Can I just say WOW? I didn't know that this many people would be interested in this idea of mine. I woke up to a phone full of notifications of people reviewing, favoriting and following this story! So thank you for giving this a chance and I hope you continue coming back for more.
To Orlissa – I'm glad you like the concept and thanks for the writing advice. I went back and added a date.
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To beth – You'll need to read to find out more! ;P
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Enjoy!
30 minutes later, the place was overrun with SHIELD crime techs and analysts. The techs were gathering samples of the surrounding area. Others were examining the coffin. Some were moving the body on Jemma's orders.
"Carefully! This is evidence and I don't it coming back to the lab in pieces!" She demanded.
"Jemma, do you have any idea what this is?" Bobbi asked as she stood by her, looking at the grotesque creature with disgust.
"No. This alien life is new to me and I have no idea how it got in Skye's coffin. I've haven't left its side since we put her in."
"Another alien species?" Elena groaned. "Haven't we found all of them already?"
"Absolutely not and we may never. The universe is a treasure trove of new life, we may never know what's out there." Jemma explained as she left with the body and some of lab assistants.
"Yay." Kara mocked. "Well, this changes everything."
"Definitely." May confirmed as she, Coulson, Lincoln and Joey walked over. "Skye is still out there."
"Maybe." Joey interrupted. "You saw that building collapse. I don't know how anyone could have switch her body with that thing and gotten out in time."
"Well, it's a start." Coulson retorted. "We need to re-examine the site. I already sent Fitz, Mack and Hunter over there to take another look."
"What I'm more interested in is how that coffin got opened." Lincoln acknowledged. "I thought it was supposed to stay sealed through the service."
"It was." May confirmed as she glanced over to where Grant and his daughter were sitting. Jenny was currently sitting on his lap, still shaking in fear. Her father held her close, trying to coax her into going to sleep as she had had a long day. "The kid may know."
Coulson looked over to the little family before looking back at May. "Melinda, Jenny has been through enough today."
"But, she's our only witness, regardless of age and you know kids never lie, they don't know how to yet."
"Come on, Coulson." Bobbi interrupted. "It wouldn't hurt to just ask."
Coulson sighed before nodding. "Fine." The seven of them walked over to Grant and Jenny. "Ward."
Grant groaned before looking up at his former boss. "What is it, Coulson?"
"Would it be alright if we asked Jenny some questions about what happened?"
Grant glanced down at his daughter. She looked tired; her eyes were droopy and puffy from crying. She was so exhausted that Grant had to use one of his arms to keep her upright. "I don't know, I think she's had enough excitement for today."
"I promise it won't take long."
"Okay. Just a few." Grant gently shook Jenny. "Hey Jenny." Jenny slowly sat up and looked up at her father. "Mr. Coulson has some questions for you. Do you think you can answer them?" Jenny nodded as she looked up at Phil.
Phil crouched down to her level. "Hi Jenny. Do you remember what happened when you went to go to mommy's coffin?"
Jenny played with her hands as she answered. "Well, I was talking to mommy about how much I gonna miss her. Daddy told me that she could hear me from heaben…"
May sighed in annoyance before interrupting, "Enough about that, how did the casket get open?"
Jenny whimpered in fear. Phil glared at May before turning back to Jenny. "She means did you open the casket? Daddy told you not to touch the locks."
Jenny shook her head. "No, I didn't touch anything. The top just fluw open and…and that monster was in thereb."
May scoffed. "That's ridiculous. What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything." JJ started to tear up.
"Yes you did. Just spit it out."
"NO I DIDN'T!" JJ cried out and she buried her face in her hands, tears running down her face.
"Okay, that's it." Grant stood up and he held his baby close. "We're leaving."
"No, she hasn't ans…" May started only to stop when Phil threw a truly murderous glance at her as he turned to face.
"Melinda that is enough!" He yelled as he followed Ward over to his car. "Ward, I…"
Grant held out his hand as he put JJ in her car seat. "Coulson, this is exactly why I didn't want to bring her here. They are never gonna get past the fact that she is my daughter." Grant finished buckling her in, pressing a kiss to her head and he turned back around. "They are treating her like a criminal! She is a child! I'm taking her home and hopefully I can make this whole day go for her."
Coulson nodded. "And home is…"
Grant shook his head as he closed the car door. "No, I'm letting you know where my house is so you can come and knock down my door and raid the place for weapons and evil schemes. This is why Skye and I had this whole arrangement. We don't want our daughter to have to deal with this kind of life. She deserves better."
Coulson nodded again. "I understand." He pulled a card out of his jacket and handed it to Ward. "Here's my private number. I want to keep you in the loop on what's going on if you don't mind."
Ward bit his lip. "Thank you." He walked around the car about to open when he looked back at Coulson. "Just bring her home okay?"
"Will do." Coulson promised as he backed away. Grant got into the car and backed out of the cemetery. As Phil turned around, he was met with guilty faces from the team. He walked towards them. "Meeting in my office, 2100 hours. I expect you all to be there."
"Phil, I…" Melinda started.
"Melinda, I would quit while you're ahead." Coulson interrupted as he walked past them towards the crime techs to order them to make sure they got enough samples for Jemma.
May bit her lips. "Yes sir."
That night, the team gathered in Coulson's office, ready to go over what they had learned so far. Coulson sat on his desk as they set up the holo-screen in the room. "So what have we've got?"
Jemma stepped forward. "I did an analysis of the creature's skin. It is designed to mimic the whole makeup of a person."
"Like that mask that HYDRA put on me?" Kara remarked.
Jemma turned to her. "Exactly." She went over to the table and brought up some data. "But unlike your mask, it was built into the creature's DNA. They could transform their appearance, voice and garments into that of another person almost instantaneously."
"Oh my god." Elena gasped. "You're saying that they could go and take the position of anyone they wanted to."
"I know. It's actually quite fascinating!" Jemma squealed before the looks she got from the others. "Sorry, not the time."
"So, we got a shape-shifting alien." Hunter recognized as he turned to the InHumans in the room. "You guys know anything about this?"
The three in question glared at him. It was Joey who spoke up. "First of all, we only have a small bit of alien DNA in our body. Second, not all 'aliens' know each other. It's like saying all Brits know each other."
Hunter groaned as he readjusted positions. "Fair point."
"Besides since Skye was basically the new leader of InHumans," Lincoln started. "she would be the only one to know anything about this and she never told me anything about it. She tells me everything."
"Oh like she told you that she had a kid with a traitor." Fitz angrily pointed out.
"Yah, you definitely know everything she does." Jemma scoffed.
"ENOUGH!" Coulson screamed as he stood up. The team looked at him with fear. "I will not allow this petty behavior to continue."
"But Phil…" May started.
"Do you know how much you frightened that little girl today?" Phil yelled. "She is not a criminal that committed murder! She is a kid! Regardless of if she was Ward's daughter or not, you don't treat children like that Melinda. None of you should even think about her like that." Coulson looked around the room as what he said started to sink in to his team. "Now, I was just as upset as you guys when I learned about what Skye hid from us. But unlike you, I'm beginning to understand why she did so. Ward hurt us in a way that's hard to forget. But, somehow Skye did and I'm coming to accept that, not that I expect any of you to do the same. But that is not what we should be focusing on. We should be focusing on bringing home our friend, if not for us, for the sake of that little girl." Coulson sat back down on the edge of his desk. "Now, what did you three find at the explosion site?"
Mack stepped up to the late and brought up digitals scans of the crime scene. "We found a few things. This building was filled mostly with information hubs. It was damaged during the explosion so it will take a while for our tech analysts to decipher it. But we managed to pull a few things off of it already."
Holograms floated up and showed digitals scans of ancient scrolls and modern machinery. "It's like the past met the future." Hunter commented as he went over to one of the boxes they brought back. "We also found this there too." Hunter pulled out a large bound book on the table, which had everyone intrigued.
"What is it?" Bobbi asked her husband.
"I believe it's called a book, Bob."
Bobbi glared at him. "You want to sleep alone tonight?"
Hunter bit his lip as he opened up the tome. "Well, we looked through it and…"
"It's in gibberish." Joey remarked as he looked at the pages.
"Essentially and all the communications we found on the computer were in the same dialect."
Lincoln came and took a closer look at it. "It kinda looks like something I saw before at Afterlife."
"Really? Can you translate it?" Mack questioned.
"I never actually looked at those texts." Lincoln smirked. "But I think Skye may have some books about it in her room."
Coulson smiled. "Well, it's a place to start. The faster we crack this code the closer we get to finding Skye and bringing her back to her daughter." HE looked around at the sour looks on his team's faces. "And I will be keeping Ward in the loop on the matter."
Everyone else groaned. It was Lincoln who tried speak up. "But sir…"
"He is part of her family, whether we like it or not. So I suggest you suck it up, Agent Campbell, because Ward isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Is that understood?"
Lincoln pulled in his lips in frustration. "Yes sir."
"Good. Now you all should get to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow."
And with that, everybody left his office, leaving him to stare at the holograms floating around in the air. "We're gonna find you, Skye. I promise."
"Oh my god! This is so adorable!" Skye gushed as she watched him and Jenny dancing to "We're All In This Together" from "High School Musical".
Grant swallowed the lump in his throat as he watched a video Skye recorded of him and Jenny a year ago. Before Jenny was born, Skye had made it a goal to capture every single one of their daughter's moments on film. She wanted a whole library of family memories for them, something she never had as a child. Grant did have videos of his childhood but they were all fake. Even though, Skye wasn't always there to help out with Jenny, she always gave her daughter her undivided attention and love when she was home… unless Jenny was asleep, then all that attention was diverted to Grant.
"Together! Together! Come on, let's have some fun!" The main characters sang on the screen as her favorite two people goofily danced around. Grant was obviously copying his daughter's moves as she shook her hips to the rhythm with her hands on her hips.
"You two are so cute!" She squealed from behind the camera. To her, he looked like the perfect father and she was happy to have this child with him.
Jenny noticed her mom watching and waddled over to her before pulling on her yoga pants. Skye tilted the camera down and Jenny was smiling up at her. Her daughter rocked back and forth as she pulled on her mother. "Mommy dance?"
"Yah!" Skye tilted the camera back up to see Grant walking towards her. "Mommy dance." Grant pulled the camera out of her hands and placed it on the counter, facing where Skye was filming. The camera captured him throwing her over his shoulder and bringing her over to in front of the TV. "Come on!"
Skye laughed as Grant set her down. "Grant, what are you doing?"
"Dancing with one of my favorite girls!" Grant cheekily answered as he dipped her.
Skye giggled. "You are so crazy, wildcat!"
"Only for you." Grant commented as he brought her back and planted a kiss on her lips.
Grant could help but tear up at the scene. The team could say whatever they wanted about their relationship. They weren't there to observe their private moments. Skye loved him and he knew that for a fact.
"You better be!" Skye remarked as she brought his lips back down to hers.
But that only lasted for a few seconds as Jenny made her way over and pulled on her father's leg. "Daddy no crazy for me?"
Grant quickly picked his little girl. "Are you kidding?" Grant started tossing her up in the air, making her laugh. "You make the craziest I've ever been."
Skye laughed at the double meaning of his words. "You got that right." Both Skye and Grant placed a huge kiss on Jenny's cheeks, which made her giggle ferociously.
"Daddy…"
Grant paused the video and turned around in his seat. There he saw Jenny standing in the doorway of the living room in her gummy bear onesie, holding her Twilight Sparkle plushie. "Sweetie, what are you doing out of bed?" Grant questioned as he walked over and crouched down in front of her.
Jenny held her doll closer to her chest. "I had a nightmare… the monster from mommy's cough-bin was thereb."
Grant sighed as he picked her up. He knew this was gonna be a hard day for her. When they got home, he had given her bath and watched the first season of "My Little Pony" with her again but nothing had seemed to bring up her spirits. He hoped a good night's sleep would do her good. "Do you want to sleep in daddy's bed again?" Jenny nodded. "Okay let's go." Grant went over and turned off the light. He noticed a light still on and glanced at the TV screen. Seeing his little family on the screen choked him up a bit, but he quickly shook it off and went over to turn off the device.
He carried his daughter to his room and laid her down on the left side of the bed, where Skye would sleep. "Daddy, can you leave a light on?" Jenny asked as her father tucked her in.
Grant placed a kiss on her forehead. "Sure munchkin."
"Good night daddy." Jenny whispered as she rubbed her eyes.
"Good night Jenny Benny." Grant smiled as he went to turn off the overhead light. He then went into his closet and a minute later, came out wearing some sleepwear. Apparently Jenny was really tired after the day she had because she was out like a light, cuddled up to Twilight and her head buried in her mother's pillow.
Grant went over to the other side of the bed and tucked himself in. He looked over to his baby. He knew that he would eventually wake up with her little foot in his mouth, but he wouldn't have it any other way. That little girl was his entire world. He would give up anything to make her happy and anything to bring her mother back to them.
Well, what'd ya think? Leave your opinion in a review down below. There will be a lot more coming and if you have any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate them! Let's try and get up to 20 reviews before the next chapter!
My recommendation for this chapter is the film, "High School Musical". It is the story of two teens breaking stereotypes and following their passions together. It is my favorite film series of all time and if you haven't seen it yet you should! Leave the word "MUSICAL" in a review if you're gonna go check it out or if you have already seen it!
Until next time, don't forget to follow, favorite and review!
Thanks for Reading!
~JuicyJams
