A/N: And we're at it again, Fitz and Simmons never catching a break. I admit it makes for good TV, I thrive on angst after all and it helps my fic productivity. My muse doesn't seem to work well with happy endings, but still, haven't they suffered enough.
Spoilers: Up to and including 6x3 Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson.
Disclaimer: I'm neither a prey nor a hunter. Most days I know what I am, and that is not the owner of the rights to Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
They were back on their ship. Now with an extra passenger, Enoch, so not the one they'd hoped for where the one joining them. Both Jemma and Daisy were sporting a major headache after their little girls' night out. Theirs weren't as bad as Davis' though, he had had to go to his room to shut the world, or rather the Universe, out for a bit while he recovered. All the while Piper was trying to fix the fuse box so they could get the hell out of there. And go where? The fact was that they didn't know where the hunter had taken Fitz or why, so how were they supposed to follow? Did the breadcrumb trail, they'd been following until now, stop here? They'd come so close. They'd actually found Fitz despite the slim chances. Gone into deep space, not entirely voluntarily, more so on Jemma's hunch only. And now what? Had it all been for nothing?
By now Jemma had sobered up. Seeing Fitz again, for only a second, only to have him be kidnapped by some kind of alien bounty hunter, right in front of her eyes in the next moment, would do that to you. She had heard him say her name, but didn't even get to say anything to him herself before he practically vanished in front of her very eyes.
There really was no denying it anymore; the Universe really did have it out for them. Even with them having practically rewritten history, some kind of cosmic force was still insisting on keeping them apart. Enoch had been right, Jemma Simmons were not supposed to be there, neither was he, and wherever Fitz was right now he wasn't supposed to be there either. This was all wrong. But they couldn't do anything about it. Disregarding the fact that they couldn't really go anywhere until they'd fixed up the ship. Had Fitz been there, he would have had it up and running by now. Besides they didn't have enough fuel or food to blindly go hunting across the Universe, and alien food clearly did not sit well with humans all the time, as they'd just experienced. How would they go about hunting a Chronicom hunter? Sure, they had their own Chronicom, but right now he wasn't too much help, he wasn't a hunter and at the moment he seemed to be having some kind of nervous breakdown, or a depressive episode. Talking about how bad of an anthropologist he was, that he understood now why he'd been decommissioned, having not predicted this outcome. But what did it matter anyway, they would all eventually end up as just tiny specks of dusts in the vast infinity of space.
Jemma was heartbroken. Yet again. Wasn't it enough that she'd had to bury her husband, only a little while after they had gotten to say their "I do's". Why couldn't she get to keep this "earlier" version of Fitz? Why did he have to be ripped apart from her also? There were so much, so many things that this Fitz didn't know. She wanted to be able to tell him, to just share the rest of her life with him, somewhat carefree. At least without having to worry about the next big thing coming to wedge its way in between them.
She was the reason that their little crew were in this hopeless situation right now, and she didn't know what to do to remedy it. They had reached their goal, completed their mission, they'd found Fitz. But they'd also lost him again. Some kind of rescue team they were. She felt like she deserved a lot worse than the mind-numbing headache she was experiencing, and couldn't seem to quite shake off again. That little, innocent looking, colorful, cookie thing, sure had a kick.
The others were still mad, she could tell, but they sympathized with her nonetheless. Especially Daisy that had been there from the beginning, and through all of their hardships. They might return to earth, for the time being, if they could, but she swore to herself that she would not give up, that she would return, alone if she had to. She would scour the whole freaking Universe until she found her husband, or future husband. Leopold Fitz. He was out there, knowing that she was alive and well and looking for him. That knowledge would keep his hopes up, motivate him and make him fight even harder to survive and get back to her. She knew that because it was what kept her going, and what had made her pull through time and time again. They were the same, him and her. It had always been them; they weren't meant to be apart, and whenever they actually were together, they were a force to be reckoned with. Maybe that was why the Universe was afraid of them, and kept pulling them apart? They had, and they could, and they would again, make great things together. No doubt about that.
But how do you go about finding a needle in a haystack? Magnets perhaps? Ergo they needed something that would attract the Chronicom. But what? Some sort of prey. Someone that was more valuable to him than Fitz. But who? How would they go about finding someone a trained bounty hunter hadn't found yet? Maybe they could put out a bounty themselves. Quake would probably go for a pretty penny. They just had to make sure they attracted the right kind of hunter; having a million other aliens on their backs would not work out very well for neither them nor Fitz. So, some kind of localized announcement that would only reach this one specific Chronicom then. Well, nobody said it was going to be easy. When they lured him here, they could make a trade, Fitz for Quake. Daisy could take care of herself, she could defeat him, fight her way out. Or maybe this was a bad idea too. Jemma was just spitballing here, trying to think her way out of this their most resent predicament. She was almost running out of ideas, without having Fitz there to bounce her ideas off she didn't feel so brilliant.
Jemma thought about little monkey Fitz, which she'd seen while under the influence of whatever hallucinogen there was in that alien food. She wanted him back so badly. But even when she was high, her subconscious told her she couldn't have him. Monkey Fitz was made to balance on a green straw of hope, but she only had him in sights for a short minute before he fell off and disappeared into the void of her mind. She couldn't even conjure up a happy ending for her and Fitz in her own imagination. Then what was their future going to look like in the real world?
Time and time again they'd been thrown into one crisis after another, separated at every turn. But each time they'd found their way back to each other. This time was not going to be an exception! They'd both been cosmic prey for far too long, it was time they turned the table on the Universe and became the hunters.
A/N: Am I the only one who's a bit tired of the writers still doing the let's separate FitzSimmons thing after 6 seasons. Why can't they ever get the happiness they deserve?
I did love little monkey Fitz, lol. And they were all cute and hilarious while tripping like that.