Jewel burst into the kitchen as she paced around and around the island. She kept looking into the living room where Coulson was just sitting there, nonchalantly. Her blood boiled as she hated how cool and collected he was sitting there in their home. She almost wished to go back into that room with a gun in hand and see if he still was going to act that way. Jewel knew that he wasn't stupid; he wouldn't have come here alone.
She turned and checked the monitor where she could see Grant was slowly rocking Jasmine to sleep. She had hoped that when she told him to go put their daughter down for rest that he would take it as a "get the hell out of here" sign. But she also knew he would never leave her alone with danger, even if it was as meek as Coulson. And she knew that if Jewel had so much red on her ledger, Grant would've stayed by her side as well.
Jewel placed her hands on her hips and took a deep breath as she had wished this day had gone a different way. She always knew that Coulson and his team would come back, but she didn't think they would so soon. Her tablet beeped as it said that it didn't find anyone within the radius as a threat; of course not.
She heard footsteps and turned around to see Grant walking into the room, he glanced into the living room before coming up to Jewel. He wrapped his arms around her in a gentle embrace as he rubbed her back up and down.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"I don't want him here," Jewel said, firmly.
"I know, I don't either" Grant said, "But if it was me by myself, I would've ended him right now"
Jewel looked up to him, "Grant… he tried to sell our daughter off to the worst man and he was going to fake her death to me"
"I know" Grant sighed as if trying to fight off an urge, "But I eliminated that threat, remember? My brother can't come back from the dead, nor my parents would be around as a second option"
Jewel glanced to the baby monitor, "I don't trust him"
"I don't either, I'm scared for our daughter's safety just as much as you" Grant said, gently, "But I do have a lot of enemies, Jewel, you know this. Coulson can actually give us what he's promising. We won't have to look over our shoulders and sleep with knives under our pillows"
"We're agents, it's practically in the brochure to sleep with knives under our pillows" Jewel shot back.
Grant backed away and ran a hand through his hair as he looked outside of the kitchen window to the little fields each in different stages of growth.
"What about what I want, Jewel?" Grant turned and looked to her, "I want to provide for our family the protection we need but being Garrett's puppet for so long made me a long list of enemies. I'll be honest, back then, I had no desire to have a family until I saw you pregnant. Now my whole world is wrapped around Jasmine's safety and I can't help thinking about the people I left alive and how they could come back to haunt me. If Coulson swipes everything clean… I'm a free man"
Jewel looked up to Grant as if for the first time and saw how vulnerable he was. She didn't know he was that afraid of the outside dangers of his times as a Hydra undercover agent. He knew some of the things that he did still haunt him, like killing Victoria Hand, her SO. She knew he had no choice but she wondered how many orders did Garrett give him that made Grant not sleep at night. She sighed as this time, she walked over to him and ran her hands up and down his arms.
"You know there's always going to be one more thing with this man, right?" Jewel asked, gently.
"I know" Grant nodded, "But I need this, Jewel, so that way I know our daughter can sleep at night not knowing of the things that I did"
"You think she would be an agent?" Jewel tried to poke, "Already?"
"I know agents will try to find her and show things that I have done" Grant sighed, "But who knows if someone already has that printed out"
"I already know of one" Jewel looked pointedly to the other room.
"And he should" Grant said, "Because the things I did under his nose was unbelievable, I never second guessed my loyalty to him until you came into my life"
Jewel bit her lip, "Let's see what his mission is, something doesn't feel right"
Grant only nodded as he glanced into the other room where Coulson was flipping through one of their books that was on the table. He stopped to think about what this man could possibly want and wondered what made him so desperate to come for their help. He knew it was only because of Simmons that Grant was allowed to be free of this long. A twinge of instinct popped up as he walked back to Jewel and asked her softly.
"Have you noticed May around the premises?" Grant asked.
"No" Jewel shook her head, "I scanned once we came in and it's scanning again now"
"What about Skye?" Grant asked, "She would've broken protocol right now and burst in the second we allowed him inside"
Jewel thought about it for a moment as the dots started to connect. She wasn't around the team nearly as much as Grant was, but she knew the way they worked. Jewel walked past Grant as he followed close behind as she finally came into the room where Coulson was.
"This book seems nice" Coulson said, "What is it? A self help book?"
"Where's your team?" Jewel asked.
"Classified" Coulson answered, "What you need to know is that we're trying to save Skye"
"Skye?" Grant asked, "Why?"
"She's being affiliated with some pretty bad people-"
"The Rising Tide?" Jewel asked.
"We wish" Coulson answered, "These people are… different"
"Different, how so?" Grant asked.
"Index, different" Coulson answered.
Jewel and Grant glanced at each other as they tried to understand what kind of situation did Skye get herself into. She knew they were going to accept, Grant had a soft spot for Skye as she was his first protege.
"Why would Skye get herself involved with people involved on the index?" Jewel had to ask.
"She didn't get herself involved with people on the index, per say" Coulson said, "It's just that these people should've been on the index but weren't… it's a long story"
Jewel crossed her arms over her chest, "We got time"
"Not that much time," Coulson disagreed.
"Then make time" Jewel said, firmly, "I'm sick of the way that you keep secrets, tell us what we're up against or we walk"
"I'm the Director of SHIELD, it's my job to have secrets," Coulson argued.
"Even when it means faking the death of my daughter?" Jewel took a couple of steps toward him but Grant pulled her back.
Grant turned her to face him as he petted the side of her hair and kissed the top, trying to calm her down before turning back to Coulson.
"You're a fool if you thought we would accept right away" Grant told Coulson, "Not after what we've been through"
"I can say the same thing" Coulson said, "We had a good thing going with our team and then you had to go and mess it up"
Grant sighed, "The reason I was in your team was because of Garrett, not May. I wasn't loyal to you from the beginning. But I did enjoy having a team, it was the closest thing I had to a family"
"Well, considering how you killed your blood relatives, I kind of see that as a threat" Coulson said, "But as I said before, I am very desperate for a team and need people that they wouldn't think twice for me to have. I'll even prove it to you; come inside"
Jewel and Grant looked to each other with curiosity before there was a beeping sound from their alarm system. She looked off to the left and saw a quinjet land off to the side before three men came out and walked over to their door. The first was Mike Peterson who looked more like a cyborg than a human being, another man she had no idea who he was, but the last one was Fitz. Jewel turned and looked to Grant as his face fell from seeing the third man, probably haven't seen him since he ejected him from the Bus. Jewel placed a hand on his chest as she turned and looked at Fitz who seemed pretty shaken but also… furious.
"Hey, mates" the unknown man said, "My name's Hunter and this man's my best mate, alright? I know what you did to him and will kill you if you think to make him uncomfortable, you got that, mate?"
"Thanks, Hunter," Fitz said in a low voice.
"He's not the only one" Peterson said as his robotic eye glowed red, "He's unarmed, but Hansen has weapons"
"I'm not surprised" Coulson said, "But we're going to have to work together in order to get back what was stolen from us"
Grant turned to Coulson, "What makes you think that Skye wants to be saved?"
"Because she has no idea how dangerous these people are," Coulson said, "I led her on this path in search of her family. I thought she could handle it but… she went too deep"
Jewel placed her hands back on her hips as she let out a frustrated sigh and looked over to Grant. He too seemed uncomfortable with how many people were in the room that wanted to kill him. His eyes wandered over to the stairs as they both thought about Jasmine sleeping peacefully upstairs. They both looked at each other as they wondered what their final decision should be.