#skyesgrey

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i cut the blue wires yes?

5.15PM » grant

yes :) :)

5.18PM » skye

and don’t forget to pick up kat frm dc’s at 6 yea?

5.18PM » grant

skye i’m not going to forget my own daughter

5.19PM » skye

sigh watev

5.20PM » grant

when will you be home? :)

5.20PM » skye

hang on

5.37PM » skye

nearly done but debrief will be hour or so

5.38PM » skye

dont wait for me to eat i’ll grab something on way back 

5.39PM » grant

k :)

He slips the phone in his pocket, and heads for the car.

She’s been away two days. Which isn’t bad, the longest they’ve had to be apart is three weeks, but that was after a mission went really really far south. They used to always try to take missions together, but since Kat happened, that hasn’t really been possible. They can be gone for a day, but they won’t leave her without one of her parents for longer than that. It isn’t fair.

Coulson’s house is only a ten minute drive away, but Grant knows for a fact that it’s Audrey, not Coulson, that will be home.

Mostly because Coulson had done his debrief in the morning, and should be doing Skye’s debrief in half an hour.

He pulls up the car in the driveway and gets out. He rings the doorbell, and Audrey answers.

She lets him in with a smile. ‘Kat,’ she shouts back down the hall.

There’s a rush of feet, and his daughter comes running at him, yelling, ‘Daddy!’

He scoops her up into his arms. ‘Hey, Kitty Kat,’ he says. ‘Have you had fun?’

Kat nods. ‘Lots,’ she says. ‘We baked cookies and watched Snow White and went to the play park.’

'Sounds busy,' he says.

'What about you?' Audrey asks. 'Phil only mentioned that Skye was down in Florida.'

'Just New York,' he says. 'It didn't take too long.'

'Good,' Audrey says. 'I swear, Phil overworks the two of you.'

Grant just smiles, and Audrey goes to find a bag to put some cookies in.

He stops with Kat at the shop on the way home. He knows manager, and not as a mark. Which is odd. But as someone who gives his daughter free chocolates.

(Daughter. He’s never getting over that.)

Kat persuades him to buy her strawberry milkshake. She’s good at that. A little Black Widow in the making. Or maybe it’s just him she can do it with.

She slurps it in the car and somehow doesn’t manage to get it down herself (Skye would have done).

They get into the house and, when it’s dark and quiet, Kat looks confused. ‘Where’s mummy?’ she asks.

Grant pats her head, smoothes down her hair. ‘Home soon,’ he says.

'You promise?'

She asks him this a lot, and he lies every time.

'I promise,' he says.

He makes pasta. She “helps”. They eat sitting on the sofa, because they’re not and never have been great at family dinners (Grant doesn’t mind — he likes the informality of it).

Kat has the TV on, something he doesn’t recognise but makes her laugh, while he washes up. 

His phone beeps.

7.02PM » skye

you got milk?

7.03PM » grant

yes :)

7.03PM » skye

great uwu i’ll be home in ten

7.04PM » grant

are you texting and driving :(

7.04PM » skye

… no?

He puts it down on the table and turns to see Kat looking at him expectantly. ‘Nearly home,’ he tells her, and she nods in approval, going back to her show.

He tries not to keep looking at the clock, but when a key clicks in the lock he knows it’s been exactly nine minutes since she’d texted.

Kat shoots from the sofa and skids towards the door with a yell of, ‘Mummy!’

He follows after her, and when he reaches the hall Kat is in Skye’s arms, balanced against her hip.

Skye smiles at him, holding out an arm so that she can wrap it round him, too. He kisses her on the forehead.

'Good day?' he asks. She's uninjured, which counts for something.