Chapter Text
Skye knocked on the door of her parents’ room. Once again, she marvelled that they managed to sleep next to each other for three months, be her parents and basically, by extension, the team’s parents, raise her, and die, all without admitting their feelings for each other.
She knocked again. It was the middle of the night, and Simmons finally went back to sleep in her own bunk, so Skye had some time before she was forced back to bed rest. Ugh. Bed rest. On New Year’s Eve, too, of all nights.
The door slid open and May beckoned her in quickly before she shut it again.
Skye was sat down on the bed with her mother as her father pulled up a chair. “Come on, guys?” she whined. “Seriously?”
“Hey, we made a deal,” Coulson said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “If you have to leave your bed, you have to sit. I know you’re itching to get back on the field, but you seriously need to let yourself heal. You got shot, literally, two days ago.”
Skye pouted, but it faded after her mother took a brush to her hair and gently tugged it through her rat's nest of a hospital cot bed head.
“So, I wanted to talk to you guys about the Clairvoyant. Who it could be.” Skye could feel the tension in the room rise. “Just before I got shot, Quinn said things. Things only SHIELD agents could know.”
May furrowed her brows. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Skye glanced back to look at the both of them. “I mean, they knew I was playing triple agent with you, the team, and the Rising Tide. They knew about us, our little family here.” She blew out a breath. “They were there at your funeral, Dad. That’s the only way they could’ve known unless we personally introduced me to them, and that was only Nat, Hill, and the Director. And they aren’t blabbermouths, those three.” Skye sighed. “The Avengers were there. Audrey was there—“ she felt May’s hand motions stutter for half a second at the mention of Audrey Nathan— “a few cadets, and a few dozen agents. Those are the only people who would’ve known.”
Coulson let out a breath. “So. The Clairvoyant’s a SHIELD agent?”
“Most likely.” Skye leaned back to rest against May’s legs. “Who? Probably someone with a high enough clearance to access most personnel and mission files, so maybe a level 7, level 8 clearance.” She quirked the corner of her mouth. “Hey, maybe it’s you, and the Clairvoyant is just a different part of your brain.”
“You’re not seriously trying to Jekyll/Hyde me, are you, angel?” Coulson smiled wryly. “I’m not the Clairvoyant, but to your credit, finding out the details of my death is a curiosity of mine.”
Skye noticed him exchanging a look with May, and she glanced between them quickly. “Am I…” she pursed her lips as she considered the silent conversation that was going on. “Missing something, perhaps?”
“Go on,” May said to Coulson. “Tell her.”
Her father was about to protest, but he gave in. He reached for Skye’s hands. “I’ve been looking for a way to tell you this,” Coulson said, “looking around for some answers, something to help… explain… but I don’t have any. So…”
Skye raised an eyebrow as he hesitated. “So…?”
“The drug,” he said, “the one that saved us both… when we found it, I discovered something else. Its source. It was alien.”
Skye tilted her head. “Alien, as in…” she hummed, trying to find the word. “Unfamiliar?”
Coulson shook his head no. “The minute I learned what it was, I tried to keep them from injecting you with it, but I was too late.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry, angel eyes.”
Skye squeezed his fingers assuringly. “You were trying to save my life,” she said. “You did save my life.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. “I was desperate to, and I subjected you to unknown ramifications or side effects.” Her father dropped her hands, but Skye grabbed them again.
“I’m sorry to say this, Dad, but… so what?” His head snapped up in confusion. “We are alive. And you’ve had that stuff in you for… uh, some time now, and you’re okay, right? Plus, you’re not sprouting a pointy tail or anything, so bonus there.” She smiled a little. “Dad.”
Coulson let out a weary breath. “I know nothing fazes you, but this should faze you. We are completely in the dark on this,” he warned.
Skye rolled her eyes. “That’s where we live. I’m an 084, for god’s sake. Who knows what the hell that means? At least we’re in the dark together.”
“Yes,” he said. “But not for long. To hell with any protocols or any code I used to be bound by. We have a long list of questions we need answers for, and we’re going after them ourselves.”
Skye exchanged a look with her mother, who rubbed her shoulders comfortingly. She nodded. “Well, if the team’s up for it…”
“No,” Coulson objected quickly. “No, listen to me. I trust them, but we need to protect them from this. Fury went to dangerous lengths to keep this under wraps. Lied to me, lied to SHIELD. This is a powerful secret, a secret men died for. Until we know why, we can’t share this with anyone, for their safety and ours.”
Skye nodded again. That was reasonable. “Got it,” she said brightly. “So, what’ll it be, A.C.? What do we go after first?”
Coulson smiled at the old nickname, something she hadn’t called him for a long time. “The person responsible for this,” he just said. “And we make him pay.”
Skye didn’t think this would be how she became a SHIELD agent. The first day back in her own bunk, and she found it all neat and tidy and free of dust, her bed made (probably by May), and a small, thin box on top of her sheets. She opened it to see a familiar yellow and white fabric that she hadn’t seen in over a year. Her heart ached to see it, since it brought back both memories of a better time and those of the worst day of her life.
She read the note attached to the box. Come meet everyone in the lounge at 9 in the dress. Look nice. We’re going to take pictures. written in May’s neat script, and Skye could barely suppress a smile.
She tugged the dress on, happy that it still fit her, though it hung a little looser than it did before. The yellow and white flattered her, and Skye pulled on her leather jacket over it for warmth. Despite the Bus being very well insulated, it was still cold in there, and it didn’t help that the lounge had the best air conditioning on the entire plane.
Skye stepped out into the hallway and walked to the lounge area, where she was met with clapping and cheers. Her parents smiling proudly as they shook her hand.
“Welcome to SHIELD,” Coulson said with a grin.
“Welcome back,” May whispered. She and her daughter shared a knowing smile.
This was the only thing Skye was grateful for the Clairvoyant for. The search for them made her a fully realized agent, complete with a shiny new badge and a shiny new clearance level 1. She was proud of it. And now it made her want to work even harder so she could utilize her new powers to the fullest.
There were cupcakes and hugs all around for an hour before the first few agents had to trickle in for their double-blind to find the Clairvoyant. Except it was… a little different than what they were expecting.
They’d recalled several suspects on the list of being the Clairvoyant and paired them with someone else that they didn’t really suspect.
Garrett would go with Coulson, Blake would go with May, and Hand would go with Ward and Trip. They had three ‘candidates’ to look at, but they shouldn’t be too much of an issue. All of them were random guys who killed people, so Skye didn’t feel too much empathy for them on the whole. She just wanted to find out who the Clairvoyant was, and she didn’t mind using a few murderers to that end.
“Hey, Skye,” Garrett greeted as she approached him with the details of his double-blind. “You know, we haven’t officially met. John Garrett.”
She shook his hand with a smile. “Yeah.” Skye handed him the tablet. “I guess lying unconscious in a gurney… really should not count.”
Garrett nodded. “How are you feeling?”
“A lot better, actually.” Skye watched him for usual behaviour, but he seemed the same. Maybe he was just like that? He seemed too sane to be the Clairvoyant. And he did save her life.
“I’ve been shot a couple times myself,” Garrett said. “Back, shoulder. Had my throat cut once. But you know the toughest one?” He peeled back his shirt to show her a huge burn scar. “Thing about a third-degree burn, the burn itself doesn’t hurt at all. Crazy, right?” He chuckled. Scratch that. Maybe he was crazy. “The nerve endings get all fried. But the area around the burn? That smarts. Still, gut shot’s the worst.”
Skye let out a laugh. “Well, I got through it,” she said. She played off her nervousness to the mission instead of on him. “Well, you’re all good to go. Good luck, Agent Garrett.”
“And you, Skye.” He saluted her smartly before going downstairs.
Skye watched him leave. She typed a note on her phone so she definitely wouldn’t forget:
John Garrett. No. 1 suspect.
