AN: Thanks so much for all your help Myranda. I own nothing. This chapter goes to dark places but it ends on a very sweet note. Stick with me on this one please! If you'd like to review please do so, just gentle in your critques.-MM

Jemma lay unmoving in bed. She recognizes the weighted down, disconnected feeling, the bone tiredness that always pulls down her eyelids for that it is. It's depression. She's depressed. Her whole world has changed with a single lab report.

She is lost and the only thing that keeps her from back sliding into her "Darkness Planet" thoughts is the way every so often "She" moves, shifts, and lays across Jemma's insides. "She" kicks at Jemma's bladder or seems to elbow her way between Jemma's lungs. So it's short breaths and frequent visits to the toilets, but Jemma is reminded by it that "She" is still in there. Kept safe within her.

Her thoughts turn to Grant. He's currently wrapped around them both, his arm protectively slung over her ever-widening belly. Their legs are tangled together and his chin is hooked onto her shoulder, nestled into the crook of her neck.

He is also snoring so loudly Jemma can barely think.

But God, she's glad to have this back. Grant means safety and home again. It's something she thought could never feel with him, if ever, but here they are by choice this time. His confidence in them, in himself, drives away the fear for a few moments until her brain takes over and nothing can quiet her mind when presented with the impossible.

And now she needs to pee. Lovely. That's just great, she just went a half hour ago.

Jemma tries to disentangle herself from Grant and proves unsuccessful when he tightens his grip like some cuddly species of anaconda.

"Grant, love, I need to use the loo. Let me up." He releases her and flops over to cuddle his pillow.

She gets up and relieves herself, but doesn't go back to bed. Instead, she goes into the kitchen to stand in the cooled air of the refrigerator. Hot flashes are a grade A bitch, she thinks as she's consuming her latest craving: cantaloupe drizzled with honey. It's a moment before she feels the eyes on her.

Her guard stands in the blueish light of the stove clock that reads 4:17 a.m.

"Taylor…" she says in surprise, then "Do you ever speak?" when he doesn't answer.

"Only when spoken to, Mrs. Ward."

"Dr. Simmons-Ward," she corrects absently. "That must get quite isolating." She forks up another chunk and bites into it. "Doesn't the silence become….that's it!" She sets her bowl of fruit down and jets off to her lab, leaving Taylor to clean up the kitchen and follow her.

She sets off to work immediately and doesn't look up for the next two hours. She half hears Sarona take over her shift, but keeps going.

"Hey, babe," Grant says right next to her ear, at which point Jemma screams like a banshee and nearly jumps clean out of her stretch-marked skin.

"Grant!"

"Jemma!" he has the nerve to smile at her. "What?"

"You know how I feel about being snuck up on."

"And you know how I feel about you doing lab work without pants on."

She looks down. Bollocks. She's still in her bloody night shirt.

"But you don't see me throwing stones," he continues. He skims his hand up her bare thigh to tug down the hem of his Henley, uncaring of the extra eyes in the room. His hand is warm on her skin in the cold lab. He smirks at her and she tries like hell not to go gooey at the action. "What're you up to in here? You never came back to bed. I thought you fell in," he teases.

She grins up at him despite her best efforts. "Sadly, my arse is far too wide for that…That is not an invitation to grab it in disagreement!"

He ducks down to kiss her quickly, without moving his hand. "You're perfect. Now pretend I'm smarter than Fitz and explain what you're doing." She sits aside her disheveled and beloved note book, stuffed full with years of her notations and theories. She's beyond excited by the idea that her latest theory could change the world and she has to tell someone. It may as well be Grant, even if she needs to simplify the terminology.

When she turns back to him he has that uncomfortable look he gets when he's reminded she's smarter than him. He leans on her lab table, waiting patiently as she gathers her thoughts.

"I have a theory! The Terrigen adds DNA to the average human. Supplements it in the weak areas, if you will, thus making inhumans."

"Yeah, I got that much."

"I can reverse engineer it!

"And now I don't follow." He crosses his arms as she paces by.

"If the Terrigen can add DNA, it can delete it, mask it, silence it, as well. I'd have to do some more tests, but I could - in theory only at this point - cure countless genetic conditions and diseases. Down's, Huntingtons's, dwarfism, cystic fi-"

Grant's expression darkens. "No."

She stops and spins back to him. "No? Grant! I can do what I set out to do in the first place, I can help people. I can help her."

"No. I won't let you do that," he says concretely.

"You won't let me heal my own child?" she replies, incredulous at his gall.

He physically imposes on her personal space, inches from her face. "Heal her? Do you even hear yourself? You want to expose her to Terrigen. In case you've forgotten, in all your scientifically-purposeful single-mindedness, but that fucking shit kills people. If it doesn't deem you worthy, it kills you! What if it deems neither of you worthy? What then? "

"Granted there are some holes, but being exposed to the Darkness Planet likely created antibodies we share-"

"I don't care!" he roars, cutting her off. She flinches away from him on reflex.

"I cannot for the fucking life of me understand why you would risk yourself and our baby over this bullshit," he hisses, "and you are fucked in the head if you think for a second I will let you even try. What the hell happened to you? Did I fuck you up or was it the planet? Was it SHIELD, did they actually drive you crazy?"

To set his point, he snatches her note book of the table and drops it on a Bunsen burner she'd left lit. Jemma swallows a whimpers as she steps over, trying to avoid thinking off all her history with Fitz burning to ash. She reaches into the flames to yank it back, yelping as she burns her hand. She drops the notebook to the floor, and her despair climbs at yet another thing she cannot save. Grant doesn't take notice or plainly doesn't care that her face crumples as she turns into a weeping mess before him or as Sarona rushes forward to stomp out the fire burning at his feet. Jemma can't bring herself to check to see if anything is salvageable, simply stares at it until Grant is there, forcing her to meet his eyes.

"We wanted a baby so goddamned bad, Jem. And now that she's not your idea of what should be, because she's not going to be a genius, that it is going to be real work, you think she's a problem to fix? You think that changing her on a fundamental level, as a person, is the solution? How is picking and choosing any better than aborting her? How is it less evil? Because as fucked up as I am Jem, I don't see how that's the answer. There are worse things than being disabled."

The silence rings in the room as he finishes. She stands there a good minute waiting for him to take that back, but he doesn't. And she can't say she doesn't concur with his assessment. She steps past him and walks out without a single word, no parting barb.

Jemma wonders if it's the desperation or perfectionism as Grant accused but she suddenly realizes she lost her humanity in somewhere along the way. It may never return. Jemma closes herself off in the spare room. Letting herself disassociate is safest for everyone. She plunges the room into darkness with the flip of a switch. She curls up on the bed and sobs harder than she cried when she accepted that she would never leave the Darkness Planet. Maybe never leaving would have been easier than the challenge she faces now. Certainly, Jemma thinks, everyone else would have been better off.

As if sensing Jemma's distress, "She" kicks at her mother's ribs. Jemma cries that much harder. Before the crying jag is over, Jemma is breathless and sick to her stomach. Through her despair, she can vaguely Grant pounding on the door she doesn't recall locking.

"Jemma! Jemma, I didn't mean it that way. Baby, come on! I just don't want you to do something you'll regret. I'll stand here all day, you know I will."

She doesn't reply. She can't move. She knows she is further inviting Grant's ire, but he wants to fight and she has none left in her. The hormones, emotions, and fears for her baby are all too much. She isn't angry at all, she's drained of all hope and has no head space left for him to occupy

He stays there, true to his word. She can hear his boots shifting on the hardwood, or an exasperated sigh now and again. It is a long while before she hears his retreating steps.

"The boss went to get breakfast for the two of you. You must be hungry," Tarleton wheedles from the other side. When there's no response, she tries again. "Will you open the door for me, Doc? You're startin' to freak me out and pretty soon boss' patience is gonna run out." Tarleton's tone is kind, Jemma thinks. But she probably has the same low opinion of Jemma as Grant. Rightly so, Jemma curls tighter into herself at the thought. She can't speak because there is less than nothing to say. Hasn't Grant said it all anyway? She's a terrible human being. A worse mother.

When Grant comes back with food and she doesn't open the door in acceptance and reconciliation, he loses his cool, just as Tarleton predicted.

"Really Jem? This is getting pathetically childish, come out of there now! Jemma we don't do this, this isn't who we are. Please, just open the door and talk to me, baby."

There is a long, incredibly tense silence.

"Fine, hard way it is then." Even though he'd promised to never hurt her again, something in the statement feels threatening and ominous. She doesn't move. She can take whatever he dishes out, it will be a welcome change compared to everything holding her underwater now.

Soon there is the squealing sound of drills and she can hear the screws fall from the door hinges to clatter to the floor. From her position on the bed, she can see him lift the door and slide it to the side.

"Hi baby. Can we talk?" He says it like he hadn't just lifted an oak door all on his own.

When he steps into the room she gets to her feet and, keeping her eyes glued to the floor, walks listlessly past him.

"Baby, come on." She journeys to the bathroom and he follows after her and watches as she pees.

"Are you part camel? Jesus, Jem." She goes to the sink and washes her hands and cleans up her face as best she can. "Come on, baby. That was funny!"

They just had the biggest fight of their entire marriage and he wants to joke around, lovely. Maybe Grant's as twisted as they all say, maybe she's just a husk to house his spawn to him after all. What littl was left of her heart is broken. The will not even another planet could break was shattered with a few scant and sharply worded sentences.

Jemma take her grilled chicken salad and truffle fries from where Grant had placed the take out on the floor. She returns to the spare bedroom and sits cross-legged at the center of the bed. She's not hungry but that doesn't matter. "She" Is what matters. Jemma tries not think about how gentle and patient Grant was last time they'd slept in this bed. How understanding he'd been had almost made her cry. It had reminded her Grant could be kind, but he can be harsh and unforgiving as well. Not that she believes he'll find any to give. Hell, she isn't even deserving of it.

"Jemma," he starts again.

"Boss, may I speak? As the Doc's friend for a moment?" Tarleton pulls him aside.

"Allowed."

He's framed in the door just slightly. She's never in ten years made him as mad as he looks now. They should check Grant's blood pressure. She would do it, but something tells her touching him now couldn't do any good.

"You should give her time," Sarona says. "I think that she was trying to cope with the baby's condition the only way she knew how, on an intellectual level. You've taken that from her."

"I'll take the whole fuckin' lab if-"

"All due respect sir, that isn't going to help either of you. Give her some time to adjust and return to this when she's ready."

"What makes you think you know my wife so well?"

"Two and half months of fourteen hour days, six days a week."

"Fine, you keep her company, I clearly can't get through at this point." He tosses up his hands in defeated exasperation and stomps off.

"Burning her decades of work and research? Dick move, Boss." Tarleton calls to his back.

It's three days before she speaks to anyone She only moves if her body demands relief or sustenance, other wise she doesn't leave the room.

"I'm just going to give Grant the baby and leave, it's what's best," she says aloud when she reaches the choice she has been wrestling with.

Sarona's head snaps up. She's been sitting on the floor against the closed door, telling Jemma a story about an ex and a mission in Peru. Jemma wasn't truly listening but Sarona had filled up the silence with her usual happy chatter. Acting as if Jemma hadn't had a break down and gone temporarily mute. Jemma kind of loves her for it. It's something Skye would do. It makes her feel terrible and guilty all over again, but she doesn't have time to think on it as Sarona cuts through her thoughts.

"The fuck it is. You are her Mama. No one else, Jemma."

"I don't deserve her."

"That's not true, Jemma, hon. People are fucked up and flawed and human. You are not undeserving of your baby, not at all. All mother's want good lives for their babies, you were just trying to give her that. It was just an idea, you didn't act on anything. You wouldn't have not when it came down to it."

"Grant hates me. I loathe myself. Dying would have been easier than feeling like this. Would have been better. I shouldn't have come back."

" Jemma, honey…The boss loves you very freakin', obsessively much. Like I would be frightened to be on the receiving end."

"It usually feels pretty alright. Or it did," she says, her voice sounding far away to her own ears. "That's gone now."

Sarona has a big mouth because not three hours later, when she's picking at the sandwich she made, Grant troops in, dress in muddy tac gear.

"Please say something to me, I'll take anything at this point, really."

"You're leaving muddy boot prints all over the kitchen floor."

He plops down in a ladder back chair. The wood creaks under his suddenly-added weight.

"So…" he says, yanking the laces loose on his combat boots awhile keeping his eyes on her. He's still looking at her like he loves her. Or maybe he's just afraid she'll slit her wrists with a kitchen knife, she can't be sure. "Why'd you go radio silent on us? I think I might know, but…" he starts pulling his right boot off. "I'm going to need you to say it. I'm not trying to fight, honestly. I just need to understand so that I can help in whatever way you need."

"You still want me?"

"Every day, forever." He moves on to the left boot and tosses both aside.

"Why? I'm awful. I'm a terrible person who…maybe I was better off on the Darkness Planet. I mean, what kind of mother tries to genetically-modify their child? I'll leave, just don't ever tell her I tried to change her, it's all I ask."

"What has you that scared, Jem?" He goes blurry as tears fill her eyes. "Babe…" he whispers as if she's hurt him. "Come here please…"

She takes a few steps to stand in front of him. He pulls her down to sit in his lap. He loops his arms around her, holding tightly to her. It's impossible to not feel some measure of comfort in his arms. "Nothing you can say will make me not love you."

She looks into his face and sees nothing but earnestness. She hopes to God that's real.

"I'm so afraid, all the time. And I've lived with it for so long that it's like an old friend. At first, I was afraid of what it meant to love you, then I was afraid of not having that love. You did the things you did, and I was afraid of Fitz never being himself again. I was afraid in Hydra. Then came the Planet and all of it's uniquely fear-inviting challenges and now there's this."

"Jem-"

"Let me finish, please," she says, strained; if she doesn't get it all out now she never will.

He brushes her hair back and nods in acceptance.

"As long as she's with me, inside, she's safe. Safe from a cruel world that's not made for her. As long as I carry her, she's free of your enemies and her challenges and I want to keep it that way for as long as I can. I wasn't trying fix her, I was just trying to ensure she has a good life, a life with more…"

"More what?"

"I don't know, Grant! I just know what is like to be different. It's isolating and hard. It's lonely and you can't understand what it's like to not ever feel understood. You're a physical representation of Hubbell bloody Gardiner! Everything comes easy to you. Every tiny thing from eating to talking to getting the world to see her as a full-fledged human being is going to be hard for her. Science is all I know, it's what I fell back on, but you're entirely right. I don't know how you want to proceed. I'll leave her with you and go back to Shield, if that's what you want or- "

She's stopped by Grant's tightening grip, keeping her from pulling away from him. "I want be with you, and I want to raise her with you. I want us to be a team. Not me, you and Hydra. Just me and you." By the time he's finished, he has has his hand slipped under her shirt rubbing the small of her back.

"I want you to know, I said the things I said out my own fears and concerns, because I wanted to shock you back to sense. I didn't mean you were a bad mother or that you were trying to harm the baby. And I'm truly sorry I burned your notes. It was petty of me and wrong. I'm sorry. I will always have your back, Jem. And I want you to be healthy. To be whole again."

"I need help, I think," Jemma admits. "To process everything not just with the baby, but with all of it. I don't trust anyone anymore, though, after Garner, and I don't- I can't do it alone."

"Do you trust me?"

"More than I have in a very long time."

"Do you trust that I'll keep you safe?"

Jemma nods, slowly.

"Then I'll pick out a therapist and I'll go with you to make sure you don't get emotionally-cornered or morally pigeonholed okay, babe?"

"Okay."

The tight grip he has on her seems to ease at her agreeance. The hand at her back skims upward to catch her neck gently. He pulls her in for a kiss she expects to be completely possessive but is instead utterly tender, as if he expects her to disappear from his arms at any moment.

_/_/-/_

Grant chose a sleek-looking, dark haired woman named Dr. Elisson. She has no affiliation to either Hydra or SHIELD but has experience conseling some of the better known crime syndicate families. Their initial meeting was friendly and went fine enough that Jemma agreed to continue. She reads a to do list online before her first real appointment, wanting to be prepared.

She creates her goal list for her therapy sessions with a single item. The baby: Be a better mother, get and stay mentally healthy, accept things as they are.

Jemma hands the doctor the list, refusing to release Grant's hand.

"My self-loathing," Dr. Elisson reads. "Why I'm so damned sad/post-traumatic stress, coping with the baby being different and then… who's Eleanor?"

"That's what I wish to name the baby. She is my only goal. Grant edited my list."

"Grant," the doctor chides. "You're not here for you, you're here for her. Do not manipulate her again, understand? You cannot decide Jemma's feelings for her," she cuts him off before he can protest. "Yes, I understand that you are concerned, but you need to let your wife work through things – including making her own goals – in her own time."

"Thank you," Jemma says.

"Fine," Grant warns. "So long as Jemma's health and safety are not in jeopardy. And there's still no way we are naming her after Eleanor of Aquitaine, Jem."

"You shot down Peggy!" Jemma says. "As for Queen Eleanor, I admire her."

"She had terrible marriages with people she hated! She marched to battle to avoid one of them, Jemma!"

"Grant…"

"Why do admire her Jemma?" the doctor cuts in smoothly.

"She was brave, she took control of her life and had power in her own right."

"Do you see similarities in the two of you?"

"I used to," Jemma says.

"And now?"

It's a moment before she responds. "Now, there's nothing. I'm just here. And there's nothing to admire about me now."

"Why not?"

"When I was alone on the planet, I wished I wasn't alone. I wished Fitz was there, too, on that God awful place because I was lonely. What person wishes that on the person they love most in the world? Second most-" she cuts frantically.

"Baby, I know you love Fitz, it's fine," Grant soothes.

"You were alone, it's natural to want the comforts and people from home," Dr. Elisson points out. "What was being home like?"

Unbidden tears welled up in Jemma's eyes. "Breathe, Jemma," Grant kisses the back of her hand, grounding her.

"Punishment."

"For what?"

"Coming back different. Maybe… definitely for loving, I love Grant. It was a problem. It was immoral and wrong… and I paid-we paid." She sets her hand on her rounded tummy.

"And so Karma is punishing your baby? Is that what you feel?"

"Yes, well I wanted to change things so that she didn't pay for my choices but…"

"Do you think the other parents of special needs children did something to deserve the things that happened?"

"No, of course not!"

"Then what makes you different? Do you see the disconnect? Do me a favor, Grant. Tell me how you see Jemma."

"You are brave, you're tough, and smart. You are kind, baby. And I see your intentions now. You are not going to be punished by me, Shield, or bullshit karma. You're lonely, but I'm right here. I will not leave and you can't scare me off. I promise, I will always love you. I will even kidnap Fitz for you if you really need him in your corner."

"Really creepy grand gestures aside," the doctor cuts in, but knows better than to further analyze Grant, "does that sound like someone who's unworthy of love and deserves to be punished?"

"No."

"The next time you feel yourself starting to cycle through self-hating thoughts I want you to call me immediately. I also want to talk to your husband, and to try to believe the things he feels for you." She nods at Grant. "Jemma, you're more like Aquitaine than you think."

When they reach the end of their time, Jemma feels a bit lighter, even as they fight about baby names the whole way home. It's enough that she isn't afraid to go back, to do the work to try to get herself back, piece by piece.

-/-/-

By the time Jemma is in her thirty-second week of pregnancy, if she isn't utterly miserable, she is undeniably horny. She refuses to let Grant know, because other than the halted attempt a few weeks after she ran from Shield, they haven't had sex since "She" was conceived.

Jemma doesn't exactly feel confident and she is definitely unsexy at this point.

Needs must, though, and so showers are when she satisfies her needs with a few particularly fond memories and an increasingly-awkward maneuvering. She must make some noise of displeasure - the angle and pressure are all wrong - because the next she knows, the shower door is opening and Grant is stepping in, concern etched on his face until he realizes exactly what she was doing.

Jemma cannot help but blush. She wasn't the "get yourself off" kind of girl before. She always heard her mother in her head, saying words like "dirty" and "improper" which defeated the whole purpose.

"I just I feel fat," she babbles in humiliation. "I'm sharing a body with someone, it's not sexy, I'm not sexy, I have stretch marks and enormous boobs and look like Moby Dick so…I was handling it so you wouldn't have to. I know I'm the least attractive I've ever been so if you could just pretend you never saw this and -"

"No fuckin' way, baby."

"Grant, I'm so embarrassed, please…"

He steps forward and she is temporarily distracted by the water spray hitting his bare chest. It trickles down his arms to dampen the front of his lounge pants. He's visibly hard. She blinks. That's an unexpected surprise.

He backs her against the cold white tile wall and replaces his hand with hers. There's a tense look on his face that damn near lights her insides on fire with want. It's half cockiness, half barely holding himself in control and it fans the flames of her desire higher. His fingers drive up into her, the force of it causing her to rock up onto the balls of her feet. It's everything she couldn't achieve herself.

"Fuck. Me. How do you even do that?" she cries reedily in disbelief.

"Do you right, you mean?" He laughs, leaning in to kiss her in the filthiest, best way possible. It's all teeth and tongue and fighting for dominance as he keeps driving her toward a peak with his fingers pushing inside her and his thumb circling her clit. "Devotion and observation is all it is, baby," he says against her mouth.

She kisses his him this time finishing with her teeth dragging at his bottom lip. "You don't have to, I understand-"

"Jemma, open your eyes and look at me." She does as he curtly demands. "Do you want this? Do want me?"

"So much."

He flashes her a quick smile. "Good. I've wanted you for months."

"But-"

"I think you are gorgeous…Don't believe me, huh?" He slows his pace and changes the pattern he draws on her clit. She's so close she bites her lips so hard it nearly breaks the skin. He reaches out and frees her lip from her teeth.

"You know your lips have always been my thing, please don't abuse them." He says softly and kisses her even more gently.

"Really? How did you manage to go so long without kissing me?"

"It was torture."

"I empathize fully with your plight at the moment."

He has her teetering so closely to the edge, all she can hear is her own ragged breathing and sounds of desperation. She can feel her core pulsing in time with her heart. He slips his hand from her body and she wants to weep for its absence. She allows for a pathetically-whined, "Please."

He kisses her hard. "Patience, baby."

He calmly leads her from the bathroom back to the bedroom. He takes her hand, leads her across the room with his thumb brushing across the top her hand. It's the only thing that slows her erratic adrenaline-rushed heart beat.

"Grant!" she hisses lowly.

"I sent everyone on the residential floor home for the day. You be as noisy as you like. In fact, please be obscenely loud. Eye contact or skin contact? You know what fuck it, you feel up to it, I'm good for both ways."

"What?" She is completely confused. She has no idea what he's talking about and she's too distracted with trying not to touch herself to care. She really only wants Grant's hands on her right now. Hers are just pale imitation.

"You'll see. Lie down." She wants him on top of her, inside her, kissing the breath from her. She'll do anything he asks of her at them moment. She does as he bids and watches as he shucks the wet sweat pants and…

"Fuck…"

"Thank you, baby…" He smirks at her while he yanks her down to the edge of the bed so her legs dangle off it. "Shove that girly pillow behind your back. I'm going to be awhile."

He kneels in the gap of her thighs. He kisses up her leg in scraping, biting kisses randomly placed. "Do you know what my new favorite thing is, babe? I love how thick your thighs have gotten." As if to accentuate his point, he bites sharply into her right thigh. It sends a jolt racing up into her core. She groans with pleasure and she can feel Grant's smug grin against her skin as he soothes away the sting of his bite with a kiss.

"Your hips are sexy too, it's not all delicate, pretty bone structure any more. Both work for me though so don't worry over it later…" He anchors her leg over his shoulder and repeats the same electric bite to her other leg. "Now, I got somethin' to grab onto…"

He pins her hips to the bed using his forearm. And then he dips down.

She suddenly can't recall the last time he went down on her – or her own name - but it's like he's everywhere all at once, on her, inside her, pushing and pulling and sucking , alternating between soft licks and strong pulls on her clit, his teeth and beard scrape just enough…

"Ahhh…" The noise ends on a high keen. "Jesus Christ… fucking bloody fuck, I'm going to come…and I'm …please…" She knows she's making no sense but it feels like he's dragging this out to torture her soul. "Please let me come…"

He laughs and there's no sound, just the vibrations that trip their way from her cunt up her entire spine and she's flying apart like shattered glass, screaming, bucking her hips up, arching into the sensation.

"I love you." She croaks in the aftermath as he trails lazy kisses up her belly. He seems to pay special attention to the stretch marks tracking her abdomen like roads.

"Don't tell me those hideous lines are sexy," she says trailing her hand through his hair.

"They are…they mark that you chose me, you chose to have my baby. These will always stand as a monument to your choice. These little marks mean the both of you are mine. Forever." He kisses her softly and she can taste herself on his tongue. "I love you too, Jemma."

He pulls away just long enough to hitch her legs up around his waist and shove into her hard. The pace is slowly-measured, controlled. He braces his hands on either side of her head. "Believe me now? You're perfect to me, baby."

She pulls him down slightly to kiss him. She can't say what she feels for him in this moment so she pours it all into the kiss, it makes his careful cadence falter. And he speeds up just the slightest, driving them both up and over the edge.

"Next round, way longer, I promise. I missed you is all." He lies down and pulls her back up the bed with him.

"Any longer, you might kill me," she says when she catches her breath. "How'd you even know that position would work?"

"Siri," he says. "I know you like it when I do the research, baby."

She bites back a moan and he smirks.

"This was called modified missionary."

"It has a name?" she asks absently as he kisses her shoulder.

"Um hum…" He moves up kissing her neck. "I personally am looking very much forward to the police man. I have a whole little plot in my head. You were a very, very bad girl."

"Really now?" she laughs, but ends on a sigh as he hits a particular spot in her neck that melts any resolve she has, every time – not that she had any in this case.

"Hickeys and stretch marks, isn't that over kill?" She tries to sound angry but he's doing so many delightful things it doesn't hit the mark. His hands are skimming up and down the arm she's not using as a pillow. Then he skates his fingertips across her belly to end between her legs. Cupping her with his hand, he probes so lightly she gasps. Grant is not often a gentle lover.

"Too much?"

"No, perfect." She grinds against his hand. This seems to flip a switch in Grant. He twists his free hand into her hair to tug her back for an awkwardly-angled kiss. The kiss is rough and at odds with every other soft motion. Until his hand moves down to her thigh, gripping it hard enough she knows she'll find his finger prints later. He adjusts her leg up and back slightly. He presses into her inch by slow inch until he can go no farther. She feels stretched and full, the different angle giving her just the hint of pleasure that is no where near enough. Then he moves and a heat flows slowly through her, settling in her gut.

His movements are fractional and maddening. She grinds back impatiently while trying to twist to catch his lips. It steadily becomes a competition, thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss, tit for tat. Soon she is covered in love bites and beard burn around her shoulders. She begs, once again, for him to let her come as she feels light headed and achy.

He pushes himself up on one arm to look down at her. "Do you believe you're beautiful yet?"

"What Grant? Bloody hell, you want me to form thoughts right now?"

"Words…I am beautiful. I am worthy of love. Say it, or I can promise you, you won't be orgasming any where near soon…"

"I hate you, so much." He grips her hip and drives up and the change in slant steals her breath.

"I love you, baby. Now say it. Like you mean it.

"I am… oh my god, do that again. I am beautiful… what was that again… and worthy of love, now get me off, Grant, PLEASE."

He spreads her legs even further apart and pushes into her hard and fast, nibbling at her neck and whispering "Mine, mine, mine" in at least four different languages on a loop. For the first time in forever, his possessiveness makes her feel happy and safe. The tension builds to the point of pain and snaps like a rubber band when she finds release. She has forgotten everything but Grant's weight against her and the stuttering of his hips as he comes so deeply-planted inside. She'd get pregnant if she wasn't already.

"Holy fuckin' shit!" Grant swears tiredly.

He slips out of her and she rolled gingerly to face him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. You were kinda fantastic yourself."

"No, Grant, thank you for making me feel so loved. That felt almost … worshipful."

"I need you to know that what I feel for you, it's not fleeting and temporary. It's forever. Through every stage, I love you in all forms you take, in every way I can, Jem. I can't always say it because talking isn't my thing, but I'll damn sure show you."

She smiles. "I love you too."

"I have something for you. Be back." He gets up completely naked and on jelly legs to go to his sock drawer. He returns with a Tiffany blue box.

He sits it before her. "Open it."

She does; inside is a princess-cut diamond ring with smaller round, yellow diamonds all around the band. Then there's the wedding band. It's an antique if her thrift shop eye is any indication, with its twisted vines and tiny flowers decorated with sapphires.

"Grant…" She feels his weight shift back on to the bed.

"I know we haven't discussed things, but I'd really love for you to wear these. I want all those promises we made back again. We'll redo everything if you want, the whole ceremony but I figured this was a good way to show I mean it and give us a new start."

"They're beautiful, Grant."

"The band was my grandmother's. Thomas was less than happy to see me, but who gives a shit. The diamond is the one the real me wanted to give you all along. Expensive, flashy and totally my pick. Let the whole world see you were mine."

She smiles.

"As for the band, blue and yellow are the colors of the national Down Syndrome Foundation and the awareness ribbons."

"I love it…." She moves to put them on.

"Let me, please." She nods and he picks up the band first. "I promise to protect you with my life, To reflect back at you every beautiful thing you can't see in yourself. To tell you the truth, to strive daily to earn your respect, trust, and love. I vow with every part of me to love you more, and better, until I die." He slides the ring on and Jemma wipes the tears dripping down her cheeks.

He slides the other diamond on next while she composes herself.

"Wow," Jemma smiles tremulously. "Grant…"

Grant shrugged. "I mean what I say, thought I might as well use my own words, not the generic church words, this time."

"Well, they meant a lot." She held her rings up into the sunlight that streams through a gap in the curtains.

"They look really pretty on your hand."

"I'm going to need bigger gloves for the lab. The level of happiness that provides is incredibly shallow."

The rings are a heavy and unfamiliar weight on her hand but it's a very much welcome weight, made heavier with the promises he's made that she holds in her heart.