During the days Simmons was a traitor.
She was working for an evil terrorist organisation- a good employee, helping them, giving them answers, even though she knew what they could use it for.
She was too afraid of blowing her cover, well aware that she couldn't lie, so she had to work truthfully to be convincing, to avoid Hydra finding out she's not one of them.
She's a mole. She's a traitor.
For her friends she was a coward. The one who ran away when everything stopped being safe and simple, who left her team, didn't even say goodbye and cut off every contact they had with each other.
A coward. A traitor.
For her best friend she was the one, who ran away when things got complicated. The one who betrayed his trust, who was supposed to be by his side all the time and yet disappeared, gave up.
The betrayer. The traitor.
During the days she was one of the bad ones.
-o-
During most of nights she was a hero.
At first she had trouble falling asleep, missing her own bed, even though technically speaking, she was laying in it.
Soon she got used to it: days full of lies and fear exhausted her to the point where she couldn't deny herself sleeping- the only moment when everything could be right.
She had dreams before, back at the Playground. They started right after the pod, but were not often: one, two per week. At Hydra, they were coming to her more often, sometimes every night, sometimes more than once per night. Back in the Playground she saw the team and Fitz every day, which calmed her subconsciousness enough not to torment her with frightening visions during night. Yes, falling asleep was troublesome back then, but when she finally managed to do it, she hadn't had any dreams. Now constant tiredness lulled her to sleep the moment she laid her head on her pillow. Then the dreams came, usually waking her up in the end. She was restless.
The dreams were different, but similar at the same time.
She even started classifying them.
CLASS 1: Decisions made in a split second
They were the short ones. Just a series of images and words, her surrounding not important enough to notice it, since she always knew where she was.
#1.1 Cuba.
They are watching the Bus from afar. Fitz turns around to go for the D.W.A.R.F.s. She's listening for a while, focused and careful. She hears some noise outside.
"Fitz, wait." She tries to shout and be quiet at the same time. Not the best idea. "I think I've heard something."
Fitz stops and moves his eyes between her and the door. There is a sound of footsteps coming closer and closer.
They don't say anything, just run to the back door. She opens them the moment that the handle of the front door moves. They run away from the building just before it's infiltrated by Ward. She saves them.
#1.2. Cuba.
They are watching the Bus from afar. She talks with Coulson over the phone. She hangs up and tells Fitz what she heard.
"We would be back to square one again." She says and looks at Fitz, who waits for her to finish her thought. They've known each other for so long, seeing that she wants to add something more is not a challenge to him.
"I can't..." She started. "Let's just run away."
"What?"
"I can't stand this anymore. It's not what we signed for. There are six of us against the whole world. We could just run away. Stay somewhere safe."
"We can't leave them, Simmons. Coulson trusts us, we can't betray him. We have to keep fighting."
Oh, Fitz. Loyal as always. She should have known he wouldn't agree to just run away only because things got dangerous.
"Please. Let's just... Leave this place. There's nothing more we can do in here, let's just go back to the motel."
He nods.
They return safely.
#1.3. Cuba.
Coulson tells them what their mission is. Tells them to watch and not engage.
"Sir," she interrupts him. "Maybe Fitz and I should stay. We are not specialists, we know nothing about espionage and tracking. We can stay here, secure the base, keep the coms going, coordinate everything. There's not much we can do in the field."
Coulson watches her for a short while.
"Good idea. We shouldn't engage everybody. You two stay here."
The ones in class 1 were the easiest. The ones that woke her slowly and made her lay in her bed watching the wall with hollow eyes. It was so easy. And yet she had failed.
-o-
The first thing she did when she started working undercover, the thing she did on the very first morning, in her new flat that was so alien and far from truly hers, was cut her long hair. She just stared at herself in the mirror for a while, went to the kitchen and grabbed the scissors lying on the counter. She cut it short, gathered it from the floor and stuffed in a trash bin.
It had so little impact on her, which was surprising. In the evening she went to a hairdresser so that the ends didn't look like messy, and just sat there feeling numb.
It was surprisingly good for her and helped a lot. After she cut it, she couldn't recognise her reflection in the mirror, not at first glance. Thanks to that, the first face that greeted her in the morning wasn't twisted in disgust.
She had to bring herself together. If she broke even more than she already had, she wouldn't help anyone. So she struggled. Fixed everything the moment she spotted a problem. Added more cosmetics to her make up when she noticed how pale she looked. When she noticed she kept forgetting to eat she turned on an alert in her cellphone, so she could stuff something that tasted like ash into her stomach. After waking up she forced herself to smile the first thing in the morning, to fend depression away, and forced herself to stand up because if she didn't proceed with her mission, everything she sacrificed would be for nothing. She had to fix it if she wanted to help Fitz fix himself.
She almost managed to do that. But her nails were beyond repair, since she would break them in a split second of weakness and she couldn't find time to take care of them, to make them straight or put polish on them. She couldn't find time for this, she was repeating to herself, so as not to admit that it was care for herself she was truly lacking.
CLASS 2: Silent fire
They were the other dreams. The ones she hated. The ones that woke her with deadly silence and crushing weight of wrongness along with muscles treacherously screaming for action.
#2.1. Cuba.
They are watching the Bus from afar. Fitz turns around to go back to their car and take the D.W.A.R.F.s. The door opens. Ward. Traitor. Threat. She takes the gun and shoots him before he finishes speaking. She cries, but Fitz grabs her hand and pulls her to the back door. They run away.
#2.2. The Providence.
Ward is sitting on a chair in her lab while she carefully stitches his wounds. Fitz looks over her shoulder, concerned. She puts away the needle, takes a vial and applies the liquid on cut flesh. Ward hisses in pain, but she just shushes him. Two days later the corruption starts. Three days later he dies from poisoning. Nothing she could do to prevent it. Skye is in tears and Fitz is grieving but alive and well.
#2.3. the Bus.
She turns away and looks back for the last time in her whole life. She sees Fitz, hitting the lab's glass door, screaming something she can't hear with the wind howling around her, yanking at her hair and throwing it at her eyes. She smiles at him lightly, because he would be safe and sound.
She falls down from the plane and falls and falls and falls, a scream escaping her lips even though she promised herself she would be brave.
She falls and sees another shape following her. Ward. He gets closer and catches her, touches her lap with something, electronic impulse kicking her flesh. Everything goes black.
When she can see again she's in the cold water of the sea, kept over the surface by Ward's strong arm. He's just beside her, tangled in lines of his parachute. He has a little trouble with pulling out of them.
He jumped out of the plane to save her life.
It will be the last mistake in his life.
She's not sure how she manages to force his head underwater and keep it there long enough, the details are all blurred, but she can see clearly when he stops fighting back and struggling against her hold, when he stops moving.
She starts crying.
She woke up from those dreams with cheeks moist with silent tears. She was not a killer. She was a scientist, a biologist. She was meant to help people, not to yearn for revenge. She hated her body and hormones calling for blood. She hated Ward for reducing her to this.
-o-
The people in the lab weren't so bad. Not at the first glance. She was too afraid to look deeper. She focused on work and intel. Sometimes she wasn't sure what their research was used for. Sometimes she was perfectly aware of its meaning.
She didn't know which one was worse.
Sometimes she would get excited over her experiments and data. They were so interesting that for a moment she forgot where she was and what she was doing. It was pure instinct telling her to raise her head to call for Fitz and show him what she found, only to stare at strangers in black lab coats and go back to her vials a few seconds later, lips set into a tight line. The science wasn't a bad thing, it was just science. The implications of some of her research could become a source for scientific breakthrough. They could help save so many people. They could kill even more. Still, Hydra research was theoretically interesting and she was caught up in analysing data and wondering about possibilities more often than she would like to admit.
She didn't know what that made her.
CLASS 3: Decisions and what follows
They were the ones where she made a decision to change the future.
#3.1. Sci-Ops.
"It's the most perfect opportunity for us to see the world. We'd be fools to pass this one up."
"Come on Simmons, what's out there that can't be done in here? This lab is perfectly fine, they can bring us everything they find out and you can experiment to your heart's content. No need to go into field. You want to travel, we can take a week off and go wherever we want, no need to wait for a mission, no bullets flying over our heads, no work to be done, just exploring. What can we really do in the field? We're scientists not specialists."
She wants to tell him he's just afraid, because this always works, but she stops herself, takes a deep breath. Looks at him, at his blue eyes, clear as sky, without doubt and anxiety clouding them.
"You're right. We haven't even passed our field assessments. That's a stupid idea. Besides, their lab is so small and boring. Let's stay here."
He smiles at her. They go to Rome a week later. Just for a trip - sightseeing, relaxing, laughing. Together. They go to South Tyrol for a conference next month and make a detour to Bolzano because she wants to see Ötzi. Fitz is complaining the whole way about corpses being simply gross no matter the circumstances, but still stands by her side when she watches the mummy.
#3.2. the Academy.
They are the youngest graduates in the history of the Academy. They both stand in her room, smiling with excitement, looking at their diplomas and a pile of job offers lying on her desk. They promised each other to look at them together, just after the ceremony. On top of both piles lays the one with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s black eagle. There are also some other, but she doesn't even give them a look, just takes the first one and opens it.
Sci-Ops.
Exactly what they've both wanted.
Their own lab in Sci-Ops. An opportunity to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. in one of their best, most dynamic scientific facilities.
They could stay together, get a level up, see even more wonders of the world. Have a new, exciting experience every day.
She looks at Fitz, reading his own file with a big smile on his face. Happy.
Dropping her eyes to look at her file again she furrows her brows. Quickly putting it back on the table, she starts looking through the others, until she sees it, all white and black, with a hint of silver catching light and reflecting it right into her eyes. She looks at Fitz's pile and sees a similar one.
In a second she takes it out and opens it.
"Fitz," she calls him and he abandons his task to look at her, waiting to hear what she has to say. "Maybe we could join Stark Industries instead of staying with S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
His confused look is the only answer she gets.
"That way we would have the same level of equipment in our lab, almost the same opportunities without having to worry about all this secret-confidential-level stuff. No politics to get in the middle of our work. And if we were good, and let's face it, we would be great, we will have a much bigger budget to work with than we could ever have in S.H.I.E.L.D." She stops talking, looking at him unsure, trying to gauge his reaction.
"Why this sudden change?" He asks. "You were determined to stay with S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Well, yes, but you know. Staying with the spy agency is kind of the decision that sticks with you your whole life. We're still young, maybe we could try something else before tying our whole future to one decision. Maybe... Maybe we could just try something else first," she ends lamely not sure which words to use.
"Yeah, but will we be able to work together in Stark's company?"
"He would be a fool to split us up. And he has many flaws but being a fool is certainly not one of them." She smiles and he returns it after a while, while nodding his head.
"Sure, we can try that one out."
#3.3. the Academy.
The chem lab. She sees the name of her assigned partner. Leopold Fitz, engineering. She looks over the crowd, sees his profile. She looks for a long while with some nudging thought in the back of her head. With a thought of things that are yet to come. With chain of events that has a source in this exact moment. She takes a deep breath and go to the teacher to ask for reassignment.
He will be safer that way.
These ones always woke her unsure. Was this a happy ending? Some of them were for sure. Even if some of them were painful for her, they were better for Fitz. She made a different decision, the right one, and Fitz followed his fate to a different ending. Better. For him. There were so many other opportunities. They both had better options. She should have known better than to push them to join some experimental "special" team. She should have listened to him more, he was always wise, why didn't she listen? It was her decisions that led them both here. He followed her. It was her fault.
-o-
She wanted to work in the field so much. To prove that she was a true agent, not only some boring lab rat. Now she had her chance. Funny how sometimes you want something so much, put so much effort and sacrifices in obtaining it, and then, when you finally get it, you see it's just worthless ash, falling through your fingers only to make your hands sticky with disappointment.
She wanted to be in the field and now she was- undercover at Hydra. That was some serious James Bond level spying. A very responsible and important task, a mission for a true pro. Exactly what she hoped for when she signed for Coulson's team- an opportunity to prove herself, to show the others that maybe under a nice girl in a sweater, following the rules and drinking tea; maybe was something more, something like a hidden badass.
Here was her chance and yet everything was wrong.
She wanted to stay. She wanted to stay in the Playground, safely hidden behind thick walls made of brick, in a location wiped from maps, out of any radar. She wanted her tea and her bed and staying late watching movies with Fitz, not a care in the world. That was a world that made sense.
Each time she was dreaming about the real missions, she always pictured the two of them together.
It was always her and Fitz, in the field or even undercover. Together as always. They could pass as a duo of scientists, or even as a couple. They would work together, plan together, exchange intel and support each other. Somehow each time she pictured herself undercover, Fitz was there with her. They would be lying during the days, pretending to be someone else, but when things would get bad, she could knock on his door and he would hug her and they would figure it out together.
Now she was alone.
CLASS 4: Waiting. Too long.
They were the ones when she could go back in time and erase the mistake caused by her hesitation. By her waiting for things to change on their own instead of taking matters into her own hands.
#4.1. the Hub
She runs as fast as she can. She heard through the radio the conversation they had with Garret. She heard his threats. She heard how brave Fitz was. Again. As always. Why is she even surprised by this?
She runs fast, praying so she won't be too late.
She's not. They all made it on time. She sees him and runs to him, hugs him, because he's alive, he's all right, he's here in her arms, shaking a little, his cheeks damp from tears, and she wants to hold him tight until the end of the world.
Later they both stand in a corridor when Garret is taken away. She looks at him and sees Ward going with the guards, escorting the prisoner. She sees agents around her, lost when everything they believed in crumbled around them.
She turns to look at Fitz, who is standing right beside her.
"Let's take a vacation," she suggests. "We haven't take none in a while, this whole thing is a mess, let's just go visit our parents. Or let's go to Rome, we were planning to do that for years and never have enough time. Let's go there."
He is tired, she can see this in his eyes. They both need to rest. He agrees.
#4.2. the pool
"You will never have to find out," she assures him with all the firmness she can muster.
The world is a cruel place, for making people as close as them doubt each other even for the tiniest second. Is this what S.H.I.E.L.D. has to offer now? Doubt? Suspicions? Looking behind them with fear of what's lurking in their own shadows? That's how their lives are supposed to look now? For what? For a mere chance that maybe they could stop Hydra? If the whole of S.H.I.E.L.D. with it's agents and resources and data and protocols couldn't, what can a group of six people and a few gadgets do? They don't stand a chance.
"Fitz," she calls him out of his thoughts.
"What?"
"Let's work for Stark," this won't do, she sees it in his surprised eyes and furrowed brows. He won't leave Coulson, not with this reason, she has to give him something else to convince him. "He has huge labs, lots of money. We could use it and help the team. Run analysis, maybe even convince Stark to give S.H.I.E.L.D. a hand. We are not from Operations, how are we supposed to do any good fighting in the field? We don't even have any equipment." He's listening to her, which is a good start, so she continues, explaining how this is not leaving at all, how it's just rising their chances, helping the team.
He understands her reasoning. He always understood her.
#4.3. the Hub
They are walking slowly down the corridor, back to the bus. The rest of the team stayed behind and they are just walking in silence, together as always. As it should be.
She is strong and controlling herself the whole way back to the plane. She looks calmly at shattered glass and the mess in their bunks. She is unmoved by crashed furniture and equipment.
It's the door to the lab that makes her stop in her tracks and think. Bullet holes, too precise, like aimed at something specific instead of mindlessly shot along by the team walking through the plane. These two are different even in shape, not like standard ones used by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
Later she asks Skye about them.
The answer is unacceptable.
May. Shot. Fitz. In. The. Head.
Fitz. Head. Shot.
Twice.
She was never more grateful for the armored glass of lab doors. It saved him. Two shots from the I.C.E.R. at the head? The dose could be too much, he could be seriously hurt, damaged nerve endings or worse, since these nerve endings were so close to his brain.
She is going fast through the plane, searching for him, until she sees him in the kitchen. Ruins called a kitchen.
"Fitz," she calls him.
He looks at her and smiles.
"Let's quit." She says immediately, knowing that if she won't do this fast, she may change her mind and she can't, it's too important for second guessing.
"What? You want to leave S.H.I.E.L.D.?" He looks at her with confusion.
She thinks about it for a second. Is this what she really wants? No, not exactly.
"Yes. Let's quit. Look," she waves her hand at glass and wood covering the floor. "That's not what we signed for. That's not what they were promising us. Organisation falling down? Hydra lurking in shadows all along? What's in it for us Fitz?"
"We are agents. We have duties..."
Why does he have to be so difficult when she is trying to save him?
"What duties, Fitz? We are scientists. Our duties are to science. We are not field agents, we can't just run around the world hoping we can fight the bad guys. Labs are our weapons. If S.H.I.E.L.D. can't give them to us, how can we do our job?"
He is watching her silently for a moment.
"Coulson needs us. He needs us even more now. We can't leave him, Jemma. We can't abandon our team, especially not in time of need." He tries to convince her and she knows that he is right, but that is not the point, the point is to get him away from there, to some safe place. With no guns aimed at his head.
"I'm scared, Fitz." She tells him, knowing that this argument would be hard for him to fight. "I'm scared. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not what we thought it was. There are terrorists after us. That's not what I dreamed of, to put it lightly. Please, let's just quit and leave this nightmare."
"Jemma..."
"Please, I'm too afraid to stay, but I won't leave without you, I can't." He looks at her with furrowed brow, hesitating. "We could work for Stark, help Coulson from there. From a safe lab, away from gunfire."
He doesn't answer. But after a while he simply nods.
These ones were longer, but nice. For once she woke up with nothing but a smile on her face. Because after them she always had a few minutes of nice visions of both of them in Stark's labs, working and laughing like always. For once it ended happy.
-o-
Reporting to Coulson was a distant reminder of what normal felt like. Of a world where good things still exist. Things like safety and friendship and true happiness.
She should ask him. Now. Before they hang up. But what if Coulson saw that as sign she's not ready and told her to come back? What if the answer would be wrong? What if she would be forced to stay, knowing she should be there because Fitz needed her?
Silence. Time running out.
"Is that all?" Coulson's voice in a phone.
"Uhm," she hesitated. What if she won't get another chance? "How's F-" the sound of sound of the dial tone interrupted her before she could articulate her question.
She hesitated too long. Again.
CLASS 5: Together. Or not at all.
This class was confusing. She knew that she shouldn't classify them as good dreams, but still, she liked them. They were some of her favourites. Because in them they were together. Always together, forever, until their last breath.
#5.1. The Pod
"Take it, Jemma. Take it." Fitz's voice is insistent, shaky with emotions. A whole mix of them but no fear, all of it stuffed back with pure bravery and determination. And love. How could she not have noticed it before? It was so obvious, staring at her the whole time.
He pushes the canister into her hands, the plastic touching her fingertips which try to grip it unconsciously. She manages to stop her treacherous hands and the canister falls to the floor, rolls away from them, all the way to the wall.
"No." She repeats over and over, shaking her head.
"Take it," there's something new in his voice. Desperation. For survival. But not his. Hers. How could she have been so blind? "Please."
"No."
He moves, intending to go and take it, give it to her again, but she stops him just in time, holds his arm, and tries to ignore his winces of pain when she touches broken bone. His life is more important than pain.
"You move from here, I will push the button. And you will be the one holding the oxygen," she threatens.
"I can't swim like that Jemma," he points to his sling. "And you know that." He tries to reason. He always tries to reason.
"I don't care."
"It makes no sense."
"Neither does the idea of me taking it. You're staying here. We're both staying right here and thinking about the solution. Another solution, where we both get out of here." She forces her voice to sound like steel even if she feels that her body is made of gelatine.
His arm hangs in surrender when he slowly nods his head, resignation clouding his eyes.
They stay and think. For a long time. Searching and searching for a solution. One that ends with them both being well.
#5.2. the Pod
"No, no, no," she denies over and over even though she knows deep down that there's no other way out, no miraculous solution that would save them both.
"It's okay," his soothing voice, calming her even now. "Take it Jemma. Take it."
Impossible. No. No. NO.
She takes it.
And she throws it at a wall with all the strenght she has. It crushes, plastic whining and breaking.
"What the..." Fitz watches it in shock, not able to say anything for a few seconds. "Now we don't have oxygen for either of us."
"Find another way." She tells him, because he's Fitz, he always finds a way out; he's brilliant and brave and smart and courageous and intelligent and amazing. If there's a way out, he will finding it. "This solution was unacceptable," she continues. "We will find another one. Together."
They don't. But they are together when they get sleepy, and she rests her head on his shoulder and he curls his good arm around her back and waist and they sit there murmuring silly things to each other, not caring that they are wasting oxygen because comforting each other is not a waste. They stay like that until the sleep comes, bringing darkness along.
#5.3. the Pod
"Jemma, come on, we have to hurry up."
"No. No. No." She cries, her own tears choking her.
"Take it, Jemma." he moves away and pushes the canister into her hands. "Take it."
She lets it slip through her fingers and moves quickly to catch Fitz before he can move too far away from her, before he's out of her reach. She catches him, her arms around him, her hands on his neck, tugging him closer to her.
She holds him, tight like she intends to hide him in herself, shield him, keep him safe, not caring that the heavy air will soon make her dizzy, the canister with oxygen long forgotten, because they are together and they will be like that forever.
She kisses his cheek and forehead, and nose and jaw and ear and neck and arm and collarbone and throat and chin. And she's purposefully omitting one place because she knows what would happen if she doesn't.
She woke up the moment she'd almost managed to finally kiss his lips.
Her fingers itching to touch flannel, her nose full of scent that wasn't right, air on her lips so cold and her mind so confused, because Fitz was her best friend. And she just wanted... him. Whatever that meant.
But she couldn't be so egoistic as to want him to die with her. And she shouldn't be content because that was not a happy ending, and in reality Fitz was alive which was so much better and she should be grateful and happy.
She really should.
-o-
She tried to write them letters.
The idea hit her when Coulson showed up for the first time. She couldn't call but a letter, handwritten on paper, that would be a safe way of communication.
She wrote one to May. That was easy. Telling her about which part of her training was useful, of work and stuff that were not personal at all.
The one for Trip took her longer. She wrote that she's fine, and about some funny things that she saw in the lab. It was very short.
With Skye's it was more complicated. She said she's sorry but it's an important mission, and she's very careful and not risking too much and she will be back the first chance she gets. She asked tons of questions even though she knew she wouldn't receive any answers.
Then she tried to write one for Fitz. Sitting down at her desk, she tried to write something, anything, but each time she put together some sentences she was crossing them out a minute later. Everything she managed to write down was either irrelevant and silly, too complicated even for her to understand, or so important that it should be said in person, while watching his face, not in an emotionless piece of paper. She wrote and crossed and tore the paper.
Two hours later she had 21 drafts and not a single letter for him.
She burned them all down in her kitchen.
CLASS 6: Not when it counted, of course
They were also the ones she absolutely hated and yet they came to her more often than she wished.
#6.1. the Ocean
There is water. Everywhere around her. In her ears. In her eyes. In her nose.
She pushes the canister to her lips and takes a breath. A deep breath filling her lungs with pure oxygen.
She looks around her, throwing her head from side to side, but there's water everywhere, whirling, catching things from the floor and throwing them around. She can't see him. She can't find him. She's there, she's looking, but Fitz is nowhere to be found, even though the mere pieces of logic and reason left in her mind are screaming that he has to be here somewhere. So she keeps looking and looking until her head spins and the water begins to darken on the edges of her sight until the darkness takes her too.
#6.2. the Ocean
Water is everywhere, it hits her body and her face, forces itself into her nose and mouth, into her throat as she tries to spit it out. She holds the canister up to her face and takes a breath, comforting her lungs with blessed oxygen. She looks around her, ignoring the sticking salt of water in her eyes. She sees him just a few feet from her, laying on the floor next to the wall the water pushed him onto. Not moving. Knocked out. She reaches for him, grabs him by some miracle and manages to somehow maneuver them both through the window. She holds him with one hand and swims with the other, trying to be as fast as she can to escape, to reach safety.
She throws a look back every tiny second, to make sure Fitz is still there, still with her, safe in her grip. She swims higher, looks down to ensure Fitz's safety and swims faster, and slows down to look at his figure again, and swims.
But the surface is too far away and she has too little time, trying to win this race with borrowed breath. The view in front of her is blurry. That's because of water and sunlight. The rays are breaking on the surface. That's what makes them blurry. But then she looks back at Fitz and he's blurry too, he's getting smudgy on the edges and her lungs start to hurt and her muscles don't want to listen to her anymore, losing their rhythm. She slows down and slows down and down and down until she reaches complete darkness, almost like falling asleep.
#6. the Ocean
Water, water, water, hitting her and stealing her breath from her, forcing her to take the one Fitz gave her. Around her wet salty needles trying to blind her, trying to hide him from her, but she fights it with persistence until she finds him and grabs him, taking him out of this metal trap along with her. She keeps her grip on his collar with all her might, feels her muscles tighten all the way to her arm in a desperate effort to hold his weight with all her strength so that nothing could force them apart not even the vast depth of the ocean and its waves and currents. She swims up and up and up toward the light, the surface, the air.
She's so focused on it that she doesn't pull her eyes from her goal, too afraid to waste even an ounce of priceless energy, even a tiny second to look back. Her fingers are twitching but she ignores it, because she has to go up, up, up, only a few feet left and they will be safe. But her fingers are traitorous again and they start losing their squeeze, muscles too strained by the strength of grip she forced on them. In one second she's holding Fitz's collar safely, the next a few muscles loosen and the material slips from between her fingertips and Fitz falls. A Body without oxygen, too heavy to float, goes down like a rock. He goes down and down and down and she stops on her way, trying to decide. Should she push just a little up and take a breath she needs so she can come back for him and pull him up again? But he will fall down and down and it might be too late by the time she comes back. She should catch him now. Now now now. But he's dropping further and further away and she has so little breath left and she can't decide, can't because there, just above her, is life and down is death, but Fitz is falling there. Alone. She starts to scream but there's no sound, only the water flowing into her lungs, taking the last of oxygen, taking the last of Fitz's breath away from her, leaving only an empty void and darkness.
She woke up, a scream in her throat that she was trying to stop, not remembering why.
"Fitz..." Escaped from her lips, but her hand was there on time to muffle it. Because she couldn't say it, she had to force herself not to say it, because even now, half awake and terrified, she remembered it was important,
Bugs. In her apartment.
Listening.
Hydra.
She couldn't let them know what's important to her. When Hydra finds out what's important for her, they will crush it right before her eyes.
Not him, not him, not him.
She took a deep breath, which didn't calm her at all. She reached for her night stand and opened the drawer. Not the top one, hiding her gun, but the one on the bottom. It was dark so it took her a while to find what she was looking for, even though there was nothing else in there. Finally her fingertips brushed over it and she took out a piece of metal, two of them actually, connected with a bolt in a way that let them move around each other.
She had stolen it. Coulson forbade her to take anything connected with anyone. No photos, no mementos, nothing even remotely personal that could be connected to someone from the team even by a long shot.
So she, the always following the rules Jemma Simmons, had stolen this scrap from Fitz's workbench, because she needed something, some anchor, some reminder of why she was here, what she was fighting for and what's waiting for her.
She clutched it in her hands, drawing it closer to her face, fumbling with it in a desperate search for comfort, but cold metal was nothing like the hands that made it and she wiped his remnants with her own skin, touched it too many times already for his fingertips to remain on the surface.
During some nights she was a hero.
During others she was just terrified.
A/N:
- In summary I promised that it will be a series of short scenes. This chapter is long but contains a lot of short scenes, so it's still exactly what I've promised. "My logic is undeniable" ;)
- Chapter inspired by Spike's "Every night I'd save you" speech from Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "After Life". Class 6 title is a quote from this speech
- Class 5 title is a quote from Doctor Who episode "The Angels Take Manhattan"
- With this chapter the whole period between season 1 and 2 is covered. But of course I won't leave it with this kind of ending :) There will be a bonus chapter for first part of season 2, with a happy ending. Well, happy for this story. Not straight-from-the-fairytale happy
- Thanks to TheLateNightStoryTeller andamandajbruce for beta reading.