Fitz was worse than Ward would have guessed. When Ward arrived, it was just pushing 4 am and a cold pre-dawn light hung over the med wing. May greeted them at the door, her gun in her hand (and it wasn't an icer).

"This way," she said coldly, and Ward knew it would take more than a court case and the words of a few scientists about mind control to convince Melinda May that what harm he had caused was unintentional.

Ward could hear Fitz before he could see him.

Fitz was screaming, and Ward quickened his pace into a run, though everything in him wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction; to block out the awful, awful noise—

He kicked the door open and burst into the room, May and Skye at his heels.

Fitz was lying on a hospital bed, restraints on his arms to keep him from hitting anyone, and Coulson, Triplett, and Simmons were all bent over him, trying desperately to calm him down.

It was only as he neared Fitz's bed that Ward realized Fitz wasn't just making noise—he was screaming Ward's name. "They have him," he shouted hoarsely. "We have to go get Ward. You have to let me out. Ward!"

Triplett stood aside so Ward could move to Fitz's side.

"Fitz," Ward said urgently. "Fitz, it's okay. I'm here, I'm okay, nothing's wrong with me."

Fitz's eyes clouded with confusion, but his screams stopped. "Ward?"

"Yea. I'm here, Fitz."

"Did you escape?" Fitz asked. "Did you escape from Garrett?"

Ward looked to Coulson for direction, and Coulson shook his head helplessly.

"Garrett wasn't holding me captive," Ward said. "I was staying with Agent Romanov and Agent Barton. You heard stories about them at the academy, didn't you? You remember them. They're good agents. They were training me, Fitz. I'm okay."

Fitz let out a long breath. "I don't remember what happened," he said in a small voice. "Why aren't you with the team?"

Ward opened his mouth and closed it again. "It's a long story," he said finally, unable to look at any of his former teammates. "I guess you could say I was transferred."

"I thought Garrett had captured you," Fitz said, trying to sit up and then looking down at the restraints on his arms. Simmons leaned down and unfastened them, her hand brushing Fitz's arm gently, and he continued. "Did I dream that? I thought Garrett took you captive. I thought he was torturing you. Why did I think that? Am I going crazy? Why am I here?" His voice rose slightly, panic inching into his tone, and Ward placed a calming hand on his shoulder.

"You're not going crazy," Ward promised. "You were right about Garrett. He took me captive a long time ago, but he's gone now, and I'll be okay. You were… you were hurt. And now you need to get better."

Shame twisted his gut, and he looked away from Fitz. The scientist wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. He remembered everything he had done under the control of the drug, and it almost made everything worse; to remember the red haze of the drug and the voice in his head that justified every trigger he pulled even when it felt like his mind must be shattering into a thousand pieces.

Perhaps it was why Garrett had known better than to ask him to pull a trigger when it came to FitzSimmons. Pushing a button to drop them into the ocean had been hard enough, and for a brief moment Ward remembered that he had fought the effects of the drug; had remembered little brothers and wells and promises and wanted so badly to turn to Garrett and put a bullet in him.

As it turned out, the drug had been stronger.

Garrett had been stronger.

And Ward had been weak and lost and he had pushed that button, and now Fitz was broken, too broken to put back together again.

"What did Garrett do to you?" Fitz asked suddenly, and Ward realized that everyone was staring at him.

"He used me to survive," Ward said briefly. "But I survived, not him, and that's what matters."

"Did you feel like you were coming apart?" Fitz asked, his voice small and fragile as he lay in the hospital bed. "Did it feel like falling?"

Ward met Fitz's eyes for the first time, and saw a desperation there that he recognized; a longing for someone to understand what he felt.

"Yes," he said quietly. "That's exactly why it felt like."

"Are you going to stay until I'm better?" Fitz asked. "They said I might get my memories back sometime, but they have to do some surgeries and until you came, I thought they were Hydra and they were doing experiments and that they were hiding you"—

"They're not," Ward said firmly. "I'm fine, and these doctors are here to help you, and Simmons will be working with them, too."

"So will you stay?"

Ward opened his mouth to say no, but Coulson nodded at him from across the room, and May jabbed him in the back with a sharp elbow.

"Yes," Ward said. "I'll stay."

Fitz fell asleep soon after, and Ward and the others withdrew, leaving Simmons alone in the room with him, her small hand clutching his.

The silence that fell on the rest of them was one of the heaviest Ward had ever felt.

"I should let Natasha and Clint know where I am," he said finally.

"I already did," Coulson said briefly. "They're on their way."

"They are?" Ward looked up in surprise.

"Barton knows Fitz from the Academy. He taught archery there for a few months, and met Fitz when Natasha accidentally broke the science division at a different base and they had to move some S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists there."

Ward's eyebrows shot up, but he didn't ask any more about how one person was capable of breaking the entire science division at a S.H.I.E.L.D. base (and he had seen enough of Natasha to know she was fully capable of much more).

"You need breakfast," Skye said abruptly. "You look like you haven't eaten in about three days."

"I'm fine," Ward said shortly.

"I wasn't asking," she said, turning on her heel and motioning for him to follow her.

(She was right, of course; he had forgotten to eat after their last, most intense training sessions on the previous day).

"You're pale as fuck," she added as they reached the door. "Are you going to be okay?"

Okay was a strange word, and one Ward didn't think could ever be used to describe him. Nothing was okay in his life, and, for that matter, it didn't seem like much was okay in Skye's either.

"I'll be fine," he said quietly.

"You know, for being an undercover agent for over a year, you really suck at lying," she said as they reached a small cafeteria on the main floor. "Of course you're not okay. But you better grab enough food this time."

They ate in silence for the most part, but at least with her the silence was less strained than it had been upstairs.

"You said you saw footage of… Havana," Ward said abruptly as they finished their meal.

"And London," Skye said, her eyes flashing suddenly. "I saw what a monster John Garrett was. I saw him drug you. I saw him beat you until you couldn't stand up. And I saw you let him."

Ward stared at her, openmouthed, amazed at her bluntness, and she blushed.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I shouldn't have said that. I was so angry at you and then I realized that I was angry at the wrong person the whole time and we… we tossed you to the wolves, Ward, and I still don't know what to think about you, but I know you didn't deserve that."

"You couldn't have known," he said.

"We should have tried," she said. "Somebody should have tried to save you."

"It wasn't your fault," he said firmly. "And it's taken me a really fucking long time to get there, but maybe I finally believe that it wasn't mine, either."

Skye swallowed hard as they stood to go back upstairs. "You came out of it for a while after I was shot, didn't you?" she asked softly. "You were able to fight a mind control drug that no human had ever successfully fought, even for a few seconds."

"I think it's when Garrett realized that he had to be careful what he asked me to do," Ward said. "It's why… it's why he didn't ask me to shoot FitzSimmons," he said, his voice so quiet it was barely more than a whisper.

"Did you fight it then, too?"

"I tried," he said, shame hanging heavy over the two simple words.

"That's more than anyone else could have done," Skye said. "Simmons told me. Apparently Garrett and others before him tried the drug on countless people, and no one ever resisted, not even when it came to committing murder. But you… you fought it."

"It doesn't matter if I fought it," Ward said, looking away from her. "I didn't beat it, and we're still here and everything, everything is broken."

A second later, her hand grazed his, her fingertips just barely touching his skin, and he caught his breath.

"Not everything," she whispered. "Not everything is broken."