Happy Valentine's Day, babes! Because it's a day to celebrate love, and I love you all for reading my stories, I decided to post a new chapter for you.

This one, as well as the next few chapters, are mostly just going to be Grant and Skye settling back into life as parents, since all the craziness is done and over with.

Enjoy!

Stepping down out of the quinjet, Skye hikes Adian up a little higher on her hip and breathes in deeply. She carefully pulls her hair out of his small, yet strong hand as she casts a glance over her shoulder to make sure that Grant is following behind her with the diaper bag.

Satisfied, she flashes him a quick smile before continuing on her path toward Afterlife. It's only been a few days since everything happened and she wanted to give the crew some time to fix up Afterlife a little before bringing her son by to see it. So they stayed with Rose while they reacquainted themselves with taking care of their son. She desperately wanted to spend some one-on-one time with her baby before introducing him to his blood-related grandparents. And she's about to do just that.

"You good?"

She looks up at Grant and nods her head. "Yeah. Just a little nervous, I guess. I haven't known my parents for very long and here I am about to introduce them to my son. It's a little weird."

"I imagine it's probably weird for them too," he tells her, smiling at Adian when the boy smiles at him followed by quiet babbling. He reaches out to run a hand over his son's head. "The last time they were actually your parents you probably weren't much older than Adian is."

"I know. We should probably get this over with then, huh?"

"Probably."

She takes another deep breath as she focuses on the path ahead of her, holding tightly to her son for support and comfort.

She flashes a quick smile at some of the people she passes, both SHIELD agents and Inhumans alike. She knows it's going to be a long and difficult road, but she's really looking forward to the day when there's no more hatred or biases between the two groups. When they can all get along and work together without any animosity. It could take a while, though. Only time will tell.

Stepping into the main courtyard of Afterlife, Skye takes a minute to admire the work that's been done over the last few days. Damage to various buildings is being fixed, parts of pathways are being repaved, new foliage is being planted. Everything is going just how she'd hoped it would. And it's progressing a lot faster than she initially thought that it would. Which she is pleasantly surprised by.

"Skye."

Turning in the direction of the voice, she smiles when she sees her mom approaching, her dad not far behind. They both have eager smiles on their faces.

"It's so good to see you again, sweetheart," Jiaying says as she pulls her into a hug.

"It's good to see you again, too, mom." She looks past her mom and smiles. "Hey, dad."

"Hi. I take it this is the grandson you told us about?" Cal asks, gesturing to Adian once Skye and her mom are no longer hugging each other.

Skye beams proudly. "Yes. This is Adian Leo." She adjusts her hold on her son, shifting him so her parents can see him a little better. "Adian, these are your grandparents."

"Oh, he's so beautiful, Skye," her mom says. "How old is he?"

"Almost seven months. Just a few more months to go until his first birthday. It's crazy how fast it's gone by. I think most of that has to do with everything else we've had to deal with, but it's still crazy to think it's been almost a year since he was born. Everything has been such a rollercoaster from day one."

"I remember so clearly the day you were born," Jiaying states, a sad smile growing on her lips as she no doubt thinks about everything that's happened since then. "It's hard to believe it's been so long since I held you in my arms for the first time. So much time has passed, so much that your father and I missed out on; you're a grown woman with a family of your own now. We've already lost so much time with you."

"But we've still got plenty of time left," Skye reminds her mom. "And I meant what I said about starting over. You can do that, in a way, with Adian. He's still young, still has so many moments for you guys to be a part of. If you want to."

"Of course we do."

"Good. But you guys have to promise me that you're going to do better, okay?"

Her mom nods with a small smile. "We will. Could I...could I hold him?"

"Of course." She shifts Adian again, moving to transfer him to Jiaying. She easily settles him in his grandmother's arms, waiting with bated breath for something to go wrong. She's not entirely sure how this is all going to turn out, she just doesn't want it to be awful.

Adian babbles softly to himself as he tilts his head, examining Jiaying carefully. He reaches a small hand up to gently touch the scars on her face and Skye sucks in a sharp breath. She may not have known her mother for very long, but she has a feeling that those scars are a very sore subject for the older woman.

But all Jiaying does is smile. She smiles and runs a hand of her own down Adian's cheek, making the little boy smile and shriek happily. Jiaying laughs quietly as she hugs Adian close, pressing a small kiss to the top of his head.

"He's such a happy boy," she remarks, looking up at Skye with a smile.

She smiles at her son, running one hand down over the top of his head. "Yeah, he is. We got pretty lucky with him. I'm just dreading the days when he's older and starts rebelling."

"Seeing as he's your son, that's a particularly high chance," Grant speaks up, stepping up beside her with a teasing smile.

She rolls her eyes. "Very funny. If he does start rebelling, though, you get to deal with him."

"Or we could have May discipline him," he suggests. "I'm sure she would be more than happy to teach her grandson a few things."

"And honestly, he'll probably listen to her over us. He already calms down easier for her than he does with us. I don't know what it is about her."

"She's just that good."

"Who is this that you're speaking of?" Jiaying asks, pulling their attention back to her.

"Oh, it's uh, she's a...friend of ours," Skye explains. "She's part of our team back at SHIELD. She uh, she was kind of like a mom to me after we met, though we never explicitly said that. Not that long after Adian was born, I asked her if she wanted to be his honorary grandmother, because I honestly thought I was never going to meet you. She agreed."

Jiaying nods. "I see."

"You're still his grandmother through and through," Skye quickly assures her mom. "Adian just has an extra set of grandparents to love him."

"An extra set?"

"Yeah. I haven't talked to him about it yet, but I'm pretty sure Coulson thinks of himself as Adian's grandfather even though he probably won't admit it because then that would make him old and he doesn't want that." She lets out a small laugh, her eyes drifting to her son happily sitting in his grandma's arms, fascinated by the pattern on her dress as he babbles to his monkey. "He's a pretty lucky boy to have so many people who love him. It's all I wanted for him. And he's got it."

.

.

.

Eventually, their time at Afterlife comes to an end once again. She's sad to be leaving her parents, but she knows she'll see them again. In the few days that they stayed there, she spent more time getting to know her parents, and vice versa, which is much easier to do when there isn't any kind of imminent disaster looming over them. They talked, mostly, sharing stories and learning more about each other. She learned about what she was like those first few months of her life, and she told them more about what things were like for growing up in the foster system, how she never stopped trying to find them.

Cal and Jiaying also spent time with their grandson during the stay, bonding with him and showing him all over Afterlife, introducing him to the people that were either milling about or rebuilding something. Adian took it all in with wide eyes, an ever-curious kid, something he no doubt gets from her.

As they leave, she gifts her parents with a cell phone, just something simple that they can use to make phone calls on. Of course, she promises them that on her next visit she's going to bring Afterlife into the modern age by giving them the best WiFi she can. Mainly so that they can FaceTime whenever possible so her parents can still see Adian from time to time, but also because it might be nice for the residents to have access to.

"I'm going to miss you guys so much," she says as she hugs both of her parents as tightly as possible. They're standing in the main courtyard, Grant holding both Adian and the diaper bag while she talks with her parents. They exchange heartfelt words and tight hugs for a while. She knows she needs to go but these are her parents.

She hopes that Adian feels like this about her and Grant when he's older. Then again, her feeling this way could simply be because she didn't have her parents around for the first twenty-six years of her life. But now she's got them.

"Mama."

Looking away from her parents, she flashes her son a smile when he sees her. He stretches his arms out to her, leaning forward in his father's arms.

"We should probably get going," Grant tells her, doing his best to reign Adian back in. He sighs. "Also, can you please take him before he falls?"

She laughs quietly at the sight before turning back to her parents. "I promise to come back and visit soon, okay?"

Her mom smiles brightly at her, her eyes glancing over to Adian before looking back at Skye. "I'm looking forward to it."

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!