When she woke up a few hours later, Fitz was running numerous tests on her. He had lied to everyone else, saying that he was worried she may have suffered concussion when really he was concerned she could be dying. Ward had immediately scolded her for what she did, saying that she shouldn't have saved him. She scoffed at this, with a shake of her head. She was monitored for a few more days before Fitz gave her the all clear. Things were good for a couple of weeks; they had managed to get away from Coulson's suspicions with Fitz's help. However, there was another shadow attack on the base, and just like last time, all their other efforts had failed. Kayla once again, took it upon herself to absorb the shadow. This continued on for a few months, as she grew closer to Daisy, and Fitz and Ward began to repair their relationship. Things weren't easy, her relationship with Daisy was built on lies, and she knew if she ever found out she would probably hate her. Even though Fitz admitted he didn't hate Ward anymore, there was a clear and understandable distrust towards him, which Kayla could see hurt Ward. There had been six shadow encounters in that time, and all of them had been absorbed by Kayla. She would insist that she was fine, but that wasn't quite true. It was small things, nightmares, headaches, until the day when she couldn't move her hand. She woke up guessing she had probably slept on it and that's why she couldn't move it, but it soon became clear that it wasn't the reason. After an hour, she rushed to Fitz, freaking out. He had taken an x-ray of her hand and couldn't find anything wrong with it. Next up, he decided to take a full body scan to make sure nothing else was wrong.

"Do you think this could be because…" Ward trailed off.

"I don't know yet…I can't see anything wrong with these pictures" Fitz confessed, looking through the scans.

"Maybe you should compare them to a few months ago?" Ward suggested.

"Who says specialists aren't smart, huh?" Fitz smiled, nudging him.

"Pretty sure that's exactly what you said when we went to the Academy" Ward exclaimed, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah well, I didn't mean it. You've always been smart" Fitz confessed, earning a smile from Ward.

"Hold on, what's that?" Fitz questioned, pointing a brain scan of Kayla's.

"Is it supposed to be that dark?" Ward frowned, seeing how part of Kayla's brain was far darker than the other.

In response, Fitz pulled up the previous scan of Kayla's brain, as their eyes widened. Her brain looked different, as a small section of it was completely black.

"What is that?" Ward insisted.

"It's dead…part of her brain, it's just…dead" Fitz explained, looking to Kayla who was in the other room, stepping out of the MRI.

"What can we do?" Ward inquired.

"Ward…it's like a progressive brain tumor…but I don't think any of our medical advances will work on this, it's like the shadows have been slowly taking over her and we just didn't realise" He went on.

"Then…what do we do? Can't we remove it?" Ward questioned.

"Part of her brain is already dead, there's no coming back from that" Fitz told him.

"But we can stop it, right?" Ward frowned, as Fitz shook his head.

"I wouldn't even know where to start" Fitz sighed.

"But we can't…you mean she's dying?" Ward realised.

"…At the rate its progressing, then yes" Fitz confessed.

"How long?" Ward asked.

"I don't know, it's hard to say-" Fitz was cut off by Ward.

"How long?!" Ward insisted, anxiously.

"One month, maybe two" Fitz stated.

Without warning, Ward fell to the floor, holding onto a nearby table leg for support. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"She can't die…she can't" He shook his head.

"There's nothing we can do" Fitz cried.

"But everything I've done…I did it because of her. Starting F.A.S it was because of how S.H.I.E.L.D treated her…saving the Inhumans, it was because of her…trying to make myself the better man…" Ward trailed off.

"Ward, that wasn't down to Kayla. It was down to you. Kayla gave you a chance, and you didn't take it…but you've been trying to take that back ever since. You've changed" Fitz exclaimed, taking a seat on the floor.

"But her healing…can't she stop it?" Ward asked.

"There's no sign her healing is working for this" Fitz informed him.

"I…I should tell her" Ward said, standing up.

"Are you sure?" Fitz frowned.

"She deserves to know, Fitz. Its her life" Ward retorted, as Fitz nodded.

Ward then took a deep breath, and walked into the other room, as Kayla smiled at him. He then sat her down back on the MRI as Fitz saw he began to explain what they had found out. The smile quickly fell from Kayla's face, to be replaced by fear and horror. Ward quickly pulled her into a hug, giving Fitz a sad look from the other room.

"How long until the F.A.S attack?" Kayla inquired, once they were back in Ward's room later that day.

"Next week" Ward replied.

"Good, at least I'll be around when that happens" Kayla nodded.

"Hey, don't talk like that. We'll fix this" Ward insisted.

"Its okay, honestly. I should have died hundreds of times in the past few years, my times up. I just want to take S.H.I.E.L.D down and get rid of these damn shadow creatures" Kayla explained.

"Wait…you mean you think you're going to keep absorbing them?!" Ward questioned.

"Yes, I am. I'm dying anyway, I might as well do something good" Kayla stated.

"But…you'll die even quicker, before we can…" Ward trailed off.

"Ward, there is no miracle cure for this. There's no hope" Kayla told him.

"No, there's always hope. I'm not going to give up" Ward informed her.

"I better be going, they'll wonder why I've been in here for so long" Kayla announced, walking towards the door.

"Ward?" She asked.

"Yeah?" He replied.

"You know I forgave you for everything you did a long time ago, right? I don't think I ever actually told you" She smiled at him, before leaving the room.

Ward sat down on his bed and allowed himself to cry for the first time in years, as he shook.

Author's Notes: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Sorry that I updated so late, but I've moved to University so I've been very busy. Updates are going to be more sporadic from now on, as doing well on my Nursing course, is more important that writing this, as I'm sure you guys can understand. Also, sorry that it was quite a sad chapter. Let's hope Ward can find a way to save Kayla! Please leave a review:)

agentjoyofshield: I agree with everything you said, I can't believe how much the show changed, and that's why I'll no longer watch it. Its quite sad that they ruined something that had so much potential.

Koos: Thank you! Not sure if you're going to be much happier with what has happened to be honest, haha.