As he is kneeling in front of the toilet bowl, Grant can't help but wonder when his life turned into a badly written sci-fi show. A mix of Alias and Sliders, but without the late 90ies wardrobe. Featuring Grant Garner, in the role of a lifetime, as the heroic Agent who gets transported through universes. He groans and tries to swallow the bile that rises up again. Everything is turned upside-down and inside-out. Coulson is good, Skye is Daisy and… . He bends his head back over the bowl as the last remainder of his sandwich comes back up. He can't even think about it, yet all his mind does is supply him with the horrifying images. Sleeping with his mother. That's just…

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that this Melinda May is not his mother, and that Grand Ward was not raised by her, but he's not in the mood for rationalizations at the moment. All he wants at this time is bleach to pour in his ears and burn the images from his mind. He hopes there's no video… please, God, let there not be video. The idea alone that he might at one point stumble on real images like that… He realizes that the images his imagination is providing are probably much worse than the actual facts but that doesn't mean he needs to see the real thing either.

He can vaguely hear Leo make some sort of apology and scurry from the room, but it doesn't really penetrate the haze of thoughts and emotions churning in his head. He tries to drown out his imagination but every single memory he tries to recall is tainted by the information Leo shared with him. He is never going to be able to look at pictures of his mother and not see that. He'd give his right hand to go back into time 5 minutes and not hear that. Hell, he'd gladly go back to the point of his world's Coulson trying to kill him, if it would erase this knowledge from his mind.

He rinses out his mouth and splashes some water in his face before he moves back towards the cot. In his hurry to leave Leo didn't turn the lights out, and while Grant typically doesn't need complete darkness to sleep, he still feels like sleep might be a bad idea. His subconscious already had a tendency to mix memories with dreams and he wants to avoid the nightmares that will undoubtedly come from the info he got from Leo.

Grant settles his back against the wall, his legs crossed on top of the thin mattress. He hasn't meditated since he lost Skye, but if he wants to get more rest without dealing with the dreams, this is his best option. He'd doubted the value at first, when Skye brought it up but he'd found use for it none the less. It might have had more to do with Skye than the actual meditating though. He closes his eyes and tries to push all thoughts from his mind, but the memories of Skye are too strong, and he feels himself being pulled into a memory before he has a chance to suppress it.

"I think we should try it, at least." Skye shrugs her shoulders, "I mean, it couldn't hurt, right?" Grant feels a sigh threatening to come out and swallows it down. He's too tired and wired to get into a fight over something as stupid as meditation. And, really, it would probably do no real harm other than waste some time.

She knows him to well to be fooled by his silent resignation though, and he knows she knows why he's not responding. "Don't suppress the sigh on my account Grant. At least I'm trying to find a way for us to deal with this... thing. If we don't learn how to control it, it's going to get us and our entire team hurt, or worse!" He can see she's getting worked up, exactly what he was trying to avoid, but he should have known better than to assume she wouldn't pursue it. She was like a pitbull with a bone sometimes. And she was right, there were too many dangers out there to risk getting sidetracked with these… powers.

"Last night, when we… I almost brought the roof down on top of us. And when I got upset with Jem the other day the whole lab shook like a quake was rolling through. What's going to happen when I get really angry, Grant? Or really happy? Or any kind of powerful emotion for that matter! I won't be the reason our team gets buried under piles of rubble because I couldn't find a way to control this crap."

She moved closer to where he was leaning on the dresser, puts her hands on his shoulders. "If you space out during a mission…" she lets the rest of her sentence hang in the air between them. He knows what she's not saying though. If he spaces out during a mission, he could get somebody killed. He could get her killed.

His arms close around her waist as he pulls her into him, the thought of losing her because he's too scared to deal with his newfound powers… She feels his anxiety, like she always does, and her hands start tracing random patterns on his back. He drops his head on her shoulder and the tension slips away.

"You're right," he finally says into her shirt. "We'll try it, it can't hurt. But we do it somewhere safe, away from triggers."

He feels her head moving up and down, nodding her assent.

When he slips back into the present time, he finds a concerned looking Coulson standing in front of the barrier. It flashes and the older man walks into the cell and sits beside Grant on the bed.

A box of stomach relief medication is pushed in his direction, along with a bottle of water.

"So… Fitz was a little…," Coulson seems to weigh is words, "careless might not be the best word but…." He falls silent again, brushes some imaginary lint from his trousers. "It was not the way I intended you to find out. I'm not even sure if I'd have told you. But the cat's out of the proverbial bag and that's that. Just remember, his actions aren't yours."

Grant doesn't reply to that, preferring not to bring those images back to the forefront of his mind. Instead he moves on to another subject.

"I first met Phil Coulson when I was with the Garners for about a month. Mom had taken a few weeks off from work and she wouldn't take any calls from the office during that time." Grant starts, partly because he knows Coulson's come for information and partly because he needs to get the story out. No matter how much it hurts him to talk about it and remember it, keeping it locked inside isn't much better. Besides, if there's anybody alive who knows the feeling of being betrayed, it's Coulson and his team. If it keeps his mind from wandering to the other thing he's learned today, he'd consider that a bonus.

"They needed her for something so they sent Phil to persuade her."

Grant moves closer towards the front door, hiding in the dining room behind the corner to the front hall. There's a man at the door, his brown hair a little windswept and his suit slightly wrinkled. The suit reminds Grant of his father, but the man's eyes are far more friendly than Mr. Ward's ever were. Behind the visitor, he can see a candy-apple red car in the driveway. It shines in the sun, and Grant can't help but be drawn towards it.

He doesn't realize he's moved into the hallway until the grown-ups stop talking. Mel tries to put herself between the visitor and Grant, but it's too late. The man drops onto his haunches and smiles at Grant.

"Hi. I'm Phil, what's your name?" Grant's not sure what to do. He was never allowed to talk to strangers before, and even though Mel never explicitly forbade him to do so he's always kept to that rule. On the other hand, Mel seems to know this man and if he's not a stranger, it would be okay to talk, right? He looks up at Mel and sees something he can't name in her eyes. It's almost as if she's scared of something, but that's impossible because Mel isn't afraid of anything.

Grant takes a few hesitant steps towards the man – Phil – and looks him up and down. He's not totally sure why he does it, but he's seen his mot – Mel do it all the time when they're out.

"Grant," he says, his voice a little shy.

Phil sticks out his hand towards him, "Nice to meet you Grant."

Grant shakes Phil's hand, again moving a little closer towards the door. He can see the shiny car fully now, and it's even prettier than he imagined. Phil sees him staring at the car, and Grant can hear a soft chuckle from the man. "You like Lola?" he asks, while pointing at the car. Grant ponders the question for a moment, not quite understanding who 'Lola' is. When he sees Phil is definitely pointing towards the car, he nods solemnly.

"Well, if you're good, and May here says it's okay, I'll take you for a drive sometime."

The smile that spreads over Grant's face is enormous, and he has an ache in his jaw the rest of the day.

"Mom hadn't really told anybody why she was taking the leave, and since I was just staying with them at that time she wasn't really obligated to tell anybody. It wasn't until they officially adopted me that she told the higher-ups about me. I think she was afraid that they wouldn't allow her to adopt me. As far as I know, Phil never told anybody he'd met me before. And I did get that promised ride, and many others after that."

Coulson had remained silent during the story Grant was telling, but Grant could feel that the man had questions and observations. He pulls his knees up and drapes his arms across them. "You can ask, whatever it is you want to know."

The older man nods but stays silent a moment longer.

"How did you end up with May?" he finally asks.

Grant smiles a little. "Luck, destiny, karma? I don't really know. But the Wards died when I was 4. Some drunk driver crashed into them when they were on their way to some benefit or another. My big brother was with them. Both my 'parents'", Grant finger quotes that last word, "were killed instantly but my brother died on the way to the hospital."

He sighs. "I've never approved of people drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car, and I've never done it myself. But I can't help this feeling deep down, that the man who killed my parents, did me a favor that night. They weren't good people. They weren't even nice people, at least not to me. I really don't think they wanted any more children after my brother. You only need one heir after all, and he definitely got the royal treatment. If they could have gotten away with it, I'm sure they wouldn't even have bothered with a babysitter that night."

He can feel Coulson shift a little beside him, as if the man wanted to console Grant and then backtracked. Grant doesn't need consoling though, at least not in this part of his 'origin story'. This is the happy part, the part where he got a nice, kind and loving family and every chance in life. This part of the story was like the creamy filling inside an Oreo of suck.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that." the man finally says, and Grant somehow just knows he's talking about the abusive parents and not the car crash.

Grant takes a sip from the water. "Anyway, I ended up with the grandmother I never even knew existed. She was my father's mother and they had had a falling out when he decided to marry my mother. Apparently, my Grams took an instant dislike to her and she didn't like the influence she had over my father. Honestly, I think he was as messed up as she was, but my Grams always stuck to her story."

Grant can hear the door to his basement cell open and close, but there's nobody coming down, so he dismisses it instantly. Probably some Agent checking if everything's okay down here.

"I moved into my Grams' house and she was amazing, the picture of a loving grandmother. But she was old and I was a very active 4-year-old, she just couldn't keep up.

Grant's playing kickball on the front drive, his ball repetitiously bouncing against the garage door and back towards him. He really likes this game, and he'd not been allowed to play it when he was with his parents. His Gram wasn't like that. In fact, she was adamant that Grant play and get dirty and have fun in the sun, stating that boys should be allowed to play when they were little, because life would be hard enough when they're grown.

She is watching him from the swinging bench that's suspended over the front porch, a pitcher of fresh lemonade beside her on the little table. Every time he kicks the ball a little too hard, she tells him to be careful, not to get to close to the street. But Grant likes kicking, and he loves running after the ball when it bounces back.

Then he kicks the ball, and it bounces of the garage door handle, straight up and over Grant's head. It rebounds a few times on the driveway, before rolling towards the street. Even though he's not allowed to, Grant moves closer towards the street to get his ball. The next thing he knows , a stranger's arms are wrapped tightly around him and he's been hoisted into the air. His ball has popped, a car is standing a few feet away from them, and his grandmother is crying.

"Melinda May saved my life that day. If she'd been a second later in pulling me back, I'd have been the popped one instead of that ball. She and Andrew lived 2 houses down from my Grams and she was just on a run. After that, she and Andrew became a regular fixture in my life, taking care of me when my Grams had to go somewhere. When she had a stroke, Mel and Andrew took me in temporarily."

"I'm guessing that turned permanent?" Coulson asks kindly.

Grand nods his head. "She died in the hospital 4 weeks later. It wasn't until Mel got a call from her attorney that she realized Grams had made her and Andrew my guardians. After a few months, they adopted me and I became Grant Garner just in time for my fifth birthday."

Grant falls silent, the memories of that time a little conflicted. On the one hand, he lost is grandmother, who he really loved. But what he got in her stead was a loving home, stability and a real family. Melinda May and Andrew Garner were his ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

"What happened …" Coulson starts, but doesn't finish. Grant knows what he's asking though. What happened that made everything fall apart.

"When I was 26 we were attacked. An alien invasion of unseen proportions and irreparable destruction."

Alien forces keep pouring in through a massive black hole in the sky, and while the Avengers are awesome in their own right, they are simply outnumbered. Orders from Upstairs were to only engage with ground troops and get as many civilians as possible out of the line of fire.

Grant clicks another magazine clip into his gun and arms it. "CG, you and Tomahawk take the left flank, Tony and I will take the right. Truck, that leaves you and Jetson in the rear. We go in fast and hard, take out every hostile you see and please, for the love of god, don't shoot the hostages. Get them all rounded up and towards the 42nd street station. Once we've dropped off this batch, we move onto the next building. Are we clear?"

The "yes sirs" sound all around and Grant's on the move without another word. The good thing about the fighting around the city, if that's ever a good thing, is that a detonation more or less won't raise an eyebrow.

Grant stops behind a turned over school bus and nods at his teammates, he taps his watch to set the time, 2 minutes. He makes the universal 'move' sign, and the team is off.

The street is mostly empty here, the aliens having rounded up all civilians inside the large office building. Grant makes his way towards the right side of the building, Tony in his wake. 30 seconds left. He attaches the C4 to a wall, sets the detonator for 28 seconds and moves towards the side.

Time seems to slow down while he waits for the charges to go off and he steels himself for the fight that is certainly coming.

5 seconds left, Grant pulls down his gas mask and prepares the two grenades.

Like the trained professionals they are, Grant and Tony move towards the newly created entrance simultaneously, throwing the grenades as they go.

Bullets and energy pulses alike start flying around, and Grant's pretty sure at least 3 of his bullets hit home. One of the aliens comes up beside him, and Grant clocks him in the chest with his fist. Going by the fact that the alien didn't even budge, and the instant pain shooting through his right hand, that was a bad move. The Chitauri lifts him up by his vest and smacks him into the wall behind him. Grant's dazed and before he has a chance to move, he hears the tell-tale sound of a pulse weapon being loaded.

Instead of the Chitauri shooting him though, he sees the metallic monster crumple to the ground, Tony standing behind him with that ever present smirk on his face and one of the alien blasters in his hands.

"Dang, these things are cool!" he says, while examining the weapon a little. He moves closer towards Grant and sticks out his hand, pulling Grant up.

They are on their 3rd building, when they hear a distant explosion and every Chitauri still standing suddenly drops. The quiet is eerie and slightly disorientating after all the chaos just seconds before and Grant's not really sure what's going to happen next.

"All teams report back to base. I repeat, All teams report back to base." Grant looks up towards his team. "You heard dispatch, let's roll. Everybody accounted for?" Grant looks around at his team, all of them more or less in working condition. "Alright, let's go get patched up, shall we."

"Turns out that not everybody came out of the fight unscathed. My uncle Phil had died on the Helicarrier and it turns out somebody in my team took a more serious hit than was obvious at first glance." Grant's eyes turn pained and sad, the loss he felt that day still palpable after so many years.

"While they figured Phil Coulson was worth saving that day, they didn't feel the same about a junior Agent who just graduated the Academy. No matter who he was related to."

Coulson looks pensive for a moment. "CG… your brother, right?"

The question throws Grant off for a second, before he remembers that Coulson has full access to his LDC. "His name was Cooper and he was only 20 when he died. Some sort of alien bug had infected his wounds, and while the wounds itself weren't serious, we just didn't have a cure for the infection."

There's compassion in Coulson's eyes when he looks at Grant. "I know the destruction that the invasion caused here, so when I say that I understand, and that I'm sorry for your loss, it's not an empty platitude. A lot of good people lost their lives because of Loki. It seems that he's a power hungry, whiny little wimp who hides behind those more powerful in other universes as well."

Grant nods. "Yeah. But he wasn't the biggest problem. Even though we took a hit in New York, most of the world recovered remarkably quickly. SHIELD wasn't in the shadows anymore, but people seemed to appreciate the help no matter what. The problem started with Phil's return from the dead."

"I don't know how exactly they did it, because he never told us. And those involved are long dead. He was acting weird but not evil in the first few months of our new assignment. Then he took a short leave and when he came back, he was different. Less human somehow. We just figured he'd discovered something about his resurrection he needed to come to terms with. When we found out what actually happened though…"

Coulson's hanging on his every word now, this being the part where his timeline starts shifting with the one from Grant's world in a major way.

"During his leave, he went to visit the 'Iliad'. It was a 'black ship', a cargo vessel that wasn't supposed to exist, and that only a handful of high ranking Agents knew about. After SHIELD fell we found out about the ship and went looking for it. Everybody on board was slaughtered, except for Bonnie and Mack."

"That would be Alphonso Mackenzie and… Barbara Morse, right?" Coulson asks.

Grant nods. "They had been on the lowest deck while the assault happened, locked in one of the engine rooms. When they finally managed to break out, the whole ship was dead and their cargo missing."

"Let me guess, an ancient alien monolith that sometimes turns into liquid." Coulson asks dryly.

Grant nods again. "There's a legend where I'm from about a God who was banished to another world because of his desire to overrule the other Gods. The story spoke of a transforming Portal only those who were worthy could enter. As far as we can tell, Coulson used the monolith to go to this other world. We don't know if the so called God took over Coulson's body, or is just pulling his strings from afar, but in the end it doesn't really matter."

"'Faulson' joined the secret HYDRA faction within SHIELD and a few months later they staged their coup. SHIELD fell and was discredited and disavowed by every government. Before we had any chance of regrouping and fighting back, Coulson had unleashed something he called Terrigen Mist and people started transforming or dying left and right. When the Mist cleared, Coulson had an army of people he called Inhumans, and we were all but defeated."

"My SHIELD now is reduced to a small underground rebel group, trying to fight Coulson and his IH army with the little of resources we have. We've been slowly losing ground to them for 3 years now, and despite us having a few gifted among us, we're no match to the sheer forces he commands."

The room falls silent once again, this time if not more comfortable, then at least less tense.

Then Coulson gets up and moves towards the staircase. "Get some rest Grant. You look like you just ran back-to-back marathons. I know this situation isn't ideal, but I'm working on changing that. Unfortunately, your… situation isn't the only thing that's on SHIELD's to-do-list at the moment and until we've resolved some of our other issues, this is the only place I can keep you that won't interfere with my people's job."

Grant sighs as Coulson turns the barrier back on and shifts down on the bed. No matter how badly he wants to stay awake and not have nightmares, he knows he needs to rest. He needs to keep his strength up because he will get out of this cell. And he will find a way to go back and help his team or die trying.

He ignores the little voice in the back of his head that's telling him he doesn't have to go back, that his world is lost and he might as well take the opportunity to start fresh.