I

"Mom!"

She's buying cabbage at the local farmer's market when she feels tiny hands crawl up her thigh.

She stills, wallet in one hand and chosen head in the other, looking down in surprise into wide dreamy eyes peeking behind a thick fringe and a little girl clinging to her leg.

"Mom!" the girl squeals again, stretching her chubby arms at her to be picked up.

Melinda May has never seen this child in her life.

But the lady behind the counter doesn't know and promptly frees her hands, bagging the vegetable for her, assuming no toddler would ever misidentify their mother.

Melinda thins her lips.

Because objecting would grab attention she doesn't need, she lifts the little monkey up in her arms, then pays one handed and retrieves her purchases before taking a few steps farther out of the way of other customers and into a less busy spot.

"You lost mommy?" she asks flatly, rearranging the girl and the shopping bags to a more comfortable position. She scans the street for any telling sign of commotion or undeniable biological relationship (detecting none).

"No, I finded you!" replies the little girl shaking her head with dark twinkly eyes, delighted.

Providentially, behind them in the crowd of market goers, Melinda hears someone frantically calling.

Interlude I

Daisy has never seen anyone more flawless in the whole world (which, for her, admittedly consists of little more than the small town in Montana she lived all four years of her short life).

She has dark hair and black clothes (and eats vegetables, which is… tough! They're yucky!), but most importantly, for Daisy, she looks just right. "Mom!"

She stares up at the unperturbed beautiful lady, transfixed, like she's seeing a fairy (a real fairy!) for the first time, and when she's finally able to touch her silky hair and smooth skin she doesn't want to let go. Ever!

II

"No!"

Melinda's lips thin again as her hair is caught in one of Daisy's fists, but she gracefully doesn't flinch. She just stares back at the man yanking on Daisy's arm to coerce the little girl into letting go of her neck. This is the most physical contact she had in months and she's not sure she's missed it.

"I am so sorry," the man repeats for the third time, looking appropriately contrite. "Daisy, please-"

He's successfully extricated Daisy's legs from around her waist, but the girl is still desperately clawing at her shoulder and crying at the top of her lungs (into her ear), determined to cling to her with a force neither of them suspected such a small creature would be capable of.

Melinda May never had much patience, even less for something as futile and energy wasting as tantrums, mostly because they bring about the attention of passersby and by now she's feeling all of the market goers' eyes on them. It must be a rather comical picture, she muses, from the outside… But neither of them is laughing.

Daisy's father is trying to pry open the girl's fist in her hair, at first with tickles, then (when it mysteriously fails) with alluring promises.

But Daisy is having none of it: she's burying her wet cheeks in the hollow of her neck (which is starting to get slightly uncomfortable), not listening to a word he's saying, and she's kicking his guts instead.

At the second accidental punch to her jaw, Melinda finally has had enough: she sighs and squares her shoulders, almost succeeding in looking collected (if it weren't for the screaming baby hanging from her neck), drops her bags and gathers Daisy fully back in her arms.

"It's ok," she says then, after a pause, to the man looking at her quizzically. "I'll walk you home," she adds addressing the weeping four year old "if you stop crying."

It only takes that for Daisy to calm down.

"You're the first woman of Asian descent she's ever seen," he explains later, as she carries his baby and he carries her groceries.

He has a soft, gentle voice that quietly suits his unintelligible half smile.

She hums noncommittally but she thinks she understands because she's moved up there over a month ago and she's met very little diversity so far.

They walk leisurely, almost afraid to pick up a pace, Daisy peacefully nestled in her side, dozing off in the late afternoon sun after the waterworks exertion. Melinda May looks down at the tiny hand fisting the collar of her shirt, their matching skin tone, the pouty curve of her baby lips, the shape of her eyes, and sees what the girl must have seen: her missing half. Something that looking into the clear blue eyes of the soft spoken man beside her the child couldn't find.

"I worried I wouldn't be able to give her a background inclusive of the culture she belongs to as she grows up," he says "I didn't think she'd already be so self conscious."

Phil Coulson is a police officer. He'd discovered Daisy one winter morning almost four years earlier, wrapped in a flower patterned blanket in a cardboard box outside his station. "We've never found who her parents were," he adds.

And that is all Melinda May learns that first day about Daisy since it's not a long walk to their red door cottage uphill from then. She brushes off Coulson's apologies once again when, upon exchanging burdens (sleepy baby for groceries), her shirt is left all rumpled with creases and wet tear patches.

"Say goodbye to-"

"Melinda," she supplies, and he will later confess that he thought the sound suitably melancholic.

Interlude II

In her half-asleep state Daisy hears her father's voice and obeys dutifully: "Bye Mom," she says. Then curls herself up against him and clings to his shirt.

Later, in her bed, long after her father has kissed her goodnight, Daisy wakes up in the dark, just for a moment, and looking up at the faint light of the night sky Phil meticulously recreated with fluorescent sticker stars, she remembers the smooth texture and the smell of her mother's skin, warm like earth, sweet like flowers (lily of the valley, she'll learn, but Daisy cannot name it yet), and smiles peacefully.

III

Daisy doesn't meet her again for several weeks.

Then:

Melinda May never had a child. She is not used to respond to the name Mom. That's why she doesn't look up from the book she's reading one sunny Sunday afternoon sitting on the grass in the park, even after the second cry.

She does, however, lift her eyes on a little girl sprinting towards her when she hears her father's Daisy, wait up!

Melinda is on her feet in seconds, because Daisy is about to happily scamper across the cycling path winding through the park, adoring eyes focused only on her.

"Daisy, stop!" shouts her father to no avail, trying to catch up, and only grasping the air on her wake as a teen on a bike skirts her by inches.

Melinda lifts her off the ground just in time to avoid a scooter, swinging on the side and making the little girl shrill with the thrill of flying. Daisy lands safely in her arms, giggling, completely oblivious as she staggers a bit backward on the slope of the meadow, plopping down cross legged. And from within her rises something she thought she'd buried long ago: "Stop running away from your father!" she rebukes. It's when the adrenaline rush wears off that she realizes she's raised her voice, and the little girl on her lap is staring back at her with terrified wide eyes, her chin starting to wobble.

Phil Coulson reaches them just in time to drop on the side the small red tricycle he's been carrying all along and settle gracelessly beside her to catch Daisy flinging herself in his arms, wailing.

They exchange guilty looks over the disheveled head of a crying Daisy. Phil Coulson mouths a thank you to Melinda May and she answers pursing her lips slightly at the mess she's created. "You might consider a leash," she suggests, and even manages to get a chuckle out of him.

She listens to Phil Coulson explaining to his daughter, with gentler words and a more soothing voice, why Miss May was right and why she got upset. She waits, focuses on a single point and lets the rest (the park, the people, the street outside the fence) become white noise. Her heartbeat eventually slows down but the discomfort doesn't fade. Melinda May can handle dangerous adults, it's her job, but dealing with intrepid children is new, and disquieting because after a few more tears and a snotty nose Daisy is back to staring at her with her big curious chocolate eyes like she's some kind of wonder.

So, to deflect an attention she's not used to, in the panic of the aftermath she offers ice cream, legitimizing Daisy's worship (a mistake she'll never fully regret).

They sit in the meadow after that, waving at the little girl going back and forth in front of them on her tricycle for the rest of the afternoon, and she learns that Phil is a history buff, that he loves restoring vintage cars in his spare time and reading old spy stories, that Daisy only finishes her vegetables if he reminds her that Miss May does too, and that he's finding it difficult to satisfy her insistent requests for black children clothes.

But Melinda May knows she never told him her family name, so after a few ordinary questions she easily dances around, she has to sigh: "You ran a background check on me already, didn't you?" And she can almost read the word busted on his face "Anything interesting?"

"You got the attention of my baby girl, forgive me, I… needed to know more."

"Asking is too old fashioned even for you?" She thinks she sees a faint color creeping up his neck at that. Endearing.

"You don't seem very chatty."

Understating. "Touché."

"You moved from Arizona, why up here?"

"Change of scenery."

"What did you do back there?"

"I was a trainer. Self defense classes for women, martial arts… Very cliché."

He snorts good-naturedly. "Plans from now?"

"None."

Phil Coulson is graceful enough to avoid any talk of her husband.

Interlude III

Jemma Simmons is wrong.

Jemma is usually right because she is the smartest of the class, but Daisy is ready to fight to prove that this time Jemma is wrong. For instance, her list of characteristics a fairy, or a princess or a mother must share (like blonde hair and wearing pink or baby blue) is easily debunkable (even Leopold Fitz had to agree, his mother is a brunette), therefore confirming that her hero dressed in black can indeed be a fairy.

But on one common particular Daisy cannot find a way to advocate her point: Melinda May doesn't smile.

IV

Melinda May used to be different. She was always quiet, but warm, fearless in a different way, getting in trouble, pulling pranks... She thought rules were meant to be broken. So when her family started to press her about marriage at twenty two she moved to the Hunan province to continue her practice of tai chi, alone. And when at thirty one she met a handsome psychology professor at Culver University on vacation in Maui, with a charming smile and the right head for a banter, she eloped with him within three months.

For three years Melinda May and Andrew Garner thought they had all the time in the world. Then they finally convinced themselves it was the right moment for bibs and middle of the night wake up calls.

But their baby never came (and eventually they stopped trying).

"I don't mind," she tells Phil Coulson when he apologizes again for Daisy.

"I try to correct her, but-" he says the third Sunday they meet at the park.

"It's ok," she repeats, "I don't have anyone else calling me Mom."

"Yes but…" He accidentally brushes against her arm and she flinches and he notices. "I'm seeing someone," he finally admits "And it seems to be going somewhere so… I was waiting for the right moment to introduce them..."

"I understand."

"I just don't want to confuse Daisy."

"Of course."

And it's better, anyway. Melinda May never dares dreaming anymore. And if she feels a shred of disappointment she quietly repress it, anyway.

The next time she sees Daisy, the little girl is pretending to have a tea party with cupcakes made of sand with her father and another woman, a brunette with a neat bob haircut, a string of pearls around her neck and striking green eyes.

Melinda is just jogging along the street on a Saturday, thinking of going through the park when she sees them sitting on a red blanket in the meadow by the sandbox, the other woman nodding at Daisy's chattering and sharing a smirk with Phil.

Melinda turns right instead and goes up the street, undetected.

On Tuesday Daisy and Phil Coulson are at her door.

The little girl has the blotchy face and the untidy ponytail of someone who's been screaming herself hoarse. Her father doesn't seem to have been sleeping much the night before either.

"I'm so sorry, I was hoping you wouldn't be home," he says. Melinda has to tilt her head at the unusual bitterness she catches in his voice. "But feel free to yell at us and kick us off your porch, please."

Phil Coulson definitely had a rough night, but Melinda May is not going to make things easier for him by playing the wicked witch in front of Daisy as he's begging for. (She tried, the whole I'm not your mom speech flew right above her head).

Instead she thins her lips and accepts the little girl's offer of a drawing. It's a family portrait assignment at kindergarten, Daisy explains: there is a circle with spiky hair and a big blue dot of a hat on the left (which must be Agent Coulson), a smaller circle floating in the middle showing a single feature (a big curvy red line as a smile, perhaps, it's Daisy), and another circle surrounded by black scribbles on the other side of a patched up paper tear. The sheet's been crumpled and torn in places, but someone (and Melinda is not going off on a limb to guess it was Phil) restored it and taped it back together.

As he'll admit later, there was a big crisis the day before after he went to pick up Daisy at kindergarten. He'd assumed the drawing was of Rosalind (the other woman) and told her about it, he didn't know Roz was going to bring it up at dinner, praising Daisy for her talent, upsetting the little girl so much she tore the drawing in half. (He has certainly made it worse by insisting it could somehow look like Rosalind…) And there they are, late for school, sitting in her kitchen like lost puppies with a glass of apple juice each.

Melinda May studies the drawing deadly serious, making the girl holding her breath and fussing with the hem of her shirt. With the corner of her eye she can see Phil Coulson's amused (and tired) look and she thinks it's too late to pull back now, anyway: she's in, she's in too deep already. The whole no feelings, nothing to lose resolution she's imposed herself definitely crumbling.

"Beautiful," she reassures Daisy.

Daisy is sampling peas, one by one, picking them up with her hands and testing their consistency between fingers or teeth, essentially making a mess.

But her father is too nervous to pay much attention (and that's why she's there anyway), he's trying on different ties and none seems to be the right one.

"Daisy, what do you think?" he enquires from the hall raising up in turns a striped blue tie and a burgundy one with a green checker motive through the kitchen doorframe.

Melinda mouths blue from her corner in the kitchen where she's sorting dishes in the dishwasher and Daisy complies enthusiastically yelling her feedback. She has to admit it's quite adorable how he keeps the four year old involved in most aspects of his life so easily.

"Ok, emergency numbers are on the fridge, I left you the keys, yes?" he reminds them both as he puts his jacket on. Melinda lifts the bundle from the table in answer. "If she lies about her bedtime routine..." he warns with a pointed look at his giggling child on the high chair at the kitchen island.

"I'll handle it," she reassures him.

"And if she doesn't want to brush her teeth before bed-"

"I'll handle it," she repeats raising her chin. (In truth, it's the first time she handles a child on her own. But it's Daisy and she's already brainlessly addicted to her cheerful laugh.)

Phil grunts, amused. Then circles around the island for a goodbye kiss Daisy grants all too willingly, smothering his cheeks with wet noisy sounds. He reemerges with a pea green stain on his pristine white shirt collar and to his dismay and Daisy's highest amusement he has to change again.

Melinda is almost certain the little sprout did it on purpose to make him stay home a little longer. She'd high five her if she knew for sure (instead she patiently watches her attempts at collecting running peas in her plastic panda plate, thinking there is a lot of work to do to reshape those awful table manners).

Phil Coulson is back in his kitchen a few minutes later with a clean shirt, checking his pockets for the theater tickets and his own keys in a cloud of Man In Black cologne that has her tingle at the base of her spine. "How do I look?" he asks distractedly reading the wall clock and fretting over his tie.

"Dashing!" offers Daisy, the last peas on her fork flying around.

Melinda steps in front of him to catch his attention (thinking he looked even better with no tie, no jacket and the rolled up sleeves of that V neck shirt he had on when she arrived earlier): "May I?" She undoes his crooked tie knot and ties it again as he nervously blabber on about not having had a dinner out date in four years, and she mistakenly looks up at him grinning at her like a puppy when she's done.

Thanks, he says, and she has to find something to do with her hands then (to ignore the pull in her guts), she smoothes the lapels of his light grey suit, pursing her lips at the doorbell.

She doesn't know what Phil told her, but Rosalind Price, his date, doesn't seem surprised to see Melinda there at all: "Nice to meet you," she chirps, "you must be Daisy's mother."

"No," she answers at the same time Coulson says: "Yes." And it's a little awkward for the three of them to explain then.

Rosalind Price stays for barely five minutes, and that's all Melinda May needs to see she's poised, elegant in her simple tailored deep blue dress, with a genuine smile that makes her eyes crinkle in an endearing way when she teases Phil Coulson. Their banter is easy and witty and oblivious and Rosalind Price moves around him with the confidence of someone knowing the feeling of his body against hers. She doesn't flinch.

Bye bye angel eyes, says Phil to his daughter before leaving on the other woman's vintage Ford Thunderbird.

Daisy stares at the door after it closes, sucking a pea with a hand at her temple as if lost in thought (so cute in her adult mimic her heart clenches), till Melinda sighs, slamming the dishtowel on the kitchen counter: "You'll like her," she promises. Daisy just pushes the pea out with her tongue and on the plastic panda plate. "In time," Melinda acknowledges.

Interlude IV

Rosalind Price is quite nice.

That is not to say Daisy likes her, no… But at least she doesn't dislike her. Not when she's laughing and making faces and doing the different voices while reading her stories (that one time it happened).

Most of all Daisy likes how proudly Phil Coulson looks at her when she wisely plays along, smiling back, chatting, drawing for her (after the incident with the family portrait)... Ever since Roz tags along her father seems happier. Daisy likes that.

Yes, Rosalind Price is quite nice, Daisy thinks, it's just that she is not Melinda May.

V

What could possibly go wrong.

She did ask herself that before accepting the change in plans after the drawing disaster (and ignored all possible answer) she just knew she was setting herself up for heartbreak.

And headaches.

By the fourth time they watch Frozen Melinda May knows every single line and every single tune and hates them with a passion she must conceal (oh, the irony!) for Daisy.

Babysitting is harder than anyone makes it sound.

Not that Daisy is a particularly difficult child, apart from her table manners, she is well behaved, has a good imagination, chatters a lot even without active interaction, and mostly does what Melinda tells her to do (Give me your hand before crossing the street, Don't run ahead, Keep the volume down, Wash your hands before dinner...), all in all they get along just fine.

The hardest part of babysitting, for Melinda May, is once her little girl is tucked in bed and she's left alone waiting for Phil Coulson in his house.

She tries watching tv but either there's never anything interesting on or she can't relax enough in that space that screams Phil Coulson to pay attention. (The warm colors, the capitonné brown leather couch, dark wood furniture and brick fireplace, the mantelpiece crowded with pictures of Daisy). She usually ends up wandering in front of his library in the studio and leaf through a book on Norse mythology or medieval poems till she hears his car engine dying on the driveway. This time eleven minutes before one in the morning.

"I'm so sorry," he says, but he looks too smug to feel any remorse at all. "We lost track of time."

"Not a problem."

"Is Daisy-"

"Sleeping," she confirms. They had a quiet evening, she lists as usual, dinner at six, Daisy tried using chopsticks for the first time (it was a failure, but she liked her chop suey), watched Frozen again while she cleaned up the kitchen, then they tried a jigsaw puzzle before bed.

Phil Coulson is only half listening and there's that faint redness creeping up his neck again.

She's been staring at his lips tonight (more than usual). And he's picked up on it. So this time, before leaving, Melinda cups his cheek and runs her thumb on the corner of his mouth, watches amused as his eyes widen in surprise and the blush reaches the tip of his ears, then heads out, rubbing her thumb and index finger together to get rid of the other woman's smudged lipstick she wiped from his face.

It's a double edged sword, really…

The town is too small and people talk. They talk about Phil Coulson and his dedication to his job, they talk about his big heart and warm smile, and the light in his eyes when he speaks of his adopted baby girl. They talk about his Officer partner Maria Hill and how level headed and skilled she is, they talk about that time she dodged a bullet and disarmed a thug trying to rob old Talbott's gas station. People gossip about his previous partner, John Garrett (before Phil started training young Maria), and how his turbulent affair with coworker Victoria Hand ended both their marriages. And people now gossip about Phil's new girlfriend, the brunette from Helena with the expensive vintage car, and the outsider Asian woman he chose to watch his toddler while he's out living it up.

They don't know he didn't choose a damn thing and that Melinda May is a very selfish broken shell (and that Daisy has them both wrapped around her adorable, tiny, little finger).

But people have to find entertainment where they can, because the town is small.

So small that a grey sedan with an Arizona number plate making the rounds outside the park doesn't go unnoticed when Melinda May walks out with Daisy one Tuesday morning.

It's still there when she leaves the little girl in kindergarten, and is parked outside while she shops for groceries.

Melinda May stopped caring about anything a while ago (she could pinpoint the exact time and date her will faded, if she wanted to remember), and the barrel of a gun to her head in an empty alley doesn't feel like something she should be scared of.

Get in the car, the taller of the two men with the guns orders.

And thus she's gone. And people had a lot to say about it but, as usual, nothing really helpful.