Chapter Text
Prologue
May was the first person she talked to.
Ever since Jemma and Fitz had arrived on Fury’s helicopter at the Playground, Skye had been trying her hardest to make Jemma speak, but had mostly received silence. Occassionaly she would draw out a mumbled response, but Jemma’s eyes never even glanced at her; they remained fixed on Fitz’s pale face and on the breathing tube coming from his mouth.
It was nearly three in the morning, on Fitz’s fourth day in his coma, that May silently took a seat next to Jemma. May looked between Fitz and Jemma slowly, and then sat back, staring at the wall.
“You need to sleep,” she said eventually, quietly. “You can’t help him if you can’t take care of yourself.”
“I didn’t help him, and that’s why we’re even here,” Jemma whispered darkly, her voice hoarse from lack of use.
“You did and that is exactly why you’re here.”
Several minutes passed in which neither woman spoke. Jemma finally did, looking up at the ceiling. May was pretty sure it was the first time she’d seen Jemma look away from Fitz in days.
“I never want to feel that weak again,” she said. “We ran into that medpod because that’s all we know how to do—run and hide. But we’re SHIELD agents. At least we were. And now I don’t know what that even means, but I don’t want that to be my only option.”
“Are you saying you want to leave SHIELD?”
Jemma shook her head. “At this point, I don’t know where else we would go.”
May did not comment on Jemma’s reflexive use of “we”; there was no need to comment on Jemma’s lack of ability to even imagine life without being half of FitzSimmons.
“So you want to learn to fight.” May stated it simply, as if it wasn’t something that Jemma had been agonizing over for days.
“Have you ever had a partner?” Jemma rasped suddenly.
“Yes,” May replied after a beat. “I did.”
“Did they ever get hurt, because of you?”
An even longer beat, followed by, “Yes.”
“How do you—how do you let go? Of the guilt?”
“You don’t,” May said. “It just takes a different shape. It pushes you to get faster. To not make those same mistakes again.”
“I want to learn,” Jemma blurted out. “Teach me. Please.”
May nodded. “Okay. First step of your training: go to sleep. We’re starting at 0600.”
Jemma looked anxiously back at Fitz’s face. “But—“
“He’ll be here when you get back. We’ll start slow. An hour in the morning, hour in the afternoon.”
Jemma hesitated, but did not want May to rescind her offer. “Okay.”
She squeezed Fitz’s hand, pressing his knuckles to her lips.
“Alright, Fitz,” she said, her voice far softer than when she’d been speaking to May. “I’ll be back in a few hours. I promise. Don’t go waking up without me.”
May waited for her near the door, walking her back to her new bunk at the Playground.
“0600.”
Jemma nodded. “0600.”
May waited until Jemma had latched her door before heading back to her own bunk. She’d grown so accustomed to practically living inside of a cockpit that being in a stationary building felt stifling.
“You talked to her then?” Coulson asked from her doorway. May nodded, releasing her hair from her ponytail.
“We’re going to start training in the morning.”
Coulson raised his eyebrows. “For the field? I didn’t approve that.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” May replied simply. “Simmons asked me to teach her to fight. I know how she feels, watching Fitz fight for her life because she wasn’t fast enough.”
“Melinda—“
“It was a long time ago, Phil, but that doesn’t mean I don’t carry it with me all the time,” May cut him off. He swallowed hard and nodded.
“I know.”
“Then you know why it’s so important to help her through this.”
“I do. If Fitz doesn’t make it…”
“He will,” Melinda said fiercely. “A world without SHIELD? I can handle that. A world where those two aren’t finishing each other’s sentences? That’s a world where there’s no hope for any of us.”