Hey babes! Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a good holiday break from whatever it is you're doing in life. I'm back again with a new chapter for ya. We're really, really starting to get into things now.

Enjoy!

He stays as close to Skye's side as possible while they explore Afterlife with the man who helped them with their so-called 'transition'. He listens as Skye talks with Lincoln, the other man explaining to them about the place they're at and the people who reside there. He tunes in and out during the whole thing, holding Max securely in his arms despite the puppy squirming to get down and explore. He doesn't trust this place yet, or its people, so he doesn't want to let the dog out of his sight, even if he would be on his leash. It'd be the same if it were Adian in his arms instead of the dog. Then again, Adian can't walk yet, so he'd need to be in his arms anyway.

He tunes in again as he hears Skye and Lincoln discussing the fact that Afterlife is a place where people come and go freely, using it as a place to stay when they need somewhere safe to go for a while. A waystation of sorts. He notices the people watching them as they walk, staring at them with a look he is all too familiar with. It makes his skin crawl.

"Everyone is staring at us," Skye comments.

"Gordon didn't explain?"

"No. I thought you said that everyone here is like us and that this happens all the time."

"That's what I understood too," Grant finally joins the conversation, focusing on the blonde man.

They come to a stop as Lincoln turns to face both of them. He chuckles. "Are you kidding? This never happens."

Grant shares a quick glance with Skye, his uneasiness about the place growing by the second.

"Things here have always been done a certain way," Lincoln continues, before explaining to them how things actually work around Afterlife, making it obvious why people around there don't seem to like them too much despite not actually knowing them.

"And we jumped the line," he concludes, casting another quick glance at Skye.

"And not only did you two go through without permission or prep, but you did it old-school, with a Diviner in a Kree Temple. That hasn't happened for thousands of years. You can see why some of these people might be a little envious." He chuckles quietly again.

"We didn't ask for this," he tells Lincoln, taking a small step forward to try and make his point clear. "I'm sure we'd both gladly change places with any of them. We have lives, people we care about that we don't want to get hurt by being around us."

"I understand," Lincoln says with a small nod.

"There was a woman who changed with us," Skye tells the other man. "Raina...Gordon took her and my father. Are they here?"

"Gordon takes people everywhere. It's his job to keep us all safe. I promise, there is no one here who will harm you. You're protected."

He takes a small step toward Skye the millisecond after Lincoln does. He doesn't like the way the blonde man is looking at Skye, the way he's speaking to the both of them but usually only looking at Skye. He knows he can't claim Skye in any way, shape, or form, that they're not in an actual relationship, but it won't stop him from being protective. She's the mother of his son, and if she wants to be with someone else, he'll be damn sure that only the right person is going to be around his son long term.

.

.

.

"How do you feel about this place?"

He glances over his shoulder to see Skye approaching him, stopping when she's right next to him and giving him a quick smile before facing the scene in front of them.

"Do you want my honest opinion?" he asks in return.

She shrugs. "Couldn't hurt."

"I'm not sure how I feel about it." He continues watching the scene ahead of him, of people milling about and living their lives. It's been a few hours since he and Skye were allowed out of their rooms and he'd taken some time alone to get his head wrapped around everything. It'd been difficult for a minute, not to be able to call Lisa and talk to her, but he thinks he's doing relatively okay.

He isn't sure exactly what Skye was up to while he was by himself, but he figures if she wants to tell him, then she will. But a small part of him thinks it has something to do with Lincoln, and he really hopes that's not the case because he doesn't want to really lose her before he's even had a chance to have her. He wants to be with her, he's just waiting for her to be comfortable enough around him for that to be a possibility.

"Really?"

He nods. "Yeah. There's just...something off about it, I guess. I can't put my finger on it."

"There's something else on your mind."

He sighs. "The universe is getting back at me."

"What?"

"My abilities, what I can do, it's karma for every bad thing I did in my life." He glances down at his hands before looking back at the skyline. "My insides don't feel like they did before we got here, it's settled down a lot, but I still don't like this. I just...I just want to be able to hold Adian without the fear that I'm going to accidentally burn him for whatever reason. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something like that were to happen."

"I know how you feel," she tells him. "I'm scared about hurting Adian too. But I think it might be good for us to be here, even if it's just for a little while. So we can hopefully learn how to deal with all of this." She shifts on her feet. "I, uh, I was with Lincoln earlier."

His body stiffens at the mention of the other man but he doesn't say anything. It's not his place.

"He took me to this place, I'll take you there if you want, and he was telling me how our abilities don't have to be destructive and terrifying. He showed me what he's capable of. He has these electrical powers and it's actually pretty cool."

He glances at her to see her staring off with a small smile on her face. "He has powers too?"

She nods. "Mm-hmm." She looks up at him. "You don't have to believe that your powers are karma, Grant. And you don't have to be scared of them. Neither of us does. I think...I think that if we stay here a little longer, and learn to control them well enough, we'll be able to go home and see our son without the fear of hurting him."

"You really believe that?" he questions.

"Yeah, I really do."

He trusts Skye, he always will, but he doesn't trust this place, not completely. There's still something about it that puts him on edge and he hasn't determined yet what exactly it is. He just knows that he doesn't like it. That he doesn't want to stay here longer than is absolutely necessary for them to get a handle on their abilities.

"As soon as we can get a handle on what we're capable of we can leave?" he asks with a quirked brow.

She nods. "Yeah. I mean...I still don't know how everything works around here, but I'm sure whoever runs this place will be fine with us leaving. Lincoln already told us that it's more of a waystation and not a prison or anything."

"I know. I just don't want to be away from Adian for longer than necessary. We had to hear his first word over a damn video call, Skye. We should have been there in person for that."

She sighs. "I know. I don't want to be away from him either, but I also don't want to be scared to hold him. I can't force you to stay here with me, but I—"

"If you're staying, I'm staying," he assures her quickly. "Neither of us is going to deal with this without the other. We got into this mess together, and we're going to get through it together too."

She nods, the edges of her lips quirking up. "Okay. I think that's a good plan. And maybe we can—"

"Skye!"

Turning away from each other, Grant's jaw hardens involuntarily when he sees Lincoln approaching them, a smile on the other man's face, his eyes locked solely on Skye.

"Oh, Grant, nice to see you, man."

He just grunts in response, not trusting himself to speak.

"Lincoln, what are you doing over here?" Skye asks him.

"I was just hoping we could continue our conversation from earlier," he says. "On the mountaintop, I showed you what I could. But you still haven't shown me what you can do." Lincoln casts a quick glance over at him. "What either of you can do."

He can see her hesitating to tell him.

"You'll teach me to control it? To teach both of us?"

"Once I know what we're dealing with, a guide will be selected to help each of you master your abilities."

"How long does it take to learn?" Grant asks, eager to get back to his son as soon as possible.

"That depends on the gift—how much you've physically changed," Lincoln explains. "You guys are a piece of cake, compared to the other one—total physical transformation, and we still have no idea what her gift is." He chuckles quietly, shaking his head.

The other one. That can't mean what Grant thinks it does. He casts a glance at Skye to see her with a similar expression to the one he's sure is on his face as well.

"You told us we were the only ones," Skye says to Lincoln, her brows furrowing together tightly.

"What?"

She takes a step toward him. "You said that Grant and I were the first people to transition here in a really long time."

Lincoln stares at her for a moment before scoffing quietly and shaking his head. "That's not what I meant."

"She's here. You lied to us."

Lincoln holds his hands up. "I said there's no one here who will harm you, and that's true. She's on her own path, Skye, just like you and Grant. She's having a rough transition and deserves the same care."

"People died because of her," he cuts in, taking a step closer, wanting to protect Skye at all costs from whatever comes next. "If we weren't like this...Skye and I could have been taken away from our so—from the people who need us." They never discussed it after arriving, but he's fairly certain Skye doesn't want to reveal to just anyone about Adian, not knowing exactly who they can trust here.

"Where is she?" Skye asks Lincoln, her eyes locked on his in a staredown.

"Skye."

He quickly follows after Skye as she starts moving, not bothering to listen to Lincoln's shouts from behind them as they move. He may not know what's going on in Skye's head, but he's sure that it has something to do with making the woman pay who basically ruined their lives.

He stumbles a little on his feet when the ground shakes, looking at Skye to see her fists clenched tightly as she keeps moving down the paths of Afterlife.

"Skye, let's check over there," he calls out to her, gesturing with his head to a small building off to the side. "I don't know why, but I got this feeling all of a sudden."

She nods silently before moving ahead of him and somehow throwing the doors open without touching them. Probably a side-effect of whatever her powers are exactly.

"Raina!" she shouts as she steps inside the building, and he's right there behind her, his own fingers flexing as heat builds again in the tips.

"Skye…"

They both pause at the voice coming from the dark corner ahead of them, a hooded figure shifting in the darkness.

"And Mr. Ward. Isn't this interesting? I had a feeling I might see you, Skye. But I had no idea that your friend would change as well," she says and the way she's talking has every nerve ending in his body completely on edge.

He hears footsteps hit quickly behind him and he doesn't need to look to know Lincoln is there. Can't the man just leave them alone? Leave them to do what needs to be done?

"Skye, Grant, please, let's just go," Lincoln speaks up.

"Let them stay," Raina replies. "We three have so much to talk about."

"What happened to you?" Skye questions.

"Destiny…apparently."

Grant can hear the bitterness in her voice, the way she says destiny like she regrets going down to that temple and igniting the change in all three of them. Maybe if she'd known what she'd end up like, she wouldn't have gone down there and he and Skye would be with their son right now.

They listen as she goes on, standing from her chair and facing away from them as she talks about how different her life is now. How drastically things have changed for her.

"You got what you deserved," Skye tells her.

"And so did you," Raina fires back.

"I didn't deserve any of this. Neither did Grant. You did this to us!"

Lincoln takes a small step toward them. "Skye."

"No, you have brought nothing but pain into my life—my father, the mist. My son could have lost both of his parents if you were wrong about all of this!"

He sucks in a sharp breath, no doubt in his mind that if Skye wasn't so worked up about everything that she wouldn't have brought their son into things.

"I didn't make either of you follow me into that chamber. You wanted to go, Skye."

Raina slowly steps out of the shadows as she talks, Skye shaking her head as she listens to everything the other woman is saying to her. He's always felt uncomfortable with Raina's fascination with Skye, and that feeling has only increased tenfold since arriving at Afterlife.

"No!" Skye shouts when Raina pulls her hood back to reveal a face and head covered in long thorns, saying how she and Skye are the same, despite the differences in their physical appearance.

Seconds later, Raina gasps as her entire body starts to vibrate and he chances a glance over at Skye to see her with her fists clenched tightly again, focusing on Raina with wide eyes.

"So that's what you are," Raina says, pure amazement in her voice. She falls to the ground with a quiet grunt, her body continuing to shake and vibrate.

"You need to stop," Lincoln says, trying to move closer to Skye, but Grant steps into his path. This isn't a matter of not wanting Skye to be with another man anymore, this is a matter of keeping someone from letting Skye do what she needs to do. He has faith that she won't go all the way, she's never been that kind of person. She'll get her frustrations out and then her humanity will take over and she'll stop.

"No!" Raina says from the ground. "Finish this! End my nightmares!"

"Enough!"

They all turn at the new voice entering the fray, finding a tall, Asian woman with faint scars across her face standing in the doorway to the room. Her eyes are locked on Skye and he instantly has this tugging in his gut, his fingers tingling again.

"Who are you?" Skye asks, her breathing heavy.

The woman takes a small step forward, her eyes never leaving Skye. "My name is Jiaying."

So? What did you think? Let me know in a review down below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Until next time,
Jellybean96 out!