[The Usual Disclaimer: Nothing in this story is mine, from the characters to the settings.]

Skye crouched on the deck of the Iliad, tears streaming from her wide brown eyes. She wanted to run to her parents, but it took several minutes for her to even manage to crawl over. Her entire body sagged downward, like it was being pulled magnetically toward the deck. After her mother had used superpowers to start draining Skye of her energy, Skye, understandably, could barely move.

She did start to feel again after some indeterminable length of time had passed, her numbness and exhaustion giving way to throbbing pain. At that point, she managed to croak out the word, "Dad?"

Cal shivered but looked up at the sound of her voice. The broken body of his wife – the woman he loved and the woman he'd just killed – lay in his arms. He pulled Jiaying close to his chest and sobbed out, "She was going to kill…"

"I know." Skye reached out one trembling hand and placed it on his shoulder. "Thank you."

"We can't leave her here."

Skye's head was still tingling, and she couldn't really think what to do, so she said the first idea that came into her head. "The infirmary? For now?" A morgue might have been better, but she didn't know where that was. She had, however, passed the infirmary, which was at least a place where they would be used to getting dead bodies.

Her father nodded and hauled himself to his feet, cradling his wife in his arms and allowing Skye to pull herself up with him, still clutching onto his shoulder. She leaned on him as they descended into the lower part of the aircraft carrier and made their way through surprisingly empty corridors. The few SHIELD agents they passed spared them a few scared stares, but seeing no threats, they hurried on to wherever they needed to be, giving the small family as wide a berth as they could manage in the tight spaces. The battle appeared to be over, but the ship stayed in crisis mode, as did the remaining personnel.

"I gotta take a break," Skye said about halfway through.

She and Cal paused in a small workroom to catch their breath. The room was pretty sparse – a small grey space filled with mostly tools. Her eyes were naturally drawn to the one personal item in that place, which was a calendar hanging on the wall, open to the month of June and displaying a picture of a very generic waterfall. Past days had been crossed out with a thick black marker, and when Skye saw what day it was currently, a lump rose in her throat.

It was Father's Day.

She'd lost track of time as she'd been living with her mother's people. To be honest, she'd stopped keeping track of most holidays from the time she joined SHIELD. But for her whole life, she'd always noted Mother's Day and Father's Day as they came and went, her spirits sinking a little farther each year.

Another round of tears welled up in her eyes, and Cal tentatively asked, "Daisy?" He clearly wanted to help her but didn't know quite how.

"Sorry." She swiped at the tears with her dark jacket sleeve. "I just… spent my whole life looking for my parents. Then I heard you both were dead. Then I found out about all of this." She gestured around vaguely.

"And then you replaced us," he spat out with sudden vehemence.

Familiar with his mood swings, Skye held up her hands and spoke softly in an effort to placate him. "No one could replace my parents. SHIELD's been my family, but that doesn't mean you're not my family, too."

"No onecould replace us?" Cal demanded. "Not even him?"

Skye didn't know how to respond to that honestly without upsetting him. Obviously, he was talking about Coulson, who'd been like a father to her practically as long as she'd known him. By this time, Skye felt closer to Coulson than she did to Cal or to anyone else, really. Her silence stretched on as she fumbled in her head for the right words, and Cal had all the answer he needed.

"I thought so."

"No, I just…"

"Do you know how much I've hated that man? How much I want to hate him now?"

Skye opened her mouth, closed it, and then started again, reorienting her thoughts to take in what she thought she'd just heard him say. "How much you want to hate him?" she repeated incredulously. "You mean you don't?"

Cal laughed bitterly. "It's kind of sad, if you think about it. I was hating a man because he took care of my little girl when I couldn't do it. He's not…" Cal hesitated, struggling to force out the painful words. "He's not such a bad person, really. After all, he did bring me back here to save you."

"Coulson brought you here?" She couldn't imagine the scenario that would have led to that decision, but she didn't attempt to comprehend it. "He's here now?" She realized belatedly that she should have at least tried to disguise the eagerness in her voice. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean… Well, I have to go apologize to him. He probably thinks I betrayed him."

"Of course he doesn't. He never did." When Skye eyed him curiously, Cal explained, "The two of us had quite a talk. Mostly about you." He didn't elaborate, and she suspected he never would repeat anything that had passed between himself and Director Phil Coulson; it would hurt him too much. So far, he hadn't even been able to say the man's name. Instead of dwelling on this, Cal suggested, "There must be other people in the infirmary – people with radios – and they can call him up. Or, I suppose, you could leave me and head for the bridge." His voice trembled as he said this, bracing himself for her expected desertion. "That's probably where he ended up."

As much as she wanted to go make things right with Coulson, she forced a sad smile and said, "I'm not leaving you, Dad."

He cleared his throat and made for the door. "Then we should get going."