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Simmons put her hand over Skye’s.
“Mm?”
Skye looked up, blinking back more tears. Simmons offered her a gentle smile.
“I’ll take care of all this. You can go, if you’d like.”
She gestured with her head, to where Fitz was waiting, with a sober expression and arms crossed, by the door to the lab. Skye sniffed, and passed one more look over her mother’s body. Jiaying was almost crushed. Her skin was pale, but had hardly had the chance to bruise. Her face was unsettlingly peaceful, after the display of ruthlessness with which she’d left this world. Skye’s stomach churned, rage and pain and grief choking her.
“Thanks, Jemma.”
Simmons nodded as Skye walked away, and watched her into Fitz’ arms before she resumed her work.
-
Fitz opened the door for Skye with the arm that was not wrapped around her shoulders. They walked in silence down the hall to Skye’s bedroom. Skye sat against her headrest and drew her legs up to her chest. Fitz sat beside her, with his legs long but one arm still draped around her. Eventually, he let his eyes drift away from her, to the pattern of her bedsheets and to the clothes bleeding out of her chest of drawers.
“I’d ask how you’re holding up,” he said, quietly, “but ‘s a ridiculous question. I can’t even imagine, losing my mum. At all, I mean – what you –“
He shook his head. Skye shrugged.
“She locked me up. She was going to kill me, kill the people I love. She wasn’t really my mother. Not the way that matters, anyway.”
“But she was.” Fitz squeezed her shoulders, and she looked across the small space at him. “She mattered, Skye. She’s part of your life. Your biology, but also…she’s part of the reason you’ve lived the way you have. Loved the people you have. Learnt the things you have. She’s not the mother you want her to be, she’s not the one you need, maybe she’s not your mother in any sort of way that counts, but don’t let anyone – including yourself - tell you that you shouldn’t be sad about it. Or angry. You lost something today.”
Skye bit her lip. Tears started to creep over her eyelashes.
“It’s okay,” Fitz assured her, easing her to rest against his chest.
“You sound like you speak from experience.” Her attempt at bravado died on her gravelly tone.
“That’s a conversation for another day.”
Skye sighed, frustrated and relieved at once. Fitz ran his fingers up and down her arm until he could feel her relax. A long silence stretched between them. Seconds, minutes, maybe hours passed like lapping waves.
“She told me…” Skye whispered, choked with tears. “She told me my birthday. I’m twenty six.”
And then her shoulders started to shake.