Chapter 6
“You seriously made a bomb out of drain cleaner and salt?” Mack asked in disbelief as he handed her a beer as they all sat in the lounge room.
“I only put the salt on the fuse; it gives it a slower burn time.” she told him as she took a sip of her drink.
“Typical Rookie,” Idaho interjected, “when in doubt, blow it up!”
“As opposed to you,” she fired back, “when in doubt, run away?”
“That’s not what happened.” he defended, “I was following up with one of the guards who ran.”
“Leaving Hunter to handle three guards by himself?” she retorted smartly.
“You’ll see in the debrief.” he scowled.
“Ah huh.” she dismissed as she took another sip of her drink.
“I thought it was badass.” Tripp said as he joined them in the lounge, looking rather pleased with himself, as he sat down next to her.
Glancing over his shoulder she saw a bright red and smiling Jemma, practically skipping towards the kitchen whilst Fitz trailed behind her, looking more confused than she had ever seen him.
Turning her attention back to the man next to her, she couldn’t help but grin, “Did your… presentation go well?” she asked knowingly.
He flashed her a bright, toothy smile as he held his beer up to her.
She tapped her bottle against his in a silent show of ‘congratulations’.
He had obviously talked to Simmons about his feelings and if his happy smile wasn’t enough to show her it had gone well, her friend’s furious blushing and giddy smile certainly did.
As Idaho and Tripp began to talk, she turned her attention back to Mack, who was staring down at a set of blue-prints he had spread out along the dining table; she instantly recognized it as the schematics for the Bus and joined him at the table.
“Still haven’t figured out the problem?” she asked curiously.
“Yes and no.” he told her, “there’s something draining the power but I don’t know where.” he revealed, huffing in frustration, “I’ve accounted for everything on the blue-prints, checked the sites where the most power is used and I still have nothing!”
“Well, maybe that's your problem.” she offered.
He turned to look at her curiously.
“Well you're going to places where it's most likely being pulled from,” she explained, “so maybe look in the places that are the least likely to draw the most power.” she told him, “odds are that it's one of those places, that you’ve calculated as having the least amount of power, that drawing a little extra wouldn't be checked.”
He considered her words for a moment before he nodded, his lip jutting out, clearly impressed with her assessment, “That’s actually a good point.” he agreed.
She looked up as Hartley, Coulson and Ward walked into the room; the two commanding officers had obviously finished their debrief with the lead ground agent, and now would be looking for the leading over-sight agent, Bobbi.
They would then speak to the rest of the agents in pairs for the next round of debriefs before they would all be sequestered into the meeting room for a final group debrief.
“Alright Tripp, Idaho, let’s go.” Hartley called, gesturing for the two agents to follow her.
“Isn’t Bobbi the next to go?” asked Idaho, frowning in confusion.
“Yes, but she’s currently having sex with Hunter in the SUV and I don’t need to deal with that just yet.” she dismissed.
Skye choked on her beer, the liquid lodging in her throat from shock, as she coughed violently.
“What?!” Mack asked in surprise as he pounded on her back gently, to help soothe her coughing fit.
“Oh, didn’t see that coming.” Tripp commented.
She tried to catch her breath as she thought of her S.O, who seemed to take every opportunity he could to disparage Bobbi, a woman who seemed to be constantly on the verge of hitting him, were somehow sleeping with one another!
It made no sense!
“How long has that been going on?” Idaho demanded.
“Couple of months.” Hartley shrugged.
“But… they’re divorced!” she let out, still failing to understand the situation of how two people, who had such a painful history with one another, could somehow still connect in such an intimate way.
“The heart wants what it wants.” Coulson said knowingly, “There’s too much love there for things to ever really be over for them.”
Those words resonated within her, and she suddenly found herself looking over at Ward who was already looking at her.
Something passed between them in that moment, as if he too had a profound reaction to the words as well.
Unable to take his stare or what their mutual acknowledgement of those words meant, she looked away, shifting closer to Mack as she made a show of looking over the blue-prints with him.
“When Bobbi’s back, send her into my office straight away.” Hartley instructed as she walked away.
“It's Hunter so… about three minutes?” Idaho sniggered as he followed after her.
Tripp coughed to disguise a laugh.
000
Eventually Hunter and Bobbi returned, and when her S.O sat down next to her in the meeting room, she couldn’t help but stare at him incredulously.
“What?” he asked innocently.
For some reason, she wanted to yell at him; demand to know his reasoning for still being in love with Bobbi, despite all the horrible things she had done to him?
How were they able to put all the complications of the two of them being together aside, and still persevere with being romantically involved with one another?
She couldn’t understand it; but that didn’t stop her from turning the question over in her mind throughout the entirety of the team debriefing. She never really paid attention to them anyway.
She was still so caught up in her own thoughts, that she didn’t realise everyone else had left the meeting room, and that Coulson was attempting to talk to her, until he sat down in the chair in front of her.
“Sorry, what did you say A.C?” she asked, shaking her head slightly in order to pull herself out of her thoughts.
“I said that you’ve become a very skilled agent and I’m proud of you.” he repeated.
“Thanks.” she smiled, feeling a warmth spread through her at his heartfelt words.
“I’m not surprised of course,” he told her with a knowing smile, “I always knew you would be.”
“I’m glad you had faith in me because I certainly didn’t.” she revealed, sighing deeply, “After everything that happened with the team, I wasn’t sure I was cut out for it.”
“You needed to be in a different environment.” he said simply, “it had nothing to do with your capabilities, just those around you.”
She nodded in understanding as she felt a sudden rush of appreciation for her old commanding officer, “I never got a chance to thank you for setting me up with Hartley’s team.”
“No thank you necessary.” he dismissed, “From what she tells me, you’ve become a real asset to their team.” he smiled proudly, “I knew Hunter would be a good S.O for you.”
She tilted her head to the side as she gazed at him curiously, “How?”
Hunter was the best person to be her Supervising Officer, she agreed; not just in comparison to Ward but to anyone. She’d seen Idaho with a rookie and she had never been able to understand his teachings. Neither did his rookie as it turned out.
But she wondered how he had known that when he had assigned her to Hartley's team.
“Did you just choose someone who was the complete opposite to my last S.O?” she asked curiously.
Lance Hunter was the exact opposite to Ward; the first example that came to mind was his British accent constantly sounded obnoxiously loud, especially in comparison to Ward who spoke so quietly and rarely.
She could not find a single trait between the two that was not the polar opposite to one another! Right down to their looks! Blue eyes on one, brown eyes on the other. Blond hair on one, dark hair on the other. Even their skin complexions; tanned as opposed to pale.
“No, I chose someone who was the same as you.” he told her.
“Yeah we do have a lot of traits in common.” she agreed, smiling fondly; no one had ever understood her the way Hunter did. And she knew, without a doubt, that he valued her as highly as she valued him.
Though neither one of them would ever admit that. It didn't need to be said out loud for them to know.
She always knew where she stood with him, what he was feeling and thinking. It just added to the growing list of his differences to Ward; she never knew what he was thinking or feeling and, as it turned out, had no idea how he viewed their relationship either.
“Including your taste in romantic partners.” he commented lightly.
Once again she was pulled abruptly from her thoughts by something he had said, “What?” she asked in confusion.
Coulson smiled knowingly, “How would you describe Bobbi?” he questioned her.
“Professional, calculating, dedicated, dangerous, unemotional;” she listed, “doesn’t trust easily, relies only on herself and is very closed off.”
“And how would you describe Ward?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her expectantly.
She opened her mouth to list his various traits when she suddenly stopped herself, “exactly the same.” she realised.
He nodded at her encouragingly; she got the strange feeling he was trying to teach her something, and she had no patience for it.
“I sense you're trying to walk me to a conclusion, but would you mind just driving me to it?” she asked pointedly.
“Hunter and Bobbi: they love each other. Despite everything, what they have, it works for them.” he informed her seriously, “It shouldn’t, but it does.” he stated firmly.
“So you're trying to say that if things work between them,” she began, choosing her words carefully as she tried to read between the lines of what he was saying, “then it could work between me and Ward as well.” she concluded as she glanced up at him, waiting to see if she had understood his meaning.
“Well technically you said that, not me.” he replied, a small smirk tugging at his lips before he stood up and left; leaving her alone with her thoughts once again.
Was that why she had such a strong reaction to finding out about Bobbi and Hunter? Was it because their situations were so similar? If she could understand how they made things work, would that help her situation with Ward?
She walked through the base in a daze, her mind racing.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Fitz appeared in front of her so suddenly, she bumped into him; “There you are!” he huffed, “I’ve been looking all over for you!” he let out in frustration.
“What’s going on?” she asked, eying him warily as he stared at her, his eyes burning with outrage.
“How could you help Tripp seduce Simmons?!” he hissed at her scandalously.
She blinked in surprise, “Seduce?”
“Yes!” he snapped, “The two of them are making plans, going out to dinner. They are going on a date!” he told her incredulously.
She frowned as she struggled to comprehend not only what he was saying, but the emotion and reasoning behind it.
“And that's bad?” she asked slowly.
“Yes!” he burst out, his voice sounding a little hysterical, “He’s so symmetrical and muscled, she’s bound to fall in love with him.” he declared, the words tumbling out of his mouth so quickly, she struggled to catch them all.
“Tripps a nice guy. He’s not going to hurt her.” she assured him; Jemma potentially being in danger was the only reason she could think of as to why Fitz was in such an emotional state, “You don't need to be so protective, she can handle herself.” she soothed.
“I’m not protective, I’m jealous.” he admitted angrily.
“Ah,” she acknowledge as she finally understood, “Because you're in love with Simmons?” she guessed.
“Obviously.” he said as he rolled his eyes.
She bristled against his tone, “No Fitz, not obviously.” she told him pointedly, “If you don’t tell me, how am I supposed to know?”
“I did tell you!” he insisted.
“When?” she demanded; she was positive that if he had told her he was in love with her best friend, she would have remembered.
“When you were in a coma!” he retorted, as if his explanation was somehow obvious, “I sat by your bed, we all did, and I told you all about my feelings for her and promised myself if you woke up, that I would tell her how I felt.” he told her.
“Ok, to be fair, I was in a coma; I had no idea what you said.” she replied, rolling her eyes in the same way he did, before she fixed him with a serious glare, “Secondly, you technically broke your promise to me because I did wake up, it's been a year and you still haven’t told her.” she reminded him with a smug smile.
“You were in a coma; the promise doesn’t count.” he fired back at her, clearly having thought through the question before she asked it, as he was so quick to respond, “In any case you didn’t have to help him.”
“Well I’m sorry that I didn’t know.” she replied emphatically, “But neither does Simmons!” she reminded him pointedly, “You think if she knew how you felt, she’d still be going on a date with him?”
He groaned, wincing slightly as he spoke, looking utterly hopeless, “I don’t know.”
“A girl is not going to wait around for someone, whilst they decide whether or not to act on those feelings.” she finished, her own words resonating in her chest, as she spoke to them.
“You're right.” he sighed before he suddenly stood tall, with his shoulders back, a look of determination before he spoke, “I’m going to go talk to her.”
As he stepped around her, she was suddenly reminded of something strange he said.
“Hey Fitz,” she began as she turned to face him, “did you say everyone came and spoke to me while I was in a coma?” she asked curiously, her eyes narrowing in concentration.
“Yeah, all of us.” he shrugged, “Why?”
“No reason.” she shrugged nonchalantly; on the inside everything was screaming at her, making sure that she knew this information was important.
Going to her bunk, she closed the door, before she set her laptop out on the bed; she knew what she had to do.
In less than ten minutes she was able to hack into the Shield Medical mainframe, where she quickly found the archives of security footage. She scrolled back through the files, until she found the dates that she had stayed in the hospital.
She clicked on the camera feed to the room she had stayed in, before she placed a set of headphones over her ears, hoping the sound would be magnified enough that she would hear everything that anyone said, whilst in the room.
Feeling a little uneasy, she pressed the play button and began to watch the footage.
Coulson has visited her several times, reading a book aloud to her.
So did Jemma, she sat talking to her like she always did, telling her about her day; she even paused a few times as if she was letting Skye speak, before she continued on, almost as if she had said something.
Fitz started his visit with her about his latest experiments and his thoughts on new scientific information that had been released, how he argued with Simmons about it, before he grew strangely quiet.
Then, just like he said, he proceeded to tell her about his feelings for his lab partner; how no one understood him better than her, that she was his other half and just how much he loved her… and how afraid he was that she didn’t feel the same way, and that it would ruin their friendship.
“Tell you what Skye, I will tell Simmons how I feel if you wake up from this coma.” he bargained, “I think that's a fair trade, don’t you think? If you agree, say nothing.”
There was a beat of silence, as he watched her unmoving body for a moment.
“Deal.” he declared with a nod before he got up and left.
The next visitor she had made her eyes go wide; it was May.
She watched the footage carefully, pressing the headphone so close to her ears in order to hear what she said… but there was nothing.
May had simply sat in the chair beside her bed, saying nothing and staring at the wall.
Suddenly she stood up, looking alert as someone else walked into the room; it was Ward.
“Was wondering when you would show up.” she heard her say.
She couldn’t see Ward’s expression but she could see May and as a silence stretched on between them; her face grew harder and harder until she finally gave a curt nod, “I guess we’re done here.” she stated.
“I guess so.” he replied quietly.
With that, she marched out of the room, her nose thrust into the air like it always was.
She heard him sigh deeply, rubbing the back of his neck before he went and sat down in the chair next to her bed.
It took her a moment to realise that whatever had happened between Ward and May, had ended in that moment. It had been so quick and so unemotional, she wondered how deep the feelings between them had been, if there were any at all, if they ended it so easily.
She watched as he shifted in his seat for a moment, seeming uncomfortable as he stared at her with a somewhat confused expression, as if he was unsure of what to do.
“So are you really in a coma? Or are you just doing this to get out of training?” he asked conversationally, looking over at her expectantly, as if she was going to answer…
“Sorry. That's a bad joke.” he mumbled, looking down at the floor for a moment before his gaze returned to her, “Simmons said we should talk to you, that you might be able to hear us, so we should say positive things to wake you up.” he explained.
She smiled to herself; of course that would be what Jemma had told everyone to do. It was such a kind and sweet gesture, that she knew it could have only come from her.
“I don’t know if you can hear but on the off chance you do, I want to say a few things,” he began before a timid smile spread across his lips, “without you interrupting, for once.”
As he looked at her, the smile slowly slipped from his face, before his expression became dark and cold.
“You dying is probably the best case scenario for me.” he told her.
She pulled back in surprise, staring at the screen in disbelief; what the hell did he just say?!
“If you die, I’ll be relieved.” he told her, “I won’t have to think about the way my day brightens when you harasses me over breakfast, or the way your mouth twitches with a secret smile as you refuse to throw another punch until I tell you about the latest book I’m reading.” he explained, “I won’t have to think about why you do that, or how it makes me feel.” he revealed.
She watched as he leaned back in his chair, and eyed her unhappily.
“I’m an expert at compartmentalizing.” he declared, “If you die, I’ll finally be able to put you away in a box that I’d never need to open and just won’t have to think about you ever again.” he stated, a vindictive tone creeping into his voice, “It would be over. I’d move on and be back to normal.”
Suddenly he slumped forward, sighing deeply as he ran an aggravated hand across his face, revealing just how tired he was as he rested his elbow on the top of his thighs, his hands clasped together as he stared at the floor.
“Every single careful piece of training, everything that made me the agent that I am, was useless against you.” he admitted begrudgingly, “You got under my skin, forced your way into my life, into my head until loving you felt almost as natural as breathing.” he said, the frustration on his face gave way to how soft and gentle his words were, “Until loving you feels like the first real thing I’ve ever done.”
He stared at his hands for a moment, before he turned his head and gazed at her out of the corner of his eye. Like he didn’t want to look at her, but couldn’t stop himself from doing it.
“So it would be better if you died,” he told her, his voice breaking with emotion, “because I can’t handle you walking away and leaving me.”
She watched as he sat up in the chair, folding his arms over his chest defensively.
“So if you really want to hurt me, the way I hurt you,” he began, his tone sounding similar to the way he spoke to her in training, giving her harsh directions and annoyed when she didn’t follow them, “you’ll have to wake up and walk away.” he said with a nonchalant shrug.
There was a beat of silence before he stood up, releasing a long breath through his nose, “Dying is too easy for you;” he told her, “you never do things the easy way.”
She held her breath as she watched him take a step towards her bed, his expression hard with concentration, as he reached out to her with a shaking hand.
He moved with a gentleness she didn’t know he possessed, as he ran his fingers along her hair line in the lightest of touches, to move a stray strand of hair out from her face.
He gazed down at her for a moment, his jaw clenched tightly, all things she would have associated with anger and frustration. But that interpretation was ruined the moment she saw his eyes; they burned fiercely, as if it physically hurt him to see her in that state…
Suddenly he snatched his hand away, pushing it roughly into his pocket, as if to keep it from touching her again, before he turned around and practically fled the hospital room.
Slowly she closed the laptop, and removed her headphones.
She rubbed small circles on her temples; her head ached, as she struggled to make sense of everything she had just seen and heard.
A weary smile found its way onto her lips as she realised something; Ward was as frustrated and annoyed by his feelings for her, as she was for him.
The two of them never agreed on anything, there was never a common ground between them or a shared interest, but there it was; she begrudgingly loved him and he, just as reluctantly, loved her.
She had been embarrassed and angry at herself for falling for him; it was such a cliche and so stupid. But the whole time, he had been just as frustrated by his feelings for her, and rejected them as a supposed weakness in his otherwise perfect Shield Agent record.
Groaning, she leaned backwards and flopped herself down onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
She hadn’t realised but her heart had been racing the entire time she had watched the footage, and she was now breathless, as if she had just run a marathon. Even her legs seemed to shake with exhaustion, and her arms felt far too heavy for her to move them.
‘How had things become so complicated? Why was everything so messy?’ She asked herself, ‘why couldn’t the two of them just be honest with each other?’
Without meaning to, she answered her own rhetorical question; because talking was what she did. Not him.
He showed his feelings with actions, not words or expressions…
Sitting up in her bed, she swung her feet down with a newfound determination; that was about to change
Marching out of her room, she stalked past the other bunks in the base, before she stumbled upon Idaho, “Do you know which room Ward is in?” she asked curiously.
“Nope. He chose to stay in that tiny bunk on the plane." He told her, “Does the guy have issues sleeping in a double bed or something?” he queried, “those bed in the plane can’t be comfortable.”
“They’re not.” she told him simply before she turned to leave.
She marched through the base with a newfound determination.
Making her way to the garage, she wanted to speak to Mack; ask him for advice, pointers or maybe just a small pep-talk for what she was about to do. He was the one from the very start to tell her to talk to him, it seemed appropriate that she would speak to him, before she spoke to Ward.
But to her surprise, he wasn’t in the garage, or at his regular work station.
She considered waiting until he came back, or even searching the base for him but she knew if she delayed, she would probably lose the nerve to talk to Ward…
It was now or never.
Squaring her shoulders she walked up the ramp that led into the Bus’s cargo bay, before she quickly made her way up stairs.
It was almost like she had never left! Everything was the same; the board games stacked neatly, the floor bar fully stocked, even the kitchen still had a few empty tea mugs lying about that Fitz always forgot about.
Which meant Ward’s bunk would be in the exact same place as everything else.
Taking a deep breath as she approached, she didn’t even bother knocking before she slid the door open.
He was laying on his bed, one hand behind his head, the other holding a book; a picture at ease before he looked over at her and everything about him suddenly became unbearably tense, as he immediately sat up, swinging his legs around so that he was sitting on the edge of his bed.
Stepping into his room, she kept her eyes on him as she slid the door shut behind her, “We need to talk.” she declared.