Disclaimer: I do not own Agents of SHIELD, or any of it's characters. I'm just enjoying myself a little :)

Grant wasn't the kind of man to wake up slowly. In fact, nothing he did could be described as slow. He wouldn't have still been alive if that were the case. He was a trained Specialist, and with that came lightning-fast reflexes and a better-than-average sense of self-preservation. Not to mention huge arms and some serious stamina. But that was neither here nor there.

So when he woke, it was with instant alertness. Even if, from the outside, you couldn't see the difference. It was the trick which had saved his life on more than one occasion. Keep your breathing level, don't make any sudden movements. Let the enemy lull himself into a false sense of security, then strike with the speed of a Cobra.

Playing possum also allowed Grant to take stock of his surroundings. Even better than his lightning reflexes and his sense of self-preservation, was his… let's call it his sixth sense. Even with his eyes closed, he would get a feeling about the space around him, the number of people and their approximate position.

And right now… nothing. No slight shuffle of feet, no muffled whispers, not even breathing. There was nobody around, not for quite some distance. Tentatively, he tried to move his hand, and was again surprised when he met no resistance. He was unbound, not gaged and not in any other way incapacitated. Which was… weird.

Grant tried to think back to the last thing he remembered. Fighting, and loosing and then a loud bang and a shock. After that, nothing but blank space until he woke up. But something must have happened, because there was no way he would be left breathing if his opponent had had anything to say about it. After all, in their world there was no such thing as 'winner is left standing'. No, with the business Grant was in, it was kill or be killed. And Grant was sure he had been on the 'be killed' end of the spectrum this time.

Finally, he opened his eyes. He was in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. By the smell of it, near water. There was some trash in the corner, packing boxes and other bits and pieces. And something that maybe once had been an old packing machine, but was now just a pile of rust and bolts in the center of the building. Off to the right there was a door, probably leading to the inner office and in front of Grant there were big double hangar doors. The whole place oozed neglect and ungraceful ageing.

He got up, fast despite his obvious injuries, and tested all his extremities. No fractures on any of his limbs but probably a sprained ankle. His chest had the telltale dull ache that always accompanied busted ribs and his left eye was starting to welt over, thanks to a well-placed punch to the face. His jaw also felt sore and he was sure his face more resembled minced meat than actual human features. Given the beating he'd been taking before the event, or whatever, happened, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. He checked his right ankle and was relieved to find he still had his knife.

He knew he should report back to base, make sure everybody was informed of what had happened. As far as he knew himself, that is. Somebody at Headquarters might be able to make sense of the goings on of the past… . He looked down at his watch, and frowned. It had stopped ticking, probably around the time he got shocked into oblivion. But judging by the minimal light that came through the high windows in the warehouse, it was either dusk or dawn. That meant he'd been out for anywhere between 5 and 17 hours.

He moved around the space a little, trying to get his bearings. It didn't feel like he was in Dallas. There was no dryness in the atmosphere, like you would expect there to be in Texas. Instead, the slightly musty and dusty air was heavy with moisture and cold. It felt more like, New York in the Fall. He checked the inner office, looking for anything that could clue him in to where he was. And how he got there in the first place.

Unfortunately the office was as empty as the main hangar had been. Just a dusty old desk with an empty bottle of vodka and an overturned chair with the stuffing bulging out. Not a single piece of paper in sight. No TV or phone, not even a pencil graced the dreary looking room. If the main room had been ageing ungracefully, this room had just up and thrown the towel in. There were damp spots in every corner and some animal, probably a rat, had made a nice little nest of chair-stuffing and dust.

He went back out into the main room and closed his eyes again. Clearing his head of all the questions, he took a deep breath and flung out his senses. No people around for at least several blocks. Some more rats in the walls, and what he figured was a bird's nest in the rafters. He opened his eyes again and peered at the windows high above the factory floor. Given the estimated time it was, it made sense there were few people around.

Slightly limping towards the hangar doors, he was relieved to notice there was just a latch holding it closed. He pushed it open and breathed in some dustless air, before starting to cough. Dustless it might have been, fresh wasn't something he'd use to describe it. The coughing hurt like an SOB though and it took Grant a few moments to regain his focus.

There was nothing familiar about the lot he was on. There were more warehouses on either side of the one he woke up in, and across the way he could see more looming in the darkness. The smell of dank water was even more palpable outside, which made Grant think he was probably in a more deserted part of a harbor. In what city? Not a single clue, if it hadn't been for the faded signs with English writing, he wouldn't even have been sure he was still in the US.

In the distance he could make out several skyscrapers, but none that looked like anything he'd seen before. Deciding that getting back into civilization was the first part of getting back to base, he started walking. All roads led somewhere after all. And once he was back in the land of the living, he could make contact with his people and hopefully go home. And recuperate, until he could start hunting again.

He walked on auto-pilot, going over the events of the past – however long it was – to find a clue to what had happened. They'd gotten intel that their target was holed up in a rundown apartment near the city center of Dallas. The information had come from a freelance agent they'd used before. Grant trusted Richie, not because he was such a stand-up guy or even an honest one, but because Richie's need for justice was almost equal to that of Grant himself. But even though he trusted the intel that Richie had provided, it was basically just a location. No more details about the security, the number of enemies, the kinds of weapons.

Thinking back, Grant had to admit to himself that his decision to go in blind was the wrong one. Actually, he'd known it all along, but just the thought of finally catching him, after all this time had been too big a seduction. His people had tried to reason with him, telling him to wait until they had more information. Almost begging him to think before acting. But he'd been stubborn, he'd wanted justice… or revenge. After all, it had been him who'd killed the one person Grant was desperate to protect. It had been him who'd shattered Grant's world with one lousy bullet.

His people had been right. Grant had been an idiot, blinded by the need to avenge the woman he loved so much more than his own life. If only he'd listened, or used his senses before going in, things might have turned out different. It was only seconds after Grant's team had entered the building that every single one of them had gone down. All of them, dead. Except Grant. He'd fought with all his might, but he'd been no match against all of them. And in that moment, Grant remembers making peace with his end. He'd been on the ground, his gun long since lost, waiting for him to deal the final blow. To finally put Grant out of his misery. To reunite him with the one he lost. He'd found that thought more peaceful than any of the generic sympathies he'd gotten after she died.

Then the ground shook and there was that loud noise, almost like a thunderclap, only much longer. And then the shock. Like being struck by lightning, but without the... you know, dying part. And then he woke up in the warehouse.

He only noticed the weirdness around him, because of the sudden noise behind him. The streets, although not clean in any sense of the word, looked less… desolate than any of the cities he'd been in in recent months. There was trash on the sidewalks, empty pizza boxes, faded and rain-soaked newspapers, a McDonald's drink. There was graffiti on the walls of the buildings, but not propaganda. Just silly drawings of high-school gang wannabees, and the occasional piece of street art. It reminded him of his city… before.

His attention shifted again by another sound behind him. He was being followed, and if he hadn't been so in his head about all the weirdness going on, he would have caught on sooner. He cocked his head, closed his eyes, and felt. 4 no, 5 bodies, all at least a foot shorter than him. One with a gun, the rest with blunt objects. He was really not in the mood to get into it with some street kids, but they seemed determined to stay on his tail.

Grant ducked down, pulled his knife from his ankle holster and turned.

"You guys really don't want to mess with me today. I've been having a really bad one, and I'd hate to take it out on you. So how 'bout we just call this off and each go our separate ways?" He called to the guys.

His eyes widened just a fraction when they stepped into the light of the lamppost nearest to them. They were not what Grand had expected. These kids were probably about 16 or 17, jeans with the crotch hanging somewhere in the vicinity of their knees, oversized black sweatshirts and open zip-up hoodies. Their heads partially hidden under wool caps.

They were definitely not the gang kids he was expecting. They didn't seem to belong with the only gang that was still around these days. They had no IH logo's anywhere, and their outfits were dark blue and black and not the telltale crimson of the IH gangs. These kids almost looked like they belonged to one of the street gangs that were around in every major city before the IH rounded them all up. That could only mean one of 2 things. Either these kids had lost their minds and were trying to go against the IH, in which case it would end badly no matter what Grant did. Or they were sent by the IH to mess with Grant's head. Either way, nothing good could come out of this little pow-wow.

"Sorry old man, but you don't walk through our neighborhood without paying. So why don't you just lie down and bleed already, and save us the trouble." The five-some started sniggering at the stupid joke and spread out a little, trying to surround Grant. Their fighting was uncoordinated and sloppy, dropping their defense and losing their footing with big lunges. Definitely no IH training. Grant sidestepped them so easily it was almost comical. He took the first down with an elbow in the stomach and then one on the top of his head. The second got a booted foot in his face and was KO before he even hit the ground. The one with the gun might have been wishing he was anywhere but there, because before he could even blink, his fingers were broken and his gun was in Grant's hands. After that, the ones that were still standing thought it better to just get out of dodge.

All throughout the fight Grant had been wondering in the back of his mind, when the IH would show up. The disturbance caused by the fight should have certainly attracted their attention, but even as he walked away from the scene at a brisk pace, there was nothing.

It was mindboggling to Grant, being in a city where the IH had seemingly no foothold. If he'd known there still existed such a place, he'd have moved his operation long before. Maybe he still could. Grant rounded the corner, and stopped dead. On the sidewalk, just a few steps in front of him, there was a newspaper machine. Grant shook his head even as he started to walk forward. It just wasn't possible, he must have been hit on the head or something, making him see things. Because there was just no way in hell, that the city he was standing in was New York City. And yet, the cover of the paper screamed its title at him, with its old-font header and the most ridiculous headline he'd ever seen on the paper.

And yet… there was an odd sense of familiarity about his environment. There weren't any of the buildings he knew from his NYC. No Twin Towers in the distance, no Welcome Tower in the bay and no IH headquarters that took up 5 square blocks right in the center of the City, and reached high above any other building. But there was a building he thought he recognized vaguely. It was a square one with the long peak that Grant suspected was the Empire State Building. But he wasn't sure, he'd never before seen the building in real life, and it got destroyed by an airplane on the Ninth of November, 2 years before he got stationed in NYC.

Even though the skyline looked remarkably different, and there didn't seem to be any sign of the IH, he could still see the ways this City reminded him of his City. The old mixed with the new, the quirky shapes of some of the buildings.

If it weren't for the fact the newspaper clearly said 'December 14th, 2015', Grant might have believed he'd been sent back into time. To a time before the betrayal of SHIELD, before everything he had got ripped away from him, before she was gone. Something weird was going on here, and Grant needed his people to figure out what the hell was going on.

Hoping the differences between his City and this City were only cosmetic, he made his way towards an old safehouse to make a distress call to headquarters. When he punched in the code, he sagged down onto the sofa and closed his eyes. His body was tired and battered, and his mind needed rest. This whole situation was giving him a migraine, and not a small one.

He woke when a gun was cocked. His eyes flew open and he jumped off the sofa. Several guns where trained on him, but that wasn't wat startled Grant. The gun pointed at his head, was in a hand, attached to a body he knew almost better he knew his own. The look on the face didn't match the one in his memory though, but it had been so long since he'd seen her last.

"We got the 'director in distress' call. So how the hell do you know it, and why aren't you dead?" She asked Grant, and he almost dropped to his knees at her familiar voice. The voice that used to coo sweet nothings in his ear. The one that made fun of him for losing at Battleship. The one he could still hear screaming his name in his worst nightmares.

He tried to talk, but no sound came out. Scraping his throat, he tried again, voice thick with emotion. "Skye… You're… alive?!" He'd tried to keep his emotions from his voice, but seeing her again was too much for him to bare. She was standing here in front of him, alive. But all he could think about was the one night, 2 years ago, when she was lying in his arms, bleeding.

"Explain yourself Ward, because my finger is really itching to pull this trigger, and I would be glad to rid the world of the likes of you." There was venom in what she was saying, something he'd never before heard in his Skye's voice. At least not while talking about him.

'Skye… I… I'm not… What's going on here? I don't understand? This isn't possible…" Grant was completely lost, by both her words and the infliction in them.

"No, what's not possible is you being alive, because I'm pretty sure I killed you on that godforsaken planet!" The new voice startled him and filled his veins with ice. His eyes moved from Skye's face towards the door behind her. He moved as fast as he could, positioning him between the newcomer and Skye.

"You! What have you done with her?! How is this happening? What kind of evil have you brought with you this time?"

Skye pushed passed him then, and moved to stand beside Coulson. "Skye no, get back here, he'll kill you. He's done so before…"

Suddenly it all caught up to Grant and he dropped to his knees. Tears were running down his face, and he kept mumbling "don't kill her, take me" and "I don't understand". With a nod towards one of the other agents, Coulson and Skye turned around and Grant's world turned to black again.