A/N: Let the new content begin! Fitz rescues Jemma, but is he too late?
Chapter 2
In the end, it takes nine agonizing days before he has a workable solution. He plans, drafts, and builds machine after machine in a whirlwind of unprecedented productivity. Even before the pod, he never built with this speed or accuracy. Now that her life is on the line, he seems to find some hitherto unknown reserve of skill and talent. It's a pity that he's far too caught up in saving her to notice it.
Everyone on the base chips in where they can, which mostly involves fetching random pieces of technology or forcing him to stop at least once every eight hours to eat something. After two days of furious protest at the interruption, he finally relents to their efforts, deciding that he'll lose less time if scarfs down whatever they bring him than he will trying to get them to leave. No matter what he consumes, it tastes like ash.
By the ninth day, he's poured over her sparse notes and the countless measurements he's taken so many times that he can recite them effortlessly. The shadows under his eyes and pallor of his skin have taken on an almost unearthly quality. Privately, his teammates reflect that he didn't look this fragile even after being dragged from the bottom of the ocean, but they wisely keep their observations to themselves. They know well that they'll lose him too if they can't bring her back. For as much as they bickered in the past months, they are still a matched set. The tragedies they've experienced have only brought that truth into sharper relief.
Nearly to the point of giving up hope as he runs low on even fanciful ideas, he passes a frustrated hand through his already mussed hair. When Skye accidentally knocks one of his tools to the ground, he whirls around, ready to take out his frustration on her before the sound makes him pause. In years to come, he'll never be sure if the feeling of his world slowing down was because of his utter exhaustion or because of the certain clarity he has in that moment.
Briefly, as it slides off the metal table and clatters to the floor, the tool resonates loudly, and the sound inverts his understanding of all the data he's memorized over for the last week.
"Resonant frequencies," the people in the room hear him mutter once before he shouts. "Resonant frequencies! That's it!'
He continues to ramble as his wild thoughts finally coalesce into what might actually be both a feasible and effective plan: "If I can find the natural resonance, maybe add some lasers to measure, and perhaps electromagnets, yes, to boost and contain, then destabilize the bonds…"
Equations and numbers run rampant through his head, and he's hard pressed to get down the most important ones on paper before they slip away to make room for more. In mere minutes, he sketches out a rough blueprint of the device he needs and feels his confidence skyrocket. It will work. It has to.
He takes only as much time as is absolutely necessary to render a few diagrams and flowcharts for the benefit of his teammates before sprinting to Coulson's office. It pains him to acknowledge that Simmons wouldn't have needed the visual aids to understand his plan. If the Director finds Fitz's disheveled appearance and manic expression disheartening, he makes no comment. He listens carefully, only understanding about half of the jargon, but comprehending immediately the danger Fitz's plan could present for the base, Fitz himself, and Simmons.
"I need you to run some computer simulations and at least one small scale test before we try using enough power to completely destabilize the stone. We don't know if Simmons is trapped inside or if it whisked her off to another dimension. Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Coulson warns.
Fully prepared to throw caution to the wind to get his partner back, Fitz bristles at the thought of having to jump through hoops. To his mind, his plan is flawless with the only exception that they haven't put it in action yet. Still, he knows that he won't get anywhere without Coulson's blessing, so he agrees to the tests, grumbling under his breath as soon as he exits the office.
He needs only a few hours to put together the devices and design a control program. This solution is so elegantly simple he wonders why he didn't think of it sooner. Simmons would have, he's sure.
After confirming the viability of his plan through the computer simulations, he is ready to witness his devices in action. His frustration nearly reaches a breaking point when Coulson and May insist that he run the test remotely. Coulson refuses to risk the safety of anyone on the base even if it means getting Simmons back. If they can rescue her, Simmons will be beside herself if another agent is harmed in their attempt, and he has no way of knowing whether or not the Kree artifact can be contained again once they set it loose.
Fitz finds his caution grating, but he follows the orders to the letter, hoping that his cooperation will put them that much closer to rescuing Simmons. Since he hadn't been at all concerned with the aesthetics of the design, the configuration of lasers, electromagnets, and other assorted technologies he cobbles together and places about the room seem closer to a shoddily completed child's science fair project more than the work of a genius engineer. A few of them wonder if he really has lost his mind when they see the final product, and Coulson feels sure that he's made the right call in ordering these tests. He's not entirely sure what Fitz's devices will do, if anything, and he's only willing to find out now that they are as far away from the Kree stone as they can be.
They all stand in silence as Fitz powers up his devices. For the first few minutes nothing happens, and they glance at him warily, but he looks completely unfazed. Soon, they begin to hear a low kind of humming, and the surface of the stone starts to waiver slightly, like asphalt on blazing summer day. When the top left corner begins to lose its structure, almost as if it's melting, Coulson calls for Fitz to stop the test, but he carries on, unable to stop now that his efforts are finally having the desired effect.
"Shut it down now, Fitz," he barely hears Coulson shout. The blood is rushing in his ears. He's close, so close to getting her back, and it's all he can think about. Nothing else matters.
"I said shut it down!" Coulson yells again, swiftly moving toward the distracted engineer.
Mack reaches Fitz first, and pulls the pad from his grasp to key in the necessary sequence to halt the test. He's just finished when something briefly emerges from the material. Everyone's eyes widen as they catch sight of a hand just before the stone solidifies once more.
Fitz immediately reaches for the pad, perfectly willing to wrench it from Mack if necessary. She's there, and they can get her back. It takes little effort for Mack to fend him off, more because Fitz is about to collapse from exhaustion than anything else.
"Give it back, Mack. She's there. We've got to get her out!" he splutters and spits.
"Fitz, that's enough," May commands, her tone abiding no refusal.
Fitz quiets immediately, but his eyes dart frantically between the screen and the pad still held out of his reach.
"We can't know what will happen if you run it at full power, Fitz. We need to take precautions before you do, for her sake and for ours," Coulson tries to reason with him.
"Triple check the security of that room and figure out a way to run Fitz's device without compromising it or bringing down the base," he instructs Mack.
Turning to Skye and May, he rattles off more orders: "Go check in with the medical team. Let them know what's going on, and help them gather whatever they might need. I want them standing by when we do this. We don't know what kind of shape she'll be in when we break her out, and I want them prepared for any possibility."
"I want everything ready first thing in the morning. If I have my way, this will be the last night she spends stuck in whatever the hell that thing is," he gestures to the monitor.
Turning to Fitz last, he reaches out his hand, but pulls it back immediately when he sees the younger agent flinch. "Fitz, I know you want to get her out right now, but we have to be ready. I only want to have to do this once, for everyone's sake. We'll need you at your best when the time comes, so please, try to go get some sleep."
Fitz starts to protest before he thinks better of it. He knows that there will be no talking Coulson out of his asinine plan. His best option is to help Mack with the prep work to speed up the process, and that is exactly what he intends to do.
Unfortunately, his teammates know him too well. May had been prepared for any number of possible outcomes for this field test, knowing that Coulson would never allow Fitz to run the devices at full capacity even if the result were positive. There were just too many variables to risk it. With ease and efficiency, she jabs Fitz with the hypodermic needle and injects him with a mild albeit fast-acting sedative. Fitz is out like a light almost immediately, but he has just enough time to spin around and stare at her with accusation and disbelief.
"He's going to be pissed when he wakes up," Mack states bluntly as he hauls Fitz into a fireman's carry in preparation for the trek back residential wing of the base.
"I know, but at least he won't be dead on his feet. If something goes wrong, he'll be the only one who will be able to fix it. We need him well-rested when we try this," May responds coolly. She hates this situation as much as any of them. She'd handpicked the duo after all, and she always feels at least partially responsible when anything they're involved in goes wrong.
It's late in the evening when they finally finish the necessary preparations. With the first seed of hope in their hearts since they discovered what happened, they retire quickly, trying to get a few hours of sleep before they set their plan in motion.
The drug wears off as quickly as it had taken effect. One minute, Fitz rests on his bed, deeply asleep. The next, he bolts upright, his eyes darting around the space frantically to determine where he is. Though not as restful as natural sleep, the forced respite has given his brain time to recharge, if only a little. Reaching back to rub the sore spot on his neck, he silently curses May before realizing his luck.
It's late, which means that nearly everyone will be asleep. If he plays his cards right, he should be able to get back to the storage room and free Jemma before anyone is the wiser, Coulson's plan be damned.
Creeping silently through the corridors, he first stops at the Garage, searching the space in the dark and praying his intuition is right. A moment later his fingers curl around his prize. Just as he expected, Mack had left his pad on his usual workbench. Clutching it firmly to his chest, he darts back into the hallways, taking the long route to the storage room, hoping that he won't run into any of the few agents who will still be awake at this time of night.
Fate, it seems, is on his side, as he enters the room without encountering a single person. He works quickly to recalibrate the devices and make minute adjustments to their placement throughout the room. Once satisfied, he opens the door to the container, fully aware that he is very likely condemning himself to the same fate if anything goes wrong. Still, if it works, he doesn't want there to be any chance of the stone reforming around her.
Taking one final breath, he picks up his pad and begins keying in the sequence to activate the devices.
"You gonna turn them on?" Mack's voice echoes in the room.
Fits jumps at the sound, biting out a question as he tries to calm his racing heart and steady his now trembling hands: "How did you know I'd be here?"
"You're too in love with her not to do something stupid," Mack offers. He'd been suspicious earlier due to Fitz's easy acceptance of the delay and had set a few alarms to notify him if Fitz entered either the Garage or this storage room. Clearly his instincts had been on the mark.
"Don't try to stop me!" Fitz warns in a panic, knowing full well that if Mack wants to stop him he will be defenseless against it.
"Wasn't planning on it," Mack responds easily.
He hates the Kree stone with every fiber of his being, but for once he thinks Coulson is being too cautious. If ever there were a moment to take a chance no matter the risks, it was earlier when Jemma's hand had appeared. Feeling guilty for his part in that aborted rescue effort, Mack had decided to help Fitz if he attempted to free her before the time Coulson appointed. There is no point letting the woman suffer any longer if she is alive, he thinks, and no point dragging out their need to mourn her if she isn't.
Momentarily stunned by this show of solidarity, Fitz can only gape. Then, he shakes his head as if to clear it before entering the final commands to start the program controlling the devices.
"Get ready," he warns Mack as he splits his attention between the screen and the currently solid stone.
Again, nothing happens at first, but even sooner than before the stone's surface begins to shimmer and lose structural integrity. Fitz pushes his devices perhaps a little harder than he should, but he is too close to having her back to act logically.
When Fitz has destabilized the material to the point that Simmons is mostly free of its hold, he can't decide which sight is more horrifying: her apparently lifeless body or the seemingly sentient stone trying to maintain its grip. As soon as he dares, Mack reaches out a hand to grab Simmons, perfectly aware that he is throwing himself head first into a very dangerous situation. The Kree material pulls at her like quicksand, and he has to use every bit of his strength to yank her free.
When they tumble to the ground, Fitz can't even look over to make sure they are safe. He has already initiated the second sequence of commands intended to force the stone back to its solid state, but it's not going according to plan. All he can manage to do is halt its movement for a split second before it resumes boiling and advancing toward his teammates. He pours himself into the task of containing it, modifying his program on the fly and boosting the power to his devices far beyond where he should.
As Fitz struggles to keep the material at bay, Mack gently but swiftly arranges Simmons on the ground, her waxy, cool skin and dull eyes leading him to believe that all their work may have been for nothing. When he grasps her wrist to check for a pulse, he's surprised to find one, weak and thready though it is, but his relief is short-lived when he realizes that she's not breathing. He immediately begins mouth-to-mouth, hoping that they aren't too late to revive her and get her to the medical wing for whatever care she needs. A few minutes in, he also begins chest compressions when he can no longer feel her pulse.
All the while, Fitz keeps up a steady stream of curses as his fingers fly across the pad. Eventually, his daring and some might even say reckless modifications start to work consistently. As each minute passes, he comes closer and closer to forcing the Kree artifact back into its solid state. As soon as he finally does, he drops the pad to the floor and slams the container door shut before re-engaging the locks. Panting, he turns quickly to Mack and Jemma.
By the time Fitz finishes, Mack is lightheaded from his efforts, which have been in vain. Despite the attempt, Simmons has not resumed breathing on her own and he can't seem to restart her heart. Fitz falls to his knees beside them right as Mack gently closes the lids over her soulless eyes.
Crushed, Fitz can only watch Mack's actions in horror. He feels a huge piece of himself die with her, and he briefly wonders if this was how she felt when he pressed the button in the pod. Perhaps for the first time, he understands her fear. If he'd known this was what it would feel like to lose her, he would have been hard pressed to ignore the desperate desire to wrap her in cotton and hide her away from anything that could harm her. Swallowing back the tears that will fall no matter what, he reaches out to pick up her hand, intending to lay it across her chest.
As soon as their hands meet, he feels a shock run through his skin, and he can only watch in amazement as her back arches and she sucks in a raspy breath before her body collapses back to the ground, her chest rising evenly as she beings to breathe on her own. Too stunned by the sudden turn of events to move, he leaves Mack to check for a pulse.
"I don't know what the hell you just did, Turbo," he pants, still a little out of breath from his rescue efforts, "but she's back. Heart's strong and breathing is steady."
When Fitz's tears finally fall, they are from joy rather than sorrow.
As Fitz watches over Jemma, Mack wakes the rest of their team to alert them to this latest development. Coulson is disappointed in their actions, but he's not surprised nor is he sorry for the outcome. When they settle Simmons in the quarantine room, he doesn't even have the heart to scold Fitz, who has finally lost the haggard expression that has been his constant companion for days.
They aren't surprised when Simmons does not regain consciousness the next day or the day after. Her body had been through a traumatic experience after all. The medics take the opportunity to run every test they can think of to ensure that her time in the stone has had no ill effects. They are shocked when they discover that her body shows no sign of issue other than slight dehydration. It's as if she's been in stasis all the while. Convinced for the moment that she poses no greater threat than usual, they move her into the makeshift medical wing with Bobbi, where they have more access to equipment should anything go wrong unexpectedly.
When she remains unconscious for several more days, they begin to worry that she might never break free of the coma. They have rescued her from her physical prison, but they never considered that she might need help escaping a mental one as well. The medics assure them that continued unconsciousness is a common way for a body to cope with trauma, but the team can tell that they are just as concerned with Simmons's lack of progress.
For days, they take turns sitting with Fitz as he holds a never-ending vigil at her beside. The joy he had so recently found at her rescue fades into worry laced with mild panic the longer she fails to awaken. Bobbi bares witness to the tragic scene, her own slow recovery no longer the loudest thought in her mind. She and Hunter have had their share of horrific experiences, the most recent perhaps the worst of all, but she always knew he loved her, and she knows that he is sure of her love for him as well.
She feels fairly confident that Simmons hadn't been able to articulate her feelings for Fitz before this latest separation. They had been clear enough to Bobbi during their conversation before all hell broke loose in San Juan, but the duo hadn't seemed any closer to reaching an understanding on that front before the battle with the inhumans. As she watches him in what must be a tragic reprise of Simmons's experience of his coma, she hopes desperately that they'll have the chance.
A/N: She isn't dead, but she's not out of the woods yet. I hope you're enjoying this fic so far.