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“Do you ever think about him?”
May glanced up at the kid in front of her— no, not a kid. Not anymore. Daisy hasn’t been a kid for a long time.
“Of course,” she found herself saying. “Every day. I haven’t stopped since we…”
The funeral. It was just her and Daisy. He’d wanted to be cremated. They scattered him over the beach. There were some tears. A few bottles of hard liquor.
Daisy shifted closer to May on the couch. She had the telltale signs that she was about to cry.
May let out a sigh and opened up her blanket cocoon for her pseudo-daughter, holding her close within the blanket. They sat in silence as Daisy buried her head in the crook of May’s neck.
The young director started to shake in May’s hold, and a few moments later, the agent realized that she had started to cry.
May didn’t say anything, but she held the girl tighter. She let her cry it out. No one would hear her anyway.
It’s been a few months since May and Daisy returned from Tahiti. They hadn’t really talked to each other much, but whenever they found each other in the middle of the night, in the kitchen, they’d always go sit on the couch and watch the sun rise. Tonight was one such night, except Daisy had wanted to talk.
May brushed the hair out of Daisy’s face gently as her crying gradually slowed to silent, occasional tears.
“Do you want me to tell you a story?” she asked softly.
Daisy nodded.
May sighed. “I met Phil when we were both at the Academy. Freshmen. He was in Communications and I was in Operations, but the schools mix for the start and end of the year dances.” She chuckled at Daisy’s bewildered face. “Yeah, we had dances. To get to know each other a little. See who we’d be working with in the future. Ops and Sci-Tech students like to keep to themselves, but Communications kids always like to talk. And that’s what Phil did.
“He walked over at our Fall Dance, to my table. I came with some friends I made at orientation. The ones that didn’t wash out, anyway. He asked us where he could find an operations student who was willing to step out for a month to work on a project mission with him. I was the only one who said yes.” May let out a breath as she shifted a little to accommodate Daisy’s presence. “So we became friends. Partnered up after we graduated and um, one time, we were sent on an undercover mission where we had to pretend we were a couple and—”
Daisy groaned. “No. Mm-mm. Coulson told me the story already. It was gross enough the first time.”
May rolled her eyes. “Your turn, then,” she said.
“What— that’s not fair, you’ve been there for everything he’s been to for me!” Daisy frowned at May’s insistence. “Fine. He took me out to pie one time. It was after Lincoln… um, yeah, so after that, and he noticed I was sad, so he took me up upstairs to the diner and we got pie and he talked to me about losing the people we love in our line of work.” She looked up at May. “Did he ever feel guilty when I left SHIELD?”
May chuckled. “Yeah. He was upset, to say the least, and he thought it was kind of his fault because he scared you away with all of his speeches.”
Daisy leaned on May’s shoulder as they sat in silence again.
She tugged on the blanket to get her mother’s attention. “It’s weird,” Daisy said softly. “It’s weird that he’s gone. I always think I’m going to turn a corner and there he’ll be, waiting with a smile and making a joke about his superpowers about dying.”
May eased her head to rest on her daughter’s. “I still wake up with things to tell him,” she admitted quietly. “I got so used to him being there next to me when I got up, when we were in Tahiti. Every day, I’d wake up and he’d be there, and I’d tell him what I dreamed of if it was anything good. Or what nightmare I had, or just a thought I had while I waited for him to wake up. I have so much I want to say to him, except—“
“— There’s no way we can talk to the real him again.” Daisy let out a watery laugh. “You think Fitz might make an LMD version of him when we find him?”
May shook her head. “It won’t be the same,” she said.
“It’ll be close, though,” Daisy prompted. “But yeah. I don’t think I’d want an LMD of…” she trailed off and settled into the silence again.
May wrapped her arm around her daughter and felt her heart constrict.
They stayed there in the quiet living room for a while before May spoke up again.
“You wanna watch the sunrise?” she asked softly. “I’m sure between the two of us, we can figure out Phil’s famous hot chocolate.”
“Yeah.” Daisy took a breath before getting up. “Can we keep his blanket?”
“Mhm.” May tugged the edge of it over her shoulder, fingers running over the embroidered name on the corner.
Phillip J. Coulson.
Daisy and May tried their hand at making Phil’s hot chocolate over the stove. “You think we’re overdoing this mourning thing?” Daisy mused as they huddled under the blanket over the simmering pot of hot chocolate.
May glanced at Daisy with a small smile. She could see so much of him in her. “Phil’s laughing at us somewhere, but I think we’re good.”
Daisy beamed softly. “Okay.” She tasted the hot chocolate and grimaced. “I think— I think we added too much salt.”
May gestured for Daisy to let her try and when she did, May wrinkled her nose. “No, no, this sucks. We should rope Jemma into this. She’s good with recipes.”
“Later,” Daisy agreed. “We can go upstairs first and have it later.”
May smiled delightedly as her daughter clung onto her as they traipsed up to the lighthouse building and sat on the balcony.
The sunrise over the lake was spectacular. Daisy had fallen asleep on May’s shoulder under the blanket, her soft snores the only noise outside.
“I did it, Phil,” May whispered to the fading stars. “It’s been half a year. I still think of you, but… it hurts less. Like you said.”
There wasn’t a response, but something about the way the water rippled seemed like he was there.
May kept an arm around Daisy.
“You know, Phil, I had the weirdest dream…”