He's there for going on three months before she works up the nerve to face him. She has to convince Coulson she won't melt down on sight. Despite her best efforts she crumbles to the floor a sobbing mess.

Everything comes crashing in on her when she clamps her eyes on him. He still has the eyes of the man she loved. It makes her anger confusion and sorrow bubble over. She cries for the betrayal and Fitz and herself and even Grant.

"Grant." She can hear herself giving way to keening sobs. How did they get here? This person kneeling next her is not the man she loves but he has his face and she's so heartbroken that not even scientific explanations can help her. Grant tried to kill her and almost succeeded in doing so along with irreparably breaking Fitz. He is not and will never be the same. They're communication once so clear and natural is now like talking on fuzzy line.

Everything in her life is broken and it's all Grant's fault. He tells her to breathe and looks at her like he's seeing a puppy being kicked half anger half sorrow.

She will not feel bad for him. "Take your time Babe." He said gently. He has no right to love her anymore. She refuses to let him try. She gathers herself and gets up off the floor with Trip's help. The way Grant flinches as Trip touches her doesn't go unnoticed. She walks away without another word.

-/-/-

Coulson balks at letting her return to the vault but she is not the same rule following easy going Simmons as before. Grant's betrayal had hardened her resolve immeasurably. She will get the answers from him that she deserves and not even the Director of SHIELD can stop her.

Coulson stands before the door. "He taught me how to get past any man using only two fingers. Don't make me use it. It's truly quite painful and I'd rather spare you undue discomfort and stress." She said her tone being rather prim. Coulson steps out of her path she opens the door to the vault and takes the few steps down into the basement. She can hear Agent Triplett behind her but doesn't pay him too much mind. Grant was already on his feet toeing the line before her foot hit the first stair.

She walks up behind the metal chair they leave out for his guards or Skye. "Was everything a manipulation from the start? Did you ever feel anything remotely warm toward me? Or was I a means to an end?" She asks simply. She must come across as calm because he steps closer.

"Are you okay you seemed pretty spent after…" she picks up the chair and hurtles it at his head the bloody force field enacts and it clatters harmlessly to the floor and if that isn't entirely unsatisfying she doesn't know what is.

She knows her eyes light in anger as she answers. He'd always said her face said more than her words did. "No Ward I'm not okay! You've ruined everything about me! You've made me question my every thought every bloody choice! I don't sleep but when I do I dream of the bottom of the ocean and I wake feeling as if I'll never draw another breath!" She said lowly and for half a second he looks as if she'd slapped him with her words. "You have broken my Fitz! He will never know how to untangle what is left of his intelligence from the confused web the hypoxia left him trapped him in! You have ruined the other half of me! I'll bloody well hate you until the day I die!" he doesn't say anything. He just stands there arms crossed still as stone.

She shakes her head to force away the tears she feels threatening her. "You were the first man I've ever truly loved and you took that and you twisted it and perverted it until I can never know what was truly real. I can never trust my heart again. The least that you can do after stripping away my whole world is to tell me the God's honest truth. Did you ever love me?"

He nods while he glances at Trip but answers. "I loved you Jemma. Hell I loved you from the moment I saw you. I still love you. I deserve every bit of hate and disgust you can throw my way. Lying wouldn't serve me now even if I wanted too. I love you Jem."

"You tried to kill me." She said tightly.

"Yes I did and no explanation I can give will change the fact that I did it. I held your life in my hands and made the wrong choice. I'll carry that regret my whole life." He confessed his eyes kept sweeping up and down her body like he was trying to make sure she was whole and unharmed.

"Leaving me to drown or effectively killing Fitz as we knew him?" She snarled out pettily.

"Both."

She nods accepting his answer but needing more. "Was I an assignment from Garrett? Get the scientist to fix me Son?" She imitated and she sees a smirk for all of two seconds.

He cleared his throat and replied shifting his weight back and forth. "No, I knew all I needed to do to gain your help was ask, though that meant revealing my loyalties to Garrett and Hydra to early if sleeping with anyone could have benefited my cover it was May. She's naturally suspicious but then you happened."

She tries to keep the derisiveness out her tome it doesn't work. "We just happened?"

"Best accident if my life Jem." He honestly smiles and when it gets under skin she gives into the desire to be mean.

"Don't do that call me Jem, or Baby or Babe like you didn't burn away every right to love me the second you pulled that fucking lever." She can't help shouting at him as her rage creeps back in.

He ignored her statement. "You made me reckless and selfish. "

"Oh did I now?" She laughs mirthlessly.

He steps ever closer and the field engages again. He doesn't seem to mind he just holds her gaze."You are the one thing, the one person I have allowed myself to keep for myself since I was eighteen Jemma. Being with you had nothing to do with SHIELD, Hydra, or Garrett. I was with you because I wanted you. You'll never know how much you mean to me. "

"What's your point?" She snapped growing tired of him trying to soften her ire.

He looks at his feet a moment as if the concrete could help him choose his words. "He knew that I loved you and from the second he realized that my loyalties were divided and that I might choose you he decided to make me pay. He wasn't my whole world anymore and because he just might lose the power he had over me he wanted me to know that' he'd fix it so I'd lose you." He took a shuddering breath even as he kept his eyes locked on hers. The fact that she could still see the person she loved in him sent ice skittering down her spinal column "He ordered me to shoot you and I couldn't I couldn't look into your eyes and pull the trigger. So, I hoped that by some miracle you'd survive the fall and use that beautiful mind of yours to save yourself and if you didn't?" he looked as though he actually might cry. "I hoped you'd be dead before you hit water. He was trying to hurt me so if I didn't at least try to make it look like you were dead he'd do it himself and he'd have made me watch."

He closed his eyes a second and when he opened them he was in control again using that voice that always made Jemma feel like if anywhere was safe it was at Grant's side. "So yes Babe, loving you made me reckless because I shouldn't have done it in the first place and it made me selfish because I didn't know how to put you first. Not really."

She turned to leave. Her insides feel shaky she needs out of here. "Jem? Regret is about the only thing I have left in me but I'd love you again in heartbeat. I'd do it right this time. I don't expect your forgiveness or your love I'm not stupid just know I will always tell you the truth and I've got your back. I'll catch you next time I swear. I'll love you no matter what even if it's from a distance and never returned again I'll die loving you." Suddenly she really wanted to just curl up and cry.

"Funny, I almost died loving you." She turned and walked out.

=/-/=

She spends weeks turning their conversation over and over in her head. She combs her memory for cues that he is lying or has some angle. Just like before she still can't tell his truths from the lies. All she knows is how impotent she feels. She can't heal Fitz's brain. She can't make herself not feel something…. for him hate and love are basically the same thing under different microscopes. She sighed. She never should of said yes to that stupid first date. Stupid bloody fair.

Bobbi Morse plops down next to her with a bag of potato chips. Ah, yes she's in the common room she had forgotten. "What's up Simmons? You look more freaked than Hank Williams at a P. Diddy concert."

She smiles mutedly at the other woman's joke. Morse and a few others had joined the team seeing as Hydra had SHIELD on the ropes. As it turns out she and Morse had become friends. The woman is a straight shooter it helps Jemma bypass some of her new found trust issues. "I only love my idea of Grant right? There's only so much you can compartmentalize I mean he's a murderer and a lying traitor. Loving him makes no sense so why do I still do it?" She is honestly so confused right now she wouldn't know an isotope from her own arse.

"I'm going to say the thing no one else will say to you. Because well he's kinda evil and no one wants to propagate that but here's the thing it's possible to love pieces and not the whole of someone. I've done it, hell I do it. Why do you think Lance and I are the way we are? He's the partial love of my life." She munched a chip.

"But= He tried to kill me Bobbi!" She pointed out merely for arguments sake.

"Granted, no pun intended. You still believed him on some level you believed every word the man said otherwise you wouldn't look so twisted up. You might never forgive him but some part of you will always love him. Some part of you loves the lie and the flashes of truth and that's perfectly okay Jemma its human." Bobbi said.

As she lets Bobbi's words permeate her grief Jemma realizes maybe it's time to trim away the strings of fate connecting her to him and she knows just how to do it because even as she accepts that she might love him she doesn't trust him. She's not that dumb.

He doesn't know that and she can use it to her advantage

AN: I own nothing all story titles in the trilogy come from the song She's Burning by the treasures. This fic will be markedly darker but if you would please stick with me Ward makes good on his promises I swear it might not be the happiest of endings but it will be satisfying. If you liked it tell me chapter two is next obviously!-MM