I don't own anything but the pain and suffering I feel every time I think about what Melinda May has been through. Just borrowing to try to cope.

She tries.

Melinda goes home and lets her body heal, the gunshot wound and rehab buying her time to try and pull the jagged pieces of her shattered insides back together. And Andrew is patient… loving and supportive and he wants so badly to help.

She tries to find words but there are none. Any she offers will make him leave, will crush the love he feels for the woman she used to be like so much thin, fragile glass and she'll lose him.

On the last night she sleeps beside her husband, her body curled into a ball as far away from him as she can possibly be, Melinda dreams. She sees herself years from now, unafraid to let Andrew touch her, their rambunctious five-year-old son singing a song as his father plays along at the piano. The images fill her with warmth where she's been cold for weeks now and for a moment, Melinda forgets that she gave up her right to a happy ending in a hot, blood-filled room in Bahrain.

But then Katya runs through the room, a fleeting image of her bouncing and laughing the same way she did through the bazaar area that day, and Melinda's blood runs cold. She races after the phantom and can't find her anywhere, panic surging through her body, and suddenly all Melinda can think about is her family.

Andrew feels her fear and runs up to her, his hands coming to her arms as she reaches out to him.

"Melinda, what…"

He falls the moment his skin brushes hers. Melinda stands there stunned a moment before she bends down and tries to revive him, his name leaving her mouth in a shrill cry.

"Mama, are we playing a game?"

Their son jumps on her before she can warn him away and then his little body is limp in her arms and everything she loved lies dead before her because of her… because her touch destroyed them… and Melinda wakes up screaming. When Andrew tries to comfort her, his hand seers her skin and she races to the bathroom and bolts the door behind her.

She packs the next morning and even when her husband pleads with her to stay, Melinda walks out the door of their dream house for the last time.

She never means to care.

Melinda knows that the complicated ties that bind her heart to Phil Coulson are unbreakable. Even death couldn't sever that connection. But she never means to fall in love with the rest of them. But she does. Oh, God, how she does…

Skye's blood running over her hands as they race to get her in the hyperbaric chamber… the tremble that settled into Simmons' body when she exhaled too deeply at Fitz's bedside after the box in the ocean… the agony in Fitz's twisted words as he recovers… Tripp's broken, shattered remains…

"Protect Coulson. Protect the mission."

Those were Fury's orders, and she follows them even as the cost of doing so becomes clear to her… the seal on her heart is torn open, and the places she's hidden away are exposed to pain and betrayal and Ward and Hydra.

The weight of it draws down causing a burning in her chest, a constant pang that steals her sleep and makes her feel uncomfortable in her skin.

The day Skye shoots herself with an Icer, Melinda stops breathing for a moment.

She was ready to die, the knowledge that Lady Sif was likely too great a foe for her an accepted fact. But still, Melinda had prepared to fight for as long as her body and strength could sustain. It might only buy Skye a moment of escape, but it had been possible, a thought, a hope. And then she felt the shift of her gun moving in its holster.

She races to the bed and tries to start using her lungs again when she sees Skye is breathing, and Melinda hears Coulson explaining to Sif that they are Skye's family, that no one can take her from them if she has any hope of surviving what happened to her in that cursed hidden city.

She never meant to care, but Melinda leans down and whispers a promise to the young woman who just chose to risk her own life to save the people she loves.

"I'm here, Skye. I don't know if I can fix this, but I'm here."

She is blind-sided by the confession.

"I know."

Skye's words are soft and meant only for Melinda's ears and she looks up at her just returned protégé and has no idea what she means.

"You know what?"

"What happened. With Katya. My mother… was there. She told me."

Melinda drops the files she's holding and the next thing she knows, she's sitting on the floor of the dusty secret SSR room she and Skye are combing to find the information Stark needs from Peggy's old files. Skye's arms wrap around her and Melinda tries to pull away.

Skye refuses to let go.

"You did the only thing you could do. And I don't know if it helps, but I need you to know how grateful I am that you did, May. Because if you hadn't… you dying that day changes my whole life. It changes everything. And as much as I hate the parts before Coulson found me, I… please don't ever be sorry you lived that day. Please. "

There haven't been any tears over the girl since that day when she walked out of hell with Coulson half-carrying her and her partner… her friend… had held her while everything that had been Melinda May disintegrated.

But there are tears now and Melinda knows they aren't for the girl she couldn't save. They're for this one, the girl who knows what she did and still won't let her go.

She thinks nothing else Skye could say would shock her more than the unconditional acceptance she's offered, but then there are more words as the younger woman's hold remains firm and strong.

"What I felt when I realized my mom was my mom… I only knew that was real because I'd already had it once. With you. And I'm so grateful that you lived even though the price was too awful for you to have to pay."

She is blind-sided by the confession, but Melinda reaches up with her hand, her palm settling gently against Skye's cheek. And words, which she's struggled with for so long now, wind their way up and out before she can stop them.

"You were worth it."

She never expects it to work.

Melinda waits until the Ultron debacle is done and they're all standing on two feet again and then she goes to Andrew and finds him clearing a single set of dishes from dinner.

"I had to kill the girl. To save my team, I had to… make that choice."

She isn't sure what comes next and so she just waits. And then Andrew dries his hands and crosses the room and wraps her in a hug that reminds her of what it felt like to be her before she buried a piece of herself in that awful desert.

"And you didn't think you deserved our life after that. So you punished yourself by giving it up."

Melinda nods against his shoulder and somehow Drew is holding her tighter and even though every day of the past seven years, she'd have fought to get away, she makes a different choice on this night. She sinks in, letting herself have what was once hers, and it feels real and right and possible.

"Are you finally ready to come home, Melinda?"

And she is. God, she needs to, can't imagine how she's been gone so long, and her yes is barely out of her mouth before he's kissing her.

She never expects it to work because she's still broken and scared of how one more loss will destroy her and Andrew doesn't want to be a part of SHIELD anymore and she can't leave it… not Phil or Simmons or Fitz or Skye. Not even Bobbi and Mack after the insanity they've all just survived together.

But it does work. And eleven months later, when Simmons tells Melinda that she's twelve weeks pregnant, the first thing she does is seek out Skye, who bubbles over at the news, her smile a thing so beautiful and bright that Melinda is sure she'll never forget it.

"This kid is so lucky to have you for a mom. And I'm gonna be the best big sister/cool aunt ever. I promise."

She never looks back again.

Wyatt keeps her moving forward, usually at top speed, and Melinda thinks chasing gifteds with Coulson is easier than being mother to a five year old boy. Thankfully Fitz developed a super-soft micro-thin padding for the floors of the Bus to cushion all of her son's falls while Wyatt tries to mimic the sparring moves he picks up from her and the Avengers who drop by to visit.

Wyatt's favorite thing to do besides pretend spar is play superheroes with his Uncle Phil. More than once, she's hidden away in the shadows so as not to interrupt a particularly rousing adventure as Captain America and mini Falcon save the world in the conference room.

Andrew is every bit the devoted father she imagined he would be, and their family is a happy one, but in many ways, they live life constantly on the move. Despite the ground they've gained against Hydra over the years, the division amongst the Avengers and SHIELD about how to handle gifteds has led to a world that is unfamiliar with constantly evolving rules.

Her partnership with Coulson is her work constant. They have survived doubt on both sides and a war begun from within their own ranks and now they are smack in the middle of another battle, and together they've chosen to do what they do best… find gifteds, help them understand who they are and what they can do, and let them make a choice about surrendering to SHIELD or working with Skye and the team of Inhumans she's put together to take in those who want to simply life a quiet life under the radar without government interference.

It's a tenuous game they're playing, and both she and Phil know eventually they may have to choose one side of the debate over gifted individuals. No one who knows them will be surprised that they had long ago decided to join Skye and her people if that day comes.

Their family stays together, no matter what. That's the promise Melinda and Phil made one another when they decided to keep going, to do as much good as they could while they still had the chance.

The day she finally told Phil what really happened in Bahrain, he'd been devastated for her anew. But the telling of it, sharing all of the details, finally, with this man who was so much more than a friend… it had freed Melinda from the last torturous bonds of that day. All the fear she'd felt of judgment or rejection… of revulsion… had gone unrealized and instead she had seen pure understanding and love reflected back at her.

"What I said that day… it was and remains the absolute truth, Melinda. Those agents lived because of you. And you did good. Please, for you, let her go once and for all."

She never looks back again.