Ward tried not to remember the feel of Skye's hand in his when he loaded his gun and strapped it to his back, when he entered the plane hangar behind Melinda May, his hand on the trigger.

What needs to be done, Ward told himself. He forced himself to think of Garrett; the awe he had felt for the man when he had first started training him, the overwhelming gratitude when he knew what Garrett had done for him, the care and respect he had felt for him for over ten years. For him.

And then he saw the travel bag May carried.

"You're leaving?" he blurted, feeling relief wash over him in a flood. "What am I supposed to tell Coulson?"*

"Whatever you want to tell him," she said tightly. "He won't hear it."

"I get why you did it," he said suddenly. "You get orders, you don't question them. No matter the price."

I wasn't going to question orders, just now, and it would have been a high, high price. I don't know if I could have faced that…

"This price was too high," May said sharply, her words echoing his thoughts. "I lost him."

She turned and walked away, out into the white world where it was already beginning to snow again.

Ward leaned back against the doorframe, deep in thought. If I hesitated to cross off Melinda May, how the hell am I going to be able to do this?

A distant memory blindsided him—the first time he had asked Garrett to hit him.

"You have to know your cover, breathe your cover. You could have gotten us all killed."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"You damn well better be."

"I did this. I fucked this up. I endangered you."

"Damn right you did!"

"So hit me. Hit me!"

Ward had been relieved that, finally, he could find a way to atone for all he had done. Relieved that the bruises had the power to hide the blood on his hands. Relieved that, finally, he was prepared to bleed his cover.

So that's how you do it today, Ward could almost hear Garrett's voice. Know your cover so well that you bleed it.

Yes, sir, Ward straightened his shoulders and turned to face what lay ahead of him. I do what needs to be done.

Even if that meant things that would haunt him.

Even if that meant she hated him.

Skye hacked the NSA, something he hadn't foreseen—she had surprised him again; why did she always do that?—and god help him, he knew he couldn't let anyone see that footage. He didn't want to see that footage ever again; didn't want to see the boy guards who looked like Fitz, didn't want to see the others, brave and staunch and outnumbered, didn't want to see himself, standing silently while the prisoners took out their rage on his battered body.

It had been easy to kill Agent Koenig.

Too easy.

He hadn't had to think. It was one compartment of his mind, sealed off.

Hands, rope, neck.

Done.

He hid the body in the storage closet, and placed a penny above the door so he could gauge if the room had been touched.

And when he stepped back, numb and dead and cold, Ward noticed his hands were shaking. And there was blood—there was blood on his fingers and under his nails and it was the kind of blood that stained and never came out—and later, after he had scrubbed and scraped while his own pathetic, salty tears ran over his hands and he could not stop them, his hands still felt filthy.

They felt filthier still when Skye grabbed his hands and then kissed him.

She told him he was a good man, and he could see nothing but blood, blood, blood, all of it necessary, all of it unavoidable, all of it permanently embedded in who he was, because how can he stop any of this? How can he give up on John Garrett, who he owes his life to, who he cares about more than his own life?

But then again, how can he bear this? How can he bear the blood on his hands and the filth embedded in his bones and the awful, cold brutality that was part of his entire soul for so long—how can he bear it all when she looks at him with those fierce, loving dark eyes and calls him good?