The thing about Skye
Extension off: Sometimes, she gets lost
They've been on the Bus for three days in total, and today is the first day they're not nose deep in a mission. When Skye had agreed to be part of the team for a while, she didn't think she'd be under gunfire only a few hours later. Or part of a plane jacking a few hours after that.
All-in-all, she might be regretting tagging along, just a bit, because she's running on only the three hours of sleep she got before she hunted down Mike Peterson and consequently, became entangled with SHIELD.
She hasn't eaten in that time, either, and she's hungry. She's never done so much activity before, and it's definitely affecting her stomach.
Skye gnaws on the ends of her sleeve anxiously, teeth pulling incessantly at the threads. It's a habit the nuns tried to beat out of her, but it clearly never truly took.
She sees the kitchen. Sees the others coming and going from it in a breeze of casual unconcern. So, she's probably allowed to get food from it, considering they're in the air and she doesn't know where else she's supposed to get sustenance, but she's not sure.
She's not really part of their team, so maybe she was supposed to bring her own food supply, but she didn't have one in her van.
She can't ask, either, because she's pretty sure she's supposed to know the answer to this question. She's pretty sure that it's some universal assumption most functional people would naturally know the answer to, but she's barely functional and doesn't know which side of obvious it falls.
And she's hungry, and she's the only one in the lounge right now (with a direct sight to that taunting kitchen that doesn't even have padlocks to keep her out) and everyone else is off doing some other important SHIELD stuff. Like paperwork or something.
Skye slides her laptop off her knees and onto a side cushion and slowly rises to her feet. The room stays as empty and quiet as it has been for the last hour, only quieter because she's no longer clacking on her keyboard.
Skye strides over to the kitchen and pulls open the cupboard. There's a variety of snacks inside, and Skye is a bit overwhelmed about all the options. She doesn't know which one they'd miss the least. Feeling like she's running out of time, she skips over Ward's preferred protein bars and snatches up a few of the sweets FitzSimmons seem to like. They are the most scatterbrained in anything not having to do with science, so will probably be the least likely to notice something missing (she's seen Fitz with a pile of food in his arms, stacked to his chin, trying to navigate back to the lab and leaving a trail of dropped packets in his wake).
"Hey, Skye!" a cheerful voice calls from the top of the spiral staircase- from the entrance of Coulson's office- and a bolt of terror races down her spine. She drops the food, a few packages splitting open as they hit the ground, and now she's made a mess. She got caught stealing and she made a mess and-
She rips open the cabinet right next to her and folds herself inside.
It's a smaller space than she remembers, but she still fits and she shoves herself back as far as she can, using the piping as a barrier against whatever comes for her. She tucks her limbs as close to her body as possible so they can't get an easy grip to drag her out by. Skye's breathing comes too fast- too loud- in her panic, and she tries to muffle it with her hand.
It's quiet, except for her hyperventilating, for a few moments, and then a soft knock comes from the cabinet doors she had squeezed through.
"Skye?" comes a hesitant voice. A man's voice, her exhausted, hungry, scattered thoughts tell her.
"I'm sorry," she replies reflexively, even though she knows apologies don't really make it any better. "I'm sorry, I won't do it again."
It's quiet again for another long moment, and it sets her teeth on edge. Why isn't he raging, ripping the doors open and trying to drag her out?
"Won't do what again? The snacks? Don't worry about that; it's not your fault. I startled you. It's easy enough to clean up."
Skye blinks several times, shadows slowly emerging from the dark. The vague impression of a pipe just in front of her face- the blobs of a few cleaning products she knocked over in her haste to get inside.
Skye doesn't realize that it's been several seconds, and she hasn't responded, until the man is speaking again. Slower.
"Or taking snacks…? Skye, you know you can take snacks, right? Anything in the kitchen is up for grabs. We restock whenever we stop for fuel."
A short shudder of turbulence shakes underneath Skye, and she abruptly remembers that she's on a plane. That she's an adult, and not in some foster home, and Coulson hasn't shown signs of being aggressive before.
Her face flushes in humiliation about crawling under a sink like some scared child.
"I know that," she snaps, even though she really didn't. Well, she knows now, and even though she still feels like she's trembling, she crawls forward.
She's allowed to get food. She didn't break any rules. But she still made a mess.
When she pushes the cabinet door open, Coulson's face is etched in brutal concern as he crouches close to her cabinet. He has to scoot backwards as she avoids meeting his eyes and crawls out.
She feels like the plane is swaying, and the dark under the sink is following her into the light of the room, and she immediately sets to sweeping up the mess she made like the entire reason she dived under the sink was to find the handheld broom and dustpan.
To her surprise, and uneasiness, Coulson bends down to help, plucking up the unbusted packages and setting them down on the counter. Skye can feel his eyes on her, and it makes her skin crawl and face burn in embarrassment.
She dumps the crumbs in the trash, ditches the broom back under the sink, and snatches up the snacks like her heart isn't lurching in fear under the man's watchful scrutiny.
She is allowed to, damn it. Now she just needs to get the rest of her to understand this and stop freaking out.
Skye retreats to the belly of the Bus, the dredges of panic still pulling at her shoulders.
….
They've been on mission for 48 hours, all of them are running low on sleep and patience, and yet Coulson still insists on team dinner when they congregate back on the Bus. It's a fairly new thing, and a decent idea to force the new team together into a social situation not involving hijackings and shootouts, but probably not the best one to enforce when everyone is exhausted and irritable.
Still, he puts his foot down. While everyone else goes to shower and clean up, he gets started on cooking. It might be going on 2:00 AM at their physical location, but living on a plane messes with schedules, so he's making dinner.
When they finally congregate back around the table, enough food for an army on top, their growling stomachs soothe some of the impatience, and maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.
They tuck in with glee, even their resident insomniac who is always hesitant to go about reaching for food but will always eat up whatever is put in front of her in a matter of seconds.
But everyone is tired, and their short tempers are only soothed by the promise of the food in front of them, so something is bound to set someone off. In this case, it's Fitz stealing a roll right off Ward's plate, because it's too much effort to reach for the basket on the other side of Ward, and Ward slams his hand down hard on the table and shouts, "Hey!"
And suddenly there is a clatter of silverware being dropped and Skye is no longer at the table. She's huddled under it, knees to her chest, and bracing her arms over her head.
Everyone goes completely still and silent, even Fitz and Ward who were so ready to pick a fight a moment ago. After a moment, Coulson hesitantly leans back and peeks under the table.
"Skye?"
"Sorry," she comes crawling back out a moment later, face turning increasingly red in embarrassment. "Dropped my fork," she says, and no one points out that she dropped her fork only after she was diving for cover.
They continue eating, Skye just a little bit slower than usual, and Ward plucks up another roll from the basket instead of fighting Fitz for the one he took.
….
She realizes she's sick sometime around midday. Her skin hurts, she's chilly, and her head pulses in pain even though she hasn't been hit in the face. If there's any doubt, it's wiped away at team dinner when her stomach rolls and churns, and just the thought of putting something in her mouth has her swallowing several times to keep down the empty stomach bile.
She gets a few concerned looks, because she always scarfes down as much food as possible when it's actually in front of her, but she just waves them off and pleads exhaustion.
It works because, well, it's true. The bags under her eyes are a permanent fixture, but crossing from one side of the plane to the other doesn't normally leave her panting and lungs burning.
May makes her tea, Coulson tells her to get some sleep, and Ward gives her the day off tomorrow to rest. Simmons wants to do some tests, but Skye waves her off impatiently. She's fine.
Skye folds herself into a closet between two shelves and sets up her laptop for a long night of mindless distraction. She doesn't want to sleep. She gets even weirder dreams- disturbing dreams- when she's sick.
Despite her best efforts, though, her eyelids feel like cement, her head is fuzzy, and she keeps forgetting what she's supposed to be doing. It's inevitable that she gets dragged into unconsciousness.
…
May wakes up to a dark room. That's not anything strange or new, but the reason for it is. She wasn't dreaming of Bahrain, but she feels just as awake and alert as if she were waking up from that terror.
May rolls out of bed and to her feet, snatching up her sidearm on her way out the door. Something is wrong. She's awake for a reason.
After first stepping out of her bunk, the Bus is just as quiet as it normally is at this time of night. There is no obvious reason to be woken. It's as she makes her way down the hallway that the reason becomes clear as sounds reach her ears from the main common area.
She strides quickly in the direction, gun at the ready just in case, and then pulls up short as she rounds the corner.
Skye is in the kitchen, standing at the sink, and May slowly sets her weapon aside. Skye is what woke her, which means the gun is unneeded, but something is still clearly very wrong.
Skye normally notices anyone entering the room by now, but she's still bent over the sink, water on, scrubbing away at something. May's concern grows as she gets close enough to see that the blanket she normally carries around is the thing she's scrubbing at, half in the sink.
Skye looks flushed with fever- face slick with sweat and plastering her hair to her head, and her eyes are glassy and unfocussed. There is vomit clinging to the front of her shirt, and May suddenly understands a little about what must have happened.
"Skye," she calls, but the normally vigilant girl doesn't pause in her insistent scrubbing. May reaches out, touching her arm. "Skye-"
Skye jumps at the contact, flinching away so hard that she falls to the ground. The blanket follows, still caught in her tight grip, and flops to the floor with a wet slap.
"I'm sorry!" Skye bursts instantly, fear in her voice as she looks up at May, but she looks disoriented and not all the way pressant. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I'll clean it up; I promise!"
May swallows a dry lump in her throat and crouches so she's not towering over the sick girl. She doesn't reach out, though. It probably wouldn't be helpful.
"It's okay," she murmurs in as soothing a voice as she can muster. "You're okay, Skye. It's not your fault."
Skye looks helplessly down at her half drenched blanket. "I'm sorry; I'll clean it up."
"You don't need to. I got it. You're sick; let's just get you back to bed."
Skye bursts into tears.
May rocks back, feeling entirely out of her depth. "Alright, hold on," she tries for soothing again, but probably fails by a mile. "I'm gonna get Simmons. Just… wait here." Simmons is a doctor. She could probably help better than May can.
May hurries quickly, because she doesn't want to leave the sick hacker alone for long. She enters the proper room without pausing to knock, and shakes the doctor awake.
Simmons opens her eyes blearily, and then wakes faster as she seems to catch the urgency in May's expression.
"What's going on?" she asks, already climbing out of bed. May appreciates the haste.
"Skye," is all May says as she leads the way out of the room.
When they make it back to the kitchen, she's only half surprised to see that Skye has taken up at the sink again, but now her face is streaked with tears and a constant stream of 'I'm sorry's are falling past her gasping lips.
Simmons reaches out for her before May can warn her. Skye flinches again, but doesn't lose her feet this time. Her scrubbing gets faster and her blubbering apologies gets louder.
May turns the water off and tries to pry the hysterical girl's red fingers from the blanket as Simmons tries to get her to calm down and go to the couch. It's harder than taking on a group of six guys single handedly. They do get her to the couch, though, and Simmons leaves with an authoritative command to May to try getting Skye out of her soiled shirt.
The sleeves are soaked up to the elbow and the front is plastered with sick and sweat, and May does her best to get it over Skye's head. She's not fighting her hands anymore, but her crying gets louder and she's shaking so hard May is actually feeling a little scared something is very wrong.
Simmons returns with a bowl of water, washcloth, fresh clothes, and a bag of medical supplies. She immediately starts trying to coax the inconsolable girl to take some pills. Her skin is way too hot, and May quickly takes up the washcloth to wipe her down just a bit. The water in the bowl is cool, but it makes Skye shiver uncontrollably.
As May cleans her, she distances herself even as she catalogs each scar she comes across (pale and criss-crossing on Skye's back)- including the ones that are obviously self-inflicted (in perfect little rows on the insides of her arms). Luckily, there aren't any that appear more recent than a few years.
Skye calms immensely once they get the fresh shirt over her head, but that might be because she passes out almost immediately after.
May looks up toward Simmons, who's brow is creased deeply in weariness.
"She has a fairly high fever. I believe this little breakdown was a combination of that and sleep exhaustion. She was just a little confused, is all. The medicine should help."
May sighs, allowing her frustration to show for just a moment as she presses her hand against her face. That wasn't just fever and sleep deprivation. That was full-on trauma. Just what kind of damaged strays does Coulson keep bringing her?
A/N: And so begins Simmons begins her career of being the team medic and doctor. It turns out, it was May's fault. Anyway, I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Thanks for all those who have stuck with these little snippets for so long. I still have quite a few left to share and, in my opinion, we are finally getting to the good stuff.
~Silver~