This routine of theirs continues on, day after day.
First, Skye will eat breakfast with Lincoln or go out early with Jiaying. After some more practice with her new powers- she's getting better, she thinks- she'll sit down for lunch, then enjoy an afternoon of learning more about Afterlife's people and culture, all the while stealing kisses from Gordon whenever she can pull him aside or catch him alone.
And every night, he returns to her hut, to her bed, to her touch.
Jiaying has yet to catch on.
When Gordon sheds his shirt on the fourth night, Skye sees that his right forearm is swathed in tightly wound bandages. She's not sure if she imagines the jagged-edged, thin line of red bleeding through them or not, but the shape bears an uncanny resemblance to the slash of a sharp knife.
"I have been working with Raina. I think we are finally getting close to discovering what her gift may be." He says when she asks about it, his voice holding its normal calm cadence and sounding far too unconcerned about the matter.
Some of her old frustration with Raina rises up at the mention of her harming someone she cares for. It never ends. "Raina? She did that to you?"
"It was an accident, Skye." He reassures her, quickly picking up on her suddenly unearthed resentment. "It isn't Raina's fault that she is covered in quills."
"It definitely wasn't an accident." Skye mutters under her breath, shaking her head, before she addresses Gordon again. Raina doesn't do anything by accident. "But seriously? Raina? Why her?"
His tone is unchanging, patient, level as always. "I'm the only Inhuman here with the experience of undergoing a physical transformation; Because of that, I'm the only one here who really understands what she is going through."
It takes a little more coaxing to push her irritation down and put her back at ease, but Gordon doesn't seem to have a problem with having to do so. It's not long before she's within his embrace, falling to the bed with his lips on her neck.
For the time being, all is well.
Of course, Jiaying eventually does catch wind of the nature of their relationship, and everything falls apart.
The morning following her seventh night with Gordon, Skye is summoned to her mother's office. It's a bright morning, but she can feel the undercurrent of something shadowy looming over it all. This hasn't happened before.
"Are you okay?" Lincoln asks her at breakfast, trying to keep the tone light. "You look like you've just been sentenced to death or something."
"It's just-" She's not sure how to describe the uncomfortable feeling swirling in her gut. "My mom…wants to see me. I think something's wrong."
He tries for a confused smile, one that fades once he realizes that she's serious. "Look, if it was as serious as you think it is, Jiaying would come to you, not call you to her. It's probably nothing to worry about."
But his words don't make her feel any better, and she leaves the table without having taken even a single bite of her meal.
Shortly after, Skye makes her way to where Jiaying's office is. She's been there a couple of times already, but only under circumstances regarding her new powers. She senses that this is not one of those meetings, and that is only confirmed once she arrives to find Gordon about to enter the building himself.
"What are you doing here?" She asks, after greetings are exchanged.
He's silent for a long moment, his head tilted thoughtfully. Then, he stiffens, his jaw setting grimly. He looks like he's walking to his death. "The same as you, I imagine."
"I don't understa- Oh, no." It hits her then, in the form of her blood feeling like someone's poured cold water into it, and she turns on him in accusation. She'd been right to worry, after all. Because Jiaying knows. About them. Her current worst fears, coming true… "Did you-"
"It wasn't me." Gordon tells her as smoothly as he can manage, though she doesn't miss the uncharacteristically tense undertone that reveals itself and makes his own uneasiness known. "I haven't said a word of it to anyone."
Skye believes him, for as far as she's aware, he has little reason to lie to her. He hasn't done so yet. "If neither one of us told anyone, how did she find out?"
He pauses to ponder the question, and then seems to twinge in regret just before he freezes up again, one word- one name- on his tongue. "Amara."
"Who's Amara?" Even though she's been in Afterlife for over a week, she's only met a small fraction of its limited population.
"Her gift is her hearing." He explains, haphazardly gesturing up towards his ear. He sounds faintly impressed, beneath the thin layer of disquieted horror at the forefront of his voice. "It's better than anyone else's."
Her stomach twists. "You don't mean…?"
He almost hesitates when he nods, grimacing.
Oh God. She tastes bile in her mouth, rising fast in the crevices. "I think I'm going to throw up."
"We shouldn't keep her waiting. I don't imagine she's very happy with either one of us." Gordon says, already closing himself off to her.
But he's right, and Skye reluctantly gives in when he gestures for her to go on inside ahead of him, swallowing back the bitter taste that represents her growing dread.
The twin doors almost feel heavy when she opens them, though she knows it to be more psychological than anything. These doors, they hold the weight of her burdens on them, and she finds that it really does feel like she's walking to her death- she'll never forgive Lincoln for making that comment, playfully intended as it was.
She's only been in Jiaying's office a couple of times since her arrival in Afterlife, so she hopes that her amazement at the rich assortment of crimsons and mahoganies painted across the room's every surface is understandable, though she spares herself the question of where her mother got such beautiful furnishings. Not here to admire the view.
The sound of Gordon closing the doors behind them sends a chill up her spine, an icy feeling of finality. She has the desperate urge to run. But she can't, of course, and she hates it.
Jiaying herself is seated at the small desk situated on the far side of the room. She does not look pleased to see them- not in the slightest. The woman does try to soften her expression with a sigh, however, and Skye just about flinches when she finally speaks.
"Skye, you can't stay in Afterlife if you keep distracting my people from their work- even if you are my daughter. They need to stay focused on their goals and their jobs. They mustn't lose sight of that because of your presence and behavior. You know that."
And Skye, as per usual, has no control over her mouth in the face of overwhelming emotion, her heartbeat speeding up in an ashamed outrage. "I wasn't distracting him, I-"
Jiaying silences her with a pointed look and a raised hand. "Enough. Your actions spoke louder than your words do, Skye. If you cannot learn to handle this situation professionally, then perhaps you should reconsider staying here. And, Gordon," She turns to the blind man, gazing somewhere behind Skye,"I expected more from you. You're old enough to be her father."
He doesn't say anything, and Skye glances back at him. His head is angled towards the floor, and she feels another flare of fury, a stronger one, over the fact that Jiaying has him in a position where he's not confident enough to respond. Gordon is only in this situation because she just had to give in to her twisted desires.
"Mom, it's not his fault, it's mine-" She tries, whipping back around to face her.
"Skye." Gordon's voice is quiet in a way that's painfully unbecoming of him, in a way that makes her heart ache in sympathy. "Just...stop talking. You're not helping."
But she can't listen to him in that simple request, and the words explode from where she's been holding them in for the duration of the entire week. "I love him, Mom!"
Her outburst grabs all of the sound in the room and throws it out the window. The silence that follows is tense, heavy with various swirling emotions. Even Skye is frozen. She hadn't exactly meant to say what she just had, especially not in front of Jiaying, whose eyes are wide in a sort of infuriated shock, her mouth floundering for words. Gordon's sightless gaze is still floorward in avoidance. His jaw is locked.
Skye feels the weight of the room on her shoulders, and her face heats up in the regret of having spoken at all. She swallows, taking care not to look at either of the others. Gordon was right. I totally should have stopped talking.
She doesn't feel the air shift until Jiaying speaks again, hard in her resolve. "This cannot go on any longer. Gordon, take Skye to her room, then spend the rest of the day watching Cal."
Gordon steps up behind her without a word, and Skye makes a point of not looking him in the face. She doesn't know what she might find there, but she knows that it won't be anything good. She hasn't just humiliated herself, she's humiliated him as well.
He places a hand on her shoulder, and his brilliant blue light encompasses the both of them. A blink later, and Jiaying's office is gone, replaced with the interior of the cabin-hut that has just begun to feel like home. So much for that.
She steps away from him, and flinches at the sound of his abrupt departure. The light fades soon after, and she is alone, again, just like at the Retreat.
Gordon, forgive me.
The day is long, and by the time night finally falls, Skye is utterly restless and sick of the hut. No one has been by to speak to her, and she can't help but wonder if the news is being spread or kept close to the vest. She's not sure if she'll be able to face Lincoln after this, if it turns out that what happened is made public. She definitely won't be able to face Gordon ever again, that's for sure. She might not even be able to if Jiaying keeps the news confidential. Skye messed up- she messed up bad.
Sitting in her home-turned-cell for the duration of the day has given her bucketloads of time to think. And not just about the chaos she's unleashed here in Afterlife, but about SHIELD and what she's missing out on there.
Coulson would never send anyone to kill her- something that, oddly enough, is just occurring to her- but, evidently, something's gone wrong. They might need her, and here she's gone and gotten herself locked up, away from her only way out of Afterlife. She misses them, now more than ever.
She hopes there is a SHIELD for her to go back to once all of this is done and over with.
Unfortunately, thinking and worrying haven't gotten her anywhere. Neither has the offline Minesweeper app on her low-battery laptop. She's still stuck in Afterlife with an angry mother- and she's more miserable than before. At least Jiaying doesn't have anyone keeping watch on her. It means that she could probably leave and sit outside if she wanted, though she's yet to test that theory.
Skye has tried meditation again, though it didn't last. She has too much on her mind to stay focused on doing such a foreign, trivial thing.
It's only as night falls that she has found a source of bittersweet entertainment, her gaze cast out the window and onto the path. She imagines Gordon there, seven nights ago, dripping wet and half-collapsed on the ground beside another man. She watches the way he moves as he speaks, the way he tries to compensate for his muffled senses. And, somehow, that mild irritation is easier to stand than the way he'd refused to look at her this morning.
He's never going to forgive her, is he? She thinks she understands that, now, but there is no way she is going to accept it. She needs to apologize to him, needs him to understand that she didn't mean for this to happen. She needs him to know that she's sorry. She is so sorry.
But how does she say it? How does she word it in a way that sounds genuine, in a way that won't further push him away from her?
There's a knock on the door, then, and Skye quite literally jumps several inches where she sits on the bed. She'd been so lost within her own thoughts- so deep into seeing men that aren't really there- that she hadn't seen an actual person stroll up to her temporary home. Now that is embarrassing.
Please, please, please don't be Gordon. Because she is in desperate need to talk to someone, to be distracted from her own mind, that she's going to open the door no matter what.
But she hasn't exactly had much- hasn't really had any- luck in terms of opening doors to normal, friendly conversations as of late, something proven again when she opens hers this time, only to come face to neck with- oh. Oh, no.
It's Gordon. Of course it is.
She's not ready to be confronted by him yet, and she struggles to find her voice. She manages to squeak out his name before she clears her throat so as to sound less surprised. "I wanted to apologize-"
Skye cuts herself off as she realizes that he's said something as well.
"Sorry, that was- that was rude." She mumbles, unable to hold her gaze steady. "What?"
"We can't keep doing this." Her eyes finally snap up to his face, only to find it in avoidance of turning towards her own.
Her apology freezes on her tongue, shock and dread drilling down to her very core in a way that makes her muscles turn to lead. She doesn't know what to say. Even if she did, she's not sure what she could say. "Gordon-"
He shakes his head, not letting her go on. His voice is firm in a way that hurts her. "I'm serious, Skye. This, whatever it is, needs to stop."
"Look, if this is because of what Jiaying said-"
"It's not." A lie, plain as day. But he's looking at her now, his eyeless gaze trying to penetrate her, trying to convince her that he's convinced himself. And yet, it's so clear to her that he hasn't, that he doesn't want to do this. "The choice is my own."
It's not. She can't help how her eyes narrow, how her suspicion bleeds into her voice. He's lying to her. He's lying to her, and she hates it. "Then why doesn't it sound like it, Gordon? Why does it sound like it's tearing you apart?"
His jaw ticks, and he takes a pace back. "I stand by what I said. I shouldn't have let this get out of control."
What? Skye stares at him, her mouth hanging open at the bombshell.
Her eyes are still glued to his back as he leaves without another word between them. A horrible, god-awful feeling worms its way into her chest, and she chokes on a sob. She claps a hand over her mouth, grabs the door, and all but slams it shut before she turns her back on it and slides down to the floor.
She holds her face in her hands and cries. For Gordon. For Coulson, FitzSimmons, May, and Mack, and Bobbi, and Hunter. She even cries for Ward. But, mostly, she just cries for herself.
Because she ruined everything, and now there's nothing left.