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Chiquitita tell me what's wrong, you're enchained by your own sorrow. In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow.
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May breathed deeply of the warm, scented air, drinking in its freshness and feeling the beginning of renewal.
Her talk with Andrew had been difficult at first, but had grown easier as she’d let the words spill out. He was a good listener, always had been. He’d chosen his profession well; he understood people in a much more intimate way than they often understood themselves. Herself included. He would have listened to her both actively and passively, giving her what she’d needed to work through Bahrain, had she only let him. She knew that without a shadow of a doubt. She’d been the one unable to open up past the barest facts of the tragedy and then she’d run, afraid to let herself go back too deeply into it.
They’d talked through the afternoon and well into the evening, he asking and she revealing the extent of the damage that had been done to her. They’d worked to try to understand how each of them had been hurt by her actions, talked of who they’d become as a result of the tragedy and resulting divorce, and what their hopes for the future were.
May couldn’t even begin to find the words to express how happy she was that they were on the same page regarding them. She’d worried some when he’d flirted with her and treated her intimately during his time with Skye, and she was a little afraid that he wanted to start things up again. He didn’t; he’d finally begun to move on and had found someone else, and it relieved her to no end. Andrew Garner was a good man and he deserved to find happiness again. She’d once loved him deeply and unconditionally, but those deeper feelings had finally faded, as feelings do over time, and she realized, with some surprise, that while she would always care deeply for him, her heart had turned towards another.
It felt good to finally have everything out in the open. Andrew had only known the barest facts about what had happened during the mission, and Phil had never known them or even guessed that she’d withheld the truth from him and the rest of the organization. Skye had forced her hand and at that moment she’d been both furious and terrified at the truth coming out, but it had turned out to be the best thing for her, in retrospect. The lie, the half-truth, had been buried so deep inside she’d almost forgotten it, but for seven years it had festered and eaten away at her soul and she hadn’t even realized how toxic it had been. Feeling it come up and out of her now she realized just how ugly it was, how painfully destructive.
Thank you Skye, she thought, smiling fondly at the thought of her protegee as she wound her way through the giant redwoods. There was more she needed to think through and process in her time alone, but she knew it wouldn’t be hard to come to terms with Skye’s actions. How could the girl not have taken action to protect her mother? She herself might have a difficult and strained relationship with her own mother but she realized what a gift it was for Skye to have finally found herself and her own family after searching for so long.
She understood too, Jiaying’s deep mistrust of Shield after what they’d done to her and her family. That was yet another thing May needed to work on while she was away - figuring out who and what Shield really was and stood for now, and whether she could trust those around her implicitly. The bona fide agents seemed to be on the other side, or one she couldn’t identify, and the ‘civilians’ brought in when needed seemed to be the loyal, trustworthy ones who had her back and would stand with her to the end. If she were truly honest with herself, and after all that was what this time away was for, she wasn’t entirely sure she knew which way was up anymore. Crises kept getting in the way, forcing her to put her doubts and concerns aside for a later time that never came, and now the doubts were threatening to overwhelm her. Well, that’s what this is for, she reminded herself. A chance to get away from all of it, to properly think through everything without another crisis getting in the way and putting life on hold. Time to think about who you can really trust and whether or not you still belong there.
She’d told Coulson to call if he really needed her, and of course she’d go to him if he did, but inside she really hoped he wouldn’t. She could feel something inside her changing - perhaps the melting of the block of ice people swore was her heart? - and she knew she needed time to let it. As much time as it took.
She smirked. Perhaps they were right. Her heart had been encased in ice since Bahrain. A coping mechanism to deal with a kind of pain that couldn’t be dealt with. She could feel the heat and passion spark inside her and begin to melt it and warm her frozen soul. Bahrain, and what it had truly done to her was a burden she’d carried alone for too many years. She’d always been afraid to reveal the truth and so it, like the loathed nickname they’d given her, became a part of her. A part she’d always hated. Skye had forced it out into the open, unwittingly it was true, but now she was the better for it. The layers she’d wrapped around herself seven years ago were beginning to peel and perhaps that was a good thing. She’d been trapped inside The Cavalry for too long and it was time for a transformation, for Melinda May to break out of the cocoon and live again.
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