A/N: Hey guys! So this is a version of how AoS 4x04 happened. I thought this is the storyline the Skimmons shipper should have deserved. Credits to the line from AoS, to make the fic more like the episode, I quoted specific lines from the episode and make some changes to it. I will divide this fic into two parts and I will need your opinion on writing the ending, so please comment guys! Also, I take the title from I Walk The Line-Johnny Cash/Halsey. Thankyou, and enjoy!xoxo
P.S: Thanks to socermaster3 for telling me that the earlier version I posted are doing weird coding. Appreciate it!
"Daisy?!" Jemma gasps in shock, she can't believe her own eyes.
"Sorry," Daisy winces in pain, "I have nowhere else to go," she collapses on the floor, arms bloody and bruised. It's bad, Daisy was shot and it brings Jemma to an old memory she wished she has forget. Jemma freezes and she is sure that her heart rate is escalating by now, flashes of things go through her head : blood, hyperbaric chamber, and Daisy trying to hold on to her life.
"Jemma? Are you okay? I'm sorry," Daisy's voice is so soft, but still concerned.
"What? Oh yes, I am quite shocked, but you're bleeding, silly me!" Jemma berates herself as she approaches Daisy and starts to check the shot wound on Daisy's back. Jemma can't break down now, Daisy needs her.
"Look at this, what have you done, what did you get into? Or can I not know the reason why you're bleeding out like this? Is everything so secretive now about you?" Jemma keeps talking while examining and treating Daisy's wound.
"Jemma, breathe. You're rambling," Daisy says with a weak voice and she smiles. In this moment, Daisy realized how much she had missed this, her and Jemma, what they had once.
Jemma patches up Daisy wound, it's like time never passed, everything is so familiar, Jemma patching Daisy up and Daisy reminding her that she was rambling.
"Whoever took this bullet out did an awful job," Jemma says as she cleans the wound.
"Aah, I don't get an "A" for effort?" Daisy asks.
"You haven't been to a proper doctor?" Jemma's tone is a mixture of surprise and concern but also nagging.
"You're hard to get an appointment with," Daisy answers nonchalantly.
"I knew this place was too good to be true," Jemma shakes her head, "you track my search history," she must figure this out by now of course, how can she be so clueless.
"Yeah, well, you were always a sucker for breakfast nook," Daisy replies. She still remembers about that, about their plans, about their dream house, their future...
Jemma blushes and she thank the gods that she is facing Daisy's back as Daisy continues, "but don't worry, the place is yours,". It was a sentence that Daisy has always wanted to say to Jemma, but instead the word 'yours' it should be 'ours'.
"You really should not have…"
"Yeah, yeah," Daisy rolls her eyes, "you also searched for double-vanity sinks, things with Fitz must be going well," she continues, her tone seems bitter and regretful.
"Yeah, though moving in together will put it to test, I'm sure," Jemma answers. Meeting you here had already put it to test of course.
"It'll be great," Daisy pauses, "I'm really happy for you," I don't know if I am though, but if you're happy I'll try to be cause you deserve it.
"Are you now?" Jemma counters, she just needs to get it off, she is not trying to be bitter but it came out in the wrong way. Daisy chooses not to answer; instead she takes a swig of vodka straight from the bottle, hoping to numb the pain, physically and emotionally.
"Oh, self-medicating," Jemma says unapprovingly, "those bones restoration pills that you were stealing don't relieve pain. Are you using your arm gauntlets?" even though Jemma tries to make Daisy feel sorry about stealing the pills and worse Jemma is a little bit pissed, no, she is actually pissed that Daisy contacts Elena and did not bother to send her a code or a signal, but she can't stand looking at Daisy hurt, in the end she still worry about Daisy.
"They are not exactly incognito, stop mothering me, please," Daisy shakes her head as she smiles a little, Jemma's nagging is one of thing she had been missing badly and it is good to hear it again.
"There," Jemma puts a bandage on Daisy's wound. "Now you can get back to your Lone Rangering-"
"Not yet," Daisy interrupts, "I need your help with something, somebody is trying to track down and eliminate the Inhumans, I don't know how the information leaked but someone in S.H.I.E.L.D. must be doing it and I need to hack to the servers to know about all the Inhumans informations so that I can warn them first before the Watchdogs come," she huffs, "but you won't do it, will you? I know that you can't lie, I'll just have to find another way,".
"Not if I was forced to," Jemma smirks as she pulled Daisy's right arm that is holding a gun, pulling Daisy closer to her, putting the gun barrel right at her chest, they were only an inch away as Jemma whispers, "and also under the pressure of being held at a gunpoint," then she pulls away from Daisy, her expression hard to read. And for a girl who sucks at lying, she controls her face expression well. It is so hard for her not to kiss Daisy right there, but she remembers that Daisy didn't care about her, she left her.
Daisy is still unable respond after Jemma's sudden movement, her heart beats so loud, her stomach is a whirlpool, full of excitement; they were so close, she wanted to kiss Jemma badly, but she remembers that Jemma has Fitz now; Daisy is just someone in Jemma's past. Daisy regains her composure and answers, "Well, well, look who's into the bad girl shenanigans now," chuckling at Jemma. And it was like time never passed, the smile on Jemma's face and the warmth she feels every time she was with Jemma. "Oh come on, you are the one who drag me into this, it's less than an hour but you had reel me in back to your shenanigans, you're a bad influence, Daisy Johnson," Jemma replies back to Daisy, scrunching her nose.
Jemma then hops into Daisy's van, and she is surprised at how cozy the van is on the inside, this van is an upgrade of Daisy's old van, Jemma remembered it because they spent a night there, before all the chaos with Hydra. Then something catches Jemma's eye, on the dashboard a hula girl is just bobbing as the engine hummed. She kept it, after all this time and she kept it.
"Yes, I kept it," Daisy suddenly said as if she was reading Jemma's mind " I know it's cheap but it will be a symbol to the things I've lost, like my old van, my old life and you…" Daisy trailed off.
"Me? Well I-" Jemma's paused at how to respond Daisy, she did not expect Daisy to bring this up.
"Ahem, I wasn't finished, what I was trying to say is that you are the one who snatch it before my van got destroyed, so thank you," Daisy said fastly, realizing that she might make Jemma uncomfortable by bringing the break-up topic back, she needs to shut up, for the sake of this thing to work, for their sake.
They pulled over across an office building which is a cover for S.H.I.E.L.D. I.T.'s headquarter, Daisy stopped the van and turned to Jemma.
"You know what to do right? Just as we practiced," Daisy bites her lips nervously. Why am I the one who's nervous even though Jemma's the one to do the work?
Then Jemma holds Daisy's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze, "Don't worry, I've got this," she smiled at Daisy and Daisy's heart just melt.
"Okay, here goes the head of the IT department, so you just need to hand her—" the door of the van is opened and closed in a matter of seconds and Jemma was outside, crossing the street and she still manage to give Daisy a thumbs up. Daisy was dumbfounded, she just stares at Jemma then she chuckles and shakes her head, loving how Jemma could be both silly and serious at the same time. Daisy really misses Jemma, so much. Then she looks over that Jemma is approaching the head of the I.T. department with a group of people walking to the building, and wait—what is she doing—it looks like Jemma is flashing her lanyards toward those people, she gave them the thumb drive, shakes their hand, smiles and goes back to the van.
"What the hell?!" Daisy is very confuse at Jemma's action, "Did she just—" the van's door open and Jemma climbs in, smiling bright as ever saying, "Nailed it!". Daisy's brows are creased in confusion, her mouth agape, "What did you mean 'nailed it'? Did you just rat me out?"
"Of course no, silly, it's all done, you'll just need to wait for the thumb drive to be plugged in, just check it in the next 5 minutes," Jemma chuckles now, smiling gleefully at Daisy panicking.
"What—how—why—didn't you just give that drive on broad daylight toward one of their staff? I thought you know the meaning of discreet," Daisy glares at Jemma, still panicking, "what did you even do?"
"I simply told the head of I.T. department that there is new information on the flash drive and I thought she might wanna look into that, she'll plug it in to her computer and it'll give you access" Jemma explains hastily.
"Oookay.. and how did you get her to agree to that?" Daisy is still confused as hell in what's happening recently.
"Well, technically, as S.H.I.E.L.D's Special Advisor in Science and Technology, she works for me," Jemma shrugs her shoulder like it is not a big deal. Daisy still did not respond, looking at Jemma, waiting for more explanation. "I'm the boss," Jemma states, to make it clearer. Daisy's mouth is still open, and she was just star-strucked, but she's smiling for a change because the plan could work after all.
"Wow why are you so hot when you said that?" Daisy shakes her head in disbelief looking at Jemma.
"Don't be over-reacting on this Daisy, it is not much of the big deal," Jemma scrunched her nose but she is sure she can feel herself blushing.
"Oh shit. Why do I need to say that dumb comment toward her? Urgh! Keep it in your pants, Daisy! You can't just barge in on her and tell her that you still love her right?!" Daisy berates herself as she drives, hoping that Jemma will not keep what she said in mind.
After Jemma hands the drive to S.H.I.E.L.D., it is a matter of time until they get the data is encrypted so Daisy decides to wait just a bit longer then she can go off the grid again. Jemma suggests that they should just lay low in the apartment, so they did.
Daisy is sitting on the countertop, leaning on the wall, still feeling the ache from where the bullet went through her back meanwhile Jemma is pacing herself back and forth in the empty apartment room. She wants to say something to Daisy, but she doesn't know what, a lot of questions and feelings are kept inside her mind and for almost 6 months, Jemma tried to keep it to herself, she doesn't want anyone to worry about her. Every night the last thing she thinks about is Daisy, her whereabouts and her safety and she wakes up every morning, remembering how Daisy was supposed to be beside her, cuddling her. Now, she finds Daisy, no, actually Daisy finds her, and looking at Daisy hurt like this, Jemma just can't think well, her emotions get on her logic. The memory of Daisy in that hyperbaric chamber keeps creeping back into her mind, with Daisy's pale face and wincing in pain, it is like Jemma's relieving every moment of that time again.
However, what comes out of Jemma's mouth is only blabbers about what the program means to the Inhuman, she just spits out every information she has about it and she feels dumb because she can say anything she wants to Daisy but those are the things coming out from her mouth.
"Every Inhuman has a that acts as a communication device that can tracks their location, their vital signs and et cetera. It's for their own safety," Jemma is still talking.
"Yea, how's that working out so far?" Daisy responds sarcastically, her voice exhausted.
"Well I don't know! This wasn't supposed to happen okay? We were compromised, you know that I had the idea to make this wristwatch to keep an eye on the Inhumans, make sure they are safe, and make sure you are safe! " Jemma lashes, she is tired of Daisy's skeptical reaction, she doesn't want it to go this way but they are both tired and stressed out.
"I don't need your protection, just so you know; I've managed this far without any wristwatch, see where that wristwatch brought the other Inhumans? To their deaths!" Daisy shouts back in response.
"Did you think I wanted that to happen?! I am trying to fix this right now, and I'll prove it to you that it will do more good than bad to other Inhumans!" the situation is fired up now, Jemma and Daisy are shouting in each other's face, then Daisy snaps back, "Go on! Think of a new solution with your techy boyfriend!"
"Wha-" Jemma's surprised exclamation are interrupted by the beeping sound of the laptop that finished the encryption.
"Look, these are all the data of the Inhumans in this state, these are a lot," Daisy says as she scrolls through the file names that are popping up in her laptop screen.
"And the Watchdogs could tap into it, so they could find them anytime," Jemma concludes as she takes a look at the screen.
Daisy's face is full of concern, "I need to warn them as fast as they can before the Watchdogs could get to them," then she continues, "these are the names that are compromised," she views the encrypted names from the files.
"Wait," Jemma stops Daisy, touching Daisy's hand that is on the keyboard, a shiver went through Daisy's body, she misses Jemma's touch, "I recognize the number, who is that?"
Daisy double-clicks the number on the list and the file opens up, showing her and Jemma a familiar face.
"Oh, James," Daisy sighs, James is an Inhuman who also got into the mess made by Hive, and Daisy is one of the factor on why James became an Inhuman and got himself tangled with Hive. Jemma knows that Daisy feels more responsibility toward James. Daisy continues, "I haven't seen him since…Hive,"
"Right, well, he withdraws from Hive's sway even harder than you," Jemma rubs her temple, her tone sounds concerned.
"I can imagine," Daisy answers bitterly.
"We did everything we could for him, but like yourself, it seems that he can't seem to get away from it fast enough," Jemma answers, her eyes searching for Daisy's. Daisy's face is a mixture of anger and bitterness; she stays quiet and looks back at the screen. "And this data shows that he missed several of his check-ins," Jemma informs. Daisy then shuts her laptop, "Thank you for your help, it's good to see you," she says as she jumps on her feet, retrieving her stuffs, walking out past Jemma.
"Where are you going?" Jemma questions her, her eyes following Daisy's movement.
"James is next on that hit list and I have to get to him before the Watchdogs can," Daisy says as she stuffs her laptop into her backpack.
"We have to get to him! In case you don't remember, that's my job!" Jemma says stubbornly, taking her own bag too, ready to go.
"I appreciate the help Simmons, but I can take it from here," Daisy rejects Jemma's offer, her tone is tired, "on my own," her eyes gazing through Jemma, looking determinant.
Jemma turns her face toward Daisy, her face is pissed, "You can't have it both way, Daisy! You can't just push your way through, crawling here half-dead to me just to patch you up when you feel like it and go away as soon as you're done with me, don't you know how much I worried about you?! It isn't fair! You've already put a gun to my head, and we're in this together now. So suck it up!" Jemma attacks Daisy with her words and if it is in an entirely different situation now, a dominant Jemma is hot. Daisy's mouth is agape and she just stares as Jemma walks out of the apartment, well, Jemma's stubbornness is a thing one could fight with.
Okay, so what did you guys think? Now for the next chapter, did you guys want the same ending as the original episode or a Skimmons ending that will satisfy your need? Please do comment! ;)