I am always blown away by your interest in this story, thank you so much for reading!
I scrambled around with the timeline of Episode 9 a little bit so the talk between Fitzsimmons happens earlier.

Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel.

Chapter 15: Bienvenido a Puerto Rico!

Xandra awoke to somebody pacing around, but when she snapped into her "alert mode", she saw it was only Fitz walking around, muttering to himself. The woman sat up, pushing her hair back and putting on the glasses she had tugged into a seat-pocket in front of her.

"Hey," he said quietly, starling the young man, "what's up?"

At first, it didn't seem as if he would answer, but then he sighed.

"I told Simmons."

"You told her what?" she probbed in her British accent that could sound so formal and clipped at one moment and soft as silk in another.

"I will work at the garage and she will have the lab. To have space," Fitz answered, sounding defeated.

Xandra nodded in understanding. "And Simmons doesn't see why?"

The man shrugged the shoulders a bit helplessly.

"Well Fitz, I think you do what you do think is best. And if you want to go back to the lab, you go back. I still want to do that project with you," she added with a small smile.

"Okay," he answered, sounding a bit more hopeful than before.

"Okay," she replied brightly, "now, what do you want to do until we land?"

"I don't know," he replied a bit confused.

"Well, Fitz, I feel like dancing!" she commented, getting up and stepping in front of him.

"But I can't dance," he protested.

"Then let's figure it out."

She turned on the music on her phone until a slow, charming song filled the part of the plane. Then she held both hands towards Fitz, palms up, letting him decide whether to take them or not. When he slowly stepped towards her, she guided his right hand to her hip and held the left one in hers. Her dancing instructor would have had a fit at the sloppiness of the posture, but somehow it felt right just swaying to the music in a plane on the way to a top-secret-mission. Both a bit broken, just that it showed on the surface on one of them and the other one kept it hidden. At one point, both of her arms looped around his neck and his arms locked around her, never stopping the swaying. It was funny how this could have been romantic but was not, there was no tension between them, only tension-relief through being held by someone who subconciously understood. They pulled apart after a few songs and while Fitz didn't quite seem to be able to gather what had just happen, the woman just smiled and pushed a wayward curl away from his forehead.

Obviously, Xandra would visit San Juan in style, but still had to grudgingly accept that a sundress was very likely not appropriate for a mission. Therefore she ended up wearing jeans and a white shirt with a jeans blouse open on top. She nearly dropped her backpack when she saw Agent Morse wearing a kind of similar outfit and from the look in the other woman's eyes, she thought exactly the same. It was like at a social even when two ladies came wearing the same designer dress -trouble. None of the men seemed to have any problem with it though, only Simmons seemed to smirk to herself.

"Alright, Bobbi and I will reach out to the contact while you stay here," Coulson decided, "Edvardson, keep an eye on the code. Mack, Simmons, Fitz, prepare the gear so you are ready to come when needed. Edvardson, when they come, you can come, too, but not in any other case. Is that understood?"

As they all nodded, the director seeemed satisfied enough to make his way into the city, the blonde agent on his heels.

Xandra was trying to help as best as she could, packing bags in the hangar with Mack and Simmons, when Mack suddenly sighed exasperatedly.

"I am going to check on the landing gear with Fitz. You two should figure out whatever problem you have because this awkward passive agressive silence between the two of you is killing me!"

Then he was gone and the two women looked at each other in silence, both not really wanting or knowing how to start.

The Swedish sighed. "Alright Simmons, I actually don't have a problem with you, so maybe you should go first."

"If you insist. Well, firstly Hunter, then Fitz and apparently even Tripp - From what I have seen, you charme each and everyone without thinking about the consequences. Hunter is kind of with Bobbi, Fitz is in a very vulnerable place right now and Tripp..."

"Alright, let me stop you right there," Xandra argued, her voice surprisingly calm, "I admit I do use charme as means to an end, but in this case, it was absolutely genuine, because I really like the team without any ulterior motives. Tripp is a flirt, about as serious as I am, I am doing no harm there, and you know that. Same applies to Lance. I didn't know there was something between him and Morse at first and when I started to figure it out, which was only when we left by the way, I realized he used me partly to make her jealous. Which is fine as I used our banter to rile her up a bit for my amusement, but not with mean intentions. He is not my type, but he is someone I would very much like as a friend. Same with Fitz. I sincerely like him and I want to help him, but there is nothing romantic between us. But he needs someone who doesn't treat him as if he were fragile and it helps that he knows that I do not compare him to "before" I think. So you see, your worries and jealousy is absolutely pointless."

"Who says I am jealous?" Simmons challenged her.

"I do, because it's easy to figure out. Visual clues. Verbal clues. You feel I might steal you best friend and you feel I might challenge you position as scientist in the team. Our similarities in speech do not exactly help, I believe. But, I can tell you, you will always be Fitz priority and I work in another field of research as you do."

"Okay," Simmons replied slowly, then she held out her hand. "Peace?"

Xandra shook it without hesitation. "Peace."

Some time later they finally got the message that their help was wanted in the city, in an old fort. The other extraction team had been succesful and was fine, a fact Xandra was more relieved about than she had expected to be. Still, Coulson had made some comments that apparently May was pissed off because some woman had stolen her face, whatever that meant. The young woman was happy to be in the sun again, taking in the vibe of the city around her. Maybe she could come back here on vacation...
After their arrival at the fort however, her stomach dropped. They were going underground again and it was going to be narrow and dark. After the latest events, she was not really eager to provoke another panic attack, but given there were other people with torches around her, Xandra tried to optimistically tell herself that she would be fine. Absolutely fine. They were only trying to find the entrance to an old alien city under an ancient guard tower that was, according to Agent Morse's contact and the legend Simmons was currently quoting, haunted. What could go wrong?

The room they were working in was luckily surprisingly spacious and the woman watched in anticipation while Fitz cut an opening in the floor to gain access to the tunnel system below them. Even though historical research had always been her father's and not her own domain, she had come in touch with it often enough to have a certain knowledge and interest in it. Well, she had had to have it as it was one of the only things she could talk about with her father, who didn't particularly bother about her own areas of research, only about her success.
Xandra was pullled out of her musind when Fitz let his "dwarfs", which turned out to be little flying robots, down into the tunnel to get a better picture of the structure of the walls and statics and to actually find out where and what this suspiciously vaguely described temple could be. However, suddenly, the dwarves went out. Xandra was sure this was not Fitz' fault, there was something about the whole situation that made her incredibly uneasy. At first, she had thought it was simply the surrounding, but now, what had been called her "battle instincts" were screaming at her to run. But to run where? There was the urge to get away from this place as quickly as possible (probably the sane part of her brain) but there was also something down in the deep, reaching out to the evry core of her being. It was like a siren's call, but not beautiful. It was frightening.

When after a while it was decided that the best course of action was to let soembody down and explore the tunnels, Xandra was incredibly glad it was Mack and not her who was lowered down on a cord. She watched it tensely, waiting for something to go wrong any minute. Suddenly, there was a beeping sound behind her, shaking the woman out of her stupor.

"What is this?" Coulson barked.
"The code!" Xandra nearly screamed, rushing to where she had dropped her bag to retrieve her laptop.

Turning it on, she saw red lights flashing all over her screen. The HYDRA-signal had evolved. However, if it had evolved here, it had evolved everywhere and there was no way to say what the new version could do. Remote control, scrambling communication... She had to rectify this situation.

"How could this happen?" the director all but scremed.
"I checked before we left and it was fine, it must have changed in the meantime," she replied as calmly as possible, even though her heart was racing.
"Fix it!"he commanded her and she nodded.
"I need to get up to the surface to have better internet access though" she declared.

Luckily, the director seemed to agree.

"Go, Bobbi, go with her just in case!"
While the two women were racing up the washed-out stairs, Xandra was already running calculations in her head. Back on the surface, she sat down on the floor, the device on her lap, starting to type furiously. Suddenly, there was a roaring sound below, furious and wild and barely human. Then there was screaming, a voice Xandra identified as Simmons' even in her concentrated state.
"Morse, they need you!" she commanded, "I am fine here on my own."
When the agent tried to protest, the cryptographer looked up for a moment. The defining glare of the agent met the stare of someone whom she had not seen before, not the girl she had thought to know but a woman that commanded respect, even sitting on the floor before her.
"Go!" she told her again, and this time the other one nodded and made her way back into the fort.

It took her only a few minutes to realize HYDRA had been sloppy, the code was primitive to what they had developed before. Probably SHIELD weren't the only ones running out of time. Just when she was about to head in to tell the director the problem had been solved, a window popped up.
"Decrypt communication."
Frowning, she clicked on it, and froze. Apparently she had ended up hacking a communication that HYDRA had been scrambling before. At first, she only heard a man talking and it sounded as if she were just witnessing a hostile takeover of some kind. Xandra had no idea who that man was, but she recognized a female voice, answering the intruder - it was May's voice and she sounded pissed. No, she sounded like she absolutely resented that man. The communication took place on the bus, that much was clear now. Apparently they, presumably HYDRA, were threatening the team to give up Skye and apparently she had just agreed. And theyalso had Raina and they knew about the temple and they were coming.

She jumped up, running back ito the others with her laptop in her hand.
When she burst in, the others looked at her in surprise.
"We have a problem!"she declared.
Coulson looked down into the darkness where they suspected the city. Mack was nowhere to be seen.
"No, we have at least two."

Thank you for reading!