Disclaimer: Watch the last three episodes of season 2 again. Then look at the summaries and pairings of my AoS fics. Then ask me if I own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Note: One of the issues with writing anything from Kara's POV is that we don't spend anywhere near enough time with unbrainwashed her to really have a firm, firm idea on her personality. It doesn't help that 2x21 & 2x22 take a hard left with her as well. I'm modeling her on what we see of her in the show, and thus trying to stay as in character to her as I can. If you ever feel that something I'm doing with her is OOC, feel free to tell me.

Thanks to my beta-reader, LisaMichelle25 and Riley Holden/Colormeblue

Enough Good Left After All

By Alkeni

Chapter 2: Reunion

Vault D, The Playground

May 8th, 2015

Kara hadn't been surprised when she'd been taken to a cell the next day. When she'd made the plan with Grant, they had known this would be a possibility. Of course, that was before Grant had told her Coulson was a good man. That he really could help her. That she should try to reclaim her past as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

She'd expected to be taken to a cell, but she didn't do what the plan called for – she hadn't killed the guards, put on a new face and taken Morse out of the base under some ruse or another.

It wasn't because she wanted to be a prisoner in the same hole they'd stuffed Grant into. It wasn't because she'd suddenly embraced Grant's plan to...find closure from Morse another way or because she welcomed the idea of becoming an agent once more.

No. It was because she'd been far too numb to resist. Too numb and raw from Grant abandoning her. She was too distressed by Grant's words.

Grant had been wrong. Coulson wasn't a good man and this more or less proved it. He'd given her his word – and then he'd stuck her in a cell the very next day. He hadn't even had the guts to do it himself. Instead, he'd sent May, making him a coward as well as a liar.

And so here she was in the same cell Grant had been in for all those months. Three times a day, an agent came down with food, on the third day she'd looked at the camera – the one she could see – and demanded a newspaper, a magazine, a crossword even.

She wanted to rage and scream and yell at them for what they did to Grant. What they had done to her, hell, what they were still doing to her. She wanted to take Coulson to task about lying to her face like he had. She wanted to tell them what Morse had done, wanted to wipe the smug self-righteousness off of May's face, off of the faces of the guards who had taken her here. She wanted to air S.H.I.E.L.D.'s dirty laundry right in their faces, and then rub their noses in it.

But it wouldn't work. She couldn't rage forever, and it was pretty clear that Coulson and company felt no shame for anything. That they were so prepossessed with the idea that they were the good guys, that they could do no real wrong, that what they did was always okay at the end of the day. If they were inclined to feel shame, she wouldn't be here. If they were inclined to shame, Grant wouldn't have to be on the run, his only options here a cell or his memories erased and replaced with those of Coulson's choosing.

On the fifth day, a book of crossword puzzles and a mechanical pencil were included on her food tray. She would have preferred a newspaper or a magazine but it was something other than the three walls of her cell to look at. Something to do.

On the eighth day, someone arrived in her cell at a time that wasn't the regularly scheduled mealtime. It only took her a few seconds to recognize the girl she'd seen in San Juan. Skye.

"Here to interrogate me?" Kara demanded as the girl stepped into the light. "After all, you had so much success with Grant down here. Are you going to tell me I should have run faster too?" Kara watched with satisfaction as Skye looked away a little at her words. Maybe someone at S.H.I.E.L.D. did have shame after all. Or maybe it was just the bitter venom in her tone. Kara was in no mood to be charitable to Skye of all people.

"I'm not here to interrogate you," Skye answered. She didn't have that fierce look of determination and resistance in her eyes that she had in San Juan. She just looked tired.

"So then why are you here?" Kara demanded once more.

"I'm not...not really sure," Skye admitted. She stood in front of the chair, but didn't sit.

Kara sat down on the cot. She didn't want to talk to Skye. She didn't want to be near the woman who still had Grant's heart, who had shot him four times and left him for dead when he'd been trying to help her. But she had had no one to talk to for eight days. The isolation was starting to get to her. She'd had someone by her side – had Grant by her side for months. Now she had no one. Still. It was Skye.

"Unless you have some purpose in being here, go away." Kara told her harshly. "After what you did to Grant, I have no interest in chit-chatting with you."

Skye gave a little, empty, humorless laugh. "So you call him Grant."

Kara scoffed. "That's his name. Of course I'd call him that. It's what partners do." Friends called each other by their first name. Lovers call each other by their first name.

Not that she and Grant had ever been lovers, however much she'd wanted it. However much she'd wanted him to love her.

"Even before...before Hydra, he was always 'Ward'." Skye said after a moment. Then she continued: "Some partner he'd turned out to be. He abandoned you because he was too much of a coward to face the consequences of all the evil shit he's done." The tiredness fell away from her voice a little, replaced by anger and hate. And bitterness.

"He left me here in the tender mercies of your beloved S.H.I.E.L.D. because he thought that Coulson was a good man. That Coulson and the rest of you could help me." Now it was Kara's turn to laugh without humor. "So much for that." She gestured around the cell to the laser grid wall separating her from the bitch outside the cell.

"Coulson is a good man." Skye replied immediately, insistently.

"My circumstances beg to differ," Kara pointed out. "Not to mention a laundry list of sins I could go through. Not that you'd care. Coulson told me that I'd be treated like the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent I was before Whitehall... Despite herself, Kara's voice broke a little. "Before Whitehall captured me. Instead, he stuffs me into this cage."

"It wasn't Coulson's idea!" Skye countered. "It was Gonzales and May." Kara didn't recognize the first name, at least not offhand. There was a strange note to the way Skye said it too.

"Coulson is the director. It happened on his watch, and he clearly didn't put up much of a fight," Kara pointed out. And Grant had insisted Skye was a good person too. How could Grant still believe in his old team after all that they'd done to him?

"They overruled him. Coulson had to make a compromise, with the 'real S.H.I.E.L.D.' He had to create an advisory board that could overrule him if they felt they needed to." Skye sounded far from happy about the arrangement.

Was that why she came down here? To defend the wonderful Philip Coulson? It was a stupid reason for the freak to come down here. Kara was never going to like to trust Coulson and nothing Skye could say or do was going to change that.

"You're being let out tomorrow," Skye finished. "He managed to convince the board to let you out. He's a good man. He keeps his promises."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Kara replied. "So did you just come down here to tell me that? Because you don't sound like you agree with his decision."

"You spent months with Ward. Helped him with whatever the hell he was up to and god knows what else you did with him. You clearly weren't bothered by the fact that he was a-" It was pretty clear from the disgusted note in Skye's voice and the sick look on her face what she meant by 'god knows what'.

"Let me stop you there," Kara interrupted, her voice level and emotionless, but loud and firm. Not yelling or screaming, but very well projected nonetheless. "I'm not going to sit here and listen to what you have to say about Grant. Your opinion counts for nothing with me. You don't know anything about him. You and the rest of your new version of S.H.I.E.L.D. like to sit there with your smug sense of moral superiority, content in the idea that you're the good guys, that nothing you do can ever be wrong, that anyone who falls by the wayside deserved it. You're so sure you know everything that you can't accept when you know nothing, so you create information rather than seek it out. You know nothing about Grant, and it's pretty clear you've all made up your minds regardless."

Kara continued, unwilling to let Skye get a word in edgewise. "But in answer to your real question, the one you just hinted at, no, I didn't sleep with Grant." Not for lack of trying on my part. "He was still in love with you, even after you shot him in the back four times." Kara couldn't stop the anger and pain that was getting into her voice. "I hate you, Skye, in part because of what you did to Grant in San Juan and before. But the real reason? Because he was so fucking in love with you that I never had a chance!" Kara was yelling now, a few tears in her eyes. She didn't care. "He tried to stop loving you, after you shot him four times, but he couldn't. I don't know what the hell it is about you, but you're still the one he loves. He'd do anything for you, and you shot him in the back while he was trying to help you. You shot him and left him for dead. Get the hell out. I may be a prisoner of your precious Philip Coulson and your precious S.H.I.E.L.D. but I'm human, and I still have worth and dignity, so get the hell out!"

Park, Indianapolis, Indiana

May 7th, 2019

"We're really going to start our search here?" Kara rolled her eyes. "Grant isn't this stupid. He got caught on camera here. He won't come back."

"I know how good he is, Palamas," Skye replied with bite in her tone. "I know firsthand how good Ward is at hiding himself, his motives, the fact that he's-" Skye cut herself off and took a breath. "This is the only place we have any confirmation as to where he's been. Showing his picture around and hopefully getting an idea of where he might be, maybe even whatever name he's under right now. It's the best bet we have for getting any sort of lead on his location."

Kara looked around the park as Skye spoke. It was filled with children and families eating at picnic tables, playing on swings and monkey bars and slides and running and playing tag, just...being normal. Looking at them, one forgot that beneath the surface of the veneer of normality the world had, there was an ongoing immortal death struggle for the future of the world between S.H.I.E.L.D. and various 'heroes' on the one side and Hydra, rogue mega-corps, criminal syndicates with a little alien technology and even less sense, mad scientists and powered people who chose to be 'evil' on the other. Not to mention the standard terrorist organizations and such that S.H.I.E.L.D. lacked the resources to assist world governments in helping to contain. They got to run more rampant than they had in the past.

And apart from major flare-ups like the Battle of New York or the 'Ultron Incident' and the like, most people lived their lives as they had before the world changed when Tony Stark suddenly broke everything wide open with his Ironman suit.

Kids went to the park and played, usually in sight of their parents, but with no one having any idea of the threat that loomed constantly over their heads. No one was looking over their shoulders. They didn't have a state of the art (and as of yet still completely unreproducible) nano-mask grafted to their face as a result of electrocution.

Kara envied the normality of their lives, but she'd never be able to have it. She knew what the world was really like, and she was an agent. Agents didn't get to retire to a normal life with a white-picket fence. Nothing close to that, or even in the neighborhood a few miles away. Normal wasn't the fate for her.

Besides, she'd get bored.

"So what, we're just going to flash his photo around and hope someone knows something?" Kara shook her head, "not really much of a plan."

"Well, we don't really have much to go on. It's not like we can stake out the only identity-guy in town who doesn't use computers and wait for him to show up and then catch him via flying car." Skye pointed out with an oddly specific example. "Like you said, Ward is that good. He'll have his backup identities already prepared. We just have to hope. And if we don't find him or any good leads, we can go back to the Playground and back to dealing with Hydra."

"You sound like you want to be here even less than I do," Kara commented, still scanning the park.

"I really don't," Skye agreed. "I agree with AC that Ward should be in a cell, and if we can get him now, we should, but I'd rather not see him again."

Well, the last time you saw him you managed to not shoot him four times in the back like you did the time before.

Kara didn't vocalize that though. It was part of their little unofficial truce on the subject of Grant since that drunken conversation three years ago. Kara didn't mention the 'shooting him in the back' thing or the fact that Grant had still been hopelessly in love with her – and for Kara's money, probably still loved - and Skye didn't go off on how much of an 'evil murderous Nazi serial killing bastard' he was.

Most people in S.H.I.E.L.D. had learned not to mention Grant around her and she'd learned not to mention him around them. The only one she brought him up to with any regularity was with Dr. Garner, during their sessions, which weren't regularly scheduled, but happened whenever she could fit them into the spaces between her missions as an agent and his schedule as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s chief (and really only) on-staff therapist. Garner was the only person who seemed to understand the truth about Grant, the only one willing to listen about what had happened to him.

"Well, then I guess we both have reason to hope this goes nowhere," Kara murmured. She accepted a badge from the other Agent – DEA, not S.H.I.E.L.D. "Oh, so we're DEA now?"

"I got tired of being FBI." Skye replied.

"But now instead of any number of other less extreme things, we're going to be implying that Grant is a drug dealer, at a children's playground. He's going to be thrilled if he hears about this." Kara shook her head and looked at the badge. As usual with Skye's work, it was top of the line, and much more than they needed to fool a civilian. She rolled her eyes, "your idea or Coulson's?" Either one of them would always be eager to paint Grant in the worst possible light.

'I couldn't care less about what he thinks about how we go about catching him." Kara ignored Skye and looked over the park, searching for the section they'd seen in the photograph. It would be a good place to start anyway. Spotting the sandbox, Kara started walking towards it. Skye began to follow her, but Kara held up a hand.

"The whole reason I'm here is because Grant is supposed to let his guard down when he sees me. He won't, but let's say we actually give Coulson's insane brainwave a try. Because while I agree he probably won't try to shoot you, seeing you is hardly going to fill him with the warm fuzzies." Then again, he'd probably see her either way, so it didn't matter.

"I'm not going to let you find him alone. You're going to warn Grant-" Skye started, but Kara interrupted her.

"The second he sees me, he's going to know I'm with S.H.I.E.L.D." Kara interrupted. Grant had never really asked anything of her, but he'd asked her to take this second chance, the second chance he'd never had. He knew her well enough to know she'd take it, if there was a possibility. She'd had a lot to say to Coulson before she'd taken his offer, but she had taken it. "That's going to warn him as it is. The only question is if he runs or if he decides to see what the play is, since S.H.I.E.L.D. sent me rather than someone who'd be prepared to kill him." Skye might be prepared to hurt him but Kara doubted Skye could kill him even now. Kara could be wrong. But as long as Coulson wanted Grant alive, Skye would deliver him alive.

"I don't trust you with him."

"I don't especially trust you with him either, Skye, so I suppose we're even." Kara shook her head at Coulson's 'brainwave' in sending the two of them after her. It made sense, sort of, but once you got past the surface, it really didn't. "So stay here. Keep an eye on me if you must."

Skye bit her lip and looked away, then back to her. "You catch a lot more flies with honey than with napalm, you know. You could try being likeable once in a while."

"I don't especially care if you like me Skye. Remember our first conversation?" She watched with satisfaction as Skye averted her eyes for a moment. "And you should have tried following that advice five years ago when you had Grant in a cage." Kara didn't wait for a response and stalked off further into the park. She was going to look for Grant before she started flashing his picture and a DEA badge at the same time. It was unlikely he was here but Kara was wondering if it hadn't been deliberate. Four years of nothing and suddenly there was a picture of him out there? It seemed a little more than random chance.

Not that it can't be random chance. Sometimes, even in a world where evil conspiracies really did exist, things just went wrong all on their own. Grant could make mistakes. He could be wrong. He'd certainly never expected that Simmons would try and kill him, even though he'd said in the aftermath that he should have expected it.

No matter how good you are at the job, you can still screw up. As far as she was concerned, the life stories of Kara Lynn Palamas and Grant Ward would be fucking monuments to that statement.

For the next five minutes, Kara searched the Park carefully, staying near the playground equipment that had been prominent in the picture, but checking all around in every direction. No sign of him. She really didn't want to flash the picture – that kind of behavior got suspicious quickly and might spark Grant to take his chances running.

She was okay with him running but she wanted to talk to him first.

Well, slap him and then talk to him. He doesn't get to just abandon me 'for my own good' and expect to not get slapped.

And what the hell were those questions that Coulson so desperately needed answers for that they were doing this in the first place? That were so important he couldn't have her ask them – and they needed to be asked in Vault D, or whatever hole they decided to stick Grant in this time? Nothing Grant knew about Hydra was current.

She was just about to take out the badge when she saw him sitting on a bench some distance away...reading a newspaper. And wearing similarly normal clothes like in the picture. He clearly hadn't let himself go in the last four years either. He looked like a normal human being – just a guy, just sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper. Kara didn't even bother to approach steathily. She might have been able to surprise him, but she didn't want to.

In a minute, she was almost to the park bench – and Grant had already lowered the newspaper. She still couldn't see any sign of a weapon on him. But Grant wouldn't go out into public with nothing.

Grant was on his feet when he saw her approaching, but he made no move to run. Instead he walked towards her, a small smile on his face. "Kara." Before Grant could do or say anything more, her palm was connecting with his cheek. It wasn't that hard of a slap but Grant recoiled from it nonetheless. He brought his hand up to his cheek and then looked over at her, grimacing. "I suppose I deserved that."

"But only that," Kara agreed. She put her arms around him, giving him a friendly hug for a moment before pulling back. Grant stiffened a little at the motion, but only briefly before returning the gesture for a second. "Four years and you never even thought to use the dead-drop in St. Louis we agreed on?" She'd checked that bus locker once every few months, whenever she could swing passing through St. Louis.

"I thought about it," Grant replied softly. "But I didn't want to put you in that position with Coulson – contact with a wanted criminal and all that." He frowned. "He sent you." Not a question.

"Did you really think S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't see the picture? Why did you come back here?" Kara asked earnestly, silently urging him to run.

Grant shook his head, "Figured Coulson would have bigger things to worry about than me given the times. And I didn't have much of a choice." There was a soft smile on his face that didn't seem to really jive with his words.

"Didn't have a choice? What's so important about this park that you had to come back here today?" Kara demanded. She saw Skye approaching and clenched one fist by her side.

"I'll answer that question when Skye walks around from behind me," Grant replied, his voice suddenly icily calm. He looked back at the woman, whose hand was on the ICER at her waist. "Forgive me, but I don't really like having my back to you these days."

Kara shot Skye a smirk though she also spared her a glare. "I told you he wouldn't drop his guard."

Skye walked around from behind Grant, hand still on her ICER. "I figured it was worth a try." Kara just pinched the bridge of her nose at the way Grant's expression was almost entirely blank. Still loved her or not, Grant clearly didn't like having her around – certainly not after she'd just been armed at his back.

"Hands on your head, Ward," Skye ordered harshly. Kara swallowed, unable to help feeling like a traitor. Grant had saved her and her she was helping him get arrested for no reason. Because Coulson was in a fit of pique, more or less.

Grant looked away from Skye to her. To Kara's peace of mind and relief, he didn't have any look of hurt or betrayal in his eyes towards her. She could only hope that meant he didn't feel betrayed, feel like she was -

Before Skye could insist again that Grant put his hands on his head, before Kara could think more on the subject, they heard the sound of a little girl yelling.

"Daddy!" The voice was excited and happy, and a girl wearing pink – all pink – with long curly blonde hair ran into their view. "I beat Jimmy! I beat him to the tree! I won the race!"

Grant's face just about exploded into a broad smile as he leaned down and swept the girl, - who looked young, had to be like, four or five or six? - into his arms in a smooth practiced motion. The girl squealed in delight as Grant lifted her into the air.

"That's great!" He said earnestly, his eyes on the girl – if Kara didn't know better, she'd think he was completely ignoring the two of them. "And since you won, I guess that means I should get you an ice cream, right?"

"Of course Daddy!" The girl said, as if it was so obvious. "Winners always get ice cream!" Grant set her down gently, and Kara finally got enough control of herself to blink and do a double take. No. that was still Grant with a little girl who had called him 'Daddy' twice. Kara looked to Skye. The Inhuman's hand had left her weapon and she looked even more confused by this than Kara felt.

"Ward, what the hell?" Skye demanded, her tone less harsh and angry and more... completely bamboozled.

The girl, who turned to face the two women, had her mouth into an 'O' of surprise. "Ooooh, you said a bad word!"

"Kara, Skye," Grant started, "This is my daughter, Rachel."