Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even the laptop I'm writing on except for Philippa Coulson. Marvel owns these wonderful characters and the plot lines and everything else. I just want to borrow them

Accidents

She refused to talk to her mother on the way home. It was stupidly unfair that her mother had banned her from going out with her friends until she had tidied her bedroom so Pips decided that she would give her silent treatment. It wasn't such a big deal anyway because her mother was in her composing mode and would barely even hear her. Pips looked at her mother discreetly, she wasn't exactly elegant or drop dead gorgeous but she was bonny and pretty and natural. Whenever she smiled there were lines shooting from the corner of her eyes, not that she was old. Suddenly her mother began to laugh at a billboard beside the road, Pips struggled to keep a straight face because the sound was infectious. Still she pulled a face like she was eating a sour lemon.

Her mother pulled up outside the house and Pips immediately undid her seat belt, about to leap out and lock herself in her room.

"Just shut up would you? I hate you and your stupid hyena laugh." Her mother scowled at her and turned to her to yell. She never did.

Pips felt herself flying through glass and debris and tossing through the air. She could hear her mother screaming beside her and the screeching of brakes on a HGV. The sound got quieter until finally she hit something and stopped moving. She tried to open her eyes but they were heavy and she was confused. She couldn't hear the screams anymore; she could hear nothing except for the sound of her own loud and rapid breathing. She didn't fight it, she just drifted away.

Pips awoke in a bed; she didn't know where she was or why she was there. Suddenly she remembered it all, the screaming and the truck appearing out of nowhere and her mother yelling that she loved her and what the last thing she had said to her brother was. She stopped being able to breathe properly and her hands were shaking, she had to be dreaming. She opened her mouth to scream but there was only a pained whimper. She was in a hospital room, a man opened the door and said something but he wasn't addressing her. She flicked her eyes round and saw her uncle Phil sat beside her bed.

"What happened?" It wasn't the most important question but it was one of the only things she could think of without tearing up again. He didn't seem to be able to answer her. She tried screaming again but still her throat was too dry to make the sound. She gave up after that, letting Phil hold her hand as the doctors and nurses moved around her checking on injuries she couldn't remember getting.

"Pips, there was an accident, a truck hit your car." Her uncle's voice was shaking and it struck Pips what must have happened. "You were thrown from the car, you've broken your arm and you've got a few cuts and bruises but you'll be fine. I'm so sorry Pips but your mother..." He had to take a moment to control his breathing; he scolded himself and imagined that it wasn't his niece that his sister hadn't just died. "Your mother didn't make it."

This time she managed to scream properly, it was a hoarse sound and it hurt but it was satisfying letting her shock out audibly. Her uncle didn't tell her off, he just sat by her and kept talking to her until she tired herself out and fell asleep. He never left her side; she was all he had left and vice versa. It didn't matter about work, Marcus had let him take on of the jets and get away as soon as they heard the news. Anything could happen and still Phil wouldn't let his niece out of his sight. Between them they had lost too many people and he looked at her, so fragile and pale, and whispered to her softly.

"I'm not going anywhere kiddo."

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