Grant Ward is not a true believer (notanazi) wrote in the100, @ 2015-12-04 19:45:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | grant ward |
Who: Grant Ward and Kara Palamas.
When: After Kara's arrival interview.
What: Reunion
Rating: Low. Not the healthiest of relationships ever.
Status: Complete
The message had come through late in the evening. Someone from home. Ward sighed, wondering who. Morse, Hunter? Fitz again. But on reading it he jumped to his feet, almost running to the intake staff. It was Kara. It was Kara which meant it had to be him. He had to be the one to talk to her, explain this. And he had to keep her away from the others. For now at least. It didn’t take him long to get there. His eyes quickly scanning the area and landing on the woman he’d loved and apparently lost. He walked over slowly, not knowing what she remembered. Did she remember what he’d done to her?
“Baby?” he said simply. Hand linking quietly with her own. “What have they explained so far?” he asked, leading her away from the Intake area. She’d have had her interview, been assigned a room, a job. If he knew Kara she’d have asked to be with him. If he knew the people here, they might not have allowed it. But they’d work it out. “Are you okay?” he asked, once they were a little distance away, leaning in to brush a kiss against her cheek. He'd keep her safe. He’d protect her. And in return, Kara would understand him like she always had done.
There had been a big part of her that thought it was some elaborate trick. It was the only thing that had made sense and she didn’t want to believe what they were telling her. She wouldn’t trust it until she could prove it or until someone she trusted told her it was true. The problem was she only really trusted one other person now, Grant. They said he was here but that could have just been to get her to calm down and cooperate with them. She hadn’t believed he was really here at first. And then he was there, walking towards her.
“Grant,” she said quietly, taking his hand as he took hers. “I thought they were lying,” she told him, letting him lead her away. She would be honest with him because she always was, not that she had lied to the people who had interviewed her but she hadn’t told them much. Just that she wanted to be with Grant. She’d left off that she needed to be with him and that they wouldn’t keep her away, she didn’t think threats would have been well received.
“I’m fine, better now you’re here,” she replied softly, her eyes closed as he kissed her cheek, a sense of calm settling over her that he always seemed to bring. She stepped closer and wrapped her free arm around him, not caring if anyone saw in that moment. Kara needed to know he was real, that he was here and he wasn’t going to leave her alone again.
She practically fell into step with him once they were alone, he could almost hear Betsy chiding him about falling back into the role of leader as soon as she had arrived. But he wasn't here to lead her. He was here to help her, he wanted nothing more than to help her. More so since knowing what her fate was. He needed to be there for her, to let her know he wasn’t going anywhere. The rest he could explain later.
The look on her face as he kissed her cheek gave him a moment's pause. She did look up to him. He knew that, she’d saved him, and he’d saved her too. And it had given them this, the connection they both held so deeply. One he was sure it had broken his heart to lose.
“There’s a lot to explain Kara.” he said “And some of the people here, we’ll need to figure out if they’re going to make a move. The people from home, did they tell you? But I promise you, there are people here that will listen, people that will help. And you have me. I’m not going to leave you, okay?”
It was what she needed to hear. The thing with Kara, she needed reassurances, words, physical gestures, simple things like a damn cactus they shared. Just something to make her feel connected, make the situation feel real. He could understand that given her history. He squeezed her hand again and gave her a soft smile. It was even a genuine one. He really had missed her.
Kara never saw it as him leading her, it wasn’t how things were with them. They helped each other, it was what they did and how they’d made it through so much. They were equals and while she might have deferred to him a lot she knew if she wanted something or suggested something he would listen and help her with it. People didn’t understand what they had and she knew some might never understand but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the two of them.
It hadn’t escaped her attention that he seemed different from the last time they’d spoken. She couldn’t quite put a finger on it and part of her wondered if she was seeing something that wasn’t there so she didn’t mention it. Maybe it was just this place.
“They did tell me. Do you think some of them might make a move?” she asked, a hint of concern in her voice. “As long as I have you then I don’t need anyone else. I believe you that you won’t leave me and we’ll figure everything out, together.”
She did need to hear it, now more than ever. She knew that Grant could give her what she needed as well, she never had to ask for the reassurances she so badly needed because he just knew without being told. Just the simple act of holding his hand helped her more than most people would understand. She squeezed his hand back and smiled more, the sight of his making hers grow. This was where she belonged, wherever he was that was where she was meant to be.
“Coulson won’t, we kind of have an understanding. May, she might. Skye...god knows.” he said simply. There were others of course but he’d explain all that later. The Avengers, the other version of their world. It was an awful lot to take. And with Skye here, he knew Kara would be concerned for him much as she didn’t need to be. Not anymore.
“It’s not actually awful here much as you get a lot of preachy know it all’s this place actually keeps within a kind of law. If anyone comes at us, they’ll be prosecuted. Same applies to us obviously but you have no idea how satisfying it is to know that May been declawed. She’s free to come at me if she wants. But she knows how it’ll play out for her. Before you got here it would almost have been worth letting her go a few rounds. But with you here, it's different. There's a new focus.”
He watched her as they walked, his hand still holding hers. When they’d come to a slightly less busy area however he stopped and turned her toward him, his hands resting for a moment on her shoulders before wrapping around her waist
“I need to know what you remember Kara. From home. Because there are people here from later, from our future.” The future they didn’t have. He hated to say it, hated to lie. But he needed to know just how much had happened for her. She might even have known more than he did.
She listened when he spoke, if he said that Coulson wouldn’t try anything then she believed him. The fact that May and Skye were here really didn’t sit well with her. Kara knew how those two felt about Grant, the fact that Skye had left him for dead meant if the other woman so much as looked at him wrong then Kara would make sure she knew what would happen if she tried to hurt him again.
“You mean we don’t need to worry about anyone trying to attack us and getting away with it? That’s reassuring to know. Not that I want to think anyone will try anything but at least it will be handled fairly. And I’m not going to try anything, if they leave us alone then I’ll leave them alone. I just want what we tried to have before, I want our quiet little life back.”
As they walked she could feel him watching her, she was almost always hyper aware of what he was doing when they were together. So when he stopped them she wasn’t surprised, she let him wrap his arms around her and her own followed suit.
“We were living our lives when Coulson found us and made you help him. You left me with them while you went to rescue their people and then you didn’t come back,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. She understood why he’d left her there but that didn’t mean she had to like it, not that it mattered now because she wasn’t there anymore and she wasn’t alone.
“It hadn’t quite gotten that far for me.” he told her quietly. “We were happy, we had our house, we had our lives. I think maybe we were even happy. I mean I know, Coulson told me he worked with me, he didn't say it was so forced. But it makes sense. Let me guess, threatened you and offered me prison as a way out?”
Leaving Kara with SHIELD. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d do that and god, he wished he could remember the whole thing. He knew there was more to it, knew something had pushed him into the dark after Kara had been ripped from him. But before that, why would he leave her, unless… “I suppose I’d thought you might be safer. You could get the life back that you never could with me.”
He knew she’d tell him no, tell him she was happy with him, and god help him, a part of him wanted to hear that. Wanted to be told he was needed, that she needed him to be happy and even if that was left over Hydra conditioning talking…
Maybe he was the psychopath they all said.
“Do you want a life with me Kara? Here.” he asked, dark eyes fixed on hers, intense. “Tell me”
“We were happy, we had what we both wanted, a life away from all the pain. So Coulson left out that part, I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re half right, he threatened me but he didn’t offer you prison. He said he would put you through the Tahiti protocol, there was no option. It was what he was going to do.”
She knew that was one of the reasons why he’d left and not come back, she didn’t blame him for doing that but it hadn’t made it hurt less when he’d not returned with the others. Even though she’d known it was coming she’d thought she’d have had more time with him before he’d left. “You thought they could help me get my life back, help me rebuild what was stolen from me but I didn’t need them for that.”
She didn’t say it in so many words but she knew he’d understand. Kara hadn’t needed them to help her because Grant had already done that, he’d helped her get back her identity and her memories. For that and everything else she loved him. It was one of the only things she was sure of.
“Yes, I want a life with you, Grant. Here, home, wherever we are I want to be with you and build a life,” she told him, her eyes on his. “Why on earth do you think I wouldn’t?”
They’d had a life. And maybe if Coulson had let them be nothing since would have happened. Maybe his world wouldn’t had fallen apart around him and left him the mess that Skye seemed to see no chance of redemption in. But all the same he shouldn’t have had to make her say it just to make himself feel right, feel better. He wasn’t there to make her do anything. And he knew she would say it even if he hadn’t asked it so clearly of her. But at the same time, he could ask a lot of her and she’d do it. He knew that too.
“Thank you.” he said softly, leaning in to kiss her properly, pulling her closer to him. He was needed. Wanted. He mattered to someone again, and it felt amazing.
“Lets do it then. Have our life here, build it here. You and me against the world, remember?”
“He should,” she said softly. “I don’t think he expected you to leave though.”
Kara didn’t know what would have happened if Coulson hadn’t have dragged them back into that world. Maybe they were never really out of it and something was always going to drag them back into it, either willingly or against their will. It was something neither of them would ever know now. None of it had changed though, not for her, she still wanted to be with Grant and have a life with him. Her feelings for him were real and what she wanted with him was real, a life and a chance to have what had been stolen from them both.
“You don’t need to thank me,” she said softly, leaning into the kiss as he pulled her closer. She felt safe, protected and it was all because of him.
“I remember, Grant. It’ll be you and me against everyone, no one is going to stop us from having our life together.”