~Déjà vu~

Skye walked as quietly as she could down the hallway in search of Phil. It was nap time or afternoon siesta as AC liked to call it, meaning for two hours a little after lunch everyone was down for a short nap. Honestly the adults were thrilled with the idea! Especially Grant, it was his time of cuddling with their baby daughter. People would never guess that the mighty Grant Ward, one of the most feared agents on the whole organisation was such a cuddly bear. She had quite a few pictures of him and both the kids doing things together. Sometimes she was scared that all this was just a dream and that she would wake up back in her van all alone.

Skye lived for the quiet moments in a house full of people, they were precious to her but somehow her spawn had managed to get out of his bed for the third time today. Phil was at the age where he thought naps were overrated, she planned on remind him that ten years down the road when he'll want to catch up on them. She knocked on AC's office door and slipped inside when she heard him call. "Have you by any chance seen my son?" She asked taking a seat on the armchair across his desk.

"He is 'meditating' with Melinda." Coulson said casually making Skye laugh. Phil had soft spots for certain people, like Melinda or Tony, he liked to spend as much time with them as possible.

"Are you happy?" Skye asked suddenly taking him by surprise. "With all this, with all we have I mean. Are you happy Coulson? Do you ever wish to go back to how things were?" Her words took him by surprise but he shook it off quickly.

"Honestly? Yes. You gave me, us, all of us what we thought we'd never have Skye, a family. Someone to care for us, to be cared in return." Skye could hear the sincerity in his voice and something settled inside her. "Why, aren't you happy? Is something wrong between you and Grant? Do you want me to kick his ass?"

"No. Everything's fine." She murmured rubbing her eyes. "It's just that I keep having those weird dreams." She trailed off unsure of how to express herself. "More like nightmares, really."

"Skye?" Coulson said, they didn't need more words, one look at her told him exactly what he wanted to know. He got up and walked around his desk towards her, as soon as his arms were around her the tears kind of came pouring out of her eyes. "Wanna talk about it?" She shook her head 'no', hugging him tighter. "Want me to hold you for a minute?"

"Yes, please." She whimpered, burying her face against his chest. Phil could only do that, besides that girl was the daughter he never had. He knew Skye had trust issues, they talked about them many times and right now she just really needed to know that she was loved.

~oOo~

She shot up suddenly, cold sweat dripping down her neck. It took her a moment to realise that she was in a bedroom, their bedroom, wearing her nighty and not a hospital gown, the walls a warm caramel brown instead of plain white, Grant's arms around her instead of IVs and machines helping her live. She took a deep breath, and another, and another but her heartbeat didn't slow down in the slightest. She removed herself out of Grant's embrace carefully and tip toed down the hallway, she checked on Phil first making sure he was asleep, and then dropped by Zoe's room, and then checked on FitzSimmons (sleeping on the couch again!), and finally on AC and Melinda (she wasn't surprised to find them sharing a bed).

Skye made a habit of not asking her family about their personal lives, they eventually wander to her on their free will and spilled their guts. Of course that didn't mean that she didn't know about AC and Melinda having a let's call it 'thing' because even they didn't know what it was. Really, they've been having that 'thing' on and off for only 20 something years, it's not a relationship until you celebrate your first century together people! Or that FiztSimmons never went past their friendship relationship status due to, according to Jemma always, the time never being right. Skye called bullshit on all of it but it was their lives, not hers. They would figure it out eventually.

"Baby?" Grant murmured sleepily as she wandered back in their bedroom again. Skye moved under the covers again and snuggled closer to his body, breathing him in. "Another dream?" He asked placing a soft kiss on her hair, bring her closer to him.

"Yes." Her voice was barely audible and it broke his heart that something was torturing his wife to the point of breaking. Skye was always a strong person, even when she was falling down. But those dreams seemed to get to her like nothing else.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" He always offered to help her, to listen to her but she refused him every single time.

"Yes and no." She sat up facing him. "It's never a solid image, like some movie or something. It's always flashes of light, small scenes of how life could be if I had never met you. If I had never joined Shield, or had Phil. In others I'm on a hospital bed, hooked on drugs, and IVs and machines and you are just sitting there looking at me helpless. And all I can do is just stand beside you like I'm some kind of a ghost looking equally miserable and helpless." She took a deep breath, tears welling in her eyes again. "It's just killing me inside, slowly and painfully. All the 'what if's, all the possibilities this could have worked out. I'm afraid Grant, that I will lose you, and the kids, and the team and everyone! It scares me more than anything because it actually is a possibility. I've lost things before, people I cared about." He laced their fingers together pulling her down to lay beside him.

"Skye." He whispered kissing her nose, his eyes holding hers. "There's nothing that can keep me away from you, the kids or our family. No one is getting near any of you as long as I walk this earth. This I can promise you baby. Your dreams? They are just that, dreams. I've seen a lot of things with the work we do and maybe, just maybe, they hold some truth in them. Possibly, in another universe, there is a Grant that keeps screwing things up, and a Skye that can't sort out her priorities. Maybe they never meet, or maybe he's too stupid to see what's right in front of him but that's not us, baby." He gave her a reassuring smile. "We do have a family, we have two wonderful children and people we love. A house, jobs we like to do, nothing can take that from us. I took the Clairvoyant down for you, and I'll do the same to the next person that decides to come after my wife and kids and always, always, I'll come back to you in one piece. Just like you will do for me. Do I make myself clear?" He cupped her face bringing their lips together into a soft kiss.

"Crystal clear." She nodded slowly.

"Great." He stifled a yawn making her smile. "Shall we go back to sleep?"

"Actually," She started straddling him, "I have a better idea." Her hands trailed down his hard chest caressing his skin lovingly.

"On a second thought," He mumbled as their lips collided, "I like your idea better." He smiled and flipped them over and for the rest of the night Skye did not think about her nightmares at all.

~The End~