A/N: I know I don't usually update so fast, but this demanded to be written and apparently I don't care that much about sleeping.

Coming up: Skye talks to someone (while Phil interprets), Jemma has a think (and a fight with Fitz), and December 1st finally rolls around. That one should show up in the next week or so, but I have to update "Shaken" and "Burning Up" next (because in my head that's how things should work).

Thank you to everyone who reads/reviews/follows/favorites. You make my day! And yes, I will be replying to all of the comments and reviews from the previous chapter as soon as I get done with dinner.

Lyrics in this chapter are from "Fight Song" by Rachel Platten.

Enjoy!

Maria found Jemma standing by the double doors in the kitchen that led out to the back deck. The girl was crying, her back seeming suddenly far too thin under her cardigan as it shook with her sobs.

Maria didn't hesitate; she stepped towards Jemma and wrapped her arms around her. Jemma leaned into the embrace and Maria rocked her back and forth.

"It's okay," Maria murmured. "It's okay to cry."

"I can't…" Jemma whimpered into her shoulder. "I can't do this."

Maria didn't know what to say to that, so she settled for saying nothing. Sometimes it was how she got Melinda to open up about her feelings. Sometimes it wasn't, but the nice part about saying nothing was that it let the other person determine how open they wanted to be.

"I can't watch her suffer like this," Jemma sobbed. "She's scared and…"

She hiccupped and pulled back from Maria. "I just can't do this."

"It's natural to want a break from stressful situations," Maria said. "I'd understand if you needed to go and have some personal time."

"What's Skye going to think of me? If she's going through this, shouldn't I be able to handle it?"

"People have different levels of stress management," Maria pointed out. "And I don't know if you could call what Skye's doing 'handling it.'"

Fresh tears welled up in Jemma's eyes. "Why would she want to do that to herself?"

"I think it has a great deal to do with the fight-or-flight reaction," Maria answered. "All of our very primal emotions – anxiety, fear, pain, hatred – they still function at our most subconscious levels. I don't think she was aware of what she was doing. I think she was trying to break herself out of the loop of anxiety. It didn't work, but she was so caught up at that point that she didn't realize it."

Jemma shook her head, rubbing her forehead.

"Someone wise once told me that no matter how those primal emotions of despair affect us, there's one positive emotion that can save us," Maria said softly.

Jemma looked up at her.

"Love," Maria said. "Love's what breaks Skye's panic attacks. It's why she uses her voice to call out for you. It's the look in your eyes when you hold her hand and you talk her back from the edge. You're powerful, Jemma. Both of you are. You fight."

"I don't want to fight anymore," Jemma whispered.

"We don't get a choice in that," Maria said frankly. "The fight's over when it's over, and not a moment before. The choice you get is much simpler – are you going to walk away? Or are you going to stand up and be the person you know you are? The person Skye knows you are?"

"I don't know who I am anymore," Jemma mumbled.

Melinda entered the kitchen and stood watching the two women by the doors, staying quiet so they wouldn't notice her presence. She admired the way Maria was reaching out to Jemma; she always admired Maria's ease with other people, her skill at pep talks and encouragement was something Melinda envied.

"I know who you are," Maria said. "And what's more important, Skye knows who you are."

Jemma shook her head, hard. "Every time you say that I feel guilty."

"Stress does that," Maria said.

"And she's just… she's shut down now, she's shut herself away from me and maybe that's the sign that we're done with all this."

"Slow down," Maria said. "When everything happened with Katia, Melinda stayed in the house for six weeks."

"But that was a death, and…"

"And what do you think this is going to be?" Maria demanded, her voice suddenly sharp. "I don't know everything, but I do know that right now neither of you is strong enough to take on Grant Ward alone. If you're going to take care of this, you're going to have to do it together, and trust the rest of your support system."

Jemma turned her head, looking away from Maria.

"I agree that you need a break," Maria said, her voice returning to its normal conversational tone. "Go back to your dorm. Take a bubble bath. Do they have bathtubs in the dorms?"

"No," Jemma said, a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Okay, a bubble shower. Take a bubble shower. Eat some chocolate. Or some crisps. Or have some tea. Or all three. Go crazy," Maria went on. "Do something silly. Watch something terrible on TV or a bad movie. Ooh! Or Spanish soap operas. They are muy hilariente."

"That's not even a phrase," Melinda said, stepping towards them for the first time. "The Spanish word for 'hilarious' is 'divertisimo.'"

"Sometimes it's hard having such an educated woman in the house," Maria said, rolling her eyes and sighing dramatically. Still, she beckoned Melinda closer and put her arms around her partner.

Jemma gave them a small smile.

"Let Skye stay with us," Melinda said. "We'll make sure she's safe and comfortable. And we'll get her to eat something. And…"

There she hesitated.

"And what?" Jemma asked.

"Do you think Skye would talk to a psychiatrist?"

"Do you think she needs to?"

"You saw her today at the craft fair," Melinda said shortly. "What do you think?"

"I think she won't be a fan of it," Jemma said.

"That's not what I asked."

Again Jemma looked away, watching the snow outside the doors. "Yes. I think she needs to talk to someone."

Melinda nodded. "Me too."

Finally Jemma looked back at the two women. "I'll go back to the dorm for a bit," she said. "But before I go, could I have some paper and a pen?"

"Sure," Maria said, and moved to the odds-and-ends drawer. She took out a legal pad and grabbed a ballpoint pen from the mug on the counter.

"Thanks," Jemma said, and she sat down at the kitchen table, curling her ankles around the chair legs, bending her head over the paper.

She wrote for several minutes, filling two or three pages with her perfect cursive. At last she stood and turned to Maria and Melinda. "I'm going to say goodbye," she said softly.

"Okay," Melinda said.

The guest bedroom door was closed. Jemma hesitated, her hand on the doorknob, before she took a deep breath and let herself in.

Skye was tightly balled up, her back to the door. Jemma could see her hearing aids on the bedside table and breathed a sigh of gratitude. She would be able to get in and get out without waking Skye, which was exactly what she wanted.

"I just wanted you to know that I love you," she whispered. "And I promise I'm not giving up on you. On us. On this fight. I just need to go and have… some 'voices-on' time. I have to figure out my voice, and what I want to stand for. And if I've hurt you in any way, if I've ever done something to make you think this is your fault, I'm sorry."

Jemma bent down and tucked the folded sheets of legal paper under Skye's thumb, on top of the small stack of photos. She leaned in and gently kissed Skye on her temple, smelling Skye's raspberry shampoo and something else, something that was Skye's scent alone.

And then she left her other half, the very best part of her, the piece of her soul she didn't know she was missing until they met, curled up in that fetal ball. She walked down the hallway and put on her coat and picked up her bag and opened the front door and walked out. Walked away.

Skye woke to a dark room and for a minute she couldn't remember where she was. After a few blinks she remembered - the guest room at Melinda and Maria's – and all the memories of the rest of the day flooded over her. She let out a whimper and shoved herself upright.

The pictures slipped over the edge of the bed and something yellow fluttered to the ground with them.

Skye flicked the light on and leaned over to pick up the photos. Curiously, she looked at the folded yellow paper. Her name was written on the top of the packet in Jemma's precise handwriting: Skye.

Her heart dropped into her stomach and the room spun around her.

Her hands were shaking as she unfolded the papers.

Skye,

All of this is so weird that I don't even know where to start. You're so perfect, and to have someone like you in my life is nothing short of a miracle. Every day we're together I find something more to love about you. I discover new things about myself from the way you make me feel, the way you make me think, the things we do together.

I wish that you never ever had to deal with all the things you're dealing with right now. I wish you could be the girl in those photographs again. I know you can't. But I also know that the girl in those photos would be so damn proud of you. You're a fighter, and somehow all that fighting hasn't made your heart bitter or your spirit crushed. You still keep trying, and laughing, and smiling, and loving. You make me want to be the person you think I am.

All of this has proved to me how small I really am. I care too much about what others think of me and I always want to do the right thing. I get embarrassed about how tightly wound I am, how straight-laced I seem to be. You're the opposite – you have a lot of practice in letting things go and you don't want to put labels to anything to define you in any way you're not comfortable with. I'm working on it.

Melinda told me once that even though you don't usually use your voice, you're one of the loudest people she knows, and I think that's true. All you stand for is in everything you do.

I can't figure out who I am anymore.

I'm going back to the dorm for a while to think about things and to take a break from all this. I'm not leaving you and I'm not giving up on this. On us. I have always been very logical and orderly in my thought processes, and sometimes to work out problems I need to be alone, to write things out, to argue pros and cons back and forth. It's the scientist in me and it proves that I can't make decisions with my heart before my brain fights it out for the true answer.

Please stay with Melinda and Maria. They care very deeply for you and I know you will be safe with them. Sometimes I see Melinda look at you and I wonder if she thinks about you as a daughter she might have had in another lifetime.

Sometimes I wonder if there's such a thing as destiny, if two people from the moment of their respective conceptions were always meant to end up together, no matter the distance and the obstacles between them.

I want to think that's true, that I was always meant to find you.

I know it's weird to write song lyrics in a note to my deaf girlfriend, but I've been hearing this song on the radio every day now and I can't get it out of my head. It's your song in my head. The words are about you, I know they are.

"Fight Song"

Like a small boat

On the ocean

Sending big waves

Into motion

Like how a single word

Can make a heart open

I might only have one match

But I can make an explosion

And all those things I didn't say

Wrecking balls inside my brain

I will scream them loud tonight

Can you hear my voice this time?

This is my fight song

Take back my life song

Prove I'm all right song

My power's turned on

Starting right now I'll be strong

I'll play my fight song

And I don't really care if nobody else believes

'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me

You have so much fight left in you, Skye. No matter what else happens, you're going to end this. You're going to win.

Love, Jemma

A wail escaped Skye's mouth before she could stop it, and she slapped her hand to her mouth as though she could shove it back in. Her heartbeat seemed to pulse in her ears and her chest hurt every time she breathed.

Strong arms wrapped around her and Skye leaned into Melinda, sobbing.

She's coming back, Melinda signed, but Skye had her eyes closed.

"Andrew?"

"Melinda. We haven't talked in a while."

"I know. There's…"

"… been a lot going on. There always is with you."

"I need your help."

"I always have time for you."

"It's not for me. It's for a student."

Pause.

"It's not like Katia."

Pause.

"It's not, Andrew. This time we have a chance to really do some good. To eliminate someone's suffering. Isn't that why you became a doctor in the first place?"

"Melinda. I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was looking at my schedule to make sure I could be there tomorrow."

"Oh."

"And I can. I'll be there first thing in the morning. Now, tell me more about her."

"How did you know…?"

"Because one thing you are is predictable, Melinda, as much as you don't want to admit it."

Jemma stood outside the dorm in the falling snow. It was as though her body wouldn't take her into the dorm unless Skye was with her.

Then it'll be a cold night out here, she thought miserably.

Her phone rang before she could berate herself any further, and she pulled it out, hoping it wasn't Fitz. Or Bobbi. Or Trip. Or Melinda or Maria or Mr. Coulson. She couldn't deal with any of them right now. Couldn't deal with the decisions she'd just made.

It was an unfamiliar number, though, and so she answered. "Hello?"

"Hello," a somewhat-familiar voice said. "Is all right I am calling at this time?"

"Wanda," Jemma said. "Of course it is."

"Good," Wanda said.

"Um, why did you call me?" Jemma asked. "Not that I'm not thrilled to hear from you, but…"

"You asked for to call," Wanda replied.

"I did?"

"Very much so. Well, not very much so. You were speaking about date with my sister, and I thought I should call for to see how it was."

"Oh." Jemma felt like she'd been punched in the sternum.

"It was not good?"

"It was…" Jemma forced herself not to burst into tears. "It was difficult."

"She was anxious?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Some things are for knowing. Other things are for recognizing."

Jemma shook her head. "It was awful."

"She is safe now?"

"Yes."

"This is all that matters."

Jemma was quiet for a moment. "Wanda, can I ask you something? Something personal?"

"Of course."

"Um… Skye told me a bit about… about what happened to you," Jemma said, a bit lamely. "And I know why you wear the bracelets."

"Yes."

"When you did that… why did you do it?"

There was a pause, and Jemma wondered if she'd crossed a boundary.

Then Wanda spoke. "There are times you feel trapped inside a body. You cannot control things you are faced with. Everything hurts. There is something in brain that screams for to get out, but in words you do not understand. You start for to wonder if you find it, can you get rid of it. Skin buzzes, gets hard to breathe, need to do something right then to make it all stop."

She paused, and Jemma could hear Pietro speaking Russian to her in the background.

"Yes," Wanda said after a moment. "When this is to go on in the brain, all you want is for it to stop. You will do anything. As it turns out it is much more hurt for people around you. Pain you feel is… uh…"

She spoke a Russian word to Pietro, and he replied.

"Temporary," Wanda said. "Pain they feel is for more longer time."

"How do you… how do you help someone? When they're going through something like that?" Jemma asked.

"You want for to help Skye." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Jemma whispered.

She heard an intake of breath and she knew Wanda was thinking of her sister, wishing they would never have veered down this avenue of communication.

"Please," Jemma added.

"Do not look away from her wounds," Wanda said. "Tell her you cannot fix, but you cannot stop caring. Tell her you will love no matter what. Then say it again. And again. Until she believes. Will take much time, over years."

"Years," Jemma whispered.

"Yes, years," Wanda said. "Two of you will be together in years. For years."

Jemma liked the sound of that.

"Also, remember she is not bad. Is not her fault. And she might do it again and again and again. Every time say it – cannot fix, cannot stop caring, will love no matter what. Sooner or later she will hear. Someday she will know she is more than her scars."

Pietro spoke again in the background and Wanda replied in Russian.

"Jemma?" she said when she came back. "I am need to go help Pietro push the snow off workshop roof."

"Okay," Jemma said quietly.

"If you need for to talk later, please call," Wanda said. "Will answer any time."

"Thank you."

Wanda hung up and Jemma sighed, her breath a white plume in the cold air.

Someday she will know she is more than her scars.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to propel Jemma into the dorm, away from the dark night.