"What do you believe in, Ward?"
His eyes didn't leave her as she stared up at the ceiling; her skin was pale and there's subtle darkness under her eyes; his mouth set in a tight, thin line, straight from left to right; their backs and spines pressed against the ground, but his eyes were trained on her. Grant Ward wondered, not for the first time, what was she doing here.
"Come on then, everybody believes in something."
He'd long gone stopped from rejecting her visits, knowing for the fifth time as she insisted on sitting in the cell with him that she wouldn't budge, no matter how many threats running through his mouth to make her leave. The first time she visited him, she hadn't talked (she ran half-way through the minutes she was allowed to, and Ward honestly didn't know whether to be relieved or panicked when she left, leaving the door ajar, but keeping him even more in place). The second time she visited him, she wanted to talk. It didn't take him a long amount of time to piece out everything: that she was just doing this to hurt herself, in a way. He entertained her half-way through her babbling with rude remarks and cutting jabs; May almost broke him in half that day, leaving him to stare at his blood throughout the entire night.
When she'd came in the next day, her third visit, she flicked her finger against his forehead, chastising him to "stop being such an idiot" while she treated him up and he had tried to scare her off. She was scared, or at least feared him even if it's in the smallest amount, but she didn't leave, rooted in the cell, talking away about stuff as though he hadn't tried to kill her at some point, as though he hadn't done a wrong thing to even begin with.
Her fourth visit she talked about Fitz. How she met him at the Academy, alone and content to the sketches across his table, before she joined him and introduced herself. She talked about how she couldn't imagine a life without Fitz, not knowing where she would have ended up at if it weren't for him, not knowing how she would have been without his loyalty and support. She talked a lot of things about Fitz, stuff Ward wished he hadn't known ― he told her to shut up, shut up, Simmons but she never did, never did until she ran out of things to say, until her smile wavered and faltered, until her shoulders shook and her eyes grew tearful. She told him that the doctors were considering to pull on Fitz's life support.
He nearly punched a wall, yelling.
Tripp had to drag her away, and Ward was left there, yelling. Just, yelling, until his throat was raw, his voices was white noises against his own knowledge. He sobbed when he thudded his forehead against the floor, and nobody bothered him for the rest of the day.
Her fifth visit, he finally asked her what was she thinking of doing with him ― you can't fix me, he said; I wasn't trying to she barked back ― and at her final snap, he gave up, and listened to her ramble on and on about meaningless things about cartoons she used to watch, awkward encounters she'd experienced through. It was only on her seventh visit ― he hadn't meant to count, but sometimes that was all that was available to entertain himself with ― that he'd replied back, asking her what she'd did next (she was talking about a girl she used to have childish rivalry with, it was hilarious hearing her planning revenge, in her science-y way).
There's a gap between her ninth visit and her tenth, and when she finally came through that door, deliberate, slow ― he had convinced himself that she must have had satisfied her act of penance and had had enough of him, and that she was done, and all that was left of him was to figure out if it's day or night outside, alone, ghosted by the past he couldn't change until ― he spotted that smile, and he noted on the amount of sunlight she carried with her this time. She said, "Fitz's awake."
On her thirteenth visit, she finally admitted that all of her visits were unplanned ― that at first, she'd expected something to satisfy her raging nerves, because she was so frustrated (read: angry) with things that were unravelling through, with Fitz still lying still on the hospital bed, and her follow-up trip to his cells were just to give him some sort of pain, if only in the weakest form, to show him that he wasn't made out of steel after all, even if he acted like it.
Her fourteenth visit, he did most of the talking. He talked about his siblings ― the ever so angry Maynard, the delicate hands of Joey, the gentle stare of Sara ― his parents, the Dad that were mentally absent, the Mom that was too drunk to care, the house that he burned, the lessons Garrett left, the twinkles in Skye's eyes when he used to make her smiles. He talked about the last time he'd last seen Joey and Sara, hoping they weren't as haunted as he was, cooped-up in this cell, lost and unhappy, just like their parents were. Or angry and filled with hatred, slamming violence with each punch delivered, like Maynard grew up to be. He talked about Skye and how he used to think that maybe he wasn't such a lost cause if only she'd learned to love him, or that spending the time on the Bus was one of the best moments he'll always (always) treasure, no matter how bad things did went.
They talked about their siblings the next time she visited, and Ward couldn't remember the last time he smiled so much. (Simmons had an older brother, and bunch of cousins, and they'd played wars with wooden swords and dirty mud, and Ward thought maybe he'd found a portion to where the sunshine was birthed into her, and she was beautiful, he thought. Especially when she smiled. Even more so when she laughed.)
Her sixteenth visit, she told him they located his siblings. He knew there was something wrong when she couldn't meet his eyes, but he didn't lash out this time. There's a moment that he'd wanted to, but he didn't. Couldn't. So, he sat there and refused to listen to everything she'd wanted to say ― how Coulson decided to bring them in, saying something how they had a right to know what he's done, what happened to him. They didn't speak this time, but she brought in music and it was soft, and it was kind, and before he knew it, he fell asleep.
Joey and Sara was alive, but he didn't want to meet them, even if Coulson advised that he should. He stared at the one-way glass, knowing (hoping) full-well that his siblings were at the other side of it, and plead forgiveness (real, concrete forgiveness) from them through his expression; sorry that he couldn't save them, sorry for all the things he can't change.
When Simmons visit him a few hours later, she brought Fitz this time, and he spent the next minutes hearing them banter while he tried not to burn holes onto Fitz's wheelchair ― modified and upgraded, of course ― but neither brought up Joey and Sara, just a quip of 'are you okay', and that was that. Fitz gave him a small, firm, forgiving smile when their minutes were up, seconds before Simmons wheeled him away. She said afterwards that the chances of Fitz walking again was slim to none, but he's going into physical therapy anyway, and she'd asked him if he wanted to accompany him to his very first one. It took him a moment, but he said yes.
Ward wasn't exactly sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line, Coulson informed him that Joey might have asked Skye out, on a date, and she ― she said yes. Ward didn't know what to think, but he's sure his stomach was sick and his mind was reeling badly. He asked him not to tell him anything about his siblings anymore, that he was done, and to send them back to their lives. Coulson looked at him through pitying eyes, but Ward bit back how he didn't need that ― he just needed Joey and Sara to go back to however they were, acknowledging that there was a brother, but dead to the presence.
He's kind of tired now, that he thought all of it over, how months had passed since he last seen Garrett's dead body, dreamt of his desperate eyes demanding to be saved, as he lied there, just returned from Fitz's second physiotherapy session ― his whole body a torn between being satisfied and punching himself in the guts ― when he closed his eyes, losing himself in the quietness of the situation, in her question.
What do you believe in, Ward, after everything was done, and stripped away from you, and you're here, exposed and weak and raw, and had never had the upper hand since the beginning.
What do you believe in when you're just lying on the floor oh-so-hopelessly.
Ward didn't know.
And she said, through smiling teeth, "Fairies died when you stopped believing you know."
He looked at her again, her who's lying on the floor with him, on her umpteenth visit, her who was so strong yet fragile all at the same time, her who he had come to know as more than just a former member of his team, the doctor he'd saved, the woman he tried to kill, her who'd learned all his little secrets even when he wished she won't. And he thought, once again, silently, how beautiful she was, like this, emotionally bare next to him.
He crooked up a lazy smile, meeting her eyes then shifted his gaze up at the ceiling; with a deep breath, he attempted: "Pixie dust."
He could hear the smile in her voice when she asked, "What?"
"What about that," he leered up an even bigger smile, dragging their gaze to be held again, and he drowned himself with the images of her beaming smiles, and the way his stomach flipped in ways he didn't know was possible. "I believe in pixie dust."
She laughed then, stared back up at the ceiling and he lost himself briefly in her expression; light and careful, happy and sad.
I think, he closed his eyes, pondering silently: I think I believe in you.
And she said, "Well, what about that."