A/N: astonishes asked: "[text] "I just walked into a room at this party and somebody yelled 'dibs!'..." + Ward/Simmons/Fitz/Skye (because I'm having a lot of feels for these four lately and your writing always makes my day!"

Jemma is going to hold this over their heads forever. For. Ever.

"Go to a party," she mocks, adopting her best impersonation of Skye. It is, she knows, a horrible one. "Get to know somebody. We hate to think of you being all alone up there."

It's unkind of her to be annoyed by the sentiment. She has been lonely, living by herself—sleeping alone, working alone, eating alone, doing the shopping and the laundry and the cleaning alone—after two years sharing space with Skye and Fitz and Grant. Still, she knew that going to a party wouldn't be the best way to go about fixing that.

Of course, she was utterly able to resist their combined powers of persuasion, and so she succumbed to the suggestion (order) with—incredibly reluctant—grace.

Now she has proof that it was the wrong path to take, and so she is perhaps a little more gleeful than she should be when she texts the others, I just walked into a room at this party and someone yelled 'dibs!'…

As expected, it takes less than three seconds for Grant to reply, I'll kill him. Also as expected, Skye and Fitz's responses are identical and arrive near-simultaneously. Grant will kill him.

She rolls her eyes. There's no call for murder. I politely declined and he was very gracious about it.

Don't care, is Grant's response. I'm still gonna kill him.

How can you kill him? She texts back quickly. I've given you nothing by which to identify him.

Point, he allows. Guess I'll just have to kill everyone at the party.

She makes a face at her phone. It's been years since Grant was the out-of-control, frankly terrifying murderer they first met—long enough that not only does he feel comfortable joking about it, but that she, Fitz, and Skye feel comfortable laughing—but there are still times that she gets the unsettling feeling that he's not actually joking.

This is one of those times, which she'll blame on the fact that tone is very difficult to read through a text message.

Still, mass murder isn't something he indulges in these days (that she knows of, at least), so she'll go with the assumption that it's a joke.

And how would you manage that? she asks. You've no way of knowing who's at this party and, even if you did, are a thousand miles away, besides.

"You sure about that?"

Jemma drops her phone and whirls to face the owner of the unexpected voice, certain that her ears are playing a cruel trick on her. If they are, however, her eyes must be in on it as well; standing before her, hands tucked in his pockets and smug grin on his beautiful, beautiful face, is one of the three people she loves most in the world.

"Grant!" she cries, and throws herself at him.

He folds his arms around her and presses a kiss to the top of her head, and she can hear the smile in his voice when he asks, "Miss me?"

"Of course I missed you!" she exclaims. She'd like to pinch him for the question (he's fishing for compliments, which is a habit she and the others have been trying to break him of), but she can't bear to let go of him even for a moment, so she compromises by squeezing him with all her might. "What are you doing here? If anyone finds out—"

"They won't," he promises, kissing her hair again. "No one saw me come in, and there's too much of a crowd here for anyone to notice me now."

He removes one arm from around her, but before she can protest, he uses his newly freed hand to tip her chin up in order to kiss her properly, and that—well. It's certainly worth the loosening of his embrace.

She kisses him once—twice—three times before her questions outweigh her desperation for him (but only just).

"Still," she says. "It's a risk. And the others—"

"Fitz and Skye are safe at home," he cuts in. "Very loudly complaining about me being sent on a mission when you've already been taken away from us." He kisses her again, gently. "No one's gonna find out, Jem. I promise."

It's a risk, and a dangerous one—the consequences if he's caught!—but she can't bring herself to protest it any further.

"I missed you," she says, voice breaking. "So much."

"I know," he sooths, and kisses her once more. "We missed you, too." He looks around, a disdainful frown tugging at the corners of his mouth, and then steps away from her, taking her hand. "Come on. Let's find somewhere a little…quieter."

As is to be expected of a house party, there aren't many quiet spots to be found. Grant, however, seems to have the layout of the house memorized—because of course he does—and he leads her unerringly to a small study on the second floor.

"Soundproofed," he explains, smugly, as he closes the door behind them. Sure enough, the noise level drops abruptly; they could be alone in the house, for how quiet it is in here.

There's an oversized armchair near the fireplace, and it's to that he leads her. He sits down, tugging her into his lap, and she curls happily into his embrace, even as she frets over his presence.

SHIELD has always frowned, somewhat, on the unconventional relationship the four of them share, and Grant's status as a former HYDRA agent doesn't help. Still, as long as it didn't affect their work, and as long as Grant continued to serve SHIELD loyally, they were allowed to live as they wished. And they did, happily, for two whole years.

And then Jemma messed it up.

She can admit, now, that her actions were unwise—driven entirely by emotion and not the least bit rational. But Fitz and Skye were taken hostage and Grant was nearly killed trying to prevent it, and she—well, she lost her head a little.

She disobeyed orders, both immediate and standing, and exposed an entire HYDRA base to an infectious agent of her own design. Emotionally motivated biological warfare, her superiors called it, and she can't really deny the claim, even if she thinks it's a touch dramatic.

SHIELD decided that their relationship couldn't stand. It was only May's intervention that stopped them all from being forcibly and permanently separated; she managed to bargain their sentence (and it is a sentence, as bad in its way as imprisonment) down, and they were given the chance to prove that they're not entirely compromised.

Jemma was sent away alone, while the others were allowed to remain home and continue as they were accustomed. They're allowed epistolary contact only—text messages, post cards, and emails—and they have a weekly limit.

It feels, to be frank, like living under the rule of a completely unreasonable and overprotective parent, and Jemma hates it. A lot.

Still, it's almost over. Six more weeks and their case will be reviewed by the Office of Agent Conduct (the official title; Skye has other, less kind, names for it), and she might be allowed to go home.

That chance is the only thing that's got her through these horrible months of separation, and Grant is risking it now.

"Stop worrying," he says, pressing a kiss to her temple. "I know what I'm doing."

"I can't help it," she says. "If you're caught…"

"I won't be," he reiterates. "Here, I've got something to take your mind off of it."

He shifts her slightly in his lap so he can reach his pocket, drawing out a phone and handing it over.

"Your phone?" she asks, confused. Then she frowns, examining it. "This isn't your phone."

"No," he says. "It isn't." He resettles her (and she's missed this, the easy way he manhandles them, just moving them to wherever he wants them without so much as a by-your-leave; she's missed watching Skye try to flee the kitchen when it's her turn to do the washing up, missed laughing with Fitz while Grant catches Skye and carries her to the sink without breaking a sweat) so she's sitting with her back to his chest and his arms around her waist. "Bought clandestinely, with cash, and personally encrypted by Skye." He hooks his chin over her shoulder. "Turn it on."

She does (though not without elbowing him a bit for his imperious tone), and tears spring to her eyes at once. The lock-screen is a familiar photo: the four of them in their living room, Grant's face the particular mix of fond and long-suffering he only gets around them, Skye's alight with laughter, and Fitz's scrunched in a scowl. Looking at her own face—smug in the victory she's just won against Fitz in Scrabble—hurts a little; it feels like years since she's been that happy.

Grant's arms tighten around her waist like he knows what she's thinking, and he kisses her neck softly.

"Unlock it."

She does; the combination only takes two tries to guess. She barely has a moment to take in the home screen before the phone is ringing with an incoming Face Time. Her heart leaps, and she doesn't need Grant's prodding to hit accept.

Skye and Fitz's faces appear on the screen, and just like that, she loses the battle against her tears.

"No, no," Skye says, sounding a little teary herself. Her voice is so familiar and beloved that Jemma cries that much harder, much to Skye's distress. "You can't cry, Jem, please—you'll get me started."

"Again," is Fitz's contribution, and he's got that irritated tone that means he's feeling overly emotional and hates it. "She's already cried twice today." He looks aggrieved. "Ruined my new tie snotting all over it."

"It was ugly anyway," Skye says, unashamed, and Jemma laughs around a sob.

"I miss you," she says.

"Well, that's fine," Fitz says. "Finally have some peace and quiet to work in. I haven't missed you at all."

"That is a blatant lie, Leopold Fitz," she says. "As though you could have peace and quiet with Skye there."

"Hey!" Skye says, as Grant hides a smile in Jemma's shoulder. "I mean, true, but still." Fitz opens his mouth, then winces a bit; Jemma suspects Skye has just elbowed him. "But enough banter. I want to know how you've been—and the truth, okay? No stiff-upper-lipping it like you've been doing in your emails."

"Agreed," Fitz says, pointing at her. "Be honest. We'll know if you're not."

And they will, is the thing. She's so much better at lying than she used to be, but she could never lie to them—to her heart, in its three distinct and lovely pieces.

"As you wish," she says, just to see Skye grin and Fitz roll his eyes. Behind her, Grant sighs; the Princess Bride debate is still ongoing. "Where shall I start?"

"How about the guy who called dibs?" Skye suggests. "Has Grant killed him yet?"

"Not yet," Grant says, and his voice has a hint of that worryingly light tone that used to spell trouble. "Give me time."

"Or I could start at the beginning," she decides, and leans back against Grant's chest, turning slightly to press a quick kiss to his jaw. Some of the tension melts out of him, and she smiles, smug. "First of all, you would not believe the lab they've stuck me in…"

They spend hours catching up, and while it's miles away from what she wants—which, in an ideal world, would be to curl up with the three of them in their bed at home and not leave for at least two days—it's also miles away from what she's had, and she'll take what she can get.

When Grant finally takes his leave—reluctantly and with many muttered threats against SHIELD—she's able to see him off with barely a tear.

She'll be home soon enough.