notes:

+ i have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me i'm so sorry. but warning for major character death okay.

+ title from "underwater bride" by passenger

one. leo fitz

It's a Saturday morning in May that Jemma will never forget.

She will never forget the hum of the lights, or how her hands shook or how she didn't cry, not once, because in the end, it was too much for that.

She will never forget the feeling that a part of her had died when the life support machine finally failed.

She will never know if he heard all the things she told him while he was asleep.

She hopes he did.

two. grant ward

He thinks, affectionately, that Skye would kill him for this. She hates it when he lets himself get hurt protecting her.

It's okay, though, she doesn't have to this time.

He feels weightless. Like he's floating.

He opens his eyes.

Not floating. Sinking.

That's right. He's sinking to the bottom of a pool. He's fallen, and now he's sinking. Gunshots do that to you. They throw you back.

If he looks up, he can see blue water and red. That's probably blood. His blood.

They shot him.

But that's okay, because they were going to shoot Skye. It's okay, if Skye is safe. That's all that matters, really.

He could do with a rest, honestly. This will be good for him. It's been so hard, lately. Everything has been so heavy, pressing down on him. There's so much guilt and so many worries weighing on him. He has so many people he needs to protect. Skye, mostly. But after this he's not going to be able to keep her safe again.

It's a pity that he won't see her for a while, or at least he hopes he won't. He's going to miss her, but it's better this way. He always felt like he was bad for her.

He's so tired.

He knows, that if he just closes his eyes it will be over. He'll be able to sleep soon.

three. melinda may

After Bahrain, she swore she wouldn't go back.

She swore she would never see conflict again.

But in the end, she knew it would always end up like this.

And she'd rather go out with a bang, if she's honest to herself.

This does bear an unpleasant number of similarities to Bahrain, but this time she knows, this time, that what she's doing is right.

And this time she won't live to bear the scars anyway.

four. skye

A man in a bar once told her that she was "a stubborn little bitch" because she wouldn't fuck him in the back of his car.

She told him they could write it on her gravestone.

As it turns out, she hopes they'll find something better to write, but it still stands. She is a stubborn little bitch.

Coulson and Jemma are both screaming in her ear, but she pulls her comm from her ear and lets it fall to the floor. Because as stubborn as she is, she doesn't know how long before she gives in. Especially if Jemma cries.

Family isn't blood. She knows that. Family are the people that really care about you. Family are the ones you would die for.

She is dying for them, to protect them from her blood family.

Maybe there's something ironic about that.

Her finger hovers over the bomb's trigger, and she wishes she wasn't scared. She should be brave and unafraid, but honestly, she's scared. Logically, she knows it will be so fast that she won't feel a thing.

Logically, she knows that this is the right thing to do.

Logically, she knows it's okay to wish she didn't have to.

And it's okay that she

Grant would kill her for doing this. He would shout and shout about how she shouldn't do that, that he couldn't bare to lose her, and she would retort that she felt the same way.

And they would probably end up kissing breathlessly, once they'd exhausted themselves from shouting.

But he's lost, now.

She was so angry.

They'll be able to have another shouting match soon.

The timing is right now.

Her parents - her real parents, that is - are in the exact right place. They're telling her about how she could be one of them, how she can join them.

It's now or never.

(It's now.)

five. phil coulson

When you dedicate yourself to something, when you really give your life to something, when you do that, in the end, you do.

You give your life.

And he does. In the end, he's so dedicated that he is the man who gave his life for SHIELD twice.

And he can proudly say that both times he was stopping an alien invasion.

+one. jemma simmons

Jemma is the most selfless person there is.

But the thing is that now she's run out of people to give for.

She's alone.

She has no one that she can throw herself on the line for any more, so she goes back to the lab, and hopes she can save some lives from there.

Anything to make herself useful. Anything to keep her mind busy and stop herself from being overwhelmed.

Quietly, she keeps going.