Abandonment
An Agents of SHIELD fanfic by Aisling Yinyr Ngaio

"So you're just going to leave."

The flat tone momentarily stopped her in her frenzy as she turned to look at the intruder. Shaking still from her earlier sobbing, she made a valiant attempt at matching his emotionless tone as she looked defiantly at him and answered, "Yes."

With that, she turned resolutely away and finished her packing with the same violence she exhibited earlier, ignoring the presence of the very large, very aggrieved male at her back. It didn't really take her long; she always travelled light. She was used to this. Way, way too used to this nomadic lifestyle.

So much for life changing journeys, she thought ironically and bitterly, and if she was deliberately making herself angry to keep fresh tears at bay, it was nobody's business but hers. I'm still leaving with what I came with. Just like the foster system. I come, I hope to stay, but in the end, I'll still leave. Nothing's changed. Nothing will change.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she flung a demand to the unwanted company: "I want my van. Now, today, five minutes ago," and moved to pick up the box lying on her bunk, only for it to be slammed down again by a hard, tensed hand.

"Skye, don't you think we should talk about this? Or are you just going to vanish without telling anyone about it?" For a moment, his voice almost broke uncharacteristically as he tried to be gentle with her, and if her nerves weren't already stretched thin, she would've appreciated the sentiment, especially coming from someone as stiff as he usually was, but...

She didn't want this dragged out. She was already trying her best to ensure the control she was wielding over her emotions held until she got the hell out of here. She should never have come on the Bus, or joined this team. Hoped for more. "I'm telling you. Now I'm leaving."

Her second attempt at lifting the box was preempted by him pulling her hand away from it. "Skye…"

Furiously, she broke his grasp and yelled, "I don't want to talk! What's there left to say?" Swiping her hands across her newly wet cheeks, she cried out, "I've never been a good fit! Not anywhere! Nobody ever wanted me. Not SHIELD, not St Agnes, not even my own parents! NOBODY!"

He didn't even flinch when she spat that last word at him. The sympathy and pity in his eyes made everything ten times worse. To have anyone know of her humiliation, her deepest fears of abandonment, to know what she'd just learnt…

It can't be worse than what I've imagined. Naive, foolish last words.

"Nobody…" she whispered hoarsely, hardly realising as she sank weakly to the floor, curling herself into a ball as she saw it all over again, like a video player on replay. The team being recalled along with all other outlying mobile command centers and all agents within two hours of the Helicarrier for some new alien threat-or-another. Tricking FitzSimmons into giving her pointers to the least used tech maintenance terminals connected to the Archives while the other three were… busy. Sneaking into one room by herself after her unwitting accomplices wandered off for a quick snack break in the cafeteria.

Hacking into the Level 10 security clearance Archives and declassifying the redacted document she spent her life searching for, only to find out that truth could still be more hurtful than her wildest imagination.

She didn't cry, not out loud, but tears kept pouring down her cheeks as she stared unseeingly ahead, rocking herself protectively, failing to notice when her erstwhile SO sat down and drew her gently into his arms, as much as she subconsciously allowed herself to be drawn in. He didn't usually do hugs, not for anyone outside his brother's family, but he recalled the utter devastation on her face when he first found her in front of the mainframe terminal only seconds ahead of SHIELD security, recalled her vacant, glazed eyes as she told him to look at the document she pulled up, recalled the way that fragility turned into violent fury when the senior agents of their team arrived half a minute later, of how hard he fought to keep her from lunging at them, his ears still ringing from her screams, and tried his best to be a shoulder for her as her repressed emotions flooded the proverbial dam.

He didn't think he would ever forget how close Skye came to homicide then. Not that he could blame her for feeling this way.

So he remained with her, stroking her hair, trying to calm her down, and ignoring the damage her tears were doing to his suit. Heard her muttering in between gasping sobs that "they didn't even want me" "they just threw me away" and most heartbreaking of all, "Why?"

He wished he knew what answers to give her, answers that might make everything better. But right now, two of the three principals of this tragedy were duking it out - whether in the conference room or in the boxing ring he didn't know, and didn't care to know - while the third wanted out of their vicinity. "Please," she whispered brokenly, "I don't want…I don't want to be here when they get back."

She was calming down a bit, thank goodness. He drew back enough to look at her face, her beloved, though currently blotchy face, and tried one last time, "Skye, running away isn't going to solve anything. You should talk to them about this."

"Maybe. Maybe it won't solve anything," she answered quietly, not looking at him as she wiped her face, visibly trying to gather the tattered remains of her dignity. "But they made their choice long ago, and now I'm making mine." Swallowing the last of her tears, she stood up on wobbly legs, adjusted her shoulder bag, then placed a hand on her box. After staring for a long moment at all that she could call her own, she turned to look at him, trying bravely to force a smile as she said her goodbyes, but his heart broke at the defeat he saw in her eyes.

Skye picked up her box and brushed past him without a backward glance. Yet he heard her murmur, quietly determined, as she left, "I won't ever be a Coulson, and not ever a May."

- Finis -