Author's Note: There will probably be a bit of a wait between chapters compared to my last two stories, these chapters are longer and I have almost four months before another episode ruins my thought process.

As usual I don't own Agents of SHIELD

Chapter 2 – The Silent Man

Grant Ward didn't even know what day it was. He didn't even know how long he had even been in the white room. Food was pushed through a hole in the door every so often, always the same, there was no way to tell what breakfast was and what dinner was. He thought about counting the days by dividing them by the times he slept, but he slept when he was tired and he never knew for how long, it could have been minutes or it could have been days. Every so often he would put some paper on the tray when he pushed it back out the flap in his door, paper's containing every secret he knew about HYDRA and every so often he would add a list of his own questions, there were only three, always the same three:

How are Fitz and Simmons?

Have you caught Raina?

Can I see Skye?

And always his questions were ignored.

Grant Ward was a patient man, he had spent years waiting inside SHIELD for the rise of HYDRA and he would have waited years longer. Eventually Ward made the first decision of his own, he stopped sending out answers and only sent out questions. And with every meal the list got longer, from simple questions like, what day it was and how's the weather out there, to a list of demands like a different meal and the chance to see Skye.

Ward knew he had won a small victory when he actually received a different meal, in response he sent back a single piece of information. The next meal came with a note:

Today is Wednesday

It's raining outside

Simmons is fine

Ward noticed right away that the note did not mention Fitz. But a deal was a deal, even one made by a silent man, three questions answered, three of HYDRA's secrets spilled. It crossed Ward's mind that he could be being lied to, but what was the point, it didn't matter if he had been here 7 days or 70, he didn't care if it was raining or snowing outside and what was the point of telling him Simmons was fine if she wasn't.

The next meal came with no answers, but Grand Ward didn't care. Today he only had one question, a single question he had wanted answered since the nurse had left him alone. A single question he had been too afraid to ask:

Will I ever talk again?

Ward had tried to speak but no sound ever came out. He still had an ugly bruise around his throat and Ward had hoped that as the bruises healed so would his voice but with each passing day that hope diminished. He couldn't whisper, he couldn't even scream.

The next meal come with an entire folder. The medical file of one Grant Ward. As he read it Ward actually understands very little, but certain words stood even to someone as medically inept as him:

Fracture

Torn

Vocal Cords

Internal Damage

But one word stood out most of all:

Permanent.

Ward didn't touch that meal, or the next, he didn't even trade information for his file. He sat in the corner of the room thinking about Melinda May's final revenge.

Grant Ward would never talk again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In a dark room, a one eyed man watched Grant Ward on a monitor. When Ward returned a third meal, untouched, the man smiled, "Now he's ready."

A red haired women stood behind him, "Sir, was it really necessary to brake him?"

The one eyed man turned to face the women, "He was already broken, the difference is now he knows it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

With Grant Ward's next meal came a package. Inside its brown paper wrapping were three books. Ward almost cringed when he saw they were picture books. However he actually smiled when he saw the titles. He picked up the note that accompanied the meal, reading it three times just to be sure:

When we can have a conversation

without the pencil and paper

we'll talk about your freedom

Grant Ward loved a challenge.