A/N: So, after watching the first episode of the second season, I just had to write this! It would not leave me alone! I know I'm one of the few out there who still holds hope for Ward, and I pray all the other Ward Warriors out there will stand with me! This is my first time writing anything about AoS, so I hope you guys like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story. All recognizable characters belong to Marvel.

Head Trips

He knew what they thought about him; he hadn't been reduced to being a complete idiot. He could hear them whispering behind his back, and when they did speak to him, they used soft tones and kind words (except for Jemma, she treated him with all the patience of a saint, as per usual). He hated how they treated him like he would crack under the slightest pressure. (Yeah, he was taking longer than he would have pre-submarine adventure, but that didn't mean he couldn't get it done, for Christ's sake!). Skye could barely be around him without tearing up, Trip had stopped mentioning those damn classics of his, and even May was being as kind and gentle as May could possibly be. Fitz could only thank God that Coulson wasn't around as often as he was before his promotion, because Fitz could only dream about the ways that the new Director's attitude toward him had changed. At least Simmons hadn't changed. She let him do all the work on his own, and would only give a whispered reminder if he needed it. She kept him sane, kept him feeling like maybe, one day, he would be back to normal.

But even Simmons needed to sleep. So every night, he was left all alone, in a strange place with only his thoughts to keep him company. Nightmares about sinking into water plagued him when he actually managed to doze off, but more often than not he was left thinking about the problems of the day that he had not managed to solve. He would think about how he would have had all of the team's problems solved in a mere couple of hours 6 months ago.

That's what he was doing at that very moment: staring up at the ceiling of his room at The Playground, knowing that he would have been able to rig up some sort of cloaking technology for the Bus before his accident. "Maybe if I could channel the…the…Damnit!" Fitz could feel the words slipping away in his mind. For a half second, he thought he had the whole problem figured out, but, one by one, the words slipped away. Fitz angrily moved into a sitting position on the uncomfortable, SHIELD issue mattress and rested his head in his hands. He slapped the mattress with both hands as he stood up; slipping on the plaid slippers that Simmons had got him for his last birthday. "Looks like it's another night of wandering the compound, Fitz," he thought to himself as he exited his room. If they had still been on the Bus, he would have snuck into Simmons' room and woken her up to talk, but he oddly enough could not remember which room belonged to Simmons. That's when he had a brilliant idea. He knew he wouldn't get any sleep on the hard-as-a-rock mattress in his new room, but he had found his old mattress perfectly acceptable. Fitz grinned to himself as he snuck silently through the empty halls of The Playground, praying that he wouldn't get caught. May had a nasty habit of patrolling the corridors at night, though Fitz couldn't bring himself to blame her. She had spent the last 8 months flying a plane day and night; being grounded couldn't be easy for her. Trip might still be up, but Fitz doubted he would give him much trouble. The two had come to a fragile friendship that neither one seemed too keen on disrupting. Trip may report him in the morning, but would most likely leave him alone for now. The only other person who might have been an issue was Koenig, but Fitz could have sworn he heard Koenig's voice coming from a room with a locked door. It sounded like he was playing videogames with one of his brothers, which meant that he would not be resurfacing for hours. Fitz had the whole place to himself, or so it seemed.

Fitz had found all of the bunks on the Bus gutted, which was a slight disappointment. But apparently being Skye had its perks, and she had somehow convinced Coulson to keep the living area/entertainment space intact. She probably used it to get away from all the bureaucracy that came with their team leader being the new SHIELD Director. Skye was really fitting in to her new role as one of SHIELD's highest level agents, but she still found it hard to obey the rules at times, especially with Koenig breathing down their necks at every turn. Still, keeping the bar and the TV, along with the comfy chairs was a good idea for when they all needed to get away. And Fitz felt like if May approached him one more time with that "approaching a baby deer" look of hers, Fitz was gonna freak out. That was his personal definition of "having to get away".

So Fitz settled himself into one of the spinning chairs that actually looked like they belonged on an airplane if they weren't so damn comfortable. He didn't dare to turn the TV on in case someone heard the noise and came to investigate. "Besides, the only thing on at this hour are Doctor Who reruns, and Jemma always gets mad when I watch them without her." He chuckled to himself as he spun his chair around in slow circles. He remembered the good times they had all had on the Bus, back before Hydra came out of the woodwork and tried to kill them all. That was the first time he had ever been truly terrified of something. All of those Hydra operatives surrounding them, and all Fitz could think of was whether Jemma had made it out safely or not. His fear for her, paired with his hatred of Garrett was enough to make him actually shoot a man. Fitz could see the light dying in his eyes even now. Fitz closed his eyes to ward away the image, and when he opened them again there was someone there that hadn't been there before.

Fitz looked across at the man sitting in the chair across from him. Clean-shaven, dressed in his black SHIELD uniform, complete with his multiple guns, and looking more relaxed than Fitz had ever seen him.

Fitz cleared his throat. Simmons and Skye would kill him if they found out he was talking to the man, but he couldn't help it. "Hey Ward, how's it going?"

Ward looked back at him, a slight grin on his face. "I'm doin' good, Fitz. How about you?" As his question hung in the air, the grin slipped from his face. Fitz wouldn't have believed it if he wasn't seeing it with his own two eyes: Ward looked remorseful. The man before him, the very same man who had gunned down countless agents who were both with them and against them, hung his head in shame.

"I'm doin' alright," Fitz replied after the silence had dragged on to a beyond awkward point. He was startled when Ward raised his head and fixed him with a look. The power behind the look was only marred by what Fitz thought may have been a tear, but was most likely just the light shining off of the pupil of Ward's eye.

"Don't lie to me, Fitz. You're not okay. If you were, you wouldn't be sitting here at 2:30 in the morning, talking to me. If you were alright, you would want me dead like everyone else here does." By this time, Ward had resumed his steely exterior façade, but was no longer fooling Fitz.

Seeing his former friend and ally looking so weak made Fitz irrationally angry. He didn't know if it was seeing Ward for the first time since he had admitted to caring about him and promptly dumping him into the ocean, or if it was the thought that Ward looked genuinely repentant for what he had done, but all of a sudden Fitz couldn't control himself.

"No Ward! Not this time! You don't get to be all guilty and sad about what you've done! You bloody well could have killed me and Simmons, with that stunt you pulled! Is that what you do to the people you care about? Dump them off of planes! We almost died because of you!" Fitz was tempted to lean over and cause Ward physical harm, but pulled on the last bit of his self-control because he knew that Ward would be able to easily overpower him.

"You think I don't know that Fitz? You don't think that I think about that every fucking day as I rot away in the basement? But at least I gave you a shot at surviving!" Fitz was fairly proud of himself for causing the crack in Ward's stony exterior. It gave him an unusual mix of happiness and fear. Part of him still saw Ward as his friend and brother. They had been as close as brothers, or so Fitz had thought before Ward had pressed that button and sent them hurtling into the sea.

"A shot? You didn't give us a shot, you sent us to the bottom of the bloody Mediterranean! Besides, you put us both in there! Even when we found a way to save ourselves, I had to make sure that Simmons survived! This," Fitz pointed at his head, which caused Ward to flinch. Fitz took sadistic pleasure in Ward's discomfort. "This is your fault! It's your fault that I can't help the team! They need me, and it's your fault that I keep disappointing them!"

"Fitz, please, just let me explain," Ward, for all of his faults, felt terrible for the situation he had put Fitz in. Hell, Fitz and Skye were basically the only two people left on Earth that he cared about. Sure, he may have some sort of conflicted loyalty for Coulson, but he knew there was no going back on that front after all of the Hydra crap he had pulled.

"Why should I let you explain, Ward? I trusted you! I defended you to the rest of our team because I thought there was no way that you would betray us! Hell, I thought there was no way in hell that you would betray me! After all the two of us had been through together Ossetia, and with all the Asgardian stuff, I thought that I meant more to you than that, but apparently not!"

"Fitz, I know I screwed up! I got in too deep, and didn't know how to get out! I should have listened to Garrett when he said not to trust him! I should have gotten the hell out of dodge when he pulled me out of juvie and sent me to live in the woods! But I didn't, and now I have to live with the consequences!" Ward shouted. The sudden outburst made Fitz sit back in his chair. This was definitely not the Grant Ward he had thought he knew.

The Grant Ward that had lived with them on the Bus, the Grant Ward that had jumped out of a plane to save Simmons, the Grant Ward who had urged him to abandon him in Ossetia would never lose his cool grip on emotion. The only time he had ever lost it on a teammate was when he was under the influence of the Berserker Staff, and that had only been because he couldn't control it. Something had changed. Perhaps it was being out of Garrett's influence, or perhaps it was guilt. Fitz didn't know; all he knew was that the outburst had startled him out of his anger.

They sat in silence for a few moments, Fitz staring into his lap as Ward stared out the plane window. Seeing Ward come apart had been an extremely awkward experience for Fitz, who still saw Ward as one of the strongest people he had ever met.

"Why'd you do it?" Fitz whispered. "I mean, you were my hero, Ward. The way you would just come in and take care of things as if it was no big deal. Jump out of a plane without the parachute buckled, or defending us from the Peruvians when you barely knew us. You were like that kid on the playground, always defending the little guy. The biggest kid in school, who would stand up to the bullies and make them back off of the scrawny little kids who couldn't defend themselves, you know? How on Earth did you end up working for one of those bullies?" Fitz bit his lip, refusing to look over at Ward. It was late, and the stresses of the day were wearing very heavily upon the poor, young, brain-addled Scotsman, so holding his emotions at bay were the least of his problems. "It's just—you were the brother I always wished I had. And for some reason I can't stop thinking about you in that way. Trust me, I wish I could. But I can't…" Fitz took a deep, shaky breath. He knew that May, Skye, and Tripp would probably give him hell for showing weakness in front of their enemy, but he just couldn't care less at the moment.

In his fierce attempt not to look at Ward, Fitz missed seeing his old friend bury his head in his hands. When he finally did look back at him, he was shocked and confused by his change in positioning. Over the course of the time in which they were talking, Fitz had seen small cracks appear in Ward's façade, but he was seeing him crumble for the first time before his very eyes.

"Don't call me your brother, Fitz. Yell, scream, kick and punch me all you want, just don't call me your brother." Ward looked up from his hands, and Fitz saw that his eyes were red-rimmed.

"Why not? That's what it felt like for me!" Everyone knew that Fitz didn't have any siblings at home; that it was just him and his mum. That was part of why the team was so important to him. Coulson was what he imagined his dad would have been like had he not taken off before he was born and May reminded him a little of his mum with her no-nonsense attitude and painstaking efforts to make sure everyone on the team was safe. Sky was like his sister, and Ward was his brother.

"You wouldn't want a brother like me, Fitz. Wards do not make good brothers, trust me." Fitz opened his mouth to argue back, but was stopped when Ward suddenly slammed his hand against the siding of the plane. "We beat each other up because we're afraid of what our oldest brother will think of us or do to us if we don't. We let each other drown in a well because we don't want to get thrown down the well ourselves. We run our older sister out of the house when she turns 16 because she's afraid of us. We're weak, we don't care about anyone but ourselves, and we can never do anything right. You don't deserve a brother like me, Fitz. Nobody ever deserves a brother like me."

Fitz sat quietly for a moment, taking in what Ward had said. Of course, he knew a little of what had happened to his ex-teammate during his childhood, but he had never heard it from Ward's own mouth, in Ward's own words. He had heard it in the scientific terms that were used in his file, which he had commandeered the second he had been allowed to get out of bed. 'Childhood trauma' and 'lax morals' were two terms that had come up time and time again. But Fitz thought that they, as a team, had been helping Ward as much as he had been helping them. He had seen, in the months they were trapped together on that plane, how much Ward had come out of his shell. It was only after Garrett had come back into the picture that Ward had retreated to being his old self.

"Is that why you were so loyal to Garrett then? Why you were so willing to dump me and Simmons, kill May, betray Coulson?" Fitz felt like they were going around and around with their conversation, but still could not see why Ward would be so willing to jump out of a plane or take a hit for May, but then turn around and betray them all.

"Garrett saved me from that life. He told me that if I went with him, then I would never be screwed over or taken advantage of ever again. I was just a kid who was sick and tired of getting beaten down every time I tried to rise up. When he promised me a way to fight back, to make sure I won for once, I took it. And by the time I realized what was happening, I was too deep, too indebted to Garrett to even think about leaving him. Besides, he was sick, dying really. I thought he needed me. I should have listened when he told me not to trust him. But I didn't, and now I'm stuck here in the basement, without an exit strategy, all because I put my trust in the wrong person." Fitz stared at him for a long moment, before Ward got uncomfortable and continued. "You know, Fitz," he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "That box wasn't supposed to sink. I had always been taught that if you were in a jam on one of the SHIELD planes, to jump into that box and deploy. And that's not just Garrett telling me that," he added quickly, noting the look in Fitz's eye. "Everyone at SHIELD Academy, friends who were in the Air Force division of SHIELD, that's what I was always told to do. I knew that keeping you on the plane would get you killed, so I did my best to get you off the plane. I knew you would land in the water, and probably be stranded, but it was better than seeing you and Simmons with bullets in your brains because I wasn't strong enough to defend you."

"If you wanted to defend us then you would never have brought us onto the plane in the first place," Fitz muttered, still looking puzzled over something Ward had said. What was it that he had said? Fitz racked his brain, praying that it would come back to him.

"I know. I thought I was doing the right thing, bringing you onto the plane. It's what Garrett had told me to do: to keep an eye out for you or any of the team trying to get the jump on us. I just never questioned it, I guess. Even when I was doing it, I knew it was wrong, but I just couldn't stop myself. I don't know what else to say, but that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Fitz. I know I don't deserve anything from you, and I definitely don't expect it, but I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry." Ward hung his head as Fitz still refused to meet his eyes. He supposed he deserved it. He had used everyone on the team, including Fitz and Skye. He was scum, just like Maynard had always said. Except this time, he couldn't blame it on Maynard. This mess that he had gotten himself into was all his fault. "Fitz, please say something."

"The…the basement," was all Fitz could get out.

"What?" Ward was confused. He had laid it all out for Fitz, and all he could focus on was the stupid basement of the secret base all of them were residing in? That didn't seem like the sharp-witted Leopold Fitz that Ward had come to care about.

"You said you were in the basement…that you were stuck here in the basement. But you can't be. You're sitting here talking to me."

"Oh…" All of a sudden it dawned on Ward why Fitz wasn't looking him in the eye, why he was talking to him as if he was really there. "Yeah, Fitz. I'm locked away in the basement. Coulson is keeping me in case he needs any information on Hydra."

"Stop saying that! You're not in the bloody basement, you're here! You're talking to me right now!" Fitz buried his head in his hands, trying to work out what Ward was saying.

"Fitz," he slowly looked up to see Ward leaning down towards him, hand reached out as if he was going to pull Fitz's hands away from his eyes but…couldn't…for some reason. "I'm not here. Right now I'm lying unconscious on an extremely uncomfortable hospital mattress getting three pints of O negative pumped into me because I discovered that paper gets really sharp when you fold it enough times and tried to put it to good use." Fitz stubbornly shook his head. "Fitz, you know it's the truth. I'm not here. Do you really think that Coulson or May would let me wander around the compound late at night? Hell, do you think any of them would let me even talk to you if they did? I'm not here, pal."

"Then why am I talking to you?" Fitz needed to know. Why now? Why him of all people? Why not his mum or his dad, who he had met once when he was 15 and about to be shipped off to America to be part of the Science Department of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division Training Academy? Why not Albert Einstein or Sigmund Freud, who could help him figure out how to fix his brain?

"I don't know, man. But it's got to stop. You need to stop focusing on fixing everything else, and focus on fixing yourself." Ward sucked in a deep breath. He could tell by the feeling in his chest that his body in the basement was starting to regain consciousness, and that he was going to have to rejoin it soon. But he also knew that he had one last message to deliver before he went back. "Hey, Fitz?"

"What?"

"Let go of Simmons too, okay?" Ward chuckled as Fitz looked up at him, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. "Oh come on, you know what I mean. If you're not talking to me right now, then you sure as hell haven't been talking to her over the past few weeks. Let both of us go. Focus on getting yourself better, and maybe, one day, we'll be there in the flesh to see you take down that Mac guy in some technological battle to the death."

Fitz slowly nodded, watching as Ward got up and made his way to the exit ramp of the plane.

"Hey Ward?" he called, causing the man in black to turn around before he disappeared from sight.

"Yeah, Fitz?"

"Thanks."

Ward smiled; a real, genuine smile. "No, Fitz. Thank you. Thank you for never giving up on me."

Fitz watched as Ward's figure shimmered in the air and then vanished altogether.

"I could never give up on my brother," Fitz whispered, standing up and beginning to make his way back to his uncomfortable bunk. "I'll get you back, Ward. You and Simmons. Then maybe we can be a family again."

A/N: So what did you guys think? Please leave me a review! It would mean so much. I'd also like to use this oneshot as a launching point for a story that I've been toying with. I am definitely not a SkyeWard shipper, but would like to write a story that follows the basic outline of Season 1, except adding a new female character as a love interest for Ward. I have it all worked out in what I think are interesting ways, and would be able to bring in other Marvel characters as well. I just want to know that I would have an audience if I were to put the story out there.