A/N: This did NOT turn out the way I planned. WAY darker than intended, but there's plenty fluff to hopefully compensate at least somewhat. This is a special birthday fic for my good friend crownedtiger! I hope you like it, mate. Happy Birthday!
Side note: Jemma never got eaten by that bloody rock because I have no idea what to do with that.
The last couple of years had been weird for Skye.
She'd gone from having no parents, to finding her father, to finding her father and mother, to having neither. And now, well, she felt as though she was back to square one. Frankly, Skye felt more like she was six steps behind square one, having had everything and now having nothing. She didn't even have the hopes and fantasies of one day meeting her parents that she'd had on those cold nights holed up in her van, because now her parents were a reality. And now her parents were gone.
Cal was still around, sort of. She could see him from a distance, watch him have the life he maybe would have had, had she not fucked it up for him. Baby or not, if Cal hadn't lost it over Skye, he wouldn't have gone as crazy as he did. It was a thought that Skye kept to herself, an unjust guilt she felt for her biological father, but it was just one of the many things that kept her awake at night.
As for her mother, well, the less Skye thought about Jiaying the better. As a child, Skye had fantasised about her mother. She would be beautiful, kind, smart, caring, and she would be absolutely everything Skye ever needed in life. For a little while, that's who Jiaying was, or at least who she had tricked Skye into thinking she was. And then as per usual, the other shoe dropped, and Skye was thrust into a world of frightening uncertainty where her mother was a murderer, her father was somehow the 'good guy' and she had betrayed her family, her actual family
Her team. Skye's family.
Maybe having your mother attempt to kill you, and your father save you, only for your mother die and your father lose every memory he had of you, would have been more difficult if she hadn't had the support of her team. She was still finding it hard to recover. Skye still felt as though she was on the very edge of a psychiatric breakdown no matter what bullshit she fed to Andrew to keep him off her back, but she didn't feel inclined to throw herself off a bridge, yet. So, at least there was that.
The more Skye dwelled on it, the more she came to the conclusion that Jiaying wasn't her mother. DNA and biology didn't count. Skye's real mother was the woman who had cared for her, taught her, put her in her place when she was getting too big for her boots. Skye wanted to be just like her mom. Skye wanted to be like May.
Coulson had called mandatory time off for the whole team, although most of them seemed to be keeping busy with work here and there. Stopping for too long meant thinking for too long and that was never good for anyone.
When Skye was given the opportunity to think, she found things in her head that she didn't like. She closed her eyes and saw things that seemed too real.
It was only right for them to take a break, Skye thought. They all needed time to recuperate, to lick their wounds and nurse their bruises. Some of them literally. Skye still felt guilty that she had emerged from the whole thing practically unscathed, while Bobbi continued to struggle through each day, Hunter diligently by her bedside.
Bobbi being shot had nothing to do with Skye, really. What that sick fuck Grant Ward did to Bobbi wasn't Skye's fault, but she took on the guilt anyway. Skye was feeling guilty about a lot of things recently, she might as well add Bobbi's injuries to the list.
Skye had left her team because she was scared. A coward. Guilty.
She had trusted too quickly. Guilty.
She had been caught up with the idea of her mother. Guilty.
Skye had trusted the woman over her own team. Guilty.
It was Skye's fault that Gonzales was dead. Guilty.
It was all Skye's fault.
All of it.
All of it.
All of it.
And Skye was lonely.
Fitz and Simmons were off attempting to rekindle a relationship with a more romantic flame. Skye had wished them well and left them to it. They deserved to be happy together. She wanted her best friends to be happy.
Mack was avoiding her. He made no secret about it either. When they met in a corridor, Skye would give him a smile, and Mack would turn in the opposite direction. She had heard Coulson giving him shit about it, telling Mack he needed to accept Skye's inhuman abilities and move on, but she didn't blame him. Mack had been down there, too in San Juan. He'd experienced things that Skye thought perfectly justified his weariness of her, so she helped him out and avoided him first. It meant a little more heartache on her part, avoiding another of her friends, but if it helped keep Coulson off of his back, she would do it.
Bobbi and Hunter were holed up in her hospital room twenty-four seven. Somehow Hunter had managed to get another bed in so her could sleep beside his ex-wife. Bobbi wasn't allowed to leave and so, neither did Hunter leave her bedside. Skye didn't visit. She didn't want to disturb them. The last time Skye had seen Bobbi was at the cabin when she had almost killed her. Skye's guilt kept her far away from the hospital room, but watching the security feed on her laptop when she couldn't sleep was a guilty pleasure and sometimes when she closed her eyes she saw Hunter begging Bobbi to wake up.
Skye liked to make sure everyone was safe.
Coulson only had one hand.
It was a revelation that caught Skye off-guard every once in a while. She would forget, for half a second would believe that everything was as it should have been. Everything was good like it was before, and then she would see the sling and the world would come crashing down. Metaphorically. Although, Skye could probably make the world come crashing down literally if she wanted to. She was dangerous.
Coulson spent a lot of time locked away in his office and Skye didn't like to disturb him. She was dangerous.
She had hurt May. Said terrible things to her that she didn't deserve.
Skye should have listened to May, should have trusted her, should have- Skye was guilty. She had hurt May. She had hurt May.
I'm so sorry. Skye wanted to tell her again. I should have listened, I shouldn't have pushed you away.
May had said she forgave Skye. Skye believed her, but it didn't make her feel any better. She didn't deserve it.
Skye was lonely.
May was gone.
May had left without telling Skye she was going. Never said when she was going, never said where. May hadn't said goodbye. Skye had only found out when she overheard some of the other agents talking about her leaving. Apparently they were happy to be free from the Calvary.
Skye had smashed their mugs right out of their hands from across the room. She had scared them. She was glad.
Skye missed May.
When she closed her eyes, she could almost see her, but then the vision would slip away and not for the first time did Skye think about Raina and how her powers worked.
She sat outside Coulson's office on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, for over an hour. She didn't want to be a bother, but she needed to know where May was, if only to know her S.O. was safe. She wanted May.
He found Skye sitting like that when he opened his office door with the intention of finding something for dinner. It was the first time they had been face to face for days. Avoiding Mack had been easy. Avoiding everyone else, too, had been a pinch.
He sat her down on the couch in his office and closed the door. When Phil sat down beside her, and Skye could feel the heat of his leg against her thigh, she felt like she might cry.
"I'm not going to ask if you're okay," He said, "because I know you're not."
"M'fine." She said quietly. The couch was a soft leather, old and cracked. Skye traced the webs of wear with her fingers and imagined the cracks in the walls of the underground city.
Phil sighed. He looked tired. "I'm worried about you, Skye."
"Bobbi has a hole in her chest. Maybe you should worry about her."
"I do." Phil put a hand on her shoulder and Skye had to squeeze her eyes shut. "But Bobbi's getting better every day, and I'm not sure that you are."
Skye stayed quiet. She knew that wasn't true. Bobbi was getting worse, not better, so Coulson was using her to get at Skye. Anger flared in her chest, but it was short-lived. It was hard to feel anything these days, and Coulson was probably just worried.
Her mind fizzed with too many things and horrible pictures of Hunter sobbing danced under her eyelids. She opened them and pressed her nails into the cracked leather.
"You mean more to me than almost anything else in this world." Coulson touched her hair. "You've been avoiding me."
"It's nothing personal."
"Have you been eating?" He asked and Skye bit her lip. "It was a rhetorical question because I know you haven't. You'll get sick."
Skye shrugged. "Maybe I won't. Maybe I can survive without eating. Who knows?" She laughed bitterly. "Might just be another perk of the inhuman thing."
"Stop it, Skye."
"No." She kept her eyes down. "I'm not normal. I'll give them experiments."
She'd heard the chatter in the lab, the scientists who worked with Jemma talking about her. They wanted to cut her open and dig around inside just to see what they could find. Skye was sure a part of Jemma wanted that, too. Skye didn't blame her. Really, how could Jemma not want to have a good old exploration of her, she was damn fascinating.
Phil touched her cheekbone and Skye let him. The bone was too obvious now and she knew he could feel where the puppy fat on her cheeks had begun wasting away.
"You'll get sick if you don't eat." He said. "It's not healthy."
She closed her eyes and saw Mack huddled in the corner of his bunk, hands shaking and tears dripping off his chin. "I'm hoping I'll just fade away."
"Skye." Coulson's voice was pitying, sad, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He tried to pull her into a hug but Skye resisted. She didn't deserve his sympathy. He kissed her temple instead. "What are we going to do with you, huh?"
He didn't say anything after that, just kept the arm with the hand wrapped around her shoulders, and rubbed her arm. Skye thought he might say something when Phil opened his mouth, but then he closed it again and kissed her hair.
Her lips were cracked and the inside of her mouth was filled with ulcers. Skye rubbed her tongue over the roof of her mouth, frowning at how sore it was. Jemma would probably tell her it was because she wasn't drinking enough. Maybe it was stress. It hurt.
"May's gone." The words left her mouth without much warning, coming out rough and cracked.
"Yeah." Phil said. "Have you been sleeping?"
"She's coming back?"
"Of course she is." Coulson said. "Skye, how have you been sleeping?"
Maybe she looked tired. "Okay." She lied.
"I don't believe you." Phil shook his head.
"Where's May?" For the first time since entering his office, Skye looked directly at Coulson. "Please."
His face softened and he moved his arm to cup her face. "You miss her?"
Skye nodded, face crumbling as the overwhelming urge to cry gripped at her insides. She tried to breathe deeply, to keep her heart rate steady, but the breath was all shuddery and it felt as though no air even reached her lungs.
"She left me." Skye whispered.
"May did what she thought was best."
Skye gritted her teeth. "I hate her."
"No, you don't."
She didn't . "I love her." Skye corrected. "Tell her to come back."
Phil sighed again. "I can't."
"Please. Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her I want her back." A tear slipped down Skye's cheek and dripped off her chin onto the cracked leather.
"Oh, sweetheart." Phil swallowed so hard that Skye could see his Adam's apple moving even through the blur of her tears. "You're having a bad time, huh?"
"Where is she?"
"I can't tell you." Phil stroked the tears from her cheek.
"Why?"
"I keep my promises."
Skye tried another deep breath and supressed a sob. "She doesn't want me to know where she is?"
"May think's it's for the best." Phil tried to explain but Skye shook her head.
"No. May's wrong." Phil tried to hug her again and this time Skye let him, tucking herself under his chin and pressing her nose into his shirt. "May's wrong."
"Yeah, I know, sweetheart, but I still can't tell you where she is."
Skye sniffled and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm. They stung. "I want my May." It came out more juvenile and needy than she had intended but nothing else explained the sentiment more thoroughly. "I need her."
Phil rocked her gently, kissing the crown of her head. "You'll be okay."
"What if I'm not?"
"That's not an option, Skye."
Skye missed May.
"Please tell me where she is." Skye tried once more, but Phil didn't even speak, just shook his head and tightened his hold on her.
Skye pushed him away. "I want to be left alone." She said, standing up and walking over to the office door. She narrowed her eyes at him. "If you're not going to tell me where I can find her, I want you to leave me alone."
"Skye-,"
"Leave me alone, Coulson." She turned to the closed door, and shut her eyes for a second when the room tilted unpleasantly. Not taking care of herself was taking its toll. The dizzy spells were only getting more frequent. "I'm so sorry." She whispered, and dared to open her eyes.
Phil spoke quietly. "What for?"
Skye opened the door, her back to Coulson. "I'm sorry for being so much trouble."
"Sweetheart, you're no trouble."
She didn't deserve the kind tone or the affectionate nickname. "Don't lie, Phil. I'm too much trouble."
Coulson sighed. She heard the leather of the couch groan as Phil stood up, felt the air shift minutely was he walked over to her. "You're trouble." He said far too kindly. "But you're family, and we love you no matter what."
Skye dug her fingernails into her palm. "May left me."
"For you own good." Coulson said. He put his hand on her arm. "That's what she believes."
Skye stepped out of his office, shrugging off his hand. "Leave me alone, please."
Coulson started to say something else, but Skye closed the door behind her and escaped from the office as fast as she could without tripping over her own feet. Three turns down hallways and Skye fell into a storage closet, lay on the floor, and closed her eyes.
Crying was out of the question, tears just no longer appeared, but she could sob and heave and scream and kick until her throat was raw and her feet were bloody and maybe that was okay. Skye was guilty, she deserved to be left all alone.
…
It was getting harder and harder for Skye to convince herself that the longer she locked herself away from everyone else, the quicker things were going to get back to normality. Things weren't recovering like she wanted them to be.
Watching the security footage on her laptop was still a way Skye found to pass the time.
Hunter stayed with Bobbi, who had managed to need three crash teams by her side in the past four days. She wasn't getting better as quickly as they had all hoped.
Jemma and Fitz were still gone. Skye didn't know where.
Mack liked to spend most of his time in the garage, even though he wasn't supposed to be working. But he was laughing a lot more now. Sometimes when Skye closed her eyes, she still saw him crying.
Coulson left his office more, mostly to visit Bobbi and check on Hunter, but he still spent a lot of time in there. Skye hadn't seen him for a few days actually, now that she thought about it, and couldn't help but wonder if he had decided to leave her, too. She could go back and check the footage from the previous few days to try and see if he had departed, but the thought that he would have actually left her all on her own made Skye's heart feel like it was shattering, so she didn't make the effort to find out. If he had left, Skye couldn't blame him.
She hadn't left her room in nine days now, having since had a breakdown in a storage closet, and she hadn't seen anyone in person since visiting Coulson in his office and begging him to tell her where May was.
Skye missed May.
Jemma and Fitz had each other. Bobbi and Hunter had each other. Mack had his friends in the garage. Coulson had everyone else on base.
May was alone, just like Skye.
For a little while, Skye had assumed May had gone off with Andrew Garner, because they had both seemed to disappear from the base at around the same time, but apparently that was just coincidence, because from what Skye had seen on the security feeds while holed up in her bunk, Andrew had been coming back to base. He had been visiting Coulson in his office and talking with Mack in the garage, and May hadn't ever been with him.
As far as Skye's experiment on herself had been going, she had actually learned a few new things about her new inhuman state. Food and water were less of a concern than they had been before the obelisk. Coulson, or sometimes an agent of Coulson's, had been leaving food outside of her door with bottles of water and cans of soda, and if only to ebb his worry, Skye had been taking them in and replacing them with clean plates and empty bottles.
Her trash can was overflowing and it had started to smell pretty bad about three days prior, but Skye was over two weeks into not eating and she wasn't dead yet. Her complexion was pallid and her ribs were poking through her skin, but the pain in her stomach had faded away to a dull ache after day six and she discovered that as long as she drank a mouthful of water every day or so, the dizziness tended to remain at bay.
Her concentration was shot, though. It was difficult to focus on any one thing for more than about thirty seconds and the computer hurt her eyes.
"You'd find this interesting, Jemma." Skye had taken to talking to her absent friends and pretending they could hear her when the hermit life started to get her down and smell from the rotting food in her trash can made her want to retch. "You'd tell me off for not being healthy, but I bet you'd think I was fascinating."
Skye deftly tapped away at the keyboard of her computer, searching through SHIELD file after SHIELD file for nothing in particular, only in an attempt to keep her mind active. It was taking her five times longer to do anything, but the fact that she was actually completing self-appointed tasks was something to be vaguely proud of.
Her current fascination was phone logs. It might have been a little nosy of Skye to be spying on her team's phone calls, but what they didn't know couldn't hurt them.
"Hey, Jemma, you've been calling your parents a lot more recently." Skye said. "That's good. I'm sure they're happy to hear from you." She pinched the back of her hand to watch the dehydrated peak of skin slowly smooth back out. "I'm not okay, Jemma. I miss you."
"I tried to call May again today." Skye said. It was something she told 'Jemma' everyday. "It didn't connect again. I miss her, Jemma. I miss my Mom." If Skye had enough water in her body to spare tears, she would have cried. "Do you think she hates me? I think I need to see her. I think May needs to know that I'm sorry."
Skye clicked back onto the familiar page of phone calls from May's phone log. It had been harder to hack into her log than the others, making Skye suspect May was adequately suspicious of someone finding her. It made sense. May was the super-spy. She knew all of Skye's tricks before even Skye did.
The log was the same as it had been since the first time Skye had managed to hack into it a few days before. Most of the calls were to numbers Skye recognised; Coulson, Jemma, Bobbi, even a handful to her phone after she had taken off to Afterlife. That made Skye a little happier, that May had tried to contact her even after she had left them. The log however, stopped on the day May left. No calls in, no calls out.
"New phone? What do you think, Jem?" Skye said. "She's probably on a new phone."
Most of May's incoming and outgoing calls had been to Phil. "She would still need a phone to call him, right?"
It took Skye less than half an hour to track down Coulson's new and private cell phone. His calls weren't even on the SHIELD database, they were that private, but Skye was good, and she knew what she was looking for now. The new phone only had one number used, and had only been being used in the past two weeks.
"It's got to be May, right, Jemma?" Skye grinned. She hadn't smiled like that in a while and felt the stinging as her lips cracked under the unfamiliar expression. "I'll try it."
Skye covered her own tracks and called the number. No one answered, she hadn't expected May to answer a call from an 'unknown' number, but it rang. That's all Skye needed. Ten rings and the invitation from an automated voice to leave a voicemail, and Skye was able to track down May's location to within a metre.
"I've found her, Jemma." Skye smiled, already stumbling off her bed to begin shoving things into a backpack. "I'm gonna go tell her I'm sorry. And maybe she'll come home." Skye closed her laptop and thrust that into the bag, too. "Wouldn't that be nice, Jemma? When May comes home we can be our family again."
She left a post it on her bed for Coulson, grabbed her coat and bag and left the base. No one saw her, or at least no one stopped her, and Skye started her journey to May.
Skye really missed May.
…
Skye got on two planes, a train, three busses and walked for twenty-seven miles, before she realised that she was scared.
Her mind was getting crowded with too many things and it was getting increasingly difficult to curb her powers and concentrate on not making the earth under her own feet shake and shudder. When she closed her eyes she either saw Coulson pacing in his office or Hunter crying in the hospital.
Her phone had no charge, her laptop was long gone, having been stolen from her backpack when Skye fell asleep in a train station bathroom. That was a while ago. Maybe a few days, or maybe a few weeks. It was getting harder to tell.
Skye was following instinct. She couldn't even get her mind in order enough to remember the name of the town May was staying in, but she felt the magnetic pull she couldn't explain, and when she had enough energy to force visions of Coulson and Hunter from her mind, Skye saw May, head bowed, hands clasped together, murmuring as she knelt on the floor of a room Skye didn't recognise. There was a paining of a forest on the wall above May's head.
I'm frightened, Skye thought. I don't know where I am. I'm frightened.
She could remember the number, May's new number. Skye made sure she could remember that, and she called it at every opportunity, right up until her phone died. It always rang ten times, asked for a voicemail and then Skye would hang up. She never left a voicemail.
Skye was in Canada, and it was night, and it was dark, and Skye was cold and tired and her feet were hurting and her chest was hurting and maybe I'm dying, maybe this is what dying feels like, and she was following some instinct telling her to keep walking, that she was on the right track even though it was too dark to see and she was walking through fields with no roads and I don't know where I am, I want May.
I want my Mom.
Help me.
I'm frightened.
And the ground was shaking.
I can't stop it. I'm trying. I can't stop it. My feet hurt. I can't see. It's too dark. My head hurts. Oh, God, what if I'm dying.
I deserve to die.
Skye felt herself fall to the ground. The field was empty apart from the long grass that poked into her side and made her arms itch. She wasn't wearing her coat anymore. Skye didn't know where it was.
I'm freezing.
Her bag was gone. The grass made her eyes sting, or maybe her eyes never stopped stinging.
"I'm cold, May." Skye said. Her voice didn't come out properly and even if May had been there, Skye wasn't sure she would have been able to hear her. "I'm sorry." It was too difficult to speak anymore. Her mouth hurt, her throat hurt and the pain in her chest was becoming unbearable. It felt like a tonne weight was being pressed on her body.
The grass poked her cheek and Skye wanted May.
I want my Mom.
It was hard to breathe, and Skye didn't know how she knew, but something was telling her that if she just kept going, she'd find her. She was close. Skye knew May was close she could feel it, feel the urge to continue more strongly than the prick of the grass and the pain in her chest and-
Bobbi's dead.
I don't know how I know, but Bobbi is dead.
Skye's head was filled with images of medics rushing around and Hunter screaming at them and there was loud noises-
-And then there were no noises and Hunter was lying in the bed with Bobbi and she wasn't moving and he was shaking and Skye could feel his hurt and Bobbi was dead.
Standing up took a long time because Skye's legs were shaking and her knees kept giving out. She was sobbing. No tears, but Bobbi was dead and Skye couldn't help but feel Hunter's pain. Even though it was too dark in the field to see anything, when Skye closed her eyes she could see Bobbi dead in the bed and Hunter clutching her head to his chest.
Skye laughed because she was hurting so much and nothing made sense anymore.
"I'm psychic." She said to the sky. Her lips were bleeding and her tongue was too dry. "I'm going to die in a field. I want my Mom."
Walking hurt, but so did everything else so Skye laughed again and started to run. She fell over and hit her chin on the ground and it took a while to get back up but May was close and if Skye tried really hard she could see a cabin with a glowing window instead of Lance Hunter crying over Bobbi.
"I'm comin', Mom." Skye laughed. She coughed and had to spit something out of her mouth. "I think I'm psychic."
Skye kept walking because running made her fall and Skye had no shoes on.
My feet are bare and my chest hurts.
But walking was okay as long as she kept focusing on the image of the cabin in her head and thought of May.
Skye missed May.
When the field gave out to trees, and the sky began exchanging its black for purple, Skye closed her eyes and instead of seeing the cabin in the woods, she saw Lance Hunter sticking a large, empty syringe into his neck, and then Lance Hunter writhing around in pain, and then eventually, long after Skye had to sit down and sob, Skye saw Lance Hunter's body being covered by a white sheet.
She threw up nothing and retched until her muscles couldn't cope anymore and cried tearlessly for Bobbi and Hunter.
Hunter's dead, Skye thought. He'll be with Bobbi, now.
She stood up again, and held onto a tree to keep from falling over. The bark cut into her maimed hands and Skye had no idea when she had gotten so hurt. The sun was coming up. Skye's hands were bloody, Skye's feet were bloody, and the cabin was back under her eyelids.
Skye was lonely. She wanted May. She missed Phil and Jemma and Fitz and Bobbi was dead and Hunter was dead and it was her fault. Oh, God, it was all Skye's fault, wasn't it? Was it? No. It wasn't.
It was.
It wasn't.
My chest hurts.
I'm cold.
I don't know where I am.
I'm frightened.
"I want my Mom."
"And who might that be, child?"
There was a woman in front of Skye, or above Skye, rather. Skye didn't how she ended up on the ground again. The sky was blue and the sun was bright above the elderly Asian woman looking over her. The woman bent down and stroked Skye's cheek. She was being gentle but it still hurt.
"You're very dedicated, aren't you?" The woman said. She smiled kindly. "You've come a very long way."
"I'm lost." Skye said.
The woman chuckled and shook her head. "No, you're not lost, child."
"I don't know where I am."
"I think you do, Skye."
Skye frowned at her. "You know me?"
"I'm a very clever woman, and you're a very clever girl, Skye. Not many people would be able to find their way to my home, the one I've kept hidden for so long, and manage to get past all of the security measures."
"I can't remember that."
The woman smiled sadly. "I think you're very unwell, my child."
"I think so, too."
The woman touched Skye's cheek again. "They've been looking for you, Skye. Did you really think they wouldn't worry when you went missing? It's been a while since you left the base."
"How long?"
The woman looked sad. "Eight days since they found your note."
Skye's chest still hurt and she wanted to cry. "I was looking for my Mom." She said. "I needed her and she left me."
"I know Melinda left you." The woman said, pityingly. "She has been looking for you."
"You know her?" The pain was making it hard to speak.
"I do, very well." The woman smiled. "She likes to think that people are better off without her company."
"She's wrong." Skye gasped when the pressure in her chest got overwhelming, and tried to sit up. The wind felt as though it was knocked out of her lungs. The woman who knew May helped her up and Skye managed to stand. She looked around, and the cabin from her mind was in front of her. "I think I'm psychic."
"I think you might be right." The woman kept a hold of Skye's arm. "I'm not sure how else you would have found your way here without anyone finding you."
"I think I might be dying."
The woman tutted. "Don't say things like that. I find you in my yard and you tell me you're dying. Oh, that will not do." She tried to help Skye move, but moving was too hard and Skye could barely breathe.
The cabin looked inviting. Skye could tell May was inside. She felt the pull in her bones and stumbled forward. "I want my Mom, please."
Skye missed May.
It was too difficult to remain standing and everything hurt.
"I think I'm dying."
…
There was something warm on Skye's cheek that she never wanted to move. Her eyes were closed but her mind wasn't throwing images at her like it had been before, now it was just dark and clear. She tried to move her hand and it didn't hurt, and someone took her hand in theirs and squeezed.
"Are you going to wake up?" May asked quietly. Her voice was unusually soft, but it was unmistakably her. "Skye? Come on, baby, wake up for me."
Skye opened her eyes. She was inside the same room she had seen May in, in her head. The woodland painting was on the wall. Skye was in a bed, and it was warm. Her chest no longer hurt. Her eyes felt okay. Her mouth felt fine. May was sitting in a chair by her bedside with her hand on Skye's cheek. May gasped and moved the hand from Skye's cheek to cover her mouth.
"I thought you weren't going to wake up." She whispered, and moved her hand. "You're an idiot. God, Skye, what the hell were you thinking?"
"I'm not dead." Skye said. "I'm not dead."
May kissed her head furiously. "No thanks to you." She kissed her cheeks and her nose and her lips. "Don't you ever, ever do that again, do you understand?" May was mad. She was so mad. "Skye?"
"Mom?"
May's face softened and she moved to sit on the bed, pressing her forehead against Skye's. "What did you do?"
"I needed you." Skye said. "I was looking for you."
"Skye," May's voice cracked, "you almost died, Skye. I thought- I, my mother called for me and you were lying outside the house and I thought-," she stroked back Skye's hair and swallowed hard.
"Your mother?"
"She found you on the driveway. You looked-you were just so small." May ran a hand over her face. "You don't get to scare me like that."
Skye frowned. "You don't get to leave me."
May held Skye to her chest and rested her cheek on her head. "I'm so sorry, Skye."
"That's what I came to tell you." Skye smiled. "I'm sorry."
"I should never have left you." May whispered. "I thought you'd be better off without me."
"You told Coulson not to tell me where you were."
"I did." May held her tightly. "I'm so sorry, my baby. I'm so sorry."
Skye closed her eyes. She could see Phil now. He was in his office, sitting at his desk, but he wasn't wearing a suit. His shoulders were shaking. She opened them again and hugged May's arms tightly. Skye wasn't sure what was real.
"I was scared." Skye said, looking up at May. "I wanted to find you and I just went where I felt was right."
May smiled at her. "You mean everything to me. I was scared, too."
"What happened, Mom?"
May kissed her again. "Phil told me you weren't eating," She stroked Skye's cheek so gently, she could barely feel the contact, "and I told him you would get better, and he said you were locking yourself up in your room and I thought you would recover better if I wasn't there, Skye, I really did."
Skye kissed May's hand.
"Phil came to visit me." May said. "He begged me to come back for you, and I was going to, Skye, I was."
"You didn't though." Skye said. "I missed you."
"Oh, my baby, I missed you, so much. Skye," May wiped a tear from her cheek, "We were about to leave, to go back to base when Mack called, said you'd gone, left a note saying you were coming to find me."
Skye smiled. "And I did."
"You did." May smiled for a second until her expression faltered and became a frown. "Do you remember doing that, Skye? Writing the note?"
"Yes." Skye said. "It was purple." It had been a pad of post-its that she had stolen from Jemma.
"When was that, Skye?" May asked.
Skye opened her mouth to answer, only to realise she had no idea. A week? Maybe more? Her whole experience travelling was just a messy blur in her mind and she still wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't.
"Your Mom said eight days."
May stroked her hand. "Do you remember how you got here? We looked and we couldn't find you."
Skye smiled. "I learned from the best."
"Never run away like that, again."
"Are Bobbi and Hunter dead?" Skye asked out of the blue. She remembered Hunter's pain, remembered the visions of white sheets being pulled over the faces of her friends.
May looked away for a second at the painting on the wall of the room of the grassy woodland that was too familiar for Skye to look at for too long. She remembered stumbling through that wood with bloody hands and no shoes. May turned back to her.
"They are. Hunter could never live without Bobbi, and she was just too injured to be saved." She squeezed Skye's shoulder. "How do you know that?"
"I think I'm psychic or something." It should have been a funny sentence, it was such a ridiculous sentiment, but instead Skye just sounded worried. "Maybe not psychic, I don't think I'm seeing the future, just what's happening." She took a shuddering breath and clenched her fists into the soft sheets. "What's happening to me, Mommy?"
"You're okay." May said with certainty. "It's going to get better."
"Where am I?" Skye asked. The painting was unnerving and Skye cuddled closer to May.
May squeezed her hand. "Do you remember my mother finding you?"
"Yes." Skye said. "She was nice to me."
"Skye, that was over a month ago."
A part of Skye wasn't even surprised. Everything she could remember felt so far away that May could have said her arrival at the cabin had been three years ago, and she would have said 'yeah, I can believe that'.
"I thought I was dying." Skye said. "That's mostly what I remember."
May nodded. "I thought you were dying, too. I think maybe you were. You wouldn't wake up, but you held on." She stroked her hair.
"Did you take care of me?"
"My mother and I made sure you were getting better." May smiled. "I needed you to be okay, Skye."
"I am." Skye shrugged. "I guess I just slept off the dying thing, huh?" She closed her eyes and saw Coulson back at his desk. "Maybe cheating death comes with the whole psychic thing."
"You knew where to find me." May said quietly.
Skye pressed her face into her chest. "I didn't know where I was going, just that I was going to you. I needed you, Mom. Without you…" Skye trailed off and thought back to her time spent cooped up in her bunk, watching the security feed and talking to people who couldn't hear her. "I love you."
"My baby. I love you." May kissed her. "You're mine, you'll always be mine. I'm never leaving you again. Everything that's happening to you, we'll get through it. I'm never leaving."
"I can see Coulson when I close my eyes." Skye said quietly. "He's in his office. I think he's crying."
"He won't know you're awake. He left when Mack found the note to search for you from base."
Skye focused on the image of Coulson, and when she concentrated really hard, she could hear the little gasping breaths of his weeping. She opened her eyes and looked up to May. Seeing Coulson so upset was too difficult to watch.
May smiled. "He'll be happy when I tell him you're okay." She touched her nose to Skye's. "Everything will be better."
"What happened to me?" Skye asked. "Mom, what happened?"
"I don't know, Skye. But you're here, and you're safe, and that's all I need to know."
…
It was strange walking around the cabin and knowing she had been here for over a month, but not recognising anything outside of the bedroom with the painting. There really wasn't much to explore. The place only had two bedrooms, and the living area and kitchen were small enough that when Phil arrived after hearing of her waking, having four people in the cabin felt cramped. But it was good. Safe.
Skye was forced to remain in bed for another three days after waking up, because May going all mother-hen on her and seemed to enjoy doting on her for a little longer. Skye didn't complain. Having her Mom fuss over her while she watched TV and played card games with Phil was something she would make the most of. May's Mom liked to bring her awesome food, too, and let her eat it in bed. Although the pain of not only losing two of her friends, but having watched them die, was devastating, having this little family around her was making things better.
Not back to the way things were, because it could never be like that again, but things were better. Skye was getting there.
Lian May was maybe Skye's new favourite person in the world, because she liked to tell Skye stories about May in her younger days, that May herself would never utter, and it felt like family. Skye said this aloud one day when she was helping Lian cook, and the woman had just smiled.
"Silly girl," Lian had said, and patted her shoulder. "It feels like family because it is family."
And that was that. Skye had a family.
"What are you thinking about?" Phil asked. He was standing by the door to the bedroom with the painting, holding a mug in his hand. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and Skye still found that harder to get used to than the fact that he only had one hand.
Skye looked over from her position in the bedroom's window seat and shrugged. "Just thinking."
He rolled his eyes. "About what, specifically?"
It was raining outside. A grey sky and ominous clouds, but something about the sound of the torrential downpour was soothing.
"I was being introspective." Skye said. "Thinking about my life while looking out onto a rainy woodland." She smirked at Coulson. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
He walked into the room, putting his mug on the bedside table on his side of the bed. Two bedrooms meant a fair bit of sharing, but Skye didn't mind spending her nights cuddled up with her parents. Who knew May and Coulson would be cuddlers? The thought had Skye smiling.
Coulson sat down on the other side of the window seat. "How are you feeling, Skye?"
"Fine." Skye said honestly. "I've already told you. Nothing hurts since I woke up, and I know you guys are keeping track of what I'm eating."
He smiled sheepishly. "May and I thought we were being subtle."
"Not enough." Skye smiled. "But I don't mind. I'm okay."
"What about the whole…?" Coulson gestured vaguely to her head. "Precognition thing?"
"It's not precognition." Skye said. "I'm seeing things as they happen, not before. Not like Raina."
"I'm not sure what else to call it." Phil said. "What can you see now?"
Skye closed her eyes. "Nothing. It's all quiet on the Western front."
"Do you think there's a pattern?" Phil asked. "A reason you see things some times and not others?"
"Maybe something to do with strong emotions?" Skye said. "I don't know. I haven't thought too much about it."
He looked out onto the rainy day. "I called Andrew. He wants to talk to you about it."
"Yeah?"
"I think it might help you, Skye." Phil turned his head slightly to look at her. "Seeing Bobbi and Lance…that must have been hard."
Skye frowned and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. "I'd rather not talk about it. At least not yet."
"You don't have to." Skye looked up to see May entering the bedroom, closing the door behind her. "Does she, Phil?" May sat down on the floor and leaned her head on Skye's hip.
"No, you don't have to, Skye."
"Thanks." She let go of her legs and let one hand drop onto May's shoulder. "When are we going back?"
"Back?" May craned her neck to look at her.
"To base." Skye clarified. "I know we can't stay here forever."
May reached up and took Skye's hand. She kissed her knuckles. "You like it here."
"I love it here." Skye smiled. "I'd stay here forever if your Mom let me."
"She might just let you." Phil chuckled. "I've never seen Lian take to somebody so quickly."
"My mother is a great judge of character." May squeezed Skye's hand.
Skye sighed. "But we can't stay here, can we?"
"You want to see Fitz and Simmons?"
Skye nodded.
"Well, this is a safe house. My mother won't let anyone come here, plus we really don't have the room."
Phil smirked. "It's already pretty weird that the three of us are sharing a bed every night-,"
"But it is king-sized." Skye interrupted.
"- can you imagine if we had the science twins here, too?"
May shook her head. "It would be like the slumber party I never had and never ever wanted."
The three of them were quiet for a little while. Skye stretched her legs out on the window seat and put her feet in Coulson's lap. May held one of Skye's hands in both of hers. The window was cool when Skye pressed her forehead to the glass, and the pane fogged up with her breath.
"Mom?" She said quietly. The fog on the glass made it seem even mistier outside.
"Yes, Skye?" May said.
"Nothing. I was just checking you'd answer."
"Oh, baby." May tugged on Skye's hand until she eased herself off the window seat and onto the floor. May wrapped an arm around Skye's shoulders. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Mom." Skye dropped her head to May's shoulder. "I saw you, you know." She said. She had told May about seeing Coulson, about the visions of Bobbi and Hunter, but not about seeing her. "When I was in the woods, I can remember seeing you."
May was quiet.
"You saw May?" Phil asked. He shuffled off the seat and onto the floor. "What was she doing?"
May frowned. "Maybe I don't want to know."
"Come on," Phil said, "Skye saw me crying. The more we know about these visions the better chance we have of working out what this power is."
"Fine." May said. She glared at Coulson. "You have theory?"
He shrugged. "Strong emotions, you said, Skye?"
"Maybe." She glanced up at May. "You were in here." Skye remembered. "I saw the painting."
May glanced over at the picture. "I hate that painting."
"Me, too." Skye muttered.
Phil cocked his head to one side. "I kind of like it."
Both May and Skye glared at him.
He looked between them. "But, of course, I am wrong."
May nodded and reached over to slap his back. "Good man."
"You were on your knees." Skye said and Phil smirked and raised one eyebrow. May slapped the back of his head and Skye rolled her eyes. "Alone. Kneeling by the bed. You had your hands together. I, um, it looked like you were maybe…"
Phil frowned. "May, were you praying?"
May kissed Skye's cheek but said nothing.
"Were you?" Skye asked.
"It was a last resort." She muttered.
Coulson's eyes were wide. "But you're not…I mean, you don't believe…do you?"
"Like I said," May hugged Skye, "it was a last resort. You do anything when your kids are in danger. Anything to get them back when they're missing."
"Even pray?"
"I'd exhausted all other options." May said. "When I started chopping wood in the rain, my mother suggested I try meditating."
Skye smirked. "You were chopping wood?"
May ignored her. "Meditation turned into crying and then I stated praying." She sighed. "To be fair, I hadn't slept in like four days at that point."
"Maybe it worked." Skye said. "I did find my way here."
"I doubt me praying is what got you here. I wasn't even praying to a God." May frowned. "In fact, I'm almost positive I prayed to the ghost of Nick Fury."
"Nick's not dead." Phil said.
"Hadn't slept in four days and my baby was missing, Phil. I was trying anything. Give me a break." She smirked. "You did some crazy stuff, too."
Phil scoffed. "Calling Captain America to help find Skye is not crazy. He helped, didn't he?"
"He didn't find her."
"We underestimated the deceptive power of our daughter." Phil argued. "Cap tried his best."
Skye laughed and shook her head. "My parents are idiots." She grinned. "I can't believe you had Captain America looking for me."
Phil wrapped his arm around her. "I'd have had the whole world looking for you."
She smiled at the man who had been more of a father to her than her actual father…although to be fair to Cal, that hadn't really been his fault. But it felt like Phil had always been there, and he had never attempted to kill her friends. That tended to make him preferable.
The arm that was hugging her was Phil's left, the one with no hand.
"Phil, I love you." Skye said. "But your stump still freaks me out, a little."
"Don't worry." Phil smiled. "Freaks me out, too."
Skye hugged him tightly. "I'd love you even if you had no hands. I'd type everything for you."
He chuckled and grinned at May. "I love our kid."
"I love our kid, too." She pressed a smacker on Skye's cheek. "You're pretty great."
"I am." Skye grinned. "Even though I have weird earthquake-psychic powers?"
May chuckled. "Even if you develop weird lightning powers, too."
"How is Lincoln?" Skye asked. She hadn't really thought much about her friend since coming to the cabin. She felt a little guilty about that, but pushed the feeling away. Skye shouldn't feel guilty. She understood that, now.
"He's a lot better now that he knows you're not dead." Phil said. "He was worried."
"We all were." May said.
"I'm sorry I ran off." Skye said. "I'm sorry I let everything get to me. Stopped taking care of myself."
"It's not your fault, baby."
"Mm." Skye sighed. "Let me be sorry, guys."
The bedroom door opened and Lian May stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, one eyebrow cocked. "Why are all on the ground? My house has furniture."
"We're bonding." Skye said.
"Bonding?" Lian gave an exasperated sigh. "I still do not understand why you must do your bonding on the floor."
Skye smiled. "My earthen powers draw me to the ground."
"Was that a joke?"
"It was."
Lian laughed. "You are a funny, child, Skye."
"She gets that from you, May. It's in her genes." Phil grinned and nudged May with his stump.
May rolled her eyes. "Literally none of that makes any sense."
"Yes." Lian agreed. "Melinda and Skye have entirely different senses of humour."
Just over a month ago, Skye had been wandering through fields with her bones too prominent under her skin, and with a single-minded quest to find her mother. Her real mother. Biology really meant nothing.
Skye had been scared. She had been lonely and frightened, but things were different now.
Bobbi and Hunter were gone, and sometimes Skye cried for her friends, but when she did, her Mom was always there to brush away her tears and stroke her hair and tell her it was okay to be upset. May never told her it was alright, because it wasn't. They were dead, and that was not okay. But Bobbi and Lance would be remembered fondly, and never forgotten.
And it wasn't Skye's fault. May told her that a lot, too.
Things were different. Skye had a family, a proper one, who loved her and treated her well. That's all she'd ever wanted in life, and as Skye watched her mother and father bicker between themselves with Lian, she realised, this was it. Family. This was what it was meant to be.
People to help you up when you fell down. People to make you laugh when it felt so easy to cry. People to stand by you, even when you made mistakes and failed to stand by them.
Family.
Sometimes, Skye thought, life was hard. Life could really suck. But family made it better, easier to get by. Or, maybe not easier to get by, because the road was tough and falling was far too easy, but family made it easier to recover from the falls.
"Can I just say," Skye said, interrupting the banter between her family, "I love you all so much, and thank you for being there for me, through everything."
"Oh, baby." May said, touching her cheek. "We'll always be there."
"Always." Phil agreed.
Lian nodded. "Family is the most important thing, child. We do for family."
"Yeah." Skye smiled, and when she closed her eyes she saw Mack hugging Fitz, and Jemma showing off a diamond on her left hand. "We do for family."
A/N: Review, please. Let me know what you thought. I love reading them!