A/N: Jemma has just woken up on the helicopter after Fury found her and Fitz in the middle of the ocean.
Day 01
When she wakes up in the chamber, the first though on her mind is Fitz. HE had saved her, sacrificed everything just to ensure her safety and now -if she could -she had to return the favour. "Fitz!" It comes out as a cry, not a name. "Easy, easy. His heart's still beating, just barely. I have a full med-team with him but you have to remain in this chamber, okay? His brain was without oxygen for a long time but you saved him." The words are like music to her ears, Fitz is alive, he will make it. But she didn't save him. "It was the other way around, how did you find us?" Although she doesn't really care for an answer it seems like the right thing to ask. "That makeshift beacon of yours, good thinking. It lead us right to you, lucky we were looking." Of course it was the beacon, she thinks. Fitz wouldn't have made it if he hadn't thought it vital to their -her -survival. But that leads her to wonder, "You were looking?" It makes no sense for the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (or whatever is left of S.H.I.E .L.D.) to be cruising in a helicopter over the middle of the ocean. "For my man Coulson, I understand you're involved in a dispute I might want a way in on. Do you have anything that might lead me to him?" She smiles, but it is hollow as she feels no happiness inside of her at the moment.
Much later -once she has been allowed out of the chamber and told what is happening and where she is being taken -Fury stands by her side, both watching through a screen as the medical staff work on trying to keep Fitz alive. He clears his throat, never tearing his eyes from the scene in front of him and starts talking. "Agent Simmons, I know this probably isn't the best time but I would like to recruit you." She doesn't want to speak, she needs to keep her full attention on the rise and fall of Fitz's chest because if she doesn't then it might lay still. Fury turns to her now, silently trying to exhort an answer from her. She sighs, replying in a dull tone "I am already an agent, Director. There is no need to recruit me." A shallow laugh sounds from his lungs, bitter and dry. "I mean for a mission, Agent Simmons. Some undercover work." She audibly scoffs at his request, "I'm afraid that I cannot cope undercover, sir." But a voice in the back of her mind is telling her to accept anyway, what has she got to lose? "Surely after everything that has happened recently you could manage. For someone not cleared for field work you do an awful lot of it Simmons, I'd have faith in you being able to pull it off." She looks him in the eye to see if he is being serious, her gaze leaving Fitz for the first time in hours and he looks highly convinced of her potential. She shrugs, too emotionally and physically drained to come up with any sort of answer. "Maybe I could, but what would be the point? There is no S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, sir. What could I possible do to make a difference to that?" She feels defeated, the weight of her words crushing all of the hopes from her."The point? Do you know what S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for Agents Simmons? The point is to keep this world in order and stop society from being torn apart. We are the line between human technology and alien technology, we are what keep humanity from destroying itself every other day of the week but Simmons, we too are only human. Not everything we do will run smoothly and this is just a minor setback for S.H.I.E.L.D. because it can only be more than that if we let it be, and we need to believe that everything we do makes a difference, otherwise all is for nothing. This mission is critical to the survival of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the fall of its enemies." She processes his word slowly and then turns her stare back to Fitz, after a while Fury sighs and starts to walk away. She doesn't know why she does it or what use it will be but she calls out to him as he goes. "I accept."
By the time they reach the Playground she is fully briefed on her mission and when she will become an active A.R.R.O.W. agent. Fury had agreed with her conditions that they waited until she was sure Fitz was okay and until the team had settled in and soon-to-be-Director Coulson had started to get thing up and running again before she left. Fitz was loaded into the med-bay and she was given a tour by Billy Koenig -a clone one of Fury's most trusted and valued agents who had past away several years ago -but didn't pay very close attention to the layout of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, wishing that he would hurry up and show her the bunks so that she could get some well needed sleep. The team weren't due to arrive for another two days so she had lots of time to prepare for what she could and couldn't tell them which came to her as a relief. She excelled at preparation. Once the tour was over and she had officially walked two miles up and down the seamlessly endless corridors and staircases Koenig showed her to her room and she collapsed onto the bed, all of the stresses from the last few weeks lifting from her shoulders as she fell into a deep slumber.