Set shortly before episode 1x07, "The Well."
The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
Fitz looked up from his computer screen. "Jemma. Your phone."
"Oh!" She reached into her pocket, fumbled for her mobile, almost dropped it, and then... "Oh, no. I missed it. I can't believe I didn't hear it!"
Her partner eyed her dubiously. "Yeah, no, neither can I."
"You know me," she rattled on, "I get so caught up in all the science I'm dead to the world."
He winced a bit at "dead," and she couldn't help but mirror the gesture. She bit the inside of her lip to keep more words from flowing out. Skye was right, she was horrible at lying.
"Are you avoiding them?"
"Or him. Or her. Who knows who it was?" Shut up.
He rolled his eyes, not falling for it for a second. He knew full well that the only people who called her were her parents—usually her father, because her mother hated phones.
"I don't really know what to say," she admitted. "'Fine, thanks, how are you' seems a bit...inadequate."
The frozen look she'd been seeing for the past few weeks came over his face, and she realized that she'd been bad at having this conversation all around.
"You know how worried they were when I told them about this assignment."
That had been the first truly awkward conversation she'd ever had with her parents. She had thought that inviting them to her place for a nice dinner would help ease the blow of telling them she was going into the field, but of course with them living an ocean away she had had to improvise, setting up a few computer monitors for a long-distance chat. Fitz had been there, for moral support and because Fitz was almost always over for dinner, anyway. In retrospect, she understood why their mutually nervous looks had given her parents the impression that the evening was going in a different direction (which is why when Fitz told his family later, Simmons had stayed out of the picture). But after they had been convinced that there were no diamonds involved in what their daughter was trying to tell them, they did get quite worried.
"Well, worried and disappointed," said Fitz, with an attempt at a grin.
"Not for long, you're still..."
"...like family, so do you want me to call them myself, then?"
"No!" Her hands flew out towards him as though he had his own mobile at the ready.
He shifted in his chair and squared his shoulders. "Practice on me."
She took a deep breath.
"Go on, then." He dropped his voice half an octave. "Jemma, good to hear from you. How are things on that flying circus?"
Up an octave and a half. "The Bus, they call it the Bus."
Back down. "I know what they call it. Stop interrupting, Jemma can't get a word in edgewise. Sorry about that, Jemma, you know your mom. How are you?"
Simmons giggled. Despite how much she hated his impression of her, Fitz's impressions of her parents were spot on. Still...
"I can't do this," she said. "Not while I'm looking at you."
He spun his chair around and faced the wall. "Jemma?" he asked, in his impression of her father. "Are you there? I think we have a bad connection."
Simmons stood for a moment, watching him wait.
"Jemma?"
It didn't sound like her father anymore. She took a deep breath and turned away from him.
"I'm here," she said. "I haven't...I haven't known what to say to you before now, so I didn't try to say anything. Now...now I still don't know what to say, but I'm saying it anyway."
Silence.
"I almost died. In the lab, of all places. There was an alien virus, but we almost didn't catch it in time. I'm okay...I'm healthy again. A little more afraid of heights than I used to be. Oh, I forgot, yes, I jumped out of the plane. But it was for a really good reason. The virus would have culminated in an EMP strong enough to short out every electronic device in the vicinity, and as the vicinity happened to be the plane, I would've taken everybody with me. That wasn't an option."
"So these new coworkers of yours let you jump out of the plane?" The voice was ragged around the edges. "Where was Fitz? I thought he said he'd look after you."
"I recall saying I'd..."
"...look after him. Same difference, same question."
She tightened her hands into fists, to keep them from trembling. "He tried to stop me. He was trying to tell me the antiserum worked, but I thought he was being quixotic. He..."
"...watched you jump."
"...saved my life. After I jumped. He got the serum and a parachute ready for Agent Ward. I would've died before I hit the water otherwise."
"Don't do it again, yeah?"
Simmons looked around. "I can't promise that, anymore than you can tell me you wouldn't have done the exact same thing, Fitz."
He swiveled slowly in the chair until he faced her. Somehow he looked ten years younger and decades older at the same time. "I want us to have that perfect opportunity to see the world," he said. "I want us both to have that."
"So do I."
"Then lie to me, all right? Tell me it'll always turn out fantastic and that there will always be somebody there to have your back, even if that person isn't me."
"There will be," she said. "And it isn't a lie."
He nodded. "Yeah," he said. The faraway expression on his face turned to a faint smile. "Yeah, they do, don't they?"
"Both our backs," she reassured, because she didn't want him going anywhere she couldn't follow, either. "And we have theirs, too—don't forget your mission with Agent Ward."
Fitz held her eyes for a moment, and his smile broadened as he nodded agreement with her. He slapped his knees and stood up. "Anymore aoli left? Feels like time for lunch."
"Absolutely."
He nudged her shoulder as they headed for the kitchen. "Talk to your parents."
"I will," she said.
Soon.
