There is a field. He is walking in a field. The green grass grows tall and thin, dotted by wildflowers. The sky is bright blue, the sun shining. The field is the backyard of his house. Behind him, their house sits, small and yellow. It is a quaint house, with two front windows and a back porch with a swing. The lawn has toys flung all over it, as well as a picnic table with chipped white paint.
Skye walks in front of him, wearing a white sundress, holding hands with their daughter. Their daughter is five now, and she skips alongside her mother through the flowers, picking the one's she likes. Flowers of red, blue and purple are clenched in her small fists. She's the spitting image of Skye, only with his dark eyes.
She turns back to him, smiling, waving at him to catch up with them, reaching her hands back towards him. He speeds up, taking her hand in his and swinging her into the air. She shrieks with joy. They continue walking like this, Skye softly humming, their daughter picking flowers, him marveling in the beauty of his girls.
"This day is perfect, Grant," Skye says with a smile. She moves to the other side of him, taking his hand. Their daughter moves too, taking her mother's hand back and planting herself in between them again.
And it is.
The day is perfect.
Then, a gunshot.
His daughter screams and covers her ears. He turns towards the direction it came from, but there is nothing there. He turns back to Skye, only to find her clutching her stomach, blood pouring out from between her fingers, staining her white dress. Her eyes are wild and scared. The color is draining from her face as she looks down at the wound.
"Why?" she asks. Her voice is small, and there are tears in her eyes.
"Why?" He asks back, reaching to help her stop the bleeding. But he can't reach her in time.
She collapses.
He catches her, crouching in front of his daughter to shield her from any possible future gunshots. His daughter is still screaming and sobbing, small hands gripping his shirt. Skye is fading fast in his arms. Her hand still pressing on the wound, but the blood is pouring out fast, too fast, and she's starting to choke on it.
He wraps his arm around his daughter, turning her face away from the sight of her mother dying. He clutches Skye in his arms and presses his hands on top of the wound. She stares up at the sky and tries to breathe. Then she looks at him. She tries to speak through the blood she is choking on.
"This-," she says, but he shushes her, telling her to save her breath, that she'll be okay. She shakes her head.
"This," she starts again, "This is your fault."
It comes out a choking whisper, but he hears it.
"What?" he asks. He doesn't understand.
"This is your fault," she repeats, and somehow her voice is stronger even with the blood coming out of her mouth.
"You are a liar, a betrayer a deceiver."
The world tilts for a second.
He looks around wildly, for the explanation to her words. He sees the house, the field, the toys and all of it seems oddly familiar but somehow not his anymore. He is out of place. Her words are out of place. He doesn't know why she saying these things.
He looks to his daughter, only to find her staring at him with the same hurt look in her eye. His daughter climbs out of his arms and runs towards the house. He calls after her, but she does not turn back. He cannot follow her.
He looks down at Skye, covered in blood, and she reaches up and grips his shirt with a strength she shouldn't possess in this state.
"Your fault," she says and her eyes are harsh and cruel. His throat closes and tears fill his eyes. It feels like thousand slaps to the face.
"I hate you," she whispers, hand going slack and eyes shutting.
It is the last thing she says.
Then he starts screaming, begging, her to wake up, shaking her. She lies still in his arms, white dress soaked in red, and her blood is still dripping off the hem of her dress onto his hands.
He is screaming for help, for anyone to come and save her. He is screaming and crying and shaking.
He can't stop screaming.
Then he wakes up.
The first thing he sees is the gray wall of the safe house. Kara is sitting beside him, looking concerned. His stitches pull, and a wet feeling on his side tells him he may have ripped one of them.
"You were screaming in your sleep," she says.
Then she walks away.
He doesn't sleep for three days.