my skimmons secret santa gift for you!
To @agentsonthebus from @dreamsheartstory
so once upon a time you prompted me to write some teenage!skimmons, i thought we’d bring that back…
Four in the morning and there’s a knock on Jemma Simmons’ second story window. At least she thinks it’s a knock. It could be a tree branch. There is a storm raging outside and she wouldn’t be surprised if the tree could reach. Except, there it is again. Definitely not a tree.
Once upon a time she would have thought it was her girlfriend, Skye, but she’s been gone for four weeks and no one knows where she is. The last time she heard from her was a text, two weeks after she had disappeared, that simply said, my name is daisy now. Jemma pushes further under her covers, her heart sinking quickly and she can feel the familiar pain push back in. Wherever Skye- Daisy-, wherever her girlfriend had gone it doesn’t matter because she wouldn’t just show back up in the middle of the night, on the night before Christmas none the less, without a single word.
Whatever it is raps on the window three more times.
Jemma presses her lips together in a thin line, she has to be awake in precisely three and a half hours to help with Christmas morning breakfast and has not had enough sleep for this. She slides out from underneath the covers grabbing her biology textbook from her desk and presses up against the wall next to her window. Whoever it is that is outside is definitely not an attacker, no attacker would knock so many times waiting to be let in, maybe it is just a tree branch, but no.
There’s a shadow being cast into the room by the streetlamps and it’s girl shaped.
Jemma drops her textbook and throws open her window narrowly missing the girl hanging upside down from the roof. There’s a small part of her that’s entirely disappointed in herself for missing the short-haired miscreant who is now climbing into her room. She’s angry and very much not awake enough to deal with this properly.
“It’s four in the morning,” she whispers harshly. “And you’ve been missing for four weeks.”
Daisy shuffles her feet, water dripping off her and onto the carpet. Jemma can tell she’s trying to appear remorseful but there’s a mischievous look in her eye, “Rather auspicious timing then.” She wrings her hands and looks at Jemma with a small smile. “Isn’t it also the twenty-fourth of December?”
Jemma rolls her eyes, “Actually it’s technically the twenty-fifth-”
“-where have you been?” She takes a step towards Daisy. “It’s Christmas, Skye- Daisy. Whatever I’m supposed to call you.”
Her eyes light up, “My message got through?”
“Just that one line!” She takes another step closer softly shoving at her girlfriend’s chest. She can feel the anger bubbling inside her, but it’s tempered by relief and fear, and she doesn’t like violence, even if for the past few weeks she has wanted nothing but to hit something until someone tells her where Skye has been. Daisy, she corrects herself.
“Oh,” Daisy’s face falls. “Oh.”
“Yes, that’s right, the police have been searching for you and I’ve been worried sick. What do you mean your name is Daisy now.”
“Jemma, I’m so sorry, she took my phone and-”
“Who took your phone?”
“Your mother? I thought she was dead.”
“Apparently there’s a lot of things about me that I thought that are wrong.” Daisy folds her arms across her chest and digs the toe of her boot into the sodden carpet, “My mother named me Daisy.”
Jemma sighs, her shoulders slumping, because she can never stay mad at her girlfriend, not when she sees her like this, folded in on herself and so incredibly vulnerable. “Take off your clothes.”
Daisy gives her a vaguely salacious look and Jemma sets her hands on her hips. “Yet again you’re getting water all over my floor in the middle of the night and my parents don’t like wet carpets. They also don’t like finding you in my bed in the morning, which also keeps happening.” She feels a slight blush creep over her cheeks. “I’ll get you some clothes and a towel. Then we’ll wake my parents.”
The house groans against the storm outside but neither of them moves. It yawns between them like a chasm. Four weeks is a lifetime when you’re seventeen.
Daisy drops her jacket to the ground, she’s working on her soaked leather boots when she speaks next. “We can’t tell your parents, they’ll call the police, and then I’ll just end up back at the foster house or worse, juvie for truancy.”
“People have been worried, they were starting to think you’re dead! You can’t just disappear on people like that… on me like that.”  Jemma spins and feels out the door into the hallway. She’s angry, she’s been angry for the last four weeks, but now that Daisy is back in front of her again she just wants to forget everything that happened and kiss her.
She leans against the wall clutching the towel to her chest. Daisy is back. Jemma pinches her arm because this has to be a dream, just another dream where Daisy comes back and they don’t find her body in a ditch on the side of the highway because that’s all she sees when she closes her eyes. Just another teenage runaway failed by the system that turns into a Jane Doe in some back country morgue. Jemma’s nails do into her skin.
It only takes a moment for Jemma to push back into her room and shut the door behind her because there is a very alive, very wet, and very much half naked Daisy standing in the middle of her room. She glances down and can hear her girlfriend laugh softly.
“I see you haven’t changed.”
She tries not to watch as Daisy dries herself off and ends up facing the corner of her room while having to have what is probably one of the most adult conversations she’s ever had.
“Are you going to tell me where you’ve been? Or why you didn’t tell me you were leaving?”
“I didn’t know I was leaving. And I’m still not quite certain where I was.”
“She kidnapped you?” Jemma cries out, spinning around and clamping her hand over her mouth because the last thing she needs right now is her parents interrupting before she understands what is going on. Daisy has even less on than she did a moment ago, and Jemma stares, mouth agape before quickly turning around again, thankful for the dark. “Your dead mother kidnapped you, how do you even know it’s her? I thought you were dropped off without even a note? And genetics tests take months.”
“When you put it like that…” She can hear Daisy dressing behind her, biding her time. “Yes, she kidnapped me, but I stayed because I wanted to. I thought you would be happier to see me.”
“I am happy to see you, Sk- Daisy.” Jemma sinks down to the floor and pulls her knees to her chest. “I just don’t understand why you left me.”
There’s a wet plop followed by soft footsteps and Jemma can feel Daisy settle in behind her not quite touching, not yet, but there to wrap her a rounds around Jemma when she’s ready. Fingertips run down her spine and she shivers under the feather light touch.
“She didn’t want me communicating with anyone from home.” Daisy continues to draw patterns on Jemma’s back as she talks. “Didn’t want the police taking me back here. And I tried to get a message out to you, only apparently it didn’t send all the important things like I’m safe,” Daisy turns Jemma around so they’re face to face. “Like I love you and I’ll be home soon.”
Jemma’s breath catches in her throat because it’s been four weeks since she heard those words spill past those perfect lips. Four weeks of trying to hold onto hope that Daisy was alive when everyone else believed she was dead or long gone. She reaches out, her fingers curling around the neckline of Daisy’s shirt and pulls her in close.
“Never do that to me again.” She kisses her before Daisy has a chance to respond and she pulls her down onto the ground until she can feel Daisy’s weight on top of her. The kiss is soft and gentle.
Daisy brushes her nose across Jemma’s cheek and pulls back, a grin on her face. “You know as much as as I’m enjoying our current position I can’t help but remember your bed is just about the most comfortable thing ever and I’ve been sleeping in a van for the past month.”
“Is this your attempt to bed me Miss Daisy?”
“No,” Daisy runs her hands down Jemma’s sides. “I’m sure I could do that right here, but really though, can we cuddle in your bed instead of next to it?”
Jemma laughs and pulls them up into her bed, tangling their legs together and leaning in for a quick kiss. “So why come back on Christmas if you found your mother?”
“Christmas miracle, I got my wish.”
The sun is up before they fall asleep.
There’s a knock on the door and Jemma only wakes up partway, enough to burrow in closer to Daisy and remind herself that her girlfriend is very much alive and warm in her arms. Another knock sounds and her bedroom door is opened. Her mother steps inside the room.
“Jemma, darling, we need your help with Christmas- SKYE, IS THAT YOU?”
Daisy groans and buries her face against Jemma’s hair. “We forgot to tell them,” she mumbles.
“Yes, Mum, it’s Daisy. Christmas miracle and all.” Jemma’s voice is mostly lost against Daisy’s  neck. “Can we not call the police just yet?”
“Please Mrs. Simmons.”
Jemma cracks open an eye and watches her mother over Daisy’s shoulder. Her heart is pounding, afraid she’s going to lose Daisy so soon after she’s gotten her back. She tightens her grip on Daisy’s shirt as she takes in her mother’s crossed arms and tapping foot. This is what she was afraid of. They make eye contact and Jemma watches as her mother’s shoulders relax.
“We’ll talk after breakfast, which both of you will help with, and Daisy, come here and give me a hug.”
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