When she felt she had no other option, Jemma sank down and tried to launch herself up, but the seatbelt partially over her stomach forced the air out of her mouth. Large bubbles escaped and darted to the surface and Jemma reached out at them even though they weren't something tangible she could catch again. Even if it wasn't breathable air, it had filled the space in her lungs. Now that they were empty, Jemma's body reflexively inhaled no matter how desperately she fought not to. Her lungs had hurt before, but once they filled with saltwater they stung and Jemma was overwhelmed by an all encompassing panic. She tried struggling out of the seatbelt, but it was too tight. She was making the motions like she was trying to swim up, but it wasn't getting her anywhere. She expelled the water inside her, but there was nothing but more for her to suck back in and it felt like her head was near exploding. She jerked wildly as she felt the darkness taking over and she reached for Skye, finding her shoulder and gripping it tightly before it released and her body went limp.
The weather in Balikpapan, Indonesia was hot, humid and infiltrating the terminals of its international airport thanks to a broken HVAC system. Rather than having perfectly pleasant and adjusted air flowing through the large open terminals, there was stagnate, humid air thick with swampy exhales from the packed masses of sweaty humans waiting in a glass prison of an airport terminal which was acting more like a greenhouse right then. People fanned themselves with any form of paper or magazine or anything big enough to create a gust of wind. There were no free spots to sit in the terminal. Skye cut her losses. She parked her carry-on bag next to a row of seats that was near the gate she needed for her flight, popped the handle down into the top and sat down on her bag. For a brief moment she thought she'd made a colossal mistake and that her bag was about to collapse. Really, the wheels shifted and she quickly set her feet down and steadied the bag. Safe.
Skye picked this particular spot in the terminal because it gave her a view of one Mr. Miles Lydon. Technically, he and Skye were traveling together. Due to the nature of their acquaintance, they were pretending not to know each other. This had involved showing up separately to the airport. Now, the chump was chatting up some skinny redhead with long legs a few rows of seats away. Skye would escort him to Los Angeles. They would meet up with her people and she would hand him over with a copy of her hard drive and she'd gladly wash her hands of Miles Lydon for good. The problem was that they were being hunted. Skye had no idea who might be hunting them. Actually, she knew the organization involved, but she didn't know the make and model aesthetic of their goons. She took a nonchalant look around the terminal.
To her 3 o'clock, a little boy played by the windows with a handful of Avengers action figures. He gave them full conversations, made all kinds of sound effects and seemed to have no idea how miserably hot it was in the terminal. Nearby his father stood chatting with a middle aged man, talking about his son as the man engaged in conversation with him. To her 11 o'clock was Miles and the redhead - she seemed to be eating up whatever he was dishing out. Skye almost rolled her eyes. 10 o'clock, she spotted a chestnut skinned woman in a bright floral dress who was chatting up a businessman with perfectly gelled hair. Skye spotted her distract him and swipe his wallet but, well that was none of her business.
To her 9 o'clock was a pretty woman avidly bickering on the intricacies of something Skye couldn't actually decipher and Skye was distracted by the sound of the woman's voice, anyhow. It was the accent. Skye couldn't help it. She bounced her knee up and down rapidly, trying her very best not to think about the fact that she was getting on another plane. She'd been on far too many planes in the last month and a half and she just wanted to go home. She hated flying. It wasn't a fear. It was just a distaste. She absently bit at her cuticles every now and then and checked her watch repeatedly. Her jacket was already in her lap since she wasn't going to be putting it on until they landed but it was so hot she had peeled her shirt off until she was down to just her tank top and dropped that in her lap too. Her knee kept bouncing nervously as she pulled her hair up into a sloppy ponytail after hanging her reading glasses from the front of her tank top. Then it was back to bouncing her knee and absently drumming on her thighs with her fingers.
"Oh, Fitz," Jemma groaned, exasperated. She brought her hand to her forehead and rubbed at her sticky brow. The muggy air wasn't the only thing bothering her. She and Fitz had been debating about space time travel theories and whether or not people should be attempting to study it. After eventually reaching the conclusion that it was possible to achieve by humans, Fitz explained how he thought the best use would be to find the point in time in evolution where apes began evolving into humans and stop it, because "everything would be better if we were all monkeys". Jemma chose to abandon the ridiculous conversation and find a better pass time to distract her from the seeming lack of oxygen in the room. She fiddled around on her phone, checking her email and any messages she may have missed just to have an excuse to do anything but talk to Fitz.
She'd had enough of that for the past month, him being the only person who spoke english other than her translator. She was happy to help all those who had fallen ill with the ravenous bird flu, but she was quite happy to be headed home. She missed her cool, air conditioned facility back in LA where she wasn't exposed to deadly diseases. Fitz was working on engineering a mechanical limb replacement for veterans with the other doctors and Jemma was sure they'd be happy to have him back. He hadn't done much on the trip, it was more of a vacation for him while Jemma had been working nonstop to help a village with their epidemic.
Jemma looked around the terminal, hoping to see some sign that the plane would be boarding soon. There was a tall, dark haired man intimidating the air hostess with annoyed body language. She craned her neck to see two women in pilot's uniforms heading toward the jet bridge. It was something. As she spun back around to settle in her seat, her eyes connected with those of an anxious looking brunette who seemed to have been watching her. The woman quickly averted her eyes, but it didn't stop Jemma from smiling softly and reaching out.
"Afraid to fly?" She asked, just hoping she spoke English so Jemma didn't have to awkwardly exit the interaction.
"Hm, what?" Skye had initially looked away as soon as the British woman had turned back around and spotted her. She was normally way smoother than that. Skye was willing to chalk this one up to the heat. "Afraid to - who? Me?" Skye pointed to herself, not entirely conscious of just how fast she was bouncing her knee up and down. "No," she furrowed her brow and shook her head. "No, no. I'm not," she cleared her throat and expelled a nervous chuckle as her eyes still made a nonchalant pass around the terminal to make a subtle check on Miles. "I'm not afraid of flying," she insisted. As she said it, Skye finally settled her gaze directly on the woman's and found herself a bit distracted by her eyes, which prevented her from explaining what it was about flying that made her jittery. Excellent accent, pretty, kind eyes and not willing to put up with her friend's diatribe on devolving back to monkey hybrids? Skye picked herself a decent spot to set a spell.
"Somehow I find that hard to believe." Jemma chuckled, pointedly glancing at the brunette's knee, though her soft smile was letting her new acquaintance know that there was nothing wrong with it.
"I can assure you it's perfectly safe. You're much more likely to be involved in a car accident than in an aircraft malfunction." Jemma offered up the scrap of information like it would help, not quite realizing that it probably wouldn't lessen the woman's anxiety about the plane, but raise it for daily life. She cringed internally, but it was too late and unfortunately there was no unsend button for her mouth.
Skye looked down at her knee. Oh, right. That. She arched her eyebrows slightly as she looked back over at the woman. Her lips curled into an amused little smirk. She put her hand down on her knee in an attempt to at least slow its bouncing. "It's the falling," She said, as if that just explained everything. It didn't. Skye's nervous jitters about flying stemmed from a very specific incident, but it wasn't exactly one that she could go and tell a stranger about, regardless of how pretty she might be. She felt the bob of her knee still going under her hand and tried to ignore it.
"Well then I'd say it's a very good thing that airplanes fly." Jemma didn't laugh this time, but the smile grew on her face. Something about her was pulling her in, telling her she should help.
"Simmons." Jemma came closer and thrust her hand out awkwardly and she didn't figure out how unwarranted and strange her self introduction really was until Fitz frowned at her. "Er, my name. It's Jemma. I mean, I'm Jemma. Jemma Simmons." She was grinning like a fool by the end, knowing there was no way to redeem herself and embracing how inept she was in social situations despite her continuous attempts.
Though she was acutely aware of her surroundings and the conversations happening in her periphery (the accented man and woman over her right shoulder near the two men talking while one's son played with toys were avidly arguing over who had made the bigger discovery of treasure on their latest attempt to find some specific sunken ship, Miles still flirting away with the Redhead who was playing along, two strangers, one a middle-aged man avidly telling a younger well-dressed businessman an old, seemingly endless, war story), Skye's focus was on the woman sitting next to her. She couldn't help the way a lopsided grin overtook her lips, pushed her cheeks up and caused her eyes to scrunch just slightly at their corners.
Skye didn't get a chance to reply before Jemma had thrown her hand out and began to work her way through a multi-layered introduction. Her right eyebrow quirked up at the initial name since it seemed odd for a first name. Skye's grin stretched farther across her lips as the woman – Jemma – went on trying to give Skye her name. She wiped her palm on her pant leg to make sure it wasn't clammy from the heat then reached out and took Jemma's hand in a firm, but not overly so, handshake. "Nice to meet you Simmons, Jemma, Jemma, Jemma Simmons," she said with a teasing glint of mischief in her eyes as she smiled.
"I'm Skye," she added her own introduction in return. "Just Skye." It never felt quite right to give her full name, her birth name. She had only known her birth name for a couple of years after all. Skye was a name she had chosen when she was a kid (after the orphanage had given her an absolutely terrible name that only ever left the other kids picking on her). It felt more authentic, even without a last name. "What brought you to Balikpapan?" she asked as she released Jemma's hand if only so things wouldn't get weird. She'd been eavesdropping on Jemma's conversation with her friend and had figured the two were in some science-related field of work, but it wasn't exactly clear what field of work they were in based off of a conversation that seemed like it revolved around time travelling space monkeys or something resembling that.
Jemma's cheeks grew just one shade darker at the teasing, and it would barely be visible to the untrained eye. Her lips pursed together, but in the form of a small smile. Her present company seemed to be much funnier than Fitz, and not because she was being so ridiculously serious that it was hilarious.
"Well, Skye," Jemma's lips turned up slightly on one side into a small half-smirk. "You have quite an ironic name for someone as jittery as yourself about flight." Jemma made her own teasing comment and brushed an escaped strand of hair from her ponytail out of her face so she could see Skye more clearly. Her look intrigued Jemma more than anything. She looked like someone she would see in one of the awful action and adventure movies Fitz liked so much, but on Skye it made her wonder if she should watch more of them.
It took a moment for it to really register in her brain that Skye had asked her a question since she had gotten caught up in just enjoying looking at her. When she answered, it would be obvious to anyone that Jemma was proud of her job when her chest swelled up some.
"I work for the CDC, biochemist by name, but I'm here to confirm the presence of Avian Influenza in Indonesia. So I hope you've washed your hands recently." Jemma joked and gestured with the hand she'd just shaken Skye's with.
Skye was certainly perceptive. She'd learned to read people long before she'd ever learned to read her way through the intricate workings of software and various coding. She'd had to learn how to read people very early in her life, a survival tactic and one of her greatest self preservation tools to date. She felt a tiny tinge of guilt for making Jemma blush but since the woman was still smiling and talking to her, she knew she hadn't offended her. Skye tilted her head slightly in contemplation. "I suppose it is some level of ironic - put that in your song, Alanis," she chuckled.
Skye watched the swell of pride as it shifted Jemma's posture in her seat. Just past Jemma's shoulder, she spotted Jemma's friend, eyeing them up and looking rather sullen about their conversation. She figured he must have been mad that his theory of Devolving to Simians had been curtailed. She arched her eyebrows, not sure she'd expected an infectious disease doctor out of all the various possibilities. Skye reflexively glanced at her hand at the mention of bird flu and washing them.
"I did, actually, after I used the restroom on my way here. At the moment, I feel like I should go compulsively clean them again, now," she chuckled and then leaned slightly closer, dropping her voice ever slightly, she added conspiratorially, "But, between you and me...if you did confirm avian flu, I think we're royally screwed in this human soup," she scrunched her nose, still giving Jemma that crooked little smile and motioned generally to the overheated sauna of a terminal surrounding them.
Somehow, Jemma now found herself hoping that boarding would be delayed a little longer. It was a chance meeting, and Jemma hated to think that the woman she was sitting next to would disappear in five minutes when they got on the plane, never to be seen again. It had been a long time since she'd been so immediately been drawn to a person, or even enjoyed their company, other than Fitz of course, but he had his moments.
"We are in optimal conditions for the spread of disease, aren't we?" Jemma chuckled and leaned back in the seat. Maybe relaxing her muscles would help cool her off, and if it helped even the slightest bit it was worth it. She was joking by pointing it out, but she did now have the urge to put a mask over her face and avoiding touching anything and everything. But she was pretty tired, and the severity of the bird flu outbreak was mild, contained mostly within a series of villages, not quite reaching the cities. When she noticed the look of distaste on Skye's face she quickly tried to ease it. "It's only a level one concern. Practice normal flu season cautions and you should be fine." Jemma promised.
Skye chuckled. "Thanks, Doc, I'll take it under advisement," she grinned. She wondered how old Jemma was since she looked rather young for the kind of job she described. Then again, Skye had no idea what kind of schooling requirements were involved in having a government agency send you to a foreign land to investigate communicable diseases. It definitely seemed like an at-your-own-peril kind of gig. Skye could relate to that. She felt a bit cooler since she'd removed her top shirt layer, so that was a blessing.
"So you work out of a CDC office in Los Angeles or are you continuing on to somewhere else from LA?" Far be it from Skye to pass up an opportunity to see if the cute scientist with the selfless sounding humanitarian job and decent sense of humor might reside in the same city as her. She did her best not to sound too hopeful or overly eager to uncover these details. Seconds after she finished her question, the fluttering sound of wings drew her attention and she looked up in time to spot a very large pigeon swoop from high in the rafters right down to their area, where it used it's talons to steal the candy bar that Fitz was about to eat. In a swift whoosh, the bird took its dive bomb, snagged its bounty and was off again before Fitz had even processed what happened.
"Speaking of birds," Skye quipped with a chortle she couldn't contain. Fitz glared at her. Skye cleared her throat and tried to bite back a laugh. "Sorry bout your loss, dude," she offered an apology for her laugh. She almost added, 'Bet that wouldn't have happened if you were a monkey,' but managed to bite her tongue.
Jemma's laugh was louder than most of the hushed voices in the terminal and it seemed to bounce off the ceiling. Unlike Skye, she had no qualms with openly laughing at the dumb look on his face. Fitz crossed his arms over his chest and refused to look at them or acknowledge Skye's attempt to speak to him. He reminded Jemma of an upset child and it took a moment for her to regain control over her lungs.
"I do work in LA for the time being, yes," Jemma nodded and wiped away the near tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes as Fitz continued to pout and sink in his chair. "Fitz works at the hospital in the tech division." She added. "What about you, is the city of angels your final destination?" Jemma couldn't help it if she too was a bit curious about her new friend's origins. She initially thought she was starting a brief conversation in passing, but she found she was anticipating any continuations with excitement.
Skye caught another round of the giggles, unable to hold back in light of Jemma's raucous, infectious laughter. It was a damn shame when that sound faded, just as she was taking it all in. Skye decided in that exact moment that she was going to do all she could over their twenty-two and some odd hour flight to make sure she spoke to Jemma as often as possible once she found where the woman was sitting on the plane; she wanted to find out all things possible about the woman sitting next to her. Granted, Skye could have easily pulled her phone out and fiddled with it for a few minutes and she'd easily have all manner of background information on one Jemma Simmons, but that wouldn't be nearly as fun as seeing if she could make Jemma laugh again, or doing whatever might make her keep on smiling like that.
Skye was not the kind of person to fall fast for someone, but there was a draw to Jemma that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She just knew she wanted more of the freckled woman's general presence around her. Skye mentally cheered when Jemma said LA was her base of operation and it showed a bit as her face brightened at the confirmation. She did her best to play it cool as she nodded to this new information about Fitz, who was continuing to pout. Skye took a small amount of pity on him in light of his candy bar. "Yeah, it's my home turf," Skye grinned. She leaned over, a bit ignorant of the show she accidentally gave Jemma in doing so, and pushed her discarded shirt and jacket out of the way to reach into a section of her messenger bag.
"I've actually hacked into your office's systems before," Skye said as he sat back up and whistled for Fitz. He was still pouting when he looked her way and she tossed one of her stashed protein bars to him. It wasn't strictly candy, but it was birthday cake flavored, that had to count for something, right? She turned back to Jemma and realized how she'd phrased her comment. "Officially, I mean," she paused and scrunched her eyes, shook her head at herself a moment and smirked a bit. "For security purposes. That's my job, I'm the," she inhaled a breath and put her hands up as if miming displaying the flashy title on a brightly lit marquee (she used the turn of her gaze to very subtly check that Miles was still alright), "Senior Electronic Security Developer for QKE Technologies." She dropped her hands to her lap, knee still bouncing, though not as much, and smiled over at Jemma. "I find all the weak spots and fortify them against malicious attack." She said.
"It's a small world then, isn't it?" Jemma's head tilted slightly with curiosity at Skye's apparent connection to herself through work. If Fitz wasn't in such a sour mood Jemma was sure he would have gotten along with Skye just fine. Of course it wasn't so strange that they both happened to live in LA, since they'd both parked themselves in the terminal for a flight to that location, but Jemma still had a feeling she was having a stroke of luck, despite how illogical it was to think it.
"So, miss tech genius, how did you end up in Indonesia?" Jemma questioned. It was the one piece that didn't yet make sense, and Jemma liked to figure out people's puzzles.
"Small world, indeed," But a convenient one it seemed. Or fortunate, perhaps, was the better word. She let a bright smile flash across her face. She was enjoying this conversation, despite the couple of not-100%-accurate informational tidbits she had to hand out about herself. "I'm here on the company's dime," She said. "I've spent the last few weeks building entirely new infrastructure and software components for a banking firm affiliate of one of our bigger clients," she leaned over once more and this time came up from her messenger bag on the floor with a business card, which she handed to Jemma. It would pass muster and though the contact information on it wasn't exactly her everyday real life civilian contact information, she would know who she had given this business card to since she gave them so sparingly on purpose. Likewise, if Jemma tried to background checkup on Skye based on the information on the card, well, they'd check out. it was designed that way.
Jemma pinched the business card between two fingers and her eyes landed on the number. She instantly wondered if this was Skye's way of giving Jemma her number, but not in the literal sense. She wasn't sure if it was just to spread her business card or if she would actually want Jemma to call the number. She liked to think it was the second reason, so she unzipped her own bag and pulled out a card with the bright blue CDC logo in the upper lefthand corner. It had the full "Dr. Jemma Simmons, Biochemist" title and Jemma went slightly pink as she offered it up to Skye. She caught Fitz giving her the stink eye during her movement, but she paid him no mind. He could be grumpy on his own.
"It's only fair I show you mine if you've shown me yours." Jemma smirked.
Skye beamed a brilliant grin at Jemma. "That sounds like a challenge," she quipped. "And I accept." She made a deliberate show of eyeing up Jemma's business card and said. "You should know that giving this to me means you won't be surprised when I use it to contact you back in LA and advise you of my hopefully clean bill of health absent any avian flu," she said as she accepted the card, mostly as a way to inform Jemma that she fully intended to make use of this exchange of information in the future. She looked down at the card and grinned at the official information listed, including Jemma's own fancy title just as the intercom in the terminal came to life with a soft, but relatively loud, ding. Movement all around the terminal halted and silence filled the overheated building as people listened for boarding information, which came at them in a number of different languages.
When the announcement was over, suddenly the terminal was full of movement as everyone began to gather their items to prepare to board. Skye felt herself frown as she glanced over her shoulder toward the door to the gangway. Bummer. Skye didn't drag herself to her feet right away. She watched as people queued up with their carry-on bags and belongings, tickets in hands. Skye sat there, on her small carry-on suitcase, bouncing her knee even faster than before. She caught sight of Miles as he strolled by her with his backpack slung over a shoulder, still putting the moves on the redhead as she went with him. Up until just then (and mostly thanks to Jemma), Skye had forgotten just how much she was dreading having to be confined inside a flying plane that could fall out of the sky for any number of reasons at any moment, for the next twenty-two hours.
Only minutes before, the thing Jemma had wanted more than anything was the announcement telling her the plane was boarding and they would be on their way home. Now, however, Jemma's heart sunk and she watched people start getting into the long line to board. Fitz practically flew from his seat and appeared in front of Jemma, grabbing the handle of her suitcase and tipping it so they were ready to go. Jemma wasn't quite ready yet, and her insides lurched when she saw Skye's face wrinkled in thought and her knee bounced more aggressively.
"Please don't tell me you've decided to stay in Indonesia." Fitz moaned and Jemma gave him a glare tell him to hush up.
"Everything will be fine, we'll be in LA before you know it." Jemma felt like she was sticking her neck out, but it was just her hand, and she rested it firmly on Skye's knee to stop the shaking. After a good three seconds of uninterrupted eye contact, Jemma slipped her boarding pass out of her pocket and angled it so Skye could see. "You know where to find me." She grinned once more and squeezed Skye's knee before she finally gave in to to Fitz's whining and got up.
Skye hadn't expected that. She'd spotted Fitz jumping to his feet from the corner of her eye but wasn't all that startled by it. The hand, though, on her knee, was unexpected but not in a bad way at all. Quite the opposite. She blinked and looked over at Jemma's hand on her knee which,while it had stalled her leg from bouncing, the touch had only started her heart suddenly skittering around wildly in her chest. Skye couldn't remember the last time a simple touch like that had affected her in such a way, especially from someone she'd only just met. Her gaze shifted as she lifted her head and locked her eyes to Jemma's. She heard her own pulse in her ears and wondered if Jemma could hear it. She felt her cheeks heat up, though they only went a very slight shade of pink. It only took a second to read off Jemma's seat number from the boarding pass before her eyes were back on Jemma's face. "Count on it, Doctor Simmons," She offered up a warm smile. "Thank you." She added as she climbed, albeit still reluctantly, to her feet.
"Fitz, move." Jemma grunted, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath so she didn't shove her friend into his seat. He was fussing about sliding through the tight space and he'd made them stop suddenly, causing the passenger behind her to press up against her full body. Jemma cringed and was positive this was much worse than the terminal. It was even more crowded, stuffy, and Skye wasn't there to talk to. Fitz finally managed to worm into his seat and Jemma slid in behind him with her messenger bag after cramming her roller-board suitcase into the very little remaining space in the overhead compartments.
She finally plopped down into her seat and audibly sighed. Her face was red and hot and she was sure her hair was frazzled from the humidity. After fussing around with her shirt and adjusting her tie, an embarrassing moan escaped her throat as she leaned her head back and felt the blast of the air conditioning from the small, individual vent above her seat. She reached up and turned it on full power and closed her eyes, humming blissfully. She ignored Fitz babbling about this and that next to her and kept her eyes closed as the last of the passengers boarded so she didn't have to see how crowded it really was.
When the vibrations of people walking by and the occasional brushing of a thigh against her shoulder finally subsided, she opened her eyes and was surprised to see, from her aisle seat on the right side of the plane, that Skye was twisted around in her seat, and it looked like she saw her. Jemma waved with one hand and pulled her ponytail free with the other (maybe a little bit for show) and ran her fingers through it to smooth it out.
Skye was far too jittery to get on the plane in the middle of the crush of people boarding. She watched to make sure Miles got into the gangway alright and eventually joined the tail end of the line. Skye didn't enjoy flying, but that didn't mean she wasn't as efficient as possible when boarding. She spotted Jemma after she'd put her carry-on into the overhead compartment and slipped into her seat - a right hand middle seat in an aisle of four seats. The aisle seat to her right was empty, to her left sat the little boy who'd been playing with toys in the terminal and to the boy's left was the man Skye assumed was his father.
"Hey, little dude," Skye said, not sitting down yet. She dropped her bag into her empty seat and pulled a small pterodactyl toy from her back pocket. "I think you left this on the windowsill back in the terminal?" She held the toy out. She knew it was his since she'd seen the boy playing with it, but even so.
The boy turned her way and his eyes widened. "Yeah, it's mine!" He cheered and snatched it free from Skye's hand when she held it out. He immediately went back to slamming his toys together and making all the appropriate sound effects one would expect to hear while Captain America was battling a pterodactyl on a plane.
"Ace," The boy's father said in a stern warning tone. "What do you say, Bud?"
Ace paused, mid-collision of Captain America's mighty fist to the pterodactyl's jaw, and looked over at Skye. He flashed her a bright toothy smile. "Thanks, lady!" He said and then the battle was on again.
The boy's father laughed. "He's been waging this war since the breakfast," The man said apologetically. He reached a hand out. "I'm Mike," he introduced himself. "And this is Ace."
"Skye," Skye shook his hand. "Nice to meet you guys." She smiled and moved her bag to the floor with her jacket and her over shirt. She sat down in her seat, her knee automatically bouncing again and took a look around the cabin. She needed to get an eye on Miles. Rather conveniently, as she'd noted when she'd looked over the boarding pass, one Jemma Simmons was also in the same line of sight as her informant. Once again, fortunate. When Jemma caught her eye, Skye smiled, mouthed out a 'Hi,' and gave her a small return wave. She watched, completely unabashed about her staring as Jemma pulled her hair free. Skye turned back around. She leaned over and swiped her tablet from a pocket of her bag. Quickly she pulled up a drawing app and drew up a terrible little stick figure version of Jemma (complete with tie), sweating and scribbled out the words 'You look hot' on it and drew her own winking emoji face next to it.
When Skye twisted back around in her seat, she caught Jemma's eye again and held up the tablet for her to see from her spot, mimicking the winking emoji she'd drawn on the screen.
Jemma had looked away long enough to buckle her seatbelt, not without bickering with Fitz about which end was whose and eventually winning the argument. The metal clasp clicked into place and she tightened it. Her eyes immediately went back up forward and to her left and her face reddened even more when she saw Skye's pitiful drawing. She couldn't tell if Skye meant she was warm or attractive, but she still let out an exhale that could be interpreted as an awkward laugh. Fitz leaned over her in his seat to get a look at what was going on, and when he did he grumbled something about Skye being "very American", whatever that meant.
Jemma reached into her bag and pulled out her own ipad. It mostly had science books and a few movies on it for entertainment, but there was a pad for taking notes and she opened a fresh screen. Normally she typed, but she switched to a drawing pen. She tried to think of a witty, flirty response, but her quiet calculations led to no results. Before she could come up with anything, an announcement began repeating itself in multiple languages telling her to put away her electronic devices and stow her tray table. She had enough time to draw a sad face and hold it up for Skye before a flight attendant came by and asked her to put her ipad away for the beginning of the flight. Jemma jokingly (but also not so jokingly) closed her right hand into a fist with the exception of her pinky and her thumb and held it up to her ear like a phone, mouthing the words "call me" and grinning at Skye to let her know she could get a hold of her again once the plane was at a higher altitude.
Skye huffed out a laugh at the drawing on Jemma's ipad. She sighed as the attendant talked to Jemma. She angled for a couple more people, including Skye who put her hands up in surrender after turning her tablet off and setting it into her lap. She twisted back around and flashed another one of those lopsided little grins at the woman and gave her a thumbs up. She turned back around in her seat and put her tablet away, quickly buckled up her seat belt and pulled it tight. The next stretch of time felt unbearably long for Skye. She couldn't keep her knees still and she'd started drumming on them while chewing on the corner of her bottom lip as they taxied the runway.
"Are you scared?" Ace asked as he watched Skye fidgeting.
"Who, me?" Skye asked. She blew air out through her lips and they made a brief 'pffft sound as she waved her hand as nonchalantly as she could. "Nahhhh. I'm good. I'm fine. We're good. Noooo reason to be scared at all," Skye replied, absently glancing around one more time before she leaned against the back of her chair and exhaled a long breath. Falling, she thought, I'm afraid of falling.
Ace snickered and then looked over at Mike. "She's scared, Dad." He announced.
Mike chuckled. He glanced at Skye and then leaned over and mock whispered. "Quick tip about girls, buddy," He said, "Don't tell other people the secrets they're trying to hide." He smiled at Skye over Ace's head and gave her a wink.
Ace considered this for a moment and then turned to look at Skye again, whose ears had flushed red with embarrassment. He put his toys down in his lap and reached over to put his hand into Skye's closest hand and gave it a squeeze. He tried to whisper but was talking louder than he thought he was. "It's okay, I'll hold your hand until we're in the air," He told her as he swung his legs since they didn't touch the ground.
Skye exhaled another long breath and smiled. "Thanks, Ace," she managed. "That's...really sweet of you." She put her head back and clenched her eyes shut as the plane sped down the runway and departed the ground.
When the fasten seat belt sign was turned off, Skye grabbed her phone, slipped it in her back pocket and climbed from her seat. She stepped carefully through the aisle, trying not to disturb anyone, bracing herself on the outsides of chair backs as she went, except for Jemma's. She gave Jemma another one of those little winks from earlier and squeezed her shoulder then headed for the lavatory before anyone could beat her to it.
"Did she just-" Fitz's voice was an octave higher than usual when he frowned and made his exclamation. Jemma stared at him quizzically and had to lean back in her own seat to avoid getting smashed when Fitz leaned over and looked down the aisle to follow Skye with his eyes. "I can't believe her." Fitz huffed and finally got back into his own personal space. Jemma just crinkled her nose and furrowed her brow, confused.
"What on earth are you jabbering on about now?" Jemma questioned. She felt very badly for the poor soul who was stuck sitting in the window seat beside Fitz. He seemed annoyed, but angled himself away and appeared to turn up the volume on whatever was playing in his headphones.
"She just invited you into the lavatory, the succubus." Fitz was nearly yelling and Jemma wanted to slap a hand over his mouth to get him to shut up, because people had started looking.
"What are you even talking about, Fitz?" Jemma shook her head and continued frowning at him, but he had planted the seed in her mind and it grew very quickly.
"She's been chatting you up since the terminal and she clearly wants to do the hanky-panky." Jemma slapped Fitz's shoulder and made an annoyed sound. She turned away from him and made a point to open her book and tilt so her shoulder was facing him. He may not have been wrong though. Thinking their interaction over again, that could have been what that was about. The thought wasn't unpleasant, Jemma reimagined Skye's firm squeeze of her shoulder, but elsewhere, and she turned a thousands shades darker just thinking that she'd just thought about it. She crossed her legs uncomfortably and couldn't help but turn and look at the occupied lavatory for a moment.
Once Skye locked herself inside she turned her phone on and leaned back against the door. She kept a careful eye on the clock so she didn't spend too long in the restroom and went searching through whatever signals she could find in order to locate the encrypted signal for the air marshal's phone. She gave herself just over three minutes to handle this task. After that, she put her phone back in her pocket, flushed the unused toilet and turned to wash her hands in the sink. After her avian flu conversation with Jemma in the terminal, she spent a little extra time soaping up her hands and cleaning them off.
When she left the lavatory, she squeezed past the person waiting for it and walked the few paces up the aisle. When she was next to Jemma's seat, she leaned over and conspiratorially whispered, "I don't know if you're aware of this, Doc," The crooked little grin was back. "But, your tie's crooked." The corners of her eyes crinkled just slightly as she grinned and headed back for her seat, though she was sure to look over her shoulder just to watch Jemma adjust her tie. What? It was cute. Skye could not be blamed for this little game.
Jemma reached for her tie without even thinking about it and shuffled it side to side to fix whatever error might have been there. When she looked back up she realized it was a joke she had fallen right into, because Skye's smirk reminded Jemma of the Cheshire cat. Fitz gave her a pointed look, as if saying "see?". Jemma ignored him. She already had her sights set on the empty seat beside Skye and her fingers were even underneath the buckle on her lap before her window of opportunity closed.
"Hey there, beautiful." The tall, dark haired man from the air hostess' desk in the terminal slid into the empty seat uninvited and leaned into Skye's personal space. "I was headed to the bathroom but I saw you were sitting here by your lonesome. Want some company?"
Skye had just finished buckling her seatbelt back in place (nerves didn't leave just because they were in the air - they were worse but she'd successfully distracted herself for a whole, what, five seconds there?), when someone dropped into the chair next to her. Before she even looked, Skye knew this was not the someone she was hoping might take over that seat. Nope, it was a man she didn't know and he was trying to use that telltale 'I'm the greatest human ever gifted to this planet' tone to talk to her. Skye instantly felt her spine shudder at his invasion into her personal space. She reflexively leaned toward the opposite arm rest and narrowed her eyes as she looked him over, completely unimpressed. "You snag a lot of tail with that line about rescuing people from themselves while on your way to take a piss, Slick?" She arched her eyebrows slightly.
Anybody else would have taken Skye's reply as a giant back-off sign, but to Ward it only made her more of a challenge. He was still amused and gave a toothy grin that looked like it had been practiced in a mirror.
"Hey now, don't be so hostile. It seems like you could use a little loosening up. What do you say?" Ward raised a brow and moved a little closer, hoping to wear her down. He was used to getting the things he wanted.
Initially, Jemma had been disappointed and her hands shifted back to her book. But her eyes hadn't left Skye and the seat in question and she could feel a pressure building up in her chest as the man that had been rude to the air hostess before was invading Skye's space and looking like a general arse. She acted without thinking and unbuckled her seatbelt, ignoring Fitz's cry of "where are you going?". She quickly made her way past the few rows, apologizing quietly to the people she bumped into.
"Excuse me, I think you're in my seat." Jemma feigned politeness. Behind her smile was a snarl waiting to be let out if he didn't back off. She put one hand on her hip and pursed her lips, waiting for him to get up and leave.
Skye was prepared to lay into this slimeball when she caught sight of Jemma in the aisle and her focus shifted almost reflexively. That Cheshire sized grin returned in full force after Jemma spoke. She was entirely distracted by the glare-happy, hip-holding, purse-lipped sassy Jemma Simmons. It was a far cry from the extremely sweet woman who had purposefully set out to calm Skye's flight jitters despite the uncomfortable atmospheric conditions in the airport terminal.
Ward was plenty determined to wear Skye down until she accepted his offer, if he hadn't had anyone on his tail, of course. He didn't care if he bothered a few people, but the tiny Brit frowning at him seemed like the kind of prick that would pull a 1st-grader move and tattle on him if he didn't get out of her seat, so he raised his hands in defense and got out of the way.
"I'll see you later, beautiful." He couldn't leave without giving another sleazy comment, but he did turn and actually head to the lavatories after. Jemma stuck her tongue out at his back for Skye's amusement before grinning and plopping down into the now empty seat. She was glad he hadn't called her bluff.
"Not if I can help it, Slimeball," Skye retorted without missing a beat, her voice dripping with disgust as she practically sneered at him. She felt her shoulders sag in relief as the man left. The switch was almost instant as she caught Jemma sticking her tongue out at the man's back and let out a snort of laughter. She was full on beaming at Jemma. "I think you just saved me from felony assault charges upon landing for breaking Rico Suave's face." She grinned. "I'm not positive, but I think this means I owe you a Wookiee life debt, Solo." Jemma definitely seemed the type to be up on her Star Wars references, not that it was a particularly difficult one to catch by anyone with space fantasy movie knowledge.
Jemma chortled at the popular movie reference and buckled the seatbelt in her new seat. She intentionally glanced around her shoulder to see Fitz glaring at her and crossing his arms over his chest, annoyed that he was ditched. He would live.
"No, that was nothing, don't mention it." Jemma waved her hand nonchalantly. She was pretty proud of herself for herding the vain man away from the woman she had taken such a sudden interest in, but she acted like it was nothing so she wouldn't seem too eager. "I am a boss where I work. I have the nit picky scolding thing down pat." Jemma added. She didn't fail to notice Skye's still bouncy body language, and she immediately made it her goal to ease it.
"Excuse me, don't downplay my heroic rescue from Mr. Unwanted Personal Space Invader," Skye teased in a feigned scandalized tone when Jemma brushed off her good deed. She shifted to lean closer to Jemma, much preferring her company to the creepy stranger dude. Her right knee bobbed up and down at a slower pace than in the terminal but it still bounced.
"How are you doing? One half hour down, thirty-six more to go!" Jemma encouraged. It wasn't even sarcastic, she just liked numbers, but she didn't realize how small a fraction that actually was until she saw the nearly sick look on Skye's face. "It'll go faster than you think." Without questioning herself, Jemma lightly touched her fingertips to Skye's knee to settle the shaking. It didn't quite work, so she let her palm flatten out and gave Skye a smile with the comforting squeeze.
Skye's eyebrows arched. Thirty-six half hours to go? She swallowed at the thought. Did that feel longer than other ways of saying it? Skye's knee moved a little quicker. She was not aware of the few shades of color that drained away from her face as she thought it over. Instead, she tried to tame her nerves. Skye had been in much hairier situations than sitting next to a beautiful, charming woman on a cramped plane. This should be a cakewalk, right? She felt Jemma's fingers on her knee and immediately the thought struck her that she'd prefer those fingers to be a bit higher and toward the left.
When Jemma's palm pressed firmly to her knee, Skye felt her leg slow from its jittery bouncing. She shifted her gaze and arched an eyebrow at Jemma. "...Do you use your superpowers on all the girls you try and pick up in airports, Doc?" She asked, tone light and gently teasing despite her internally frayed nerves.
"Never, they're just for you." Jemma played along. It was actually very unlike her to be openly flirting with someone in public, but what could she say, there was something about Skye that made her special. She was glad and embarrassed all at once that Skye knew she was hitting on her, but she found herself caring less about what was normally acceptable for her. If she wanted to flirt with Skye she was going to do it.
They spent two and a half hours watching the second Harry Potter movie with one set of earbuds shared between them, since Jemma's were still back at her seat and she didn't want to chance getting up in case Slimeball was still around. It had the added advantage of giving Jemma an excuse to move the armrest between them and lean against Skye's side to share the headphones and be able to see the screen on the back of the headrest in front of her. They spent another hour chatting over the first in flight meal, which was not-bad at best, but filled their stomachs all the same. They spent half an hour playing the trivia game on the tv system (Skye gave up because Jemma was mercilessly destroying her, if that was a thing you could do in trivia). They played tic tac toe, connect the dots, and played several of them with Ace, even Mike when the boy could convince his father to join. Skye's leg still occasionally started shaking when they hit small stretches of turbulence, but a light touch of Jemma's hand to her knee or her arm was enough to quiet the anxieties temporarily. They continued playing games and watching movies and even took turns napping, using the other's shoulder as a pillow. Even after they had done all of this, unfortunately, they'd still only used up half of the flight time.
"It's just cruel that they make flights that are this long," Skye commented arching her back slightly to stretch it. She popped her seat belt buckle and moved to stand. "I'm gonna run to the restroom - pick the next movie while I'm gone, yeah?" She motioned for Jemma just to stay put in her seat and had no qualms about climbing (maybe a little purposefully) clumsily over her lap to get to the aisle.
"If I pick it you know it's going to be something British." Jemma warned. She automatically reached out and stabilized Skye as she got up with a hand on her hip, making sure she didn't sway too far one way or the other until she was safely in the aisle. Once she was satisfied Skye was alright on her own, she scooted over to sit in the space between she and Skye's seats and began swiping through some of the movie selections, eventually switching to television and grinning when she found a few episodes of Doctor Who on the list.
"Dazzle me with your homeland, Jemma Simmons," Skye grinned, not at all upset about having Jemma's hands all up on her hips. She headed down the aisle and stood at the back. Miles was asleep when she went by. It wasn't the first time she'd checked but she'd used stretches and random walks about every so often as her way to make sure he was still breathing. At the back she waited for the restroom to open and squeezed past the person who left it and locked herself inside.
It took Skye less than six minutes to hack her way into the air marshal's 'secured' messenger service. She sent the person messages that looked like they came from his(or her) own phone. She told them that there were U.S. government agents on their plane with an informant in protective custody and that there were also potential terrorists onboard hoping to recover the informant. She disconnected and erased all trace of her presence on the phone but left the backdoor to the messenger service on the system so she could get back in if she needed to. She quickly used the facilities afterward, scrubbed her hands (doctor's orders, extra scrubbing, right?) and then made her way back out. Fitz gave her a rather sour look on the way by but she just waved and gave him a smile as she made it back to Jemma and her seat.
"What'd ya come up with, Doc?" Skye asked as she returned. They hit a small patch of turbulence before either of them could shift and Skye stumbled and fell pretty much almost face first into Jemma's lap and chest, braced only by her hand on the back of one of the seats and on the seat next to Jemma's hip.
Jemma made a sudden squeak of surprise and her arm instinctively wrapped around Skye's waist to stop her fall, but because she was sitting, of course it didn't do much good and Skye got a good faceful of her shirt. A tingle ran up her spine and she felt it as the hours of air conditioning was wasted on her, because her blush spread to everywhere and her body felt like it was on fire. She wanted to laugh, but she was embarrassed and she began sputtering out nonsense about the science of turbulence while Skye's face was an inch away from hers and Ace was staring at them quizzically.
Skye cleared her throat. She bit the inside of her cheek and felt the immense heat that lit up first the tops of her ears and then settled to pool between her hips. Hey, if fate wanted to literally throw them together...right? She bit her bottom lip and tried to hide the fact that her hands were shaking a bit from the sudden drop the turbulence had caused to firmly reignite her anxiety. When she picked her head up, she stalled, her face so close to Jemma's while Jemma rambled science at her. Skye couldn't help but smile at that. "Easy there, Tiger," She righted herself and then moved down into the seat next to Jemma, which was originally Jemma's stolen seat. Both of her knees were bouncing up and down now. Her hands settled, one onto each of her own knees both because the urge was now thee to reach out to touch Jemma and because she was trying to steady them. They left her knees only to fumble with the seat belts ends.
Jemma fell silent after Skye tried to calm her down. Her heart was still pounding in her ears and she could feel her pulse in her own neck without touching her fingers to it. She could still feel Skye's weight on her even though it wasn't there anymore and though they were avoiding eye contact, somehow she felt like her every move was being watched. They were both on high alert because of the potential for something that hadn't quite happened yet. Jemma was anxious herself, so she could only imagine how Skye felt with the added worry about the turbulence and the flight. She came back to her senses and her hand reached for Skye's, lightly touching her sleeve before her fingers wrapped around her arm. Her lips spread into a slow smile as she finally looked at Skye's face and saw that she too was blushing.
"So have you ever seen Doctor Who?" Jemma blurted out, holding up the second earbud with her free hand and giggling.
Skye gave Jemma's hand a grateful squeeze. She didn't get a chance to thank Jemma out loud because Jem was holding up the earbud and asked her the question. Skye arched her eyebrows. "Doctor Whatnow?" she asked as seriously as she could, but only lasted a moment before she cracked and grinned. "The guy that travels in a phone booth, right?" Skye took the earbud and popped it in her ear, distracted temporarily by the middle aged man that she'd seen talking with Mike in the terminal. He stepped into the back from the next section forward, in the plane. He made a show of stretching achy muscles as he walked through the aisle, trying to make it look like he was just on a stroll to stretch rather than looking for someone. 'Hello, air marshal,' Skye thought. She paid him no further mind just then and focused instead on Jemma, judging by the giggles that she was going to get some quality rambling out of the scientist over the next hour.
Jemma made them watch the three episodes of Doctor Who that the airline provided for free, but not without pausing every few minutes to explain the time travel theories and some of the more complicated ongoing plot, since the episodes were from random seasons and out of context. When they finished them and were running out of interesting things to watch, Jemma could tell Skye was getting anxious and her attention was wavering. Her legs were back to jumping up and down and her hands were fidgeting with the extra strap of her seatbelt.
"I have The Odyssey in my bag, maybe you'd be able to focus on that?" Jemma nudged Skye's side and rested her hand over Skye's to pause her fidgeting. It was chilled from the blasting air conditioning and her nervousness and it made Jemma shiver.
"The Odyssey, like, the book?" It was a stupid question, really, it was. Skye knew it was a stupid question. She'd even seen Jemma reading when she'd passed by on her way to the restroom the very first time. It'd been a really long day and, despite the awesome time she'd had with Jemma, eating up all of that distraction, Skye's nerves were still frayed from the flight. She still had many hours ahead of her and when they landed, she had to get Miles out of the plane, out of the airport and to the safe drop off location to deliver him as well as the hard drive copy. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, um, yeah, I've never read it before so, that could work," she nodded. "If you don't mind," her return squeeze to Jemma's hand was an automatic reflex brought on by the nerves. The longer the flight went, the more childish and pathetic Skye felt about her anxiety.
"You've never read The Odyssey?" Jemma exclaimed. Her face lit up in amusement and she unclasped her seatbelt. "You'll love it." Jemma promised. She stood up and scooted past Skye's knees to get into the aisle. Fitz was asleep in his seat, slouching in the seat with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. Maybe he would be less agitated after some sleep. It had been an early morning.
Skye arched her eyebrows. As she watched Jemma head back toward her original seat, she wondered how much nerding out Jemma could do over this book. She hoped it was like the fits of science babble Jemma had been spouting every time she'd paused their Doctor Who episodes. Skye popped the seat belt buckle and moved to slide into the inside seat so Jemma would have easier access to sit back down when she returned.
The book she had been reading to ignore him was a collection of scientific studies and was still in the pocket in front of her original seat. The Odyssey was probably the better option, so she reached for the latch to the overhead compartments to retrieve it from her suitcase, but she didn't quite get that far. The plane jolted suddenly, and it was much rougher than any of the turbulence they'd encountered so far. Jemma had been on her toes to reach the compartment and stumbled. She frantically grabbed for anything, but it had been so quick Jemma ended up slamming into the aisle floor with a yelp. She cringed and grabbed at her side, which had hit an armrest on the way down and was aching fiercely.
"What was that?!" Fitz was awake, along with the rest of the passengers. It hadn't felt like normal turbulence and Jemma's first thought was to see if Skye was ok. "Simmons, what the hell?" Fitz got out of his seat and helped drag Jemma into her original seat as the seatbelt signal flashed on with a ding. An announcement even came over the speakers telling everyone not to panic, but to get to their seats and fasten their seat belts securely.
When the plane lurched, Skye hadn't managed to buckle her seatbelt back up again and as a result, the seat just suddenly wasn't under her as it had forced her a foot or so in the air. She came down hard and hissed in pain but was twisted around and practically out of the seat, halfway on her feet when she heard Jemma's yelp. "Jemma!" The name was off her tongue before she'd realized she'd shouted it. She didn't even get a chance to move before Fitz was pulling Jemma into her original seat.
The plane lurched again dropping, in Skye's wild mind, at least ten feet from the way her stomach surged right in her throat. She probably would have been thrown right up into the compartments above her head if both Ace and Mike hadn't grabbed for her arm and yanked her down into her seat. Wide eyed, her pulse racing and her hands shaky nearly uncontrollably, Skye struggled to quickly latch her seatbelt until Ace actually reached over and did it for her. Skye thanked him and he grabbed her hand with his, this time because both of them were scared. Skye tugged her seatbelt tight with her free hand
She turned around as far as she could in her seat. Miles was still asleep, that bastard. Her eyes shifted and connected with Jemma's, face full of concern for Jemma's well being and also full of abject fear; It's the falling, she thought. That's the part I'm scared of. The lights in the cabin flickered and the body of the plane began a slow shake that, five seconds later amplified into what, to Skye, felt like a terrible earthquake. Everything happened rapidly after that.
There was a large explosive sound from a section ahead of them, in the middle of the plane. The plane itself jerked and banked hard and then began a sudden rapid descent. Skye was fired to turn around, eyes forward, as alarms went off but we're drowned out by people screaming and crying and the air masks fell downward from their compartments. Skye felt wind on her face, blowing into her eyes and sending her loose hair flying about. In the first second, the thought struck her that it shouldn't be possible to feel rough wind, harder and colder than the air conditioning blasts. In the next second, her adrenaline spiked sharply. Skye reflexively reached for one of the air masks, pulled it down and helped Ace into it. She felt lightheaded and disoriented by the time she pulled a mask over herself. she looked over in time to see Mike struggling with his but couldn't reach him with the force of their descent holding her to the seat. She pushed Ace down do he was bent over at his torso and had him wrap his arms around the bottom of his legs.
Skye kept a hand on Ace's back and forced herself around again. In the terrible shaking, her wide eyes found Jemma one last time.
With one hand still clamped onto her side while biting back tears, Jemma fumbled with the two straps at her lap, unable to get them together. Fitz reached over and grabbed them for her, snapping it together and tugging it so it held her in her seat firmly.
When the masks broke free from the ceiling, Jemma knew something was very, very wrong. She had promised Skye everything would be fine and before she even reached for the mask, she was searching for Skye, but her visual was blocked arms reaching for the yellow oxygen masks. It reminded her to grab her own, and she reached out, but every time she tried to close her hand around it the wind had already whipped it in a new direction. She felt like she was trying to catch a laser dot until Fitz finally managed to snatch hers out of the air with his and help her get it onto her face. He grabbed her arm and Jemma clutched his, but it didn't provide any comfort as Jemma was sure they were plummeting to the Earth.
Jemma managed to look back in Skye's direction and made eye contact. It lasted maybe five seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Jemma wanted to say she was sorry Skye was scared, but she was scared too. The only way she could communicate this by looking her in the eye from afar. Half of her face was covered by the mask but Jemma only needed to see her eyes to know she was terrified.
Another blast shook the plane and Jemma only had a split second to register that she was looking at open air several rows in front of her instead of the cabin. A rattling sound finally gave way to a snap that was barely audible over the rest of the screaming and the chaos, but Jemma saw the suitcases flying from the broken compartment, and that was the last thing she saw.