After Ward's warning that the team was walking into a trap, Fitz rushed out of the basement room, dropping the tablet on the chair. He grabbed the satellite phone from the control room and made a hurried call to Coulson with the intel, stuttering over a nonsensical answer when the director asked how he managed to get the information.

The warning relayed, Fitz hung up and realized he had a decision to make. Either leave Ward downstairs in the dangerously low-oxygenated room for the unforeseeable future, until the next team member happened to visit him and rectify the situation. That could be in a few hours or a few days, since he didn't know the frequency with which Ward was visited.

Or he had to go down there and fix the oxygen level himself.

Or, a dark, desperate part of a his brain though, he could go back down and reduce the amount of oxygen even more and end this once and for all.

Fitz remained seated in the control room next to the phone he had just hung up for a long time, just staring at the wall.

"Fitz, you can't do it. You know you can't," Jemma's voice said.

"Yes I can. Why can't I?" He asked back, stubborn and soft.

"Because that's not you," she insisted. Her voice was soft and soothing.

"Well maybe it should be," he said, still indignant.

"Oh, Fitz," Jemma sighed.

"He could've killed you!" He muttered angrily.

"But he didn't! Fitz, I'm fine! I should be the least of your worries - "

"Well, that's definitely not stopping anytime soon, now that I know you're involved with - "

"If anything, you should be much angrier about your own injuries than any trauma I may have sustained - "

"Bloody Ward, could've killed you at any point on the Bus, could've dropped you instead of saving you, could've killed you in the pod, probably manipulating us somehow to put your life in danger now - "

"And honestly, Fitz, what he has or hasn't done should affect your choice to be a good person and not turn into someone like him; I don't know why you're so mad about what he did to me - "

"You bloody know why!" Fitz shouted, slamming his fist on the metal table next to him, his voice echoing through the empty control room.

Simmons wasn't there.

Simmons wasn't there, he was talking to himself. She was in danger. He was talking to himself because of the injury Ward had caused. She was in danger because of Ward. Fitz had helped save her life at the bottom of the ocean and it was time to do it again. Even though she clearly didn't return his feelings, that didn't change the overwhelming need he felt to always protect her.

Standing and slowly pacing for a moment to allow himself to calm down and his body to stop shaking, Fitz grabbed the tablet and headed back down the stairs to Ward's cell. The man was sitting in the middle of the floor in the center of the room, arms up and elbows bent, with hands resting on his head. He was taking very slow, deep breaths with his face tilting skyward.

If he heard Fitz, he didn't react to the newcomer's presence, just continuing to steadily take long gulps of air, eyes closed.

Fitz stood as close to the cell's invisible barrier as possible, just staring forlornly at his former friend's face. He allowed himself a moment - just a brief moment - to mourn the lost of that friendship, that brotherhood that they had all felt for the man only a few short months previously.

He felt a hand lay on his right shoulder. "It's time, Fitz," Simmons' voice said softly.

Fitz reached up and placed his hand over hers, taking one final moment to let the fury and sadness course through him. Then he raised the tablet and pressed the button to return the cell to it's original oxygen level. He looked at the time on the top of the screen and saw it had barely been two minutes since he had left the room, made the call, and returned. He didn't know if she should feel relieved or disappointed that he hadn't caused Ward to have permanent brain damage. He really felt indifferent either way, which in the back of his mind scared him a little.

"Fitz!" A hoarse voice sounded from inside the cell.

Fitz reluctantly looked up to see Ward, face red as he quickly gulped in as much air as he could. "Thank you," he gasped between breaths.

Fitz said nothing as he watched Ward slowly gain his breath back. Ward stood and walked to the corner to collapse on his cot, bending over and bracing his elbows on his knees.

After a few more minutes of Ward sputtering, the former agent finally looked up to meet Fitz's eyes. The pair stared at one another, silent and stone-faced for a long moment before Fitz finally spoke, his tone flat and quiet.

"Simmons left. I'm fairly certain her life is in danger, and I don't - don't know if….." He squeezed his eyes shut and forced his brain to put the words together. "She may be dead right now. And I wouldn't know. And that's on you."

He watched Ward blink, his normally cool expression flashing with a look of surprise before settling back into his usual steady gaze.

"It's a miracle she survived you push - the push - when you… Underwater. Getting out of the pod. It's only because she's so brilliant she didn't die then."

Fitz took a deep breath to steady himself and avoid dwelling on what took place in the pod for too long.

"Hypoxia. My brain will probably never function the way it did before, and my hand's bloody useless. That's on you."

"May speaks even less now than before, if that's even possible. She's getting more ah, ah… Um… She's getting more reckless, there it is, in the field. That's on you."

Ward just stared at him, unflinching. "Coulson will probably never be able to show his face in public again, everything thinks he's a tr-trai… Traitor, which is ironic, and a failure. Which are the complete opposite - ah, he is - he's not those things. That's on you."

Fitz took a minute step forward, getting so close to the barrier he could see it shimmer in front of his face. "Skye almost dies nearly every time she goes in the field and she doesn't care. And I can hear her crying every night before she goes to sleep," he said, tacking the slight exaggeration onto the end to ready hammer home his point.

Ward's carefully-composed facade finally broke and Fitz thought he could finally glimpse the man he used to know under the villain's exterior.

The scientist waited a moment, prepping the words in his mind before speaking, to ensure that he wouldn't stutter when he delivered the final blow. "You. Ruined. Everything."