For as many years as May had practiced tai chi herself, she had never found herself in the position she was now, with two curious teenagers watching her with wide, expectant eyes as she spread out a mat in the middle of the living room floor for them to work on. She had been a student years ago, had studied and trained and pushed herself until she had ingrained the forms in her muscles and could move as fluidly as Mr. Chen, the wizened and balding old man who had taught classes at the local Y when she was first starting out. These days she rose before the sun most mornings so she could start her day with a clear, focused mind and body, and she considered herself a solid practitioner, competent and experienced. But she had never anticipated ever having to try and impart her years of knowledge and experience to other people. She wasn't a teacher. That just wasn't who she was. Teaching was Phil's place to shine – his patience, charisma, and enthusiasm made him a natural fit to guide and support – but Melinda had never once considered herself gifted in that way. She was a quick learner, and she was a confident doer, but the idea of having to teach brought out the insecurity in her, as she was quickly discovering.

She didn't regret offering to teach Skye (and now Bobbi, after Dr. Gambhir had suggested some low-impact exercise to help ease Bobbi into using her knee more comfortably without its brace yesterday) by any means. The excitement on Skye's face when May had offered yesterday had been a welcome sight after a week of an (understandably) skittish and surly Skye, and Bobbi had looked so eager to start exercising again that May couldn't possibly say no to either one of them. Still, she was definitely questioning her own sanity a little at this point. She didn't know the first thing about teaching tai chi, should probably have suggested they find classes at a gym or the Y like she had first sought out so many years ago, but now here they were, and there was really no going back.

"Just show them what you know," Phil had encouraged her last night, before they went to bed. She had confided in him about her uncertainty and, true to Phil-form, he had managed to quell at least some of her anxieties. "You're our resident expert, honey, and they're not looking for anything too intense. Start with the basics, give them some building blocks. If they like it, you can start adding to it later, but for now, just start small."

"So you're saying I shouldn't start with the sword forms?" she smirked. Phil laughed.

"Maybe save those for week two. Or, better yet, don't tell them that there can be a sword component to tai chi at all. Somehow I feel like giving Skye a sword is asking for trouble."

"You're no fun," Melinda teased, drawing another laugh from him. The idea that anyone could ever accuse Phil of being 'no fun' was certainly an amusing one.

"Someone has to look out for our lamps and vases," he grinned. "Really, though, I think whatever you want to teach them will be just fine. Besides, you know it's not really about tai chi, don't you?"

"It's not?" She cocked an eyebrow in his direction. "I thought we were doing tai chi to help give Skye an outlet and to help Bobbi rehab her knee. Did you and Andrew cook up some ulterior motive that I don't know about?"

Phil smiled, leaned over to kiss her cheek before he climbed into bed, pulling her along with him. "No, nothing like that. I just meant that, for Skye and Bobbi, it's about more than just learning to exercise. It's about spending time with you. They want to learn from you, feel close to you. You sharing tai chi is like letting them in a little, don't you think?"

"Now you really sound like Andrew."

"He'll be thrilled to know he's finally rubbed off on me," Phil chuckled. "What I'm trying to get at is that your lessons don't need to be perfect, and you don't need to get caught up in teaching flawless forms. Just enjoy the fact that your daughters are excited to share something with you."

"I'm lucky to have married a guy as smart as you," she said. She rolled over slightly to face him in bed, leaning in so her nose was inches away from his. "When'd you get so good at this parenting thing, hmm?"

"Same time as you," he murmured. "We're a team, after all." He inclined his head forward and closed the last few inches between them, brushing the tip of his nose against hers with a few, tender bumps before moving in for a full kiss. "I love you, Mel."

"I love you, too."

She could have used some of Phil's love and warm encouragement right then, but he was tucked away upstairs working on a "secret project" with Jemma, who had politely but resolutely declined the invitation that May had extended to her last night, once it was decided that she'd be teaching the other two. May wasn't offended that Jemma didn't want to join them – she knew exercise wasn't really Jemma's speed – and, in all honesty, she had found embers of pride kindling in her that Jemma felt confident enough to say no to something that she didn't want to do. She'd have more fun with Phil anyway, doing whatever it was that he'd concocted for them to work on while the rest of them did their best to muddle through May's tai chi lesson.

"Are you two ready to start?" she asked, once the mat was spread out and there was no more stalling to be done on her end. Skye and Bobbi both nodded, and Bobbi rolled her neck around slightly, like she was loosening up, eager to begin. The gesture was a good reminder. "We should stretch first, make sure we're loose. I'll tell you a little about what we're going to try today while we stretch, okay?"

Bobbi had no trouble dropping into what were probably familiar stretches, drawing out the muscles in her arms and legs as she bent and extended her limbs systematically. Skye looked a little more out of place, doing her best to mimic the motions that May and Bobbi were going through, but she kept up all right.

"So… tai chi. It's a martial art, from China, and it's pretty old. Several centuries, or a couple thousand years, depending on who you ask," May said, a faint smirk making the corners of her mouth twitch. "My old teacher insisted on the old legends that said it was over 2000 years old. My father will tell you it's from the 12th century, my mother says the 17th. It really just depends on what style you're talking about and how literally you want to take your history."

"Martial arts are like for fighting, right?" Skye asked as she clumsily folded her legs into the butterfly stretch, doing her best to emulate May. "Are we going to learn to fight?"

May thought for a minute before answering. She wanted to make sure she didn't give Skye the wrong idea. "Tai chi can be used for self-defense, yes. But that's not really what tai chi's about. More than anything, it's about balance. There's all these opposing forces in the world, right? All these opposites pushing and pulling against us. Hardness and softness, internal and external…"

"Light and dark?" Bobbi suggested. May nodded.

"That's right. The list goes on, of course, but you get the idea. So when we practice tai chi, we concentrate on all the different energies out there, trying to balance them inside of us. We counter the brute force of the world with soft skill and finesse. We bring quiet and calm to the chaos. We unite our minds with our bodies. That sort of thing. If we can find balance, that helps us focus, helps us find peace."

"Peace, peace, peace," Bobbi murmured. She had a serious look on her face, like she was concentrating hard on what May was saying. Skye was a little harder to read, but her eyes hadn't left May's face, so it was clear she was paying close attention.

"It's a very internal process," May warned. "Even when we're doing external movements, there's a lot of internal work going on. That's one of the reasons why I like to start my days with it. Tai chi helps me focus and clear my head before I have to go out into the world. It takes a lot of patience, a lot of practice. We're not starting with anything too advanced today, but I don't want you to get discouraged if we don't get too far, okay? It took me years to get even half as good as my teacher when I was first starting."

"You didn't want to just give up?" asked Skye. "If it took so long for you to get good?"

"I thought about more than a few times," May chuckled. "But even when I wasn't progressing as fast as I wanted to, I still liked it. And my teacher, Mr. Chen, he wouldn't let me quit just because I was frustrated. He once said the only good reason for quitting something was if you weren't enjoying it anymore. I don't know if I totally agree with him about that, but I am glad he pushed me to not give up just because I was going slower than I wanted to. He was one of the people who taught me that it was more important to try and get better than to be perfect at something."

"Just like you and Phil tell us all the time now," Skye pointed out. May smiled.

"I guess we both thought it worth passing along."

Having finished their stretches, May began showing the two girls some of the positions they would need to arrange their feet in to form some basic steps.

"We'll use the bow step a lot today, so just bend your one leg here, like a bow… yes," she coached, gently guiding their feet. "Rotate your hips a little bit more this way, Bobbi, and line your knee up here, parallel. There you go. Good. That protects your knee more as we start to move."

"I don't think Dr. Gambhir would be very happy with either one of us if I hurt my knee again doing this," Bobbi teased. "Tai chi was supposed to be low impact."

"You have my word, I'll do my very best to protect you," May swore back in playful solemnity. Bobbi flushed a faint pink, and a beat passed before May realized she probably ought to clarify. "Your knee, of course. I'll make sure we don't reinjure you. Don't want to incur the wrath of the good doctor." She might not have needed the clarification, though, because it seemed to her that Bobbi stood a little taller, her shoulders swelling with new strength, after that.

She walked them through a few other steps – empty, crouch, and whole – and showed them how they could move from step to step as they worked through some basic forms.

"Hands next," she told them. "Mostly we use open hands. Relaxed palms, like this, like you're scooping up the air and pushing it away from you. Nice. Sometimes we need a loose fist or something called a hook, but I don't think we'll use those today, so let's just stick with open."

"We want our bodies to be relaxed, too," she continued. "Stand up tall, and be strong, but still relaxed. Full of energy, whether we're moving or not. Try to feel it filling you up, making your arms and legs strong." She inhaled deeply, and demonstrated a pulling motion in time with her breath, then exhaled and pushed her hands away deliberately. A quick nod at Bobbi and Skye signaled to them that they should imitate her. "Our movements are slow, deliberate. They're graceful, but they're not slack, not weak. Find the balance between soft and hard while you move. Inhale, pull, exhale, push. Breathing is important, key really. Every movement is connected to a breath. When we rotate or pull or hold, we're breathing in. When we're pushing, using a kick or a punch, we're breathing out. Half our power comes from our breath alone."

Bobbi's eyes fluttered partway shut as she inhaled like the air filling her lungs was the sweetest breeze she'd ever felt, and May watched the muscles in her arms tense and release as her hands flowed in and out, the movement of the tides captured in her hands. There was an intensity to her movement, to her focus, and May was reminded starkly of just how much Bobbi's mindset was still that of a top-tier athlete. She knew Bobbi was working hard to get back to the soccer field, but something about the way she poured herself into something as small as her breaths helped to crystalize for May just how important it was going to be to get Bobbi back to form. She had never seen Bobbi look so grounded; at least, not without her batons in her hands.

Skye was, not surprisingly, very different from Bobbi, and May watched her with just as much curiosity and interest. Her eyes stayed open, her face screwed up in concentration, but there were shadows of frustration already clouding her brow. Her arms were still soft as she tried to keep time with her breathing, not quite as deliberate or intentional with their movement as they needed to be, even as she worked hard to do as she was told. It hadn't clicked yet.

May drew up to Skye's side and placed a hand in the middle of Skye's back, gently guiding her to stand up a little straighter.

"Every time you breathe in, Skye, you're drawing so much into yourself. There's energy, power, strength all out there, and you're collecting inwards to yourself. There's energy and power and strength inside you, too, and the breath helps consolidate it all to one point of focus. You're in control. Try to feel it here—" May touched her own stomach, just below her belly button, to show Skye where she was talking about. "That's the home of qì. Energy. You're filtering it, balancing all the levels inside you. Let it fill you up until you need to let it go back out into the world."

"I don't think I feel it," Skye admitted, her expression twisting grumpily. "I'm not good at all that deep breathing stuff."

May thought hard for a minute, wracking her brain for some other way to help Skye make the connection. Suddenly, she had an idea. "What's that thing you do with Jemma, Skye? When you two are breathing together?"

"We breathe in and our hands squeeze," Skye said slowly. May watched with delight as the realization started to set in on Skye's face. "And we breathe out when we let go."

"Exactly," encouraged May. "Same idea here. Connecting your breath to your movement. The same way you'd tighten your muscles to squeeze Jemma's hand, just this time with your whole body. Breathe in, inward strength, tight muscles. Breathe out, outward strength, push your energy out from your muscles into the world."

Skye tried again, and May could see her movements become a shade sharper, the focus shifting a few degrees closer. She gave Skye a broad smile. "Good."

"It's kind of like the breathing Dr. Garner has me do, too," Bobbi added. "To help me focus on what's real, try and keep my head on straight when I'm getting anxious."

"If I had to guess, I'd say that's probably one of the reasons he suggested this for you, Skye," May nodded. "This will give you some good breathing techniques, plus you get to combine it with a concrete physical action, which should help you find a good outlet when you're feeling overwhelmed. Try it one more time for me, okay? Deep breaths, strong arms. Show me – in and out."

Skye obeyed, her jaw set and her eyes glinting with steely focus and determination. The intake of her breath was more deliberate this time, crisper, and it translated to her arms too. Click. May beamed.

"How do you feel?"

"…Still," Skye said, after thinking for a second. She said it almost like she herself didn't believe it. "It's weird, but it's… it's a good weird."

"What about you, Bobbi?"

Bobbi paused her own breathing, lowered her arms to her sides and looked pensive. "In control," she decided. "That's one of the reasons I like running and soccer. Exercising makes me feel in control, powerful. This is like that, I think. I feel strong. I haven't felt strong in a long time."

"No?" May hoped that if she left the moment open enough, Bobbi might take the opportunity to expound, let them into her thoughts for a little bit. May had been doing her best to keep checking in with all three of the girls since their return, but Bobbi hadn't given her much to go on so far, always insisting that she was fine. While Bobbi certainly appeared to be the most like her normal self of the three, May knew well enough that that wasn't always indicative of the full story, and she kept trying to find ways to give Bobbi the space to open up, should she want to. This time, it seemed, the space was right and her patience was rewarded.

"I didn't feel strong a lot growing up I guess," Bobbi shrugged. She began moving her arms again in the motions of the first form, almost absentmindedly. Her eyes were trained intently on her own hands as they ebbed and flowed. "I had sports, and that was really the only place where I got to be strong. I was good at them, and when I was mad or scared or mad about being scared, I could just pour it all into a soccer ball or a softball bat. Everywhere else wasn't like that. At school I just blended in, mostly so nobody would pay too close attention to what was going on with me and my dad, and at home… there was only one kind of strong at home, and only one person who got to be it. And after my dad… after he put me in the hospital and messed up my knee, he took away the only place where I got to feel strong, you know? He made it so that, even when I wasn't with him, I was still being crushed by him. Still weak. I've been trying to feel strong again, to get control over my brain and my anxiety and get my knee healed so I can be strong again. I know I can't play soccer again yet, but this… the feeling is getting me pretty close."

"For what it's worth, Bobbi, I think you're an incredibly strong person," May told her quietly. "Whether you can run and kick a ball or not. There're lots of ways to be strong, and you demonstrate a lot of them every single day."

"You think so?" Bobbi frowned slightly and dropped her arms once more.

"Of course. It takes strength to start over, to rebuild. It takes strength to open yourself up to kindness and love. It takes strength to care for others, to stand up for them and protect them. It takes strength to face the day even when your body, your mind, your experience is telling you that it's safer to just shut yourself away and hide from it all."

"When you came to rescue me and Jemma," Skye added, smiling, "you came busting through the door and I swear I thought you were a superhero. And you always know the right thing to say when I need you. You're basically the strongest person I know, Bobbi, and you're the kind of strong that protects people, not the kind that hurts people, which is even better."

"I'm not the only one that's strong like that," Bobbi pointed out, causing a faint blush to creep onto Skye's face. "Besides, I wouldn't exactly call it being a superhero when I was scared out of my mind the whole time."

"Plenty of smart and often-quoted people would remind you that courage isn't the absence of fear," May reminded them. "It's deciding to take action and do what's right in spite of your fear. That's why breathing, balance, is so important. It gives us control, lets you use your emotions, fear and all, and channel them into action. And you know," she realized, "I would argue that strength is similar to courage in that way. It's not about the absence of weakness, it's about finding that thing inside of you that lets you keep going, keep fighting, keep trying, even when you're weak or you feel like you have nothing left to give."

"Pushing for one more shot in practice even when your legs are so tired, they feel like Jell-o on fire," Bobbi grinned.

"Standing up for yourself or for other people, even when you're having to relearn how to stand without a brace," May returned. "Trying your best to take care of the people who matter to you, while also learning how to take care of yourself," she added, with a pointed look to Skye. Skye frowned for a moment, deep in thought. There was an almost careful pause before she spoke.

"Fighting for your family, to come home and put things back together, when all you feel like doing is giving up," she finally said, so softly but so surely. "Because some things are just that important."

A lump materialized in Melinda's throat at that, and she had to swallow hard before she spoke again, not fully clearing the wave of emotion from her voice. "Some things are absolutely that important."

They worked for another half hour or so, May starting to show them a couple more beginning forms. Skye had found the names of the forms highly enjoyable, grinning at how they parted the horse's mane, spread the wings of the white crane, or repulsed the monkey, and Bobbi was interested to learn how each of the seemingly tranquil movements had their roots in self-defense moves – one wing of the white crane blocking an incoming attack while the other prepared the elbow and shoulder for a counterstrike or how holding the fish and brushing the knee could defend against a kick and set you up to return just as quickly.

"Not that I'd want to get in a fight," she said quickly. "But it's cool to see the roots. The history, I guess."

"Don't let Phil hear you say learning the history is cool," May smirked. "You'll never hear the end of his at-home lectures otherwise."

"That wouldn't be the worst thing," Bobbi shrugged, smiling. May smiled back.

"No, you're right. Phil's history lessons are actually pretty entertaining, and it's nice to see him when he's excited about something. Still, I've learned more about the American industrial revolution and landmark Supreme Court cases over the years than I would have ever expected to."

"What do you think he and Jemma were working on?" Skye asked as they rolled up the mat off the living room floor and made their way to the kitchen for water. "Do you think they're done by now? Can we see them?"

"I'm sure they'd be happy for us to check in on them," May said kindly. "Have a drink of water first, though, and let me check your stitches, okay? I want to make sure we didn't disturb them while we were working."

Skye obliged her, and May was happy to see that the workout hadn't reopened any of Skye's still-healing cuts. They looked a little better than they had the day before, but she was still kicking herself that she and Phil had let it get so bad before realizing that Skye needed more help from them when it came to taking care of herself. They hadn't wanted to nag her about her medicine or make her feel like they didn't trust her. But, May now realized, Skye was still learning how to address her needs and take responsibility for her own wellbeing, rather than ignoring or downplaying those needs, so things like medication reminders and check-ins were probably going to do more good than harm. And Skye didn't seem to balk too much at the extra attention, which May certainly took as a sign that they were moving in the right direction.

None of the girls had quite gotten the hang of the idea that she and Phil were there to take care of them, to support them and fuss over them, but when Melinda paused to consider just how far they had all come in the few short months they'd been together, she couldn't help but feel proud of their progress. Skye let her check her stitches, sought sanctuary under Phil's arm when they were all sitting on the couch together, had started feeling comfortable enough to open up to the both of them about all of the big, complicated feelings she often struggled to manage. Jemma shared her passions with them, tapped "I love yous" on their shoulders, looked to her and Phil with such complete, unwavering trust and confidence – a look Melinda would never have imagined crossing her face when they'd first met the shy, scared Jemma with the pinched and wary expression. Bobbi trusted them to protect her, had begun uncovering small, once-lost pieces of herself that she had been made to bury, smiled and laughed like she was deeply out of practice but was excited to finally relearn what joy tasted like. Her girls were a marvel, and Melinda couldn't begin to fully comprehend the overwhelming pride and fierce, protective joy she felt when she drank in the sight of them. There weren't words for the swell that expanded the bones in her ribcage when one of them walked into a room, no pithy turn of phrase to fully capture the swirling rush of electric warmth – tranquil and anxious, content and insatiable, all at the same time – that flooded her cells anytime one of the girls shared a smile or offered a touch – a tap on the arm, a hug, a holding of the hand.

The girls were a marvel, and they were hers. Hers and Phil's. She had never felt so sure of anything before in her life, besides maybe that she wanted to marry Phil all those years ago, and she knew he felt the same way. They had discussed it a little bit, and were planning on continuing the conversation between the two of them, then with Victoria, and, hopefully, eventually, with Bobbi, Skye, and Jemma. She just hoped that the phone call she and Phil were having with Vic later that day would bring good news, wouldn't break her heart.

"Can we go find Phil and Jemma now?" Skye asked, snapping May back to reality. Skye set a now empty water glass down on the counter, having dutifully taken the drink May had requested of her.

"Let's track them down." May smiled and watched as Skye scampered towards the stairs, Bobbi trailing on her heels, excited too, but without quite the same level of barely contained enthusiasm Skye seemed to demonstrate. May herself lingered for a moment in the kitchen, shuffling Skye's empty glass into the sink and pausing for a moment to force herself to take a deep breath. She was getting ahead of herself, letting her emotions get the better of her. A dry chuckle escaped her. Hadn't she just lectured Skye and Bobbi about control, about balance? And here she was getting all worked up over a future that she had no way of knowing might or might not come to pass. There was no sense in worrying – or celebrating – until she and Phil had talked to Victoria and knew more about what obstacles might await them.

They found Phil and Jemma upstairs, where they had apparently been hard at work at the desk in her and Skye's room.

"Do we get to know what the secret project was?" May wanted to know as she came into the room. Skye and Bobbi were both perched on the bed, and Jemma was beaming, a stack of what looked like black construction paper clutched to her chest. Phil was nearby, looking almost as excited as Jemma.

"We made something," Jemma explained, her smile widening. "It was Phil's idea."

"Only partly," Phil corrected. "The general idea was mine, but Jemma fine-tuned it."

"What is it?" Skye was practically hanging off the bed at this point, desperate to see what Jemma was holding. Jemma slid one of the papers from her stack and held it up proudly. As far as May could tell, there wasn't anything special about the paper at all, and it seemed as though Bobbi and Skye shared her confusion.

"What… is it?" Skye repeated, scrunching up her brow and cocking her head to one side. "It looks like a blank piece of paper."

Jemma only looked put-out for a moment before Phil gave her an encouraging nudge. "They probably just can't see it without the light," he whispered to her. Jemma gave him a stout nod, turned to the window, and pressed the paper against the glass. Pricks of sunlight popped through tiny holes in the paper then, and it became suddenly clear what had made Jemma so excited about the project.

"You made constellations," Bobbi realized, standing up to get a closer look at the paper.

"One for everyone," glowed Jemma. "Phil had the idea to use a pushpin to make the holes, so we can look at our stars in the daytime, even when the real ones aren't out, and he said we should make a book of the ones I like best."

"But then Jemma told me about how she has a constellation that matches up to all the people she knows," continued Phil, "and she wanted to know if we could make a constellation for everybody."

"You made them… for us?" May asked softly. Jemma nodded.

"So everyone has the constellation that matches them. So we can make our own galaxy that's just our family."

One by one, Jemma passed out the pages, bestowing them each with their own collection of stars. May had to force herself not to look at Phil, who was misty-eyed, or else run the risk of getting choked up herself.

"Canis Major for Bobbi," Jemma explained. "That's where Sirius lives – the brightest star we can see from Earth. Bright, shining, easy to trust. Cygnus for Phil. They call Cygnus the backbone of the Milky Way. It holds things together. Ursa Major for May. Ursa Major is the great bear. She protects the other stars and is a reliable guide. And Ursa Minor for Skye. That's where Polaris lives, the north star. A compass. You can't be lost if you can find Ursa Minor."

"What about you, Jemma? Which constellation is you?"

Jemma hesitated for a second before holding up the last piece of paper, the one she hadn't given out, to the window and letting the light shine through the pinpricks. "Serpens. It's the only constellation that's non-contiguous. It's broken, split into two parts – the head and the tail – but Ophiuchus, the healer, holds it together. Because nothing that's broken apart is ever truly broken, not when someone takes the time to fix it. Plus, that's where my favorite star, Alya, lives."

"These are beautiful, Jemma," murmured May. A quick look around the room – at Phil's shining eyes, Bobbi's pink cheeks, Skye's broad, watery smile – confirmed that she wasn't the only one who thought so. "Thank you for making them. For making us a galaxy."

"We were already a galaxy," Jemma said, a little shyly. "We just had to figure out how to let gravity pull us together."

Something had brought them together; May was sure of that much. Gravity, or fate, or fortune, or some other force beyond herself that she couldn't name. And now, more than ever, she knew it was up to her, to her and Phil together, to make sure nothing else could ever pull them apart. The two of them had some phone calls to make, at the very least.

Hello! I am so terribly sorry for the exceptionally long delay! Life just got really hectic the last couple of months. I started a new job in addition to the other ones I already had, so I've been working 65 hour weeks on top of some other ups and downs that I won't bore you with... needless to say I've had very little time for writing (I basically went almost four weeks without writing a single word, which is very unusual for me), but I'm finally getting a handle on my schedule and should be back to a more normal writing routine. I cannot thank you all enough for your patience with me as I got my life together! Hope you enjoy this round of chapters :)