"How're they doing?" Bobbi asked quietly. She handed a steaming cup of tea to Hunter and took the seat next to him.

Hunter didn't answer right away, instead blowing softly on his drink. He'd been sitting outside the hospital room since he and Fitz had dragged an unconscious Ward in several hours ago.

"He's sicker than when we found them back at HYDRA's lab," Bobbi observed. She held her own drink, untouched, in her hands. It was nice to have something to hold on to, to give her hands a job to do other than twitch uselessly. "Isn't he."

Hunter nodded carefully. Ward was burning up a fever higher than a normal thermometer would go – it just read "error" on the tiny screen, as if not even the machinery could make sense of what was going on.

It wasn't the only one having problems.

Nothing about this made sense. Ward had been involved with SHIELD for years, HYDRA affiliation aside, and no one recalled anything remotely close to seeing him burst into flames. Ward had a history of arson, that was well documented enough. Hell, there was even national news coverage on CNN from when he burned his parents and his older brother. But everything about those fires suggested nothing more supernatural than gasoline or a rigged gas line and a lit match.

They looked up his medical records – his DNA was as normal as the next person. No Inhuman DNA trackers, no gene splicing they could see.

This 'Hellfire' thing was either a very recent development or one of the greatest acting performances ever given.

Not a whole lot of people were hedging their bets on the acting.

"Has he moved?" Bobbi asked.

Hunter sighed, scrubbing a tired hand over equally tired eyes. "Depends on how you look at it. He hasn't gone anywhere, but he's a million miles away. Just look at him, Bob. What does that look remind you of?"

Bobbi glanced back at Fitz and Ward, shoulders slumping as she realized what her ex-husband meant.

Ward wasn't really awake or asleep, instead caught on what looked like the edge of a waking nightmare. Despite the blankets heaped on top of him, he continued to visibly shiver. Worse, perhaps, was the blistered red skin spreading from his hands to almost his elbows, because even semi conscious Ward held them outstretched over the side of the bed so they didn't touch anything.

But even as bad as Ward looked, it was somehow not nearly as awful as Fitz. Maybe it was because all of them were closer to Fitz than Ward. More likely it was because at least they could see what was wrong with Ward.

Fitz, on the other hand, looked healthier than he had in months...until you looked at his face, and realized nothing was looking back.

It had been hours since the hanger bay fight. Hours since he'd calmed Ward enough to put out the flames.

Hours since Fitz's connection to the here and now frayed and snapped.

It hadn't even occurred to the team they should be careful how they reacted. Fitz had seemed so completely calm and in control as he talked Ward down. Even upon arriving in medical. But they all forgot they weren't dealing with someone who was sick.

As soon as Hunter and Fitz dragged Ward into the hospital room, it seemed like suddenly everything hit high speed. There were doctors and scientists that Hunter couldn't ever remember seeing when Ward and Fitz were recovering the first time. They wanted blood samples, skin samples, spinal taps and brain scans. They wanted everything, and they didn't seem interested in asking first.

That was when the first fine threads started to fray.

When they tried to force Fitz from the room, even as Ward started to come to, that was when things started to spiral wildly out of control.

Because suddenly, Ward and Fitz weren't in SHIELD's medical wing anymore. They were back in their shared nightmare of laboratory experiments, and too late Hunter remembered a long ago conversation with Fitz about how bad things happened when they were separated.

The medical staff were not prepared for the abrupt return of the fire – and apparently neither was Ward, because instead of being harmless, the flames did just as much damage to himself as it did anyone else. They were only back for a moment – barely the blink of an eye, but the damage was done. And just as suddenly, Fitz turned and bit down hard enough to split skin and draw blood from the medical staff that was trying to hold him back and they let go out of reflex.

Fitz was a dirty fighter. But he was effective. A few well placed strikes that Hunter was happy to say he'd taught the young man, and the scientists, all apparently under Gonzalez's command, retreated out of the room before Fitz could do permanent damage.

Hunter and Bobbi kept them out.

The reaction to the medical staff was bad enough, but to Hunter, and he strongly suspected Bobbi felt the same, the worst part of it was watching through the glass as Fitz tried again and again to reach Ward and pull him back from wherever he was.

Because it was obvious how many times Fitz had done this before.

It was second nature. It was reflex. Fitz didn't approach Ward. He didn't touch him. He simply spoke. He didn't raise his voice, he didn't become panicked or desperate. Hunter couldn't hear him, he was speaking so softly, but Ward obviously could. It took several minutes – long, painful minutes, but Ward finally responded. He'd all but collapsed on Fitz, quaking like he was going through the stages of hypothermia, and Fitz had at least been able to steer him onto the bed before they both hit the floor.

Fitz didn't ask for help. He didn't ask for medical supplies. He didn't speak again to Ward, who was curled up on his side, his head practically in Fitz's lap, cheeks suspiciously damp. In fact, all he did was absently trace patterns across Ward's scalp, occasionally humming to himself, and staring off a million miles away.

"So that's what happened in the lab," May had observed quietly when she came to check on them. She hadn't stayed long. Hunter could tell she was still warring over her own feelings of betrayal against Ward, trying to correlate the sociopathic double agent she knew with the horribly broken prisoner of war in front of her.

Suddenly, the attachment to each other made sense. The mystery of how Ward and Fitz went from bitter enemies to dangerously inseparable was solved.

And they were all right back to square one.

Bobbi sighed, and leaned into Hunter's shoulder. "He looks like the walking wounded."

"How could we just...forget the last couple of months?" Hunter said irritably. "We didn't even stop and think how close this had to be to what they already went through. I think we even managed to make it worse, and I didn't think that was possible."

"We were worried," Bobbi pointed out.

"I know," Hunter sighed, scrubbing a hand through his short hair. "But look where it got us." He gestured towards the two friends.

Bobbi was quiet, sipping her coffee, before she spoke again. "Actually, I need your help with something."

"Please tell me it involves punching things. Because I really, really want to punch something. Or someone."

"Coulson sent me down here because they do need samples to work with if we want to be able to help them. Jemma is a little too afraid of Ward to go in there, she thinks she'll just set him off again. She wants to help, but she's going to do it from the lab. I'm sort of neutral – I think. At least, I don't think I'm an enemy. I just want you to talk to Fitz to see if we can get samples from the both of them."

Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Both of them?"

"They're not ruling at the idea that maybe while in Zola's lab, they did some tinkering with Fitz's DNA too. They just want to make sure he's not going like..." she waved her hand. "Spontaneously combust or start shooting lasers out of his eyes or something."

Hunter chuckled. "After watching him go after Gonzalez's goons? It's his teeth I'm worried about."

Bobbi knocked on the glass door of the room, waiting to see if Fitz would even acknowledge them before stepping inside.

The only indication Fitz registered their presence was a slight pause in the pattern he was tracing out against Ward's head.

"Fitz?" she tried quietly. "Can we come in?"

Something about what she said seemed to break through, because Fitz actually looked up, brow furrowed in confusion.

"It's just the two of us," Hunter said, holding up his hands placatingly. "No one else."

He really hoped that Fitz had at least enough awareness that he realized Hunter and Bobbi had been outside the door keeping guard the entire time.

Fitz's features scrunched into a brief frown, and then suddenly blinked rapidly as if he was waking up. "Hunter?"

Hunter heaved a sigh of relief, dropping his hands to his side as he came closer. "Yeah, mate. It's just me and Bob. How're you guys doing?"

Fitz opened his mouth to answer, but struggled with the words, working it open and closed again without saying anything. He glanced down at Ward, who seemed completely oblivious to anything going on around him.

"Help us," he blurted out. "Please. I promised...but I c-can't."

"We're going to try, Fitz," Bobbi assured, kneeling next to the bed so that she was almost eye level with Ward. She started when she realized he wasn't asleep. Both eyes were cracked to mere slits, but she could see him focus on her as soon as she came into his field of vision.

"Hey, there," she said quietly. "You look pretty rough. Can I take a look?"

Ward studied her for a long moment, sizing her up and trying to guess her motives. Reluctantly, he turned his reddened hands towards her. He still made sure his hands didn't touch anything, especially not each other, but Bobbi could finally see the full extent of the damage.

Both hands, hell, most of his lower arms, were splotched and red and raw. Blisters bubbled up across his skin, pulling painfully tight across reddened knuckles. The severity ranged from mild sunburn to second degree, but thankfully not into third.

"This looks pretty bad, Ward. Is it okay if we do something about them?" Bobbi asked, carefully turning his hands over so she could see the full extent. No white, leathery appearance, no charred spots, no extension below the skin to muscle. All good signs...sort of. The blisters and cracked, dry red skin of the second degree burns looked painful as hell.

Ward didn't answer, but he also didn't pull his hands away.

Bobbi took it as reluctant permission, and set about looking for the dermal regenerator Maria Hill gave them after the success they had using it on the very human members of the Avengers.

"Do you know what happened?" Hunter asked, sitting on the edge of the rolling stool meant for the desk.

Fitz made a face, sneering bitterly. "When?"

"Pick a time frame," Hunter said. "Coulson and I were gone when whatever the hell went down went down, but if you have anything else you want to share, now's a good time."

Fitz shot Hunter a scathing look, but to the mercenary's credit, he didn't apologize.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I can't be delicate about this, mate. There is some very, very serious shit stirring now in the higher ups. Coulson hasn't come out of his office with Gonzalez for hours. If you want us to be able to help, we need to know what you know."

Bobbi frowned as she held up the regenerator, glaring at her ex-husband. "Had I known you were going to suck at this, I wouldn't have asked you in. Ward, can we sit you up? You're at a difficult angle like that."

Ward closed his eyes briefly, but struggled to sit up on his own. With Hunter and Fitz's help, he managed it, even though he hissed a few times as he accidentally hit his hands. Staying up, however, wasn't something he seemed capable of. He weaved back and forth, like trying to balance on a ship before finally half leaning against Fitz's shoulder.

"Better?" he rasped, holding out his hands for Bobbi to see.

"Much."

"Will it hurt?" Fitz asked cautiously as Bobbi flicked the machine on.

Bobbi shrugged. "I never had it used on me, but Barton never complained."

"Barton got thrown through a plate glass window and hardly batted an eye," Ward pointed out.

Hunter and Bobbi turned a curious eye to the specialist, and Ward merely shrugged.

"I was a spy. I spy on people. And I was rooting for the Avengers over alien overlords."

Bobbi smirked. "So you do have a sense of humor."

"When I don't feel like shit, I'm hilarious," Ward deadpanned. "Why am I sick?"

Hunter shrugged, absently watching as Ward's hands stitched and healed over themselves, leaving behind healthy, flushed skin. "That's kind of why we're here."

"You want to run tests, too," Ward sighed, flexing his newly healed hands.

"If you want to know what the hell is going on...yeah," Bobbi said. "We do."

Ward closed his eyes, leaning heavier on Fitz. "What kind of tests?"

"Blood tests for starters," Hunter said. "From both of you."

Ward opened one eye. "Both of us?"

"We need to know what changed, mate. And for all me know, someone dicked around with Fitz's DNA, too. We're just trying to double check now. No one ran any blood panels looking for changes in your DNA when we first recovered you, because we didn't have any reason to. And, to be perfectly honest, we had bigger concerns at the time," Hunter explained.

"Like whether or not you were going to live," Bobbi deadpanned. "And even the blood tests that we took then to see if there was any disease or pathogen you had, there wasn't any indicators of Inhuman DNA."

"And no one took a second look at Fitz's results, except to see whether or not he was sick, too."

Ward frowned. "Just so you know – you guys suck at situational awareness."

Hunter jerked his thumb at Bobbi. "Blame her. I'm hired muscle, not hired brains."

Bobbi ignored him, and held out the blood sample vacutainers and syringe. "Are you going to be okay with this?"

"I'm too sick to care," Ward said honestly. And he looked it, too. Fever bright eyes, sweat dampened hair, and pale complexion highlighted with the flush of fever across his cheeks and his neck, and judging from the faint tremors, he was still cold. At least it was now likely more from sickness than shock.

Bobbi wrapped a piece of rubber banding around his arm, just above his elbow, and realized just how easy it was to see the blue veins underneath almost translucent skin.

"Make sure you look for anything that his system is going to be attacking," Fitz said. "Anything that's so new it's being recognized as a threat."

"You think the Hellfire thing is like a virus?" Bobbi asked. She considered it for a moment, then nodded her head slowly. "I suppose it would make sense if it was like a virus instead DNA manipulation. Or maybe it's like a form Terrigen?"

"Or my mother was seriously fucked in the head and did exactly what Zola did to Barnes – leave a latent formula behind that no one is going to recognize and has to be activated," Ward snapped. "Stop talking like I'm not here. I heard what Gonzalez said. She wasn't creating Inhumans, she was creating weapons."

Fitz huffed. "I'm not ignoring you. But you're not running the blood tests either, so there's no point in telling you what to look for, is there?"

"Since when did you become a biologist?"

"Jemma has been my best friend for a decade. Some of that rubs off, you know."

Ward hardly noticed when Bobbi, taking advantage of the distraction Fitz provided with their bickering, slid the vacuette needle under his skin.

"Ward, I need you to clench your hand," Bobbi said, noting the slow flow.

Ward didn't hear her, and continued arguing with Fitz, and now Hunter had joined in too.

"If that was true, she'd be better at machines," Ward pointed out.

"Maybe I'm just smarter than her," Fitz shot back.

"I'm telling her you said that," Hunter said, smiling broadly.

"Ward -" Bobbi tried again.

"Don't you dare," Fitz said.

"What are you going to do to stop me?"

"Knowing him? Gnaw on you."

"I'm not a bloody gerbil!"

"Grant!"

In fairness to Bobbi, no one had any idea the reaction to his first name would be any different. Not even Fitz, because no one had every actually referred to Ward as Grant his entire time in SHIELD. Not even Magnus referred to him as anything other than his last name.

Maybe it was just everything combined – the fever, the stories Gonzalez told, the use of his first name.

But as soon as Ward turned to her, his dark eyes fixing on the vacutainer, slowly filling with blood, Bobbi realized something was different.

Something was wrong.

"You said you were done," Ward whimpered.

The tone was all wrong, and both Fitz and Hunter immediately picked up on it, stopping instantly mid argument. That didn't sound like Ward at all. It didn't even sound like...an adult.

"We just started," Bobbi said carefully, not taking her eyes off of Ward's face.

Except he didn't meet her eyes. He looked everywhere but at her, and the longer she kept her gaze on him, the further he shrank away from her.

"You said you were done," Ward repeated. "You said not today."

"What'd you do?" Hunter hissed at his ex, and she shrugged helplessly.

"I don't know. But he's not seeing me."

"You said not today. You promised not today, mom. I didn't say anything to Thomas. I didn't say a word, I promise..."

Mom?

"What do I do?" Bobbi hissed, glancing up at Fitz. "How long do his flashbacks last?"

Fitz looked just as lost, and he shrugged. "He's never had one about his mom before."

Bobbi shook her head, and quickly released the rubber band from around Ward's arm, fully intending on stopping the tests until Ward was back from whenever the hell he thought he was, but Ward panicked, suddenly clenching his hand into a tight fist like she'd requested.

"No, no, no, wait mom, you don't have to bring in Angela. It's okay, it's okay, I'll be good. I'll be quiet. I feel better, mom. I don't need Angela." Ward practically thrust his arm into her face, desperation obvious in his pleading. "You can do whatever you want."

"Fitz..." Hunter started, indicating Ward with a nod of his head.

Whatever the hell Hunter was suggesting, Fitz clearly understood, and he was not happy about it.

"No."

"Either put him out, or one of us is going to have to, and if he's somewhere in his head with his mother, how do you think that's going to play out?" Hunter said.

Fitz shook his head. "He won't even remember it when it's over. Just hurry up and finish getting what you need."

"I can come back later," Bobbi said. She gently tried to steer Ward's hand away, but whatever the hell nightmare he was caught in, that was not an option.

"Don't make it hurt," Ward begged. "Please?"

Hunter glared at Fitz who glared right back, and Bobbi made a mental note to beat the story out of the two of them later. Ward didn't even seem to recognize their presence. She made her own tactical decision, and hoped it didn't end too badly.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Ward. Focus. I need you to look at me, okay?" she said, pushing his hand back. "Really look."

Ward kept his eyes off of her, only physically moving his head so it looked like he was looking at her.

"Ward," she said, firmly. "Look at me. Tell me what I look like."

Ward stared at her like she'd grown another head, but she could see him fighting to focus on her, even if his eyes kept sliding to the left away from her face.

It took some serious conditioning to make a child avoid looking his own mother in the eye.

"You're blonde," Ward said, frowning. She could see the sudden doubt in his eyes, even if she didn't see any recognition. That awful, child like pain was gone, and the Agent Ward she was familiar with began to reemerge.

"And?" she prompted. She was absurdly grateful that she'd seen the pictures Gonzalez showed to Ward in interrogation – she knew she looked absolutely nothing like anyone in the Ward family, least of all his mother. She'd had the same jet black hair, pale skin and dark eyes as her children, and Bobbi was the complete opposite.

However, instead of looking at her, Ward turned his head to the side, first to the left and then slowly back the other direction.

"He can't see your face," Fitz said quietly. "He did that to me before. He can't tell who you are."

A vague memory of explaining prosopagnosia to the rest of the team months ago came to mind, and Bobbi held up Ward's hand to her face.

"What else can you tell me?" she asked, and she watched Ward close his eyes, even as he swayed dangerously until Fitz caught him. He trailed his fingers cautiously across the profile of her face, pausing at features she knew didn't match up with the image of his mother.

"You're not cold," Ward said, as if that was definitive proof that she was not Adaline Ward. He paused, frowned, and then pink started to creep up his neck. "Morse?"

"Ward," she said, smiling as he pulled his hand back. "Welcome back."

Ward groaned, and leaned back against Fitz's shoulder, closing his eyes and pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Where did I go?"

"Doesn't matter," Bobbi said, at the same time Fitz answered "your mother's lab."

Ward didn't even bother to open his eyes. "You mean Gonzalez was telling the truth?"

"At least partly," Fitz replied. "You have some seriously repressed shit in your life, Ward. I don't know that you want to go digging around in it."

"On the plus side, you didn't get need to get your brain fried to come out of it," Hunter said with mock cheerfulness.

"It hurts about the same."

"But that's good news, right?" Hunter pressed, and again Bobbi caught him looking meaningfully at Fitz. "It means that thing Zola stuck in your head isn't working anymore, right?"

"No, because I still don't remember him, either."

"It's progress, anyway," Fitz interrupted. "Maybe we can just have that thing removed while you're already in the medical wing."

"Is it bad that I feel sick enough it's the least of my concerns right now?" Ward groaned. "Morse, finish whatever the hell you were doing and then leave me alone to die."

It took less than five minutes to finish the samples, and Bobbi excused herself down to the laboratory to meet with Jemma.

Hunter predictably stayed behind, and as soon as he was positive she was out of ear shot, he turned back to Fitz and Ward.

"What's the deal with your sister, Ward?" he asked.

Ward had almost buried himself underneath the blankets, still shivering from fever. "Don't try and find her, Hunter."

"Does she know more than you do about what's happened with your mother?"

"Do we have to do this now?" Fitz protested.

"Yeah, actually we do. Because Gonzalez knows something's up with her, or he wouldn't keep mentioning her, and even you said HYDRA would've preferred to get a hold of her instead of you. So what's the deal with Angela?" Hunter asked again. "Why her?"

"Did Gonzalez already start the search?" Ward asked, voice muffled.

"Probably," Hunter said. "Which is why I want to know what to expect."

"Then you don't have long to wait. She'll be here soon enough, and then you can ask her yourself. Angela doesn't like it when people look for her, and she always knows when they do," Ward grumbled. "Can we please be left alone?"

Hunter sighed, but he wasn't really all that surprised at the dismissal. "If anyone tries to take you back to holding, call one of us, yeah? Don't...explode into flames or anything."

Ward said something not very nice, and as Fitz smirked but gave a halfhearted thumbs up.

It would have to do.

As soon as Hunter was gone, Fitz pulled up his chair to Ward's bedside, pulling almost even to him. "You remember more, don't you?"

Ward sighed, closing his eyes. "Sort of."

"Why Angela? Why would you be more afraid of your sister than your mother?"

"Because," Ward said, grimacing. "She was her only real success."