lying in wait

                              There was a time, seemingly an eternity ago after all the suffering they’d endured since then, when his touch made Kara relax or when the very brush of his skin against hers brought forth comfort. There was once a time when his presence, even in darkness when their eyes couldn’t seek each other through the haze of the shadows, just the press of his body against hers could keep both their demons away. But now, as he watched her flinch away from his touch, the scathing bitterness so palpable that it suffocated him, all his touch could ignite in her was her disgust at his betrayal.

                              He should have learned this lesson by now. After all he’d been through, he should have learned that love could never be proven by turning his back on someone no matter how weak he was, but apparently he hadn’t changed. No years, no amount of painful lessons could instil this fact in him. And this time, as he simmered in the realization that he’d done it again, he’d betrayed someone he loved, he realized he was disgusted with himself even more now. Because her? Kara? She wasn’t just a lover, she wasn’t just a girlfriend. She was a best friend, she was hope, she was another half of him, someone he’d seen his own reflection on. She was his savior, his protector, someone who saw his demons and protected him from them instead of running away. She was the touch that never left him, the hand that kept guiding him, the heart that used to beat in time with his. She wasn’t just one person, she was his everything. And yet, he’d betrayed her, turned his back on her. It didn’t even matter if she was dead at the time, he still shouldn’t have left her all alone, in the company of some mad scientist. He owed her this, he owed her at least sticking around long enough to make sure she wasn’t violated a second time. But he’d failed her, and all of this bitterness, every single drop of disgust and hate she had reserved and was throwing at him now, they were all deserved.

                                        ❝ I didn’t know, Kara. You were dead. You weren’t breathing, you died in my arms, ❞ the words spilled weakly through his lips, but they were neither excuses nor explanations that preceded apologies. They were mere statements of what he’d believed all this time. ❝ And I was weak, I couldn’t… I didn’t have the courage to hold on to your corpse, to hold on to the proof of your death. ❞

                              His head hanging and shoulders falling, he didn’t make any movement when she backed away, he couldn’t even manage to look into her eyes because what right did he have to do that right now? Nothing. He didn’t deserve to look at her, let alone hold her gaze. He didn’t even deserve to be in her presence, to be honest. But here he was, a broken shell of selfishness, a shell of a self-centred man who couldn’t stop himself from wanting to bask in her presence, to relish in her life. He was disgusting. He deserved more than anger. He deserved her hate.

                                        ❝ I wanted to come back for you, to get you back, but every time I tried to turn back, I would remember how you looked, dead, with no life in your eyes, and I’d get scared. Because in the hours, in the days that followed your death, I tried to push away the pain. I nearly succeeded, but every time I remembered you, the walls would break. It wouldn’t matter how much work I’d put in building them up, the reminder that you’re gone would always tear it all down. And I was scared that if you came back for you, if I knew where you were buried, I’d have to accept that you were really dead. And that it won’t ever leave me. That I’d spend every night reliving the moment I’d killed you in my nightmares, and every waking hour would be a reminder that you’re not there to spend it with me. ❞

        The words came out, no louder than a whisper, but she knew it would hit him hard. The guilt in his eyes was real, the pain, the suffering-- did it make her a bad person for enjoying it? For feeling like he deserved every ache and pain? She had died because of him, because of his actions. Maybe it was okay to think the way she was thinking, to forget how happy he had once made her.

        And she had been. Happy. Every little smile, touch, kiss. All of it had been too perfect to be real, and yet she had it. She never deserved it, but the love had been hers. He had been hers, and only hers. It had been the happiest she’d ever been in her entire life. It felt like it would last forever, that bubble of domestic bliss. Then it had popped the moment Coulson cornered her- the beginning of the end. It had given them an opening at gaining her closure- at getting Morse -and in the end, it had left her dead. 

        “Do you know what it feels like, to wake up the way I did, Grant? I woke up cold and alone, in a grimy room, on a cold metal slab. Naked. There were.... needles. Everywhere. IVs and machines beeping.” She gulped hard, shaking her head disdainfully. “Do you know how much it burned, feeling the blood in my veins? How wrong I felt? How I still feel? I don’t even- I feel wrong, Grant. Like I’m an abomination. My skin no longer feels like it fits...” Kara resisted the urge to claw at her skin again. No. She’d gotten over that. 

“Hardly.  Well - “  She snorted.  “You were lucky enough to never have to know my son of a bitch brother, Christian. Tommy’s the marshmallow of the Ward family.  We’re all pitbulls and he’s like…a teacup toy poodle or something.”  Rose smiled gently.  “But that’s about as lucky as I think you got in comparison.”

She listened, taking a swig of her alcohol with a nod.  “That sounds both horrible and…good.  Because he was there for you when he needed you then.  I’m sorry you had to go through that.”  Rose paused.”

“Grant told me stories. It was how he got through to me at first. Once I’d.... recovered, mostly, all I wanted was closure. Then Grant and I could move on with our lives. So he told me how he handled his.” 

“Yup.  He had to make sure I didn’t draw attention and get beaten for “disgracing” the family or some bullshit like that.  Our family was…messed up, man.”  Rose took a solid swig from her rum.  She nodded.  “I bet it was awful.  Sounds fuckin’ awful.  And Grant’s good at doin’ that.  Helpin’ you find your way back to the present.”

“I ain’t the pyschologist in the family, and I’ve got like, zero filter.  So I hope I don’t screw this up along the way.  But it’s okay, for it to be hard.  You’ve been through so goddamn much, Kara.  I’d be legit concerned for my life if you weren’t affected by any of this.  Because you would either be an actual robot or an alien.  You don’t ever gotta apologize and lord fuckin’ knows I know what it’s like to have difficult memories.  Maybe not on the same scale, but still - I get it.”  Rose smiled sadly.

“I guess I was lucky,” she mumbled bitterly, scoffing into her empty glass. “We’d hide out in empty buildings for the first few weeks. He was recovering from being shot and I was lost. The screaming-- well, we had to hide me for a little while. I couldn’t control myself. I’d forget that the man who brainwashed me had died- I’d fight Grant to get back to that horrible man. And then I’d remember.” 

Kara fell silent again as she reminisced, shaking her head. It was hard, to recall it all sometimes, but better to deal with it than hide it away. 

                              Shaky breath trembled through his windpipe, dragging along his throat like barbed wire as he tried to gulp large inhales of air in the hope that doing so would ease the heaviness pressing on his chest upon seeing Kara standing there.  His feet were rooted on the spot, the soles of his shoes planted firmly even as his knees threatened to shake.

                                                  ❝ Is that really… is that really you? ❞

                              The words knocked on his consciousness, begging to be spoken, but even when he did, a mere whisper in the cold night air was all he could muster. He didn’t even know if the words carried over to her or if his voice, just like he’d always been, was too weak to even register in her hearing.

                                                            Here to shoot me again?

                              Guilt had never really left him alone since he’d pulled the trigger and the bullets from his own gun pierced her, stealing the breath out of her. It was as though as replacement in the spot she used to inhabit in his heart, now lived the guilt. But as the words travelled over to him, the bitterness squeezed in between the syllables and piercing his flesh the moment they reached him, he realized he never really understood guilt until the person driving the blade of the blame through his heart was the very woman whose life he’d stolen.  

                                        ❝ This isn’t possible, you’re… you’re dead. ❞

                              Confusion marred his features just as the urge to approach her jolted through him, the desire to touch her, to hold her just to prove if she really was there, itching on his palms. But then, soon enough, he realized he shouldn’t be rejecting this. If he’d done it time and again before, he shouldn’t be doing it now. He should be hoping that she really was alive, he shouldn’t be interjecting that this couldn’t be real. So, even as logic nagged in the back of his head—telling him to be careful, ordering him to be cautious because if he hoped now and this turned out as nothing but a lie, a trick that his illusions were playing on him and she really wasn’t alive, he’d be more hurt than he was when he first lost her, he’d be more broken if he lost her a second time—he didn’t listen. No matter how loud reality yelled at him, his longing for Kara rung so much louder. And in response to the loud demand of his heart to reunite with her again, he approached her, feet desperate and hasty as they closed the distance between the two of them.

                              His yearning, his craving for her glared bright and clear in how his hands automatically went up to cradle her face, palms gentle as they cupped her cheeks, thumbs lightly caressing her skin as every loud beat of the heart that now drummed against his ribs wished for him to be able to touch her skin again, for him to feel her warmth. And when he did, pad of his calloused fingers moving slowly across her cheekbones, another shaky breath clouded past his lips.

        Her heart pounded in her ears as he moved closer, Kara flinching visibly as his hands came up to touch her face, her entire body freezing as soon as she felt his rough fingers on her cheeks. Once upon a time she had longed for his hands to be in hers, to connect them and keep them from losing each other. But his hand turned against her in the most awful of ways. 

        “No thanks to you.” She pushed his hands away with little reluctance, anger blazing clear in her eyes as she stepped back. “You left me here, Grant. Didn’t even care what happened to me once I died. Is that love? Because I don’t think it is. You and your words, they were all lies. Every single one of them.” 

                              Denial shouldn’t have taken home in his bones as long as it did; it shouldn’t have weighed his shoulders down as heavily as it had; after all, he had accepted responsibility for her death long before he began his works in pumping breath back into Hydra. He’d drunk in all the blame for months, had ingested more than enough of it in the hopes that someday, it would poison him and push him toward the same end that he’d thrown her into. But alas, it seemed that, in his dictionary, continuing their work in her honor wasn’t synonymous to accepting the fact that she would no longer be able to see it happen. It appeared as though all his efforts were done as a bargain, and not in acceptance of her death.

                              He rejected grief, embraced denial every passing day; so much that he never even thought of visiting her grave. Then again, he didn’t even know if there was a grave to visit. That night, the darkest and coldest night of his life, he hadn’t stuck around long enough to see her buried. The moment the doctor he’d brought her to had announced her dead, he’d run, pushing out the door with all the strength he didn’t even know he still had. He ran, he ran far and fast from the truth.

                    And it’s only now that he’d found the courage to turn around and face it again.

                              Maybe he was drunk, drunk with the loneliness that had kept him company ever since she’d left. Or maybe he was just that much of an idiot, believing he had the bravery to face this truth. Nevertheless, whichever it was, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was back in the same place he’d seen her last, the last place he’d seen her lifeless eyes glint with death. He didn’t even know what he came there to achieve. Did he want to talk to the doctor? Did he want to know where he buried Kara? Could he really muster enough courage to visit her grave, see her name etched on a tombstone? Did she even have a marked grave? He didn’t know anything at all. But as he stood there, in the dark alley that led to the shady clinic—if it could even be called that—he’d brought her corpse to, a noise from somewhere nearby causing him to look up, there was one thing he knew for sure, he wasn’t expecting what his brown orbs saw.

                    He came there to face the truth of the past. But instead, he was                     faced with a ghost he wasn’t at all prepared to lay his eyes on.

        Dying was easier. She had barely felt the shots in her gut, simply falling where she stood into Grant’s arms. But it was Grant who had shot her, who had ended her life.... It hadn’t made sense to her, really. Why would he have shot her? He loved her. 

        Had he, though? Or had she just been used? When she woke, cold on a metal slab, he wasn’t even there. He had left her. The doctor had told her how he ran once she was declared dead, how he abandoned her. It had taken days for her to recover from the shock, only for her to wonder how she’d been revived. Then came another blow- she had been used as a human guinea pig. It was all too much to deal with. It was overwhelming. Her skin didn’t even feel like her own anymore- it didn’t fit the same way. 

        The doctor was good enough to help her get back on her feet, to help her find clothes and readjust to being alive again. She’d left the grimy rooms he worked in to go for a run, locking the door firmly behind her. In no way was she prepared to hear someone call her name, especially once she realized who it was.

        Her heart dropped as she turned slowly to face him, chin rising slightly in defiance.