The bed was shaking.
Scratch that, the room was shaking.
Lincoln's eyes flew open, looking for immediate danger. "Daisy.." He breathed. He flipped to his side to look at her. Her forehead was dripped in sweat, bangs stuck to her face. Her breathing was shallow, and her hands were balled into fists.
"Daisy!" Lincoln shook her shoulders, but she didn't wake up. He checked her pulses, looking for signs of medical distress. He tried for another few minutes to wake her up, but nothing worked. Suddenly, her body fell limp, her hands relaxed. But the room was still shaking. Even in her sleep, she still shook his world.
Simmons shook her head. "I don't know what to say. Medically she's fine. Her brain waves are the same as previous sleep readings we have. I don't see a reason why she's not waking up." Her hair bounced on her shoulders. Beside her, fitz rested his forearm on the glass of the containment pod. "Maybe it's an inhuman thing."
Behind them Lincoln paced. "I've never seen anything like this. In all the time
I worked with inhumans, I've never..."
Simmons turned to him, hands raised. "We will figure this out. Don't worry."
In the pod, daisy's face scrunched, and the walls quelled her quakes, but she was far away.
~~~~
Daisy Johnson stood on a beach. Her hair was longer. But she was still herself. She could feel the vibrations in the air. What's funny is that all her life she wanted a home.
But now, she could always find home. She could feel it in the air. Sometimes she could even sense the vibrations of specific people.
Just this minute, she could feel someone approaching, but she could tell who it was. The air tingled around her and it felt so familiar. Like all of this had happened before.
"Skye."
Shivers flew up her spine. Ward. She turned to meet him, feeling her dress flow with the wind. She didn't like dresses usually, but for whatever reason this one felt like it was made for her. He was beautiful, looking like the old ward. Her S.O that she trusted with her whole life. Before everything went to hell. She felt like she should be afraid but she wasn't.
A sly smile tugged at his pink lips. "You look beautiful."
"What is this place?" She asked him, looking at the sky above her, sun warming her face.
"Tahiti" he said.
She laughed, soft and pure. "It's a magical place." She looked back at him, meeting his eye. Pausing for a moment, she had a flash of the past year. Anger swelled in her stomach. "Really, grant. What's going on"
"You know I'm dead." He said, lowering his chin.
She nodded, anger settling into bitterness.
"This..." He gestured with his arms at the scene around them. The ocean, the trees, it was paradise. "This is my redemption."
She snorted at him. "This?"
He smirked. "I knew you'd be skeptical."
Daisy shook her head. "I'm just trying to figure out why I'm here. We don't exactly have much in common anymore."
He looked taken aback. "Don't you see? Everything I've ever done, it all lead me to you."
"Oh okay. So Hydra... That was for me? I'm flattered." She deadpanned.
"Skye..." He started.
"It's daisy."
He raised his eyebrows. "Fine. Daisy. Look, I never said I haven't made my mistakes. If I could turn back time I would. Trust me when I tell you that I have paid the highest price for the things I've done."
Daisy rolled her eyes, but she could never just walk away from him. She put a finger on the bridge of her nose in frustration. "How is this even possible."
Grant chuckled. "You're an alien, and you're asking me how this is possible? We live in one fucked up world, Skye."
She didn't correct him. Instead she ran a hand through her hair, thinking back to when things were simple. When it was just grant and her and the team and everyone was happy. Standing on this beach, it felt easy to go back to those feelings. "If you could go back..." She started, eyes closed in reminiscing.
"I would have never followed through with hydra. I would have taken the out, gone with you. We could still be a team. I could have been there with you when you went through the mist. I could have helped you with your father." He looked at his open hands. "I was so stupid, Skye."
She opened her eyes and looked at him, really looked. She watched the way his jaw clenched, the twitch in his hands, his eyes grow glassy with tears. He was still ward. She was still Skye. "We could have been together." She states. In her mind it's a fact. They went together so easy, letting him into her life felt natural.
He looks at her with puppy dog eyes. "I didn't see a way out. I thought that what I was doing was for the best. And after I got out of the prison you and coulson put me in, I realized that you might never.... So I just...kept on the path I made."
Daisy shook her head just a bit, and took a step closer. "It wasn't the real you." She whispered.
He closes the small gap between them, invading her space. She lets him.
"I don't know what the real me was. But when I was with you, it felt..." He trailed off, lost in her eyes.
"Like home." She finished.
Tentatively, he reached out to stroke her cheek. Daisy leaned into his touch. "I'm so proud of what you've become." He says, adoration blatant on his features.
She takes a deep breathe as tears threaten to fall. "I miss you." She admits.
"I love you." He says, unwavering in his certainty. "God knows, I made so many mistakes. But loving you wasn't one of them."
The tear drops, and ward wipes it away, before leaning in. He holds his mouth just above hers, exchanging air, memorizing the moment. Their lips touch, soft and chaste. When he pulls away, she looks up into his eyes, and it's enough for him. The beauty of their relationship was that they always knew without having to speak.
There was a tangible click in the air around them. "My time is up, Skye." He whispers, and she grabs for his face, but finds nothing, her hands falling through empty air.
The beach fades away, slowly, until the only thing she sees is ward, smiling, at peace.
When she wakes up in the pod, outwardly nothing has changed. Ward is still dead. He still did awful things, unforgivable things. And maybe she'll never know if what she dreamt was real, but it felt like closure.
Lately, daisy talked a lot to fitz about the multi verse theory. Fitz chats on and on about the science-y bits and while he talked, she imagined another life, where ward didn't go with hydra. Maybe Tripp was alive, maybe she could have kept her father. In this other life, the one thing she knew for certain, is that Skye and ward would have gotten their happy ending. She kept that life in a shelf in her mind, and slowly it gathered dust, until it was just a forgotten dream. Because in this life, she was daisy Johnson, and she had a brave new world to explore and Lincoln to love and a family, and a whole new happy ending to write.