A/N This fic came out of a conversation with lilAzIaNpride24 in which I randomly spit out a little theoretical dialogue and she decided I should turn it into a fic. Not my original plan, but here it is. This takes place immediately after season 2. It focuses on FitzSimmons, but includes some Huntingbird and, of course, all characters are present at some point. This has not been betaed, so it's liable to have mistakes.

Ch. 1 Transported Guilt

Jemma was somewhere cold and dark. She was quite perturbed at the cold, dark place. And moist. The place was also moist, now that she thought about it. The really, really perturbing thing, however, was that she couldn't breathe.

She gasped, which ended up being a mistake. The cold, dark, moist place got down her throat and up her nose. It coated her skin, sunk into her clothes, settled between every follicle of hair, wormed into her ears, slipped in-between her toes. The place wasn't a place, as much as it was a thing. A cold, dark, moist thing that was about to kill her.

And, to think, she was missing a date with Fitz for this.

~o0o~

Doubts assailed Leo all the way to Jemma's room. He thought he'd read her right, but it seemed like the only time they weren't perfectly in synch was when it came to their feelings. It had taken imminent peril and possibly death before they could even bring the subject up.

So, what if, in fear of losing her best friend, Simmons imagined her feelings?

What if she just felt guilty about not reciprocating?

What if she was in her room right now wondering why she'd agreed?

Actually, had she agreed? Did she ever actually say yes?

There was nothing for it now, but to knock, so Leo tentatively tapped on Simmons's door. And tapped again. And tapped again. Finally, he was practically pounding. Hurt welled up a little and he shouted, "Fine! If you don't want to go to dinner, you could have just said so. You don't have to be a coward and not answer the door!"

He turned around, about to stalk angrily away, but he knew if he did he'd lose what was probably the best chance he had at making this work. He knocked once final time. "Jemma, you're not a coward. I'm sorry I said that. I just—please come talk to me. You don't have to come to dinner. Please?"

Of course, there was no answer, but Fitz obviously did not know why. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open. There was Simmons's room, as neat and prim as she was. Nothing looked touched. The lights were out, the room empty.

"Bloody hell," Fitz ran his fingers through his hair, "I've been yelling at an empty room." But where was Jemma?

~o0o~

Jemma was about to suffocate. She'd been in the goo for what felt like an eternity, but she knew it wasn't. She knew precisely how long she could go without oxygen, and she knew that that time was almost up. Just as she was resigning herself to death, she suddenly could breathe and cough and splutter. There was some king of light in her face, but she was afraid to open her eyes because she knew, somehow, that she was a long way from home.

~o0o~

"Coulson!" Fitz strode into the Director's office indiscriminately, not caring that about the people talking inside.

"Fitz, we're in the middle of something," Hunter said, annoyed. He was leaning over Coulson's desk, with an almost aggressive posture toward the now one-armed man.

Fitz could now tell that he was interrupting something but, in his eyes, it was nowhere near as important as what he had to tell Coulson.

"Look, all I'm saying is, she's been tortured by Ward the psychopath. She shouldn't be allowed to make her own decisions!" Hunter continued his argument with Coulson, not paying a bit of attention to Fitz's presence.

"Lance, if Bobbi wants to leave, I can't stop her, you know that," Coulson said apologetically. "I might be more inclined to listen to you if I thought your concern was prompted by something other than not wanting her to leave you," he added.

"Uh, guys?" Fitz tried to break in, but both men ignored him.

"She's injured! She should be watched!"

"I'm sure she would love hearing you say that," Coulson deadpanned, reaching for his phone.

Fitz once again began to interject, but Skye came barging in, effectively cutting him off. "Guys, I want a dog," she said.

"A dog?" Coulson asked. "And does anyone knock anymore?"

"It's a dying art form," Mack said was he too entered the office. "Looks like I missed the party invitation."

Fitz was getting fed up. Hunter turned to Coulson one last desperate time, "Have Simmons put her under psych evaluation, run tests, something. Don't let her leave yet. Give me time to get through to her first."

Coulson finally looked at Fitz, "Do you think Simmons would do it?"

"Probably, but good luck getting her to!" Fitz exploded, "That's what I've been trying to tell you! She's disappeared."

~o0o~

The light was getting brighter and brighter. Before, Jemma was afraid to open her eyes because of what she might see; now she knew if she opened them, she'd probably be blinded.

Out of nowhere, a powerful, echoing voice blasted her, "Ahh," it said, "The little one can't take the light."

The light cut off.

"Who are you?" Jemma shouted, more bravely than she felt. Her voice sounded tiny against the overpowering one before it, and she kept her eyes clenched shut.

"Why won't you look, small one?" the voice asked, its tone and presence softer now. "I'm sure you'll find us beautiful. We've chosen you."

"Chosen me for what? Who are you?" Jemma demanded.

"Open your eyes and see."

Jemma swallowed, took a deep breath, and did as she was told.

~o0o~

"What do you mean she's disappeared?" Skye asked, "You were just with her studying the freaky stone."

"The stone?" Mack asked, stiffening. His distaste and fear of the alien was evident. "You were messing with it?"

"Everybody calm down," Coulson commanded, "Fitz, tell us what happened."

Fitz took a deep breath. He hadn't thought about the fact that he'd have to tell them he asked Simmons on a date.

"Fitz?"

"I-uh, we were talking. She'd just finished up her tests," Fitz swallowed, "I-asked-her-on-a-date," he said in a rush, closing his eyes. When no one responded, he opened his them again.

"And then?" Coulson prompted, raising an eyebrow.

"And then I left. Haven't seen her since. She's not anywhere," Fitz sighed, "I think we should look at the cameras."

During the short walk to the surveillance room, Skye approached Fitz, "I'm proud of you, you know," she said.

"For what?" Fitz asked bitterly, "Losing my best friend?"

"What, she's not your girlfriend now?" Skye bumped his shoulder lightly, trying to cheer him up. "I'm proud of you for taking the plunge."

Fitz winced at the water metaphor. "Yeah, well, she did, not me. Before we left for the ship, she told me that she—"

"I got it," Skye spared him from having to put labels on whatever had happened between him and Simmons "That's great, Fitz. I'm happy for you."

"I just hope she's okay," he replied.

~o0o~

"There, you see me now," the voice came from a blue man, his face decorated with black war paint.

"But I still don't know who you are," Jemma answered, looking around. She was in some kind of large audience chamber. It was dark, but she knew better than to think it was always that way. The most noticeable feature was that the landscape outside the large window was completely unfamiliar to her. Her original suspicions had been terribly correct. She was no longer on earth. The thought made her want to sob, but by sheer force of will, she kept her composure.

"I think you do. We've been watching you. You're fairly smart, for a human," the blue man said.

"Are you a Kree?" Jemma stood up, trying to get herself closer to the level of the mad, if you could call him a man.

"Very good, little one."

"What do you want with me? Why am I here?" Jemma couldn't control the quiver in her voice.

"We need you to fight."

"Fight?"

"Fight the so called 'Inhumans'. Our experiments have become too rowdy," The Kree sneered.

"How can I fight them?" Jemma quelled the sense of panic inside of her, playing along as if she would actually think of hurting the Inhumans.

"We will teach you, do not worry."

~o0o~

There it was, plain as day. Fitz could not believe his eyes. He'd made Coulson play the tape twice. But there was no mistake.

The grainy little image showed him, walking towards Simmons. Leaning up against the glass containment unit as he struggled to get his proposition known. Leaving the room, a spring in his step and an opening in the container. The stone liquefying and swallowing up Simmons before returning to its original form as if nothing had happened. The look of horror frozen on Simmons' face as she was sucked into the stone. It was all stuck in his head, plastered on his consciousness.

"It's all my fault," Fitz breathed, "What have I done?"

A/N Please let me know what you think! Like I said, I wasn't planning this, so I'm taking the pantser approach and going with the flow with this one. Updates will be infrequent because I'm working on what's supposed to turn out to be a novel (we'll see) and I really want to focus more on that than on fanfiction, but I'm trying to write them both simultaneously.