A/N: This is...darkish!skyeward. Not quite as dark as I was going for but still.

Disclaimer: What you recognize is not mine. Title from Regina Spektor's Eet.

Sometimes, Skye dreams of things she can't begin to explain.

She sees millennia into the past, starbursts and comets and planets falling into alignment and the earth being formed, and all of its history in a big, non-linear melting pot of things.

And when she wakes up, she can feel everything but most of all, pain. Eons of pain and destruction and fire and terror and it all pulses under her skin like she knows it, like it's hers.

She doesn't understand any of it.

They are dreams but they feel like memories, like something she's known and forgotten, or something that's always existed in the periphery of her mind. When she wakes up, she can't get a hold of them and they slip through the cracks in her mind like sand through her fingers; she can feel it go but can't do anything to stop it.

Skye asks Coulson once because who else would she talk to when the one person she once confided in is in the wind?

"I've been having these dreams."

He looks at her patiently and nods for her to continue, an ever-present expression of imperturbable calm on his face. "Nightmares?"

In a simpler world, a clearer world, she would say yes. But they don't feel like nightmares. "No, they're not nightmares. More like I'm remembering things I'm not supposed to."

"You have been under a lot of stress lately, Skye. Dreams are merely echos of all the things we don't fully notice when we're awake."

His answer seems rehearsed, like he's known she would ask him this question before she even started having these dreams.

"In those dreams...what exactly do you see?"

"I see things which have happened but they haven't happened to me. I see the world, the entire world but more than I could imagine."

She doesn't know how to explain that she's seen the beginning of the world, that she's watched supernovas explode, the vibrant colors of their radiation still vivid in her head, and felt the pull of black holes, and heard the calling of the universe. She doesn't know how to put it into words because the language doesn't seem to lend itself to her for this purpose.

Anyone else would probably miss the subtle shift in Coulson but Skye has spent enough time trying to read him that she sees it: his jaw locks and he sits up a bit straighter, giving her his total, hundred percent undivided attention.

"Maybe you should see Simmons if you're having trouble sleeping."

For all that he has been there for her, this suggestion doesn't feel so innocent and something inside of her panics. There is a hidden sentiment underneath his words and him mentioning Simmons triggers a fight or flight response in her core without her approval.

"But you know what? They probably are just nightmares and you're right, I am stressed out. I'll have some warm milk before I go to bed. Thanks, AC."

She backs out of Coulson's office before he can respond but that look in his eyes stays with her; that look tells her that he is keeping secrets and she doesn't like it.

"Oh, daughter of mine, how human you look."

The being in front of her is terrifying, ghoulish, monstrous and his voice sends shivers down her spine. Blood is dripping down his hands and she has the horrifying realization that it isn't someone's blood but it is a part of him, just like those cruel eyes which don't resemble hers. The rest of him looks human but she knows that this is all that it is; an illusion of normalcy.

"I'm sorry I had to put you into this body; you know, if I had had any other way, I would've never forced you to become like them."

He ends the sentence on a hissing note and Skye flashes back to the team, now certain in the knowledge that this is the secret Coulson has been keeping from her, that this is what 0-8-4 really means.

"Yes, yes, darling, you are right. He wanted to control you but you're so much more than this life. I don't have to show you the universe because you've seen it already."

She remembers her dreams and realizes that what she considered mere flashes were much more than that. "I am remembering."

He smiles eerily and nods. "It has always been there but I had to hide it so no one else could see inside; this is not meant for the weak humans who are still learning how the world works. Give them the universe and they will only destroy it."

He touches her cheek with his palm and she doesn't recoil from the blood or the burning hot feeling of his skin. She feels pulled towards him, feels centered and calm and finally where she belongs; the human in her is afraid but something else is quickly rising to the surface, something which is terror and salvation all in one.

"But I'll give you the universe and we'll rule it."

Suddenly, he presses both of his palms over her temples and the blinding pain courses through her veins, burns in her heart and erases all that she has been and would ever become and she sees all of it flash in front of her eyes and then-

There is nothing.

But she wakes up to a lot of something. Her dreams are again inside her head but now she knows that they are memories, that she has seen the world begin and evolve and learn.

She is a billion years old. She is the universe and all of it makes sense in a way it never has before. The universe is her mind.

There is a burning sensation in her head and a hollowness in her heart which calls out to her and when she raises her eyes, she sees Ward who has suddenly appeared between her and her father, down on his knees, bloodied and bruised but not broken. He doesn't look at her.

"There is something keeping you here, daughter, and you can't have the world until you leave it behind."

She looks at her hands; they are dripping with blood just like his and she can feel the power in them, the power to hurt and break and destroy. The power to be whoever she wants to be.

Her father smiles and with a sweep of his hand, gestures to Ward. "Take care of it and the world is yours."

He knows that she has now been awakened, that she is better than anyone else, that she rises above whatever petty emotions that keep the humans grounded and complacent and weak. Now she has discovered her true self and will reap the benefits of it.

But he has made a mistake in his calculations. She is not a frightened young girl; she is the one who decides what she does.

"No."

The word echoes in the room around them and he doesn't understand. "No? Daughter, this is your destiny."

"I said no."

She steps closer to Ward but doesn't take her eyes off her father. He laughs like she has told him a great joke, but the sound is metallic and wrong. "You can't have the world with him. He is not worth the universe; he is human."

Skye is not afraid of him and doesn't respond to that but takes Ward's hand and pulls him to his feet. He looks disoriented and confused but the moment his gaze focuses on hers, he smiles weakly, giving all of his energy into that final effort. "Skye."

It is but one word, one syllable, her name, but it fills the gap in her heart and she finds equilibrium just with that, finds the stability and the center of the universe.

"I gave you the world and this is how you repay me? Our world is not for his kind!"

Her father bellows out a string of words in a language she instinctively understands but can't speak and his appearance changes, becoming nothing more than a whirlwind of blood and terror and rage but it doesn't frighten her.

"I choose my own way."

She is terrifying and calm, the storm and the eye of the storm. Her father howls but she stands her ground, half in front of Ward but ready to call upon the universe at any given moment and that is something he didn't account for.

"You are a fool!"

"No. I am better than you."

And she feels the millenia burning in her blood and the pain radiating from her fingertips, begging to be let out.

"I will take the world without you and burn it down with you in it if you ever come back."

There is steel in her voice and he is not foolish enough to strike her in that moment when the universe bends to her will and she walks away, not even sparing a backward glance.

Ward sleeps for hours and when he awakes, all of his injuries have disappeared and he finds himself in one of his safe houses.

His memory is foggy at best but one thing stands out: Skye. He remembers her vividly, a beacon in the middle of unending chaos and mayhem and can still feel her presence behind him.

"I'm not a hallucination, Ward."

He turns around, startled, and there she is, standing by the window. She looks the same but something is inherently different about her.

"What happened?"

Ward's memory may be fuzzy but he remembers that Skye's father was there and can almost hear talks about universes and worlds and power, and he still feels the pain in his body where her father put his hands on his temples and forced him to reveal all of his secrets.

"What did he do to you?"

She responds with a question of her own and comes to sit beside him, so close that their knees and shoulders touch and that single touch calms and energizes him inexplicably, the connection between them buzzing relentlessly.

"He went inside my head and...searched. He looked at everything and made me relive it, made me show him."

Ward remembers the pain when he forced the deepest secrets out, when he rummaged around like in a storage closet and evaluated his mind like he was trying to understand something he couldn't quite fathom.
"He saw what you would do for me and that's why he wanted me to kill you."

She says it off-handedly, like she thinks nothing of it but he can hear the undercurrent of anger and worry and pain still flowing through it.

"But he didn't know what I would do for you."

The sentiment is a shock to his system because he hadn't dared dream of anything like this. His love for her is unquestionable but she has always been a riddle. Would she do anything at all?

"What would you?"
The question escapes unbidden and surprise flashes over her face. She opens her mouth to explain but reconsiders for a moment before she follows through with it.

"I can show you."

She raises her hands to the sides of his head and he flinches imperceptibly, her father's invasion still fresh in his mind. She looks hurt for a moment and starts lowering her hands and this isn't what he had in mind but he catches her wrists with his hands.

"Hey, it's okay. I trust you:"

And that is a truth he's very comfortable with. She searches for something in his expression and must find it because she raises her hands again and touches his temples, ever so softly.

It isn't pain and agony this time but the tenderest of caresses and he sees the universe, sees into her mind and absorbs it all while she whispers words in a language he has never heard. She doesn't take anything from him but gives so much and his mind expands, struggling to accommodate all of it.

When it's over, and she removes her hands, he looks at her, astonished and bewildered and still a bit disbelieving. "You gave up the universe for me?"

Skye smiles and shakes her head. "No. I gave the universe to you."

He kisses her and the universe shakes.

A/N: Tuh-dum-tsssh.