Disintegrating

There’s a stillness in the air.

It is cold, it is looming, and refuses to be forgotten it's there. It almost takes her breath away.

The dried blood is still staining her upper lip when she finally comes face to face with the last people through the portal. It doesn’t quite bring her the kind of joy or relief she expected. The undeniable peace she wanted.

The only face she never wanted to see again is the only face she wants to see now.

She feels utterly sick while going through the motions. Spending all this time wrapping her arms around the two men in her life that did the world a favor: ridding the streets of a man who thrived on destroying everything he touched.

There’s one tiny problem in this whole catastrophe. He never destroyed her.

His words and his hands were always gentle. Even in the darkest moments, he hadn’t taken the very core of who she was and smashed it into pieces. No, he gave her the strength to weather the storm.

Grant Ward gave her the experience to be able to stand on her own two feet and face whatever was thrown at her. He gave her a piece of his demons so she could be more than that scared little girl living out of a van being an unfit piece.

And Skye would never admit this out loud.

The understanding didn’t erase the anger and the hurt he rained down upon them. It would never be able to fix what had happened but it made it easier to live with. Skye was used to deflecting, throwing out quick-witted sassy remarks to bring the attention off the real issues. Only so much glue can hold fragile pieces together before it's time to give in. So she chose for the first time in her life to really cope with the decisions laid in front of her.

Keeping her mouth shut about Ward wasn’t for her. It was for them.

Each and every single one she’s known as family since the day she agreed to it.

That thought alone doesn’t stop her this time.

The words carefully slip through her lips. “Is he dead?”

The whole room goes eerily quiet. A team who have been haunted by the very man in question, yet a team with half crooked smiles adorning their faces certainly celebrating what this whole mission was about in the first place.

They stop to look at her as if she was an illusion, an image of the woman they’ve come to know.

She simply ignores the disdain across their features facing the two men who had escaped the planet from hell. “I asked you both a question. Is he dead?”

There’s a possibility he was simply left on the planet but deep down in the pit of her stomach she knows it isn’t true.

The facts stand alone.

The man she believed in so highly back in the early days of the bus, the man who had offered her a real chance in the world where nobody really got those any more, the man who let her become who she was always meant to be, the man who had given her a family — has been on a one way path down a slippery slope. Phil Coulson was a shadow of his former self. Phil Coulson, believer of everyone and second chances, no longer showed compassion.

Phil Coulson went into the portal for one job, and one job only, to kill Grant Ward. Saving Fitz was just a bonus.

Fitz visibly swallows hard, letting his eyes fall to the ground. The words can barely form in his mouth before Coulson jumps in, “Yes, he’s dead.”

The fierce stinging in the back of her eyes threaten to show themselves but she forces them away. She has to. Skye can feel the internal battle between the angel and devil at war inside her chest reawaken. It was for the greater good so why did it feel like it was truly just the beginning of the end? Not the fall, not her transformation, but his death.

Lincoln reaches out to place his hand on her shoulder but she shrugs it away. Skye refuses to be touched at this moment. They aren’t his hands, which are the only hands she wants to remember being on her. It’s such a fucked up thing to want.

“How?” she manages to choke out, her voice is small and she’s embarrassed she can’t even hide the news effects on her completely. It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth to see the sharp beginnings of the curl of their lips when it's confirmed he’s gone.

“I don’t think it's time to discuss this. We are all back safely and right now, that’s what matters.” Coulson answers. He doesn’t have an ounce of remorse in his voice, his eyes, or his stature.

Skye feels the vomit sitting in the back of her throat as she stares so intensely at him. Her eyes flicker over the rest of the team who have seemed to change their tune.

She has made them feel uncomfortable with her line of questioning.

She wished she cared.

So she turns to the only person who has never lied to her for any reason. “Fitz. Please tell me how it happened?”

She’s almost begging at this point. The pleading in her voice bleeding out through just a few words for the honest truth.

Fitz feels ashamed as he shares the ugly truth from the planet. The last words spoken to Ward were how he was expendable. The bitterness settling over the realization like frost over the grass on a foggy, winter morning. He too, was also expendable by his own leader. The father figure he had put so much faith in, willing to let both he and Jemma die by the hands of Hydra.

Fitz wants to cry, he wants to scream, he wants to go back to help save Ward because he’s no better than his once best friend and brother.

The confession comes out like a poem written midst a battle of love and loss.

“We had located Will pretty easily. Throughout a plan that had been developed, Will and I lost Ward, including the Hydra goons. We were almost at the portal when things became clear. Will was..” his eyes are somber looking at Jemma, whose eyes have glazed over, “Will was dead the moment he helped Jemma leave. "It” had taken over his body."

May’s curiosity piqued. "The "It” that Hydra had been sent to retrieve?"

Fitz nodded to confirm May’s question. "Except I shot a flare into Will’s rotting body and killed it.”

Skye doesn’t mean to sound irritated, but the patronizing razor sharp edge as each word is verbalized says otherwise, “That still doesn’t explain how Ward ended up dead," she gestures wildly at them, "while the two of you are standing here right now.”

“That’s uncalled for, Agent Johnson.” Coulson openly calls her out and her fists clench into balls at her side.

Who gave him the right to sit upon his high horse and talk down to her like that. Yet, a small voice inside her head tells her, he’s been undermining the facts for personal reasons. “I’m uncalled for? You aren't the acting Director, that would be Mack — so why don’t you enlighten us how you tie into this.”

The worry lines settle onto his face in their natural unforgiving place, a robot hand can’t wipe away the stress that has taken it's toll on his older body. A deep sigh escapes his lips. “We fought until I got the upper hand. At that point, I decided I needed him to find Fitz.”

Ward was always an asset whether he was working for Shield or Hydra. The fact remained the same. It must have really burned Coulson’s ass that he still needed him for one last mission.

“He was talking crazy. Things that made absolutely no sense, so unlike Ward. I ignored it.. I shot him twice instead.”

Skye pulls in a careful breath through her nose, suddenly having a hard time focusing on the truth she so desperately wanted minutes prior.

Coulson shook his head in utter disbelief. “He stood there and took them without a giving away the pain he must have been in. So I pushed him to keep going until we came upon Fitz and Will. Ward took the chance he saw and used it to his advantage. I don’t know why I thought two bullets and having his hands tied would make a difference. Yet, it did when it counted. He was weak. His body was shutting down.”

Hunter chimes in at the most unfortunate time, “Serves the bloody bastard right.”

May cut him the nastiest look she could muster. She despised everything Ward was but she even knew Coulson had crossed a line that under no circumstances should have been crossed.

It’s the first time Coulson lets his demeanor falter. “The bullets didn’t kill him. I..I crushed his diaphragm until he was no longer breathing.”

The hard gasps are heard around the room. Fitz’s horrified face colored by salt stains down his cheeks and Skye loses any facade she was trying to keep. The tears fall down her face like a wild rainstorm. All the air has been sucked out of her lungs leaving her light headed. Vibrations leave her body in waves that she can’t control. “Oh my god.”

The pain searing through her chest is ripping every fiber she has apart.

Then it's all a blur.

Mack is demanding everyone to stand back, pushing Lincoln and Joey behind him. May is yelling for Jemma to go get a sedative and return quickly. Bobbi and Hunter stand by, unable to grasp the information just handed to them on a wanted silver platter. Coulson trying comforting words that only make her want to throw up, but nothing is willing to come out.

“Shut up!” she finally roars at Coulson. The home she built no longer feels like her safe spot. “You are no better than him, you aren’t even equal. You’re worse.” She declares in between the sharp intake of breaths she’s struggling to speak through.

Jemma returns with the syringe in hand as she furiously makes a path straight to her.

Skye lets the syringe sink into her neck.

She can control the pain, the pinch it leaves as it lights up her nerves.

What she can’t control?

He’s dead and not coming back.

Ever.

**

It took a six hour nap from the sedative before she's up and delivering Mack her decision to go on leave for an undisclosed amount of time.

She doesn’t say goodbye.

It only took her an hour to pack up all of her belongings.

The hula girl included.

Taped on the bottom of the hula girl that has been stashed away in a box beneath her bed was an address to a safe house.

One built for her and the rest of the original five members of the team in dire circumstances. Ward knew she would never leave that sentimental piece behind but no one else would bother to look at a stupid piece of plastic. Skye remembers being oddly offended that he couldn’t see how much it meant to her.

The house was not thought of until now. She’s the only one Ward gave the information to.

It was a small town in Massachusetts.

There was irony in how Ward had never felt safe in the house that was somewhere in the state. Yet, he told her they’d love the seasons anytime a year during his time on the bus. Winter could be a hassle but everyone secretly wanted to experience snow at least once in their lifetime.

He was right. He was always fucking right. It grated on her nerves.

Bare trees, riddled pavement, long winding roads that seemed to lead to nowhere, and grey skies that fit her like an enchantment.

Skye is responsible even though she lived out of a van, stole frequently once upon a time, and may even be childish in her remarks — but she can survive as an adult.

She goes to the only market in town first. She buys the essentials, which turns out to be a whole lot of frozen food. She never said she could cook. That was something she had been being taught by him until the fall.

Thinking about him makes her want to cry again, but she’s new here. Scaring the neighbors would be an off-putting experience to say the least, so she pushes them away as quickly as she can. Not fast enough because she swipes a stray tear off her cheek.

The older lady she meets is so kind that it knocks her sideways. She'd forgotten that people like this existed in the world. People who aren’t hardened and cold. 

Instead of people who merely live in muscle memory, like her.

Skye isn’t a seasoned agent like most of the team but pretending to be someone she isn’t - she knows that all too well.

So when the question comes up about why she’s chosen this town to settle in for a while, she sells a lie: “A fresh start. My husband recently passed away in an accident."

The older woman who identifies as Marabel, glides around the counter so fast that her reaction time is delayed.

Marabel’s embrace is warm and welcoming. “I’m so sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t know." She swallows the sob caught in her throat and finds her voice again. "You couldn’t have possibly known.”

The rest of the checkout goes smoothly. She promises Marabel to check in soon.

The front door creaks when she opens it.

It smells like fresh pine. It smells like the bus.

It smells like home.

**

Grief fits Skye like a glove.

A glove made of his black henleys, her old plaid button ups, and black skinny jeans fitted on her body like armor.

A broken glass frame on the floor filled with six smiling faces she can hardly seem to recognize anymore. She sucks in a careful breath through her nose wondering how she allowed this to happen. The truth spelled out neatly in bold letters - and she hadn’t noticed. By the time she did, Skye knew it was too late.

It drives her mad.

Almost as mad as the way she can no longer sleep without the musk of his cologne or the aroma of his favorite brand of shampoo upon his pillow.

It's his safe house, after all.

Old belongings still hanging around just to remind her of the life she so desperately wanted only living inside her dreams.

Skye’s body was sunken into the right side of the bed, the heavy comforter sheltering her from the world, when she suddenly felt a pair of eyes on her.

She didn’t dare open her eyes just yet. Registering the vibrations off of another human being was second nature to her now but there was absolutely nothing. The usual buzzing in her veins was at a stand still.

A spike in her own heartbeat thumping loudly in her chest was the only thing she could hear.

It was now or never.

Just do it. Don’t be the girl that needs saving. Do the saving.

The scream gets stuck in her throat as she opens her eyes to the person she has mourned for the last thirty six days.

Thirty six days since she left SHIELD ignored calls from her own team members, and had cried herself to sleep every single night despite her attempts not to.

Thirty six days and he was back.

Skye realized she had lost it. The sense of her reality finally cracking. No wonder people threw themselves into alcohol or drugs to push away the pain that became embedded into every inch of their lives. No one wanted to allow themselves to lose their mind.

“I was wondering when you would wake up.” Ward announces. His voice still sounds exactly the same as how she last remembered it. A melody of a piece that constantly plays in minor key.

When Skye thinks about ghosts, her mind immediately goes to the typical transparent version of the person they once were. Sort of like the man they had dealt with while on the Bus. A faint glow registering that they were a figment of her imagination. But weird things were a part of this world.

Therefore — weirder things could happen.

Ward doesn’t look like the typical ghost. He looks real - he looks solid.

Fitz once hallucinated Jemma in the most dire, most stressful time in his entire life. Maybe she was doing the same thing because she couldn’t bear to know life could move on without him in it. Convincing herself this was only figment of her imagination was going poorly.

Skye doesn’t have it in her to say anything just yet. She’s afraid if she tries to speak he’ll hear the rasp from all the crying she’s done.

Lifting her hand, she realizes she’s shaking. The slight tremor is unsteady as she slowly moves it over to where his hands are resting upon his stomach. Ward’s eyes follow the sudden movement from her as she attempts to touch him. He can already sense what’s coming. He already knows she will fail.

He lets her try anyway.

Her hand drops through his body faster than she had anticipated. Looking solid and being solid are two totally different things. She mentally curses herself for letting her stupidity win. This time she’s not shy about letting a small whine out through her trembling lips. She blinks rapidly in attempt to regain any kind of composure she really doesn’t have.

Ward’s eyes return to the ceiling. He lets out a long sigh, “I tried. You had this piece of hair matted against your lip and I..” He just wanted to tuck it behind her ear. The crushing reality had hit him over and over that he was stuck in between worlds. There wasn’t a Heaven, there wasn’t a Hell - there wasn’t even a Purgatory.

He was stuck in an unknown variable.

“I wanted to see you again, for the last time.”

“Why?”

The way he smiles reminds her of the day she initially visited him in Vault D. The way his eyes lit up for the first time in so long; it'd let her believe she was stuck in a reoccurring bad dream where… he didn’t choose her.

Ward turns his body on his side to completely mirror her position in the bed. “I want a chance to take you up on that offer you once gave me. To have that talk.”

He’s putting on a brave face for her.

Skye can’t help the rush of fresh tears that form in her eyes. She didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to him and she can’t bear to do it now that he’s right in front of her. Giving her an opportunity to spill all the words he was always meant to hear. She can give him the final peace he seeks.

Even if she can’t find the peace for herself.

Losing another person she loves has given her the false allure that maybe death isn’t so bad. It draws her in, wraps around her senses, and fills her up with the what if’s.

Happiness is not a destination.

It’s a moment, a memory, a sentiment, and it is fleeting.

Small warm smiles she discreetly shared just for him. The accidental bump of her hand into his during a serious training session. A fluid banter only the two of them understood. The way the fire in his eyes would burn into every inch of her skin every time he stared a little too long at her. The way lightning sparks would dance along her nerves each time he made her lips his home.

That happiness lies just over the threshold.

Skye could have it again.

She realizes how selfish this sentiment is and quickly banishes into one of her neatly labeled boxes in her mind. Compartmentalizing to be able to hold herself together just to get through this conversation. It’s the last one. She can give this to herself. She can get closure.

Closure.

If there was word in the English dictionary that Skye could erase, that would be it.

What is closure? Is it a goodbye? Is it the fake bravado of getting the last laugh in? Is it being the bigger person to know where right ends and wrong begins?
Either way, she needed a proper goodbye to a chapter in her life that had finished.

Skye’s story with Ward was over.

Never to begin again.

“You promised to never lie to me again. So every hard question you have to promise to tell me the absolute truth. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“I haven’t broken that promise to you and never will.” Would. Ward can’t break promises or be the disappointment she knows him to be if there isn’t a heartbeat in his body.

Deep down, she knows the answer yet she has to make it known. To give him that final reminder that while she mourns him, she hasn’t forgiven him.

She hasn’t forgotten.

“Why?” One little word that carries such a huge weight in this world. “I want to know why?”

Ward doesn’t ask for an explanation. He’s smart enough to know that she has finally reached the point he so desperately wanted her to that day on the Bus. 

He sits up, leaning his back against the headboard, mindlessly playing with his hands. “I didn’t want to wake up one day and find that my whole life had been wasted following men who never gave a damn about me.” It was about breaking free of the reins that tried to continually hold him down. “I was what everyone else wanted me to be. I thought if I could just be those people they needed, I’d find a semblance of what I was looking for.”

“Then why did you give up?” she whispers.

Ward recoils, abruptly getting up off the bed. He jabs a finger into his own chest, “I never gave up. I just never got a real chance.”

His boots burn a hole in the floor as he makes his way through the open bedroom door into the living room.

Skye has no choice but to follow him into the other room. She stops in her tracks when she finds him staring at her. Exploring every inch of her, taking in all that she is. The way a moth flutters around a flame. The way his eyes bore into her makes her feel subconscious. She immediately reaches for the pieces of hair that are no longer there. He hasn’t seen her since before she chopped it all off. The need to explain why she had done it bubbles inside her chest. Her longer hair just there to remind her that nothing ever lasts.

The team.

Him.

Her parents.

Her humanity.

All gone.

“You look really beautiful.” He says with a sad smile. “It really suits you.”

It swallows her whole. He always could so easily push aside everything just to make her feel better. It infuriated her because she wanted it. She wanted him to be the shoulder she always needed. She wanted him to hold her hand, look her in the eyes, and tell her that the world could be cruel but she could overcome it. That she was the strongest person he knew. The comfort she could always find — right by his side.

At the same time, she never wanted any of it.

“Thank you.” The smile she tries to give him falters.

But this was personal. This wasn’t to exchange pleasant commentary.

He had to say goodbye.

“Promise me you’ll go back.” Ward feels himself fading; drowning. All his senses alert but unable to intervene.

Skye shakes her head briskly, stepping forward. “Stop."

It’s too soon. It’s unfair. She hasn’t gotten a proper chance to tell him all the things she held inside of her for so long.

Ward wanted to laugh but his vision was beginning to blur. He doubled over, bracing his hands on his thighs. If he was able to stop he would. As everything else in his life, he didn’t have a choice. He didn’t get to say no. A force so strong that any ounce of control he gained, could be gone in an instant.

His breaths are ragged. "You’re the piece that makes everything fit.”

She’s the piece that is going to put them all back together again. Just like always.

It comes out in a giant mess of words. Panic bubbling inside her chest,  "I..I should have saved you. I wanted this to be over for so long. You had caused me and the team so much pain and hurt. I wanted to win. I wanted to prove to you that you couldn’t get to me. But you did. You always did.“ She can’t think straight. This is not what she wanted him to know but it was impossible to pull herself together. "Yet, my brain can’t begin to compute why I never able to see that you needed help. The one person who had helped me realize what it was to protect someone. That kind of love doesn’t go away.”

“Skye.” That familiar stern tone of his voice that used to make her roll her eyes every time she heard it. She’s only going to get to hear once more.

“It never went away, Ward. I need you to know that. You gave me something I can never give back.”

“I would have done anything to come home.” She watches his mouth work like a tired machine, pleading for her to know he’d never purposely leave her. He was used to being alone with no one to have his back. The moment he had it, the numbness that made a home inside of him, slowly wore off. It made him feel lost. The more time went by, the more bad decisions he made, the more he became a stranger to himself. “Until life gives you something right, you don’t know how wrong you’ve been.”

He had figured it out too late.

**

It turns out it wasn’t the last time Skye would see him.

He had come back four days later and found her in the same position he saw her last. Standing in the middle of the living room, staring blankly out of the front window. Her body had bled dried. She had nothing else to give.

Leave it to him to bring it out of her. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

He was mad that she hadn’t gone back home. She made it clear to him that she wasn’t ready. All five foot six of her stood defiantly in front of him, letting it be known she was willing to go toe to toe with him. How she would win because he had left her. He had abandoned her every single time she closed her eyes for the unknown. That he was merely an image of the man she once knew. There was nothing he could do to stop or make her.

It was a low blow. She ought to be more careful.

He accepted it but every time he would come, he’d try again.

She couldn’t say he wasn’t persistent. Ward had always pushed her to be better. Skye had always pushed backed knowing she had her eyes open. It was how they worked. One thing he constantly reminded her of: she better start getting prepared.

A warning if you must. She was never good with those.

Another month goes by in a blink of an eye and somehow they’ve built a routine together as much as they can when one half isn’t really there.

Ward still doesn’t know what’s happening when he disappears. A black hole that summons him. Channeling his memories, his desires, his thoughts, and his skills.

He describes it the way he once described the control Lorelai had on his mind. It has a purpose. It has a goal. He stares up at the destruction, helpless, as if he had fallen into vein crushing cold water under black ice unable to break through.

It leaves her feeling unsettled.

She ignores it for the fleeting moments she gets with him.

Skye slides the dirty pans into the sink, splashing hot water inside the rims to soak off the grime. Grabbing the two glass plates filled with a meat lasagna, she places them on opposite sides of the table. He can’t eat, he can’t touch, he can’t do much of anything but exist.

“It doesn’t bother me. I could be in a much worse place than this right now.” If that was supposed to make her feel better, she really hopes he’d try harder than that. He wasn’t convincing much of anyone including himself. His statements are supposed to bring comfort but it makes her feel sad. And god, she is tired of her default setting being sad.

“How about we just concentrate on something not entirely depressing.” She suggests. “Because for once I actually cooked a meal and it didn’t end in flames.”

He cracked a teasing smile, “Only because I was here to guide you every step of the way so you’re welcome.”

“Has anyone ever told you that - ” the ringing of her cellphone interrupts her train of thought.

“Answer it.” He tells her.

“I don’t want to. They’ll leave a voicemail like the other hundred times they’ve called. I want to enjoy this meal.” Her appetite has just begun to resurface.

“You need to answer the phone.” He says adamantly. “It’s important.”

“How could you possibly know it’s important? Did your ghost signals tingle and all of sudden you have the ability to tell the future?” she snarks at him. A good moment always ruined.

He rolls his eyes at her and sighs like he’s suffering in her presence. “Always the mature one, aren’t you?”
Finally the phone goes silent.

“Oops, too late.” she shrugs, offering a tight smile. She resumes eating when the silent opportunity arises.  

Unfortunately for her, the slow melody begins to play from her cellphone again.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She mumbles with her mouth half full. “I’m going to have to answer this, aren’t I?”

Ward nods.

An unpleasant frown takes place upon her lips, “Fine.” But first, she’s going to do what all classy people do while eating Italian and having to talk to family members they currently have no desire to speak to - have some wine.

She lifts the delicate glass filled with her favorite red. Marabel graciously ordered it for her the last time she had gone to the market. Bringing it to her lips, she slides her finger across the screen accepting the call.

“Hello?”

“Oh, thank god you’re okay.” Are the first words she hears from Fitz’s lips.

Why does she suddenly have a huge lump in her throat?

Skye swallows, trying to get rid of it. “Fitz, I’m fine.” It sticks.

“You left without saying goodbye and haven’t picked up your phone in two months. You turned off every location device to track you. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. I’ve been sick with worry!”

She places her cell phone on speaker so Ward can hear it. He steels his expressions as to not give anything away. She wants to tell him he doesn’t have to pretend here. She keeps silent anyway.

“We have a big problem and need you to come back.”

It’s frustrating that her once capable team is always unprepared, always falling short. “What’s the problem and why can’t you all fix it?”

“He’s alive.”

She’s dumbfounded, repeating, “He’s alive?”

The line goes awfully quiet that she finds herself calling out, “Fitz, who is alive?”

“Ward.”

The wine glass slips out of her fingertips and she watches slow motion as it smashes on the hard wood floor.

When she looks back up, she’s all by herself.

“I’m coming.”