, waiting for the moment it all ends.

But it never comes.

She hears him breathe, a deep, slow inhale, and it breaks her heart a little, his hesitation. Even after all this time, he still can't bring himself to hurt her. Even after all this time, he still can't erase his instinct to protect her.

But she doesn't need protecting. Not anymore, not from him. He is the one who needs saving this time.

She whispers to him in the dark and hopes her voice finds him. When he finally meets her eyes, she can see how much he's missed her too. She memorizes that look on his face, even as it changes from longing to surprise when she pulls out her own gun and aims it calmly at him. But he must know that she could never shoot him, no more than he could ever shoot her. She doesn't want him to bear it alone, that's all, the guilt of even thinking that he could.

His voice is gruff when he speaks and she wills herself not to melt. Why didn't you say anything?, he asks, as if that is the question that haunts him.

I wanted to see, she explains, if you were the man I thought you were.

And? He asks, Am I? There's a sharp edge to his voice, full of doubt and self-loathing. He's too hard on himself, just like he's always been. What she wouldn't give to make him see himself the way she sees him.

She throws her gun away when she answers. Yes, she whispers. Yes, you are, and those are the words that undo him. He unravels before her very eyes and when she steps closer, placing a hand on his chest, she can feel his heart beating just for her.

There are so many things she still wants to tell him, so many promises she wants to make. But there is no future she can offer him, no happy ending he can give her, not here, in secret, not here, in the dark. She'll have to settle for this one moment, where she belongs to him and he belongs to her, where all they have is each other.

When she feels his arms around her, she knows it will be the last time.

When she kisses him in the dark, she doesn't want it to be.