Chapter Text
Phil paced back and forth in his office filled with pent up nervous energy. Today was a big day. A lot of events, and a more than a few goodbyes.
And the start of a new adventure… he hoped at least.
“Okay Phil, what’s wrong?”
Phil smiled at the voice of his soulmate and turned around.
Melinda was leaning against the doorframe, a teasing smile on her lips and an affectionate look in her eyes. “You’ve been like this all morning, all week really. It’s been almost impossible for me to get anything done.”
“Sorry,” Phil replied sheepishly as she stepped into the room. “It’s just a big day, you know?”
Melinda laughed. “With all this, you’d think that you were graduating and not the kids.”
“It’s not just that,” Phil said defensively. “It’s everything. Mack and Elena are about to get married. Hunter’s going to be in England all summer, you’re going to be off in China for part of it. The end of the year always gets me like this.”
“It’s okay that you’re going to miss them,” Melinda said softly, taking his hand and lightly pressing a kiss into his palm. “I’m gonna miss them too.”
Phil moved his hand to cup her face, brushing the pad of his thumb across her cheek. “What did I ever do without you?” he asked reverently.
She stepped completely into his space to press a kiss against his lips. “I’m assuming you were just a nervous wreck all the time.”
Phil laughed and pulled her fully to him with his free hand.
She rested her head on his chest, and Phil’s hand slid down to her arm.
All he could feel was how much he loved her, and how much she loved him. Though, that wasn’t quite everything.
For the past five months, Phil had shared everything with Melinda, every emotion, every excitement, every fear (though he did tone things down sometimes, for her benefit), but for the past month, he’d walled off a small section of his feelings. He wanted it to be a surprise.
Melinda sighed against him after a moment and then pulled back, the same quiet smile he’d grown so accustomed to on her face. “We’re supposed to be down with the rest of the department to start lining up in fifteen minutes.”
Phil smiled back at her. “Okay. You go get ready, and we’ll walk down together, right?”
Melinda kissed him quickly. “Of course.”
Phil sighed after her as he heard her office door close out in the hallway. She was absolutely everything to him, and he was so unbelievably lucky.
Phil fiddled with the small box in his pocket as he took down his academic regalia from where it was hanging on the back of his office door. Today was the day, and he knew he couldn’t have picked a better one. The weather was perfect. He and Melinda’s favorite students were graduating. And exactly five months ago Phil and Melinda had shared their first kiss in the campus parking garage. That had been the best day of Phil’s life, but then again, so had every day after that.
But today? He hoped today would be even better.
Phil and Melinda separated not long after their mutual confession of love, both verbally and mentally, in the Shield parking garage. They were both exhausted and still wearing the same clothes from the day before, so showers and naps were definitely in order.
But Phil smiled the whole way home. He had never been happier in his entire life. He had a soulmate. He was in love with his soulmate. And his soulmate loved him too.
Phil could feel a similar quiet happiness coming from Melinda, though it wasn’t quite as strong and was tinged with a bit of doubt. Melinda had only begun opening herself up to Phil yesterday, so he knew it would take time, especially after she had been denying herself real happiness for so long. But Phil had already decided that he was going to make sure that she knew he loved her every moment of every day for the rest of their lives. Hopefully it would be enough.
When Phil made it home, he showered and changed and then felt Melinda sort of slip away, leaving only a small presence in his mind. Taking a much-needed nap, Phil assumed.
Phil felt tired too, but figured he might as well try to get some good out of the afternoon, so he pulled out his last few essays and tried to finish his grading, not that he got very far. His thoughts were miles away from his work, with Melinda and all his hopes for the future.
Maybe an hour later, he felt Melinda start to stir in his mind, and Phil couldn’t help the love and happiness that flowed through him at just that feeling of Melinda in his head.
A moment later his phone vibrated. Melinda.
“Hey!” Phil answered, unable to keep the excitement from his voice.
“Is this just how you usually are, and you don’t let me feel it?” Melinda asked without preamble.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve just been ridiculously happy since I left you, and I’m trying to figure out if that’s normal.”
Phil grinned. “No, that’s just today.”
“Oh,” Melinda replied, her voice soft.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“Is it weird that I miss you?” Phil said finally.
Melinda laughed. “Usually I would say yes… but I miss you too.”
Phil let out a breath. Melinda missed him. Melinda loved him. It was like a dream.
“Do you want to come over?” Phil asked hesitantly. “We could get some takeout and maybe talk? Only if you want to, of course. We don’t have to talk about anything. Mostly I just want to see you. I just-”
“Phil, you’re rambling,” Melinda interrupted him, laughter in her words. “But I’d like that. I thought about getting some grading done, but I need a break after the past few days.”
Phil smiled, relieved. “Yeah, me too.”
Phil gave Melinda his address (because, oddly, in their few months of friendship, neither one of them had ever visited the other’s apartment), and after hanging up the phone, Phil frantically looked around to make sure everything was presentable. Phil was habitually very neat both in his office and at home, so all he had to do was tidy up a few piles of books and hang up his coat, since he’d just thrown it over a chair when he’d gotten home, but he still felt nervous.
And he could feel that Melinda did too. Which was oddly reassuring.
When the knock on his door finally came, Phil opened the door and found Melinda, her hair still slightly damp and her clothes much more casual than he’d ever seen her wear before.
She was beautiful.
“Hey,” he said breathlessly.
Melinda smiled quietly back at him. “Hey.”
And Phil pulled her into an embrace.
She sighed as her head settled against his chest. She fit against him so perfectly; it was like they were made for each other, which, technically, they were.
“Do you want to come in?” Phil asked after a moment.
Melinda’s laugh echoed against him as she looked up, her eye glinting. “I do have to see how Phil Coulson lives when he’s not at work.” She extricated himself from Phil’s arms and ducked around him into the apartment.
“I don’t think you’ll find all that much,” Phil called after her as he shut the door. “Most of my important stuff is at the office, and you already know pretty much everything about me. Didn’t you call me an “open book” like the first day we ever actually talked?”
“Shut up, Phil,” Melinda replied from where she was looking over his bookshelves with great interest.
Phil came up beside her and touched her arm gently, testing their boundaries. Melinda had never been particularly physical (before today, he’d only hugged her once in their entire friendship), but she immediately relaxed at his touch, offering him a small smile before returning her focus to his bookcase. Feeling bolder, Phil wrapped his arms loosely around Melinda’s stomach, giving her the ability to leave if she wasn’t okay with thisas his head settled over her shoulder. But instead of moving away, Melinda sighed almost contentedly and leaned back into him, reaching out to examine books here and there and laughing when she got to his comic book collection.
Phil couldn’t believe how comfortable Melinda was with him. She trusted him completely after their months of friendship, and Phil was just so grateful. He was the luckiest man in the world.
When she’d finished examining his bookshelf, she turned in his arms and ended up face to face with him, her arms snaking around his neck.
“You’re really going to need to stop with this,” she said evenly, her face just as indiscernible.
Phil started to pull away, startled, but her arms around his neck held him in place.
“I meant the ridiculous level of happiness in my head,” she elaborated, finally smiling and pulling him impossibly closer. “I can’t concentrate.”
Phil grinned down at her. “I’m sorry,” he replied, his words almost a whisper, “there’s nothing I can do about that at the present moment.” And then she was kissing him and nothing else mattered.
It was the most amazing feeling in the world, the combination of Melinda in his arms and in his mind, together, in sync, breathing each other in and feeling each other in every part of themselves.
It was like the most perfect dream Phil could ever imagine, but it was real. This was his life now. He couldn’t imagine ever being able to honor Melinda’s request for him to stop being so happy. There was nothing else he could possibly feel.
When they finally separated, Phil let his forehead rest against Melinda’s.
“I never knew I could love someone as much as I love you,” he said softly, bringing a hand up to her cheek.
Melinda blushed slightly as she looked away. “I know what you mean,” she said almost shyly.
Phil brushed a stray hair behind her ear, reveling in how Melinda leaned into his touch.
A slightly mischievous glint appeared in her eyes, and she deftly removed herself from his embrace.
“Hey!” Phil said, affronted, having not been quite ready to let go of her yet.
Melinda laughed and grabbed his hand to placate him as she moved toward the kitchen. “I didn’t finish exploring.”
Phil just stared after her. Lucky didn’t even begin to cover it.
Hours later found he and Melinda curled up on Phil’s couch, empty containers of Chinese food spread out on the coffee table in front of them.
Their conversation wasn’t all that different from what it usually would have been as they made plans to visit Daisy in the hospital the next day, but it was the fact that they were together like this, Phil wrapped around Melinda, his fingers stroking up and down her arm, Melinda curled into Phil’s side as much as she could be, her head leaning against his shoulder, that made all the difference.
There was a lull in the conversation, and Phil remembered something he’d been meaning to find out since the parking garage.
“So when did you realize that you liked me?” he asked seriously.
Melinda looked up at him and raised her eyebrows. “Where did that come from?”
He shrugged. “I told you that I’ve loved you for quite some time for a variety of reasons, but you didn’t give as comprehensive an explanation.” He offered her a smile that was both teasing and serious.
Melinda sighed and turned away, clearly thinking. “Well, I liked you at the beginning because you always went out of your way to talk to me, even if I didn’t seem particularly social, and you were always really sweet, even if I didn’t deserve it. Before, you said something about being drawn to me… I kind of felt the same about you. So I let you in, at least a little bit. I always told myself that it was just because you were kind.”
Her brow furrowed. “But I don’t know exactly when I loved you. Somewhere in the middle of your complaining about end of semester meetings maybe, or when we had to be apart for Thanksgiving. By the fire I definitely knew for sure that I felt something for you… but I wasn’t going to do anything about it.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
Phil touched her cheek gently, and she looked up at him, her eyes sad and filled with doubt.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Melinda, I love you no matter what happened in your past, no matter what happens in your future. You will always be everything to me. All I need you to do is see if you can forgive yourself, just a little bit, because you don’t deserve to feel guilty for this.”
Melinda burrowed her head into his chest. “I’ll try.”
And Phil’s mind was flooded with love from Melinda, and he loved her even more in an instant.
The days passed quickly now that the semester was over and Phil always had Melinda with him mentally if not physically. They visited Daisy, as promised, but they kept their change of relationship status to themselves; it was too new, and Daisy was too… Daisy (and if Phil was being honestly, Daisy definitely already knew).
They didn’t see any of their friends until Wednesday, since Mack and Elena had suggested the whole group get drinks together that night to celebrate the true end of exam week now that they had all finally finished grading (Elena days ago, while Hunter had turned in his last class grades several hours late) and to see each other one last time before everyone went home for the holidays.
Phil was excited to see his friends, but he was also nervous. He and Melinda hadn’t been around anyone else (aside from Daisy) since they had officially begun their relationship, and they would have to let everyone know tonight. It was a big step.
Melinda had spent the afternoon in a nearby town with a couple old friends from grad school (Phil had been invited, but faculty committee obligations had kept him on campus for one last meeting), and Phil really couldn’t believe how much he’d missed her. They’d only technically been together for five days, and already he couldn’t handle not being around her for an afternoon. He was hopeless.
Phil arrived at the same time as Mack and Elena, and Hunter and Bobbi, in the middle of a, fortunately lighthearted, argument, joined them not long after. Melinda, however, was uncharacteristically late, Phil assumed due to traffic or some other incident on her way back from seeing her friends.
While the group waited for the arrival of their sixth member, Phil recounted the story of what had happened with Daisy and Fitzsimmons the previous Friday.
“Jemma was brilliant, and Fitz was too, and Melinda was just so calm and reassuring, ” Phil said after explaining how the whole group had ended up at the hospital. “I couldn’t have gone there myself, and I really don’t know what I would have done without Melinda.”
“How was spending time with Fitzsimmons?” Bobbi asked. “They’re good kids.”
“I feel like we adopted both of them, and Daisy too,” Phil replied with a laugh. “Melinda even hugged Fitzsimmons goodbye at the airport. It was really sweet.”
“I really can’t believe you stayed there all night,” Elena said, shaking her head slightly. “That must have been rough.”
“Yeah, we were so exhausted. Melinda went home and just slept for hours. I tried to get some grading done, but it just was impossible.”
“Speaking of grading,” Elena turned to Hunter, “I heard you finally finished yours.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “I’m sure everyone else wasn’t as quick as you either, Elena. How long did yours take, Phil?”
“Well, Melinda finished her grading before me,” Phil replied with a small smile, “but I’m going to blame all the work we had to do in the hospital; she’s way better about that stuff than me.”
“And I have an excuse too,” Hunter interjected. “I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the fire and everything.”
Bobbi raised her eyebrows at him. “The biggest problem the fire’s caused you since exams were over is the lack of a coffee pot in the history faculty room.”
“Yeah Melinda and I had to grab coffee in town since the café’s closed too,” Phil interjected. “But it wasn’t all bad. Melinda said she really liked the tea at the shop in town, so we’ll have to go back even when they deal with Hunter’s problem.”
An odd look passed between Bobbi, Mack, and Elena, but Phil didn’t really pay any attention to it.
“Oh, I ran into Victoria today,” Elena said to Hunter and Phil as the other present members of the history department. “She told me that the student course evaluations looked pretty good. Apparently Melinda’s were exceptional, better than anyone else’s, especially since it’s her very first semester.”
“Well of course Melinda’s evals were amazing,” Phil replied immediately, pride blooming in his chest at the well-deserved recognition that his soulmate was getting. “I think she’s probably the best teacher here. She’ll be really happy to hear about them though. I know she was a little worried, not that she ever needed to be, of course. She’s brilliant.”He smiled to himself just at the thought of Melinda.
Elena and Bobbi shared another almost exasperated look.
Phil, however, was distracted by annoyance in his mind from Melinda, no doubt about being late for drinks, so he sent her some calming thoughts quickly to let her know it was okay. He felt some amusement momentarily cloud over her annoyance and then almost an apology and a quieter exasperation.
Phil’s friends kept talking, but Phil was more focused on what he could feel from Melinda. The exasperation turned to relief and then to excitement, and Phil knew that she had to be almost there.
Not two minutes later, Melinda walked through the door of the bar, seeming still a little bit frustrated but glad to be there. Her eyes met Phil’s and she offered him a small smile which he returned as he inclined his head at the space next to him in the booth.
“Sorry I’m late. I was stuck in traffic,” she said to the group as she sat down.
Phil nudged her shoulder with his in an effort to help her refocus, and she smiled, leaning into him slightly.
“Oh my God this has to stop,” Bobbi said almost angrily.
“What?” Phil was confused.
Bobbi threw her head back dramatically as Mack and Elena laughed beside her.
“You’ve literally said Melinda’s name in everysentence since you got here, Phil,” Elena explained, smirking, “and now you’re doing that thing where you just smile at each other and pretend the rest of us aren’t here. Pleasetell us there’s something going on with you guys.”
Melinda looked at Phil pointedly in response to Elena’s remark about Phil’s inability to shut up about Melinda (which, as he thought about it, had been an accurate statement).
Phil shrugged at his soulmate sheepishly, but she shook her head affectionately and threaded his fingers through hers.
“We’re soulmates,” Melinda said matter-of-factly.
Phil stared at her. He had never thought that Melinda was going to be the one to tell their friends the news.
“CALLED IT!” Hunter said loudly over other exclamations from the rest of the group. “Don’t you remember at dinner last month I said there was something going on? I called it!”
Phil rolled his eyes. “We’ve only been together a few days, so no Hunter, you did not ‘call it.’”
“You guys are actually soulmates?” Elena said seeming pleased but a little disconcerted.
Phil nodded with a smile at Melinda. “Yeah, we are.”
She shook her head. “You know, it really does make sense.” She grinned at them. “Congratulations to both of you.”
“So you guys didn’t figure it out until last week?” Bobbi asked.
Phil shook his head. “Nope. Apparently I’m not the most observant.” He didn’t mention that Melnda had been hiding her feelings from him for eight years. They didn’t need to talk about that with everyone.
Eventually, the group got over the revelation and started talking about plans for break, and Phil glanced over at Melinda. He lifted up her hand and kissed it lightly, letting her feel how much he loved her at the same time. Melinda’s feelings echoed back to him, and Phil smiled.
“God we weren’t that bad at the beginning were we?” Hunter asked the group, gesturing toward Phil and Melinda next to him.
“No, you and Bobbi were worse,” Elena replied, smirking.
All and all, dinner was fun, and it was nice for Phil and Melinda to actually be together, officially, as soulmates. Up next, however, was Phil’s mom.
Phil elected to call her rather than wait until he saw her in person, just so he could have some distance – his mother tended to get over-excited. And Phil soon found that he was right to assume that his mother was going to go a little overboard when she answered his admission that Melinda was his soulmate with a shriek and then requests for Melinda to come visit and inquiries about Melinda’s dietary restrictions, the call only ending when Phil’s mom realized she had to tell her husband the news.
Less than a minute after his mom had finally hung up, Phil’s phone vibrated. Melinda, her timing impeccable as always.
“Hey!” Phil answered immediately, a wide smile already spreading across his face.
“How was your phone call with your mom?” Melinda asked, a smile in her voice.
“How’d you know I already called her?”
He could almost hear Melinda’s eyeroll. “You know I can feel everything you feel right? You were kind of nervous and then relieved and then a little bit stressed and then extra happy and then you were normal. So I assumed it went well.”
“You’re amazing, did you know that?” Phil replied reverently.
“I pay attention,” Melinda corrected him.
“I love you.” Phil didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but it was his natural reaction to speaking with Melinda.
He felt love and contentment drift back through his mind. “I love you too,” Melinda replied, echoing the feelings she had just sent him.
“So my mom wants you to come up and stay for a while sometime over break,” Phil said slowly.
Melinda seemed a little surprised but also pleased by the request. “I would like to see your childhood home. Maybe I’ll be able to figure out why you’re the way that you are.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Phil replied indignantly.
“Not always.” He could hear intense amusement in her voice.
He loved her. God he loved her so much.
Melinda laughed. “Every time I so much as say a word, you feel like you love me, Phil. Even you have to admit that’s a little excessive.”
“That’s just how I feel all the time, Melinda,” Phil replied quietly.
Melinda didn’t reply, but he could immediately feel that she loved him too, just as much.
“See it’s not just me!” Phil replied to Melinda’s feelings.
Melinda laughed. “Okay, fine. You win. I love you too.”
Winter break continued in much the same vein. Phil saw Melinda nearly every day, and they only separated when they went to their own respective families’ houses for Christmas. Melinda spent time with her dad and then with her mom, before flying in to spend a couple days with Phil’s parents. As expected, Phil’s mother instantly adored Melinda, and Phil’s father, a history teacher himself, told Phil later that he’d never met anyone as intelligent as Phil’s soulmate. It was exactly what Phil had hoped it would be.
As the spring semester approached, he and Melinda easily established a routine, spending nearly all of their time together, on campus or in each other’s apartments, including a few particularly lovely days curled up together on Phil’s couch, sipping hot chocolate and admiring a lovely January snowfall. Melinda had begun to open up about the fire and all the more hidden parts of her life, and Phil was there with her every step of the way. She was still healing, but with every bit of progress, Phil loved her even more. Every day was different, but all of them were perfect. He knew that they’d be busier come the start of the semester, but even that was exciting; Melinda was in the office next door after all.
“Everything’s sort of in a fog today, you must be exhausted, Phil,” Melinda said stepping into his office the morning of the first day of the spring semester, carrying a cup of coffee for him in Phil’s brand new mug emblazoned with comic book characters. It had been a gift from Melinda, and Phil loved it.
“Sorry, I was up late last night,” Phil replied from his desk, rubbing his eyes. “I realized that there’s an article I need for my Cold War class today, and I couldn’t remember where it was.”
“I know,” Melinda said, her eyebrows raised. “I could feel you panicking for half the night.”
Phil looked up at his soulmate. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry. Did you get to sleep okay?”
Melinda laughed as she set down his coffee and her tea on his desk. “Yeah, I was fine as soon as you calmed down a little bit.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Melinda replied, walking around his desk. “I signed up for this.”
“Well, technically the universe signed you up for it,” Phil replied with a shrug.
Melinda looked him over with a small smirk playing on her lips. “No, I signed up for it.” She leaned down to kiss him, her hand coming up to cup his cheek.
Phil sighed into her mouth as he deepened the kiss as much as he could from his desk chair. He was about to pull her down to him more fully when they were interrupted by an excited voice.
“YES! I KNEW IT!”
Phil and Melinda broke apart at the sound, though Phil grabbed Melinda’s hand before she could remove herself entirely. They both knew who it was, and after what their visitor had just seen, a simple think like their holding hands wasn’t going to matter much.
“Didn’t I tell you guys?” It was Daisy at the door, addressing a very reluctant Jemma and Fitz who didn’t seem quite as keen on barging into Phil’s office.
Phil rolled his eyes and stood up, Melinda’s hand still in his. “Brilliant as usual Daisy. How are you feeling?”
Daisy’s arm was still in a cast and in the overhead lights of his office, he could see a line across her cheek where she’d been cut during her accident.
“Pretty good now.” She flashed Phil a huge grin and wagged her eyebrows suggestively.
Phil shook his head at the childishness of his advisee.
“Jemma, Fitz, how was your break?” Melinda asked the students behind Daisy, ignoring Daisy’s presence entirely.
“Oh it was lovely, thank you,” Jemma replied immediately, “once we finally made it home, that is. Fitz fell right to sleep on the flight home, but I can never manage to sleep on planes.”
“Can’t have been much less comfortable than Daisy’s hospital room,” Phil replied, earning him a laugh from Jemma and Fitz.
“Ugh are we really not going to talk about this?” Daisy interrupted with a groan.
Phil blinked at her. “Yes, Daisy?”
“You guys were together when you came to see me at the hospital, right?”
Phil sighed. “Yes, we were.”
Daisy almost cackled.
“I totally knew it,” Daisy said with a maniacal grin. “I even told Fitzsimmons.”
“She did,” Fitz affirmed, shaking his head as though he would rather not remember it. “It was a full half hour of a Skype call that I will never get back.”
The whole group laughed at that.
Daisy finally sighed. “Okay, I’ll leave you guys alone about this, but we’re really happy for you, just so you know.”
Phil had to smile at the sincerity of Daisy’s words. “Thank you Daisy, that’s really nice of you to say.”
“See you in class later, Coulson!” Daisy called behind her as the group filed out.
Phil turned to Melinda shaking his head, a smile still on his face. “This is going to be quite a semester isn’t it?”
Melinda smiled back at him and kissed him lightly. “I think it already is.”
And it really was. Phil had to work on adjusting the emotions he sent to Melinda during the day, so she wouldn’t get distracted while she was teaching, and so they both could get actual work done, but mostly they each just had a little happy sort of humming in the back of their minds that made both of them more cheerful than usual. Hunter complained a little bit, but no one else seemed to mind.
Weeks passed and then months. Phil met Melinda’s mother over spring break and the two got along mercifully very well, soulmate Phil and Melinda fell in easily with their soulmate friends, and more and more of Melinda’s things migrated to Phil’s apartment.
And before they knew it, the semester was almost over: just a few weeks left of classes, a week of exams, and then graduation for Daisy and Fitzsimmons. Still so much to do.
Phil, Melinda, and Elena had been talking outside the history building before Melinda had to go to a meeting while Phil and Elena were going into town to grab lunch.
“Okay, I’ll see you later,” Melinda said after a quick glance at her watch. She kissed Phil quickly and headed across campus.
Phil stared after her, smiling. She was his world.
“Is this going to go on forever?” Elena’s voice forced him to abandon the sight of his soulmate. “It’s been four months now, and it’s still exactly like it was at the beginning.”
Phil shrugged hopelessly. “I love her, Elena. What can I do?”
“Coulson, you’re such a sap, wow.”
The comment came from a lone student walking out of the history building. Daisy. Of course.
Elena laughed and tossed Daisy a grin.
Daisy grinned back, and then turned to Phil again.
“So when are you gonna pop the question?”
Phil furrowed his brow. “Excuse me?”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “Come on, Coulson. She’s your soulmate and you’ve both clearly decided that this is it for you guys. Why not get on with it?”
Phil gaped at the audacity of his student and turned to Elena for backup, but she just looked thoughtful.
“Daisy’s kind of right, Phil,” Elena said after a moment. “The only reason Mack and I waited was because we didn’t live in the same place and then we wanted to take some time to actually be together once he moved here before we did anything, and everyone knows Hunter and Bobbi have more than a few issues to work through before they’re ready for that. But you and Melinda? You’re both here, you’re both on the same page, you’re practically attached at the hip. Why not go for it?”
“And you already have the ring.”
Phil and Elena both turned to Daisy, wide-eyed.
“You bought a ring?” Elena asked Phil, almost awed.
“How in the world could you have possibly known that?” Phil demanded of his student. After the events of December, Daisy had certainly been more involved in his personal life than perhaps he wanted, especially now that they had class together and saw each other at least a few times a week, but teasing him about proposing to his girlfriend was one thing, somehow knowing that Phil had bought a ring for Melinda when he hadn’t shared that information with anyone was quite another.
Daisy just went on smiling at him. “Jemma, Fitz, and I saw you in the little jewelry store in town that one day Professor May was away at that conference, and I know her birthday isn’t until late in the summer because you mentioned that you’re going to visit her in China to celebrate, and it was after Valentine’s Day, so it wasn’t for that either. Plus you seemed extra nervous.”
“So you stalked me?” Phil asked, sighing in defeat. “I can’t imagine Jemma and Fitz really being okay with that.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t stalking. We were at the bookstore across the street finding a present for my grandfather’s birthday. It was just fate.”
“Ignoring that fate or stalking or whatever,” Elena brushed away Daisy’s remarks. “You really bought a ring, Phil?”
Phil kicked at a stray rock on the path. “Yeah, I did. I mean you’re right, there’s not really any reason to wait is there?” He looked up at his friend.
Elena was smiling at him as though he was a little brother she was proud of instead of her older colleague.
“So back to my initial question: when are you gonna ask her?” Daisy interrupted Phil and Elena’s little moment.
Phil glared at her good-naturedly. “Get out of here, Daisy.”
Daisy grinned at him and hugged him quickly before practically skipping away.
“Don’t say anything to anyone Daisy!” Phil called after her.
“Fine!” she replied without turning around, but Phil would have been very surprised if she wasn’t already texting Fitz and Jemma with the news. At least Phil knew he could count on their discretion.
Now that they had lost their younger companion, Phil and Elena started walking toward town.
Elena hadn’t said anything since Phil had suggested he was planning on proposing, but she kept staring at him with that little smile on her face.
“Oh would you give it a rest already, Elena,” Phil said exasperatedly when they had almost reached the edge of campus.
Elena laughed. “Sorry, Phil. I’m just really happy for you.” She paused for a moment before continuing very hesitantly. “So do you have a plan?”
Phil sighed and shook his head. “Not at all. I want to do it after the semester’s over – we’re too busy to do anything now – but I don’t know when.”
“Well our wedding’s the beginning of June, so don’t get too close and upstage us,” Elena joked. “End of May or later this summer. It can’t be when Mack and I are away. And actually Hunter’s going to be in England most of the summer, and he’d be furious if he didn’t get to see it happen. So maybe go with earlier rather than later.”
Phil rolled his eyes. “Is there any reason why me proposing to my girlfriend has anything to do with the schedules of the rest of you guys?”
Elena shrugged. “I’m just saying. And Daisy might kill you if you do it after she leaves, you know.”
“I think I can deal with Daisy.”
Elena stopped walking and grabbed Phil’s arm to stop him too.
Phil looked at his friend curiously.
“You know that we just really care about you guys right?” Elena said, her voice genuine. “We want to help.”
Phil offered his friend a small smile. “Yeah, I know. Thanks, Elena.”
Elena grinned at him as they started walking again. “Just be sure to let me know if you need anything at all, okay?”
Phil almost laughed. “You know Melinda wouldn’t want something elaborate.”
“Yeah, but you can do something special without it being elaborate.”
Phil nodded thoughtfully. Elena was right. Melinda deserved something special, and honestly he wouldrather do it sooner than later. The small velvet box was hidden deep in his sock drawer, and Phil could almost feel it calling out to him every time Melinda stayed over.
It was time.
And so Phil thought about his proposal, like Elena had asked him to. He needed to do it after the semester was over, before Mack and Elena’s wedding, and maybe while Daisy, Fitz, and Jemma were still on campus. An idea started to form in his mind, and after a quick check in with Daisy and Fitzsimmons to ask if it was okay if he stole the show from them a little bit at their graduation (to which all three students replied resoundingly that they were on board), he had an actual plan. To ask Melinda to marry him.
“Phil, it’s time to go down, are you ready?” Melinda pulled Phil from his thoughts, appearing at his door in a heavy robe similar to his, carrying her cap rather than wearing it.
Phil turned back to his girlfriend, his soulmate, and, hopefully in just a few hours, his fiancée, and smiled. “Yeah. I think I am.”