Don't Hurry, Don't Worry
Chapter Two

Days pass by and Jemma manages to not think about him. Part of her considers it good but another, the one deep inside, screams with rage. She can't talk to Fitz and it doesn't help things either. "I am different," Fits keeps repeating every time she tries to act normal. "I have changed."

"Heard you've confronted him," Jemma says one morning, after a nearly sleepless night when Ward's face hounted her, his words, "I have my orders," echoing relentlessly.

Fitz only glares, furrows his brow. She can see gears inside his head turning, then his features clear in realization. Then his nostrils widen in anger.

"Did it help any?" Jemma adds the final straw and Fitz spins on his heel and storms out of the lab, slamming the door behind him.

Jemma curls around the empty pit inside of her stomach.

"I can't believe Fitz went there," Jemma starts a conversation with Skye. She's as matter-off-fact about it, as her pounding heart will allow. She reaches for a cup from the cabinet to pour herself some coffee. Skye crunches on a cracker and stops.

"Went where?" she mumbles, her mouth full.

"To see Ward."

"Uh, no." Skye quickly chews and swallows. She gets up and stands right next to Jemma. "Fitz didn't do anything wrong, okay. It's Ward. He knows us like the back of his hand, he had months to read us, to learn things. He knows exactly what buttons to push. He's a manipulator, that's in his job description, Jemma. That bullshit he told Fitz? After what he did to you guys? I would have done the same thing!"

Jemma only glares. She waits. Skye obviously thinks that Jemma knows more than she really does and if she keeps Skye talking then maybe she'll learn something, finally. She only purses her lips in a judgemental grimmace and Skye shakes her head.

"It's not like he really hurt Ward," she takes the bait and her voice shakes as she continues. "He only showed him, a little bit, what it was like to not be able to breathe. But he set the oxygen levels right back to normal before any kind of damage was done."

Jemma's stomach feels empty again, like there's a sucking vacuum in there. What did Fitz do?

"Simmons?"

Jemma is leaning against the counter and she gasps. Tears streak down her face.

This time it's her who storms out of the room.

Jemma knows where the cell they keep Ward in is located. She's known that from the first day she's learned they have him on the base. It wasn't all that hard to find and she's smart. Now, after her conversations with Fitz and with Skye, she's finally ready to go see him.

Last night she had a dream. She saw Ward's face moving away from her, smaller and smaller, his form disappearing in the distance, except this time it was him who was drowning. She remembers feeling glad, satisifed. Relieved. But at the same time she heard her own voice screaming his name with a completely different emotion. Like she didn't want him to die.

But he had died. Her Grant Ward died and was replaced by his evil twin brother.

Except it's not true and her Grant Ward is there somewhere, inside the man now occupying that basement no one talks to her about. Either that or he never existed. And Jemma can't decide what would be worse. If he never existed it would mean she had been wrong, she had trusted someone who only had one goal – to hurt her and everyone she loved. She had been fooled by sweet declarations like "I'll catch you if you fall."

Her eyes sting. It's another night and she doesn't sleep, she sits on her bed, knees drawn up to her chin, rocking, and her eyes sting, her throat chokes.

If that Grant Ward who promised to catch her existed, though... If he was real...

She has to find out.

The floor is cold underneath her bare feet. She grabs the tablet and walks down the corridor she walked before. She knows it's here, he's here. Vault D.

The Playground base is silent in the middle of the night.

Vault D is pitch black.

When Jemma turns on the light she sees stairs and an empty room, one of its walls white. Maybe it's not here, she thinks but then she realizes that the white wall glows with a faint light, hums. She slowly descends and touches the square on the tablet that says "opaque/transparent". The white wall swooshes to the side revealing another room behind it.

It's quite spacious, with some soft fabric tiles on the walls, but the only furniture in it is a bed and there's a figure, dressed in an unobtrusive gray uniform, laying on the bed. The person, the man, is curled on his side, with his back to Jemma but she knows who that is. She is certain.

She stares, transfixed.

One step, then another and suddenly she hears a buzz and the air before her lights up, revealing a power barrier that's still firmly in place.

Person on the bed jumps up and swirls around, so he's sitting now and facing her.

And Jemma takes a step back more frightened by this face than by the sudden activation of the barrier. She doesn't know this man. This bearded, dark, large man. But she knows his eyes. It is Ward.

Jemma swallows and stops her slow walk backwards as soon as she realizes what she is doing. She's not gonna run from him.

She watches him as he sits on the bed, stiff like a pole, gripping the side of the bed so hard his knuckles turn white. He glares at her. It has taken him a moment to recognize her, he squinted at her, furrowed his brow and then, Jemma isn't sure... The look on his face resembles pure terror for a split second. Then it smoothes out. Remains waiting. Then confused. Waiting, trying to be patient. Unsure.

Finally...

"What do you want?" he utters in an uncertain, part fearful, part fake-nonchalant way. "What are you gonna do?"

Jemma has trouble with the answer. Eventually she settles for a faint, "I'm not sure." She has come here in some hazy, half-asleep state, hoping to find something but she doesn't think anymore that it is here. "What do you think I'm gonna do?"

"You can do..." the prisoner stammers, "You can do whatever you want."

Jemma is not sure she understands. "Whatever I want?"

"Yeah. Yes, I can take it." He inclines his head to the side and adds in a whisper. "It probably won't be enough anyway."

It. Does he mean... "Like... What Fitz did?" she breathes out, more appalled, apparently, than he is, by the thought.

The prisoner shrugs. "He didn't hurt me. I'm... I'm fine."

Jemma runs her hand through her hair and has to turn away from him, can't look at him for a moment. When Skye told her what happened between Fitz and Ward down here, she couldn't believe it but now, the way Ward speaks about it. It makes her want to vomit. She wipes her face, though, and looks at him again.

He just stares, expectant.

"He didn't hurt me," he repeats. "And I..." he shrugs again. "I deserved it... I guess? For what I did." He stands up abruptly and takes a few steps toward her. "I didn't know. What happened, I mean. Coulson only told me that Fitz was different, but I didn't know... how. How bad. Didn't know what happened to you... either. But..." He laces and unlaces his fingers and he smiles in an awkward, half-mad way. His voice breaks when he says, "I'm hap-py to see you." Then he just looks at her without a word, for a few long heartbeats and Jemma doesn't know how to respond. He finally continues, still lacing and unlacing his fingers. "I am happy that you... That you are alright. You are alright, are you? You weren't hurt?"

"No," Jemma replies. "I mean yes, I'm alright. Physically." She's quite thrown off right now, though. She knows she rambles but she can't stop. "Physcially I'm okay, I wasn't hurt, the way Fitz was, but I still..." She doesn't know why she tells him that. "I still dream about drowning. More often now, that I'm back at the base. Do you?..." her voice fails her and she needs to take a couple of breaths. Ward furrows his brow. "Do you dream about it sometimes?"

He hesitates. Looks away. "No," he admits. "Not anymore." He shakes his head and turns his back on her. Walks toward the bed, then stops. "I did. At first."

"Why did you do this?" The question startles her and him, both.

He looks over his arm. "Why did I?..." turns to face her again. "...Eject the pod?"

"Yeah..."

"I..." he draws his arms up in a slow shrug, looks away, spreads his arms and brings them together quickly. He chooses the next words very carefully. "I knew the plane was flying low. And I knew, from the specifications of the pod, that it was designed to float. But it didn't, right?" He looks to her for confirmation. "I figured." He shakes his head. "I didn't anticipate all variables, didn't predict... There wasn't enough time." He steps near her again, this time so close that the energy barrier buzzes. He freezes, looks up and down the orange glowing grid, then takes one step bacwards and looks at Jemma. "I had to figure out something quickly and that was the only thing that came to mind."

"I don't understand."

"To get you off the plane. I had to get you off the plane."

Jemma stares at him, stares at his face that looks so strange. It's not just the beard and the disheveled hair, the sickly-white color of his cheeks and shadows under his eyes. She wonders briefly when had he last seen the sun. There's more to him that's different, than just the outside appearance. His movements are sharp and nervous and his eyes... His eyebrows drawn up give him an expression of someone expectant, hopeful even. But he can't logically hope she will believe that...

"You were trying to save us?" she asks incredulously.

"Fitz didn't tell you?"

Ah, so that's what the conversation was about. No wonder Fitz reacted the way he did, Jemma wants to strangle Ward herself. "I didn't talk about it with Fitz," she utters. "I talked with Skye. She told me how you manipulate everyone."

"It's not... I don't manipulate you, this is true."

"That you were trying to save us?" Jemma raises her voice. "If you were, then why didn't you just say so? Why didn't you tell us?"

"There were cameras everywhere on that plane!" Ward speaks louder too. "Garrett would have known! Besides, even if I did, would you have believed me? Would you have trusted me? How was I supposed to convince you? What was I supposed to say that you would understand and believe, and he wouldn't?"

Well, Jemma doesn't know. She tries to remember that moment but she draws a blank. She was terrified, that's all she knows.

"You..." Ward speaks again, his voice quiet once more. "You locked yourselves in that pod from the inside. I had no way of getting to you if you wouldn't let me in. And Garrett ordered me to shoot you."

"He was dying, though. Fitz short-circuited him. If you just waited."

"He survived, didn't he?" Ward laughs in a way that sends chills down Jemma's spine. "He defied death so many times before, I really couldn't take that chance."

She still can't agree this was the only way, the only choice he could have made. "You could have defended us. You could have opposed him somehow. You could have made it obvious to me and Fitz that you were on our side in some way that we would believe! And together... If you told us, if you really told us..." She isn't sure that's true. She isn't sure she would believe anything he said then. She probably wouldn't but she needs to believe that she might. That this might have all happened differently.

He shots her down with ease. "Did you notice how many soldiers there were on the plane? They would have overpowered us within seconds. I was the only one who could stand up to them in any meaningful way, but probably not long enough. Garrett expected me to kill you and he didn't care how. The moment he realized that I wasn't going to do as ordered... All bets would be off. He would simply order someone else to do it and he'd make me watch. Or he would torture you and make me watch. He might order someone to torture you, he could order me!"

There is desperation in his voice that makes Jemma look up at his face. He takes a step back and averts his eyes, watches his palms, spreads his fingers, then curls them into balls, uncurls them again.

"So you were afraid of him?" Jemma starts in a cold voice, but heats up as she speaks. "Is that it? You were scared, so you got rid of the problem? Why were you with him in the first place, if you were so scared of him? You knew he was a monster, you knew what he did, all those things! He ordered Skye shot, he tortured Coulson! You knew about it and you were still with him!"

"No. No, I didn't know that," he tries to cut in but his voice is too faint, Jemma shouts louder.

"Garrett was the Clairvoyant!"

"But I didn't know that. Coulson told me, in the Hub."

"Seriously?"

"Garrett didn't tell me everything!" Ward spreads his arms now and Jemma sees ragged vertical lines on the inside of his wrists. The notion of their meaning makes her gag. She's unable to form a question and he continues talking. "I was deep undercover, the less I knew, the better, that's how it works. I didn't know that he ordered Skye shot! Or Coulson. God, I helped you get Coulson back from Raina's hands, I had no idea Garrett had anything to do with it, do you think I would work against him if I knew? He said there would be no bloodshed and then he changed the rules of the game."

Jemma tears her eyes away from scars on his forearms and looks into his eyes.

"My God, I can't believe that," she whispers. "That man was a monster! And you knew that, at least part of it, you must have known. You were afraid of him for God's sake."

"No. No, that's not it," he denies but Jemma doesn't believe it, she can't believe it.

"Why didn't you tell us?" she demands, because he must have known, it's not possible to be so blind! "Why didn't you just ask for help? You..." Or maybe he really wasn't afraid of Garrett, maybe they were in this together all this time and Ward... Ward she believed was real – wasn't. She was wrong, all this time, she is still wrong.

Her head is spinning and she feels tears streak down her face but she doesn't do anything to wipe them. "You were supposed to take him to the Fridge, get him locked up." She remembers weakly. "And instead, you freed him, you killed Victoria Hand. Then you released all those people from the Fridge, stole dangerous artifacts. Then you returned to us!" She's outright crying now. "You came back to kidnap Skye, you murdered Eric Koenig! Do you realize that I had to do autopsy on him?" She's still shaking at the memory. "I had to determine the cause of his death! I had to figure out how he was killed and by whom. And then... Then..." She deflates. She just wants to go back to her room, to sleep, to forget. To pretend. "If you told us, if you asked for help, you know we would have helped you. You wouldn't have to be afraid of him..." Except it's not true. He was never afraid of Garrett.

"But that's not it, Jemma," Ward all but confirms her thoughts. "I wasn't afraid. I was... Garrett saved me," he explains in a quiet tone, as if talking to a chils. "He saved my life, I owed him... I owed him more than I could ever repay in my entire life. When I went with him and Victoria Hand... I didn't intend to break him out. He had done things I couldn't forgive him for. He deserved to be locked up, but to kill him... I was so angry. So angry. But then Victoria Hand gave me a choice. She offered me a chance to kill the real Clairvoyant. I shot the wrong one, she asked me if I would shoot the right one. And don't think I haven't hesitated. I have. I considered killing him right then and there. But then I looked into his eyes and I knew I couldn't. I could lock the man who saved my life in prison, but I couldn't kill him. That's why I killed her. And then... There wasn't any choice anymore. He was in charge again."

Jemma looks up at him and she feels nothing anymore. She's drained.

"Victoria... Hand... ordered you to... shoot Garrett?" she stammers. "Before you got to the Fridge, or when you were already there?"

"On route."

A chuckle escapes Jemma's throat. Then she starts outright laughing. She's laughing and she's sobbing and she can't stand, so she sits on the only chair in the room, the one in front of the barrier. She has no idea how long she laughs like this but when she looks up, Ward stands there, in front of her, with a concerned look on his face and that makes her laugh all over again.

Shorter this time, though. She calms down after a few breaths.

There's a few more things she needs to discuss with him. Like, the scars on his wrists, how empty and dark this room is, how often he has visitors, such things. And why does he lie, that he was never afraid of Garrett. Was he brainwashed? Maybe he was brainwashed.

Or maybe she's stupid and naïve.

.