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“It’s almost Halloween,” Jemma absently says on a cold rainy Saturday late evening, when she, Sky and Fitz are lounging on the couch in the common room, watching an animal docu.
Skye perks up. She has almost fallen asleep. “Oh. Uh. Okay,” she says, wiping at her eyes and yawning. She straightens up, smiling at Jemma carefully. It still feels strange. To be with people like this. To have … fun. She’s not sure yet, if they really want to be friends with her. After all, she’s the only one here who is their age and who isn’t, well, Ward. Maybe they are just tolerating her because there’s no one else around. But … it feels good to spend time with them. Warm and cozy. At least, Skye stopped being afraid she might be too dumb for them. They are nerds. But kind nerds.
Fitz throws a handful popcorn into his mouth and chews on it noisily. Skye has no idea, how he can eat like this at almost midnight. After swallowing, he nods and shrugs. “Yeah. Almost Halloween and we don’t even have scary movies not to speak of decoration. It’s going to be like any other day,” he says gloomily.
“Indeed,” Jemma says, sighing heavily.
Skye looks between them, frowning. Is Halloween really that important for them?
“Fitz and I have won so many prizes for best couple costume,” Jemma explains and sighs. “It’s going to be strange, not celebrating it at all …”
“And we used to do a scary movie marathon, eating candy all night,” Fitz says with a hint of regret in his voice, and Skye kind of wants to point out, that he’s eating candy and popcorn all night when it’s not Halloween too. But they really look sad. So Skye says nothing and glimpses to the screen, where the penguins are cuddling now. Aw.
Eventually, Jemma kindly asks her, “How did you celebrate Halloween, Skye?”
“Uh …” Skye shrugs, feeling her face getting warmer when FitzSimmons stare at her. “I didn’t really … I mean, the nuns didn’t care about it. And I didn’t spend enough time in a family to celebrate it and well … The last years, I didn’t really think about Halloween or any festivity, I …”
“You’ve never celebrated Halloween,” Fitz says slowly, his hand frozen above the bowl.
Skye nods.
FitzSimmons look at each other. It feels, like they have one of their silent conversations.
On screen, a group of penguin babies is attacked by a big sea gull. Dramatic music starts to play. Skye is about to look away – she doesn’t feel like watching baby penguins being torn apart … - but then the chicks are saved by a penguin of another kind, scaring the gull away. A hero.
Skye feels herself dozing off again. But she doesn’t want to fall asleep on the couch. Not now. She feels … tense. “I’m going to bed,” she announces, getting up.
“Goodnight,” Jemma says and Fitz murmurs the same word, looking into his popcorn bowl with a deep thoughtful frown.
Skye hurries to her bunk and is glad, when she can finally bury her face in the pillow. All the talking about Halloween … It stirred some things and emotions she rather doesn’t want to have right now. She remembers what she missed. Fortunately, she falls asleep quickly and doesn’t dream. It’s just peaceful calmness.
The next day, when Skye wakes up, they are on the ground. She knows because she doesn’t hear the usual noises the Bus is making while flying. And when she looks out of the little window in her bunk, she sees a meadow. Frowning, she gets up, eager to find out what is going on.
She expects a mission. Something sudden. But in the end, it’s something very different. When she stumbles into the common area, still sleepy, she freezes. There are FitzSimmons, spreading paper streamers over the table and the couch. It’s black and orange and grinning pumpkins are printed on it.
Skye blinks. “Uh. What are you doing?” She asks.
They perk up and look at her, careful smiles spreading on their faces. “We’re decorating?” Fitz says, fumbling with the paper streamer. “For Halloween. Uh. Since you never really celebrated it, we thought … we thought …”
“We thought we are going to surprise you with a proper Halloween party,” Jemma chimes in. She points at a box on the table. “We have a lot of stuff for decorating, we have some scary movies and sweets and …”
“But … When did you buy all these things,” Skye asks incredulously.
“We asked Coulson for permission to do a bit of morning shopping. And he said yes!” Jemma beams.
“Well. He only said yes after we promised him a fair amount of the candy,” Fitz murmurs.
Skye doesn’t really know what to say. “I … Wow. I … No one ever did something like this for me. I’m … Thank you. Can I … help with the preparations?”
“Sure!” Fitz and Simmons say simultaneously. They blush a bit and wide smiles spread on their faces. Fitz hands Skye a few pumpkin balloons and she immediately starts to blow them up, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. This is amazing.
They have a lot of fun, turning half of the Bus into the perfect Halloween scenery, with fake spider webs, bats, skeletons and pumpkin balloons. The whole thing kind of escalates in a very happy way. When they are about to spread something on the knob of Ward’s door, that looks like disgusting glibber, giggling hysterically, May suddenly turns around a corner, her brows going up. “What’s going on here?”
They freeze and look at her a bit frightened. There’s a long moment of silence. “Uh, we a-are decorating for Halloween?” Fitz finally says and it sounds like a question. He actually hides the bottle with the glibber behind his back.
“Ah. Well, please don’t put something of that on my door,” May says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Or you’ll have something real to be frightened about tonight.”
“Uh,” Fitz makes, and his eyes widen. Skye and Jemma look at her like a couple of deer caught in the headlights.
May’s lips twitch. Before they see a smile spreading on her face, she turns around and leaves. Two thoughts are starting to form in her mind. One: God. They really are kids, aren’t they? Two: I really have to remember some of the good old pranks.
Late in the evening, Skye and FitzSimmons start their scary movie marathon.
Although the movies are a lot scarier than she normally would be comfortable with, Skye feels great. Warm and cozy. She thinks she could get used to celebrating Halloween. She has a bowl filled with sweets and can eat as much of it as she wants to. She has two friends – because they are, right? They really are her friends … The thought makes her heart flutter – beside her, who she can laugh with about the especially scary scenes. Sometime, Coulson stopped by, to grab some candy too and make them compliments about the decoration. Ward stopped by too, to make some half-hearted threats and shake his head at them. And May actually sat through half of Pet-Cemetery, telling them she always watched the movie with her mother.
This is great. It feels like family. Who’d thought she would find that at Shield of all places?
Skye chews on another gummy bear, sees how Jemma leans towards Fitz more and more, until their shoulders brush and he doesn’t say anything, but stops eating, and she smiles. This is great.