Hourglass

We

Not long after we leave the compound, the jet touches down on the field around one hundred metres from the concrete building. The wind tangling my hair in ferocious knots, I run toward the plane, followed by a panting Hunter who is still carrying a barely conscious Skye. The hangar door lowers, the sound of scraping metal joining the night air. Coulson's standing there, his arms folded against his white shirt.

Hunter conveys Skye through a door by the lab but I don't trail after them. Instead I place the knife I brought from the torture room down on the bench, and then my shaking hands fumble over the clasp of my belt.

"I'll get it," Phil says quietly and I raise my arms resignedly. He undoes it easily and it falls to the floor with a dull thud. I can hear the engine shuddering; we're just about to take off. And we're leaving Simmons behind.

He draws his hands away from my waist and pulls me into his chest. I bury my head in the crisp fabric of his shirt, my hands pressed between us. The embrace surprises me and I'm too stunned to respond properly, my body as stiff as a board.

"We're going to get her back." He may sound as calm as he always appears but there's an undertone to his voice that suggests this is not the case. "We don't abandon our own."

A fresh wave of guilt surges over me. "I did," I reply quietly, and his grip tightens around my back.

"You did what you had to do; made the hard call. It's not your fault, Melinda," he says soothingly. His words do nothing to quiet the storm surging in my head. I know I'm to blame. "Do you want to check on Skye?"

The plane jolts beneath our feet as I unfold myself from his arms. The pilot is clearly inexperienced. I pick my belt up from where it lies discarded on the floor and place it on the bench beside the knife. I'll put it away later.

I feel like a marionette as we walk through the maze of corridors; my mind is elsewhere, my body only following orders. I will let the strings dictate my every move for now. We arrive in the room where Skye lies on a bed, flanked by Hunter, who for once is silent, and Trip, whose fingers are dancing across the screen of a tablet. Skye sits up when she hears us come in, lips quirked in a dry smile, leg heavily bandaged in blood stained cloth.

"Your vitals are good, but you've lost a lot of blood," Trip says, sounding forcibly cheerful. "We won't be able to give you any sort of further medical attention until we know Simmons' status, but I've disinfected the wound and you should be all good from here."

"Thank you, Trip," Skye says. She turns to me, her eyes seemingly searching for something. "Can I have a moment alone with May?"

Slowly the room begins to vacate: Hunter ambles out looking like a deer caught in the headlights, Trip taps away on the tablet for a couple of seconds before placing it down beside the bench and Coulson is the last to leave, shooting me a final concerned glance. I lower my head and he doesn't look reassured in the slightest, but he departs regardless.

"I wanted to say thank you," Skye says once the room is clear. "You saved my life, and Hunter's too."

"Did you think I was just going to let you die?" I say wryly and she laughs, a bright and resonant sound.

"God, I hope not. But I do think that you feel guilty about having to leave Jemma in there." She's reading me, in the same way she read Mike Peterson and Tobias Ford. "The way you punched the wall... When I came here as a rookie, I thought that you were all, 'target acquired, threat eliminated', with no feelings whatsoever and a heart of cold stone. But you care for us, don't you? Those feelings are the difference between a human and a robot, between you and Ward. Those feelings are eating you from the inside out right now."