Jemma Simmons glanced at the radio again. It had only been 15 minutes since Fitz's tracker had lost connection and she'd already buzzed him 6 times. She knew she was over reacting, but honestly, he knew that the policy was to inform someone before you go off radar. What was wrong with him?

"Doctor Simmons? Would you like to check the calibration of the chamber?" The voice of one of the lab techs distracted her from her worrying momentarily.

"Yes, thank you Agent Evans. I'll be right there." She considered calling Fitz one more time but thought better of it. What use was it anyway? Surely he was fine. But as she turned to leave, the radio sprang to life.

"Jemma?"

She was embarrassed how hearing his voice made her heart leap. She whirled around and nearly fell on the intercom. "Fitz! What happened to you!? I've been paging you for the last 20 minutes!" She hoped to disguise her overprotectiveness with irritation, but she knew she had let a little too much of her relief through if he was paying attention.

"Oh! Er, yeah, sorry about that. Um, Sleepy got stuck and..."

"Oh dear, is he alright?" She asked with sincere concern and just a hint of amusement. She knew he cared for his toys like pets, and Sleepy was his favorite.

"Yeah, yeah. A bit banged up but nothing that can't be fixed. Erm anyway, just lettin' you know I'm on my way back so..."

"Right, I've got everything ready to go when you get here."

"Good, good. See you soon then."

Jemma looked back at the monitor to see Fitz' tracker was once again active. Her nerves eased, she was able to give her full attention back to the task at hand. She followed the path Evans had taken to the room with the hyperbaric chamber. She looked it over, checked that it was working properly and was set to the right level. She made sure their spectrograph was ready to receive the samples and the rest of the equipment was sterilized. For being untrained as most of them were, the techs had done a good job of getting the space ready. She only had to make a few adjustments. Still, she found it hard to be still and wait for Fitz' return patiently, so she found herself checking all the equipment again, and repeatedly checking on the progress of some of the other projects she and Fitz had going- such as a full work up of the Maveth shards to discover what gave it such unique properties. Each time she found the progress disappointing, however, and so couldn't be more relieved when Fitz finally arrived with the samples.

Upon hearing the hangar doors engage she flitted out of the room and towards the west doors, the techs on her heels. She hastily put on her protective suit and entered the hangar just in time to see Fitz stepping off the Bus with care, trying to manage a large shielded case that dwarfed him on top of a briefcase of tools and instruments. Jemma rushed towards him and reached out her hand just in time to stabilize the organizer that was about to lose its balance.

"Fitz! I told you we need to be careful with these! Honestly, what do you think you were doing?" She scolded, gently removing the case from his grip. The techs rushed around them into the Bus to retrieve the remaining equipment and samples.

"Sorry Jem. But I'm sure they'll be alright. They're basically rocks after all."

Jemma chafed a bit at his cavalier attitude. "Rocks that contain an unexamined isotope with unknown decay and radioactive effects!" She corrected.

"Well then, we better get started, huh?" Fitz replied with a grin, all but ignoring her lecture. Still, she couldn't help but return his smile as the excitement of discovery came over her. This was when she was truly happiest, she thought. All of the secret agent stuff, leave that to the others. She belonged in the lab with Fitz, making discoveries and inventing things that would go on to save good agents and help good people. She sometimes wished she had realized that three years ago. But for now she just turned on her heels and made her way back to the lab with the chamber they'd set up.

Jemma got there well before Fitz and began delicately removing the vials and baggies from their transport. When Fitz arrived, he gave her more information about each of the samples.

"Um, that one... That one is from 958 meters inside the cave. Elevation about 1465 meters above sea level. Data set G." She held up another "yeah, that… 623 meters inside cave, 1479 meters above sea level. Data set B- er no. C."

Eventually they finished sorting all the samples and began the work of prepping them for the various tests they were planning to run. Later on she would find it odd that none of the samples they looked at together lead to an interesting anecdotal story. But surely he was tired after the misssion.