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Coulson: May and I...we're good friends. After the lmd thing we decided to take a step back, you know?

Coulson: we're good friends...

Coulson: the best of friends...

Coulson: *crying* friends...

Hunter: bloody hell

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The thing about Phil's relationship with Melinda is that it rarely goes the way he expects.

He'd thought, all those years ago, that Melinda would break up with her civilian boyfriend and they'd finally go out for drinks - she'd married him instead; he'd thought that she'd ask to be taken out of the field to concentrate on the family planning thing - she'd stayed instead; and so on and so forth. Phil has learned in the intervening years what to expect from their relationship, and from Melinda, and what not to; they operate within a defined set of parameters. They do deviate from them on occasion, but even those deviations have a line (or lines) that they don't cross.

The team doesn't take it well when Phil tells them about his deal with the Ghost Rider and that pesky little truth of "Also, I'm dying. Oops."

Melinda takes it worse, though she doesn't express just how worse until they're alone.

That Phil expects. He has a decent handle on the way that May reacts to things.

She's angry at him, of course. Phil understands and let's May chastise him for being reckless and stupid and whatever else she feels like calling him. He lets her tell him what a fool he is for telling them that they can't try to save him, because there's no way they're just going to let him die and he's a pigheaded fool for thinking otherwise.

Phil expects the moment that May's anger disappears and leaves only her sadness staring back at him; the softness in her face and the barely discernible sheen of tears in her eyes as she slows down; the little slump of her shoulders as the fire runs out.

They stare at each other for several heartbeats. Phil expects that May will say something touching now, maybe something along the lines of "We're not going to let you die", and then storm out of the room to go and plan how exactly she's going to keep his inevitable death from happening this time.

One of those things happens. Sort of.

What Phil doesn't expect is for May to cross the distance that separates them and step in close enough that she has to tip her head back slightly to look up at him.

"I'm tired of always letting you go," she admits.

May is damn good at saying something sweet.

And then she kisses him, and this is not how Phil anticipated this moment going when it'd first started.

Phil kisses her back. The Jiminy Cricket in his brain is yelling at him to stop because this a bad idea and unfair and a whole slew of other things, but he's slow to listen. He's wanted this - wanted Melinda for so long that only a stronger man than he could immediately resist.

But Jiminy Cricket has the right of it, so Phil forces himself to do the right thing and pulls away - only to be stopped by Melinda.

"Melinda ..."

"I know what you're doing," she cuts him off. "And I'm telling you: don't do it."

"I'm just trying to do what's right. You've been hurt enough, May."

"I know you believe that, Phil, but what's right is letting me make my own choices, and I choose this. I choose you, and us, for as long as we have."

Well, damn. What defense could he possibly have for that?

And why the hell would he want one?

Melinda goes with him to his room that night and they wrap themselves around each other with something between impatient need and heartfelt tenderness. Phil is hesitant at first to show her the visible damage his body has sustained, but she's not having any of that. Her face contorts when she sees the menacing black lines radiating across his torso, but she doesn't shrink from him or change her mind.

May gets up with him in the morning but foregoes tai chi. Again, unexpectedly, she watches him from the bed as he stands in front of the mirror in his room with only a towel wrapped around his waist. He's laid out the shaving cream and his razor on the edge of the sink and is surveying the scruff that's gone unchecked before shaving it off.

Melinda rises from the bed and Phil watches her in the mirror. She's in one of his blue button up shirts and nothing else. The buttons are undone and the front is hanging open; the shirt reaches mid-thigh on her.

Suddenly, Phil loves that shirt.

He angles himself toward her slightly without stepping away from the sink. Melinda stops before him and reaches up to brush a hand across his cheek - across his short, scruffy beard.

"Leave it," she says. She leaves her hand on his cheek and presses a kiss to his mouth, then another. "I like the scruffy look. Looks good on you."

Sometimes, the best thing about his relationship with Melinda is that it rarely goes the way he expects. 

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Coulson isn't a tall man, and Melinda likes tall men.

He's handsome, though, and sweet; he has a tendency to be underestimated and overlooked, just as she does, and maybe that's part of what draws her in at first as well.

The first time Phil hugs her, Melinda decides that he's taller than she thought. She fits easily in his arms and his chest is a wide, solid plane against her front - and his hugs are wonderful.

She feels safe there, pressed against him, and ... precious.

He's not as tall as many of his counterparts, but Melinda forgets why that ever mattered.

(He comes back from the dead and he seems both bigger and smaller than she remembers; he carries Daisy in his arms as easily as if she were a toddler instead of a full grown woman; he kisses Melinda and she doesn't have to stretch to her toes to reach him.

Phil is just tall enough to be a perfect fit, and Melinda likes that above everything else.)

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