Skye was in awe as she stepped out of the limo that had brought her and Lily from the airport and took in the two story thirty five hundred square foot home. It was only on a half-acre of land but sat on the shore of Sag Harbor and had grey siding and two huge decks on both levels of the house.

She had heard that Grant had come from money but this was beyond her expectations. He should have had an idyllic life but it really is true when they say that 'money can't buy happiness'.

Lily led her into the house and the first thing she heard was a woman drunkenly berating someone somewhere in the house. She quickly followed Lily into the living room to the sight of a woman in her sixties with grey hair standing in Grant's face. She could see him clenching his fists, fighting not to punch his own mother.

"You always have been a worthless piece of shit that wasn't fit to be a member of this family."

"Travis, I suggest you deal with your wife before I show her who belongs here and who doesn't," Lily's voice carried an edge of danger.

The older man standing beside his wife quickly pulled her out of the room while Senator Ward and the other two people in the room, a petite and slender dark haired woman in her early forties and a young man that resembled Grant and the Senator, all went over to Ward. The woman touched him cautiously on the arm.

"Grant, ignore her. She hates Gramzy and is pouting about the fact that she has to come here."

"What is she doing here?"

Lily turned to face her furious nephew as Grant glared at Skye, who stood quietly by the door.

"I am assisting her on an important matter so she will be staying with me for the time being."

Grant, in a rare show of emotion, stormed out of the room and up the stairs, slamming the door to the bedroom he had used as a child. The other three Ward siblings faced their aunt and Skye; curious about whom this young woman was that had their brother so pissed off, at least until Lily told them her name.

"Louise, Christian, Thomas, this is Agent Skye of Shield. She will be staying with me while I help her out with an issue she is dealing with. I know some of you know about her ties to Grant and might have a reason to make things difficult for her. Just so you know, that if you do, you will deal with me because that is not how Ward's act. Now I am going to have a conversation with your brother so it would be greatly appreciated if one of you shows her to the bedroom closest to the kitchen."

Thomas stepped forward and smiled gently at Skye before motioning for her to follow him while Lily went upstairs. The other two followed them as they walked down a hallway and into an open door that was close to the kitchen, the door across from it was one of the three bathrooms that were in the house.

The bedroom had yellow walls and a window seat but most of the floor was taken up by a king sized four poster bed. The door to the closest was at the foot of the bed and there was also a small cherry stained dresser and matching chest of drawers.

"Thank you for showing me to my room."

"You're welcome," Thomas said. "Now do you want to explain to me why you shot my brother when his back was turned?"

Skye could see the looks of anger in the Ward siblings' eyes as they waited for her answer. She knew that there was no way out of this and that she had put herself in a situation where everybody was on Ward's side over hers.

"I did it to stop him from following me into the tunnels under the mansion. I had to stop a woman from starting something that would have been bad for a lot of people and I knew that Grant would have died in his effort to protect me. I couldn't take him in a fight and slowing him down was the best option."

"Well he is still recovering from where you tried to slow him down," Louise snapped back at her before storming out of the room.

"It seems I made a mistake coming here," Skye said, getting ready to leave the room and the house.

"Skye, our grandmother, with a lot of help from Louise and Lily took care of Grant and Tommy when they were little more than our mother did. They never forgave our parents or me for him being sent to military school and juvie. Of course, it didn't help that he was kidnapped at fifteen years old from the juvenile facility and we hadn't seen or heard from him until recently," Senator Ward said.

Skye stood there in shock as she took in what Christian had just told her. She had known about Garrett influencing Grant from the time he became his SO but what if the man had been the one who had kidnapped him as a teenager. What if the man's influence on Grant had ran deeper than everybody had originally thought.

Lily watched from the foot of the king sized bed as Grant unpacked his bag into the dresser and waited for him to speak. She was used to him freezing people out when he was a child and his mother had tormented him. It was his safe mode.

"I can sit here all day long, Grant Douglas, so keep on pouting, I can wait you out."

"She shot me, Aunt Lily!"

"She saved your damn life, Grant!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Antoine Triplett is dead after he did exactly what she stopped you from doing when she shot you. He followed her into those tunnels and the obelisk turned him into stone and killed him. She is now a gifted and needs help controlling her powers. She has asked me to help her."

"Shield and Coulson aren't going to let her go that easily because they will want to keep her away from Hydra. She is a target now."

"You know this and I know this but do you honestly seeing Hydra attacking her while she is with me, Grant. You know what Louise and I are and what your duty is to making sure that the next generation happens."

"I will be a crappy father, Aunt Lily."

"No you won't but I can't make you believe that," she gently stated. "I have placed Skye in the bedroom closest to the kitchen. I will start on lunch for everybody while you go and see your grandmother. She is waiting for you."

Lily saw the tears forming in her nephew's eyes and walked over to hug him the way she had when he was a small child.

"She's really dying?"

"Yes. It could be any moment now and do you really want to spend what time she has left arguing about things that in the end aren't very important."

Lily stepped away from Grant and left the room, heading down the stairs and into the hall that leads to the kitchen. She passed Skye's bedroom just in time to hear Christian tell her about Grant being kidnapped at fifteen. The look on the young woman's face made a vision come to mind that had Lily gasping for breath. If it came true, what happened in the next few months could bring a power into their lives that would make her family at the heart of the battle between Shield and Hydra, both wanting to control it for their own reasons.

"Aunt Lily, are you okay?"

She came back to reality and smiled softly at Tommy, who was at her side, his dark eyes filled with concern.

"I'm fine. I am going to fix lunch for everybody while Grant visits your grandmother. Give them some time together. Why don't you and Christian show Skye the view from the decks and the shore?"

Tommy watched as his aunt went down the hall to the kitchen before turning to face his oldest brother, who was also concerned about his aunt.

The two men led Skye outside and showed her the decks before walking across the small yard, past the guest house and down the steps that led to the beach and the view of bright blue water of Sag Harbor Bay.

Grant stepped into the bedroom at the end of the hall and stopped short at the sight of his grandmother looking so frail. Her hair was now completely white and her alabaster skin was heavily wrinkled.

"Gramzy," he said softly

Her lovely green eyes opened and Francesca Ward smiled lovingly at the grandson she hadn't seen since he was fourteen years old.

"Grant," she said, holding her hand for him to take it.

In that moment the tough specialist that could kill people with his bare hands became a little boy again, sobbing in his grandmother's arms as she held him. It led to him telling her everything that had happened to him since he had disappeared from juvie, including his own actions against people he cared about. It drained him to the point that he fell asleep beside his grandmother, who threw a blanket over him and let him get some much needed rest.

"It might be difficult and heartbreaking for you right now my sweet boy but things will turn out better for you and I don't need your aunt and sister's powers to know that."

She read a book, glancing over at him as he slept to make sure he was okay.

Later that night, Skye sat on Lily's right side at one end of the table with Tommy across from her while Louise sat beside her and Christian and his wife Anna on Tommy's other side. Travis, Grant's father sat on the other end of the table while his wife, Millicent sat beside him with an empty chair between her and Anna and two between Louise and her father. Grant's absence was felt as it seemed he was still with his grandmother.

"Louise, was he still sleeping when you went to check on your grandmother?"

Louise turned to look at Lily and smiled softly.

"Yes. According to Gram, he told her everything and was so exhausted afterward, he fell asleep. She has said that he is to be left alone and to save him something to eat."

"I don't know why that worthless piece of shit is even here. I should have drowned him at birth," Milly snapped.

"Shut up!"

The sight of Tommy's face turning red as he yelled at his mother shocked his family. He was her favorite and normally didn't say a word when she started in on his other siblings.

"In fact, do all of us a favor and leave. It's not like you give a damn that Gram is dying."

Skye sat her fork down and stood up, turning to leave the dining room but not before looking at Grant's mother with a look of disdain.

"No wonder he never had a good thing to say about his mother. I don't know what is worse, the fact that my mother died when I was baby and growing up without one or having a hateful bitch like you for a mother. The only one at this table he talked about with any affection was Thomas and even then he regretted the way he allowed Christian to manipulate him into hurting him."

She was so wrapped up in telling off Millicent, Skye didn't notice the room starting to tremble and that every member of the family had to grab their dinner plates to keep them from sliding off of the table and hitting the floor.

Grant, who was standing out of the sight, watched and knew deep down that this was the power that Skye's father had told him would come about. He exchanged a look with his Aunt and they both knew that Hydra could never find out about her powers or Skye would suffer for it.

He followed her as she left the dining room to make sure she was okay but wasn't planning on getting anywhere close to her. Despite Lily telling him that Skye had shot him to save his life, Grant knew she hated him and that she had fallen off the pedestal he had put her up on. He loved her but knew that he had to let her go or he really would turn into a stalker that would do something even more stupid than he already had in trying to make her love him again, if she ever had.

Sometimes telling yourself something doesn't make a person listen to the voice of reason screaming for them not to do it.

Skye walked into the kitchen and out the back door, going down across the back yard, taking in the lights on the water.

"You didn't need to do that because I know you hate me," Grant said quietly as he walked across the yard to where she was standing.

"You heard that?"

"I woke up five minutes ago and Gramzy was sleeping so I came downstairs in time to hear my mother's usual bullshit."

"Was she always like that when you were a kid?"

"Yes. The only thing she loves in this world is my family's money, her alcohol and Tommy; although now that Aunt Lily is in control of the first one, she doesn't spend as much of that as she used to."

"My father is completely batshit crazy but I have come to realize that my mother's murder and losing me did that to him. I could see in his eyes that he loves me. I don't know how you lived with parents like them."

"I had Gramzy, Aunt Lily and Louise but my mother made sure they stayed away as much as she could get away with. She especially took pleasure in sending Lou away when she was thirteen and came into her powers to keep her from standing up for all of us."

Skye touched him gently on the shoulder and could feel feelings she had pushed down with anger and hatred coming back to the surface. They kept getting closer together but before their lips could meet in a kiss, he turned and walked away from her.

"I can't do this. You made your point in San Juan and the next time you might actually kill me."

He walked over to the guest house and locked the door behind him. The sounds of him hitting a punching bag carried out to her.

"That was painful to witness," Louise said from where she was standing on the deck. "I thought you should know that my mother had decided that you will make the perfect wife for Tommy. Of course, you missed the fallout of him telling her that Grant is in love with you and he wouldn't do that to his brother. The best part was when he told her that he is gay and in love with one of the farmhands that works for Lily at her farm in Virginia."

The punching coming from the guest house stopped and the door opened to Grant stepping out, staring at his older sister in shock. The sight of which caused Skye to bust out laughing before walking back into the house to leave the siblings alone to talk.