the one with violets in her lap.
-Sappho (Carson)

Jemma Simmons was a marvel, and how he had never fully appreciated that on the Bus was a mystery to Phil. She had been off-limits then, of course, both by virtue of being one of his junior agents and by being intrinsically tied to Fitz, and Phil had been so caught up in the aftermath of his resurrection that he never bothered to look beyond the obvious. At the time she had merely appeared to be one half of a whole, albeit the prettier half.

Now he could hardly understand how he had looked past her for so many months. She was beautiful and blazingly intelligent, and the sight of her tucked in their bed at the end of the day made him feel breathless. She was honest about her limits and open with her affection, and above all trusted him completely. It proved to be an irresistible combination, and gradually wore away at his remaining uncertainties like water on stone.

She continued to be as perceptive as ever. "Have you ever considered you might be a better man than you were?" she asked him one night as she stroked his hair. He was half-drowsing, head pillowed in her lap, cheek pressed against the brushed cotton of her pajamas. "Not a different man. Just a better one."

He considered the idea sleepily. "Certainly more spirit than letter of the law," he offered.

Her fingertips swept lightly across his brow. "The old Coulson would never have extracted me from SHIELD custody."

The old Coulson would have played by the rules and worked his way up the chain of command, and only after being personally denied by Fury would have considered alternative action. "Probably not," he admitted reluctantly, hoping she wasn't about to tip him out of her lap.

Her hands were no less gentle than they had been before his reply. "He probably would have followed orders and thrown me out of the Bus, too."

This was proving to be an exceptionally uncomfortable interrogation technique, but he was loathe to move. "I'd prefer not to answer that."

Surprisingly, she laughed. "I'm sorry," she said with a tender caress, and bent down enough to kiss the curve of his ear. "I lost my well-intentioned point somewhere in there. I just think that you gained more than you might have lost."

In a strange way, she was right.

The house seemed to work its peculiar magic on all of them in the early days. He had half-expected that Clint and Natasha would find themselves bored, despite their assurances otherwise, but they seemed more than happy to treat the grounds and the nearby jungle as their own personal playground. They mapped out numerous defensive strategies and escape routes, and it was not unusual to find Clint lounging on the roof or practicing at the archery range that appeared one morning behind the house. Slowly they amassed an extensive armoury, planting weapons of all kinds in odd corners and in small caches high in the trees.

Natasha occasionally disappeared for several days at a stretch, gathering intel and planting seeds of misinformation. "They seem to think we're in Nova Scotia," she told him one morning over coffee. "I can't imagine why," she continued smugly.

Despite her best efforts, the department responsible for their flight remained intact (the destruction to their facility notwithstanding), and if one thing continually frustrated Natasha, it was that she had heard no word as to any internal investigation against the department head.

"It is unheard of," she said bitterly after a particularly disappointing trip. "Three of SHIELD's best agents cause millions of dollars worth of damage, and they never stop to ask themselves why?" She ran a hand through her hair angrily, disarranging the soft waves, which told him more than anything else the depths of her irritation. "Were we nothing to them?"

It was obvious that she felt betrayed by SHIELD, in part because it seemed to have succumbed to the same corruption that had molded her earliest years as an assassin, and in part because she had, over the years, come to feel it was her home. He understood the latter pain; was very familiar with the ache the rejection created. They had all been stripped of their loyalty to a formerly beloved organization, and quite violently at that.

Natasha settled gracefully into a nearby chair, her movements at odds with her evident frustration, and stared pensively at the vase of orchids on the table. "Still, we did the right thing," she said suddenly. "Even if it comes to a bad end, we did the right thing."

And that was the ever-present fear, which increasingly fueled his nightmares: that one day they would be found out, and they would not be able to run fast enough. Even if they weren't, eventually they would lose someone. Him, most likely, though it could be any one of them- Clint might take a tumble out of tree, Natasha might one day simply disappear on one of her trips, an enemy agent might spot Jemma on the street.

Jemma was his primary concern, and it was not just because he had grown to love her with the kind of devotion he had thought belonged only in fiction. They didn't teach subterfuge at the science academy. SHIELD scientists might become field-certified, but they rarely needed to learn the skills needed to keep themselves alive and out of sight while being hunted by a hostile organization. They might be assigned an alias, but they rarely had to create their own while on the run. They didn't have to worry about falsified identity papers or how to get their hands on money in a foreign country. For all that the work they did was dangerous, they were relatively sheltered within SHIELD's framework.

The only solution was to train Jemma as if she were an operative herself, as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, and it was a decision that Phil came to regret. They began a few weeks after moving in, and initially everything went smoothly as they focused on information and cognitive training: the contacts they still considered safe, access codes for bank accounts, how to create and maintain a believable alias. There were lessons in Spanish and the Limean dialect for all of them, including Phil, who had not underestimated his linguistic abilities on that day with May.

It was her physical training that was the problem, when they finally began it, and not because Jemma was reluctant to improve her abilities in that area. She threw herself into her training with a kind of single-minded intensity that he found worrying. Her enthusiasm outstripped her stamina, and he often came to bed to find her already asleep, so exhausted that she didn't even move when he spooned up behind her. Her appetite, at least, had returned, but solely out of necessity.

What worried Phil the most was the way she gradually drew apart from all of them as the days continued. She looked haunted- hunted, even- and was disinclined to discuss the matter.

Finally, there came a morning when he couldn't bear to wake her up when Natasha knocked on their door. She was running herself into the ground, and by allowing her to do so the three of them were culpable.

"Not today," he told Natasha firmly. "And not tomorrow. We're slowing the pace."

She nodded without any real surprise, and turned away without a word.

He was dressed and reading on the bed beside her when Jemma woke several hours later, dark shadows under her eyes. "Did I oversleep?" she asked, an edge of desperation in her voice. Her hair tumbled messily over her shoulders as she sat up.

"We're taking a few days off," he replied, placing his book on the table beside him. "We've worked you too hard."

She looked stricken even as she slumped back onto the pillows. "I'm not making any progress," she whispered, and rubbed a hand wearily over her face. "I need to-"

"Sleep," he said firmly. "You need to sleep and laze about in the sun." He gave her a small smile, brushing her mussed hair out of her face. "Would that be so bad?"

Judging by her expression, she was not entirely pleased by this plan.

"Let me take care of you for a few days," he continued, stroking her hair, perplexed when this seemed only to distress her further. He drew his hand away slowly, unsure what his error had been. It was possible that she was trying to outrun- literally and figuratively- whatever memories were haunting her, and the thought of suddenly having too much time to think was becoming in itself a cause of stress.

He worried, though, that she was reconsidering her own decisions, and was no longer comfortable with him being in such close proximity. If she was exhausting herself in an effort to avoid him, he could no longer in good conscience stay in this room. He could sleep elsewhere, but there was nowhere for him to run from this situation- he could only accept her decisions with as much grace as he could muster. He was no stranger to quiet despair, and had become very adept at hiding it.

He slid off the bed, and paused with his hand on the doorknob. "You'll sleep for a few hours more?" he asked her quietly, relieved when she gave him a small nod.

He leaned against the door after he had closed it behind him, suddenly as weary as if he had been the one driven to the edge. One breath, two, and then he forced himself on through the untidy grass of the courtyard to the kitchen.


Jemma awoke for a second time that day, and spent a few minutes staring absently at the ceiling. It was late, she knew- after noon, most likely- and yet she felt the urge to fall back into sleep once more. Phil had been right: she was pushing herself much too hard. She hadn't felt this exhausted since the early days of their escape, and though she had healed physically her body was making it clear that it would not put up with this kind of treatment any longer.

She couldn't quite push out of her mind the look that had been on his face when he had left her that morning. She had already been slipping back into sleep, so she was unsure if it had been sorrow or disappointment or something else that had caused him to pull back, his brow furrowed. Whatever it had been, she hadn't liked it.

Jemma showered leisurely and made her way out into the courtyard, where she found herself without any desire to go further. She sat on the grass in the shade of the cattleya, considering the past few weeks. They had not been enjoyable, not like the first few months in the house. The lessons they had begun with had not been a problem. Studying was a beloved pastime for her, and it had certainly left her with enough energy at night to gradually explore her relationship with Phil. Her boundaries had been expanding, bit by bit, as she had reclaimed territory she had thought left behind forever.

Then, of course, she had allowed herself to get so caught up in a desire to not be a burden- not to him, not to anyone- that she had very nearly dragged them back to the beginning of their relationship. As much as she enjoyed the way he took care of her, she would not allow herself to be at such a physical disadvantage that he might one day be hurt because she was unable to protect herself. Care had to be reciprocal, but perhaps she had gone at it from the wrong angle.

"Don't beat yourself up about it," Clint said suddenly, dropping onto the grass beside her. "This is fairly normal."

She glanced over at him, lifting the brim of her hat slightly to see his face. "My running around to no real purpose, you mean?"

"After New York, Nat had to physically drag me away from the archery range, more than once." He shrugged, a haunted cast to his eyes. "It was easier to push myself past the point of exhaustion than actually think about what had happened."

She sighed, looking around the courtyard. She had gotten so caught up in her need to be useful that she hadn't done much more than the bare minimum to keep the existing flowers alive, let alone plant the others she had been considering. "I didn't force you to get me out," she finally said, pulling her knees up to her chest, "but now that we're here, being the weak link makes me dangerous."

He shook his head. "We weren't training you because we thought you were dangerous to us; we were training you because it would be irresponsible for us not to."

"And I want to learn," she replied. "I just… went too far."

"All work and no play makes Jemma a dull girl. And deepens Phil's forehead creases," Clint said, leaning back on his elbows. "What's the point of being in sunny Lima if we don't take some time to enjoy it?"

She sighed again. "We're in hiding and you're advocating for a better work-life balance?"

"Someone has to." He met her gaze. "You're right- we're in a dangerous situation, and we have to be prepared for anything that might come. Destroying your health isn't going to help any of us in the long run." He smiled. "Besides, are you really going to let SHIELD continue to make you miserable from a distance? Be happy. I'm told it's the best revenge, though Nat wouldn't agree."

She nodded slowly, relaxing her posture. She plucked one of the weeds that had sprouted around the base of the cattleya. "It looks awfully bare in here, doesn't it?"

"Downright dreary." He lay back in the grass, seeming disinclined to go anywhere. "Phil said something about carnivorous plants?"

"Drosera mucilage is very elastic," she told him, surprised to hear a note of genuine enthusiasm in her voice for the first time in quite a while. "Its applications as a biomaterial could be revolutionary, especially in medicine."

"Huh." He was silent for a moment. "You want a lab?"

She raised a brow. "Of course I want a lab. How do you propose to build me one? It seems like that kind of paper trail would excite suspicion."

He laughed. "True. But maybe we could do it slowly. For now, tend to your garden of Audrey IIs. Maybe throw in some belladonna and foxglove."

He rose unexpectedly, and a second later the door to the kitchen opened. "Feed me, Seymour," he said with a quick grin, and disappeared onto the roof.

Phil placed a tray beside her, and hesitated before taking a seat on the grass. "Are you feeling better?"

She took off her hat so that the brim no longer hid her face, and smiled at him. "Much."

He was still regarding her with a look that was half cautious and half hopeful, which quickly turned to startled pleasure when she moved to sit beside him and reached for the tea he had brought. "I went a little bit overboard," she said quietly, and placed a hand on his knee. "Thank you for pulling me back."

"We pushed you too far," he began, and she cut him off.

"I pushed myself too far. I don't- I would hate if someone got hurt trying to protect me," she admitted. "You've already done so much for me, and I don't want to be a burden."

His expression softened, and there was something in his eyes that told her that if they had been farther along in their physical relationship, he most likely would have carried her off to bed at that exact moment. "Not a burden," he said, and the feel of his arms around her was a sudden reminder of everything she had been missing while she had been tilting at windmills. "Never a burden," he continued, and she placed her mug of tea on the grass before he kissed her. It proved to be a wise decision, as her hands were shaking by the time they separated.

"I'm going to buy more plants," she said when she had recovered sufficiently to speak. "It will be a good opportunity to practice my Limean." She smoothed out the remaining crease on his forehead with her fingers. "No more frowning."

He looked at ease for the first time in days, perhaps even weeks. "That might be difficult, darling," he said, and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "Stern expressions are second nature to me."

She had never been much for endearments, but she was going to have to reconsider her stance on that matter, because hearing one from him was surprisingly thrilling. For now she settled for a teasing, "I'm very aware of that, sir," and kissed him again before he could respond.

When Jemma's training resumed, it was with set hours that everyone obeyed scrupulously, even Natasha (for the most part). Jemma had been rather afraid of disappointing the woman who was becoming a friend, but Natasha openly approved of the change- as openly as she approved of anything, anyway. Under the carefully monitored schedule Jemma was pleased to find that she was finally progressing. Her endurance improved, and she began to build muscle where none had been before.

Food once more became a source of pleasure. Phil had long ago fulfilled his bargain with Natasha, but now he began to draw them all in to help with dinner preparations. It became the most relaxing part of the day, gathering in the kitchen to experiment with the local produce and herbs and chatting with glasses of wine in hand. Jemma was pleased to see that even Natasha unbent enough to laugh along with them.

Jemma's one regret- though she would not allow herself to dwell too long on it, lest she fall back into her old habits- was she was not a natural markswoman. This did not seem to bother Clint a great deal, not even when several weeks had gone by with little improvement.

"Hey," he said, as yet another one of her bullets struck the wrong tree, "at least you don't say 'bang' whenever you fire, like that teammate of yours. And we know that you have perfect aim at close range," he continued with a wink.

"No one will ever let me forget that, will they?" Jemma asked with a sigh, her next shot winging the edge of the target. Sadly, it was the closest she had come all afternoon.

Clint grinned. "The first time Sitwell appeared in the cafeteria after being released from medical, he received a standing ovation."

"Oh, God," she groaned, rolling her sore shoulders. "He must hate me."

He looked suspiciously smug. "I might have sent him a condolence card. Or three."

"With a playlist?" she asked archly.

"With an entire thumb drive worth of songs." He sighed dramatically. "He didn't appreciate my hard work very much. Try again."

He finally allowed her to put away the gun when it became obvious that her frustration was affecting her ability to focus, only to herd her toward the jungle like an overgrown sheep dog. "Let's go climb a tree," he said cheerfully, heading toward the tallest one in sight. "The sky is so clear we'll be able to see for miles."

"I hate you, just a little bit," she grumbled as she scrambled for the first branch. "You know I don't like heights."

"Come on," he chided playfully, perched ten feet above her. "Are you telling me that the woman who jumped out of a plane without a parachute is scared of a little tree? Jemma, not even I will jump out of a plane without a parachute."

"Didn't really have a choice," she huffed, pausing to take a breath before hoisting herself onto the next branch. "Imminent destruction and all."

"Nah," he replied, reaching out to steady her when she joined him. "That's bravery, pure and simple. A coward would have taken everyone down with her."

His smile was warm, almost brotherly, and he cemented that feeling by patting her on the head. "Only seventy feet more."

Jemma gave him a weary smile. "Oh, fuck you," she said, surprising a laugh out of him. "It's at least ninety feet to the top," she muttered, climbing up to the next branch.

"I thought you would feel better if I shaved off a little bit," he admitted, matching her pace. "But really- seventy feet or ninety, it's a long way to fall."

"How very comforting."

"I thought so."


The heat at the height of summer slowed their days, and more and more often Phil found himself taking an afternoon siesta with Jemma, the shutters closed against the bright sunlight. They began to explore the surrounding countryside and spent the occasional evening strolling the streets of downtown Lima. May had been right, as she often was- the restaurants of Lima were multiple and varied, the menus ranging from traditional Peruvian cuisine to inventive world fusion. Jemma developed a small obsession with the fritters known as picarones, which she devoured with an almost childlike delight, licking molasses off her fingers unashamedly.

And at the center of it all was the courtyard, which was now filled with flowers and grew richer in color and texture as every day passed. On the Bus he never would have guessed that Jemma possessed such a green thumb, but her flowers grew so profusely that he half-suspected alien tech was involved.

"Maybe I could plant some vegetables," she mused one day, a cup of tea in her hands. "There's still room in one corner. Or an herb garden."

She had begun to put down roots of her own, that much was obvious, and he hoped he would never have to tear her away from the place that made her feel so secure. She was slowly but surely regaining her vibrancy and confidence, and he increasingly found it difficult to practice restraint in the evenings. He wanted to press her into the sheets and make her sigh; to see her in her full glory, speechless and sated.

He wasn't getting a great deal of sleep, which was unfortunate, because the one thing Natasha insisted on in the new schedule were the drills that she was allowed to call at any hour of the day or night. They all had to know the various escape routes, and more than that they needed to be able to avoid the many traps that had been set along the way, no matter the circumstances. Natasha had yet to call for a drill after dark, but it was inevitable that she would one day pound on the door at two in the morning.

The drills, in the daylight, were not particularly enjoyable. The jungle was full of its own unplanned traps and hazards, and the pace that Natasha set wore on them all. It was a necessary evil, one they all endured without complaint.

Jemma was always quiet the night after a drill. She slept uneasily, often waking suddenly, her breathing labored. If asked she would only say that it was the nurse again, and more than once he found her scrubbing her hands obsessively the morning after.

"It just replays over and over," she told him one early morning, the light barely peeking over the horizon. She was crying as he gently rinsed and dried her reddened hands, and let him lead her back to the bed. "Stay with me," she whispered, and hid her face against his chest when he laid down beside her.

His own nightmares continued to change. He often found himself running down a blood-spattered white sand path through the Peruvian jungle, the sound of the ocean ringing in his ears, mixed with Jemma's sobs. He never could find her, in those dreams, and when he woke in the dark he would run a hand gently down her side, reassuring himself that she was still there, still breathing.

"Bad dreams?" she asked one night, her voice still blurred with sleep. She shifted to nuzzle her nose against his neck, one arm slung across his chest. "Tahiti?"

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and tightened his hold on her, enjoying the way she hummed happily in response. "The usual," he replied, reluctant to burden her with the shifting landscape of his nightmares.

She was quiet for a moment, her breath warm against his neck. "I'm happy to listen, Phil. Really."

"I just can't find you," he admitted. "You're nowhere to be seen."

Her hand curved over his shoulder in a gentle caress. "I know," she replied. "I can never find you, either."


The garden in the courtyard was not Jemma's first, but it was by far her favorite. Her first garden had been tucked away in a corner of her father's grander one, where she had grown tidily ordered clematis and hollyhocks and primroses. Those flowers were still there, or they had been when last she was home- her father had continued planting the same plants even after she left. Perhaps he would still, in memory of his lost daughter.

At the academy she had kept a small herb garden in her dorm room window. The pots of mint, lemon balm and lavender were within direct sight of her desk, and she had often found herself staring absentmindedly at them when her whirling mind had threatened information overload. The fresh lavender, crushed and tucked underneath her pillow in a small bag, had helped her sleep at night.

Here she restored the cattleya and oncidium, cossetting the plants back to health. The vines clambering the portico proved to be a type of passiflora, which bloomed purple and white and multi-petaled, tiny stars against the stone columns. She planted mirabilis jalapa and cantua buxifolia with little regard to orderly lines, and amidst all these beauties she planted her drosera and heliamphora.

Natasha seemed to like that section of the garden best. "No Venus fly-traps?" she asked, kneeling to study the gleaming tips of the drosera's tentacles.

"They won't grow here, or not easily," Jemma replied, a bit regretfully. "They do best in North America."

Natasha nodded, and was silent for a moment. "Do you need me to get you anything?"

Jemma glanced at her, unsure what, exactly, she was offering.

Natasha smiled slightly. "Birth control, I mean."

"I would be most appreciative," Jemma answered carefully. "That would be helpful." It would, and soon. She had grown bolder in the past months- and he had followed her lead, wonderful man that he was- but as delicious as their time together was she still found herself mired at some point between their first kiss and the consummation, unwilling to retreat and unable to move forward.

Those days, however, were swiftly coming to a close.

Natasha stood, rising to her feet in one fluid motion. "I'll have that for you soon," she promised as she left, disappearing into the room she shared with Clint.

Jemma stared absently down at the sundew glistening in the light, her face shaded by the brim of her hat. Natasha's offer was providence itself, though it brought to light a wish that she had been studiously avoiding for weeks now. She dreamed, occasionally, of a cradle in the shade of the portico, of a toddler taking wobbly steps across the grass. Those dreams hurt nearly as much as the nightmares, and she always woke feeling as if something had slipped from her grasp. There wouldn't be a child- there could never be one. She couldn't be sure that she was still fertile, not with as many gaps in her memory as she had, and there was no guarantee that Phil's sperm was still viable after everything that had happened to him.

In any case, it would be irresponsible of them to create a child in these circumstances.

She left her garden, stepping into the cool of her own room and kicking off her shoes. She would shower and nap, and perhaps when she woke the images of what could not be would have faded.


Jemma found the bag a few days later, tucked in amongst her scarves and skimpier pieces of lingerie, items she had yet to do more than examine speculatively. Inside were the supplies Natasha had promised, the pills nestled in their foil and dimpled plastic. It was a year's supply, at least, stacked neatly and discretely in its cloth covering.

She took the first dose that morning, and when she met Phil on the portico she kissed him with more than her usual enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, he did not object, but merely pulled her tightly against him, ignoring the whistle that originated from the roof.

"He drives me nuts," he muttered against her mouth, and she broke away to laugh.

"I'll give it an 7.5 for execution and enthusiasm," Clint called out. "You lost points because everyone is still fully dressed."

Jemma raised a brow playfully. "You were the one who decided to bring him along on your grand heist."

"Well, I could hardly bring Natasha and not bring Clint." His thumbs crept under the hem of her blouse, stroking the skin along the indent of her waist. "Let me take you to lunch?" he asked quietly. "That little restaurant a few miles away. We could get lost on the way back."

"How lost?"

"As lost as you like."

She considered the idea as best she could, distracted as she was by the rasp of his thumbs against her skin. "Maybe we could lose our way for a few hours."

He smiled and stepped away, and to her chagrin dropped his hands from her hips. "I'll see you at noon, then."

She wandered over to the heliamphora, pleasure warring with a sudden anxiety. A year ago she never would have guessed that she could feel this way about anyone, let alone Phil Coulson, who was the living embodiment of everything a SHIELD agent should be. She had been content with her lab and her research, with the fast-paced conversations in scientific jargon between herself and Fitz that left everyone else looking bemused.

And yet here, in this life she had never imagined, she realized that she was far happier with her present circumstances than with the tidy little life she had once had. The pain that had brought her here might still leave her shaking at night, her scars might never fade, and one day SHIELD might come crashing in on them, but she had built a life, nonetheless. She had befriended Clint and Natasha, who together had given her a confidence in her own physical abilities that she had never had before. She had restored the courtyard garden and dozed in the patch of shade next to the cattleya, and though her Spanish was far from perfect she could make herself understood to strangers, and could understand them in return.

And there was Phil, who had pulled her out of hell when she had just been one of his scientists, and now looked at her as if she had become the omphalos stone of his existence. She wanted decades with him. She was greedy for the time.

Give me the years, she prayed, uncertain who she was praying to. Please give me the years.

I deserve them.