Work Text:
‘Skye? She’s getting her badge back?”
“Really? I thought she was still in jail. The Gant scandal…”’
‘I didn’t know you could go back to the force after serving a sentence.’
‘Are you all stupid? That’s Lana Skye’s little sister. Keep your voices down.’
Today, you’re getting your badge. Today, you become a detective. You failed the forensic exam, but you still made it to detective. It says a lot about the poor requirements for entering the force in this country.
You stand in line with a dozen of other rookies. You’re handed over your badge. You’ll be called ‘Detective Skye’. You’re not sure how to feel about that. You’re not sure how to feel about anything at all.
You stare at the shiny badge in your hand and the sight is so bitterly disappointing that you tuck away the badge almost immediately. You feel your heart drop to your stomach and weigh heavily there. You follow the pack of rookies, you get from one place to the next, you pretend you don’t know these walls like the back of your hand.
The other rookies talk excitedly. They’re loud. They’re happy. This is the most important day of their lives and you feel like an impostor among them. Their smiles and chatter are overwhelming. It makes you inexplicably angry. It makes you feel inexplicably worthless.
There is a small welcoming party set in the break room. The room is stuffy and it feels to you like there is no way out, no escape, that you made a mistake by showing up today. Someone is going to talk to you and you won’t know what to say, you won’t know what to do.
There are so many new detectives in the room, there are so many of your new ‘colleagues’ in the room, there are so many people you are stuck with in the room. They’re all here because they have a purpose, they’re all here because they know exactly who they are, what to do, where to go. You’re overly conscious of the space you’re taking up, of how silent you’re being. You feel weird for standing without a drink but you don’t want to cross the room to get one. You feel like you were misplaced. Like everybody mistook you for someone else and you’re the only one to know the truth.
You shouldn’t have come.
You should have stayed in Europe.
You shouldn’t have tried to become a detective. (You shouldn't have become a detective)
The thoughts gather in your head. The thoughts don’t leave you alone. You want to shut them out, but your mind is that of a scientist. You analyze a problem, you test out theories, you find an answer– even if you know deep in your bones that you’re not getting out of the process unscathed. It settles in before you even realize it.
You try to breathe normally despite the pressure in your chest. It’s that overwhelming fear again, and you’re not sure how to deal with it. You feel like you’ve never quite understood it either.
There is both so much and so little happening at the same time. The urge to walk away gets louder and louder every second you spend watching the ones you should be, your eyes setting on their badges, on their smiles, on how easy and obvious everything looks for them. It strikes you how you can never be like them. It scares you how you can never be like them.
There’s someone glancing at you and they’re coming to ask you if you’re happy to be here if you’ve always wanted to be a detective if this is a great day for you if you can’t wait to get on your first investigation and you have no idea how to tell them that no, you’re not happy, you’re barely holding on, but also you don’t know why and this is just too much to explain and where would you even start you don’t feel like doing it and oh god it’s your first day at work it’s the most important day in your life you’re a detective now even if you’re not a forensic detective and you should be in that room doing your best and getting to know the other rookies but you’re here thinking about ghosts and the past and how you can’t become a detective and you can’t become Detective Skye and you can’t do anything right and you can’t do anything at all and and and—
You run. You run like you did that day when you didn’t know you were running. When you walked away so calmly you wondered if the situation was even real. When you left your pen on a table, hovered out and wondered where your soul had gone. But there is one small change. Today, the pressure is here, it's back and it's relentless.
How come it’s all crashing down now? Where was all this emotion hiding when you needed it? When you needed a push back on the exam day? When you needed something to hold onto? Why are you only feeling everything right now, in a rush, when you have to go out and smile?
I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this.
Every corridor is flooded with memories, echoes of Detective Skye that buzz in your ears like you’re ten, your sister is twenty-two, she’s the best detective in the force and you’re the proudest sister anyone could ever be. Everything around you is magical and you feel it so deep. You’re exactly where you belong. Today the corridors are narrower, the ceiling closer. You realize there’s no window, you realize just how many neons are buzzing above your head.
You look behind your shoulder at every turn.
Do you miss not feeling anything at all? Do you miss it when you’re feeling everything all at once?
You push a door and you step into the darkness, you close behind you and you shut out the noise, shut out the light, shut out the overwhelming life from the police station you all but grew up in.
Your dream, your hopes, your love for the police force… they all died many, many years ago. How did you not realize? Something broke and you will never, ever feel the way you did before. Aren’t you familiar with that feeling yet? Haven’t you learned your lesson yet? It always happens.
You can’t be Detective Skye. You can’t be her. You can’t live up to Lana’s example. But what example is it anyway? She’s in jail. You haven’t visited her since you came back. She’s all alone, in jail, and you haven’t visited her.
You can’t see her. You would look at your sister, a shell of herself as she sits behind cold glass and you’ll think it should have been me instead.
You can’t talk to her. Lana wouldn’t understand. What do you mean, you left before the exam even started? You can’t tell her you failed. She gave up everything for you. You can’t have failed. Lana never failed at anything. Ever. You hear a strangled laugh come out of your mouth, one that sounds more like a hiccup as you remember the only memorable time Lana Skye failed at something, it was at stabbing a colleague.
What good is the best detective in the force if she’s in jail? What good is a forensic detective if they can’t conduct scientific investigations? What good is any Skye sister if they’re crushed to the ground?
How will you tell anyone? How did things turn out this way? Why is everything so wrong? You’re a detective now. Every former colleague of your sister’s knows you wanted to be a forensic detective. You don’t know how you’re going to explain that you failed. You panicked? You had doubts? Upbeat, cheerful Ema cannot doubt, right? She’s made to be a forensic detective. That’s all she’s good at, that’s all she’s worth. She can’t possibly fail. She can’t possibly do anything else.
You can’t possibly do anything else.
A simple answer comes your way. It’s the first ray of light and you grasp at it and hold onto it like it's your lifeline. It’s a very difficult exam.
It’s a very difficult exam. It’s a very difficult exam. It’s a very difficult exam.
You repeat it to yourself as if it could change what happened. You repeat it to yourself because it's the only solace you can find. You‘ll utter the sentence to everyone you meet, everyone asking you while you failed. You’ll utter it with utmost confidence and a hint of annoyance, one that hides how enraged you are.
You won’t tell them you gave up before you even give it a shot. You won’t tell them about how you sat there and thought I might as well just go right now. You’re not known for being a quitter.
You’re not a quitter.
You’ll be a detective.
You’ll be a pale version of Detective Skye, and the world be damned if that’s all you’re worth.
You step out of that dark, cold place where you hid and stumble back to the bright and depressing room where all the other rookies are full of hopes. They’re still chatting excitedly and showing each other their detective badges. Look at them. Try to understand. It’s the most important day of their lives.
And as you’ll walk around with a homicide detective badge, hating your job, hating yourself, all you’ll think about is how the only one to blame is yourself.
It’s yourself.