Hi, I updated again and didn't disappear for another month! Yay :)(Although sorry I didn't update yesterday, stuff got in the way)

Guest: Thank you. Don't worry about that, the reason why Buddy is still alive will be revealed later :) Thanks for the review!

Questions

"You are surrounded," a voice shouted through the trees. "Put your weapons on the ground and your hands behind your heads or we shoot,"

Buddy started growling, but Ward put a hand on the dog's head to calm him and pushed Buddy gently behind him, so in effect the three were forming some kind of protective triangle around the dog.

"We won't be very useful to you if you kill us," Fitz reasoned, squinting into the forest and trying to figure out where the disembodied voice had come from and where the Hydra agents that had supposedly surrounded them were.

"They're not set to kill, they're set to stun," the voice replied. "However it leaves you in a lot of pain for a few weeks and can result in hallucinations and severe fever, you will still be captured and interrogated, whether suffering the effects or not. You should cooperate, I worked for Hydra in the division of modern torture methods for a while, and it seems to me that it's human nature to avoid unnecessary pain,"

None of them moved, figuring that if they were going to be tortured anyway, starting early wouldn't make much of a difference.

"If we hit the dog it will die, this stuff's lethal to animals,"

Ward practically threw his gun to the ground. He knew that they might hurt or kill Buddy even if he did comply, they had probably already seen how much he cared about Buddy earlier and could have figured that it would be a brilliant way to torture him; however the odds were more in Buddy's favour if he did what Hydra told him to. Skye and Fitz took a few seconds to decide before following suit.

"Good, now you're all going to…" the voice cut off as the sound of gunfire rent the air. It lasted a second before all was deathly quiet again.

That is until Simmons came running through the trees.

"Fitz," she exclaimed, embracing the scientist. "I was so worried about you, don't you dare do that again. Luckily your infrared targeting system worked, you didn't have to be worried about the calibration. Although I think it could do with a few tweaks, the ICER bullets hit all of them so…" she continued with her technobabble while Coulson and May strode into the clearing.

May silently handcuffed Ward, giving him a warning look, she began to lead him back to the bus when she realised that the dog was following her.

"What do I do with the dog?" she demanded, shooting an exasperated look to Coulson.

"It stays with Ward," Fitz interrupted Coulson who had been about to speak.

"Fitz, he's a prisoner, he can't keep a dog," Coulson reasoned calmly.

"Yes he can," Skye protested. "He's surprisingly well behaved, providing you don't try to threaten Ward. So yeah, May if you're thinking of violently interrogating him, it's not on,"

"Skye, Ward can't be trusted, and frankly, given what you two did last night, I'm surprised both of you aren't dead,"

"Go to Fitz," Ward told Buddy after assessing the situation. Buddy looked at Ward with a sad expression.

"Come on Buddy, I'll take care of you," Fitz told the dog, who padded over to the scientist. "Ward will get Buddy back though, right?" Fitz asked, turning his attention away from the canine and back to the Director.

"We'll discuss that on the plane," Coulson ordered. "But right now we've got to get moving before these guys wake up,"

They walked back to the plane in silence, broken only by Fitzsimmons's infrequent comments about upgrades for the infrared targeters.

"Skye, my office, Fitz, I'll talk to you later but right now I need you to work on rebuilding the DWARFs, May, take Ward to the interrogation room, Buddy can go with him as there isn't really anyone capable of looking after him at the…no Fitz, Buddy is not allowed into the labs," he touched his ear and spoke into his com. "Trip start the plane,"

May dragged Ward to the interrogation room, an icy expression on her face, and shoved him inside, letting Buddy walk past her, before closing the door with a little more force than necessary and locking it.

Ward slumped down on the floor and let Buddy rest his head on his lap, and put his arms round the dog. "You'll be okay Buddy," he told the dog quietly.

A.O.S

"Skye, did you have any idea of what you were doing?" Coulson demanded.

"I was following my instincts," she shot back. "I thought that's why I was on the team?"

"If you wanted to try something like that you could have at least told one of us, we were worried sick, we had absolutely no idea of what had happened to you two,"

"We left a note," Skye shrugged.

"This is a note?" Coulson demanded rhetorically.

She shrugged.

"What's the deal with Ward anyway," he questioned. "He escaped, I thought he'd voluntarily gone back to Hydra,"

Skye shook her head. "Even if he did, he obviously wasn't welcome, they were violently grilling him on GH-325," she bit her lip. "And AC, I think Fitz's theories might have some truth in them,"

"What changed your mind," Coulson said, after the initial anger at the betrayal he was doing his best to keep an open mind, seeing as he was the Director of SHIELD now. He still didn't like the specialist though.

"Well, he's completely set on the idea that he owes Garrett everything, Garrett apparently saved him from hell, which may or may not have been his family, he feels like Garrett's the only one that truly understands him and oh yeah, that dog; it's Ward's, Garrett made Ward shoot it, Ward actually wanted to but loved the dog so he couldn't, so Garrett shot the dog in a way that was meant to make it die slowly and painfully as a consequence, I mean, who follows a guy like that without some seriously good reasons?"

Coulson frowned. "I'd like to ask Ward a few questions, to see if I can get to the bottom of those reasons,"

A.O.S

The door to the interrogation room swung open and Coulson strode inside.

"Sit," he gestured to the seat across the table, Ward complied and Coulson slid into the seat opposite.

"I asked you once, who are you without him?" Coulson began. "You've had some time to think about it, what's your answer?"

Ward pondered for a moment. "I don't know who I am," he replied truthfully. "But I know who I don't want to be, I don't want to be someone who follows orders without question, I know it was never my job to have one, but, I'd like a choice, in whether I have to do something or not, and I don't want to be someone who orders people to hurt others when the same objective could be achieved without that,"

"Skye told me about Buddy,"

"Then you'll know that John asked me to kill him, I want, wanted, to be like him, but that, I'm not sure that I think that was right,"

Coulson nodded.

"Buddy's a nice dog you've got there, and he's clearly important to you, would you like to tell me where you got him?" he asked politely.

Ward hesitated, unsure of what he could say, if he said the wrong thing Coulson could know everything, but if he lied, and his lies didn't add up…well, in undercover work it was always best to stay as close to the truth as possible. "Garret gave him to me," he answered after a pause.

"Why?"

"I have no idea,"

"When?"

"When he became my SO," Ward said calmly.

"You're lying," Coulson inferred. "You would never have had the time or place to secretly keep a pet,"

"Which is why he told me to kill him," he replied, which was partly the truth, why he had had a dog would have also raised some unanswerable questions too.

Coulson shook his head. "You two share a strong bond, even after all this time. Somewhere in your missing five years he gave you a dog and you developed that bond. How was he training you at that time, I know for a fact that Garrett was spending a lot of time on missions with me, when did he have the time to secretly look after a kid?"

"You tell me," Ward shrugged. "And before you start to question me on what I know about Hydra too, I was a sleeper agent, I was told practically nothing, the majority of training came from SHIELD, even though they are really just both sides of the same coin,"

"Okay then, what do you think of this team?" Coulson enquired.

"I-" Grant started to reply, but was cut off by the door opening.

"Sorry Sir," Simmons apologised. "However we were listening in on the conversation and I'm afraid that Ward cannot have had that dog for more than five years. According to scans on Buddy's vitals he's roughly halfway through his adult life,"

Coulson frowned, this would disprove all of his and Skye's theories, but surely there could be no other alternative. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," Ward interjected, he wanted to stick with the story of getting Buddy roughly ten years ago. "Yes I was surprised at first that he's still alive, but he is my dog and he is definitely over five years old, your scans must be incorrect,"

"They can't be, though if I could just take a bit of blood, analyse it, and see if the cells…"

"No, you are not going to experiment on him," Ward yelled angrily. "Sorry," he apologised, calmer now. "But you are not touching him, experimenting on him, dissecting him or whatever else you want to do,"

Simmons glared at him. "I just want blood for now, it is rather fascinating don't you think?"

"Ward, there are two explanations," Coulson hypothesised. "One, your dog is incredibly lucky, something I find hard to believe given the state he's in and the amount of time that he must have spent alone in that forest; or two he's not an ordinary dog,"

"Or we could just count our blessings and leave Buddy alone,"

"But Ward, think of all the sci…"

"No, he doesn't need to be treated any worse than he already has been,"

"Ward," Simmons argued. "He's remarkably well behaved given the amount of time he's spent alone, there's something not right about…"

"Here's a theory," Skye stepped through the threshold. "What if Buddy's Asgardian?"

"What?" Ward asked after an extremely long period of silence.

"Well, it would make sense," Skye pointed out. "Asgardians must want their dogs to live for a long time, I'm not saying he's completely alien, he might just be a descendant or something, but, he's definitely lived for at least sixteen years, yet is still bouncing around like a two year old, he probably has an enhanced immune system, and he behaves incredibly well for a dog that's been on its own for that long,"

"He heals quickly," Ward added, comprehension dawning on his face. "But can people please give up the idea that I met John and he gave me Buddy before the Academy because that did not happen, I was at military school,"

"Ward, it fits the facts," Triplett added and Ward groaned internally, was everyone going to make a visit to his cell now?

"Trip, go, I need to talk to you later, Simmons, you do not have permission to take Buddy's blood, however I would like you and Skye to research dogs with out of the ordinary life spans, I want as much information as possible, the more it ties in with this other realm theory, the better,"

"You're not going to take Buddy's blood sir?" Ward asked in confusion after the other three had left.

"No, not without your consent," Coulson told him. "If you agree to it, only then will I allow Simmons to do any cellular research,"

Ward nodded but wasn't convinced, not that he let Coulson see that, instead he chose to adopt a neutral expression, looking completely at ease.

"So, what do you think of the team?" Coulson repeated.

"I like all of you," Ward said slowly. "I'm pretty sure none of you return that gesture after what I've done, but I do have a great respect for your team,"

"What do you think about helping us take down Hydra?" Coulson asked; Ward remained expressionless and silent. "There will of course be measures put in place to guarantee everyone's safety, you will sleep here and if you even think about betraying us and I will put a bullet through your head, it's not an ideal situation, but then again none of this is, we can't really be picky about our allies,"

"Okay," Ward decided. "If you really mean that,"

"I have hunches about people," Coulson replied, smiling sadly. "They usually turn out to be correct, Skye proved to be an asset after all. Plus I think this team is the best thing that has ever happened to you, except for apparently John Garrett, and I think you'd be a fool to throw that away, you're right, they don't like you, and quite frankly I don't like you, but I think it's the best option you've got. And Ward, I welcome people who question my orders, this team does it all the time; SHIELD isn't the same anymore, people serve under me because they want to, not because they have to or think they have to, if there's anything you're not comfortable with, tell me," and with that Coulson made his exit.

"Thank you sir," Ward said as Coulson closed the door behind him.

Coulson smiled as he locked the door and went to find the rest of his team.

After a few minutes, Ward slid off the chair and resumed sitting on the floor with Buddy, hoping, but not believing, that Coulson actually meant what he'd said.

Please review, there was an amazing amount of reviews last time and it really made me happy!