CHAPTER 7
Everything happens suddenly.
There's a loud crack as though something breaks to pieces and then the gateway disappears in front of them. Skye jumps back, barely hiding a shriek while Fitz's eyes widen.
"No!" He exclaims and steps forward, making the frequency sensors buzz wildly but the window is gone and he's only looking at the shreds of the medpod. The room is quiet again.
No, no, no…
He crouches down to check the generator and sees that the solution has lowered exponentially but there's still residue in the tank; whatever caused the communication to disrupt was from the other side. Fitz feels a wave of dread at the thought that something might have gone wrong there.
That the Jemma he had seen might be-
His heart starts pounding in his chest.
"Fitz?"
He looks up and his mind-Jemma is there by his side, smiling softly. She gently puts a hand on his shoulder.
"It's alright," she whispers. "We don't know anything about this but there's no need to think the worst. Think about the possible variables here. The drive-"
"-drive could be def- def-"
"-defective or it might've broken up under the strain, yes. Or she might have run-"
"-run out of the solution..."
"You see? There are so many variables to think about! And... Fitz, you did it! You established contact with another dimension for a few minutes. It was an outlandish concept and you did it."
"We did it," he whispers softly, looking at her, feeling his heartbeat steady again. "We did it, Jemma." She beams at him and he feels his lips quirk up too.
"Fitz?"
He looks up and sees Skye staring at him with a cautious expression.
"It worked," he says, standing.
"Yeah..." The hacker glances at the spot where the gateway had opened and shakes her head. "It's crazy but, yeah, it worked."
"Did you see her?"
"Yeah, Simmons..." Skye looks away for a moment and Fitz ignores the fact that her eyes have taken a glassy sheen. Jemma's death had been hard on all of them but he and Skye had taken the brunt of it.
"It worked." He wants to make a point. He isn't crazy or disillusioned: he knows what he's doing. He knew from the start even though the chances were very low.
"Yeah, I know, Fitz," Skye remarks. "I saw her, but that crack? That sort of old-TV-buzzing-sound? You don't- We don't know anything about it. It could be dangerous..."
Fitz doesn't like her tone.
"I can try again," he says, glancing at the generator. It worked well: the cooling sensors managed to stop the over-heating process. And the frequency sensors didn't activate.
The gateway had been stable.
"I think we should leave." She stares at him again, eyes flitting across his face. Fitz wonders what she thinks right now about him: is he still borderline crazy or has he regained sanity?
Skye smiles uncertainly. "I think that today's attempt has been enough. Maybe you can try again once we know more about it?"
Fitz knows that he won't get to try again. She's going to tell Coulson probably, and she'll surely tell May and Trip about this. They won't let him.
"Skye does have a point, Fitz." He turns to his side and Jemma is there. "The solution worked but it depletes awfully quick. Perhaps, we can find a way to make it last longer..."
He nods at her and turns back to Skye. The hacker's face is troubled but she smiles that forced, uncertain smile again.
"We'll try another day," he concedes and she looks immensely relieved.
They leave the vault without gathering any of the devices or equipment and head back upstairs. They're both quiet and Fitz's fingers drum softly on the back of his tablet as he walks, thoughts swirling in his mind.
Skye tries to coax him into coming to the common room but Fitz declines, saying that he's tired and he needs to rest. Surprisingly, the hacker doesn't insist and that just cements his suspicion that she's going to tell everything to the rest of the Team.
When he shuts himself in his bunk, Fitz taps on his tablet as soon as he sits on his bed.
"What are you doing?" He looks up and Jemma is there again.
"Skye will tell Coulson about it," he remarks, tapping on the screen. "He won't allow it to happen again. You saw her face: she thinks that-"
"-it's dangerous. Well, I can't blame her for thinking that."
"But I know wha-what-"
"-what you're doing. I know, Fitz." She sits next to him. "What are you going to do?" She asks softly and he looks at her.
"I'll try again tonight: I have another vial of solution."
"I thought May helped you make only one of it."
"I hid one from her; I told her that I broke a vial while putting it away. You know shaky hands and all..."
"Oh Fitz! You're terrible." She looks almost reproachful. How many times had he seen that expression at the Academy? Why does it still make his heart clench?
"Then you don't want to know what I'm doing now."
She peers at his tablet.
"Is that the camera feed?" Jemma queries, looking at him. He nods. "You can't shut off a security camera: people would notice. Koenig monitors those cameras the whole time."
"I can rig the feed. Put a video on loop for a few hours." He looks at her. "Just for the time that I get down in the vault and... talk to you again."
"You are talking to me now."
"You know what I mean..."
She blinks at him and smiles softly. He looks at the tablet and allows his finger to slowly tap the screen again.
He needs to see her face and hear her voice.
He needs to look at the real Jemma once again.
"This is actually a bit thrilling."
"Really now?" He looks at Jemma -mind-Jemma, he corrects himself- with an amused look.
"Well, yes!" She looks affronted. "We're sneaking in the dark, going to do something that's probably prohibited-"
"Technically, I am," he corrects. "I'll end up in trouble if I'm caught."
"I won't leave you alone."
Fitz wonders how that single sentence can illicit joy and scare him altogether…
He walks into the vault and is glad to see that the generator and sensors are still there. He feared that the team might have hidden everything away…
Now or never, he thinks, taking out the vial of solution. He just hopes that Jemma is there on the other side to see him.
-:-
"What happened?" Skye asks hesitantly, watching from the bunk's doorway as Jemma pulls a duffle bag from under her bed. "He didn't fire you did he?"
Jemma pulls open a drawer and begins to move her clothes to the bag. She shakes her head. "Arguably, it's worse."
"Worse?"
Jemma turns toward her friend, a sweater clutched anxiously between her hands. "He's sending me undercover."
"What? Where?"
Jemma shrugs and tosses the sweater onto the bed behind her. "I won't know the details, but it's at the Hydra labs. I'll know more when the mission is ready to be executed. I'm meant to leave tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?!" She plants her hands on her hips and screws her face. "That's ridiculous. Was he really that mad? I mean it's not like you broke anything. You didn't even… what would you call it? Jump? Cross over?"
Deflated, Jemma sits on the edge of her bed, her fingers twisting in her lap. "I compromised the investigation into Fitz's death. Now they can't use the medpod as evidence against Garrett when they put him on trial. Coulson thinks he'll likely go free."
"Garrett's a psychopath," Skye notes matter-of-factly as she moves to sit next to Jemma on the bed. "If they don't get him for Fitz's death, there are probably hundreds of other deaths they'll nail him for."
Jemma sighs; the hacker is right but Coulson's order stings just the same. She's a terrible liar, always has been and she feels woefully unprepared to work in a lab next to actual Hydra scientists. Then there's the small matter of the gateway and possible bridge to another dimension she'd managed to create.
Skye wraps her arms around Jemma's shoulders. "You need to stop beating yourself up over Fitz's death. There's nothing you could've done differently."
Jemma disagrees.
"Did I ever tell you that Fitz and I dated once?"
Skye pulls her arms back and squares her shoulders. "What? No! When?" She sputters. "Did you guys break up? Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Jemma shakes her head. "We never broke up. Not exactly anyway. It was barely two weeks that we were together, right before we got picked up by Sci-Ops. It seems stupid thinking back on it, but we'd both agreed to put things on ice."
"Ice?"
She smiles at the memory. "Yeah, literally. We wrote everything down on one of these superhydrophobic sticky notes that Sci-Ops had just approved for distribution. The paper doesn't dissolve so we stuck it into a jar filled with water and put it in the freezer. It was rather funny at the time. I suspect our old landlady probably found it after… well, after we'd been forced to go underground and couldn't pay our rent anymore."
"What did you write on the note?"
She shrugs. "That we wanted to revisit the idea of an 'us' when things calmed down, when we weren't constantly in demand by S.H.I.E.L.D. When things were easier. We didn't want to have to worry about each other all the time…"
"And you did anyway...?"
Jemma nods. Her fingers brush against her face, erasing evidence of the tears that had managed to escape down her cheeks. "He was my family, Skye. He was all I had." She pauses and takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I miss him."
Skye squeezes her hand. Jemma knows that her friend is unsure of what she can even say to ease her pain, but the silence is comforting its own way. It allows her to think more clearly, to consider all possible solutions.
Something that Skye had said earlier especially echoes in her mind.
You didn't even… what would you call it? Jump? Cross over?
"Will you help me?" Jemma asks, breaking their silence.
"Help you? With what?"
"I want to open the portal again. I want to see Fitz once more." What she doesn't say is that she wants to cross the bridge, wants to see if she can jump to Fitz's world.
Skye's mouth falls open and she bounds to her feet. "No! I don't know anything about your little science project and from what Mack said it sounds terrifying. And dangerous."
Jemma sets her mouth, stubborn and unrelenting. "I'm going to open it again. But I'd like to do it with you at my side. I could really use your help."
Skye's jaw cletches. Jemma can tell that she's considering her offer, that a part of her wants to help.
She shakes her head. "And if it doesn't work?"
Jemma shrugs and measures her reaction. She knows that it will work, it's whether she'll survive that's in question. She decides to stick with what she knows to be true: "Then no one will be the wiser and I'll leave for Coulson's mission tomorrow."
"And if it works?"
"I'll get to see Fitz again." And make things right.
Skye pales but only nods in reply.
"Will you help me?"
The hacker purses her lips as if mulling over the offer. Jemma is certain her friend will try to talk her out of travelling and she wonders if she'd made a mistake in asking. Perhaps Mack would've been a better choice.
At long last Skye nods, slow and unsure. "I'll do it. I'll help you." She pauses before raising her eyes to meet Jemma's. "But give me 15 minutes. I need to… I need to grab my computer. Just in case," she adds hurriedly. "I'll meet you there."
...
The minutes seem to move at a prolonged pace and when she glances at her wristwatch for what seems like the hundredth time, she notes that the time is already pushing past the twenty minute marker. Skye is still no where to be seen. With a shake of her head Jemma begins to unpack and unravel the equipment on her own, grateful that she and Mack hadn't found time to load the Asimovian on to the cart as she could never have moved it by herself.
"Hey." The door to the vault opens suddenly and Skye slides into the room, her laptop satchel at her side. "Sorry I'm late," she says removing the bag from her shoulder and tucking it into a corner. "Coulson was pacing the common room." She grabs one end of the box that Jemma is trying to lift and helps her ease it on to the floor.
"How're you feeling?" Skye asks suddenly and Jemma looks at her curiously.
"I'm fine."
Her eyes narrow, studying her. It's obvious that Skye doesn't believe her reply and seems to expect an addendum.
"Really," Jemma assures. "I'm fine. I just want to get this all done with. I want to try again."
There's a pause and then, "Have you seen Doctor Thomas yet?"
Jemma frowns, she hates that everyone is so suddenly involved in her well-being. "I told you, Skye, I'm fine," she insists. "I don't need Doctor Thomas' help. I need yours right now. Please?"
Skye shakes her head but relents just the same and over the course of the next few minutes, together the two women make light work of unpacking the remaining boxes. When everything is set up, Skye steps back and Jemma moves to inject the Ruang solution.
"Is that the stuff that opens the portal?" She asks, her eyes darting toward the door of the evidence vault.
"Yes," Jemma confirms, pressing down on the syringe. "In just a mo-" A thunderous pop interrupts her, its sound reverberating off of the walls of the room. "There!" She cries out excitedly over the sound. "It worked!"
She can already see Fitz materializing on the other side of the dimensional window and her lips bloom quickly into a smile.
"I'm so sorry, Simmons," Skye says stepping back from the medpod, her head shaking and calling Jemma's attention. "I told you before that we were worried about you."
The door swings open and a stunned Jemma watches as Coulson and May march toward her. Confused, her eyes dart between the director, May and Skye, seeking answers.
"Step away from the medpod, Simmons," Coulson orders, coming to a stop and motioning her toward him. "What you're doing is too dangerous. You're putting the team at risk. You're putting yourself at risk..."
She shakes her head in reply and looks into the medpod at Fitz who stares back at her bewildered. His hand twitches and she bobs her shoulders, begging him for a solution. He doesn't say anything in return, his mouth opening and closing as if struggling for an answer. At long last, his palm opens and he motions for her.
Come.
Jemma looks back at the three agents who are oblivious to what she's been invited to do. It's life or death; she could survive or…
Everything could collapse.
She pinches her eyes shut, dares herself forward and steps into the vortex of the gateway, allowing it to swallow her whole.
To be continued...
Please leave a review if you can, we'd love to hear your thoughts!
