Chapter 3: Metamorphosis
Daisy is having trouble getting used to her new name. She's having trouble dealing with Jemma being gone. Season 3 Daisy. Short, stream of consciousness.
So much has happened in the last few weeks, and it leaves Skye scrambling for purchase on things that she previously assumed that she had a solid grasp on.
Her identity, for example.
Going from the orphan called Skye, to having both of her parents, back to orphaned in only a month spun her head around faster than Fitz could ever calculate with an equation. She has called herself Skye for so many years, but that person was left behind in the rubble of the Kree Temple, left behind in the dust that was once Antoine Triplett.
She had only felt confident in the name change for a few days. It was something that she's been throwing around in her mind since learning the name that her mother and father had officially given her, but it was not until she stood in front of the veterinary shelter watching her father that the name finally became hers.
Even with that decision, Daisy finds herself still trying to log into her computer with the name "Skye", or not responding to the calls of "Daisy!" being called down the halls of the Playground.
She has even taken to leaving herself sticky notes around the areas that she spends the most time.
"Your name is Daisy Johnson" The notes say, posted with Fitz's specially formulated super sticky notes to her mirror, computer, and even the walls in her bunk. She practices introducing herself with her new name while in the shower, while brushing her teeth in the morning.
As confused and conflicted as she sometimes is, the guise of "Daisy Johnson" feels so right with the transformations she had undergone in such a short time. It is the name that was always intended for her.
The entirety of the Playground feels empty. May taking a Vacation leave means that there was no one to push her further in a sparring match. Bobbi having to spend her time doing rehab means that her back up trainer was not there to help out. Simmons being currently MIA means that the comfort of her best friend is nowhere to be found.
Sometimes, especially when Daisy is in the gym, sparring or working with a punching bag, she finds herself daydreaming about how she will tell Jemma about her new name if-when she comes back.
She knows how seeing her again will most likely go, Jemma will see her, and let out an excited "Oh! Hello, Skye!" And Daisy will reach out and hug her, and the two will hold on to each other, a little longer than a casual hug, but not quite enough to be an embrace, and then Daisy will need to tell her that she goes by Daisy now. And Jemma, Jemma will understand Daisy's need to take on that new identity and do her best to remember to call her by the correct name. (It's more than Coulson has been doing. She loves the man like a father, but he just can't seem to get her name right, he can't let go of the Hacker).
Daisy has been on call many of the days as Fitz experiences emotional outburst after emotional outburst, often scaring the laboratory technicians out of the lab. He is handling Jemma's disappearance the least healthy of all of the team. Daisy does her part to be sure that he eats, and that he leaves the lab to try and sleep, but she can only do so much, especially when she is dealing with her own struggles.
It's hard sometimes, she thinks, to be the strong one, especially with all of the things that have changed the last few weeks.
The Playground is horribly silent, and Daisy hates every second of it. But it lets her think, it lets her reflect on things as she takes her excess energy out on the punching bag.
Daisy collapses into the heavy bag, heaving for breath. She's going to tell Jemma when she's home, she's going to tell Jemma what she should have told her a long time ago.
Daisy doesn't tell Jemma when she returns from the planet.
Because first, there's trying to nurse her back to health. Then, there's Lash, and then there's Lincoln and feelings and maybe she was just imagining what was happening before?
Daisy never tells Jemma, because there's one thing that happens after another. There's never time to talk, because Daisy is always off chasing down other Inhumans, or trying to keep on the tail of the ACTU, or Fitz and Jemma fighting to find Will.
So many things change so quickly that Daisy never has that chance to talk to Jemma about everything that needs to be said.
And then Hive happens, and Daisy knows that she didn't imagine anything, but it doesn't matter anymore, because she's complete. She's found what's she's always been looking for and nothing else matters.
Until she loses it.
Daisy is whole, and complete, and doing what she was meant to do when she was designed by the Kree, and she's so happy to be doing it.
Until she's not, and she's hurt everyone that she loves so terribly that she can't bear to look at them.
When that quinjet explodes in the distance, something breaks inside Daisy that she doesn't think can ever be repaired. Daisy doesn't even know if she's Daisy anymore, just as she knew that she ceased being Skye.
So then Daisy leaves.
Daisy leaves because of the things that she's done.
Daisy leaves because the grief is too much to bear.
Daisy leaves because she sees Jemma and Fitz together, touches lingering a little longer than they should, she catches them sneaking in and out of each other's rooms, she hears whispering of rumors from the lab technicians.
Daisy leaves because she loved Lincoln, and Lincoln sacrificed himself for her.
Daisy leaves because she's in love with Jemma Simmons.