Skye was startled when she stepped into the kitchen of the fifth floor later that evening to find that the five people that lived on the same level as her where already clustered in the room and eating their supper. Hoping to be ignored, Skye headed silently for the fridge with her head down, but she didn't get her way.

"Hey," Natasha spoke up, asking, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Skye lied, not looking at any of them, keeping her head buried in the fridge instead.

"Then are you going to tell us what was up earlier?"

Skye cringed, answering, "Maybe eventually… but probably not."

"Do you have someone to talk to about it, then?" Natasha asked, and when Skye finally stepped away from the refrigerator, the assassin's gaze was unusually caring, especially considering that they'd only become familiar with one another within the past couple of weeks.

Ward's face flashed before Skye's eyes, but she glanced at Jemma as she answered, "Yeah."

Natasha nodded, seemingly satisfied to back off of the topic.

"Okay then," Skye said, disappearing back into the solitude of her room with a bowl of leftover pasta.

She had research that she wanted to do.


Phil's head landed against the closed door of his medicine cabinet with a soft thud as he stood in his pajamas, having just taken two desperately needed pain killers. This day had utterly sucked, and if he had to face another like it… well, he didn't know what he would do, but he knew he wouldn't be able to be held responsible for whatever it was.

"Phil?"

He hadn't heard Melinda come in, but he didn't bother with being startled by her presence as she crept in and with just one look at his exhausted stance silently led him from the bathroom and into his bed. She actually tucked the covers in around him, and only then did he notice that she, too, was already dressed for bed.

"It'll be okay," she promised, giving him a gentle kiss before she turned to go back to her own room.

He mumbled nothing in particular as he reached out and grabbed her wrist, requesting, "Stay with me?"

Melinda blinked, nodded, and then rounded the bed, crawling in beside him and pulling him close.

"Promise?" Phil asked.

He'd confused her; he could tell by the tone of her voice as she asked, "Promise what?"

He hated himself for saying it, but after today – after Loki… Skye… he needed to hear it from someone. "That you'll stay."

"Of course I will," she replied, understanding where he was coming from and kissing him again.

"You won't leave me for someone else?"

"Never… just like Skye won't leave Daddy Coulson for the devil in green."

That drew a hesitant smile from Phil as he let his exhaustion overtake him and finally allowed himself to slide off to sleep.


"Loki?" Sigyn's voice was unusually caring – something like how she would've spoken to him before he'd dropped off of the Rainbow Bridge – when she came into their shared bedroom that night. "Are you alright?"

Loki's lips curled against the pillow that he still had his face buried in and he only released a muffled groan as something was clinked down onto the bedside table.

"That bad?" Sigyn asked, the sound of her voice accompanied by the scraping of a dresser drawer being opened.

Loki turned his face to answer with his cheek now pressed against the pillow, "Quite possibly, yes."

"I'm sorry," Sigyn said gently. "I know that this isn't what you wanted finding Hela to be like."

Loki was silent for a long moment while he tried to shove away his sulking and said, "It's not your fault."

"Well, I haven't been very supportive, have I?" came his wife's muffled reply.

Loki was tired enough – emotionally, physically, and mentally drained enough – that he admitted the first thing that came to mind. "That's been quite the two-way street, so that I recall."

So saying, he rolled onto his back on the bed in time to see Sigyn's head pop through the appropriate hole in her nightgown. He blinked, and it suddenly hit him that for the first time in about four years, he was to share a bedchamber with his bride. The question that suddenly consumed his mind was whether or not she would throw him out of said chamber like she'd done in the past.

When he got a good look at her expression though, she was smiling, so he took that as a good sign.

Then she said – with something that resembled affection in her tone, "Let's try getting back to the old paths then, shall we?"

"Such as?"

"Such as giving… our marriage a second chance, perhaps?"

At that, Loki actually, genuinely smiled, saying, "I would like that."

"Good," Sigyn said with a smile of her own and a decisive nod of her head. "You can start with the fact that I brought you dinner." She nodded to the bedside table and Loki saw then that she had indeed brought him food. "You need to eat. Are you aware of how long you were up here?"

"I was sleeping," Loki mumbled, picking up the plate and digging in nonetheless.

Sigyn cocked her head to the side, surveying him as she stepped up to the bed and crawled in beside him before saying, "And… grieving, I suspect."

"Grieving what?" he asked, trying for a dubious expression.

His wife was unconvinced, laying a hand on his knee as she said, "Loss of a dream, lack of the desired results. The achievement of a dream is rarely as gratifying as the imagining of that dream would have us believe it to be."

Loki groaned, throwing his head back against the wall as he admitted, "All I want to know is what perverted joke of the Norns is it that Philip Coulson has taken in my daughter as his own."

"Maybe you could both be considered her father?" Sigyn suggested mildly. Loki looked at her incredulously, but Sigyn only squeezed his knee saying gently, "If you want any relationship with her at all, those may well be the terms that you have to agree to."

Loki sighed, shoulders slumping as he admitted, "I know."