Worlds Apart | Leo Fitz Book Five

Chapter ThirtySix

Asia lay in her bed, quietly, one hand resting on her stomach as she stared up at the ceiling. There was something in there, in her stomach, and no one except for Deke, her grandson, knew that fact. She kind of wanted it to stay that way. The entire rest of yesterday, people kept treating her with kid gloves. She hated kid gloves. But they all watched her like she was made of glass after everything with Leo. And she wasn't made of glass. She was fine. Totally. Completely. Fine.

She rolled over onto Leo's pillow and shut her eyes as tightly as she could, imagining her was there instead of the bundle of fabric. Okay maybe not fine exactly, but she was coping. She just couldn't take another person explaining to her how Framework Fitz wasn't her Leo. She got that. She understood the things that were messed up in his head. It wasn't as if she were without her own inner demons.

And as if on que, a man cleared his throat. Asia rolled over to see Ward, standing there at the foot of her bed, head cocked to the side slightly as he watched her. "This is new," he said after a moment. "Asia Penelope Monroe, moping. Haven't see you look this defeated since that one time my relay team beat yours at school."

"Only because our second string was an idiot," Asia muttered, slowly sitting up and staring at him, wondering if she faced him full on and just willed it, he would disappear. Alas, that didn't seem to be in the cards. Why would anything in her life just go easily? Not any time in her recent recollection. "Why are you here? What are you?"

"Straight to the interrogation questions," Ward tisked, stepping forward and sitting on the edge of the bed. "Shouldn't you be asking yourself those things, after all? Didn't your mind create me? I sure didn't bring myself here. Last time I was actually alive I had Hive in me, and clearly that isn't what's happening here either. So you and that fucked up little head of yours made me. That's how I know how you're pregnant, Monroe." He smiled at that, just a small thing tugging at the edge of his lips, that shy smile she always sought to bring to his lips after they had graduated. "You're going to be a great mom."

Asia rolled her eyes.  No one knew. This was just Ward being Ward."If my mind created you, why can't I just make you leave when you're annoying me?" She asked back flatly, extra wishing now that he wasn't here with her. She wanted to be alone, not trapped in yet another mind prison. And certainly not with Ward.

He shrugged, looking down at his hands then back up at her. "Because you don't feel safe, Monroe, and you haven't in a long time. Think of the first time you saw me. You felt helpless. And now, here we are. You still don't feel safe, because of what's happening out in the world, what's happening with Fitz. Come on, Monroe, it's basic psych 101. You know this shit."

As much as she hated it, when she thought about it, it made sense. "Okay. Fine. My mind has made you to make me feel safe. Tell me something that'll make me feel safe then, and go away." She stared at him, challenging him to do it, challenging him to make her feel just even the tiniest bit better than she had minutes ago. She wouldn't hate that. Not that she'd ever say that out loud. But she was tired of being completely miserable and having a moment of rest would be nice.

"I can't do that, Monroe," Ward sighed, shaking his head. "That's not what my job is. My job is to get you back to normal. And to remind you that the people who can help you...they're not in here, they're out there." He thumbed back towards her door, where her living team was. "They can help you, if you tell them what's wrong. All I can do is tell you what you need to hear."

Asia stared for a moment, trying to fully understand. She was in her own room, at their base, talking to a figment of her own imagination, of her dead friend who had backstabbed them, and he was nice. "I'm not still in the Framework, am I?" she asked suddenly, quietly. The fear hit her like a truck. It couldn't be, could it? She wasn't crazy, she knew her mind, her body, she trusted herself explicitly to know reality from non-reality.

"No," Ward said shaking his head, "You're here. All of this is real. Well, real-ish. I'm not a physical body but I'm a part of your mind. And you're back on earth. There's nothing to worry about, in that regard. But seriously Monroe, your friends, your family, they're out there right now. While you're in here, moping about too many people trying to make you feel better. Oh woe is me, I have friends." Ward stared at her pointedly. "So what are you going to do? Sit in here with me? Or get out there and get shit done."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't defend him, not to me," Asia heard Daisy's words from down the hall and immediately, the air around them plummeted. Without a second thought, her powers moved into action, evaporating herself into the air, into a pipe, and then traveling, moving quicker than she could have run, before she materialized in a burst of thick snow in front of Leo, standing toe to toe with Daisy.

"You want to say that again?" She asked quietly, evenly. Even if Leo had done something wrong, and she wasn't entirely sure that he had, he was still her husband, her person, her partner. And it was her job to defend him when he couldn't defend himself.

"We have to seal the rift, can we at least all agree on that?" Leo said with a sigh, putting a hand on the small of Asia's back as he stepped beside her.

"Sure, seal it be whatever sadistic means are necessary, right?" Daisy shot back, and instantly it felt like the temperature fell another ten degrees, their breath coming out in visible bursts of condensation now. Asia didn't care. She wanted them to know how upset she was. She wanted, needed, Leo to know just where she stood in this battle. That it would always be by his side. They had agreed, in better and worse, in sickness and in health. She would stick by her vows to him, even now.

"Well, okay then, would you have agreed to seal it had I asked?" Leo questioned back, hands on his hips as he stared back at Daisy, well aware of his wife's control of the room at the moment.

"Never," Daisy spat back, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. She didn't like how Asia had so clearly decided her team, without even considering Daisy. Asia had been taken advantage of too, she just got the courtesy of being asleep for it. Daisy was wide awake for the entire, painful time, as she watched her best friend's husband essentially torture her.

"Well then I didn't have a choice," Leo explained, but the second after he spoke, Daisy thrust out her hand, the quakes slamming Leo into the wall, the anger overtaking her. Seconds later, she felt the ice-encrusted fist collide with her cheek, felt the crunch of cartilage in her nose, the blood fill her mouth, and she fell back, staring at Asia wide eyed as the brunette heaved a heavy breathe, shaking the ice off of her hand. Daisy felt her cheek gently and winced, then spit blood out onto the floor between them.

"You drugged me and cut into me," Daisy said, shaking her head, staring from Asia to Leo then back again. "Don't try and tell me he didn't have a choice," She said quietly as she met Asia's gaze and refused to look away.

"Don't act like I feel good about it," Leo said, pushing himself up against the wall, hands shaking. "But if I hadn't acted, in a few hours the town above us, all those people, they would have been effected too. So, I'm sorry for what I had to do. But I don't need your forgiveness. I just need you to trust me."

"Well I don't trust you. You're Hydra," Daisy spat back, her anger at Leo, at Asia, at all of this unfairness in the cards they had been dealt bubbling up to a boiling once again.

"Yea, well that's an advantage for us, isn't it? I saluted the same flag as those blokes up there, didn't I?" Leo pointed up towards the ceiling above them.

"Yea except we don't turn our backs on our own here, Fitz," Daisy said, venom dripping from her words.

"You don't want to do that," Asia said quietly, shaking her head. "Don't make me recount all the times you did that to us." She stared Daisy down, tears starting to grow in her eyes. "Because you shouldn't be throwing stones when you live in a glass house too." Then she turned and extended her hand down to Leo, helping him stand beside her, the two of them simultaneously the rock for the other.

"Let's get out of here," Daisy said, eyes down and nodding at May. "We're not needed here any more." And with that, her friend was gone, and Asia was left alone, with Leo, but she still felt hollow.