She knew she couldn't find Daisy on her own, so she didn't.

Fitz's fingers fly on the keyboard, eyes flashing with determination and darting between the multiple screens he set up in their van. Jemma sits by his side mindlessly stirring a cup of tea with her lips pursed, head tilted to the side. After a few minutes of nothing but the clacking of keys and Fitz's frustrated groans as Daisy flees from them again and again, Jemma speaks.

"What about -"

"Nope, tried that." Fitz interrupts, massaging his forehead with his fingers. They're all getting tired, cooped up in this small space and running after Daisy and running out of excuses for the Director.

And yet, somehow they keep going.

Jemma's voice is laced with frustration and adoration, a strange combination of sorts that somehow seems to work. "But you don't even know what I was going to say!"

"Well, chances are I've already tried it!"

"Oh, Fitz!"

"Don't 'Oh Fitz' me!"

May watches quietly as they bicker, sitting sideways in the driver's seat with an atlas spilled across her lap, x's in red marking all the places they've been.

(the map is growing redder and redder with each move they make, but the spaces in between seem to grow only larger)

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and shifts in her seat as Jemma puts down her mug and tries to get her hands on the keyboard, straining to push Fitz out of the way despite his protests. A coy grin erupts on Jemma's face, and without hesitation she grabs his face and kisses him passionately, and as he leans forward to further their kiss Jemma shoves his chair away and resumes his place in front of the screens, cackling in delight, Fitz groaning.

May droops her head slightly, the strand of hair she previously tucked falling again to become a curtain hiding her face. She pretends to be concentrating on the map, but she's lost in her memories.

A small boy lying on a bed who became a man whose hands once again create and gesture and move, never staying still.

A broken girl waiting for a boy to wake up who became a woman whose brain can chart galaxies and doesn't wait but does what she can and does her best.

Oh, how far they've come.

And May's damn sure glad to see that this boy who looked so small and this girl who tried to pull the pieces back together finally found each other.

It's enough for her to smile.

(It's enough for her to believe that perhaps these children she failed to save were children she was not meant to save— because, if she had, then they wouldn't have saved themselves.

And all this time they've been picking themselves up from the ground and picking each other up from the ground, May has only been there to catch them when they fall.)

May will be there to catch them when they fall.

She focuses on the unmarked spaces between the red.

(Later, Fitz will say that May must've pulled some strings— found a couple of contacts from the days before SHIELD fell, meeting with them in the dead of night as he and Jemma slept. How else did she know Daisy was going to be in that small town?

Jemma will say that May simply used her skills— using tricks taught from the days before SHIELD fell, honing in on them as she drove through the streets as she and Fitz were combing through data. How else did she know Daisy was going to be on that street on that night?

May lets them think what they think.

It's better than telling them the truth that she barely understands herself; that it was something in her gut that led May stop the van abruptly as they meaninglessly traveled through a dead town, and take a sudden right turn. That something she can't explain whispered she's here she's here Daisy is here, and May chose to listen.

Nothing more, nothing less.)

They pull up behind the only other vehicle parked on the street, a van not unlike theirs, and sit there for a moment or two as the night sky hovers above.

"Do you think—" Jemma gently begins.

"— that that's Daisy?" Fitz gently finishes.

May only thinks that the whisper has grown into a scream, and she opens her door.

They knock repeatedly, they say her name, they peer into the tinted windows—

nothing.

Daisy's not there.

(The scream turns into an earthquake, and that's when May sees down the way a little patch of green, and a bench.

There's a silhouette against the harsh glow of the streetlamp, and May touches Fitz and Jemma's arms.

They look, and then they walk.)

"I knew someone would catch up, someday." Daisy states, not bothering to turn around to gaze at them. She's scrunching her nose and leaning her head on the edge of the bench, eyes lifted to the heavens.

Her position and her voice give off the impression that she's bored and indifferent, like she couldn't care less.

May knows it's not true; because if Daisy didn't care, she wouldn't be running.

And she's been running for a long, long time.

She's been trying to pick herself off the ground for a long, long time.

(And May's been trying to catch her ever since)

"When I said that putting yourself into a box wasn't going to fix anything, I didn't mean leaving would." May says, coming around the side of the bench and sitting next to her. Daisy shifts to a sitting straight position, and glares at May.

May sees herself reflected in those eyes, in more ways than one.

"If you're here to try bring me back, then you're gonna be disappointed."

"We aren't." Fitz scurries around the opposite side of the bench, coming directly in front of her.

"What?" Daisy's harden expression abruptly changes into one of confusion.

"We aren't here to bring you back." Jemma repeats, appearing next to Fitz, nodding enthustically.

Daisy turns to May, and waits for an response.

"You need time. You won't get better being back at the base alone with your guilt, because that's no better than a box. But you can't run forever, Daisy, because your mind becomes that box and you can't escape yourself."

Fitz and Jemma step closer, and May places her hand over for Daisy's.

She doesn't wrench it away.

"We can't force you to come back, but that doesn't mean that you can never come back. It doesn't mean that we aren't waiting for you."

May reaches into her pocket and pulls out a burner phone, pressing it into Daisy's palm.

"When you're ready, call us. Just don't take too long."

Jemma smiles weakly and Fitz watches Daisy with sadness in his eyes and May stands up, and they all start to walk away.

"How do I know when I'm ready?" Daisy whispers, low and small and afraid.

May looks back towards the girl who cares too much, who May's come to care for so much.

"You'll know," May answers. "I promise."

(And she did)