HIATUS

"What now?", Ward said as he laid down his bed. He now knew the information about Skye's parents or should he call her Daisy, he wondered? No, Skye for now, it will be Daisy when she knows the truth. But should he tell her the truth? Is it even worth it? He knows that Skye is a good person, knowing that the parents that you had been looking for are murderers, would plainly be, traumatic to say the least. Especially if she knows that her parents were killing people just to find her.

Based on the information that he read, Skye's parents were still looking for her. If they know that Skye is with S.H.I.E.L.D. there was a small chance that they would attack the agency just to get her.

"Me and my big mouth", Ward said to himself as he looks at the ceiling of his room.

'If it was an ordinary person, I probably would just tell this information outright. Why am I even considering hiding this?', Ward thought.

Just like Coulson who has started to get fond of Skye, he was starting to do that as well. For Coulson, Skye was starting to become a daughter that he never had. For Ward, she wasn't just an ordinary trainee. There was something in her that made the young man drawn to her, not just in a platonic sense. So telling Skye the truth would hurt her more than not telling her at all. He wanted to free Skye from that unnecessary pain.

"Is there anything else, sir?", Alfred said through the laptop.

"No, nothing else. You can shut down now", Ward replied as he closes his laptop and placed it on the table in his room. He decided to sleep for the night and think about what he would do with this information with a clear head and good night's sleep tomorrow.

THE NEXT DAY:

"Come on, you can do better than that", Ward said as he held the punching bag as Skye delivered some punches towards it. It was already 6:00 in the morning and the two of them had been up since 4:30 for their daily workout routine. Skye was smart enough to be part of the tech group of S.H.I.E.L.D but she opted to become an operative instead. So, this was a requirement to become a decent agent of the agency, be it in the physical aspect of an agent.

"AH! AH! AH!", with sweat dripping from her body, she delivered powerful blows towards the punching bag. Each punch no weaker than the previous one. It was a clear sign that her strength and stamina had greatly improved throughout the weeks of hard physical training.

After a few minutes of continuous punching, Ward told her to stop and begin stretching for a proper cool down. Skye immediately obliged and did what she was told. Ward grab two towels and two bottles of water and promptly gave Skye one of each.

"Good, you're improving nicely", Ward said as he took a drink of his water.

"Thanks", Skye smiled, "You complimen---"

Ward immediately realize where Skye was going with her sentence, so he interrupted her, "But not quick enough. I'll have to see which areas I need to double your workload".

"I shouldn't have said anything", Skye replied.

Ward just had a smirk on his face and said, "I'll take a shower before breakfast. After that, you have the books that you need to read".

"um...I know that it's too soon but did you get anything from the file?", Skye said. This stopped Ward from leaving the room. He looks at Skye and he could recognize her desire. She may seem confident at times, like confident enough to join a hacking group. But deep down, she was just an orphan who wanted to know why her parents left her.

"It has only been a night, you don't expect me to know right away, right?", Ward said.

"um..Yeah, I'm sorry", Skye said weakly.

Ward just sighed and left the room. He eventually took a shower but the thought of the information he knew about Skye was lingering in his mind. As the water continually hit his face, he thought about the consequences of both telling and not telling Skye what he knew. He like Skye, and keeping a secret didn't feel right to him but keeping that secret was also keeping Skye's best interest at heart.

So, he was basically stuck between two boulders and wasn't sure how to get out of it.

He soon got dress and went to the kitchen. Even before he reached the kitchen he could already smell cooked eggs and pancakes.

"Oh, you're cooking a lot Jemma", Ward said.

"Help yourself", Jemma replied as she continues to cook some food for the team.

"Don't mind if I do", Ward said as he took some omelet and a couple of pancakes. Isn't wasn't long before the rest of the team joined him for breakfast. It was times like this that makes their team more like a family. Ward could remember the early days when Ethan, Erik, Ava, and him and occasionally Bucky would eat together after a grueling training session. He missed those times now, everyone was off doing their missions that they rarely get a chance to see each other.

"Anything we need to do today, sir", Fitz asked Coulson as he took a bite of his pancakes.

Coulson swallowed his food and replied, "Agent Garret would be meeting us today. He wants to help us in some of our missions".

"Garret will be here? I thought he had another assignment somewhere in Europe?, Ward replied. During his first years in S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Garret was his superior officer so they were close. But Ward also knew that he was part of Hydra, Agent Sitwell had informed him of that the moment he became his S.O. This was one of the reasons why he had remained close with the man even after years of graduating from his tutelage.

"No, he will be helping us on our missions for a while"

"That's nice", Ward replied.

After breakfast was done. Skye and Ward volunteered to clean the plates.

"Look, I'm sorry if I'm been too excited to know if you have information about my parents. I know that you will tell me if you have something", Skye said as she dried the plates.

Ward was calm on the outside when he looks at Skye but on the inside, he was having an internal debate about telling her or not. Two points of view that each had their merits were debating in his mind.

"Ward? Are you okay? You have been quiet for a few seconds now?", Skye said. Noticing that Ward was still out of it, Skye wet her hands and splash some water on Ward's face. "Earth to Ward, do you copy?".

"Damn it! You didn't have to do that", Ward replied as he wipes the water off his face by the sleeve of his shirt.

"What were you thinking about? You were out of it for a while there"

Ward sighed and said, "Skye, I need you to go to my room after this. We need to talk in private".

"Why?"

"I think I have something that you might want to know"

"Really?", Skye said with excitement forming in her face. This prompted Skye to quicken her work.

The two of them soon entered Ward's room and Ward immediately took out his laptop. On the screen were two windows open, one file contained the classified file that Skye gave, now declassified. While the other tab contained the darker information that came from SHADOW.

While the laptop was still in front of him, Ward exit the window that came from SHADOW. He opted in telling Skye the declassified file information instead.

"This ain't technically allowed, so what I'm going to tell you stays with us. I was able to declassify the file", Ward said as he handed his laptop to Skye, "The classified file only talks about a group of S.H.I.E.L.D agents saving a baby girl,....that was you, Skye. It has no information about your parents".

With a shocked look on her face, Skye immediately read through the file, but the more she read the more she realizes that Ward was right. It contains no information about her family. It only contains the death of agents that tried to protect her.

She began to cry, knowing that it had no information about her parents and knowing that people died for her when she was a baby, made Skye both sad and guilty.

Ward immediately hug her, tightly and said, "Your whole life you thought you weren't wanted, that you didn't belong. That every family that took you in didn't want you to stay, didn't care but all that time it was S.H.I.E.L.D protecting you, looking after you. We are your family now, Skye. Remember that". Skye then proceeded to wet Ward's clothes as she cried in his chest.

'If she knew the other information it would break her. I know what I did was right', Ward thought as he placed a silencing seal in his room. He then allowed Skye to cry her eyes out in his chest.