The alarm clock buzzed. Fitz quickly hit the snooze button and rolled over to face Jemma.
"Good morning." He whispered groggily.
"Hardly," Jemma replied, glancing at the clock hanging on the opposite wall and sitting up.
"Did you sleep at all last night?" He asked.
"Maybe a few hours, if that"
"Will you please tell me what's been bothering you? I hate feeling helpless, especially when it comes to you." He sat up and put his hand on her arm.
"It's nothing to worry about," she promised with a small smile. Fitz kissed her on the cheek and stood.
"Daisy's Christmas party is tonight," he said, pulling tac gear out of a drawer and tossing it on the bed behind her. He began to change into his own.
"She hasn't stopped talking about it. It should be fun, but I think we should be more worried about the mission we have to do first," Jemma sighed. Fitz paused and shrugged.
"Should be relatively easy. Coulson said the base was abandoned for months since Hydra tried to bring that thing back from Maveth. It still legally belongs to the ATCU, which hasn't even been active since…"
"Ros, yeah," Jemma looked down. "I know. But we all know too well how easily Hydra can vanish without a trace and reappear from nowhere."
"We're just searching for more inhumans. All scans show that the base is shielded, so there's no way to be certain unless we send a team in. Ros' old logs show that there were some being kept there at some point, but who knows if that's still true." He finished getting dressed and sat down on the bed next to Jemma.
"I know. I'll put an ICER in my pack before we leave. I have to take a shower before we go." She stood up, grabbing Fitz's hand. "Meet you at breakfast?"
"Meet you at breakfast," he agreed, and stole a quick kiss on his way out.
Jemma's smile faltered the moment he was out of sight. The uneasiness she had felt for the past week bubbled up again. Her eyes drifted down to the small paper bag under the bed that Bobbi had gotten for her last night. Jemma had told herself she would take the test as soon as Bobbi brought it back for her, but she still couldn't bring herself to do it. She picked up the tac gear off of the bed and headed to the shower.
Bobbi passed Jemma the box of cereal.
"So what happened?" she whispered. "Was it positive? Are you…?"
"No," Jemma replied, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I mean, I don't… I haven't taken it yet."
"You haven't…? You've told Fitz, at least, right?" Jemma remained silent, pouring milk into her cereal.
"You haven't even told Fitz yet?" Bobbi whispered, slightly louder than she had been.
"Told Fitz what?" Hunter asked, coming up on Jemma's other side and pouring his own bowl of cereal. "That you're eating for two?" He offered Jemma a banana. She pushed it away and turned to Bobbi.
"You told him?" she demanded.
"I was there when she bought it," he shot back.
"He wouldn't shut up unless I told him it wasn't for me," Bobbi explained. She leaned forward to talk to Hunter. "Besides, she hasn't even taken it yet."
"You what?" he blurted. There were several groggy shushes from the breakfast table across the room.
"Sorry," he whispered, "It's just not something I would put off."
"Oh, please," Jemma returned, "Like you have any idea whit it's like being in this situation." Bobbi and Hunter exchanged a look,
"Trust me, we do," Bobbi admitted, "Nothing came of it but I couldn't have done it without him." She glanced back at the table. "Tell Fitz. You'll feel better."
"Thanks," Jemma concluded, and made her way to the empty seat next to Fitz at the table.
"What was Hunter yelling about?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing," Jemma replied after a moment of hesitation, "Bobbi forgot to buy his favorite soda for the party when they went on the grocery run last night."
"Gotcha. Oh, by the way, I grabbed this for you," he added, holding up a banana.
Jemma slipped an ICER into her pack. Daisy poked her head in the door to the armory and smiled.
"Wheels up in ten," Daisy told her.
"Thanks," Jemma replied with a smile, and Daisy ducked out as Lincoln walked by.
Jemma took a deep breath, picked up her pack, and stood in the doorway. All throughout breakfast, she had thought about what Bobbi had said. It was only a pregnancy test, after all. It wasn't any sort of guarantee of any result. She swallowed the knot in her stomach and headed down the hall. She walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She let her pack fall to the floor. She bent down and fiddled with the zipper, pulling out a small paper bag. She emptied the bag, pulling out a small rectangular purple box. She opened it and read the instructions. She followed them word for word, put the test facedown on the counter, set a timer on her phone for three minutes, and began to wash her hands. Suddenly there was a knock on the door.
"Hello?" she called out.
"Jemma?" It was Fitz's voice that called back. "There you are. I was looking all over the base for you. We have to get going." Jemma quickly dried her hands, shoved the test in her pack, slipped her phone into her pocket, and opened the door.
"Then let's go," she replied, smiling. She grabbed his hand and began to head down the hallway toward the hangar. She opened her mouth to speak, but just then the alarm on her phone went off.
"What's that?" Fitz asked.
"Oh, I must have accidentally set an alarm. Don't worry about it." Fitz nodded slowly.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" he asked.
"Yes," Jemma answered without hesitation.
"Are you planning on telling me anytime? It's got to do with what you're worried about isn't it?" He stopped and squeezed her hand, his blue eyes scanning her face for answers.
"Soon," she promised, squeezing his hand back. She kissed him on the cheek and led him to the hangar.
The cloaked quinjet touched down outside the Hydra facility near Pittsburgh. A light blanket of snow covered the ground, and Daisy led her team to the entrance.
"Okay, is everyone clear on what they're doing?" she asked. Jemma, Fitz, and Lincoln all nodded. Daisy smiled. "Let's go rescue some inhumans."
Lincoln blasted the electronic lock on the door and led the team inside. The interior of the base was a large, airy atrium that appeared to have been empty for several months. There were several comfy-looking sofas and a security desk directly to the left of the door. Fitz and Jemma immediately headed there. Fitz pulled out his tablet and plugged it into the computer, which whirred to life.
"Will this work?" Jemma asked, glancing over the counter at Daisy and Lincoln scouting the remainder of the large room.
"It should," Fitz replied, typing frantically on his tablet. "I'm accessing the thermal detection of the security system and cross-referencing it with a 3-D map of the facility. It should be ready any moment, then we'll know if and where there are any captive inhumans." Suddenly Jemma heard a faint sound of echoing footsteps.
"Do you hear that?" she asked, looking around. Fitz's tablet dinged.
"Aha! So, if that's us…" he pointed at two red shapes in the north most corner of the large atrium. He opened his mouth to say something else, but his brow furrowed as he noticed a big red splotch moving up a hallway towards them.
"We've got company!" He yelled.
"From where?" Daisy shouted back. Just then a door in the center of the atrium slammed open and about a dozen armed Hydra soldiers burst in. Jemma pulled Fitz down behind the desk as a bullet shattered the computer. She took off her pack and rummaged through it until she found her ICER.
"Abandoned for months, huh?" Jemma asked over the gunfire, as she pulled out the gun. Something caught on her hand as she pulled it out, and tumbled to the floor at Fitz's feet, unbeknownst to Jemma. She peered over the security desk and aimed at one of the Hydra soldiers and pulled the trigger. She saw Daisy and Lincoln take down two each, making their way back toward the security desk.
"Jemma?" she heard Fitz ask quietly.
"Now who's regretting not bringing an ICER?" Jemma shouted, and took out another pair of Hydra soldiers. She turned back and saw Fitz crouching with a familiar thin white stick of plastic in his hands, his eyes glued to it.
"Jemma, is this what I think it is?" he asked.
"Fitz," she began, not knowing what else to say. That word had always come easy to her. Rarely had anything else that followed.
"It's…" he trailed off.
"Mine?" she offered.
"Positive," he uttered, looking back up at her, eyes wide.
"Holy shit," she heard Lincoln whisper to himself. She looked up to see that Lincoln and Daisy had cleared their way to the security desk.
"There'll be more of them. We're, uh, falling back," Daisy said, and dragged Lincoln away to give them their privacy. Jemma grabbed the test back from Fitz, shoved it into her pack, and stood up. She held her hand out to him to help him up.
"This is what you weren't talking about?" He asked. She nodded. He hesitated and grabbed her hand.
"You know, I should be helping you up," he said with a faint smile. He didn't let go of her hand as they hurried toward the exit.
"I thought you would be mad," she confessed.
"I am, a little bit," he admitted, as they got back onto the quinjet. "Only because you should have told me. I wish you'd told me." He squeezed her hand and let go as he began to strap in.
"I had planned to," she said, doing the same as the quinjet lifted off the ground and began home.
"I'm not sorry," she added after a few moments of silence.
"You don't have to be," he replied. Jemma leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting relief crash over her like waves. Yes, she no longer had to keep that news to herself, but now the news was in itself another matter entirely. How was she going to keep this a secret?
"That was a bust," Daisy said, walking back from the cockpit a few minutes later. She sat down across from them, next to Lincoln.
"Not quite," Fitz argued, pulling his tablet out of his pack. "I managed to complete the scan for life signs before things went to hell. Picked up something in the Southeast corner in the basement." He zoomed in and handed it to Daisy. Lincoln leaned in to see as well.
"Are those…?" he began
"Inhumans," Daisy smiled and looked up at Fitz. "At least a dozen of them."
"We have to go back for them," Lincoln insisted.
"We do," she agreed, "but they're too heavily guarded. We have to come back with more people. And more guns. I should call Coulson, tell him what we've learned." She stood up and headed back toward the cockpit. Jemma unbuckled and went after her, grabbing her arm.
"You won't tell him, will you? The other thing, I mean. It would be better coming from me," she tried.
"Of course not, Jemma," Daisy smiled reassuringly.
"Well," Fitz sighed, leaning back against the headboard as he sat down on the bed, "A lot more things happened to me today than I was bargaining for."
"It's not over yet. We've still got Daisy's party. If we missed that we might never hear the end of it. We haven't even been back an hour and she's already decorating," Jemma said, changing into more comfortable clothes. "Besides, is that a bad thing?"
"I'm not exactly fond of being shot at by Hydra soldiers."
"Leo, you know what I meant. It's just…" she sighed, and sat down on the bed next to him. "I have no idea what we're going to do. "
"Jemma, listen to me," he said, putting his arm around her. "I'm not saying you have to make the decision by yourself, but whatever you want to do, I'm here in full support." She leaned her head on his shoulder.
"I appreciate that. But I'm not-" she took a deep breath, "I'm not ready to make a decision quite yet."
"That's okay," he reassured her, rubbing her shoulder with his thumb. "We've got time."
"Thank you," she said. They sat in silence like that for a while, neither of them kept track of how long. Finally Jemma scooted down so her head was on her pillow. "If you don't mind, I'm going to take a nap before the party. Wake me up at six, I'll need at least an hour to get ready."
"Yes, ma'am," he smiled, and kissed her on the forehead. He got up and quietly changed out of his tac gear and into more comfortable clothes.
"Fitz?" Jemma muttered groggily.
"Yes?" he whispered.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too," he replied, and slipped out.
"I'm suddenly regretting this," Jemma whispered as they entered the party. The atmosphere felt almost entirely too Christmas-y. There were colored lights everywhere and she was slightly overwhelmed. The tree in the corner was much more decorated than she remembered it being at breakfast that morning.
"Shh, she sees us," Fitz whispered. Jemma smoothed her black and gold brocade dress, and the pair of them put on smiles as Daisy's face lit up across the room. She finished up her conversation and made her way over to them.
"Merry Christmas! I'm so glad you guys came!" she said, hugging them both at the same time. "I thought you might not, you know, with the…" She trailed off.
"Nonsense," Jemma replied. "It looks amazing! How could we miss this? You've been talking about it for at least a month and planning it for even longer."
"It's just, I've been wanting to do it since the first Christmas here, and thankfully this year Coulson finally caved.
"Is he coming?" Fitz asked.
"No, he and May decided to sit this one out. I did invite them, though." She spotted someone behind them and waved. "I have to go meet Joey's new boyfriend. I'll meet up with you guys later, okay?" She smiled and disappeared behind them.
"I didn't realize this many people lived here," Fitz observed.
"Well, I don't suppose we've seen them all in one spot before," Jemma guessed. A few of the lab techs approached them and made small talk for a little while, before Fitz excused himself to use the restroom.
"Are you okay?" Jemma turned around to see Daisy had found her again.
"It's debatable," Jemma sighed. "I am hungry, though," she stated, and they walked over to the snack table. She started filling up a plate.
"Do you know what you're going to do?" Daisy asked, as they claimed a table.
"Not yet. I mean, I only found out today. Don't worry about me. It's your party. Enjoy it. I'm just here for the food anyway." She smiled. Daisy's face lit up and Jemma turned around to see Lincoln approaching with an armful of drinks.
"Hey, you," Daisy said, as he put a drink down in front of each of them, and one at the empty seat next to Jemma for Fitz.
"Hey," Lincoln replied, taking the empty seat next to Daisy. He turned to face Jemma. "Sorry about earlier. A lot was happening."
"Yeah, it was." Jemma said, eyeing the drink he had placed in front of her.
"It's non-alcoholic," he reassured her. "I can help, you know. I may not have any PhDs, but I am a medical doctor. I can give you a, uh, checkup. Whenever you want one. Just let me know." There was a pause.
"Thank you, Lincoln," Jemma smiled. "I appreciate it."
"Guys, I'm sitting right next you," Daisy said in mock offense.
"There you are." Fitz reappeared and took the seat next to Jemma. Bobbi and Hunter joined them soon after, and the rest of the night flew by. At the end of the night, a slow Christmas song began to play. Daisy insisted that she and Lincoln go dance, and the others soon followed. Many of the other agents had left and there were very few people left on the dance floor. Jemma rested her head on Fitz's shoulder as they softly swayed to the music. She lifted her eyes. Her eyes met with Bobbi's blue ones and Skye's brown ones. She knew, then, that nothing would ever be the same after that day.