Forgiveness, he told himself in those months after Thomas couldn't breathe for four minutes and thirty seven seconds.
Forgiveness (fire, prison, rescue).
Forgiveness.
He grows up, follows a new path, and resurrection should not look like following a monster straight into the jaws of hell.
Peace, he told himself in those months after John Garrett fell into darkness and left him hollow.
Peace (buttons, paper, wall).
Peace.
He sees her, wearing Kevlar and carrying her grief on her shoulders, and he realizes he never knew how to breathe.
Freedom, he tells himself.
Freedom (four bullets, four holes in his gut that empty him of everything he was).
Freedom.
And now—
He doesn't have a word for it; what this man is offering him.
To be nothing again.
Tabula rasa.
He sees Kara watching him with grief seared into her eyes, but he sees other things (brother falling, two small scientists in a box, a girl with no name) and—
"Yes."
He fights for them, for Kara. For her.
It's not enough—of course it's not enough. He had never been seeking ransom, not after all that had been done.
So when it is finished, he goes as he has promised; hands over his weapons, lies down upon the hospital bed, allows the doctors to fix him with restraints. John Garrett would be mortified, but if he has done one thing in his life, Grant Ward has escaped that particular monster. And now—he escapes the monster he has always run from.
They didn't tell him it would be like this.
They didn't tell him he would see everything—well, bus, family, falling.
They didn't tell him he would have to let go, release his hold on each memory.
They didn't tell him it would feel like every nerve in his body was on fire.
He is screaming and screaming and screaming but his lips never open because this is his wages. This is his due. He is bleeding but the red works like bleach as it erases everything and everything and everything—
But didn't they know?
Tin men could not be emptied. Kevlar could not be erased.
"He has to stop fighting it," one of the doctors is saying in some far-away corner of his mind, and he tries—god, he tries.
Except—it is one memory. All that he has given up, and he cannot let this go.
A plane, a girl with no last name, a board game.
"Admit it," she is saying, and her eyes are the rising sun as she looks at him over the battleship boards. "Say it out loud."
But he can't—he can't open his mouth and it's killing him he knows it's killing him but dear god it is worth it.
"We're losing him."
No and no and no.
Already lost.
Almost found.
There are fragments now—no forgiveness, no peace, no freedom. But this.
The shadows deepen behind the girl, and he cannot open his clenched fists.
"Admit it," she says again, and he walks easily into the shadows surrounding her because she is there—and where she is, there is no darkness.
"Sir, we can't find a pulse—Ward, stay with us"—
Grant Ward's hands fall open as his eyes droop shut, and the last thing he hears is—
"Admit it," she whispers, and even savage light is a light to cling to.
"You sunk my battleship."