Previously: As Skye interrogated Wolfe, he dropped another bomb on her. In order to save his race, the Inhumans, he asked Skye to die in a ritual.

Chapter Seventeen

Grant Ward did not appreciate this.

He did not appreciate getting sedated by some experimental drug while he was just trying to help his former rookie, only to be left in a room alone to recover as the rest of the team trailed after said rookie.

Simmons tried to run out of the room directly after Skye, but Ward had stopped her and exclaimed he didn't want to be left in this condition. She quickly assured him the effects were extremely temporary and only lasted about an hour. Then she prattled on about how it might be different with human subjects, which only twisted a small knot of rage in Ward's stomach further.

But they'd left him there, on the ground. Eventually he got some feeling back. It started in his fingers until it spread out to his legs, so he made a move towards the hall.

Thankfully no one had been around to see him at first, as he looked more than a little ridiculous, and by the time he got to where the team seemed to be residing, he had almost complete feeling back.

"What's going on?" Ward asked as he walked into the comms room, where five SHIELD agents stared at him, only briefly, before turning back to what was keeping their attentions. Behind them was the feed to the Cage playing on the screen. Wolfe's face was visible clearly to the camera, and it didn't take too many context clues to figure out the other person was Skye.

Something serious, I guess, thought Ward when no one answered him. Each of their faces were reading as fairly stressed.

"She's not going to say yes, is she?" asked a very worried Simmons.

"He's talking about saving an entire race from extinction," pointed out Triplett. "That sounds like the exact sort of thing Skye would put herself in the line of fire for."

"Ah, pish. I bet it's not even the truth," answered Fitz. "This is a ridiculous story. It's too full of magic and curses."

"The science adds up though!" protested Simmons. "We've seen beings from other planets do some amazing things, and Wolfe truly does seem to be from another world based on Skye's 084 status and his blood. Also, this whole 'cancelling out her powers' bit would explain why I didn't see any anomalies in Skye's blood, why it looked human." Simmons scoffed, suddenly amused. "Though, it is actually a pretty ridiculous theory as to how genes work, cancelling out each other." She chuckled.

"Can someone tell me what is going on?" asked Ward, feeling the need to know the situation. He knew he didn't deserve it; that he was in the doghouse and should be on the outs as long as he was there, but this was about Skye. He needed to know.

"Um uh, that's Skye's dad," stammered Fitz quickly, "and he's this alien that wants Skye to be part of a sacrifice because she's the only one that can save his species from a curse that's making it so they can't have any offspring."

"Oh, also!" added Simmons. "Skye's mother's blood is what makes up the GH-325 drug! Rather remarkable."

"What?" asked Ward, somewhat winded by both statements, though mainly the sacrifice one.

Fitz turned on Simmons. "That's what you found important. After all that about different species and Skye's heritage, you think the most relevant thing is what makes up the drug?"

"It is! We had no idea of what Skye was when we injected that into her. What are the odds it would be her very own mother?"

"Wait, this guy is asking Skye to die?" asked Ward, still reeling.

"Well, actually-"

Simmons didn't get to finish her sentence, as when May turned around with a glare that somehow touched all of their eyes, so the girl's voice seemed to get caught in her throat.

"Quiet," said May. "We need to listen."

Ward turned his attention to the screen where Skye was asking for more backstory. She had a little heat in her voice, but at the same time, she was sounding increasingly vulnerable.

From what Ward gleamed over the next few minutes, Wolfe had been trying to put her in terrifying and life-threatening situations so she would trust him. He'd hired the scummiest boys he could find to threaten her at the carnival, used Ace to control Deathlok, and seemed to have some sort of deal with the scientist who now called himself Graviton. Something about taking him back to Wolfe's home world with him, and perhaps getting a look at Skye and her blood at some point.

He assured Skye he never intended the second part to happen.

Wolfe did all this to gain her trust, so that when he could finally admit that he was in fact her father, she would listen to him with an open heart and perhaps be willing to do the horrific thing he asked. Because, the most interesting this about the sacrifice: she had to do it willingly.

Ward very much wished he had fallen on his face when Skye discovered his true nature.

But Skye didn't scoff at him and didn't turn her back. Didn't tell him to "go to hell." She wanted the facts, because even when faced with the choice to die if she helped him, she still considered it a possibility so the species could continue.

The Inhuman species that had, in fact, descended from humans themselves. Even stranger, they used to live on the Moon.

Apparently, Raina was an Inhuman as well. The curse had fallen – a phrase Grant never thought he would say in seriousness – before she had the chance to expose herself to this "Mist." But based on her lineage, she would have gotten a power that would put her in lower society anyway, and therefore came with Wolfe and Skye's mother to earth as a young teen, to try and discover another way of using the Terrigen Mist.

"Well, I am going to take this all under consideration," said Skye, standing up to leave the room.

"You mean you will think about what I'm asking?" asked Wolfe curiously.

"About how you're asking me to sacrifice myself? Yeah, I'm gonna look into it," she told him, suddenly a lot more snippy than she had been speaking with him. Bastard deserved this tone more, Ward thought.

Skye put her hands on the table. "Look, I have no idea if you're telling me the truth or if this whole story has just been a ton of BS. So I'm going to do some research to verify what you're saying."

"Please try not to take too long," asked the man earnestly. "We don't have much time."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" asked Skye.

"The ritual needs to be done on the date of your birth."

Skye raised an eyebrow. "My birthday? I just always celebrated in July… if you could call those celebrations. You know my real one?"

"Yes. It's June sixth."

Skye scowled, seeming to calculate. She was apparently not amused with her realization. "That's in two weeks."

"I know."

"So you want me to research everything you've told me, decide if I'm ok with letting myself die, and do this ritual thing in two weeks?"

"Yes," he said, fairly regretful in tone. Maybe Wolfe was truly upset he thought she had to die, but Ward didn't see how that was possible. Though, if Grant was honest, he probably wasn't one to judge.

"Right," Skye told him with annoyance. "Well, we need some of this Terrigen Mist crap and I'm guessing the directions to your planet aren't just take a left at the sun and keep going until you hit the second star to the right, so it'll probably take longer than two weeks to get here anyhow."

"The Terrigen Mist is here, Skye. It's on earth."

"What?" she asked. "Where? Does SHIELD know about it?"

"No, SHIELD doesn't know about it." He sighed, as though having to explain this was beginning to grate his nerves. "Terrigen Mist is created from Terrigen Crystals, which could be found on Earth's moon. A long time ago when they still resided here, Inhumans brought some to earth. There are a few that can be found in a place humans call the Blue Grotto, in Italy."

"Huh…" Skye chewed that over. "Well, thanks for the information. I'll get back to you on the whole killing myself thing, dad."

And Skye walked out of the room purposefully, before Wolfe could get in any sort of last word that he seemed to try and be stuttering out.

The team stared at the screen of Wolfe just sitting there, still handcuffed to the table, until they heard Skye's footsteps approaching the comms room.

She walked in with arms crossed, stopping in front of the group who stared expectantly at her.

"Well," said Skye, "that sucked."

"You're honestly considering this?" exclaimed Coulson.

Skye shrugged. "Well, yeah. I mean if he's telling the truth, how couldn't I? I'm one person and that's an entire species! And we're not talking saving the polar bears here; they're an intellectual, descended from humans, species!"

"Skye that date is in two weeks. Two weeks! You can't… do that," Simmons lamely finished. She had intended to add a "to us" at the end of the sentence, but how horrendously selfish would that have been? Skye deserved to be concerned about her life for herself.

"I'm not saying we just trust the guy and I go sacrifice myself at some alter he's picked out. He could just be a sick person, because this definitely seems farfetched. We need to look into it."

"I think you're missing the point," said Trip. "We're not really discussing whether it's the truth or not. We're more thinking about what you're going to do if it is the truth."

Skye held herself up taller, trying to look into his eyes. She wasn't able to hold the gaze.

"Well, then… you're getting your answer."

"Remember when I said nothing fazes you?" Coulson exclaimed. "It would be really nice if you could prove me wrong right now."

"Honestly Skye, you're scaring me," Jemma quietly admitted.

"You're saying none of you would consider this?" Skye asked with disbelief.

Ward stepped up from his stance against the back of the wall. He always seemed to try and be somewhat away from the group, which Simmons was both thankful for and thought he was acting correctly in doing so.

He walked up to her. "They're saying you're acting incredibly casual about a subject that should, honestly, probably have you in tears," Ward told her, a tad harshly. He most likely wasn't too happy about her decision making either.

Skye's eyes narrowed. "Well, sorry to disappoint, but I guess I'm not as weak as you figured, Ward."

"It's not weakness Skye," Coulson cut in. "It's just a human trait."

Coulson didn't seem to realize what he said until he already had, and Skye smiled smugly, but somehow with a trace a triumph.

"And there you have it folks, straight from the horse's mouth. That must be why I'm acting so apparently strange. Because if you all remember what I just spent like an hour talking to my alien father about, I'm not human," Skye spat, but her smug attitude faded quickly. "Look, it's not that I wouldn't be upset, or disappointed, or… terrified. I just don't see the point in dwelling on it." She sighed. "To me, if this is real, there's no question. And I'm going to do it."

Ward made a noise somewhat akin to an angry growl. "They're not even dying! They're just not reproducing. Seems like a pretty stupid reason to sacrifice yourself when there wouldn't even be a body count."

It was a fairly weak argument, but Simmons didn't think Ward actually realized it.

"Um… it's saving an entire species," Skye punctuated each word for him. "And you've killed way more people yourself than it takes to do the ritual to start their lives up again."

Coulson stepped up between the two, as their faces had gotten dangerously close. "Skye, I don't think it's hitting you how little time you'd actually have."

She was about to rebuttal, but Fitz' voice rang through first.

"Her birthday is every year," he said. "So even if she really decided to do it, it wouldn't have to be in two weeks. She could do it next year, or the year after! As long as their species is… stable."

Skye nodded firmly. "Yeah, see! Thank you Fitz."

"That's not good news," Ward persisted, to which Skye raised her eyebrows. "Well, it's better news. But when people are told they have one or two years left to live, they're usually still pretty damn upset."

"I'm an agent of SHIELD. I could die at any time."

"You're not even a field agent!" Ward shouted.

"I was trying to be," she fumed, "before my SO decided to pack up and become a traitor!"

"Ok stop. We're just chasing our tails now," said Coulson, again coming between the two. "Let's focus on what we can do. May, see if we can get enough fuel to get to Italy."

"Thank you," Skye grumbled.

"I'll see if we can talk to any of our Asgardian friends," continued Coulson. "Maybe even Fury knows something. When Sif was here she mentioned a large amount of species to me, and I doubt something like this would be going on that they wouldn't know about."

The team nodded in agreement.

"And Skye?"

"Yes?" she asked, before noting his serious tone and cautiously adding, "Sir..."

"Try not to condemn yourself just yet."

She considered his words with a puzzled but thoughtful look, before finally nodding.

"Ok."

A/n: Sorry, lame ending. Bad chapter actually lol But there may some sort of thing resembling skyeward next chapter!