Phil sat back in his office chair, and threw the report he'd been reading onto the desk in front of him, letting it join the growing pile of paperwork he had been putting off doing for far too long. The clock on the wall ahead of him read almost 23:00 hours, and Phil sighed. Audrey would be finishing her performance around this time, and he was supposed to have been there to watch. It wasn't the first time he'd missed one of her recitals, and he knew that given this job, it wouldn't be the last either, but each time he did he felt that familiar wash of guilt tainting the job he loved. Things might be easier if Audrey knew the full extents of what he did each day, but given the sensitive nature of the organisation, she was mostly left in the dark, meaning she got more and more annoyed when all he could tell her was "he was busy".

He would have been there tonight too, and had literally been about to walk out of the doors until an urgent memo from Director Fury had called him away from his plans. He was used to having priority reports sent down, and he was used to reading about the strange happenings that they dealt with day in and day out. But what he had not been prepared for was what was right in front of him. Phil undid his top button and loosened his tie, before picking the report up once more, and his tired eyes scanned the pages quickly, desperate to find something he'd missed the last four times he'd read it. Something that could explain what on earth was going on.

The report was focused on three individuals across the United States, who had apparently, quoting the report, "returned from the dead". To anybody else reading it, they would have laughed, instant disbelief clouding their minds. If he didn't work for SHIELD, Phil also would have automatically dismissed the claims in front of him as nonsense. Something completely illogical and definitely not possible. But he knew first hand that sometimes, there were means to carry out even the most impossible seeming tasks.

Dying had always been a possibility doing this job; Phil had known that the day he signed up. But even so, getting stabbed through the chest by a warrior from another realm was not exactly how he thought it would happen for him. Loki's sceptre had pierced his heart, and Phil could recall nothing about dying except telling Fury he was clocking out. So when he had then opened his eyes to find out he had been basically resurrected, even he was in shock. That kind of thing, it should not have been possible. Death was meant to be final. It always had been.

When you died, you never came back. Phil knew that.

Or he thought he did.

He was grateful in a way, that Fury had authorised the TAHITI project to be carried out on him; he gave him a second chance at life. A chance to try and make right the things he could, and to carry on being the best agent possible. But at the same time, he was overwhelmed with a sense of unexplainable guilt – why should he have been given another go at things, when so many people were left with only memories to keep them alive. There were others who deserved to have been brought back instead. Others he would have given anything in the world to be able to see one last time.

The familiar clenching feeling Phil got every time he thought about the permanence of death for everyone but himself began to reclaim his body, and he had to shake his head to stop his mind from going back down that path.

It had taken Phil a long time to accept that Melinda was no longer there with him. To begin with, he would wake in the morning and expect everything to have been a nightmare, just unconscious thoughts fucking with his head and drawing him into the belief she was not lying next to him, breathing softly in the dawn light. He'd roll over to face her side of the bed, and momentarily hope she'd just gotten up early to practice tai-chi, that she'd come back soon and curl up against him in one of his own shirts like she did each morning, her soft hair tickling the bare skin of his shoulders, and everything would be okay again. But those delusions would be shattered when he noted how silent the apartment was, when he glanced at the pillow she once lay upon and knew it had not been slept on that night, when he went into work and his colleagues nodded sadly at him as they passed in long dimly lit corridors.

And then he knew he was alone.

It took him almost a year to accept that she had died. It had taken another four before he was able to move on in terms of relationships. He'd met Audrey by chance, one evening in a bar after she'd performed for a particularly large crowd. She'd been so filled with relief that the show was over, and he'd complimented her music, before offering to buy her a drink. He wouldn't have imagined that two years later they would be living together. He hadn't told her about Melinda until they'd been together almost eighteen months. She's suggested they move in with one another, and he'd freaked slightly; in some way he still felt like he was betraying Melinda, moving on with somebody else. But Audrey, despite being upset he had kept such a huge event in his life from her, told him that she understood, and told him they could move things forward as slowly as he wanted if it made things easier. They'd moved in a few months later. And now they were engaged.

But when reports like this landed on his desk, it didn't exactly help with his acceptance that Melinda had gone forever. And every time he thought about how much he missed her, he was filled with guilt that he was betraying Audrey.

Phil leant over and picked up the phone on his desk, hitting speed-dial 2. It rang twice before being answered.

"Coulson."

"Sir, this report -"

"I know" Fury interrupted. Phil could hear him sigh on the other end. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but there have been three separate cases now where people who are supposed to be dead have turned up in their home towns, apparently unaware they are meant to be six damn feet under."

Phil shook his head, and rubbed his eyes with his spare hand. This was madness.

"Surely there must be some kind of explanation? Maybe there was a mix up at the coroners' office or something and they weren't actually dead?"

"Two of the families of those who have returned had open-casket funerals Coulson. They watched their relatives lowered into the ground and then they've had that same person show up on the doorstep years later as though nothing has ever happened."

"That's not possible."

"I know. But there is something else…" Fury paused, and Coulson knew whatever he was about to say wasn't in the report he'd been sent. "This has come to us because each of the three returned are showing up as 0-8-4's."

"Objects of unknown origin" Coulson murmured.

This was surreal. Three people returned from the dead, and not recognised as human. He swallowed. Something about the whole case sent a shiver up his spine.

"What would you like me to do Sir?" Phil said after a moment. He knew already, and he wasn't going to like it, but he needed confirmation.

"I want you to head up the investigation into this phenomenon. Get a team together, only a select few individuals and I want to vet them personally. Look into what the hell is going on here."

"If word gets out about this, there's going to be chaos."

The events of New York had terrified people across the world; an alien invasion had been something only ever seen in works of fiction, and Phil could only imagine the reaction if news began to spread that now people were coming back to life, multiple years after death.

"This is a top secret mission. Go to each police force handling the individual incidents and take over. Debrief them. Make sure they know nothing."

"Yes Sir."

Phil groaned internally at the prospect of the next few months. A mission of this scale would mean being away from home a lot, working late, and little to no social life. Audrey was going to hate him, and he had a horrible feeling this would drive another wedge between their already precarious relationship.

He was certain he hadn't made a sound, but Fury seemed to have sensed his reluctance anyway.

"Phil….are you okay to do this?"

It was rare that Fury called Phil by his first name, usually reverting to the surname titles that most agents were addressed by. But they'd known each other for years, and Fury knew full well how hard Phil had taken Melinda's death – all agents had really, she'd been one of the best he'd ever seen - but cases involving death always triggered some kind of memory recall for Phil whether he wanted them to or not. The first name terms automatically switched their conversation from professional to personal.

"It'll be fine Nick, as long as she doesn't turn up on my doorstep too." He'd meant it as a joke, but it came out more sorrowful than intended.

"She won't."

It was in both a terrible and conflicted way that Phil hoped he was right, and wrong.

Phil unlocked the apartment door as quietly as he could and crept inside, conscious of the fact that it was almost half one in the morning, and chances were Audrey would be asleep by now. As the door closed behind him, he stood in silence for a while, just listening to distant sounds of the city outside.

After he'd hung up with Fury, Phil had spent the next hour or so working out the basic foundations for a team for this kind of mission. He would need people he could trust; only agents he was sure could keep their mouths closed about such a potentially huge event. He'd need a scientist or two, to help conduct any tests they may need to carry out on these so called returned, and to collate any data or findings they would uncover. He would also need somebody who was better at computers than he was; somebody who could do some serious digging into what had happened, who could find old news articles and scour online conspiracy forums. And finally he would need a specialist, to protect the unit, and take down one of these 0-8-4's if they appeared to present any sort of danger to the general public, or to a member of his team.

Phil walked into the kitchen, throwing his suit jacket over one of the chairs at the table as he moved; he'd removed his tie earlier, and it was stuffed into one of his pockets quite unceremoniously. His gaze caught a bowl of leftover pasta on one of the work-surfaces, covered in cling film, and he realised he'd missed dinner again. Not that he really had very much appetite. He picked the bowl up and put it in the fridge.

"You already eaten?"

Phil spun round to find Audrey watching him, leaning against the bedroom doorframe. She was wearing her usual silk pyjamas, but judging by the wide-awake look in her eyes, she hadn't been asleep.

"No" he shook his head slightly. "I'm over-hungry now anyway though…."

She nodded silently in response, and watched as he poured himself a glass of water instead. He could feel her gaze burning into his back as he moved around the room.

"You're watching me."

"You missed the show."

He knew that one was coming, and he sighed as he turned back to face her, leaning against the counter behind him.

"I know honey, and I'm sorry, but some–"

"Yeah, something came up. I know."

He watched her for a moment, not sure what else to say. She knew his job came with secrets, the inability to know exactly what he did; he'd never hidden that from her. All she knew was that SHIELD dealt with the unexplainable occurrences in the world, and that was all she could know.

"I have a new mission, something big." That was an understatement.

"You're going away?"

"Possibly, depending on what happens."

Audrey nodded again, and sighed in a way Phil had a horrible feeling was resignation.

"I'm going to bed."

"Okay." He tried to smile, but it felt empty. "I'll be in shortly."

She gave him a small nod, before leaving him alone once more.

An hour later and Phil lay in the darkness, listening as Audrey's quiet breathing grew slower and slower, until he knew she had fallen asleep. He had a feeling he wasn't going to be so lucky as to drift off quickly tonight. His mind was wide awake, ideas and theories ghosting their way into his conscious thoughts.

Returning from the dead was not possible. Death was final. Unless SHIELD used an unlicensed and most-likely completely illegal procedure to bring you back, of course. Phil rolled over, and let his mind expand on that thought. If SHIELD had been able to do that to him, who was to say that the procedure hadn't been replicated in some way by another organisation. Maybe these individuals who were back had also been put through something of a similar nature? If they had, then there was a serious problem, because the TAHITI project that he'd headed up had so many side-effects that it was considered unsafe, and never to be used again. If someone out there was using it, then there would be huge implications for everybody involved. Despite the technology available, they couldn't just go around resurrecting people; especially when the process involved some kind of alien compound as a form of self-healing drug.

It was going to be a long night.

I'm aiming to write 6-8 chapters for this, each around this length.

Please let me know what you think! I really appreciate the feedback so I know what works and what doesn't in the story.

Thanks guys!