Nomad | Hawkeye FF ✓

DILEMMAS

THE fabric was welcoming, and comforting on Sophie's damp, cold skin. The sheets felt warm and dry, as did the blanket that covered her from her chest down. But none of those things took away the numbness that which ached within.

First it was the tingling of pin pricks on her left shoulder, stirring her out of a deep slumber. If her shoulder was sore, only one question occurred to her: that perhaps she laid in the same position all night? Why else was one side of her body unpleasant?

She wished sleep would consume her again, that she wouldn't have to wake up feeling helpless and painful—not in a physical sense like the pain she felt in her shoulder, but a raw emotional pain living deep within her bones, heart, and limbs. At least, if nightmare free, sleep swapped out the ache in her heart to feel...nothing.

Behind her eyelids in a world of darkness, her worries were gone, and the world that had brought them on.

Laying on her side, little by little, her eyelids gradually popped open. All her senses flooded to the surface as she roused, and life in the present slammed into her like a familiar friend. Except the recognition of being back at SHIELD in the hands of safe individuals never quite registered to her fully. At the moment, she felt like a million miles from SHIELD, her living quarters, and her own life.

She was in a daze and couldn't move; couldn't muster up a hand to swipe away some hair that fell in her eyes. She felt paralyzed from the neck down. All she could do, was breathe, and continue to stare blankly at the blanket on her bed. Her eyes never blinked once as they were open, but gradually her body lulled them closed.

Behind her eyelids, she felt the pounding nuisance of a headache. She must have cried herself asleep in the bathroom tub, and strained and stressed the muscles in the brain. She hadn't recalled anything after she curled up in a fetal position, laid her head on the hard, cold rime of the bathtub, shut her eyes, and the world out with it.

What is the point of anything anymore? she thought hopelessly.

As if sick of the tingly sensation in her shoulder, she rolled over onto her back, and stared blankly up at the ceiling. It was then, that she realized her unusual attire. An oversized white t-shirt with the words "S.H.I.E.L.D." plastered across the front in bold, black letters. Lifting the blanket slightly, she saw she only wore white underwear, but neither pajama shorts or pants. And felt no bra on.

When did I change into this? Her cute, little dark eyebrows bunched together, confused. Too tired to think, too mentally drained to even question if she did change herself, or someone else had done it for her, she set aside this discovery to think about for another time.

Lowering the blanket, and folding her hands across her stomach, she went back to staring up at the never-changing ceiling. The color was a plain off-white. Squinting her eyes, she saw tiny cracks beginning to take shape in the ceiling. A ceiling fan was above her bed, but not on.

For a split second in her mind's eye, she thought she was back at the Professor's school for Gifted Youngsters, but no, she knew where she was, and wasn't sure if she wanted to be at the Triskelion in the first place. Her heart was no help since the organ hadn't a clue where she longed to be, and suddenly, a thought of her parents entered her mind, and she knew.

She longed to be back in their arms, to see them, hug them, and talk to them. She longed to be back at home, longed for everything to go back to normal. To walk out of this bed, as she did in her own bed so many a times at the farm house, and tiptoe downstairs into the kitchen full of the people she loved.

To smell scrambled eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns cooked by her mother, a mug of coffee in her hands—it was always coffee—and her father seated by the kitchen island reading the Washington Post. Eve standing by the stove next to Sophie's mum in her panda shorts, and a white tank top, munching on a bowl of Cheerios. No milk.