Posting this from the corner of the lounge of my hostel, hoping that no one is reading over my shoulder. Thanks so much for all the love this fic is getting!

xx

Daisy rolls out of the way as the door crashes open and a gun sweeps through the room. Drywall crumbles under where her shoulders press into the worn paint. Ward is at her side a moment later.

"We're unarmed." Daisy calls and May's weapon turns the corner to point straight at them, well at Ward.

"We just want to talk to you." She holds her hands up. Ward doesn't. "Nobody needs to get hurt."

She figures now is as good a time as any to test out Simmons' visualization theory. Picturing them all standing around the room – with the guns away – talking like it'll somehow make it true is easy, what she's not sure about is how they get there.

"I take it the two of you aren't here for a last minute vacation that you forgot to mention to anyone." May speaks to Ward, not Daisy, and there's a surprising lilt to her voice, like she finds this entertaining.

"Yeah," Daisy says, drawing the other woman's attention. "That's not really what's going on. So why don't you just put the gun down and we'll talk about it?"

Three things happen at once. May rolls her eyes, her ridged body position slackening ever so slightly. A siren echoes through the thin glass of the window. And Ward makes a grab for the gun.

A bullet goes through the wall between them then the weapon clatters to the floor. Daisy takes an instinctive step back while Ward gets punched in the face again. It's not displeasing to watch.

She lets him take one more good hit before intervening. Imagining what she's about to do in her mind before she actually does it, Daisy kicks Ward in the gut, sending him backwards a few steps, then manages to get both her hands on May's shoulders and shove closer to the other side of the room. Somehow, it works and both look stunned enough by her intervention that they pause in their attacks.

"We don't need to fight." She keeps her hands held out still, holds her gaze on May and lets Ward puff breath back into his lungs.

"Then why doesn't one of you tell me what the hell is going on." May's looking at her oddly, like she's trying to figure something out, but it seems like she's willing to listen.

Now all Daisy has to do is sell her remarkable tale.

"You're not gonna want to believe this." Daisy says, taking a step forward. "But…"

"You expect me to believe that this is all just some figment of my imagination? That none of this is actually real?"

Simmons figures that his ranting is better than him straightly denying her and kicking her out of his house. Although his voice bounces off the walls in a weird sort of echo in the massive room, making her wince.

"Not of your imagination no, of someone else's making. Do you know of a Doctor Holden Radcliffe?"

That makes him pause. "He's a transhumanist, right? We've crossed paths a couple of times at conventions."

"Yes, that's right." She takes a step towards him and this time he doesn't instinctually flinch backwards.

"He's created what he calls 'The Framework', it's an augmented reality experience that looks and feels and tastes as real as real life and that's where we are right now."

"That's not possible." He starts pacing again. "The technology that it would need is ages off, hell we're just getting a grip on AI."

"You were going to help me do it, Fitz. That's what I was asking you to build on the jet yesterday, you know it's not that far outside the realm of possibility."

"Well, yeah but I didn't think you were anywhere near implementation! Besides, what we were talking about was just specific scenarios, not an entire world. That's impossible."

"It should be. But Radcliffe found a book with immeasurable knowledge and power, that gives the reader the code to whatever they wish the most."

"A magic book?" he scoffs, "that's what you're going with?"

"Fitz." She touches his elbow, pleads with him with her eyes then watches a sigh fall through his body.

"Start at the beginning."

And she does.

May crosses her arms over her chest as Daisy sags back against the wall. It's not an encouraging expression, the one she's getting right now.

"I don't believe you."

It's not a complete surprise. What she's selling is rather beyond what a reasonable person would accept as factual. Even though she went into more details than she did with Ward, it only makes it less believable, not more. It's even harder to sell because she doesn't even understand the science of it all.

"Come on May, hasn't anything ever felt hollow? Like some part of you is missing? Think about it." Daisy isn't above begging at this point. She just hopes that the feeling of emptiness under her own skin is universal and not just the absence of her powers.

May glares harder.

"You know that I'm right. It would explain a lot, wouldn't it? Things that just don't quite add up, questions that go unanswered because you forgot that you asked them." Daisy takes a careful step forward. "This isn't the real world, this isn't your real life, help me get us all back to that."

The frown stays and Daisy waits her out. Ward sighs behind her, the entire ice bucket pressed to the new mark blooming on his face.

"So what if you're right? What am I going to do about it?"

Daisy smiles. "You're going to help me convince the others, then you're all going to wake yourselves up."

"You can't actually expect me to believe this."

Simmons' sighs, her hands raking down her cheeks on their way to gesticulate in the air. "It's the truth."

He paces again. She leans on the edge of one of the worktops, her arms crossed over her chest. They've been going back and forth with no real progression for too long now. She's not sure what else there is to say, how else she could convince him.

She watches the loop of the lab that he does, then he walks the line back and forth in front of her.

"So you're my…"

"Girlfriend, yeah." She looks at her feet on the floor, her black trainers against the concrete. "But," she sighs, "more than that, I suppose." To sum up the more than decade now of their relationship in a single word would be impossible.

He grins, the one she's come to hate. "So what? No Snow White kiss for me? Our eternal love isn't gonna save the day?"

Jemma scoffs, pushes herself forward to rock off the counter then shifts back to it. "Please, this isn't a fairy tale."

"Well then what the bloody hell is it because I'm lost, Simmons."

Her entire being feels as if it deflates. "You don't believe me." It's not a question.

He drags his hand over his face, his bottom lip caught in his teeth, a look of pure distress on his face. "I don't know how I'm supposed to."

"Come on Fitz, you know that there's science out there that we can't even begin to understand yet."

"Science, yes! But this is, this is something else. What you're talking about, it shouldn't be possible."

"Neither should a glider that can cross the Atlantic! Fitz, you make impossible things happen every day, we do. I just need you to believe in me, just for a couple of days, and if at the end of that, nothing's happened, you can go back to this life and forget all about me." Letting her hands drop, she takes a step forward. "I promise I'll never bother you again, just give me a week."

He stares at her, for longer than a minute, and she wills it to work out, for her to find some glimmer of recognition in his features, and for them to fix this together, like they always do.

She doesn't quite get her wish. Instead, both his hands curl around the back of his neck for a moment and he stares at the ceiling. Then, he nods solemnly.

"I guess we better get to work."

xx

Let me know what you think and as always I'm around on Tumblr at sinkingsidewalks!