AN: Wow! I did not expect so much support for this story! You guys are amazing!
Melinda woke up to the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. She jumped into a defensive stance before really knowing what was going on. For a moment, she was confused by the picture she found: A little girl standing in front of her book shelves, wearing one of her old T-shirts and looking at her with fear in her eyes. On the floor next to the girl was a book that had obviously fallen from the shelf. Melinda blinked, and then the last night came rushing back to her and she remembered. Skye. She looks at the clock on her desk. 7 am. Of course. Skye had been the only one to actually get sleep this night. Melinda squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, but then decided that going back to sleep was not an option get. She just couldn't let a mini-Skye run around here unsupervised.
"Good Morning." She greeted the girl. Skye looked up to her with big brown eyes and seemed to become even smaller.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be bad. It just fell!" She said. "I didn't wanna wake you. I'm sorry!" The girl seemed positively scared, and belatedly Melinda realized that she was still in fighting stance. She relaxed and sat down on her bed. "It's okay, Skye. No harm done."
Skye looked at her curiously then. "I'm Mary, not Skye. Skye is a prettier name though. Can I be Skye?" Melinda stared at the little girl for a moment. Of course, it made sense. The foster system didn't do names as unusual as "Skye", and it wasn't a that unthinkable that Skye had chosen her own name when she had erased her identity.
"Sure." She answered, not completely sure that was a good idea, but, well, it was way to early for this discussion. "Cool!" Skye (Mary?) squealed. Then she looked at Melinda again. "I'm hungry."
Breakfast proofed to be easy. They had some cereals here, mostly because Simmons loved them, and soon Skye was happily eating while Melinda just looked at the little girl. Skye still wore her old T-shirt. She would need clothes. And toys. And probably a ton of other things. Melinda resisted the urge to call her mother. It was only a little girl, nothing they wouldn't manage.
She heard Phil before she saw him. It was still early, only half past seven, but she would have been surprised if he had slept much longer. He was to much like her in this, the training still sitting too deep to really allow any of them sleep in.
"Good Morning." She greeted him. He smiled at her, and then at Skye, who was looking up now. He was wearing a suit, of course. Skye seemed confused. "Do I have to leave already? I don't wanna go back to the nuns. Where am I?" She asked, turning towards Melinda.
Phil looked at Skye, then at Melinda, who shrugged, and then at Skye again. "You don't have to leave, don't worry." Skye smiled shyly.
"Good. Why don't you eat? Aren't you hungry, Mommy?" She asked. Melinda was shocked, because when did she become the little girls "Mommy"? Her shock must have shown, because Skye shrugged and said: "If I don't have to leave, aren't you my new mommy and daddy then?"
Melinda looked at Phil. He looked as surprised as she herself must have looked, but then he started to smile. Of course. She looked at Skye and sighed. Simmons better be quick, she thought.
Later, when they found some cartoons for Skye to watch, Melinda and Phil finally got to talk.
"Sleeping in my room worked okay. Until Simmons figures out what to do we can continue this arrangement." Melinda said.
"Seems sensible." Phil answered distractedly, his focus not on her but on the little girl watching TV. Melinda had to smile. Phil had looked at Skye as his kind of daughter before, and her calling him "daddy" had to feel really good for him. She wasn't sure how she thought about being Skye's "mommy", but she figured that it was not going to take to long before Simmons figured out a way to make Skye adult again, so she wouldn't have to get used to it.
"Also, turns out her real name is Mary. She said so this morning when I called her Skye. She likes the name Skye better, though, so when she asked I told her it's okay that her new name is Skye. Not sure about that, but I was really tired."
"Well, if she reacts to being called Skye it would make everything much less confusing. I'm not sure everybody would remember to call her Mary." Phil said.
"We'll have to buy her clothes. She can't keep running around in my old T-shirt." Melinda already dreaded that trip. She had never liked shopping for clothes, and somehow she could not imagine it being any easier with a four year old.
"I can go with her." Phil said, but Melinda was already shaking her head. "If you go, you're going to come back with a mountain of stuff we do not need because you won't be able to say no that little girl over there. I think it's best if I go. She's already gotten a bit used to me." Internally, she cursed. She did not want to go shopping with the girl, but there was no other real option safe for Simmons, and she wanted the other woman working on how to get Skye normal again.
"Morning." Trip said sleepily as he grabbed a coffee.
"Morning." Melinda and Phil replied at the same time. Skye looked up from her cartoon long enough to say "Hi" and then turned back to the TV. Trip stared at her, blinked twice and then shook his head. "So it wasn't a weird dream." He mumbled. Phil smiled, while Melinda just smirked. "She grew up in the system, so she thinks we are her new foster parents. We decided to leave it at that for the moment."
Trip looked at them. "It's way to early for this weirdness." He said after a moment.
Well, he's not wrong.
I hope you liked it =)
