The thing about Skye
Extension off: Sometimes, she disappears
Where there are days that Skye is in a cuddly mood and very in-their-space, there are also days she isolates herself and no one sees hide nor hair of her.
It's not as often, but it does happen, and there isn't much that they can do about it.
May strides into the lounge, looking every bit like the Cavalry on a mission. "Has anyone seen Skye? At all today? She missed training."
They look up from the pizza boxes that have just arrived. Coulson frowns. "No."
Hunter starts to rise from his seat in alarm. "Well, let's go look for her."
"There's no point," Fitz says, staring down at the pile of scraps he brought with him when Mack dragged him there to eat something. "There's um…" He glances up, face scrunching as he works to voice his thoughts. "Um. The cameras. When she's in this kind of mood, the cameras stop working and she doesn't go to her normal spots. You won't find her."
"She do this often?" Mack asks, crossing his arms.
"Not often," Coulson says, face not bothering to hide his worry.
Fitz picks up the plate of pizza that is slid in front of him and rises to his feet. "Thanks. I'm going to eat this in my… my, uh… rooms. My bunk."
"Come on, man. Stay and eat with us," Mack turns his concern away from one wayward agent (that he apparently can't do anything for right now), to the struggling one in front of him.
"No," Fitz says. "I want to be alone."
They reluctantly let him leave. It seems like their little Bus family has been falling apart since Ward effectively dropped it into the ocean.
Fitz doesn't go to his bunk. He ducks into a rarely used room and stands on a chair to remove the grating over the vent. It's a struggle to pull himself up and in, and it would be horribly embarrassing if anyone caught him, or he was wrong in his suspicions, but he wiggles himself inside.
Then he starts crawling.
He finds Skye, eventually, curled up in a section with blankets and a pillow and her laptop- like she made this corner in the vent a little nest. She's in her favorite fire truck pajama pants, and in a sweatshirt that has every possibility of being stolen from Mack. It might be humorous with her swallowed so completely in it, but it just makes her look even more small and childlike as she peeks out at Fitz with big, mournful, eyes.
He pauses, and sets the pizza down.
"Hey," he says, hard metal biting into his knees.
Skye slides down into a lying position and turns over. "Go away, Fitz."
He reaches out to touch her arm, but she cringes, shrinking even smaller away from him.
"Don't touch me. Go away, Fitz."
"Do you actually not want me to touch you, or are you just in a self-loathing mood where you don't think you deserve it?"
The air vent is quiet for a long moment, confirming everything Fitz already suspected. It had been a theory he and Jemma talked about before everything happened and she left.
Fitz crawls forward and wraps his arms around Skye's waist and snuggles down against her back. She doesn't shrink away this time. She doesn't react at all, and there is a worrying looseness to her body (it's usually always wrought with tension, and movement, and life).
"What would Jemma say," Skye tries to tease, but it falls several miles short and comes out sounding kind of mean. Jemma being gone is a very sore subject, and she knows it. Everyone knows it.
Fitz wants to flinch at the mention of his best friend, but he doesn't. He knows Skye is just trying to get him to leave- to give up- to prove her right. She's not.
"She would say," Fitz breathes, really thinking about it- what she would say if she were here- if she hadn't left- if her ghost that talks to him had a body others could see and feel and hear, "She would say: 'Move over, Fitz, and stop hogging her. I want to be the big spoon.'"
Skye snorts, and Fitz wants to smile at the small victory, but then she's crying, and big tears are streaming down her face, and he doesn't quite know what he did wrong.
"I'm sorry," she says, gripping tightly at his arms like she still doesn't believe he's not going anywhere. "I don't know why I'm like this."
"Trauma, mostly," Fitz responds, tucking down against her shoulder. "It changes the chemistry in your brain- makes it fundamentally different. It's not your fault."
"But nothing happened to me. Not like-" him. Like Fitz.
"Trauma isn't always… isn't always… uh, uh- physical," Fitz shrugs, trying not to feel stung like he always is when his new deficiencies are so apparent. The frustration he always feels because he can't get the words he's known for half his life right, or even form full, complete, thoughts. "You might not talk about it, but you have trauma. And it's okay. It's not your fault."
She lets out a loose sob, before she muffles it by turning into him and burying her face in his shirt, and she reaches backward to pull the obnoxiously large hood over her head as if she can still hide even as she gives in to his comfort.
And the last sentence seemed to produce a… positive (he thinks) reaction, so he repeats it. "It's not your fault." It strikes something in him, too, and he says it again, feeling even more settled. It's not his fault, either.
He grasps at Skye tighter, and this is supposed to be for her- he's supposed to be taking care of her right now- but something in him is soothed as well.
A/N: Yay, Fitzy feels! Guys, I love him. Him and Jemma, I think, have the biggest character development out of everyone.
Anyway, next chapter is a special treat featuring Mack, Bobbi, and Hunter.
Please review!
~Silver~