When everything is over, Skye finds herself searching for something - that feeling of home that she'd had before she found out the truth about Ward.
She goes back to her bunk on the plane, but it's filled with little memories of him. She tries her van, but she's changed too much from that angry, defensive girl who'd spent her days hacking anything she could get her hands on. So she wanders around for a while, stuck in half-being, not sure who she is or where she belongs.
Somehow, she finds herself by the ocean.
The sun is setting, its brilliant colors overtaking the sky and the rippling waves, and as Skye settles onto the overhanging cliffside, legs hanging over the edge, the beauty of it takes her breath away.
She doesn't notice that she's crying at first, but when she does she doesn't bother to wipe the tears away. And maybe it isn't just the sunset that's stopping her breath, making her chest hitch and her hands shake and creating this vast emptiness inside her.
She'd been so happy, for a few weeks. She'd had a family, a purpose; and for a few stunning moments she'd had Grant, too. Ward. She needs to remember to call him that. And now S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone, Fitz is in a coma, Simmons has been working herself into the ground trying to cope, and Ward - she can hardly think his name. She's lost, sinking into the waves as the sunset envelopes her in its shadow.
She hears someone walk up behind her and settle down on the cliffside next to her, but she doesn't turn her head.
"You know, we're all going through this." Coulson's voice comes softly from beside her. "You can talk to me, if you want."
There's a long silence. Skye doesn't know what she can possibly say. I miss having a home or why is it that we all talk but we don't say anything at all or I used to know how to breathe on my own but I think I forgot.
"I don't know what Simmons is going to do if -" she settles with, but she can't make her finish the sentence. She doesn't know what she'll do, either.
"Fitz is going to be alright." Coulson says, and when Skye replies her voice is bitter.
"I thought you'd said that you wouldn't lie to me anymore."
He doesn't answer, just puts an arm around her shoulder and suddenly she's crying - real, heaving sobs, and the noises coming out of her mouth are scaring her and she doesn't know how to stop.
"I can't do this." She sobs, or screams, or whispers. But he hears her.
"None of us can." He replies gently. "But we have to try."
They stay there until the sun has sunken down into the sea but the sky is still blazing with its colors, and May and Simmons come out to join them. May looks stoic, like always, while Simmons looks like she's a breath away from unraveling, with her hair falling out of its bun and her nails bitten down and the expression on her face like she's always trying to hold back the tears.
"Hey." Skye says, a smile touching the corners of her mouth for the first time in what seems like forever.
"Hey." Simmons whispers back, settling in beside Skye while May sits cross-legged on the grass beside Coulson.
"How is he?"
"The same."
When did we stop being a family and start being strangers? She can't help but think, and the thought makes her so incredibly lonely that she slips her hands into those of the two people next to her and leans her head onto the other girl's shoulder.
"I don't know what to do without him." Simmons whispers, barely above a breath.
"I know." Skye replies, because she does, she knows what it's like to miss another person so much it takes your breath away and leaves a hole in your chest that you can't fill. But maybe, she thinks, maybe in time you can build a bridge over it, if you have help. And maybe you'll wake up someday and realize that you still miss them, but they aren't your first thought in the morning and your last before you fall asleep. Maybe you can learn, piece by piece, how to live without them.
"I miss them." She says, loud enough for everyone to hear without shattering the all-encompassing silence. "I miss you."
And then they're all crying and curling into each other and Skye thinks that if they can't swim in this tidal wave of pain they're in, maybe they'll be able to at least keep each other afloat.