Daisy jolted awake suddenly the next morning. It was quiet, and sunlight streamed in through her window. Shit, how long had she slept? She knew that she'd stayed up, waiting to listen for Phil and Melinda to go to bed and continuing to listen even after that. She couldn't remember when she stopped listening for them to come for her. She didn't know if she had.
She stood with a slight groan. Her arm still ached, and she'd slept right on it. At least the clothes Melinda had leant her were comfortable. Daisy would have to remember to go to the laundromat to wash them for her.
She carefully got changed, remembering to fold Melinda's clothes before she pulled on her own from the day before. They didn't smell that bad really. She'd definitely had worse.
Daisy listened for movement, but was surprised to find none. Those two didn't seem like the type to sleep in. Maybe they'd gone to work?
She slowly unlocked her door, taking special care to keep it from clicking open. It had taken her a long time to develop a hand for that. Daisy stepped one foot outside the bedroom, looking around. No one seemed to be home. She cleared her throat. "Hello?" She called, fighting every instinct she had in order to speak.
No reply. Daisy couldn't decide whether that was good or bad. Before she had the time to decide, there were footsteps outside and the sound of a key in the door.
She stood in the doorway, watching the front door open and Phil come through first. He smiled when he saw her. "Hey!" He greeted. "We weren't sure when you'd be up, so we went out and got you some clothes." Phil held a bag triumphantly. "Melinda guessed your sizes, but she's good at that."
May shoved past him, elbowing him in the ribs when she saw Daisy's deer in headlights look. "Sleep well?"
Daisy was surprised to find herself nodding.
Melinda nodded back, satisfied. "Good. Have you had breakfast?"
Daisy shook her head. "I- I just got up."
May nodded again. "Guess you've got a job then." She said to Phil, taking the bag from him and walking towards Daisy. "You try those on while Phil makes breakfast. Do you like omelettes?"
Daisy stiffened at the proximity, but she took the bag. "I don't know." She said. "I've never had one before."
Phil grinned. "Well then you're in luck." He said. "I make great omelettes." Sure, he might be laying it on thick, but who cared? Sometimes that was needed.
Daisy swallowed. "I'm not really hungry." She said softly.
Phil's smiled became tinged with sadness. "You need it though." He said, trying not to sound demanding. "You're dangerously thin."
Daisy bit her lip to keep from arguing. She looked down at the bag in her hand, tilting her head to see the clothes inside. She picked out the top item, a plain red t-shirt.
"We weren't sure what you'd like." Melinda said. "So it seemed like a safe bet."
Daisy rubbed the material between her fingers. It was new. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had new clothes. She swallowed. "I-I've got some cash, just let me-" She turned to leave but Melinda's hand stopped her.
Daisy flinched away and May took a step back. She hadn't meant to scare her.
"Don't be silly." Phil said, in response to her offer. "It's a gift."
Daisy bit her tongue. She wanted to argue, but she couldn't. A gift. She could never see a gift without seeing the strings attached. Be good. Do as we say. Don't tell anyone about what happened. No one gave away something for nothing. They wanted something from her, she knew it. They couldn't just be good people. It couldn't be that simple.
Phil must have noticed something on her face. "Hey, are you okay?" He asked softly.
Daisy shrugged. "I-I'm fine." She said, cursing herself when the tears broke free.
Phil and Melinda looked at each other. "It's okay." Phil said hesitantly, approaching. He stopped when Daisy took a step away from him.
Daisy gasped for breath, trying to calm down. "Please, will you just- tell me what you want from me?" She said quietly. "I-I can't- just tell me!" She couldn't take this. She had to know. Why were they being this cruel and not just coming out with it?
"Daisy, I swear, we don't want anything from you." Phil said, trying to sound calm and make her calm down too.
"Then why am I here?!" She burst out, heart pounding in her ears.
Phil looked at her helplessly and Melinda knew she had to speak. "Because," She murmured, "For all it's failings, SHIELD exists to protect people. We're SHIELD agents, so we'll protect you. It's our job."
Melinda knew that Phil didn't like that answer, but it seemed to calm Daisy down. "Then- what do you want me to do?" She asked, hanging her head.
May thought for a moment. "We want you to go to school." She said. "Starting next semester."
Daisy swallowed. "What else?" She asked. That couldn't be it. They didn't get anything out of her going to school.
"Let's say that's all for now." Phil said softly. "Do you want a tissue?"
Daisy wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I'm fine."
"Okay." He murmured. "I'll make omelettes, you can go change if you want."
Daisy sniffled. "Sorry." She muttered. "For..."
Now May shook her head. "It's okay." She said. "This is a new place. You don't know us."
Daisy looked down. "I'll go try these on." She said quietly. "I promise I'll be careful with them."
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
"So." Maria said, flopping down onto their couch. "You've got a kid now."
Melinda looked down and Phil hesitated. "She's fifteen."
"That's a kid." Maria looked around. "Where is she?"
Melinda sipped at her tea, sitting across from Maria. "She wanted to go to the library. Alone."
"That's okay." Maria said. "Sometimes people need a change of scenery." She smiled at Melinda. "You look good, by the way."
May shrugged and Phil spoke from his perch on a stool. "Look, we need some help." He said. "You saw her file too. She's been here for less than three days and she's already locking herself in her room constantly, she's had two breakdowns, and she won't let us near her."
Maria frowned. "Yeah... why wouldn't she be acting like that?" She asked frankly. "She's stuck in survival mode."
Phil looked between them. "But- we're trying to help her." He said, that helpless feeling rising again. How could he help someone who didn't believe a word he said? How could he get her to trust him when she never let him prove that she could?
Maria shrugged. "She doesn't know that."
May raised an eyebrow. "We told her."
Maria snorted. "You think you're the first people to tell her that? As far as I can tell, no one's ever just wanted to help this kid. There's always been something else they're after."
Phil looked to Melinda. "That's why she kept asking." He said, eyes widening in realisation. He hadn't really thought about why Daisy kept asking what they wanted from her. Now he could imagine it. Like if he walked into a grocery store and the cashier wouldn't take his money. Of course she was confused.
Maria nodded. "Look, I know you guys had good childhoods and parents who loved you, so when she freaks out you're gonna want to fall back on that." She said. "Don't. It's only gonna make it worse." She hesitated. "She doesn't think of family like you do, okay? Family doesn't make her feel safe or happy or anything like that. It's like..." Maria thought for a moment, then sighed. "It's like Bahrain." She said softly, noting the looks on their faces when she mentioned it. "That's how she feels when she thinks of family."
Phil moved to sit beside Maria. "Is that how you feel?" He asked softly. "When you think of family?"
Maria's hands balled into fists. "My story isn't the same as hers… but yeah, sometimes." She murmured.
Phil put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
Maria swallowed. "Thank you." She said, then paused. "And this?" She gestured to his hand. "Don't do this with Daisy." Phil pulled his hand back and she continued. "Don't touch her unless she touches you first. And don't act like you feel sorry for her, she doesn't need your pity."
Phil looked down. He didn't know why, but he felt guilty admitting what Daisy had said. "She- she asked if we got her for sex."
Maria winced. "Goddamn." She muttered. "Look, you have to wait for her to come to you. I know you want to just make everything better, but right now you can't. It'll take a lot of time to get her to trust you."
Phil met May's eyes. "We only have temporary custody right now." He said hesitantly.
Maria smiled. "Yeah, but you wanna keep her." She said, giving them a knowing look.
Crap. They hadn't talked about it yet. Everything had just happened so fast, it was hard to even think about it. But Maria was right. Phil sighed and turned to his wife. "I want her to stay." He said softly. "But that's a long road, and... I know we haven't talked about it. What do you think?"
Melinda stared at the floor. "She needs help." She said. "So we'll help her."
"But do you want her to stay?"
May looked up, frustration and helplessness written all over her face. "Phil, I didn't even know that this kid existed a week ago." She said. "I don't know." Part of her hated that she couldn't make this decision as easily as Phil. That she couldn't follow her heart enough to just invite this girl into their lives. The memory of Katya huddled behind some crates as she'd fought her mother surfaced in her mind, and she shuddered.
Maria looked away. It hurt to see May like this, and she knew that May didn't want her to. "That doesn't matter right now." Maria said. "What matters is proving to Daisy that she's safe with you."
"How do we do that?"
Maria leaned back. "That's hard. Right now she's looking for any sign that you're gonna hurt her. Crowd her too much and she'll get cagey, but if you're totally hands off then she'll think you want her gone. Just be there for her. And make sure she knows that you're there."
"That sounds contradictory." May said.
Maria grimaced. "Yeah, it'll feel like that sometimes, but there isn't a guidebook for this. But trust me, it'll be really easy to scare her off. Don't raise your voice, even as a joke, or have any of those dumb arguments that we all know neither of you actually care about. Anything like that will freak her out, Daisy's taking everything seriously."
"Thank you, Maria."
"Hey, any time."
Melinda's eyes met Phil's, and both saw the helplessness reflected there. Daisy needed help, that was true. She needed a family who were patient and loving and knew what they were doing. Could they really be enough?
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
Though the rest of the evening passed by without incident, Melinda couldn't get the thought out of her head. Did she want to keep Daisy? Was that even a fair question to ask? Daisy was a human being who could make her own decisions. She might not want to stay.
But, if she did... then what?
She knew that Daisy was a kid who needed their help, and despite everything, Melinda wouldn't stop trying to help people.
Was she meant to want Daisy to stay by now? How could Phil make it look so easy? She'd always envied how easily he could follow his heart, how he could just know that this was the right thing to do. Sacrifice was one thing, but knowing what needed to be saved?
That hadn't always ended well for her.
The TV was on some drama as Phil finished his paperwork and she sat next to him. Daisy was sitting on the edge of the other couch, jumping at every sound they made. Melinda watched her out of the corner of her eye. She wanted it to be an easy decision. She wanted to be able to say that keeping Daisy was a good thing, something she could handle.
She didn't know though.
It was probably all the thoughts of Daisy that caused her inevitable nightmare. Katya smiling and telling her how happy she was that Melinda was taking her home. Phil hugging Katya. Her manic smile.
May woke up in a cold sweat to a loud crash and Phil's voice. "Melinda, hey, wake up!"
She shook herself, realising too late that she'd been crying in her sleep. She wiped her eyes and looked around. "I broke the lamp." She said in a raspy voice. It was true, she must have hit it in her struggling.
"It's okay." Phil murmured. "Do you want to talk about it?" He didn't hold her. He'd learned from experience that that just made it worse.
She shook her head. "No."
A moment later there was a thump from the other room and the sound of a door opening. They looked at each other. "I'll get her." Phil said, standing and all but running out of the room.
When he saw Daisy with her bag over one shoulder, going for the front door, he panicked. "Daisy, wait!"
By the time she had turned to look at him with wide, frightened eyes, Phil had already reached her, grasping her arm to keep her from running out the door. Daisy let out a strange whimpering yelp and the contact and twisted away. Phil cursed. "Crap, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, just- please, don't run away, nothing's wrong."
Daisy eyed him hesitantly, trying to think of another exit. "You're lying."
"I'm not." He promised. "It was just a lamp, okay? Melinda accidentally knocked it over."
She swallowed. "How."
"I had a nightmare." Daisy looked over to see May standing in the doorway of their room. She looked... small. Smaller than Daisy thought she could be.
"You?" The question escaped before Daisy could stop it. She knew that Melinda had her own trauma. She had just seemed so tough, right from the moment they had met. Tough people didn't let things like that get to them. Right?
May shrugged, still looking so very small. "Flashback." She muttered to the ground. "I'm sorry I scared you. Everything's okay, go back to bed."
Daisy's hand on her bag loosened. No one was hurt. No one was after her. Maybe it really was just an accident. She swallowed. "Okay." She turned, resolving to hurry to her room, just in case.
Before she reached her room, Phil spoke. "Daisy." He said, keeping his voice quiet. "I'm sorry I grabbed you. I panicked and I shouldn't have done that."
"It's okay." She mumbled without turning to look at him, then pushed the door closed, the lock clicking behind her.
Phil sighed, feeling utterly useless. "I'll get the vacuum." He murmured. "Go back to bed. I'll be there in a minute."
May shook her head. "I'll grab the larger pieces." She swallowed. "Thank you."
The overtones came across loud and clear. Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for not leaving me. Thank you for not making a big deal out of this. Phil shook his head. "It's no problem." He murmured. "I love you."
She managed the tiniest of smiles. "I know."