Author's Note: So sorry about the delay! I've been really, REALLY having a hard time writing this because I've been so mad at the show. I mean, I know I was already WAY off in canon, but still. I'm really pissed about the direction that the show took, and I pretty much hate all of this past season, so it's been a struggle to try and maintain these guys in a somewhat plausible and likable point of view. I'm trying to work on this, and I DO have an ending in mind...it's just the middle part that's screwing with me, because right now, I'm so pissed off at the writers for screwing over not just Ward but ALL of the characters. Too much much of what they do makes no sense to me, so I felt like it was getting harder and harder to keep them remotely in what I considered character for this story line.

Enough. Onward with the story!

Jemma thought working with Grant Ward was bad enough when he was actually a part of their team. Then she reevaluated bad when she found out he was HYDRA, and again when he was…third party disestablishmentarian, or whatever you wanted to call him.

After dealing with Angela for twenty minutes, she would take Grant Ward on his worst day, every single time.

It was like dealing with the human version of a cat. An evil cat. A cat with the capability of tactical psychological warfare.

Thank God Bobbi decided to stay in the lab while the blood work was being run. Hunter remained in Ward's room, mostly to deflect anyone else who wanted to enter, but he was never one to tolerate sitting in the lab for hours on end.

It was times like these that she missed Fitz the most. The old Fitz, because new Fitz still didn't tolerate time in the lab for long periods, and she was never entirely positive what his triggers were. Sometimes it was bright lights. Sometimes it was simple requests. Sometimes he would be working on something, finally get into the 'groove' again, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, he would swipe his project off the table.

Sometimes she wondered if it was just to watch it break.

She knew that was Angela's case.

Angela liked to make conversation, unlike her brother. She wasn't quiet, or reluctant to give information. Quite the opposite. But instead of cold, clinical detached recitation of what her mother put her and her brothers through, she gave horrible, graphic descriptions.

"Do you know what it feels like to have a brain biopsy while you're still awake? It doesn't hurt once you get past the outer layer of skin, because your brain doesn't have any pain receptors. But it's not the pain you remember. It's the smell."

"Once, when we were playing, Christian broke his arm. It was an accident, but mother was upset that he couldn't participate in the trials she had lined up for him, so she didn't set it until it had started to heal. You know that sound, when you break a wishbone? Thanksgiving was never quite the same..."

"Chemical trials were always the worst. Sometimes it made your skin burn from the inside out. Other times you got so cold you thought you'd never warm up again."

Jemma tried to ignore her, but Angela was nothing if not persistent. Persistent, and obnoxiously observant.

"I remember you from the interrogation room," Angela said. She held a piece of gauze to freshly made blood sample site. "You were the one who took out Scottie."

Jemma almost dropped the vial she was labeling.

"Where is he, anyway? I feel like he should be here. I'm guessing he normally is, because you keeping looking at that other work station like it's a shrine for someone dearly departed."

Jemma set down her blood sample, taking a deep breath before she forced a smile and turned back to Angela. "Ms. Ward," she began, and Angela smiled.

"Ooo, so formal. It's because you're British, isn't it?"

"Angela," she amended. "Just because Director Gonzalez and Coulson said you were an ally, doesn't mean I agree with the decision. And if I have to work with you, I would prefer that we not be friendly, if it's all the same to you."

Angela's smile was slow, spreading across her face like the Cheshire Cat…except not the Disney version. There was something sinister in that smile. Something that made Jemma feel like she'd just fallen down the rabbit hole, but it wasn't Wonderland she was bound for.

"Consummate professional, aren't you Jemma," Angela said. "All the great scientists are. It's easier to make a break through when you don't have to think of your experiments as people. Mengele. Zola. Magnus. Bender. My mother. I wonder…how long before I get to add the name Simmons to the list? Before you cure my brother? Or after you decide you want the old Fitz back? Broken toys are nearly as much fun, are they?"

Jemma slammed her hands down on the table top, biting her lip before counting to ten before she answered. "Ms. Ward – I'm not here to help you or your brother. As far as I'm concerned, the both of you can go and rot in one of the darkest corners of Hell available. I'm doing this because Coulson asked me to, and because somehow he seems to think this is going to help Fitz. I'm not being professional for fear of considering you human, it's because I don't think of you as human enough to be worth saving."

Angela raised a finely manicured eyebrow, her dark eyes unreadable. She said nothing, and somehow that made it worse, and Jemma wanted nothing more than to kick the woman out of the lab – out of the base – entirely.

"No snarky reply? I thought that was a Ward family trait," Jemma said, before turning back to her blood samples.

"I wonder what they would've made you," Angela said thoughtfully. "Do tell, Jemma…would they have succeeded with you?" She paused, and cocked her head to the side, drumming her long nails against the counter top. "Would they even have had to try?"

The same familiar rage that welled up the last time she'd had to work with a Ward came bubbling forwards, and she clenched her hands together, fingernails digging into the soft part of her palms.

"I have enough from you for today, thank you," Jemma said, trying to keep her voice even and at least moderately tempered.

Instead of arguing, Angela simply smiled, hopping off her stool with an overly enthusiastic bounce. "Don't worry, Jemma," she said, before glancing around the room to make sure they were really alone. She leaned in close, putting a conspiratory hand up to her mouth. "It didn't take much to convince me, either. I won't judge."

"Oh get out!" Jemma shouted, and picked up the nearest thing to throw.

The pencil holder missed Angela's head by a mile, and she laughed on her way out the door.

She hadn't even bothered to duck.

Jemma couldn't wait to be rid of the Wards – both of them. She'd always thought that Grant Ward was bad. Hell, he still was, even if no one else saw it. Well, that wasn't entirely true, either.

It seemed like SHIELD was picking sides again. The ones who thought maybe, just maybe, Ward was salvageable. That maybe he wasn't a complete psychopath, and he deserved a second chance.

Mostly Team Ward consisted of Hunter, Bobbi, Coulson and Fitz, though Jemma still couldn't understand that last one.

How could Fitz sympathize with Ward? Ward was the reason Fitz's mind was such a bloody disaster. First with the hypoxia, and now with – with whatever was going on now. He was irrationally protective of the man who threw them in the ocean to die. The same man who killed half of SHIELD with his former handler. The same man who murdered half his family.

She purposely didn't think of the time the same man had jumped out of a plane to save her.

One good deed was not enough to balance out a lifetime of evil.

"You know that's what she does, right?" Bobbi asked from her corner. She barely looked up from the microscopes lined up in front of her, sorting through blood slides from Ward and Fitz from their initial screenings compared to the ones from this last week.

"What?" Jemma said, almost having forgotten Bobbi was even in the same space. She was so used to Fitz who talked almost non-stop through his various projects, she hadn't quite gotten used to the fact that she had a near silent partner now.

"Winds people up. Just to watch them go," Bobbi said, smirking briefly. "Her brother does the same thing."

"She gives me the creeps," Jemma said matter-of-factly. "And I don't believe she wants to help, either. I think she's up to something."

Bobbi snorted, glancing down at one of the blood slides before frowning and shaking her head. "Of course she is. She's a raging psychopath with mind control powers and the moral compass of Jack Sparrow. Even Ward warned us about her, and he's her brother."

"So then why are we letting her just freely flounce about the base? Aren't we even the least bit concerned about what she might do unsupervised?"

Bobbi shrugged. "I guess it sort of depends. You want to try and tell a psychic no?"

Fair point. Not much use in telling someone like Angela they weren't allowed to do something. It was worse than having a teenager.

"As long as she's in here, or with her brother, we can still keep an eye on her. She doesn't really interact with anyone else, except maybe Hunter, but that's because he's normally the one keeping Ward company. And she is keeping her promise to help."

Also an unfortunately fair point. Angela had made the deal that she would be the pin cushion this time, offering up the entire formula her mother used to create both her and Grant's Inhuman like powers.

Unlike Inhumans though, it wasn't just as simple as an alien genetic marker in their DNA. It was down to their very molecular structure – something so bizarre and genius that Jemma was beginning to suspect they were never going to be able to understand. The Ward children were tailor made humans. Everything about them was human, and that was the most frustrating part.

So while they were discovering tons of new information, they were no closer to figuring out just what the hell had been done to them. Especially not to the point they could recreate it, or repair it.

If Jemma were to be honest with herself, she didn't really care about trying to fix the Wards.

She wanted to be able to fix Fitz. And maybe the key to unlocking the DNA that allowed the Wards to be able to alter brain chemistry, to withstand and create fire, was the same key that would allow her to unlock Fitz's mind, and bring back the old Fitz – the one before the shipping container. The one before Zola and Magnus.

The one she missed so damn much.

(*(*(*(*(*

Grant had actually forgotten how much he enjoyed having his sister around. Or at least, when she had someone else to torment instead of him.

It was sort of a thing of beauty. Angela was a psychic, yes, but that wasn't what made her dangerous. It was her ability to find juuust the right button to push, and then jabbed at it repeatedly. As long as she was around, no one really came to bother him. He hadn't seen Skye in days, or even Jemma and thank God, Gonzalez. Every time they'd needed something from him, they'd send Bobbi, and Angela actually seemed to be mildly impressed with the other agent.

At the very least, she didn't purposely try and piss her off.

It was the little things.

Angela was funny. She was whip smart. She had the same dark, twisted sense of humor that he sometimes had, and better yet, she didn't look at him like he was about to break.

Or burst into flames.

He hadn't been getting any worse, but he also didn't seem to be getting any better. After several days of running what felt like non-stop blood work and panels and tests, Grant was beginning to suspect that while science may have caught up with the mind of Adaline Ward, the rest of humanity hadn't.

Which left him with his sister who he hadn't seen in almost fifteen years, except in between the lines of HYDRA and SHIELD field reports about somebody orchestrating the rise and fall of empires.

Seriously. Spy networks had nothing on a bored Angela.

However easily bored, she was also easily amused, and they'd fallen back into their old habit of playing cards to pass the time. The more they played, the more dim memories seemed to surface. He still couldn't remember details – at least not of his mother.

But he could remember being sick a lot when they were both much younger. Possibly before Thomas was even born. But he could remember being stuck in bed, and Angela was the only one to keep him company, much like she did now.

"Why are you a fugitive, anyway?" Grant asked. "You were mom's favorite, outside of Thomas. I would've thought you'd be a HYDRA operative from the get go."

Angela smiled coyly, ducking her head so she had to look up through her eye lashes at him. "Because HYDRA isn't a fan of people who don't listen. And especially not of people who not only don't listen, but push other people to do things they don't want to. Like...shoot their own balls off."

Grant snorted, trying to smother a laugh and failing. "I thought you always did what mom said?"

Angela shot him an incredulous look. "Well, duh. Mom was way scarier than any HYDRA head. What was it she always told us?"

"'I brought you into this world, and no one will miss you if I take you out.' Yeah. Mom was..."

"Not the kind you got cards for," Angela finished. "Mom was fucking crazy, and her crazy was way off the rails of the crazy train HYDRA was driving. HYDRA had a goal – they wanted something. Mom...you were just as likely to be given candy as you were an unknown genetic virus."

Grant nodded begrudgingly. "Point. So your excuse as to why HYDRA has been chasing you since we were seventeen is because you're a bit of sore spot for them?"

"You weren't really in touch for a while, so I guess you wouldn't know. You're not the only one that went through HYDRA's field test," Angela said. "Christian didn't only because he was too valuable as a potential replacement for Pierce. But you and I?" She batted her eyes. "Let's face it, we were more than just pretty faces."

Grant didn't answer, simply regarding her warily from across the room.

Angela huffed in frustration. "I get it, okay? I'm not exactly citizen of the year, but you're hardly in the position to be throwing stones, dear brother."

"If you went through the same field tests, then there's no way that you didn't pass and become a HYDRA agent," Grant pointed out, crossing his arms stubbornly. "I watched you push a girl you didn't like in front of a car when we were nine. You wouldn't have a problem shooting an animal."

Angela scoffed. "Oh, please." She mimicked his posture and folded her arms across her chest. "You know how I feel about dogs."

Grant frowned. "You didn't shoot it either?"

Angela curled her lip in disgust. "Of course not. But," she wagged her finger at her brother. "I don't know that I actually failed the test. I prefer to think of it as my own Kobayashi Maru."

Grant smirked at that. "Color outside the lines, did you?"

"I prefer to think of it as finger painting," Angela replied smugly.

"Fine. I'll bite. How'd you pass without shooting the dog?"

Angela made a 'pffft' noise, rolling her eyes and looking for all the world like a moody teenager. "Dear brother, what did they tell us? 'Don't trust anyone. Not even us.' HYDRA should really learn to take their own fucking advice and not hand a really pissed off psychotic teenaged girl a gun to shoot the dog she likes and not expect her to shoot the jackass that told me he was going to be back in a couple weeks, give or take seven months."

Grant's jaw dropped. "You shot your handler?"

"You look just as surprised as he did when I shot him. Looked like this." She made an exaggerated look of surprise, eyes going wide and one hand on her chest like she'd just been handed an Oscar instead of related a story of killing a man. Then she rolled her eyes and dropped the facetious expression. "Of course I shot him. What the fuck did he think I was going to do? Crawl on my knees, begging to be taken in and shown the way to enlightenment? Like there was even a chance I wasn't going to shoot the asshole who kidnapped me and left me to die in the wilderness like a sick cat. If they didn't want me to shoot him, they shouldn't have put real goddamn bullets in it. I did HYDRA a favor, shooting that moron. And how did they thank me?" she snarled. "By putting a price on my head so high even Christian gave it a thought. I mean, seriously, they train double agents. They recruit crazy people. Not like your average, run of the mill the walls are melting crazy, either. Like, 'bow before me for I am your god' crazy. How is it that they're so goddamned surprised every time one of them goes off the rails of the crazy train? And they think I'm going to take orders from people like that? Who's really the crazy one in this scenario?"

Grant stared at her for a moment, mouth still open before the corner of his mouth started to curve upwards into an amused smirk. And then he laughed. Actual, honest to God laughed, until his sides hurt and even his face hurt from smiling because he hadn't used those muscles in months.

"God, I missed you Angela," he said, wiping a stray tear from his eye. "You're fucking crazy, but you still make me laugh."

Angela sniffed indignantly. "Of course I do. I'm hilarious."

"I still remember dad yelling at you...'Don't you dare learn the wrong lesson from this!'."

Angela's smirk suddenly weakened, faltering to an almost wistful smile. "You remember that, huh?"

The sudden change in her demeanor had Grant frowning, and he leaned away from her as if he expected an attack. "Yeah...why?"

Angela shrugged one shoulder. "That was before mom really got her hands on us. Before she actually started making progress and hardly left us alone."

Grant shrugged. "So?"

Angela looked away. "I thought you'd lost most of those memories. The ones that were at least a little bit good."

Grant frowned, rubbing at the back of his head. "Yeah…it's sort of starting to filter in? It's weird – like I have two different sets of memories. Like, I'm beginning to remember some of the things mom did. Not really in detail, but…senses?"

Angela aimlessly shuffled the cards in her hands. "Like the smell of copper that never really went away?"

"Like the sounds of bones breaking," Grant said. "Not ours…but I think one of the others? Did she keep the failed ones?"

Angela chuckled darkly, flicking the cards end over end as she repeatedly pulled, and then shuffled back in, the ace of spaces. "You were a failed one. But yeah…she used to have the bodies in the same room as us, and while one of the tests was running on us, she would do the autopsies on the others."

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the only real sound the obnoxious beep of the machines that Grant still had to keep attached for monitoring.

"Can you fix it?" he asked quietly.

Angela raised an eyebrow. "Fix what?"

Grant gestured towards his head. "This. Me. Or at least tell if there's anything useful in there…in those memories that I can't seem to get to…that might explain what the fuck is wrong with me now?"

"I don't know if you really want to remember, little brother," Angela said cautiously.

"And why not?" Ward demanded. "My entire life is in scattered pieces that I can't even hold on to. Other people know more about what I am than I do. Why wouldn't I want to know what happened? How is it going to be any worse than what I already know?"

Angela didn't answer right away, which was unusual for her. Usually she had a witty retort or comeback before the other person even finished talking. She sat back, studying him with her head tilted to the side.

"Because I remember. Because I know what happened to us. All of us. And look what it has done to me. I feel nothing. Nothing, Grant. We were pushed too far, too fast. Hell, she may just have well thrown us over a cliff. Christian knew, and look what happened to him. Christian used to be a halfway decent older brother, you know? Not the best, because how could he be with Adaline as a mother, but at least he was still human. But then he started to change…and he turned into what you remember him as. And I remember thinking I didn't want that to happen to you. Even when I was a child, I knew there was something different about you compared to the rest of us. Shit, I think the only reason Thomas turned out halfway decent was because you were the one who raised him."

Grant snorted. "Yeah. Some brother. I let Christian bully me into torturing him because I was too much of a coward to do anything about it. I turned out to be just as much of a monster as he was."

Angela dropped the Ace, fumbling with the card as her fingers slipped.

"What?" Grant asked suspiciously.

"Nothing."

"You haven't dropped a card since you were seven. What's the deal?"

Angela looked down at her hands, the cards hanging loosely in her grip, and she grimaced. "That's not really accurate…"

Now that was not what he was expecting. He caught her hand, twisting it slightly in his grasp to make a point. "What do you mean, 'not really accurate'?"

Angela sighed, finally looking back up at him. She met his gaze, and for a brief moment, there was something unrecognizable in those almost black eyes Something that looked suspiciously like regret.

"I made you a monster so you would forget you were the most human of us all."

Soo...what do you think? I don't know if it was worth the wait (and I'm really, REALLY sorry about that because I know I used to update like every other day). But if you have anything you would like to suggest, or think maybe I've been looking at this too long and I can't make an impartial judgement on it...let me know? Fitz will be back next chapter, I swear! Love it, like it, loathe it? Leave me a review!

Also, Cocky Undead and BlaineSimpsonSpock - you were the primary motivators for finally updating this. Give yourselves a clap on the back.