Regarding a theory that that agents-of-frickle-frackle brought up from a comment of mine and fezwearingjellybananas telling me to write it.
Bobbi stared at her lap, kneading her hands in worry as Coulson called Hunter to his office. Beside her, Mack looked concerned. He had been the one who'd kept telling her that she didn't have to do this. She couldn't hold this off anymore though.
"You called?" Her ex husband's said smartly as he came in. Everyone all turned to look at him, and he stopped.
"Am I in trouble?" he asked suspiciously. "Bob, he didn't find out about the van, did he?"
"What van?!" Bobbi wasn't sure who sounded more alarmed, Coulson or Mack. Neither of them knew about it, and she would rather it stayed that way.
"This is not about the van," she told him, standing up and walking over him. "It's about something else."
"Okay, what then?"
"You might want to sit down for this."
He shook his head. "I'm sure I'll be fine."
"You really are going to want to sit down when you hear this," Coulson told him. "I needed to, and I've heard a lot of crazy unbelievable things."
Lance's eyes widened, and he hastily sat down in the chair Bobbi had occupied. "What is this about then?"
Bobbi looked at Mack, who nodded, and took a deep breath. "When we got divorced, you and me pretty much went separate ways. I went to SHIELD, you went to Izzy..."
"Yeah, yeah, already know that-"
"When we divorced, I was pregnant."
The words tumbled out before she could stop them. It felt like someone had lifted up the heavy weight that had been lying on her chest. She'd been holding that down for four years, and every year made the pain worse and worse.
Lance gaped at her. "Pregnant? Bob, why didn't you tell me?" he asked, moving to get up.
"I didn't know until later, and when I tried to contact you, I couldn't reach you," she cried, biting back the angry tears. "And I didn't know if you wanted that. I didn't want you to come back and for us to get back together just because I was expecting a baby!"
Lance stopped and sat back down. Bobbi had never seen him so white-faced before. It was a lot of information for him to digest, but there was an even bigger part of the story coming.
"I got off the radar, Mack helped me with that," she continued, nodding her head toward the mechanic. "He looked after me, made sure I was doing okay. Kind of like a big, nice guard dog. Even after she was born, he would still drop by and check in on us."
"She?" Lance stood up. "A girl? A baby girl?"
"Yes," Bobbi dug the small photograph that she carried around with her in her pocket. "A baby girl. I named her Jemma. Jemma Eve Morse. Mack was the one who gave her that blanket with her name on it."
"Jemma?" Lance frowned. "That's Simmons's first name?"
She nodded quietly. Lance stared down at the picture. There were actually tears in his eyes. Bobbi had never seen him cry before, and had to swallow back her own. She could remember the day the photo was taken. Mack had come by to check in on them and deliver the blanket. Jemma had immediately fallen asleep the moment Bobbi had swaddled her in it, and her friend hadn't been able to resist taking a photo.
Lance's hand trembled a little as he passed it back. "Where-where is she? Can I see her?"
The hardest part of the story was coming up, and Bobbi explained to him how a group of men had broken into the house one night just as she was about to put Jemma to sleep. How they'd pulled the baby out of her arms and demanded her to stay back. How one man had pulled out an orange stone and twisted it.
"That's when they disappeared, all of them," she said breathlessly as Lance stared at her in horror. "All of them and Jemma were just...gone. I spent days looking for them, but there was nothing. All I found out was that the men robbed a SHIELD vault before coming to the house."
"Jemma...she's gone," Lance's broken face reminded her of the way she'd felt, the way she still felt knowing she'd never been able to see her baby grow up.
"Not exactly."
Bobbi steeled herself for the hardest part of the story. "While I was working for Hydra, I found out what the orange stone was. Hydra had possessed it once, but the SSR took it when World War II ended. It can allow the user to travel in time, in the past, present, and future. I figured they must have taken her to either the past or the future, since there was no trace of her in the present. That is, until I found her at Hydra."
"They took her!" Lance's face grew red. "Tell me you did something to get her back, Bobbi! Tell me you tried to get Jemma out of there."
"I did, Lance. I got her out, and I brought her here."
"You..she's here?" Lance was at loss for words. "Where is she?!"
"I wasn't finished with talking about Hydra," Bobbi snapped. "They didn't take her. What happened was that Jemma ended up in the past. She was adopted by a family in Sheffield after turning up in a field in 1987. She grew up a genius, a prodigy. She joined SHIELD when she was seventeen, and was one of the youngest graduates from the Science and Technology Academy. She and her best friend joined Coulson on his team when it began, and she ended up at Hydra undercover. I had my suspicions when I heard her name. When we got back here, I did a DNA test."
"So who is she?" Lance seemed to grow more frantic at the second.
"Jemma Simmons," Bobbi said. "Lance, our daughter is Jemma Simmons."
Should I write more?