The thing about Skye
Expansion off: She doesn't talk about it- Part 2
The room had fallen quiet when Daisy left. It's a stifling, uncomfortable, silence.
Jemma works solemnly, her chest twinging and racing as she dabs at the blood on Skye's split lip. Skye endures it, even though every muscle is tense and her body leans slightly away like she might leap from the table at the smallest indication of danger.
It's the way Daisy suffered Jemma's fretting in those early days on the Bus. It's staggering to see again after growing so used to the slightly amused, but resigned, countenance she's adopted the last several years. It drives Jemma absolutely mad the way she's so blase when she gets injured, but she'd rather that attitude than this flighty distrustful one.
Despite her tension, Skye hasn't looked away from the doorway her older self had made her hasty exit out of. The pout on her lips only gives Jemma easier access to the cut.
Jemma has a million burning questions she wants to ask the younger version of her friend (she has a whole list written out somewhere that she'd written years ago- in the off-chance of Daisy ever getting in a talking mood) but she still feels scolded from earlier. Guilty.
She was originally shocked at the anger and how cruel Daisy was to the child- the mean things she was saying- that no one would ever want her. But it occurs to her, far too slowly for her genius, that everything bubbling in Daisy that she let spill onto Skye, was still essentially self-directed. She was literally saying to herself. And that turns her attitude and words into a whole other Thing that Jemma will eventually have to (try to) talk to her about.
Skye is the one to inevitably break the silence. "She's really me? When I grow up?"
"Yes," Jemma says.
"And you're really her family?" She finally turns, and Jemma is frozen under those eyes. It shouldn't surprise her that she looks so much like Daisy. Except, this version is so young. Soft. She lacks a certain haunted look that Jemma didn't realize always shadowed her friend's face until it's gone. The bruising darkens it, sure, but there is still a certain openness about it- hope- that Daisy very rarely shows.
There are no dark circles under Skye's eyes. Jemma wonders when Daisy stopped sleeping.
"Yes," she whispers when she remembers that she was asked a question. She wants to elaborate. To tell her about all the people who love Daisy, and who worry about her, and who would die for her. But that might be a bit much, and the words get stuck in her throat besides. "Are you injured anywhere else?" She asks instead.
Skye ignores her, eyes boring holes through Jemma's. It's hard to hold her gaze, but she does.
"And knowing about me will help? What's happened to me- to her?"
"I don't know that knowing will actually help. Certainly it would help us understand better, but she'd have to be willing to face it to gain any progress in healing. If not with us, then at least within herself, but she just ignores and avoids it all. She doesn't acknowledge any of the trauma she's faced, and maybe it's a defense mechanism that helped her get through a lot of bad ordeals, but it's only hindering her now. She's stagnant."
Skye blinks up at Jemma. Coulson laughs.
"Simmons, she's eleven," he reminds.
Skye shoots him a displeased look. "I'm just going to assume that was a yes." She pulls her feet up again, onto the table, and spins until her back is facing Jemma. Then she hitches her shirt up to her shoulders and leans forward.
All of Jemma's air leaves her. Coulson gasps.
They've seen the scars (thin lines and faded), but seeing them this way- blue and black welts with split skin crusted over- on a child- on a child Daisy- is so much worse. It hits so much worse.
They cover her back. A lot of them are healed over, the rest are in the process of healing. The newest ones hadn't happened today.
"Mr. Fields likes to use his belt. Mr. Michaels did it before, but it was only the one time after I got in a fight at school and got suspended. He usually just used his fists. I think it was because he drank a lot. Fosters always get more handsy when they drink." Jemma reaches for some disinfectant and cotton swabs, hands shaking. Skye flinches at the first touch, before steeling herself and forcing herself to remain still. She continues chatting in her strangely conversational tone. "Ms. Nelson didn't drink, but she didn't let me eat if I got too loud, or backtalked, or didn't finish all my chores. My other fosters were okay. Most usually just ignore me, or lock me in my room, but sometimes they'll forget I'm up there, so that's not great."
Jemma is thrown by the amount of information Skye is so willingly and readily spouting off without an ounce of hesitation. It's so completely contradictory to Daisy, who hardly ever lets anything slip (though when she does, it's with the same conversation tone- like she doesn't entirely realize how horrific what she's saying is).
It makes Jemma wonder at what point Daisy became so tight-lipped. If it wasn't originally an intrinsic thing, what made it so?
And then Skye falls silent for a long while, while Jemma works, before ducking her head against her drawn up knees. "...Everyone leaves," she adds, quieter than her other confessions.
…..
Daisy is avoiding everyone. It's probably for the best. Anger keeps bubbling into her esophagus before it fizzles out in a mix of shame and embarrassment over how she's hiding.
She's supposed to be this seasoned field Agent, she's supposed to be able to push her feelings down- compartmentalize- May taught her to compartmentalize- and she goes and loses control, screaming at a child, using her powers against her team. They are facing the end of the world (again) and she's hiding in her room like a fucking cowered.
Mack was the first one to knock on her door. He was the first one she ignored.
She can't talk to anyone. She'll either burst into tears or explode again and they deserve neither. So she grips the front of her shirt and pushes soft vibrations through her vocal cords and tries to wrestle back control over her nervous system that seems to be on the fritz.
She misses Fitz. Despite everything, she misses him.
Jemma knocks on her door next. She speaks so softly and sympathetically. She says that Skye is asleep right now, worn out from the events of the day. They will be reaching their destination in a little over an hour.
Daisy ignores her too. She's stuck on the part where Skye is asleep. Asleep in a strange environment surrounded by strangers. It used to be a skill back then, a necessity before that became too dangerous.
Skye can still sleep. Daisy remembers when she stopped being able to. It would have been about a year from now.
She wrestles with the anger again, about the unfairness of it all. Why couldn't her future self have descended from the sky and taken her away- saved her. That's all she dreamed about when she was a kid- someone busting down the door and saving her from that life.
She's angry, Daisy is angry, and she knows that Skye doesn't deserve her fury, her resentment, but she has nowhere else tangible to point it.
Coulson knocks next. She shoves headphones over her ears and blasts her music as loud as she can handle (she doesn't hear anyone else's knocks).
She had accepted long ago that no one was going to save her- no one was going to come for her and give her a better life. But it's Daisy who ends up fulfilling that unoriginal orphan dream- busting the door down and urging Skye to follow- to run.
It was Daisy that did it. She did. Her.
Daisy continues purring, trying to soothe away the ache in her chest.
(Why couldn't she have saved herself sooner?)
A/N: As requested, part 2. Please let me know what you think!
~Silver~