InsaneJournal

He didn’t know what had been different about the night before. It wasn’t the first time she’d stayed the night with him. It should have been just as perfect as before, but even with Skye sleeping beside him, he’d found he couldn’t manage to rest for more than a short time. He’d wake up, and it would all hit at once. He’d put a bullet in Garrett. The seal had taken Davina. It had taken Fitz. Back to live the hell he’d inflicted on him for a man he’d had to kill here to save Skye. He’d gone just as mad in Lawrence as he had back home and the whole thing still played on his mind. He’d thought maybe this place could be a second chance for them all, just like Skye had given him. But maybe John had never been cut out for that chance.

He’d tried everything to move on. He’d gone running, longer and longer each week. He’d focused on Skye. On making this chance she was giving him worthwhile. On ensuring he didn’t let her down.

It amazed him sometimes that she could be with him. The hollowed out mess he’d been left all over again. Oh he knew there had been no choice. And that voice in his mind that had always been John had gotten to him less as the weeks went on. It was possible he was taking the advice he’d been given and being his own person. There was no one there now to tell him who to be. No orders to follow. No debts to repay bar the rather large ones he owed to Skye, and he supposed the rest of the team.

He’d managed to sleep for a short time, but it wasn’t restful, there were other voices, and a burning rage that never could completely leave him. Memories he’d once repressed. Parents, hateful and cruel, an abusive brother, so lost in hatred for his mother’s favorite, he’d used the neglected middle brother as a weapon.

The well.

It still woke him up some nights. The cries of his younger brother, his anger at Christian, and it was on those occasions, that’s when John could get back in. He couldn’t stand up for his brother. They’d wanted to try him as an adult. No one would ever believe anything good of him. He could never be more than a weapon. Deluded. The kid no one wanted grown into the man no one trusted.

He cried out, sitting up in the bed from another fretful few moments of sleep.

It seemed like Skye had been spending more and more nights at Ward’s place lately, but she liked being here. A part of it was that she was worried about him. After what had happened with Garrett and then him losing more friends to the seal, she knew he was going through a lot. She wanted to be there for him, but it was more than that. She’d lost people, too, with the last round of people who’d been sent back by the seal. She knew it could happen to either of them, too. It made her want to make the most of whatever time they had here in Lawrence. Even when you considered demons and monsters and the unpredictability of that damn seal, it was better, in a way, than what was waiting for them at home.

Skye had been sleeping, but his cries woke her and she was alert in an instant, sitting up and reaching over to touch his shoulder. She never knew what to say in this kind of situation. He wasn’t the only one who had bad dreams. Skye was plagued with them, as well, and she recognized the signs in his body language.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asked after a moment.

Skye was awake almost as quick as he was. And he hadn’t wanted to wake her. He needed to explain this to her. He knew that, if she was gonna be here with him regularly he’d have to let her know how bad it could get. He reached a hand up to hers which rested on his shoulder and shook his head.

“I never want to talk about it but, you should hear it, if you’re gonna be here more. It’s always been there, nightmares, memories I repressed I guess, it was always at the back of my mind. But then that damned staff, it brings out the worst parts of me, and the worst is pretty messed up. Asgard seems to have it out for me.” he added, a flash of a beautiful woman he’d have done anything for at one time coming to his mind. He’d known she was controlling him. But then he’d been a weapon for her too. His hatred of Loki hadn’t just been because of New York. There was nothing about Asgard, not even the famed Avenger Thor that he had any time for. All he’d known of Asgard was what it had done to an already troubled mind. “He said the anger would be there, I could learn to control it, and I’m good at control. I have to be. But I can’t keep it up all the time. I can’t stop my own mind and sometimes, when I sleep, that’s when it hits worst.”

He closed his eyes for just a moment and there it was again. That all encompassing anger. But that hand on his shoulder. It focused him.

“Its easier, when you’re here. I think its why I knew how to help you, with your powers. May, she says she always had those memories. She’s always feeling that. I pushed so much of it down, first at home, then with Garrett. You didn’t let weakness show with him. You couldn’t. But since you, since you’ve been staying here, its been easier to sleep.”

Skye nodded. She understood what he meant, she knew talking about his past wasn’t easy or something he ever wanted to do, but sometimes you had to do it. She knew enough about his childhood to guess what memories he was talking about. At the time, with the staff, she hadn’t really known, but she’d learned an awful lot about Grant Ward since that time, both from the things he’d said to her and watching themselves on television. Hell, she could Google things about him that he probably never wanted anyone to know. That he had nightmares about his past wasn’t something that surprised her.

It was hard to know what to say to his explanations, though, and for a while she didn’t try. She laced his fingers with his and gave his hand a gentle squeeze as he spoke, figuring that maybe it would be enough that she was just here, listening and trying to understand. Skye’s childhood hadn’t been easy, either, but when you compared it to the things he’d been through, it felt a lot different. She’d never felt like she fit anywhere, but Skye knew now that had been SHIELD watching out for her. Protecting her. Ward, though? He’d never had that. He’d never had someone trying to protect him and that make her heart break for him a little. It didn’t excuse his actions or his choices, but no one should have to grow up that way.

After a moment, Skye shifted, wrapping her arms around him and pressing a gentle kiss to his shoulder. “You don’t have to push it down anymore,” she told him finally. Repressing emotions and memories never helped anyone. Control was important, but so was facing your demons, if you ever wanted to move on. That’s what he needed to do now.

It was a nice working theory, and with her arms wrapped around him, he couldn’t say it was a bad theory. But not repressing? That was a dangerous place to start. Facing your demons was nice and all but he had so many demons. “Look, Skye, I get it. I really do. But you don’t want me to let all that out. Doesn’t help. Doesn’t fix it. I don’t like what that makes me so I keep it down. That part of my past, its not something I like remembering. You were the first thing in my life that was good. You believed in me and it felt good. And when you didn’t when Christian started his lies, I was terrified it was easier to trust him. Being here though, I thought maybe now you’re starting to trust me again, and thats amazing. Thats more than I ever expected or deserved . Can’t that just be enough?”

Skye had her own past. But then she’d gotten looked after. She’d had SHIELD. He’d had Garrett. He wondered about that sometimes. If someone had gotten to him instead of Garrett. But no one would have cared. He hadn’t been a survivor of a massacre. He hadn’t been an 084. He’d just been another kid in the system. Troubled son of a good family. The one they didn’t talk about. The black sheep. But one Garrett had seen a use for.

“I can talk to you. I could always talk to you. And you should know how bad it gets. You need to. But this. All of this. I don’t know how you’d look at me if you knew everything going on in my head. And besides, we’re good, aren’t we? We’re good without the past getting in the way.” he said, turning to face her so he could pull her into a kiss.

He was good at distraction. At misdirection. And if Skye was thinking of something else she wasn’t thinking about his past.

Skye let him have his distraction for a moment, because kissing him wasn't exactly a chore. She returned the kiss easily, thinking it could be really simple to just forget about everything that had just been said and just enjoy the feeling of being close to him. Avoiding the hard topics wasn't going to do either of them any favors, though, no matter how good it might feel in the moment, so she pulled away eventually.

"You need to let it out," she argued softly, as if the kiss hadn't interrupted their conversation. "If it's not with me, then with someone else. Keeping it buried isn't healthy, it doesn't help you heal and move on from the horrors in your past, not really." She knew the things his family had done haunted him, no matter how good he was at pushing things down and not talking about them. It was always there somewhere. The staff had been able to use it and so had Garrett.

"The past is always going to be in the way if you don't learn to.. deal with it. You're never really going to be free of it if you just keep trying to pretend it's not there." She knew it couldn't be easy. She knew there were parts of himself he hated and if she was honest, there were parts she hated, too. Grant Ward wasn't perfect, she knew that. Neither of them were, but maybe that was a part of what made this work. She'd finally let herself accept that his mistakes didn't have to define who he was. They didn't mean he couldn't be a good man, even if that's what he believed.

Okay turns out that didn’t work as well as he’d intended. She was surprisingly good at not being distracted. “How do I start?” he asked her. “It’d need to be you. There’s no one else I could talk to not about that. Its asking far too much of you though. We both know that.”

Part of him wanted to talk to her, explain things, but he wasn’t sure he even knew if he could explain them to himself. But maybe she had a point about needing to get that out. “Its never gonna be easy. Being with me. Letting yourself trust me again. Simmons might never say it but she’s worried. May or Coulson show up and they might actually physically try to keep you away. I know I’m not exactly a prizewinning catch. My life has gone from one mess to another and I know that. I know Garrett used me like a weapon. I know that staff, the effects will always be there. There’s a lot for it to feed off of. Having you here, having you willing to give me a chance, it changes things. It makes dealing with it all that bit easier. And I know I put a lot on you. I know that back home you hated me for it. I guess, without you I’m not sure who I’d be. I’m not sure I want to know either because I really don’t think he’d be anyone good.”

It was a lot of words that basically added up to the fact he needed to let her in. Completely. And once he did he couldn’t let her go. Not to May or Coulson. None of them. He sat up properly, taking her hands back in his own.

“So I guess, we talk. What do you want to know, where do you want to start?”


“I don’t know,” she admitted. This wasn’t really her area of expertise. She knew he couldn’t keep locking it all up the way he had been. She knew talking about his past was something he needed and if it had to be her, she’d do it. She didn’t think that made her the right person for the job, but him talking to her was better than him not doing it at all, right?

“I don’t know how this is supposed to go or where to start or any of it. I just know it’s not good for you to keep things in.” Maybe that was crazy. Maybe she didn’t really know what she was talking about. Maybe pushing him to talk about stuff would just make it worse for him. She didn’t think so, though. He kept trying to bury his past. That was no way to deal with things.

“You’re a better man than you think, you know. I know you’ve made mistakes, but you’ve done good here. Maybe it won’t even be easy, but I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t trust you.”

Things were already better, easier, calmer. He thought maybe he could sleep again without all this dragging on him. Skye was listening to him, she hadn’t run screaming for the hills. It made a difference. “And I guess I still can’t believe you do. I’m still not a good man but I can be. With you.” He didn’t expect or deserve easy but with Skye he had something to work for, a reason. And it occurred to him that maybe they didn’t have to lie here and talk about his past. It was just that she was saying he could. That she would listen, and he had sworn he would tell her. It was a weight off if nothing else.

“C’mere” he said softly, lying back down and pulling her into his arms. “Look, this, all this. Its gonna be a slow process, but you know you can ask me anything and I’ll tell you. I love you Skye”

It was going to be a slow process. Skye knew that. She knew it would take time and she was okay with that. "We have all the time in the world," she told him. "I'm not going anywhere." It had take time to come around to this. Trusting him, letting herself care about him. There were some things she wasn't quite ready to say or even admit to, but she was still in this with him and she was okay with taking things slowly. Hearing him say those words and some part of her wanting to say them back, it scared her. It was easier to just nod her head and let him pull her close.