End of first day | Audio (OTA)

[morethan084]

[It's been a day and to say Daisy is stretched thin is an understatement. Still, she's doing her best to hold it together. Especially for Fitz and Simmons' sake considering this hit close to home for them. Fitz more so than anyone. Finding refuge in another room together, Daisy moved to take a seat on the ground. If Fitz and Simmons wanted the bed, it was there.

Taking out her network device, Daisy set it to broadcast out to anyone with theirs on.]

How's everyone holding up? Anyone missing?

[She didn't want to leave Fitz and Simmons alone, but if anyone needed help finding someone she couldn't just sit there.]

[OOC: Totally okay with this turning into action if anyone is up for that.]

Comments

[hypoxic]

Hopefully just the one. But we've no way of knowing until someone tells us.

[The air feels oppressive. Fitz checks a gauge settled beside him. Oxygen levels are reading fine, but that's not helping the sense of heaviness.]

He's been instructed to check in when he thinks he's close to a limit. Or, alternatively, he'll go for another four hours before we pull him back to rest. He's got a habit of pushing himself.

[morethan084]

[Meanwhile Daisy is still waiting for her breathing to even out, and it's not like she's not effected by all of this. Of course she's panicked in her mind, but she can't let Fitz see that. He's already been through this, she's seen what it did to him first hand.]

Sounds like someone I know.

[Which could easily sound like she's talking about herself, but she also meant Fitz and Jemma.]

How are you doing? Really.

[hypoxic]

[He doesn't make eye contact.]

I already told you things are fine. That ought to be enough to appease you. You don't have to keep asking as if you care about the answer.

[So maybe he's still upset and his nerves have him lashing out. Just a bit. Maybe.]

[morethan084]

[Yeah, she's noticed too. It's getting to the point where she can't just let it roll off her shoulders anymore. It hurt that he thought she didn't care.]

I do care, Fitz. I care about you.

[hypoxic]

You've made it abundantly clear that you want our relationship to remain as courteous and professional as possible. I'm not in danger of becoming a liability to operations at present. And if you were interested in our wellbeing beyond that, then you've got an odd way of showing it.

[He's tried extending olive branches. All he's seen is her rejecting him over some crimes that haven't happened yet. He's stopped seeing the point of trying.]

[morethan084]

[He doesn't want to hear that he doesn't understand, but he doesn't. He hasn't lived through all that she has yet.]

I was trying to keep my distance, I didn't want to hurt you and Jemma anymore than I already had. That didn't mean I stopped caring about you.

[hypoxic]

And surely, that distance couldn't possible have done any damage on its own. It can't possibly hurt to reach out to a friend for months at a time only to be rejected and ignored.

Jemma thinks I ought to just forgive the parts you don't remember, but I can't. Not when you're making it fit as cleanly as it does.

[morethan084]

I distanced myself from you because I was hurt too. Is that what you want to hear? That I did this because I was being selfish? That I don't want your help. That I'd rather wallow in my own self misery?

[hypoxic]

Yeah? And is that the line you would've used five months ago if I had the courage to ask why you didn't come to visit after I died? Was that too sad for you too? Because you left Jemma alone to handle everything by herself. That's the Daisy Johnson I've come to know.

[Daisy's been home since then. She doesn't remember it happening and he's not even sure she's been told that it did. But that all feels like semantics. It's just like the Avengers and Klaus and Ward and everyone he's ever trusted.]

[morethan084]

What? Fitz I wasn't even here.

[Except she had been.]

That wasn't me, Fitz. I would never do that.

[hypoxic]

Not if you'd noticed.

[But she didn't. Because people don't. He only exists when someone needs something built, or when Jemma ought to patch someone up.]

[morethan084]

[There was only so much of this she could actually handle before her anger got the better of her. She was cold, wet, tired and in pain.]

That's not fair, Fitz. I don't remember any of that and of course I would've noticed. That wasn't me.

[hypoxic]

No, you're just the Daisy Johnson who's further along in the timeline and is apparently going to hurt me in a way I don't know about yet. That's much better.

[He shouldn't be saying these things. They still need to work together until the event is over.]

[morethan084]

[This is exactly why she felt she worked better alone now. Pushing herself up so she was standing, Daisy let the blanket drop.]

I'll leave you alone then. Since clearly I just make you miserable.

[hypoxic]

Do you think that running away will make you less so?

[She always leaves, when the problem is that she never stays.]

[morethan084]

What do you want from me, Fitz?! I'm trying and you don't understand that. You didn't lose Jemma. I lost Lincoln, I lost Andrew and it was my fault.

Ward became possessed by an ancient inhuman who could control my thoughts. He made me kill someone. He made me choke you and you almost died!

[hypoxic]

At least there's a thematic element to it.

[He laughs once, despite himself. She choked him. That's how it always has to be. He can never get caught by a stray bullet or dramatically walk into an explosion. Slow, painful suffocation. Every time.]

I was enchanted by an Asgardian witch who made me imprison Jemma. I could have hurt a lot of people then, but you all didn't hold it against me because it wasn't me making those decisions. And it sounds like it wasn't you making the ones that've gotten you so upset. Things happen in events all the bloody time, and we've all agreed not to let it impact how we relate to one another when we're ourselves again.

[morethan084]

This wasn't an Event, Fitz and I'm sorry that I can't just let it roll off my shoulders like you seem to.

[hypoxic]

You don't want to be forgiven, and yet it's upsetting to you when I don't forgive the things you've done. Which is it, Daisy? What do you want this friendship to be?

[Is it even a friendship?]

[morethan084]

I don't want you to think that I hate you Fitz, because I don't. You and-

[The 'team' wasn't here.]

You and Simmons are the closest thing I have to family and you saw what happened to my actual family. I don't want that to happen to you too.

[hypoxic]

Families don't abandon one another once things get hard.

[ he levels an even stare at her. ]

[morethan084]

Mine did.

[She didn't mean her actual family, or them. She meant the countless foster families she was in.]

[hypoxic]

We'd never.

[ He's not privy to the details of her upbringing. And her biological parents might have both been murderous nutters, but their SHIELD family is the one that counts. ]

[morethan084]

I needed time by myself, Fitz. I couldn't be around any of you, but it's not because I hated you.

[hypoxic]

And what about now?

[As long as they're talking about her, then they're not talking about him.]