"I want to hurt you Coulson. I'm going to pick away at your team. Take them, one by one. But I'm feeling merciful. Give me your least useful member and I'll give you a three day head start." Zabo looked at each of them in turn, grinning like the disillusioned man he was.
Though she would deny it later on, it was in that moment she made her decision. She would lie afterwards, during her debriefing, when Coulson asked her what had possessed her to do what she had done. When had she decided? Why did she do this again, she was ordered to never do this again.
Her mind had been racing the entire time, her grief over their situation hitting it's peak when Zabo gave the offer he did. She wasn't entirely sure when it was her downward spiral truly started, but she suspected it had been before the incident with the med pod. If you'd asked her a month or two before, she'd say it had been during Fitz and her's time down at the bottom of the ocean, but now...
She had nightmares, ever since she came up from the water, she'd had nightmares. They weren't all the exact same situation, but they all had a common theme: Someone she loves dies or has their life ruined because of her. She had come to long for the ones where she died in them because in those, the other person's life wasn't ruined or over, it was just hers. At first, it was just Fitz in the dreams. She hadn't gotten to him in time, or she couldn't get to him for some reason. He was too heavy for her to carry. The charge didn't work and she would watch him die before blacking out herself. He dies while in a coma. Or, in the true rare ones, he lives, and instead of just being awkward and avoiding her (Although to her those had been cruel and almost worse than death.), when she came back, he was gone. Gone home, never to return. After a month or so, other people were added. Coulson dies protecting her or she can't save him after he's shot or infected, or some other issue. Sometimes she accidentally shoots him in the heart, a metaphor for how she was sure she'd disappointed him over time. Trip, before he died, in her dreams she'd also accidentally shot him, or didn't tighten the harness well enough and he fell to his death down that hole that she thought of so bitterly now. Once or twice she somehow managed to kill his mother, his grandfather, his grandmother, everyone he loved. May, she doesn't figure out the cure to something she's infected with or fails to find the weak spot on some alien or bad guy and gets May killed that way. She feels, when she can see May in the dream, for often she hears May die over the coms, and sometimes sees, the look of disappointment in her eyes. 'I trusted you and you let me down. I made a mistake, I never should have picked you. You're useless.' . Bobbi gets killed saving her. Hunter dies on her surgery table after being stabbed by a Chitauri weapon. Mack, looking at her right in the eyes, angry and validated in his initial dislike of her, disappears under the rubble of a collapsing tunnel. Skye...oh god, Skye... At first, it was that she didn't manage to save her after she'd been shot by Quinn. Then, after learning about Skye's powers it became... Jemma, crazed, frightened, worried, shoots Skye in the heart, not meaning to but still does, with frightening accuracy. Jemma, meaning well, injects Skye while she sleeps with some unknown drug, and before she knows it, Skye's on the ground having seizures, dying. The room, the entirety of the Playground, shakes violently in sync with Skye's movements. She can hear screaming in the background, the Playground collapsing, everyone dying. Skye looking up at her now, dead, a hurt, no, crushed expression on her face. Skye's spirit coming from her body, looking at her, and asking her why she did it, she thought Jemma was her friend, so why?
She'd let them down. She'd let everyone down. Everyone she cared about, she'd let down. She'd disappointed them all. She ruined their lives somehow. She knew she wasn't important enough to ruin them beyond repair, not all of them, but she'd still managed to hurt them, whether it be physically or emotionally. She'd failed them.
There were times when the nightmare would feel and seem very different. She hadn't caused anyone's death, but she was in darkness. Pure darkness. And voices. The voices of people she loved, all telling her she was a mistake. She should have died in the pod. She should never have joined S.H.I.E.L.D., she should have just stayed in England and become a pharmacist. She was terrible at her job. She was a joke. No one cared about her.
Sometimes...she would appear. It is herself but a her when she'd first agreed to join the team. Bright eyed, innocent looking, so full of hope, not knowing what lied ahead for her.
"How could you do this?" She'd ask, her smiling face falling fast, an expression of hurt and confusion on her face. "How could you fail so badly? Look at what happened to Fitz, poor Fitz. He didn't deserve any of this. He shouldn't have been there that day, he shouldn't have been there at all. It was your fault he was in the field to begin with. Your fault he was there on the Bus with you that day. Your fault he got hurt. Your fault he went through hell. It's your own fault he hates you now. He may say he doesn't, but he does, and you know it. And you deserve it. Everyone pities you. They see you and think 'Oh poor Jemma, she really messed up. She's useless.' . Fitz deserves better than you. What was his silly mind thinking, falling for you? Such a nice man like Fitz, he deserves someone strong, someone great. Like Skye, Skye would be a good fit. She's strong, tough, she knows what's what. She's better than you, so much better. And she has powers. She's a superhero. What are you? You're a biochemist who got lucky in a draw of names to join S.H.I.E.L.D., to join Coulson's team. You aren't special, you never were."
It would leave her on the ground, or the firmness under her feet in the darkness that pretended to be ground, crying, her entire body shaking and her want to get back up non existent.
How could she go on, knowing she'd hurt so many people?
Once, while undercover in Hydra, after the incident on the ship, a moment when she'd been particularly low, she had sat on her bed, staring at the gun she'd been given when she had agreed to go undercover.
'It'd be quick.' the nasty voice in the back of her head had offered.
'It wouldn't be entirely painless but you'd feel it for only a second and then you'd be gone.' The voice said.
' Come on, you know it's the right thing to do. Get it over with. No one cares anyway. They'll find your body, Hydra will be informed somehow, and S.H.I.E.L.D. will find out as well, but will they care? No. You'll be written off. You're stuff destroyed. They'll forget about you like you were nothing, because that's what you were. You caused nothing but grief and sadness. You're a failure. Just do it. You'll be doing them a favor.'
"How would Fitz feel knowing I was gone though? That I'd taken my own life?" she'd countered to the voice, who sneered and then laughed a mirthless laugh.
' Relieved. He'd feel relieved knowing the person who ruined his life was gone. You think he still loves you? He doesn't. He never did. He thought he did but he knew better, he knew he deserved better. Still does. He's so much better without you.'
"Please...I don't..." She'd started crying, shaking in her seat, the grief she'd felt for herself, for her place in this world, feeling like she'd done nothing but hurt, overwhelming her.
'Yes you do.' The voice chided. 'Stop lying to yourself Jemma, you're useless. Just accept it, put the gun to your head, pull the trigger, and get it over with. Everyone will be relieved. Even your parents. They never approved of your choice, and they had good reason. They knew you'd mess up. What a failure. What a joke. They deserved a better daughter.'
Still shaking, she'd brought the hand with the gun up, slowly pressing it against her temple, wondering if she should shoot herself somewhere else where it'd take longer, be more painful. She deserved it after all, right? Trembling, she thought about how cold the steel of the gun on her temple was, how she could still smell traces of gunpowder residue on it from the quick training session she'd had with May. The tears rolled down her eyes as she sat there, gun pressed to her head, trying to work up the courage to pull the trigger. She realized she hadn't left a note-most people left notes didn't they?-before she remembered it didn't matter. No one cared. Nothing in that moment mattered accept ending it all. She felt so much pain, so so much pain, and all the sadness and hatred she was feeling, she felt only for herself. She didn't register the door to her apartment opening and closing, nor the sound of footsteps in the hallway, someone calling her name. She didn't register the door to her room opening, someone coming in. Just as she felt the her finger slowly starting to curl in, the gun was gone. For a moment she thought it had happened, that she was dead and in some kind of purgatory, waiting judgement. Then she realized she was still alive, and there was Coulson, a shocked, terrified expression on his face, the gun far on the other side of the room, and his hands on her shoulders, shaking her.
She had burst into a fresh new round of tears and he'd held her tight until she stopped, hours later.
What a silly, silly man, she'd thought. He thinks I'm a good person, that I deserved to live.
He knew better now.
Back to the present, Jemma was sitting where she'd plopped herself down in the cell, against the far wall, not daring to look anyone in the eye.
May, Coulson, and Skye were all arguing, Hunter was behind Coulson, adding something or rebutting something as the conversation went along. Fitz was leaning against the wall near the cell bars.
At least Bobbi and Mack had managed to escape. That had been their one small victory in all this.
It had been either they went with Zabo, agreeing to be taken prisoners, or he slaughtered another village of innocent people. In the situation they'd been in, they didn't really have a choice. So off they went to the place where Zabo was hiding out, and thrown into an actual god forsaken dungeon-esque cell with bars for doors. Tech disarmed, weapons taken, they were reduced to their hands and brains to figure out a way to get out of this.
And then Zabo came down and made that offer...
She knew, the moment he made the offer, she knew that if she wasn't picked by them, she'd give herself up. This was the moment, this was the way she could make it up to all of them. No one else had to die or become damaged because of her.
"There has to be some way out of here. If we could blast the cell windows we could get out through there..."
"And then do what Coulson? It's a two hundred foot drop from the window to the canyon below. We have no repelling equipment, we don't know the conditions of the rock below. We'd all fall to our deaths." May snapped.
"So we find out a way to get the guard to come over, steal the keys, and get out that way." Skye offered, arms crossed, looking tired, aged beyond her years in expression and body posture, from the stress, but no less beautiful than before.
" Where would we get the guns to shoot our way out?" Hunter asked. When Skye glared at him, he put his hands up in defence. "It's a valid point! You may have powers Skye, but the rest of us don't. We need guns."
"Hunter does have a point." May conceded. "Coulson, you, myself, and Hunter are trained in hand to hand combat, extensively, but Fitz and Simmons aren't. Not enough to take someone down. Simmons got a crash course but not well enough to fight through the throng of guards I'm sure Zabo has posted all around this place."
There, another reason she was a nuisance. She couldn't fend for herself. The fact that Fitz couldn't either, didn't matter in that moment. Without her there would be more a chance of him being guarded. One less person to worry about.
"Well we need to figure out something. We have until sundown, and then he's going to come here and ask me which person I picked, and that isn't happening." Coulson said, his tone defiant, of what, Jemma wasn't entirely sure.
"I'll go." May offered. "I can hold my own in a fight. I'll go with him and you guys get out of here, and we'll meet at some rendezvous point, and if I don't make it, then you leave."
"Not an option." Coulson barked.
"I don't see what other option there is Coulson! He wants one of us, I'm one of us. We cannot get out of here with everyone unscathed, that just isn't going to happen. We can't escape without possibly losing half the team, Bobbi and Mackenzie are God knows where with no way to be contacted, nor do they know where we are, the only option is one of us goes with Zabo, the others leave. I'll go."
"No, I'll go." Coulson countered. May shook her head.
"He won't take you. He wants you to suffer by getting at the people you care about."
"I'll go then." Skye began "I don't...I don't think he'd hurt me. I doubt he would in fact. You guys escape. Once you're out, I'll try to break free, and bring the entire place down."
"What if you can't make it out before the building falls?" It was Hunter, much to everyone's surprise, that asked this. Skye looked at him, touched and a bit surprised.
"Then I don't make it out. But I don't believe that will happen. I'll be fine, just you wait."
"Hunter's right. We can't risk it. Our best bet will be to wait for morning and try an escape with Zabo comes back to ask who we picked. We'll storm them, Skye can create a distraction. With enough luck we'll at least get out of the dungeon and into an upper room where we can call for help. This will be our plan, is that clear?" Everyone nodded, except for Jemma and Fitz, who didn't want to take part in the conversation at all. "Alright, you all might as well try to get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."
'Such silly, ridiculous, wonderful people.' Jemma thought. 'I wonder if they truly believe that will work, or if they know deep down it won't.'
She knew what she would have to do. Wait until they all fell asleep and then signal the guard in the next room somehow, that she wanted to talk, then give herself up. She wondered if Zabo would take her offer, or if he'd turn her down since Coulson hadn't chose her, but a part of her knew he'd take her up on it. Oh what a joy, one of his own would let themselves be taken, probably killed, to help the cause, what guilt that would bring!
Except it wouldn't, not in Jemma's mind it wouldn't. She smiled, a bit triumphant, knowing that when Zabo found out that she didn't matter, he'd be furious at having been tricked.
As she waited, she thought of all the things that had once brought her joy, only to have been twisted and made her feel sorrow. Science, study, the exploration of the unexplained alien technologies, learning new things, being on an adventure...Fitz. Now science, study, the exploration, learning those new things made her feel hollow and sad, the delving deeper into the unknown causing nothing but grief. The adventure she'd been so keen on two years ago turned into a living nightmare, and the man she'd convinced to go with her, damaged and different. And it was her fault.
She shifted a bit, the cold stone floor uncomfortable after so many hours, and looked around her. Hunter had fallen asleep a few minutes before, she could tell by his breathing patterns. Coulson had magically fallen asleep half an hour ago, and Skye and May had all but collapsed in exhaustion after a sense of calm, nothing to do now but wait, filled the cell. Fitz, however, was still awake. She could hear him breathing, shuffling around, an occasional 'Bloody hell this floor is cold.'.
Facing, as it was, her own mortality, Jemma let herself consider Fitz and their relationship. It was a blessing that he wasn't in love with her anymore really. It'd make this whole thing a lot harder. He felt like she'd abandoned him before, how would he have felt after this if he'd still been in love with her? Awful, although Jemma couldn't entirely understand why. Jemma never fooled herself into thinking she wasn't attractive on some level, but she never considered herself beautiful either. Definitely not worthy of being the person someone was in love with the way Fitz had once been in love with her. She hadn't been lying when she told Bobbi that she wasn't sure how she felt about Fitz, because she didn't. Not then at least, and not now. She did love Fitz, she always had, but there was a difference between loving someone and being in love with them. It was the question of whether or not she was in love with him that had caused so many sleepless nights. (Ones, she admitted, were preferable to the nightmares.) She wondered when they'd become so damn dependent on each other, and figured it had happened back at the Academy. She'd once been a part of FitzSimmons, and now she was just...Simmons. She wasn't a part of anything now. When considering the times she had thought of him in that way, because she had before, she wasn't blind, Fitz was gorgeous, awkward, but gorgeous, and he did have quite a few ladies after him in their final year at the Academy, she'd shut those thoughts down for several reasons. For one, Fitz didn't think of her like that, or so she'd thought. Two, they'd been called the Wonder Twins so many times, she was sure that if they'd started up a relationship it'd be awkward and feel slightly incestuous. Three, even back then Jemma felt like he deserved better than her. Surely he could get someone better, prettier, more on his level of his love of engineering and all the wonderful, off, odd things that made Fitz Fitz. Four...four, they would never work out because one day, Fitz would realize he could do better, that she was just some girl he met in college, that they were better off friends and he had been so stupid to trick himself into believing he'd loved her. In the end they would end, because Fitz deserved the stars and the moon and the sky, when all Jemma was was that one gem that caught his eye one day, only to fade from brilliant to dull, to boring. Yes, she finally resolved, she supposed she was in love with him. She resisted crying, knowing that Fitz, as close to sleep as he was, would hear her. She couldn't risk that. They all needed to be asleep. She needed to do this while they were asleep. What a joke of a predicament, and life, she was in. Caught in a cell on some cliff side, waiting to be killed by some maniac bent on revenge, knowing she would die soon, and now she realized she was indeed in love with this marvelous man, only to come to this after he'd fallen out of love with her, and was also trapped in this hell hole.
It would be, in a sense, comical, if it weren't so damn tragic.
"You're staring." Jemma started, turning her head towards the voice, Fitz, and wondering if he could see her blush.
"I'm sorry. I got...lost in my thoughts." Jemma replied, feeling even lower than before.
"It's fine. Don't apologize." Fitz sounded tired and defeated, much like he had when he'd been having more trouble talking and working, and it broke her heart. "I'm sorry." His words were so quiet and sudden, Jemma wondered if she'd heard him right, or possibly imagined hearing him say it.
"I...you're what?"
"I'm sorry." He repeated.
"For what? Fitz, you have nothing to be sorry about, why..."
"Yes, I do. For many things, but mostly... I'm sorry for just...blurting out what I did in the med pod. I'm sorry that I put you on the spot with that, and didn't really give you any time to...consider things, think about it, work out what you would say in response. I'm sorry that I got so angry afterwards. I'm sorry for...I'm sorry for hurting you just as much as I felt hurt by you. I wasn't being fair, I was being an ass. I'm still upset at you for leaving, but I...I'm sorry for hurting you. Wires got crossed, signals didn't come out correctly. It happens. I don't entirely know what I was expecting when I told you. Of course, when I told you I thought I was about to die, so I guess I wasn't expecting anything. I didn't expect to live, and I think...I think living after that has taken it's toll. Not just me telling you, but the emotions, all of them, running that day, and the idea of dying so soon...then to be rescued and all that's happened since, it was too much."
"I'm sorry too then." Jemma began. "I'm sorry for leaving and all the trouble it caused you. I'm sorry for not being there for you while you were recovering. I'm sorry for doing the one thing I told you I wouldn't do." Dammit, don't cry Jemma, don't cry. "I...I genuinely thought...I was just trying to do what was best for you, I didn't think you'd...I'm poison Fitz."
"You daft woman, what makes you think you are poison?" Jemma wanted to smile at his momentary lapse from impending peril seriousness to genuine confusion.
"If I'd stayed... you were getting better before I got back and then when I got back, you got worse for a bit. But then, my leaving didn't really help either apparently. Talking to a version of me that wasn't there...somehow I still managed to make you worse even though I wasn't physically present. A poison present in a system will kill faster, but a the ramifications of the poison being in the system... weakened immune system, heart issues, brain issues, even after the poison is removed...that can kill you still, just a bit more slowly. That's what I was doing. I was killing you Fitz. As much as you believe my being there would have helped, my not being there helped more. I'm...I'm no good for you Fitz. You deserve someone better than me, and I genuinely hope you find them." She didn't dare tell him she was in love with him, not now. She'd just be doing to him what he'd done to her. She realized then, how similar the situations were. Faced with certain death, one of them decides to give themselves up to it so the other could live. One knows they are in love with the other without knowing how the other felt about them. Except this time she knew he wasn't in love with her. Not anymore.
"Jemma..."
"You should get some sleep Fitz. We're in for a big day."
"I could say the same to you." Fitz countered. Jemma smiled, even though she was pretty sure he couldn't see her in the darkness, and readjusted herself on the floor once again.
"I will, I will. Go to sleep." It took another hour for Fitz to fall asleep, and, to the soft rhythm of his breathing, Jemma slowly got herself to her feet, walking as quietly as possibly, to the cell door, and waiting. The guard, she'd noticed, had made his rounds every half hour to check and make sure they hadn't somehow escaped. He should be coming around right about... "Hello." Jemma greeted, in as loud a voice as she dared, not wanting to wake anyone up.
"Prisoner." The guard returned by way of greeting. Jemma rolled her eyes.
"Yes, well, that is my predicament isn't it? I want to talk to Dr. Zabo." She wondered where the authority and assurance had come from, and decided to roll with it rather than analyze it to the point where she lost it entirely.
"He won't release you all, he has a deal. One of you gets taken, the rest of you can go."
"Yes, thank you, I know that. That's exactly what I am talking about. I know who will be traded and I want to do this now please." The guard eyed her, curious and suspicious of her antics. She wanted to tap her foot in annoyance but decided against it.
"And who would that be?"
"Me. I'm giving myself up. Can I please talk to Dr. Zabo and see if that's an even trade? He said the most useless member, and that's me." The guard, still suspicious, slowly walked closer to the door, took out a small set of keys, unlocked it, and ushered her through before locking it again and walking her into the next room. She was cuffed and then marched, a guard on each side, hardly necessary in her opinion, to where she presumed Zabo was. The first guard went up to a large oak door in a hallway, four stories above the dungeon, and knocked. After a few seconds, the door opened, and Calvin Zabo stood before them, looking tired but awake at the same time, still in the suit he'd had on earlier.
"Yes?" He asked, clearly annoyed.
"This prisoner, she says she wants to make the trade. Her for the others. She wants to know if that's acceptable." the second guard explained, nodding to Jemma.
"Ah, Dr. Simmons." Zabo greeted.
"Dr. Zabo." she replied, nodding.
"You do understand that your captivity will end in your death, right Dr. Simmons?" He ushered her into the room, a study it appeared, and had her sit down across from him at the main desk. He motioned for the guards to take off her cuffs, and sat back in his chair, waiting.
"Yes, Dr. Zabo, I am well aware of that. I have accepted this already. I have looked Death in the eyes more than once. I am not afraid to die." Zabo studied her, curiosity written all over his face, mixed with what appeared to be admiration.
"You're a strong young woman, Dr. Simmons. I'm glad my daughter had you around for support."
"Thank you sir. I am glad to...to have known Skye. She made me a better person. A stronger person. You may be glad I was around for support, but I assure you, Skye is strong enough to need no one." Zabo nodded, accepting the comments for what they were; the truth.
"So, you want to work out a trade?"
"Yes sir. Me for the others. I know you wanted Coulson to pick, but really, would he have picked in the end? No, he would have come up with some scheme to save all of us. Which wouldn't have worked, obviously. Not here. It's too dangerous. But me doing this? The team will lose their medic, and Coulson will lose an agent. It might not be much but it will eat him alive knowing you have his medic and one of his 'personal set', as the term may be used. I was one of the original people recruited to the team. Coulson will be devastated, I assure you."
"And you didn't plan any tricks, any breakouts that involve you being here while the others, I don't know, work their way out?" Jemma risked an eyeroll to emphasize her point.
"Oh please. I jumped out of a plane once when I was infected with an alien virus and thought there was no cure. If I'd stayed on the plane, uncured, I would have went off like a bomb. Coulson was beyond angry with me for it. He wouldn't agree to a scheme where I risked certain death again." No need to mention that he'd also stopped her from shooting herself. "So..." she began, after they were both silent for over a minute. "...do we have a deal?"
Skye awoke, hours later, to the sunlight filtering through the window and a guard at the cell door calling for her to get up. She did, slowly, checking to make sure, in the extremely dim light of the room, everyone was still asleep. Though the sunlight got to her face, the rest of the room was dark. She couldn't hear any rustling, so she marked it as safe, and went to the door.
"Yes?" She asked, eyeing the guard and figuring out if she could take him down. She believed she could.
"Your father wants to see you briefly." Came the stoic reply. Skye rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, well, I don't really want to see my father so..."
"He says it's important. It's about your release. It will only take a few minutes."
"Are you...trying to trick me or something? Is he really going to take me as a trade or were the others right in saying he wouldn't take me as a..."
"The others were right. Please come with me." The guard opened the lock to the cell door and Skye walked through, following through to the next room, being cuffed, and then walked, one guard in front of her, one to both sides, and one behind her, up to her father's study.
"Alright," Skye seethed, wincing as the guard took her cuffs off and she messaged her wrists, walking further into the room. "what do you want? A hug? I am not giving you a hug. Nor am I agreeing to stay with you, especially here. I used to love old mansions and castles, now I hate them, so thanks a lot for that. So why..."
"You're up here because she wanted to give you something. It looks like a couple of letters. I also wanted to give you something of your mother's, but that can wait." Skye looked up to see that it hadn't been her father at the big chair behind the desk. In the dimness of the room, she hadn't seen him sitting in a chair off to the far right of her.
"Her? Who are you...no." Skye's eyes went wide when she saw Jemma, sitting in the large chair, quietly putting a couple pieces of paper in an envelope, sealing it, and putting it on top of another envelope. "No, no no no no no. No this is not...this is not happening. You are not taking her. Why is she here? Jemma, why are you in my dad's creepy study writing letters? What's going on?" Skye rushed towards the desk, the room shaking ever so slightly. "Jemma?" she asked, both hands on the desk's top, looking at her friend. Something had felt...off, when she'd woken up a few minutes ago, and she couldn't place it before. Now she could. Jemma hadn't been in the cell. She couldn't feel Jemma's presence, she knew something felt off.
"Sk-Skye...if you could be so kind as to..to..." Jemma was crying, Skye realized, and with shaky hands, she lifted the small stack of envelopes next to her on the blotter and held them out for Skye to take. "Could...could you deliver these for me? One of them is for you,and one is for May, and one is for Coulson, and one...one of them is for Fitz. I'd write to Hunter but I don't know what to say, I haven't known him long enough. There's a letter there for my parents, give that to Fitz. He'll know where to send it and..." her hand was starting to shake violently, and the envelopes were threatening to fall to the desk. "Take the damn things!" She swore, shoving them violently towards Skye. They hit her stomach and fell to the floor, Skye standing with a shocked expression on her face.
"You can't do this. You can't. Coulson would never..."
"I know Coulson would never agree to this, which is why I did it without his permission. I have a track record of doing this, as you well know." Her voice was still shaky, but she looked at Skye, eyes completely bloodshot from crying, and gave her a warning stare.
"What about Fitz?"
"Fitz is better off without me." Jemma replied, her tears waning but her form no less defeated. She looked almost casual in the chair, as if she were about to do what she had always been meant to do, and accepted her fate for what it was.
"No he isn't. Fitz loves you Simmons, you can't do this. Your death would destroy him." Skye knew that playing this card was low, and Simmons knew she knew.
"Fitz isn't in love with me anymore Skye. And he will get over me eventually. He has a lot to offer the world and we both know this. He'll find someone else and live out his life, and I will only be a blip on that scanner of a mind of his. I will barely register. Don't you get it Skye? Your father said the least useful member. Well, that's me. You can find another medic, you're all good enough by now to mend yourselves. I was hardly...I hardly contributed. Believe me, in the end you'll be better off. Now please take the letters and go with the guards to collect the others. As Dr. Zabo has been explaining to me, you'll be escorted, blindfolded, to a van, then driven out of the area and dropped off at a location I am not privy to. You'll be given the keys to a car to get you back to the Bus, and be given a head start. Use it wisely." Jemma got up from the chair and walked over to a side table that had liquor decanters and tumblrs on it. She turned her head back, gave Zabo a questioning look, and when he nodded, she picked up one of the decanters and a glass, and walked back to the chair. "Goodbye Skye." She said with finality, pouring a large measure into the glass, and, from what Skye noted in her eyes, resisting the urge to cry once more. Skye slowly picked up the envelopes from the floor, and, giving her friend one last sad look, turned to leave.
"Daisy, just a moment." Skye wondered why she stopped when her father asked her to. Right now all she wanted to do was bring a bookshelf down on him and the guards, take Jemma, run, get the others, and get out, but she knew that was risky. Her father approached her holding a necklace, silver chain, with a silver daisy pendant hanging from the it. "Your mother bought it at a market when she was pregnant with you." Zabo explained. "She wanted to give this to you when you were six but... I snatched it from our place before I fled. I know she'd want you to have it." Skye eyed him suspiciously.
"How do I know this isn't some weird tracker you'll use to pin point where we are three days from now?"
"Fair question. It isn't. I wouldn't ...I have no way of proving it otherwise, I just know that your mother bought this for you and she would want you to have it, so please, for show at least, take the necklace out the door at least, out of this place. Then do with it what you will." Giving him one last wary look, Skye snatched the necklace from him and began to stalk out of the room before stopping and turning towards him. She saw Jemma at the desk, the decanter noticeably less full than before, crying once again, and cursing when her shaking hands couldn't get the liquid from the decanter into the cup. Eventually she took the cup and threw it, hard, across the room, the glass shattering besides a bust of one famous person or another, and drinking straight from the decanter itself. This was not Jemma Simmons, not the real Jemma Simmons. Not the one Skye knew and loved. The past couple of years tore her friend to shreds, and the sadness of seeing her so broken and beaten down, overwhelmed her. She looked at her father, who was still watching her, and snarled.
"This, this right here? This is beyond unforgivable. Slaughtering the village, all of those people, all of those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and the number of people you've killed since, that was unforgivable. All of the things you've done, the ways you've ruined my life so far, are unforgivable, but this?" Skye used the stack of letters to point to Jemma. "This right here is beyond unforgivable. In some messed up situation, years, decades for now, I might have been willing to talk, I might have been willing to hear you out. I would never forgive you but I'd be willing to talk to you occasionally. But not anymore. This is sick. You aren't just trying to punish Coulson for the imagined slights he's brought on you, you're punishing me as well for not accepting the monster you have become. Make no mistake, father" She spit the word out with venom that made Zabo flinch. " the next time I see you, I fully intend on killing you." Silence filled the room after she went through the door, and Zabo sat down on a chair, both stunned and angrier than ever.
"Will it hurt?" Zabo looked up and over at the young woman sitting at his desk, eying him with the look of a mouse eying a cat that was about to pounce. "When you kill me, will it hurt?"
"No. I'll make it quick." Jemma nodded seemingly pleased with the answer.
"Good...thank you." More silence until..." What...what are you going to do with...with my corpse?"
"It's probably best you didn't know." Another nod from her. She'd stopped crying, and was now just sitting there at the desk, occasionally taking a swig from the decanter in her hand. "You seem rather...accepting of the fact that you'll die soon."
"I have accepted it. It's alright." Her voice was a bit shaky, but he didn't get a trace of any doubt in her mind. " I think I was always meant to die young. The world will be better off without me."
"Surely you don't believe that."
"Oh but I do, Dr. Zabo, I do." They lapsed into another silence, this time, neither of them bothered to break it.
The blindfolding and removal to the van happened at a surprising speed, one even Skye had to admit was efficient and quick. They were on their way before anyone else had become coherent enough to realize what was happening.
"What happened? What's going on?" Hunter asked from his spot near the front of the van, tied up like the rest.
"Are we moving? It feels like we're moving. Why are we moving? And why can't I see?" Coulson piped up next, a row behind Hunter.
Skye sat, as people were scrambling and asking questions, silently, at her seat at the back of the van, body pressed against the seat, head on the back window. To her left, she knew that Fitz was there, she could feel him, and he'd been the only voice she hadn't heard.
"Where's Simmons?" His question was just loud enough for the others to hear and suddenly stop talking.
"I'm sure she's here, she has to be. Simmons, why aren't you saying anything?" May called out, worry in her voice.
"Agent Simmons, say something." Coulson half-heartedly ordered.
"What..." Hunter began.
"She traded herself for us." Skye finally said through gritted teeth.
"She what?!" Fitz, panic in his voice, was starting to thrash against the ties that were holding him. "I knew she was acting off last night. I knew it. I should have seen the signs, she was trying to say goodbye wasn't she? Oh god no. I cannot deal with this again. I cannot lose her again. I've almost lost her too many times now, I can't..."
"Then be quiet." Skye commanded, patiently but starting to become annoyed. The van fell silent, save for the guards up front chattering away and listening to the radio in whatever country it was they were located. Was it Poland? She'd thought they were in Poland last she remembered, but they could have been flown somewhere else. "I'm concentrating, now shush."
"What..." May started up as well, before she felt it. The bus was starting to shake. From the smoothness of the ride, she'd figured they were on pavement. Somewhere well travelled, she realized now she heard other cars outside.
"Everyone, brace yourselves, hold on to what you can. This might hurt a bit." was Skye's only warning before suddenly, everyone felt the van shake violently, and heard the sounds of cars skidding to stops, minor crashes, people swearing, and the van...the van swerved and then came to a jarring halt.
"What the..." one of the guards started, before turning just in time to see Skye rushing up the aisle of the van, and headbutting him, before taking out the other guard. Skye turned around and felt for a knife or anything she could, to cut the ties of her hands. Finally finding one, she flipped the knife open and freed herself, then took the blindfold off. She opened one front door and shoved one guard out into the stalled traffic, then did the same for the other. She looked behind her, at the traffic behind the bus, and calculated how much damage they'd encounter with what she'd planned next. After freeing the others, she told them to buckle up.
"What do you mean, where are we going?" Coulson asked, looking out the front window and starting when he saw the four foot ramp made of the asphalt in front of them in the road, and the cars stalled and swerved next to it.
"I've been keeping track of turns and milage. We're going to get Simmons back." Skye replied, buckling into the front seat. "I've lost my mother, I've lost the agents who watched after me as a child, I keep losing my friends and colleagues. I lost...I lost Trip, who I...I mean down the road when..." She paused in her words, backing up the van quickly and causing several cars to swerve, pushing against others. "I am not losing my best friend as well. I am not." After finally finding an opening in the cars, Skye threw the gear into drive, drove over the grassy median splitting the highway in two, and swerved into the traffic going the other way. Pulling up to a gated, guarded castle, Skye looked as nervous and anxious as ever. "Everyone, grab a gun. There are some on the guards, I saw them. There must be a back up or two around here somewhere. My dad probably knows how to stock his little armies well." As another guard approached them, curious, gun raised. Skye turned briefly to the others, seeing them scramble for guns and any other weapon they could find. "We're going to get our Jemma back, you understand? We are not leaving without her. Zabo is not going to win this round. Or any other round for that matter."
Later on, during her debriefing on the mission, Simmons asked how long, from the time they had arrived back at the mansion to the time they were running, Fitz half carrying her himself, from the collapsing structure, guards still shooting at them and being shot at, it took. Coulson said half an hour. May said twenty minutes. Skye said ten, tops. It was pretty in and out. Her father, she said, upon seeing through the window the chaos they'd created, and feeling the structure start to collapse, had fled, she was sure, before they got to the room, and indeed that had been the case, as Jemma later confirmed. But everything was hazy after that.
She woke up on a bed in the med bay at the Playground, groggy, hungover, and feeling like she'd been hit by a bus. She looked and saw a cast on her right arm, felt bandages on her torso and head, and groaned.
"Fitz, I want to express my regret and displeasure with myself and my existence, and the part it played in irreparably ruining your life. If I could do this all over again, I wouldn't have tried to be nice when we got paired up that day in lab. Or I would have told you, harshly, that you were not cut out for field work and shouldn't follow me there. But most of all, I would have made sure you'd been free of me and the horrible influence I've had in your life. I am sorry for what I have done to you, and I can only hope that one day, years from now, you'll have forgiven me, and maybe you can once again think of me in a positive light. I truly am your poison, and I wish I could be the antidote as well, but I bring nothing but sadness and despair to you. I could go on, apologizing in every language I know, telling you in greater detail my regrets in life and our relationship, but I won't bore you with that. I would rather you read this, and toss it into the fire like it deserves, and forget about me. Maybe think of me occasionally ,forgive me some day, but move on to better things. You always deserved better than me, and I hope you find it. I don't hold a candle to whoever it is you choose to spend the rest of your life with, because someone like that must be extraordinary. I know you are no longer in love with me, and indeed, it was probably just an illusion, or hate masking itself as love, for I could understand that as well, but if you have a daughter, please consider my name? I know, I tell you to forget then ask you to name a child after me, but hopefully that Jemma will not disappoint you like this one did. She will be similar though. She'll have her adoration of hearing about your crazy adventures, your stories where you do voices for different characters. Your creativity and your sweet, caring disposition. Even now, you're still so wonderful, and have a heart of gold I envy. She will also love you as much as I did, although not in the same way. I realize now that I have been a fool, and it is only now, I must admit you were right about this timing and what this circumstance brings out, I realize that I am...was, in love with you. Wholly and truly. But I have never counted myself good enough for you, so I never brought it up. Here's to hoping you do find that person one day, and are able to have a long, happy life with them. Yours Always, Jemma." It was one of the odder things Simmons had woken up to around Fitz, and that was saying something. But one never really expects to wake up to the sound of the person they were in love with reading what summed up to a goodbye letter and suicide note. When she'd written it, she'd struggled with the right words to say, and ended up taking the longest on his. "Jemma." She loved the way her name sounded when he said it, she couldn't believe she was just realizing that now.
"Fitz." She croaked. God she sounded awful.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" Well, she hadn't exactly expected that either.
"I..."
"I swear to god, Jemma, if you say you weren't thinking at all I will get up and leave this room, because that is a l-level of cl-cliche even I cannot stand." Jemma smiled at this, earning a small smile from him in return.
"I knew what I was doing." Jemma said finally.
"Clearly you didn't. Clearly y-you didn't because my Jemma, the one w-w-with her head on her shoulders and some sense, wouldn't have done this."
"I've done something very similar to this before." She pointed out. This caused Fitz to roll his eyes.
" Yes, but I copped that up to you being ill because of the infection." That comment earned a half-hearted eyeroll from Jemma. "Don't ever, ever,ever do that again, do you understand?"
"Fitz..."
"No, no I don't want to hear it." Fitz got up from the chair he'd been sitting in, her letter in his hands, and Jemma felt the panic rise inside her. "Jesus Christ Jemma..." Fitz was pacing now, back and forth, down the left side of her bed and back up, running one of his hands through his hair. "Did you seriously believe this would make things better? Did you seriously think you being gone, for good, would make me better? Make me happy? Because I think the record has shown that doesn't really work out." Jemma felt the tears well up in her eyes and she looked away from him, ashamed. "Jemma..."his voice turned softer, sadder, more concerned. Yet she couldn't bring herself to look at him, and kept her head and eyes turned away. "Jemma." He repeated, suddenly much closer.
"I was...I failed everyone. I..."
"No." He interrupted, his voice sharp. She felt the bed dip near her hip on her left side, and one of his hands gently guide her head back towards him, fingers gently brushing against her right cheek. "You haven't failed any of us, so never ever ever think that. The only way you could have failed us is if you'd died by that...that man's hand. You...you think you're my poison, you're everyone's poison, but that...that isn't true."
"Skye...I...the things I said to her after we came back from the cave...the ways I could have... must have hated me. I still don't understand why she was so mad at her father in the study Fitz...I..."
"Skye? Hate you? Simmons, Skye was the one who got us back to that place to rescue you. She caused a ramp to form magically in the highway to stop the traffic on our side, and then single handedly knocked out two guards and got the van we were in onto the other side of the highway. She led the charge. She said she wasn't losing anyone else, especially not her best friend."
"Really?" Jemma asked, hating how hopeful she'd sounded.
"Really." Fitz repeated. "And Simmons?"
"Yes?"
"I... I didn't fall 'out of love' with you, to be perfectly honest." Jemma blushed.
"I know Fitz. I...I always thought, especially after... I know you never were in love with me, not truly, you only thought..." She'd had some interesting first kisses in her life, but this one ranked up there as the most bizarre circumstance. She responded the best she could in her state, and when she felt him start to pull away, she whined just a bit. Fitz chuckled and she blushed.
"You are daft woman, daft. I never fell out of love with you. I was angry, and hurt, but deep down...deep down I knew that after all that had happened and all that would happen, I was still in love with you. Which, in a sense, made it worse. But..." He gently slid his right hand down the bed to meet her left, and laced their fingers together. "...I'll never stop being in love with you Jemma Simmons, and if you went back in time to try and stop us from becoming friends or stop me from following you into the field, I'd come after you, because there is no way I wouldn't. Wherever you go, I go. I have a feeling that even if you tried to stop me from going into the field, I still would have followed. You can't get rid of me that easily Simmons." Jemma smiled, and Fitz brought their entwined fingers up to his lips, kissing her hand, before gently resting both of them back down on the bed. "I love you."
"I love you too."
"Don't ever scare me like that again."
"No promises."
"Simmons!"
"Yes Fitz?" She tried her best to give him a mocking innocent look, somewhat ruined by the bandage on her head and the cuts on her face, but he rolled his eyes in mock annoyance non the less, and she smiled.
"So, what should I draw on your cast Simmons? Monkeys? I like the way you think." Fitz turned towards the nightstand next to the bed, grabbing a bag he'd packed apparently with her stuff, as she recognized a pen case she'd had since their Academy days, in his hand, the one not hold hers.
"Oh Fitz, must you?"
"I must Simmons, I must." Jemma watched him lean across her and bring the arm with the cast to rest, ever so gently, on her stomach. She couldn't help the fond smile that spread across her lips as she watched him, concentrated on his work, draw a myriad of cartoon monkeys on her cast, along with the words 'Fitz was here.' in several areas.
Here she was thinking she mattered to no one, when she mattered to quite a few. The world was an interesting place.
The End.