Hey babes! Back again with a new chapter for ya! Sorry it's been a while. Don't really have an excuse other than work and laziness.

Enjoy!

"I caused an avalanche."

"What?"

A laugh escapes past Skye's lips at the look on Grant's face when she tells him what she did, his brows furrowed together tightly and his eyes shining with concern and worry. He's been nothing but concerned and worried since they arrived at Afterlife. She can't say she blames him for it, though. She was worried in the beginning too.

"I caused an avalanche," she repeats, taking up the seat next to Grant, watching Max run around the patch of grass in front of them. "Jiaying was helping me learn how to control my abilities."

"That's good. So you've got a handle on them, then?"

She shakes her head. "Not yet, we've just barely started. I'm seeing her again later to do some more stuff. But according to Lincoln, she never trains people."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I guess she's in charge of this whole place but she never trains people who come here. So either she really likes me…"

"Or she's wary of what you can do."

She nods, letting out a sigh as she leans back into the bench. "Yeah. But how did your day go so far?" she asks, looking up at him.

"Not as well as yours," he tells her. "They still haven't given me a so-called 'guide', so I'm basically left fending for myself for the time being."

Her brows furrow together tightly. "No one's been assigned to you?"

He shakes his head. "Nope. Can't say I blame them, though."

"Why's that?"

"I may or may not have gotten a little violent after waking up here and I didn't know where you were," he admits quietly, his head down.

"You did?"

"Yeah. And apparently word spreads quickly around here. I was worried and confused, I didn't know what had happened, or, at least, I couldn't remember. But then everything came back. Also, I don't think that people here like how specially treated we are."

"What do you mean?"

"I think we have the nicest accommodations here. And you're being personally trained by Jiaying, the leader of this place. Everyone here wishes that she could train them when they go through the change. At least, if they go through the change because not everyone does."

"How do you know all of this?" she asks curiously.

He breathes in deeply, sitting up a little straighter. "I wasn't known as the best since Romanoff for nothing, Skye. I know how to get information from people without actually talking to them or letting anyone know that I'm there."

She nods. "Right, yeah."

Silence fills the space around them, save for the ambient noises of life among them, and she stares down at her feet, kicking her toes against the pavement. She feels a little bad that while he has no one to help him learn his abilities, she has the leader of Afterlife helping her. It's not fair. Well, none of what they're going through is fair. All she wants to do is get back to her son, to hold him again and kiss his little face and cuddle with him at night before bed.

If she works hard while she's here for however long then hopefully she'll be able to get back to Adian sooner rather than later and won't miss too much more of his growing up. She's heard that babies grow up fast, and she's worried that the next time she sees him, things will be weird and different. She doesn't want that. At all.

She knows that Grant doesn't want it either, that all he wants to do is get back to their son. But if no one is going to show him how to adjust to his new abilities, how is he ever going to feel comfortable around their son again?

"Hey, Grant?"

"Yeah?"

She shifts on the bench to face him, her brows furrowed slightly. "Um, I was wondering...since you don't have anyone to help you yet, if maybe...if maybe you'd want to come to my session with Jiaying this afternoon?"

"Will she mind?" he asks.

Skye shrugs. "I don't know. I just...you should have someone helping you. Even if Jiaying is only helping me directly, maybe you'll pick up on a few techniques to implement yourself."

Grant shifts on the bench, scratching at the back of his neck, his head tilting in thought. "I mean...it's not a terrible idea…"

She smiles. "Great. So you'll come with?"

The corners of his lips quirk up. "Yeah, I'll come with you."

"Awesome."

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.

.

"Skye, great, you're here. And I see you've brought a friend."

She glances back at Grant still standing in the doorway and subtly gestures for him to move inside. She looks back at Jiaying with a small smile. "Yeah, I hope you don't mind. He still hasn't been assigned a guide and I figured he might be able to learn a thing or two if he sat in while you helped me. I hope that's okay. I realize I probably should have asked first, but I—"

Jiaying holds a hand up gently to cut her off, giving her a soft smile. "It's alright. If you'll feel more comfortable with him here, then I don't see the harm in it."

Skye lets out a breath. "Great. Thank you."

They spend a few minutes getting settled in the room, Grant holding Max securely in his arms, having not wanted to leave the puppy alone in his room.

Once Grant's sitting in a chair off to the side, Skye turns to face Jiaying, finding a table in the center of the room with a row of wine glasses set up on it. Each of the glasses is filled partway with water.

"Okay," Jiaying speaks up, "I play a note—you hold it."

Skye nods. "Okay." She takes a deep breath and focuses on the water glasses, listening attentively as Jiaying runs a fingertip dipped in water slowly along the rim of one of the glasses.

Raising one hand, she flexes her fingers as she forces all of her attention to focus on one of the glasses at the other end of the table. It takes a second, but the water inside starts moving, a high-pitched noise sounding from it.

She hears Jiaying gasp quietly but she doesn't move her focus, intent on perfecting her abilities the best she can so she can go home.

A second glass joins in a second later, then a third, then a fourth. The final glasses join in, each one adding to the sound, making it a little bit louder each time.

The edges of her lips curl up, amazed at herself for being able to control so many glasses at once without anything bad happening.

She deflates quickly, realizing she celebrated too soon in her own head, when all the glasses suddenly shatter, sending water and glass shards across the floor. She moves back quickly, hearing a quiet shuffling that tells her Grant is standing from his chair and moving closer to her.

She casts a quick glance at him, giving him a small smile in thanks, before looking back at Jiaying, the other woman with a genuine smile on her face as she moves to her.

"Your gift is quite destructive, but look at the music you can make." She looks directly at her. "That was amazing. So what? We'll drink from wooden cups at dinner."

She takes a deep, shaky breath in, her eyes never leaving the broken glasses as her mind races a mile a minute, forcing her back to some of the darker moments of her childhood. Moments that she's tried so hard to forget.

"What's wrong?" Jiaying asks.

Skye shakes her head, letting out another breath. "Nothing. That's just it. Everything is great here. It feels like home, which...never ends well."

"Ends? We're not going anywhere."

She tilts her head at the woman, a disbelieving smile crawling over her lips. "You sure? Because mistrust of home is my other superpower." She casts another quick glance at Grant to see him frowning, somehow knowing that he knows exactly what she's talking about, despite not knowing all the finer details of her messed up past.

"Where is this coming from?" Jiaying questions.

Skye shakes her head a little, silently criticizing herself for even bring up the subject. "Nothing. It's stupid." She sighs. "I broke a crystal decanter once at a foster family's house, and now the glass, and—"

"They sent you back for that?" Jiaying asks, her face falling quickly.

"Well, I tried some of the scotch, too," she says offhandedly, chancing another look at Grant to find him with an amused smile at her little remark. "But yes," she says to Jiaying. "Something bad happens every time I feel settled somewhere. I'm twenty-five, and I have never spent more than two years anywhere. The second I made friends at the orphanage — gone. And god forbid I called a foster family 'home.' It's 'pack your bags'. I got the news on my birthday once, which is a complete farce, because I don't even know when I was born."

"I'm so sorry," Jiaying tells her.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. was the closest I ever came to having a real family. Well, apart from...nevermind." She shakes her head, not wanting to bring up the subject of her son at a time like this. "I belonged there, saw what I could be. Even that ended with agents hunting me and Grant through the woods."

"We're not gonna turn on you or abandon you," Jiaying insists, and Skye can see the glistening of the older woman's eyes as she says it. "This is a safe place. For both of you."

She takes a small step toward the woman. "See, you say that, but I know you're not being straight with me. Why do you care if I stay or go, and why are you trea—"

"July 2nd."

Skye's eyes go wide involuntarily as Jiaying takes a few steps away. She looks over at Grant to see him moving closer to her, concern and surprise written all over his face. She subconsciously reaches a hand out to him, grateful when he takes it, allowing her some sense of stability for whatever's coming next.

Jiaying turns around to face them. "You were born on July 2nd."

She knows her eyes are filling up with tears, can feel the pressure building as she listens to the woman speak, telling her what she's been longing to hear for a very long time. She squeezes Grant's hand tightly, needing his support and comfort.

"He said you didn't age," she whispers.

Jiaying speaks again, a single tear rolling down her cheek, a watery laugh escaping past her lips as she continues the story.

"It's you. You're my…"

"Deep down I think you knew," Jiaying tells her.

Skye nods slowly, her voice breaking, "I was too afraid to hope." She swallows thickly, her mind still trying to wrap itself around the fact that her mother is standing right in front of her, completely alive. She's always feared the worst about her parents, that they were dead or never bothered to look for her. But now she's standing here in front of a woman she just barely met, but knows with every fiber of her being that it's really her mother.

People always say that the bond between a mother and her child is unlike anything else on the planet. She never really believed that until she had Adian, no doubt in her mind that she'd move heaven and earth to find him if he was ever taken away from her. And the fact that her little guy knew who she was from the second he came into the world, without having ever seen her face until that moment, it was magical. And despite not remembering this woman from the very early stages of her life, she knows that it's her mother.

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.

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A knock on his door pulls Grant's attention away from the open book in his lap. He quickly sets it aside, gently moving Max off of his lap and onto the comforter before standing from the bed and moving to the door.

"Skye, hey," he says when he pulls the door open to find the brunette standing on the other side, wringing her hands together and biting her lip between her teeth. "How are you doing...after everything?"

"I'm, uh, can I come in?"

"Yeah, of course." He steps aside and allows her into the room, closing the door behind her and turning to face her. "How, uh, how did things go with your mom?" he asks her carefully, knowing she'd spent the last few hours spending time with her mom and learning more about her past.

After the shocking reveal, Skye had asked for a few minutes alone and then left, wandering off to somewhere else. Jiaying had followed not too soon after, and he hadn't seen either of them since.

But now Skye's standing in front of him, her hands wringing together as she bites her lip between her teeth and shifts back and forth on her feet.

"My uh, my dad's here too."

"He is?"

She nods. "Yeah. I guess Gordon brought him here when he brought Raina. The three of us had dinner together and we talked." Her brows furrow together tightly and he sees her throat jump as she swallows. She looks up at him. "Could I...I know it might be weird, but could you...can we…" Her eyes flit over to his bed and he takes a small step toward her.

"Do you want to sit on the bed?" he asks.

She nods silently and then moves immediately for the bed, climbing onto it and sitting straight-backed with her legs crossed.

He climbs onto the other side, settling himself against the headboard with his legs stretched out in front of him. The next thing he knows, Skye is curling up against him, her arms snaking around his waist and her head landing on his chest.

"Skye…?"

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I just...can you just hold me, please?"

He nods. "Yeah, of course." He wraps his arms around her body to hold her close, and he can't help the small smile tugging at his lips when she curls in further against him. He's wished so many times for a moment like this, just the two of them. He just wishes it wasn't because she felt like her entire life was crashing down all around her.

"I'm twenty-six."

His brows furrow as he dips his head to look at her. "What?"

"I'm twenty-six," she repeats. "My dad...he said I was born in 1988. July 2nd, 1988. I'm twenty-six."

"Oh. Well, happy belated birthday, then."

She huffs out a laugh. "Yeah."

"Now we know when to celebrate next year, though."

"I guess."

"So how are you really feeling with all of this?" he asks her.

She lets out a shaky breath. "I honestly don't know. It's a lot to deal with."

"Well, you know you've got me to lean on," he reminds her. "I told you that if you're staying here then I'm staying here. And I meant it. They may be your parents, but you hardly know them. You shouldn't have to go through this without someone to lean on."

"I know," she tells him, her voice slowing. "Could we...can we talk later?" she asks, a yawn escaping past her lips.

He nods. "Yeah, sure. Do you want me to carry you back to your room?"

She shakes her head against him, shifting to get more comfortable. "No. I'm fine here."

"Okay." He drops a kiss to the top of her head before carefully shifting himself on the bed so he's lying with his head on his pillow, Skye settled perfectly by his side.

This is how it should be, he can't help but think, listening to Skye's breathing as it evens out and her body relaxes with sleep.

With the woman he loves sleeping soundly next to him, it doesn't take long for him to fall asleep himself, more relaxed than he's been in a very long time.

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!