Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's note: This piece has been rolling around in my head since 1x20 aired, so I finally sat down and wrote it out. After everything Skye went through over the course of that episode and the one before, I think she would have been a bit more emotional than she seemed in the show. And I also agree with a few other writers that she might have suspected Ward of killing May, which would have caused a scene when she realized the other agent was actually alive. Plus there were a lot of subtle things the last few episodes that made me think Skye and May are actually developing a bond of some kind. So this is me trying to compensate for the fact that we don't really get to see it play out much in the show. Hopefully this story is okay. Emotional Skye is hard for me to write, as is May in general. But I'm happy with it, so hopefully everyone else is too. Enjoy!
The Eye of the Storm
The night air is pleasantly cool as May steps out into the motel's pool area. Phil is still in shock from the video, so May has left him to process it in peace. The rest of the team is already in bed, leaving her alone outside.
And then she sees the figure sitting in a chair beside the pool. It only takes one look to recognize Skye's small form. May hesitates. She's not good with comforting. Or with people, for that matter. But somehow Skye has managed to worm her way into May's heart. And to be perfectly honest, part of her feels guilty for leaving Skye alone with Ward. The fact that she didn't know he was Hydra is completely irrelevant. She should have known and she should have been there.
That clinches it. She steps out of the doorway and onto the concrete surrounding the pool area. Skye gives no sign that she has heard. Her knees are pulled up to her chest, her eyes staring intently at something only she can see.
"Skye?" May says quietly.
The younger girl still jumps despite her low tone. She turns her head and her eyes widen as she recognizes May. For a second she just sits there, staring. Then she dives out of the chair and suddenly her arms are locked around May's neck. May stumbles back a bit at the force of the hug, but then she wraps her arms awkwardly around Skye.
"I thought you were dead," Skye mumbles into her shoulder. May's brow furrows in confusion.
"What?" she asks.
"Ward said you left," Skye explains as she pulls away. "But then I found Eric, and I thought... if Ward had killed him, maybe...
"He might have killed me too," May finishes. Skye nods, but she suddenly looks incredibly tense, almost as if she's trying to hold herself together. May shakes her head in aggravation. "I never should have left."
"You didn't know," Skye says quietly. "None of us did."
"I should have," May counters. "I was trained for this. But I became emotionally entangled, and I missed what was right in front of me."
"You're not the only one," Skye mutters. She looks down at the concrete, suddenly very interested in keeping her eyes away from May. The older agent gives her a long look. She's only just realized how very subdued Skye seems. It isn't normal.
"Maria told me what happened with you and Ward," May says. "Are you okay?"
"Honestly?" Skye says, finally looking up. "I don't know what I am right now."
"Fair enough," May says.
She walks over at sits down in one of the metal chairs by the pool. Skye hesitates briefly before sitting back down in the chair she had vacated a moment before. A long silence reigns then, broken only by the sound of a light breeze causing water ripples to break against the side of the pool.
"I can't believe it's all gone," Skye says finally. May looks over to see the younger girl staring into the pool. "I became a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent just in time to see it all go up in smoke." She gives a humorless chuckle. "That's like the story of my life. Anytime I start to get happy, it all just combusts. I finally found someplace I felt like I belonged, and now it's just... gone."
May isn't really sure what to say to that. Probably some mushy gushy mess about how they still have each other, but the sad truth is that their team is only just holding itself together. So instead she opts for silence. In the end that works out just fine because Skye keeps going after a moment.
"He said he loved me," Skye says, still looking out at the pool. "And the sad part is that I actually believed him. I should've known better."
"You didn't know he was Hydra," May says, trying to reassure her.
"But I should have know there was something," Skye insists. "It was too good to be true. I don't get that lucky. If something that good falls into my lap, there has to be a catch."
Skye stands to her feet then and begins to pace near the table. May is mildly surprised by the sudden change, but she stays silent. If Skye is anything like her, and experience has told May that she is, she has probably kept most of her emotions bottled up for the sake of her teammates. But now it's all beginning to come out.
"And the stupid thing is that I can't even hate him for it," Skye says as she paces the concrete. "Mike Peterson gave Ward a literal heart attack to try and get me to hack the drive. All I had to do was stand there and let him die. But I couldn't do it. I cracked. The son of a bitch lied to my face! He lied to all of us! He betrayed S.H.I.E.L.D.! He shot Agent Hand and he murdered Eric in cold blood! All I had to do was let him die, and I couldn't do it. What's wrong with me?"
"You see the best in people," May tells her bluntly. "Sometimes that makes you friends and sometimes it backfires. But it doesn't make you a bad person, Skye. Just the opposite."
Skye stops pacing as she runs a shaky hand through her hair.
"You know the worst part?" she asks softly. "The worst part is that I actually thought it could last. That maybe for once, just once, the other shoe wasn't going to drop. I had a home. I had a team that cared about me. I had someone who loved me. Not someone who used me like Miles did, but someone who really loved me. Except it was all a lie." She pauses for a moment before looking up at May. "He kissed me. After you left. He kissed me, and even though everything had gone to hell, for a minute there I thought that maybe we were gonna be okay. And then I found Eric..."
She looks away abruptly, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. May can't be positive in the dim light of the poolside lamps, but she thinks she sees tears shining in Skye's eyes.
"I never should have trusted him," Skye says. She definitely sounds close to crying. Then her hand leaves her mouth and May sees anger flickering in her eyes. "I'm so stupid! I never should have trusted him!"
She gives her chair a hard kick, sending it skidding an inch or two across the concrete.
"Skye," May says warningly. This could escalate quickly, and she needs to calm Skye down before that happens. But the younger agent is too worked up to stop now.
"I hate him!" Skye yells again, giving the chair another fierce kick. "He's a lying, back-stabbing Nazi, and I wish he was dead!"
She's still kicking the chair as she yells. Her volume is so loud that May is sure the entire motel is going to wake up at any moment.
"Skye!" May says fiercely.
She gets up out of her chair and grabs Skye's shoulders, fully intending to shake the girl until she gets herself under control. But then the younger agent turns around, and suddenly May has an armful of Skye. Her hands come up around May's back and grab hold of her jacket like she'll never let go as her face buries itself in May's shoulder. May just stands there in shock, her arms still slightly raised. She has absolutely no idea what has just happened.
A very small sniffle alerts her to the fact that Skye is crying quietly into her jacket. The sound snaps something inside of May. She lifts her arms and folds them protectively around Skye. She may not be much for physical affection, but right now not even a direct order from Fury himself could get her to let go.
Despite her initial irritation at their complete and utter inability to hold their own in a fight, May has found herself becoming quite attached to the younger three members of her team. Somehow they have managed to thaw her cold heart and turn her into a mother grizzly determined to protect her cubs. But that feeling is always intensified with Skye. Fitzsimmons may have less physical training than she does, but they have also been protected for most of their lives. Skye never was. So despite the fact that the fresh agent can in fact take care of herself most of the time, something in May wants to shelter her whenever she can. Somehow beyond all odds Skye has managed to hold onto some shred of innocence, and May is determined to protect that remnant even if it kills her.
She's pulled out of her thoughts by Skye shifting in her arms. The young hacker turns her head so her chin is resting on top of May's shoulder.
"I thought you were dead," she says again. Her voice is hoarse from her brief cry, but May can still hear the pain her sudden disappearance caused Skye.
The older agent grits her teeth. Grant Ward better hide in the deepest, darkest corner he can find, because she is going to destroy him when she finds him. The Cavalry is out for blood, and hell hath no fury that can hold a candle to hers.
"I'm not," May says, forcing herself to keep the anger out of her voice. She can't resist adding, "But Ward will be if I ever get hold of him."
Skye's arms tighten momentarily in a silent sign of gratitude, and then she forces herself to let go. May allows her to pull away. Skye ducks her head in embarrassment as she wipes away the tearstains on her face.
"Sorry about all that," she mumbles.
"It's okay," May says with a gentleness that surprises even her. "Are you okay?"
"I'm alive," Skye says with a forced smile. "That's gotta count for something, right?"
"You should get some sleep," May tells her. "Tomorrow could be a long day."
"I don't think I can sleep yet," Skye says honestly. "I may stay out here for a while."
"Want company?" May asks.
If it were anyone else besides Phil, she would already be heading off to find another spot to be alone. But over the last few months she has gotten used to Skye silently infringing on her privacy. She's lost count of the number of times Skye has come up to her cockpit in the middle of the night. In fact, she's become quite used to having the younger girl sleeping in the copilot's seat beside her. And, although May would never admit it to anyone, there's now something mildly comforting about her familiar presence.
Skye seems to feel the same, because she nods almost immediately.
"Sure," she says.
She takes hold of the chair she was kicking and readjusts it so that it's facing the pool once more. Then she carefully sits down, pulling her knees up to her chest in the same position she was in when May first came out.
May walks around the table to the other chair. There she hesitates for a moment before picking up the chair and carrying it back around the table. She sets it back down right beside Skye's chair. Skye gives her a questioning look, but May makes a point of looking out at the pool so she doesn't have to answer as she sits down. In the end Skye knows better than to ask. Or maybe it's just that she understands the silent need to be close to someone after everything that has happened.
A comfortable silence falls over the fenced-in pool area. In the stillness of the night, it's almost possible to forget that their entire world has just come crashing down. It feels to May like the eye of the hurricane, that small moment of peace before the war continues on.
Skye is the first to break the silence.
"I'm glad you're not dead," she says quietly. The sheer amount of emotion hidden behind those five small words is enough to bring a rare smile to May's face.
"So am I," she says.
Silence falls again. It lasts for some time before May suddenly feels a weight on her shoulder. She looks down to see that Skye has slumped across her armrest so that her head is leaning against May's shoulder. Her eyes are closed and her breathing is even. Apparently she has managed to drift off to sleep after all.
The sight of Skye sleeping on her shoulder causes May's breath to catch in her throat. It never ceases to amaze her that Skye still looks up to her even after having seen glimpses of the darkness hiding inside of her. But more than that, Skye trusts her. Even after learning that she was reporting on Coulson, even after everything that has just happened with Ward, Skye still trusts May to protect her, to not hurt her. And that absolutely floors the older agent.
The door to the pool area quietly opens and closes behind her. May cranes her neck to look over her shoulder, careful not to disturb the young hacker sleeping peacefully against her. Coulson is standing there watching them.
"Is she asleep?" he asks. He sounds like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. In some ways, May supposes he is.
She nods in answer to his question.
"Trip and Fitzsimmons are out too," Coulson says. "Oh, to be young."
He means for it to sound jovial, but the weight in his voice causes it to fall flat. He hesitates for a moment before stepping out onto the concrete. His shoes make a slight scuffing sound as he comes over to the side of May's chair and begins to sit down beside it.
"You can have my seat," May tells him as if he's an idiot for ever thinking otherwise.
"I don't want to wake her," Coulson says, looking over at Skye's sleeping form. He sits down on the concrete with his knees up and wraps his arms loosely around them. Then he takes a long breath and lets it out. "It's nice out here."
"It is," May agrees. She looks over at him, visibly weighing whether or not she should say anything further. "Phil, about the T.A.H.I.T.I. project-"
"I get it," Coulson interrupts. He looks out at the pool a moment before looking up at her. "You had orders and you were following them. I may not agree with your methods, but I do know that you did it because you care. And right now I need all the friends that I can get. So if you're willing to stay, I would be glad to have you. The rest doesn't matter."
"I'm staying," May tells him firmly.
"Good," Coulson says with the barest hint of a smile. He turns his head and looks back out at the pool, the discussion officially ended.
Skye stirs a bit then, shifting her head and mumbling something incoherent. May stiffens briefly as she waits to see if the girl will wake up. She doesn't. May still waits a moment longer before speaking again just to be sure.
"So Fury's still alive," she says quietly.
"Of course he is," Coulson says with something very near a grin. "I'm beginning to think that man's invincible."
"It wouldn't surprise me," May says drily. She looks down at Coulson sitting beside her chair. "Do you think he has a plan to take down Hydra?"
"I think," Coulson says slowly, "that Hydra can wait until tomorrow. We're alive and we're safe, at least for now. I'm willing to call that a win and take the rest of the night off."
"Fair enough," May says.
She looks back out at the pool where moonlight is dancing across the ripples. Then something touches her hand. She looks down to see Coulson's hand resting atop hers.
"I'm glad you came back," he says. Sincerity is shining in his eyes.
"So am I," May says honestly.
The words aren't necessary. Not after everything they've been through together. But she says them anyway because she needs to be sure he knows it. He gives her hand a small squeeze to let her know that he does. Then he lets go and returns his hand to his knee as he looks out at the quiet pool.
This time they let the silence last. In spite of the fact that her world has completely imploded, May finds herself surprisingly relaxed. The metal chair may not be her cockpit, but there are far worse places to spend the night than beside a motel pool. Coulson is right. There will be time tomorrow to deal with Hydra. For now, May is content to sit outside and enjoy this rare moment of peace. It may be the last one they get for a good long while.
So how was it? Please leave a quick review telling me what you thought. It'll make my day. :) If you enjoyed this story, feel free to check out my other SHIELD stories: "Back Where We Belong" and "Team Movie Night".