A/N: Sorry for the delay everyone. I've been moving house so things got a little crazy for a while back there. But I'm back 😊 This chapter takes place from the final scene of season one until S02E07, following Phil and his newfound carving hobby. Thanks again for your feedback, it's greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: Agents of SHIELD and all affiliated characters belong to Marvel, those brilliant bastards.

Chapter 5: I'll Take Care of You

He was more than slightly disconcerted once he came back to himself and saw the impressive pattern carved on the wall in front of him. He stared at it, stunned, at a loss, mouth slightly open, as his consciousness slowly sharpened. He felt as though he had emerged from a dream only to discover he had been sleepwalking, not dreaming. Or that someone else had been controlling his body.

Then he panicked slightly for a few minutes. His hands were trembling from the effort exerted during the carving and beads of sweat dripped down the back of his neck. Had he lost his mind? So suddenly? So quickly? Was he as off his rocker as Garrett and simply hadn't noticed?

Only one person would be able to tell him for sure.

He paced out of the storage vault (wondering how he had even gotten there) and headed straight for May's room, where he knocked politely and waited, hardly daring to breathe. He wasn't going to think about anything until she was with him. She opened the door after a few moments and he was momentarily struck by how flawless she managed to look at all times, even when emerging from deep sleep. Judging from the look of concern she gave him almost at once, he guessed he was not as blessed.

"What's wrong?"

Now he was half struck dumb, unsure what to say,

"Phil?"

"I did something," he said at last. "I … just, come with me?"

She nodded, frowning slightly, and stepped out of her room, closing the door behind her. They walked side by side in silence as he led her down to the storage vault and all the way to the back wall. Then he stopped and turned to look at her as he heard her draw a sharp intake of breath at the sight of it. Even though he had already seen it, he also felt struck again by the immensity of what he had done.

"You did this?" she asked after a long silence, turning to stare at him.

"Yes."

He wanted to add something, expand on what had happened, but the look on her face was making him flounder for words. A look so intensely concerned, he half felt as though he had told her he was on his death bed. He almost wanted to reach out and comfort her, tell her everything would be okay.

However, May being May, she got a hold of herself within moments, and her face settled into a more neutral expression, prepared for what was coming.

"What happened?"

He swallowed.

"It was … almost like a trance, I guess. I wasn't really aware of what I was doing until I was already finished, and then it was like looking back on a dream." He paused for a moment and then said, "I wasn't in control, not at all. It was this compulsion. I had to carve. I didn't know what I was carving, what it would look like … my hand just … it just carved. On and on until …"

He realised he was becoming overtly distressed, so he caught himself, breaking eye contact to stare back up at his handiwork, feeling deep terror in his chest. He felt her hand come up to squeeze his upper arm gently and it helped him calm himself.

"Have I lost it?" he asked the wall quietly.

"Well, it doesn't look good," said May, and he turned back to look at her. She gave him a tiny smile and continued, "But you still seem like yourself to me."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, her expression earnest.

There was another silence as they stared at each other, conveying without words the significance of what was happening as well as their mutual concern.

Then he said, "You have to keep doing what Fury asked you to do. You have to watch me. Make sure I'm okay. Stop me if I start to behave like a nutcase."

Even though she looked calm and collected, he could still read the strength of her affection in the traces of worry around her eyes, but she nodded, her jaw set.

"Of course."

"I'm the Director now, so I need you to keep me under control. We can't afford any mistakes."

"I know."

"And you need to be ruthless with me, May. Don't take any chances."

"Yes."

He gave her a half-exasperated look, her almost robotic responses not instilling him with much confidence that she was grasping the gravity of his words.

"May, I'm serious, I'm -"

"I've got your back, Phil," she told him firmly, suddenly undeniably present, her eyes bright with resolve. "We'll figure this out, I promise."

x x x

In the few weeks that followed, Phil didn't carve anything again.

He and May had decided that as soon as he felt the need to carve, if he was remotely in his right mind, or in control, he should immediately call her. They managed to cover up the wall in the storage vault and they installed boards in his office so that he wouldn't vandalise the building every time. As the days passed with no incident, May suggested that it might have been a one-off event.

"You seem fine," she said, after he showed her the system in his office he would use to hide the boards. "Garrett went insane almost immediately. Maybe this isn't necessary -"

"No," he said quietly. "It'll happen again."

"How can you be sure?"

"I feel it."

She stared at him, wearing that look she wore when trying to read his mind.

"I don't feel a compulsion to carve anything at the moment," he said, trying to explain. "But it's in there. The patterns, they come to me in my dreams sometimes, and they're … always in the back of my mind. I can't really explain it, but I know I'm going to need to carve them again."

Her face didn't change throughout this speech.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Am I crazy yet?"

And she softened into a little smile.

"Not yet."

"Right. Well, keep me posted."

x x x

Of course, the second time did come. This time he felt it coming, almost like a gathering sneeze. He immediately went to find May, his fingers twitching slightly. On discovering her beating the shit out of a punching bag, he reached out to tap her shoulder. She whipped around and seemed to freeze at the sight of his face.

He gave a nod.

"It's happening," he said.

They went back to his office and she sat on the desk and watched as he gave in, carving feverishly as the sun set slowly outside. She said not a word, and the only sound was the scratching of his knife into the board. When he was done, he let out an immense breath of relief, and then turned around to look at her. The office was almost completely dark, so he struggled to read her expression.

"This time was a bit different," he said eventually. "I was more aware while I was doing it."

She gave a small nod.

"I suppose that's a good thing."

"I think it's because someone else was here," he said, still squinting at her shadowed face.

"Then we make sure I'm always here."

He began to suspect that she hadn't turned on the lights because there were tears in her eyes.

x x x

They began to learn the patterns as time passed. At the beginning, it was every three weeks or so. He began to get better at knowing when it was coming and at controlling the impulse. But he only had control up to a point. It would always take over eventually. May kept telling him to stop fighting it, but he couldn't help it. He hated it and fought to resist, until he couldn't anymore.

They took to documenting the events each time, May in his office behind him. When it was over, he would slump down in exhaustion and she would pour them drinks. It was a great relief to him to have her there while it was happening and when it was over. She calmed him and made him feel as though he wasn't completely at sea. The first few times had been strained, but they soon learned to relax slightly, even joke around a little about it. Of course, the tension was never truly gone.

On top of that, she was indispensable when it came to helping him run SHIELD. He thought sometimes that the whole thing would have collapsed within days if it weren't for her (although she had angrily refuted that when he had shared this opinion with her). She took point on almost all their major ops, since they had decided he should steer clear of field work. Most of the time, he wasn't even on site, and she ran the base then as well.

He distanced himself from everyone else, partly because of his new status, but mostly because of the carving. He felt essentially separate from them now, even though he did miss seeing his team. It was all different now anyway. Ward was in the basement, refusing to speak to anyone. Fitz was a wreck, a shadow of himself. Simmons had asked for the undercover assignment in Hydra and left.

Skye he missed most of all, but she was also the one he was the most keen to avoid.

If anyone was going to bust him for the carving, it was her. And considering his and May's awareness of the fact that she had also been treated with GH.325 and that she was displaying no symptoms at all, he felt that they should delay confiding in her. Not only to be able to observe her, but he also didn't want to worry her, not about him, or about why it was she wasn't reacting. May, surprisingly, suggested more than once that he tell Skye, but he refused.

Still, he missed her. May, as Skye's SO, kept him apprised of her progress in training, telling him that she was doing well. High praise from May, who seemed to be taking as much pride in her development now as he had back when they had all been on the Bus. A simpler time.

Nowadays, May was his main link to the rest of SHIELD, to the world. She was the only one he felt relaxed around, because she was the only one who knew the truth. His isolation from everyone else would have been impossible to bear without her. And even though there were other things he couldn't tell her about, he still felt almost as though she had become something of an extension of himself. Never before had he relied so heavily on someone for so much.

It was funny how just a few months ago, he had – if only briefly - thought he couldn't trust her.

The truth was, there was no one he trusted more, no one he could ever trust as much as Melinda May.

x x x

"Whatever happens, I'll take care of you. That's my plan."

It had near broken his heart when she had presented her plan to him. He had longed so much to agree, to let her whip him away to a cabin in Australia where she would be able to look after him, free from the world of SHIELD, and free from the ugly truth of what needed to be done. But he also had enough insight to know that it was simply impossible.

Quite apart from his own certainty that if he were to become like Garrett, he simply could not be allowed to live anymore, it was for her sake and that of SHIELD that he knew it could never work.

He couldn't condemn her to having to look after an increasingly insane version of himself for what would likely be the rest of their lives, unless he found a way to die early on. He appreciated that she wanted to take care of him, but the point, in his mind, was that he wouldn't be him anymore. She would be babysitting a man who looked like him, but who was someone different. Someone dangerous. Someone who would ruin her life.

And then there was SHIELD. He had been given the responsibility to rebuild SHIELD and if it came to a point where he was unable to do it himself, then it was up to him to make sure there was someone else left behind who would be able to do it properly. And that person was May, and no-one else. Without her to take over for him, SHIELD would be done.

And so it was that he had to ask her to shoot him anyway, had to ask her to do something that he knew would destroy her, haunt her forever. As though she wasn't already haunted enough. But it had to be her. He didn't trust anyone else to be able to make the impossible decision when the time came. To do what needed to be done.

May always did the right thing.

x x x

Things began to escalate. The carving became more and more frequent. From every two weeks to every week. Then twice a week. Then every second day.

He was becoming exhausted very quickly and he and May were both strained, tense with worry as it became clear that they were losing against the compulsion. No attempt at finding an answer was working, even with Skye's help. He still had no idea what the carving was, but his longing to know was beginning to overwhelm him. Even when he wasn't carving, he obsessed over the patterns, losing sleep as he thought and thought about what they could mean.

Then it was every day. He didn't even need to call May anymore. Every evening while everyone else was eating dinner, they would wordlessly head to his office and he would carve. She was the one who suggested he play music while he carved, and it did help take the edge off the urgency he felt in his chest, but only slightly. If anything, it at least drowned out the relentless scratching.

She assured him that he was still himself, just distracted, but he felt that his grip on his sanity was becoming more and more tenuous.

Then he began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to carve. He would go to May's room to wake her. They would make some tea and then back to his office to carve and carve. One night, when he finished, he stared up at the grids and circles and diamonds, and they swam before his exhausted eyes as he was filled with a dreadful helplessness.

He collapsed to his knees in front of it and buried his head in his hands, tears of frustration and fear burning his eyes as he squeezed them shut against the pain.

He didn't hear her approach because the music was still playing softly, but he felt her hand on his shoulder. He turned to find her kneeling beside him, her eyes also shining with tears. She wore an expression of such affectionate sadness on her face that he felt his heart crack again. But it also brought him back to reality slightly, the image haunting him now the face of his friend rather than those damn symbols.

"Don't give up," she told him now, her voice barely above a whisper. "Not yet. You need to keep fighting, for me. We'll figure this out."

Staring into her eyes, he felt resolve come back, easing back into his chest and overpowering the moment of futility and hopelessness. He had asked her to do something terrible for him, and she had agreed. The least he could do was fight until the very end, fight for her.

He nodded.

"I'm not giving up."

x x x

It was three in the morning and he was wide awake. But for the first time in far too long, it was no longer because of the carving. His hands were still, his mind was clear. He felt more at peace than he had felt since before he had died. He got to his feet and went downstairs to the common area where he boiled the kettle, the recently acquired habit of middle of the night tea with May still there, even if the compulsion to carve had left him.

May hadn't been pleased earlier that day when they had returned to the base from Hank Thompson's house. It seemed she and her team had returned shortly before and she had only just discovered that everyone else was gone from the base, when Skye pulled in to the garage. As Phil climbed out of the car, she stormed straight over to him, fury all over her face.

"What the hell were you thinking? And where did you go -"

She paused as she caught sight of the blood on his shirt and his arms and her rage abated in her concern, albeit only slightly.

"It's okay, May," he told her, feeling a rush of joy at the sight of her. "It's all okay now."

"What happened?"

"It's a long story," he said, giving her a wide grin that she did not respond well to.

Scowling heavily and ignoring everyone else, she grabbed his arm and guided him forcefully away towards the med bay, snapping, "Well you'd better get started then."

As Simmons cleaned his wounds, he explained everything. May was clearly not enjoying his story and when he got to the bit about needing to be put in the memory machine, she interrupted to tell him that he was an idiot and that she would not tolerate such reckless behaviour in the future.

Ignoring Simmons's quiet grunt of agreement, he said, "It had to be done, May. I know you would have agreed."

"Then you should have waited for me to come back."

"There wasn't time. I can't explain it, but … it was urgent."

"Then," she said icily, "you should have called me. I would have come."

"You were busy hunting Ward, that was too important to -"

"Nothing is as important as … as this."

He saw her hesitation at Simmons's presence, and he had a small suspicion that she had been intending to say Nothing is as important as you.

There was a short pause as she stared coldly at him and he smiled warmly back at her. Then he carried on, now ignoring her snorts of disbelief and disapproval as he told her how he had trapped Skye and threatened a man at gunpoint. But when he got to the part about realising what the carvings meant, her face lost all its anger (which had peaked considerably as he related being hung from the ceiling and sliced up) and she gazed at him as though hardly daring to believe it.

Simmons had disappeared to wash up and the temporary silence around them seemed to hum with meaning.

"It's over, May," he said softly. "I don't need to carve anymore."

She didn't even get a chance to respond properly before Simmons returned, now with Skye and Trip in tow. Skye was filling Trip in on the highlights of recent events and, as was usual when Trip entered a room, the mood immediately lightened into one of infectious cheeriness.

The rest of the day had been busy, and he had only managed to get to bed shortly before midnight. He was exhausted, but unable to sleep.

Now he stretched out on the sofa with his tea, savouring the relief of no longer having to fight against himself. He could just relax. Suddenly May appeared and, apparently not noticing him, headed over to the kettle as well. She frowned when she realised the water was already hot.

"Couldn't sleep either?"

She whipped around to look at him and then gave him a smile. Now that he had the chance to study her properly for the first time since he had told her they were free, he saw how relaxed and relieved she looked as well. The strain around her eyes was gone and her smile was easier than he had seen it in months.

"I got used to you waking me up at this time," she said, turning to make herself some tea. "Guess I'll need to break the habit."

"Guess you will."

She came over to him and he sat up so that she could join him on the sofa. For a while, they drank their tea in comfortable silence, enjoying being in each other's presence without the pressure of the alien symbols hanging over them.

After several minutes, she turned to him.

"This is the last time I'll ask, but are you -"

"I'm sure, May. It's gone."

The mutual joy and relief was such that they couldn't put it into words, so they simply shared a warm smile.

"Thank you, Melinda. For everything over the last few months."

She half shook her head, looking away. She didn't want his thanks, he knew, because for her none of it had been optional. She had vowed to have his back and he knew she wouldn't ever go back on that. But he still wanted her to know the extent of his gratitude.

"I mean it. You kept my head above water, you kept SHIELD running, you … you made commitments no one else would have been able to make. I asked you for too much, every day. And every day, you -"

"Stop it, Phil."

"I need you to know what it means to me."

She finally looked back at him, the emotion in her eyes so intense, it was almost steely.

"I do know. And maybe now you have an idea of what everything you've done for me means to me."

He blinked, but couldn't find anything to say, an odd ache in his chest.

She gave him another small smile and said, "Look, let's just move on and enjoy the fact that I'm no longer obligated to murder you. Okay?"

He smiled and lifted his half-drunk mug of tea.

"I'll drink to that."

x x x

tbc

A/N: Thanks for reading!