Phil carried Skye's two bags of clothes into the house, leaving her and Melinda out on the driveway. Melinda held out her hand to the little girl, and Skye eyed it for a moment, before taking it with her own and being led into the house.
The house smelled nice, Skye noted. That was always a good thing. There had been past foster homes that stank of wet dog or old people and soup, which hadn't necessarily been what made them bad, but it had set the tone for her stay. So far, Phil and Melinda were way up there with the good foster homes Skye had stayed in.
Melinda kicked the door shut behind them, keeping a hold of Skye's hand and gently pulling her into a living room, where Phil was placing the bags of clothing on the floor by one of the couches.
"How about we do a little house tour, and then we can unpack your things a little later?" Phil asked.
"Um…okay." Skye mumbled, suddenly feeling shy now that she was invading on the Coulson's house.
"Why don't you leave you backpack in here with your clothes?" Melinda asked, swinging their joined hands to grab Skye's attention.
Skye looked up with panicked eyes. "But what if it gets stolen?" She asked seriously.
"Honey, there's only us three in the house." Melinda assured her. "And we're all going to be together. I guarantee you, your backpack will not be stolen."
"Are you sure? 'Cos, I'll be so mad if we come back and it's gone." Skye tugged on Melinda's hand. "Like, you don't even know how mad I'll be."
"So mad?" Melinda asked with a smirk, but Skye nodded, expression serious.
"Yes. So mad."
"What's so special about your backpack, then?" Phil asked, perching on the arm of the couch.
Skye scoffed. "Nothing. It used to be one of the boy's who got fostered last summer. Mine got broken in a tug-fight, that was definitely not my fault at all, no matter what that stupid Stacey Renwick says, and I got his to use for school."
"Okay." Phil said slowly.
"It's what's inside that's special." Skye smiled.
"And what's inside?" Phil prompted, reaching out to touch the bag as Skye placed it next to her others.
She slapped his hand away, though not particularly hard but it made a noise that resounded around the living room. It was just a 'warning slap' like Sister Margaret sometimes gave when Skye was acting up.
"None of your damn business." She said, moving the bag further away from Phil.
For a second, it looked as though Phil was going to begin laughing, but then Melinda's hand tightened slightly on Skye's and she looked up to see a terrifying 'serious' expression on the woman's face. When Skye looked back down to Phil, he too shared the expression.
She was in trouble.
"I'm sorry." Skye said without prompting. Expressions like that indicated an apology was needed quickly in order to diffuse the situation. Skye had plenty of experience when it came to saying 'sorry' first and hoping for the best. "I'm very sorry."
"And what are you sorry for?" Melinda asked, no longer look scary but still serious, and Skye paled.
She had no idea.
"Er…I'm, I-," Skye stuttered, looking up at the woman. "I'm just sorry for doing the bad thing." The little girl settled on.
Melinda's expression softened minutely and she crouched down to Skye's level.
"Tell me why you're sorry, Skye." She instructed.
Skye looked over to Phil, hoping for some sort of clue, but Melinda put a gentle finger on her cheek to bring her gaze back to her. The woman raised her brows in question.
"I'm sorry because you're mad at me." Skye said, biting her bottom lip nervously, a bad habit she'd picked up at some point after foster home number seven. Mr and Mrs Dawson; they had been shouters.
"I'm not mad at you, Skye." Melinda said. "But you did do something that Phil and I don't approve of. Can you maybe think back to what that could be?"
Skye nibbled on her bottom lip as she thought. She had said 'damn' but that wasn't even a real swear word. The kids at the orphanage said way worse than that for stupider reasons. She had hit Phil's hand, but not hard and he'd deserved it anyway, making out like he was going to touch her stuff. But maybe Phil and Melinda didn't like things like that. Hitting in any capacity was naughty and Skye knew that. She berated herself in her head; of course hitting was bad, of course swearing was bad. She was bad. Skye was being bad and difficult and Phil and Melinda were going to send her back already.
"I'm sorry." Skye gasped, looking to Phil with wide, wet eyes and trembling lips. "I'm so sorry for hitting you, Phil." A sob escaped her throat as Skye looked back over at Melinda. "Please don't make me go back yet. Please let me stay a little longer." She was crying now, properly, and embarrassingly. Skye didn't want to go back to the orphanage yet. Not yet.
"Oh, little one," Melinda sighed, reaching out to cup Skye's cheek, "we're not sending you back. Not now, not ever."
Skye sobbed again, and it only took a gentle encouragement of a hand on her back from Melinda, before Skye was throwing herself in the woman's arms, wrapping her own skinny arms around her neck. The little girl pressed her face in Melinda's neck and cried.
What she was really crying for, Skye wasn't entirely sure. Relief that they weren't going to throw her out? Possibly. Guilt for hitting Phil; maybe? Or maybe it was jut because she was a rotten kid in care, an orphan that no one had ever put up with when the going got tough, and being able to hug Melinda, have Melinda hug her back, felt overwhelmingly wonderful.
"Come on, it's okay." Melinda soothed, and lifted Skye off her feet. She wrapped her legs around the woman's waist in an automatic response and Melinda rocked her like a baby, bouncing her and shushing her like Skye couldn't remember anyone having done before.
Hugs were really nice. Melinda's hugs felt really, really nice.
Skye felt Phil approach from the side and she shifted her position in Melinda's arms so that she could look at him. She had to let go of Melinda with one arm to wipe the tears from her eyes in order to see him properly, but Melinda tightened her own arms around Skye to keep her stable.
"I'm sorry I hit you, Phil." She hiccupped.
Phil wiped a few more stray tears from her cheeks and smiled at her, far more kindly than she felt she deserved.
"I forgive you, Skye." He said. "I forgive you, okay?"
Skye dropped her head to lean on Melinda's chest. She was still rocking her.
"I'm sorry I was bad." She whispered to both of them.
Melinda kissed the top of her head. "You weren't bad. You just made a bad decision, and now you're sorry and you're forgiven, so it's all over." She tilted Skye's face up to look her in the eye with a finger under her chin. "Choosing to hit, and to swear, are bad decisions. But we forgive you. Don't we?"
"Of course we forgive you." Phil nodded.
"So, now, we can move past this, and hopefully, next time you'll make a better decision. Huh?"
"I'll be good." Skye said.
"All we ask is that you try." Phil said.
Skye looked between the two of them, the man who was being so kind to her and the woman who held her lovingly in her arms, even though they'd only known her hours. They had no reason to be so nice to her. What was she? Skye was nothing but a scruffy orphan with little going for her.
"Why are you being so nice to me?"
"Because," Melinda said, "you've had a lot of bad experiences," she rubbed Skye's back as she rocked her, "and you've been so brave, and you deserve a family."
"You deserve better, Skye." Phil reiterated. He rubbed a hand over the back of her head. "We want to give you better."
Skye sucked her thumb. Back at St Agnes' she got shouted at or ridiculed for sucking her thumb, but it made the crying stop and the tight feeling in her tummy dissipate slightly, and anyway, Melinda and Phil didn't seem to mind.
Melinda walked over to the couch and sat down, settling Skye on her lap and stroking back the little girl's dark hair. She could probably feel the tangles, Skye thought; she hadn't bothered to brush it that morning. Usually when someone was touching her hair it hurt. In the orphanage it was either being pulled or snagged or having a hairbrush raked through it, but the way Melinda touched her hair made Skye feel all calm and sleepy. She closed her eyes.
Skye opened them again when the sofa dipped next to her, and Phil smiled gently, holding a tattered-looking, but brightly coloured book.
"How about we have a story?" He said.
"M'too old for picture books." Skye grumbled around her thumb, well aware that in her position on Melinda's lap with a thumb in her mouth, she was hardly too old for anything.
"Well I'm not." Phil smiled. "I got this book when I was seven years old."
"Long time ago." Skye commented, noting the worn spine and slightly crumpled edges of the pages.
"Yeah, because I'm so old. And I loved it when I was seven, and I still love it now, so I'm going to read it, and you can listen if you want."
Skye looked over at the picture of the superhero on the first page as Phil smoothed his hand over the page. She recognised the figure, with his blue and red costume and the white star on his chest.
"Who's that?" She asked, pointing to the figure.
"Who's that?" Phil repeated her, an exaggerated expression of shock on his face. "Oh, Skye, you have so much to learn."
Melinda snorted. "Oh, boy. Get ready for a history lesson, little one."
Phil continued, ignoring his wife. "This, dear child, is the great Captain America."
"Phil is in love with Captain America." Melinda teased.
The title rang a bell in Skye's mind, but nothing concrete settled itself in her consciousness. Her blank look only seemed to spur on Phil, and his enthusiasm made her smile around her thumb.
"Captain America is a war hero. A national gem." Phil's face went serious, making Skye smile even more. "He is the greatest superhero of all time."
Skye giggled, taking her thumb away from her mouth. "Kay."
"Kay? Kay? That's all you have to say on the matter?" Phil shook his head and turned his attention back to the first page of the book. "The man is a national hero."
"He's also not real." Melinda laughed.
"Don't listen to her, Skye. He's totally real."
Skye nodded and shifted on Melinda's lap so that that she could see the pictures properly. She leaned her head back on Melinda's shoulder, thumb making its way back to her mouth.
"I wanna hear the story, now." Skye said, and Phil settled closer to Melinda, propping the book up between them.
"Okay." He said. "Now listen up, little one, as I regale you with the tale of the greatest superhero to ever walk this earth."
…
As Phil read the story of Captain America and his quest to defeat the evil Red Skull, Melinda stroked Skye's dark hair, letting her own mind wander, Phil's voice washing over her with the all too familiar story. Phil's book had been read to, or by, practically every one of the kids who had come through their house over the years. It seemed to relax the frightened little ones, and calm down the angsty teens. Even the most unlikely of kids had taken to the book, including a firety-tempered, fourteen year old, Natasha Romanoff, still haunted by a Cold War she was far too young to experience.
Like Phil, Melinda could recite that book word for word, as could both of their daughters. Captain America certainly made the rounds in the Coulson household.
On her lap, Skye made a little sleepy noise around her thumb. Melinda rubbed her back, relishing in the feeling of the little girl burrowing closer to her chest. It had been so long since she'd had a little one to cuddle, and yes, her two adult daughters still counted as 'little ones'.
Her and Phil had been talking about having another child in the house since before Natasha had left for college over a year ago. For that length of time they'd been searching for a child to take in and give a better life.
They had seen Skye's story purely by accident, when reading through some other files of children who lived at St. Agnes'. A name kept popping up in many of the kids' behavioural reports, over and over, consistently involved in any trouble over the years.
"After being provoked by Mary Sue Poots, David then..."
"Stacey claims the fight was started by another girl, Mary Sue, who…"
"Andrew and Joshua claim the game was broken by Mary Sue Poots, though she denies any involvement. All three will receive punishment in the form of a week of extra chores and…"
Out of curiosity, Phil had requested the file of a certain 'Mary Sue Poots' from Abby, and after reading through the little girl's life history, both came to the conclusion that this was the little girl for them. Both of them had soft spots for the kids with some personality.
Melinda had only read Skye's file last week, seen some photographs of her a day later, and then had a meeting scheduled with Abby, regarding the logistics, the day after that. She rubbed a hand up and down Skye's arm and smiled over at Phil, who continued to read with enthusiasm, doing all the characters' voices and making Skye giggle. Melinda was damn glad they had made the decision to bring Skye home.
It was an unexplainable feeling she felt when she cuddled Skye; a feeling that Melinda had only felt with three other people in her life. She had married one of those people and the other two were now her daughters. It just felt right. Skye being a part of their family was right.
Phil paused in his reading and when Melinda looked over to him, he was smiling at Skye. She looked down to notice the little girl's eyes drooping shut.
"You want to take a nap?" Phil asked Skye, but the little girl opened her eyes and shook her head.
"Keep reading the story." She said. "Please." Skye added as what seemed to be an afterthought.
"Okay." Phil began to read again.
Skye looked up to Melinda with wide eyes. The little girl said nothing, but took her hand away from her mouth and gently ran a finger along Melinda's cheekbone. Melinda stayed still, allowing Skye to gently trace her features, before Skye looked back over to the book, put her thumb back in her mouth and hooked her fingers over her nose, rubbing the bridge soothingly.
Children were fascinating things, and this one, Melinda was sure, belonged in their family.
…
Phil never made it to the end of the book before Skye was sleeping soundly in Melinda's arms. He stopped reading once it became obvious that Skye's heavy breathing was an indication she was no longer listening to him. He closed the book and leaned forward to put it on the coffee table. Melinda smiled at him in the way that made him tingle.
"We made the right decision." He announced quietly, brushing back some of Skye's hair and wrapping an arm around Mel's shoulders.
"Yeah, we did." Melinda agreed.
"She's going to be hard work, this one." Phil grinned. "Why don't we ever pick the easy kids?"
"Because then we'd be bored out of our minds, and anyway," she pressed a kiss to Skye's hair and the little girl's arm tightened around her in her sleep, "I think the kids pick us."
Phil kissed Mel's cheek, smiling. "Wait until we tell Tasha we might have a little one with a temper that could rival hers."
Melinda snorted. "Yeah right. I know what Skye's file said, but even she never punched a nun in the face. I think we can safely say, Nat's place as 'most aggressive child' is not being rivalled at this point."
"God," Phil sniggered, "a teenager punches one nun in the face and suddenly they're aggressive."
"Hey, I stand by my little girl." Melinda said. "Nat was perfectly justified in that punch, and anyway she hasn't been in fight since high school. Nat's fine now."
"And Skye will be, too."
"Mmm." Mel touched Skye's cheek. "She will be." She looked back over at Phil. "We won't give up on her."
"Never. We know that, we just have to make sure she believes it, too." He sighed. "I know I've asked this so many times before about so many kids, but, how could anyone have let all this crap happen to this little one?"
Melinda shrugged and smiled at him sadly. She answered in the same way she had when he'd asked about all the other kids they'd ever cared for. Bobbi, Natasha, Trip, even Clint, and all of the many others they'd taken into emergency care for days at a time. Phil knew it broke her heart to say it as much as it broke his to hear it. "I just don't know."
…
When Skye woke up with her face pressed against the unfamiliar material of a couch, it took her a moment to stamp down on the panic that arose, and to remind herself of where she was.
She was in her new home with her new foster parents. Phil and Melinda.
For a second, Skye worried that they had left her all alone, and she began thinking of the bad things she could have done to make them mad, but when she turned over to face away from the back of the couch, Melinda was sitting on the coffee table, smiling gently.
"Hey, sleepy head." She said. "You've had a pretty long nap."
Skye pushed herself up to a sitting position and rubbed at her eyes. She felt a little too hot and a little like she wanted to lay down again, but instead she pushed her hair away from her face and looked back at Melinda.
"You feeling a little better?" The woman asked, and Skye felt her cheeks heat up at the memory of crying in front of Phil and Melinda, only seconds after being let into their house.
But now that she thought about it, she did kind of feel better. She couldn't remember the last time she had been allowed to nap during the day.
Skye nodded. "Bit better."
"Good. You hungry, sweetie? Phil's making dinner."
Skye was hungry. Really hungry now that Melinda had brought her attention the empty feeing in her tummy. Again, she nodded.
Melinda stood and held out both arms. "Come on, then."
Skye stood up and eyed Melinda's arms curiously. Sometimes grown ups held out their hand so you would hold it, especially when they thought you might run away, but she wasn't sure what Melinda was asking her to do. At her pause, Melinda took the initiative and lifted Skye up onto her hip, holding her there in the living room for a moment, and kissing her cheek.
"Let's get you some dinner."
Skye wanted to tell her that she didn't need to be carried to the kitchen and that she was too old for that, but she didn't. Melinda carried her through the house and to the kitchen and Skye stayed quiet and wrapped her arms around Melinda's neck.
Hugs were nice.
"Hey, you're up." Phil said when they entered the room.
Skye looked around as Melinda sat her on the island in the centre of the room, smelling whatever Phil was cooking. She wasn't sure what it was, but smelled really good and Skye's tummy grumbled loudly.
"Hungry?" Phil grinned.
"Mm hm." Skye said, swinging her legs off the side of the counter.
"I guess you were tired." Phil said, picking up a pan and flicking it so that all the vegetables inside were tossed in the air before landing neatly back on the slate. "You slept for a long time."
"Sorry." Skye said automatically and Phil shook his head.
"No, don't be sorry. You were tired and you took a nap, that's a good thing." He assured her.
"Kay." She said, unconvinced.
Melinda went to the fridge and came back with a juice box, handing it to Skye. It was an apple one. Skye's favourite, well except for soda, but she was never allowed soda anymore.
She knew for a fact that somewhere in her file that there was a page that said soda made Skye "Hyperactive and difficult to control" because she had seen Abby writing it after she once climbed to the very top of the jungle gym at a birthday party when she lived with Mr and Mrs Jackson, and wouldn't come down even when they shouted at her.
Mr and Mrs Jackson took her back to St. Agnes' the next day because they said she was too difficult to cope with, and no one listened to Skye when she tried to explain that she had been too scared of heights to climb down from the jungle gym on her own. Abby had been angry with Skye after Mr and Mrs Jackson had brought her back, even if she never said it, the way she looked at Skye and sighed and mumbled in the office meant that Skye could tell. Abby always got a little angry when Skye messed up.
Mind on the train of thought of going back to St. Agnes' Skye asked, "How long do I get to stay with you guys?"
Melinda frowned at her and Phil stopped stirring something to peer at Skye.
"What do you mean?" Melinda asked.
Skye shifted under their gazes and looked down at her juice box, fiddling with the straw. "Just, I wanted to know for how long do I get to stay with you before you make me go back." She looked back up at them. "Sometimes I think it might be longer than it is." She thought back to the Jacksons and them dropping her at the door just an hour after she'd woken up in a bed she'd been sleeping in for almost a month.
"Honey," Melinda said gently, putting her hand on Skye's cheek, "For as long as you want to, you're staying with Phil and I." She stroked Skye's cheek with her thumb. "I meant what I said before, we're never going to take you back, no matter what you do."
Skye frowned, studying Melinda's face. She had a nice face, a kind face, an honest expression made Skye want to believe her. She really, really wanted to. But it was hard to trust anyone, never mind someone she had only met that day.
"Do you believe us?" Phil asked, crossing the room to stand next to Melinda.
"No." Skye said honestly.
"You will." Melinda smiled. "One day, you're going to believe us when we tell you that we'll never leave you. Bobbi and Nat didn't used to believe us when they first arrived, but they know now. We'll never leave you. I promise." She smiled and crouched down slightly to rub her nose against Skye's.
Skye laughed, copying Melinda and shaking her head side to side to brush their noses. "You'll never ever leave me no matter how bad I am?" Skye asked, face touching Melinda's.
"I promise that no matter how many bad decisions you make, no matter what you do, or what you say, as long as you want to be in our family, you will be in our family."
Skye leaned back on the counter so that Melinda could stand up straight, and so that she could look at Phil. He was nodding along with Melinda's words.
"I'll try to believe you." Skye said to both of them. "I'll try because…" she looked away, out of the kitchen window where it was already dark outside and the streetlamps had come on. "…because I want a family." Skye felt her cheeks get hot and she chewed her lip. She dared to look back at Phil and Melinda.
They were smiling at her.
"We'll be your family, Skye." Phil said. "If you would like us to be."
Skye looked between them, and thought back to her other foster homes. This would be her tenth. Her tenth in eight years. Of those ten, Skye had clear memories of exactly five, not including this one, all five of which ended with her being dumped back at the orphanage with varying empty apologies and even more unpleasant experiences under her belt.
No one, in all of her homes, had ever been as kind as Phil and Melinda. No one had ever been as caring or loving in all the time she had ever spent with foster parents, as these two had been in the short time she had spent with them.
Kids in care tended to suffer from one of two fatal flaws; they didn't trust, or they trusted too easily. Skye had flitted between the two, depending on the family, but the fact of the matter was, no matter what her feeling, she had always been let down. Always. And it was no one else's fault but her own, no matter what anyone said, it must be Skye's fault; ten homes, nine of which had ended badly because of her.
It was only a matter of time before she did something to end number ten and make Phil and Melinda so mad that they wouldn't want her anymore.
But Skye did want a family. She tried so hard to be good, because more than anything she just wanted a family. A family like the other kids at school had, with mommies and daddies and brothers and sisters who all loved each other. Skye wanted that.
Skye really wanted that.
"Yes." She said quietly. "I'd like to be in your family."
Phil beamed at her and Melinda lifted her off the counter and hugged her tightly. Skye hugged her back and pressed her face into Melinda's shoulder, closing her eyes.
Yes. She'd be a part of this family for a while. And she'd try really, really hard to be so good, that they would want to keep her around, just like Bobbi and Natasha.
Skye would try so hard.
A/N: Review please! Let me know what you think. xxx