Ali thinks she would be reflecting on how many days she's spent in hospital beds, if she wasn't busy worrying.
Around her, people are talking and getting ready for the mission. But she isn't going, partially because of the concussion and mainly because the combined forces of Skye and her mother are trying to keep her chained to the base for the rest of her life.
But, hey, she's fine with it. Really. She needs to stay, because her mother is still in critical condition and she should have someone there when she wakes up.
Bobbi is going to wake up.
At least, that's what people keep telling her.
May squeezes her arm, tight. "No sleeping," she reminds Ali sternly.
"What am I supposed to do, then?" She isn't allowed to sleep, or read, or watch TV, or stare at blank walls without being reminded that, no, she isn't supposed to do that.
May is going on the mission, in the capacity that Bobbi would have, if she was okay. She has better things to be doing, but instead she is sitting next to Ali, making sure she doesn't drop dead. "Give me lists. Weapons, foods, people you want to kill."
"Ward. The fuzzy guy who shot Skye. Garrett. The Clairvoyant… aren't they the same person, though? So that's three… um, all those people who tried to kill me. Like, my whole life. Yeah, them."
Holding back a smile, May nods and starts to disassemble her gun. "You talk too much."
"I make you talk too much, you mean," Ali says, grinning. "What's next, assembling your gun?"
"Your gun," May corrects her. "And yes. It'll keep you busy."
Sighing, Ali complies.
May leaves with the rest of them, and Ali continues to disassemble and reassemble her gun until a doctor comes up to her and says she can sleep now.
She tries, but her mother is in the clear glass pod next to her, so she's busy watching Bobbi's chest rise and fall. She's breathing, and that means Ali can breathe. But she's sleeping, so Ali can't sleep.
It's all very complex, at least for her throbbing, concussed mind.
But what isn't complicated is drifting. So she drifts off into oblivion.
Then she wakes up to someone pulling her off the bed so Skye can use it.
May is dragging her half-awake body out, only Ali blinks once and she is awake again.
"What's happening?" she says. Her voice is somewhere between passive aggressive and scared out of her mind.
They're in her mother's room now, next to Bobbi's still figure. Her chest rises and falls, reminding Ali to do the same.
May is sitting her down in a chair facing away from the Quarantine pod that Ali was previously occupying. "Something happened in the city. She's fine, we just want to make sure whatever it was exits her system."
"Who's dead?" Ali asks next, because whenever something like this happens at SHIELD someone dies in the process.
"Trip."
A quick breath escapes her lips. Trip. Dead. Trip. Dead. "Where's the body?"
May shakes her head.
Trip. Dead. Trip. Dead.
Bobbi is breathing. Ali focuses on that, because it's constant and it will continue on forever. Until Bobbi stops breathing.
She thinks she understands, now, why Bobbi didn't want her to join up. It's too much to put into words, but it's everything about this place. SHIELD. Ali wants to leave. She wants to take Skye and leave and get a house on a field somewhere and have lots of kids and dogs and happiness.
Skye is fine. In the pod next to them. But for how long?
It's a question Ali doesn't want to know the answer to.
"Breathe," May orders her.
Ali opens her mouth, but no air comes out. There isn't any. She inhales instead.
She and May sit in silence until the machines start beeping and the world starts to end.
But, no, it's beginning.
Bobbi's eyes are open. She's alive. A doctor—Simmons—rushes in. She takes out the tube and Bobbi is awake and alive and—and Skye is in the next room, passed out on the bed.
Ali looks between the two, but doesn't move in either direction for a good minute. May doesn't push her in either direction, she knows this has to be her decision.
Then she takes her mother's hand and starts to smile weakly. "Hi, mom. You were right."
A/N: thanks to everyone still reading! This was pretty intense, so I'm going to try to get something a little less so in here soon. Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays :)