Title: Eight Letters, Three Words, One Meaning
Author: Diane
Pairing: Grant Ward/Skye
Rating: Teen Rated
Disclaimer: I don't own a thing!
Spoilers/Warnings: This is an additional scene that takes place during episode 1.19 “The Only Light In The Darkness”.
Summary: He had so many regrets but she wasn't one of them. If anything, she was the only good thing in his life.
Author's Notes: Just a little something to help my poor shipper heart deal with what's currently happening.
The title of this comes from the song 'Eight Letters' by Take That.
“I am not a good man, Skye.”
“Yes, you are.”
If only she knew, Ward thought to himself as he stared up at the ceiling of the room he'd been assigned at the secret base and replayed what Skye had said to him. The faith she had in him made him wish he was a better man. The bed he was lying on was larger than the one he slept in on the Bus though given how tightly the petite brunette was curled up against his side he figured it wouldn't have mattered if they were in his bunk.
“Are you okay?” Skye asked, her voice breaking into his thoughts.
“Yeah,” he replied. His fingers idly played with the ends of her hair.
“I just... do you regret what happened?”
He had so many regrets but she wasn't one of them. If anything, she was the only good thing in his life. “No,” he told her, “I don't. Do you?”
Shifting her position, Skye reached up and lightly caressed his cheek, his stubble tickling the pad of her thumb. “No.” Leaning into him, she brushed her lips over his before kissing him more deeply. When she drew back long minutes later, she smiled and said, “We probably have the worst timing for starting something but, like you said, there's never a good time.”
Ward tried to return her smile. He knew time was running out... that he needed to get her out of there before Coulson and the rest of the team arrived back from Portland but, at the same time, he wished he could stay just like this with her.
“Your heart is racing,” she whispered after placing her palm in the center of his chest.
Cupping the back of head, he directed her face towards his and just before their lips met, he murmured, “You do that to me.”
The kiss was hot, hungry and all consuming and it was only the need to breathe in much needed air that caused them to break it.
“Skye, I...” He wanted to say those three words to her... he wanted to say them before the shit hit the fan like he knew it was about to and before she would doubt and question every single thing that had happened between them from the moment they'd first met.
He'd never said those three words to anyone before; not to his parents or his siblings and not to any of the women he'd been involved with.
From the moment he'd met Skye he'd felt a pull towards her... some weird kind of chemistry that went beyond a simple attraction. She could be the most infuriating person at times, particularly in those early days when he'd taken on the role of SO and it seemed she would deliberately do the opposite of what he'd told her to do. That changed abruptly though after she'd come up against Ian Quinn at his compound in Malta. After that, she'd thrown herself into her training and did everything he asked of her.
The mere thought of Quinn caused him to curl his free hand into a fist beneath the sheet covering them. As much as he owed Garrett, the memory of seeing Skye bleeding out... dying on that basement floor made him want to put two into the back of the older man's head in much the same way as he'd described to Coulson and the others.
“Ward?”
“Sorry,” he said.
“You sure you're okay? I could get you some painkillers or—”
“No,” he quickly interjected. The last thing he wanted was for her to go wandering around the base. “I'm fine... just tired, I guess.”
“You should try and get some sleep,” Skye told him, brushing her fingers through his hair.
Ward closed his eyes and savored the sensation, wishing for what was probably the hundredth time in the space of a single day that things were different... that he was different.
Sleeping with her was wrong but he couldn't help being selfish when it came to her. He figured it was his one and only chance and with everything that was going to happen in the coming days, weeks and months he needed the memory of having made love to her.
Even if he knew it would probably devastate her and she would hate him all the more once she became aware of who and what he really was.
He felt her turn over before snuggling into him, her bare back pressed against his chest. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her in even closer and buried his face into her hair, breathing in the familiar coconut scent of her shampoo.
His fingers lightly traced over the raised flesh on her stomach as he kissed the side of her head and then mouthed those three words.
Maybe she would never know how he'd truly felt about her but at least he would.
Fin