"Skye? What is it sweetheart?" Sue asked tenderly.
Skye was sat in the chair, tears streaming down her face. Ward was sat on the arm trying to calm her down.
He took the envelope off Skye and passed it to Sue.
"I don't understand it." Sue said, reading the papers.
"Those are papers saying that I have officially adopted Skye as my daughter." Coulson explained to her.
Everyone but Ward turned to look at him- this was news to them all.
"It was a spur of the moment thing." Coulson said.
Skye got off her chair and waddled over to Coulson and flung her arms around him.
"Thankyou!" She cried into his shoulder.
"Are you insane?" Tilly asked Coulson as they cleaned the last bit of the kitchen before everyone retired for the night.
"I don't know what you mean."
"You don't give a pregnant, hormonal whale a gift like that. They would tend to over react."
"I think she handled it fairly well."
"Fairly well? She cried for an hour!" Tilly laughed.
"Could have been worse, she could have gone into labour." Coulson told her, smile playing on his lips.
"Tilly, why do you have to wake up so goddamn early?" Amber groaned as Tilly got out of the bed.
"Been doing it for years. I usually go for a run, but I think I'd break something. Go back to sleep." Tilly told her, choosing some clothes out of the wardrobe and padding towards the door.
She made it as far as the bathroom and came face to face with Ward.
"Skye alright after last night?" Tilly asked him.
"She's fine. Yesterday really took it out of her though."
"I'll bet it did. We reduced her to tears twice!"
Ward moved out of the way to let Tilly pass into the bathroom.
"Remind me later I have something for you. And are we having our usual boxing day tradition?"
"Ok, and I can't leave Skye here alone, but you can go if you want to."
"She's pregnant not handicapped and I don't know the area."
"Skye may only be pregnant, but I don't know if you'd noticed, but she's started to waddle, and can't make it very far doing it, but if someone else wants to stay we can go."
Tilly smiled at Ward and shut the bathroom door, emerging a few minutes later fully clothed in warm, thick clothing. She crept back into the room she was sharing with Amber and dumped her clothes on the bed. She picked up her new book and the object she had to give to Ward and crept back out of the room.
Once out of the room and back into the light of the hall Tilly headed for the stairs, opening the book and starting to read. Tilly sensed that she had reached the top of the stairs and, instead of closing the book and walking down the stairs, elected to sit on the top of the handrail and slide down it with her legs crossed, her nose still firmly in the book. She reached the bottom and jumped off the rail, landing cat like on the floor.
"Where the hell did you learn that?" Ward asked her from the sofa. He had been sat reading one of his books and when he had heard her coming, looked up in time to see Tilly slide.
"What? You don't think you and Nat taught me everything I know do you?" She replied with a wicked grin.
"Pops?"
"Gramz."
"Wait. Stoic, quiet Gramz who taught both of us to cook and wouldn't say Boo to a goose taught you to slide down a handrail?" Ward asked.
"What can I say? Mary Poppins was on TV and Pops was out."
"There's no way."
"There's no way what?" May asked from the top of the stairs. She descended them closely followed by Coulson.
"It's not important." Tilly told her.
"Family Crap?" May asked, turning to face Ward.
"Something like that."
"May. How do you say this?" Tilly asked, pointing to a phrase in the book she had turned back to.
It was the learn to speak Chinese book she had received for Christmas.
"I am not teaching you that." May told her with a laugh, gently punching her as she did.
"So who's up for a Ward family tradition?" Tilly asked once everyone was up.
"What is it?" Toby asked concerned. If it involved the name Ward it was bound to be crazy.
"A short walk." Ward told him, throwing a cushion at Tilly, who dodged it easily.
"And by short you mean a few hours don't you?" Carl asked. He was starting to get to know Tilly and Ward and knew that what you see is very rarely what you get.
"I'm in." Romanov said yawning.
"Yeah, me too." Hawkeye said, wrapping his arms around her and whispering something no one could make out into her ear.
"I'll come. It's not like I have anything else to do." Amber grumbled.
"I want to see how long this is going to take. I'm in." Toby said.
"Screw it. I'm joining the party." Carl laughed.
"Did you really have to ask?" Rob said with a grin.
"I'm going to pass. I can barely walk to the toilet and back." Skye told them.
"I think I'll stay here and make breakfast for when you get back." Sue said. As much as she enjoyed a good walk, she knew she would never be able to keep up with them and the distances they traipsed.
Ward looked at Skye.
"Go already" She mouthed to him.
Soon all of them, bar Skye and Sue had agreed to go for a walk and had gone to change into appropriate attire.
"Oh wow. Look at the snow." Simmons enthused as she took in how the landscape had changed with the sudden snowfall.
"Only a couple of inches. Won't affect the walk much." Ward noted.
"Can't you see the beauty of it?" Simmons scolded slightly.
"Its just snow."
"You're hopeless." She laughed, still gazing at the winter wonderland picture.
"Come on." Tilly nagged as she began striding towards the forest. Ward with his long legs quickly overtook her, setting the pace and the route for the group. Moving slightly slower than he normally would the party split into two groups. The first group contained the specialists, Ward, Toby, Romanov, Hawkeye, May and Tilly. Slightly behind came Rob, Fitz, Simmons, Coulson and Carl. Carl could have walked with the other group but had hung behind to give Simmons help in the deeper drifts of snow. In certain places the snow had become quiet deep in the forest. Coupled with hidden roots and small trees it was quite a challenging walk.
A couple of hours later the second group was beginning to tire and Tilly was beginning to get bored. When Ward called a break she moved away slightly from the group, planning something to make the final part of the walk more fun. Noticing Hawkeye off to one side she crept round a tree in the direction of Romanov before scooping up some snow. Compacting it slightly she threw it quickly towards Hawkeye before scrambling up a tree so she was out of sight. A sudden cry told her she'd hit her mark.
"NAT!"
"What?"
"Oh that's how you want to play it. It is on." From her hiding place she watched as Hawkeye began pelting Romanov with snowballs. Naturally she didn't let it go that easily and so a snowball war began. Moving through the trees Tilly swung until she was far enough away so no one would think she was the original culprit and dropped to the ground.
A sudden pile of snow dropped on her, making her squeal as it dripped down her collar and down her neck.
"Grant!"
"You started it. Don't think I didn't notice that you threw the first one."
"But why drop snow on me? I didn't hit you."
"Taste of your own medicine. Now shall we gang up on Nat?"
"She'll kill us." They both winced as Fitz got hit in the face when May ducked to avoid a snowball flung by Hawkeye. In response Fitz retaliated, unfortunately his aim wasn't as good managing to hit Coulson and Simmons in the face. As they watched the entire group joined in the snowball fight, aiming at whoever was most distracted.
"She'll never know." Ward grinned. "Too chaotic."
"If this goes wrong I'm blaming you."
"Naturally." He quickly scooped up some snow and flung it at Romanov, hitting her straight on the bottom, dodging behind a tree when she turned to glare.
"Hey! You told me off for doing that." Tilly complained as she dropped to the ground to avoid a missile like snowball from her.
"If you can't beat them, join them." He grinned before launching another snowball, slowly retreating in the direction of the house.
It took them another hour to complete a journey that should have taken twenty minutes. They were so caught up in the snowball fight. May quickly caught onto Tilly and Ward's plan joining in so Romanov never knew where the next snowball was coming from.
Eventually they made it back to the cabin, slightly breathless and covered in snow.
"What happened to you?" Sue asked as they all trouped in.
"Snowball fight." Hawkeye grinned shaking his hair free of snow and covering the floor, making her cringe as he did.
"Stop it or no food." She cautioned, smiling slightly in spite of herself.
Moving to where Skye was sitting, Ward gently pressed a kiss on her cheek.
"You're all cold." She complained flinching slightly away from him.
"Really?" He moved his hands towards her exposed neck, laughing when she hunched up to avoid the cold.
"Go get changed. I'll make sure the food is ready when you're downstairs again."
As the group trooped past her she frowned slightly. "Natasha dear, why do you have snow on your bum?"
"Ask Tilly." Replied a retreating Nat.