The thing about Skye
She doesn't break- until she shatters
Daisy jolts awake from her dream. It's not one of her normal ones. There's nothing terrible that truly happens. It's just her and Coulson, alone- stuck in a pod. It's the feelings generated that unnerves her. The deep seeded wrongness of it- the overwhelming anxiety and discontent.
When she wakes, all she sees is the white of the containment module.
She doesn't remember falling asleep. Doesn't remember actually reaching base after Lash pulled the pulsing, beautiful, light out of her. All the happiness out of her.
Daisy stares at the ceiling, and wants more than anything in her entire life, to go back. Back to HIVE. Back to the monster wearing another monster's face. She's exactly where she needs to be. Locked up. Kept where she can't hurt anyone anymore.
Memories play out across the ceiling, whispers in her ears. When she puts her head in her hands, she can see the blood on them. Smell it. Feel the crack of bones as she wills each death.
She's not awake long before Jemma comes to her, sheltered safely on the other side of the glass. Safe from Daisy. It doesn't escape her notice that Jemma is the only one she didn't hurt personally. Daisy tells her everything she knows.
She's left alone again, and Daisy lets the feeling- of being alone- soak into her skin, worm itself into her blood, her chest, her fingertips. She welcomes it and holds onto it. Wishes someone will come and scream at her. Rage at her. Punish her.
She knows they won't, though. Her team is too good, too forgiving- they love her even if she's a useless, undeserving, piece of shit. She should rot in here, but she knows they won't let her. Not for long.
They'll excuse her actions, reason it out, say it wasn't her fault. But it was. Even now, not under the Sway, all she wants is to go back. She wants to find HIVE. They think it's for revenge, but it's not. She wishes it was. She wants him to take her back.
Everyone would be safer if she never saw the light of day. How could they trust her, she trust herself, if she'd go back to him given the chance, and end up killing them for him if only she can feel that connection again. That connection she thinks she's been searching for her entire life.
Daisy goes back to staring at the ceiling. Replays every moment she was under the Sway. She'll punish herself if they won't.
….
"You were brainwashed."
"So was Ward. We make the perfect pair."
Coulson winces again, remembering those words. For Daisy to say those words and about him- it settles a deep dreading hurt in his chest. Because he knows what Ward did to her. It's one of the leading reasons to Coulson caving his chest in. And in doing so, he set this all new, terrible, thing on Daisy.
He can't help wondering if this is the thing to break her. He didn't think it possible with all the other things she's been through.
But he watches her now, on the monitor. She hasn't moved in hours- laying in that same spot, just staring at the ceiling with a worryingly blank expression. Coulson has never seen Daisy so still- the girl always busying herself with something, and she's always so expressive. It's unnerving to see her look so much like a corpse that still blinks every now and then.
She's hurting, and Coulson wants to help, but he doesn't know how. It took him eight years to get through to May, and that only happened because he died.
…..
There is an undeniable urgency in the air. A deadline. A countdown ticking away the seconds to the end of the human world. It's chaos and gavity, and there is a bomb on the plane. And someone is prophesied to die, though only Daisy seems to remember.
It's always in her head like a blaring warning sign to- get ready- distance yourself- crash position. It's pure relief when she realizes that it's going to be her. That she doesn't have to live with this agony anymore- live with all that she's done- what she'd still be willing to do if only something inside her weren't broken.
She clutches the little cross- her destiny- and it burns. She wonders if the nuns were right. If there was something in her, as a baby, that told them how she'd turn out. Born with the devil in her, they said.
They tried to beat it out of her- exorcize it from her- but she guesses it didn't work. Maybe this was always her destiny. Her fate. The cross has been hanging over her head for so long, even before the vision, and now it's in her hand and she's relieved. God is merciful after all. It's going to be her to go, and the rest of her team- her family- can live.
And then it's not her. It's suddenly Lincoln blasting into space with a nuclear bomb and an alien wearing the face of Grant Ward.
The team scrambles to get the plane back, to turn it around, because Daisy is already breaking down. She's shattered, and now the pieces are being ground under a boot, and they know instinctively that this will break her. This is a tipping point.
Only they can't get the plane back. Even for Daisy, they can't bring it back.
And Daisy crumbles under the weight of grief and guilt and self-loathing. She's gone by morning.
A/N: So, I know I don't normally write things that are already shown in the show, but this came about anyway. Next chapter will be fluff featuring the whole team.
~Silver~