A/N: I'm sorry for the wait. Time gets away from me with a TODDLER WHUUUUUT WHO LET THIS KID GROW UP. This chapter is about 1000 words shorter than the others, but I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer. Besides, it's a fairly transitional chapter, moving us out of act one and into act two. We're over the hill now, people! Errors are mine but formatting issues are FF's... Reviews are better than coffee so PLEASE REVIEW!

Chapter 6: One Day Ends, A New One Begins

"You know, you aren't what people say you are."

Jemma made that statement well after midnight, following a plane ride where she was mostly silent and contemplative. Upon landing, Grant toyed with the idea of hiring a cab, but instead got them a limousine; the luxurious finale to a day that had, despite his efforts, been rather understated.

Understated, he repeated to himself, and shook his head. The house had been done up to perfection, and she thought it sad. He invited her to lunch, and she ordered a simple meal. When he offered to take her to dinner at one of the island's nicer establishments, she rebuffed him- kindly, of course, and instead asked him to dinner, buying and baking clams over an open fire on the beach. Jemma, whether through effort or unconsciously, refused to be taken in by the glamor of the Ward lifestyle.

The sky was moonless, but the stars shone brightly as they headed home. Grant glanced over at her. Her face was softly illuminated by the blue lights from the limo's fixtures. He could see the trace of a smile on her lips.

"What do people say I am?" He asked.

"The world's only living heart donor." She answered, without missing a beat.

Ah. He'd heard that one before.

There was more. "They say, 'he thinks scruples are money in Russia and morals are paintings on walls'."

"Droll."

"Quite. And then there's my favorite-"

With a wave of his hand, he stopped her. "I get the picture. Thoroughly."

She fell silent, but from the corner of his eye, he saw her smile remained. In fact, it widened. He wondered whether she found his discomfort amusing.

"What's so funny?" He asked.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing." It was so clearly not nothing. She giggled to herself, then said, "Do you remember the afternoon we spent together?"

"You mean, earlier today?"

"No. This was years ago." When he didn't respond, she took it as a sign to continue. "I'd only been in the states for a few weeks. Phil had taken Mrs. Ward and Fitz to some lesson or another. It was storming terribly, so I came into the main house because I was frightened. I turned on a lamp in the hallway and I got a shock, and I thought I'd been struck by lightning." Her voice was tender, soft from remembering. "You were there, and you stayed with me until the storm had passed."

As she told the story, he remembered. He had been at the house to retrieve part of his father's personal tax records and happened upon a shaken Jemma by chance. She was cradling the hand that had received the shock against her chest, fighting tears. He had examined her hand and found it unhurt. When she admitted how afraid she was -the storm was severe enough that it made the walls of the apartment shake, and it was only then that he noticed her clothes and hair were wet- he'd stayed with her. How had he forgotten the way she looked up at him, looking so much younger than eleven, her hazel eyes wide and watery? How her voice had trembled as she whispered her fear? How, until that moment, had he forgotten her hand had felt so small in his?

"I remember." he whispered. "You were very brave."

She didn't agree. "I was more afraid of you than of the lightning."

That sentiment bothered him nearly as much as "the world's only living heart donor" had. Grant was not given a chance to dwell on it though, as in a sudden turn, Jemma asked another question.

"Why did you never get married, Grant?" The query was barely out of her mouth before she let out a chuckle. "You probably don't believe in marriage."

"No, I do." He corrected just as the limousine turned onto Dusoris Lane. The main house came into view as he elaborated. "I do. That's why I never got married. Fitz, on the other hand, believes in Santa Claus." Jemma knew Grant did not mean that literally; rather, it was a comment on the more easygoing aspects of the younger Ward's nature.

"That's why I like him." It was hardly a defense, but it was all Jemma could think to say.

"I like him, too," Grant said as the car came to a stop in front of the garage. "I love him, actually. And I can't for the life of me figure out how to get him to take the reins a little more." He exited the car, waved off the driver, then hurried around to the passenger side, opening the door and offering Jemma his hand.

As she took it, she wondered aloud. "Reins? Of the company, or of his life?"

Grant held her hand a little longer than necessary as he considered it. "Both, I suppose." he said at last.

He felt it was only right that he walked her to the door, so after tipping the driver, Grant followed Jemma, walking slightly behind.

"Thank you for the outing," she said as they ascended the stairs. "It was a nice day."

"It was." He agreed. Then, because he was genuinely curious, Grant asked, "When will the pictures be ready?"

"I suppose I can bring them to you tomorrow."

"Perfect. Well... Good night." He turned to go, making it halfway down the stairs before the sound of Jemma saying his name stopped him. He faced her from the steps. "Yes?"

"My uncle once asked Fitz why he doesn't come into the office, and he said, 'What do they need me for? Grant is there'." He was silent. She continued. "You probably haven't made a wrong move since you were three. I'll wager you haven't believed in Santa since then, either." Jemma's voice was gentle, her smile genuine but sad. It was a look of pity. He did not like being on the receiving end of Jemma's pity, but found he could not muster an ounce of dislike for her.

"Yeah, well... I work in the real world." He said drily, schooling his features into a perfectly blank expression.

"I know you do. But that's work. Where do you live, Grant?"

It would've cost him no effort to reply with his address, but if their time together during the day had shown him anything, he knew better than to be blasé with Jemma when she was asking meaningful questions. He opened his mouth to answer once, twice, but could not find an appropriate reply. It took him a minute to recognize that he could not come up with a good answer, because a good answer did not exist.

A flicker of disappointment passed over Jemma's face. His lack of reply displeased her.

"It was a nice day," she said again, then went inside. He remained on the steps for several minutes after she'd gone, staring at the place where she had been standing: beneath the trailing vinca that swayed gently in the soft nighttime breeze.

Phil had waited up for her.

He was seated, like usual, in his oversized reading chair. His well-worn copy of Leaves of Grass, the pages dog-eared, the cover faded, lay open in his lap. She wondered how much reading he'd actually accomplished as the hour grew later. His eyes were tired, heavy, and he looked so much like her father in that moment, it nearly broke her heart.

He had been worried. Of course he worried. They were all one another had.

Jemma tried hard to not be resentful of his concern over a silly little day trip, but she felt the petulance from her teenage years bubbling, rising up as easily as an old habit. It took a few moments of earnest trying before she felt she could speak without her displeasure being plain.

"You've never waited up for me before," she said to him from the entryway .

"You've never made me feel like I needed to," he replied, closing the book and setting it aside. "Nice day?"

She nodded. "Lovely, in fact. Went to Martha's Vineyard. Rode bikes around the town. Did you know Grant knows how to ride a bike?"

"Alert the media."

"I used to be so afraid of him."

"That's an appropriate reaction." Phil stood, turned off his reading light, and walked towards her. "Now that you're home, I'm off to bed." He kissed her cheek gently. "I'm glad you had a nice time."

"I did. And so am I." She said. As her uncle retreated to his room, she called after him. "Uncle Phil? What was Grant like when he was younger?"

Phil's answer was quick and perfunctory. "Shorter."

There must have been a shift change, Grant noticed as he approached Fitz's room, since the nurse that had been standing guard by the door this morning was now replaced by a younger, male attendant. He was reading a book and looked up as Grant neared, only nodding silently as he opened the door.

Fitz was still ass-up and, as he suspected he had been for most of the day, fast asleep. His curly hair had turned riotous, looking positively Einstein-like as it frizzed in every direction. His mouth was agape, and he snored softly. He looked much younger than his age, and it made Grant nostalgic for his brother as a kid.

"Oh, Fitz." he mumbled, dragging a hand tiredly across his own face. As a child, Fitz had been a handful. Not a troublemaker, just curious. His knack for inventing had manifested when he was young, but in those early days, his experiments resulted in more messes than successes.

Grant, being older by seven years, somewhat unfairly took the brunt of his brother's mishaps. "You should've been watching him," he remembered hearing his father say on more than one occasion. Eventually, he started clearing up the problems on his own just so he wouldn't get told on by whichever maid or chef or other help happened upon them.

It was a habit that had continued into adulthood.

"Fitz, what a mess you've made," he whispered, an echo of days gone by. Unlike the others, though, this one couldn't be cleaned up with either a broom or with money. He walked toward the window. Like in his own room, the chauffeur's apartment could be seen from where he stood, and he was struck anew by the contrast of their lives. If Jemma coveted the Ward family's wealth, she did a good job of hiding it. Grant, amongst his other attributes, prided himself on being able to detect bullshit from others, but even he could not sense material-driven ambitions from Jemma, despite her own apparent lack of wealth.

She had been a good child and a great student, a loving daughter-figure to her bachelor uncle, the owner of a pure heart that asked for so little.

How many times since childhood had Jemma gazed longingly at this very window? Did Fitz ever look that way, giving even a passing glance in her direction?

I was more afraid of you than I was of the lightning.

Her confession, no doubt meant to be darkly humorous, had left him feeling wounded. He stared and stared, but the lights were all dim, and blank, dark windows were all that looked back at him, so Grant drew the blinds.

Fitz awoke to a dry throat, the feeling of having swallowed shards of glass, and a ringing cellphone. He fumbled blindly for the phone on his nightstand, extending himself slightly too far to the point he felt a severe twinge in his lower half. He hissed, wincing, but the phone was in his grasp.

"Hello," he answered, and noticed his voice sounded as shredded as his head (and arse) felt.

"I've been trying to figure out a good pun that combines 'glass jaw' with having glass in your ass. Haven't come up with one yet." Skye's voice was playful, but a little more high-pitched than usual. She was trying to be cheerful for his sake, hiding her worry behind bad jokes.

"Hi, Skye."

"Hey, honey." She was more serious now. "Melinda told me. I tried to call you yesterday, but apparently you were pretty dead to the world." He heard her take a deep breath in, and her next words sounded carefully measured. "How are you feeling? What happened?"

The first question was easy enough to answer. "I'm fine," Fitz replied, and once he got a hold of more painkillers, it would be true. As for what happened? Well, in his eyes, that was more complicated.

Through the fuzzy remains of the prescription-driven haze (and prior to that, the buzz of much too much champagne), Fitz tried to quickly reassemble the night. He remembered Grant, looking more thundercloud-like than usual. Melinda, uncharacteristically threatening to kill him. Jemma in her blue dress (oh, that dress), and the crack, pop, crunch of breaking glass.

All those years of sneaking off to the solarium, and he'd never done something quite so stupid, though he couldn't tell which was more stupid: sitting on the glasses, or trying to meet Jemma there in the first place.

Though he'd tried to convince Grant (and himself) that it was innocent, by the light of day and the clarity that came with pain, Fitz was under no delusions. If he had made it to the solarium, the unspeakable would have happened. Sitting on the glasses... was it karma? Cosmic retribution of some kind? Maybe the universe was looking after him, making sure he didn't screw up the one thing in his admittedly privileged life that he could call truly good. Skye was in many ways his equal, and in even more, she bested him. Heaven forbid the day she ever realized how far out of his league she was.

"Divine intervention," he decided it was, and said so.

"What?"

"Nothing." He tried to take a deep breath in, but it caught in his chest when another flicker of pain shot through his lower back. "Listen, can you come home soon? I really need to see you."

"I'm on my way," Skye replied, which is what he'd hoped she'd say.