"Great Gran Simmons?" squeaked a bouncing seven-year-old with eyes that were as clear as a summer day. "Gran, will you tell us about ALS?"
The girl looked up keenly at the treasured Dr Jemma Simmons, who was radiant as ever at the ripe age of ninety-two. Though her hair had long ago thinned and turned to the finest silver, and her dear husband of six and a half decades formerly known as the startingly persistent Agent Leopold Fitz was succumbing day by day to late onset dementia, a fire burned behind her deep hazel eyes that was as clear and intelligent as the day she signed onto Coulson's team.
Her laugh rang through the air, burbling steadily like an aqueous solution on a Bunsen burner, but with more grit and huskiness to it than the sound of her youth. She found she preferred it.
"Fitz!" she called through the house from her chair on the porch, surrounded by the cultivated beauty of a classic English rose garden in their estate in Perthshire. "Fitz, darling, you won't believe what Aurum just asked me to – ah, there you are, you aging slug. Come here."
Simmons patted the armchair next to hers invitingly as her grey-haired husband hobbled over at a leisurely pace and sat down with a small groan.
"What's our little bairn rattling on about now?" he boomed affectionately.
"She wants me to tell her about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," Simmons told him, her words tangled with inextricable pride.
"Does she now? Well, go on then."
A faintly shaking smile spread across her leathered face, and Aurum began braiding her rich brown hair at the foot of Simmons' chair.
"ALS is essentially a disease where the upper and lower motor neurons in the motor cortex of the brain, the spinal cord and the brain stem. But there's at least twenty-five types of genetic mutations associated with familial cases – meaning people could get it from Ma or Da – and there's no real cure yet, so ALS patients can only manage it by taking medications like Riluzole to delay oncoming dependence on a ventilator to survive. Again, such medications are not a cure, and can only serve to marginally prolong the life of the patient and help relieve their symptoms."
A somewhat frozen smile remained on young Aurum's face as she scrunched her nose in deep concentration, trying to understand the big words her great-grandmother was fond of using in casual dialogue.
"Okay, cool," she said finally, brow still furrowed in thought. "D'you think I could cure amy-o-tro-phic-"
"Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis."
"Yeah. D'you think I could be the one who cures people of it?"
Until then, Aurum had insisted on growing up to be a princess, or an astronaut. Or a princess who also happened to be an astronaut. The dreams of children were a source of infinite curiosity to Simmons, who regularly reassured her great-granddaughter's primary school teacher that becoming an aristocratic space explorer was a perfectly respectable career goal.
"Absolutely," Simmons stated firmly. "You're about the smartest young girl I can think of. Next to your Nanna, of course. Poor thing never went to secondary school."
Aurum grinned at her, and the freckles that danced across her nose and cheeks seemed to migrate and shift, not unlike the sands of time.
"Thanks, Gran."
Simmons looked across at her husband with great content and saw he had fallen asleep, snoring heavily in his armchair. Stifling a laugh, she gently covered him with a blanket and took Aurum by the hand.
"It's time for tea," she reminded the young girl, who pouted up at her.
"But I want another dissertation!" Aurum cried defiantly.
"I think you mean you want another explanation, love," Simmons gently corrected her.
"Yeah. I want to hear about all the diseases. I'm going to be a great doctor like you."
"I do hope so, dear. I hope so."