Spoken
The first time May tells her something about her past it freezes her into the co-pilot's seat.
The pilot's words are as soft and serene as always. "My father always said bitterness breeds discontent. He never did see it in himself."
The briefest hints are there, of something so much more than the face value. Skye tucks the words away and keeps them tied around her neck. She was never one to give into bitterness, into asking the world why couldn't things have gone her way. But in the weeks that followed, in her months with the team, in her struggles when she wanted to shake Fitz for being so sheltered—it breeds discontent and discontent leads to a whole host of problems.
o.o.o.o
It's all wrong because he's in the pilot seat.
May left, or, or heaven's above did he kill her too—no. No. Her lanyard hadn't been there, May left. She hadn't been hurt, not really. And that meant that there was still someone who could take him out. Someone who might know, she just needed to reach May.
She fingered an ancient chain around her neck and wondered what to do next.
It's all wrong because she's huddled in the co-pilot's seat, watching the sunrise over a scattering of dusty clouds. The plane says something, and Skye freezes because it's May's voice, May's recording, May's autopilot—"Altitude decreasing." And it's nothing more. But this is May's bus down to its core, and that's something she can use.
o.o.o.o
The second time hits the younger girl much harder. It's hardly all that much of an admission, but Skye knows people well enough to see the overwhelming pain hiding behind the harsh eyes of their pilot. "Thirty-seven candles," are the terse words when Skye asked if there was anything she wanted from the store.
It wasn't the oddest of requests, really. Simmons had needed some more delicate supplies, but had sworn that she'd go get them herself because really, but oh would Skye please be a dear and find three pounds of salt, eight packets of mentos, and three stuffed teddy bears no larger than eight inches in any direction? Ward had wanted a copious supply of various cooking ingredients which Skye thought would combine into rice crispy treats and some sort of spicy ragout. She'd had to spend a good ten minutes trying to wrap her head around the fact that the man cooked. Fitz had wanted the strangest thing she could find for a dollar; he'd seen it on the internet or something like that. She hadn't asked Coulson yet, if only because he'd already given her the supplies required.
Candles, huh. Skye repeated. She leaned against the door to the cockpit and jammed the number into her brain. She asked what sort of candles are wanted, and a little, innocent why slips out before she can stop it.
A whole thirty seconds passed before May honored her with the response: "neither questions matters."
Skye wanted to press, but knew that May spoke best when she wasn't answering questions. "Gotcha," Skye grinned, turned about, and went to find Coulson. He'd doubtlessly have half a dozen items he'd forgotten about to add to the shopping list.
Later, after Skye has returned and passed the out the requested goods, restocked the food cupboards, and listened to Simmons effuse about how gelatinous teddy bears that exploded would be a really interesting science experiment, she dropped the candles off at May's bunk.
The woman was meditating on her bunk with what seemed like hundreds of candles scattered around her. None of the candles were lit. The candles were different shapes, sizes, colors, textures, scents – with any sense that Skye could perceive, the candles were different. May cracked open one eye. "Each one has a name, you know." Her voice is scratchy and hoarse almost as if she'd been crying, but her face remained free of streaks or marks or even redness of the eye.
Skye left the candles on the floor and retreated immediately.
o.o.o.o
"You'll hate me eventually."
The words are said so softly in May's even, morose tone that Skye pretends not to hear. She's more than half asleep anyway. The co-pilot's chair is uncomfortable, but in the past several weeks, it's become more Skye's than anywhere else on the plane. They're both hiding in the cockpit, hiding from the others on the plane, from the noise, from the questions, from the pressure to be something that they aren't. They have both come to enjoy the silence. So Skye doesn't respond, but merely lets herself fall asleep.
"Everyone does, even him."
The nightmare that wakes Skye is a cold-eyed Melinda May with a bloodied knife standing above her. They're all dead, said the dream May, all dead because I was ordered to, and I obeyed, oh fucking god, I obeyed. The agent cried silent tears as she stabbed Skye to death.
Wake up.
The tears aren't real.
But sometimes, Skye wonders if they were the realest thing that May has.
o.o.o.o
Somewhere around the fiftieth bland comment about her past is the intentional, the heartbreaking, the— Skye buries her face beneath the thin sheet of Simmon's infirmary bed, trying to get away from May's pensive, watching eyes. The Calvary stands in the corner, her arms crossed in front of her chest, her eyes lidded. "You aren't alone," she says, some twenty minutes into her vigil. "I've felt it too."
It's so unique, so different from the rage in Coulson, from the petrified horror of Fitzsimmons, from the vengeful wrath of Triplett. Skye half-sobs; May simply returns to her silent watch of the broken little girl in front of her. The world spun on, even if both wished that, for just a little while, it would stop.
o.o.o.o
Sometimes, their conversations last for hours.
o.o.o.o
The eighth time May reveals a piece of her past is not easy to stomach. Skye's spent the last twenty minutes screeching at her in guilt and rage. Sharp objects have been thrown and blunt objects hurled. Through it all, May merely ducked and wove. She said nothing to defend herself against Skye's onslaught, nothing to defend herself against being called an emotionless bitch who can't even have friends. Said nothing until Skye cried herself coarse and collapsed into a broken heap of empty rage.
May knelt beside her. "One thousand, three hundred and eight," she whispers. "Four hundred and fifty-two." Every motion May makes now is calculated and would have been cold, if she hadn't felt so open. "Enemies killed; allies let die." She pulls her hand away and stands. "Guilt kills."
Skye stares as she walks away. The guilt clenches within her own heart, but she tries breathing again. And then the guilt doesn't throb so much.
o.o.o.o
In the darkest night they spent in the cockpit, Skye blurted out the ridiculous name the orphanage gave her.
Five minutes later, May said, "I started my nickname. It's a reminder." Skye doesn't actually give voice to her desperate: of what? but May answers her anyway. "That I'm a monster."
o.o.o.o
The second coffee morning is the first time Skye notices Coulson's obsession with May's shoulder. It's just after the sun has risen and May's continuing a lesson on flight physics: babble about role, pitch, and yaw and how various wind speeds and air pressures and so many other factors effect maneuverability. Skye tried to keep up, of course, but a little of it went straight over her head. They're at the bar, munching on cereal and some sort of health drink that Simmons had taken to pushing on everyone. May's voice was different when she talked about physics. She was more engaged, more open, as if she revealed in what she knew.
Coulson walked by, the third earliest riser on the plane. He walked past them, heading for the pantry, and his hand brushed lightly over May's shoulder as he passes. The pilot kept talking, her face completely unchanging. Skye lost track of the ebb and flow of May's lecture as she tried to process whatever silent information had just passed from commander to pilot. Her brain was still trying to work out what had just happened when Coulson walked back in the other direction, cereal bowl in hand without Simmons' drink, and brushes her shoulder again. He says nothing, just returns to his office. Again, May doesn't react.
"Skye," May's voice has lost the energized enthusiasm of physics, "please focus."
Really, though. Who talked physics over breakfast?
Skye took a disgruntled bite of cereal and tried to focus back
o.o.o.o
It's really the sunglasses that do it. Skye slides them over her eyes and studies the world from behind them. It doesn't look particularly different, but she can hear May's voice in her head: failure is always an option. Living with the consequences, though, is disconcerting.
Ward may be her SO. But Melinda May had something Skye so desperately wanted to emulate. Wisdom. Grace. Style. Even if she sent Skye from the plane, even if she didn't want her around, why, that was something to be respected.
For the first time, Skye saw the world through May's eyes, and didn't mind it so much.
o.o.o.o
The fifteenth time May says something about her past is something told to the whole crew: she talks about her training as a young girl. It's a thing of race, and everyone but Fitzsimmons notices the bitterness in her voice on the subject of Japanese internment. It's a thing of brutality, but glossed over and summarized into a few brief memories of happy. When her story closes, Skye's the only one that hears her whisper: "backstory is such a lie sometimes."
Yes, Skye – the girl who erased herself – backstory lies. But what she'd seen in May over the past few weeks didn't lie. And that was good.
o.o.o.o
"Skye?"
It was the first time May sought her out.
Skye roles over in her bunk and opens a leery eye at the older women.
May, the emotionless rock, looks worried. Scared, even. "I'm glad you're on the plane," she says, with her usual lack of emotion. She turns and walks away then, and Skye roles back to face the wall. When pigs fly and May gets emotional… sleep sounded so much better than trying to figure out that particular conundrum.
o.o.o.o
They lit candles together, for Mike and Ace. Skye's first.
"Welcome to the business," May said. "I'm sorry."
And Skye can't help but think she wouldn't rather have anyone else guiding her through this.