Auld Lang Syne

One: "To Good Friends and Second Chances"

"Does that feel any better?" Skye asked. She stood in front of Grant, who was leaning against the edge of his desk. With two fingers from each hand, she tugged firmly on his collar, smoothing out the creases in his bow-tie as she went.

His eyebrows knitted together. "Explain to me why I agreed to this again?"

She dropped her hands, exasperated.

"I don't do speeches," he said in one long, drawn-out breath.

"Really, Robot? I never would have guessed." She swatted at the hand that had drifted up to tug at his bow-tie. "You nervous?"

He shot her a lethal look. "I don't get nervous."

Skye rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, cause you're Agent Grant Ward and you can jump out of a plane at thirty thousand feet under heavy fire all while shooting the legs off a flea from five hundred yards away?"

"That's Director Grant Ward to you." He smirked, shifting against the desk. "And you have to put your hands on your hips when you say it." He bent to demonstrate.

Shaking her head in amusement she leaned forward to press her lips against his. "I'm proud of you, you know?" She whispered into the juncture of his neck.

"Yeah?" He mumbled, pulling himself back up to his full height to wrap his arms around her middle. His fingers ghosted across the fabric of her strapless dress, a claret silk that flared along her ankles.

"Yeah." She agreed.

"And you know what else?"

"Mmm?"

"You're gonna be a great S.H.I.E.L.D. Director."

He let out a self depreciating snort and set his gaze on one of the far shelves that still housed a dusty conglomeration of Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. memorabilia—Avengers era mostly. "Least I can do after…"

"We're not going to go there, Grant." Skye cut him off. "Coulson forgave you a long time ago—we all did." She looked at him thoughtfully, "Besides, New Years Eve is a time for new beginnings."

"And I've had a lot of em'," he mumbled, a bitter edge to his voice.

"So have I," she shrugged, watching him in the dull half light of his new office. "And we're both still here."

With reluctance, he slowly raised his eyes up and watching her closely with a look that she wasn't quite sure how to interpret, tipped her head back to kiss the hollow of her throat. She pressed into his weight, her fingers finding their way to the nape of his neck to scratch him with her nails. He wasn't vain by any means, but she could tell that the wisps of grey hair arcing across his temples were a sore point for him and she loved him all the more because of it. She loved that he had held on long enough that she could tease him when he couldn't read the print on the menu at their favourite restaurant, or when he slept through his 5AM workout. They had gone through hell and back together and yet they were still here—they had made it. She met his mouth and a groan reverberated through his throat as she playfully nipped at his lips. They were so into one another that they didn't hear the door creak on its hinges.

"Hey, they're all waiting for you downstairs, what's the hold up…ack!" Dr. Alexander Phillip Ward covered his eyes and made a mock gagging gesture.

"Okay, did not need to see that," he huffed, glancing between his two parents.

Skye rolled her eyes and motioned him inside. "Your father's getting cold feet," she explained.

"Really Dad?" he grinned, surveying the mess of torn legal pad pages cluttering the desk as he leaned against the doorjamb. "But, you're Agent Grant Ward and—"

"I'd stop there unless you want my first task as Director to be re-assigning you to our Alaskan office?" Grant warned, trying his best to sound annoyed but not succeeding very well. Instead he shook his head and sighed, "Good to see you made it back in one piece, kiddo."

Alex's grin widened into a toothy smile as he slipped out of his jacket and set in on the arm of the overstuffed leather couch at the far end of the office. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the Space Needle winking at him through the large bay windows that overlooked downtown Seattle. It was a beautiful night, a little colder than seasonal, but bright enough to blur the sharp edges of the city below.

"It was an in-and-out," he explained, shifting his attention back towards Grant and Skye. "The 0-8-4 was definitely alien, but other than that we don't know much about it. Avery brought it down to the lab. Fitz-Simmons are working up the biometrics now."

"Well, you haven't missed much," Skye laughed. "Other than watching Dad wear a hole in the carpet."

Grant shot her an annoyed look, his lips pursed in a tight frown. "Ya done now?" He grumbled.

"And he's in one of his moods again," she said wryly, paying no attention to the glare he shot her way. Instead, she watched Alex flit through a stack of file folders on the other side of the desk.

"What's all this?" Alex picked at one of the coffee-stained leaflets. The paper was well worn and threatened to disintegrate between his finger tips.

"Old S.H.I.E.L.D. files mostly. Coulson rescued them from The Playground. Peggy Carter era mostly, there are boxes of the stuff that no one's gotten around to going through. Pretty sure AC has taken it on as retirement project." Skye explained.

"Like he'll ever actually retire," Alex chuckled. "I still can't believe May managed to drag him off to Fiji."

"I don't think Coulson knows what the word 'vacation' even means. A little R and R will do him some good." Skye agreed, watching as Alex checked his digital and turned his head toward his father.

"You'd better hurry, old man, or it'll be the New Year before you get that speech written." He had the sense to slip outside the door before Grant could launch one of the wadded up pieces of paper at him.

"Can you believe that? He called me old!" Grant growled in mock offense.

Skye smirked at him. "You can still keep up," she assured.

The atrium of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base 'The Apex' was a wide open gathering space sheathed in glass windows. It acted as a central point between the departments of Field Operations, Logistics, Administration, and Communications. For the holiday season it was decked out with a large Christmas tree that seemed to stretch towards the vaulted ceilings. Speakers and a makeshift stage had been rigged up around it while caterers paced the length of the room serving hors d'oeuvres and bubbly champagne.

"You really wanna go fer round two, Doc Twinkle-toes?" Special Agent James Callen teased over the thrumming pulse of the band. His lips curved steadily upward, flashing a dimpled grin as the man in front of him struggled to adjust his footing in time with the music.

Alex jerked his head up, squinting as the beat changed and the lights dimmed. Half an hour to midnight and the smell of booze and thick perfume hung heavy in the air. He frowned as though just catching on to the jeer.

"You think I can't dance?" He breathed letting his tongue scrape along his dry lips.

"If ya can, ya sure as hell haven't managed it yet." Jay smirked. His head was tilted in such a way that the flush of perhaps one too many Amstel Light's crept up the side of his neck. The effect wasn't enough to make his words stick together, but his hands shook slightly as he wobbled toward the other man with his best Cheshire cat grin.

"Well, at least I'm doing better than that guy." Alex retorted, pointing into the heart of the dance floor where one of the systems analysts was trying to coerce the gathering crowd into doing the Macarena.

"Damn." Jay shook his scruffy blonde hair out of his eyes and snorted loudly. "Thought that went out with the Stone Age."

Alex nodded appreciatively as he tugged at the collar of his tuxedo, undoing the bow tie so that it hung limply across his neck. He was hot and itchy enough as it was.

"So, where's your girl?" Jay changed the subject, noticing for the first time that the other man, like himself, was alone.

"Oh, she went to check up on MacKenzie, she's been hounding the babysitter all night." He rolled his eyes and accepted a tall glass of Laurent-Perrier from a server as they passed.

"You know how she is."

"Excuse me. Can I get everyone's attention please?" Grant's voice cut through the air as the music dulled.

"I won't keep you long," he assured. "As you know, New Years Eve has always been Coulson's thing, but he and May are currently celebrating retirement on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific." The room darkened and a life-sized photograph of Coulson clad in a red and blue Hawaiian shirt materialized behind him.

"And he's been sending us regular updates," he continued. The image flicked, revealing Coulson and May sharing a glass of wine at a seaside restaurant, Coulson posing with some type of large fish, and a photo of the pair donning Santa hats and holding a sign that read 'Wish You Were Here!' against a tropical sunset.

"May sent along a note saying that he didn't actually catch the fish himself," Grant reported, earning a chuckle from the beaming crowd. He was doing his best to ignore the dry rasp that was tickling the back of his throat. It was quelled slightly by Skye's reassuring glance.

"I know I haven't been Director very long, but—" he paused, licking his lips. "…But I guess it's my turn to continue his tradition."

He took a deep, slow breath and adjusted the glasses sliding low on the bridge of his nose.

"Fresh starts happen every year. Just set your watch to January and bring on the New Years resolutions. They're a chance to start fresh, to set your past behind you and put the problems of last year to bed. But at the end of the day who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins? Because sometimes we're our own worst enemy and letting go of our past is half the battle. I know Coulson was a big fan of second chances, he often said that if you get to someone early enough you can save them from themselves and sometimes I wonder if that could have been true for me."

Grant swallowed hard and stared at the slip of paper clutched between as finger tips. After a moment he balled it in fist and lifted his head to peer out at his audience.

"As many of you know, when I joined Coulson's team I was a screw up. My job was simply to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. and report back to my S.O. and Hydra operative John Garrett. I met Garrett when I was just 15. He pulled me out of my own personal hell and threw me into another one. I was loyal to him. I didn't know how to think for myself and in doing so I hurt everyone I had grown to care about."

His tone held an edge to it that seemed to resonate into dead silence. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

He shook his head and offered a small, sad smile. "But at some point you have to learn to make your own decisions, you have to figure out who you are and learn that compartmentalization doesn't keep other people out, it fences you in. I'm standing here today because the people I'm proud to call my family gave me more fresh starts and second chances than I ever deserved. I learned that life is short. That life is messy. And at the end of the day acknowledging that we're still standing is reason enough to celebrate."

He reached for a flute of champagne resting on a near by speaker. "To good friends and second chances."

The applause was deafening and Grant kept his gaze toward his shoes as the room seemed to rumbled around him. He felling more off-kilter than he ever had running covert operations, but Skye was there, somehow weaving herself into his arms before he really noticed.

"That OK?" he croaked, peering down at her, his arms draping across her shoulders. She tilted her head upward to kiss him fully on the lips.

Across the room, Alex beamed proudly at his father. Offering the man an enthusiastic thumbs-up that he might have seen if he wasn't so preoccupied with his mom. He yawned, sipping at the bubbly drink in his hand and thoroughly enjoying the way the strong liquid made his lips pucker. The alcohol made him feel sated and content as he made his rounds across the atrium, admiring the decor and making small talk with those he knew. He sighed deeply, letting his eyes drift shut for just a moment in order to allow the sensation of mild inebriation washed over him.

Tomorrow, the most strenuous thing he would have to do was cook a turkey with his wife and spend some quality time with his family. The thought made his heart swell. The clicking of heels shook him from his tired reverie. He turned his head, glancing over his shoulder.

"Hey." His face lit up, eyes wandering over the sleek black cocktail dress she had hurriedly slipped into.

"He's been going nuts without you, you know."

Agent Avery Melinda Ward rolled her eyes and regarded her brother with a serious, considering look. Her curly brown hair appeared slightly out of place from being pinned up since mid-morning, she swat at it with her left hand, doing her best to arrange the stray curls behind her ears.

"Sorry, got tied up in the lab. The other half of the science twins was trying to match the biospec patterns from the 0-8-4 against our ExDat base. Who'd you bribe to get the night off anyway?"

"Well, you missed one helluva speech from Dad and it's called seniority." He smiled. "I put in for it last January first after I worked straight through Christmas and New Years. Remember Operation Polaris?"

Avery nodded.

"Mmm, Ellie was not a happy camper. I logged over 200 OR hours picking shrapnel out of half the field-ops team."

"I remember that. Didn't she make you sleep in the den for a week?" She smiled at him, but wasn't entirely focused on the conversation, her brown eyes drifted toward the heart of the crowd.

"More like a month." Alex groaned and leaned over to give her a quick hug in greeting.

"I had a hard enough time explaining to Mac why Daddy was 'playing camp out' in the basement."

His eyes caught what she was looking for, "Jay's over by the bar," he explained knowingly.

"And don't worry, I think he might still be sober enough to get a decent dance out of."

"He'd better," Avery smirked before she sauntered off in Jay's direction.

The music dulled for a moment as Grant announced that it was 'three minutes to midnight' and he cued the band to take them in to one last song before the countdown.

Alex felt a slender hand slip into his. Their fingers interlocked and he spun around, pulling her against him in such that a way that he could slip his arms around her waist and rest his head on her shoulder.

"Did I miss anything?" Her accent was a pleasant mix of proper English with just a hint of Scottish lilt.

"Just Avery wondering if Jay's gonna actually remember New Years in the morning," he chuckled. "How's our girl doing?"

Dr. Ellie Fitz-Simmons sighed, settling into her husband's embrace. "Fell asleep about an hour ago. Insisted on trying to wait up to 'see the New Year'."

Her deep purple evening gown flowed down over her stilettos as Alex guided her toward the dance floor. She could feel him grin into the crook of her neck.

"See the New Year huh? I used to try to do that when I was her age. Never quite made it until I was eight."

"What did you see?" Ellie reached up to re-tie his bow-tie.

He ran his hand under the stubbled ridge of his jaw thoughtfully. "Not a damn thing. Mom and Dad used to go out so I stayed up half the night watching old James Bond movies with Coulson and May. My neighbours weren't really all that in to fireworks so I didn't even get to see that much. After that I started considering the whole thing a big waste of time. Nothing special about it in the slightest."

"Of course there is," she corrected him, letting him tuck a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear. "It marks the dawn of something new and exciting. Like your Dad said, 'good friends and second chances'. Auld Lang Syne."

"And turkey with a hyperactive six year old?" He asked playfully.

"That too," she agreed. "Especially when her Dad doesn't have to spend here or at the hospital."

"Not even turning on my phone," he agreed. "So you have no worries about that."

"Hey Doc, gonna ramp it up a bit or what?" Jay interrupted the slow rhythm their bodies had created with the music, emitting an exuberant shout as he bobbed his head.

"You're bordering on being worse than Macarena guy, Callen. Maybe you should find him some coffee, Sis?" Alex did his best to suppress a grin as he craned his neck toward her.

Avery, meanwhile, had removed her phone from her purse and proceeded to film the odd, uncoordinated movements Jay was making to the slow music.

"I could, but I'd rather give him something to watch at dinner tomorrow night."

"Oh honestly, he'd better keep it G rated," Ellie interjected, snickering. "Wow, I've never seen him this..."

"Drunk?" Alex offered bluntly. "Neither have I. All the better to rub it in later. Dad will have some real fun with this. If he doesn't kill him outright that is." It was no secret that the now Director Grant Ward was not Agent James Callen's number one fan, particularly when it came to dating his daughter.

"Alright, everyone." Grant cut in over the music which was dying fast. "Looks like we're on our last 30 seconds of 2039!" A hologram lit up behind him flashing a huge 30 in thick black script.

29...28...27...

"Guess this is it." Alex glanced out the window. It was a beautiful, clear night. Hopefully there would be fireworks.

"Getting all excited for 'nothing special' again?" Ellie teased.

...16...15...14...

"Oh I'm excited for something," he spoke in a way that made his eyes twinkle.

...12...11...10...

"And what might that be, Dr. Ward?" She smirked.

The numbers on the screen turned to red.

...9...8...7...

"You still with me, Jay?" Avery chided him as she settled into his unsuspecting arms.

...6...5...4...

"Missed you," Jay admitted with a goofy drunken grin. Somehow she knew his words meant far more than he was letting on.

...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The band burst into a course of Auld Lang Syne, fireworks cracked in the distance and a brilliant white flash filled the whole of the atrium. The surge was enough to cut the power and suddenly everything was happening at once. The music died, someone cried out, someone else reset the breaker and the room was bathed in caustic fluorescent light.

"What the..." Alex blinked pulling out of the kiss he was sharing with Ellie. "Was that lightening?"

"I don't know, but it tripped the power." Avery said, striding up to them with Jay in tow.

"You did say that nothing ever exciting..." Ellie started.

"Not exactly what I had in mind," he cut her off. "Even as a kid."

"Help! Bloody hell, I need help!" A voice hollered in the distance. That was easy enough, there was literally a room full of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s finest standing right there, but everyone was so preoccupied that Alex was the only one who was paying enough attention to notice.

He glanced toward the laboratory block.

"That Elliot?" He rasped, watching Ellie's features sink into a frown.

"He never left the lab," she explained.

Alex took off at a sprint toward the corridor on the far side of the room with Jay, Avery, and Ellie tailing him.

"What's going on?" He asked, squinting as he emerged into the brightly light laboratory. The harsh fluorescent lights reflected against the slate tiles, momentarily blinding him as he struggled to get his bearings. He drew in several shallow breaths feeling winded and a little drunk, but he forced himself to focus on Dr. Elliot Fitz-Simmons who had pressed himself up against the doorway.

"I was running the biospec and it just…it exploded," his accent made his words sound thick and heavy and he pointed to the metal case where the 0-8-4 had been. Alex could picture it in his minds eye, a long, thin obelisk that he had watched Avery pack into an isolation case earlier that day. They had assumed it relatively benign.

"Then…they appeared." Elliot continued, gaping. Alex followed his shaking fingers, not noticing the splatter of blood on his pressed oxford shirt. The stain on the floor however, was impossible to miss.

His tongue caught in his throat as he took a hesitant step forward, eyebrows knitting together in disbelief. It was impossible, but there it was, three bodies tossed in an undignified heap in the middle of the floor.

"They just...appeared...out of..." Elliot was babbling again, his bottom lip trembling in such a way that it threatened to form a permanent crease across his cheeks.

"Whoa!" Avery, who had remained silent up to this point did a double take. "How the hell does that happen?"

"Hey, it's alright. I..." Alex's mouth closed and he glanced at the bodies again. Was it really? People didn't usually just pop out of thin air, even in this line of work. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the scene in front of him.

"Mom? Dad?" He gasped, shuffling close enough to hook what seemed to be the spitting image of his father by his shoulders and pull him onto his back. Alex bit his lip, feeling the slick of blood slide against his palms as he patted the other man down.

"I've got blood," he stammered, prodding the other man's ribs and noticing for the first time how young he looked.

"Three GSWs, to his right flank. Two impeded with one potentially lodged in his thoracic cavity. Breathing is shallow and he is unconscious, but stable." He crouched over Ward, thankful that his body moved on its own accord without too much instruction from his brain, which was still deadened with shock.

"Coulson's here too and with more hair than I ever remember him having. Oh dear, he looks pretty banged up." Ellie commented from where she and Avery were huddled.

"Same goes for Mom." Avery said, tapping Skye gently on the cheek. "She seems OK, but she's out."

Alex exhaled loudly and shook his head. "I don't know what the hell is going on, but we're gonna have to do something about it. Elliot, can you grab a trauma kit from the med bay? Avery, better go get Dad."

He watched them leave with a puzzled expression that didn't seem to leave his face as he turned back to his wife, glancing briefly at the other two bodies that still lay crumpled at his side.

It occurred to him at that moment that this night could not possibly get any stranger.

Alright, so that's it for the first chapter.

Poll: What would you like to see happen?

a. Skye having a heart to heart with future Grant

b. Skye having a heart to heart with future Skye

c. Director Coulson bonding with Director Ward

d. A disoriented Skye taking her anger/powers out on future Grant and Alex when she confuses them for present Ward

e. Future Skye/Grant trying to explain things to their past selves

Any ideas/scenes you would like to see?

Reviews = Updates :)