Only one more chapter to go, and then a epilogue. Thank you all for reading and commenting.
We're initiating a Level 4 Kleenex Warning...
A Chrismukkah Carol
Part IV
Much to Coulson's surprise, this time the scene around them did not shift; instead, it was almost as though the sunrise had been put on fast forward, and he watched in awe as from between the chink in the blinds the sky outside grew lighter and the darkness melted away.
"It's morning," Coulson murmured, shooting a look at the spirit, who he gathered it was safe to assume would maintain its deathly silence. Instead of the nod of confirmation that Coulson had expected, the entity instead raised an arm and indicated the desk calendar that sat next to the alarm clock. Coulson frowned as he read the date, wondering what significance it would possibly come to bear.
"13th December 2020," he read aloud, more to fill the unbearable silence than anything else.
Taking a moment to process the information, Coulson nodded and blew out a slow, unsteady breath.
"Okay, so five years in the future. Looks like this is still my office," he briefly toyed with a Captain America bobble head that sat perched on his desk, a new addition, but as he scanned the walls of the room he realised that little else had changed. Before he could offer up another observation to fill the void, he started suddenly as two figures strode into the room, both unaware of his presence.
"Look, I'm just saying that I don't think the team are ready for this. This is on a much bigger scale than they're used to and... they're just not meshing as a group yet, okay?"
Coulson blinked as he saw Skye - or rather Skye five years from the present - with an older version of himself hot on her heels.
"So what are you doing to fix that?" older Coulson demanded, looking and sounding almost identical to his younger counterpart.
Skye planted her hands on her hips and glared at him with an icy expression, "What am I doing? I'm training with them every God damn day of the week. I'm leading team building exercises and freakin' camp outs to try to at least get them to like each other... and nothing works. They're only part of this unit because you told them it was either that or their entire family goes on the register. They're not here because they have any loyalty to S.H.I.E.L. each other."
His lips drawing into a tight line, Coulson Snr. paused for only a moment before he ventured a solution.
"What about Lincoln?"
A dangerously irritated expression settled on Skye's features, and she arched an eyebrow as she planted her hand on her hip.
"You mean the guy I briefly dated, who I haven't seen for almost 4 years? ThatLincoln?"
The older Coulson let out a sigh of disappointment, crossing his arms as he regarded Skye, who shifted in discomfort under the weight of his gaze. The dark circles ringing her eyes were prominent, indicating that she had had trouble sleeping for quite some time, and the corners of her mouth seemed to be permanently turned down as though she had forgotten what it was to smile.
"You're the team leader, this is on you," Coulson Snr. barked, unimpressed by the levels of discord rolling off Skye in waves. "You make it work or I find somebody who can."
Skye scoffed, letting out a bark of unpleasant sounding laughter for good measure.
"Yeah, well, good luck with that, sir," she retorted, shaking her head as though she could hardly believe her ears, "in case you hadn't noticed, nobody sticks around here for long any more. I wonder why that could possibly be?"
"And in case you need to be reminded, Agent Johnson, Agents Fitz and Simmons requested a transfer to a quieter post ahead of their wedding."
Skye continued to glare at her boss, her eyes narrowing to slits as she folded her arms scross her chest and demanded, "Yeah, and what about Mack? Or Hunter? Bobbi? Joey? What about May?"
"That's enough!" the Coulson from the future snarled, causing not only Skye but also his younger counterpart to startle.
"This damn job... S.H.I.E.L.D... it's all my life is. I get up every morning, I train a bunch of people who hate everything we stand for, and then I go back to my little underground room and I think about ways that I can maybe make them hate us less. I go to sleep then I get up. Lather, rinse, repeat. I can't even tell the days apart, they're all exactly the same. Christmas is two weeks away and I'll spend it at my desk. Like last year, and the year before. Because FitzSimmons will be in England and..." she paused, pinching the bridge of her nose hard to stem tears of exhaustion that had been years in the making. "I have nobody else."
Sitting down heavily in the director's chair, Skye swept her hands across the gleaming surface of his desk.
"So if you want to find a replacement... go right ahead. I have nothing left to give," her voice grew quieter, more reflective as she said sadly, "I don't even remember the girl in the van any more but sometimes, I miss her."
Coulson Snr. frowned, shaking his head as he held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Look, I hear the talk around base and, all that 'cold hearted bitch' stuff, just ignore it. Nobody gets to director without making a few enemies here and there."
Skye laughed without humour, running her fingers through to the ends of her short hair, "I never asked for this. Did you ever stop to think that this wasn't what I wanted?"
Giving the impression that he was simply a testy, increasingly exasperated parent, playing along with their petulant child, Coulson retorted, "Then what did you want, Agent Johnson?"
Skye remained silent for a moment, recalling memories and moments that kept her awake at night in a constant state of longing and loss. Their faces she would always remember - Cal, Jiaying, Trip... Ward. Their ghosts appeared to her in dreams, taunting and teasing over what could have been; the safety of her father's arms, her mother's adoring gazes, the laughter of a true friend, and the chance to build a life with someone just like her - somebody who had never gotten a chance to really live.
"Things that I can never have," she said regretfully, turning away from him and grudgingly accepting the folder he thrust in her hands.
"Well, that's just life, Daisy," Coulson Snr. replied, holding up his robotic arm as though to punctuate his point. Skye made a quiet noise of disgust deep in her throat and seconds later she swept out of the office, her back ram rod straight as she disappeared into the hallway with the envelope clutched to her chest.
"I never realised I could be so cruel," the younger Coulson murmured quietly as he watched his reflection sink down into the desk chair and began toying with trinkets as though the whole ugly confrontation with Skye had never even happened.
Coulson hazarded a glance at the spirit, who stood at his side both unmoving and mute.
"Is there more?" he demanded, growing frustrated and equally angry with the way his night was turning out. "I already know what I need to do... Be the change and all that."
Somewhat predictably, the apparition did not respond. However, when Coulson blinked a moment later, he found himself suddenly in a foyer that seemed immediately familiar. It took him several more moments to identify the Triskelion, or rather what appeared to be a newer and modernised version of the old S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Agents bustled around them, oblivious to the two spectral visitors, as they milled about and completed their usual daily tasks.
What did not go unnoticed by Coulson, however, was the fact that the spirit had brought him to stand almost directly in front of a monument he knew all to well. The memorial wall was bigger than he remembered, and Coulson's features contorted into a vaguely terrified expression as he realised that many of the new names etched into the rock were likely sent to their deaths by the version of himself he had just observed.
"All these names. There's so many more than I remember," he said aloud, resisting the urge to reach out and trace his shaking fingers across the engraved surface, simply to test whether it was real or not. But the spirit beside him showed no such restraint, and Coulson watched in confusion as it slowly raised a gloved hand and swept its index finger across one name near the bottom of the list. Coulson blinked rapidly as he narrowed his eyes in an attempt to make out the name, and he stepped closer, eager yet acutely afraid of just what held the spectre's rapt attention.
There was a pause, then he realised, and the pained gasp of despair that left his body gave way to the most crippling grief he could ever imagine having endured.
"No!" he shook his head with ferocity, backing away from the figure as it simply stood before him. "Not her... No. Not Daisy."
The spirit stood perfectly motionless, watching Coulson as he stumbled away from the wall in an attempt to distance himself from the golden writing that read 'Agent Daisy Skye Johnson', in letters so tiny that they seemed almost to mock the significance of her very existence.
"I won't lose her," Coulson yelled, his eyes filling with tears of rage and, above all, fear as he jabbed a finger accusingly at the stone. "I can't lose her. She deserves more than this, so much more than this... They all do."
Cocking its head to one side, the spirit took a step forwards, a gesture that had seemed almost hesitant to Coulson's trained eye.
"What leads to this? Is it Hydra? Is it that creature - that thing Malick dragged through the portal?" Coulson continued, his voice rising in pitch and volume as he raked his hands through his hair, "tell me who is responsible and I swear I will not rest until they're in the ground..."
Coulson trailed off, panting hard as a single tear trickled from his eye before sliding down the apple of his cheek and splashing onto the front of his shirt. It was joined by another and another in quick succession, but Coulson couldn't find it within himself to care enough to attempt to brush them away.
Finally, achingly slowly, the creature moved; a single hand raised to the hood it wore, and carefully it pulled back the piece of dark cloth that had until then obscured its identity completely. Coulson's shook his head in horror, wretched sobs beginning to overwhelm him, and he dropped to his knees onto the cold, hard, tiled floor barely a breath later.
"It's you, D.C.," Skye stated quietly, avoiding Coulson's heartbroken gaze as she settled the cowl she had worn around her shoulders, "you do this."
Coulson swallowed hard, her words forcing him from the throes of grief, and he looked to her aghast.
"No, I would never hurt you, no matter how angry I become. You know that!"
Skye was silent for a moment, her brown eyes cast down towards the ground as she thought over the implications of his actions.
Smiling sadly, she shrugged, "But you do."
Still shaking his head, and brushing away the tears that were tripping his cheeks, Coulson tried to steady his breathing so that he could ask the all important question.
"How? How does this happen? Was it an accident? I... I..." he gaped, at a loss for words. There was nothing that could ever prompt him to harm this young woman, whom he viewed very much as his own. The idea that he was in any way responsible for her death was utterly unthinkable.
"That Bogota mission? It doesn't go so well. My team were out-manned, out-gunned, and totally out of their depth. One of the rogue Inhumans threw a power charge at me. I was too busy trying to get my team and a handful of civilians to safety and... I didn't see it coming. Knocked me out for a good five minutes. Most of the team got out but... they didn't come back for me."
Coulson took a moment to process her version of events, thinking back to the obsessive, cold, and totally unsympathetic version of himself that he had witnessed earlier. Skye had warned him that they weren't ready, but obviously his future self had pushed ahead, regardless.
Sighing deeply, Skye added in little more than a whisper, "Comms. were down and... you wanted to make sure the Hydra base was neutralised. So... you called in an air strike."
"No, I'd wait, there's no way I'd leave you behind," Coulson protested, taking a step towards the woman he was so certain now could not be his Skye. "This is a lie. It's all a lie."
Skye only let out a soft sigh, gesturing to the monument that was now in the background, "I wish it was. I wish I could tell you that you'll wake up tomorrow morning and the slate would be wiped clean, D.C. But that's not how this works and... I think... deep down, somewhere, you know that."
Coulson sank to the floor, pulling his knees up into his chest and hugging his arms around them. Now, he was the one who was devastated, the knowledge of just what his anger would stand to achieve proving far too great a burden for his shoulders to bare.
"After the... After I'm gone, you tell May that you just figured I'd be clear, that the others would have gotten me out, and you were too blinded by your hatred for Hydra, for everything that they had taken from you, to waste those precious seconds making sure," Skye explained, seating herself at his side on the ground but making no move to comfort him physically. Coulson was certain he would have shied away from her touch even if she had, too disgusted with himself to believe that he deserved even a shred of compassion in that moment.
"What then?" Coulson demanded suddenly, tear stained face whipping round to hold Skye under a remorseful look, "what do I do without you?"
Skye flashed him a watery smile, tears beginning to leak from the corners of her eyes as she regarded the man who had once saved her, only to seal her end.
Tilting her head to the side, she replied, "Well, my replacement's been there three weeks..."
"What?" Coulson stared at her askance, "no. I wouldn't... I... Surely I..."
Staring the women directly in the eyes, he peered at her so intensely that she almost shrank back from his gaze.
"What kind of monster have I become?!"
But of course he already knew the answer to that question. He'd known all along, from the moment his fist had pressed down into Grant Ward's chest, and he'd watched the light bleed from his eyes. Coulson knew that the last traces of empathy and humanity had drained from his own body, only to be replaced instead by an unfaltering ego and a sense of false purpose.
Skye cleared her throat, resting her hands on her knees as she worried her lower lip with her teeth. It was a gesture so familiar that it made Coulson's heart ache.
"What is it? What aren't you telling me?" he demanded gently, knowing all too well the expression written across the young woman's unnaturally pale features.
"They let you see all of this for a reason. I don't know why, I just know that there's one choice you made somewhere along the line that set all of this in motion."
His eyes suddenly widening in hope, Coulson interrupted, "So I can change things? It's not too late? How? How do I...?"
He frowned, unable to consider the possibility that something as unbelievable as time travel or divine intervention was even a possibility.
"You've got one shot at this, D.C. Don't screw it up, okay? You get to go back and undo one decision, just one, but you have to know in your heart what that choice was. I don't know how this works or why you've been given a chance to fix things..."
"I know," he said gravely, earning a briefly irritated scowl from Skye.
"You know, this would go a lwhole lot faster if you'd quit interrupting me. Just throwing that out there."
Coulson smiled briefly, shaking his head as he explained, "No. I know what that moment was... I know what I have to do... to keep her safe."
His final words were little more than a whisper - an echo of Ward's motivations and desires that he had expressed earlier; 'to keep her safe'. It was all so very clear now and, for the first time in a long time, the sense of purpose that Coulson found himself filled with felt right, motivated by good intentions rather than a drive for revenge.
"I sure hope you're right, Coulson," she murmured, her eyes clouding with a darkness that seemed alien. "Remember, front row centre to the strangest show on Earth. You weren't wrong, huh?"
Coulson could only stare, his heart already too fractured by the evening's revelations to break once again at the woman's words. There just simply wasn't enough whole pieces left.
"Are you ready?" Skye queried, suddenly climbing to her feet and gesturing for Coulson to do likewise. He obliged her, all the while his eyes trained on her face, committing the terrible sight of her sallow cheeks and pale lips to memory, so that he would never again allow such a travesty to occur; a world without Skye was simply no world at all.
"I'm ready," Coulson whispered and, finally, Skye reached forward with a tentative hand, laying her palm so briefly across his forehead that Coulson thought he may have imagined the gesture.
In the next instant, Coulson awoke at his desk, and it was morning.