Dawn of Understanding

Summary: "Someday you'll understand," Ward had told her back then on that fateful day Hydra had raised its ugly heads for the first time. Months and a terrifying transformation later, Skye is not even an inch closer to comprehend the man who betrayed the team and her. All she can see is the lies and the path of destruction he left behind. However, when all comes together in a mission and she encounters someone from his past, can she finally start to understand the complicated mess that is Grant Ward? Set five weeks after 2x10.

A/N: This idea has been with me for months so I had to finally get it out of my system. It's my first time playing around with Skye's point of view, I hope all of you asking for more Skye in my stories are happy now. :-))

I expect that this story will probably be around three chapters long. Sooo... slightly longer than my one-shots, but short enough to promise I'll finish it. ;-)

As always: Constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

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"I'm in," Skye whispered into the comm, wriggling through a broken window and looking around the abandoned warehouse.

"Good," she heard May's calm voice in her ear. "Take a careful look around, but whatever happens, don't engage. Do remember that the target is pyro-kinetic and we've seen already how dangerous they can be. I want you to get familiar with the perimeter and report anything unusual, then wait for me." There was a short pause, before her S.O. added, "I mean it, Skye. Keep a close watch on your pulse, we can't have the whole building come crashing down."

"Yes, ma'am," Skye answered dutifully, barely keeping herself from heaving a sigh.

It had been five weeks since she had received her new 'gift'. It definitely felt much longer. Nowadays, everyone seemed to either treat her as if she was made of glass and had to be cocooned all the time (May and Coulson) or as if she would suddenly explode if someone only twitched the wrong way (everyone else). It was so very tiring. Sure, she was far away from controlling her powers, but that did not mean that everything else had changed. She was the same girl from before, but no one seemed to get that. It was not as if she had suddenly forgotten all her training or her personality.

The reactions of the people around her were probably the hardest thing about her transformation. Of course it is scary to make the ground shake whenever you are upset, but it was nothing compared to suddenly see fear in the eyes of your closest friends whenever they look at you. That just hurt. They tried to mask it, tried to joke like nothing had happened, but Skye was already too well trained in the spy business to notice the falseness. Jemma was probably the worst. While her scientific interest was very much piqued by Skye's transformation, her fear overrode it all. Fitz was slightly better, but he had so many issues with himself that Skye felt bad for stressing him out even more.

She had to confess that she had thought about leaving. But where should she go? What should she do? S.H.I.E.L.D. was the only family she ever knew. Yes, she now knew she had a father that was still alive, but this relationship was certainly... complicated. Skye could feel her heartrate picking up even when thinking about him and forced herself to breathe steadily – exhaling slowly, then waiting for five seconds before gradually inhaling again. At least she was getting good very fast with these breathing exercises May had taught her.

Skye rarely allowed herself to think about the events that had happened in San Juan. The last few times she had tried to sort out her thoughts, the rattling of furniture had made clear that these memories were better buried deeply. It was not just the thought of her father that troubled her deeply, but also Trip's death and... Ward.

A very fine trembling of an old wooden box beside her snapped Skye out of her contemplation. Now definitely was not the time for woolgathering – especially when woolgathering had proved to be dangerous in her case. With an effort of will, she stopped the trembling and finally started walking around the abandoned warehouse.

The hall was huge and a number of shelves – some still standing, others half-collapsed – divided the warehouse into a strange kind of labyrinth. There was no way to tell what cargo had been stowed here ten years ago, all that was left were a few old and broken boxes. When Skye walked down one of the shelves, she saw that one of the boxes had been padded with newspapers and an empty plastic bottle was placed right next to it. Looking around carefully, she crouched down and peered into the box. It was empty, but she was quite sure someone had slept in there. She took a closer look at the newspaper that had been used as padding and noted that it dated back only three days. Someone had been here not long ago.

Cautiously, she took another surreptitious glance around, but all was quiet. All she could hear was a faint whistling sound from the wind blowing through some of the broken windows.

"May," Skye whispered into her comms, "someone has been here not long ago. It might be our target. I'll go and check the exits of this place. Has Bobbi already identified our gifted?"

So far, they only had a personal description of the pyro-kinetic, which was pretty nondescript: male, in his late twenties, middle height, dark hair, brown eyes. The only thing that stood out had been a rather large scar running from the left corner of his mouth down to his jaw. They had neither name nor other details about him, which was why Bobbi was running the description and a rather blurry surveillance cam photo through different computer programs in the hopes of identifying their target.

There was a long pause, before Skye heard May's voice through the comms, "...Skye? Could... repeat...? Connection... breaking off... Wait..."

"Damn it!" Skye cursed quietly, tapping her ear a few times. "May? Can you hear me now? Something is messing with our signal."

"Trouble with your comms?" a familiar voice spoke right behind her.

Skye whirled around and came almost face-to-face with Ward. Her arms came up in a defensive move all on their own, but he was already taking a few steps back to lean casually against a shelf.

"Never turn your back on the enemy, huh?" he remarked, his voice completely flat. "I learned my lesson, sure, but it looks like you haven't mastered that part yet, rookie."

Skye just stared at him, too stunned for the moment to speak. He looked different than when she had last seen him: his hair had grown back a bit, but he was gaunt and pale. Guess that's what you look like after getting shot in the back four times, her mind told her. She had wondered once or twice if she had killed him, but – though she had no idea why – that thought had bothered her too much, so she had forced herself to think of something else.

Finally finding her voice, Skye answered scathingly, "I'm not your rookie anymore, Ward." Then a realization hit her and she added with a scowl, "I guess it's your fault my connection broke off?"

He smirked shortly and made a show of shrugging nonchalantly, but he obviously did not put too much effort in it to get it across convincingly. His eyes remained steely and Skye could not help but notice that they were sunken deeply into their sockets and were encircled by shadows. The shrug was more a threat than anything else, because she could see a weapon stowed under his black leather jacket and his hands never strayed far away from it. There was no doubt he would be quicker in drawing his gun than she with her own weapons that were strapped to both her sides.

For the first time since Ward had turned out to be playing for team Hydra, she felt threatened by him. There had always been a warmth in his eyes, reserved solely for her, and even though the same warmth had creeped her out in the past, it had also made her feel rather safe around him. Now his eyes remained completely cold and it unsettled her.

"I thought you had learned your lesson when it comes to stalking me, Ward. Didn't I tell you this always ends badly for you?" she asked him with a fake smile, in an attempt to override the dread that had taken hold of her. The empty plastic bottle that was on the ground right beside her began shaking slightly, beating an almost inaudible staccato on the ground.

Ward immediately noticed. His eyes flew to the bottle, then back to her. Something in his eyes changed, a slight widening of his pupils. It was impossible, truly impossible, but she was sure he somehow knew! Skye desperately tried to stop the shaking. Her powers were too volatile to be of any use in a fight, all she could do was bury them all under rubble, but nothing was gained with that. In the worst case, she would destroy the nearby town, too, because she could not control it.

"What makes you think I'm here because of you?" he asked, but his eyes were not on her, but on the bottle that slowly stopped trembling.

"Yes, silly me, why would I think that?" Skye replied in an exaggeratedly mocking voice, trying to keep his attention on her and not on the plastic bottle. "I don't know. You tell me. Maybe it has something to do with you being a creeper and the way you keep popping up in my life. You're a sick and deluded son of a bitch if you still think I want to have anything to do with you. How can I get any clearer than putting four rounds into you? Didn't that hurt enough to stay away from me?"

Ward's eyes darkened and he fixed her with a stare that instinctively made her want to shy away from his gaze.

"It hurt enough," he answered flatly, "and still does. I was coughing up blood for days and the ribs have yet to stop crunching when I move. I almost died. Hope that makes you happy. So yeah, you were clear enough for me to understand that you won't tolerate me close to you, not even when I want to help you."

Skye had a hard time to keep herself from biting her lips. No matter how often she told herself that she hated him, she could not enjoy the thought of him suffering from the wounds she had inflicted. It was a weakness she had to conquer. She was pretty sure that May would be smiling if she heard about Ward spitting blood.

"Then why are you here?" she asked quietly, all the fight and anger gone from her voice. She suddenly felt tired. Why was her whole life such a mess? Leaving everything behind her and sleeping for a week sounded so tempting right now. Maybe she should just rob a bank and spend the rest of her life on a beach on Hawaii, sipping cocktails with little umbrellas in it.

"Not because of you," Ward replied tersely, slowly drawing his weapon, but not pointing it at her. "Make both of us happy and walk out of here without a fight. I'll never give you any trouble again and I won't bother you with my presence any longer."

Skye could hear an underlying bitterness in his voice that she was unfamiliar with. He sounded almost as tired as she felt and though she wanted to believe him, she found herself immediately wondering about his true intentions. All he had ever done was lying, to everyone. Nothing had been real, he was nothing but layers and more layers of lies piled upon a persona he had created to fool them all. There was no trusting him and she had sworn herself to never make that mistake again.

"I don't believe you," she spit out through gritted teeth, some of her anger returning.

"Alright," he replied, almost nonchalantly, the smug mask slipping back in place. He slowly lifted his weapon and pointed it straight at her chest. "You don't have to believe me. Just get out of here or I'll shoot you."

Something in Skye's chest gave a funny twist and she found herself staring at him incredulously. He looked and sounded dead serious. His eyes were hard as slate and his finger was resting on the trigger. Damn it, he wasn't bluffing! He was truly threatening her. Which meant that he was telling the truth, he was not here because of her. But why then?

She was suddenly struck by a thought and blurted out, "You're after the target!"

There was no outward reaction on his face to her statement, but his stillness lasted a millisecond too long, now that Skye was trained what to look for. She immediately knew she was right.

"None of your business," he snarled in reply and closed in on her to disarm her, quickly finding the two pistols – an ICEr and a regular gun – and one knife she kept on her. Skye kept still while his hands patted roughly over her body and she realized that she had hit home with her statement. That was why she had suddenly been deemed a threat by Ward and needed to be disarmed.

"What are you going to do with the gifted?" she asked while Ward had her walking in front of him and towards the exit with the barrel of his gun pressed into her back. "Handing him over to your Hydra friends? Are they paying you a bounty for every gifted you deliver to them? Or are you just killing him for fun? Long time no kill – let's hunt some freaks?"

She knew she was goading him and the way his pistol was biting into her back with more force than necessary told her she had succeeded in riling him up.

"Just move," he ordered flatly.

They had almost reached the broken window Skye had used as an entry when a crash in the back of the warehouse made them both tense. Skye could feel the barrel of Ward's gun move away from her back and point loosely in the direction of the noise. This was it, her chance. Even as her right elbow slammed back in his ribs, she hoped that he still at least had some reservations about killing her, which made her the only one even daring to hope to get the better of him while he still held a gun. A pained grunt told her that she had hit home (bless him for telling her his ribs were still not fully healed), but no shot was fired, which made her realize she had not hoped in vain. In a well-practiced move, she knocked the gun out of his hand while he was slowed down by the pain and then she reached for the hem of his jeans where he had tucked away the weapons he had taken from her. Just as she grabbed the handle of one of the guns, he recovered enough to roughly push her away from him. Skye flailed back a few steps, then quickly lifted her reconquered weapon just to see Ward do exactly the same with her other gun. It took her only a moment to realize she had gotten hold of the ICEr, while he held her regular gun. Damn it!

Facing one another, their stances mirrored each other perfectly, which made Skye flash back to one of their first weapon training when Ward had shown her where to plant her feet, how to hold her shoulders and so forth. She would never have guessed back then that she would one day use everything he had taught her against him.

"You're pushing your luck, Skye," he growled, his breathing heavier than usual. It made her realize, together with her success in getting away from him, that he was anything but in peak condition. He was clearly still recovering from the wounds she had inflicted. So why was he even here? This must be important to him, somehow.

"Yeah?" she questioned cockily. "Seems like it worked perfectly."

"I will pull the trigger," Ward warned her, "if you don't walk away right now."

Skye believed him, but then she was rather sure he would not aim to kill. He would try to incapacitate her, nothing more. Problem was that her ICEr was working too slowly. If she shot him now, he would have time to shoot her in return before he passed out. Stupid standoff.

"Why are you here?" she asked again, trying to gain time. May was certainly on her way, maybe Skye could hold him off long enough for her S.O. to get here. "Why risking a fight when you're not up to it?"

His gun never wavered away from her while he stared at her for a long time and then answered simply, "You wouldn't understand."

Now that answer took her aback.

"Try me," she replied haughtily.

Ward stared at her, his whisky-colored eyes shining almost too brightly in the sparse light. His lips opened slightly, as if he had finally decided to answer her, when the comm in her ear suddenly flickered back alive.

"Skye?" she heard Bobbi's urgent voice. "Listen, Fitz is trying to stabilize our connection and override the signal that is blocking our comms. Can you hear me? If you can hear me, then get out of the warehouse, it's too dangerous there for you! We were able to identify our gifted: His name is Thomas Ward." There was a slight pause before she added, "He's Ward's younger brother!"

-tbc-