I really appreciate that you are taking the time to read this, so I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. My schedule is getting a bit busier, but I will still try and update weekly although future chapters might be a bit late.

Please leave reviews, with either positives or feedback and I will answer any questions here. Any ideas for the next chapter or recommendations for other Fics are also welcome :) Thank you if you have reviewed!

For the purposes of this fic, Coulson knows about his death and May is level 8(so there are no secrets between them). I will also not be completely following the show-I might skip episodes and characters.

Disclaimer -I do not own Agents of Shield but I love it very much and have watched it multiple times.

Recap: May collapsed after picking up the completed staff, Coulson made the decision to go against her will and send her into surgery to let her live. Will she survive and how will she change?

Hours had passed and they had still heard nothing. Simmons, Skye, and Coulson waited, not willing to eat or rest until they knew she was okay. Others, like Fitz, Bobbi, and Hunter came in and checked on them now and then, saying pointless things, like "you should get some sleep", or "Go and get something to eat". Simmons was unused to being the person waiting outside, so was severely uncomfortable about being useless, Skye was panicking, and Coulson was terrified for May, and worried about Skye, who always lost anyone she became close with, and blamed herself.

Another few hours later there was still no news, time slowing down and hours feeling like days. Skye and Coulson still waited; Simmons had been dragged away by Fitz on the promise that they would get her if there was any news. They were about half-way up the tower, tall windows displayed a view of New York, but it was all painted over by the dark, miserable atmosphere. It was amazing how the whole of the tower had been plunged into uncomfortable silence by one person. No-one noticed how much of an impact of she had until her presence was not there, like an empty space in the room.

After three more hours of anticipation, one of the surgeons entered the room, her face unreadable. After a minute of silence, Coulson finally asks the question both him and the girl beside him need the answer to.

"Is she okay?"
"She is alive."

"What's wrong then?"

"She's completely unresponsive. Everything about her is physically fine, but she hasn't spoken a word and she's hardly moved at all."

"It's like Bahrain all over again," he whispered, like he had just been shot or something.

"What was Bahrain?" Skye asked, worried and feeling like she was intruding on something private.

"Something she shouldn't have to relive. Skye, I'm sorry but you can't visit her."

"Why not!"

"It would be harmful for you both. She won't want to see people."

"But you're going to anyway?!"

"You don't understand. I was there last time. Trust me."

"Okay," Skye said quietly, before leaving.

"Thank you, I can handle it from here," he said to the surgeon as he entered the room.

The room was empty except her small figure, sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes staring blankly out of the tall window. They didn't even move to acknowledge his presence. It wasn't Bahrain all over again. It was worse. He moved to sit down next to him, and she flinched away.

"Melinda, it's not your fault."

"How could you lie to me like that," she said quietly, in a tone of betrayal.

"I'm not lying, you did the right thing every time, you were always the hero whether you knew it or not."

"No, I wasn't. I failed my family- My parents died, and I was helpless, my brother needed me, and I ran, my sister needed me, and I wasn't there, and I couldn't complete the final mission she gave me. And. And you needed me, and I had left. Call that a hero? - I ran, I failed, and I killed! Call that a hero? – I put you all in danger, let you get hurt and took responsibility for people I couldn't keep safe! Why did you save me? I didn't deserve to be saved. I didn't deserve them. I didn't deserve you. Push me aside and move on. My ledger has flooded, and I can no-longer wipe it out."

"I'm not going to give up on you. I love you, Melinda. I couldn't give up on you, ever."

"Stop making this difficult for me. This isn't personal. I don't deserve you so move on."

"I can't. I love you, and so do every single one of the people downstairs right now. We can get through this."

"I love you too. That's why you're making this more difficult for me."

"You don't have to talk to them right now. We can leave. Just us but we can get through this together. Please don't block me out."

"Okay," she said quietly. "I'll come with you, but I can't talk to them. Just us."

"Just us."

"Skye!"

"What happened? Why are you here?"

"AC said I couldn't see her."

"Why?"

"I don't know. He said something about Bahrain if anyone knows what that means."

"No," Natasha and Clint whispered at the same time.

"Why does everyone keep saying that. Will someone please explain this?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do! That's exactly what Coulson said, and I would just like someone to tell me!"

"Okay. You're sure?"

"Yes."

"She was on a mission with Coulson- In Manama, Bahrain, to contact a woman called Eva Belyakov. Coulson tried to convince her to come back to SHIELD, but she didn't want to. Belyakov and a local band of criminals took an agent hostage, so they sent in the entire strike team, except Coulson and May. As soon as the agents entered the building, they lost contact, and they couldn't get back-up fast enough, so May went in. Only Coulson and herself know exactly what happened in that building, but she saved them all. Every agent in that building was alive because of her but she was different- distant even. She brushed us all off, keeping to herself. She divorced her husband and started taking every one-agent suicide mission on the books until Coulson and Fury noticed and removed her from the field. That was the end of strike team alpha. Even recently, she hadn't completely recovered form Bahrain, and now…"

"But she got through it right?"

"It would be more accurate to say Coulson got her through it. He wouldn't leave her alone- we all thought he was being pushy at the time, but he kept her alive. It's hard to say whether she will quite recover this time."

"What will happen to the team now?"

"Basing it off last time, they will most likely be reassigned. Why?"

"They are my family. I wouldn't be reassigned; I would be dumped back out into the world."

"May talked to me before Ireland; If that does happen, you will always have a home with us, Skye. She rarely needed any favours, but one of the few things she asked was that I made sure you always had a home; I'm not about to dishonour that wish."

"She said that?" Skye asked, starting to cry.

"She cares about you, Skye, Even if she is not in a in a situation where she can take care of you. She had a certain understanding of the world that no-one else quite did, and she believed that you would become a good agent, that you deserved a second chance."

"Why does nothing ever last?"

The younger girl's words broke Natasha's heart. It was the honest innocence in her eyes, the fact that she had never had a single constant in her life. She could see the pain in Skye's eyes- pain that reminded her so much of Melinda, or what she saw in her own eyes every time she looked in the mirror. She was too young. That was the reason her and Melinda had joined SHIELD- to prevent girls like her experiencing things like that, but they always missed some, no-matter how hard they tried.

"I don't know Skye, I don't know," she replied, embracing the girl.

They stood there for five minutes, maybe ten, just comforting eachother. Silently sympathetic for eachothers experiences, eachothers pain. A pain they both understood.

"Maybe I can order some pizza? Watch a movie, take our minds off it?"

"Okay," Skye whispered, curling into Natasha on the sofa.

A few others joined them- Simmons, Bobbi, Hunter, Fitz and Clint and they all sat together, playing movies at high volume late into the night, coating the carpet in a fine layer of popcorn. That's how they missed them. That was the night that May and Coulson left.

He had intended to say goodbye to the young woman now crashed on the couch, but he couldn't bring himself to wake her. They would be back, but he still felt guilty about the brief note that he left. SHIELD was his life, but May was his priority. She needed a break from SHIELD to heal herself, and he could never bring himself to let her leave on her own. That's how he ended up in Lola, the woman he loved curled up on the seat next to him. From a distance, it could have been interpreted as a perfect scene- a couple happily going out for the evening, but the silence was painful, and he could feel her shaking slightly.

Skye woke up curled into Natasha's side on the sofa. Everyone else was still asleep, and the TV was still playing, having rolled over several shows since they fell asleep. When she looked over the clock, she saw that it was half five- when she normally did Tai-chi with May. The moments of yesterday finally caught up with her. Suddenly she was pulled from her thoughts by the girl next to her, brushing her with a handful of red hair as she pulled herself from the sofa.

"Come on Skye, we can go and do some training at the gym."

"Okay," said Skye quietly, as she followed the assassin out of the room. They walked down a few corridors before eventually reaching the lift that took them to the gym. It was large and luxurious, contrasting heavily with the small training area on the bus. It was almost too big, to spacious. It would normally be fine, but her one usual constant was missing- May.

"You're allowed to miss her."

"I know, but I don't want to spend my time wishing she was here- I want her to be here. Training without her, It just feels wrong, like I'm going against some unwritten law of nature."

"I know."

"How do you...?"

"She was my friend, my SO of sorts- except she never really taught me how to fight. We trained together, looked after eachother. Later I found out that she had been only assigned to me because she was caught graffitiing SciTech, on her last day at the academy, but still. We were close."

"May graffitied a SHIELD Academy?"

"Yeah, she pulled a few more pranks while I was around, and I'm pretty sure Ward's pink hair is her fault."

"Wait. What? I know AC mentioned something when Bobbi tried to start a prank war, but I thought he was joking."

"Coulson wouldn't joke about that kind of thing. She used temporary blue paint on Lola."

"Lola? Coulson always has her under lock and key. How did…?"

"Why do you think he started locking Lola away?"

"After we finish training, I want to see her. I don't care what state she is in, but I need to see her."

"Okay, I'll take you up once we've finished."

After Skye had been knocked to the mat for the thirtieth time, after she insisted that Natasha didn't go soft on her (which Natasha was doing to some degree anyway), they were finally finished training. It was nine in the morning, and they headed up to May's room together, walking the long corridors of the tower. When they reached the door they paused, before nervously knocking on the door.

Thankyou for reading, please review to let me know what you think and if people are enjoying it. Sorry about my inactivity lately- school tests are all coming up but I will try and reach my pattern of once a week, if not, there will definitely be one every two weeks.