JEMMA

Things were not going well for Jemma Simmons.

It was her first day at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, which should have started as the greatest morning of her life, and yet there she was – frantically running through the halls trying not to check her watch as the probability of making it to class on time got less likely by the second. She tore around a corner at the end of one particularly long hall so quickly that she collided straight into a tall boy in a tactical student's uniform walking in the opposite direction and sent a pile of old books tumbling out of his arms and onto the ground. She hesitated just long enough to see the exasperated look on his face as he bent to pick them up. On any other day Jemma would have helped, but not when she was about to be late and Advanced Physics was just two doors down. She shouted a quick, high pitched "Sorry!" over her shoulder as she turned to duck into class. Only after she had turned away did Jemma wonder what a tactical student could possibly be doing reading Ovid.

Jemma opened the door and found herself at the very back of the classroom, quickly moved towards the only open table she could see, threw her bookbag on the ground and took her seat just as the bell rang. Jemma let out a relieved breath and tucked a lone strand of hair back behind her ear, "Well that was dramatic", she muttered to herself.

"Yeah, a bit" came a voice from her left.

Jemma spun around and for the first time became aware of the fact that there was another person at her table, well, their table.

He seemed to be her age, which was surprising since she was very young to be a first year anyways, with pale blue eyes and curly brown hair, which – after a moment – he anxiously reached up to fidget with and she realized she had been staring. She felt the heat rush to her face as she looked away,

"Sorry, I'm usually never late, but my dorm –"

"– got switched at the last second? Yeah, they all did", he interrupted bluntly.

She stared at him again, was he making fun of her? She allowed some edge to creep into her voice as she responded, "Well it's not my fault that my new dorm is so far away from-".

"Fitz, Simmons, that's quite enough chatter in the back there", the professor had arrived and was now staring at the two of them with a rather stern expression, "unless you'd like to get us started and recite to the class the first law of thermodynamics?" It was clear the lecture had been waiting on them to begin.

If she wasn't red before, Jemma was certainly red now as she tried to hide her embarrassment at being called out in front of the entire class. Out of the corner of her eye she could tell the annoying boy next to her, Fitz she assumed, was shifting nervously in his seat as well.

Down in the front of the class the professor crossed her arms, "Well?" she said.

"Matter can neither be created nor destroyed" they recited, accidentally, in unison.

The class snickered and Jemma bit her lower lip, determinedly not looking at Fitz. This was all his fault.

"Lovely" the Professor said dryly, "Now that we have everyone's attention, I'd like you all to turn to page 53 in your texts as we look at how S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the 1st law in the major propellant systems for the Quinn Jets…" she turned and began drawing up different schematics on the holo-table behind her.

Pulling her laptop out of her bag, Jemma reflected on just how the best day of her life had gone completely sideways. It had started when she had arrived at her dorm to learn that it was no longer her dorm.

Typically, the Science students at the academy lived, worked, and studied in their own private section of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base that the academy operated on. The other divisions, Tactical and Communications, were on the same base but separated – architecturally and socially. It was safe to say that the three divisions didn't exactly get along. Which had made that morning's news all the worse for Jemma. There had been some incident in the Tactical students' dorm buildings, the exact nature of which was classified and far above what anyone with real clearance would ever share with her, but Jemma had her suspicions. She'd heard that the tactical students were a bit less than civilized, to say the least, so it wouldn't surprise her if it turned out that someone had tried to pick a fight and accidentally blown the doors off the place. Regardless, a large portion of the Tactical dormitories were completely unusable and the now homeless students that had been scheduled to move in had been switched into dorms on the Science & Technology side of the base. Jemma had learned all of this only that morning when she had showed up to her new dorm room only to find a blonde girl in the black combat suit of Tactical trainees hanging up her clothes right next to Jemma's in the closet.

"Hi" the blonde girl had said, smiling and reaching out her hand towards Jemma, "I'm your new roommate, Clarke Griffin".

Clarke seemed relatively nice and all, for a tactical student anyways, but still, the morning had been less than ideal in Jemma's opinion.

She caught a movement in her peripheral and looked over, Fitz was edging her textbook out of what he – apparently- felt was his space on their table.

Jemma rolled her eyes, it was going to be a long year.

I almost joined up with you lot in SciTech you know", Clarke was saying over her shoulder while organizing drawing supplies in her desk. Jemma gave her a skeptical look. It was after class and Jemma was sitting on her bed, half studying for tomorrow, half trying not to be judgmental about her new, very blonde, very athletic looking roommate. Clarke glanced over, saw Jemma's face and let out a little laugh, "I did! Don't give me that look".

Jemma glanced down at her textbook sheepishly, "I didn't say I didn't believe you".

"Yes well, you had me fooled."

Jemma looked up again, despite the fact that Clarke looked like every girl who had ever bullied her in primary school, Jemma didn't want to start off on bad terms with her new roommate.

But Clarke was smiling at her, "It's okay, I know what all you sciency types think of us over at tactical. That we're just a bunch of jacked up, trigger happy soldiers in training with about one braincell between the lot of us", she joked, "but that's not me, I promise I won't tackle you in your sleep or anything".

Now it was Jemma's turn to smile, "Yes well, you had me fooled".

Clarke's laugh was bright and clear and seemed to fill up the distance between them, "oh wow - now she has jokes, huh?".

Jemma felt herself loosen up a bit, maybe she had been wrong to be so pessimistic about the dorm switchup.

"I promise I'm not one of those 'sciency' types, that can't take a joke. I actually think it's impressive, some of the things you guys can do in Tactical. I mean, nothing's as impressive as Advanced Physics", she held up her textbook with a teasing grin, "but still, I don't think I could ever take a punch like you".

"Oh I'm sure you could", Clarke turned back around to finish reorganizing her desk, "fighting's not all that hard once you learn the basics, it's just about practice".

Jemma knew enough about just how difficult Tactical really was to be appreciative that her new roommate, new friend, - she corrected herself, was so humble. Humility was not exactly one of Jemma's strengths.

"Anyways", Clarke said, "how was your first day? All the tactical schedules had to delay because of the structural failures over in C block, so we don't start till tomorrow."

"Oh - it was…it was good I guess" Jemma replied.

Clarke gave her a look.

"Okay I mean it was basically a total disaster" Jemma relented, "I was almost late to first period, basically bowled a guy over in the hall on my way there, and I'm pretty sure the guy who sits next to me in physics is going to be a total nightmare".

"Well look at you" Clarke said, "already knocking kids out on your first day. Keep it up and there might be a place for you in tactical yet!"

Jemma rolled her eyes "Yeah, just start calling me the Cavalry", but she smiled a little in spite of herself. It was kind of funny after all.

Clarke finished organizing her desk and walked over to their closet to grab a big T-shirt with the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy logo on the back.

"So, is he cute?" Clarke asked, pulling on the shirt and getting into her bed.

"I mean he was kind of busy picking up all his books, I didn't think about it, but no, not really my type" Jemma replied offhandedly, leafing through the next page in her textbook.

Clarke was setting an alarm for the next morning on her phone, "No, I meant the guy who sits next to you in class".

Jemma looked up startled, "What, Fitz?! He's – it's - No, of course not!"

"Oh so it's 'Fitz' now?" Clarke was smiling as she put her phone back on her nightstand.

"Please, he's just some guy in my class, it's definitely not like that. Anyway, I'm not interested in all of that mess, I worked too hard to get here I'm not slagging off now", Jemma replied determinedly, flipping another page in her Physics textbook.

"Well I don't think you've got anything to worry about there, seeing as it's 10:30 at night on the very first day and you're just about done with that giant boring textbook there. Pretty sure nobody else, even in SciTech, is doing that right now." Clarke assured her, " 'all of that mess' or not".

Clarke reached up to shut her light off, and rolled over in bed, "Feel free to stay up and finish it, I'm sure you will anyways, but since I need to be up and training at 5am tomorrow I'm going to bed".

Jemma clicked her reading light on and turned a page in the last chapter,

"Goodnight."