She knew she'd been made as soon as she rounded the corner. A glance, that was all that he'd needed. She hastily tried to turn back around, and that had been her second mistake. The first one had been not moving up with her head down.
"Agent Simmons?" His voice is small, as if he hasn't used it much over the past few months. She painfully realizes that might actually have been the case.
She doesn't know what to do - he's not stupid. On the contrary, he might rival Fitz in terms of genius. He clearly remembers her. She can't help feeling guilty at the almost hopeful look he's giving her. She, too, has to banish a similar expression. She hasn't been called 'Simmons' for a while now. Her heart aches and she has to steel herself, just as she has for the past few months. She has to at least try to move forward with the mission. Her mission.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Donnie was meant to be in the lab all day, every day, until she had been given the OK to get him out.
"You're mistaken. I'm–"
She glances down at her ID badge and curses herself inwardly. Jemma Fitz. Never for a moment had she thought that might have ended up being a problem. What with Skye having erased their identities, Ward in custody and Garrett dead, no one within Hydra had any reason to know who she was. She thought it would've been safer for her to use her real name, given she wasn't an expert at lying yet. Using her full name, however, had seemed unwise, so she... Well, she chose the next best thing.
"It is you, isn't it? What–what are you doing here?"
"Donnie, I–"
"Are you Hydra?"
She opens her mouth and closes it again when she realizes that some way or another, someone might be listening in. She carefully looks around the hallway, starting to see some operatives glancing her way suspiciously. Jemma feels panicked and suddenly cornered, and her hesitation is too long for Donnie.
"You're Hydra. Does that mean that Agent Fitz is as well? Is there anyone I can trust? I have spent this whole time in the Sandbox convinced that someone from your team would eventually come get me, but I guess that'll be when pigs fly, right?"
He's rambling beyond Jemma's control and she has to do something if she doesn't want her entire cover to be blown. She grabs him quickly by the arm, pretending to drag him back to his room.
"Donnie, honestly, you don't understand–"
"Oh, I understand perfectly. I've been biding my time here with you traitors because I got to work in a lab for once."
His breathing was starting to become very laboured and he wouldn't budge. Pretty much the entire hallway was staring at them now. Donnie clenched his fists and Jemma noticed that it'd suddenly gotten cold. This wasn't right...
-
"Alright, everyone, we've got a situation."
Coulson had gathered everyone for an emergency meeting. The briefing room strongly resembled that of the Bus, which might have explained why Fitz seemed extremely uncomfortable. This would be his first mission since he woke up from his coma, and even though he'd rather not put the engineer through this so soon, Coulson also knew he would need him one time or another.
Skye and Trip flanked Fitz on both sides, making it seem as though they were trying to protect him from Hunter's stares. Trip especially had applied a defensive stance, as if daring Hunter to say something. Clearly, their newest asset hadn't earned their trust yet.
"Skye picked up an extreme heating image about half an hour ago, and I have a feeling we should check it out."
"Why? Where is it?" Triplett asked warily.
"A few miles outside of London. The satellites registered extreme cold. Almost like a type of expanding ice patch," Skye explained. Fitz shot her a puzzled glance, before something clicked in his brain.
"London? At The Sandbox? Where Donnie Gill is, right, Sir?"
Coulson nodded and in his peripheral vision, saw May give him a look. Donnie and Jemma.
"Exactly. We think he's somehow involved in this, and if at all possible, we'd like to get him out of Hydra's hands before he does some serious damage. We learned the hard way what he's capable of."
"You think he rebuilt the machine per Hydra's orders, Sir?" Fitz asked.
"That would be plausible, considering Ian Quinn was the one who ordered it in the first place. But the readings are actually too high to be from a similar type of machine. It would have to be a lot bigger, and seeing as Donnie could barely stabilize the thing last time..."
"What, you think he's got powers or something? Like magic?" Sky tried.
"There's no such thing," Fitz replied, looking to his right at something none of the others could see. His attempt at a smile quickly faded when he realized what he was doing. He cleared his throat.
"Do you want me to build some kind of... Uh– some kind of... Sta–stabilizer, Sir? Like I did for Creel?"
Coulson could barely contain a smile at seeing the engineer finally make some real progress again. He already looked determined and as his knowledge slowly returned, so did more and more of the old Fitz.
"That's exactly what I want you to do. Calibrate it for the ice machine settings for now, until we know what we're up against. You and Mack can start right away and head to the Bus, I'll brief you on the rest later."
Fitz froze, however, as soon as Coulson mentioned the plane. He stared at Coulson uncertainly, but the older man would not (could not) waver. He returned the look intently and added: "I need you on this, Fitz."
The younger man visibly steeled himself and nodded in return before walking out of the briefing room with Mack trailing behind him, leaving a shocked Trip and Skye in his wake.
"You want him on the Bus his first mission back? AC, I don't think that's a good idea."
The hacker turned a rather annoyed glare her boss' way, but Coulson couldn't let that deter him either. He knew how much Skye had come to care for both Fitz and Simmons, and seeing them grow apart after Fitz had woken up had broken her heart more than Ward already had.
No one had talked much about Jemma's departure from the team, or at least not around Fitz. The moment Coulson informed the engineer of her leaving (Not "Jemma", but "Agent Simmons" as he'd addressed her), he had started to retreat into himself and had slowly distanced himself from the rest of the team. Three days after that, Fitz had finally remembered who Jemma was, which had made tensions around the Playground rise even higher. He didn't once ask where she'd gone, or why – he seemed to have his own (presumably wrong) ideas about that. Coulson thought that Fitz had been coping one way or another because he kept making progress, just like he had when Simmons was still there. Of course, that belief flew out the window when Mack confided in him that Fitz was talking to someone – and the new scientist had growing suspicions that Fitz was hallucinating Simmons. And that was the drop. Had this reading not come up when it did, he would've gotten her out regardless. For both Fitz' sake and hers.
"I agree with Skye, Sir. That lab in there will remind him of nothing but Simmons," Trip offered, seemingly annoyed as well. May just raised her eyebrow at him.
Coulson clenched his jaw, thinking back at that awful moment he once saw on the security footage – Simmons tearfully taking one look back at Fitz, who was screaming in agony at the top of his lungs. He remembered that back at the motel, when everything had already gone to hell, Fitz had admitted to him and Trip that that had been the worst moment of his life. Coulson also remembered Simmons' whispered to him one night in Fitz' hospital.
"He saved me. He told me he loved me, pushed that button and saved me. I screamed as loud as I could and he saved me."
Coulson vowed that he would do everything in his power not to make either of them ever feel that way again. This impasse had to end, because they were too young and too good and damn everything if those two weren't meant to be together.
Enough.
"Good. I want him to remember. He has to be prepared," Coulson spoke firmly, clearly startling the two younger agents. He sneaked a glance at May, who gave the slightest nod in return.
"There's something you both should know about this mission."