The thing about Skye
She can't swim: Part 2
Skye didn't think she'd dread being cleared for training. She doesn't like being benched. She likes being useless even less, but she knows what's coming as soon as the cast comes off. At first, she wasn't all that bothered with it- she was even grateful that May was going to teach her to swim- but then the reality started getting closer and closer and she debated doing something reckless to break her other arm.
She doesn't, obviously, because May would never let her out in the field, ever, otherwise.
So Skye gets her cast off and the next day (she thought she'd get a little more time after the cast coming off, but apparently swimming is a great way to regain muscular strength) she's dragging her feet to the pool Skye didn't even know existed in their underground base. She delays and malingers so much that she's actually running late by the time she reluctantly pulls the door open to the pool.
A rush of chlorine smells hits her in the back of the throat, making her feel nauseous.
"You're late," her SO says, already standing waist deep in the shallow end. There is a 30 foot dive on the other end and water 10 feet deep. Skye hopes May doesn't have her practicing jumping into the water.
"Sorry," Skye mumbles, twisting her towel around her fingers.
May sighs. "Get undressed and hop it."
Skye's stomach drops further, but she goes to one of the benches along the wall to put her towel down and slowly toes off her shoes. She doesn't discard her shirt. Changing in front of people is one thing, but hanging out in just a bra is exposing. It's vulnerable. Getting in the water is bad enough without doing it with all that unguarded skin.
May doesn't say anything as Skye continues to drag her feet, even though she must be getting impatient. She can only delay so much, though, and eventually she finds herself at the edge of the pool, staring down into the clear lapping water. The chemicals turn her stomach and she swallows several times.
Maybe if she throws up, she can plead sick and delay another day.
"Skye," May says after several minutes of just staring at the water. She moves forward, toward Skye at the edge of the pool, and Skye panics. She scrambles backward away from the edge, almost tripping on a water drain.
"Sorry- sorry- I can't-"
"Skye, stop," May demands in a hard voice before Skye can flee out the door, with or without shoes. Skye freezes.
Her breath comes fast- too fast. She can hear the water slosh as her SO moves closer- hears the water rain back down as she lifts her arms and folds them against the edge.
"Turn around."
Skye turns back toward the pool, lifting her shaking hands and shoving her palms into her eye sockets. Her whole body shudders.
"Come sit down," she says, patting the edge of the pool. "You're okay, Skye. I'm not going to drag you in. I won't touch you until you tell me I can. I just want you to sit down. That's all."
Skye presses her palms a little harder before letting them fall. The black dots in front of her vision hides the pool from view a bit. Still taking gasping breaths, Skye returns to the edge of the pool and sits down. It's several feet away from where May indicated, but she doesn't know that she trusts May not to 'tough love' it, or 'rip the bandaid off' by dragging her in just to prove what not a big deal it is, but May doesn't seem upset with her distance.
Skye sits stiffly at the edge, knees tucked up to her chest and ready to spring to her feet if May decided enough was enough and reached for her. Her heart beats so loud that it makes her head swim dizzily.
They just sit there, though. For a long time. They sit there so long that Skye's breathing evens out and her head clears enough to wonder just how long they are going to sit there. They sit there so long that Skye starts to get impatient. She shifts and drops her feet into the water.
Only then does May, who looks like she might have fallen asleep with her head on her arms, looks over at her. Skye immediately stiffens.
"Would it help if I walked you through my lesson plan?" she asks, slowly kicking her feet out behind her.
"Why would you do that? You've never done that before," Skye snaps, irritation (at herself) bubbling over in an instant.
"You've never reacted like this before," May reasons, not reacting to Skye's tone at all. "At least not with training- not to this extent." She sighs and turns more fully to Skye, though she still doesn't move closer. "Look, we've all had bad experiences- you maybe more than the average agent. Those experiences affect us. Oftentimes, shoving through the problem doesn't work. So we adapt. This is me adapting. Would it help to know each step of my plans?"
Skye breaks her gaze, staring down at the rippling water.
"Yeah," she finally says, when May only waits for her response.
"Okay." She nods. Skye jolts as her SO braces her hands and boosts herself out of the water. Skye gasps, scrambling to her feet as the water pours off the other woman, but May only pads over to the bench holding her towel. She glances at Skye's stiff form as she efficiently wipes herself down. "We'll go over it tomorrow before our next lesson. For now, go eat lunch."
Skye stares after May's back as she disappears out the door without waiting for a response. She stands at the edge of the pool for another few minutes before going to collect her things.
….
Skye isn't as hesitant the next day, but she still approaches the pool room with more than a little trepidation.
Her SO is already in there, sitting in her sports bra and compression shorts at the edge of the pool. She looks up as Skye pokes her head in, and turns halfway away from the water. She watches Skye put her towel down and take off her shoes. She waits until Skye just stands there awkwardly by the bench before talking.
"We're going to start slow. I'm hoping to get you in the water today, but everything will be at your pace. You are going to sit on the edge with your feet in the water, and I'm going to swim around until you tell me you're ready. Then you'll just walk around the shallow end, and if you're up for it, maybe try floating or ducking your head under. That'll be it for today, if we even get to it all. Does that sound okay?"
Skye bites her lip. She trusts May. She does. She trusts the woman with her life. She doesn't know that she trusts her not to get impatient. She doesn't know that she trusts her not to press for just a little more than Skye can actually handle.
Skye nods and goes to the edge of the pool. Her hands shake as she lowers herself to the ground.
"I'm going to swim now," May says, so Skye doesn't jolt back to her feet when the woman lowers herself into the water and pushes away from the ledge. Skye drops her feet into the water.
It's not water that frightens her. She has no problem taking showers, or baths. It's large bodies of water. It's standing at the edge and knowing someone could just come up behind her and-
Skye takes a deep breath. She doesn't want to think about the time an older foster brother threw her into the pool, and then almost let her drown because he didn't believe that she didn't know how to swim at ten years old. And she doesn't want to think about how, at a separate time, that same foster brother would shove her back into the pool, or drag her back to the middle, every time she tried to climb out, because he was convinced she could learn if she just stayed in. She wasn't let out for hours, until his parents came home and found her hyperventilating and sobbing as she clung to the edge of the pool.
Skye struggles to breathe, wondering if May would let her out, or trap her as soon as she willingly got in the water.
She sits at the edge for what feels like hours. Long enough, at least, for the older agent to stop doing laps and just start floating around on her back.
Skye's arms tremble under a white knuckled grip as she tries to convince herself to just get in. May wouldn't do that.
Eventually, she finally manages to shove herself forward and tip into the water.
She freaks before she's even submerged, and as soon as her feet slam into the bottom of the pool, she launches herself back at the ledge. She's out the doors and dripping water through the base as she sprints away before May can even register she was in the water.
She hides the rest of the day, ashamed, and cold, because she can't bring herself to venture back to her room for actual clothes.
…..
Skye trudges back to the pool the next morning, and May stops halfway down the lane where she'd already started her laps. She doesn't say anything to Skye, only raises an eyebrow before continuing on down the length of the pool.
Skye doesn't know if that means she's upset with Skye or not. Skye sits down at the edge in the same spot she was yesterday.
She's determined to not panic this time. She's determined to actually get in and stay in this time. It takes her only a few minutes to get up the courage to lower herself very slowly into the water. She keeps her grip on the wall. She doesn't move even when her feet touch the bottom.
She glances at May who is on the opposite side of the pool. She stops when she reaches the end, coming up for air and looking back in Skye's direction.
Skye tenses further, and stomps down on the urge to throw herself back out of the pool. She's here. She's in. She's staying in and finishing the stupid lesson plan May thought was a simple easy day's work. She's going to float today, damn it. She's going to show May that she's fine. She will be a fucking amazing field agent.
May starts swimming back and Skye wants to burst into tears. She stays on the opposite side of the pool, though, which is the only thing that keeps Skye in the water. She's shaking so hard that ripples continuously roll away from her.
May stands up in the shallows across from her.
"How are you doing?" she asks.
"Freaking the fuck out," Skye says past chattering teeth. She's surprised she said it. She didn't plan to. May nods.
"What about this is freaking you out?" she asks calmly. Is she getting closer? She looks like she's drawing closer.
"The idea that I won't be able to get out."
"In what way. Why would you not be able to get out?"
"T-That you won't let me out," Skye amends.
May stills. She was drawing closer. She was drawing closer, but now she's not. Skye wants to throw herself out of the pool, but she doesn't, despite the chlorine invading her nose and the concrete edge feeling like it's sliding out from under her grip despite her nails being embedded in it to the point of pain. Her newly healed arm aches from use.
"I told you that we will go at your pace. I'm not going to keep you from getting out, if you want to. Do you believe that?"
"Yes," Skye instantly replies. Then amends, because that was a lie and she's not supposed to lie to her SO, "Maybe."
"Okay," May says, as unaffected as ever. "How can I help you believe that?"
"I don't know. Just- Just don't get out. And- maybe keep your distance. Let me- let me do it on my own."
"Okay," May responds. She pushes backward, swimming further away into the middle of the pool. It would be very difficult for her to reach Skye, or the edge of the pool, before Skye threw herself onto solid ground. It eases some of the anxiety twisted up in her chest, but not nearly all of it.
Actually letting go of the wall is the hardest part. After that, it's easy wading around the shallow end of the pool while her SO looks on. When Skye eventually goes back to the edge and climbs out, she's almost in disbelief that May actually let her out without one comment of maybe just staying in a little longer- or maybe trying to float.
It settles her gut even more that May is sincere in her patience. When May climbs out of the pool (after asking Skye if she is able to now), she doesn't complain how little she did, or how it took three days just to get her in the water. She tells Skye that she did good. And when Skye tries to brush it off by making her usual self-deprecating jokes, she tells Skye that progress is progress, no matter how small. Swimming will be easy once they get to it- it's learning to trust that takes so long- and that's much harder than learning to swim.
…
The next day is the fastest she's been able to get in the pool. It's getting easier and easier for her body to obey her brain, the more her body gets used to following through on the actions.
May stays in the center of the pool and talks through how Skye is supposed to float. She gets scared every time the water goes over her ears, and May suggests getting used to ducking her head underwater instead. By the time Skye climbs out of the pool, she has stopped looking toward May every time she surfaces, to check that she was still in her spot a distance away.
May never tries to close the distance, or try to trick her by gradually floating closer.
…
By the end of the week, May begins teaching Skye to tread water. She's right in that learning to swim is easy. As long as Skye isn't panicking, her body naturally knows how to do it. And once Skye is comfortable treading water, she's not as scared about being forced to stay in the pool.
"Okay," she sighs, touching down in the shallow end.
"Done for the day?" May asks, voice ever lacking a negative opinion of Skye's limits.
"No," Skye hesitates. "Okay, you can move now. You don't have to stay in the middle of the pool."
A moment passes before her SO starts slowly drifting toward her. She stops once she's close enough for her feet to touch the bottom of the pool.
"If you're still up for more, I'd like you to practice swimming from one end to the other. It can be horizontal or vertical- as long as you're getting more comfortable staying afloat."
It's a very foreign concept to Skye, having water all around her and not being attached to anything. Even without the fear in the back of her mind, of sinking- drowning, she doesn't like how untethered she feels (metaphorically and physically speaking). She likes, well, being grounded.
By the time she gets tired, May has moved to sit on the edge of the pool to observe. Skye only feels a faint tugging of unease as she moves to get out, but even that falls away when May makes no move to stop her, or even get up.
She only climbs to her feet when Skye holds out her towel to her.
"How do you feel about restarting regular training tomorrow. You at least have a foundation now, so we can continue swim lessons every other day. I should have taught you survival swimming, anyway, which was an oversight on my part."
Skye beams at her mentor, feeling unbearably happy. Skye knew that May was strong. She knew that May would risk her life (has risked her life) for any of them, and that she cared for their team, but she didn't know that she could be like she has this past week- patient and understanding and almost empathetic. Skye would never have thought of the Cavalry as empathetic.
A/N: Let me know what you think!
~Silver~