A/N: This update is a fill in the blanks for what's happening with the other team members, then next chapter will most likely just be pure Daisy-angst. Feel free to review!
Disclaimer: See Chapter One
"Gah..."
Daisy shielded her eyes against the light with her hand, unprepared for the sight of rolling pastures and hills to be beyond the door. What kind of SHIELD base was this?
With a quick glance back, she saw that the house she had been staying in was invisible to her sight, besides for the whole in space where the door opened and revealed the place inside. The building was cloaked, but she really didn't understand why. Not like she cared...
She strode forward on unsteady legs, thinking for a second that maybe it might be a good idea to grab some supplies from the house, but quickly pushed the thought away.
"This'llbe quick, this will be... Closure."
She assured herself, and with a hapless throw of her arm she shut the door.
She wasn't sure where she was going, how she was going to get there- but she was certain about one thing. She had to get away.
The monitor was blinking red and persistent above the lab computer, signaling the sleeping scientists to an event. The buzz sounded directly into Fitz's ear and he jerked up, papers sticking to his cheek and his hair a mess upon his scalp. Simmons, startled by Fitz, banged her head on an overhead light as she flicked the sleep out of her eyes. They realized that they fell asleep holding hands, something that hadn't happened in a long time.
"Cold as ever, Jemma." Fitz tried to joke, but the humor was lost because of the far off look in his eyes and the hollowness behind his words. Ever since Mack had died those few weeks ago, his whole demeanor changed. He spent more time alone in his room than with Simmons in the lab, and he hadn't touched a gear or tinkered with his hands. He had lost one of his closest friends, and now all he had was grief and... Well, Simmons.
Simmons was less focused on any comments Fitz was making and was more interested in the alarm that woke them up in the first place.
"Fitz," She exclaimed rather eagerly, "she's left the house!"
Fitz blinked, slowly and and confused. It took him a second to register what she had just said, but then it clicked.
"Oh! Well, um, what does this mean?"
Fitz had gotten used to just having Daisy be there, on her own little island away from the world, and over time he began to assume she would just never leave. He knew that he probably wouldn't. A ridiculous assumption, but Fitz had all the time in the world to make wild assumptions. What else was he to do- think of all that he should have done? Sit in silence and let the pain consume him?
Simmons coughed and attracted his attention again. He had spaced out, something he'd been doing often lately. He probably would have stayed that way had it been anybody but Simmons.
She started talking about Daisy- possibly sending someone out there to see how she's doing, asking if she wants to go somewhere, etc- but Fitz just wanted to take this moment to really look at her. She kept fidgeting with her hands, tapping a pen against her temple and nudging up her lab goggles. A bit of life had come back into her because of something as seemingly small as Daisy leaving a house, but it made all the difference.
He wished he could just sit there and watch her talk and be this excited forever, but he looked closer and saw the circles prominent beneath her eyes, a haunted gaze and a faceless ghost on her shoulder and knew that these moments could never last. He came to a realization just then. He can't change the things he took for granted in the past, but these moments- Fitz had to savor them.
He wasn't going to waste a single second more, and he leaned in and shut Simmons up with a kiss.
For a few seconds, everything was perfect. Then it ended.
"What was that for?" She asked with an eyebrow raised.
"For being there." He gave a classic Fitz smile, and Simmons returned it and resumed speaking. An old twinkle was back in her eye.
"So anyways, we need to tell Coulson that..."
Coulson's eyes lazily found the source of the beeping after snapping out of a daze. Simmons wanted him in the lab, which can only be really important good news or really important bad news. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his real hand. He sat at his desk chair a moment longer and wondered when did it get so hard to continue?
Guilt was crushing him and he had no outlet. He couldn't even speak to May- she was still grieving Andrew. The whole team was grieving over something or another and Coulson felt personally responsible. Sure, that's not what he told them. He gave them the old 'it's Hive's fault, it's Hydra's fault- not ours' speech but he could tell that they didn't feel that way. How could they believe it when their own leader didn't believe it?
That's not even the worst part; on top of the deaths of fine people like Mack and Andrew, as well as the downward spiral of Daisy, General Talbot had been breathing down his neck about the Accords so he couldn't catch a break.
If Daisy had been up to it, he would have asked her to hack them out of this situation or have her do something, anything, to help- but she was completely out of it.
He'd visit, and at first it seemed she just needed to be alone, until after weeks of seeing her so lifeless it became painfully clear that she had simply lost the will to live. He could relate...
He should probably see her again, he should bring her back. Of course they had tried to, but they should try harder. How was anyone supposed to get better if they didn't try harder?Coulson knows that Daisy blames herself for Mack, yet that's not correct. Coulson knew about Daisy's vision- they all knew- he knew about the necklace, a spaceship, an explosion, and he dismissed it all at the last moment because it seemed like the war was over, that Daisy was wrong. A mistake, a misjudgment that cost SHIELD more than a valued agent, but also the glue that kept them in tact.
(Coulson stood up, he started making his way down the hall to the lab.)
They were trained for loss, they were trained to handle their emotions...
(He turned and walked through the doorway to an expectant Jemma Simmons.)
Still no amount of training will ever be enough to prepare someone for losing the ones they love most.
So much love and so much loss. Melinda lost Andrew, Fitzsimmons finally connected romantically, Bobbi and Hunter are off somewhere on the globe getting into trouble, and Daisy and Lincoln...
Well, Daisy was a broken girl who felt like no one loved her (lies) and Lincoln had drunk himself into a stupor. They tried to take away the alcohol, tried to put a stop to his problem before it got out of hand. Coulson tried to get him to talk to Daisy, but he just wouldn't. Lincoln was clearly still in love. He just couldn't go see her. He himself didn't even know why. Maybe he was afraid of her, maybe he was angry- or maybe he didn't know the right words to say.
So he didn't say them, he filled his head with static and his heart with liquor instead and watched as the ghosts danced in front of his eyes.
"There's always tomorrow..."
He'd tell himself before sleeping for the next 10 hours.
Melinda would watch him, a growing detachment in her gaze and a coolness that replaced the old, motivated way in which she carried herself. Andrew was the last straw, the one that broke the camel's back. She had grieved too long and felt too strongly- it was time to get back to the basics of training, how to not feel.
Even so, she felt some semblance of pity for the man drinking himself to death. She found him rather foolish and idiotic in a professional eye, but as someone who had felt as helpless as him at some point her life, even at this current point, she couldn't help but to sympathize.
Not like she was going to express it, and she walked swiftly by his room to see if Coulson needed her for anything. Anything at all.
Life would never stop for the needs of one person, let alone the desperate needs of the agents of SHIELD.
