Silence met Skye as she finished her recount of what happened, opening her eyes for the first time since she started. After all, they all saw what came next. She had her questions of course: how had they found her, what were they going to do now, etc. But this just didn't feel like the place to ask, not right now at least. Beyond the fact that the Bus should be coming up any minute, she knew everyone would need a chance to absorb what she'd told them. Hopefully, they'd come up with the same conclusions she had: that Ward, well needing to pay for his crimes, needed help. Whatever they did when they finally caught him, he needed a chance to heal.

The looming silence wasn't broken until they reached the Bus, parked in what looked like an abandoned field. At that point, Jemma leaned forward and looked up at Skye with big dark eyes. Her face was full of questions mixed with a bit of worry, but it wasn't anything Skye hadn't been expecting. At this point, they all had questions.

"Do you know where Ward went, Skye?" Jemma's question was so soft, it was almost inaudible.

Shaking her head slowly, Skye leaned her head against the window of the van and stared out at the surrounding foliage. "He didn't say."

"And there were no clues?" spoke up Fitz curiously. "Not even a little one?"

"Not one," whispered Skye, keeping her eyes trained outside. She didn't have the energy to look at any of her team. The memory of that heavy weight in her pocket came back and for the first time since she woke up, she wondered what it was. Pulling it out of her pocket was out of the question though, at least while the others were around. This thing, whatever it was, had been placed in her care without her knowledge. And for some reason, keeping this secret felt important.

"What do you think, sir?" questioned Fitz from Skye's other side, turning his attention to their boss. "Do you think Garrett was telling the truth? That you're Ward's da?"

Si mmons' head snapped towards Fitz and, for a moment, her expression implied she was considering hitting her partner. But she didn't, instead opting to turn her focus on AC. As all of them did.

Up front, Coulson let out a heavy breath, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "I don't know." His words were so distressed, so lost, it was painful to hear. This was Coulson, their boss, their leader, and here he was breaking because of the words of a psychopath. "If what he said is true..." His voice trailed off, his eyes focused completely forward.

Silently, they waited for him to continue. But when no more words were uttered from his lips, Fitz cleared his throat rather loudly. "Do you remember her, sir? Ward's mum?"

Coulson turned his head, blinking dazedly at Fitz for a moment before the question actually seemed to process. Nodding, he leaned back against his seat just as May pulled to a stop along side the Bus. "Yeah, I do. Vaguely, but..." Shaking his head, he climbed from the van silently before May had even turned off the vehicle. Without a word he moved towards the Bus, leaving the others to follow.

As soon as he was out of sight, Simmons reached out and knocked Fitz lightly on the back of the head. "Fitz! What were you thinking?!"

"I was just curious!" countered Fitz, his voice rising in surprise. "We're all thinking it!"

"But the rest of us had the sense not to say it!" exclaimed Simmons unhappily.

As the two began bickering in the back seat, May opened her door and slipped from the van. Triplett did the same, offering Skye a hand out as soon as he'd cleared the van. She slid across the seat and took it, not trusting herself to climb out on her own. He gave her a worried look as she climbed from the van, but she brushed it off. She was fine, it was AC and Ward who weren't. They were the two suffering right now and there was only one of them she could do anything to help.

Carefully, she started towards the Bus, though May appeared at her side half way there. The pilot didn't help her, but she didn't move passed Skye either, despite how slow she was moving. Instead, May kept pace with the hacker until they reached the Bus. Coulson had already lowered the ramp and both women walked up it at the same pace. As soon as she was in the cargo hold, Skye tried to head for the stairs where Coulson was sure to have gone, but May stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.

"Go to the lab, Skye," insisted May, turning her slightly towards the lab doors. "Let Simmons look you over. You know she'll just hunt you down if you don't."

"And that's the last thing AC needs," sighed Skye, looking towards the stairs unhappily.

Squeezing her shoulder gently, May released Skye's arm and headed for the stairs. "Go talk to him once you talk to Simmons."

"Right," muttered Skye, resigning herself to waiting in the lab for Simmons.

Triplett had appeared maybe 10 minutes after Skye hopped onto one of the lab tables, half dragging the arguing pair into the Bus. He deposited both in front of the lab before stalking out of the cargo bay shaking his head. Skye could only image his frustration with the pair; they could really space out when they were arguing. As it stood, it took Triplett honking the van's horn as he drove it into the bay for them to actually react. At which point, Simmons realized Skye was in the medical bay waiting and quickly bolted inside.

Skye only hadn't interrupted the two because she was trying to be patient about talking to Coulson. The way she saw it, the longer it took her to seek him out, the better off he'd be. Even if she wanted to sneak away and find him, May would probably catch her and drag her back to the lab anyway.

So she sat patiently for 20 minutes while Simmons poked, prodded, and scanned her for any number of scary sounding brain conditions and injuries. She spoke when questioned about important stuff, but didn't otherwise talk much. It was too much effort to try to keep up small talk and she was too drained emotionally to handle it. If she weren't so worried about AC, she'd go straight to bed and sleep once Simmons was done.

Instead, she bolted as soon as the woman was finished, moving as quickly as she could towards Coulson's office. All that was running through her head with every step was what state she'd find AC in when she reached him. Of course, if he were actually in any danger, she was pretty sure May would be with him. The thought of walking into her boss' office and finding him broken down in the middle of the room still scared her though. Skye was so intent on reaching Coulson's office, she nearly dashed right past him where he sat in the lounge.

In her defense though, he was hard to see.

His back was to the stair entrance, body curled into one of the chairs and a bottle of something hard in front of him. The shot glass beside the bottle was unsurprising and if her head weren't still pounding and Jemma wouldn't kill her, she would have joined him. But at least one of them needed to be sober, if only to make sure the other was okay. And given she was the one who was knocked out twice in one day, that was her.

Coulson never looked up as she slipped into the chair across from him, her eyes sweeping over his slumped shoulders and down-turned head. One of his hands was wrapped firmly around his shot glass and the other seemed to have permanently taken up residence around the bottle in front of him. It was heartbreaking to see how much pain one man's words could cause.

"AC?" She kept her voice soft as she leaned forward, eyes locked on his face.

Blue orbs, hazy from alcohol and self-hatred, met her own across the table. "How could I not know I had a child?"

Sighing, Skye reached out and gently wrapped a hand over Coulson's around the bottle. "Because Garrett is- was a psychotic asshole who decided to keep that information from you rather than tell you the truth. It wasn't like she contacted you, AC."

"I could have checked in, something..." muttered Phil, shaking his head slowly. "I should have checked on her, made sure this wasn't the case. I should have-"

"AC, stop," ordered Skye, her voice loosing some of it's gentleness in an attempt to snap him back to reality. "Stop beating yourself up over how you didn't know. There's absolutely nothing you can do about that."

Coulson blinked at her, slow and surprised, before dropping his eyes to the glass in front of him again. "It's my fault, all of it. Everything that happened to him, all because I let someone push me into doing something stupid." Taking a deep breath, he threw back the rest of the contents of his glass and set it aside. " I remember his mother. We met in a bar. Garrett spotted her first..."

-31 years earlier-

"Hey, check out that one," stated Garrett, nudging Phil and pointing across the bar to a woman perched on a stool. She was glaring at her drink, brunette hair pulled up into a tight bun and slim face clearly visible. She was clearly pissed about something, the question was what. "Bet I can get her in the backroom."

One of Coulson's eyebrows shot up, eyes sweeping over to the woman in question. "She'll rip your head off before you get her five feet back."

"Yeah?" challenged Garrett with a smirk, throwing back his drink. "Watch me."

Phil just shook his head as Garrett pushed away from the table and sauntered over to the woman. At first, it actually seemed to be going well. The woman responded to Garrett and even flirted with him. Then Garrett said something that made the woman's face drop into a scowl, and suddenly she slapped him and stood, shouting.

Chuckling, Phil watched in amusement as Garrett backpedaled and tried to re-earn his prior favor. It just got him slapped again and shouted at further. The SHIELD agent retreated at that point, returning to the table he'd been sharing with Phil. Garrett's cheeks were bright red, making Phil sputter with laughter.

"You're right John," laughed Phil. "She was eating out of your hand. You should have put money on that move."

"I've love to see you do better, Phil," challenged Garrett in return, still scowling. "Let's see the Cap fanboy do better."

Glancing at the woman, Phil examined her for a moment before nodding. "Deal."

Coulson dropped his head to the table with a groan as Skye just stared at him in surprise. Seriously? A bet? Ward was born because Garrett and Coulson made a stupid bet? Wow, no wonder AC feels bad.

"AC, it's still not your fault you didn't know about Ward though," repeated Skye softly, squeezing Coulson's hand softly. "It doesn't sound like even Garrett knew until he met Ward for the first time. So how could you expect to know she'd gotten pregnant? Did you give her your number?"

"No," replied Coulson with a shake of his head. "Not sure I even told her my real name. SHIELD was so new to me at the time, I think I used a fake name. I hadn't even wanted to stop at the bar." Taking a deep breath, Coulson kept his eyes on his glass as he continued. "And because I let Garrett push me into stopping and sleeping with that woman, all of this happened. I have a son I never got to know who was treated like crap by his own family and our team was torn apart by a man who was turned into a monster by a monster determined to get back at me."

Sighing, Skye shoved a hand into her hair and stared at the man before her. Her mind spun through a variety of platitudes she could offer Coulson, but the reality was that none of them would help make him feel better. Gulping lightly, she leaned forward as a thought came to mind. "What would you have done if you'd know about him?"

Coulson didn't pause in his answer. "I would have been there. I would have offered support, even taken him in. I would have raised him."

"You would have been his father," stated Skye simply, squeezing Coulson's hand softly. "Guess what, AC? That means you would have done the right thing. So stop beating yourself up over something you couldn't predict and had no control over."

"But it's my fault Garrett targeted him," argued Phil quietly. "Who knows what he did to Ward in his twisted attempt to get back at me."

"Only Ward knows," agreed Skye gently. "But you can't help what Garrett did to him. Garrett was a psychopath and you didn't know Ward was your son. You can't blame yourself for what he did to other people."

"But he did it because Ward is my son, and if I'd know that then I could have protected him," argued Coulson with a sigh. "You haven't seen his record, Skye. It wasn't just Garrett who abused him, it was his family, too. And if Garrett brought him in, his entire history was probably doctored. Who knows what else was done to Ward that isn't in his file?"

"We don't know," agreed Skye, shaking her head a bit. "And we can't know unless Ward tells us. But that's my point, AC. We don't know what happened to him, we don't know where he is, and we don't know what he's thinking. And blaming yourself for all of this isn't gonna help you or him. Instead, think about what you'll do when we get him back."

"If he comes back," sighed Coulson, finally lifting his eyes to meet Skye's. He blinked at her once or twice, then shook his head a little and stood. The set of his shoulders said he was going into father-bear mode, and Skye was his target. "You should be in bed resting."

"Simmons cleared me," assured Skye, tilting her head back to keep him in view. "AC-"

"Simmons might have cleared you of a head injury, but you need to sleep," stated Coulson firmly. "You were under more stress today than anyone. Come on."

No, she definitely hadn't been under more stress than anyone else. That award went to Ward and Coulson for their roles in 'sudden familial connection'. But she also knew Coulson was done talking for now, and going into father-mode was both a way to end the conversation at hand and make himself feel better.

Sighing, knowing that she wasn't going to get out of this, she stood carefully as well and headed for her pod. Well, more like Coulson herded her to her pod, but hey, semantics. Truthfully? She was exhausted and it didn't take a lot of prompting to get her moving. The guilt of leaving Coulson alone still ate at her, though. She didn't want to leave the man who was like a damn father to her alone with his guilt.

Reaching her pod, she turned towards the man and gave him a pointed look. "I'm here if you need to talk, AC. You know that, right?"

"I know, Skye," assured Coulson, offering her the barest hints of a smile. "Thank you."

Nodding, Skye opened the door to her pod. "No problem, AC."

"Now get some sleep," ordered Coulson gently. "You need it more than anyone at this point."

"I'm not sure that's true," argued Skye, offering him a weak grin. "I bet you guys were working hard all day to find me. I just had to stay alive."

"And that's significantly harder to do," confirmed Coulson, shooing her into the pod. "Now, get some sleep. You need it." He turned away before she could argue, heading in the direction of his office. Probably to beat himself up some more, if she had to guess.

"You too, AC," stated Skye with a sigh, shaking her head and shutting her door. He didn't want to talk. He'd speak up when he was ready to.

As soon as the door clicked into place, she dug her hand into the pocket on her jacket and withdrew the smooth black case. It was worn, unsurprisingly, the leather soft against her skin. She turned it over and over as she walked towards her bed, shedding her jacket and sliding into her bed with the case still in hand.

Flipping open the case, she expected to be met with the standard SHIELD badge or a corrupted Hydra version. Instead, she was met with tattered leather where the badge had been torn free. Only the ID card was left inside. His name, Grant Ward, was scrawled across the top of the plastic, though the SHIELD logo and bar code had been cut off. His picture was next to his name, with all the text below blacked out.

Silently, Skye ran her fingers over the picture before closing he eyes. The weight was wrong, but it was a comfort too. A sign. He wasn't there with them, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten them.

Flipping the leather shut, she rolled into her side and slipped the case into her pillow. She needed sleep. Tomorrow was a new day, and she'd need all her strength, like the rest of the team would, for whatever rose up to meet them.