a/n: spoiler alert to UK watchers, I would recommend watching 1x15 before you read this - but I'm not going to stop you. I just want to say a huge shout out to my beta bellapaige88 for all her hard work with the previous chapters, also a huge shout out to all my regular readers (you know who you are!? - I hope) and reviewers. I do apologise for the lateness and my negligence with this - I've been muse-less suddenly since they keep making us wait like two/three weeks for the episodes D: Without further ado, angst and somewhat Skyeward fluff (slight)

Disclaimer: Playing in Marvels/ABC's sandbox. I own nothing but my imaginative O/S ideas.

Word Count: 485.

Hatred.

He hated it.

Hated seeing her so weak, so vulnerable when it was merely a few days before that she was raging with personality. Yet, now seeing her in the hospital pod - a machine pumping her blood for her, keeping her body alive because her body was struggling with the damage that had been caused by the shots. Watching her chest rise and fall along with the familiar beeping of the hospital technology that was keeping her there, with him. After the frightening truth of what Couslon had seen within Guest House - Ward could tell, there was something still haunting him and it had been two days since they had injected the GH-325 into Skye.

He hated it.

The feeling he received when watching her respond to the strange serum, the tightness in his chest and the way he felt his heart being crushed but there was still hope. A small amount of light, shining through the desolate darkness of her heart rate rising and becoming stable; she was going to make it. His rookie; he blamed himself - he held Coulson responsible at the same time. He knew she would be different after this; after-all she had been injected with a chemical with unknown biology and origins. Ward could not stand and watch his Skye wither away, physically and emotionally - he had expected the worst yet it seemed he's inner turmoil matched hers exactly.

A sharp, burning like sensation flared in his lower abdomen- a crippling pain that made his hand shoot out to the hospital cell wall and bent at the waist; it was a excruciating pain, one that would have rendered him both speechless and incapable of moving had he not had the survival training. His S.O would have slapped his shoulder, enough to sting, before telling him to man up. A slight grimace graced his lips - this wasn't how he planned the week to be - after all she had been out cold for longer than he wanted to acknowledge, even with the alien drug he was slowly giving up. And how little right he was about the said drug that saved her life but losing his faith, his trust in something that was deemed so dangerous and that he despised made his stomach clench again.

The pain now somewhat bearable as he glanced up to see brown eyes staring at him; shock ignited the adrenaline in his body - pumping it with his erratic pulse he all but dashed inside. He hated it. How easily effected he was by her - just her presence made a huge difference in his outlook on the day. Simmon's rushed in immediately afterwards, asking Ward to leave and before he did a small smile graced his rookie's lips.

Even though he hated what was inside her, it had saved her - he couldn't give up yet on her.