"Stay with me. Come on, just a little longer." [angst and pain? what angst and pain?]
@dontohfitzme
Meme: Dying Starters
Status: No Longer Accepting
BREATHING hadnever been as much of a chore as it was in that moment. Every inhale and exhalefelt like the act of dragging a coil of barbed wire through his airways. Grating,wounding, cutting. But even though staying and breathing did more harm thangood, Ward didn’t think, even for just one second, to give up and do theopposite. At least not y e t.
Time and timeagain, the Hydra leader had come face to face with Death. It could even be saidthat at this point---especially after Kara died and he’d bid farewell to thecaution he prided himself on a lifetime ago---meeting the Reaper would besimilar to greeting an old friend. And in all those times he’d looked theReaper in its hollow eyes after Agent 33’s death, he’d thought he was ready togo. After all, he had fulfilled all of the promises he’d given, he’d tied allthe loose ends. But right then, as he took another ragged breath while hebathed in a pool of his own blood, he could not think about all the people hehad successfully served, he could not focus on all his fulfilled promises, no.What flashed in his mind wasn’t the life he’d lived---unlike what those storiesalways said. What he saw in fast succession were the years he could have stilllived, the people he was leaving behind. One by one, as he stared at Fitz, the Scotsman’s desperate voicecradling the string of could-have-been’s, he thought about the tomorrows thatwould no longer arrive.
◤ Hydra breaking out of its old reputation andbecoming an organization they could be proud of.
Their ‘interns’---not really internsanymore---becoming some of the most respected Hydra agents that would helptheir family prosper and remain tight-knit.
FitzSimmons finally living the life theydeserved---a life together. Maybe even a kid or two, genius little childrenthat would frolic in the lab, hopefully running to Ward when they’d see himarrive and calling him uncle.
The bad memories of the past not forgotten,but overshadowed with good ones.
Ward being forgiven for the mistakes he didn’tmean to make...
Ward belonging to something again...
Ward having the family he’d always unknwoingly wished for... ◢
There couldhave been more HAPPY moments... but instead, Ward would not get to live longenough to witness them happen.
Stay with me... just a little longer...Fitz said and though Ward wanted to believe and hope that the engineer’s wordscould be true, he knew he could not lie both to himself or to the otherman. His e n d was coming, it was only a matter of how many minutes he still hadleft before it happened.
“W---we don’t...have t---time... C---come here...” With weakness holding his limbs hostage, theonly coaxing gesture Ward could muster was a pathetic curl of three of hisfingers.
“I’ve----I’vegot things t---to say...” Pain wrenched at his chest as he let the words out,both from the emotional TURMOIL it brought upon him and the physical EXERTIONit caused to his already weakening body. But he knew he HAD to tell Fitz all ofthese things. He wasn’t ready to go, but perhaps after he’d said them, he mightbegin to be.