Later that evening, Mack checked on Jemma as she worked on her computer at the small table in the kitchen.

"How's it going?" he asked, folding himself into the chair across from her.

She sighed heavily. "Besides the fact that now I have to figure out who among the people that could help us haven't been blinked out of existence?"

"Besides that," he said, deadpan.

"Everything is going great."

"What a day," he offered.

"Each one better than the last," she said, but even she was getting tired of her pessimism. Then again, they could all excuse her if she couldn't choose to remain sunny in the face of her husband's death and a universal genocide. "You know what I would do if I had a time machine?"

"Do you really want to mess with that again?"

"If I could go back in time and tell SHIELD Academy me not to join SHIELD? I would. I've thought about this a lot. Then Fitz and I would just be in a lab somewhere curing and creating things instead of... this." She spread her hands in front of her, then let them fall to the table.

"But would you have been together?"

"I think so. Looking back, I think it was inevitable that we were going to be together. We've been together almost half our lives. There was never room for anything else, and I have always been grateful for that, because I have never known anyone like Fitz. I've never loved anyone like I love Fitz. I can't imagine ever loving someone like that again." It wasn't like her to just spill her feelings, but she was so raw inside she no longer cared. Maybe talking about it would make it better or make it worse, but she had to get it out somewhere.

"We're going to see to it that you don't have to try."

She looked at him pointedly. "Sure, if he didn't disintegrate this morning," she said, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice.

"You can't think like that," he said. "You have to have -"

"Hope," she finished for him. "I know that, but it feels like we're all out of that here. With everything that's happened, it feels like nothing is ever going to be right again. People keep walking on eggshells around me, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Do I keep it together? Do I fall apart? Because I'm afraid if I fall apart I'm never going to be able to put myself together again, and I can't do that. Even after all we've lost, I don't have five minutes to just deal with it. I cannot afford those minutes right now."

"Is there somewhere you need to go? We can put this bird down at any time. Have you checked on your family?"

She nodded. "I managed to get in touch with my mum and dad this afternoon, so somehow they're both still here. I kept it brief, told them I was out on a mission, and when they asked about Fitz I told them he was busy. I don't know how to explain to them what happened if I can barely explain it to myself. That's another thing about this life. I can't tell my family anything, and I am always away from them, barely able to stay in touch. They're scared by what happened today, and I can't even be there with them."

"I know how you feel," Mack said. "I haven't been able to get a hold of my brother yet."

"Oh, Mack, I'm so sorry. I hope he's okay, and maybe he's just dealing with things or the lines are jammed." She reached across the table and put her hand on top of his.

"Hopefully that's all it is," he said, not quite making eye contact with her.

"You know you were like the big brother Fitz never had, don't you?"

"Don't say that..."

"But it's true."

"A big brother would have done better by him, Jemma. I... I didn't. I was too harsh, and I didn't even try to help him when I clearly saw him struggling. Who does that?"

Jemma shook her head, but pulled her hand away. "I've already had a variation of this conversation with Daisy. Everything was going wrong at once, and that had implications for everyone. You can't keep beating yourself up for what happened. I was right there, and I didn't see it until it was too late, because he didn't tell anyone, Mack. I didn't know the stress was going to push him over the edge, because I didn't realize there was an edge. I didn't like how it happened either, but in the end he saved us. His mistakes changed the loop and allowed it to break. They allowed Daisy to save the world, not allow someone to shatter it. The methods may have been wrong, but he gave us everything he had, including his life. It's not up to me to say if it was worth it, because I have to live without him. But the Fitz I know, my Fitz, would not want you to live with that guilt. He lived with enough of his own, and he wouldn't want anyone else to bear it. So please forgive yourself, Mack? It's what we'd both want."

He gave her a slight smile. "I'll do my best."

The last person they knew who had seen Fitz on Earth was Hunter, and it had been a week since Jemma and Daisy had used every source they had to try to track him down. It was anyone's guess why he had gone off the grid, but now it was a matter of whether that was voluntary or involuntary. None of their sources could get a lead on him at all.

"Well, now what do we do?" Daisy asked after one last hack into his personnel files yielded nothing.

"I don't know, but I feel like I'm about to go into desperation mode," Jemma said. "I don't have any clue where else to start to figure out what kind of ship FItz is on or where it is, and with so many people gone I might not be able to find anyone who has that information."

Daisy sighed. "There has got to be a way to figure this out. Would Fitz have left some kind of communication in case anything went wrong?"

"I've been through the limited things he had with him, his phone, his computer, all of his email accounts, his documents, and I can't find anything. He never left details because I guess he never thought it would come to this. Frankly, it never occurred to me either that he would leave behind a paradox. If I can find him, I'm glad he did. If not, I've lost him all over again."

"I know," Daisy said. "And we can't even get any advice from Coulson or May because I guess they really did throw their phones in the ocean, which was not smart."

"Well, this is what it feels like to be the grownups now, I suppose. We're on our own, so we're just going to have to figure it out." She looked up and caught Daisy looking sad. "We could go back to Tahiti..."

Daisy snapped out of her reverie. "Nope. We're supposed to wait for contact from May. If they're still out there and anything happens, she'll let us know."

"If you're sure," Jemma said.

"I'm sure," Daisy said and walked away.

Jemma knew she wasn't the only one who needed time to grieve these days.

They had made several stops in various countries to help with some of the aftermath of what the news was now calling the Reckoning. The reckoning for what, Jemma couldn't say, because she could hardly fathom what an entire universe had done to deserve such pain and chaos at the whims of a madman. Maybe it had been that way for centuries, and maybe it always would be. All Jemma knew was that she was tired of the ways people - human, inhuman, or alien - could come up with to hurt each other.

She had dreamed of a life of adventure with her best friend at one time, but that was back when she didn't know it came with so much heartache, destruction, and loss. Everything in her craved peace, and now she feared she had lost her chance of ever achieving that.

Everywhere they went she saw parents without children, children without parents, husbands without wives, and wives without their husbands. Desperation, grief, and panic was all that ensued as people tried to reconcile their new existence. She knew what they were going through, because her own loss had been just as sudden.

She found Mack and Daisy up late one night when she couldn't sleep, their heads together in front of a screen, and what seemed like reams of Robin's drawings spread all around them.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked tentatively.

Daisy shook her head. "No, of course not. We're just trying to interpret these in any possible way we can, and as usual it's not going well."

Jemma sat down opposite them, and sighed deeply. "I was hoping we would never see any of these again."

"You're not the only one," Mack chimed in. "No offense to Robin, and I know it's not her fault, but these things are as clear as mud. Until they're not, which is the problem."

"A problem with which I am familiar," Jemma said. She frowned slightly. "What are you even looking for? Aren't these old?"

"Mostly," Daisy said. "We were just trying to see if there was something we might have missed. You know, in relation to Fitz."

"I see," Jemma said. She felt she should have offered to help, but she was just too tired to even try to make anything of the cryptic drawings.

"Couldn't sleep again?" Mack asked.

"No. I'm exhausted in virtually every way possible, but it's getting harder and harder most nights. I did have a question, though. For you."

Mack looked at her expectantly.

"You told me a few days ago we could set this ship down anywhere. And I… So I was wondering if we might go to England for a bit."

Mack shared a look with Daisy, then glanced back at Jemma. "I don't see why not."

"Thank you," she said. "And, no, before you ask, no particular reason. I just feel like I need a little time to think, and home just might be the place to do it. Even if I can't really see my family or anything, it's still home."

Mack nodded. "I understand. I'll tell Davis to set coordinates for..."

"Sheffield."

"To Sheffield, then," he said.