Work Text:
Fandom: Agents of SHIELD
Pairing: none really, but there are hints of pre Ward/Fitz and Skye/Jemma
Author: 
freaky_nea
Rating: G
Author's note: It's a very loose follow-up to In the Bus at night, but can also be read as stand alone. The title is also the title of a Silversun Pickups song.
Author's note 2: Thanks to digthewriter for beta-ing.
Wordcount: 900+
Warnings: angsty, slashy, set at the beginning of season 2, slight canon-divergence
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Stan Lee and the Whedons. I just own the love for the characters.
Title: Panic Switch
At first all Leo can hear is a distant beeping of something he can't really identify. It sounds like the ticking of a very loud, uneven, and annoying clock.
When he opens his eyes, everything is too bright for a moment. Then he recognizes the beeping as the sound of a hospital monitor. His vital functions. He is still alive.
Someone's hand is covering his own, so Leo turns his head a little, and tries to open his eyes again.
"Jemma?" His tongue feels dry and heavy in his mouth at this first word since what seems like forever.
"Fitz!" It's not Jemma's voice though. It's Grant, who immediately jumps to his feet (letting go of Leo's hand. Wait! Was Ward holding his hand? Leo is too exhausted to really think about that now), and bends over his bed. "Thank God you're awake!"
Ward sounds very relieved. His eyes go all soft, but he still looks worried and tired. And yet, there is a small smile on the corner of his lips, causing those dimples that Leo thinks are adorable and make him look much younger.
Not the worst first view after waking up from a coma, Leo thinks, hoping he hasn't said any of this out loud.
Then the memory hits him. He squints his eyes and winces: Ward is responsible for his coma.
His head hurts. His heart does, too, but he has to ask, he has to know.
"Why aren't you..." Leo swallows hard and concentrates before he can bring out the rest of the words. "locked up?"
Grant has no chance to say anything, though, because Jemma is standing in the doorway to Leo's room. She lets Skye, who is close behind her take the paper coffee-cup out of her hand, and hurries towards Leo's bed.
Wordlessly she hugs him tight and he can smell her familiar classic soap, bad hospital-coffee and Skye on her.
"You really scared us, you know?" she whispers and Leo can hear the tears in her voice, as he hugs her back, nodding.
"He can barely breathe, Jemma." Skye says softly, touching Jemma's shoulder gently. Then she hugs Leo too. Carefully.
"I'm going to call Coulson and tell him the good news," Grant tells Skye.
Jemma is busy asking Fitz if he knows who he is and where he is and who they are and who the President is, and at least a dozen of neurological questions, to check if he is okay.
"What is with Ward?” Leo wants to know, ignoring all of Jemma's questions. "Why isn't he arrested? He almost killed us, he betrayed SHIELD, he..."
"It wasn't him." Jemma interrupts to calm him down. "There is a... a shape-shifter in HYDRA's services. Garret locked Ward up and replaced him with a shape-shifter."
"With a very good one, obviously." Skye sighs, pulling the chair Ward was sitting in closer, before sitting down next to Jemma. "But still: Ward is innocent. He spent a lot of time by your bed..." she adds in a lighter tone, and grinning at the last sentence.
"That's true." Jemma nods, beaming at him. "I think I may have seen him holding your hand once or twice."
Leo feels his face heating up and hopes he is too pale for the flush to come through. "Are you sure? I mean, that he is really innocent?"
"Positive." Skye confirms. "It was them, not Ward."
"He is still one of the good guys. One of us." Jemma smiles and squeezes his hand a little.
"Good," Leo whispers, relieved. Ward being a part of HYDRA would have been unbearable.
That's where he always wakes up.
Shape-shifters working for HYDRA sounds believable enough. For a long moment Leo wants to believe that the dream he just had is real. But then he remembers the actual reality and his anger and frustration hit him again like a wave. And once again he can't breathe (and is completely aware of the irony).
He rushes out of the bed and to the window, opening it wide. His hands clasped tightly around the balustrade of his French balcony, Leo tries to breathe.
He remembers the look on Simmon's face when he told her he had feelings for Ward. They were in that drowning infirmary capsule; they were going to die and he had to get it out of his system.
"I'm so sorry, Fitz," she had said with teary eyes while Leo was trying to explain to her that he didn't fall for HYDRA!Ward.
He'd fell for the good, loyal, trustworthy and brave agent Ward. The Ward who has a ridiculous sense of humor and doesn't laugh often enough. The one who believed in SHIELD and their work. Who'd risked his life so many times for his team mates.
He remembers waking up in the hospital without Simmons or Ward. Skye was there, though, still in pain and shock about what had happened. Coulson was there to tell him that SHIELD still exists and that they need him, whenever he was ready to come back. So he did. That was weeks ago. (Or months already? His sense of time is still a little off, sometimes)
Leo remembers all of it as he tries to breathe again. His heart still clenches painfully in his chest and for the billionth time he wishes Simmons were there.
Yet, on the other hand, he is glad that she isn't. What must she think of him now, knowing that he had feelings for someone who wasn't real?
For another minute or two he fights against the urge to scream. Eventually, he manages to swallow it down and goes to the bathroom to get ready for work.