Two Weeks Later

Jemma was already ready for bed and it was only a quarter past eleven, the earliest she'd managed this entire week. As much as she knew there was still work to be done in the lab, the warm little room and the soft pillow supporting her back as she read were absolute bliss.

"So what do you think?" Fitz's question woke her from her head and she glanced up from the glow of her tablet to find him staring expectantly.

"About…?" How long had he been talking? Did he start when he'd plopped the laundry basket onto the bed? Before Tracker had leapt up to lay his, slightly slobbery, labrador head onto her lap?

"You're still working aren't you?" he guessed, a glint of amusement in his eyes she thought might have been there partially to hide his concern. He thought she didn't notice it but she knew he was still worried about her. "When did I lose you?"

"I'm not actually sure when you started talking," she admitted sheepishly.

He tossed a ball of socks at her, playfully scolding, and it rolled down her tablet to land on her lap. Tracker sniffed at it, but left it alone. He was well trained, a bomb sniffer dog that usually lived with Fitz's partner, Hunter, but they had him for the weekend while and he and his ex-wife re-acquainted with each other in Tahiti.

She sighed. "I'm sorry, I know we never see each other as it is, what with the both of us working all the time, but…"

"But people need us," he finished. Setting the now empty basket on the floor, he crawled in beside her, snuggling against her so that she was sandwiched between him and the dog. He gave Tracker a pat on the head as she made herself comfortable, leaning into the crook of his shoulder.

"Actually, it turns out that I need people this time," she mused wearily. "I may need to… involve someone else with Delta Two…"

Fitz scratched his chin, frowning. "Do you think that's wise?"

"It's necessary," she sighed. "I've hit a wall. I found the protein, I've located the gene that encodes it, but…" Her head shook in defeat. "I'm unable to replicate it. I've tried bacterial vectors, but they won't incorporate the alien DNA. Even if they could I'm not sure they have the proper machinery to read it. I'm putting alien biology into something terrestrial, they have no common ancestor, not an ounce of shared history and it's like…" She passed a hand over the top of her head, searching for a comparison. "It's like trying to get a CD player to read a floppy disk. I'm not sure how I can mass produce it. I need help."

"And you think this Dr. Camellia can help?" he asked, glancing at woman who smiled back at them from the tablet.

Someone had drawn an intricate red flower on her lab coat, on the left side where she might place a name tag. Jemma didn't like it when the younger researchers did that, it could obscure their ability to spot possible contaminants, potentially posing a safety hazard, but it wasn't actually against any of the rules.

"Dr. Raina Camellia received a PHD in molecular genetics at nineteen, and has worked in the biotechnology sector for Hydra Incorporated for over a decade," Jemma read. She closed her eyes, pushing her cheek against his chest. "She's perfect, but I…"

"You're not sure if you can trust her," he finished, planting a quick peck on her forehead.

"I'm not sure I have much of a choice Fitz," she mumbled.

He pulled her closer, tightening his sideways embrace, and he didn't need to speak for her to know how concerned he was. This was a big decision, a frightening one. If she were caught she could be fired from her job, or even sent to prison. No one had ever been tried for stealing an alien species before, but she was certain that the penalties would be steep and the thought of risking that by admitting what she'd done to a complete stranger had her stomach tied up in knots.

It wasn't only her life at stake though, it was everyone's, and time was ticking. Each day she wasted, someone else died and ever since Westfield the deaths weren't faceless for her. She still woke up in the middle of the night, cheeks streaked with tears and shaking from head to toe until Fitz woke up too and bundled her up in his arms, cradling her against him. Sometimes it seemed to take ages for her to stop seeing them, pale faces, men and women… children… bodies lined up in rows behind a plastic curtain. And sometimes, on the very bad nights, she saw her. She saw brown eyes, bloodshot and terrified, heard her wheezing breaths, knowing that there was nothing that she could do to stop what was happening to her.

"I'll come with you if you'd like," Fitz offered, his soft voice a lighthouse on rough seas.

"She might think it's strange I'm bringing my boyfriend with me," she pointed out.

"Yeah well I think all of this is pretty strange anyway, don't you?" he mused. His fingers slid down her cheek, pausing at her jawline. "It's your choice Jemma, but if you want me to I'll come… so long as no one's trying to blow up another hospital."

"You shouldn't joke about that," she scolded.

"It's not so much a joke as it is our reality," he reminder her darkly.

Her eyes scrunched and she hid her face against his chest. "Oh God," she muttered. "How did the world end up here Fitz? Two years ago no one knew what VPE was and now..."

"And now you're going to be the one to cure it," he finished firmly.

She smiled, wondering if it were possible to fall even more in love with this man than she already was. Every time she thought she'd hit the bottom he pulled it out from under her and she was soaring down through clouds again.

"What were you saying earlier?" she mumbled into his shirt. Maybe she'd be more comprehensible if she sat up but he was warm and he smelled like fresh laundry.

"Oh… it's nothing…" he dismissed. "I just was wondering if you'd… well it was a bad idea."

She lifted her head, watching his awkward expression. "Tell me."

He shrugged. "I was wondering if you'd like to go out for dinner Friday night."

"You mean a date night?" A smile crept up into her cheeks.

"Yeah," he rubbed the back of his neck bashfully and she noticed fondly that he was blushing. "I know you've been busy… and you're probably tired but…"

"I'd love to," she said. His smile broke into a grin and she kissed his stubble. "We could use a night to ourselves for a change."

Fitz eyed Tracker meaningfully and she giggled at him. "And we'll make sure no one disturbs us when we're home. I'll hide a few treats in his cone."

"I was thinking an Italian restaurant?" he suggested, folding his arms around her when she sank back into him. "The one by the water."

He knew it was her favourite. Just like he probably knew how badly she needed a break. He yawned loudly, his chest expanding beneath her like a balloon and she wondered if he knew how badly he needed a break too.

She nuzzled against him, glad to be home together. "It sounds perfect."

/-/-/

Dr. Camellia was wearing a red flowered dress when she met her at the front entrance of the building on a sunny Friday morning. Jemma introduced herself, thanking her for taking the time to meet her and then waited in silence as she was issued a visitor's pass by the security guard at the front desk. It wasn't Ward today, Jemma had made sure of that.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket as Dr. Camellia was filling out her name, and she anxiously glanced through the notification, shoulders sinking in relief when it was only a new news station picking up the story. SSR News was always behind, Fitz often joked that they were practically living in the past.

Together, she and her guest took the elevator down to B3, where most of the biochemistry labs were, and then ducked down a narrow hallway that led to nearest staircase down. Their footsteps echoed off the sheer stone walls and it wasn't until they'd gone down four more levels, to B7, and reached a thick burgundy door, that Jemma spoke up.

"I trust you'll be discreet?" she checked awkwardly, ears perked and eyes peeled for anyone who might have followed, even though she knew that was unlikely. "I meant what I said over the phone, the people I work for… they…"

"They don't see what needs to be done," Dr. Camellia said calmly. "I understand. I can't believe they wanted you to kill it," she added regretfully. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity and she leaned forward slightly as Jemma pulled out the key to the first door. "What's it like, the alien? She must be beautiful."

Jemma smiled and held the door open for her, nodding for her to proceed through. "She is, like nothing I've ever seen before. She started off aquatic but her gills were reabsorbed about a week ago and now I'm keeping her in a dry environment. Rocks, a few plants and some water. She'll only eat meat though, so it's been quite expensive keeping her fed."

Delta Two was sleeping when they entered the lab, but she perked up at Dr. Camellia's presence, crawling over to the nearest glass wall and tilting her head. She took a deep sniff in through her nostrils but Jemma wasn't sure how much she'd be able to smell with the glass in the way unless her sense of smell was particularly sensitive. It might be, she had no light sensitive structures, smell and hearing were her primary senses and she often took a good wiff of the air when Jemma came in in the morning.

She was doing a little more than taking a wiff now though, this was the first new person she'd encountered since Fitz and this time that had piqued her interest. The head tilt was indicative that she was listening closely, Jemma thought that the tilt unbalanced her ear slits, allowing her to better pinpoint the source of a sound. Owls had ear slits that were built in unevenly for that exact purpose.

Dr. Camellia was as entranced as Delta Two. "Isn't she magnificent," she murmured. "And she's only a month old?"

"And already almost as big as her mother," Jemma marveled. It astounded her, how quickly she was maturing. "Unfortunately her offspring are still arrested at a very early stage of development. I'm not sure what triggers them to reinitiate growth."

"Well we'll just have to add that to our list of things to figure out, won't we?" She stood up straight, painting on a confident smile. "Where did you want to start?"

They spent the next few hours making slow but steady progress and, though Jemma was thrilled to at last be chipping away at the wall that had previously impeded it, she also couldn't stop her eyes from wandering back to her phone, rechecking her notifications in case she'd missed something. It didn't help that the media felt the need to remind the public what was going on each half hour, even though they didn't actually have anything new. The chorus of dings the overlapping reports set off where more than a little distracting and she'd nearly jumped out of her skin the first time it had happened.

Her anxiety was not lost on her new lab partner.

"Is there something wrong?" Dr. Camellia asked, tilting her head towards the phone when another round of beeping caught their attention. "At home trouble?" she guessed.

Jemma skimmed over the report, noting nothing new, and let out a long sigh. "Not exactly at home," she told her. "It's the Clairvoyant group again, have you heard?"

She shook her head, but she didn't look surprised. "They've bombed another hospital?"

"They tried," Jemma answered. "Someone found the bomb though. The police sent a team in to disarm it and my boyfriend…" A sharp pain jabbed at her chest and the words halted in her throat."

"He's a doctor?" she guessed.

Jemma shook her head, smiling bitterly. "He's a bomb squad technician."

She couldn't bring herself to keep eye contact at Dr. Camellia's pitying expression. She didn't need the reminder. He'd done this more times than she cared to count but every time it still felt like her world had come to a standstill. Every time it still felt as if the air were too thick to breath.

Another electronic symphony rang out from her phone and when she leapt to read the update it was at last something new. Something terrible.

….the explosion happened at 3:07 pm, still no word on what is happening inside the building…

Her stomach lurched, her head spinning as she leaned back into the chair.

"It's bad?" Dr. Camellia guessed.

Jemma could only nod, numb from head to toe. They still didn't have any information on what exactly had happened. There was absolutely no reason for her to expect the worst. She'd gotten news like this before. Mack would have called her if anything had happened to him…. unless Mack had been in there with him.

For a full minute, she couldn't move. If the air had been heavy a moment ago, now it was suffocating. She couldn't stop herself from seeing Fitz in the hospital, the way he'd been two years ago, when he hadn't moved for nine whole days. She saw him behind a wall of plastic sheeting, lined up with the dead, and she shut her eyes tightly, trying to block it out.

'That doesn't even make any sense,' she scolded herself. 'This isn't the same thing, this isn't Westfield.'

She saw his injuries, strange how much detail she could remember, the pattern of black and red that had made it's way down the side of his head, onto his neck, angry burns on his chest and arms. She remembered each broken rib, where his arm had fractured, the colour of the cast, of his broken fingers...

"Hey."

Dr. Camellia's soothing voice brought her back out of her head and after few deep breaths, fingers gripping the edge of the bench, she'd calmed herself enough to realize she'd started crying.

"I- I need to…" She sniffed, swiping the back of her sleeve over her eyes.

"Do we need to go?" the other woman asked. She was already standing to grab her coat when Jemma managed a jerky nod.

The trip back upstairs was blur, Jemma leading the way through the well traveled passages like a ghost floating through it's last steps. When Ward was the one at the front desk, and he wouldn't let Dr. Camellia leave without signing back over the visitors pass, she was sure she was going to burst out of her skin. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to shout at him and even then she couldn't keep her agitation from contorting her features.

"You go on ahead," Dr. Camellia urged. Ward made to protest but she snared him with a flirtatious smile, leaning forward slightly to rest her elbows on the desk. "You don't mind walking me out, do you?" she asked him.

He cast another stern glance at Jemma but his gentleman facade won over and his attention returned to Dr. Camellia, matching her smile with enough of his swindling charm that Jemma nearly gagged. "Of course Ma'am."

Free to leave at last, she sped out the doors and into the parking lot, trying to remember the quickest route to the Mercy West Hospital as she jogged across the pavement.

/-/-/

Thanks to notapepper for betaing this chapter and suggesting the terrorist group be called "the Clairvoyant Group"

Mercy West is named after a hospital in Grey's Anatomy (I think they're rival hospital) because... well bad things happening in hospitals is pretty much the staple of that show :P

The lyrics are from the song Little Pistol by Mother Mother, which I feel like is just a good song in general for Jemma in S2/S3 and also in this story (although as of yet I have not written her possessing a gun, it's the fear thing)