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She looks at him, her dark eyes big and broken. She looks at him, trapped and afraid, and Grant’s hand is hovering over the door release before he takes his next breath.
Jemma shakes her head at him and his hand closes into a fist that he jams into his jacket pocket. She pushes her tangled hair off of her face and tries to steady her breathing. The ghost of a memory – they’re in the armory after a mission and he’s trying to convince her that not liking guns is no excuse for not knowing how to use them…he’s reminding her to breathe when he places a gun into her hands – slams into his gut and he looks away from the foot of glass that separates them towards the floor instead.
He remembers how to breathe, reminds himself that there’s a God inside of her and that she’s not really Jemma – not completely. But she moves like Jemma, breathes like Jemma, and Grant’s having a hard time accepting that the fear he reads in her blown-out eyes, in her trembling and restless fingers isn’t all Jemma.
It’s not that he’s never been aware of her height and stature before (if anything he’s been all too aware), but standing alone within the confines of the glass and steel cage S.H.I.E.L.D had specially constructed for the worst of their enemies, Grant’s struck by the smallness of her. She stands in the middle of the room in her jeans, loose white blouse and scuffed up sneakers, looking so painfully and convincingly human that Grant struggles to keep his hands in his pockets and away from the control console.
Letting her out is not an option. She’d destroyed a good chunk of Manila before they’d managed to subdue her and throw her into the cage, but Grant’s heart and his mind are at war and it’s a feeling he’d thought he’d forgotten how to feel a long time ago.
“Fitz is working around the clock to figure this out,” Grant tells her. His voice is low and quiet, but there’s a storm brewing beneath his words.
Jemma tries to smile, but it dies at the corner of her lips. “Tell him that he needs to sleep too.”
“None of us are sleeping.”
Jemma’s eyes close at his words and she takes a shuddering breath. When she opens them again, they’re clear and bright and Grant can read the apology in them as clearly as if she were whispering it into his ear.
Walking forward, Grant stops barely a foot away from the glass. “None of this is your fault.” His voice is tight and forceful, but he wonders if he she can sense the uncertainty wavering through it.
She can, of course. It’s written all over her face and it makes Grant want to clear his throat and try again. His eyes shift down to where her fingers have started twisting the sliver ring on her left index finger round and round and round. The amethyst stone glints sharply in the light
Grant watches her eyes change and swallows back the bile that rises into his mouth when her head tilts slowly to one side. The corners of her mouth twist wickedly in a perversion of the sweet smiles he’s only ever seen grace Jemma’s lips and the tightness in his stomach is painful.
“Such a sweet sentiment, Agent Ward.” The voice is Jemma’s, but it sounds nothing like her. Grant’s stomach twists and his hands are itching to reach for the gun at his side, but he doesn’t move when her eyes flicker down to his hip and her smile widens all cruelty and malice and knowing.
“Why do you lie to her?” The question is simple, but it’s not one that he can answer. “Of course this is her fault. She put on the ring of her own volition.” She scoffs and waves her hand dismissively towards Grant. “A scientist and she puts a strange ring of unknown origin upon her finger. More a fool than a scientist, I would say.”
Eye’s narrowing, Grant leans forward. “Do you really expect me to believe you had nothing to do with that?”
Jemma’s shoulders lift in an uncaring shrug as she clasps her hands loosely behind her back. “I may have suggested it, but the idiot child did the rest herself.”
Grant bites back the wicked retort on his tongue. She’s moving around the room, her fingers plucking at the plain blanket over the small bed with distaste. She runs her hand along the glass as she walks towards Grant. Stopping in front of him, her fingers lightly trail up the glass to stop in front of his face, smoothing over the pane as if caressing his face and Grant flinches before he can stop himself.
She allows her hand to drop back down to her side, but before her mouth twists upwards, white teeth flashing in a cruelly delighted grin at her discovery. “How long do you think you can keep me here?”
“As long as it takes.”
Her laugh is quick and cold and it grates on Grant’s ears. He grits his teeth against the high sharpness of it. “As long as what takes, Agent Ward? Do you expect to free the girl? It’s a noble sentiment, to be sure, but not one with any merit. I refuse to let her go in which case this becomes a battle of wills.”
“I’ll win.” He’s done measuring his words and controlling his tone. There’s fury when he speaks now and it makes her eyes spark at the challenge. Grant finds that he doesn’t care that he’s stepping on dangerous ground.
“This is not your battle, dear boy,” she spits the words at him like venom and Grant fights the urge to flinch again. “It’s hers. It’s her will against mine and let me assure you that I have had millennia to harden mine. The girl has nothing.” Jemma’s head tilts upwards as if listening for something. There’s a twist to her lips that’s sickening when her eyes meet Grant’s. “She’s already stopped screaming.”