But..

I know there is always a but.

However, this one is a good one…

See Meridian is an awesome Beta and friend.  And seems to have some physic connection to me and my muse.  (seriously, she has been named the muse whisperer!)  She sent me this video to help me out.

This came at a perfect time, since I was being haunted by a story, to the point I couldn’t do anything, as I dreamed and so on about it.  So as the video says, if it happens, take a week off, and work on getting it out of your head.

I have started that week two days ago.   And managed to get 6 chapters out, at about an average of 2k words a chapter.

What can I say?  When the muse is running through my mind like this, I can type up a story in a week.

Since I will be working on this, I thought it was only fair to give you a teaser.  In fact, I will give you the first chapter AS IT IS.  That is right, raw and unedited.  This is what my stories look like when I am caught up in writing them.  Part of the reason to do this is that I want you to know what I do, and how much a chapter can change when I edit.

So the story banner is this:

This is a straight MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) story.  And I am saying this encompasses quite a bit of the stories.  I won’t bore you with all the research I have done.  I will say things I wrote about, then ended fact checking for something else, finding that I picked the right things makes me feel I do know the characters well.  yeah me!

And the teaser is this:

Pre-Edit Count – 1,736 Words

Song I listened to for this chapter: Iridescent by Linkin Park

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Ward stares down at what his body is doing now. Closing his eyes at the pain he feels for what is going on in the world he had wrecked.

Though there is a sense of rightness that the being responsible for Hydra being formed is using his body to continue it’s work.  God knows he made enough mistakes with being the head of Hydra that he should suffer watching his body being closer to Skye than he has been.  Talking to her about how he felt for her.

Now that he is no longer there, he wonders how did it go so wrong?  How did everything become such a mess that he gave up the chance at love, to follow an insane man who wanted nothing more than revenge for not being saved?

How did he allow himself to be so warped?  Going from the boy who was beaten by his family, to ending up beating up his own brother to protect him?  To destroy everything that he wanted to follow someone who only used him?

Not knowing if it is the freedom of being able to see the past as he has done looking for answers, or what exactly is making it where he is thinking clearly for once in his life, Ward wishes that he had the chance to go back and make it all right.

He wouldn’t care if he never got the chance to be with Skye, as long as she was protected and loved.  He would do anything for the woman he now knows was his chance at love.  Instead, he threw it away for no reason.

No reasons that count now at least.

He looks at Skye in front of him, and rests his hand on her cheek, watching her as she feels it and looks for the reason for the touch.  “I messed up, Skye.  I gave up your love before ever really knowing it.  And the taste I had, I should have fallen on my knees and begged for redemption.  Instead I thought I was saving you by using you.   I am so sorry.”

A voice sounds behind him asking, “Are you willing to do anything for that chance Grant Ward?

Without turning to face the being asking him the question, Ward continues to stare at the face of Skye as he answers, “Yes.  But I don’t deserve it.  Any of the people in her life are more worthy of that chance.”

“Come with me.”

It was an order, and one that Ward had no chance of disobeying.  With a last glance to Skye, he turns to follow the shadowy being.

The shadow leads him into a room with large screens showing different scenes.  Ward looks out, and blinks when he realizes that it is the people he truly cares about.  The ones that he has realized in this afterlife of sorts that truly mean something to him.

Coulson – who is screaming as some beings have him hooked into a machine, obviously in pain as they did whatever to him.

May –  She is lying dead in a wasteland, bodies all around her

Fitz – Is in a lab looking much worse for wear, his normally well put together outfit looking like he has worn it for weeks, moving in the jerkiness that those with no sleep get after a long time.

Simmons – her screen was just black.  And that pained him not to be able to see the woman he looked at as a little sister.  Her fate is unknown.

Skye – Hers is the most painful.  Everything that made him fall in love with her is stripped away.  There is nothing but the robot she had teased him of being left of her as she battled an obviously losing war.

A tear rolls down his cheek as he sees the ones he had seen as a family, torn apart, dead or in pain.

The shadowy being looks at him, and asks, “Do you see what your actions have caused?”

Ward turns his head to stare at the being, “My actions?  I am the cause of all of this?”

“Yes.”

Blinking in pain, Ward shakes his head as he falls to his knees.  “How?”

The being looks at him, “By your choice to not to follow love, you have brought the human race to the point you see before you.  War.  You had so many chances to redeem yourself, and you never took them.  Why?”  The being was truly curious about the answer.  It will do much to see if this one man is worth the chance he would get.

“Because I was stupid.  Because I was proud.  Because I didn’t understand.  I thought I lost it all, and figured there was no reason not to go down that road.  Because I didn’t risk my heart when my mind told me that love was a weakness.” Ward is staring at the screen with Skye fighting, but to him, she had already lost since there is little from the woman he had met. The woman who taught him that pieces were important, no matter how many there are.

The being looks at what is to be and then at the one man who could, with his actions, change it all.  And asks, “If I give you a chance.  One chance, to redo it all with only one change to your background, do you think you can be redeemed?  Even if you have no idea what happened now?”

Lifting his head, Ward truthfully tells him, “I would love to say yes, but I am unsure.  I am not fully sure of why I did what I did for Garrett.  Why I turned down the chance of being with the right people, who I knew was doing the right thing, to follow a man who taught me feelings were a weakness, when he showed them all the time.”

The being chuckled.  “I know why, but you wouldn’t like the answer.”

Just lifting his eyebrow, Ward asks silently to be told.

Instead the being waives a hand, and Ward turns his head to watch the screens that originally held his team, his family in them.  And he was shown his father meeting with Garrett.

“He is weak.  A disgrace to this family.  Can you, or can you not shape him to be what he is supposed to be?”

Garret snorts into his glass of whiskey. “I can try, and if he fails, then it won’t be a loss would it?”

The older man waives his hand, “It would be a waste of your time.”

Shaking his head at his obviously long time friend, Garrett tells him, “I’ll put the boy out in the wild for a couple of years.  If he survives, I will start teaching him stuff while leaving him there to continue.  Not much time would be wasted.” He takes another drink.  “Besides, Hydra’s methods have worked for over 70+ years.  I’m not too worried about it.”

Then grinning at his old friend, Garrett shrugs, “Besides, it will be fun.  I always wanted a puppy.”

Ward chokes.  The man he had thought of being one of the few to truly caring for him?  Everything he had done, and it had been for nothing?  Why had he not found this before when he was looking in his past?

The being looks at him, answers his thoughts, “Because you were looking at your life.  Not what affected it.  And there was much that affected your life.  You were born to be part of Hydra.  But you wouldn’t break, wouldn’t conform to what your brother had before you.  It took much, but there was hope when you tried to burn the home down.  That was when they tried again with you, when your father reached out to his old friend to hopefully get something out of you.”

Shaking his head, Ward felt broken as he has never had in his life.  Everything he had done, for nothing!

The being nods, seeing that his idea would have merit.  He turns to the windows, and as they blur to anyone else, he views all the possibilities.  And seeing even more that this is the best chance, he turns back to the broken man before him.

“I have the chance to make this future different.  But it hinges on you.  If you make the right choice, unknowing of the consequences, it will not only help you, but I will give Skye the future she should have had.”

Hearing the name of the woman he loves, Ward looks up, “How?”

The being laughs, “Since you won’t know until later the identity, nor have memory of this moment, I will tell you Cal Johnson was not her father.  Hydra had managed to get their hands on some sperm that will shock the world on.  With this sacrifice, it will be known and will change the future that you see before you.  Are you willing to go back and relive your life, never knowing the changes?”

While he was eager to say yes, Ward hesitates. “What Sacrifice?”

The being smiles, relieved that Ward has seemed to learned some lessons.  Now to see if those lessons were able to be learned earlier in his life, and that he can make the right chioices with a better mentor.  “My life.”

Shaking his head, Ward tells him, “As much as I would love to go back and redo, and make all this pain go away, I can’t allow someone else to sacrifice their life for me.”

Cocking his head to the side, Skye’s window shows again, and he asks, “Not even for her?”

With his heartbreak in his eyes, he shakes his head, “She wouldn’t want it.  No matter how much she deserves it, she would never want someone to sacrifice themselves for her.  I learned that lesson well.”

The being walks up to Ward, and he looks down at him, “And that is why the two of you deserve another chance.  Good luck Ward.”

Ward goes to protest, but everything becomes black.

And a voice echoes out, “Let’s try this again with a change to the game.”

Then there was a flash of blinding light as life bursts upon the scene, hopefully with all the pain and suffering of the past being let go.

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Final count:

Fairfarren~Kittyinaz

Sorry for any misspellings, verb tenses and so on.  But this is what comes out when I am in the zone.

Now for those that are in the Kittyinaz’s Group on Facebook, You will be getting your teaser of chapter 3 tonight.  Facebook doesn’t let me post anything over 1300 words, so they never get the full chapters, but they get that many words.

So leave me a note to let me know what you think.  I am kinda curious on it, but either way, I am getting this thing out while the muse is working with me.

Now you guys see why I get frustrated when I can barely type one chapter when with limited time, I still managed to type 3 chapters a day on this one?