A/N: Okay, so, without any spoilers, last night's episode broke me. FAR too many feelings. Some of those feelings may have ended up in this chapter, but not a lot of spoilers, just parallels.
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Enjoy!
"Fitz, they're going to let me in to see her in a few minutes," Jemma said. She leaned back against the ugly plastic chair, wishing she was anywhere else than in a hallway outside an intensive care room, waiting for Professor May or Skye's sister to come get her. "And I'm waiting for Trip and Hunter to get back with the results, so I have to let you go."
"Okay," Fitz said. He'd been mostly quiet throughout the time they'd spent connected, listening to Jemma as she tried to process what had just happened. It was exactly what Jemma wanted, and it broke her heart that Fitz couldn't be right beside her, holding her hand. "Jems… I sent you something. It should get there today."
Jemma looked at her best friend, thousands of miles away, and wondered what he could have thought was so important that he'd risk it over the miles and time zones and emotional distance from her. "What is it?"
He looked embarrassed for a split second, and then shook his head. "I made it for you," he said, which didn't answer her question at all, and could have meant he was sending her anything from a Popsicle-stick picture frame with an embarrassing picture of them mounted it to a computer capable of synthesizing DNA or creating 3D animals.
Then he said the sweetest, most beautiful thing. "Well, actually, I made it for Skye."
Fitz went even redder, and Jemma would have melted through the floor. "You made it for Skye?" she asked softly, unsure she'd heard correctly.
Fitz nodded, now blushing so fiercely that someone next to him would have gotten a suntan. "I just… I wanted you to be happy together."
"Oh, Fitz, we are," Jemma said.
"I know. But… trust me, this is something I know you'll be very happy with."
The door to the room opened and Professor May and Summer came out, talking softly. Jemma looked at them. "I have to go, Fitz."
"Okay," he replied. "If… if you need to talk later, you know where I am."
"You live in my phone, you darling Scottish angel."
"For now," he replied, and then he was gone.
Jemma stood and approached the professor and Skye's sister. "Is she…?"
"She's sleeping," Summer said. "But she asked for you. Repeatedly."
Something like calming peace settled over Jemma's roiling heart. It was the nicest thing anyone could have said at that moment.
"And I have a bit of an odd request," Summer went on.
"Of course," Jemma said. "Anything."
"Skye needs to have a test done – what's called a video EEG," Summer said.
Professor May gave Jemma a small smile. "Summer, I don't know if Miss Simmons told you, but she has a doctorate in biotechnology with a specialization in biomedical applications. I think she knows what the EEG is."
Summer put one hand to her forehead. "I'm sorry, Jemma. It… it must have slipped my mind."
"That's perfectly all right," Jemma said. "Go on, please."
"Oh, well, they'd like to have her do two tests. One would be a 48-hour EEG, preferably while they have her here and sedated. That will see if the seizures are occurring naturally in her brain, as opposed to something triggering them," Summer said. "She's sedated to keep her from pulling out the breathing tube, and they've given her a minimal dose of… something, I've forgotten, to keep the seizures at bay for the moment. When they turn that off, they want to start the EEG, and for 48 hours they'll monitor her brain waves."
She took a deep breath and looked through the window of the ICU room, then shook her head. "I'm sorry. It's just… it's been a long time since Skye has scared me this much."
"Me too," Jemma murmured.
Summer gave her a smile, and even with her tear-filled eyes, it was calming. "After they finish that, they want to do a 24-hour sleep-deprived EEG, to see if it's stress triggering the seizures. The way they treat them is different from seizures that naturally occur in the brain. I have to… I have to go back home – I run a dance studio and I can't be away that long. There's no one really to take over, and it sounds incredibly crass to say it…"
"No, it doesn't," Professor May said, and it was clear they'd talked about this before.
"… but I can't miss three days of classes, financially I mean. I don't want you to think I'm obsessed with money. Honestly, I'm obsessed with Skye, and it's in her best interest that I keep her in school, keep our house going, pay for our health insurance and…"
"You don't have to explain," Jemma said, and impulsively, she reached out and took Summer's hand, squeezing it. "I'm kind of obsessed with Skye, too."
"That's a true statement," Professor May said.
"Anyway, I know you have your own studies and I'm sure a million other things to do, but over the next two days, could you check in on Skye? And during the 24-hour sleep-deprived EEG, I know she'd love it if you could stay with her," Summer said. "It could be like a bizarre sleepover."
Jemma liked that idea, and even more than that, she was touched that Summer had thought of her. "I'd be more than honored to keep her company."
"Well, like I said, don't feel like you have to be here all the time," Summer said. "I know you have things going on."
"None of them are this important," Jemma said. "Trust me."
"Professor May and Mr. Coulson will be here as interpreters when they can, obviously around their course schedules," Summer said, "but from what Skye's told me about you, you're picking up sign like… like, well, a deaf toddler."
She smiled to let Jemma know it wasn't a horrible comparison. Jemma was still just reeling from the phrase "from what Skye's told me about you," and the way it made her feel – like she'd just drunk champagne with stars in her eyes.
"That's very kind," Jemma said, and she squeezed Summer's hand again.
"I can go to your dorm and get you some things," Professor May said. "If… that's all right with you."
"And I'll be back on Saturday," Summer added. "To go over the results of the scans and… if necessary, take Skye home with me."
She must have seen something in Jemma's eyes, because she hastened to explain, "Until we can get the seizures under control. Adjust the medications, or something. Whatever's necessary. Skye loves being at school, and I love her being there just as much. This isn't a finish line. It's a… a pit stop."
A phone rang, and Summer dug around in her coat pockets for a minute or so before digging hers out. "This is Skye's neurologist," she said. "Excuse me."
"Tell me what you'd like from your dorm," Professor May said as Summer stepped away. "I'll go get whatever you want while you visit Skye."
Hurriedly Jemma gave her a short list of basics, including her backpack and laptop, chargers for all the electronics, some clothes, a pillow and blanket, and her sign language textbooks. Then something else occurred to her. "Professor?"
May turned back to her.
"My friend Fitz… he sent me a package. I'm sure it'll be at the dorm. Could you… could you bring that too?"
The professor nodded. "Of course."
She gave Jemma one of her rare smiles. "Now, go see your girl."
Your girl. Jemma liked that, too.
But she did not like how Skye looked, once she was sitting next to the deaf girl's bed. There were too many machines, too many beeps and clicks and whirs, too many tubes and wires. They were monitoring everything and it was all completely necessary, but at the same time it seemed as though they were just trying to tie Skye to the bed.
"Hi," Jemma whispered as she took Skye's hand. She knew it was ridiculous – Skye was both deaf and heavily sedated – but it seemed wrong not to say anything.
She received a machine breath in response, and it unnerved her. Jemma reached up and brushed hair away from Skye's face, trying to avoid looking at the tube sprouting from Skye's mouth like an alien plant, tethering her to a monster of a machine next to the bed. The room wasn't silent – far from it – but Jemma ached for the silence of Skye's dorm room when the other girl demanded she "turn off her voice" and only use sign.
I miss you, she fingerspelled into Skye's hand, relishing the feeling of Skye's smooth palm against her moving fingers. Come back soon.
The package Professor May handed to her was much larger than what she'd been expecting. Truthfully, Jemma had been expecting a scarf, or a miniature Eiffel Tower, or something similarly souvenir-like. Once she got the cardboard wrappings removed, it looked like Fitz had machined a box from the future out of some gloriously shiny metal – and that was just the outside.
Carefully Jemma opened the catches and looked into the case. For a minute she couldn't understand what she was seeing. It just looked like a pair of black gloves.
There was an envelope taped to the inside of the case, and Jemma plucked it up.
Jem – the one thing I appreciate most about our friendship is that we've always been able to talk about everything, communicate truly and deeply on a level most people could never understand. I know you've found something special with Skye, and I know your communication barrier might be holding you back from having something more. I don't want to discourage you from learning sign language, since you're already doing so well with it, but I thought you might appreciate something to help you while you sprint towards fluency. – Fitz
The envelope had a short instruction manual in it, written in Fitz's characteristic hand, careful and precise. The gloves were meant for Skye; they had microprocessors wired into each finger that translated movement and sent it to an iPod-esque device Jemma could wear. Text would pop up on the screen translating the signs. Fitz had literally created a device that let Skye be her own interpreter.
Professor May looked over Jemma's shoulder. "What's that?"
Jemma looked up, her eyes shining. "Put these on," she said, which wasn't really an answer, but she was dying to try out Fitz's tech.
To her credit, Professor May didn't ask any questions. She shimmied her hands into the gloves and waited for Jemma to give her further instructions.
"Okay," Jemma said, turning on the processor. "Now… I don't know, sign something confusing."
Professor May thought for a moment, then brought her hands up and began moving them.
Jemma looked down at the readout: "… martial law was enacted in several European and Asian countries during what would come to be known as the Bronze Age…"
A grin spread over her face, and she gave a little squeal, leaping out of her chair to show the display to Professor May.
"That's… incredible," Professor May said.
"Is it all correct?" Jemma asked. She hadn't understood a single movement.
The professor nodded. "That's… astonishing. Your friend Fitz must really love you."
Jemma could only nod.
Later, after Skye had been hooked up to the EEG monitoring equipment, which consisted of hundreds of little electrodes pasted to her head and twisted up in a big braid of wires, all running to a machine that was equipped with a video camera, one of the nurses told Jemma how to fold the little couch out into a bed, and for the second time in their relationship, Jemma and Skye were going to spend the night together.
Neither time had been what Jemma would have called a "good night" together. She was pretty sure this one wouldn't rank too highly on Skye's list, either.
With the lights off in the room, Jemma curled up under her blanket, listening to the machine breathing for Skye and the machines recording brain waves or pushing IV fluids or monitoring some vital process. For just a moment she wanted earplugs, anything to block out the noise or to help her forget where she was and why she was there.
She brushed her hand against Skye's. "Good night," Jemma said softly, spelling the two words into Skye's hand.
Some time later Jemma awoke in the darkened room, unsure of what had jolted her from sleep. Another few seconds passed before she realized it was her phone, caught under her pillow.
She pulled it out and looked down at the screen. It was a text message from Bobbi.
Boys finished the preliminary tests on those pills. Definitely not anti-seizure stuff. We'll plan on going to the pharmacy in the morning to see what we can find. In the meantime Trip and I are trying to figure out where Garrett might be hiding Ward, and another friend of ours is helping Hunter search for any potential connections from Garrett or Ward to anyone who had access to the pharmacy. Tell Skye we love her.
The knot of rage Jemma thought had dissipated came roaring back, but she found it had dampened somewhat. Maybe it was all the wires and tubes tying Skye to her bed – maybe they were tying Jemma to the hospital, to the ICU room, to Skye's side.
And maybe that was the right place for her to be.
No, not maybe.
Definitely.