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Skye can’t sleep. During the day they keep her busy on missions, trying to fill the enormous hole that was left when SHIELD fell. But when night falls, his voice fills her head, telling her that he cares for her, that his feelings for her were always real. If she were stronger, perhaps she could block the memories out – put them away, where no one could ever find them.
But she wants to hear him. She wants to believe him.
Coulson told her that he wasn’t speaking to anyone, that he would speak only to Skye, but even the director of SHIELD won’t ask her to do that. He know that the prisoner spins lies masterfully, and he knows that Skye wants more than anything to hear them.
There’s a constant security feed of Vault D (they all know what he’s capable of), and when insomnia’s death grip holds her eyes open into the late hours of the night, Skye will sit in front of the screen, watching him sleep. Everything is quiet then, and she can see his chest rising and falling in the slow, even rhythm of slumber. He has a beard now, and though it’s untrimmed and feral, it softens the hard lines of his face - the bones that her fingers remember more clearly than her eyes.
She longs to stand up, wrap herself in the fleece throw blanket that she carries on these midnight forays, unlock Vault D, and ask him to tell her how he was brainwashed.
Or to tell her that he’d been drugged.
Or blackmailed.
Or just fooled. She might be able to forgive even that.
But she never leaves her chair. She just watches, and then creeps back to her bunk through the dark soundless hallways to wait for morning.
And then one morning, they ask her to go to him – there’s a monster on the loose, and they need what he knows.
He gives Skye the information easily, and then looks into her eyes and holds her gaze. He tells her everything he told her before and more – that he cares for her, he still wants her, and he wants good things for her. Although the practiced look of disdain is set on her features and she can remember every moment of his betrayal in clear, cutting detail, she wants to believe him, because it sounds so true.
He shows her his wrists, but in doing so says nothing about gushing blood or despair or death, and when he points to the bruise on his cheekbone (not new, but not old either), there is nothing in his eyes but honesty and hope.
When the barrier between them becomes opaque once again, Skye leaves with a little shard of that hope pressed against her heart. She can feel it each time her heart beats, threatening to puncture and to kill.
She resumes her nightly vigil at the security feed, watching him breathe. Some nights he sleeps peacefully, and others he tosses and turns, a sheen of nervous sweat gathering on his face and his limbs until he wakes up gasping. He’ll put his face in his hands and sit on the edge of his blanketless bed, body shuddering. Skye’s sure that if he’s not crying, he wants to be. And some nights he doesn’t sleep at all, just lies on his back and watches the dark ceiling of Vault D, searching for something that she can’t see.
Skye never watches all night. She doesn’t want the others to see her there – doesn’t want them to know about her weakness. But the long nights wear on her, and the shadows under her eyes tell tales on her.
Finally, though, fatigue betrays her, and she falls asleep in front of the screen.
When she awakens, still long before dawn, Simmons is in the chair next to her, eyes locked on the feed.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” the scientist says without looking up. “Have you seen this?”
Skye turns her sleepy eyes to the screen. He’s still there of course, but he’s not asleep, and he’s not still. He’s doing pushups. Dozens of them. Then he stops, and she could swear he makes eye contact with the camera as he rolls to his feet and crosses his small cell, inverts himself against the wall, and begins a set of handstand pushups.
“Every morning,” Simmons continues, “at 5:30 on the dot. I don’t know how he knows – there’s no clock, no light – but he’s very consistent.”
“I’ve never…sometimes I watch him at night, but I’ve always left.”
“I’m glad he does it. It reminds me that he’s not helpless in there. I couldn’t hate someone who was helpless.”
Something in Simmons’ tone wakes Skye, sending a chill through her veins. Jemma Simmons is the closest thing she’s had to a sister, and until now, she thought that she knew the other woman well. But this unadulterated hatred is new and frightening, a facet of Simmons that she hadn’t even known existed.
Simmons turns to Skye and holds her gaze unblinkingly. “Skye, he will lie to you and he will tell you the truth, and he will combine the two. You won’t be able to tell the difference, and it doesn’t matter. You can’t ever, ever forget what he did to us. You’ll want to, but if you do, you’ll betray me, and you’ll betray Fitz, and everyone that Grant Ward has ever hurt.” She falls silent, then whispers, “I could kill him.”
And then she’s gone. She doesn’t push her chair back violently or slam the door. She just leaves.
And Skye finally cries. For Simmons, for Fitz, and for all of them. And for Grant Ward. They’re all so broken.