based on tumblr prompt: skimmons, #7: i almost lost you

started as a drabble and it just sort of? kept going?

disclaimed

...

It happens really fucking fast—

Jemma yells your name and there's dust, chaos, blood in the air already. Before you can even fully turn, you feel her weight falling against you, too limp, too heavy to be okay and it's all too much, the gunfire, the screaming, the weight of her on top of you.

And then—

and then the blood comes.

...

You keep your hands pressed to her chest, screaming for help, for back up into your comm, and she's still breathing, her heart still beating, nearly in your hands—

oh, god, you can feel her heart fluttering beneath your palms, the blood coming in bursts, timed perfectly to the uneven beat beneath your hands.

She's staring at you, eyes wide and there's blood on her lips, but her hands are pressing against your sides, checking for injury. You're so angry, then—at her, selfless and protective and reckless when it comes to her people.

"You need to stay still," you manage to choke out above the noise of battle that pulses around you, coming in and out of focus.

"Did you—are you—," she takes a rattling breath, her entire body shuddering, but her eyes are wide and focused, still.

"I need help!" you shriek, looking around desperately, but everyone's shooting or being shot at, caught in hand to hand or trying to actually finish the mission and Jemma wasn't even supposed to be here when the guards came, was supposed to be back at the van by now, but she's here, bleeding out beneath your useless hands. Coulson comes over the comms, and you stutter out what you need, what's at stake, and Jemma's eyes start to go hazy.

"Jem—," you cry, crouching over her, shielding her from whatever is happening behind you. "Jemma."

Her eyes go a little cross when she tries to focus on you, her hand coming up to cover yours and she sounds surprised when she tells you, "I don't feel it anymore?"

"Jem, just—," you scramble for the right words. "Just talk to me, okay? I—you need to stay awake." Your voice breaks and you feel so helpless, just so, so helpless and scared, and you wish you were better at this, that you had something more to do than just try and keep the blood in her body and not on the ground.

Her mouth works but no sound comes out, just a hiss of pain and a gurgling sound that sends your heart to the floor, and the fight behind you dies down; you hear another body hit the floor, and then May is striding up, barking orders to Bobbi and Hunter, calling for Trip to go get the Quinjet, and then she's beside you, nudging your hands aside and telling you to breathe.

It's then that you notice the cracks that radiate out from where you were kneeling. "Oh, god—," you feel a hollow open up in your chest at the thought that you could have brought down the ceiling.

"Skye," May reminds you, voice steady even as she presses down into Jemma's chest, even as Jemma's shirt goes from blue to purple, deep with her blood. You take a deep breath; the rumbling inside you stops.

You hear the jet outside, hear footsteps nearing you, but your eyes are locked on Jemma, eyes sliding shut and breaths uneven, shuddering, and the blood on your hands feels heavy.

...

You sit vigil, after her surgery; sit at her bedside like she did for you, shifting from one position to another and back again when you get uncomfortable. Fitz sat with you for a while, but after three hours of machines beeps being the only sign of life, he had to leave, tugging at his hair desperately. You wish you had the words to calm him, to assure him that she'll be fine, but it's been three days and Jemma hasn't even twitched, her breathing mechanized and metallic, the whirring of machines the only noise in the room.

When the others come to visit, you find convenient excuses to leave the room, so they don't see how tightly you're coiled, don't see the fear that has etched itself into your DNA.

But you spend your nights at her side, curled up in the chair, waiting for the smallest sign of life. You don't let yourself sleep until it becomes physically impossible to keep your eyes open, and even then, you set an alarm on your phone to wake you up every thirty minutes, in case she wakes in the interim.

It's hard—

taxing, emotionally and physically, but she took a bullet for you, protected you even when she was unarmed, and the thought makes you feel soft, tenderness blooming in your fingertips when you braid her hair after four days.

You don't want to call it love, not yet, not when you can lose her so easily, but what else could you call it? What else could you label the soft, sad thing that sparks in your heart whenever one of the machines stutters for a moment, whenever you hear a phantom movement beside you?

You hold her hand carefully and hope that you'll have a chance to tell her.

...

Six days.

They brought her out of the medical coma yesterday and you'd sat through the night, fingers crossed that she'd wake, only falling asleep as morning came. When you jerk awake, Jemma's looking at you, brows furrowed and lips turned down around the intubation tube.

"Holy shit—."

...

The med pod bed is narrow, but you manage to squeeze in with Jemma, holding her hand and trying hard not to jostle her or the stitches that are currently holding her chest together. You tuck your face into her shoulder, so grateful, and the words sort of tumble out before you can get a hold of them.

"I almost lost you," you breathe. "I can't—." Your voice breaks. "I can't imagine—."

She shushes you gently, rubbing her thumb over your knuckles. "Guess we're even now, yeah? You got shot, I got shot…" You look up at her then, staring at her as she hums, eyes closed contentedly, and you're so in love with her that it hurts.

"You took a bullet for me, Jemma," you whisper, resting your chin on her shoulder. She hums in response, tired still from the bullet, from the surgery, from recovery. "Please don't do that again. I was so—god, I was so scared."

"I'll try to avoid bullets in the future," she rasps, voice still rough. "But you know me and danger—like magnets, we are."

She's joking, but it's true—you can name ten instances off the top of your head, ten times where she nearly died, but you know that she could probably rattle off twenty for you. Your time on earth is limited; your safety not guaranteed. You have this moment, now.

"I think—um," you start, backtracking because you know, so, like, be sure of yourself, Skye, you got this. You're also pretty sure of how she feels, because, you know, she took a bullet for you. So—"I'm in love with you." You take a breath and repeat, a little louder this time. "I love you."

Jemma stills beside you, humming ceasing, but her grip on your hand readjusts and tightens. You look up again, see the smile forming on her lips. "I didn't quite hear you," she says cheekily without opening her eyes. "Stitches and all." She cracks open one eye and gestures to her torso.

"You're such a dork."

"But a dork that you love."

You fall into a comfortable silence—you're not worried that she hasn't said it back, because she shows it in every interaction you think you've ever had with her and that you will ever have with her.

After a few minutes, you think that she's fallen asleep, but then comes her voice, her gentle, loving voice. "For the record," she murmurs, voice impossibly soft. "I love you too."

You sleep easy that night.

...

fin