Jemma carefully stitched up one of the many wounds. This one was just above the girl's prominent cheekbone. Startlingly close to her eye. This was the last of the cuts, but the apparent Avenger had yet to come to. She was already hooked up to a saline IV and she would be receiving donor blood in minutes. Her lips looked grey and Jemma was concerned.
"I need an MRI scan to assure that she didn't sustain any brain damage from the blow with the crowbar." Jemma called over her shoulder to the nurse behind her.
"Don't worry about a thing Jemma." Fitz ran up from within the lab grasping a small device.
"Bioscanner." He nodded at Jemma and held the device out.
"Right here." Jemma indicated the spot that needed to be scanned by hovering her hand over an area of the girl's forehead. Fitz scanned the spot and in a moment he had a three dimensional image of the girl's brain projecting out of the device. A sense of relief washed over Jemma as she saw that the girl had suffered no brain damage. Suddenly the girl began to move. She moaned and tears slipped down her cheeks. She slowly lifted her bandaged hand and placed her black polish clad fingers gingerly on her neck. She tapped at the spot while letting out small noises to indicate something was wrong. Jemma moved the girl's hair out of the way to find a startling bloody burn on the side of her neck.
"Oh! Oh my god." The words escaped Jemma's lips as she saw the horrific spot.
The poor girl continued to tap at her neck. Her moans growing more tortured and desperate. A thought suddenly occurred to Jemma.
"Fitz, hand me an alcohol swab!" Jemma looked up and stated urgently.
Fitz obliged and handed his fiancée a sealed swab. Jemma opened it and began to rub at the front of her patient's neck. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw that the girl's neck was covered with makeup to blend in an angry red cracking rash. Jemma delicately scrubbed off the rest of the makeup and then applied bacitracin to the area. After bandaging the girl's neck, she seemed to calm down. Jemma wondered to herself what could have caused the rash and the burn. She backed away and took a deep breath, trying to release the tension that had built up over the last hour. Fitz walked up to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
"Go and take a break. I'll stay with her." Fitz assured Simmons. He knew that she liked to keep her patients under constant vigilance so he jumped in so that Jemma could take a minute. She had been working non-stop since they had found the girl.
"Thanks." The corners of her mouth pulled up slightly and she turned towards him. She wrapped him in a big hug and gave him a sweet little kiss.
Jemma returned about an hour later, she held a tray with two steaming mugs of tea, two sandwiches on French bread, and two blankets tucked under her arm. Wanda Maximoff had been moved to a separate room within the med-bay and was still unconscious. Fitz sat in the armchair adjacent to the bed as promised. Jemma carefully placed the tray on a small table that was between Fitz's chair and a little couch.
"Anything?" She asked Fitz hopefully while plopping one of the blankets down on the couch.
"Not really. She twitched a little and asked where her brother was…but I am pretty sure that's from the morphine." He shifted slightly while he gave the update.
"Yeah." Jemma nodded her head in agreement. She then took the remaining blanket and walked over to the sleeping Avenger. She examined her quickly and then began remove the blanket that was on her. After taking the pale hospital blue sheet, balling it up and tossing it into the corner with visible contempt, she unfolded the soft purple floral patterned blanket from her own room and spread it over the girl with a kind of care that Leo had never seen Jemma use before. She became aware that he was watching her.
"I hate those horrible hospital blankets." She said with a crinkle of her nose. Fitz simply nodded in agreement, although he wasn't quite sure why it was that she was taking so much interest in this girl.
Jemma walked back to the couch and took her spot, curled up right at the arm. She took up her mug of tea and sat back.
"Oh the sandwich!" Leo exclaimed, breaking the momentary silence with the realization that his favorite meal was sitting right beside him. He picked it up with both hands and took a minute to fully absorb its beauty.
"Prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella." He let the words slip out of his mouth in a dreamlike manner.
"With a hint of pesto aioli." Jemma added with a smile.
He grinned, closed his eyes, and then took a bite. Jemma took a small sip of her tea and then spoke.
"You hear about these people on the news. They are spoken about as if they are somehow in complete control of everything that happens in their vicinity…and they leave out the details." Jemma breathed a heavy sigh and then continued. "Did you know that she was born in 1997?" Jemma turned her head towards Leo, who could only respond with a pause and a solemn shake of the head because of his sandwich.
"I didn't either. It says on her ID card. I just assumed that she was our age, or the like…but she's just a kid." Jemma furrowed her brow and took a thoughtful sip of her tea.
"That means that she couldn't have been older than sixteen when she was taken by Hydra." Fitz said thoughtfully having finished the first half of his sandwich. He took a deep breath and then picked up his mug of tea.
"The poor lass." He knitted his brows together and took a careful sip.
They sat together in silence. Observing their patient, each contemplating quietly. Jemma wondered what Wanda was doing out all on her own, and what the rash and the burn came from. A thought occurred to Jemma when she realized that Wanda had not been in the public eye since the accords were being debated. A horrible suspicion formed in Jemma's mind and she shook it from her head, having felt guilty even thinking of it. After a moment she reached out and threaded her fingers through Leo's once more, enjoying the comfort that their connection provided. He responded by gently stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. She let out a yet another heavy sigh and tried to assure herself that this child soldier who had fallen into their lap was not, in fact, her responsibility. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that the girl had no one else. Why else would she be walking alone in the most crime ridden part of Hell's Kitchen?