And then they were off again, into the night, with FitzSimmons a few steps behind. She spared one last guilty glance at Tim, her ingrained sense of politeness aghast at leaving him with such a mess to pick up. We may well need to purchase a membership, to make it up to him. Perhaps a dose of furious exercise would help her vent some of her physical frustration. She was in a cage of her own making, to be sure, but that knowledge didn't stop her from being in love with her best friend, who was smart and sexy and completely worthy of her, when she couldn't do anything about it. She'd gone over the reasons in her head a million times, and it made sense to err on the side of keeping Fitz next to her in a professional capacity. But it still stung sometimes that she couldn't have her cake and eat it, too.

She wanted to have it all with Fitz, to hide inside his breath, to burrow under his skin and take refuge in the sound of his heartbeat against her ear. She wanted to explore the edges and corners and spaces of them, to learn his geography even as he dismantled her like a machine with his able, eager hands. But outside of occasionally letting her thoughts carry her off like this, her rational brain knew that there were too many ifs for her to shatter the boundary between want and should.

Simmons let out a breath, a hot puff of air that wafted back into her face, and channelled herself wholeheartedly into the chase.

[Didi 00:09] people think a relationship makes you whole, that it's two 50%'s coming together to make 100% when it should be two 100%'s making 200%

Sighing, Simmons tucked her phone back in her pocket. She should probably just blacklist the number, but that last one actually kind of made sense. Kind of. Let's not go overboard. Certainly she and Fitz weren't half as good separately, they'd each done well enough before teaming up, but there was no denying that together they were twice as smart.

"Well? What now?" Fitz's question pulled her to the task at hand.

The boys had scaled a rickety fence into what appeared to be a huge abandoned lot full of… well, junk. Fitz had been limping a bit since the arcade, saying nothing but obviously uncomfortable, and she now felt terrible that the only knee-high boot she'd been able to find him was in such a narrow style.

"You stay here, Fitz, I'll go up."

"What? No! We'll both of us go, or neither. Simmons, I am not getting separated in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar city."

"But you can't climb the fence, not in those shoes. Look, I won't go far, yeah? You can still hear me. And we've got our phones. Now give me a boost."

Without waiting for a reply, she stepped up to Fitz and put her hands on his shoulders, exerting a light pressure downwards.

"Well? Aren't you going to offer me a foothold?" She tried to ignore the way his blue eyes were catching the glow from the streetlamp, his gaze tattooing her with its proximity.

Fitz scowled, but laced his fingers together and held out his hands in a makeshift step. Simmons used the leverage to get a foot up onto his shoulder and grab hold of the metal fence. Perhaps I could be a field agent after all. Until she immediately wobbled, grappling at the fence with her hands, attempting to toe into the wire but succeeding only in kicking poor Fitz in the side of the head.

"Hey- hey!" Simmons could hear the censure in his voice - He can't possibly think I did it on purpose? - but despite everything, Fitz was holding fast to her legs, attempting to steady her as she got her bearings, rearranging his grip as he attempted to compensate for her shifting balance. Don't think about where his hands are. Especially don't think about where they could be. She was far too uncoordinated already without the distraction of his roaming grasp.

She made it over the top of the fence, gracelessly dropping down on the other side and landing in a crumple. The tall, random piles of scrap and around her made walking difficult, and she was incredibly glad she'd insisted Fitz stay on level ground.

"Okay, I'll scout and locate Cody and Trey, and text you which direction they're heading so you can come around the lot. If I see the gate, I'll call over and let you in. You've got your phone on?" She pulled out her own mobile and exhaled in worry. "Damn. 6%." Curse Didi and her sodding faux existentialism. She turned it off to conserve the battery. "It should be enough to send out a text once I've found them."

"No. No way, Simmons. What if you broke an ankle in there and couldn't call for help?"

"Fitz, the chances of-"

"No, that's far too dangerous. Here." Fitz reached through the fence and grabbed her cell. He then connected a cable between them. Within seconds, Simmons phone was at 50% power.

"Is that the…"

Fitz grinned and scrubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah, I finally got it to work."

"But what about your phone… won't this drain it?"

"A bit." He shrugged. "I didn't bring you up to full charge; this way we're both sort of midway. Now go on, before I change my mind about stayin' out of there."

She waved to him through the metal links and clambered off to search for the brothers.

-o-

A few minutes of searching the lot had Simmons totally lost and woefully out of her depth. It was a much bigger space than she'd anticipated, and she'd broken line of sight with Fitz almost immediately. But it was when she could no longer hear him, muttering to himself in his fretful burr, that set her apprehension to simmering. She sent off a quick text to reassure herself:

[Simmons 00:21] lost track of you; everything okay? no sign yet of c or t

Upon hitting send, she found she'd missed yet another message from Didi. Oh, for the love of…

[Didi 00:14] lately people call me scoop life

That's it. She went into the menu to block Didi's number; she couldn't afford to let these texts eat up her battery, not when she was relying on her phone to provide a lifeline to Fitz. Before she could complete the command, however, a touch at her elbow made her jump about a mile high.

"What're y' doin' here all alone at night, honey? You lost?"

Simmons jerked her head around to see an old woman, shorter than Jemma or stooped enough as to give that effect, tugging at her sleeve. Simmons couldn't believe she'd been so consumed with contacting Fitz that she hadn't even noticed her approach. She had a walnut of a face, and her too-loud breathing klaxoned through the air like a TARDIS. At her side was a rusting, dented shopping cart full of odds and ends, and at her back, an improvised lean-to composed of rough aluminum siding, cardboard, and what appeared to be a torn-off car hood. Oh. It seemed the woman hadn't come very far to speak to Jemma, after all. I've probably woken the poor dear up with my stomping.

"Erm, no, ma'am, I'm just looking for some kids… two boys, about fourteen and nine? They have something that belongs to me and I need it back."

"Haven't seen anyone like that, sug, but what is it you're after? I got lots of nice things here…" she rummaged through her sweater pockets and came up with a beat-up teddy bear, threadbare in patches. She shoved the bear into Simmons' hands, and she tamped down her recoil at the oily feeling on the plush surface. A couple of sad, loose stitches on its face were the only evidence of the bear ever having eyes, and the sight of the worn, abandoned thing caused Simmons' heart to twist unexpectedly. Someone loved this once. "Thank you…" she murmured, perching the teddy back on top of the piled-up contents of the cart, "but I'm afraid I really just need to find those boys."

"Go on, sweetie, take somethin'. Don't refuse an old woman."

"I really must be off… erm, I don't suppose you know where the gate to this lot is?"

"Right over there, hon. Now you take this sweet little friend with you. He's been lonely, waitin' for someone t' give him a home…" The lady pushed the stuffed animal back into Simmons grasp, and rather than fight over it, she nodded, reaching into her back pocket and finding a couple of dollar bills.

"Thank you for your help, ma'am. Have a nice night."

"You too, dear. Bless your heart."

Simmons threw back a wave before casting her eyes back to her precarious footing. She debated whether or not to set down the bear once she was out of eyeshot, but assumed the old lady would find it, and she didn't want to hurt her feelings. Huffing, she wrapped the dirty thing in her Hoggle mask, covering the old toy in latex to keep from having it touch her skin before tucking the bundle at her lower back, snug between her belt and the waistband of her trousers.

When Simmons reached the gate, she'd still caught no sign of the youths, but the boggart crouching in the pit of her stomach was the fact that Fitz wasn't returning her texts or calls. She needed to make sure he was all right - for all her confidence earlier, they were alone in an unfamiliar city at an ungodly hour, and she couldn't bear to think of any harm coming to him. Oh, why did we have to split up?

"Fitz!" she called into the night, but it was like tossing a stone into quicksand, the sound lost completely, not even an echo to mark its passing. Please be okay. She pulled and wriggled herself through the gap between the fence and the pole. The alligator in her throat wracking up her nerves had just closed its jaws on her windpipe, when she felt the familiar vibration of her message alert. That had better not be bloody Didi.

It wasn't.

[Unknown Number 00:35] fitz here. my phone died. i've got trey but not cody. we're on the southwest side of the lot. see you soon.

Simmons' brow quirked in befuddlement. Why was Fitz hanging out with the younger brother? Had he recovered the device? To be quite honest, at that moment she was so grateful that he wasn't hurt, she didn't care to waste time on the details. She did, however, spare a second to be moved by the fact that Fitz knew her phone number by heart, despite not having needed it for years.

The GPS on her mobile was enough to get her where she needed to go, and she soon found herself skipping towards Fitz and Trey on the street corner.

"You berk!" she glared, giving Fitz an unsubtle swat on the arm. "You did wear out your mobile battery." She grabbed his phone and swiped ineffectually at the screen. "Oh, Fitz. You have no power. What were you thinking?"

Fitz fixed her with an defensive moue. "Oh, I don't know, Simmons, that if I got in trouble out here, I could probably find help or a pay phone, but you, locked inside that complex, sharp metal underfoot and all manner of hazards around…" he trailed off, flushed.

She locked onto his eyes, staring him down, wondering if she could stand to be angry with him over this. It was just… easier to be angry, instead of… whatever this was. "Fine." She handed him back his phone, along with hers. "Charge yours back. And from now on we are not getting separated again."

Fitz's face took on an incredulous cast. "For Christ's sake, Simmons, I was the one who said-" he bit down his annoyance and hooked up the phones.

Trey took that opportunity to contribute. "You guys are dumb. Are we gonna go find my brother or what?"

The whole "twice as smart together" was a reference to the deleted scene "Simmons had boyfriends."

Simmons awkwardly climbing up Fitz is a little bit inspired by that similar scene in Harry Potter, I can't remember exactly which of the final movies it was, but you probably know the scene I'm talking about.

Okay, so I didn't meant to make anyone think too hard about the Didi texts. They're just for comedy - don't fret over whether or not they have some deep, meaningful connection. Either way, I'll reveal "the big mystery" (it's not; it's so lame, you guys) next chapter.

Last chapter's Labyrinth references were the dance scene and mention of "dance magic", the "maze" of alleyways, and getting a bunch of yoga balls rolling towards them. This section contains a few more nods to the movie. Care to guess what they are?

Hope you enjoyed it! New chapter'll be up on Thursday (or Friday - Thursdays are pretty busy for me).