A/N: So, this is going to be a series of one-shots about Skye and the team learning more about her. Skye has an abusive childhood, and it affects her more than the show explores. Some chapters will be more general, some will be from other perspectives, but they are all generally connected but can be read separately.
The thing about Skye
She's an Insomniac
Skye doesn't sleep. Well, she does, but not when everyone else does. It's not because she expects to wake up to her bed dipping as someone else crawls into it. It's just an old habit, one born of survival. She learned to always be alert at night- falling asleep only during class at school, or hidden away nooks too small to be dragged out of. Her teachers for sure didn't appreciate her sleeping habits, but there's not much they could do other than scold her and give her detention.
Detention was just more time she could sleep
After running away and living in her van, the habit was only cemented more firmly. It was safer to sleep during the day and stay awake at night so she could scare off bums trying to break into her van. There is a modicum of protection offered with the sun.
So, she's not really concerned someone will try to come into her room in the night (if they did, it'd likely just be to snoop distrustfully through her stuff), but Skye doesn't sleep.
Instead, she spends her night times on the bus hacking for whatever information the team needs, or wandering the darkened halls.
She sleeps in the downtime the next day (if there is any) in the back seat of one of the SUVs always parked in the cargo bay, or in a storage closet in the belly of the plane.
Skye learns a lot from her nocturnal nature. Something about the isolated, peaceful, nature of nighttime makes it the ideal time to learn the most about her new teammates. She learns that Coulson is almost always the last to go to bed- usually doing paperwork in his office until about 1:00AM, and he's a late raiser.
May always rivals Coulson in being last to bed, but unlike the man, she's an early riser. She is always up by 4:30, a pot of tea on the stove by 4:35, and starting Tai Chi by 4:50. She never talks to Skye, so Skye never tries to talk to her, but sometimes she'll sit at the top of the winding stairs and just watch the woman move through poses. She's certain May knows she's there, but she never says anything or shows any discomfort, so Skye figures she's not bothering the pilot too much with her presence.
Ward's day starts at 6:00 on the dot. She never hears an alarm, but she plays a game of watching the second hand on the clock, and at the same time every day, she can hear the movement of him getting up and getting ready for his morning workout.
FitzSimmons are an interesting pair. At least once a week, one or both of them don't go to bed at all. They pull all-nighters in the lab, or Skye sees the light on from under one of their bunk doors every time she wanders past. When they're in the lab, Skye likes to perch on an out-of-the-way table and watch them work. She doesn't know what any of the senseless rambling means, but their enthusiasm and manic energy are mesmerizing to watch. They truly are both geniuses. Alone, and even more-so together. It seems like one of them only needs to start voicing a thought, before the other is finishing it and already halfway to completing the suggestion.
After all-nighters, they appear miserable the next day, all dragging feet and drooping eyelids and falling asleep at the breakfast table.
Despite Coulson being a late riser, he's always up before FitzSimmon (when they sleep) making breakfast.
No one mentions Skye's sleeping habits (or lack thereof). At least not to her. If they have a need for her during the day, and she's not on her laptop in the common room, someone is always able to find her in her hiding spots. Skye suspects the aid of security cameras are used. She doesn't care enough to hack them and stop it.
As time on the bus passes, Skye learns even more about her teammates, other than their sleeping habits. Like the fact that Fitz sometimes has nightmares. She's gotten up the courage to knock on his door and wake him a few times, and on the fifth instance, he quietly informs her that it's his dad he dreams about. His dad was cruel until his mom got brave enough to leave the man and take Fitz with her.
She learns that Simmons has a sweet tooth and sometimes sneaks down to the lab in the middle of the night to raid her secret stash. She offers Skye a sheepish smile the first time she catches her, and then holds out her reserve of English cookies.
Skye doesn't like them very much- too rich for her unrefined stomach- but on these nights, she perches on a stool and nibbles on a cookie, and listens to the English woman as she tells stories about her childhood.
Skye learns she has a nice family- a loving mother and father and the dog and white picket fence- but growing up wasn't very easy in school. She is a literal genius and was ostracized by her peers, by both the ones her age and the older kids she was taking classes with. Fitz was her first friend. They met their freshmen year at Shield Academy, and haven't been apart since. It was her idea to go into the field- an idea that, she tells Skye, she is gladder about the longer she's here on the bus.
Skye enjoys talking to Simmons, though she doesn't tell much about herself in return. There isn't much she could say without entirely bringing down the bubble of comfort sharing a snack with someone else brings. At some point during their nighttime talks, Simmons becomes Jemma, and Jemma becomes her friend.
Skye never really learns to sleep at night. Not after Shield falls, or after Ward turns out to be Hydra. Not at Afterlife, or when she travels through time or the world ends, or when there is absolutely no time in the day to get in more than ten minutes of rest.
A/N: I have a list of ideas already written out that I'll get to, but if there is anything you want to see, let me know and I can add it.
Please let me know what you think
~Silver~