Author's Note: I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing daily, or as close to it as I can. I really don't know how I feel about this chapter as a whole because to me it's all expository. But - it needed to be said. I think we're heading into the final stretch on this. And yes, yes, I do plan on being mean to Fitz again. I just needed to get this chapter out of the way first. So, hopefully it isn't boring, it explains some things, and you like it! Let me know in a review! It feeds the muse!

The tiny little man could hardly pass for imposing if one were to simply encounter him on the street. Almost goggle like glasses looked too large for his face, wispy and thinning white hair that was growing long during his months imprisoned, and the fact that he was barely five foot tall made it seem ridiculous that he was SHIELD's most dangerous prisoner.

Until you saw the eyes behind the glasses – flat, dead, shark like eyes that made you feel like you were the one on the wrong side of the glass prison, and he was studying you.

It was why Hunter hated coming down here. No one liked coming down here. Bobbie and May seemed to have fewer problems than most, but maybe that was because they were borderline sociopaths in their own ways. That, or their years pretending they were something else developed a thick second skin that made them immune to the psychotic doctor.

Coulson actually had the most entertaining way of dealing with him, which irritated Zola to no end. Zola tended to wheedle at you, pressing for information in a way you didn't even notice you'd given up anything useful. Coulson, on the other hand, flip flopped between truth and movie quotes, notably from the Hannibal Lecter series.

Watching Zola try to keep his cool why Coulson tried to keep from smirking that victorious half grin of his was why Hunter came with him whenever they attempted to interrogate the doctor.

This time was different. This time they didn't have time for games.

"What the hell did you do to Agent Ward?" Coulson asked with a calmness he didn't feel.

Zola smiled serenely back from behind the force field of his cell. "More than I think I have time to explain, Herr Director. You'll have to be more specific."

"Did you do something to his memories?" Coulson said.

Zola shrugged, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm afraid you will have to be more specific than even that. To what extent are you referring?"

Coulson opted for something he'd never really done before – opted for honesty with the prisoner. "Agent Ward has been out of your 'care' for months now, and yet, despite field training and prior experience and success at overcoming torture, his condition does not improve. More importantly, he still doesn't remember anything that was done to him. Recently, he started remembering information not concerning himself, but his fellow agent, Agent Fitz."

Zola chuckled. "Let me guess, Herr Director. It was unpleasant?"

That answered one question.

"So you were aware of the device in his head?" Coulson asked.

Zola huffed, looking indignant. "Of course I was aware. I was the one who put it there in the first place."

"It's technology we've never seen before. What exactly does it do?" Coulson asked.

Zola seemed to consider answering for a moment, before turning and walking away from the Director.

"And why, exactly, would I want to tell you anything about it?" Zola asked, curiously.

"Because you're not a doctor, you're a scientist," Hunter said, glaring balefully at him. "This whole thing is an experiment to you, and if you don't find out the results, it's for nothing. Tell us what we want to know, what it does and if we can remove it, and we'll give you the files we have. On both of them."

It wasn't a perfect plan. It wasn't even an okay plan, as far as Hunter was concerned. He wasn't a fan of turning over the details to the hell his two friends had gone through and their struggles to return to normal. But it if was the only way for them to convince Zola to offer up any information…

There went any idea of Ward or Fitz trusting them ever again.

"I like you, Mr. Hunter," Zola said, smiling broadly and looking like a satisfied cat. "I almost wish I had you in my lab…you would've been an ideal third interaction."

Hunter held up the files. "You want these? Talk. What's the device do?"

Zola's shark like eyes flicked to the files before sighing dramatically. "Very well. It does a lot of things. Like a multi-purpose remote control. Originally, he was a true lab rat. It was an external cranial device, but it proved to be too…limited in what I needed. More importantly, I'm sure you noticed Agent Ward has a remarkable tolerance for pain. I couldn't rely on him not pulling it out on his own."

Coulson was much better at suppressing disgust than Hunter, who didn't even bother hiding the shiver of revulsion.

"So you improved it. What does it do now?"

"I'm sure you noticed he has a lingering sensitivity to light?" Zola asked.

"You mean how they trigger flashbacks?" Coulson asked.

Zola practically beamed. "Do they now? Not what I was referring to, but interesting none the less. Tell me, in his flashbacks, what does he recall?"

Hunter thought back to the first time Ward woke while in SHIELD custody. The memory blanking seizures that wracked his frame every time the lights came on and his desperate attempts to get away from something that wasn't there. "He hasn't said." The seizures were answer enough. So were his constant questioning of if he was crying, and why.

"The implant is essentially a remote control - I set parameters for it, and let it develop itself. The constant electrical interruptions are what are likely behind the migraines and thus the photophobia – and they will continue as long as Agent Ward's mind keeps trying to remember. It only activates in the extreme when Agent Ward tries to recall his time spent with me."

"So he could never turn you in or give over intel on what exactly happened. And because he can't remember, he can't start to overcome it on his own, because every time he tries, it just short circuits his brain," Hunter mused. It was sadistically brilliant – if what Ward said was true about his first time with Zola creating problems because he could always tell the difference between a suggestion and what were his own thoughts, Zola's little implant didn't give him a chance. There could be underlying suggestive commands and he wouldn't be able to tell if they were real or not simply because he wouldn't be able to remember them in the first place.

"Think of that feeling of always having something on the tip of your tongue. You know you know it, if only the words would come. You can almost picture them, your mouth starts to form the word – and then…" Zola snapped a finger. "It's gone. Unfortunately, his condition renders him inoperable in the field, which is where HYDRA would prefer him, but I was perfectly content to keep him in my lab. I…how should I say this…enjoyed Agent Ward's presence."

Hunter didn't want to consider that implication.

"Can we remove it?" Coulson pressed.

Zola rolled both shoulders in a shrug. "Of course you can. The question becomes whether or not you want to."

"Why wouldn't we want to remove a torture device from one of our agents?" Coulson asked. "Explosives? Some sort of kill switch that will take out the whole base?"

Zola scoffed. "Nothing so crude. Right now, who you have with you…that's not the person Agent Ward was when you last saw him, no? This one is…more agreeable to your delicate set of morals?"

Coulson frowned. He hadn't honestly given it too much thought. In fact, he'd had very little to do with either Fitz or Ward once they started showing signs of improvement. It was the disadvantage of being the Director instead of a Team Leader. He didn't have the luxury of keeping a personal eye on his former team members. But he did remember pointing it out to Skye and Simmons that the Grant Ward they had now was not the same one that they'd seen at the Artic base.

"What did you do to him?" Coulson asked cautiously. "Is he another product of the Faustus Device? Like Agent 33?"

"I didn't do a thing. Well, not in the way you're insinuating. It was actually mostly Magnus – my colleague, as it were. I believe he was one of the first that Agent Ward executed during his escape. Agent Ward was my personal project. Agent Fitz, on the other hand, was Magnus's creation," Zola said, quite pleased with himself. He didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that he was telling the two SHIELD agents everything – in fact, he sounded like he was bragging. "And Agent Fitz is the one behind Agent Ward's new leaf. If you remove my device, Agent Ward is going to remember everything. It may take him a while, but he always does. He's going to remember what happened to him, and more importantly, who did it to him. Agent Ward doesn't handle betrayal very well, does he, Herr Director?"

"What did you do to Fitz?" Hunter demanded.

"I didn't lay a finger on him. The damage done to Mr. Fitz, he has done to himself. I was curious what could be done to a man without doing anything at all. Mr. Fitz provided a unique opportunity. Not only did he have both a former relationship with Agent Ward, both a positive and a negative one, but he also had a traumatic brain injury that altered his own perception of self. Mr. Fitz never tested high in an aggressor scenario – except for when it came to Agent Ward. Perhaps it was the damage that Agent Ward caused while trying to save him from Garrett that he took such offense to. Perhaps he realized after the fact that he, who so far was adverse to change of any kind, everyone he considered a friend treated him as if he was a broken, useless tool. Everyone except Agent Ward…well, other than to feel guilty about it, which was a phenomenon of its own. Agent Ward doesn't typically feel guilt. Only in relation to those he considered defenseless and under his protection." Zola smiled again, and Coulson had to fight the urge not to shiver. "There were entirely too many things about those two that were simply perfect. I simply could not resist the opportunity to explore."

"Ward said that Fitz wasn't an accident," Coulson said. "That Magnus was specifically trying to capture him. What was so special about Agent Fitz that he went to those lengths to kidnap him? He didn't go through the Faustus Device, and nothing shows on the scans or tests we've run on him. Why Fitz then?"

"Because he's brilliant," Zola said simply. "Surely you've noticed quite the Broca Divide between him and everyone else? We needed someone to fix the Faustus Device. We wanted it to be a broader spectrum, but a more refined program. We had too many failures to retain the training they received. Agent Ward was our most promising operative, but we forgot the first lesson in running a covert operation…you employ covert operatives, who spy on others for a living – and he turned on us in favor of you. When you turned him away, he struck out on his own. Worse than that, he went and found our former agents, and started to undo the work we'd done. Agent 33 is a prime example. We could hardly keep our operations running if we couldn't eradicate ours agents' loyalty always being in question. Or pursuing their own goals – like Garrett. We knew Agent Fitz had done a fair amount of research into reprogramming the human brain so he could reprogram his own after his TBI. We just gave him extra incentive to push the parameters of what he was already doing."

"You gave him someone that either he wasn't going to care about hurting, and if that didn't work, the same person could also be made into someone he didn't want to hurt. Either he fixed the device you were working on and you worked out the kinks later, or he solved the problem with half your subjects dying. And you made him complicit in making it work so he would never either try to undo it, or tell anyone what really happened," Coulson surmised. "That's sick, even for HYDRA."

Zola shrugged, batting his eyes in a caricature of flattery. "Herr Director, what sweet things you say…" He took a several quick steps forward until he was nose to nose with the Director, the force field's golden netting starting to show in warning to his proximity. "Say what you want. I gave Mr. Fitz a chance to have his pseudo big brother back, the man he hero worshiped. I gave him a way to overlook Agent Ward's past betrayals and see him as he truly was. And instead of being repulsed by it, Mr. Fitz understood the monster behind the mask. Understood him so well, he gave Agent Ward the one thing he's always wanted – a chance to start over. I even gave Agent Ward his brother back, in a way he would never, ever betray him again. I created loyalty, Herr Director. One that no one could ever call into question. So yes, you can remove the device. But if you do, the Agent Ward you have will be gone. Once he remembers it was his best friend, his little brother, who redesigned him, remade who he was…you thought he was a danger before?" Zola sneered. "You have in your custody the only rogue agent that brought down both SHIELD and HYDRA essentially by himself."

Hunter's mind spun into overdrive. So the reason why Fitz was behaving so erratically was because it was guilt over Ward. Not just survivor's guilt because he walked away without hardly a scratch on him, but because he was the one who helped brainwash Ward in the first place. All of that brotherly trust and affection between them was essentially fake – as fraudulent as Agent 33's actions under the same control. No wonder the better Ward got the worse Fitz became. If Ward ever truly recovered, including the memories of what happened at the lab, everything they had rebuilt would be gone.

Ward would be the enemy again.

And Fitz would never get the man who was his friend back.

Of course Fitz was never going to tell them what happened. The risk was too high. It wasn't even a double edged sword anymore. It had too many edges to count. If they left the device alone, God only knew the damage it would cause – especially if Ward eidetic memory kept setting it off. If they removed it…that didn't end well either.

"Wait," Hunter said, frowning. "You said the implant was basically a controller, yeah?"

Zola looked at like he was an idiot for even asking. "Yes."

"Who controls it?"

The scientist's face darkened, and Hunter knew he'd touched on something important.

"Unfortunately for Magnus, he underestimated Mr. Fitz's capacity for deceit. He once referred to Ward as a loaded gun. Except in this particular case, the only one who can fire it is Mr. Fitz himself. And fire it he did, which is how they attempted their escape."

"Fitz?" Coulson echoed, but Hunter was already jumping ahead.

"You meant to turn Ward into a weapon? Right? One that couldn't refuse orders? Except instead of the controller being you or anyone in HYDRA, Fitz made it himself. It wouldn't be that hard for him if you had him working on it in the first place. " He turned back to Coulson. "That's why all Fitz has to do is say something and Ward does it. That's why he has to be there whenever a doctor is around."

Coulson looked faintly green, and Hunter didn't blame him. Fitz wasn't the type of person who enjoyed power or the idea of controlling others or even telling them what to do. The idea that that was what he was reduced to suddenly brought a whole new light to their ordeal.

And it made perfect sense that when they found them, Fitz was about to kill them both.

"I believe Mr. Fitz said he would kill Agent Ward himself before he let him live as a slave," Zola said mildly. "I wonder if that's still true if he's the master?"

Coulson hit the panel that controlled the opacity of the shield, shutting out Zola's view before jerking his head to Hunter to follow him. "Come on. We need to talk to Fitz. And more importantly, we need to get him to talk to Ward."

"You sure that's a good idea Boss?" Hunter asked, jogging to keep pace with the Director.

"Think about it – if we don't somehow fix this, we're going to have one of the smartest agents we've ever had as the sole controller of the most dangerous one. It means you only have to have one to have both, and who do we know that has a habit of using agents like that?"

Hunter felt his heart skip a beat. "Gonzalez."

Gonzalez has become my favorite handy dandy villain for this story. I'm going to basically be adding a whole bunch to his character since there wasn't a whole lot established in the series before he was killed off, and he seemed rather shifty to me. But in all seriousness - if someone has an idea on how to make Fitz be the one to freak out and the result be more than "hurt feelings", let me know, because I'm drawing a blank but reeeally want it to happen. Thoughts? Ideas? Criticism? Read and review!