Chapter Text
Jemma's only seventeen when she's diagnosed. She's standing outside in the ridiculously hot sun-Or perhaps that's just her English skin, bony fingers clasped together and a lip worried between her teeth. The grass outside the institution is dry and dreary, much like the stone building itself, almost sad to even look at. It's the building where her psychiatrist is working from, where her mother is right now, after Dr. Helbig had already seen her.
Her fingers move to unconsciously wrap around the wrist of the opposite hand, a relieved sigh escaping her lips as she's reassured that her fingers reach all the way around, loosely even. She's worried that the muffin her mother made her eat under much duress this morning may have impacted her weight, so deep in thought about it, that she doesn't hear Leo approach.
"Simmons, you alrigh'?" His eyes are scrunched as he tries to see her through the glare of the sun, and then instead comes to stand beside her so he can see her. "You look a righ' mess,"
"Oh, well thank you, Fitz," She grumbles, "You're so kind." Her eyes don't leave her wrists though, because she knows that when she looks up her tone will soften and she'll apologize because he doesn't mean anything by it, not really, he's just worried. But she's determined to be irritable today, because if Dr. Helbig decides to admit her-Which it really looks like she will, she wants to conserve her niceties for the staff in hopes she can charm them, distract them long enough to hide her food, do whatever needs doing.
"Jemma, y'know that's not what I meant. You don't look well." He says softly, "I just want you to be healthy." He reaches out, his hands carefully prying her left hand from her right wrist, and refusing to let go until she looks up. "Just give it a shot, please."
She tries to glare at him, but instead her lower lip quivers and she looks away again. "I don't want to go," Her voice shakes a little and she's suddenly enveloped in a hug, and she knows why Fitz starts crying afterwards, because she can feel his arms wrap around her all the way around, with room to spare, and she used to feel firm and alive and healthy in his arms.
"You're gonna get better, Jem, and then Pa's gonna get us into the academy, okay? But you cannae go unless you get better. 'right?" One of his hands come up to stroke her hair, and he pulls away slightly, just to look at her, and he nods to encourage an answer out of her. Finally, she gives up on her resolve and nods back.
"As long as you visit, frequently, Leo." She murmurs as he pulls her back into her shoulder, among a chorus of, 'Yes, yes, always,' whispered into her ear.
"Jemma, honey?" Her mother's just stepped out, the old creaky wire door slamming behind her, making Jemma jolt backwards, wrap her arms around herself, looking to Fitz for any kind of help, but they both know there's nothing they can do. Jemma's mother is a self-obsessed, vein, vapid creature, and it's honestly just a wonder that she didn't get to this point any sooner.
The ride back to the house to pack Jemma's things is filled by a heavy silence, and Mary, Jemma's mother, points out all the ways Jemma's ruined her pristine reputation by 'doing this to her', even before driving to the treatment facility-or well, let's call it what it is, a mental health clinic, this is a small town and there aren't the kind of resources available to separate their patients by disorder, rather they all mingle.
...
She's shown to her room by a tall man, who instead of wearing the usual uniform, scrubs and sneakers, is wearing a suit, with his identification hanging from a lanyard around his neck that reads Dr Phillip Coulson, Psychologist. His smile is tight lipped, and for a psychologist he's not so great at hiding the very small, probably unnoticeable to anyone who wasn't examining him thoroughly, grimace that blossomed on his face at her physical appearance. She's seen the look before, but usually on a larger scale, accompanied with a gasp. She knows how thin she is, but she also knows how thin she isn't, and as long as she can feel what she believes to be a thick fat lining between her skin and her bones, she's not going to stop.
Her mother abandons her at the front desk with a pat on the head, of all bloody things, and a muttered excuse of, 'I'm meeting a client.'. Jemma's well acquainted with her mother's planner, there's no such meeting. She isn't sure, but she thinks she sees a hint of annoyance in Dr. Coulson's eyes as he watches her leave, and he's already reached for her bag before she can, so at least that's something. She has a feeling it's because he thinks she can't carry it herself, which is fairly true, but he's too kind to say anything about it. She likes that.
"So...How long must I stay here?" She tries to sound less accusatory and more curious, but she's never been good at uncomfortable situations and her voice comes out slow and deliberate, rather than quick and nonchalant.
"Until we deem you healthy enough to leave." He states simply, and then gives her that same tight lipped smile again, and says, "We'll do our best to make this comfortable for you, but at the end of the day, how long you stay is up to you."
She knows what he means by that. It's up to how much effort she puts in, and whether she actually wants to recover or not, which is now in the court of No, not at all. She feels in control, she feels clean, and even though just one wrong meal can spiral her mood out of control, most of the time, she feels like she's finally doing something right.
"Yes, I understand that." She says after a few minutes contemplation, rather than saying anything more decisive. She doesn't really know how this is all going to pan out after all, and she's not about to lie and say she'll try if she won't. Besides, she's a terrible liar.
They stop outside a room, and Coulson smiles a genuine smile as he knocks on the door. "Skye. It's Dr. Coulson." There's a groan from behind the door, and then a heavy thud, another groan, and footsteps towards the door. "Your room mate," Coulson supplies, as the door swings open and a cute brunette with bad bed hair stands, leaning against the door frame, half asleep.
"What up, D.C?" She asks, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, obviously not at all aware of the shorter auburn haired girl, whose now very uncomfortable because if this is her room mate, she's not so sure she's going to enjoy this. Everything about her screams messy, and Jemma's not at all okay with that.
"Skye, this is your new room mate, Jemma Simmons." Coulson gets straight to the point, but the look on his face is a fond one, and Jemma deduces that Skye is probably one of his favourite patients. It's funny, how that happens sometimes.
Skye's eyes turn to meet Jemma's and she slowly grins. "Have I told you I love you lately?" She asks Coulson, eyes never leaving Jemma's, and Coulson rolls his eyes.
"No funny business Skye, I'll know."
"Whatever you say boss-man." Skye chuckles. "Hey, I'm Skye."
Jemma's entirely too confused for this, but she holds out her hand and smiles because she seems friendly enough, "Hello, I'm Jemma."
...
When her things have finally been placed in their room, and Coulson's walked off somewhere, Skye gets to brushing her hair and staring at Jemma. It's odd, to have someone's attention focused solely on her, especially a stranger, and she almost shrinks away from it, but she's Jemma Simmons, and she's not the kind to back away from something, so she stares right back until Skye breaks into a wide smile again. Jemma was right, Skye's messy, there are clothes all over the floor and books out of order haphazardly stacked by the closet, which Jemma didn't even want to open for fear of the mess inside.
"So, anorexia?" Skye asks when the silence becomes too much, an eyebrow quirked and her hand grasping a hair tie to put her freshly brushed hair up.
There's no reason to hide it, no rational one anyway, besides it wouldn't take Skye long to guess once she saw her scarred knuckles. Jemma's kind of a reason and logic motivated person, so she just shakes her head and amends, "Bulimia, actually."
"Ah. I've got depression. Apparently." Skye's hands are in the air to wrap the tie around her pony tail, and that's when Jemma sees the thin, pink lines criss-crossing her arms. She takes an educated guess at Self-harm, and to be completely honest she herself had thought of maybe taking a blade to her skin more than a few times, but that was one of the few things she'd been too afraid to do, despite all her research and her studies in biology telling her exactly where and how deep she could cut if she wanted to, safely. She just didn't have the push. "So, Isn't it a little...I don't know, gross, making yourself vomit?"
Jemma doesn't respond.
"Sorry, that was insensitive." Skye realizes a moment later, "I don't really have a censor, you know? But it was still rude and I'm really sorry." Skye's eyebrows are furrowed and she looks fairly genuine, so Jemma nods.
"It's quite alright." She gets up from the rickety bed and comes to stand up, a little restless after the drive here and ignoring the ache in her calcium deprived, fragile bones. "What exactly does one do around here?"
Skye shrugs, "Not much, really. I mean, If you're artsy than this is the place to be, but I don't really have the motivation to go to arts and crafts or music, so I usually just sleep like a sloth." She pauses for a second, and then says, "But, If you want, I can let you use my phone." She passes Jemma, shoves her hand beneath her mattress and pulls out a state of the art Starkphone proudly. "It's got all the updates and I hacked into the clinic's wifi."
"How did you get that in here?" Jemma asks incredulously, barely concealing her excitement at the prospect of being able to speak to Fitz regularly, whenever she wanted-Or well, she still wasn't entirely sure this wasn't one of those bribery kinds of things, she doesn't know how they usually go down, but even so, this seems like a good turn to a bad day.
"A magician never tells her secrets," Skye teases, and it's really silly that Jemma blushes a little when Skye's gaze is intensely focused on her because she doesn't know whether to break the eye contact or hold it and wow, Skye has really pretty eyes. They're a mix of chocolate and the colour of autumn leaves, the shape of almonds and full of a mischievous sparkle that Jemma hadn't noticed before. She's bad news.
"You're a magician?" She makes her voice work, and Skye breaks the stare to chuckle and glance at her phone.
"No, I just thought it sounded cooler than my adoptive Dad works here." She admits, and then holds out the phone. "You can use it now if you want?"
Jemma eagerly accepts, dials Fitz's number, and spends a good ten minutes on the phone to him, despite regularly checking with Skye that it was okay to be on the phone for this long, that it wasn't costing her too much, 'Free calls, Jemma. It's all good.', until much to her annoyance, she yawned, and Fitz insisted on hanging up and calling her back in the morning at some point. She hated that this was a symptom of her disorder, constant exhaustion, but as she hands the phone back, Skye gives her a concerned frown.
"Do you want me to turn the lights off? cause i can totally do that, I'll just use my phone for light." She offers generously, and Jemma spares a thought for Skye's eyesight and the detrimental effects of staring into a bright light for hours on end, but ultimately, she just agrees and climbs into her bed. It's cold, and she knows she's shivering, but she knows she'll be colder if she gets back out, and she's gotten used to always being cold since she dropped under a BMI of 18, so she lets it go.
She's already asleep when Skye goes into the closet and takes out the extra thermals, laying both of them over Jemma's shaking body, smiling in satisfaction when the tiny girl stilled, and seemed to snuggle into her bed.
...
They're sitting side by side in the cafeteria, Skye's legs kicked up on the table, despite being told multiple times to put her feet down by the staff, and Jemma sitting properly in her own seat, forcing herself not to berate the wild child she's sitting with, when Skye's eyes widen comically and she turns to Jemma, and says, "Hey, don't you eat this kind of stuff a lot where you're from?"
"Yes, actually."
They've been served biscuits and gravy, but they don't call it that, and Jemma was entirely too afraid upon seeing them this morning, thankfully, Coulson was kind enough to ease her in, and had specially ordered some chicken and vegetable soup for her. She's sure there are still far too many calories in it, but it's better than what she could have been eating, so she's silently grateful, even though she can't seem to make herself do more than take tiny, quarter spoonfuls at a time, and it takes her longer than that to remember not to spit it out, but she gives up completely after fifteen minutes and only three quarter spoonfuls, her mind whispering, that's enough, Jemma.
"Are you chuffed to bits about it?" Skye asks, putting on her awful english accent and holding in giggles, and Jemma can't help it, despite the terrible accent and the little bit of sausage gravy on the side of Skye's lip, she looks kind of adorable, giggling away at her supposed joke, brown hair pulled off her face in a side braid.
"Terrible," She sighs, "Honestly, I'm ashamed to have met you." She twirls the spoon around in the soup bowl, and Skye jabs her in the side.
"Wasn't that bad," She pouts, but her eyes and her focus are on how much, or really how little, Jemma's eaten. "You might wanna eat a bit more than that. Thursday's are gym days and we wouldn't want you passing out. Like, I totally get the whole terrified of getting fat thing, but trust me, you're in no danger of that."
Jemma can't help the little offended glare that escapes her, and she says sharply, "I'm fairly certain you're not a psychiatrist." She immediately regrets it however when Skye mimics Coulson's tight lipped smile and nods, looking away.
"Sorry." She stares back down at her plate, and Jemma feels really bad, forcing herself to take another quarter spoonfull and swallow it, like a peace offering, and Skye nudges her with her shoulder. "See? That was pretty badass, you're kicking that soups butt."
Jemma groans at her attempt at cheering her on and shakes her head. "You're quite the specimen, Skye." who in turn raises both eyebrows, expression a mix of confusion and incredulity.
"Uh, thanks?"
...
Jemma doesn't realize quite how big a deal Skye having a parent working there is, until she realizes who it is. They've just finished the gym class, but Jemma hasn't been cleared for physical activity yet due to her dangerously underweight condition, and so she's been sitting outside with a book - Moby Dick, she'd loaned it from Fitz's boyfriend, Trip, before coming here, when she glances up and sees Coulson drop a kiss on Skye's forehead and tell her to do her homework. She's doing online courses, apparently, but that's besides the point, because Skye says, "Yeah, yeah, I'll get right on that, Pops." and then walks off, only changing direction when she spots Jemma.
"Hey, sorry i dragged you to this, didn't realize you couldn't play," She offers a small smile, tugging the tie from the end of her braid and shaking her hair out, "You should count yourself lucky though, Victoria was on the other team and she plays dirty."
"And you don't?" Jemma immediately wants to take the words back, but Skye just smirks and shrugs.
"Most of the time." It's said with a wink and then Skye's fanning herself. "I gotta take a shower, I'll meet you back in our room?"
She's ashamed to admit that she watches Skye leave, over-analysing the entire interaction, as per usual. But at least this time, she's only two hours away from a therapy session with her pysch to go over it with.