"Coulson?" Daisy knocked on the door of Coulson's office, still struggling with what she had to tell him. Should she tell him? Would it make things better or worse? As messed up as Coulson had been since getting back from the alien planet two weeks before, she was really afraid that it might make things worse, but at the same time keeping the information from him would be beyond cruel.
Before she had time to debate it more, he called out to her. "Daisy? what do you need?"
"Hey." Daisy pushed the door open and stepped into the office, still struggling to decide what to do. Whatever she did, Coulson was going to be hurt, and seeing him sitting at his desk, the misery apparent on his face, hurting him was the last thing she wanted to do. She silently cursed Ward for putting them in this position and cursed herself for not letting Ward die two years before when she had had the opportunity to let Mike Peterson kill him. Why hadn't she let him die then? Or why hadn't she put those bullets in his fat head when she shot him? If she had taken either of those opportunities, this entire situation wouldn't happen, and even if no one else blamed her, she sure blamed herself.
"Daisy?" Coulson called her name again. "If you don't need something…."
"Need something. Right. I need to tell you something." She had to tell him. Not telling him would just be way too cruel. "You know how you asked me to find out when Rosalind's funeral was, once everything had calmed down, or where she was going to be buried or what the arrangements were going to be?"
Coulson nodded, a wave of pain washing over him at the mention of Rosalind's name, and he was back there again, one minute happy and then seeing her bleeding out of the floor, begging her to stay with him and then being forced to leave her there as Hydra came after him. "Did you find out what the arrangements are? Or were?" Two weeks, he was sure the funeral was long over, but at least he wanted the chance to visit her grave and say goodbye, to tell her how sorry he was for what had happened to her, how she didn't deserve it and….
"The arrangements." Daisy bit her lip, still struggling over what to do, but the expectant look on Coulson's face, she had to do something. "Apparently someone called the police because a gun battle and explosions and stuff aren't exactly quiet. And I guess there was some confusion about what happened, and then when they realized Hydra was involved, they tried to keep things quiet and…."
"No public funeral then?" Coulson said. He wasn't sure how Rosalind would have felt about that. He didn't think that she would have wanted some sort of big show, but still, she had tried so hard to do something good, and that should have been acknowledged.
The funeral. About that. Like I said, he police were called, and there was apparently some sort of confusion about who was supposed to have responsibility for the crime scene with the whole ATCU situation, and the Secret Service got called in and the FBI, and then the military for some reason." Daisy told him. "And while everyone was arguing about who was supposed to be in charge of things, the coroner from NCIS, who I have no idea why those people were there because we're the ones with the helicarrier, not the ATCU. But anyway, somehow they were tossed into the mix too, and their coroner thought it would be a good idea to do something about checking the body on the floor and doing whatever coroners are supposed to do with bodies. Only when he checked, he found a really, really weak pulse."
"A…." Coulson's jaw dropped. A pulse? He had missed a…. But the blood and the way Rosalind had been shot, it would have been easy to miss a pulse, especially as her heartbeat slowed in response to the massive blood loss, and then with Hydra coming after him, it wasn't like he had had a lot of time to focus on assessing her condition after that first panic-filled minute when he had begged her to stay awake, to stay with him. It didn't make him feel better, of course, to realize that missing a weak pulse would have been an easy mistake, and he cursed himself for it, for the fact that he had missed that Rosalind was still alive and that he had left her alone on that floor fighting for her life. He had left her alone and what if Hydra had realized she was still alive and captured her? No, don't think about the what ifs. Just focus on…. "Hospital." He dug in his desk drawer with his remaining hand and tossed the keys to Lola to Daisy. He hadn't been able to face getting his hand replaced yet, and there was no way he trusted himself to drive. Get to the hospital, get to Rosalind, make sure she was safe with Malick still on the loose and then worry about his guilt over leaving her and trying to figure out some way to make the fact he had abandoned her at the worst possible time up to her. Did they make enough flowers to even touch on making up for something like that? Flowers. He should get flowers, shouldn't he? What sort of flowers, though? He had left the poor woman to nearly bleed to death on her own floor. He didn't have a whole lot of experience, but he was pretty sure the answer to that was all of the flowers he could find, and keep them coming. Hospitals had flowers, right? First make sure that Rosalind was safe and then he could go and get all of the flowers he could carry for her. That would work. And maybe something else, or a lot of something elses? Who did he know who screwed up relationships a lot who could offer advice? There was Hunter, but as much as he goofed stuff up with Bobbi, he didn't think he had approached this level of screwing up.
No. He shook his head. Worry about all of that later. Get to the hospital and make sure Rosalind was safe, first of all, and make sure that she stayed safe. Malick was still out there even if Ward was dead, and she could still be in danger. Two weeks. Two weeks since she was injured. She ought to be okay enough after two weeks to be moved. She would be safe at the Playground until she recovered fully. Plan, he had a plan. Now to…. "Daisy?" He said when he suddenly realized that she wasn't following him towards the door.
How could she tell him? The look on his face, like he had just been given a miracle, how could she tell him? "AC, there's something you need to know." Daisy said, using the nickname she had given Coulson when she first met him. "Rosalind, you know she lost a lot of blood and the way Ward shot her was pretty bad. They said it was a miracle she made it to the hospital to begin with." She didn't want to do this. She didn't want to do this and break his heart. "They were able to repair the damage but she's been in a coma ever since that night and her doctors say there isn't anything else they can do for her. Her family's made arrangements to take her off of life support. I'm so sorry, AC."
"They…. She's dying?" Coulson's voice was a soft whisper that she could barely hear.
"They're taking her off the machines tonight." Daisy told him, tears welling in her eyes at the expression on his face, like he had been kicked in the stomach. "AC, I'm so sorry. I wasn't sure if I should tell you, but I thought you deserved to know." She wanted to go to him, to hug him and offer some sort of comfort, but the expression on his face, she was half afraid that if she touched him he would shatter.
"Thank you." Dying, Rosalind was dying. He had spent the last two weeks thinking she was dead. He had struggled to try to find some acceptance of that awful fact, had tried to find a way to live with the memories of seeing her bleeding out in front of him, but finding out that she wasn't dead, finding out that he had gotten a miracle and she had survived, only to learn he was going to lose her anyway…. He fought back the urge to throw up. "The hospital, please?" He asked Daisy.
"Okay." Daisy told him. "Do you want me to get May to come with us? We'll need something besides Lola."
"No, she doesn't need to deal with this." And maybe it wasn't fair to ask Daisy to deal with it, but…. "The hospital, please?" Rosalind was dying, and it might be totally inadequate but he was going to be there to tell her goodbye. "And…. Maybe a flowershop on the way if you think we would have time?"