you don't know what game I'm playing;

No one else was supposed to come out of that fire. Out of the black pit, out of the scorched sands. Fitz was wholly his, Jemma was a sop and he didn't know what to expect out of her yet - doctors, scientists, but out of nowhere there came an angel. Pale and shaking and wreathed in fire, her long black hair flared around her head.

And Grant Ward's heart stopped.

The ghouls could sense his distress and what he'd never shared with Fitz was that even with the demonic marks on his body the sire bond went both ways. It outlasted everything, it was the most - solid mark - like love and the love he'd felt for the woman in the fire...

anima sola. She was covered with her own marks. This is your punishment that they would take his soul, his heart And you will be inhuman...

He couldn't think. He'd leapt like a lion, features warping, gaze warping.

And rolled out of the portal with Kara in his arms.

Ghoul doctors and scientists alike had moved toward them but Ward had roared at them and they'd scattered save for Fitz and Jemma who were watching them. She was naked, her body married, the skin on her hands black and scaly. Travelling to hell left it's marks and she'd been dead...she'd been dead for almost a year. Longer then Jemma.

His own sudden transformation had left his eyes bright yellow and inhuman, his fangs extended, his nails longer. He would have lost all of his human shape.

He'd carried her into the bedroom and held her against him for what felt like hours. The sun was up in the sky by the time he'd felt her eyelids stir, and tore a hole in his wrist to press to her lips.

"Kara?"

He tore the wound open a second time.

"...Kara?"

Her eyelids fluttered. When they opened they were yellow, like his. His marks flared and he held her close as she drank from him, drank deep. Wrapped in his silk blankets he ignored the blood ruining it, the draining feeling. It was only at the last possible moment as red fluttered in her cheeks that he pulled his wrist away.

Her mouth worked.

"...G...Grant."

Somewhere in the compound Fitz held Jemma as tightly as he could. The ghouls wailed and those few vampires who had joined felt the pull of emotion. Raw primal emotion. She searched his face, her yellow cat eyes fixed on his. One thumb traced his lip over the larger demonic fangs before she smiled.

"...I knew you'd come for me."

It is a known fact that vampires weep blood. Ward knew he was doing so now. She reached a clawed finger up and licked his tear from the tip.

"I was burning. I knew you'd come for me."

"Yeah baby. Yeah." He held her against him ashamed of his erection, "I'm just sorry it took so long."

is it really her? Nothing worked out in his favor. He moaned and pressed his forehead to hers, "I'm not letting go ever again."

Her fingers found himself and held it. He flopped to the side with her in his arms, lips in her hair.

They came together later, as sweet as simple as he could have ever imagined. It's giving orders, showing love for Fitz and trying to ignore the glances traded between he and Simmons. Bend them to his will.

He had to rely on Fitz. Damn it all. It seemed to take all day before he could get back to her. She wasn't in bed, the sheets had been tossed to the floor covered in blood and she was...

In the tub, staring at the ceiling.

"Baby?"

"I missed water. I didn't think I would." She stroked the edge of the top, fingers dabbling in the water, "But it's not burning. I'm afraid I'll start to miss it."

He kissed the demonic rune on her wrist and she shuddered in pleasure before tangling her hand in his hair, "You've gotten powerful."

"...I went looking for you." He traced her wounds again, moving to sit beside the tub, "I did, I - I ran Kara."

Silence. She stared at him.

"I wanted to burn them all in revenge-"


More silence. The temperature of the water was beginning to heat up.

"...They killed me?"

"They - tricked me into killing you." No secrets. Is anything that Coulson told me true? Their conversations after the first kill she'd made. He'd promised.

"It's just as good as them pulling the trigger."

The water began to bubble. Kara raised a hand to his cheek and stroked it. Was it his imagination or were her nails longer?

"Kara we could go-"

"No."

She pulled him close and kissed him. Her kisses burned - and he felt for the first time like the fire matched his own.

"Let's make them pay."

Doubt shown in her eyes, "....I want to watch it all burn. I want to rip it into pieces. Is that wrong? I want to feast on their innards and drink their blood and Grant..."

He pulled her out of the water and she sobbed into him.

"It's in our nature love." Now. not that it had been, "SHIELD made us."

"And SHIELD will pay." The water burned, "SHIELD will pay."