So I set out to write a thing where Skye panics after being shot in the field because she remembers what happened the last time she was shot and well it sort of turned out that way, kind of? I'm not sure how, but it became a lot more about death then I had thought. (Also this is on my tumblr -maybeashieldagent follow me!)
It was different this time. She knew it was coming. She saw that it was coming. She heard that it was coming.
And in the split second before it happened, when she realized what was about to go down, she prepared herself.
Well she thought she did. She thought that knowing it was going to happen would somehow make it okay.
And when the split second passed and she felt the sting in her gut as the bullet forcefully nudged its way through her, she realized that she wasn't ready. She wasn't prepared. She wasn't okay.
It is never okay.
And in that moment time seemed irrelevant. It didn't seem to matter because everything seemed so distant. All she could focus on was her body and what had just happened to it. She couldn't tell you how fast things were going or where she was, only that she had just been shot-
Again.
Just like last time, as if on instinct, her hand followed the path of the bullet, immediately drawing to her stomach. And when her head lolled downward, without her even willing it to do so, she was met with a sight she had never wanted to see again.
A blood soaked shirt and a bullet hole.
And then time seemed relevant. It was so relevant that she felt as if it was crushing back into her like a ton of bricks. Everything came back to her so rapidly that it was almost suffocating.
No it was suffocating.
She was suffocating.
Her breath began to quicken and become deeper. It felt like she couldn't breathe. And when you can't breathe you panic. So as she panicked, her breath got deeper and harder and more strained, making her body rise and collapse in on itself with ever struggled breath she took. She knew she was breathing, but she couldn't understand why it felt like there was no air left for her to take in.
And then there was her heart- which felt like it was about to explode out of her chest if it beat any faster. It hurt more than the hole in her stomach. The thumping sounds of her heart filled her ears, practically blocking out all other noise, and it was frustratingly annoying. She hated it and wanted it to stop.
She wanted her heart to stop.
She wanted her breathing to stop.
She wanted her life to stop.
Death would be better than going through it all again. Then making her friends go through it all again. Because this time she knew what could go wrong. She knew what could go wrong and what could happen and how much pain that would bring to everyone around her. She knew that death may not come easily and that it would be a battle. A battle she didn't want to fight. It would be a battle that would go on and on, even after she was well. And she knew it would be that way because she was still fighting the battle from the last time she was shot and escaped death. It was a battle she faced every night when Ian Quinn's face invaded her dreams, and every time she looked in the mirror and saw the ugly scars that plastered her stomach and made her want to cry. She was scared. She was scared that all of this was happening again, and this time she wouldn't be so lucky. Because surviving this the first time was luck, but you don't tend to get lucky twice. And even if she did get lucky twice, you can't fight two battles at once because you will lose. It will destroy her and she wasn't ready to go through that. She would much rather quit the fight now, and that's saying a lot because she was not normally one to quit.
But her friends wouldn't want her to quit because they wouldn't quit. They wouldn't stop fighting for her and she knew it too, which just made her feel even worse. Her breath got a little faster and her heart beat a little harder.
"SKYE!"
Even through the lurid sound of her rapid heartbeat in her ears, she could hear her name being called and she knew the voice calling it well. It was Jemma's voice.
And when she looked up that is who she saw. Some part of her was relieved, but another was deeply troubled because Jemma didn't deserve to put through this whole ordeal of trying to save her all over again; especially when this time she didn't want to be saved.
She felt Jemma's hand pulling her own away from her stomach and as if on cue, that's when her body began to give up and her knees gave out and she practically crumpled to the floor.
She would have dropped down completely if Jemma hadn't caught her and eased her down.
Without warning, she felt pain, intense pain, as Jemma's hands pressed down on her stomach. The pain was all too familiar and she didn't want it. She shook her head from side to side. Tears started to accompany her hard breaths and pounding heartbeat. She didn't want to go through this again.
"No, please," she said through ragged breaths.
Jemma's face was now above her own and that is all she could see as she moved her head back and forth, cried, and tried to breathe.
"Skye, Skye, look at me."
She stopped moving her head and tried to focus on Jemma. The tears didn't stop, neither did her struggled breaths, but she was looking.
"Skye, you have to calm down, you're panicking, but I promise you everything is going to be alright, just like last time, you will make it through this," Jemma said with a reassuring nod of her head.
She wanted to believe her. She wanted to think she would be alright, like last time.
Last time.
Last time when Ian Quinn shot her twice in her stomach, left her that basement, bleeding out and choking on her own blood, to just die all alone and in pain.
The pain. Oh gosh. No. She couldn't do it again. She couldn't.
"I don't- I can't do it again," She said, the words coming out broken between soft sobs and heavy breaths.
Jemma didn't know what to say. She had never seen Skye with so much pain and fear in her face. Jemma shook her head and tried to hold back her tears. How do you tell someone to keep fighting when they have so clearly given up and it would just cause them pain to go on?
"Please Skye, just try to calm down. Everything will be okay. You can get through it. Just one breath at a time- in and out. Do it with me," Jemma said taking a large breath in and then releasing it, and doing the same thing over and over, giving Skye a steady rhythm to follow.
And she did, she did follow it. She tried to follow it because she knew it would make Jemma happy. It would make Jemma happy to think she hadn't given up, even though she already knew deep down inside she had, but Jemma didn't have to know that. Jemma didn't have to know that this time she really wasn't going to fight even if Jemma was.
Soon her breathing was back to normal and the tears had stopped and as those went away so did her pain. That made her happy because that meant she wasn't going to have to fight much longer. With a sigh of relief she closed her eyes.
"Skye?"
She didn't answer.
"Skye please open your eyes."
She didn't open her eyes.
"Skye please don't give up."
She had given up.
"Skye please, I promise everything will be okay, you'll be okay."
Everything would be okay because she wouldn't have to fight that battle again.
"Skye please I can't lose you, we can't lose you. Please just wake up."
She didn't wake up, but Jemma's pleads continued on, everyone getting more desperate then the one before it, everyone one filled with just a few more tears.
But pleads and promises don't bring people back. Skye was gone.