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Skye stood still, barely breathing, praying that she hadn’t read too far into this. Jiaying seemed to be reacting in slow motion, but whether that was because of the adrenaline rushing through her, or Jiaying deliberately controlling herself, Skye wasn’t sure.

Tears welled up in the woman’s eyes as Jiaying eventually nodded. “Yes.” She whispered, sounding chocked up with emotion. “Daisy.”

“Oh my god…” Skye breathed, launching herself into Jiaying’s arms. “Mom.”

“Hi, sweetheart.” Jiaying wrapped her own arms around her daughter’s body, squeezing tightly. Needing to breathe, Skye pulled back, but her mother kept her grip on her shoulders. “You’ve finally come home.”

Skye gulped. “Is this…is this where I was born?”

Jiaying smiled wistfully. “No. That village is long gone, and miles away.”

“Gone…? I-” Skye took a deep breath and glanced away. “Coulson told me that the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he found in Mexico was the last person left alive, but I hoped…”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is the reason you were taken from us, Daisy.” Jiaying implored. “Cal and I were overjoyed to have you in our lives. S.H.I.E.L.D. took me away and experimented on me. I nearly died! If your father hadn’t put me back together, I would have.”

“Hydra did it.” Skye replied forcefully. Jiaying blinked in surprise and stiffened. “Hydra had infested S.H.I.E.L.D. since the forties and used the jurisdiction to ruin lives all over the world.” She shook her head. “You weren’t the only ones affected, Mom.”

Carefully, Jiaying kept her anger in check, breathing slowly. “How many families did they tear apart?”

“I don’t know.” Skye flung her hands up half-heartedly. “Thousands. They hid abuse, and preyed on those who didn’t know anything better than that. Grant, for one.”

The older woman tilted her head, lips pursed. “Grant was Hydra. And you trust him?”

“He’s proven himself.”

“How?” Jiaying wasn’t convinced.

“By trying to put the family he destroyed back together.” Skye said, firmly standing her ground as Jiaying took a step forwards.

“Whose, may I ask?”

“His own.”

Jiaying halted, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “He destroyed the family who abused him?”

“Not that one.” Skye clarified. “The team on the Bus. Coulson, May, FitzSimmons…and me and Grant.”

“If he destroyed the family you’d made for yourself,” her mother began. “How is it you stay with him?”

“Because I love him.” Skye replied instantly. “Because he knows he made a mistake. Because everyone who’s ever supposed to stand by and support him has either turned their backs or used his desperation to make him do horrible things. Even us, but I couldn’t do that anymore.”

“Why not?”

“A karaoke duet.”

Jiaying’s mouth dropped open a little. “I…did not expect that.”

Skye shrugged. “Neither did we. I was on a mission, and Grant was wanting a night off.”

“So what happened after you sang?”

“We chatted, got the guy arrested, and then Kara went back with Bobbi, and I took off with Grant.” She smiled happily. “Haven’t regretted it.”

“During which time you blew up Hydra bases.” Jiaying prompted, a proud and amused smile pulling the right corner of her mouth up.

“Yep.” Skye beamed with arrogant pride. “And gathered vital information for S.H.I.E.L.D. to use. Not to mention, hacked Hydra’s database and gave the good guys a live feed of everything.”

The proud smile became full-blown. Jiaying tilted her head again as she considered her daughter. “How much of your family history do you know?”

Cal, still gripping Grant’s elbow tightly, dragged the ex-agent into the clearing in a small cluster of trees. “I think here’s fine.” He said, mostly to himself as he released Grant. Wincing, Grant rubbed at the red patch of skin.

“What’s this about, exactly?” he asked, raising an eyebrow warily. “What do you mean ‘the fatherly talk’?”

Cal considered the man in front of him. Grant stood tall, stiff, and looked ready to bolt. Finally, Cal smiled, and moved over to a bench to sit down. Grant remained standing, his arms folded defensively over his chest.

“Well, Grant, I just wanted to get to know you better!” the older man smiled widely, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Since my Daisy seems to be insistent on being with you, I feel responsible to give you due warning of my wrath, should you hurt her.”

“I won’t–” Grant began, but Cal cut him off with a stern look and a wave of his hand.

“This is something, that as a father, you do for your daughters when they start dating.”

“Okay…”

“How much do you care for my daughter?” Cal fired the question at him, his posture suddenly tense.

Grant blinked and responded immediately. “I love her.”

Cal nodded, appearing slightly appeased. “Will you ever betray her again?”

“No!” Grant exclaimed indignantly. His face screwed up in offence at the insinuation.

“Relax, relax, I had to ask.” Cal held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Did you love her before you betrayed her?”

“I….might’ve.” Grant frowned a little. “I was trying not to dwell on it too much. She’d already nearly died because John thought I was compromised. If he thought the warning hadn’t changed my mind…” he trailed off, the meaning made clear.

Cal nodded, watching him intently. “Did you?”

“Change my mind?” Grant confirmed. Cal grunted affirmation. “I was starting to. Saying he knew that Skye wasn’t going to let me die for the hard drive quelled it a bit, but…”

“The damage was done.” Cal finished for him. Clearly, this was a sensitive topic for the younger man.

“I mean, I’d known John for fifteen years before all this. He knew everything about me. The team didn’t. They couldn’t.” Grant sighed and sat down on the spot, linking his hands around his knees, drawn up in front of him. “He knew everything and didn’t leave or give up on me. I thought he was worth it.”

“Did you know everything about him?”

“No, I never deluded myself that I could. He’d been through so much more, and he was like a father to me…it’d be wrong to pry into everything.” The ex-agent closed his eyes at his own naivety. “I just thought I knew enough. But he always had an angle.”

With a groan escaping his lips, Cal stood and moved over to Grant. He sat down next to him, only facing the other way. “Sounds to me like you had a shit-ton more morals than your so-called father figure.” He looked at Grant meaningfully, and the man grinned a little.

“I still followed him, though. So what does that say about me?”

“You care, Grant.”

“I’ve killed. A lot.” Grant muttered, not really wanting to downplay the sincerity of Cal’s words, but unable to fully accept them.

“So have I.” Cal countered, getting a little annoyed at the man’s persistence with tearing himself down. He remained outwardly patient, however. “So has that Agent May who got all self-righteous against you. So have many other agents who worked for S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Some of them were Hydra.”

“Would you stop tearing yourself down?!” Cal’s temper flared. Grant flinched, and couldn’t meet his gaze. “Look at me, Ward.” He said in a low tone. “Look at me.” Slowly, Grant raised his eyes to Cal’s. “Some of them are still Hydra. You are not. What does that say about you?” When Grant remained silent, Cal shook his head in frustration. “Why is it you still base your worth on what some self-centred dead bastard thought of you?”

“I-” Grant didn’t know what to say to that.

“If you weren’t better than what you think you are, then explain to me how my daughter would move heaven and earth to be with you.” Cal looked at Grant intensely as he said this, then got to his feet and dusted of his slacks. Holding a hand out to the ex-agent, he pulled Grant to his feet. “Maybe you should think on that before you talk to Jiaying. Get some perspective on who you are before she interrogates you.”

“Mothers do that too?” Grant asked, momentarily forgetting that Cal didn’t know he knew. The old man froze. “I figured it out.” He assured him.

“Oh. Well…Jiaying will want to.” Cal continued, still surprised. “We haven’t had Daisy in our lives since she was a few months old.”

Uhh… yikes. Pulling a tight, yet sympathetic smile, Grant followed Cal through to the heart of Afterlife.

“Your father comes from America.” Jiaying began, indicating that they should stroll.

“Hence the accent.” Skye piped up, grinning at Jiaying’s unimpressed expression. “Please don’t say you expect me to be quiet while you talk. I give my opinion on anything I want to, and seeing as this is about my family–”

“I understand.” Her mother cut in with a smile.

“So…continuing on from America…?”

“Cal came to China as a volunteer. He was working with Doctors Without Borders for a couple of weeks, and met me during that time.”

“Love at first sight?”

Jiaying laughed. “Not quite. But the affection was there, and he stayed longer than the initial two weeks.”

“Then you fell in love.” Skye crossed her arms for comfort as the path they walked along rippled with slivers of shadows and sunlight. “How’d you meet?”

“I was studying to be a doctor myself.” Jiaying smiled at the memory. “Cal and my teachers told me I had quite a gift for it, and I loved helping people.”

“Not so much anymore?”

Jiaying hesitated. “I’m somewhat limited in helping people in that respect because of my decision to help the gifted ones here, but when I do lend assistance, I am careful. Any wrong move could lead back to us here.” She stopped and reached out to grasp Skye’s shoulder. “It’s imperative that no one knows of Afterlife. The world isn’t ready to know about us just yet. It wasn’t even ready for Thor.”

“I won’t tell anyone, I promise.” Skye placed her hand over her mother’s.

“Even those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents you call your friends?”

Skye was a little disappointed that Jiaying didn’t trust her much. “I’ll tell them about what concerns only me.”

Jiaying nodded, satisfied. “So, yes, Cal and I fell in love. We got married and lived in the village where not only you were born, but myself and my parents before me. Although that was a very, very long time ago.”

Skye frowned. “How old are you?”

“Over a century.” At her daughter’s shocked expression, she smiled. “Automobiles made their way into China when I was two years old.”

“Holy…”

“I was nearly 65 years old when Whitehall first grabbed me and many others from my village.” Jiaying continued, waiting to see where Skye would start to put all the pieces together.

Skye did a double-take. “First?!”

Jiaying motioned for them to continue walking, taking a moment to answer. “It was 1945, and what was left of Hydra was being hunted down by the allies.”

“Led by Peggy Carter.” Skye’s eyes lit up in excitement. “Did you meet her?”

Amused, Jiaying laid a hand on Skye’s arm to calm her. “I’ll get to that.”

“Oh my god…” Skye breathed, her body thrumming with excited awe. “Simmons’ll be so jealous!” At her mother’s stern look, she settled her expression to sheepish, pretending to zip her lips together.

“Whitehall had the excavators of a cave taken to him, along with members of my village, for testing.”

“Testing?” Skye’s brow furrowed, then snapped back up. “The Diviner?!”

“Yes.” Jiaying gave one nod. “He was observing the speed and physical effects of the petrification.”

“Jeez…” Skye looked away, disgusted.

“When it came to me, he expected the same results as every other time before. He was kind, and told me I should pick up the metal object. The Obelisk, he called it.” Jiaying’s expression tightened. “I’d never seen a Diviner before. I didn’t know what it would do, to anyone, and then I saw the end of a finger. It was stone. I refused, but the guards behind me forced me to touch it.”

“And it glowed orange with Kree symbols.” Skye murmured, remembering the time when Whitehall forced her to hold it.

Jiaying remained silent for a while, then her face brightened. “He didn’t get to experiment on me like he wanted to. One of his underlings ran in while he gloated of his potential exploits and informed us of another leader’s death. Whatever that meant, it had Whitehall packing everything up, including putting me in a cage.”

“He caged you?!”

“I wasn’t even in there for an hour before the allies got me out. Peggy Carter herself made sure that I was okay and asked that I tell her everything that happened.” She grinned at her daughter’s renewed exhilaration. “After that, I went home, and lived out my life until S.H.I.E.L.D. came and took me away.”

“And I ended up in an orphanage.” Skye said bitterly. “I don’t even know when my birthday is.”

Jiaying opened her mouth to automatically give the answer, then stopped and smiled. “Why don’t we ask Cal? He’d be delighted to tell you.”

“Ah, sure.” Skye shrugged and allowed her mother to lead her back to the main building.