Epilogue Chapter Five

Grant and I went straight to the airport and took the first flight out. We got home late that night, and crashed without even changing into pajamas. It had been a long day.

The next morning we woke up late, bright light filtering into the room. My head was on Grant's chest, and I could hear his heart beating, which always calmed me down.

"Morning sleepy head," he said, still sounding half asleep himself.

"What time is it?" I grumbled.

"Ten."

I laughed. "I think that's the latest I've slept since I joined the academy."

"Nope. You were out until two after Siberia."

"Oh yeah. Still, this is kinda weird." I paused. "What do you think the chances are that I'm not fired?"

"You left without telling your boss and haven't showed up today."

"Yeah... it's not looking good, is it?"

"We're back on the same job schedule again," Grant sighed, then sat up, rolling me off of him.

"Ugh," I groaned, face planting into my pillow. I didn't want to get up yet. I didn't want to look for another new job.

"Come on Slater," said Grant, walking around to my side of the bed. "Time to get up. We have stuff to do today."

"No," I whined, my voice muffled by the pillow.

"Come on. Don't make me wake you up the hard way."

"Ha. You can try, but I'm immune to earthquakes now. I'm not moving."

Grant sighed. "Alright. I warned you."

Before I knew what was happening, Grant had scooped me up and thrown me over his shoulder, heading for the bathroom.

"Oi! What are you doing?"

He didn't answer. I jabbed him in the back with my elbow, but I didn't want to hurt him, so it wasn't hard enough to make him drop me.

We got into the bathroom, and Grant dropped me into our bathtub that doubled as a shower.

"What are you-?"

Before I could finish, Grant had reached over and turned on the shower, soaking me from my helpless position laying in the tub.

"Grant!" I yelled, gasping at the shock of cold water hitting me in the face.

"Sorry Slater." He had a grin on his face and I could tell he wasn't sorry at all. "I needed a new way to get you up and moving. And I did warn you."

"Uck, you're a jerk. And you underestimate my power to nap anywhere I want," I said, closing my eyes and leaning back in the tub. I did my best to ignore the water still hitting me and tried to look comfortable.

"You're kidding." Grant paused, clearly expecting me to get up. I didn't. "Come on Slater, get up."

In response, I made fake snoring noises.

Grant let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Fine. I guess I'll see you in the kitchen when you decide to get up."

I waited until he closed the door, then I opened my eyes again. Because I was stubborn and officially committed, I made myself wait ten minutes before getting out. I did turn up the water temperature though.

Once I'd waited long enough, I turned off the water and walked into the kitchen, not bothering to dry off or change out of my sopping clothes. I was gonna get revenge on Grant now that I was completely soaked.

He was standing behind the couch watching the TV. He didn't see me coming. Perfect.

Once I was close enough, I threw both arms around him, wrapping him in a tight, soaking wet hug from behind. He jumped and gasped and I didn't even try to hide my laugh.

"Geeze Slater! Are you kidding me?"

"Nope." I peeked around him, not letting go as I looked at the TV. Christian was front and center, preaching a new defense of SHIELD that had everyone confused since it was such a change of heart.

Well, everyone but me and Grant.

"Looks like we really scared him. He did a complete one-eighty on SHIELD," I mused.

"Mission accomplished." Neither of us said anything for a minute, then Grant spoke up again. "I love you, but can you get off me? You're soaking wet and cold."

"Oh yeah. Sorry," I laughed, letting go and heading back to the bedroom. "I'm gonna get changed, and then we need to find new jobs."

"Yeah, we do. I'll make some breakfast."

"Perfect, thanks Grant."

Grant smiled, and when he turned around I could see the wet mark I left on the back of his shirt. I stifled a laugh and slipped back into the bedroom. As mad as I was at Grant for acting so crazy yesterday, I was happy with the outcome. I didn't want to be called back to SHIELD for some big emergency if we could help it.

****************

"I'm going to kill someone if I have to work another customer service job," Grant grumbled between bites of scrambled eggs.

"Cole thinks you already have. He thinks they just haven't found the body."

"Cole's going to be right if I have one more person ask to speak to my manager."

"Okay, definitely not another customer service job for you then..." I sighed and leaned back in my chair. There weren't any good options.

"We still have our drop boxes," Grant suggested.

"No." I shook my head. "Even if SHIELD doesn't need us again, we've made enough enemies that we should keep those prepared."

Grant grunted in agreement.

I thought for another minute. As great as everything else was, Grant and I couldn't keep doing this shuffle from job to job. We needed to find something we liked to do. Something permanent.

"Remember awhile ago I said we needed something more exciting?" I asked, clicking through a few things on my computer. I was starting to get an idea.

"Yeah, and I said that's be hard to find after SHIELD. Not much gets your heart racing more than being shot at."

"Well, I think I have an idea." I spun my laptop around to face Grant, having found what I was hoping for.

"Skydiving?"

"Yeah! We'd be the experienced people who jump out of planes with tourists or adventure seekers! Besides, we've already done it a bunch with SHIELD, so it's be easy for us."

"That's true... Slater, that's not a bad idea."

"Thank you, I know. There's a company that's hiring right now here in San Diego. We land on the beach. It's perfect."

"Just one problem. What are we going to do if they ask how we know how to skydive?"

"Easy. We lie. We're spies."

Grant laughed. "Okay Slater. Let's do it."

****************

Grant and I sent in our applications, did a quick interview, and were hired in no time. Apparently finding two already-trained skydivers who had experience working as a team was pretty rare.

Monday morning we had our first day of work, and I was practically jumping off the walls I was so excited.

"Here we go Grant! Skydiving day one! This is going to be so awesome."

"I hope you're right Slater."

"Don't worry, I will be. Now let's go!"

We arrived a few minutes early, and went over procedures again. We'd be responsible for welcoming our group, giving them a safety briefing, helping them suit up, and then actually jumping. We wouldn't be in charge of the group yet, since we were just starting, but I was hoping we would be soon.

"You guys ready?" asked Chris, our boss and the leader of our group.

"Absolutely!" I exclaimed.

"Great! The first group's coming in about ten minutes. I'll handle most stuff, you guys just watch and learn. We're hoping to have two teams to take people up, but we don't have anyone with the experience yet. Maybe that could be you two."

"That would be so awesome."

"Glad you're interested. We'll see how today goes, yeah?"

"Definitely. Thanks Chris."

"Sure thing."

He went off to get stuff ready, and I walked over to Grant.

"You hear that?"

"I did."

"We've gotta kill it today. Leading our own group would be so awesome!"

"Don't worry Slater, we will." I smiled and Grant leaned in to kiss me. Then, we heard Chris call out from the front of the building.

"First group's here! Let's get diving!"

"You ready?" asked Grant.

"So ready. Let's do this."

****************

Our first group went perfectly, and so did the next two we had for the day. I had so much fun meeting all the people and helping calm down the ones who were a little more scared. Grant did an amazing job with getting people briefed, harnessed, and in the air, and best of all we had fun. At work. The whole time.

"Great job today guys!" called Chris. "If things keep going like this, you two'll be my first choice to lead a second team."

"We'd be happy to," said Grant.

"Thank you so much Chris, today was awesome."

"I'm glad we found such a good fit. Have a good night."

"You too!" Grant and I waved as Chris headed back up the beach. We landed here after every jump, and after our last group we'd stuck around because... well, beach.

"This is much better than customer service," said Grant, sitting down on top of one of the dunes. The sun was just starting to sink into the ocean.

"No kidding," I laughed, plopping down next to him. "We finally found a job we like."

Grant put his arm around my shoulders and I leaned into his chest. We stayed like that for a long time, just watching the sunset.

"I know we've always said we'd go back to SHIELD..." I started. "But... ugh, I don't know. I just really like where we are right now."

"I do too, Slater."

"What if we didn't go back? Ever? What if we made our retirement permanent?"

"I wouldn't be complaining. That's a pretty big decision to make though."

"I know... And I'd miss Coulson and Skye and May and FitzSimmons... I just feel like we've finally found something that could be permanent. I don't want this to end."

"I don't either Slater. But maybe for now we just see how this goes."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's a good plan. No sense worrying if we don't have a good reason. If there's an emergency, or if this job is really working out, then we'll decide."

Grant nodded, then pulled me closer as the sun disappeared beneath the waves. Hopefully Grant was right, and there wouldn't be a reason to worry.