I'm On My Way Chapter 1: The Moment You First Learned To Breathe, a Castle + Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Crossover fanfic

I'm On My Way

Disclaimer:
As always, I own nothing save for Tien-Hou Wang, and Special Agent Brynna Harmon.

Rating:
T

Genre:
Romance/Hurt/Comfort

Pairings:
Coulsye
Caskett

Lyrics Used:
Boyce Avenue "On My Way"

I Wasn't There The Moment You First Learned to Breathe

"I understand that, Rick, but for the last time, I haven't found anything new on your daughter!" SHIELD agent Brynna Harmon hollered at her older half-brother, Richard Castle, huffing irritably. The famous author had been calling her for months after the CIA turned to be useless in finding his long-lost daughter – whose name he didn't even know. Brynna had been trying her best in between assignments to check on the progress and get some answers. Although, she hadn't been totally honest with him. She had pin-pointed his daughter. But, she wouldn't have risen to level ten without being thorough. She had some finer details to smooth through. Besides, she didn't need her half-brother meeting his daughter for the first time while she was fighting for her life.

Everyone in her department feared Brynna Harmon, who'd been under the supervision of Agent Phil Coulson in the beginning of her career, and knew that she could simply use a paperclip to kill someone if need be. That – she learned from dealing with Mossad. She'd visibly shivered at that memory any time it was mentioned. It hadn't been the best time in Israel. But, she'd more than earned her rise to level ten.

"Not even a little smudge, Bry?" Rick asked, hopeful.

Brynna glared at her paperclip holder like it was the source of her irritation. "Don't make me come to New York and use a paperclip on you." She spoke angrily.

"Okay, somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed, this morning." Rick joked, knowing she couldn't possibly jump out of the phone and strangle him. Then again, she could get his fiance, Detective Kate Beckett, to do it. Paling he spoke again, much carefully. "All right. No need. I'll be a good boy."

Better be, big bro. Brynna thought. "I'll sic Kate on you."

"Oh believe me, she already is." Castle half-joked.

Brynna scrunched her face up in disgust. "Eww! Rick, I did not need to that picture in my head! Thank you for that. I'll talk to you later. Tell Kate, Lexi and your mom, I love them." She said, looking up and seeing her husband, Scott Harmon, coming her way. "Bye."

"I will. Bye, Bry." Rick and her hung up at the same time.

"Hey, honey." Scott greeted, leaning against his wife's office door frame. Most men would have had a problem with their wife out ranking them. But, not Scott Harmon. He was proud of his wife-knowing all that she'd seen and been through to get that rank. He couldn't begrudge her that for a second. "Your brother?"

Smiling sweetly up at the blonde-haired, blue-eyed tall and muscular man, her personality switched like a light bulb. "Yep, checking up on the search for his long-lost daughter."

Scott shook his head, smiling. "I swear you two should be twins. Persistent, stubborn, and those are just two traits that I've noticed."

Brynna closed a SHIELD folder. "Yeah, well, we do share the same father."

"Yes, the father whose ass I still need to kick for not being a better father to the both of you." Scott stated with venom and an angry expression.

"Sweetheart, it's okay. Both Ricky and I have gotten over it. We've accepted it." She assured him, watching him calm down. "Now, how about some lunch?"

Scott smiled at her. "Sounds great!" He crossed the room and helped her up like a gentleman. "Where to? Cafeteria, restaurant, or fast food? Or, maybe we have enough time to eat at home."

Brynna chuckled, playfully slapping his chest. "Whatever you decide, sweetheart. I'm game for anything right now."

Just as Scott was about to suggest a place, Brynna's phone rang. Pulling it out of her pocket, she checked the ID, instantly recognizing the assigned number. Quickly pressing ANSWER, she put it up against her ear. "Phil?" she greeted in a worried tone, knowing he only contacted her if it was important or he needed advice.

"Hey, Brynna. I hope I'm not disturbing you, but can you come to the Bus? It's about Skye." Coulson asked, very worried and hurt tone. She'd only heard that tone in times when his emotions were on the brink of collapsing into a heap of a mess.

Stopping and glancing at Scott, her eyes showed her fear. It made him just as concerned. "Scott and I were just going to lunch. What's going on with Skye? Is she all right?"

She could hear him take a steadying breath to try to control his emotions enough to talk to her. "She was shot twice in the stomach. The doctor said the bullets perforated her stomach and punctured the small and large intestines. They patched her up as much as they could, but she was deteriorating right in front of me – the team – and FitzSimmons used GH-325 on her. She's in a coma now, but I don't know what it'll do to her. Do you know anything about GH-325?"

Brynna paled. Aw, hell. "You said GH-325, right?"

"Yeah." Phil breathed, shakily.

Brynna turned on her heels and returned to her desk. Scott followed quickly behind as soon as he realized that she'd left. "I may have something for you, Phil." Rummaging through the files on her desk, she eased into her chair, switching the phone to speaker and checking the pile.

"Thank you, Brynna. This really means a lot." Coulson sighed. Brynna knew how attached the senior agent had become to the hacker, how much in love he was with the hacker. She'd not only heard it through his voice but also seen it whenever she was with them. She was surprised the team hadn't tried to push them together. Although she would normally oppose such an age gap, she had to admit that she could not have cherry-picked a more admirable man for her niece.

"I know it does, Phil." Brynna said as she found what she was looking for. An 0-8-4's file in a Chinese village. "Yes! I found it!"

"What did you find?" Coulson asked, a tinge of hope laced in his voice. When she didn't answer in the amount of time he wanted, he repeated his question. "Brynna. What. Did you find?!"

"An 0-8-4 was found in a Chinese village where they found remnants of an 0-8-4 liquid that was later proven to be some sort of regeneration serum. Apparently, a woman there had possession of it, protecting that and her child before an unseen force murdered her, effectively trying to destroy the liquid and the child. The child had some sort of protective shell cocooning it. When that failed, they declared the child would die anyway." She went on a little more before shutting up.

"Oh my god, that's Skye! That's her story!" Coulson exclaimed. "So the GH-325 is…?"

"…what will save her, Phil. It's connected to her past." Brynna stated. She could hear him sigh with relief. "Your hacker is the 0-8-4! Phil, you know the protocol for 0-8-4s! You taught me that yourself!"

"I know, I know, I know, Brynna. But…" He sighed again. "I just...I couldn't do it. She's harmless."

Again, she glared at the paperclip holder. I was right. The Phil Coulson that died is not the Phil Coulson they brought back. Unless that niece of mine has had even more of an impact on him that I thought. When I see him, he is so getting a paperclip. She growled. "Still, Phil. She better be worth not turning her in."

"She is, Brynna. I can't let her go." Coulson spoke in a desperate tone. She could hear the double meaning in that sentence. Though, she had to admit. She wasn't entirely comfortable about turning over her own flesh and blood.

Sighing heavily, Brynna closed her eyes as she pinched her nose in frustration. "Fine." She conceded. "Do whatever is necessary to protect her. I'll handle the heat from Fury."

"I am so glad we're finally getting a vacation in!" Kate smiled, rolling over in bed to look at her fiance. Tracing lazy patterns on his chest, she added "We're four thousand miles away from murderers and criminals and anything else that could ruin this perfect moment." She drawled, happily, before the moment was pierced by a loud pounding on the door.

"DETECTIVE BECKETT! MR. CASTLE! OPEN UP, IT'S S.H.I.E.L.D.!" A voice shouted from outside their door. "Really?!" Kate snapped, sarcastically.

"Relax. It's just Brynna. She's probably just pulling some sort of prank." Richard Castle explained, lightly, as he rose from the bed-dressing himself before answering the door. She's probably just exacting her revenge for me annoying her about searching for my daughter. "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." "RICHARD ALEXANDER ROGERS, YOU OPEN THIS DOOR, IMMEDIATELY OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL BREAK IT DOWN!" Rick's baby sister called from the doorway, resorting to her sure-fire method of gaining her brother's attention.

"Coming! I'm coming!" Rick called, agitatedly, before throwing the door open. "Brynna! How lovely to see you again!" Noticing the strange man with his younger sister. "Who's the suit?" He asked, lightly. Though, his face slowly began to fall as he took in his sister's solemn expression.

"This is Agent Phil Coulson. We're here to discuss that little side-project you've had me working on." Brynna replied, suggestively as Kate joined her fiance at the door. "Hey, Kate." Brynna greeted, curtly.

"Brynna?" Kate questioned, curiously. "What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Castle, would you very much mind letting us in?" Coulson interjected, eager to get back to The Bus and to his hacker.

"You found her?!" Rick breathed, in awe. He couldn't believe the day had come. He would finally get to meet the daughter he'd never been allowed to know, before now. Shaking his head clear, he backed away from the door to grant the two agents entrance. "Oh! Yes, of course."

Entering the hotel suite, Brynna got straight to business. "Look, Rick, I'm just gonna get straight to the reason Phil and I are here, right now, because-frankly-we don't have time to beat around the bush." Brynna began, steadfastly keeping her voice at a purely clinical tone. "Yes, I found the daughter you've had me searching for for quite some time, now-"

"Wait a minute..." Kate interjected, confused. "Alexis is fine. She's back home, in New York-safe and sound."

"With all due respect, Detective, I'm well aware of that." Brynna replied, snidely. "I wasn't referring to Alexis."

Turning to her fiance, Kate asked. "You have another daughter you never told me about?"

Sighing heavily, Rick knew he'd have to have this conversation, sooner or later. "Twenty-four years ago, I was in China for a book signing. I met this woman, Tien-Hou Wang. She was...Incredible. Smart, beautiful..." Seeing the increasingly jealous look in Kate's eyes, Rick decided to skip over the description of his one-night stand. "Anyway, we spent a night together. I went back home the next day and thought I'd never see her again. Nine months later, I get a letter from her with pictures of her newborn daughter. She said she couldn't have the baby exposed to my fame and the spotlight and told me she was going into hiding with the baby. I never knew anything else about either of them. I heard about some huge massacre in the village a few months later. Tien-Hou and the baby were presumed dead-along with the rest of the village. But, the baby's body was never recovered, so...So, I always held onto some shred of hope that my daughter could possibly still be alive-"

"And, she is, Rick." Brynna replied, gently, lightly gripping her brother's hand in her own. "But, that's why Phil and I are here, now. You see, Skye's been training to become a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and she works for Phil."

"You've known Skye all this time and you never told me-" Rick shot out of his seat, closing in on the senior agent, before Kate and Brynna rose to their feet as well, restraining him, before guiding him back down into his seat.

"With all due respect, Rick, Phil only just learned that you were Skye's father about ten seconds ago." Brynna interjected, defending her former supervising officer-the man that had made her the agent she was, today. Sighing, she added "There's something you should know."

"What?!" Rick breathed, terrified of the answer. "Oh God...What happened?! Is Skye okay?!" He demanded, although terrified of the truth.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Castle..." Phil spoke, quietly and shakily. "She never should have gone in there, alone...I should have been there..." He added, quietly, more to himself than anybody else.

"What are you talking about?!" Rick demanded. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY DAUGHTER?!"

"Phil and Skye and their team were undercover in Malta, where Skye infiltrated a compound owned by millionaire Ian Quinn. It seems Mr. Quinn took the intrusion personally..." Brynna elaborated, sighing heavily. "He shot Skye twice in the abdomen at point-blank range."

"Oh God!" Kate gasped, gripping Rick's hand supportively as tears began stinging her own eyes.

"She's...going to be okay, though..." Rick added, hesitantly. "Right?"

"The bullets perforated her stomach and punctured both the small and large intestines. The surgeons at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s trauma center, here in Zurich, resected what they could but there was just too much damage..." Brynna elaborated, regretfully, a few stray tears stealing from her eyes. "So, Phil had his team comb through his file-although why he didn't just ask me is beyond me, given that I know everything about your resurrection..." She interjected, glaring at Phil. "Seriously, I could have saved you so much time and trouble-"

"Brynna." Phil interjected, sharply, non-verbally ordering his protege to get back to the point.

"Right." Brynna sighed. "My point is, that Phil and his team managed to track down a mysterious miracle drug-the very same drug that was used to bring Phil, himself, back from the dead after the battle of New York-"

"You died?!" Kate questioned, eyes wide with wonder.

"And...came back?" Rick added, piling on to his fiance's question.

"Another story for another time." Phil responded, clinically.

"Phil's right." Brynna replied, lightly. "The drug that they used on Skye-your daughter, Rick-and Phil is referred to as GH-325. When they first used it on Phil, after the battle of New York-when his heart had literally been torn in half, his injuries started showing signs of cellular regeneration mere minutes after they injected him with it. It seems to have had the same effects on Skye-"

"You injected my daughter with a substance you had no idea what it was or what it could potentially do to her?!" Richard demanded, glaring at the senior agent with a look of pure hatred that neither Kate nor Brynna had ever seen in the writer's eyes.

"I tried to stop them." Phil defended, weakly, with a glazed-over look in his eyes. "I was so scared that...That she would suffer. Like I did...But...For whatever reason...She didn't..." He added, in the same weak, wistful tone, before shaking his head clear. "Besides...She was already deteriorating right before my-the team's-eyes..." The correction went unnoticed by no one. "The only other alternative would have been to let her die."

"So, what, now?" Kate asked, trying to get to the point.

"Now, I've had one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s finest pilots take a quinjet to New York along with highly-trained protective detail to collect Alexis and Martha to bring them to The Bus." Brynna explained. "We'll meet them, there, and you all can get to know Skye." She added with a brief smile before her voice took on another serious note. "But, Rick-and, Phil-there's something you all need to know about Skye..."

"What?" Phil and Rick asked in unison.

"What's goin' on, Bry?" Rick clarified.

"What are you talking about, Brynna?" Phil demanded.

"Well, Rick...You should know...Skye's been classified as an 0-8-4, given her heritage-"

"What's an 0-8-4?" Kate questioned, involuntarily reverting to Detective Beckett.

"0-8-4 is the code that S.H.I.E.L.D. uses to describe objects of unknown origins-"

"But, we know where Skye came from." Rick argued, confused. "She came from Tien-Hou and myself. She's...just a person..."

"That's where you're wrong, Rick." Brynna corrected, gently. "And, Phil...Skye is half-Asgardian."

"What?!" Again, the spy and the writer spoke in unison.

"Okay, we seriously need to stop doing that." Rick decided, earning a half-glare from Phil.

"Look, Rick, the reason Tien-Hou was able to hide from you so well is because she was Asgardian with a cloaking ability-among others. We never got to tap into her full potential before she was killed. And, Phil, that is why your precious little hacker was classified an 0-8-4." She added, focusing on her former mentor before returning her attention to the group as a whole. "And, we can't be sure, but, we believe it may have had something to do with why she was killed."

"I have to see her." Rick decided. "Please." He begged, gently.

Rising from her seat, Brynna smiled warmly as she replied "Right this way, Rick..."

Author's Note:
Well, there ya have it, folks! I'd like to take a moment to thank my absolutely AMAZING beta, kellz1pt5 for all of the creative support in writing this story and brainstorming ideas with me!

~Skye Coulson