I don't own any of the characters they all belong to Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. No Copyright Intended. Thank you to TheWanderingLily aka Indilwenofmirkwood on Tumblr! who was my Beta and without her I probably wouldn't of had the courage to post it.

It was cold and bleak, no snow just bitingly chilly rain that seeped through their clothes and into their bones. Melinda looked to her left at her best friend and he looked more miserable than her, the tip of his nose was red and his eyes were squinting against the wind. Instead of being on their way to their respective homes and families for the holidays, her latest prank had landed them with an extra paper to hand in for their Strategies and Tactics class, daily weapon maintenance in the armory and the unsavory job of cleaning the gym mats. They'd stayed up all night to try and complete their papers; she even managed to down two gulps of his foul coffee. The weather report this morning was all about the impending cold snap heading their way and if they didn't leave within the next couple of hours they'd end up snowed in and spending the holiday at the academy, which didn't appeal to either of them.

"So the plan is, we spend the next two hours completing and proof-reading our papers, then we tackle the armory and lastly the gym." Phil stated between chattering teeth.

But, like most well laid plans, they crumbled from the get go. It took them four hours to finish their respective papers, proof-read and edit them. By the time they handed them in it was lunchtime and they were starving, but couldn't afford to stop for anything and jogged to the armory on empty stomachs. Apparently the last group in there had instructions to leave everything dismantled and in a giant pile on the assembly table. It took them an hour to sort each part into piles, another hour to clean and reassemble each weapon down to the last pin. By that point their tempers were wearing thin and they could no longer ignore their rumbling stomachs.

"By now I would have been back home with my mom, probably sipping a hot chocolate and munching some cookies" Phil complained as they ambled towards the gym.

"Phil for the hundredth time, stop talking about food. You're only making it harder for the both of us" Melinda retorted, then sighed before continuing "I have a muesli bar we can share and it will have to tide us over for the rest of the afternoon."

They were dismayed and annoyed to find that the gym was left in the same condition as the armory, and it took them another two hours to clean and put everything away.

They were fifteen minutes into the job when Phil started grumbling again. "I mean it this time May, I am never, ever, not for any bribe or threat helping you with another prank again! You can find some other person to sucker in; in fact I may need to put out an advert for a new best friend after this."

Melinda just rolled her eyes and ignored him completely. Phil was overly stressed and said this every time a prank went wrong and yet every time she wanted to pull a new one he would be there by her side helping her, despite his complaints. Sure, she had held his replica Captain America shield ransom once, but in the end he had to agree that he'd enjoyed watching Heath attempt to remove the extra-special, very orange, and very sticky concoction she'd made, from his hair.

Reaching out, she gave him a quick pat on the shoulder and a soft smile, to which he returned with a small smile of his own and they worked the rest of the time in comfortable silence.

"So much for heading out tonight, I just hope the weather holds for us to leave tomorrow. I haven't seen my mom in months," he said sadly. "I was meant to go home for her birthday but we had that in-field assessment I couldn't miss. She said it was fine, but I know she was upset. She was really excited when I talked to her on the phone the other day about me making it home in time." Phil sighed and his shoulders sagged.

Melinda knew how close Phil was with his mom and she felt terrible that she'd involved him in this, so coming to a snap decision; she started formulating an exit strategy. "Don't worry Phil no matter what, I will make sure you make it home for Christmas." She stated with conviction while she gave him a side hug.

Melinda woke early the next morning and looked out the window to see that a thick blanket of snow had settled in overnight and it was lightly snowing still. She sighed and picked up the phone.

An hour later she knocked on Phil's door, she hadn't picked the lock in two weeks due to the embarrassing towel dropping incident that still gave her nightmares. A groggy looking Phil opened the door still in his Captain America boxers and matching T-shirt "Melinda?"

"You have fifteen minutes to be packed and dressed." She informed him while brushing past a bewildered Phil and into his room.

"Please come in." He drawled.

"I mean it Phil fifteen minutes, well more like fourteen minutes and twenty-three seconds now." With that said Melinda went to his closet and pulled out his suitcase, and then grabbed a nice shirt, warm jacket and dark jeans out of his wardrobe throwing them onto the bed. Phil remained standing by the door looking confused, so she pointed to the clothes she'd selected. "You'll be wearing those, take them with you to the bathroom, your first mode of transport home will be here soon." Melinda saw that her words finally registered through his sleepy haze, however instead of springing into action he stood there, gaping at her in disbelief. "Hurry up Phil, I didn't call in just about every favor owed to me for you to stand there wasting time. I'll start packing. GO!" She demanded; crossing to his dresser, she added a pair of boxers and socks to the pile, before she glanced over at him and noticed his face had gone pink while his eyes darted to the boxers she'd just handled. Melinda smirked at his obvious discomfort, throwing in a playful wink. "Don't worry Phil; it's nothing I've never seen before." And with that she looked pointedly at the pair he was wearing.

Thirteen minutes and fifteen seconds later Phil was dressed and packed. Before he jumped into the passenger side of the snowplow he gave Melinda a tight hug. "Thank you." he whispered, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. Then in a flurry of movement he was gone.

Blaming the cold wind for the slight tinges of pink on her cheeks Melinda watched with satisfaction as the snowplow disappeared into the swirling white and grey. Over the years whenever someone would ask about her first successful extraction, she'd give a small smile and think of that moment.

-fin-