A/N: Hi again! This is just a series that I can work on whenever I want to - instead of having to really need to update or whatever, I can leave this marked as complete but keep adding in more. Prompts and requests are happily accepted, and I'd really appreciate it if you left a review. The title of this fic is taken from the R.E.M. song Try Not to Breathe.
I'd say steer clear from this story if you haven't watched Season 3 yet and don't want any spoilers.
Thanks!
MAY I
CLOSE THE DOOR
She slams the door shut behind her. She can't breathe.
She can't breathe.
This is wrong, this is all so completely wrong. Why is this happening? How can this be happening, and why does it have to happen here, and to her? She hates herself for wishing it, but if it was happening on the other side of the world then she wouldn't have to care. SHIELD isn't a global organisation any more. They can barely scrape together enough money for fuel to get them across the state, so how would they manage to get across entire oceans.
Breathe, Melinda. For God's sake, breathe.
She's shaking so badly that she can't even move. She's just leaning against the closed door, shaking and trying to breathe and oh crap she's crying and she never cries and she hasn't cried since -
Bahrain.
She hasn't cried since Bahrain and now she's crying because -
Andrew -
Crap.
Andrew Garner is Lash. He is a monster, a monster that runs around killing innocent people who don't even know what's happening to them, just for the hell of it ... He tried to kill Skye. And Lincoln. And he has actually succeeded in killing so many of them already, and now? Now, he's inside SHIELD, and he's interviewing Inhumans right now. He's going to kill all of the people May has been fighting so damn hard to protect and for what? Why does he even need to do that? Does he just get hungry or something?
She really is crying now. She still can't breathe properly. She knows she has to get out there and tell everyone, but she - she can't. She looks up at the mirror and that's her face right there, red and blotchy and puffy-eyed. She can't exactly face them all like this, can she?
Someone tries to open the door she is leaning against, which is both awkward and hideously painful. She jumps, surprised.
"Oops," says Hunter on the other side of the door. "Sorry."
She says nothing.
"May? Is that you?"
She draws in a breath but it's shuddery and too loud and she thinks he heard because he waits a few beats and then says, "I'm just ... going to go now. Bye."
When his footsteps have echoed away, she slides down until she's sat on the floor. She rests her pounding head on her knees.
Stop crying.
It's her inner voice that brings her back, the one that scares off emotion and stops her from smiling or laughing or crying at all, ever. It's her inner voice that saves her, stops her from falling back down into the void of emotion.
May panics alone, and she recovers alone.
When she walks out of that room, she walks out alone.