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Daisy struggled underneath Dr Gardner’s weight; in his semi-conscious state, the psychologist did nothing to contribute to his attempted rescue. He looked like death, and in all seriousness, frighteningly close to it. His dark skin was tinged faintly blue, and the man trembled from head to foot, muttering and moaning unintelligibly. Daisy murmured panicked reassurances in return, as she tried to keep him upright;

‘It’s okay Dr Gardner – Andrew, you keep telling me to call you Andrew, we’re gonna get you out of here okay? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I’m probably hurting you but we need to go now’.

Daisy had no idea where she would go – where she could go. Just somewhere else – anywhere else – as hard to reach as possible. She trusted Coulson, almost enough, just not with Dr Gardner’s life; not when he would likely be the only thing that stood between them and Melinda May.

She had seem them together, not long before the Dr had left base (abruptly and without a goodbye). She had had to go looking for May again, choosing to seek her out rather than wasting another fruitless afternoon in the gym by herself. Having checked all her usual haunts, and growing increasingly frustrated, Daisy ended up finding her SO by chance after abandoning her search in favour of joining Dr Gardner slightly early for their scheduled session. His quiet serenity was somewhat contagious, and Daisy was in serious need of a large dose of calm.

However, as she turned down one of the lesser used halls, towards his makeshift office, she found the long separated couple amidst what looked like a tense stand-off. May was facing away from her, and while she couldn’t hear the words the two shared, Dr Gardner’s face spoke volumes. Anger flared within her, imaging the depth of the atrocity May must have committed to earn such a look of contempt from him. Daisy had found the man with a deeply affectionate gaze fixed on his ex-wife more than once over the past few weeks but new instinctually that the fire in his eyes had burned straight through whatever fondness he still felt for her. Even know, bloodied and bruised, he moaned her name….

‘Mel - - Lin, No, nooo…Dais – Daisy go’.

She was glad he was at least somewhat aware of her presence; she had no time to check for whatever wounds had left his clothes so bloody and torn but his nasty headwound was concern enough.

Fuck. Fuck Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

She hadn’t quite made it to the door before she heard the approach of racing footsteps in the hall outside.

‘Daisy, you need to step away, now’. It was not the voice she had been expecting, at least not accompanied by the words she was expecting. She couldn’t help but feel betrayed as she looked up to see Coulson blocking her exit; he spoke to her but his gun and his glare were trained on the defenceless doctor leaning heavily on her shoulder. The only look she received was from a terrified and breathless Fitz as he arrived shortly behind him.

When he stepped slowly into the room, her eyes darted hopefully to the door, only for it to be blocked again. Any relief Daisy felt upon seeing the tall blonde again after her untimely departure from the team was quashed by the sight of the weapon Bobbi held in front of her.

‘Daisy please, you don’t understand –‘, Fitz began before Bobbi cut across him.

‘ – He’s an Inhuman Daisy, whatever man you thought you knew isn’t there anymore, he’s – ‘

‘An Inhuman?!’ Fear and anger trembled Daisy’s voice. ‘Is that why he’s in a cell? Is that what he’s GUILTY of?!’ Coulson was just opening his mouth to explain as she rounded on him. ‘Is that what the lockdown was about?? Were you on your way just now to get me too? To drag me down into a cell?!’

Coulson’s eyes were as cold as his tone as he finally looked at her, ‘You have no idea what this monster is capable of’.

Immediate, paralyzing fear seared its way through the sickening, hangover-like fog of her recent ICER shot. As quickly as her senses returned to her, they were instantaneously superseded by panic. The pain addled nightmare she had envisioned in her last moments of consciousness was now a towering form before her; as real as the harsh restraints binding her hands above her head.

The monster’s mouth produced her ex-husbands words;

‘I always knew it would be Coulson, one way or another, he would corrupt you. But I must admit – he’s quite outdone himself’.

He breathed those final raspy words in her ear as he yanked her too her feet by her bindings.

Had it been any other foe, she would not have given him the satisfaction of screaming. But a strangled yelp tore it’s way from her throat as he pinned her against the wall.

‘Your little decoy was a clever trick – Daisy – but did you really think shoving the girl under my nose would distract me from sickness he way giving you?’

Her fears confirmed, she struggled weakly against her restraints, pleading, ‘ Please Drew, just let me explain, I’m not – ‘

That hateful glare shredded the nerve she had built up, the rest of her words dying in her throat as his clawed fist wrapped around her neck.

‘Enough lies – I can smell his filth on you’. There was no space for shame, even as he squeezed more air from her lungs.

‘I don’t – want -  to hurt -  you’, she chocked out. It was only half true. The truth was she would never hurt him. Not anymore. Not when she knew deep down that she deserved his wrath; for her failures in their marriage, for making her perceived betrayal with Phil even possible. Their home, and the shattered crib beneath the shaded window, were empty because of her.

Her words only further enraged him, a tormented bellow echoing from his chest as he threw her to the ground. Melinda only barely registered the searing that sliced through her as pain when she landed atop the pile of splintered wood.

Although her vision swam, she could now see him  fully from her vantage point on the floor. His face was monstrous,  his skin an unnatural blue but she could see from his bare form that he was still very much a man; a hulking, distorted man she had once loved. In his continuing rage, Andrew Gardner seemed intent on finishing the destruction of their long-lost dreams of a family, the destruction which she had started.

In a terrifying show of strength, he lashed out against the walls, nails racking through the drywall. She chocked against the clouds of dust but he paid her no heed as her lungs struggled to expand against broken ribs. Pain blurred her vision in and out of focus, as she began to crawl through the wreckage strewn across the floor; pausing only briefly to tug at the piece of splintered wood which had sheared through her leggings and embedded itself numbly in her thigh. The high-pitched ringing in her ears robbed her of the brief warning she would normally have perceived from her newly silent captor.

The next thing her eyes managed to swim into focus were the murderous black orbs boring into her. The solid rush of the floor meeting her back knocked the air from her once again, leaving Melinda struggling for breath in small gasps as Andrew’s hot breath sickening filled her nostrils as he crouched over her.

‘Enough’.

Melinda wasn’t quite lucid enough to register if it was a command or a warning but a surge of adrenaline shocked her sharply back into focus as a clawed hand reached out and tore her shirt roughly open.

‘Andrew – no – please, no – ‘, Melinda grasped protectively at the hem of her torn leggings, looking imploringly into the monsters face. Even so, she only saw the look of incredulous disgust flash across his face for the briefest of seconds before a heavy blow rocked her skull back against the floor. She was pulled almost immediately back into consciousness as she found herself being pulled across the floor, Andrew yanking her roughly by the hair until she was upright against the wall.

Melinda didn’t fully register that the shriek that filled the room belonged to her, as clawed fingers roughly punctured her core.

He waited for her to stop screaming before he spoke, seeming to want her attention as her grasped her jaw, forcing her to look at him.

‘Is this of how you got here, Melinda? Poisoned with his mutt?!’

She couldn’t stop her legs from clamping together, to spite the pain it caused her, as he pushed her thigh further apart, pressing a threatening hardness to her entrance as she pleaded incoherently.

‘You think I’d take you willingly now?’ His words were a hot whisper against her ear. ‘Knowing what filth is inside you?!’ For a blissful second, she though he might just kill her then as his bared teeth grazed her neck. Instead he sucked lightly at her pulse point as he crowded closer against her. His length slipping easily between her clamped thighs as blood flowed steadily from inside her. His touch was sickeningly familiar as he gently pushed the hair from her face.

Melinda hurled herself into the consuming darkness that enveloped her when he finally pushed through her torn entrance. She came to, as the monsters body finished abusing her, while her husbands words flowed from his mouth;

‘I could have saved you Mel’. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she hoped that she was peeing herself, that was the most bearable explanation for the warm liquid running between her legs.

‘If you’d just come home to me, I would never have let that half-breed sicken you, let them use you to breed more abominations…’ She couldn’t make sense of his words anymore, but it must be almost over, one way or another, as he was attempting to pull her leggings back into place with his clawed hands.

Perversely familiar dark eyes were gazing down at her, the shattered bulb swinging from the ceiling above his head. Funny, she mused numbly, I don’t remember ending up on the ground.

He had placed an oddly tender kiss to her forehead just before the hatred contorted his face once more. The ground didn’t feel so solid under her back this time.

‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he rasped, ‘I’ll take his filth from you’.

Melinda somehow managed to focus on Phil’s familiar form bursting through the doorway, as the shrill of an ICER being discharged rang in her ears, and sharp claws sliced through the soft tissue of her belly.

‘GORDON!’

True to his word, Daisy only to call his name (or scream) for the so-called ‘No-eyed-guy’ to appear behind in the control room. The room twisted around, leaving behind the ringing of several gunshots as she desperately clung to the unconscious form of Dr Gardner.