Pre-word of warning: this is my first significant piece of AOS writing and I don't have any practice with the characters. I do however consider myself to know them well enough to at least do them justice and would not publish this otherwise. On the first AOS fic I posted people were remarkable assholes and I didn't feel dealing with it so I took it down and i really would prefer for that not to happen again. Constructive criticism would be lovely but please take rudeness elsewhere, as I won't give it the time of day anymore.

Thanks so much for reading!

xxx

"So did you finish that last semester of med school?"

They are in one of the many shambled alleys of the Afterlife together, picking up the pieces broken beyond repair and shoddily piecing back together what is not destroyed.

"How did you know about med school?"

She glances up at him, meeting his eyes somewhere in the middle and raising a brow.

"It was like, one of the first things you told me. Barring that awful popcorn analogy."

He groans but she sees the smile he fights back from the corners of his lips.

"Okay, rephrase: How did you remember about med school?"

It's her turn to fight back a smile as she glances back at the piles of concrete in front of her that still need moving.

"You gave me a lot of information that day, okay? I wasn't sure what was going to be important so I just tried to remember everything."

Uneasy is a gross understatement to describe the reactions of the other Inhumans when she returned, Lincoln at her side or not. The dark looks have become more and more sparse over her extended visits working to fix the reparable damage she can but still, she and Lincoln have developed an attachment to their quiet projects separate from the others. She likes the escape from their stares of disgust. He needs the interlude from having all eyes turned to him for the next move.

"It's not important."

A grin tugs halfheartedly at the corner of her lips as she stares down at the slab of concrete twice her size that is her next target, off-tone of his voice nagging deep inside of her.

"Um, of course it's important. I need to know if I get to call you Doctor Lincoln yet."

She doesn't give him a chance to answer to see whether her attempt at garnering a laugh or even a smile has worked. Instead she tunes all her attention to the molecules buzzing around her and stations her focus on the tense vibrations of the slab—squeezing her eyes shut as she urges them to speed up. The concrete creaks out an angry cry against her intrusion, and shatters with a now familiar resounding crack only moments later.

Her now quiet mind allows her to hear that Lincoln's precious tools ("Something tells me handing you power tools would be tantamount to handing you my life, Skye.") have gone silent as well.

Her eyes seek him out, an unbidden reaction to the concern that blooms in the pit of her stomach (a feeling becoming far too common when it concerns him.)

She knows he doesn't know she is looking because his bright eyes have fallen in the way they only do when he thinks he has the moment to himself. When he thinks he doesn't have an entire world relying on his next move.

"You didn't finish."

It is probably the wrong thing to say but she can't stop the words before they slip from her mouth. When he looks up at her, he doesn't bother to put the mask back on.

"There were more important things."

"You could go back now."

"You know I can't."

"You can do whatever you want to."

"Not anymore."

"What is more important than your future, Lincoln?"

"This." He motions widely around him alongside the words but his eyes don't follow the movements—they are still trained heavy on her.

Sweat has beaded on her brow beneath the sun and is creeping annoyingly towards her ear before she rubs angrily at it, turning away from her concrete slabs and taking a full step towards Lincoln.

"You don't owe these people just because you think they're fragile. They obviously are stronger than they seem, surviving my mom as long as they did. They could handle it if you finished a few classes."

He breathes in slowly as she moves again nearer to him, feeling something protective and fierce burn in her chest.

"You can't just forget yourself in favor of the world. I can tell it's important to you."

He lets out a short, dry laugh—eyes flashing to the ground then back at her.

"Medical school isn't my path anymore, Skye. Just… let it go."

His tone is not unkind but she senses the finality in it and even if she could explode, she respects it.

Respects him.

xxx

"So are you going to tell me why you're not sleeping?"

She is kidding herself to think that pretending the dark circles blooming beneath both eyes don't exist will actually make them disappear to the people around her. She doesn't look at him, flipping another page in the temporary treaty Coulson has given her and Lincoln drafts of to revise. It is important, and practically as thick as her face, and she wonders how a promise that the Afterlife and SHIELD will not try to kill each other anymore can possibly take up so many goddamn pages.

"Been doing a lot of late night reading," she answers, plastering a thin smile on her lips and nodding at the pages she's stooped over.

The work has been endless since the battle and she's not sure if she prefers the boring jobs in the air conditioned bunker or the hands on fixes beneath the hot Afterlife sun.

She can feel his eyes still on her minutes after her words have dissipated into the cool air around them.

"My question still stands, Skye. Why aren't you sleeping?" He uses that tone that she hates, the one that is firm but soaked in ill-hidden concern that she does not care to be on the receiving end of.

She turns a page more aggressively than entirely necessary and its tearing stirs the silence.

"Does it matter?"

She is turning another page that she hasn't even read to fill the silence when his warm hand covers hers, flattening it cautiously to the papers. She can sense his molecules, even when she doesn't mean to. They are always in a constant swirling motion, faster than any normal human. When she'd first mentioned it to him he'd teased her with a waggle of his eyebrows before theorizing it had to do with his gift.

("I know it's because of your electricity, Sparky. I just thought you might like to know that you could probably dissipate at any given moment."

"Thanks for that comforting revelation."

"Anytime.")

"Of course it matters."

She doesn't mean to focus on the spinning of his molecules as hard as she does, but she need to focus on something and moments later she pulls back her shocked hand with a start.

"Ow!"

She is startled enough that she doesn't think before glaring up at him.

"If you were better rested you would've probably managed not to shock yourself," he tells her dryly, but his eyes don't reflect the carefully measured tone, studying her own expression delicately. "You can trust me, Skye. I know that is hard for you to hear right now. But I'm your transitioner. And… your friend, I hope. In both cases, your wellbeing matters to me."

His words prod at her and for a moment she considers telling him. Considers confiding in someone the terrors that stir her awake in the darkness, gasping for life and rubbing frantically away at the memory of her mother's icy fingers on her cheeks.

She considers how much deeper that concern will settle into him.

"There's nothing for you to worry about."

"I know that isn't true."

He doesn't press her further.

xxx

He is on the phone. She can't hear his words but she can hear the strain in his voice as he repeats the same pleading lines again and again. She catches snippets here and there. Semester. Class. Emergency. It's enough for her to know exactly what the call is about.

There is one more pleading note before he goes silent, and she allows herself to glance over at him from her spot on the couch beside Fitz. It's not often there are quiet moments in the bunker, not anymore. Beers on the torn remains of the furniture she'd destroyed in her first outburst practically qualify as vacation time.

"Everything alright?"

She knows it isn't but it is what you're supposed to ask anyway.

He doesn't look at her, which is becoming a fallback.

"Fine. I'm gonna go get some air. Don't know how you lot stand living underground."

A curt laugh.

"You live in a place that doesn't exist," Fitz responds in his now usual detached logical tone, eyes still trained on the television. It's good that he's here—progress, that she's dragged him from the lab for more than five seconds straight—but she knows his heart isn't in it. It never is anymore.

So when Lincoln walks out, she surprises herself when she slowly raises to follow him.

"I'm gonna make some popcorn," she lies.

"You're going to go after him," he answers in a beat, and suddenly his eyes are on her. He doesn't look mad that she's tried to fool him. "You should."

She smiles softly at him.

"Don't go back to the lab for a bit, okay? Please? I'll be back."

"Yeah. Alright."

She finds Lincoln in the hangar, the closest thing to outside without going through Coulson to get there. He is sat on the ground, leaning back against a larger-than-life wheel of a carrier and staring mutely at the cracked grey wall in front of him.

She crosses the garage quietly but certainly not silently to lower herself beside him, but he does not flinch.

"That was your university, wasn't it."

She phrases it like a question but refrains from taking an unsure tone. She is certain. He doesn't shift his gaze from the wall, and she sighs, pulling her legs to her chest.

"Just because you won't talk about it doesn't mean I am not an extremely skilled eavesdropper," she confides in a faux whisper, and it makes her heart ache when a smile doesn't even inch at his lips. "In fact, your silence only improves my bat-like hearing."

He continues to ignore her, and she withholds another sigh, nudging gently at him with her arm and carefully guiding her attentions away from how his molecules spark at the touch.

"You can trust me."

The molecules she is meant to not be noticing buzz faster, and then, finally, he speaks.

"Like you trust me, right Skye?"

The words are meant to sting and they do—in the aching stab of her heart, in the prickle in her throat and in the sudden press of heat in her eyes.

"Lincoln, I—"

She can barely choke the words out and almost doesn't want to. She can tell he regrets his tone immediately but when he opens his mouth to speak again, she's already rising back to her feet.

"I'm sorry Skye, that was—"

"It's fine," she takes a deep breath to battle the lump rising in her throat, "It's alright."

"No, I shouldn't have—"

She is at the door and she can't find it in herself to turn back around.

xxx

Days have passed and they've put the argument in the past, if not yet resolving it, when she falls asleep on the ratted couch watching late-night reruns of some cooking show. She wakes up with a pounding heart and a throat raw from yelling, kicking frantically at a figure that isn't there and scraping her nails across the places on her cheeks where her hands would be.

It takes a long moment of heavy breaths to settle the heart trying to escape her chest and as she breathes, she stares blindly into the darkness.

Someone has turned the television off.

Her heart starts its race all over again as she sits up straight at the realization, searching around for someone else in the room.

He's in the doorway and it takes a moment to make out the blanket draped in his arms. When he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically small.

"You looked cold."

Her heart stutters but doesn't slow its pounding, and this time it is not as simple as blinking back the tears burning in her skull. She feels one drip free, burning warm down her cheek—and hopes it is too dark for him to see it.

"Um, yeah. Thanks."

He moves forward with a caution not suited to the pretend they've set into place, the one where she didn't just wake up screaming and crying and where he didn't walk in and see it.

"I guess you'll just go back to your bunk. Now that you're up. More comfortable than the couch."

"I… guess I will."

Neither of them move and she takes a slow breath in before reaching to quickly swipe the offending tear from her cheek, still hoping he hasn't seen it.

The tension in the air is nearly as palpable as the molecules she manipulates. He stares at her, and she stares back, heavy silence weighing on both of their shoulders.

"Do you want to sit with me?"

Now it is her voice's turn to be unnaturally tiny. But however quiet, the noise shatters the stillness that has settled and he seems to breathe again as he nods and moves to accept the offer. The moment he sits she feels static energy travel from where her fingers dig into the couch up through her arms and the rest of her, ending its trek in a soft lift of her hair.

She pretends she doesn't feel that either.

The silence settles again in this new position, and this time it is his turn to break it.

"You were right. It was my university, the other day. They aren't fans of what they call my 'unreliable tendencies'."

The words quiver and fall in the air between them and she fights down a sarcastic laugh.

"Unreliable tendencies, huh?" She mutters, glancing sideways at the guy who dropped everything in his life to give a whole species someone to rely on, "Have they even met you?"

That coarse laugh she is becoming more and more used to.

"They aren't wrong. To be entirely reliable to someone you generally have to screw something else over."

She is quiet, and doesn't fail to notice his fingers fisting against the couch.

"They asked me not to come back."

"Oh my God, Lincoln, I'm so—"

"Don't apologize. I'm not sorry. I told you, there are more important things."

She can't help but notice all the places his muscles stand tense despite his assurances that it doesn't upset him.

"I just wanted… to let you know. Peace offering, or whatever. I don't like fighting with you, Skye."

She grins in spite of herself, finding the shine of his eyes through the darkness.

"Not many people do. Fitz says I'm 'startlingly intimidating'."

"Fitz is right," another brief silence, and she can just make out his eyes sweeping across her face, reading her features. "I prefer when we get along."

Maybe it is the darkness or maybe it is her startlingly intimidating angry demeanor—but she can't find the concern anywhere in the lines of his face.

"When I sleep I dream about my mom," She speaks bluntly, without warning, trying not to notice how his features change when she mentions Jiaying. "We don't usually go on ice cream dates."

She feels him shift nearer to her, and whether it is conscious or not, the steady warm buzz of his molecules is soothing on her nerves.

"Skye, I'm—"

"Don't apologize," she echoes, faint smile playing at her lips. She fidgets her fingers a bit along the couch till she finds his, settling them flat nearby. "You didn't make her the monster she was. In fact, you too were a victim."

Her light tone doesn't soften the heaviness sagging at his shoulders.

"It doesn't change the fact that I'm sorry about it. No one deserves to…"

Have their own mother try to murder them.

"…go through what you did."

"Kinda ironic, huh? The woman who gave me life, trying to take it away?"

Her soft tone isn't enough to keep it from beginning to break apart, and the way his jaw twitches informs her that he does not, in fact, find it ironic.

"It's probably an orphan thing, imagining your parents?" She continues through her crumbling voice, blindly thinking maybe she can talk it off, maybe if she keeps treading on the tears will retreat, "Trying to picture them in your head, you know? Make up what they might look like," she swallows hard because the lump is rising fast and hard now. "Whose looks you take after more. Whose nose and whose eyes and, I don't know, all that dumb shit normal people probably never even consider."

His fingers close hard over hers on the couch, tangling together, and a few warm freed tears are spilling down her cheeks.

"I liked to imagine they might come for me in the foster homes. Think about how it might feel to have my dad touch my shoulder reassuringly. Or my mom…" another shuddering breath as she wipes angrily at the escaped tears, "My mom cradling my cheeks, you know? Getting a good look at me."

She is so stuck in her clouded mind she can't even sense his buzzing molecules anymore.

"Now I can't close my eyes without feeling her cradling my cheeks, just the way I imagined. Only she's not trying to see me."

She doesn't have to describe the ache of her energy draining, rushing from parts of her so deep she didn't even know they existed to fill her mother instead, doesn't have to recall how her head spun and heart thudded slower and slower against her chest. And it's good because she isn't sure she can say another word without her body betraying her, crumbling in a way that would rival the fall of the Afterlife.

He doesn't respond to her and she isn't sure what he could say if he did—just squeezes her hand tighter in his.

Then;

"Sleep here. I'll sit in the chair and wake you if it looks like things are getting rough."

"You're suggesting you watch me sleep?" Her tone fails her remarkably, humor falling flat behind her stuffy nose and still cracking throat.

"It's my job to help you."

His gentle words are even less believable than hers.

"I'm… not really so tired anymore," she lies, yawn rising in the back of her throat on cue, "Maybe we could just stay up and watch television a little. If you want."

(She wakes up still on the couch, loudly buzzing molecules magnified against where her ear presses to his shoulder—her hair standing on end. He runs warm and the blanket has been shifted to solely her territory and she doesn't move a while, listening to how the quivering molecules contrast with the steady beat of his heart.

It's the first morning she's woken up rested and she thinks about Lincoln—his medical school, his transitioning, his leading—his dedication to everyone but himself.

She hopes he knows he is helping).