Who: Phil Coulson What: Pondering things. Lots of things. When: Very late Sunday night Where: His apartment Status: Narrative
Phil had been there for weeks, now, and it still made as little sense as it had at first. Oh, he understood the logic behind it, as much as anyone could understand something like what was going on. He wasn't so much worried about that, though, as he was making a life for himself in this version of the world. He had a job, he had some of the people he cared about, he had Morgan -- who he still hadn't threatened to steal from her parents yet, he was waiting on that until some of the shiny new baby smell had faded -- and he, for the moment, still had his life.
He didn't know how much longer that would be the case for, but he was going to enjoy it for as long as he could.
And he wasn't going to look at it too closely. Why would he do that, when enjoying his time here was letting him feel a kind of normal he hadn't felt in a very long time? It was almost like the good old days when he'd been just an agent. Not quite, but almost. Surreal, really, but that was okay. If you had to have him sum up the entirety of his life since the Avengers, "surreal" was actually a good word in general. Applying it to being in this version of New York City only made sense.
He hadn't been able to sleep, which wasn't unusual; he'd been having more and more trouble sleeping since he and Melinda had left the others. Phil wasn't sure why, exactly, liked to blame it on the fact that he knew he didn't have much time left and was trying to spend as much of it as he could doing anything but sleeping. That was back home, though. Here? No, here everything seemed fine. Near as he could tell, everything was fine. Here he was a SHIELD agent all over again, here he had the family-of-friends that came with knowing the people he knew, here it was the same as it had been before... well. Before.
But he'd discovered that when he couldn't sleep, watching TV helped. He wasn't sure why, other than it was something completely normal. Something that he would've done back home. Something that would distract him no matter what. And so he settled down on the couch with something to drink -- he'd contemplated coffee, since he wasn't sure he'd get back to sleep at all, but had elected for a glass of water -- and reached for the remote.