A/N: First, before I forget, title comes from "Pretty Girl" by Sugarcult. And credit to sapphireglyphs for connecting the song with this story, because it really is perfect. All chapter titles will come from the song, as well.

Second, this will be multiple chapters. How many, I haven't decided yet. I guess we'll see. Chapter one is a drabble I posted on tumblr a while ago, with some minor edits. All subsequent chapters will be new.

Third, I'm trying something a little different with this one. Namely, alternating POVs. This chapter is from Jemma's POV, the next will be from Grant's, and the one after...we'll see. Each chapter's POV will be clearly marked in the chapter title, and hopefully the text will make it obvious as well.

I think that's it! Except to mention that this story was spawned by a prompt from anonymous, who requested "angsty biospecialist amnesia au"-so take that as you will. Oh, and this story will contain spoilers for recent episodes.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review.

Jemma's head is pounding when she wakes.

That's the first thing she's aware of: the pure agony in her skull. The second thing she's aware of is the steady beeping coming from somewhere nearby, which does absolutely nothing to lessen the pain. The third thing she's aware of is Skye.

"Oh, good. You're awake."

"Skye?" Jemma croaks. She cracks one eye open and instantly regrets it, as the bright light shining in her face causes a spike of pain. She squeezes her eye shut again with a moan.

"Sorry, sorry," Skye says hastily. There's a click, and the light seeping through her eyelids dims. "I meant to turn that off."

"What happened?" she asks, and risks opening her eye again. This time, the room is dark, and she opens her other eye.

She's clearly in a hospital room of some kind, although it's not one she's ever seen before. Actually, it strikes her as being rather makeshift. Skye is sitting next to her bed, looking pale and exhausted. There's no sign of Grant or Fitz. All of these things are worrying, to say the least.

"How's your head?" Skye asks.

She's about to answer when she processes exactly what she's seeing, and she frowns. "Skye…what have you done with your hair?"

"What?" Skye asks. Her eyes go wide, and she leans forward slightly. "Simmons. What's the last thing you remember?"

Jemma tries to think past the pain in her head, which isn't easy. She does wonder what happened, but she has the feeling that she won't be getting any answers until she answers Skye's question, so she does her best to focus.

"Canada," she says finally. "We were…in the woods. Following coordinates from Coulson's badge."

Skye's eyes go even wider, and she springs to her feet.

"Okay," she says, in a tone which falls rather short of comforting. "Okay, that's…okay. You should, um. You should rest, and I'm gonna go get Coulson."

"Coulson?" Jemma asks. "Why…?"

She trails off as Skye hurries out of the room. She frowns after her. Why Coulson? It seems an odd response. If Jemma has lost part of her memory—which is what she presumes has happened, based on Skye's reaction—wouldn't a doctor be more appropriate?

She knows that Skye erased all of their identities earlier today—or, not today, apparently, but at some point in the past—which might make visiting a hospital problematic for one of the others, but it shouldn't affect Jemma. After all, she knows for a fact that Grant has created several false identities for her to accompany his own. He thinks she's not aware of it, the silly man, but she is.

There's no reason Jemma shouldn't be in a hospital, but, looking around the room, she's fairly certain that she isn't. This looks more like a bunker than anything else, and it's slightly concerning. Add that to Grant's continued absence, and it becomes downright worrying.

Not to mention the lack of Fitz—the last time she was hospitalized (after the regrettable Bellhop Incident of 2012), he literally had to be sedated before they could remove him from the room. His absence here is just as surprising and worrying as Grant's, if not more so. After all, the last she knew, Grant was away—accompanying Hand and Garrett to the Fridge—but her last memories involve Fitz standing right next to her.

All of the signs point to something truly terrible happening, and Jemma strains to remember more. And, unfortunately, fails. She's aware of the memories, can feel them just out of reach, but can't connect to them. It's just like when a word is on the tip of her tongue and just as frustrating.

Between the pain and the frustration, she's near tears by the time Skye returns, accompanied by Coulson and May. Neither one of them looks injured—nor, she notes, does Skye—so whatever's happened, it doesn't seem to have involved them.

"Sir," she says as soon as Coulson crosses the threshold. "What is going on?"

"Simmons," Coulson says. "I need you to stay calm."

"That would be easier if I had any answers," she informs him, a touch desperately. "Please, what's happened? Where are Grant and Fitz?"

May, who's standing at the side of the bed, makes a motion like she's about to touch Jemma, then stills. Skye looks away. Coulson frowns.

"I'll answer all of your questions," he promises. "But I need you to be calm about it. Are you in pain? We've got the good drugs, if you'd like them."

His levity rings false, and it worries her even more.

"I'm fine," she says. "And I'll stay calm, I promise. Just please tell me what's going on."

"Okay," Coulson says. He sinks into the chair on the other side of the bed. "But if you need me to stop at any point, just tell me."

That…is not encouraging. Jemma is gripped with dread as Coulson takes a deep breath. And her unease only increases when she notices Skye slipping out of the room.

x

Some time later, Jemma's head is reeling with everything she's been told. Grant is a traitor. He tried to kill everyone. Including her and Fitz, which is why the latter isn't here—because he received brain damage when Grant tried to kill them, and the team tries to avoid upsetting him. He's not here because he doesn't know she's injured.

She asks more than a dozen times whether they're really sure that Grant is a traitor. She's positive that there's some mistake. It simply isn't possible. She knows Grant. She loves him. He is not HYDRA. He can't be.

Skye returns during Coulson's explanation of exactly how Jemma was injured—she went undercover in HYDRA? Really? Whose idea was that? Jemma can't lie—and silently hands over a tablet.

"What's this?" Jemma asks, looking down at it. It's displaying a paused video, so she hits play.

And instantly regrets it.

She watches, in horrified silence, the proof of Grant's betrayal. The video is a security feed of some kind—from the Cybertek building, she assumes, remembering Coulson's earlier account—and it shows, in full color and audio, Grant threatening Skye and fighting May.

She's crying by the end of it.

"We'll, uh, give you some time," Coulson says awkwardly. "There's an intercom there. Let us know if you need anything."

He leaves quickly, and Skye follows him out after a sympathetic look. May hesitates, then sits down on the edge of the bed and rests a hand against Jemma's back.

They've never been particularly close—in fact, she's always been somewhat intimidated by May—but Jemma folds into her at once, sobbing into her shoulder. May doesn't offer any words of comfort, for which Jemma is absurdly grateful. There's nothing she could possibly say to make this better.

All May does is hold her and let her cry.

x

After she's done crying—which does take a while—she asks if she's allowed to leave the room.

"Should be okay," May decides. "You want to go to your room?"

"No," she says, swinging her legs to the side and sliding to the edge of the bed. "I want to see him."

"We can't let you see Fitz, yet," May says, in what Jemma suspects is deliberate misunderstanding. "Not until we have time to break the news to him."

"That's fine," Jemma says, although it really isn't. She doesn't appreciate being kept from her best friend. Still, the last thing she wants is to make his condition worse, and she'll have to take Coulson's word for it that she would. She makes a mental note to request access to his medical file—she'd like to know the particulars of his injury. "Because I want to see Gra—Ward. I want to see Ward."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" May asks mildly, moving forward to steady Jemma as she stands.

"No," she admits. "But…it's something I have to do."

May watches her for a long moment, and Jemma does her best to return the steady gaze. Eventually, the older woman nods.

"This way," she says. She pauses to grab a cotton robe off the back of the door and offers it to Jemma. "It's pretty cold in the base."

"Thank you," Jemma says, and slips it on. She's wearing scrubs, not a hospital gown, but they're fairly thin, so she does appreciate the robe, which is nicely warm.

"You want to stop by your room first?" May asks. "Get dressed?"

"No, that's all right," Jemma says. She needs to get this over with, before common sense asserts itself and she changes her mind.

May nods and says nothing. Jemma has the feeling that May knows exactly what she's thinking. Oddly enough, it's not unsettling at all. In fact, it's almost comforting.

The base appears deserted. They walk through countless corridors without encountering a single person. Jemma wonders if it's simply lacking personnel—Coulson mentioned a few unfamiliar names, but not many—or if the corridors have been cleared on someone's order.

"It's pretty late," May says, as though in answer to her thoughts. "Everyone's asleep. He might be, too."

Jemma honestly isn't sure whether that would be preferable or not, so she simply nods. Then she winces, because her head is still throbbing. Perhaps she should have taken up that offer of painkillers after all—but no. She needs to be clear headed for this.

Eventually, they come to a stop outside a door marked Vault D. Jemma is briefly distracted, wondering whether there are Vaults A, B, and C, and, if so, whom they might hold, but pushes those thoughts aside for later.

"You want me to come in with you?" May asks.

"No, thank you," she says, although it's tempting. "I need to do this alone."

May doesn't look surprised. "I'll be right out here, watching." She holds up a tablet. "If things get out of hand, I'll come in."

"Thank you," Jemma says. She takes a deep breath and reaches for the door handle.

"There's a tablet outside the cell," May tells her. "It controls the room."

"Good to know," she says. She starts to open the door, then hesitates. "How much does he know? I mean, did he know that I was going undercover?"

"He doesn't know anything," May says. "He never even knew you were gone."

"Good," she says. Then, before she can second guess herself again, she pulls open the door. "This shouldn't take long."

"Take your time," May says kindly.

Jemma nods (carefully, this time) and enters the Vault. It's dark, and she pauses as the lights slowly flicker on, revealing a staircase. She keeps her eyes on the steps, dreading what she might see if she looks around the room.

Coulson mentioned that Grant—that Ward was briefly suicidal, and that the toll it took on Jemma to repeatedly save his life was one of the main factors that led her to request an off-base assignment. She wonders whether it was here that she treated him, or if he was brought up into the main base for it.

She imagines it must have been here, as bringing him upstairs would be quite the security risk. She tries to picture having to rush down these stairs to save the life of a traitor—a traitor she used to love—and shudders.

No wonder she left. At the moment, she's rather regretting that she ever returned—and not just because it resulted in amnesia.

Eventually, she reaches the bottom of the stairs, and she can stall no longer. When she looks up, her eyes are instantly drawn to the cell in the center of the room. Or, more specifically, the man standing in the cell in the center of the room.

There's a yellow line painted on the ground, which Jemma assumes denotes the location of the barrier, and Grant—Ward—is standing right at the edge of it. He's staring straight at her, and it takes her a moment to gather the necessary courage to approach the cell.

There's something very off-putting about his gaze. And she doesn't think it's just the new knowledge of his true nature. There's something different about him, now.

He's sporting a beard, and she has the irreverent (and irrelevant) thought that it doesn't suit him at all.

"You're hurt," he says quietly. "What happened?"

Reflexively, she lifts a hand to the bandage on her head. Then she drops it and folds her arms against her stomach. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't know what there is to say. Honestly, she has no idea what she's doing here.

As far as she remembers, the last time she saw this man, he was kissing her goodbye. She tried to comfort him about Garrett, tried to convince him that it wasn't necessary to go with the security detail to see him locked up, and he…

She swallows, remembering how shattered he looked. He was all but drowning in guilt for not seeing the truth about his mentor.

Or so she thought.

It's hard to accept that it was all a lie. He portrayed the emotion so convincingly—she never once doubted him, even knowing how close he was to Garrett. But then, he made a career out of undercover work.

She supposes this is just what she gets for sleeping with a spy.

The pain in her head, the exhaustion she's been feeling since she woke up, and all of the emotions that seeing him cause in her are overwhelming. She drops into the chair in front of the cell and just looks at him.

"You changed your hair," he says, after several long moments. "It looks nice."

For some reason, that's the final straw. She puts her head in her hands and laughs until she cries.

The man she loves is a traitor. Her best friend has brain damage, which was caused by said traitor, and she has no idea how severe it is. Her other best friend can apparently barely stand to be in the same room as her. Her parents, by all accounts, have every reason to believe she's dead. She has amnesia.

And now she's just been informed, by the aforementioned traitor, that at some point in the drama of the past few months, she changed her hair. And he likes it.

"Jemma," he says. "Jemma. Calm down. Take a breath."

His voice is steady, comforting, and despite herself, she responds to it. It's the tone he uses—used—with her after nightmares, and at this point it's reflex to obey as he talks her through slowing her breathing. It works just as well as always. And even though she's no longer on the verge of hyperventilating, it somehow makes everything even worse.

As far as she's concerned, she loved this man less than six hours ago. She has no idea how they went from that to this—to being separated by a force field for her own safety.

"Feeling better?" he asks quietly.

"Why?" she asks, looking up at him. Before he can answer, she clarifies, "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Any of it," she says. Her voice is a little sharp, but she's too exhausted to actually snap at him. "You betrayed us. Why?"

"I was loyal to Garrett first," he replies, voice soft and apologetic. "And it was just supposed to be a fact finding mission. I never meant for any of you to get hurt."

That gives her the energy she needs to snap, "You tried to kill us!"

"No, I didn't," he says urgently. "Jemma, if I had refused to kill you, Garrett would have just had someone else do it."

"And you thought that killing us yourself would be better?" she demands.

"No," he says. "I knew that if any of Garrett's men got their hands on you, you were dead. Getting you off the Bus was your only chance. I know Fitz got hurt, but at least you both survived. If I hadn't done what I did, you'd be dead. Or worse."

It's impossible to argue with him. She doesn't know the circumstances well enough to mount a reasonable counter-statement. Coulson's description of that particular event was vague and very, very quick.

"Even if I believe that," she says. "There's still everything else you did. You helped Centipede ruin countless lives, you kidnapped and tried to kill Skye, you actually killed…"

She falters. She knows that Coulson told her the name of the agent Ward killed at their original base, the one whose corpse she performed a post-mortem on, but she can't quite think of it, at the moment. She's positive that it started with a K or a C, but…

She's silent for too long, and his eyes narrow.

"It's been months," he says slowly. "And you've never come down here to ask for an explanation. Why now? Why tonight?"

Before she can decide what to say, his eyes lock on the bandage at her temple.

"Just how bad is that head injury?" he asks.

"It's nothing," she dismisses. "Just a bump."

But something in her tone must give her away, because he steps even closer—causing the barrier to become visible, a grid of golden light flaring into view. He takes the slightest step back, just enough that the barrier fades again, and pins her with a look that she can't even begin to interpret.

"You don't remember," he says, his tone just as unreadable as his face. "Do you?"

She's a terrible liar. There's no point in trying to deceive him. "No. I don't."

"How much did you forget?"

"All of it," she admits. "The last thing I remember is walking through the woods, trying to find…" She hesitates, unable to recall the name of the first base. This one is the Playground, she's certain, but the other…She sighs and gives up, incapable of thinking past the ever-present pain in her head. "Trying to find the base in Canada."

"So you have no idea what happened," he says. She wonders if she imagines the triumph in his tone.

"Yes, I do," she disagrees. "I may not remember it, but they told me everything."

"And you believed them?" he asks, hurt.

She has to quash her instinctive need to apologize and comfort him. He's a murderer and a traitor, and the hurt he's displaying is only an act—as was everything she ever saw in him. He's simply attempting to play her, to take advantage of the circumstances. She knows that.

Still, it's difficult, and she has to swallow before she can speak again.

"No," she says. "Not at first. I was so sure there had to be some mistake."

"So you—"

"And then," she continues over him. "I saw the video."

He pauses. "Video?"

"Apparently Cybertek had an absurd amount of security cameras," she says. "After everything that happened there, the team kept the feeds. I watched them earlier. It was quite the show."

"Jemma—"

"Jemma's still alive," she quotes. She's surprised by how steady her voice is. "And once I've crossed off you and the rest of the team, I'll have plenty of time to convince her to see things my way."

The words—his words—are burned into her memory (for the second time, she presumes). As is the look that was on Skye's face when he said them. She doesn't know what was on his face at the time, since the camera showed only his back, and she's pathetically grateful for it. The words are bad enough. Knowing his expression as he said them could only make it worse.

He's silent for a long time.

Finally, expression soft, he says, "I wanted you on my side. I wanted you with me. Is that so bad?"

She's wasting her time, here. She doesn't know what she was expecting. An explanation? Even if he offered one, there's really nothing he could say to justify the things he's done. And he hasn't offered an explanation—or an apology. All he's given her are excuses and deflections and more lies.

"I see now why I haven't been down to visit before tonight," she says quietly. She stands. "And it seems I had the right of it."

"Wait," he says, jerking forward. The barrier flares again, and he makes a frustrated noise as he steps back. "Jemma."

"This was a waste of time," she says, mostly to herself. "There's nothing you can say to make things right."

"You love me," he reminds her, tone slightly desperate.

"For the moment," she agrees. "But once my memories return, I'll stop."

"And if they don't?" he asks.

"I got over you once," she says. (She has to believe that she did. She has to believe that it's possible to let go of him. It may take her another six months, but she can move on.) "I can do it again."

"You don't need to," he says. "Jemma, I lied about a lot of things. I admit it. But my feelings for you were real."

"No, they weren't," she snaps. "I was simply a strategic move."

He pulls back a little, obviously (or pretending to be) caught off guard. Those aren't his words. They're Garrett's. Jemma didn't see any feeds of Garrett, but Coulson gave her a lot of detail about the confrontation he had with the man before Mike Peterson killed him.

Including the part where he called Ward's relationship with Jemma a strategic move that really paid off.

"I'll admit," he says. "It started that way—as an in with the rest of the team. But it didn't stay that way for long."

She can't listen to this. Her entire world has been shattered tonight. She can't stand here and look at him for a single second more. This man—this man, whom she loves and trusts and has never had any reason to doubt, until tonight—is a traitor and a murderer. Nothing he says has any value at all.

She turns away and heads for the stairs. Her legs are slightly weak, her steps unsteady, and she doesn't know whether she's overdone it—this was rather a lot, so soon after her injury—or if it's simply her emotions overwhelming her again. Perhaps it's both.

Either way, she's going upstairs and straight to bed. In her room, she thinks, wherever that might be. She's sure May will be willing to show her the way. She'll go to her room, and she'll lie down, and she'll pretend that all of this has been nothing but a horrible dream.

In the morning, she'll have to grieve—both what she's lost and what she now knows. But she thinks she can allow herself one night to hide from the truth.

"I fell in love with you, Jemma," he claims. "I loved you then and I love you now."

"You're lying," she says. She continues towards the staircase. Just a few more feet…

"I won't lie to you," he says. "Never again. I'll be completely honest with you for the rest of my life."

That stops her, and she turns to stare at him, incredulous. "You won't lie?" She shakes her head sharply, then grimaces as it makes the world spin a bit. "You're a traitor and a murderer and you caused my best friend permanent brain damage. Your lies are the least of the problem."

"I understand why you feel that way," he says, holding up his hands. "I've done horrible things, it's true. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life making them up to you."

"No," she says. "You're not." She takes a deep breath and turns away, walking the final few steps to the stairs and starting up them. "Because this is the last time you'll ever see me."

"If you say so."

Something about the words, and the placid tone he says them with, makes her shiver. It's only through sheer force of will that she keeps from running up the last few steps, and when she reaches the door, she doesn't hesitate in opening it.

"Goodnight, Jemma," he calls lightly.

She steps through the door and lets it fall closed behind her, then slumps back against it. May is still waiting in the corridor, as promised, and Jemma's eyes are abruptly filled with tears again as everything hits her at once.

"It's really true," she chokes out. "Isn't it?"

"Yes."

Her legs give out from under her, and she slides down the door to sit on the ground. She pulls her knees to her chest, ignoring the accompanying pain in her torso (the wound to her head is the worst of her injuries, but it isn't the only one), and buries her face in them.

He says he still loves her—that his feelings for her weren't a lie. She doesn't believe that at all. How could she, after everything he's done? She doesn't believe him.

But—and this, out of all of the terrible things she's seen and heard and realized tonight, is the absolute worst—she wants to.

So she sits there, slumped against the door, and hides her face in her knees as she sobs. May silently sits down next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and though Jemma curls into her willingly, it really only makes things worse.

The man she loves is downstairs in a cell from which he, with any luck, will never be released. Her best friend is God knows where, with brain damage so severe that she can't even see him, for fear that her current condition will make him worse.

In the span of just a few hours, her entire world has fallen apart. And the only person offering comfort is a woman she would have, before tonight, sworn only barely tolerated her.

Things can't possibly get worse than this.