#marcus benson

There was a knock on her door.

“Come in,” Melinda responded, expecting to see Mack on the other side, come to talk more about what had happened at the jewelry store.

But instead it was Dr. Benson.

Melinda had always liked the older man when he’d been friends with Andrew what seemed like a lifetime ago, and she was glad to have his help at Shield now. But she was a little confused as to why he’d ventured from his lab to her bunk.

“Can I help you?” she asked, standing up. “Is something wrong?”

Benson shook his head. “No, I haven’t found anything new. I just… well I just wanted to talk.”

Melinda raised her eyebrows slightly. “Oh? About what?”

Benson sighed and took a step into her room. “I asked Mack to tell me about your Phil Coulson.”

Melinda blinked at him. “My Phil?” she asked softly, half to Benson and half to herself.

“Mack said that Coulson was your memory that was too painful to go back to,” Benson continued. “I just wanted to apologize for being so callous about him to you. I know what it’s like to have someone like that.”

Melinda sat back down on her bunk and inclined her head to invite Benson to sit down at her desk. She stared hard at the ground.

“It is painful to look back on,” Melinda said after a moment. “Especially now that he’s out there again. The same face, same everything. Except he isn’t my Phil.”

She finally looked up at Benson. His eyes were sad as he nodded at her.

“But he’s more than my most painful memory,” Melinda spoke again, allowing the smallest of smiles to come to her lips. “He’s my happiest memory too.”

She reached over to a drawer next to her bed and pulled out a cell phone. “This was Phil’s,” she explained to Benson. “He disconnected it from any actual phone service so no one could contact us while we were in Tahiti, but he always had it out to take pictures.”

She pulled up the camera roll and began to scroll through it. There were pictures of the bungalow where they had stayed, the beach where they watched the sunset together every night. There were pictures of Melinda napping in the hammock just a few steps from their front door and pictures of Melinda trying to stop Phil from taking pictures of her.

But all of Melinda’s favorites were the ones of her and Phil together.

Phil had insisted on taking selfies whenever he felt happy, and Melinda was grateful to say that they’d both spent almost the entirety of that last month together unbelievably happy, though always with a slight twinge of sadness because they both knew it wasn’t going to last. But even a year later she could still feel the joy in Phil’s eyes as he forced Melinda to smile with him as they lay together on the sand, as Phil kissed her cheek for the camera despite her complaints that they weren’t teenagers posing in a photo-booth. Melinda had actually laughed as he kissed her. She had never been so happy.

And she had never been so sad.

“I know how you feel, Melinda.” Benson’s voice broke through her thoughts.

Melinda looked up at him.

“There’s nothing sadder than losing someone you love. It’s like all your happy memories don’t feel quite as happy anymore.”

“I was just grateful for the time we had,” May found herself saying. “But now… it’s his DNA. It’s him… or a version of him. It’s making me wonder if it was actually worth it. Maybe I was better off before.”

Benson shook his head. “You’re a different woman than you were when I knew you years ago, Melinda. And I’m sure it’s because of this, because of your Coulson. Don’t regret your happiest memory and don’t regret how much you’ve grown because of it.” He stood up. “We’ll figure this out. It’d be nice to see you smile like that again.” Benson gestured at the picture of Melinda and Phil that was still up on Phil’s phone and offered her a small smile. “I’ll get back to work.”

As he slipped through the doorway, Melinda called out to him. “Thanks, Benson.”

“You’re welcome, Melinda,” came Benson’s reply as he shut the door behind him.

Alone again, Melinda looked down at the phone in her hand. Her Phil wasn’t coming back, but she’d be damned if she’d let some murderer with his DNA take his memory away from her.