The time has come again for another update! I'm so glad that you all love the story! It really means a lot to mean. Also, I'm writing these chapters more easily than I usually do so that's a bonus for us.

To jellybean96 – HSM is my favorite ever! I watched the reunion special and I just felt so old when my childhood flashed before my eyes!

To Guest – I'm glad you're loving it!

To SLYNNR – Don't worry! Grant giving her big hugs for us! ;)

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To Juliet Knighly – One, I'm glad you love the story so far! Also, I can't believe my writing did that, I must be good then! ;)

Thank you to the 19 members who favorite this story and the 42 who followed it!

ENJOY!


Two days later, Lincoln, Joey, Elena and Mack were in one of the file rooms of the Playground, trying to find something help translate the text in the tome and the messages they found at the explosion site.

"Ugh." Elena cried as she threw another book across the room.

At that moment, Coulson walked into the room. "I assume that means that you haven't found anything?"

Mack shook his head as he picked up another book and opened it up to a specific page. "Nope. We did found a lot on what that thing in Skye's coffin was." He brought the book over to Coulson. "It's called a Skrull. They're an ancient civilization of shape shifters from around where the Kree are. Now, from what we've read, the language in the book is definitely theirs but we haven't found a way to decipher it yet."

Lincoln groaned as he put aside another book. "I could've sworn that the Afterlife library were more extensive than this." He picked up another book and flipped through it. "Skye was able to learn and translate the Kree language from them."

Coulson nodded. In the past few years, Skye had become their resident translator for multiple languages, worldwide and galaxy wide. She had started by learning her native ancestral language of Chinese from May and then she moved to other languages that were widely spoken. She had only taken up other alien languages for fun. "Do you know anywhere else she keeps books?"

Lincoln shook his head. "She barely reads physical books. Most of the stuff she reads is on her tablet."

Joey strolled across the room with said tablet. "And I've already checked. There's nothing here on translating. She does more writing in different languages on here." Joey handed the tablet to Coulson.

Coulson took it and gave it a look. Joey was right, Skye had been using a writing program to practicing writing things in different languages. But when Coulson took a closer look at the writing, he noticed that it wasn't always in a consistent handwriting. Some of the words were written smoother than others. The loops of some of the letters were different between lines. When Coulson started translating the Spanish, he saw that there was two distinct dialogues going on between the lines and the words they were sharing were very intimate. Coulson looked up at the team. "You guys never practiced with Skye did you?" All of them shook their head no. Coulson started backing out of the room. "You guys keep looking and tell me if you find something." He ran to his office and as soon as he was in there, he picked up his private phone and dialed a number.

"Hey, it's me. How fast can you get to the Playground? It's about Skye."


An hour or so later, Coulson was standing by the Playground entrance.

"Coulson, is there someone coming in?" Jemma asked as she and May came up to see what he was doing.

"Yes." He sharply replied. "And it's on a need to know basis and you two don't need to know."

Both women were taken aback. "Why…" May started only to be cut off by the front buzzer going off. Coulson immediately pressed the button to let the visitor in and when the door opened May immediately reached for her weapon. "Put your hands in the airs."

"Oh give it up, Melinda." Coulson snapped as he let Ward into the building.

"Yah, May." Ward snipped as he walked in, a black bag strapped across his back. "I don't want to be here more than you don't want me here."

"Then why are you here?" Jemma glared.

"Because I want to bring Skye back home."

"So…" Coulson interrupted as he guided Grant away from the women. "Where's little Jenny? I wanted to give her some presents since I already missed three birthdays."

"She went to a friend's for a play-date after daycare, which I'm not happy about."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a boy and she said that he's her boyfriend. She's 3! She doesn't need a boyfriend!" Grant glanced over and saw the look that Coulson was giving him. "You think I'm over reacting?"

"No, I agree. She doesn't need a boyfriend, she should wait till she's 21 to date."

"Thank you! Skye swore I was overreacting!" At the mention of her name, Grant's attitude went back to stoic. "So, how can I help?" He coughed.

"Follow me." Coulson ordered. They walked deeper into the Playground until they got to the room where the InHuman team were still working.

Lincoln stood up when he heard Coulson enter the room. "Hey so we didn't find anything about the text but…" Lincoln paused as he looked up and saw who was there. "Why is he here?"

Grant smirked as he held onto his bag. "Nice to see you too Sparkplug."

Lincoln lunged at him, only to be stopped by Coulson. "Okay you two. I need you to play nice for a while. Can you do that?"

"Unlikely." Both men replied, while staring at each other.

"Of course not." Coulson huffed. He knew that both men shared the same affection for Skye. Even though it seemed that Ward won hers in return.

"But seriously though, why is he here?" Joey questioned as he glared at Ward, who was looking over the printouts of the communications they found.

"Because he has the other books from the Afterlife library. Apparently Skye brought them to their apartment to continue working..." Coulson answered as he turned back to Ward. It was then that he noticed the enraged look on the former specialist's face. "Ward?"

"They targeted her." Grant gritted through his teeth.

"What?" Coulson asked as the agents walked over.

Grant picked up a piece of paper on the table. "This transmission is instructions for two operatives to switch Skye with that Skrull. They hoped that by the time the transformation wore off, the body would be buried and that you guys wouldn't even consider looking for her." Grant sat at the table and grabbed a nearby pen as he went and translated the message by hand. "Agent Johnson is to be apprehended and contained at the following location till further notice. Instructions to follow thereafter."

"You understand this crap?" Elena raised her eyebrow at the thought.

Grant nodded as he continued looking at the paper. "Skye always had trouble deciphering it and since I had lag time between classes, I decided to figure out for myself."

"Classes?" A voice form the doorway exclaimed. They turned to see Jemma and Leo standing in the doorway.

"Yah, classes. I'm a professor of Linguistic Studies and Translation at Oceanside University."

"Doesn't that require having a Ph. D?" Jemma asked.

"I spoke nine languages when I applied and I now know fifteen, not including alien ones. It wasn't hard to convince them that I was right for the job." Grant turned back to the page. "Besides who do you think taught Skye all of those languages?"

"I thought she taught herself?" Coulson remarked.

Grant shook his head. "May taught her Chinese but after that I taught her everything else. She's still a hard person to teach." He smirked. "But I motivated her into doing it."

"How?"

Grant blushed at the question as he continued. "You don't want to know." He looked closer at the message. "The location isn't in the same language." He took of his bag and pulled out one of the books in it. He quickly flipped through the pages until he found the one he was looking for and set the paper on top of it. "Damn."

"What?"

Grant pointed to the page. "This dialect is one that Skye and I have been trying to crack but it's difficult. As far as we could tell, it was like a mix of Chinese, Russian, and Kree. It symbol has its own meaning and each symbol is comprised of different letters and the alphabet is shortened."

"How long would it take you to crack it?"

Grant rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't know. I would have to start with the original text, find patterns and possible grammar structure, translate it into a transition language and then translate it into English. Finding patterns could take weeks alone… And I don't know if Skye has that long." Grant quickly stood up. "I need a minute." He walked out of the room.

"Sir," Leo spoke up. "how do we even know that what he's saying is the truth?"

"Because he wants to bring Jenny her mother back."

"It's not fair!" Jemma suddenly exclaimed.

"What's not fair?"

"For all we know, Skye could be dead and all we have left of her is out memories. But Ward…" Jemma stopped as she started getting choked up from tears. Leo reached out and pulled her close into a hug.

Coulson understood what she meant. "Excuse me." He left the room and went in the direction that Ward had. From there, he could hear an argument going on.

"It's not happening, Kara!"

"It's the best way to help Skye!"

"But, it will not help my daughter at all."

"What's going on?" Coulson asked as he came around the corner.

Kara looked at Grant and back at her boss. "I suggested that Grant and Jenny come live at the base so he could have more time to work on the translation and not have to worry about Jenny in the meantime."

"Ward…"

"Coulson," Grant interrupted as he over at him. "This is the exact opposite of what Skye and I want for Jenny and you saw how they treated her at the funeral. I don't want her around that hate. That's all I grew up with, I want more for my daughter. I want her to live in an environment where she is shown unconditional love, and it's my job to provide that for her."

"But, this is a chance to show them that. You are not the same man that you were five years ago." Coulson reminded him. "I can just tell that the man that was serving HYDRA is not the man I see now. I know why Skye has forgiven you… and even fallen back in love with you. You are so much better, I can see that by the way you protect that little girl."

Grant teared up at his words. "She and Skye are my entire world."

"I know… that's also why the team is mad at you." When he saw the confused look on the man's face he continued. "Whether we want to admit it or not, Skye could already be dead. We may never see her again and all we'll have left of her is the memories we made. But you… you still have a piece of her with you. Jenny is essentially a little Skye and you get to see that everyday. But we don't."

Grant bit his lip in understanding. "I know you can see a lot of Skye in her. She looks like her; she's feisty like her and just full of life like Skye. But, she's also mine. She's a little ninja, a perfectionist and a good shot. You should see her with a bat, never misses."

Both Kara and Coulson laughed at that. Kara spoke up. "If they got the chance, I know that the team would really love her."

Grant shifted back and forth before checking his watch. "I have to go pick up Jenny. Tell me if the books are any help, okay?"

Grant started walking out of the base. When Coulson called out to him, which made him turn around. "Please consider at least."

Grant nodded. "I'll think about it." And with that, he left the base and headed back to San Diego.


About an hour later, Grant pulled up in front of a house that was close to the daycare center that Jenny went to. He got out of his car, went up to the front door and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, a Caucasian man with dirty blond hair and blue eyes opened the door. "Hey Grant."

"Hey Brad. Just came to pick up Jenny."

"Of course." Brad stepped aside and let Grant in.

From a side door, a woman with black hair and green eyes came into the front of the house. "Oh hi, Grant."

"Hi Rachel." Grant greeted.

"The kids are upstairs playing Tony's room." She turned and yelled up the stairs "Jenny, your dad is here. You two don't forget to clean up, okay?"

"Otay!" Jenny and Tony yelled back. They could hear the kids running around upstairs, trying to put the toys back.

"She wasn't any trouble, was she?" Grant asked his parent friends.

Rachel shooed him. "Of course not. Jenny was a perfect angel as usual. She really is a good influence on Tony. They are so cute together. I can totally see them ending up together."

Grant coughed. "Not anytime soon I hope." While Tony was easily one of Jenny's best friends, he still didn't like the idea of his young daughter having so many guy friends so early.

Brad chuckled. "We you know those two have already claimed that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. But don't worry, I'll make sure that he's a perfect gentleman to her."

Grant nodded. "I'm sure you will."

Just then, the parents heard little feet running towards the stairs. Sure enough, Jenny and a little boy with dirty blond hair and green eyes were at the top of the stairs. Tony easily started going down the stairs, as he was taller than Jenny. But, Jenny just held to the railing in fear of falling. "Tony…" Jenny pouted.

Tony turned back to her and saw the sad look on her face. He immediately came back up. "Sowwy." Tony held out his hand and Jenny immediately grabbed it. Tony slowly helped Jenny walk down the stairs, one step at a time.

"So cute." Rachel gushed as she pulled out her phone to record the moment.

When the two reached the bottom of the stairs, Jenny immediately ran for her father. "Hi daddy!"

Grant crouched down and received hug from his daughter. "Hi princess. Ready to go?"

"Yes." Jenny released her father and went to pick up her Rainbow Dash backpack. She then ran over and hugged Tony. "Bye Tony."

"Bye Jenny." Tony said as he hugged back.

"Come on, Jenny." Grant pressed as he held out his hand. Jenny released Tony and ran over to grab her father's hand. "Say thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Costello for having you over."

"Thank you for habing me oberb." Jenny thanked.

"You're welcome." Brad chuckled. "Bye Jenny."

"Bye." Jenny waved.

"Bye." Grant reiterated as he and his daughter walked down the front steps of the house. He walked them over to his car and put Jenny into her car seat. He went around and got into the front of the driver's seat. He looked back in the rear view mirror and asked, "So, did you have fun?"

"Yah." Jenny nodded from her back seat. "Me and Tony did colouring and we pwayed on his swing set and we watched a mobie and we swept togetherb."

That last thing made Grant choke on his saliva and coughed up a storm. "You… you slept together?" Grant forced on between coughs.

"Yah. We tooked a nap in his bed."

Grant let out of sigh of relief. "Oh thank god."

"What did you think I meant?"

"Nothing." Grant quickly responded as he turned on the car. "Let's go home. I'll make you some spaghetti."

"Yah!"

Grant chuckled as he pulled away from the house. A few minutes down, Jenny asked from her seat?"

"Daddy, when is mommy coming home?"

Grant swallowed hard. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you said that she not in heaben. She just missing. So when is she coming home? I mist her."

Grant bit his lip. He truly wanted to tell her the truth but she wouldn't understand. But he knew that she would soon ask what he was doing to bring her mother back. And he also knew there was something he could do, but he wasn't prepared for what came with it. In the end, he wanted to make his daughter happy, and bringing home her mom would make her very happy.

"I miss her too, sweetie. She's coming home soon, princess. I'm making sure of it."


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My recommendation for this chapter is "Know Better/ Forever Boy" by Ariana Grande. I have been listening to this song on repeat and I am obsessed with it right now. I literally want this song played at my wedding... if it ever happens. Leave the word "FOREVER" in a review if you're gonna check it out or you already have!

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Thanks for reading!

~ JuicyJams