Work Text:
Skye’s curled up in bed checking her phone, bone-tired and ready to crash, when she hears a soft knock at her door. Even though she only ever has one late-night visitor (Jemma), she still waits until she hears a second knock before slipping out of bed to answer it.
It’s Jemma, obviously – but there’s no trace of her usual eager smile. Her face is streaked with tears and her eyes are bright with more of them, and she looks like a sad kitten again, and Skye didn’t think she had a heart anymore but she feels something twist in her chest. “I-I’m sorry to bother you,” gasps Jemma, sounding as if she might start crying again. “I shouldn’t have come, you probably need to sleep, but I just wanted—“
“C’mere, Jem,” says Skye, reaching for her. Jemma kind of falls into her, which Skye hadn’t expected and wasn’t fully prepared for, but she manages to steer both of them over to the bed before she collapses from the sudden weight (so she’s a little out of shape; it’s not like working out is high on a hacker’s priority list). Lucky for her, it’s a small room so it’s not hard.
Immediately once they’re sitting, Jemma buries her face in Skye’s shoulder and starts crying softly. Skye’s pretty bad at comforting people, but she figures she should at least try, so she rests one hand on Jemma’s back and strokes her hair with the other while Jemma cries. After a few minutes Jemma quiets and sits up. “I’m s-so sorry about this,” she gasps, obviously trying to compose herself (without much success, as far as Skye can tell). “I hate when I explode emotionally like this in front of others. It’s-it’s just been a very trying day, what with F-Frank and everything…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” replies Skye in what she hopes is a soothing tone. “You looked up to him, and then he went off the deep end and tried to kill everyone and now he’s gone. That’s a lot to deal with.” Jemma sniffles. “I’m really sorry we couldn’t do more to help him, Jem. I wanted to, you know – that’s why I volunteered. I wanted to fix it.”
“Thank you,” whimpers Jemma. “I know he was probably too far gone, too convinced he was in the right to see it any other way, but I-I respected him so much and now…” She lets out a long, shuddering sigh. “And I was so frightened for you, too. Frightened you might not come back. That they might—catch you.”
“Please.” Skye gives her her best roguish smile. “Takes more than a bunch of big scary dudes with guns to get rid of me. I’m like a cockroach.”
Jemma still isn’t smiling. “I mean it, Skye. When your comm shut off I feared the worst. I couldn’t bear it if…if something happened to you.” She gazes at Skye with the saddest eyes in the world and, dammit, Skye actually feels guilty.
She’s not very good at apologies, so she leans over and kisses Jemma’s forehead instead. “I didn’t mean to freak you out,” she says. “I was kinda just going by instinct. Killing my comm put Quinn at ease that I was on his side, and that way I still had a chance to plant the compact.”
“I know,” sighs Jemma. “I know it was all just you trying to salvage the mission as best you could, and you were brilliant. Up until he found you, anyway. But not knowing what was happening to you, if you’d been knocked out or shot or worse…that was the worst I’ve ever felt.”
“What, worse than the time we were all held hostage in our own plane?” teases Skye, trying to dodge the implications of Jemma’s statement.
“Well, yes.” Her answer is immediate and serious-sounding and it seems like she’s completely not falling for the bait. “Skye, my feelings are…well, I’m not the best at expressing them and god knows I don’t have much experience, but whatever we have, it’s come to mean something to me. You mean something to me. I never expected it, it’s completely illogical, but there you are.” She sounds almost like she's apologizing.
Shit. Jemma really wants to talk about feelings. Skye takes a deep breath. “Jem, I’m really sorry for scaring you, okay? I’m shit at feelings too, you know that, but I never wanted to hurt you. Whatever this…us is, it means something to me too.” She tries to stay composed, though her instincts have been screaming at her to get up and run, to stop talking, to do anything but say what she just said.
Jemma smiles, a bit shakily. “Well. I suppose it’s good we’re both rubbish at this then.” She leans her head on Skye’s shoulder. “Fitz isn’t sure what to make of it. I told him off earlier for saying something nasty about you, which I don’t think he was expecting. He said he’s never seen me get that way about anyone.”
Chuckling, Skye kisses her lightly. “I’m glad you’ve got my back, Jem.” She glances down at her bed and makes a sudden decision. “C’mon, we’re going to bed.”
Flushing, Jemma stammers, “O-oh, I’m not really up for—”
“No, doofus, I mean literally get in bed with me. We’re gonna cuddle.” She scoots over to the head of the bed and pulls the covers back, gesturing towards the empty space.
Jemma laughs, sounding surprised. “I thought you weren’t one for sap.”
“I’m not. So you must be pretty damn special.” Skye’s keeping her tone light, in the hopes that it’ll cover up the fact that what she said isn’t all that far from the truth.
Jemma slides into the empty bed, and Skye follows her, pressing her front into Jemma’s back. She puts her arms around Jemma, holding her, and they wriggle around for a bit before nestling into a comfortable position with Skye’s chin resting on Jemma’s shoulder. Jemma gives this long, shuddery sigh and Skye feels her body relax. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “I feel so silly about this, so childish. It’s not as though I don’t have my own bed, and you’ve had just as long a day as I have, more in fact, being held at gunpoint and all, and you’re probably still recovering from the shock—“
“Jem,” interrupts Skye, unable to keep the grin out of her voice. “You’re rambling.”
“Sorry.”
“But I don’t mind that you’re here. It’s good. You’re good. You obviously needed to talk to somebody and I’m…a bad talker and an even worse listener so hell if I know why you came to me out of everybody, but. Yeah. Good.” Skye leans forward enough so that she can brush her lips across Jemma’s neck, which causes Jemma to make a little happy noise in her throat. “You’re safe here, okay? With me. You’re safe.”
“I know.” And Jemma sounds as if she believes it with all her heart.
The worst part is, Skye’s really not sure whether she said that to Jemma because that’s what a normal person would say in this situation or because she wants it to be true. Instead of thinking further about that, she murmurs “Go to sleep, Jem. I’ve got you” and closes her eyes, trying to pretend she’s just a normal person snuggling with her girlfriend. It’s getting harder and harder to do that.