A week later, everybody had left the Hamptons and moved down to the Ward family farm that was north of the small town of Cana, Virginia. The largest city close by was a fifty minute drive into Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

It was on two hundred acres of land and had a hundred foot red brick wall that surrounded it. There was only one entrance onto the property and that was a wrought iron gate that could only be opened by a security guard that sat in a bullet proof booth outside of the gate.

There was a two mile driveway from the gate to the three story grey brick farm house. It had a wraparound porch and rocking chairs surrounding it. It had a family room that was beside the kitchen, a formal living and dining room, a study, a powder room, a full bathroom and two bedrooms on the lower floor for the house keeper, a Hispanic woman in her forties Adele and her fifteen year old daughter, Elena. The second floor had three bedrooms and individual bathroom in each one where Travis, Tommy and Louise stayed when they came for a visit and a master suite on the top floor for Lily.

There was a pool outside with a small pool house for changing clothes and not dragging water into the main house. The barns and stables where the animals were kept were a quarter of mile away and golf carts were used to travel between the buildings, if they didn't want to walk that far.

Two miles past the barns was a two story log cabin that had a huge wraparound porch with a view of a pond at the back of it. There were baskets of varying colors of pansies hanging from hooks that were in the top edge of the porch; their scent carrying into and out of the cabin.

Skye sat on the porch with her laptop; chatting with Jemma on Skype and listening to Kyle play the piano through the open window. For most of the day, Grant had been helping Tommy and his boyfriend Michael with the horses up in the stable; letting them out for exercise in the pasture and cleaning their stalls.

"Is that Kyle?"

"Yes. Lily drove down to Winston-Salem and bought him the same type of piano that he played in their Hamptons vacation home. Instead of putting it in the formal living room of the farmhouse, she had it put in the living room of the cabin so he could use it."

"Skye, are you living in the cabin with Ward and his son?"

Skye could hear the worry in her friend's voice and knew that she still had her issues with Ward despite everything that had been revealed about his past. Before she could even respond to her previous one, Jemma asked another question.

"Did you use your power to destroy the house his mother was in?"

"Jemma, I am not talking about that."

"Nobody is going to lock you up. Travis Ward came here and had it out with Coulson and surprisingly enough, your father; all three of them are protecting you. There is something else," she said, biting her lip nervously.

"What happened, Jemma?"

"Mr. Ward wanted to see Vault D and when he saw that Ward didn't have access to a bathroom down there, he went bloody crazy. I thought he was going to strangle Coulson for the inhumane conditions that he said Ward was kept in. Coulson is in spin mode right now because if Mr. Ward tells Senator Ward, all hell is going to break lose."

"My father and Coulson didn't get into a fight?"

"No. Your father was just as angry as Mr. Ward though. May tried to defend him and Mr. Ward told her that if she didn't stop, he would have her charged with using excessive force when she arrested Ward last year. That he had plenty of evidence to prove it."

"Lily's influence as the head of the family is already being felt. She told Mr. Ward that it was time to bring their family back together. Now that Grant's mother isn't around to cause trouble, it has been easier."

"Skye, do you feel bad for what you did to her?"

"A part of me does but then I think about all of the pain she caused," she commented quietly before noticing Grant walking towards the cabin and glanced at the time on her laptop. It was four forty five, fifteen minutes before Ward had to be inside the cabin. "I'll call you back tomorrow, Jemma."

Skye disconnected from Skype and waited until he got to where she was at on the porch. He sat down in a chair beside her, rubbing the sweat off of his face with his t-shirt before letting it drop back on his stomach. It was already starting to get hot and they were predicting an even more humid than usual summer for that part of the country. He grabbed a water bottle out of the small cooler sitting on the porch and had drunk half of the bottle before saying anything.

"I love working with the animals but even with my Specialist training and daily workouts that was exhausting."

"Are you going to be okay with not being able to leave this property for a year?"

"This is meant to be a punishment so I have to be okay with this. Working hard like this isn't new for me; my life wasn't easy out in the woods when I was a teenager. This is easy compared to that."

The music drifting through the window turned into Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and the both of them stopped talking. They let themselves listen to the haunting quality of the piece for a few moments.

"I heard you and Lily talking last night about Kyle's education and how your dad thinks he needs to go to a private school that has a better music program. In the end it is yours and Kyle's decision."

"I am not sending him away to go to school. I just found out about him and after he had to watch his Aunt walk away from him, I want him here with me. I am going to send him to the public school in the area and pay for him to have private music lessons," Ward firmly stated.

"I see you decided to take Adele's advice."

The housekeeper had been a great source of advice for Ward in dealing with a teenager and Kyle had struck up a friendship with Elena, a pretty but shy fifteen year old. It was cute to see them walking between the cabin and the main house, a barely five foot tall girl with cocoa colored skin, dark eyes and a skinny body and the almost six foot tall boy, who was developing some muscle helping out on the farm.

Grant smiled at the sight of Elena running down the driveway towards the cabin with her backpack on her shoulder and a Tupperware container in both hands. He grinned over at Skye, who returned it, both of them knowing about Kyle's crush on the young girl.

"Kyle, Elena's here."

The music stopped on the piano and the teenage boy quickly rushed out onto the porch. He rolled his eyes at the smirks on the faces of Skye and his father as they watched Elena step up onto the porch and hand the plate to Kyle.

"My mother made some lasagna for dinner tonight and asked me to bring some down here for all of you. She said that none of you eat like you should."

"Kyle, take that into the kitchen," Ward said before speaking to the young girl. "Tell your mother we said thank you."

"I will," she smiled shyly at him, blushing like crazy before Kyle came back out and the two teenagers ran up to the barn.

"I would say that a certain someone has a crush on both father and son," Skye commented, smirking wickedly.

"She will have to settle for the son because I think Kyle has a crush on her too."

Things got quiet between them as they stood up and walked around to the back part of the porch were they could look over the pond. She sat down in the one of the chairs back there and waited for him to speak.

"We need to talk about what happened the night my mother died. You told me you loved me but despite what Raina said in San Juan, I never said it back. I do love you, Skye but for now, I need to focus on taking care of my son and learning to deal with my house arrest."

"I agree. There are too many things that both of us need to focus on to give any type of relationship the time it needs."

"Did you really shoot me because you were trying to keep me from following you down in those tunnels or were there other reasons?"

"Ward, you were acting like a stalker and it was scary as hell. I was so full of anger at you and May and Coulson did everything to encourage it."

"My therapist told me that I transferred my loyalty to Garrett onto you and that even though the love I have for you is real, I handled it the wrong way," he explained, watching as a family of ducks floated across the pond.

"Did you ever have any feelings for May?"

"She was a mission, Skye. I cared about her as a friend and I'm not blind, she is a very beautiful woman but she wasn't the one I wanted in Dublin that night."

"I can see why Garrett wanted her distracted but couldn't you have come up with a better way than sleeping with her."

"She made the first move when she left the door to her room open and I went along with it because I thought that was what Garrett would have wanted me to do."

"Did you ever have second thoughts about following Garrett?"

"When he had you shot but the hold he had over me was too strong. I felt like I owed him everything only to find out that I was a payday for him and nothing more."

"You know where the money is, don't you?"

Grant turned to face Skye, who was smirking at him. He had promised not to lie to her again and he would keep it but still had reservations about telling anybody where Garrett's bank accounts were located. Well everybody except Lily and now Skye.

"Yes and I was going to tell Aunt Lily but as you remember I got distracted by you going after my mother and trying to stop you," he explained. "Garrett put one of my aliases that I use on his bank accounts. But until I get off house arrest, getting the money isn't happening."

"Unless we use a nanomask and send somebody else in there with your face."

"Not a chance in hell. I saw what that thing did to Kara when she fought with Agent May and it was stuck on her face. Your father had a time fixing the damage it caused."

"So you were my father and Kara for the past six months?"

"Yes. It took four months for me to heal from after you shot me."

Skye felt a wave of shame fill her as she thought about what she had done. She walked over to him and reached over to lift up the right side of his black t-shirt. Ward flinched when he realized what she was going to do.

"Skye…"

"I need to see what I did to you."

He reluctantly let her lift the shirt up and felt his heart stop at the tears that filled her eyes. She took in the places where the bullets she had fired entered his body and looked up into his amber eyes.

"As much as I want to say I'm sorry for what I did, I can't. You would be dead and Kyle wouldn't have you in his life."

They both suddenly became aware of how close they were together and he leaned down to kiss her. Their lips were almost touching when Lily came around the porch and started walking towards them.