Acceptance
The next day passed without a word from Simmons. May walked by the lab a few times and saw her huddled over her desk, but if she sensed May watching her, she didn’t bother to look up.
She’ll figure this out, May told herself. She has to.
Unbidden, the image of a metallic ambigram on the face of a leather-bound book swam into her mind’s eye. If there were any clues to be had on her team’s fate, the Darkhold would hold the answers. Even if she could not understand the book’s secrets, surely Simmons, with her background in science, would be able to reverse-engineer Eli Morrow’s experiment with the Darkhold’s help.
“If this book is half as powerful as everyone thinks it is, then getting it out of here and hiding it somewhere safe has to be our top priority.”
“Damnit, Phil,” she muttered to herself.
Of course, he was right. As far as they knew, everyone who had read the Darkhold had succumbed to psychosis or had just gone power-mad. No matter how much she wanted them back, she could not subject Simmons to that kind of evil. She had asked too much of her already.
May was startled out of her musings by the trademark scuffing noise of Daisy’s boots coming down the hallway. Without a look back, she made a hasty retreat toward the gym, fleeing from her own nagging guilt as much as Daisy herself. She couldn’t face her right now. There was nothing she could do or say that could make either of them feel better.
***
After a week with no new leads, May agreed to go out on assignment. She and her strike team successfully extracted and relocated two Inhumans who were holed up in an abandoned warehouse in Detroit and being tracked by the Watchdogs. The mission was a breath of fresh air that gave her something else to focus on. Coulson and Fitz might be missing, but the security leak that allowed the Watchdogs to target registered Inhumans was far from being solved.
May returned to base after the last assignment feeling drained enough that she might actually get a full night’s sleep only to find Simmons waiting for her outside of her room. Even through the haze of fatigue, she could tell that something was wrong. In her left hand, Simmons held a thick manila envelope half-concealed behind her back.
“What that?” May demanded by way of greeting.
Simmons swallowed.
“I flew to Aberdeen yesterday,” she answered. “To tell Fitz’s mum the news.”
May busied herself with the keycode to her door and flicked on a lightswitch.
“That must have been difficult,” she said neutrally.
Simmons followed her inside the room and lingered uncertainly at the entrance before letting the door close behind her.
“We’ve decided to hold a memorial service this weekend.”
May shrugged out of her jacket, letting out a non-committal hum as the only indication she had heard.
“Agent May,” Simmons said. “The Director contacted Coulson’s attorney and apprised him of the situation.”
That grabbed her attention.
May leaned against her chest of drawers and raised a very pointed eyebrow at her young colleague. There was only so much that the Director could have disclosed about “the situation” to anyone without the proper security clearance.
“Well, he told him that Coulson was MIA,” Simmons conceded. “You are listed as the executor of his will.”
She held out the manila envelope and May scowled at it like it was a coiled snake ready to spring. Simmons sighed and placed the document on the bedside table.
“Anything else?” May asked coldly.
“Yes,” Simmons replied. “The Director wants to know when we can hold a funeral service for Agent Coulson. He has colleagues and friends that need closure. Mace would prefer it was done sooner rather than later.”
A humourless scoff followed that pronouncement.
“I’m sure he would,” May muttered. “You can tell the Director that he can have a funeral when Coulson is dead.”
“May…”
“That’s final, Jemma,” she stated, turning her back to indicate that the conversation was over.
Simmons was having none of it.
“You think you’re the only one that finds this hard to accept?” Simmons snapped. “You think you’re the only one hurting? Mack hasn’t left on assignment since the incident. He’s spent every waking moment holed up in the hanger fixing anything he can get his hands on so he doesn’t have to think. Daisy can’t tear herself away from her computer trying to work on this new algorithm to track Morrow. And you still haven’t bothered to talk to her, by the way. And I…”
“What Jemma?” May asked. “Go on.”
Simmons cheeks were flushed and her eyes shined with tears. She had kept a lot bottled up over the last few weeks.
“You have no idea how hard it was for me,” she continued. “To admit that Fitz might be alive and I have no way of getting him back. You don’t know what’s it like to feel like you’ve been hollowed out, like you’re only half a person without…”
May felt her face burn, but said nothing.
“I would do anything to have him back,” Simmons said. “But the truth is, whether he’s really dead or not, he might as well be. Because I have no idea how to reverse what was done. I have to accept that.”
The two women regarded one another in silence. Simmons brushed her fingers over the envelope that contained Coulson’s will and turned to leave.
“Maybe you can accept it,” May whispered. “But I buried Coulson once already.”
Simmons stopped at the door, her hand frozen above the panel.
“The casket was empty, but I didn’t know that. Not until Fury told me weeks later. Next thing I knew, he was back in my office, alive, and telling me to come back out into the field with him.”
Simmons closed her eyes, damming the fresh flood of tears.
“I won’t bury him again, Jemma,” May concluded. “I can’t.”