Fury had to catch her arms to stop her from crashing to the ground. He held her tightly, whilst her 5-0 friends slowly gathered round. They had so many questions, but Fury ignored them all. Instead he carried Isobel's unconscious body to the car waiting outside.
Agent Hill was waiting in the drivers seat, watching as Fury approached with Isobel, "Sir?" She asked concerned.
"Let's just go, Hill." He half ordered and half suggested.
When Isobel woke up she found herself in a SHIELD facility. The only reason she knew where she was, were the emblems on the glass next to her bed. The emblem had always comforted her, not many people knew, but SHIELD had practically raised Isobel after her mother had died. So, SHIELD had always been a constant in her life. Today, it was not having its normal affect.
"Welcome back." Fury said from the foot of her bed.
She looked at him, only half awake. But as the terrible reality of what had happened set in, tears began to fall.
"Isobel, I am so sorry. By the time the med team arrived it was too late. I doubt it'll be any consolation but he died in the line of duty. And without him, the world would have suffered terribly; not just New York. His death saved us all and we will never stop being grateful. We will never forget him." Fury spoke in a such a tone that Isobel didn't know if he was trying to comfort her or himself.
"I think he would probably be quite happy with the way he died. He always said if he had to die young or youngish then he would want it to mean something." She spoke sadly, remembering the conversation.
"You should hold onto that. Do you want to see him?" He asked carefully.
"I need to," She almost whispered, "Just so that it can sink in that he's really gone."
Fury led her down various corridors, that all looked the same. They passed rooms full with people carrying on with their working day, oblivious to the pain that was being felt. When they passed a room with glass walls, Isobel could see the Avengers. They knew Coulson's daughter would be brought to the base today, but none of them knew that she was his daughter. They looked up as she passed by.
"That's Isobel Carter isn't it?" Barton asked.
"Yeah it is." Romanoff said, wondering what was going on.
"Oh crap." Tony moaned, his voice full of realisation. He jumped to his feet and ran down the corridor after Isobel.
Fury left her in an empty room, to wait for some agents to bring in her fathers body. She didn't quite know what to do with herself so she leant against the wall and tried to prepare herself for what she was about to see.
"Issy?" Tony spoke softly from the doorway.
"Tony." She half smiled, but it was evident in her voice that she was desperately struggling to hold back tears.
"We've really got to stop meeting like this." He half joked, "Your mum, my parents and your granddad. This time I'm guessing it's your dad. Am I right?"
"You're right." She choked out.
"Oh Issy." His voice was full of sympathy. He pulled her into the same reassuring hug that she'd needed after the death of her mother when she was 5 and her granddad just 2 years ago.
Isobel and Tony had been best friends for years, despite the 10 year age gap. They'd both always been around for the other when they were needed. As children they'd had so much fun together, they used to wreak havoc around the old SHIELD bases. It's safe to say they both missed the good old days, the days before they'd had to grow up, the days when the agonising pain of loss could be dulled by a childhood innocence.
A doctor rolled in the gurney that held the body of Phil Coulson. Isobel steadied herself and held on tight to Tony's arm, before nodding to the doctor to remove the sheet. As he did a fresh wave of pain hit. Until now a part of her had been denying her fathers death, but now the reality was hitting her all to hard. She sat in a chair next to the gurney and let herself just cry.
"I'll give you a moment." Tony whispered, and both he and the doctor left the room quietly. Isobel just sat there and let herself feel every ounce of the pain caused by such a great loss.
When Tony left the room, he was greeted by the Avengers, though in the past couple of days he'd come to think of them as friends.
"I don't understand, what's going on?" Barton spoke first, voicing the question everyone was asking.
"What do you think is going?" Tony said slightly irritated, "Isobel is saying goodbye to her dad."
"I didn't know they were related. I've worked with them both so many times and neither ever said anything." Natasha commented, the confusion evident on her face.
"Well neither did I, until just now. And I've known her since she was a baby."
"She looks like she's about to fall apart. Do you think she'll be ok?" Steve asked, so far he was the only one to voice his concern for Isobel, rather than his confusion.
Tony sighed and looked back at the closed door, "This isn't the first time she's lost a parent. She'll hurt and be broken for a while but eventually she'll pick herself up and try to move on."
The group nodded and fell silent. They couldn't see into the room, but that didn't stop them watching the door and thinking about Coulson, however little they knew him. After a while Thor spoke angrily, "Coulson's family doesn't deserve this, Loki will pay for the pain he has caused."
"He better." Romanoff agreed.
Time passed and most of them disappeared. Until only Tony and Steve were left stood outside the door. There was a question weighing on Steve's mind, but with everything that had happened he thought it might be somewhat inconsiderate to ask. Eventually he decided to risk it and somewhat nervously opened his mouth.
"Isobel looked really familiar, is she a SHIELD agent?"
"Yes, she's been doing undercover work in Hawaii for the past couple of months. If you knew my father, you knew Peggy. Right?"
"Yeah, I knew them both well for a couple of years."
"Well, Isobel is Peggy's granddaughter. That's probably why you think she looks familiar."
Steve didn't know what to say, so instead he sat himself on the floor and continued watching the door. They could hear the faint sobs of Isobel on the other side, but neither wanted to interrupt her mourning, so instead they sat in silence until she was ready to leave.
When Isobel was finally ready, she flew back to Brooklyn on one of Tony's private jets. She was accompanied by both Tony and Steve, neither of which had left her side. It was early morning when they landed, so by the time they reached the apartment she shared with her grandmother it was already bright outside.
Somewhat reluctantly she turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Home was on the other side, but it felt slightly emptier knowing her dad would never come back here. They could hear voices coming from down the hall, so they all walked towards them. Rounding the corner and walking into the kitchen they saw Katie talking to Peggy over a cup of tea.
"Hey, your back. You didn't tell me you were coming back so soon." Katie smiled when she saw them.
But Isobel couldn't speak, she suddenly felt overwhelmed and dashed out of the kitchen and into her bedroom. She thought she was alone, but Peggy had followed her. Peggy suffered from dementia so lucid days were rare, but today was one of them.
"Honey, what's wrong?" She asked worried.
"Dads dead." Isobel choked out.
Peggy instantly sat on her granddaughters bed, and pulled her into a hug. She'd done the same after Claire, her daughter and Isobel's mother, had died.
The next few weeks were somewhat of a blur for Isobel, she spent most of the time organising the funeral and clearing up all her dads stuff. So it was almost a relief when the day of the funeral finally arrived. Although it hurt her to say goodbye, it felt like she had closure and could breathe again. It helped that the funeral was small, her dads whole world had been SHIELD so that's where all his friends were. Only his friends were allowed to attend, in fact the only person there who wasn't a SHIELD agent was her dads girlfriend, Audrey. Everyone had told Isobel that inviting Audrey would create to many questions that they wouldn't be able to answer. But Isobel and Audrey had become fairly close over the past few years so, instead she trusted Audrey's discretion and give her the opportunity to say goodbye.
After the funeral Isobel spent a few days with Audrey. It was a comfort for the pair of them. It was Audrey who convinced Isobel to go back to Hawaii, and it was also Audrey who found Peggy a place at a dementia home there as well.
"Isobel, you really should go back. You have a life there. And not just one that was created by a family legacy, so to speak." Audrey said as they ate dinner one night.
"I want to go back. I love it there. But it feels like I'm leaving my family behind. All my memories are here. I guess I'm scared if I go back to Hawaii I'll never come home again." She admitted.
"Honey, of course you'll come back. I'm not saying sell the apartment or anything. Anyway Tony's here, and even I know that there is no chance in hell that he's going to let you forget your New York roots."
"I can't leave Peggy with Katie again anyway. She needs full time care, so that kind of makes leaving out of the question."
"Actually, I made a few calls. There's a place for Peggy in a dementia home in Honolulu, if you want it." Audrey smiled.
"Have you thought of everything?" Isobel laughed.
"Maybe," Audrey laughed, "But I'm just trying to make things easier for you."
"I suppose I'm going back to Hawaii then." Isobel conceded, with a smile.
So a week later Isobel sat on a flight from New York to Hawaii, with Peggy beside her, watching from the window as New York faded slowly into the distance.
"Can you believe, all those years as a spy and I never once got to go to Hawaii?" Peggy said slightly to loudly, earning her a few dodgy looks from nearby passengers.
"Lucky you get to go now then." Isobel smiled.
"Claire will have to come out and visit. She can't spend all her time cooped up in that house with Phil and the little baby."
"I'm sure she'll come out as soon as you're settled in." Isobel smiled half-heartedly, it always hurt when Peggy thought Claire was still alive, and she never had the heart to correct her.
When the flight landed, a taxi was waiting to take them to the dementia home. Peggy loved the ride, she marvelled at the views of the sea, the heat of the sun and how relaxed everyone looked. When the car pulled up in front of a large white house surrounded by flowers, Peggy leaned out the window, "Looks like Howard has had Jarvis busy again. I wonder where the zoo is this time."
"I don't think there's a zoo here. But lets go inside and see what its like."
Isobel guided her grandmother out the car and into the building. A nurse was waiting for them in the foyer which somewhat resembled the inside of a palace. The room was spotlessly white, with group pictures and paintings hanging from the walls. There were two curved grand staircases leading to the upstairs bedrooms, and two archways leading to other rooms on the ground floor. The nurse greeted them before leading them upstairs to Peggy's room. The room was huge, it had several huge windows, one of which had a built-in seat. There were several bookcases and cupboards along the walls. The bed sat in between two windows and had a large bedside table next to it. They'd sent a lot of Peggy's belongings on ahead of them, so the nurses had already filled the room with all her stuff.
Peggy turned to Isobel smiling, "Jarvis has truly outdone himself this time. Don't you think?"
"Yes, he has." Isobel nodded and smiled.
The nurse helped Peggy get settled, and just a few hours later Isobel was walking back out the front door; having left Peggy arguing with another resident about who was better the British or the Americans.
Isobel jumped in a taxi and made the five minute journey to her home. When she arrived, everything was as she left it, bar the large pile of post lying on the door mat. She flicked through the post as she made herself a coffee. There wasn't anything of real importance there, just a few bills.
Having spent an hour doing nothing at all, she finally decided it was time to go into work. After having a quick change of clothes, she grabbed her car keys from the counter and walked back out into the bright Hawaiian sunshine; that she had missed so much.
The journey to work didn't take long. It was midday so most people stayed indoors to avoid the heat, only a few tourists walked the streets and the roads were just as empty. When she pulled into the car park of the building where Five-0 had its office she saw both Steve's truck and Danny's car parked, which meant they were both in. Jumping out the car she made her way inside the building that so many tourists marvelled over.
She walked quietly into the office, both Danny and Steve were stood in front of the table computer with their backs to her.
"Alright lads, what did I miss?" She said loudly and cheerily.
The both spun round with shocked expressions. "Your back." Dann grinned as he pulled her into a hug.
"We weren't sure if you would actually come back at all." Steve said as he pulled her into a hug as well.
"Yeah, well New York has kinda lost its appeal a bit. Anyway, I missed the sun." She smiled.
"See normal person." Steve said looking at Danny but pointing at Isobel, "Normal people miss the sun, they don't keep wishing they were back in dirty city, where it's always raining."
"In Danny's defence, he never did claim to be normal." Isobel laughed.
"Ok ok, that may be a fairly good point, but my argument still stands." Steve insisted.
Danny flung his arms up in protest, but then looked slightly solemnly at Isobel. "How are you though? Coping?"
"I've been asked that question so many times but I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I am fine. I just need to move on now."
"Ok good, but you know where we are if you ever need us." Danny smiled.
Isobel nodded smiling, "Thanks. But now really, what have I missed?"
"Not much really, a couple of robberies, a prison breakout, few murders, couple of kidnappings and an assassination attempt." Danny said cavalierly.
"Oh ok, so not much then." She joked. "We got anything good now?"
"Three murders on a boat about 10 miles the north shore, with no other boats being anywhere near at the time of the murders." Steve as he pointed to various documents on the screens. "Grover and Chin are talking to the families and Kono and Catherine are speaking to the boating company. We've just come back from visiting Max, who told us that they were all strangled and then beaten once they were dead."
"Serial killer?" She asked.
"We don't think so, it doesn't match the MO of any other murders. We're definitely thinking premeditated though. We just don't know how the killer got on or off the boat, without another boat being near by."
"A diver maybe? That wouldn't show up on the boats radar."
"Those waters are full of rocks, nearly impossible to swim through." Steve told her.
"Nearly impossible, is not the same as impossible."
"Ugh, does this mean we're going swimming?" Danny moaned, "It does, doesn't it? Can't we just have one case that doesn't involve a gun fight, an on foot chase, or swimming in a sea full of rocks."
"Anything else you want to moan about?" Steve asked as they all got into Danny's car.
"I'm sure something will come to me."
Isobel smiled from the backseat, it felt good to be back.
Ok, so this is quite a long chapter, but I hope you liked it.
Please leave a review, comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks, xem98x