It were the children's whispers that woke her up. She stirred, annoyed with their buzzing in her ears and they snickered and ran away. Melinda May snapped awake, the pain in her lower back punished her for doing so. She took a breath and stood in position, doing some quick yoga poses to ease the pain. Following her last stretch, she left the unfamiliar room, into an unfamiliar house, and out into the unfamiliar backyard.

There were people working in the farm behind the house and they all stopped to watch her. They said something she didn't quite catch and smiled and waved at her; Melinda responded with a smile and an acknowledging nod. She turned to go back into the house but bumped right into an old woman.

"Your husband has gone to market. Will be back soon. Rest." The lady began to lead May back inside.

"My... my husband?" Maybe that fall had brought her to another world. She took a quick peak at her left hand but found no ring.

"Sorry, wh-who is my..."

Before she could finish her question, there at the front door stood an out of breath Phil Coulson, him having just come back. The old lady smiled at the two of them and left.

"The... the kids told me you were awake." He said as he stepped inside.

"Yeah... H-how long have I... we?" She asked and found a place to sit on the sofa.

"Two weeks." Phil told her as he walked to what probably was the kitchen. "You've been in and out, but they've taken care of you. Well, the best the can. How you feeling?"

"Umm... not dead," Melinda joked when he joined her with some food and medicine. "What happened?"

"Well, your mission went wrong. I lead a rescue unit to come get you but we were attacked. I was the first on the raft and... the only one from my helicopter. Then, I found you and got you on the raft but hypothermia caught up to me. I saw us being drawn up in the village port before I passed out."

"Uhun." May mused as she ate. "And what were you doing in China?"

"I... uhhh." Phil stalled, looking for a professional answer to give. "My um, my mission turned south after I retreated the package, and I had to get away. So, I headed to China."

"Mhmm." May wasn't entirely convinced, "On a whim?"

"On a whim. I... um... I wanted to surprise you. Maybe stay back a day or two... after the mission."

"And what did you think we were gonna do?"

"I don't know. Sight see; vacation. Like I said, on a whim."

"Have you tried making contact with SHIELD?"

"N-no not yet, no." Phil honestly replied.

"Did the hypothermia mess with your brain, agent Coulson?" Melinda joked.

"What? NO! No, I... I wanted you to wake up first. And talk about our situation."

"Our situation? What, that we're married??"

"N-no! Just, in general. I mean, if you want, we could contact SHIELD the minute I get off this sofa." Phil demonstrated his will to do so by slightly shifting off the couch, but Mel stopped him.

"Maybe staying AWOL for a while isn't so bad. Maybe, maybe we can stay."

∞∞∞∞∞

Coulson felt undeserved pride watching Skye drop off the kid with his aunt. While everyone else on his SHIELD team wanted to either exterminate or study Mike Peterson, this girl wanted to save him, though she undoubtedly was a bit misguided. Somehow, Coulson found his own reflection in the twenty something year old before him, and the idea brought forth stronger feelings that he decided to bury deeper than Tahiti for now.

Skye felt at peace dropping off Ace at his aunt's house. After all, the woman was his father's sister and would no doubt love him like one of her own children, an experience that wasn't afforded to her in her time in foster care. She turned to walk off, finding Coulson strangely smiling at her.

"It's a brave new world. And a really old car."

Coulson looked at his souvenir car proudly, offended at Skye's insult.

"Lola can keep up. What about you? Have you thought about the offer?"

"Hitching a ride on the crazy plane? I'm not exactly a team player."

Coulson had noted.

"We're not exactly a team. But we're in a position to do some good. You'd be a great help. And you'd be front row center at the strangest show on earth, Which is, after all, what you wanted."

"I was able to hack SHIELD. From my van. You're gonna show me something new?"

The car phone answered her question.

"Go."

"Sir, we've got an 0-8-4." Agent Ward spoke and from the looks of Coulson's face, Skye had a feeling it was going to be something bad ass.

"Is that confirmed?"

"They want us to go in and confirm it."

"What's an 0-8-4?"

"You've got exactly 10 minutes to decide if you really want to know."

Huh, can't enter the red room without signing the contract. But then again, exceptions could be made once in a while.

"There's no way we can make it to the airfield in..."

The wind blowing up from under her and the noise around shut her up.

Coulson took pride having done so, and decided to break the moment with a quip.

"The tide is rising."

Lame! This guy was a walking talking dad joke!

As Lola hovered off to the bus, Skye decided that maybe, even if for a little while, there was no harm in staying.

∞∞∞

Let's pretend the bold dialogue is being spoken in Chinese.

It's short but it's an update. I can't obviously copy paste the entire episode, you guys know what episode this is.

Endgame broke me and I'm dead. I'm honestly so overwhelmed and staring at a brick wall. Which makes me so happy to look forward to writing my other Marvel series because character fates will be different than Endgame.

Also, the DOORS SCENE was EPIC!!

Anyway, enjoy this quick chapter till next time.

Love 3000