Thanks for Monker for much needed input
Jenna Simmons reports to Medical on the helicarrier. Fortunately, she hadn't required Melinda to frog march her there, but she had walked slower than her norm. She feels like a freak show attraction as everyone is staring at her.
"You should have reported here yesterday," Dr. Streiten snaps.
To Jemma's surprise, Melinda interjects, "I'd like to request another doctor. Perhaps one with a degree in bedside manner?"
The fearsome and redoubtable Melinda May crosses her arms and stares down Streiten, who has the decency to look embarrassed and a tad afraid. Jemma wishes once more that she was as strong as Melinda.
"My apologies. It's been a long day which started yesterday when your team arrived. You did a good job getting Coulson here as quickly as you did. The bleeds were minor, fortunately, and we were able to stop them before permanent damage occurred. I don't think he'll like his new haircut, but it will grow out." Streiten explained.
"Do you have any female providers?" Melinda asks.
Streiten nods his head in silent understanding, while Jemma is so terribly, terribly glad that Melinda had asked..
"I'll ask Anita. She'll meet you in the second room on the left."
Jemma quickly realized that Melinda May was not planning on leaving her side. She did give the younger woman the courtesy of turning her back when Simmons changed into the exam gown. That was it, as she then refused to leave the room.
"I'm staying," Melinda finally announced. "During the intake exam, it's always good to have someone you know with you during the process. When I was extricated out of Bogotá, Phil stayed with me for the entire intake. So it will be me, unless you prefer Ward."
"No, he doesn't like us," she said. Ward had always projected a thinly veiled contempt for FitzSimmons and recent events had proved that he had been correct. There had been a slight thaw between Fitz and Ward after the two men had their little adventure with the separatists. However, she and Ward had never gotten particularly chummy.
To her surprise, Melinda shakes her head. "He's got issues. The entire team has their idiosyncrasies, which is why Phil selected us. It would be difficult for Phil to have a team full of perfectly well adjusted agents after dealing with the Avengers."
While Jemma ponders that comment she is examined by Anita Robles, a pleasant Hispanic with a lightly accented voice. The exam is thorough and she is glad when it is finished. She wasn't anticipating some of the questions Anita would ask were the ones she had already been asked the very same ones. No, she hadn't been sexually assaulted. They had only torn her shirt and Agent Coulson, she is very careful to use his title, Agent Coulson had prevented more from occurring. She had been hit several times but once again, she mentions how Agent Coulson had protected her by shielding her from the worst.
Simmons refuses to admit to being drugged, because she's not proud of what happened when she was under the influence. No, she much rather forget the fact she had crawled into Agent Coulson's lap, kissed him and flirted with him.
Flirted. Badly, she might add.
Did everything except beg him to do the honors.
"Would you like to be mine?"
God, he had been so ... nice... about it. Claimed he was honored and flattered... Phil had even sounded a little regretful which had made it even worse for her. And then the guards had torn her shirt, causing her to realize that IT would happen, in front of Coulson, she couldn't even dare to look at him. But she had, just a brief look, and he had looked... so ... sad.
Not angry.
Just sad.
As though he had failed her.
Simmons is diagnosed with assorted healing cuts and lacerations, physical exhaustion along with a bruised ankle. When Melinda asks if she wishes to visit Coulson, she's reluctant but she finds herself tagging along after the force of nature known as Melinda.
She's not sure what to anticipate when she's in his room, but not what she sees when she enters the room. The normally lively Phil is just so still. His head is shaved, from what she can see of it, and he's still vented. It doesn't faze Melinda as she talks to him about what's happening to the team and throws in some SHIELD gossip. But his very stillness, the harsh mechanical inhalation and exhalation of his ventilator assisted breathing disturbs Jenna greatly.
It's her fault.
"They're planning on hurting me tomorrow. They'll make you watch because they think you'll talk then...I wish I was like Melinda... she's brave. I'm just scared...she'd just glare at them and they'll fall over dead. Please talk," she whispers. "I'm terrified and... I would die if you... watched them..."
She curls up in a chair and says nothing. She's still wearing Coulson's old leather jacket. It's old, as it's weathered and broken in. There's even a patch on the inner lining, A patch that looks suspiciously like Captain American's shield. And it smells like his cologne.
When Melinda is finishing motivating Phil to get well soon or else face her wrath, she informs Jemma that she'll be back in ten minutes. After that proclamation, she abandons Jemma. Leaving Jemma alone with Phil.
She should say something, even though she doubts that Phil can hear her. Instead, she takes his hand, the one without the IV and she kisses it. It's the closest she'll ever get to fulfill her naive crush, after all, but she needs to do something to express her thanks. The minutes drag by and she realizes that she must say something.
"Thank you," is all that she can bring herself to say when she should say so much more, but she drops his hand when he squeezes it.
His eyes are still shut, fortunately, so it's a reflexive action. Yes, that's what it is. Nothing more.
But she leaves his room, and nearly runs into Melinda.
"Time for Karla," Jemma cheerfully said. Her chipperness sounds fake even to herself, but Melinda just gives her a cup of tea.
"Just call me Karla," is her introduction to the psychologist that she's supposed to reveal all her deepest, darkest fears. Jemma answers questions when prompted but doesn't volunteer anything and Karla nods her head when even gentle prompting leaves Jemma mute. She feels utterly talked out and exhausted.
"I'll see you tomorrow, same time," Karla informs her. "You did very well today."
Tomorrow?
When she leaves the office, she's relieved that Melinda May isn't waiting for her. Her relief lasts for a minute, as Skye and Ward appear. The dangerous duo seems very pleased with themselves, which means trouble.
"How about pizza?" Skye asks as she takes her left side.
"Or Thai?" Ward inserts from her right.
"It's movie night on the bus," continues Skye. "Your pick."
They escort her to the bus and she gratefully exhales once she's back in a familiar area. Familiar and safe. It's almost like a nest, a cocoon of safety, as her team surrounds her, accepts what she will say and won't say and... she feels .. safe for the first time in far too long, except there's an empty seat at the table that no one mentions.
There is Thai and Italian, and dear, dear Fitz, her soul brother in geekiness, has selected all her favorite movies for movie night. He even provided her favorite comfort food, a rhubarb apple crumble just like her mum's.
But the very normality of it all greatly disturbs her. She wants to slip back into being Jemma Simmons, but the very fit of being Jemma is off. There are sharp, jagged edges where there once were smooth curves and... and... she feels as though is bleeding from a thousand minute cuts. However, they've done so much for her that she feels obligated to stay, when she much rather hide in her bunk,
After she pleads exhaustion, she retreats back to her bunk. It's not the widest of beds, but she's able to twist and contort herself into the fetal position. It's easier for her to pretend that Coulson is lying next to her, intent on protecting her, rather than facing the truth. That's he's post op, lying in a hospital bed because of her.
Jemma doesn't sleep for long, so instead she finds her way to her lab. She's been away for a while, so it probably needs a little tidying. There's dust everywhere, which simply will not do, as she does not wish a memo from Coulson reminding them that the bus is a privilege so to keep it clean. She energetically cleans her work area as is quite dusty.
She hopes it will help clear her mind and exhaust her body so she can sleep, but she is distracted. She remembers where she stood when Phil had called her Jemma first the time, when she was ill from the alien virus or how she had miserably failed at flirting with him. Her feeble flirtation of "Fantastic shape for a man of your age," had earned her a grimace and a hurt "That's what you say to old people."
She scrubs and scrubs at her workstation, until it gleams. Everything is ship shape, she sits at her examining table and she wonders what to do next at three in the morning.
Nothing to do, except keep company with her dark thouhts.
When Melinda May enters the lab, a startled Jemma nearly falls off her chair. Melinda ignores her jitteriness and Mama Duck Melinda gives Simmons a hot steaming cuppa.
They drink in silence for a bit and then Melinda speaks. "It ... gets better. Some days it will be worse, and some days, it wouldn't be so bad. Then in time, you realize that the not so bad days outweigh the really bad days."
"And the good days?" Jemma asks.
"Cherish them."
Melinda May, Mama Duck, gives her ducklings an assignment. Someone is to be with Simmons at all times, within reason. Fitz is easiest, as he brings his latest toys and magazines to Jemma and they have a rapid fire conversation that she can't understand. When that's done, the FitzSimmons watches "The Princess Bride" and quotes the movie verbatim. But is there tenseness in Simmons, as though her formerly tight bond with Fitz has been strained?
Skye decides a pedicure in a god awful shade will cure what ails Jemma. Melinda watches, carefully, and she realizes that she's not sure how the two women act normally when they're together, let alone after such a trauma. However, the two of them chitchat and giggle as the proper Jemma is mortified by the various polish names. Really, Red Thong in Divorce Court? Limbo Bimbo? Big Daddy? Melinda decides that she'll need to keep her eyes on that pair if for no other reason that for the gossip alone.
Ward is difficult. He's not sociable, but Melinda sees him in an unguarded moment with Jemma. The two of are sitting next to each other on the couch and she can see how Simmons seems... close to sleep. She's still wrapped in Coulson's jacket, but she's not hiding in her bunk, at least.
Hmm... She feels safe with Ward, safe enough to sleep, so Melinda decides once again that there's potential for Ward. But Jemma's wearing Coulson's jacket still.
She needs to sound out Jemma, for she understands a great deal of what the younger woman is experiencing. However, she worries that she isn't the right person for the job, because she has never ever been as young as Jemma Simmons is.
Her chicks accounted for, she returns to Coulson's hospital ward as they are removing the tube today.
"Cough," orders Streiten. Coulson does so and the various technicians murmur about whatever his cough has revealed. There is a very serious frown and a headshake.
"Put a little backbone in," snaps Melinda, so he coughs harder and Streiten approvingly nods his head.
"Went into the wrong field," the doctor opines, while Coulson shakes his head. If Melinda serving cookies during an interrogation was enough to cause near heart failure in a Boy Scout, he'd hate to imagine Melinda in the healing arts.
"Keep breathing," the doctor orders as he pulls the tube out of Phil's throat.
His first instinct is to panic, but he's been through this before, and not so long ago. Keep breathing, he reminds himself and he keeps breathing until the panic fades. Fortunately, Phil keeps breathing so the various medical personnel leave the room, so it's just Melinda and him.
"You have quite the reputation, Phil. No one thought it odd that you were able to transcribe novel length notes while they were prepping you for brain surgery," Melinda quips.
He laughs, but it hurts and he coughs, earning a headshake of disapproval.
"I knew what you wanted to say to them, so I just scribbled it for you," she admits. "Simmons came out physically ok, bruises, cuts and her ankle. She's emotionally as well as you would expect her to be. Just so you know, you insisted that she be permitted to stay with the team instead of being reassigned for treatment. You are really quite demanding, Phil."
Again, Coulson smiled.
"Glad you got my six," he rasped.
"Karla agreed as she thinks separating FitzSimmons would be a poor idea right now. We're allocated Singh and Diaz temporarily. They're...solid... so it will be good. Our next mission hasn't been assigned yet."
"Thank you for visiting. Though next time, don't curse me out when I'm 'snowed'," he quipped. "They only gave me enough of the good stuff to keep me floating, not under a glacier."
"You heard everything?" Melinda had the grace to look concerned as she had been rather... derogatory.
"Stupid idiot was the kindest. I think there was a rather acidic comment about an old man needing to prove his virility?" Phil asked. He pondered that quote for a moment and then smiled. "That was you, not Skye or Ward. I couldn't really understand Fitz, as he was being rather Scottish."
"Coulson, her crush on you," Melinda begins.
"The two of us discussed it in the cell. They drugged her with a truth serum and... I know about it from her," Coulson rasped. "She also knows nothing will ever come of it. I assured her that I was honored and flattered."
"Phil, you're such a man." Melinda snorts her disgust.
"Thank you. I take that as a compliment." Again, he coughs a laugh and Melinda shakes her head.
"Her crush on you is part of the problem she's having right now."
"Didn't lead her on," he protested.
"No, that's part of the problem. You're polite, sincere and respectful, you always smell good." That earned an amused snort from Coulson, fortunately, sans coughing. "She admits that she has a crush on you. Then you do a Coulson..."
"More of a Romanoff," he inserted. "With a bit of Banner."
"In order to protect her."
"They threatened to rape her in front of me so I'd talk." He closed his eyes as he remembered how a terrified Jemma has asked him to please talk, the moment when the enormity of what was about to occur had crystallized for Jemma. He needed a moment to compose himself and then he continued. "You're wrong. I would have done the same if it had been you."
"I know and I would be grateful, even though I'd lambast you for letting your personal emotions overrule your head. Now, get some sleep," she orders. "She's feeling guilty right now. Plus I don't think her crush has abated, not one bit. Be careful with her, Coulson."
"I never comment on the fact that the 2/3 of the team has a crush on you," he protested. "I never tell you to be careful."
"I thought it was just Ward, Fitz and Skye. Who is the fourth?" Melinda asked. Then she narrowed her lips in disapproval. "You do not have a crush on me. Philip Jonathan Coulson."
"The way you kick down barn doors? I'm such a fan boy," he dryly admitted. "I want to be Melinda May when I grow up, though I'd prefer to keep on being a boy. Changing the subject, if you bring the team by, call ahead and warn them to cover my head. I look like Frankenstein with all these sutures."
"I've seen worse."
"Kids haven't," Phil retorted
In response, Melinda re-arranged his blanket and sighed, "You can't protect them forever. You can't wrap them in bubble wrap."
"I know," he admitted. Then after a long time alone with his thoughts, he asks, "Where we ever that young?"
Agents Singh and Diaz are a pair, in every sense of the word, so they fit in nicely with each other. They also mesh well with everyone else on the bus, but Jemma feels a sense of betrayal. Shouldn't there be a little loyalty for Agent Coulson?
The team had trooped into see Agent Coulson before their first mission without him. He had been fresh from the operating theatre, so he had been tired and groggy. It had been quite the rowdy party in his room, so the nurse had called security and requested that the entire team be escorted off the floor.
She hadn't had a chance to talk with Agent Coulson as security had been quite insistent. Besides being paged after them being in the room for only three minutes. So as she left the room, she had pretended not to hear Coulson's soft, "Simmons?"
She's in her bunk, curled up with a book, when her Stark Pad chimes. It's her email alarm, so she reaches for it.
It's from Coulson. Her stomach falls to her toes and she swallows. Nervously.
She taps on the email.
Hi.
Nurse Ratched is permitting me the use of a computer for a few minutes. Let me know how you're doing.
Phil
Really. It should be horribly simple to send him a quick email. Just a quick note, nothing too in-depth. She carefully types.
Phil.
No, no, too informal.
Agent Coulson.
Too formal.
Dear Phil.
Better, but still not quite right.
Well, perhaps she can decide what salutation to use when she actually has something to say, so she saves her response in her draft folder. There's work to be done, so she decides to go to the lab.
The next afternoon, there's another email in her inbox.
Not sure if I have the right email for you. But it hasn't bounced back – how are you doing?
Phil
She'll write him tomorrow.
But tomorrow, she's busy, busy, busy as the team is on a mission, so her skills are needed. It's important that she's useful so she works until very late at night, almost early morning to complete the analysis. The next day there is still more to analyze so she works in her lab until she's physically exhausted enough to sleep.
Two weeks go by with daily emails from Phil until finally, nothing.
A week worth of no emails from Phil.
Well, while she worried about him, there are enough astringent comments from May for her to realize that Phil is still emailing.
Another week of no emails, which is quite good. It's giving her plenty of time to write Phil... Agent Coulson... back. She has plenty of drafts saved. Several of them even have sentences. One even has a full paragraph. It took her hours to type it though it says nothing.
Then the radio silence (email silence?) ends.
Jemma.
Please tell me how you're doing.
I won't email you again, as your silence says so much. Just tell me how you're doing.
I'm deeply concerned. If you need anything, let me know.
Please.
Phil
Jemma wishes she could tell him the truth. That she's trying hard to keep it all together but she feels herself fragmenting from the stress and the guilt. She can't tell Agent Coulson that... because she knows that he'll feel responsible.
Grant Ward had caught her unawares in the kitchen, and for a moment, she had gotten confused. Instead of his familiar features, in his place, there had been the dark haired HYDRA agent who had torn her shirt. She had stepped back, and in that moment, she had realized.
Safe.
She was on the bus, with her team. A team that she didn't gel with as well as she once had. Even her relationship with Fitz had changed. Fitz has been watching her, a bit too closely, after she had snapped at him when Sleepy had buzzed her.
"Get that bloody thing away from me," she protested as it did loopy-doops around her head. She swatted at it and Fit had looked wounded.
Really, it was just a machine, why the sad puppy dog eyes?
"I was just trying out the new rotational gyrospheres," he excitedly exclaimed. "You hit it and damaged Sleepy."
"Just keep it from buzzing me," she retorted. "Shoo!"
Sleepy went back to its fellow brother drones with a soft purr and Leo Fitz looked at her. His expressive face is full of concern and he reminds her of Coulson at that moment. So much that she can't bear to look at him. "How are you? And don't lie to me."
"I'm..." she began.
"Look, I know you've been through a lot, and, you probably don't want to talk about it. But, if you ever DO want to talk about it, I will listen." Leo Fitz said that quickly, so quickly that Simmons almost didn't understand what he said. "I also want you to know that if I had been there, I would have protected you. Like Coulson did."
"I know you would," she says, because she knows Fitz would have.
"I wouldn't be able to take out an entire Hydra base with a wooden chair, but I would have gotten you out. Jemma, please talk to me," he pleaded. "You seem so distant. I want Simmons back."
"I can't. " She desperately wants to talk with someone, but she can't share her convoluted feelings with Leo Fitz. He's... too... innocent. Like she had been, before...
"What can I do for you?" he asks.
"Help me keep it together," she pleads. "I can't let them know that I'm having problems as they'll take me off the team. I want to be here. I need to be here."
Her work is keeping her functioning. She fears that they will take it away from her and she will have nothing but the memories and a Stark Pad full of draft messages.
He nods his head and she relaxes. She should have trusted Leo, but... she's changed.
"If there was anyone," she begins.
"I know," he says. "Best mates."
A few weeks later.
There have been several more failed attempts at emailing Phil, but they are still in her draft folder. There are several dozen of them, ranging from just the salutation to seven sentences. Seven disparaging sentences full of her upset and self-blame.
It's my fault you were hurt. I just wish I could ...
"AC's back tomorrow," Skye announces during their weekly poker game. Simmons looks Melinda who says nothing but who was wearing a slight smile.
Jemma knows that she needs to return Coulson's jacket by tomorrow. She should do it now, but she's wearing it and it would be obvious if she returned it during the middle of the game. Perhaps, she'll fold her hand, claim an early night and return his jacket to Lola.
"He won't be allowed on any combat missions, but he'll be allowed to handle the paperwork," Melinda admits.
The gang cheers and Jemma tries to smile.
"Actually, I'm back now," said a familiar voice in a very stern tone. "You've gotten sloppy. I got on the bus and no one stopped me."
He's grinning, and he's thinner, but it is most assuredly Phil Coulson who is standing in the doorway. He's dressed in a suit, but there's a new addition to his outfit. He's wearing a fedora, set at a rakish angle.
"What's with the hat?" Melinda asks. "You look like a G-man."
"My hair is really short. I haven't worn a high and tight in decades, and I can't carry it off. Plus the surgical site scars are rather obvious. I find it makes some people uncomfortable. So, can I play?"
He is warmly welcomed back home with a few hugs (Skye, Melinda and to Simmons' great surprise, Ward hugs Coulson) and a firm forearm clasp, (Fitz) and then he faces her. She's not sure what to do, so he squeezes her hand.
Coulson leans her way while everyone's moving around so Coulson can sit and he whispers, "You never contacted me while I was out. I wrote you, you never wrote back. And you've stolen my leather jacket."
She flinches and he smiles. "Don't worry. Wear it as long as you need. The bus is rather chilly."
He sits next to her at the table, his legs bumping with hers, and they're close enough to be sitting hip to hip.
Simmons never realized how impossible it was to hide from someone on the bus, until she attempts to flee from Phil. He catches her once, and he's about to say something, but instead he says nothing. He just looks at her, still wearing his too large leather jacket and he says nothing.
But he looks so sad.
The team is called in for a debriefing on their first assignment with Phil back in charge. It's really rather simple, a nice, easy extraction, so Jemma will have to do nothing.
"Dismissed," Coulson announces. The team makes a quick retreat but then she hears, "Agent Simmons, I need to speak to you."
He points at the chair in front of his desk and he's busy scribbling.
"Fitz, I only need Simmons for this conversation," he announces.
Fitz looks plaintive and Simmons gives him a quick smile. Coulson continues to write until Fitz leaves. The pen is placed on the desk with a loud click and Jemma attempts to fake a smile. Coulson holds up his finger, aka The Finger of Coulson Censure. He pulls out a folder from a desk, and begins to count papers. Silently.
"One, two, three..." he mouths. By the time he's done, he's easily in the double digits. When he's done, he hands the paperwork back to her. "Your resignations. Denied. Your requests for transfer. Denied."
She hangs her head.
"I want to clear the air between us," Coulson says. "Is there any particular reason you're avoiding me? Why you've submitted your resignation? Requested transfers?"
She says nothing.
"It's a small bus. The others will notice if you flee the room every time I enter, that you're the last one to arrive at our meetings, and the first to leave. You look exhausted. How are you? How are you processing recent events? Do you need someone to talk with?"
Again, she says nothing.
"Are you embarrassed?" His voice is soft and compassionate. "Don't be. I sincerely found it very flattering."
Yes, that why he's never alone with her. Why Melinda always chaperones them. He sits next to her and instinctively, she pulls away from him. His eyes slightly in surprise... and in hurt?
"Or is it something else? Are you afraid of me? Don't be. I'm still Phil Coulson, like I've always been. Just a little more banged up. A few more scars."
Scars that are her fault. A road map of scars which he hides with a hat whenever he's in the room with her. He doesn't wear the hat when he's with Melinda or Ward.
Just when he's with the kids.
"When you feel comfortable talking to me, you know where I am," he finally says after a long silence. "Dismissed."
She flees, like he's the very devil himself. He's not sure how to proceed when Melinda appears.
"Simmons' upset. What happened?"
He shakes his head in defeat and Melinda says nothing.
Her inner tension mounts over the next few weeks. At first, Coulson tries to talk to her, but she brushes him off, claiming that she's always busy. Then he stops making the effort, limiting their conversations to the case at hand. When she's unable to manage more than a few words, he starts leaving the room when she enters. If she comes in for tea in the kitchen, and he's there, having coffee, he'll return back to his office by the time her tea is done.
He stops attending movie nights and the poker nights, and he infrequently attends the communal meals. When they meet in the various locations in the bus, he says hello and nothing more.
While her life is biochemistry, she is not a firm believer in better living by biochemistry, so the prescribed pills have been left in the bottle. Tonight, tonight she decides she'd like to sleep, so she takes two, in the hopes of a deep, restorative sleep. She hasn't had a decent night's sleep in what seems like months.
Instead, she has nightmares. She wakes screaming, as the guard yanks at her shirt while Coulson watches and she relives Coulson getting bludgeoned with the butt of a M16 over and over again. Though in these dreams, he smiles a bloody grin at her and says, "You never emailed me. I endured all this for you, to protect you and you couldn't be bothered to email me. I thought you fancied me."
The guard raises the gun...
She starts to weep and she realizes that everyone is standing outside her bunk.
"Everyone can leave, I'll handle this," Coulson says in a calm voice. "That means you, Fitz."
"But," Fitz protests. However he is silenced by the Coulson Finger of Chastisement.
There is silence and then everyone is leaving the area while Simmons continues to cry.
"I'm sitting on your bed and my feet will be on the floor. Here, have my handkerchief," he offers. "A good cry is usually what the doctor ordered. Let it out. "
Coulson moves to the opposite end of her bunk and he places his back against the wall.
"I spoke with Karla today. You skipped the last three meeting with her claiming world emergencies. You're not getting the help you need, so I'm letting you win this battle of wills between us. Make no mistake that I'm up to fighting you on this but your mental health is more important to me than winning. Therefore, I'm finally agreeing to your sixteenth transfer request, which means I'll likely lose Fitz. However, there are two conditions attached. First one, you're speaking with Karla every day until the team goes on furlough. Second one is I promised you a celebratory weekend of jazz, dinner, separate hotel rooms after we left the Hydra Hilton. You prefer Boston? Or DC?"
"You ..." She just wants to retreat and heal. "Don't have to."
"Yes, I do. Because you and I will hash this out between the two of us. I thought we had a good working relationship. You'd talk about concepts I couldn't wrap my brain around and I'd tell you to make it happen. Dare I admit that I thought we were friends? I was mistaken as you never answered any of my emails. Not one single one. Are you that embarrassed? I told no one. I assured you that I was honored and I was flattered. I was sincerely flattered and I would never take advantage..."
He runs of steam and he stops.
"When you're off the bus and back in your lab, remember, I let you win."
Jemma says nothing.
"I worried about you because you were thrown into a situation you should not have been. I agonized because I didn't know if you were getting the help you needed. I would have done anything to help you; if you weren't comfortable talking to Karla, I would have found someone else at SHIELD. I... You just wouldn't or couldn't answer me. Instead, you went around me with easily two dozen transfer or resignation requests," Phil stops talking and takes a deep breath. "So my only question is... Boston or DC?"
"You don't..." It's a weak protest.
"I keep my promises," he softly interjected.
"You do," Simmons says.
"Part of my promise to you was that I would protect you. In my mind, that means I must protect you from yourself. You're relieved of duty effective immediately."
"Don't take the labs from me, I'll be stronger," she promises.
"You've been very, very strong, Jemma. Now let me take over," Phil said to her. "I backed off as I could sense how uneasy you were with me near you. I shouldn't have, but I thought it would be easier if you didn't have to face a constant reminder of HYDRA Hilton on an hourly basis. Now, I am not ordering you, but I am asking you to please see Melinda so she can give you something so you can sleep."
"Will you escort me to Medical?" Jemma whispers.
"I will not escort you..." Coulson paused and then in a softer tone, "I'll walk with you."
She stands and to her surprise, Coulson puts his hand on her shoulder.
"I wanted to be..." she stops and shakes her head. "I wanted to handle this like you and Melinda would have."
"You're not Melinda and you're not me, so you should handle it the way Jemma Simmons would. You didn't fail. The only person that failed in this was me, because I should have tried to get you help earlier. If you had only answered me, just once. Come, let's go to Medical. Do you want me to stay with you until you're asleep?"
"Would you?" She whispers.
"Yes."
Melinda is waiting for her in Medical. Jemma Simmons sits on the bed and feels like a complete failure. She is completely exhausted and wishes she could sleep for the next week.
"Just a small pinch," Melinda informs her even as she feels the pinprick. "Go to sleep, Jemma."
The two senior agents help her recline and Jemma reaches for Melinda's hand.
"You told me that it gets better. Some days it will be worse, and some days, it wouldn't be so bad. Then in time, I would realize that the not so bad days outweigh the really bad days. You told me to cherish the good days, but I haven't had one yet."
Jemma Simmons looks at Phil and she whispers, "I want a good day. Just one, where I'm not afraid."
"You'll have one," he promises, even as he covers Jemma with a blanket. In a very soft voice, he adds, "Now, sleep. I'll watch over you while you sleep."
The exhausted Jemma falls asleep quickly and Phil Coulson pulls up a chair so he's sitting next to her bed.
He stays, until she wakes.