So Long

Chapter 8: Haze

It had been long past midnight when Agent Ward had finally returned to his bunk to get at least a few hours of sleep. He had spent the entire evening and half the night searching for a lead on the missing scientist Dr. O'Leary, yet to no avail. He hadn't been able to find even the smallest trace of him.

At least it had kept him busy, though, and his thoughts occupied, as Ward now realised. Because now that he was lying in his bed and had nothing else to do, he couldn't stop his mind from wandering back to Skye and her disappearance.

So long. Just thinking about that laughably short note she had left him with made his temper rise. He didn't even know who he was angrier with, Skye, for leaving, or himself, for believing all of her assertions that she wanted to be a part of the team again.

He started thinking back to Fitz's insistence that something about Skye's disappearance wasn't right and couldn't help but wonder why it was so hard for him and Simmons to accept the truth. To accept that sometimes even the ones you trusted the most could betray you.

Ward had once accused Skye of being naive and not understanding how the world out there really worked, but of course deep down he knew that the same was just as true, if not even more so, for the two scientists. He just forgot sometimes that despite their doctor titles they were still very young and inexperienced when it came to field work.

They hadn't realised yet, that trusting someone in the field meant putting your life in their hands. That was why in this line of work there was no middle ground. Either you could trust someone completely, or you couldn't. And Skye had proven now without a doubt that she firmly belonged in the second category.

As Ward tried to finally get some sleep, he crossed his arms behind his head to relax. After a while he felt himself drifting off slowly, that was until a noise from outside of his bunk suddenly startled him.

He thought he had heard a voice and laughter coming from the corridor, so Ward got up reluctantly to investigate. The door to his bunk slid open without making a sound as he pulled the handle, revealing the dimly lit interior of the plane. He stepped outside and looked around, but at first everything seemed to be quiet. However, as he looked towards the lounge area, he suddenly spotted a figure standing there, looking straight at him. A very familiar figure.

"Skye!" he uttered in surprise and shock as he recognised the woman dressed in an alarmingly pink dress. Instead of replying anything, though, she turned around and quickly disappeared towards the other end of the plane. He followed the sound of her soft laughter, shouting Skye's name again, but as he reached the spot where she had vanished from his sight, she was gone again.

Ward looked around frantically until he finally spotted a flash of pink moving in the direction of the cargo bay. He went after her like before, only to have her stay one step ahead of him at every turn. The hallways and rooms of the plane were becoming a maze as he chased after the young woman.

"Skye, stop running, damn it," he yelled in frustration, making a 360° spin as he tried to figure out where she had vanished to now.

"Skye!" The only response he got was the sound of laughter from before and Ward seethed with anger at the thought of the brunette laughing at him. He was just about to shout for her once more as he heard a door being slammed shut. He could instantly tell by the direction of the noise that it had come from Coulson's office.

A confident smile appeared on the agent's face as he made his way up the circular staircase, because he knew that Skye would be trapped if she had gone into their C.O.'s office.

Ward flung open the door and grinned victoriously as the woman in the pink dress was really inside the small room, standing in front of the desk, her back turned to him. Even from behind, he recognised the outfit as the one Skye had worn on their mission in Malta, when she had infiltrated Ian Quinn's compound. He stopped short for a moment as he noticed that both the dress and the woman wearing it were completely drenched, like she had been at the end of that operation.