A/N: So I'm pretty sure having AoS back on screen is messing me up more than the hiatus did. Marvel, the writers, promo makers etc. are just terrible teasers, aren't they.
Spoilers: For the promo and sneak peeks from 2x03.
Disclaimer: I haven't infiltrated the group of people that own the rights to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., who do you think I am... Hydra?
From the street she'd seen that the lights in her apartment were on. And she knew for a fact that she had turned them off before leaving this morning. So she walked in the door as quietly as possible, hoping not to alert whoever was in there to the fact that she had come home. Then she immediately went for her gun. She could hear the culprit moving around in the living room. So she turned the corner into the room abruptly, hoping she could take the intruder by surprise, since she wasn't much of a fighter, even with a gun and even though she'd had some more training in that department now, courtesy of Hydra. The unknown still scared her. And after all the time she'd spend here, being taken down by a simple burglar would be a gigantic failure. And she couldn't afford failure, not now.
Her relief at seeing Coulson there was palpable, but it was short-lived. Still she dropped her arms, relaxed her grip and let the gun rest at her right side. "Sir, what are you doing here?" She asked surprised.
"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" He asked accusingly while studying her new short hair and her vacant expression, before she looked down in shame for a short second. She felt different, detached from her old persona. Undercover work would do that to you, it was a survival mechanism… lie, change, adapt or become fish food.
She had had to change, to put on a mask and distance herself from what she was actually doing, from who she worked for. So she had cut her hair, put on a neutral face, blanked out any thoughts, and went to work every day. Doing what she'd said she never would, worked for someone she despised, for an organisation that only dealt in death and destruction.
She looked up met his eyes confidently. "You were the one that told me to go dark. That any contact right now would be too dangerous."
"You're right, I did. But this is huge, Jemma." The use of her given name seemed to bring back a little of her old and innocent softness. "This could be the break we've been looking for."
"I know Sir," She said calmly. "That's why I didn't want to risk it by doing anything suspicious."
"I understand." He assured her.
She looked around nervously. "What if someone sees you here?"
"I took every precaution." He said reassuringly. "Snuck in quietly. No one saw me. You don't need to worry about that." This new cloaking technology really was useful, but this wasn't the time to bother Simmons with how all of that had come about.
"But you're worried." She could see it in his face, in his eyes.
"Of course I'm worried. I don't even know why I agreed to this in the first place."
"Because we need to take down Hydra, and this is the best way to do that." She stated matter of factly.
"Yeah, but I should have send somebody else in." It was too late for second thoughts, and he knew that.
"I'm the only one that could do this, that was qualified enough." She was right, Hydra was picky, they only choose the best and the brightest. "And I'm handling it, I have so far, haven't I?" It wasn't so much a question, it was really more of a rhetorical one. She knew she had done well, if she hadn't she would likely already be dead by now.
But he answered anyway. "I know. And you have." Did she detect a hint of pride in his voice. "How's the acquisition team coming along?" He asked, finally getting down to the business at hand.
"I think they trust me enough to take me with them this time." At least she hoped so.
"Do you know where they're going, when they are bringing in the gifted?"
"No I don't know the specifics, only that it could happen any day now."
"Okay we need to get moving then." He paused, then shared his mental list of things to be done. "We have to find a safe way for you to contact us, so we can be ready when it goes down. We are going to set up an extraction plan for you and the others. The more of the gifted you can convince to come over to our side the better."
"I'll do my best, Sir."
He nodded thoughtfully then added. "Just be careful, okay."
She smiled tightly.
He got up, turned around, ready to leave.
She spoke up, in what felt like need, a desperate cry for information she wasn't privy to. "Sir." It was both a statement and a question and her voice shook the tiniest of bits, unnoticeable to anyone other than her.
He already knew what she wanted. "He's doing fine. They all are." He said with a sad smile. It might be a white lie, but he had to make sure that she kept her head in the game, if she worried about them - how they were doing, what they thought of her abandoning them - she could lose her focus, and that could be very dangerous. He was the only one that knew of her mission, he hadn't wanted to risk anything, if Hydra still had any spies in their midst, everything had to look authentic, or it might turn ugly very fast. She was already in far more danger than he'd liked her to be.
He left her standing in the apartment all alone. It was time to inform the rest of the team. She was going to need all the support she could get now. It was time to bring Jemma Simmons home.
A/N: So like the rest of you I'm just trying to make sense of the 2x03 promo and the sneak peeks. Wrapping my mind around this whole Simmons is Hydra thing. And I'm sorry but until I've actually seen the epi I'm not going to give up on Simmons. I have faith in her and I'm choosing to believe she's doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, as Coulson would say. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.