The thing about Skye
Expansion 3 off: She doesn't sleep
Skye wanders the Bus with no real destination in mind. That's usually how it goes when she doesn't have enough work to keep her occupied, and the black hole that is the internet is a little too black-holy to keep Skye's attention for a moment longer.
It's the quiet days that are the worst for Skye.
So, she's wandering, now, aimlessly, from one length of the plane and back. She's on some obnoxiously high numbered lap, by the bunks, when a noise alerts her unoccupied senses. Skye pauses in the hallway, straining her ears.
It's not a specific noise that has her moving to one of the doors. It's just… familiar. Still, she hesitates before giving a very soft knock on the door next to her own empty bunk.
The sound abruptly cuts off. Then there is a slow shuffle and the door slides open just a crack.
"Sorry if I woke you," Fitz mumbles horsely, half-hidden on the other side.
"You didn't," Skye shrugs awkwardly, wondering why she felt the need to intrude in the first place. It's something about the quiet of the plane, the stillness of it, that doesn't make things seem quite real. It's an odd, eerie, peace. Like stepping out at night into a normally busy street, and the only thing out there with you is the steady glow and hum of street lights. "Can I come in?"
Fitz hesitates for an uncertain moment, before slowly sliding his door open the rest of the way. He watches Skye in confusion as she steps across the threshold and, after a short hesitation, climbs onto his bed.
She plucks up a deck of cards on her way, before settling comfortably into a criss-cross position on one side of the messy sheets.
Skye pats the open part of the mattress invitingly before going about shuffling the deck. She watches Fitz, subtly, from the corner of her eye as he decides what he wants to do. Then he settles on the other side of the bed, facing Skye.
"Listen, Skye, I don't really want to-"
"Duh," Skye scoffs. "You know how to play Slap Jack?" She goes about dealing without waiting for an answer.
She feels brave, for some reason. The strange peace is getting to her. Her whole experience with the people on this plane, this team, is.
They play several games in silence, before the scientist breaks it.
"So, what were you doing up? It's not like we really have much in the way of missions going on right now."
"I don't really sleep," Skye admits with a shrug. "I was kinda just… wandering around."
"Wait, really?"
Skye slaps the Jack, winning that round. Fitz starts shuffling for the next. "Well, I sleep. Just… not much. Or at night."
"Why not?"
"You wanna talk about your sleep patterns?" Skye challenges and, to her surprise, he shrugs with only a bit of discomfort. His curiosity must override it.
"Sometimes I have nightmares about my dad. He didn't treat me well before my mom left him and took me with her."
Skye looks across at him, cards wavering in her hands. She hadn't expected him to give in. To tell her anything. She wouldn't have. Skye shifts in immense discomfort. "I just don't," she shrugs, trying to go for indifference but probably failing spectacularly.
Still, the scientist is kind enough to stifle his not insignificant curiosity. "Alright," he says, but Skye recognizes the flicker in his eyes as the abundance of his intelligence turns over any amount of information to form theories and hypotheses.
So, Skye scrambles for something else to talk about before he can draw any definitive conclusions, right or wrong.
"So, how did you and Simmons actually become friends? Was it an instant connection, or what?"
Fitz lights up, like he does every time with anything having to do with Jemma Simmons, and Skye settles in for another round of cards.
…..
Skye is tired. Not because they've been particularly busy these past few days, but because they haven't been, and when Skye tries to sleep, she's always woken again soon after by a plague of nightmares.
So, Skye is trying her very hardest to stay awake, but the Bus is quiet and there is no urgency, and she's tired. She's already milked every possible thing of work to do, and now there is absolutely nothing she could be working on.
She contemplates trying to hack into the pentagon for fun, again- just to see if they've updated their security since the last time she did- but decides it's maybe not such a good idea while she's seeing double.
So she stows her laptop away and decides to wander the bus while she daydreams (is it still daydreaming if it's night time?) about peaceful sleep.
It's not long before she resigns herself to crawling into one of the back seats of the SUVs to try for maybe an hour or two of restless unconsciousness. She's coming down into the car bay when she spots the light on in the lab and she's brought up short.
FitzSimmons are flitting around the lab in excited bursts from one table to the next. It looks a bit manic to watch, especially to Skye's tired brain, and largely considering that she thought the two of them were tucked into bed.
Grateful for the excuse, Skye slips in through the sliding doors, taking in the flurry in full.
Just watching brings a new burst of energy and awakeness to Skye, and she pushes further into the room, careful not to get in the way. The table she normally perches on, against the wall, seems to be the only surface not occupied, so Skye gladly fills the space.
Her genius team members shoot off questions and answers so quickly and with long, obscure, words, that Skye can't even begin to follow the train of thought. Especially since, most of the time, one of them works out what the question is and is already answering before it's halfway asked. Skye doesn't need to know exactly what's going on, though- she knows what matters. Her new friends are going to come up with something that will be amazing.
They are going to change the world.
….
Skye blinks blearily at her computer screen, the codes blending together into one, incoherent stream. The bright light that she's been staring at for hours already, suddenly seems blinding, and she looks up to find the room almost in complete darkness, and the lounge silent.
At some point, the others must have retired to bed.
Skye allows herself to yawn as she rubs the exhaustion from her aching eyes.
Her stomach snarls, even though she ate only a few hours ago with the team. Still. Maybe she should take a break.
Skye folds up her laptop and tucks it under her arm as she creeps her way to the kitchen on light toes. With a paranoid glance around, she plucks a granola bar from the open box in the center of the island, and then trots off toward her bunk where she can abandon her computer before she takes a few laps around the aircraft.
She pauses, though, before she fully leaves the lounge, because a glow catches her attention.
Coulson's office light is still on, and Skye glances toward the numbers on the oven glaring at her across the room.
It's nearing 1:00 AM.
Curiously, Skye ascends the stairs on light feet and glances into the room from the open door. He's hunched low over a stack of papers, an exhaustion crinkle etched into his forehead. He doesn't even glance up at Skye, so she scans the rest of the room while he's distracted, taking in all the trinkets displayed on the shelves, the coffee maker with a half pot on the far wall, and the empty mug making rings on the coasters he's obsessed with.
Everyone else is in bed by now, but he's still hard at work. It makes Skye smile wryly from the doorway, because in the weeks that she's known him, it doesn't surprise her that he's that kind of guy.
Then she strides forward, making sure her steps are audible, and he glances up with words on his lips. He must have been expecting someone else, because his mouth closes again when he sees her, raising a questioning eyebrow instead.
Skye drops her unopened granola bar next to his hand before plucking up his empty cup and moving to refill it.
He watches her all the while, wordlessly opening the snack and tearing into it with a grateful relish. He accepts the mug she hands him with his own wry smile.
After that, Skye has no other reason to be in his office, but still, she lingers when he doesn't immediately ask her to leave. Then, cautiously, she moves to the cushy armchair across the desk from him and folds herself into it sideways with her feet tucked up into the cushions.
He makes no protest as Skye opens up her computer in her lap, and when she glances up over it, he's back to work over his desk. She relaxes and busies herself with scanning the internet manually for anything hinting at Centipede or powered people, even if she already has a program set up for it.
It's a few hours later, and Skye's eyes are aching again, when a knock breaks the silence to the office.
Skye whips around, nearly straining her neck as she twists to find May standing in the doorway with a bigger scowl than usual. Skye was sure that the pilot had already gone to bed, but she's still in the clothes of the day before.
May's eyes skate over Skye before settling on Coulson.
"The paperwork will still be here in the morning. Get your ass to bed."
Skye tenses, even though this isn't the first time May spoke her displeasure and scolded their superior. But, like all the other times, Coulson doesn't get mad. He sets his pen down and rubs a tired hand over his eyes.
He sighs after a moment, and then stands up. "Okay. You're right. Come on Skye; you should head to bed, too."
Skye closes her laptop and rises to her feet. She still feels wide awake. Well, wide awake for her.
May stands aside as she follows Coulson down the winding steps towards the bunks. She dutifully goes to her own room and makes a show of closing herself inside.
Skye's hair prickles in impatience as she listens to the other quiet sounds of doors sliding shut, and then waits another ten minutes before creeping back out into the hall. The plane is well and truly quiet, now, nearing three in the morning.
She knows May will be up again in little more than an hour, but until then, Skye sets off down the corridors.
…
Skye feels… lonely. Which is ridiculous, because Skye is used to being alone, and she's been less alone these past few months than she has her entire life. But, she's in an odd mood, and the normal peace of everyone being asleep is stifling, and Skye is lonely.
She paces the Bus with more aggravation than she normally has the energy for, and it's like her skin is full of static. Skye isn't entirely sure what she wants, she just wants something.
It's by accident that Skye's pacing takes her past the cockpit. She normally avoids it, because May disappears into there when she absolutely does not want to put up with anyone, and Skye is forbidden from ever going in.
The door is cracked, though, which it never is, and Skye creeps closer to peak her head in. May is there, which, obviously it would be her- she's the only one who ever comes in here unless Coulson needs to talk to her.
It's nearing two in the morning, though, and she should be asleep with everyone else, but here she is, face blank, watching the dark horizon line that says 8 pm more than Skye's internal clock. Living on a plane means an odd sleep schedule, even with her already unusual one.
Skye ducks back out before she can get caught snooping, even as something pulls Skye back toward the room that feels less lonely than the rest of the Bus. She wants to push her way into the other woman's space, but she really shouldn't. May values her alone time as much as Skye does (even as she seems to crave some unknown thing from other people).
An idea strikes Skye as she loiters in the hallway, and then she sets off for the kitchen. She hesitates when she reaches it, feeling highly uncomfortable with the shiny table tops and the large fridge, and the nice cabinets.
They don't have padlocks on anything, but just drawing near to anything has her hair raising in anxiety of being caught here (no matter how many times she's reminded that she can take whatever, it still feels like she's breaking some universal rule of any kitchen).
Skye pushes back her reservations with a vicious scowl, and goes about setting the tea kettle on a burner. While she waits for the water to heat, she opens the cabinet she's watched the pilot pull her tea packets from and has to shuffle past Ward's disgusting energy bars to find them.
When she gets to choosing mugs, Skye stares at them for a long time before finally pulling down two, more anxiety crawling through her as she finally makes her decision.
By that time, the kettle starts to whistle and she is quick to take it off the heat. She checks a total of three times to make sure that she actually turned it off, before pouring the boiling water into the two cups and placing the tea bags.
With the end to her endeavor, she carefully picks up both mugs and makes her way back toward the cockpit. Skye hesitates one more time outside the cracked door before giving a gentle tap with her foot and sliding inside.
May is already looking at Skye with a scowl when Skye looks up from keeping the hot, wobbling, water from slipping over the lip. While she dithers just inside the door, May's expression smooths out into her normal unreadable one as her gaze slips down to the mugs in Skye's white knuckled grip.
With the expression becoming not-outwardly-hostile, Skye bursts into motion and offers the agent one of the mugs. Unfortunately, the sudden movement causes some to slip over the lip onto Skye's hand, but she just bites her lip. Big reactions only cause bigger messes.
"Thank you," May says, slowly taking the offering.
Skye lingers, wanting more than anything to stay, but fairly certain her presence wouldn't be welcome.
But then May is tilting her head to the co-pilot's seat in a clear invitation, and Skye can't climb into it quick enough. Her drink spills again in her haste, but she ignores it, tucking her feet up into the chair with her.
May doesn't try to make conversation with her, so she keeps her own mouth shut. Skye doesn't have anything she wants to say, anyway; she just doesn't want to be alone.
She doesn't feel as lonely, sitting in silence with Melinda May.
A/N: Skye just being a sweet thing to everyone.
Do you guys want angst or another fluff next with the whole team?
~Silver~