Someone knocks. breaking his concentration. He's been working since he got up and he's meant to stop for breakfast three times. He must have taken too long.
"I'm almost done, May," he insists without looking up. He sets down his cold cup of coffee. It's nearly empty but she'll chastise him anyway. He has been living on coffee and worry. It's too early for anyone else to need him, but the voice clearing her throat across from his desk belongs to Simmons.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Sir."
"It's no bother," he says, setting down his pen. "What can I do for you?"
"As you know, I've been studying the effects of GH-325 and I think I've tracked down a residual protein that I missed in my initial studies."
She's hiding something. Simmons can't lie and even trying to hold back a truth makes her wildly uncomfortable. He sits back in his chair and gives her his full attention.
"I took blood from myself, Agent Triplett and Agent May as controls, so I could screen your blood and Skye's for any traces of GH-325 that could help Fitz. Obviously it wasn't a perfect study, but I have to work with what I have."
"Go on," he says, wishing he could make this easier for her.
"The residual protein, I don't know how else to say this, it's not right. It doesn't match anything I've seen. I can't find reference to it in any medical database that I have clearance to access. I asked Skye to look for it in some that I don't have clearance for but it's not there. The only places I can find any reference to it at all is in what's left of the Guest House files and they're mangled."
"They should be," he says, but regrets how harsh it sounds.
"I need them intact." It's not just Fitz she's worried about. Something else is wrong.
He sighs. He hates that Fitz is still in a coma, but GH isn't the way to save him. Skye might show symptoms as he does any day now. The patterns that live behind his eyes are a burden he can't wish on anyone. He doesn't know what they mean and they're stronger every day. He catches himself writing those circles and lines in the corners of his papers, and he's had to reprint some of his forms because he's written on them.
"I don't know if anything from the Guest House can help anyone. Garrett went mad on the GH serum."
She doesn't buy that. "In combination with the Centipede cocktail of drugs and who knows what else he had taken in congress with his cybernetic implants. You and Skye haven't shown any signs of degradation."
He's a much better liar than she is and regret gnaws at his gut. "No, I guess not."
She stares at him, her anger faltering. "What is it? What was down there? You came up shouting that we shouldn't give it to Skye. She would have died without it, and you, you looked like that was a better outcome."
"Skye's all right?"
"Yes. Skye's fine." She keeps staring at him, then looks down at her tablet. Simmons looks up and swallows. "It's May."
"May?"
"There are traces of the GH protein in her blood."
His chair creaks when he sits back. "How?"
Simmons still sits straight upright, but there's a sorrow in her face. "I think she was exposed over a period of several weeks. The transmission enzyme must function like a virus. When there was enough of it in her blood, her cells began to produce the GH protein, like yours and Skye's."
"Are there symptoms associated with this protein?" Has he hurt her? It's bad enough if GH is in him and Skye, if it's in May, it's entirely his fault.
"She's had spikes in body temperature. I only have baseline data because I haven't been taking full physicals, but using the internal sensors, I'd say she has had a mild, recurrent fever since peak exposure." Simmons is still holding something back. Is that for him or for May?
He leans forward, hands on the desk. "Is she okay?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes, she's healthy. However, there's something you and she need to know about." Her shyness is gone and she stares him down. She knows about them and she's not the timid biochemist who walked onto the Bus so many months ago. Simmons knows he's lying. How does she know? Has he made a mistake somewhere? Did she see him leaving May's room?
"I don't know what you're-"
"Your behaviour, which is none of my business really, has had unintentional consequences." Simmons hands her tablet computer over to him. The graphs of May's bloodwork make no sense to him. She must have tried to make them simple, but he's so exhausted that he can't read them. "Stop me if I'm wrong, sir, but I believe you and Agent May have had unprotected intercourse, regularly, for at least the last ten weeks. That's not my concern. I wouldn't be here if it was just that. I wouldn't even mention it. It's not what I'd like to be talking about with you, to be perfectly honest."
Somehow he feels like a chastised teenager. "Not unprotected. May has an implant."
"A progesterone implant in her left arm designed to inhibit ovulation, placed just over a year ago." Simmons points at her chart. "I know. I also know that there's something about the Guest House that freaks out Skye, and makes you go all quiet. I know you don't want me to look into it for Fitz's sake, but I don't think you understand. I started this research to help Fitz, and perhaps at some point in the future it will." She takes another breath, stiffening up. "Right now, I'm worried about May. This protein isn't just sitting idly in her cells. This peak? That's a luteinizing hormone surge, and the purple, that's FSH, follicle stimulating hormone. That shouldn't occur in a woman on a progesterone implant, especially not to this degree."
"Luteinising hormone?" He should know this. Simmons thinks he should know what she's talking about.
"It's one of the gonadotropins. It triggers ovulation."
The last word hits him like an ICEr. "The trace amounts of the GH protein you've discovered have done this?"
"Agent May's contraceptive implant would have prevented ovulation under normal circumstances. The GH protein appears to have counteracted the effect, with some efficiency."
One green line on Simmons' graph shows a steady increase of a hormone that curves upward until the end of the graph. He does not remember what hCG means from biology. It looks familiar, but it doesn't click.
"The green line is human chorionic gonadotropin, and it's been increasing in her blood steadily for the last sixty days, give or take." Simmons takes pity on him and takes back the graph. "Agent May is pregnant, Sir. If you were sexually active together sixty days ago-"
He nods. His throat's too dry to allow for speech. He coughs and tries to clear it, but he can't get the lump out of it.
"I don't know what was in that base or what you're still holding back about project T.A.H.I.T.I. I know Skye went white when I mentioned it and your respiration rate increased when I told you about it. I don't know what you saw, sir, but there's something in GH that's changed Agent May's biochemistry in a way I don't understand. Whatever it is, you need to tell her, because she's pregnant, and I don't think it was simple contraceptive failure, considering the chances of spontaneous conception at her age."
Simmons pulls the tablet back and hugs it to her chest. She shrinks a little, deflating now that she's confronted him. "I had to practice what I was going to say to you four times in the lab, and I still didn't get it right. Something's happened, and yes it's a medical issue, but this is a personal one, too. You have to get it right when you tell her. It's important. I don't know what you and her will decide to do, but I need to make sure she's all right, as soon as possible."
He tries to stop himself, but he smiles. He shouldn't. He runs his hand across his head. What is he going to say? How can he tell Melinda this? What has he done to her, to what they had? GH doesn't belong in her. It's supposed to be his curse.
"Is she okay?"
"She appears healthy. All her hormone levels are within normal parameters. As I said, she has a slight fever that comes and goes, and I'd like to do so more tests and remove her implant as soon as possible. If she decides to continue with the pregnancy, I'll need to run a scan of the foetus, to check its development."
Phil tries not to turn foetus into baby in his head, but it's hard not to. It's only one possibility, a potential life he can't even speculate about, yet he's already attached. He wants to see if he'll have May's hair. Will she smile like her mother does? He has to tell May. He has to find words that explain what's happened, and what could be. He's always thought of the future as abstract, something full of movements and countermovements, chaos to be ordered and a world to protect. This shrinks his world down to the most simple components, and he shares the utter helplessness that his own father must have felt.
"Okay," he promises Simmons. "I'll talk to her."
"I'm sorry, Sir."
"No, no. It's not-" he falters again. "It's my fault. I should have been more careful."
"You couldn't have known. This kind of resurgent reaction in gonadotropins is very rare. If I had to predict the action of the GH protein, this would be low on my list of possibilities. It's a very odd adaptation from anything but an evolutionary sense-" she continues speaking but he can't hear her.
May's pregnant. They're pregnant.
"Thank you," he manages eventually. He's not even sure if it fits in the conversation Simmons was having with him.
She nods. "I need to run more tests. I don't fully understand the mechanism of the GH protein, and I don't know if it will continue to affect her if she decides to continue with the pregnancy. If there's anything else I need to know, about the Guest House-"
Phil leans back in his chair, then leans forward, his head in his hands. Simmons doesn't have clearance. He shouldn't say anything, but it's May.
"It's an oh-eight-four."
"What?"
"GH-325 was derived from the bodily fluids of the corpse of an oh-eight-four. No one knows what it does. I'll unseal the Guest House files, everything you need should be in there. "
Now pale, she stands, still clinging to her tablet. "Thank you."
For once, his fingers don't beg to trace and draw. His mind is silent; utterly consumed with the strangeness of life. He has to find May. He has to tell her. He has to be fair. He can't grin at her like an idiot, but his smile's already there. He has to stop and concentrate to force it down. He has to see what she wants; how she takes it because this must be about her.
When she walks into his office, something's wrong. Phil's always so easy for her to read, but this morning he's confused. He's not upset, maybe surprised? He reaches for her hand, which is unlike him. She's the one who touches him.
"We need to talk." He looks down at their hands, almost sheepish.
Melinda follows him over, wondering if it's Hydra, something Fury hid from them or any of the myriad other awful things, but he's trying not to smile.
Phil fails, and he does smile as he tugs his sleeve then clasps his hands. "Melinda-"
Her first name: he's nervous.
"You should sit."
Why does he want her to sit if he's the one who seems on the verge of some kind of breakdown? She sits and he joins her on the sofa and again he reaches for her hand, but she takes his and wraps it in hers. That seems safer because he's so tense.
"Simmons has been studying GH-325, looking at our blood samples for clues to how it behaves in the body."
Something's wrong with him? With Skye? She can't stand to lose either of them. She knows the hypergraphia has to be a symptom, part of something they don't yet understand. There's a knot in the bottom of her stomach that she can't ignore.
Phil looks at her knees, then up into her eyes. Something's troubling him. "She didn't know how to tell you. I don't know how to-" he takes a deep breath. "I'm pregnant."
"You're pregnant?" The complete ridiculousness of the question she's just asked in response to an equally ridiculous statement doesn't even sink in until after she's asked it.
"It's my fault. Simmons found the GH protein in your blood and we, you and I, and she's still not sure what it does, but it definitely had a regenerative effect and some of your cells responded and she thinks it induced ovulation which meant that we- And I'm not saying this right at all, am I?"
She shakes her head. She doesn't want him to finish. She doesn't know what to say, but she can't let him struggle. "Take a deep breath and try again."
"Melinda-"
Then she gets it. What he's trying to say slams into her like a wave. She shivers and nearly lets go of his hand. "I'm pregnant."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't-" she squeezes his hand, then pulls him into her, holding him close. He smells so familiar, so safe. How could they have done this? How could this happen? "Don't apologise."
"I didn't even think about exposing you to the Guest House serum, I never would have if I'd known."
"You couldn't have." She hasn't been sick. Isn't she supposed to be sick? Her breasts hurt, but that slow, steady ache could have been anything, bruising from sparring with Trip-
"Are you okay?"
"No."
He bites back another apology and rubs her shoulder. "I didn't think."
"No." She has to say more than that, but finding words means she has to dredge her soul. "Neither of us thought."
"Simmons says your blood work is fine. I mean, you're fine, completely healthy, if you want to, you know. You don't, I mean, I'd never, it's your choice, May-"
Her hands sweat, turning his damp. Her heart thuds in her ears and all she can think about is her mother reminding her about grandchildren. If Melinda wants to have a baby, she shouldn't wait, not long. She didn't want, she couldn't, not after Bahrain took everything from her.
She's just started to remember how to smile without it stinging and she's pregnant.
"Pregnant," she repeats as if she's just discovered the word and doesn't know what it means. She needs her mother. Melinda can't think, can't string more than a word together and she can trust her mother will know what to do.
"It's okay to be frightened, or angry."
"Confused," she says, squeezing his hand. "A little lightheaded."
"I'm so sorry."
She kisses his cheek because that's easier than talking. "I don't blame you. It's a fluke. An accident. I'm not hurt."
"You didn't-"
"We didn't," she corrects. "You and I didn't think this could happen."
"What can I do, Melinda?"
She rests her head on his shoulder and shuts her eyes. She doesn't know what she wants or how she feels. Her heart's a wild mess that doesn't seem to be capable of any kind of coherent emotion. He holds her, because that she doesn't have to articulate.
She's never even had a pregnancy scare. Never purchased a pregnancy test in the middle of the night. She never thought-
And here they are. The secret organisation they work for doesn't exist. She's his second in command and they're trying to build it from scratch and Hydra and all the other monsters are out there, waiting for them.
She can't even contemplate what she should do. Can't think because it's too much. Phil sits with her in silence for a long time, because he remembers a time before when she couldn't speak and that was what she needed him to do. Eventually she leaves and he doesn't follow. That, at least, is easy.
Sitting in the cockpit, satellite phone in hand, Melinda has not made any progress dialing her mother's number. She doesn't know how long she's been sitting there. She meant to call her and came out to the cockpit because it is quiet. It's morning in Pennsylvania. Melinda can picture the sun over the trees behind her mother's large old house.
It has history, her mother always insists. She isn't going to live anywhere without history.
She tries to dredge up the courage to type in the number, but she doesn't get anywhere. Her fingers don't seem to know what they're doing.
The knock on the door startles her away from what she's failing to do.
Simmons holds a sheet of paper in her hands, crumpled by her grip.
"Am I bothering you?"
"No."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"What do you have?" Asking the direct question makes Simmons flush and look down at the paper she's holding so tightly.
"I printed out your test results, in case you wanted to see them. I think I can answer any questions you might have, but I'm not an obstetrician, and we'll need to consult one, of course I'm not really sure who we'd contact, now, but I think we could-"
Melinda needs her to stop talking and lifts her hand. "I trust you."
Simmons looks both terrified and pleased at the same time. "Okay, well, right. Did Director Coulson explain the GH protein?"
"He tried."
"I'm sorry. I should have-"
Melinda shakes her head. "Don't."
Simmons shifts her weight on her feet but continues without apologising again. "GH-325 seems to leave a residual enzyme that codes for a protein that I've never seen before. I'm only started to keep track of all the permutations of what this protein can do to the human body. Regeneration is one effect, but there are also more subtle changes. Clearly interfering with hormonal birth control appears to be one of them. Obviously, I'll warn Skye before she-" Simmons voice breaks and she loses her thought. "Are you okay?"
How is she supposed to answer? Physically, she can't say she feels that different. She's sore, almost achy, but it's not out of the ordinary. Often her body feels much worse than this.
Melinda's silence makes Simmons speak, recriminating herself. "I should have caught it sooner. I should have been able to-"
"Don't blame yourself." No one needs to be blamed. That never helps.
"I didn't know you two were- I thought, I know you were close, but not like that. Not that that's bad. I think it could be good. Both of you have been so happy lately. It's good, isn't it? He was so- I'm sorry, I know I should have told you first."
Melinda nods, but she intends no reproach. She would be harder to tell, and if the safety of the team was a concern, Simmons was following protocol.
"It seemed kinder coming from him," Simmons continues, "he knows you and he's the father."
Melinda nods, again, because she can't find words.
"Yes, right." Simmons says in answer to nothing. She flutters her hand and quickly hands the paper over before she can wrinkle it further. "Your hormone levels are all normal. The concentration of hCG suggests that you're ten weeks pregnant. Of course, that system of dating is based on the inaccurate last menstrual period model and that's just not scientifically sound, especially when it's been some time since you've had a menstrual period, which obviously you haven't had in quite a while."
"How do you want to date it?"
"Based on hormone levels, you conceived between sixty-five and fifty-five days ago. I can be more accurate if I perform an internal scan."
"A scan?" She's always had scans to check for broken bones and to set fractures, never to look at anything like that.
"To check foetal development. It's standard procedure. All of your hormone levels are within expected norms for someone in your condi-"
"Pregnant," Melinda interrupts her. "You can say it."
"Pregnant," Simmons repeats, even though blood pinks her face. "I'd like to check the development of the foetal nervous system. That should be a much more accurate way of dating and I'll know the foetus is healthy. Which is important, assuming you want to continue. Which I don't want to do. I mean, I don't want you to feel like I'm going to judge you one way or the other. I can synthesise enough progesterone to terminate, if that's what you want. You have some time left to decide, but if you-"
"Jemma, sit."
She takes the co-pilot's seat reluctantly, just about perching on the edge. "I'm sorry. I haven't done this, ever."
Melinda almost has to smile at that, but her face won't move. "Me neither."
"I want you to know that I'll help you with whatever you want. Whatever you need. If you decide to continue with this, with your pregnancy, I'll need to run some tests in addition to the scan."
"Can your scan wait?"
"Of course."
Jemma half smiles, maybe she's trying to be reassuring. "That's fine. I'll calibrate my equipment tonight and we can do it whenever you're ready, or not, I mean. I have to remove your implant, too. I should do that soon if you want some time to think. I can do it now, or in the morning. If that's, I mean, you don't need, you aren't sick in the morning, are you? I can do it later if you-"
"No. I haven't been sick at all. Hungry, I guess."
"I noticed. I thought, I mean, I was worried something was wrong." Jemma's smile grows until it lights her face. "Though now that we know, that seems healthy." She reaches for Melinda's arm, then pauses, suddenly shy, but touches her anyway. "How does it feel?"
"Sore." Melinda's acutely aware of Jemma's hand and it's nice, even comforting to have the coolness of it there. "I thought I'd been sparring too much."
"You have to stop!" Jemma's eyes go wide in panic. "You can't-"
Waving her hand, Melinda nods. "I'll be careful."
"You were just letting Skye and I throw you yesterday." Jemma's expression tightens and the pink fades from her face. "Oh God. I knocked you down. Skye knocked you down twice!"
"You and Skye don't throw me hard enough to hurt me." Or anyone else, Melinda finishes in her head but she's not ready to say that aloud. She's not ready to personify the ache in her breasts as anything more than that. It's not real.
"I'm so sorry."
"Jemma, I'm fine."
"Are you? Are you really?"
"As far as I know."
"But you didn't want this."
Melinda leans back in the pilot's seat. She's most comfortable here, removed from the chaos of everything else but chaos has found her; taken root within. She'll have to wait for her emotions to catch up with her. Sometimes her heart stalks her, like a predator in the darkness.
She exhales, tired. "I didn't think about it."
"Does that mean it's okay or not?"
Okay means a kind of stability that seems light years away. Okay might as well be Asgard and she has no wings.
Jemma fidgets again, and the needle emerges from her pocket in her nervous fingers. "May I take another blood sample?"
Stripping off her jacket, Melinda rolls up the sleeve of her shirt and offers her left arm. Jemma pauses when she touches her skin, thinking.
"Are you warm?"
"Now?"
"Lately," Jemma clarifies. "Do you feel warm? Because your skin's warm to the touch. Warmer than mine."
Melinda watches red seep as her blood fills the tube, because that's familiar. She knows blood.
"May I take your temperature?"
She nods again and submits, because if she moves too quickly, Jemma's going to flee the cockpit and the needle's still in her arm. Jemma finishes fussing and places Melinda's fingers over the bandage to stop the bleeding from the needle mark.
"Your temperature is elevated. I calculated your baseline to be thirty-six point eight one but this is thirty-eight point zero five. "
Again she should speak, but she can't. She waits for Jemma to finish.
"It could be nothing and I don't think it's a problem, but I'd like to keep an eye on it. You'll tell me if something feels off?"
She nods because Jemma's worried enough. How will she tell what feels off if she's numb from the inside?
"Do you have any questions?"
Pulling her jacket off the pilot's seat, Melinda slips it back on, hiding in the comfortable leather. None that Jemma can answer. "No."
"I'm going to go and work with this. I need to run some comparative assays and read the Guest House files because Director Coulson has given me clearance so I can, well, I guess so I can figure out why this happened and make sure you're okay." She stuffs the vial of blood and the capped needle back into her pocket. "Not that you have to be okay. I think it would be entirely acceptable to really not be okay. I wouldn't be okay if it was me. I wouldn't be okay at all. So it's all right if you're not. If you want to cry or scream or throw something, you should, because this is a big thing. A huge thing and it's scary. I'd be frightened. And I'm going to go."
Retreating from the cockpit, Jemma looks back and smiles, almost as if she wants to make Melinda feel better. It's sweet.
When she's gone, Melinda shuts the door before anyone else can intrude. She takes a deep breath, then another. She finally touches the keys on the phone, her fingers clumsy. It rings twice then her mother answers. She always answers the phone in English, even when she knows it's Melinda and she prefers Melinda to speak in Mandarin or Cantonese. It's a test.
"Hi Mama.." She starts, falling easily into Mandarin.
"It's Tuesday," her mother says, changing to Mandarin to match. "You call on Fridays. What has happened? Are you hurt? Phillip's not careful enough with you."
Melinda wants to say nothing, to melt into her seat until she has control of herself again. "No, I'm not hurt."
"Then tell me, Qiaolian. What can't wait until Friday?"
"Mama-"
"Out with it. Is Phillip being an ass again? I still have connections. My agency could-"
"He's not an ass, Mama."
"He was and you know it, Qiaolian. Don't defend him. He sent you away when all you've ever done is keep him safe. Very ungrateful. I still don't think you should have gone back to his plane. Maria would have given you a good position at Stark Industries, with good holidays. You could visit more."
Melinda shuts her eyes and balls her fingers into a fist. She can do this. "I'm pregnant."
That creates a long silence. The line crackles and for a moment Melinda wonders if she's actually made her mother speechless.
"You told me I would not have any grandchildren. I have made peace with that. Why do you change this now? I have prepared nothing. I'm not ready. I need time to make my grandchild a bedroom in my house." Her mother continues, listing all the things Melinda's change of heart has thrown out of order in her life.
"Who is the father?"
"Phil."
"Phillip yells at you. Shoots you with one of those ice guns, makes you leave and you then you have a child with him? Have you not listened to me about men? Men like him are just like your father. You can't count on him to be-"
"I do count on him." Maybe it's the waver in her voice that sways her mother. She's always read her better than anyone, even Phil.
"And you've decided that is enough to have his child?"
"We weren't trying."
Her mother inhales, sharp, and Melinda winces.
"You weren't trying? What does he have to say about this?"
What had Phil said? She's just spoken to him but her mind's blank. "He is waiting for me to decide. I think he's happy."
"So he wants this baby. Why do men always want babies? They don't know half the work that goes into them. Your father-" she trails off. May's father is always more a ghost than a real presence. "Do you want this baby, Qiaolian?"
"I don't know." She can't have a child. What would she do with him? Where would he sleep? How would he go to school? How will she nurse him when she has to fly the Bus? Who will pick him up when she can't?
She doesn't know what Phil wants. He smiled when he told her, but he could have done that for her, or maybe he'd rather be having a child with the cellist he lost. It's so hard to tell if it's duty or affection between them. Even when she's lying next to him, she's not sure what this is between them. Does he love her? Does she need him to? He will love the baby, if there is one, she has no doubt of that. Is that enough? What would that relationship be like? She's not even sure she can look at him without needing to look away. She doesn't doubt that he'll be a good father but she can't be with him and not love him.
She can't terminate this pregnancy because she's afraid. She can't be afraid.
"Do you love him? If you're going to have a baby, it should be with someone you love. Even if you can't be together." Her mother does love her father, wherever he is and whatever he's doing, she loves him. Melinda's never met him, and won't, but he's a ghost in her life that remains well loved. Will Phil become a ghost as well? What is he writing? What's happening inside of him? Will they solve this crisis only to lose him later?
She doesn't have her mother's strength. She doesn't know if she can have Phil as a friend who shares the life of their child while he loves someone else. She'd never keep him if he wanted to go. If he loves Audrey, she'll send him to her. That might be easier, in the long run. Audrey can give him an ordinary life, at least some of the time.
She thought that she finally understood her feelings for Phil. That caring about him is enough, but it's not the right word. She is past caring. She hid the truth for him, went out into the field again for him, risked her life and their friendship: everything. She would let him go if he asked, but he hasn't. He's still here. If he stays, it could be duty, or something infinitely more terrifying. It would be simple if he loved Audrey and they came to an understanding about this child.
If he doesn't love Audrey, he might love-
"I love him, Mama."
"I should have named you 'always clever' instead. That way you would put more thought into what you do and whom you give your heart too."
She closes her eyes, her head swimming. "He's a good man."
"He didn't trust you. You risked everything to keep him safe after Fury put you in that awful position and Phillip hasn't even apologised for what he said to you.."
"He doesn't-"
"He does. He needs to. He should throw himself at your feet for what you've done for him and instead he punished you. Sent you away. Let you get shot!"
She sighs. Getting shot is not the crisis her mother always makes it into. "That was S.H.I.E.L.D. thinking we were Hydra."
"On his watch. If he had listened to you instead of yelling at you, you never would have gotten shot."
Melinda doesn't have the energy for this argument. "I love him, mama. He'll be a good father. I think he'll love a baby."
"If that's what you want."
She takes a breath and it hisses through her teeth. She's so tense that her limbs can barely move but she can't fix it. She can't control anything. "I don't know."
"Then come home."
"Wǒ ài tā, māmā. Tā huì chéngwéi yīgè hǎo fùqīn. Wǒ xiǎng tā huì ài shàng yīgè bǎobǎo.." Melinda's voice cracks, trembling over the words through the door.
He should knock, announce that he's here, that he hears she speak. He's not that quick with Mandarin, and he misses what comes next, but he understood the heart of it. She loves him.
She says it again, still arguing with her mother. Melinda's voice is weaker now, softer. She's frightened. He hasn't seen her afraid like that in years. He's heard it, seen moments where she's let down her guard, but now fear's naked in her voice and he can't stop it.
He leans against the door and waits for her to hang up. She loves her mother, more than anything, but May Jun-Ying is an intense woman who demands much from her daughter. Sometimes things her daughter can't give her. Not at the moment.
Her breath shudders in her chest, and even through the door he wants to hold her. He wants to hug her tight enough that she doesn't have to be afraid. She takes another breath, trying to calm herself but she can't. He's heard her struggle like that before. She tried so hard to hold herself together after Bahrain, eventually she couldn't, so part of her went away. He can't lose her again, not to this. He doesn't care if they have a baby, a fish, or three dogs and an electric eel, he wants her.
He knocks, then walks into the cockpit before he loses his nerve. "Nǐ ài wǒ," he stumbles a little through, but she hears him. "You love me."
She stands up but doesn't turn to look at him. Her fingers turn white, gripping the edge of the dashboard. Every vertebrae is straight and level in her spine.
Her head bobs and she still can't look at him. He takes a step towards her, then another. He reaches for her arms, running his hands down her arms. She doesn't flinch, yet doesn't move closer.
"I need to see my mother."
"Of course, take all the time you-"
"A week."
"That's fine. We can drop you off in New York. You can meet us when you're ready. "
"Thank you." Her eyes look right through him. She sees, but doesn't.
"Your mother's going to kill me, isn't she? I suppose I should stay out of MI6's way for a while. Avoid dark alleys." Phil brings his hands up to her shoulders. The tension there feels like cords beneath his hands. He leans closer, resting his head against hers from behind. "Are you okay?"
Turning her head ever so slightly from side to side, Melinda reaches up for his hand and grabs his fingers where they lie on her shoulder. She holds onto him with one hand, her grip hot and tight.
"Did Simmons come speak to you? She was worried that she didn't talk to you first. I think she was just following protocol, trying to make sure everyone was safe. She thought I might have given you some kind of virus, and then she found out you were- I don't think SciOps really covered how to deal with these kind of situations. Maybe I'll have to write that into the manual."
"She talked to me." Her death grip relaxes just a little.
Phil takes that as a good sign and puts one arm around her waist. She's still stiff, like iron, but she stays in his arms. She doesn't pull away.
"I know this is a shock, for both of us. Worse for you, and I know how much this is asking you to change your whole life." He waits, letting her take the time to put words to what she wants to say. He counts her heartbeats, holding her close.
"If we- If I- Simmons wants to do a scan, you can-"
"Okay," he agrees before she finishes, saving her from having to say anything else. "If you want me."
She turns and drops her head, resting against his chest. It's not really a nod, but he'll take it as a yes. She doesn't believe him and he's not sure if anything he says can get through to her. Slowly, her arms go around his back, holding him to her. She's still stiff, but even iron bends under enough pressure. He can't ask, not yet, but he'll be there.
Melinda stands there, wrapped in his arms without speaking. He tries to talk, but stops after a while because it's not about the words. He deals with his shock by talking and she doesn't. She never has. Whatever she's thinking, whatever's going on behind her dark eyes, she'll tell him when she's ready. Maybe all she needs is a week, maybe she'll decide it'll be longer. He's waited for her this long. He can keep waiting as long as it takes.