Ward thrust one of the stools against the door, smashing it again and again with a string of loud clangs that drove into Jemma like nails, not managing to leave so much as a dent.
"You aren't going to be able to get it open like that," she told him tightly. Her stomach was already buzzing, each second that slipped away feeling like piece of her being cut out and the noise he was making her nerves feel like fire. "That door can withstand a bomb, you're wasting your time."
"At least I'm doing something," he growled. "Instead of sitting around here waiting for that thing to come pick us off."
"We're coming up with a plan," May's calm voice kept her anger at bay, like a wall against storming seas, barely containing it enough to shelter the harbour. "All of us want to get out of here."
He snorted, dropping the stool which clattered onto the floor, making Daisy flinch while Will and May eyed it uneasily. "And whose fault is it that we're in here?" he demanded, shooting Jemma a glare. "You just had to go and bring that monster down here instead of killing it like you were supposed to," he accused fiercely.
Jemma bristled. How dare he? Now of all times. "I needed it to create an-" she growled but he cut her off with a scoff.
"You needed it? You still don't regret it, do you?" he asked incredulously. She clenched her jaw, furious that he had the nerve to say something so callous. He had no idea what she was feeling right now. Not a damn clue. "After what you did?" He pressed, and the waves surged dangerously high, threatening to tear through the barrier that kept her from lashing out, screaming, going mad. "You smuggled a dangerous animal down into a secure bunker-"
"I was ready to take the risk for the greater good," she shot back, fighting to keep her composure. "People are dying. We need a cure and we need it now."
"Did those two die for the greater good?" he challenged, jerking his towards the freezer where they'd sealed off the bodies. "Do you think your boyfriend thought he was dying for the greater good when that thing you brought here was ripping him to-"
He'd barely finished the sentence before she was lunging at him, consumed by a primal rage, a deep seeded hatred that was only rivaled by what she was already feeling for herself. She wanted to hurt him, or goad him into hurting her, she didn't care. Anything to take her attention away from the shards of glass grinding against her heart.
May caught her, pulling her back when she struggled to continue forward. "Come here you bloody coward!" she spat. She tried to pry May's arms away, straining to continue forward. "Let me go!"
"This isn't helping Dr. Simmons," she asserted, her grip like a vice and after a few more seconds Jemma gave up, breathing hard and seeing red. When she continued to glare at Ward's taunting face, May added more gently. "Fitz might still be alive, we need to focus on finding him if he is."
If he is. She'd heard his scream, knew how helpless he'd have been against the creatures raw strength, his flesh like rice paper to her piercing fangs.
Tears welled up behind her eyes and she bit down hard on her tongue to stop them from spilling out. May was coddling her with this optimism, but any hope was enough for her to latch onto and her body relaxed, her fury subsiding. The idea was a seed inside of her, growing until roots filled her up and there was room for nothing else, not doubt or hope, only a steadfast resolution to try. She couldn't give up on him, he was in her skin, her veins, her bones and to leave him for dead was as impossible as it would be to leave her own body behind.
"Were you always this scrappy?" Ward sneered.
"I think you need to shut up and let us come up with a plan," Will warned from the other side of the lab.
Jemma didn't see the rest of their exchange because Daisy had scrambled to her side, blocking them from view. As May let her go, her friend placed a hand on her arm.
"Jemma…"
"I'm OK," she lied. She didn't want Ward, or anyone else, seeing how torn apart she was. She didn't have time to be weak. "I'm… we need to focus on what we're going to do next."
"What do we do now," Daisy asked gently.
She turned to her friend, seeing how frightened she was past the mask she wore for her sake, and another seed squeezed its way in beside Fitz's. Daisy, May, Will, and yes even Ward, didn't deserve to die because of her mistake, she needed to get them out of here.
"I think we need to get that door open," she answered steadily.
"We've been locked out of the system," Will pointed out.
Jemma managed a forced smile, meeting Daisy's gaze. "Well it's a good thing we have someone who can hack into it."
"Good thing we do," she agreed, her expression a clashing mixture of smug and gentle. "It might take a while, there's some pretty heavy security, even for me. This place is kind of a big deal, being humanity's last hope and all."
"OK." Jemma gave her a curt nod. "You can try the main computer on the other side of the lab. Meanwhile, I need someone to come with me to look for Fitz."
"I'll go," May offered at once.
"Me too," Will agreed.
"Look for him?" Ward questioned skeptically. "Is that really something we should be wasting our resources on? Look, I'm sorry, but the guy is dead."
Jemma winced. A knee to the gut would have been kinder. "We don't know that," she muttered. 'But he's probably right…'
He shot her a pitying look and she wished May would let her hit him. Just once. "I'm just putting the truth out there. We're all thinking it."
"I'm not," May objected flatly.
"If it were me out there, I'd want someone coming to get me," Will added stubbornly and Jemma cast both of them a weak smile, grateful for the support.
Will was right. It didn't matter how slim their chances were, they owed it to Fitz to try and the idea of doing anything else at this point seemed unthinkable. Leaving him for dead, no matter how likely it was that he indeed was dead, wasn't something she was capable of doing.
"Someone needs to stay to protect Daisy anyway," May told the still dubious Ward. "We're the only two with weapons, so if I'm going you'll need to stay behind."
Ward crossed his arms across his chest, displeased, but didn't argue. "I guess it's just going to be you and me," he told Daisy tartly.
"Yipee," she deadpanned.
/-/-/
Fitz woke up to a sharp pain in his side, his aching head feeling like someone had decided to stuff a bag of cotton balls into it. Every breath was like inhaling shards of glass and when he cracked open one eye the blinding brightness of the waking world forced him to snap it shut, groaning in pain.
You need to get up. A voice in the back of his head prodded him impatiently. Something important… someone….
Jemma.
His eyes flew open, vision blurred but quickly focusing and as he took inventory of himself he realized he was lying on a pile of metal poles. They must have broken his fall… lucky him.
Struggling to sit up, his memories flooded back. Jemma trapped, the creature making its way towards them, shouting for it to follow him, running, terror, open jaws waiting to tear at him and then…
And then falling. He'd run straight off the edge of a railing, plummeting down between the stairs after flipping over it in his mad rush to escape. It was a miracle he was still alive.
Carefully, he pushed himself up, the rush of pain on his left side forcing him to clench his fist until his knuckles were paperwhite, fighting down nausea. Something was broken, it wouldn't hurt like this if it wasn't and blood was trickling in thin streams down the side of his face. His hip was sore too, not nearly as agonizing as his probably broken rib, but bad enough that he was worried he wouldn't be able to put weight on it.
It was a slow process, getting to his feet, and he fell back down on the first try when he made the mistake of trying to use one of the poles for support. The damn thing had rolled out from underneath him, letting him crash down on his hip which sent another jolt of pain through him.
When at last rose shakily into a standing position, he found to his relief that he could put weight on his left side. It hurt like hell, but he could do it, he could walk. He stared up the staircase, the two stories he'd need to climb taunting him cruelly, and his stomach fell. It was going to be a long hike up.
Jemma was up there though, alone, maybe still trapped and he wasn't about to let any amount of pain or broken bones or bloody stairs stop him from getting to her. So he took a breath, brows knitting together in determination, and trudged his way towards the first step.
/-/-/
They couldn't call out to him as they searched, they needed to be silent, careful. They needed to be mice and it was infuriating because Fitz needed her and all she wanted to do was storm to his rescue like a hurricane.
She couldn't put Will and May in any more danger though, they were already at risk because of her and she had no right to make their situation any worse. So instead she crept along, searching the halls for a hint of her lost love, like a ghost from a fairytale, torn away from him but unable to call out. She'd underestimated how much it hurt, the intensity of the mind numbing panic.
"What are we going to do?" Will asked, breaking through the cloak of fog that had fallen over her. "When we find it?"
"I still think we should bring her back alive," Jemma answered, certain but unable to look at them as she spoke. "But if one of us- or Fitz- is in danger, we should do what he have to do."
"OK then," he agreed, and she was surprised at how easy that had been. He saw it too, she realized, the bigger picture. He understood why she'd done what she'd done. "I'd feel a lot better if I had a gun though," he muttered.
"I'd feel better if I knew what that thing was," May said flatly. "And why the two of you are so intent on keep it alive."
They'd come to another room, the door sealed shut, but May overrode it with her pass card, the same way she'd overridden the door that had trapped Jemma. Unfortunately the key only allowed her to enter the labs. Opening the main door required a password that none of them had. Daisy was going to need to make contact with someone on the outside if they were going to get out any time soon. Since it was the weekend, it was unlikely that anyone would notice them missing until Monday and by then… well by then it might be too late for that.
May held the door open, scanning the halls for any sign of danger as she ushered them inside.
"Because she's the key to curing VPE," Jemma told her distractedly, pushing past to search the space. It was unlikely they'd find Fitz in there but if anyone other than Daisy could override the security system to find a place to hide it was him. "Fitz?" She hissed. "Fitz are you in here?"
The conversation took a pause as they searched, globs of sludge gathering in her stomach as they, once again, failed to find him. It had been nearly two hours, combing the halls for any sign of him and they hadn't found a trace. Her optimism was quickly waning but her determination hadn't wavered. He wasn't in there, but he was somewhere, dead or alive he was somewhere and she wouldn't rest until she knew.
There was an isolation chamber in the right corner, a small glass room with a bed and a double door. Another room flashed across her mind's eye, a face, a woman begging for help, and she jerked her gaze away, breathing shakily.
"He isn't here," she said curtly. "We need to move on."
May and Will exchanged a glance, but followed her out. She was still attempting to regain control when they caught up with her.
"You found a cure?" May asked quietly when they'd covered another hallway. "And you were willing to risk your own life to make it."
Jemma wasn't sure if the comment was disappointment or praise but she was automatically defensive. "It will save more people than Delta Two could ever kill."
Fitz wasn't a number though, no one was, but with him it was harder than ever for her to rationalize why she'd made the right decision. Save millions, lose Fitz. Was it wrong that it didn't seem like a fair trade?
"The virus has already killed more people than that thing ever will," Will added darkly. "Out of the entire town of Westfield there were only… what… fifty survivors?"
"Forty seven," she whispered, a familiar pain worming itself in with the rest. "Jessica wasn't one of them…"
She swallowed, knowing that she was leaving herself raw and open, that the other two were staring at her, but she needed to go on, she needed them to know why she had done this. And maybe, if she were being honest, to remind herself too.
"Jessica was one of the nurses they sent with us. She contracted the virus in the first week… by the second…" She trailed off, swallowing a lump before pushing on. "She was dying and they wouldn't let anyone help her… she… she couldn't breath so I …." Her throat ached but she clenched her jaw, willing herself to go on. "So I went in anyway, I opened the door and exposed seventeen other people to the virus. Jessica died, twelve of the others did as well. I got to go home."
"But you never really felt like you were back," May guessed gently. Her words were spoken from experience and Jemma turned her burning eyes on her, shaking her head. "This won't fix that," she told her.
"I'm not trying to fix myself," Jemma answered evenly. "I'm trying to do the right thing." She paused, feeling another prickle of guilt at her next thought.
"But first we need to find Fitz," May said firmly, voicing it unashamed and Jemma cast her a weak smile, grateful at least that she understood.
/-/-/
Fitz lay flat on his back on one of the landings, gulping in air and grimacing because each breath sent a stab of pain across his ribs. He'd never hated stairs so much in his life.
Twisting his head, he peeked up at his nemesis, trying to gauge how much further he needed to go. It was only another two flights but it seemed like an insurmountable task. His leg throbbed, and his side felt as if wanted to split open. He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.
'Stop being a whiney noodle,' he scolded himself. 'Jemma's up there. With that thing.'
The thought was enough for him to heave himself to his feet, using the railing for support, but no sooner had he stood up when he heard the clack of claws echoing only a few levels above him.
/-/-/
Hey sorry this was late, I got distracted by ... well you know ;) Hah, if AoS keeps this up I may need to start posting on Friday's when I'm not all hyped up still XD
The lyrics are from the song Fallen by Sarah McLachlan
