It shouldn't be like this. She didn't understand. She had been working at this for weeks, ever since they came up from the ocean floor. The answer was here somewhere, she knew it. It had to be. All she had to do was find it.

Jemma had seen the scans. She knew exactly what she was going to see and hear when Fitz finally woke up. And she knew that it was going to completely and utterly shatter her. She couldn't bear the thought of her best friend, not able to be exactly as he loved to be, not able to answer all of the questions lightning fast, not able to solve every problem for them. So she did the only thing she possibly could.

She walked away.

Skye was angry when Jemma told them that she was going. Trip was confused. May was…well, she was May. And Coulson, he didn't really have a say. Jemma chose a time when he was gone, off on some recruitment trip, to take her leave. She left the Director a letter on his desk, gently pressed her lips to Fitz's motionless forehead, ignored the tears pouring down Skye's face, and left. They thought that she wasn't strong, that it finally turned out to be too much. They thought that Hydra had finally broken her.

But they were wrong.

They were so, so, so wrong. Jemma was too close to everything that had happened. In reality, they all were. They had all lost something that they cared about beyond belief. The only difference for Jemma was that you couldn't see the things that she had lost. She could only feel them, all the way through her heart, deep into her soul. They were wrapped up in a costume, a façade that was masquerading as her best friend. But she wasn't broken. Jemma was more determined, more focused than she had ever been. The stakes were more here than she had ever dealt with before, simply because, if she knew one thing, it was that she didn't want to go back to living without Fitz. But living with only a piece of Fitz, that might hurt just as much, for the both of them.

She had known that there was no way that she could fix this from the minimal facility that was serving as S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ right now. The little tech that they had just wasn't advanced enough. Jemma had wanted more than anything to bundle Fitz up and take him with her, but she knew that she couldn't. She had to leave him where she knew that he'd be safe, and she knew that their team would protect him to the last. Skye had promised to text her when he woke up and Jemma had sort of nodded, trying to make it look like she didn't really care. Because that was basically what she tried to convince them of. She told them that Fitz would be better if she wasn't there. Of course, the truth, the full statement, was more like Fitz would be better if she wasn't there, as long as she was here, in this lab.

All of SciOps had been out of the question, having been completely shut down by General Talbot. Luckily for Jemma, science knew no agency. Most scientists tended not to care whether or not you were 'loyal' to their agency. They were more interested in the research you were doing, how important it was, and how it could benefit them. It probably helped, mused Jemma, that this particular lab isn't in the country that is currently having a government identity crisis. For the first time in weeks she smiled, looking out the small window into the British countryside. The lab that she was using was officially nonexistent. The DSTL (Defense Science and Technology Laboratory-the British equivalent of SciOps) had dozens of them scattered across the UK. This one happened to be tucked away in the corner of a small village in southern Wales, called Treorchy. It was the perfect location, but it was completely empty. She had requested that, had thought that it was for the best, but now that she was alone with her head, she wasn't so sure. Every day that she walked into the empty lab tore at her already shredded sanity. Too many times she found herself turning around to triumphantly proclaim a breakthrough to Fitz, or to ask him a question. But he wasn't there and every time was just another crashing blow.

[He's awake]

The day that she got Skye's text was the worst. Relief first, that he was awake. Then the terrible guilt, that she wasn't there when she should have been. Then the logic, the reminder that she had a good reason for being gone, that it was for him that she was doing this.

[He needs you Jemma]

Skye's texts persisted, even when Jemma refused to reply. The biochemist was smarter than that; she knew that as soon as she replied, Skye would have a fix on her location and would be on her way to collect her in a matter of hours. She didn't blame her friend; Skye didn't know what Jemma was up to. It was better that way. Jemma felt less guilt about leaving the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. in a lurch as long as they didn't know what she pouring her energy into. As long as they thought that she had just given up on them.

[He's not doing well.']

Jemma had known that, long before he even woke up. She had known that the memory loss, the limited motor functions, the lack of concentration, they would all set in mere minutes after he gained consciousness. It was too much to bear alone, but that was why she had left him with the team. Jemma consoled herself with that thought as she pulled up a 3D image of Fitz's brain scan on the holotable. The team would take care of Fitz until she could go back to him.

[He's started hallucinating Jemma. He's replaced you with a vision of you. Please.]

That was the hardest one to take. The realization that Fitz too struggled to function without some semblance of his partner and best friend there in the lab with him. It was strange that the two greatest minds of SciOps turned out to be so very dependent. Jemma had forced herself to swallow, put the phone away, and return to her experiments with a renewed vigor. She would figure this out and she would go back to them. She just couldn't yet. Not yet.

Not until she could help him.

Not until she could give him back what he saved for her: his life.

She still didn't understand that she could do that without any science.