A/N: Well I had a good portion of chapter 10 written and then AOS went and tossed a big ole cannonball through it, so now that entire chapter had to be tossed. I hope it won't take me long to piece together a new chapter 10 and I'll do my best to get it up ASAP- but you all know me and my nitpicky desire for perfection! lol I do expect it to be the final chapter though...! (sobs)
Sidenote: Dr. Goodman was the name of the doctor that assisted Streiten when he worked on Coulson.
PHANTOMS
When Jemma wakes hours later, a panic is settled deep in her chest. She sits up in her bed; the crisp hospital sheets fall at her waist and she's momentarily disoriented by the room that she finds herself in.
"You're awake." A woman dressed in a white labcoat marked with the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem rises from a chair in the corner of the room. She removes a clipboard from the foot of Jemma's bed and taps the end of her pen. "Do you know why you're here?"
Jemma blinks. Her memories from the previous… hour?... day?... week? hazy. "I'm not sure."
"Think back."
Jemma's brows crinkle as she tries to recall. She remembers the blue light, the rough texture of the ground crumbling in her hands and the sharp, coppery smell of blood. The damp feel of it on her bare hands strikes her anew and she rubs her palms together in an attempt to rid herself of the phantom feeling.
"Blood," she says. "I can still feel it."
The woman doesn't look up, her pen furiously writing. "Who's blood is it?"
Jemma thinks, mentally trying to push away the cobwebs that have nestled into her brain. "I'm not sure."
The woman nods. "Did you complete your mission?"
The vision comes suddenly, a visceral fear rises almost immediately. It's the brief moment of silence before the Tesseract portal implodes. The wind has calmed, the lightning strikes silenced; it's just her and a dying Leo. She knows it's her chance to move for the Tesseract, to attempt to contain it and complete her mission. Instead she propels herself onto Leo, protecting him from the inevitable moment when the Tesseract destroys everything in its wake.
"No," she says at last. "I didn't."
The woman looks up from her clipboard. "Didn't what?"
"I didn't complete my mission."
The woman nods slightly and wordlessly exits the room. "Wait!" Jemma cries out. "Tell me, where is he? Where's Fitz? Is he okay?" It's to no avail; if the woman hears her, she's purposefully ignoring Jemma.
…
"Mr. Fitz, can you hear me? Mr. Fitz?" He blinks and sits up with a start. The blinding light of the room stuns him and he tightens his eyes shut. "Mr. Fitz, I need you to look at me. Can you please look at me?" A man's voice calls out to him, gentle and patient, yet firm. "It's Dr. Streiten. Do you hear me?" Leo opens his eyes again. The light stings them, but he forces himself to keep them open. Two people in lab coats stare at him and Dr. Streiten orders instructions that he can barely make out.
As Leo tries to take a deep breath he finds that his lungs feel heavy and constricting, causing him to cough. The phlegm burns his throat and he suppresses the urge to vomit.
"Can you tell me where you're feeling pain?" A second doctor asks. Leo is breathless, his airways further contracting. He beats his hand against his chest. More instructions are given, but there's a ringing in his ears and the room starts to swing on its axis. His body tremors and he lets out a panicked cry as an oxygen mask is snapped onto his face. The cool rush of air hits his lips and a nurse guides him back against the gurney. Blackness envelops him before he has a chance to speak; the words which ask after Jemma fade against his mouth.
"Sir?" Dr. Streiten turns toward a woman in a white labcoat who has appeared in the doorway. "She's awake."
"Dr. Goodman; let's take this into the hall." Dr. Streiten says, tucking Leo's charts under his arm and pulling the door closed behind him. "What did she say?"
"She was asking after him." Goodman motions toward Leo's room. "She knows that she's failed the mission."
He nods. "Interesting. And there's no record of a violation of 8-6?"
She shakes her head and opens a file in her hands. "None. We checked surveillance. There was an instance in the auditorium a few weeks back, but nothing since. It seemed to be an emotional irregularity. Everything is as required."
"And they both still failed?"
"Yes sir."
"The same way?"
She shrugs. "Yes. It's very unusual."
"What was their risk assessment upon entry into SciOps?"
Goodman moves a few papers in the file and finds the one she's looking for. "They were seen to be obedient, followed orders to the letter. There were a few concerns raised over Fitz before his entry into SciOps, but those concerns were determined to be unfounded once he began his assignment. Their individual risk evaluation had them at low rankings. Simmons is a four due to some previous medical history. Fitz a two. Nothing that would draw attention." She pauses and looks up from the file. "But there is one thing, sir…"
Dr. Streiten's brows raise. "What is it?"
"Their recruitment to Coulson's team… it's rather unusual."
"How so?"
"'A' level access only."
"'A' level?"
"Yes," she replies. "It allows for only Directors Fury or Hill to get access. Honestly sir, if we sign off on their files and allow them on Coulson's team, what risk are we putting their team in? We can't possibly clear them for combat and wi-"
"We're signing off on them," Streiten says, interrupting. His voice firm and insistent.
"But sir, I don't understand. What about the risk-…?!"
"Regardless of what's locked up in their recruitment files, Goodman, Director Fury has instructed that we give Agent Coulson whatever he wants. If Coulson wants FitzSimmons, Coulson will get FitzSimmons. Their failure will not be a problem and pursuing anything to the contrary is beyond your priority. Is that clear?"
Goodman swallows hard and nods. "Understood, sir." Leaning forward, she whispers, "Is this about T.A.H.I.T.I?"
Streiten's face softens slightly and he closes his eyes for a moment, centering himself. At last he replies, "Yes, unfortunately it is."
…
Leo dreams of the ground beneath him crumbling. The Tesseract fires freely, its discharge cracking in every corner of the room. He grabs for Jemma, but he's too late and his hands are slick with blood. She loses her footing, tripping on the unstable ground. He tries a second time to reach for her but she rolls away from him, propelled toward the gaping hole that was once the floor.
Her fingers claw wildly at debris, wanting to find something that will stop her propulsion. He crawls toward her, desperate to help. When she finally comes to a stop, her feet dangle over the chasm, her fingers holding tight to the wires of a broken mainframe.
She screams for him to stop the Tesseract, to finish the job. But fire rises around them, the floor collapsing upon itself. He refuses to leave her, the Tesseract be damned.
Jemma screams his name just as he feels something hit his chest, knocking the wind from him. Before he can register where she is and what has hit him, he wakes suddenly, greeted by the beeping of a heart monitor.
Leo breathes heavily, an oxygen mask strapped to his face. His hands grip tight to the metal bars and a nurse pushes him back against the bed.
"Relax. You're fine," the nurse says. "She's fine," she adds with a faint smile. With those words, his shoulders lighten and he nods, falling back into a deep sleep.
…
Jemma wants to think she's seeing ghosts, but knows instinctively that they don't exist. It's a scientific impossibility with no physical or scientific proof to the contrary.
She has to remind herself of that fact when she's washing her hands for, what seems like, the thousandth time that day. The smell of blood and the feel of it against her hands cause her to continually head for the nearest sink. It's there, while scrubbing at her fingertips, that she thinks she sees Leo walk past her room, assisted by an orderly.
The moment is fleeting, so much so that she wonders if it actually happened at all. When she calls his name a nurse comes running and escorts her back into her room, shushing her. Jemma is certain of what she sees, but her questions go unanswered and she wonders if there's more to it all.
Her memories of the past week are starting to return. The haunting of images become more clearer and the mission less real. When she tells a doctor this, he nods and says nothing, a common thread among the people she's met at the facility.
She's starting to question the very organization she's grown to trust and she wonders if the secret keeping is worth it. It's then that she remembers something her granddad had told her about working with Dr. MacLain.
"Love," he'd said as he handed her a cup of her favourite tea. "Sometimes in the most difficult of times we need to take chances and test our own limits."
At the time, she'd understood it in reference to pursuing her interests in chemistry and biology. Looking back, however, she wonders if he'd meant something different, something more profound than just a faint reference to fighting the Nazi invasion of Europe.
And so, when the next doctor comes in to her room, a chart in hand, she declares with rallied authority, "I know how to stop the Tesseract."
Her plan works and she notes the flurry of activity that happens around her. High ranking field engineers are called to her room and she carefully explains Leo's energy reduction module and it's anti-magnetic properties. They nod, clearly impressed and ask her if she knows the per bit consumption in the deep submicrometer. She does, but she plays coy and hopes that she sounds convincing.
"No, but Leo Fitz does!"
Again they nod and she hears one murmur, "check with him. See what he says."
She leans forward in her chair, steadies her nerves and asks, "I'm sorry, who? I'd hate for this information to get into the wrong hands."
The tallest of the engineers smiles at her and it's the first time in days that someone actually breaks their S.H.I.E.L.D stoicism around her. "Your friend. Mr. Fitz, of course."
Jemma resists the urge to pump her fist, choosing to nod her head instead. She bites back a smile and mutters under her breath, "I knew there was no such thing as ghosts."
…
Leo figures its been at least several days since Coulson whisked he and Jemma from their apartment and he's grown cross at the lack of information he's been able to acquire about her whereabouts. He assumes she's somewhere in the facility, but everyone he meets pretends not to hear him and they (quite rightly, he admits) refuse to allow him access to a computer.
When a group of engineers enters his room to question him about bit consumption in relation to his energy reduction module, he knows it comes from Jemma and relief fills his heart. They ask about details that only she would know and his heart soars. He inquires after her and a nurse tells him that her location is classified but he should be cleared for release soon. He argues with her to no avail and throws in that he has time sensitive dendrotoxin waiting to be placed into a cartridge back at the lab. But there are protocols that need to be followed first. "In time," she promises.
He does as instructed, answers the questions and admits to his failure in the mission. High ranking agents and doctors peer in through the room's windows and whisper when they think he's not listening. They talk about the auditorium; they're suspicious that they've violated protocol 8-6. When asked he insists they're just friends, but the ranking agents are disbelieving. He hopes they don't question Jemma about it as he knows she's a terrible liar.
When he's at last ushered into an office for his results by two armed guards, he's stunned to find Jemma already there. Her arms cross at her stomach as she leans against a filing cabinet and his heart clenches at the sight of her. When she turns and notices him, the tension seeps from her muscles and colour floods her face. She lets out an excited gasp and he shakes his head, willing her into silence. He knows full well that there's cameras in every corner of every room at S.H.I.E.L.D and doesn't want to give ranking agents something to chastise them over. It's as though Jemma understands innately as she immediately takes a seat in the office and faces forward, hands clasped in her lap.
A smile crooks on her face when he sits next to her and he catches her stealing glances his way. He allows himself the luxury of touching her when he leans his forearm a little further over the chair's armrest and says under his breath, "I reckon we're the worst field agents they've ever seen."
Jemma laughs and covers her mouth to muffle the sound. He thinks that he's missed the sound of her laughter more than anything else and stops himself from saying as much. The door to the office opens and Dr. Streiten appears before them, taking a seat in the large chair behind a desk.
He flips open a file and looks at the two scientists. "You are, without a doubt the worst field agents S.H.I.E.L.D has probably ever seen." Jemma snorts back laughter and tucks her head into her chest. Streiten gives her a warning look before continuing. "I hope you both understand the seriousness of this revelation. You two are S.H.I.E.L.D's brightest minds. Top of your classes going back to your respective high schools. Yet, we put each of you in a simulation that, I might add, actually has a solvable solution and neither of you solved it while in combat."
"So we've failed then?" Leo asks, his question sounding a little too hopeful.
"Yes, you have. Quite dramatically, actually." He folds his hands before him and leans forward. His eyes flicker slightly and Leo wonders for a brief second what the doctor is hiding. "However, since you did manage to solve the Tesseract mission you've both been given an unusual reprieve."
Jemma's mouth hangs agape, Leo is likewise stunned.
"Sir? I'm not sure I understand," Jemma says at last.
Streiten flips a page and points with his pen against the paper. "Your results are indicative of… teamwork and S.H.I.E.L.D values teamwork. Plus there are a lot of people here that seem to feel that you both have potential."
"So we're being kept on?" Leo asks slowly and uncertain.
"Yes." He pulls papers from a stack on his desk and passes a copy of a S.H.I.E.L.D employment contract to both Jemma and Leo. "It would seem that Coulson is quite taken with the both of you."
Leo fingers the paper, the corner digging into his skin. He looks at Jemma who stares at her own contract, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Her eyes eventually meet his own, questioning him silently. It takes every ounce of conviction that he can muster to say, "Let's get it done, then. Finish this all up."
He hears her release her breath as he reaches for the pen that Streiten offers him. He wills himself calm as he brings the pen to paper and signs his name. A few weeks back he'd promised her that he'd follow her to the ends of the earth if it made her happy and he'd meant it. He just hadn't realized that her happiness could mean his own broken heart.
... to be continued...
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