a/n: firstly, let me apologise for my absent. I've been a busy girl lately, I'm trying to find a new job, college have messed up on my training certificate so technically I can't work doing what I do - had two weddings and a lot of real life issues. Along with a huge writers block, to the point I couldn't even watch or read AOS Skyeward fanfiction or even role-play her!; I'm slowly getting her back - I just need season two to come out quicker and I'll be updating quicker.

P.S Forgive me if this doesn't make sense, I'm not used to writing in Ward's POV.

disclaimer: I own nothing, literally just the writing - all characters, storylines and what not belongs to marvel/abc.

word count: 773

Clarity.

Lorelei was right, she had been all along and it both frightened and sickened him. He had been avoiding his feelings, downplaying them - that she meant nothing, that what he felt was just a silly ordeal and merely attraction he felt; never had he considered love, love was for children. He had a mission. He had been playing her for what seemed like centuries - he'd been with May to avoid coming to terms for what he had been feeling (that and he was taking out his possible threat) and to ease the burning rage that had been left over from the Beserker staff. But now, there is no physical attraction for him with May to forget what he had gotten himself into; an emotional overload. He had to tell her, let her know the truth, at some point. Even though he didn't deserve it, for denying her too often when he could have just accepted it with open arms; but his fears lingered deeper than that.

Grant Ward was a traitor, and it ran in his icy cold blood since the moment he joined SHIELD, there was always a motive behind his decisions, it was getting to the point where the specialist was starting to find it difficult not to blurt out about the skeletons that was hiding within the darkness of his closet. Ward's deepest, darkest secrets - it was painful, even considering opening that door, the things he's done and the things he got planned, makes his stomach churn to the point of sickness; he wasn't a good man. He didn't deserve her, no matter how much he tried to right his wrongs - he was weak, a weakness that made him feel human at last. A weakness that caused him to became a hollow excuse of a man.

Heartless, cold, calculating, misleading and most of all the false facade. It was a ploy, the whole 'doing right to save humanity' it was a load of bullshit - and he couldn't help but let the lies slip from his lips, not just to her but to all of the team he had been accepted into. The one moment he thought he had lost it was when she had been shot; the tanned, healthy complexion turned pasty and pale. The amount of blood she had lost was too much, too soon. It was never meant to be her and yet, he ordered it because she was asking too many questions and getting her fingers in the wrong pies. The rage he felt, whether it the beserker staff had left it within his system - it made him furious to the point he saw blood red.

And yet, when she woke after he risked his life to get the alien drug - the smile on her face, the colour in her cheeks and that she looked healthy. In that moment, he lost it all - the reasons for fighting against her, for avoiding her the way he desired her. The walls dropped, it was too late - he had fallen for her in the way he had hoped to avoid, but without luck he done so without even knowing. The first kiss between them was more than he could have ever considered, the softness of her lips against his own - the underlying fierceness to her, like a lioness. It was nothing like the previous women in his life, not that he cared nor had the chance to uphold - as cliche as it sounded, it was pure heaven and he wanted more now that he had tasted the sweet yet forbidden fruit.

But the look in her eyes when she knew, she had been into the room where he had hidden the SHIELD Officer; the once sharp ochre orbs now hazy with emotions - or rather one emotion, fear. It was out into the open, he was a traitor and now he had to lie his way through it to make sure he got what he didn't want - to take her to Garrett for the information regarding the alien drug. How tempting it was just to take the bus and ignore his duties to both SHIELD and HYDRA; but his mind over controlled his heart. The same way, he had pointed the gun to her whilst she and her team were infiltrating HYDRA - the same way she allowed him to be injured, to be beaten by his one threat to the point of nothing.

Grant Ward accepted the beatings, though he put up a fight he accepted the outcome - he deserved what he got, physical were non-lasting; however the mental and emotional ones would leave scars and a shattered heart.