You've never watched Doctor Who?!
Skye settled into her bunk with a sigh, casting a weary glance around her new digs. It wasn’t much roomier than her van, which was oddly comforting, but outside the walls of her designated room was a large, somewhat destroyed plane that the team had taken to calling the BUS, and that was so far from her van that it made Skye slightly lightheaded when she considered it too much.
One step at a timeSkye
The effects of the beer she had shared with the others earlier had worn off by now, leaving her sober and uncomfortably alone with her thoughts. Perhaps due to never really finding her place in the world, Skye had a natural dislike for being by herself. The silence was almost stifling and with so many thoughts buzzing in her head, she had the sudden urge to seek out some company. Thankfully, as if reading her mind, knuckles rapped softly on her door, followed by the sound of a distinctively English accent.
“Skye? Are you in here? Fitz and I were going to watch a film, thought you might like to join us” Simmons asked politely, her tone just as bright as it had been from the first moment Skye had set eyes on the small Brit.
“Uh…yeah, sure. Gimme a minute!” Skye answered after only a brief hesitation. She was slightly concerned that the two geniuses idea of a movie would be something way beyond her extremely limited knowledge of science or mechanics, but she figured that even if that was the case, she would still get some popcorn out of it. Hopping out of her bunk, she grabbed one of her worn hoodies and shoved it haphazardly over her head before opening the door. She was met by a beaming Simmons and quietly grumbling Fitz slightly behind, who immediately perked up at the sight of Skye.
“Excellent! It’ll be so nice to get to know each other better!” Simmons insisted eagerly with Fitz nodding rapidly behind her. They reminded Skye of little Labrador puppies, and she couldn’t help but smile back in return, even if it was only fraction of the size of Simmons and laced with a bit of apprehension. With that, Fitzsimmons turned and started to head to where Skye was assuming they would be watching their movie.
It was almost freaky how in sync they were with each other. Skye watched on, fascinated, as they babbled about their newest invention, the stun gun that had saved Mike Peterson, finishing each other’s sentences with ease, as if they were able to read minds. Skye had never been so close to someone that she was in tune with their thoughts and feelings. It was kind of jarring to bear witness to, but it also sparked something within Skye, a deep-rooted yearning to belong, and she had to forcibly push that feeling down before it festered any more than it already had.
“It’s simply brilliant, isn’t it Skye?” Simmons questioned, turning her dazzling smile back to Skye expectantly. She realised with a jolt that she had zoned out of the conversation a while back, and she found herself at a loss for how to respond. Thankfully, neither of the scientists seemed to notice, continuing on with their conversation as if they expected Skye would understand what they were talking about.
“Of course, we are hoping to condense the concentration and compress it so that it can work in your bog-standard pistol” Fitz clarified, gesticulating with his hands.
“Wait, so we will be able to just knock guys out in the field, with a gun? Just like that?” asked Skye. She couldn’t help the impressed look edging its way onto her face.
“Well, I mean, not ‘just like that’, there is a lot of science and tech involved- “began Fitz.
“But yes, that’s the general idea” Simmons finished, seemingly satisfied with Skye’s reaction.
“Huh, that’s pretty cool. Just how smart are you two again?” she asked, and she had meant it rhetorically, but the pair were quick to answer,
“Oh, very”
“quite smart, actually”
Amused, and slightly bewildered (she had never encountered people quite like Fitzsimmons before) Skye chuckled lightly, before asking for a little more confirmation as they entered a common room area that Skye hadn’t been in before.
“So, Coulson said that you had two PhDs? Is that true?”
Skye threw herself onto the large couch in front of the TV and propped her feet up on the coffee table. She spotted Fitz tutting out of the corner of her eye, but he made no move to discourage her.
“Yes, Fitz and I graduated three years early from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, and we were top of our classes” she explained proudly, settling herself daintily down next to Skye.
“and we are the two youngest students ever to be enrolled” Fitz added with a grin as he too plonked down onto the couch at her other side.
“Wow. Talk about big brains” she laughed, but there was genuine respect behind her words, and Fitzsimmons thanked her modestly in return.
“What about you? Where did you learn to hack so well?” asked Fitz.
“Um…well, I wasn’t ever really great in school, but I had a sort of knack for computer science and I guess it just stemmed from there”
“Impressive, you managed to teach yourself how to do all that, out of a van?”
“Fitz!”
“It’s okay” she laughed breezily, calming the flustered biochemist, “Like I said, I had a knack for it”
Their conversation slowly moved onto other, more basic topics, like favourite colours and favourite animals – “Fitz is in love with monkeys!”, “You make it sound like bestiality, Simmons!” – and eventually favourite TV shows.
“Oh, easy, Doctor Who” Simmons declared confidently, and Fitz agreed with a nod of his head, as if to say of course, what else?
“Er…Doctor Who?” Skye’s eyebrows raised as she posed the question, and she regretted it almost as soon as the words left her mouth.
“You’ve never watched Doctor who?”
“How could you not know what Doctor Who is?”
Their voices mingled into one loud, incredulous babble and Skye raised a hand to silence them before her ears were assaulted anymore.
“Firstly, ow, secondly, why is it such a big deal that I don’t know what this Doctor thing is?”
“This doctor th- Skye, it’s Doctor Who”
“Saying the name of the show over and over again isn’t going to make me magically know what the hell you’re talking about”
“Who, Skye, who we are talking about” Fitz stressed with wide eyes. Before Skye could throw her hands up in agitation, Simmons jumped in with a well overdue explanation.
“Doctor Who is a brilliant TV show made in the UK. It’s about a Time Lord who travels through time and space in his ship called the TARDIS, which stands for- “
“I don’t think she needs to know what it stands for Simmons”
“Well, maybe she wants to know- “
“Guys”
“Right, well anyway, he travels through space and time to all these different planets along with his companions, who tend to change throughout the seasons- “
“Just like he does, every time he regenerates – “
“Yes, and they basically save the day wherever they go because he, well…he’s the Doctor!”
There are a couple beats of silence, in which Skye regards Fitzsimmons expectant smiles with an air of confusion, before she wearily concludes, “so, it is a Doctor thing?” and Fitzsimmons collectively groan.
“That’s it, scrap the movie, we are just going to have to watch this now” Fitz decided, and Simmons readily agreed, reaching for the remote.
“Woah, woah, woah, do I at least get a say in this?”
“No”
“Nope”
“Okay, great. Well, just so you know, I probably won’t understand any of what’s going on”
As it turned out, you didn’t have to be particularly intelligent or science-savvy to follow the plot, and Skye actually found herself becoming quickly invested in the weird Scottish alien and his blonde ‘companion’ as Fitzsimmons had called her earlier. About three episodes in, Skye realised that they had yet to get popcorn, something which deeply dismayed her, and so the trio temporarily abandoned their places sprawled out on the sofa and headed towards the communal kitchen.
“I cannot believe I forgot about the popcorn” Skye exclaimed.
Laughing, Simmons responded, “It’s really not something to be so fussed about Skye, we’re making some now, aren’t we?”
“Well, yeah, but popcorn is a staple tradition on movie nights, and we have missed out on so much popcorn time now” she grumbled back, but there was an easy smile on her face as she hopped up onto the smooth countertop and watched as Fitz searched the somewhat barren cupboards for the snack in question.
“Did you do movie nights a lot growing up, then?” Simmons asked conversationally, subsequently wiping the smile clean off of Skye’s face. Sensing her discomfort, Simmons quickly began to apologise for pushing but Skye waved off her concern.
“No, it’s fine, really. I just…my parents were never in the picture, so I didn’t really have a family” Skye shrugged, trying her best to look nonchalant. Oblivious to this, Simmons reached a hand over to clasp hers, and her eyes were so big and so full of compassion and pity that Skye couldn’t bear to look at them for too long.
“Oh Skye, that’s awful. I’m so sorry”
Shrugging again, Skye brushed her hand away and forced a smile. “It’s alright, water under the bridge to be honest” she lied, and apparently not very well, as her two newfound friends shared a not-so-subtle look of concern from across the room. Skye was about to try with a little more conviction to convince them otherwise, but before she could they seemed to come to a silent agreement, and then quite suddenly they were chatting away in their animated way, somehow finding ways to include Skye in their conversation even though most of the time she had no clue what half the words coming out of their mouths meant, and they even managed to make her genuinely laugh a couple more times, especially when Fitz managed to spill the freshly made popcorn all over the floor.
Eventually, two burned batches and a spilt batch later, they sat with their bowls of popcorn nestled tightly between them on the couch, with large cups of hot chocolate steaming on the table.
“Happy now?” Simmons asked, and Skye was touched to see that she seemed to genuinely care.
“Yeah, thanks guys. This has been fun” she reassured them. They shared another silent conversation over her head, and she made a point of sighing loudly to indicate that she had noticed.
“You two really need to cut that out” she admonished, to which they sheepishly apologised.
“Sorry, can’t help it”
“It’s sort of second nature”
“I’m starting to think you two are the same person”
“That’s funny actually, Coulson thought the same thing when he hired us”
“No wonder, I mean, your surnames actually match up. What are the odds of that?”
They continued to bicker and chatter among themselves as the Doctor and his companions fought valiantly side by side on the screen, with Skye revelling at the action scenes (“Did you guys see that? He nearly shot that guy’s head off!), Fitz mithering over some of the more senseless decisions the characters made (“anyone with half a brain would know not to go and do that”) and Simmons excitably adding little fun facts every other minute (“Did you know that the noise of the TARDIS was created by rubbing piano strings with a key?”)
“You weren’t wrong when you called them kids” Coulson acknowledged softly as he watched the trio from afar. May hummed quietly in agreement.
“You sure they’re up for this?” she asked as she too watched the young agents, and the even younger girl they had picked up along the way, attempt to throw popcorn into each other’s mouths.
“They’re smart and they’re capable, and I trust them. Do you?”
May allowed herself to enjoy their happiness for a moment longer, before she turned and headed for the cockpit.
“Yes” she found herself saying, and then she was gone, and Coulson was left with the task of wrangling the kids (because that’s really what they were – inexperienced, yet intelligent beyond their years – kids) into their bunks for the night. After all, they had a big day ahead of them.