When Jemma heard the cargo hold door begin to open, she practically skipped out of the lab to greet Skye after her mission. The new necklace Skye had given her just days before still felt new where it hung heavily on her chest. The pendant was a golden heart, half of it studded with tiny crystals.
She hooked her finger around the chain habitually as her eyes skipped over May, Coulson, and Ward, looking for Skye.
"I'm so sorry, Jemma." Coulson said softly. Jemma's pulse quickened when she couldn't find Skye and Coulson's voice sliced through her like a blade.
"Where's Skye?" Jemma asked innocently, a sob steadily rising in her throat. May left for the cockpit, not being able to handle what was to come. Coulson glanced at Ward, who leaned into the black van and reappeared with red, puffy eyes and a very lifeless body hanging limply in his arms.
"No," Jemma cried, rushing to Ward and cupping Skye's cold face in her hands. Her lips were an awful bluish color and her face was pasty white. Jemma had seen enough dead bodies to know that Skye was gone, but she tried to find a pulse anyway.
"What... what happened?" Jemma asked, still in shock.
"Simmons, I think you should go take some time to yourself." Coulson started. Jemma removed her hands from her girlfriend's body and stepped away. She didn't need an explanation, she saw the blood and bullet holes in Skye's chest.
Jemma ran to Skye's bunk instead of her own and collapsed onto the small bed. Her chest burned and her face was salty with tears. She cried so hard that her head pounded and her vision blurred. There was no way to cope. The reality of the situation was that Skye was gone. Jemma would never again see her smile, hear her laugh, taste her lips, or feel her gentle touch. Nothing would ever be the same again and Jemma couldn't stand it.
Reaching behind her head, Jemma unclasped the necklace and held it out on her palm in front of her. A small crack was in the heart that made Jemma want to scream. Not only was Skye dead, but the necklace she had given her was also damaged. A sudden flicker of curiosity spread through her mind. She would have noticed it sooner if she had been clearheaded, but it still caught her attention. She stopped crying for long enough to see that the crack was perfectly straight and aligned between the gold plated half and the studded half of the heart. She wedged her fingernail into the crack and pried the two halves apart.
Much to her surprise, the gold plated part that had detached from the rest of the necklace was a flash drive.
Jemma sniffled and pulled Skye's laptop closer, trying not to think about the beautiful way Skye's hands used to glide over the keys when she typed.
Jemma plugged in the drive and paused before opening the only file inside. It was a video. Jemma considered destroying the it; it might contain something she wouldn't want to see.
Her emotions won the internal battle and she clicked on the file. Her heart lurched in her chest when Skye appeared on the screen, adjusting the camera angle so it would show all of her, sitting cross legged on the bed in the very place Jemma was now.
"Hey, Jems." Skye smiled. Jemma swiped tears from her eyes so she could see Skye's smile clearly. Skye's smile disappeared and she looked at her hands, wringing them out in her lap.
"If you're watching this..." Skye paused and took a deep breath. "It probably means that I'm dead." Jemma burst into tears, because hearing the honest truth of the situation from Skye only made it more painful.
"If I had made it back from the mission I would have made up some dumb excuse to take your necklace for a bit so that I could delete this." Skye continued. Jemma silenced herself by hugging Skye's pillow and inhaling her sweet scent while she listened to the last words she'd ever hear from Skye's lips, even if it was through a computer.
"First off, I um... I'm sorry, Jemma. I knew there was a chance I wouldn't be coming back this time and I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry." Skye blinked several times on the screen to keep her tears from spilling over.
"This is, like, the fifth time I've tried to record this and I'm still messing up." Skye laughed bitterly.
"There are a few things you should know. I love you so, so much and I'm sorry I've left you." At this, Jemma clutched the pillow and bit down on her tongue. If she could only tell Skye that she loved her too, her heart wouldn't be ripping in half.
"It's because I love you that I need to tell you to move on." Skye interrupted Jemma's wallowing.
"I can't have you spending the rest of your life alone because you feel like you owe me something. You owe me nothing, Jemma, but I owe you everything." Just the thought of dating someone else made Jemma want to grab Skye by the shoulders and ask her what the hell she was saying.
"Put yourself back out there. Not immediately, of course. Then I'd be hurt." That was her Skye, making a joke from her grave.
"Open up your heart again. No one knows better than I do that it's worth it to let someone in even when you've been hurt before." Jemma placed her hand on the screen over Skye's body, wishing she could feel her heartbeat again. The screen was warm, like Skye's skin, but the artificial heat was nowhere near the same thing.
"I've got one more thing for you before it's time to say goodbye." Jemma snapped back to attention.
"I was going to propose." Skye blurts out. Jemma freezes and she doesn't think there's any kind of pain imaginable that could be worse than this. Skye pulls a small, blue velvet box from her pocket. She opens it and shows it to Jemma, smiling despite the tears running down her face.
"I hope you'll be able to give this to someone someday, but for now, you keep it safe." Skye whispered. She pressed a kiss to the simple diamond on the ring and closed the box with a snap. She held it up once more before tucking it under her mattress.
"I miss you already." Skye cried. Jemma let out an agonized whimper along with the woman she loved.
"I love you." Skye barely choked out the last three words.
"I love you too." Jemma cried.
"No, don't go!" Jemma practically screamed when Skye's arm reached into the upper left hand corner of the screen and it went black. Silence fell over the bunk like a heavy blanket, only disturbed by Jemma's pitiful sobs. The little replay button taunted her, and she slammed the laptop shut, pushing it off her lap.
Without wasting another second, she moved to the floor and lifted the mattress. The small box was right where Skye had left it. Jemma picked it up and was almost afraid to open it. Skye was supposed to propose to her with this, they were supposed to get married and have kids someday.
The ring was beautiful. Jemma finally removed it from the box and slipped it onto her left ring finger, kissing the ring as Skye had. It was like the last time they'd ever share a kiss. Surprisingly, the pressure of the ring on her finger soothed her. A little bit of the pain in her chest dissipated and her breathing returned to normal. She could almost feel Skye's hand in hers. It was like Skye was right there with her, telling her that everything would be alright, even though she didn't think so at the moment. Although it made her incredibly sad to think about Skye, she thought about the small, coy smile the girl would have given her when she saw the ring on Jemma's finger.