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I'm stuck in a time loop, Daisy realizes, and I'm running out ways to save us all.
She is worse than useless. She is helpless. Powerless. She can’t stop it.
(“Why would you want to stop it?”
“Because I destroy everything around me.”)
Mary-Sue accidentally breaks a crystal decanter. It’s not a surprise to her when she gets sent back. She knows how this works. People who break things get sent away.
But, it’s okay, she thinks, you’re okay.
She will get put in another home. And another. And another. She tries to be better. People who are useless get sent back. She is powerless to stop it.
I'm stuck in a loop
“God is love.” Sister McKenna tells her.
Love, Mary thinks, the thing that holds us together.
In St.Agnes orphanage, Mary waits for love for years.
I'm stuck-
And when it never finds her, Skye goes out to find herself, instead.
Coulson finds her. Alone, in an alley, in a van. He gives her everything. A home, solid ground to stand on, something to believe in again.
You’re okay, she said to herself, over and over again.
She doesn’t know how much of herself is true and how much is an act. Coulson believes in her anyway.
Jemma jumps out of a plane and Skye thinks her heart stops beating for a moment. She can’t hold back, and she pulls Jemma into her arms. Relief floods her body.
You’re okay, she thinks as she hangs on to her tightly, you’re okay.
Jemma almost dies and it feels like the ending of something and the beginning of something all at once.
Hannah Hutchins thinks God is punishing her. Skye just wants to help her.
“Friends, coworkers dead, and on top of all that she might have some crazy power she can’t understand.” Skye doesn’t envy Hannah.
“She’s not dangerous,” Skye tells Coulson. “Someone with that much empathy being responsible for that much loss of life, she’s devastated.”
Hannah sits in the cell, afraid and alone.
“Are you okay?” Skye asks her after, hugging her inside an old empty barn. “It’s gone. It’s over.”
It’s all over now, Skye thinks, May saved her. She’s okay.
“She was killed trying to protect you. Twenty four years ago, an entire SHIELD team and a small village were massacred to protect and secure an 084,” Coulson explains.
Skye is stuck in a loop, she learns. And everywhere she goes, death follows.
She could not even pretend to be okay.
Coulson places his hand on her cheek, gently wiping away a tear.
In the cellar of a mansion Skye turns back to face Quinn and pain explodes in her stomach.
Hang on, she tells herself as she drags her body to the door and reaches a bloody hand to the handle, just hang on.
“Help,” she pleas in a whisper even as she knows this is the end. “Help. Help.” She opens the door so maybe they will hear her. Maybe they will see her. The world goes dark.
“Hang on,” Coulson tells her dying body. “Just hang on.”
She does.
Eric Koenig’s blood drips down onto Skye’s tablet and everything changes.
“He’s Hydra,” she whispers to herself on the floor of the bathroom trying to catch her panicked breath. “Okay. Okay okay okay.”
You’re okay. You’re okay. Just hang on. Just get them a message.
She can do this.
She outsmarts him, outmaneuvers him, and almost gets away with it too.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was,” Ward spits at her. “The sacrifices, the decisions that I had to make. But I made them.” His eyes are wild. His voice is full of self pitying misunderstood rage.
I'm stuck in a-
No.
“You are a serial killer,” Skye states, full of horror and disgust.
“Some day, you’ll understand.”
If Skye does someday understand, she knows it will only be so that she can make sure to never ever be like him.
At a temple in an underground city in San Juan, a cloud of mist is released.
Trip screams, “No!” as he reaches for her. And Skye reaches for him too.
Skye’s world goes dark.
Her heart is racing. She doesn’t want to die.
Hang on, she thinks as she feels a sudden buzzing sensation throughout her body. Just hang on.
Daisy’s world cracks open.
Trip is gone.
Nothing is okay anymore.
The world shakes as she lets go and cries.
Taking shelter in the basement of the secret base that she is in the process of unintentionally destroying, Skye can’t breathe.
She sits in the cell, afraid but not alone.
“We can do this. You can do this,” May tells her.
You’re okay, Skye tries to convince herself. She just needs to make it stop.
She’s not. She can’t. She is powerless. She needs to keep them safe.
They’ll be okay now, Skye thinks before she shoots herself.
I'm running out ways to save you
“You’re gonna want to pack a bag,” Coulson says.
Skye knows how this works. People who break things get sent away.
I'm stuck-
Coulson hands her a Twizzler.
You’re okay.
She is standing in a forest, inside a circle of destruction of her own making.
“Help,” Skye pleads. There is a flash of blue light.
She hangs on to Gordon. She hangs on to the promise of help and safety and hope.
Skye stands on the airstrip of a floating ship, facing her mom.
She is so close to her. She cannot reach her.
“My daughter,” Jiaying says, voice full of pain. “So beautiful. So strong.”
They have just a moment together. A moment where Skye thinks maybe everything will be okay. And then the moment is gone.
Her mother’s cold hands grip the sides of her face and she can feel the life being drained from her body.
Just hang on.
She does. Her father saves her.
“You help people because you are meant to,” Daisy tells Lincoln in some empty room while sun shines through the window and Mack listens in on coms. “You are not some horrible thing.”
You’re okay, she thinks, just let me help you.
“You’re wasting your time caring about me.”
“I can’t help it,” Daisy says. Its true, she has never been able to stop feeling things. Her feelings are messy but they are hers and she holds them closely to herself.
She reaches out and closes the distance between them.
“You were meant to save me,” Daisy whispers to Charles while they lie on the roof, her face bloody and body aching, her heart breaking. They only found him because he called for her. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But she sees it in his eyes, the moment of peace. You’re okay now, she realizes.
She touches his gloved hand. A brief moment of connection.
A cross. An explosion.
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
I'm stuck in a loop
Daisy says nothing.
When a parasite infects her mind and takes over her body, some distant part of her realizes that even her feelings are not her own anymore. There is nothing left of herself to hang on to.
“My name is Daisy,” she says.
She is lost.
Mack is there. Telling her to come home. Telling her to fight.
But she is lost.
(I'm stuck I'm stuck I'm stuck)
“Now you’re free,” Lash tells her feeble body and broken mind.
She’s not.
I'm stuck-
Hang on. Just hang on.
“This is Agent Daisy Johnson. I'm coming home.”
Help me, she pleads. There’s nothing left of me. Give me something, anything, to hang on to. Help me.
“Take me back.”
I'm stuck
“The stuff that I did, Lincoln, I can’t live with it,” Daisy confesses.
“But you have to,” Lincoln implores.
Just hang on.
Daisy can’t.
I'm stuck and I'm running out of ways to save you
She clutches the radio like a lifeline. Desperately hanging on.
“Help me, Coulson,” Daisy begs.
But Coulson can’t, and Lincoln is gone.
Daisy falls to the ground, alone.
The radio falls at her feet.
Lincoln is gone and it should have been her and nothing is okay anymore.
I’m stuck in a loop
“Why are you doing this?” Mack asks her after he gently wrapped her fractured and bruised arm.
Because I destroy everything around me, Daisy thinks. Because I don’t know how to be okay and I need you to be okay.
I'm stuck in a loop and I’ve run out of ways to save myself so please just let me save you
“Because she’s turned her back on us,” Fitz argues as he turns his back on her.
(People who break things get sent away.)
Daisy leaves.
I’m stuck
When Daisy finally comes home it’s not because she found herself, but because she is afraid to lose her family.
They are all she has and she holds them close with the same desperation and aching love she used to push them away.
“You don’t get to choose who cares about you,” May says.
“We missed you too,” Coulson says.
Okay. Daisy thinks, Maybe I can learn to be okay.
“Its okay,” Daisy tells the virtual simulation of Hope Mackenzie, “You’re dad’s gonna be alright. I promise.”
She will save him. She will save all of them. She just needs them to hang on a little longer.
I'm stuck and I'm running out of ways to save us
“You don’t want to do this,” Daisy begs The Doctor.
Just hang on, she tells herself as he hits her.
Daisy saves them. And Hope Mackenzie is just a memory. (The Doctor is more than that.)
“There she is. Quake. The Destroyer of Worlds,” Deke says.
No. No one gets to make her something she is not. Not again.
“Don’t ever call me that again.”
Her name is Daisy and she will hang on to that even as she loses everything else.
She is not going to destroy the world. Everything will be okay.
We’re stuck in a time loop and I know this will save you all
“There’s no SHIELD without you. There’s nothing without you,” Daisy cries.
I’m nothing without you.
Coulson is going to die and nothing will be okay.
We’re stuck we’re stuck we’re stuck
He wraps his arms around her and Daisy hangs on to him tightly, refusing to let go.
The anomalies are spreading in the Lighthouse and she can tell that Fitz is barely hanging on.
“Fitz, you don’t need to carry the weight of the world,” Daisy reassures him. “We are all here.”
You’re not alone. I'm here for you. You’re okay.
She reaches out and rubs his back comfortingly.
He drugs her, restrains her, and cuts into her.
She is powerless, helpless, strapped to a table.
“Help me,” she pleads. No one does.
She is begging no. Desperate for this to please please not happen. Not like this.
She is screaming.
And just like that, there is nothing for her to hang on to.
(“It’s like he scraped me out of my own skull.”)
It is over.
(It is never over. She is stuck in a-
It wasn’t her fault.)
Daisy is alone. And everything around her is destroyed.
No one is there.
She is not okay. They are okay that she is not.
She never knew that could hurt so much.
“We don’t turn on our own,” Daisy states.
“Do you want me to recount all the times that you did?” Fitz snaps, voice full of self pitying misunderstood rage.
I'm stuck in a-
No. She has never ever been like him.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk,” Daisy tells Robin. “It’s okay if you’re feeling scared.”
She is full of pain and haunted by ghosts she used to know. She has been tasked with saving them all.
“It’ll get better. It will. I promise.”
It will all be okay.
Daisy means it. She believes it. She does.
“You will get though this,” Daisy tells Ruby.
The room is shaking and she can’t control herself. She is terrified. All she wanted was for her mother to love her. She never wanted this.
There’s a way out, I know it, Daisy wants to plead. It doesn’t have to be this way. You’re okay. Just let me help you.
There is a flash of metal slicing through flesh, and Ruby is gone.
Daisy is worse than useless.
“We didn’t pick you!” Elena yells.
I know, Daisy thinks, as she digs up her mothers grave, hanging on to the shovel even as her hands blister and burn.
No one ever does. (Coulson did. Lincoln did. Trip did.)
I'm stuck in a loop
“I guess it wasn’t a good fit,” said Mary, said Skye, said Daisy.
Her shovel hits the ground with a thump. It sticks in the dirt before she puts her force into it and deliberately tosses it behind her. Over and over again.
“We won’t turn our back,” Ward assured her.
“We won’t turn on you or abandon you. This is a safe place,” Her mom promised her.
“You’re just different now, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Fitz comforted her.
‘In loving memory’ the grave mocks her.
At least Elena was honest.
“We didn’t pick you.”
And Daisy knows that, but she picks them, anyway.
(Hang on. Just hang on.)
“The end justifies the means,” He says.
(“There are always risks involved.”
“Discovery requires experimentation.”
“The sacrifices, the decisions that I had to make.”
“I’m just playing the long game.”
“I rescued humanity.”)
I'm stuck in a-
No.
“The only people who say that are the people doing bad things,” Daisy says.
And she looks down where Talbot lay below her, and she offers him her hand.
The silver ribbons wrap tightly around her, encasing her body.
(Trip screams “No!” as she looks at herself in horror.)
She was going to die alone.
Daisy’s arms went up in reflexive defiance.
Just hang on.
I'm stuck in a time loop and I'm running out of ways-
And then she saw it. Coulson.
Coulson was there. Coulson was gone. She can’t save him. But she can save the rest of them.
She injects herself with the serum, and lets him go.
They’re okay, Daisy thinks after she saves them all.
She lies inside a crater of her own making and listens to the frightened cries of the world she did not destroy.
They’re okay.
And when Coulson says, “I am so proud” and “I love you” she can almost believe that she will be okay too.
Sitting on the cold dirt ground of an old temple in Mexico, Daisy strokes May’s hair softly. She tries to put all the care and warmth she has into these gentle movements so that in the end May will feel no pain, just love.
It’s all over, Daisy thinks, you’re okay. You can let go now.
They have just a moment together. A moment, and then May’s eyes shut and the life leaves her body and she is gone.
Everything is noise in the background.
Just hang on.
Daisy takes a breath.
Daisy hits the button and Coulson opens his eyes.
“Coulson, I’m here,” Daisy says, because it’s important, she knows, after waking up in a new body, to know that you are not alone.
“You are okay,” Daisy tells the robot who both is Coulson and isn’t. “You are okay,” Daisy tells this new version of the man she loves as her own father.
“No I'm not. I'm not okay,” Coulson says. But he has to be, he has to be, he has to be.
Inside an old empty barn and a decade before she was born, Daisy is helpless, strapped to a table.
Blood and body and power taken and drugs coursing through her system.
“It happened before.”
I'm stuck in a loop
She breaks the glass and hangs on tightly anyway.
“We are going home, Agent Johnson,” Sousa promises. “Do you hear me? We’re going home. Now you have got to fight.”
Sousa is there.
She reaches up with a bloody hand and gives him the glass.
“Plenty of fight left in you after all.”
He touches her gently but hangs on to her tightly.
With her head resting on his heart, he carries her home.
“I died? Again?”
I'm stuck in a time loop, Daisy learns.
Okay, thats fine, she tells herself, everything is okay.
She just needs to stop dying and save them all.
She can’t.
Worse than useless. Helpless. Powerless.
I'm stuck in a loop and no matter what I do, I can’t save them.
I'm stuck in a loop, and even though I'm surrounded by my family, somehow, I'm still alone.
“You should be resting,” Sousa insists.
“Why do you care?” Daisy asks.
Sousa smiles.
“Because you don’t.”
“Hey, hey, hey, Sousa.” Daisy puts her hand on his arm as he chokes out blood.
You’ll be okay, she thinks, as they collapse to the ground.
Just let go, she thinks, as she touches his head gently and hangs on to him tightly.
Daisy opens her eyes.
Sousa breathes.
I’m stuck in a loop, Daisy thinks, but somehow, you’re still here.
“Does it not occur to you that I might know something about watching my friend die over and over,” Daisy states pointedly to Coulson.
I'm stuck in a loop I'm stuck in a loop I'm stuck in a loop
“I am stuck in a time loop,” Daisy tells Sousa, her hands clapping together and gesticulating with the tragic absurdity of it all. “And I'm running out of ways to save us all.”
“Okay..”
Its not okay. But it is, too.
I’m stuck in a loop, Daisy thinks, but I’m still hanging on.
I’m stuck in a loop, she knows, but I’ll be okay.
And Daisy was searching, searching, searching.
Until she found herself. Until she found her family.
And maybe she has been waiting, too.
Waiting for someone else to see. Waiting for somewhere safe to be seen. Waiting for someone to share it all with.
“How can I help?” Sousa offers, again.
I'm stuck in a loop, Daisy knows, and I’m still learning how to break it.
“I can take a loop.” Daisy decides.
“So, what’s this problem you’re trying to crack?” Daniel asks.
Daisy smiles.