Prayer
An Agents of SHIELD fanfic by Aisling Yinyr Ngaio
It was happening again.
Skye never expected the devastating news awaiting her when Coulson summoned them all to the cargo hold, only to learn that the lab was sealed against contamination. Against Simmons, who had somehow contracted the Chitauri virus, and none of them had been any the wiser until it was too late.
And now she only had two hours left to live, if they were lucky. Two hours to come up with an antidote, or something. Considering how complicated it seemed to create the first two batches, Skye was by now wishing for a miracle.
It always happened. A new family. Hopes. Dreams of belonging. But something always happened, whether in a foster family, or at the orphanage. Disease. Neglect. Abuse. Kidnap. And then she was back to where she was. Alone, despite the steady stream of children flowing in and out of The System. She was always alone.
Why did she open herself to such heartache? Shouldn't she have learnt her lesson by now?
Yet how could she help loving them, this weird band of agents-slash-friends-to-be, Simmons most of all? They were good people trying to help others. They took her in when they could've easily left her to the mercy of the wider organisation. And Simmons, the only one who didn't hold Miles against her, who forgave her even before they left his apartment, who was her go-to person outside of her stubbornly hard-hearted S.O.. Who was going to die if a solution couldn't be found in time.
And Fitz, poor Fitz, the most devastated one of them all, even if he was trying so very hard to hide his fear, separated by glass from the other half of him. She wanted so much to help, something, anything, but this was not something she could hack. She could do nothing. None of them could; only Simmons.
God is love. She tried to cling on to this even when it became too painful to see the hopelessness in her friends' eyes. Never expecting, yet gratified by the small olive branch held out by Ward in their joint sorrow. Trying her very best to take his advice and occupy herself in order to give FitzSimmons some breathing space.
Taking Fitz's place at the edge of the glass doors when he foolishly broke quarantine protocols to do what every single one of them wanted to but didn't know how to do. Tracking their renewed vigor around the lab, almost fully functional again, as if their bond had been strained but now restored. Trying but failing to contain the renewed blossoming hope in her heart at their serious concentration. Please, don't let it happen again.
She hardly knew she was crying until she felt Agent May gently leading her away, the combined shock of the realisation of her tears and the unprecedented support from one so stoic and often absent forced her to try staying strong in the face of what could've possibly been Simmons' last dice roll. Skye tried hard to focus on the interplay between the agents from her corner of the conference room, but in her mind she could only see the biochemist's pale, ill face as she asked to be left alone with her partner.
And for the long moment before they were finally able to fish two stupid, idiotic jumpers out of the Atlantic Ocean, Skye found herself doing something she'd neither done nor believed in since before she left the orphanage: she prayed. Prayed for the safety and rescue of her new friend. Prayed that it wasn't going to be too late.
Save her. Let her live. Please.
- Finis -