In The Dust Of This Planet

by sharksdontsleep

"The obelisk," Skye says. "HYDRA's weaponized it somehow. Or, like, re-weaponized it. Aerosolized it."

He wakes up in a box. Or, it might be a box. It has walls, five solid metal, one cut with a window, round like a porthole. He drags himself over. He's hurt, his leg, perhaps, or his arm. Maybe both. Outside there's darkness, not the kind of the deep woods at night, but of the ocean floor, a vast cold landscape. Bioluminescent creatures streak by, a blur of tentacles, fish with flashing eyes. He doesn't know their names, but Jemma would. She would know these things, their names and adaptations, which ones are the product of symbiosis between animal and bacteria, which ones truly fluoresce. She always did have that discerning eye.

He turns to ask her, but finds his neck won't move without complaint from the nerves there. Instead, he has to shift his whole body, until his feet feel something wet and sticky beneath them. Lowering the line of his vision proves difficult, but he does.

Jemma's there too, like always. Dead. Dead on the floor next to him, blood pooled around her. He doesn't have time to cry before the oxygen runs out.

He wakes up. Maybe.

"You're sure you're OK with this?" Coulson asks. His concern is, itself, worrying. He doesn't ask May if she's sure, not for the real things anyway. She is or she isn't. Definite.

"Stay here. Mind the equipment. Hold down the ..." Fitz says. There's a word on the tip of his tongue, but his mind seems to swallow it up, a flood of other different possible words. Park. Bivouac. Base. Castle. No, no, none of these is right.

How is he supposed to pick out the one he wants from the possibilities available? How do people do that - reach into the overstuffed dictionaries of their brains and say, yes, this word, this is the one I need. It seems improbable to select the right one, and then the next, a miracle every time, discerning signal from the endless impossible noise.

"Fort," Mack says, quietly.

"Fort!" Fitz says, probably too loud from the way the others flinch when he says it. The right word. Mack's brilliant. He doesn't know why the others don't tell him that all the time. "Stay and hold down the fort."

Coulson's forehead wrinkles at that, shapes that Jemma used to say formed pictures, the swirl of fingerprints or the folds of a dog. It's funny, and he laughs, but the others aren't laughing with him. Right, Jemma's not here. No laughing.

"Perhaps we want a two-person team," May offers. "In case things go south."

Coulson nods in agreement. "Probably so. Mack, why don't you stay here and keep an eye on things." It's not a question.

Keep an eye on him, is what they mean, but it's not like Fitz can be angry at that. He'd keep an eye on him too.

So it's the two of them, in the lab, Coulson and Skye and May and Trip gone temporarily, Jemma gone less temporarily, Ward in his cell like a crated pet. It feels quiet though, the hum of the lab around them, soothing, he and Mack trading tools back and forth. It's easy to work when half the time Mack says, "Hey, gimme that, will you," and gestures to some tool Fitz can't name right now, having tossed the name into the clutter pile with all the other things he deemed not important before -

Mack reaches past him, grabs a ring of hexagonal things like the kind used to assemble cheap student furniture. He's close enough that Fitz can feel the warmth coming from his body, even through his jumper. "Hex keys," Mack says, before Fitz can ask. "Or allen keys. Either," he flips through them, finding one that's apparently the right size. "We should have a name for things you don't know the names of." He says it looking at the tools, not at Fitz, not in that avoidant way, but casually, like he's asking Fitz for specs or a second piece of pizza or something non-explosive.

"I know the names," Fitz says. "I just, I can't find them sometimes. It's all jumbled up." He taps the side of his head.

Mack nods. "Yeah," he says. "I hear you." He knocks a shoulder into Fitz's, not hard enough to do anything but jostle him slightly, an easy companionable nudge. "So much going on up there it's probably hard to pick things out."

He has the sudden urge to apologize, even though Mack has been nothing but patient with him, more patient than the others who finish his sentences, more patient than he is even with himself. "I'm -" he starts, but the word gets stuck amidst all the others, and he snaps his left thumb and middle finger against one another, twice, like that will make something come out faster.

"No worries," Mack says. "We got time." He punctuates this by turning the allen key and the piece of tech they're working on whirs to life. "Not bad," he says, wiping his hands against the front of his shirt.

The thing purrs and beeps, then makes a low noise, almost pitched too low for Fitz to hear, a long sound like he imagines whales make underwater.

"It's some kind of sleep stabilizer," Mack says. "Supposed to harmonize brainwaves or something. You probably can explain it better than I can."

He probably can't, but Jemma could and that's nearly the same thing, or it has been, for a very long time.

"Figured there are folks on board who need a decent night's sleep," Mack says. He doesn't look at Fitz, but he doesn't not look at him either, instead busying himself with returning each tool to its rightful place in the kit. "Though if you ask me, it's probably just a suped-up version of the ocean-noises machine I got in my bunk." He sets the last tool in its case, then turns to Fitz. "You ever wonder if dolphins are listening to random human radio noises or whatever to go to sleep?"

"They don't …" Fitz starts. He remembers, something about boat motors and the ocean, that it sounds like a din under there; that dolphins don't dream or dream hemispherically or possibly speak whale in their dreams; that their words are three-dimensional thought-forms, that human music bores them; that Jemma, when she was six, wanted to be a marine biologist because she read all of Douglas Adams and also Island of the Blue Dolphins; and also that adult-Jemma thought one of the Cousteaus was fit and showed Fitz a picture and he had agreed; and he wonders if this is what the world is like for dolphins all the time, the noise, the incredible noise, and no way to escape.

"You up for some dinner?" Mack asks, cutting through the noise, and waiting patiently for the minute it takes Fitz to collect himself and nod.

They eat side-by-side, something playing on TV, but muted, subtitles on. It's easier with the quiet.

"Dolphins," Fitz says, later, mouth around a bite of food.

Mack pauses eating and looks at him, not in that impatient way the others sometimes look, like they expect him to be able to select a word as easily as Skye selects a line of code or May selects a weapon. Just waiting.

"There was this story. They recorded them talking in their sleep."

"Huh," Mack says, and then eats another bite of food. Maybe to slow the conversation. Maybe just because he's hungry. "What do they say?"

"They were talking in whale," Fitz says. He's trying to remember what Jemma had told him about it, but it's less like digging through the junk pile for a specific memory and more like paging back in a book, an orderly process. "It's an indication that they have a …" Two snaps again, but the word comes up faster. "An unconscious. Like us."

"Neat," Mack says, and he sounds genuinely interested. "Always figured they did. We just couldn't communicate with them."

Another memory, quicker this time, of Jemma sitting on his bed at the academy, room too small for more than one chair, of her lounging in her worst sweats, and eating ice cream from a carton and talking to him for three hours about dolphins. "They're probably smarter than we are," he says. "Dolphins can recognize human words, but no human can speak dolphin."

"That so?" Mack has a mouth full of noodles, and he chews around them as Fitz tells him about dolphins and language and the physics of echolocation. He nods in a way that says he's actually listening, eyes on either Fitz or his food. It's nice, somehow, less disconcerting than May's skepticism or Skye's open pity. Coulson, mainly, doesn't look at him.

"We studied a little about that stuff at college," Mack says. "I guess you guys call it university or whatever. I took an acoustics elective. Engineering music halls and railway stations and places like that. I had to build a guitar for the final. You know that guy who's always playing his guitar at parties in college?"

"Was that you?"

"Heck no," Mack says. "Can't sing a lick. I think they paid me not to play after a while."

Fitz laughs then, sudden, and Mack laughs with him.

Which is how Coulson finds them. Half his suit jacket is burned off, ash streaking the side of his face, and what looks like blood, if blood were blue-green, smeared up his arms.

"We have a bit of a situation," he says. "Briefing in five minutes. That'll give May time to stop the bleeding."

"Shit," Mack says, then, "C'mon."

"Remind me why I wanted to be a field agent," Skye says. She's combing out her hair over what looks like a bed pan, charred strands falling out. There's what looks like ash all over her, and her clothes have enough holes that Fitz can see things he probably shouldn't.

"Anyone else would be dead now," Coulson says. "You should be dead."

"You're not," Skye answers, fingers catching on another chunk of hair that crumbles into the pan. "And you were standing closer to it when it went off."

"Only because May threw me to the ground," Coulson says. He peels off the remains of his jacket, goes to fold it like he would any other time to put it up, but then seemingly thinks better of it, and drops it into a clear plastic specimen bag.

"Don't remind me," May says. She's finishing stitches on herself, hands swift in purple gloves. She ties off the end of the disintegrating thread, then smears shiny ointment on the suture. "If I knew you were going to whine like this, I wouldn't have bothered."

Trip's the only one without a visible wound, but he has an ice pack on the side of his face and is looking annoyed and possibly concussed.

"Anyone going to explain?" Mack says, sitting down on a chair, kicking another out so that Fitz can sit with him.

"The obelisk," Skye says. "HYDRA's weaponized it somehow. Or, like, re-weaponized it. Aerosolized it."

"It did this without you touching it?" Mack asks.

"More like a forcefield," Coulson says. "But Skye was in the direct blast zone." He's cleaning his arms with baby wipes, throwing the used wipes into a container similar to the one Skye is using. "We need a containment strategy. Something that keeps the obelisk from going off in Times Square or wherever Hydra wants to detonate it."

"Sounds like we need to get our engineer on, then," Mack says. He claps a hand on Fitz's shoulder. "Figure out something that neutralizes the thing. Maybe even some way to permanently shut it off."

"How're we going to do that when we don't have the actual obelisk?" May asks. She's taped white gauze over her stitches and, aside from a slight bruise on her face, looks none the worse for wear.

Fitz figures if SHIELD had access to advanced healing for all its agents, he'd know about it. Must just be something inherently May, the ability to pick up and keep moving. Not for the first time, he envies her strength.

"That does seem to be the key problem," Coulson says. "I figured specimens that had been in contact with its energy would be a good place to start." He gestures to the pans full of baby wipes and Skye's burned hair.

"Let's get to it, then," Mack says.

"It occurs to me," Mack says a hour later - no, three hours later, if the clock isn't lying - "that I don't know how you take your coffee." He's punching buttons on the machine, which hisses coffee into a disposable paper cup.

"Milk," Fitz says. "Um, kind of a lot."

"One white coffee coming up," Mack says. He adds two lumps of sugar and a touch of milk to his own, then brings both cups over. "What does the chromatograph have to say?"

"What we expected," Fitz says. "Some organic. Some …" he snaps his fingers, then makes a hand gesture for Mack to fill in the next word. Things will go more quickly that way.

"Inorganic," Mack says.

"Interestingly," Fitz says, "A lot of this sample re-vaporized. Or wasn't vaporized in the first place. We'll know more when the PCR results are in."

Next to him, the thermal cycler hums steadily. He doesn't know as much as Jemma, of course, but he had Skye and Coulson's samples on file, and had sent Mack to collect a few plucked hairs from each of them for comparison. It was a long shot, but perhaps the obelisk had done something to them at a genetic level.

"Now, the waiting game?" Mack says.

"The 'drinking coffee and staring at the data until it makes sense' game," Fitz says.

"Could be worse." Mack offers his coffee cup up in a toast.

Fitz taps his cup against Mack's. "We'll know more in a few hours," he says.

Mack takes a drink, then pauses, putting down his cup. "When you say 'we,'" he says. "I feel like you might mean other people who are not me."

His tone is neutral and his eyes are soft, kind even, and so Fitz doesn't try to think of anything but the honest answer, which is, "Yes. Sorry. Old habits. I'm used to being … 'we,'" he says.

"Must be rough," Mack says.

"It is." They don't say much more, other than Mack asking if he wants more coffee, and refilling both their cups.

Despite the coffee, the data start to swim on the page in front of his eyes, going blurry and not resolving back to intelligible symbols even after he rubs at his eyes with his hands. If Jemma were here, she'd tell him to lie down on the cot in the back of the lab, maybe even bring him a blanket if he fell asleep without one.

"I'm incorporeal," Mind-Jemma says, standing next to him. "Get your own blankets."

"You've been gone all day," he says.

Mind-Jemma shrugs. "You seemed to be doing alright without me," she says. "Your other coping mechanisms -" and she nods to the pad with his data on it, to the empty coffee cup and snack wrappers, to where Mack is sitting - "seem to be working nicely. Which stage of grief is this? Probably not acceptance yet. I think we're still in anger. Or bargaining."

"I slept through psych at the Academy," he says.

"I know that, silly. Doesn't mean you didn't memorize the textbook."

He doesn't notice it happen, but Mack has moved closer to him, not close enough to be within arm's length, a purposeful non-threat, just enough to interrupt his conversation and draw his line of sight. When he turns back, Mind-Jemma has dissipated like vapor and the GC is beeping for his attention.

"I can get that if you'd like," Mack says. "If you need to lie down for a while. Start in a bit with a fresh mind."

"I … um …," Fitz starts, and it seems like he has an avalanche of possible words he can say, or not an avalanche, but a flood, water rushing into his brain. "The button sticks. Just."

Mack chuckles, then guides him by the mid-back to his cot - it was their cot really, his and Jemma's, and wasn't that an awkward conversation about fraternizing the first time Coulson caught them sleeping on it, sacked out from 36 hours of straight work and too tired even to notice how Jemma pressed up against him. It seems small now, way too small for Mack, and Fitz laughs at that, the way Mack's feet would hang over the edge, like he was sleeping on doll furniture.

"I'll wake you in a few," Mack says, reaching for the blanket folded neatly at the end and draping it on Fitz. It smells like industrial detergent and bleach, a comforting smell, like the Academy laundry. He perhaps imagines the hand on his cheek, broad and dry and warm.

It's a dream, he knows it, but it doesn't make things better. This time he's not in the deep ocean but in a holding cell or a holding cube more like, suspended with a thousand others. He can see into them, and they hold monsters beyond his wildest childhood imaginings, a werewolf, a cloud of smoke corporalizing into a screaming face, a fragile ballerina with a protruding spine, teeth bared in the parody of a smile.

"Jemma," he says. "Look!" He points to another cube, one holding a man with a pincushion for a face, a character from a movie they'd tried to watch once then turned off when he got too scared. But she doesn't respond, doesn't even move.

They're suspended on some kind of track, and their cube moves, bringing them in line with another cube. This one doesn't hold a monster, just Ward lying unconscious, a thin trickle of blood leaking from his mouth.

"I have to go," Jemma says, but she doesn't seem to be speaking to him, and when she goes to feel their cube for some kind of trap door or escape hatch, her eyes skim right over him.

"No," he says, but she doesn't hear, and when he goes to grab her hands, to stop her, his hands pass through her like he's a ghost. She doesn't even shiver. "No," he says again. "Let him go. We're safe here."

But as he says it, he can feel the oxygen go low, the tingle in his fingers and toes as the blood withdraws, tightness in his chest. It doesn't matter, because she doesn't respond, just presses some hidden button and hits the escape hatch. He's expecting a rush of air as she climbs out, but it has the opposite effect, and he goes short of breath, then breathless, then little dazzles of light come into the edge of his vision -

There's water on his face. He's drowning. No. He can suck air into his lungs, even through the damp thing on his mouth, and he does, taking breaths deep enough that his throat clicks open with the effort.

"Thought you were going asthmatic on me," Mack says, withdrawing what turns out to be a wet rag from Fitz's face. "Emergency inhaler," he says, holding it up. "Old boy scout trick." He puts an arm under Fitz and helps him sit up, keeps it there so that Fitz's back isn't against the wall. This close, and in his undershirt, he's warm and solid. He smells like coffee and the noodles they had seemingly ages ago. Good smells. Grounding smells.

"Dream," Fitz says.

"I figured. You kept asking for her."

"Sorry," Fitz says.

Mack shrugs. "The thermal cycler made a bunch of beeping noises and then kind of grumbled for a while."

"That's the heat-block cooling off," Fitz says, moving to get up.

"No rush," Mack says. "Coulson and Skye are trying some kind of hack into HYDRA's network. Could tell us more about where they're keeping the obelisk. It can wait a few minutes."

"Oh," Fitz says.

"Besides," Mack says. "Who else is going to keep my arm warm?"

They sit like that for a while, until Fitz's back starts to go a little numb from leaning against Mack. His breathing has evened and he's calm enough that he begins noticing how close Mack is, the breadth of his shoulders.

Fitz doesn't have a type, really, or one beyond 'is as drunk as he is at the Academy bar,' or, more recently, 'is Jemma Simmons.' It's hard not to notice Mack, though. After all, Mind-Jemma has, and he's self-aware enough to know that she's merely a projection of his fragile mental state, a way of feeling like he's not alone, trapped in a swirling ocean of things he can't name and doesn't understand.

She also thinks Mack has a cute butt. She mentions it. Quite a lot.

They're interrupted by Coulson and May. Coulson gives them a look, one of the ones that Fitz can't tell if he's skeptical or pleased or possibly just habituated to lab antics to not notice what probably looks like a science cuddle-session on the floor.

May's eye twitches slightly, which means she's seen them and has filed this incident away for further use. On anyone else, it'd be a smirk.

"Any news?" Coulson asks.

Fitz gets up, quick enough that he goes light-headed for just a second, then begins recapping the GC and PCR data. He's midway through explaining how the various peaks tell them very little - it's pretty much like any other set of charred material that's been in contact with skin. Neither of their DNA appears altered, at least at the sites chosen, but of course, they haven't run full sequencing yet.

"There's one more -" The MS dings as if on cue, sending the read-outs to his pad. "Oh, that's. Hmmm. That's -"

And in that moment, he misses Jemma, and it feels like a punch to the stomach, misses how they didn't need to finish each other's sentences, because they were already on the same page, misses the feeling that someone, anyone, in the world looks out and sees the world as he does.

"What is it?" May asks, not unkindly.

"This is wrong," he says, because it is wrong, and can't they see it?

"Was the sample contaminated?" Mack this time, running a finger over the read-outs.

"Yes," Fitz says. "I mean, no. But yes. Maybe yes, but no. It's -"

"Breathe," Coulson says.

"I'm trying," he says tightly, because that's all he was ever trying to do. He sucks in a breath and then another, ignoring Coulson's approving look. May, at least, just looks bored.

"These," and he points to two peaks, though he could be pointing to the utilities menu and no one would know. "The samples. They're not from Earth."

There's a pause, and May goes, "Huh." Which pretty much sums it up.

"I feel like Skye and I would have noticed if we had left the planet," Coulson says.

"You didn't -" and it's hard to even wrap his brain around this idea that's forming and rising up in him. "But maybe you did. Just -" and he has difficulty finding the words, too many thoughts streaming past, all the wrong ones, so many. He fishes for what he wants to say. "Just maybe little pieces of you did. For a second, a millisecond. A femtosecond. Maybe we've been going about this all wrong. Maybe the obelisk's not a weapon. Maybe it's something else."

"Aliens," Skye says, at the team meeting, later. "Of course. Why would we think it's anything else? Coulson and I were in space? Sure, why not?" She actually throws up her hands at this, then laughs, sounding exasperated.

"You weren't in space," Fitz says. "Or you were. Just enough. The -" and he shakes his hands because he had that word a second ago, and he's here, and he's in his element. "Oh, element!"

He says it loud enough, and slams a hand against the table, that everyone but May jumps a little. She quirks an eyebrow, though, so it's practically the same thing.

"Isotopes," he says. "Your isotopes are all wrong. Or the ones you picked up from … wherever you went. Look at this," and he brings up the mass spec data, "the carbon-13 levels on the ash I collected from you are way too high to be of terrestrial origin and here -"

"We got it, Fitz," Coulson interjects. But he doesn't say it with the same irritation he had before, that slight edge of 'just finish the sentence already,' followed by looking vaguely guilty, or vaguely guilty for Coulson, so slightly constipated. Instead, he says it the way he would to Simmons and him, before.

"Do we know anything about why the obelisk's range is expanding?" May asks. "Nothing in -" and she makes an expression of distaste toward his readings the way he and Jemma would at mandatory PT sessions.

"No," he says.

"So it's going to keep going all Langoliers" - and she makes a chomping motion with her hands - "on us until it, I don't know, eats the whole world or something?" Skye asks.

Fitz shakes his head. "Don't know. Won't know until - more tests." Lots of tests. The kind having two sets of hands was helpful for, though Mack knows more about the equipment than he first let on. The kind everyone else at the table expects him to have at a moment's notice.

"Skye, Trip, and May, we need intelligence on the obelisk, whatever we can get. Comb archives, databases, contacts. If there is some possibility of containing it before it expands and zaps us all to the Phantom Zone, I want to know it."

"Did you just make a Superman reference?" Skye asks.

"Somewhere, Cap's feeling pretty darn betrayed," Trip says.

Their laughter carries them out of the meeting.

"So we need a way to control it," Fitz says, after they've left.

"Priority one is containment. If you can devise a way to control it, that's fine, but it's not mission critical. Timing is, though. We need this. ASAP," Coulson says, and then, almost as an afterthought, "if necessary, we can bring Simmons back in."

And it's like Fitz gets the breath knocked out of him. Mack notices, has to, because he has a hand across Fitz's shoulders, steadying.

Coulson gives them a tight smile, then busies himself with his pad, their cue to return to the confines of the lab.

"So," Mack says, when they get there. "This is like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Or a needle in a stack full of needles. Except this needle was in space. And is no longer here," Fitz says. "I, uh, don't think the metaphor works, actually."

Mack laughs. "Yep," he says, "probably not. So, how do we go about looking for things that aren't here any more?"

The thing is, if Simmons were there, she wouldn't need to ask the question. They'd be at the board already, working as one, listing all the things they know and various known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

But it's not fair of him to hold it against Mack that he's not Simmons, and, upon reflection, Fitz finds he doesn't want to, either. "Right," he says. "A good place to start."

"If it's not a weapon, what do you think it's for?" Mack asks, a few hours later, not for the first time, but for the first time Fitz stops to really think about it.

"That's - I don't actually know," he says. He puts down the plans he's been looking at, old designs, in case he's solved this problem before. "We assumed it's evil because, well, HYDRA. But that's a biased assumption. That every tool is a weapon."

"Pretty deep stuff, Turbo." He sounds fond, though. "Can you come take a look at -" He fiddles with their schematics for a containment device, something that attempts to capture alternating quantum states, or whatever the obelisk uses, and hold them still.

It's a foolish notion; molecules are such busy things. The idea of holding one still, or at least, more still, for any length of time seems particularly foolish now, since they don't have the device they're trying to contain, or anything to even model it.

"Quixotic," Mind-Jemma supplies. "SHIELD might as well have a windmill for a logo nowadays." She purses her lips. It must be part of his psychosis that she looks tired too, dark smudges under her eyes. She's wearing what she calls her, "exhaustion jumper," the one left over from the Academy, with holes through the sleeves for her thumbs. The one an uncharitable classmate likened to a compression vest for nervous dogs. The one that was originally Fitz's.

"It's only been 18 hours," Fitz says to her. "I'm not tired enough to be hallucinating this much."

"Break time?" Mack says. Mind-Jemma wavers a little, but doesn't disappear.

Fitz scrubs his hands over his eyes, and when he looks up Mind-Jemma is gone. "Probably." He shouldn't, though. There's so much work to be done. It's not like he isn't getting enough REM sleep, considering all the nightmares.

"Have you tried the sleep stabilizer?" Mack says.

"No, not yet," he says. The idea of letting a piece of tech, even one as innocuous as that one, into his mind makes him nervous. It shouldn't have anything to do with HYDRA, should be as harmless as the coffeemaker or the mass spec, but he can't help feel that it isn't.

"You could try the whale noises thing I got in my bunk. Helps me when my mind is buzzing."

"I, uh - are you sure?"

"You can just pass out in there for a while," Mack says. "I'll keep at this, let you know if things go totally haywire."

Fitz has been in Mack's bunk before, but never looked around much. It's perhaps what he expected, or perhaps not, a bigger bed than Fitz's, more pictures, one of him in an athletic uniform at university with his teammates, all holding sticks with nets at the end; another with his family at what looks like a wedding, wearing a suit, tie undone and hung loosely around his neck. A stack of books sits on the bedside table, manuals with bright post-it notes flagging pages, DVD cases for airplane documentaries, a boldly titled book cover declaring itself to be "The Horror of Philosophy, Vol. 1."

The bed is big enough that Fitz can octopus out and barely touch both sides. It also smells like Mack, a little like grease and the stale recycled air of the lab. He taps on the slim white box on the bedside table, and low, long noises come on, almost-moan like, the calls of whales and rush of water. It should horrify him - the ocean - but it's nothing like the deep silence of the seafloor. Instead, he sleeps.

He dreams, but not that he's drowning or trapped. Instead he's flying on the Bus, not in it, but on one of its wings. It shouldn't work - the physics of lift probably wouldn't allow for it, and even if they did, he should be freezing and gasping from lack of oxygen. But the plane is flying fine and he's breathing better than he does normally. Everything feels very clear, the sun bright but not hot, clouds puffing in the sky. The Bus flickers into concealment mode so that he can see the ground below him, the wrinkles and folds of mountains, rivers snaking through, cities patchworked across the landscape.

When he looks across the plane, Jemma is on the other wing. He calls her name, but the sound is lost in a rush of air. It doesn't matter, though, because she's smiling, even if it's not at him.

He's brought back to earth by Mack calling his name. "Welcome back to the land of the living," he says.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"A few hours," Mack says, but he doesn't sound irritated that Fitz has been shirking. He also doesn't get up from where he's sitting on the side of the bed, so Fitz has to wiggle a bit to prop himself up.

For some reason, this causes Mack to laugh at him. "Your hair, man," he says, at Fitz's questioning look. "It's very … expressive."

Fitz runs a hand through it, though it probably makes it worse, considering that his fingers snag partway into it, and he has to give up. "Why'd you let me sleep for so long?" he asks.

"Didn't realize I was on babysitting duty," Mack says, but there's no harshness to it. "Anyway, Coulson says Skye found something. Something big. Briefing's in 15 minutes. Figured you might want this." He hands Fitz a cup of coffee, steaming hot but pale with milk.

"Thought you weren't on babysitting duty," Fitz says, and then immediately regrets it. He takes a big enough sip that he burns his tongue.

Mack laughs, though. "I was making some anyway," he says. "Drink up. Whatever earth-shattering news Skye has, you need to be awake for it."

"They're trying to destroy the planet," Skye says.

Maybe the coffee hasn't fully taken effect, because Fitz goes, "Which planet?" before realizing, oh right, probably this one.

"Earth," Coulson says, evenly. "The one we are currently on."

"The one they are also currently on," Skye says. "The obelisk - they're going to use it to reshape the entire freaking planet."

"Minus everyone who doesn't get to come along for the ride," Trip says. "Everyone who won't submit, knowing HYDRA."

"This is literal global genocide," Skye says.

"Not to, um, nitpick," Fitz asks. "But how does it select who survives?"

"That's the thing," Skye says. "It doesn't. The obelisk - it's not a weapon. It's a terraformer. The kind of thing you'd drop onto some planet to get rid of anything that could kill you before you colonize it."

"Which makes sense if you're trying to conquer the planet," May says.

"Or if it doesn't recognize people as life forms worth keeping," Fitz says. "If I wanted to reshape the, the, the -" He makes a wavy motion with his hand. "The topography of a place. Make it inhabitable. But there's all this stuff in the way. Brush. Clutter. Viruses. Maybe that's what we are to it."

"So it's trying to burn off the chaff by transporting it all into space?" Mack says.

"Something like that?" Fitz says. "It's a hypothesis at least. Better to eject it like garbage than combust it planetside and risk clouding up the atmosphere."

"Except Skye," Trip says. "You got caught in its field, and it barely left a dent."

"It burned my hair -"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Fitz says. "It burned your hair." There's something, something he knows, but can't quite express.

"That's what I said," Skye says.

"Your hair," Fitz says.

"Fitz -" May begins, but he's off and thinking.

Her hair burned off, charred bits that had just registered as, well, burned hair, to all the tests he'd run. He'd been looking for something beyond what it was, but maybe the important point was that it was just what it was - burned hair, but not burned skin. "Your hair," he says. "No DNA. Just keratin."

"My hair," Skye says. "Let's move on -"

"No!" Fitz says, loud enough and sudden enough that everyone's staring at him. It's hard to think with everyone looking, though, and he puts his hand up like that can block their attention. "Your hair. It doesn't have DNA. It's just - it's you, but it's not you. No burns on your skin. Nothing on you, or at least the DNA-containing you."

"You think the obelisk recognized her?" Mack asks.

"Yes!" Fitz says. "Exactly." And he could hug Mack. Or kiss him. Quite possibly on the mouth, and he probably shouldn't have said that out loud, because Coulson is laughing behind his hand and even May is looking faintly amused. Mack, for his part, just looks pleased.

"So, the obelisk," Trip says. "It knows Skye. And it didn't think she was a virus. It thinks she belongs on the brave new world or whatever."

"And it's reading her DNA somehow," Fitz says. "And if we can figure out how, we may be able to come up with some way to contain it - maybe even control it." He turns, out of habit or instinct, waits a beat until he remembers that Simmons isn't there to fill in the blanks, that he's supposed to work out all of this on his own, even though most of the biology he learned was from reading over her shoulder.

"Another question," Skye says, looking at Coulson now with an expression Fitz can't interpret. "If it's terraforming, it's not like the aliens or whatever are coming to take over the planet until it's done. Like, think about it. You're an alien species and you want a new planet, but you don't want start really colonizing it until everything's ready. Right atmosphere, no viruses or acid oceans or whatever. It's probably sending updates on its progress. Transmitting them to some place. Or to someone. Like, someone it recognizes."

Coulson takes a deep, audible breath. "The symbols," he says. "The ones Garrett was writing. The ones on the painting."

"The ones on your desk," Skye says. "Is this really the time to pretend that there's nothing going on with you? The world is at stake. Stop it. Stop."

"That's enough, Skye," May says, voice even.

"You knew about it," Skye says, up and out of her chair. She's yelling now, hands raised in accusation. "You knew, and you're helping him. Hiding him."

"That's as close as you want to get," May says. She stands too, slowly. It doesn't make her any less threatening.

"Or what?" Skye says. "You'll punch me? Stun me? Lock me down with Ward? They have a right to know. We all do. That's what being a team means."

"Skye," Coulson says, but he doesn't sound angry. Just tired. Resigned, even. "You're right. They have a right to know, but this isn't the time or place to do that."

"Except if that code is crucial to determining how to turn the thing off," she says. "If I'm a key, my DNA, we need all the information, even if it means you having to be honest for once."

"Uh," Trip says. "Kind of feeling a bit left out of the loop, here."

Coulson pinches the bridge of his nose. "There's - I'm - It's easier if I just show you."

"Huh," Trip says.

They're all standing in front of a board covered with lines and circles. It's dizzying to look at, even for Fitz, who's accustomed to looking at schematics most people can't comprehend.

"Yep," Skye says. "Pretty freaking wacky, right?"

"What does it - are we sure it's a message?" Mack asks.

"It's a code for sure, not just random symbols," Skye says. "Too regular."

"But we don't have a key or anything?"

"No Rosetta Stone, if that's what you're asking. Just a super-fun cryptography challenge, that, if we don't get right, probably means the Earth gets destroyed."

"Right," Coulson says. "So, Mack and Fitz are on containment. Skye, you and Trip see if you can figure out any of this."

"What are you and May going to do?" Skye asks, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at both of them with clear distrust.

"A different form of information gathering," May says. "Ward."

"We need all hands on deck for this." Coulson looks grim, though Fitz supposes it's pretty warranted, given the circumstances. "I called Simmons back in."

"I - uh," Fitz says, and he doesn't really know what happens, the world shrinking in on itself, air seeming to rush from his lungs, but he finds himself sitting down, head in his hands. When he looks up, the room is clear of everyone but Coulson.

"That's not really the reaction I expected," Coulson says. He hands Fitz a bottle of water. "I thought we were making progress."

The 'we' bothers Fitz: It's not like Coulson hasn't been dealing with problems of his own, but he wasn't trapped at the bottom of the ocean in a box. He didn't stop breathing for long enough to damage his brain.

"Yeah," Fitz says, instead. He wipes a hand across his face. His eyelashes are wet. Great. He cracks the seal on the bottle and takes a sip. "How long did I -?"

"A few minutes," Coulson says. "You kind of …" He makes a hand motion to represent falling. "Mack got you into a chair."

"Oh," he says. Mind-Jemma appears behind Coulson. She gives him a tight smile. "I, um. I'd like to be alone for a minute. If that's alright?"

"Sure," Coulson says, easily. It's not like Fitz doesn't know that this and every room here is wired for surveillance. But Coulson will give him the illusion of privacy, and Fitz doesn't have it in him to argue for anything more.

"That was a nasty scare," Mind-Jemma says, after Coulson leaves. "Two steps forward, and one step back, I guess." She's dressed oddly for her, in a sundress and soft-looking cardigan, the way she dressed when she first got to the Academy, before she started helping herself to his jumpers.

"I see you all the time," he says. "How is it that I'm not ready to see you?"

"People are harder when they're not projections of your own subconscious," she says, but her voice is kind. She comes to sit beside him, hand between his shoulderblades, soothing. It's not like he can actually feel her hand on his back, but he feels better anyway.

"So, this is going to hurt?" he asks. He slumps over, head almost in her imaginary lap. He imagines her fingers combing through his hair, the way she would actually do when he hadn't slept for a few days or an experiment botched at the last minute.

"Oh, Fitz," she says. "Yes, it probably will."

Fitz doesn't know what kind of reception he was expecting Simmons to have, but it certainly wasn't Mack giving her a long skeptical look before turning back to his work.

"Hi," Simmons says, standing at the entrance to the lab, looking unsure. "Um."

He doesn't know what to do. They've never been apart long enough, summer holidays aside, to really reunite. The last time he'd seen her, really seen her, and not through a fog of memory and brain damage, they'd been 90 feet underwater, and she'd kissed him before he thought he was going to die.

"Well," she begins, but he cuts her off with a hug.

"It's good to see you," he says, mostly into her neck.

"You too, Fitz."

He takes a deep breath, remembering the way she smells, familiar, like wool and coffee and antiseptic, the way that Mind-Jemma could never replicate.

She pulls back, looking him over. "You look better," she says.

"Your hair," he says, because it looks great on her, making her eyes even bigger somehow.

"One has to be stylish when infiltrating HYDRA," she says. "It's like they have a dress code that says 'evil but fashionable.'" She gives him a sheepish smile. "Now, what's this about them trying to destroy the Earth?"

Coulson had given her an overview, of course, but nothing about the PCR results or anything else having to do with Skye's DNA. Perhaps it's false cheer, trading data pads back and forth, but it's comforting to go, "But have you looked at -"

"Of course, but how do we -?"

Without having to specify what he means.

Mack, for his part, stays around the periphery. Whatever comes from examining Skye's DNA, they'll need something they can deploy, some kind of containment for the device. He makes a few suggestions when it comes to deployment, a few things that simplify the design.

"If we shift this around," Mack says, pointing to the three reinforcement bars they've added in case the obelisk goes unstable and starts aerosolizing within the containment field, "we can bring it into better contact with the DNA delivery system. Bam, two for one."

"Oh, that's elegant," Fitz says.

"Not bad for a guy without a Ph.D., right?"

"I didn't -"

"No offense taken, Turbo," Mack says, but he gives Simmons an odd look.

For her part, Simmons doesn't seem to know what to make of Mack's coolness toward her, either, so Fitz finds himself playing an unlikely mediator.

Of course, things get worse when they're four hours and two pots of coffee into it, and words seem harder to form.

"Maybe we've been going about this all wrong," Simmons says, huffing a sigh. "There are no genetic markers that would indicate Skye is anything but terrestrial. All the models I've run have her within the normal ranges for VNTR, STR, and SNP diversity. It must be something epigenetic, or perhaps a protein trigger not present in hair but present in her cellular material. Her hair analysis is normal, but did you look at the NMR for the residue from -" and she pulls the tablet from Fitz's hands, beginning to flip through it, fingers fast across the interface.

"We could -" Fitz says, and he should know it, just know it, the way it seems to come so easily to Jemma. "I - We -." He leans, hands on his knees like he's been running, trying to get oxygen into his lungs, his brain, something to stop his heart beating against his ribs. "There's the possibility that -" and he tries to stand upright, but it makes him dizzier, makes his head and stomach churn.

He snaps his fingers, once, twice, to focus himself, then bangs his hand against the lab bench hard enough to sting, maybe even bruise something, when words won't seem to come, when the right word won't resolve itself out of a sea of wrong ones.

"Hey," Mack says, voice gentle. He catches Fitz's hand in his, rubs his thumb up Fitz's fingers. "It's OK. We'll get to it in a minute."

"We don't really have time to -" Simmons says, and Fitz can't see Mack's expression, but whatever it is, she doesn't finish her sentence.

"Everyone could probably use a break," Mack says. "Why don't you catch a few, and I'll get Coulson up to speed on what we've been working on."

The cot in the lab does sound pretty good at this point. He hasn't slept since passing out in Mack's bed almost a full 36 hours ago. It helps that Mack steadies him with a hand on his back, then says, "You want to sleep with your shoes on?" because, oh right, he doesn't, and kicks off his sneakers before lying down.

Fitz closes his eyes, but he's not asleep yet when he hears Simmons say, "Is he always this bad?"

"He's fine," Mack says. "Just give him some time and space. Don't expect him to be like whatever he was before."

"He's -" she says, but Mack actually shushes her. "Let him rest. He hasn't been doing that much, since …"

But whatever Mack says is lost to Fitz. He sleeps and does not dream.

"Fitz!" Simmons shakes his shoulder. "Fitz, I think we found it."

"Huh," Fitz says, wiping a hand across his face. There's crust at the corner of his mouth, and he scrubs at it with a finger.

"Give him a second," Mack says, from across the lab.

But he's excited too. Fitz can tell from his tone of voice. It doesn't stop Fitz from rolling back over and letting out a big yawn.

"Shake a leg, Turbo," he says, when Fitz tries to sleepily reunite with the pillow. "Simmons found something, and we gotta get a move on."

When Fitz cracks his eye open, Mack is standing over him. "There we go," he says. "Up and at 'em." He offers Fitz a hand up, which Fitz takes.

"It's not her DNA," she says, when he's vertical and standing over all the tests. "I ran everything I could think of, then a few more things."

"But it didn't react with -"

She holds up a hand. "I said it wasn't her DNA. But then I thought about what wouldn't be there. Not the gene, but the absence of a gene. What wouldn't be there if she weren't from Earth? Think about it: An alien builds a human, and includes all the things needed to make a human, the genes for hair and eyes and adenylate cyclase. But humans aren't just humans. Earth is covered in parasites and viruses and all sort of things that want to copy their genes, and we're big squishy snacks to them, easy to inject their DNA and embed them in our genome and let us replicate it for them. So, I started looking at Skye's genome, and there's nothing, not a retrovirus, no sign of anything that isn't perfectly human. The problem isn't that she's not human; it's that she's too human, genetically speaking."

"Jemma, you're-"

"I know!" she says, beaming, and for a minute, it's like nothing has changed. "Mack's been working on a way of jamming its sensors, making it think that everything it scans is like Skye. He devised this -" and she brings up a set of schematics, pointing to various features. "See here and here. The delivery system. Genius, right?" Her eyes are bright, face illuminated.

"Brilliant," Fitz says, looking from one to the other. "The both of you."

"It was a team effort," she says.

Mack shrugs in faux modesty, but he's grinning too. "We need your help, Turbo," he says. "I can figure out how to keep the thing contained, but we need to be able to actually control it."

Both of them are looking at him expectantly, like he should have a solution ready to go. "I'll, uh," he says. His eyes flick to Mack's schematics, how the stabilizers form a network containing the obelisk. But what if they don't try to contain it so much as redirect its beam inward and ... "Oh! Have you tried," he says, but words aren't fast enough, so he grabs the pad, begins manipulating the stabilizer network into various configurations. "If we arrange them like this, then, see how it would -"

"Of course," Simmons says. "But we haven't accounted for -" and she darts off to get readings off another machine, probably the NMR the way her eyes had lit up.

He drafts another possible design, handing it to Mack. "We have to take the possible resonant frequency into -" Mack begins.

"Right!" Fitz says. "Obviously!" Because it's obvious now, and they trade the pad back and forth, tweaking the design until Simmons rushes over with the read outs.

She lays them out on the table. "See here and here?" She points to various peaks. "There's the -"

"How could I miss -?" Fitz says. He grabs the pad and moves a few of the major capacitors around.

"Are either of you going to finish a sentence?" Mack asks, a minute later, clearly amused.

"Simmons wants to adjust for the possibility of nonterrestrial enantiomers," Fitz says.

"And Fitz wants to build in a way to hover this thing in case having any contact with the organic material in the ground triggers it."

"How about remote deployment?" Mack says.

"Goodness, yes," she says. "Definitely on the checklist, though we'll have to be within signal range, of course, and close enough to avoid HYDRA interference."

"Sounds like everyone has their work cut out for them." Coulson and May come in. May's knuckles are taped, and Coulson's sleeves are rolled and cuffed at the elbow. "Ward provided a few insights that may be of use," he says.

"Or may get us all killed," May interjects.

"Obviously, we're going to be judicious in our use of any intel from him."

May rolls her eyes. "He's more or less full of it. But there are a few things we should discuss with the team."

"There's an opportunity," Coulson says. "In a few days. It's a narrow window, but Ward says they'll probably try to move the obelisk to a major metropolitan area."

"They'll need a minimum body count," May says, "to ensure it will just begin destroying everything - the whole planet - all at once. Skye was able to crack enough of the code to corroborate Ward's intel."

"We're not the only ones interested in it, either," Skye says. "There's chatter from a few mercenary groups online, trying to get their hands on the obelisk. Sounds like it's gonna be a fun party."

"At least that confirms our timeline." Trip beams an itinerary to everyone's pad. "May and I will be on the ground, making sure no one gets in the way of our op. Skye's surveillance. Fitzsimmons and Mack, you're on tech support. Coulson's running the show." He pauses for a minute. "We'll need someone close, when we're hoping to shut the thing down. Someone who can do any maintenance on the containment device if needed."

"A mechanic," Mack says, evenly.

"Yep," Trip says.

"Can do." He gives a resigned shrug, like he's been asked to fix a copier on the fritz.

"We'll do another briefing once we have more specifics on the drop," Coulson says. "In the meantime, everyone knows their role. We'll reconvene if there's anything else."

"A mission," Simmons says, sounding excited, when they're back at the lab. "Just like old times." She even does a little dance, both hands in front of her, then goes off to check on her latest set of tests.

"Uh," Fitz says, and there's sweat gathering at the base of his spine, on his forehead. "I -"

"Doing OK there, Fitz?" Mack asks.

"Um," Fitz says, and he's fine, he's fine, he really is, he can do this, needs to. Except he can't seem to make his mouth form any of the words to tell Mack that.

"Let's go get a cup of coffee," Mack says. "We're all expected to have three more genius breakthroughs before tomorrow." He drops a hand on Fitz's shoulder. "Five minutes won't hurt. Let Simmons get reacquainted with all her toys."

They sit and listen to the machine gurgle out coffee, Fitz trying to run through all the possible scenarios for the mission, but ending with 'they all die horribly,' or 'the Earth is destroyed,' as the most likely outcomes. He tips forward at one point, and Mack runs a hand over his back, soothing.

"Put your head between your knees," he says. "Makes breathing easier."

Fitz folds on himself, focusing on separate sounds, liquid being dispensed into his favorite mug, Mack humming softly, too low to really make out what he's singing.

"I lied earlier," Mack says, after a minute. "I really was a boy scout. Eagle scout, actually. But that's not where I learned the inhaler trick. Had asthma as a kid. Nearly went blue a few times. Spent a week in the hospital when I was four in an oxygen chamber."

Fitz looks up at him. "You had asthma? But you're -"

Whatever look he gives Mack makes Mack throw back his head and laugh. "Yeah, I kind of took the whole 'I can breathe' thing a little far. Went to Maryland on a lacrosse scholarship."

Fitz's head clears and he sits up. "That's the one with the stick, right?"

"Got it in one, Turbo. Coffee's ready, if you want some."

They drink for a while in companionable silence, broken only by munching on the bag of chocolate-covered pretzels Mack retrieves from one of the snack cabinets.

"I didn't know what to expect with Simmons," Mack says, taking a sip of coffee. "I figure if you were so hung up on her, she had to be pretty great."

"She is," Fitz says, tightly, wondering what Mack is getting at.

"But what I couldn't figure, is everyone gets their heart broken. It sucks," he says, then pauses to crunch on a pretzel. "But here's the thing. You weren't just hurt. You were afraid, afraid she'd see you like this." He gestures to Fitz, like his aphasia is obvious from his appearance. "Like you were somehow damaged."

"I wasn't -" Fitz begins, but he knows Mack is right. It's dumb to be angry at him for just saying what's true, but he can't help it. "You're not my therapist."

"No," Mack says, gently. "I'm not. But I'd like to be your friend. I don't know who you were before, but the Fitz I know, he's a great guy. He shouldn't worry about if his friends will still care about him."

"Yeah?" Fitz says, looking up.

Mack smiles. "Best engineer I know." He drains the rest of his coffee. "C'mon, we gotta go save the world."

"We're going to need more of your DNA," Simmons says over the comm. "No, it won't hurt - no, not even a little. Just come down here. Yes." She rolls her eyes. "There are snacks." She disconnects the comm. "You would think someone who's been shot, knocked out, and thrown off various high surfaces wouldn't be so skittish about a few swabs."

"Maybe, uh, next time, you shouldn't lead with, 'Skye come down here. We need to take genetic samples.' To most people that sounds like a torture session," Mack says.

"Or a pick up line."

"Fitz!" she says at the same time as Mack says, "Tell me that line hasn't worked for you. Tell me."

Fitz shrugs. "Didn't," he says. "More than once, anyway." It hadn't really, except on one guy at the Academy, who'd already had his trousers halfway off when Fitz had said it.

"What did Fitz do to get laid?" Skye says, entering. At Jemma's gesture, she rolls up one sleeve and offers her arm. "What do you need my cells for, anyway?"

"We think we can use them to trick the obelisk somehow. Make it think everyone's like you."

"Neat," Skye says. "I've been thinking about that." She pauses, letting Jemma run an alcohol pad over her arm. "Thought you said no blood," she says.

"Have to get rid of all the microbes." Jemma pulls what looks like the world's largest Q-tip from a packet marked sterile. "This may tickle, though."

"I'll live," she says, but then giggles when Jemma starts brushing her arm. "So, like, I've been thinking, what motivation does HYDRA even have other than 'oooh, we're HYDRA, we're evil, time to destroy everyone on the planet?" Skye says. "It's all very Lex Luthor. Like, if there's no planet, what are they gonna control?"

"I've been thinking about that, too," Jemma says. "It's - I don't think they care about controlling Earth anymore. When I was there, it was all about adapting alien tech. But I think they're thinking bigger. Something more - well, more universal. Literally. Trying to get noticed by the powers that be."

"So, all of this, razing the Earth, depopulating it. It's what? A job application?"

"Something like that." Jemma drops the swab she's been using into a biohazard bag. "Other arm now. I'll start with your hand."

"Makes sense," Skye says, offering her other palm for Jemma's inspection. "Imagine you're trying to debut as the new evil-hotness or whatever. Being able to kill an entire planet at a moment's notice is a pretty good resume item."

"Precisely," Jemma says. "But they're not banking on the obelisk being able to recognize and distinguish between people."

"Or GH-325," Skye says. "I mean, that's why it left Coulson alone, right? It thought he was alien. Or alien enough."

"But you had space dust on you," Mack says. "So did Coulson."

"Oh!" Fitz says. "What if - there's some -" He goes to the board, begins jotting notes. "It's a terraformer, right? But it also. It has to scan. To sort. Don't want it killing its owners along with the other stuff on the planet."

"You think it put us in some kind of, I don't know, stasis, or something?"

Fitz shrugs. "Something like that. Like, taking anyone it thinks is friendly and putting them out of its way, not another place, really, but another time."

"Would explain why you didn't notice it. Or why no one noticed you were gone," Simmons says. "Out of this dimension's time stream."

"Timey-wimey," Skye says.

"Pretty much. Hard to say without the actual obelisk."

"Does that mean we can trace it, though? Like, if it's sticking people in some kind of alternative timeline, we could track it, see where it goes?" Mack says.

"What happens, though, if you don't have any alien DNA? If it finds something it doesn't want to keep?" Jemma asks. She puts the new swab in the same biohazard bag with the other. "All done. See, painless."

"I don't get a lollipop?" Skye says, pouting.

Jemma drops a kiss on her cheek instead.

"Almost as good. Next time, I want a sticker."

"I'll see what I can do," Jemma says. She starts laying out materials on the bench, centrifuge tubes, reagents, her favorite pipetters.

"We have to face the possibility," Mack says, after a minute, "that it's not keeping anything it doesn't think is important. That Skye and Coulson were exceptions. Everyone else is tagged for disposal."

"Assume the worst, then," Jemma says. "We should really think about changing SHIELD's motto."

"Any questions before we break?" Coulson asks. They've been over the plans half a dozen times, enough to know that there are too many unaccounted for variables to be sure of anything like success. "If not, break for now. Ready to roll at oh-six-hundred."

Even though the meeting's over, they linger, revisiting maps and itineraries. May and Coulson peel off first, together. If there's something going on there, Fitz really doesn't want to know.

"Time to get my beauty rest," Trip says. "Night." Only Skye, Jemma, Mack, and he remain. Before, when Ward had been there and Mack hadn't, they'd had a pingpong tournament going. The brackets had gotten erased though.

"For old time's sake?" Jemma says, handing Skye a paddle.

"I think that's my cue to head out. See you in the morning," Mack says. "You staying or going, Turbo?"

Fitz considers Jemma and Skye, already occupied with their game, and gets up to follow him. His bunk is before Mack's, and he pauses outside the door, before asking, "You want to come in for a minute?" He doesn't have a reason, really, other than not wanting to be alone. Fortunately, Mack doesn't ask for one and just follows him in.

There's no place to sit other than the bed, and even that is half-covered in books, idle sketches of what would become the containment device, and empty snack wrappers. He excavates out the desk chair, though, and offers it to Mack.

"Nervous about tomorrow?" Mack asks, sitting.

"Yes," Fitz says, honestly. "And no. I -" His role is simple: Stay in the mobile lab and supply tech support as needed. He doesn't blame Coulson for not trusting him in the field quite yet. He doesn't trust himself. He's more nervous for Mack. Chances are, he's going to be the one to deploy the containment system. "It's just, you could die," Fitz blurts out.

Mack actually laughs at that. "Yeah, pretty much in the welcome packet when you sign on with SHIELD."

"That's it, then? You're not afraid?"

"Of course I am," Mack says. "Who knows what'll happen? But I also want the Earth to stay where it is. There are things I like here. Semi-pro lacrosse. Food that isn't quinoa." He pauses and looks at Fitz. "You."

"I -" Fitz begins.

"Not fair to you, I know, given the circumstances. But there it is."

"Oh," Fitz says. "Oh."

Mack runs a hand up the back of his neck, looking sheepish. "So much for dying with some dignity left," he says, rising, going to the door. "I'm going to go take care of a few things, you know, get everything in order -"

"No!" Fitz says. "I mean. It's just -" and words are frustrating things, always out of reach, and so he abandons them, abandons even trying for them, and he has to stretch to reach his arms around Mack, around his neck.

But Mack's leaning down now, and that's better, even better when he has his arms around Fitz's back, mouth against his, and if there are words for this beyond please, and good, and yes, and more, Fitz doesn't need them.

He pulls back, after a long minute, runs his tongue over his bottom lip, and says one more word, a definite word. "Bed."

"You sure?" Mack asks, but he's backing them up, hands at Fitz's waist, pulling up his jumper, his shirt and undershirt, going for the button on his jeans.

"Yes," Fitz says, between kisses, then again when the backs of his knees hit the bed. He tugs his shirts up and over, motions for Mack to do the same, then turns and clears the bed of debris in one swift push.

"Impatient," Mack says, teasing, then leans over to suck a kiss on Fitz's neck.

"Tired of waiting." Mack's mouth feels great, his hands on Fitz's chest feel great, everything feels warm and fast and great, almost enough to forget they'll be out risking their lives the next day. That the people who leave might not be the ones to return, Mack especially.

"Hey," Mack says, noticing his distraction. "Nothing like that. If this is just because I could die tomorrow, then -"

"No," Fitz. "It's not, I mean." Words aren't happening, and he can feel his hand wanting to shake; he wills it under control. "Can I kiss you again?"

"Sure," Mack says, laughing and sending them both backwards onto the bed. "Any time you like."

It's easy after that. Mack seems to like looming above him and letting Fitz climb all over him equally, doesn't mind when Fitz can't hold his arm steady, when he spends a few minutes mapping out Mack's chest and stomach with his mouth.

"If I wasn't gonna maybe die, I'd think you were trying to kill me, Turbo," he says, and cups the back of Fitz's neck with his hand. "Do not under any circumstances take that as an indication to stop."

Fitz laughs, easy, but doesn't stop, especially when he gets to the waistband of Mack's jeans. "Off," he says, a bit petulant.

"You too," Mack says, then, "you know. If you want."

Fitz looks up at Mack's questioning expression. "I -" he starts, because his brain is currently occupied with thoughts of no pants, and probably a lot of rubbing against one another, and maybe sleeping here, after, in the protection of Mack's arms. "You seem unclear as to a few things," Fitz says. "One, you are very very attractive, even when not covered in engine grease figuring out ways to save the planet. Though that helps."

Mack chuckles, low enough that Fitz can feel it.

"Two, for some reason, you seem to find me attractive." He looks down at his own pale body, dotted with freckles and flushed almost to his belly.

"Genius does it for me," Mack says, with a one-shouldered shrug. "Genius -" he bring his hand up to Fitz's mouth, thumb on the side, shuddering when Fitz licks the pad of it, "and some other stuff."

"Three," Fitz says. "We have both chosen a lifestyle where death is a very real occupational hazard. And, if it's my last night on Earth, I very much would like to spend it with you. And -" he holds up a hand before Mack can respond. "Four. Even if we weren't staring down our own mortality, I kind of want to kiss you. All the time. I may have mentioned it. In a meeting. In front of Coulson."

"I think I might remember that," Mack says.

"So, the only rational response to these four propositions is that we should both probably take all our clothes off and get to it."

"Has that line worked for you in the past?" Mack says, laughing, but he's sitting up to undo his jeans and kick them off.

"Haven't tried it before," Fitz answers, ditching his jeans and boxers. "Is it working for you now?"

"Yes," Mack says, and they're finally both naked, standing and looking at one another. "Absolutely."

"Good," Fitz says. "I mean. Phase one achieved here." He gestures between them.

"Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much, Turbo?" Mack says, reaching for him.

"All the time," Fitz says, and lets himself be pulled into a kiss.

"Do you believe in the afterlife?" Fitz asks, later, sweat cooling on his skin.

Mack lies next to him, both under the blankets, Fitz's head propped on his shoulder. He shrugs. "I'd like to," he says. "It's comforting. The idea that the things we've lost, that we get those things back. That we can see people again, people we love."

"You'd like to?" Fitz asks.

Another shrug. "Sure. Who wouldn't? But it must bother you more than it does most people."

"Why?" He turns over and sits up, blanket falling from his shoulders, until he's bare to the waist. It's not chilly, and he doesn't shiver, though he expects, somehow, that he should.

"The idea that we can't know something. Most people, they're used to that. They know there's things they don't know, can't know." Mack stretches an arm around him, runs two fingers up his spine, petting. "But for you, for people like you, that's rough, the idea that you can't know."

"So I should accept things I can't know?" Fitz asks. But he means it teasing, punctuates it with a kiss against Mack's neck, a hand across his chest. "Doesn't sound like fun at all."

Mack laughs, sudden, enough that Fitz can feel it. "Maybe that's not for you, Turbo. Maybe you're made for something greater."

"Yeah," Fitz says, and he draws hand hand deliberately lower. "Maybe we are."

"All teams in position?" Coulson says over the comms.

"We have a clear line of sight," Mack answers. "Awaiting your signal."

Their lab space isn't much more than a tin can trailer, something that any decent explosive could render into shrapnel, the streets being too narrow to land the Bus on the ground. But Fitz feels oddly safe here - Simmons looking at the schematics again and again, Mack going over the final selection of tools he might need - even when he can hear gunfire outside, the wail of sirens.

May and Trip had blown the van carrying the obelisk, nothing more than well-placed explosives on a manhole cover, a lucky detonation. It hadn't opened the van, but it's lying wheels up in the street, a haze around it. If a second blast won't open it, Mack will need to go in.

"We're wiring it now." May's voice, clear and steady, over the comms. "Two-minute countdown."

"It's about to get crowded down there," Skye says. "Three teams moving in, two from the west. One from the - hold on. North, I think. I've jammed their frequencies as best I could."

"We're clearing out," Trip says. "Hold for blast."

Simmons shoves a set of ear protectors at him, and they watch the explosion detonate in silence.

When the smoke clears, the van looks more or less intact, one side dented.

"I'm going in," Mack says. He has a cutting torch, a welder's mask hiding his expression.

"We're on your six," Trip says. "Good luck."

"I -" Fitz begins, but even if there are words for this moment, correct words, he doesn't know them, perhaps never did.

"See you in a few, Turbo," Mack says. "If it goes critical, you'll know what to do."

Fitz closes his mouth with an audible click. "Right," he says. "Will do."

Mack has on a mask, a helmet, a tac vest, a toolbelt with as much as he can cram into. He carries the containment device like it's a briefcase, and for a second, it's as if he's going off to work that day, in some alternative universe where this is situation normal.

Simmons doesn't seem to know what to say, so she settles for a one-armed hug. "I coated your gloves in Skye's DNA," she says, pulling back. "Should buy you some time if you come into contact with the obelisk."

"Thank you," Mack says.

He exits their trailer, but they can see him, tall amidst the smoke and ash, then kneeling beside the van, the glow of the cutting torch.

"Do you think he'll -" Fitz begins, but stops when he feels Jemma's hand on his shoulder.

"No use worrying now," she says. "We just need to be ready to maintain whatever control we can have over it."

Over the comms, Mack gives a whoop of joy. "Got it," he says. "It's in containment. On my way."

He runs this time, full-bore, and there's more gunfire around them, an explosion that sends up smoke and dust until they can't see him. "I'm drawing one of the teams -" May says, but is cut off by shots firing.

"Uh, guys," Mack says. "I think our containment field is - uh."

Fitz can see him through the trailer window, in a low crouch beside a pile of ash.

"The device. It. I don't know what happened. They must have done something the obelisk, rigged it to blow if it's not in contact with the case they had it in."

The obelisk is glowing now, hot and bright, symbols illuminated like the One Ring, and the ground around it is beginning to burn.

"I think it's going nuclear," Mack says. "We have to contain it."

"Where's the case?" Simmons asks.

"Torched it getting the thing out. Useless," Mack says. "I'm going to try the gloves."

"Those are a stopgap, Mack. Not a solution."

"Not seeing another option here," Mack says. "It's accelerating. If I don't, it'll be at you all in a minute."

"There has to be -" Fitz brings up the schematics for their containment device, reconfiguring as quickly as possible. But it's too late, and he can see the ground next to Mack begin to burn, disintegrating in an increasingly wider ring.

"I think I can hold it," and Mack has the obelisk now, cupped in his hands. The gloves are giving off sparks, blue light arcing between them.

"What happens when it burns through Skye's DNA?" Fitz asks.

"I -" Simmons says. "I don't know."

"We should -" Fitz has gear; a vest, a gun he's not sure if he can shoot, the materials they'd brought comically useless now, like they were going to control a world-destroying device with zip ties and a rudimentary cannister rated to contain radioactive waste. "There's something -"

She grabs him by the shoulder. "We can't. You can't." Because there's a ring of fire heading for them, a spreading impact crater, Mack at the center.

"It's stabilizing," Mack says. "I can feel it. I think I can -" But an arc of light comes of it and hits him in the chest, then another at his neck, and he begins to disintegrate, burning.

"Oh," he says. "It's -" and he brings his hands together, enough to contain the obelisk, curls over it so that it's hitting him with blast after blast. "I'm sorry," he says, and he's crying from the sound of it, wet sounds over the comms. "I'm so sorry."

But he turns to ash then, a pillar of it, a last blink as he vanishes out of existence.

Silence, then, even beyond the gunfire and noise over the comms. Fitz's ears ring. The ground stops burning, leaving a shallow hole about 15 feet in diameter where Mack had been.

The obelisk is gone too.

All at once, everyone begins shouting, May, Coulson, Trip, Simmons shaking him. "We have to -" she says, but he's frozen to the spot.

"Evac protocol four," Coulson says. "Everyone on the roof ASAP."

Fitz doesn't remember running, though he must. Doesn't remember being pulled up the stairs, doesn't remember someone taking out his comm or forcing water into him or draping a blanket around his shoulders. These things must happen, though, because he's on the Bus, sitting on a couch, clutching something in his hands. A cup of coffee, too dark and bitter for him.

"Shock," he hears Simmons say. "Not surprising, given his circumstances."

"They expect this from you." A voice beside him. Mind-Jemma, hair pulled back tightly. "Expect you to break like this."

"I -" he begins.

"Perfectly reasonable," she continues. "The brain can only process so much trauma, being trapped at the bottom of an ocean, betrayed, no oxygen, and now the death of -"

"He's not dead!" Fitz says. Real Jemma turns, surprised. "He's not. Transported, maybe. But not - We have no evidence of it."

"Fitz," she says gently. "We all saw it. He. I'm sorry. He's gone."

"Gone isn't dead," he says. "Gone is gone. Somewhere else. He could come back."

"Leo," Simmons begins, but is interrupted by Coulson coming in.

"Aerial analysis shows no trace of the obelisk," he says. "No trace of Mack either. We've - his family's being notified."

"But -" Fitz says.

"Hope is a great thing, Fitz," Coulson says. "It gets us through our dark times. But the obelisk is meant to destroy. Skye is working on the code; maybe it'll give us something. But we should assume the worst at this juncture."

"You're not even trying," Fitz says. "You're just going to let him go -"

"We're pursuing every lead we have," Coulson says, voice cold. "Mack saved us all, and probably everyone on the planet. We won't let that be forgotten."

"But -"

"Try to get some rest," he says. "Now, if you excuse me, I have to go brief approximately ten pissed off generals and inform the U.N. that we narrowly escaped global destruction. Again."

Rest becomes non-optional confinement in his bunk. "Really," Simmons says. "It's OK. We all need some time to grieve." Her eyes are red-rimmed, and she sniffles when she closes the door.

But his bed smells like Mack, his room scattered with all the things he'd pushed off his bed the night before, Mack's flannel shirt hanging from his desk chair where he'd forgotten to take it in the morning.

Still, the quiet gives him time to think. Mack's gone, but he's not dead. Maybe it's hope, maybe it's delusion, but he simply won't accept that Mack could just leave, particularly with the obelisk gone as well. He can't - won't - accept it.

He considers and discards possible avenues: Returning to the scene to run analysis on space-time disturbances - probably crawling with military and mercenaries. Building a teleporter - helpful, but likely to draw Coulson's notice. Breaking the code - unlikely, if Skye hasn't been able to make sense of it.

He stares at the ceiling, waiting for some revelation to come, some perfect, elegant solution. That's what he does, who he is, the kid at the front of the classroom, his hand up with the right answer; the engineer who saves the day, no matter the challenge.

It's maddening, the stream of possibilities, each more implausible than the next. His bed is too soft and too hard at once, and he tosses the blankets on the floor, then the sheets, lies on the bare mattress and feels the anemic currents of the ventilation system. He looks through his old designs, but they feel silly, the scribblings of a child, nothing practicable.

He envisions shapes on the walls, impossible designs, forming and reforming, disintegrating to dust the way Mack -

No. He won't. He won't think that way, won't let his mind go on that path. He can control this, force a solution, do what's necessary, do his job. If there were some means of communication, a way to link himself to -

The GH-325. Of course. The obelisk was transmitting to Coulson. Why not cut in on the signal? It won't kill him, probably. Or it will. But what use is he if he can't solve something this simple? Mack was there and then he wasn't. Fitz should be able to find him.

He's surprised to find his door unlocked, the lab quiet. Simmons would have kept samples, of course, even after Coulson ordered her to autoclave them. He rifles through her workstation, careful to replace everything according to her storage system, then gloves up and goes to the -80C freezer. Sure enough, labeled in Simmons' neat handwriting, two tubes of Skye's blood.

He warms both, then centrifuges them, spinning her cells down and collecting the supernatant. His hand shakes a little, but he manages the transfer. Fractioning is harder, and he remembers to wet the column only at the last minute, to start the chiller running, then waiting, interminably, as the serum filters through.

The drug's molecular weight has it in the fifth set of samples, if it's there at all, but he loads up the surrounding sets, just in case. It's easy enough: Gloves, an alcohol pad, a syringe. For once, things seem simple, quiet even. He depresses the plunger, watches his blood bloom into the tube of the syringe, then -

He's at the bottom of the ocean, alone. No pod, just the bare flat plain of the deep ocean. He's breathing somehow. He walks, waiting for a feature, a landmark. Nothing. It's dark enough that he can't see more than a few yards in front of him, but there's nothing to see, mud below him, water above. He opens his mouth to call for help, someone, anyone, and his lungs fill with water that he can somehow breathe around. He pushes off the floor, tries to swim upward, but the more he swims, the deeper the ocean seems to be. His limbs ache, finally, and he surrenders to gravity, lying on the ocean floor, waiting -

He wakes up in bed, not his own, cannula up his nose. There's beeping in the background. A heart monitor. The medical wing, then.

"There you are." Simmons is sitting beside him, looking exhausted. "Gave us a scare."

"What -"

"Adverse reaction," she says. "May found you in the lab. What were you thinking?"

"I could save him," he says. "The drug. You all weren't willing -"

"There wasn't any GH-325 in those samples," she says.

"You don't know that," he says. "There could be some trace, something. You weren't even willing to try."

She lets out a long, slow breath. "You should probably know. Those vials - they're not actually Skye's blood. I switched the labels when Coulson ordered me to destroy them. Those were my blood as a control." She wrinkles her nose. "Probably for the best."

"Then why did I -?"

"Simple immune shock," she says. "Combined with possible sepsis. What you were doing wasn't exactly sterile. It doesn't matter. You're better now." She adjusts something on the IV they have running into his arm, expression resigned.

"We have to keep trying," he says.

"Mack wouldn't have wanted you to -"

"Don't!" He smacks the metal frame of the bed forcefully enough that his heart monitor detaches. The machine beeps frantically for a second before Simmons gets up and switches it off. "Don't tell me what he would have wanted."

"He was a good friend to you," she says, sitting again. "When I couldn't be. When I didn't know how."

"And now he's gone," Fitz says, voice thick. "And we're left here."

"That's what grief is, Leo," she says. "All we can do is keep going."

"I hear I owe you my life," he says, later, when May comes into the lab, seemingly without a directive from Coulson.

May shrugs. "Just happened to be on watch." She gives him a considering look. "It's normal," she says, after a minute, "to think that we have some control over what happens out there. The thing is, we don't. That's the first thing they teach you about being an operative. Try to control the situation, and you'll end up getting killed."

It takes him enough by surprise - May didn't say much to him before the ocean, and has said even less after - that he can't stop himself from asking, "What do you do then?"

"The mission," she says, simply. "There's always something unaccounted for. Something that'll go wrong or screwy."

"Mack dying isn't a plan going pear-shaped."

"So you admit he's probably dead," May says. "That's good. Mack knew what he was getting into. Don't take that away from him."

"It's just, how do you do it?" he asks. "Go out, every day, knowing you might not come back."

"SHIELD academy does psych profiles for all its new candidates," she says, instead. "They don't admit people who don't show a certain disposition to -" and she drums her fingers against the table, "risk-taking behaviors. So, are you really asking me that?"

"You think I'm asking myself that."

She lifts a shoulder. "Maybe. You're not dumb." She says this like she's not quite sure of it, and perhaps he was dumb, dumb and arrogant to think that he could have done this job forever and never gotten more than the occasional blow to the head.

"You're not dumb," she says again. "I'd like to tell you that my affairs were in order before every mission - that I've made peace with whoever before going to my possible death. But they're not and I haven't."

Her expression softens a little and for the first time in a long time he sees it not as pity or exasperation with him, but kindness. Maybe it's been that way the whole time, and he hasn't been able to see it.

"Mack was a grown man," she says. "He made his decisions. He might have saved the world. You need to respect that."

"I -" and there's nothing that he can say, without it being selfish, like Mack was his, somehow, his reward for having survived and not his own person. "I just. We could have ..." He's not sure how to finish. They could have what? Been together? Been happy?

"I know," May says. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

He looks up at her, and he knows his eyes are wet. Hers are dry, of course, but she smiles at him, and there's sympathy there. She pats his hand, even going so far as to squeeze his knuckles a little.

"Is this the part where you tell me to keep calm and carry on?" he asks.

She huffs a laugh. "Nah," she says. "This is the part where I tell you to melt down as much as you want. For the next day or so. Then get back to work. The world isn't going to fix itself."

"That's our job." He wipes a sleeve across his face.

"Grief is a funny thing. It's never really over, and you can't make it over. But you can move on, a little. With help."

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience."

She gives him a long look, another knuckle squeeze, and then says, "I am."

The problem with moving on isn't that what they're dealing with is hard. It's that it's almost comically easy.

"Lizard people," he says, "explode like regular people." He drafts a device, fingers sure on his pad. "See. Detonator, delivery system, payload. One, two, three."

The team returns happy, victorious, and covered in green slime that smells like a gym sock filled with rotten eggs.

"Next time," Skye says, "maybe figure out a way for them to implode instead." She hugs him, leaving a smear of slime on his cheek. It itches.

The next mission is similarly straightforward: A splinter group looking for an ancient alien blah blah blah.

"Did you actually fall asleep in the briefing?" Simmons asks, when they're back in the lab.

He shrugs. "Design's here." It's already cued up on his pad. "Wake me if you need anything." He spends a lot of time pretending to sleep on the lab cot. Mack's shirt is still back in his room, and it feels like it's judging him somehow every time he goes back there. Mostly, he doesn't.

He's not well, he knows he's not, feels like he's encased in plastic somehow, that he can hold everyone - the team, the world, really - at a distance for as long as necessary. Simmons tries talking to him a few times, Coulson too, but words don't do anything. He finds himself in the basement looking at Ward through the one-way screen. He's not sure who feels more trapped.

It's no surprise then, when he starts seeing Mack. The first time Fitz sees him, he looks the same as the day he disappeared. His face is smeared with ash and he still has the welder's mask on, tilted up. He appears in the break room, standing like he's at attention.

"Oh," Fitz says, and his right hand starts shaking, and then his left, and he has to breathe deep, head between his knees. When he looks up, Mack's gone.

Another mission, this one almost challenging, before he cracks a code that's barely harder than what he used to doodle in class. Simmons synthesizes the necessary anti-serum. He mostly spends time looking at the ceiling. As if saving the world could be humdrum.

The second time Mack appears, it's in Fitz's bedroom, sitting on the chair. It hadn't been a bad day, relatively speaking, working on a few back-burner projects while Simmons flitted around, trying to complete a sequencing analysis that she'd been putting off. It'd been almost like old times, save that he'd spent four minutes searching for the word 'cuvette,' which he found long after Simmons had handed him the 'square test tubes, you know the ones.'

"Mack!" he calls. "You're here? I thought I was getting better." He doesn't, really, but Mack probably knows that, being a mental projection and all. "Not that I'm not happy to see you." He sucks in a breath. "I missed you," he says.

"Fitz," Mack says. "Fitz, please." He sounds hoarse, exhausted in a way that real Mack never had. It's enough to bring Fitz over to him, to reach out. He feels more corporeal than Mind-Jemma, solid somehow, less ghostly.

"I'm here," Fitz says. He can almost feel Mack's hand under his. But it's not enough, and Mack flickers away after a second, leaving Fitz kneeling alone in his room, face in the seat of his chair, breathing wetly.

He'd like to report that his grief takes some larger form - that food tastes like ash, that he spends his time pining like some heroine in the gothic romance novels that Simmons pretends not to read.

Mostly, he forgets to shower.

"You smell," May says, one day, curling a nostril. "Go hose off." She hands him an actual burn bag for his clothes.

Everything seems boring and drab, his skin too tight. He can't seem to concentrate for any longer than it takes to solve whatever problem they shove at him. It's dull in ways that it never has been before, even when he was struggling for every word, the world a puzzle too easily solved.

The third time, Mack appears in the lab. "Mack!" Fitz says, nearly dropping the, hello, quite explosive thing he's working on. "You're here!" He's afraid to look away, even though Mack doesn't seem to see him, staring through him with lost-looking eyes. "Please stay," he says. "Please don't go."

Mack dims slightly at that, his whole body growing more translucent.

"I -" but Fitz isn't sure what to say. "Thank you," he says finally. "For saving us. For saving the world."

"Fitz?" Mack says. He flickers into focus for a second. "Fitz?

"Holy -" The beaker Jemma's holding falls to the ground, shattering. "Mack?"

"Wait," Fitz says, "you can see him too?"

"He's -" Jemma's pointing at where Mack is, still present. "He's standing right there, Fitz."

"We need ..." Fitz says, and he's going to press the all-call button, but his hands are shaking so much that Jemma pushes him out of the way and presses it instead.

"Everyone to the lab," she says. "Now."

Mack remains standing, shifting in and out of focus. He calls a few more times, mostly for Fitz, but doesn't respond when Fitz answers.

"You say he's appeared to you before?" Coulson says, once Jemma has caught them up.

"I thought I was - sometimes I hallucinate," Fitz says. "People who aren't there. Mostly, I know they're not real."

"Has he said anything else?"

"No," Fitz says. "He does - it's. He can't see us, I think."

"A more important question," May says. "Where is he and how is he getting here?"

"The obelisk," Fitz says. "Maybe he's figured out way to use it. It's transmitting him somehow."

"So, we need to focus the signal," Skye says. "If it's holding him."

"But won't that bring the obelisk back with him? And it'll still …" Trip makes a motion with his hands like the world crumbling.

"If he's using it to communicate, then it's probably stabilized," Coulson says.

"That's a big 'if.'" May fold her arms in front of her. "We don't know if this isn't some HYDRA trick."

"Fitz," Mack calls again, louder this time.

"Skye," Coulson says, "see if our intel tells us anything about the signal. If there's any way to intensify it, figure it out. May and Trip, you're on research. If HYDRA is doing this, I want to know about it."

"Can I -" Fitz says. "I'd like to stay here. If possible."

"Probably for the best. He seems to be looking for you," Coulson says. "Reconvene in an hour, no matter where we are. If he goes away again, who knows when he'll be back."

After they leave, he sits, cross-legged, next to where Mack is. "I don't know if you can hear me," he says.

Mack doesn't respond.

"If you can, or if there's any way you can see us, we're coming for you. Please. Just hold on," Fitz says. His voice breaks, and he tips forward, breathing hard. "We've missed you. The team. We've missed you. I've missed you."

It's a strange thing, sitting, talking to his teammate, his friend, presence guttering like a candle. He feels a sharp sympathy for Simmons, for all of them, if this is what he was like when he first came out of the coma, disoriented and barely verbal, calling for help and not hearing when they responded. He's afraid if he looks down, even for a second, he'll look up to find Mack vanished, the spot on the floor where he's standing bare, only his after-image remaining.

Instead, he tries to think of everything they know about the obelisk, everything they thought they knew, leads they'd pursued and dropped. It feels like running into a wall, over and over, his brain going blank when he needs it to produce. Everything else has been too obvious, appearing fully formed, like accessing a pre-existing design, dialing into some deeper consciousness in the universe, only to get a busy signal now.

"Please," he says, after a minute. "Please come back." He pushes his pad to the side, picking up a screwdriver, just something to hold for a second, tip against the floor. "Please," he says, and even he can hear the desperation in his own voice, the hollow feeling he's spent the past few weeks trying to ignore.

He doesn't realize his hand is moving until he looks at the floor and sees a design - not a schematic, but the lines and circles like the code. The code. Of course -

"Mack," he says, clear and loud. "Try to hold still. Focus."

He doesn't expect a response, but Mack looks up in the image. "Fitz?" he says. "Is that -"

"You can hear me?"

There's a delay, but Mack nods, once.

"Where - why -" Fitz says, then sucks a breathe. "We're coming for you. Hold on."

Mack actually smiles, and a weight that's been sitting on Fitz's chest releases. "Knew you would, Turbo. I can't -" and the image begins to flicker again, fuzzing in and out. "I'll try, but -" and he fades.

Fitz does bother with the comms, just smacks the all-call button with the side of his fist, and waits, seated on the floor, until everyone returns.

"The code," he says, voice definite. "It's a two-way transmission. He's using it to reach us. We can use it to reach him, to bring him back." He points to the carvings on the floor. "It seems the obelisk is still transmitting."

"How?" Trip says. "Thought it only liked people who were all juiced up with alien mojo."

Fitz presses his lips together. "Simmons, is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

She hitches a breath in, unsteady. "When you shot yourself up with the serum," she says. "It really was Skye's blood. I - I lied, Fitz. I didn't want you to destroy yourself in the process. You must have isolated enough of the GH-325 for him to focus the signal."

He should be furious, should be incandescent with rage, but he's not. He can't be angry at her; he's too tired, too weary, like the past few weeks have stripped him down to his base components. Instead, he looks at Simmons, at Jemma, who is crying, tears down her face. "Jemma, you're a terrible liar. I - thank you. Thank you," he says. "Now let's go get him."

"Don't try to think," Coulson says, as Fitz sits in the center of the lab floor, screwdriver at the ready to receive whatever signal is being transmitted.

"When has that ever worked?" Trip asks. "Don't think about the elephant, and boom, brain full of elephants."

"Think but don't think," May offers. "Like yoga."

"Maybe something he actually knows. We tried yoga one time and he kept falling over," Jemma says.

"Maybe we should give him some time alone," Coulson says. "Away from an audience."

"We could get him drunk? Does anyone have any shrooms?"

"Skye!" Jemma says. "We are not getting Fitz high, not even for science."

"Has it occurred to any of you that I am, in fact, in the room? And it is hard to concentrate with you telling me what to do?"

"Shh, you heard him," Jemma says.

Five pairs of eyes watch him expectantly as he's holding a screwdriver, hoping he can channel something other than frustration. He takes a breath, points the screwdriver at the floor. Nothing.

"Would something of Mack's help?" Trip says.

"He's not a bloodhound -"

"OK, that's enough," Coulson says. "Everybody out. Out, out, out."

Everyone files out, Jemma last. "Are you sure I should -" she asks, pointing at the door.

"Stay," he says. "Just - don't talk about the signal for a minute." His hand shakes as he says it, and he grips it with the other one.

She sits down, her back to his, the way they used to at the Academy when she got stuck on a particularly hard synthesis question. "Do you remember," she asks, after a minute. "That time we got stuck in the dorm washroom?"

It was their first year at the Academy, brilliant, even among the best and brightest. They'd been trapped for about four hours, whatever Jemma had been trying to make sealing the door shut. They'd spent most of the time taking turns lifting the other up, breathing fresh air from the high little window, and trading increasingly improbable stories about childhood inventions. "I told you that wasn't going to work, but would you listen?" he says.

"It did work," she says. "I still have a patent pending on that epoxy."

"They had to use a torch to get us out," he says. "They charged me for the damages, even though it was your fault."

"You never mentioned," she says.

"A pretty girl spent four hours talking about science with me, and didn't once try to dunk me in a toilet," he says. "You were a first, Jemma Simmons."

She laughs, then. "You were too, Leo Fitz."

"What'll happen," he asks, "if I can't get this signal?"

"We'll find another way," she says. "We always do."

He picks up the screwdriver, adjusts it, once, twice, thinks about the obelisk, about May and her quiet strength; about Skye, not knowing where she comes from, but knowing who she is all the same; about Coulson, who death can't even keep from saving the world; about Trip, going into the family business with a quip and a smile, even though he knows the cost; about Jemma, always Jemma, by his side; about how far Mack had gone to save them and -

He's at the bottom of the ocean, this time alone, not in the cube, but breathing underwater somehow. It's cold, and he can feel the sensation of a million gallons of water sitting on him, the pressure almost collapsing his ears. There aren't fish, nothing illuminating the depths, just muddy ground under his feet and endless water above him. Somehow, light is getting through, dim enough to look like a distant star, but every time he pushes off and starts swimming toward it, his limbs start to grow leaden, and he sinks down to the bottom again. He tries enough times to give up, then lies on the seafloor, watching water ripple above him.

He wonders if this is what life was like before he was born, a seemingly endless wait for something he's not sure will happen. Strangely, after surrendering, the weight on his chest seems to lessen, his ears acclimating to the pressure, and he begins to hear noises, at first like voices from another room, but then clarifying into something more comprehensible, like adjusting the dial on a radio scanner.

But they're not human voices, not sounds really, but pings through the water, thought-forms against his skin that he can somehow understand. He realizes it's the team: Skye and Trip one-upping each other at video games; May talking about a past mission with Coulson; Jemma talking to herself as she pores over a seemingly endless dataset.

He expands his hearing, somehow, beyond the lab, to his parents' dinner conversation; classes at the Academy, another hundred young Fitzes and Simmonses, bright as new pennies and hopeful in ways he can't imagine being now. Beyond that, he begins to hear strangers' conversations, mundane discussions about the weather, diesel prices, couples fighting, two friends visiting a museum and making fun of the silly paintings, a father patching up his daughter's knee after she tumbles from her bike.

It should be overwhelming, but it isn't. Instead, it's reassuring somehow, that the world exists with all its beauty and pettiness. Maybe this is what death is like, knowing that the ones you love have to move on without you, wanting them to, feeling at once solitary and surrounded, what Jemma meant about being one thread in the fabric of the universe.

Which is of course when he wakes up. "Hey," Jemma says, voice soft.

"Did it work?" he asks. "Did Mack -"

"Yes," she says. "He's in isolation, but he's stable." She pauses, pointing to the glassed-off room next to his where he can see Mack lying on a bed, heart monitor pinging steadily. "He's been asking for you."

Fitz tries to sit up.

Jemma pushes at him, three fingers against his sternum. "You've been out for two days, Fitz. Don't try to move just yet."

"I dreamt I was dead. That I was at the bottom of the ocean, by myself. That I could hear you and the whole team. The whole world, really. My parents. Everyone at the Academy. "

"Oh, Fitz," she says, bringing a hand up to touch his face, but then stopping at the last second. "Is this all right?"

He nods. Her hand is soft against his cheek, her eyes big and growing wet with tears.

"But it was OK, Jemma," he says. "It was OK." He says the last emphatically, forcefully. She needs to believe him.

"Leo." She says his name like a sigh, and then leans over to press her lips to his forehead.

A few months ago, what seems like a lifetime, he would have thought about taking her hand in his, leaning up to kiss her. Now, even her kiss feels sisterly, almost, a thing between friends.

"You know I love you, right?" he asks.

"Fitz," she starts.

"No, Jemma. You're my best friend, and I love you." He doesn't know if those are the right words, and he can't seem to find any others.

It doesn't matter, because she seems to get what he's saying. "I love you, too, silly," she says. "Never doubt that."

"I'm glad you're back," he says, after a minute. "The lab was lonely without you. I was, too."

She gives him a soft look. "It's good to be back together," she says. "Now, c'mon, everyone's waiting to see you." She presses the intercom. "He's awake," she says, simply.

"What do we do next?" he asks. "I mean, after all this." He gestures to himself, to the various tubes, to Mack in the next room.

"Only saving the world," she says, laughing. "Just that."

"How did you - how did you manage to shut the obelisk down?" He's sitting next to Mack's hospital bed, watching as some documentary about airplanes plays on the History Channel on mute. Mack says he finds it soothing.

Fitz mostly just fiddles with various old designs on his pad, works on trying to draft and redraft an email to his parents that manages to convey how grateful he is for them in such a way as to not let them know anything about his whereabouts, occupation, or recent near-death experiences. Mostly he has, "Dear Mum and Dad," and not much else.

"Would you believe I found the off button?" Mack asks.

"Seriously?"

"Well, no. It mostly kept registering Skye's DNA then zapping me, then making some kind of beeping noise. I, uh, basically rebooted it, I think."

Fitz laughs, sudden, enough that his sides hurt.

"It's not like HYDRA knew what they were doing, either," he says. "I actually found a piece of electrical tape over one of the switches. Glad to know the opposition is just as clueless as we are sometimes. And I figured if it wasn't a weapon, there must be some way to put it in transmission mode, rather than 'destroy all life' mode."

"So you turned it off and back on again?"

"There may have been some hitting it with a wrench involved. It had me trapped in a stasis-bubble for five weeks, Fitz. I tried a bunch of things. Which reminds me," he says. "Being trapped like that gives you a lot of time to think."

"Oh?" Fitz says, tracing a down Mack's arm. "About what?"

"Mostly about food. I wasn't burning calories the way I normally do, because of the time distortion, but my brain didn't know that. I spent a good while thinking about my first meal when I got back."

"You never doubted that we were going to find you?" Fitz asks.

Mack gives as much of a one-shouldered shrug as his various tubes and monitors will allow. "I knew you'd figure it out eventually. I just - I helped the process along a bit."

"You reprogrammed a piece of alien space tech using a wrench, some zip ties, and residual alien DNA."

When you put it like that, it sounds impressive," he says. "Maybe Coulson will let me work on Lola after all." He pauses, adjusts the blanket covering his lap a bit. "So, anyway, I was thinking. There's a beach in Virginia I like. Pick some crab, drink some beers, watch the ocean from the deck. How's that sound?"

"Sounds pretty good," Fitz says. "If you can get the leave."

"I meant more, how'd you like to come with me? See what life is like out of the Playground for a little while. See if you still want to kiss me in non-apocalyptic situations."

"I-" Fitz says, then, "you don't have to wait for that." He leans over, then pauses at the last second. "You know they have cameras in here, right?"

Mack looks at the bubble of plastic on the ceiling containing the surveillance equipment and says, tone serious, "Coulson, I'm gonna need you to find something else to do with your time for the next fifteen or so minutes. File some paperwork. Tell May she's great. Piss off a general."

"Only fifteen minutes?" Fitz asks, laughing, but he's already pulling his jumper over his head and tossing it so that it blocks the camera.

"I'm injured," Mack says, holding his hands up in mock innocence. "Take it easy on me, Turbo."

Epilogue

"You sure about this?" Mack shouts. It's hard to hear over the rush of wind from the entrance to the Bus.

Skydiving. Of course. Why can't plans have a nice terrestrial delivery system? Something where Fitz doesn't think about acceleration due to gravity and also going splat on the pavement. "My calculations are nearly certain that -"

"Yes," Jemma yells, cutting him off. "He's sure."

"On my count," Coulson says, over the comms. "Three. Two. One."

And they leap, together.