She walked back up the path and retook the steps two at a time. She stepped back up onto the sun porch floor she found him exactly as she left him. Shirtless with his patched up chest spotted with blood, his hands gripping the knees of his dark wash denim jeans.
The flooring creaked from beneath her shoes.
"I call wedding vows on take out menus, I call ice cream in bed, and I call plant babies and Budapest and every single truth I've told you." He opens his mouth to speak. "I'm not done. I love you. I don't know if every single thing in our life was a lie but I'm going to give you a chance to fix it to tell the truth because you asked and you have no reason to hide. I can live without you; I have for six months I just don't want to live without you. I choose you." She finished and he grinned so wide she thought his face would break in half.
He crossed the room before she could draw another breath and then she was up in his arms. His lips were everywhere her neck, her lips her collarbones, her shoulders. He carried her through the house and back up the stairs.
They knock pictures off the walls in the hallway. Her shirt came off near the bedroom door. They land in the bed in a heap of limbs.
"You shouldn't have carried me so far I just fixed you up." she chastised as he kissed along the cleavage spilling from her bra.
"Truth? I have a higher pain tolerance than you realize and will definitely lose blood in the interest of good sex. Truth? Half the time the scrapes I got into could have been avoided Coulson's shitty plans aside. I got into most of them because I like it when you fret over me and I love having your hands on me. I'm fine for now. Just screw Jem." He said with a dirty smirk.
They lay still afterward. "You're an asshole for enjoying me fretting"She back handed him across the pectoral region.
"Ow Jem! Your bestie shot me remember?" He teased playfully.
"Shove it Ward!"
"Fair enough, where do you wanna run off too?"
/-/-/-
They literally pick a town on the map and go there. No real planning involved they just snag some of Grant's other aliases and go.
They end up in Darby, Montana population 732.
There is a main street and maybe two stops signs in all but they make a life and they're happy. Jemma becomes Harper Shade up and coming doctor and Grant becomes Baylor Shade small town mechanic. Kara comes with them she becomes Chaney Delgado, Kindergarten teacher.
Their lives work for them and after Jemma fixes what Kara jokingly calls her "Melted May Face." She has Grant scour old records to regain her own identity and to rebuild herself.
-/-/-/-
Those first few months are odd thing for Jemma because in some ways Grant is who he has always been with her. There is no difference in the way in which he loves her. His smile has a sharper twist to it and his humor is quite dark. There is an air of arrogance about him now and it shouldn't turn her on but it does. The things that frighten her are much more insidious; he is callous at times when someone crosses him and yet can be the most charismatic friendly man in any room.
The way he wields his affinity for manipulation is almost dangerous. She's not entirely he knows when he is being manipulative. That is a problem because if he somehow miscalculates and uses the wrong person to his own ends it will blow their life apart completely.
She doesn't call him on it until he tries to talk her out of her fears that Kara carries a torch for him.
-/-/-
"She has feelings for you Grant. Very real, very deep, feelings that she would act on in a second given proper motivation. "She said while leaning back on the kitchen sink.
"No she doesn't and the fear you have this jealousy it's totally unfounded and utterly beneath you." He replied leaning comfortably on the breakfast bar. He was the picture of ease and God did it irritate her.
She scoffed. "My feelings are beneath me Grant? Oh screw you! You always do this!"
"Do What?" He asked and she tossed her hands up in frustration.
"Manipulating someone's feelings into something that isn't real. Into something that suits you."
"I am not. We're friends; she has no one, Jem. You're seeing things.
She nodded curtly at him. "Did you know that when a person has an attraction to someone there are certain biological tells that you can't hide or fake?" She asked and took a step toward him before she continued on. "Any time she is within touching distance to you her nostrils flare and her pupils widen. A blush creeps up her neck if it is a particularly dirty thought she's having."
He looked at her through narrowed eyes as he tilted his head in calculation. "You're being insecure. Even if she does have feelings for me I have done nothing to encourage them I wasn't even aware there were feelings." His tone is all feigned innocence and it really pissed her off.
"You arrogant self-absorbed bastard. You knew damn well how she felt and you like it. You like the extra attention and the way when you say jump she says how high master. You like knowing you could have either of us."
He sighed like he was bored of her tantrum. "Jem."
"No, let me make one thing clear to you. I chose you. This means I put up with mile high piles of shit from you and that's fine but I will not play second fiddle to your twisted little marionette. You will douse that little flame if you expect to keep me in your life at all. I will be her friend because she needs one but I will not share you. Understood?" She made herself clear. She watched as he tried to hide a slow burning little smirk of pride.
Jemma I-"He started to make more excuses.
"I said, do you understand me Grant?" She reiterated slowly as though he were daft.
The dark look in his eyes is half thrilling half terrifying. Like she had just lit a stick of dynamite and decided to juggle with it only to have it be null and void of explosives. "Come here, Please," He asked tone perfectly gentle. He waited half a second before striding o her manacling her wrist in his hand and pulling her into his chest. He continues on in a low measured tone breathe ghosting across her face. "What I understand is this, no matter who looks at me, or wants to fuck me the only person I ever bother to acknowledge is you. " He gave a careless shrug. "So let her look, hell let her pine because the only person I will ever call mine is you. It was in my vows remember? I burn solely for you. And it's a lucky thing for you baby, that I like you pissed and bossy." The razor sharp smile is back. It made her nerve endings crackle with anticipation. Every single one.
Her breath whooshed out of its own accord. She watched his eyes as leaned down to kiss her. The heat in them promised dirty, painful, exciting, pleasures she wanted like a drowning person wants a preserver ring.
The kiss is hard and deep. A punishment for being high handed. He bites at her lips then soothes away the sting with more kisses.
He released her wrist to wind a hand in her hair now dyed a deep auburn. He pulls her hair and it's on just this side of painful. His other hand gently curves around her neck. A light weight holding her in place as he pressed kisses down the column of her throat.
He turned her quickly then back walked her to the kitchen table while he worked one of his hands under her shirt. He gets her top off and plunks her down on the table a little forcefully. He trailed scraping little kisses all down her chest.
Grant is single minded when it comes to sex but he never leaves her unsatisfied. She just hangs onto the tornado as it whirls around her. He shoves her back on to her elbows and kisses his way across her abdomen as he undoes her denim cut offs and works them down. He jerks her to the edge of the table easily with one hand behind her right knee as the other goes to work inside her body. She lies back on the table and focuses on the callouses of his fingers rubbing her and wanting more than his hand inside her rather than the fact that the blinds of the street facing window are open.
"Grant…" She barely kept the neediness out of her tone.
"Let em' watch maybe if she sees she'll be more careful about letting it show." He says with one of those sharp edged cocky smiles. He knows exactly what he does and is proud of it.
"No, I just meant…I need you please." She begs and then without preamble. After a few buttons pop and zippers slide he's inside her.
He holds her up in a half seated position controlling the angle of her body and the pace with which they move.
It's harsh and fast and has her scrambling for something to grip as she comes rather quickly not once but twice. After he finds his finish as well he sits her up and gently kisses her. "I love you Jem. Nothing and no one else matters next to you." He said it so intently and softly that she couldn't help believe him even if it is a manipulation.
He kissed his favorite spot on her neck and patted her thigh. "What's for dinner?" he asked clearly considering the matter closed.
-/-/-
Because she needs science almost as much as she needs Grant she decides to go into medicine and become that kind of doctor. She skips most of the med school stuff as her cover was in the military and had been sent off to war before starting her residency.
So she's a first year resident at "Bell Chase Memorial Hospital." In Hamilton. It's a town over from theirs.
She's a first year but it's not like you can hide being a prodigy so she is let in on more cases than most.
When a bunch local teenage boys come in with hairline skull fractures all throughout their cranium's and as one comes in spitting up blood she knows there's chance this could be headed SHIELD's way.
"Levi I need you to tell me what happened?" She said leaning over the young man expelling blood faster than they could transfuse it.
"There was this noise but it was so low… but it was coming from Tyler." He went into another coughing fit.
She held the vomit basin for him as she hypothesized "Resonance… It's a resonance injury as if he is controlling the speed at which sound travels and the pitch."
Tyler of course unharmed. She knows the threat to herself Grant and Kara could be a reality but she has to treat what's in front of her.
She barked at nurse for more clotting agent to pump into Levi for now she must work. She loses every patient she has other than Tyler. She knows all six of the boys and Grant had employed two of them for shop keeping. She wants to sit and cry but instead folds herself up between the vending machines and calls Grant.
"Grant! Tyler Cooligan is about to be indexed. He killed five boys by manipulating resonance..." She paused sighing when Ward asks her to dumb it down. "He controls sound Grant! We need to go before…bloody hell I see Fitz!" She muttered as she cowered to the wall more aggressively.
"I bloody well am calm you prat! You have protocols for this? Without telling me you have protocols as if you think I'm such fucking dolt I can't possibly-Fine I'm going but fuck you." She growled at him.
She ditches her coat and pulls down her long hair she looks like any other orderly pushing a gurney but Skye recognizes her as she passes.
"Jemma!" She gives up all pretense and runs for her car.
-/-/-
She thanks all and sundry that Grant had replaced her hybrid car's engine with that of a muscle car as she roars off. It's about twenty miles from Hamilton to Darby and she does eighty the entire way with SHIELD's best giving chase the whole time. They aren't firing on her though, She thinks she may have Coulson to thank for that he probably thinks she's been brain washed, made compliant.
She brakes abruptly to roll through the school zone and when she goes through at leisurely pace they gain on her.
She throws the car into park in a handicap spot. She won't get towed her husband provides towing or he did…Ok so her thoughts are falling all over each other in a fearful rush. She can hear Fitz's voice. He's screaming her name and the part of her that misses him longs to turn just to look at him but the other parts know better.
She makes it for Kara's classroom breath heaving as she gently closes the door so as not to interrupt the children's nap time.
One kid nearest to her is playing possum. She knows because she's a bad liar too.
"We've been made." She says in a fierce whisper.
"I gathered that." She looks up as a helo starts whirring overhead. "Seriously a Helo for you? " She said dryly unimpressed.
"If they know I'm alive they know Grant is too. They want Grant."
"Then there is only one thing to do." She said whilst standing from behind the desk. "I'll simply have to mislead them." She nods and then transforms and Jemma is looking at herself.
"You can't do that! We don't know who has control of SHIELD or what they will do to you." She pointed out fretfully.
Kara smiled at her serenely. "I loved him too you know. You make him happy." She stepped around the desk and when she reached the door she turned back. "Just make sure he keeps what is left of his humanity. Don't let his darkness take his soul and it's a fair trade Jemma." The corner of her mouth kicks up into a smirk.
"Kara…" She starts and can think of nothing to say.
"Make sure my kiddos are seen safely home." She ordered and was gone.
She watched Kara march through the school's fire exit to the awaiting agents with her hands held high. "Thank you." She said to the tiny classroom.
-/-/-
"I get it you know, want the lies to stop wanting a different life with cleaner choices. I get what you were trying for her." Bobbi said looking at her with eyes filled with a kindred history they don't share Kara wants to roll her eyes. Jemma wouldn't. She just rattles her cuffs and bides her time.
"Coulson thinks he made you compliant but I know better. I know you just loved him. Sometimes it's simple like that. Now, we just wait to see if loves you back if he loves you enough to come to your rescue and pull you from despair."
Kara knows she'll be waiting a while because even if she wears Jemma's face she could have never possessed Grant's heart.
"I'm growing rather bored of you darling…I need someone a bit more stimulating Fitzy maybe?" She gave her sweetest smile.
"That's not Jemma Bobbi!" comes Fitz's voice into the cage via intercom. "She'd only call me Fitzy when extremely inebriated. That's Kara, Simmons is in the wind."
-/-/-
"It's a shame I really liked Montana. Beautiful country." Grant said suddenly filling the silence pervading the truck cab.
"I'm sorry I got us caught. We should go back for her." He shook his head and she can't read him from this angle. He'd grown fond of hiding his expressive face beneath beard and wearing a worn and washed out red ball cap to shutter the emotion in his eyes. He cracks his gum and takes a beat.
Grant looked away from the road to shake his head at her. "You know we can't…new page, new day baby." He said taking his hand off the wheel to hold hers. Then its eyes riveted to the road again.
"Do regret asking me the question?"
"If you mean the nuclear fission one yes I do deeply." He said grinning wide and true.
"I mean asking me to come with you. We will always be running."
"I was running either way. This way I got to play for keeps with the only thing or person I should say that I love. No regrets… not a one…" He glanced at her and smiled. "So Texas? Austin Maybe?" He asked while raising their joined hands to his lips to kiss the back of her hand.
They pass over into Idaho taking the next step on the path.
AN: All towns mentioned in this fic are real. The hospital name is nod to my Great Grandmother Ollie Bell Chase-Byars. I own nothing and I hope you all liked it. Meghan84 is my Tumblr I am always open to prompts!-MM