Infallibility
After a very long week of what Jemma considered moving from bathroom floor, to bedroom, to the bathroom floor again, she was grouchy, exhausted, and displeased by her utter lack of productivity. She was absolutely no good to anyone if she was sick. She wasn’t living on the Bus and being paid to do what she loved only to contract the flu!
Coulson had ordered her to stay out of the lab until she got better, because as he said “When your job requires you to be up to your elbows in biohazards and charred flesh, further compromises to your health won’t be tolerated. Go to bed Jemma, or I’ll have to drag you there myself.”That had settled the matter for the time being, Fitz and Skye were doing everything in their power to further bar her from accessing the lab. Skye had all but camped out outside Jemma’s room in her free time and when Skye was training, and Jemma could sneak out, Fitz locked the doors from the inside.
Grant was absolutely no help at all, he’d catch her, ignore her complaining, pick her up, and deposit her back in bed with a roll of his eyes and a smile. He wasn’t coming in for “conjugal visits” as Skye referred to them because since he was field personnel he couldn’t afford to be sick. He did pop in at least once a day, some times with soup, a movie, or medication. He wouldn’t kiss her, but he was perfectly fine with just holding her and helping her up when she thought she’d get sick again. As super spy boyfriends went, he got top marks.
May surprisingly enough was the one currently knocking on Jemma’s door. She had just stumbled back from the bathroom and crawled into bed, calling that it was fine for the pilot to come in.
"You look good for someone with such awful morning sickness." She said, pulling a chair up next to the bed, and examining the pale, shaking, biochemist. Jemma needed a moment to fully register what had just been said. "Pardon me? I’m not pregnant, I have the flu." Yes, the flu. She worked much too hard and worrying about Grant going out in the field didn’t help her either. She was run down and her immune system had finally rebelled against her.
"The fact that I’m the only one who appears to have noticed means that Ward doesn’t know yet, judging by your expression I can imagine you hadn’t really considered it." Agent May brushed a few stray hairs out of her face and continued scrutinizing the increasingly confused Jemma. "But it shouldn’t be possible, we’re safe. We’re always safe. I’ve got a patch and we…" Always was a lie, that one horrible expedition out into the mountains in Romania had been trying for all involved and Grant had been sent in for an extraction. He had been gone for days, totally radio silent. When he had come back with the personnel he’d been sent to retrieve, the next 12 hours had been spent in sheer glorious relief and not much else. It hadn’t occurred to either of them to ask, he had been in rough shape and she was just so glad he was home safe with her.
"And now you see. Here, this might help. I’m not going to say anything. I imagine that you’ll figure out something. Just remember that you can’t be pregnant and do this job. Coulson will find a way to keep you on in an advisory capacity but for nine months you’re going to have to backseat drive for someone who can’t even do half the job you can." was the matter of fact statement, cutting into Jemma's horrified realization.
"If you and Grant decide that you want this baby, you’re going to need to learn to be more assertive. Can’t have a completely useless rookie onboard along with an infant." Agent May left a small cardboard box with "discreet, legible, and 100% accurate results!" printed on the side on the nightstand and swept out of the room as quietly as she had entered.
It couldn't be helped now, Jemma picked up the box holding the world's most frightening piece of plastic, and hobbled into the bathroom. 15 minutes later, Jemma picked up her phone and Skye received a text message.
"Need to talk to you! Urgent!" -Jemma
Not sure what to make of this but definitely concerned, Skye bit her lip and sighed, turning to her disapproving supervising officer. "Your girlfriend is in need of company, i'm taking a break and you can stop glaring. I'm keeping her sane until she's better and you can screw like rabbits again." said Skye, departing with Ward rolling his eyes. He wished he could keep Jemma company but he really couldn't afford to be sick even if it was well worth the trouble. Not wanting to alert anyone else to her agitation, Skye made an effort to put on a leisurely stroll all the way to Jemma's room. Knocking quietly, she called through the door "I'm here. Grant's pissed but he'll get over it. Can I come in?". The necessary affirmative came and Skye was greeted to the sight of an absolutely miserable Jemma staring at something on her bedside table. Closing and locking the door behind her, Skye took up a spot next to her friend, not caring about germs. Skye considered it a crime of the highest order when something upset the normally sunny biochemist.
"What am I supposed to do?" She asked, looking both terrified and on the verge of passing out. She had lost weight and the light purple bruising under her eyes further emphasized this in an alarming fashion. Skye looked over at the object on the table and for a minute it felt like the room was spinning. "Jemma, not to go ahead and state the obvious but that's a pregnancy test. It's got a little blue plus sign and everything. You don't have the flu do you?" The scientist immediately burst into tears, curling her knees up to her chest, her shoulders shaking and causing the blanket around them to fall back onto the bed.
"No, I don't. This shouldn't be happening and I don't know what to do about it. I just thought i'd been working too hard and that stress got the better of me. May says that if I keep it I won't be able to work. Coulson might fight to keep me on but i'd be here for nine months doing nothing but teaching some new person how to do what I can with my eyes shut." Considering the state of her, Skye was impressed that Jemma could get any words out at all. She'd been getting sick so often that she had to be really sore. Hugging her tightly, Skye wondered how everyone else would react. It didn't surprise her that May had been the one to figure it out. Fitz would probably be first in line to castrate Grant and she winced, not wanting that situation to play out even in her head. Skye was shocked, but all of her priorities lay with making sure Jemma was okay and then she could focus on Grant not doing any lasting damage to himself or anything else if Jemma decided to let him know.
Her S.O. had suffered through a miserable childhood and had done his best to raise his brothers by himself, how he'd respond to the news that his girlfriend and co-worker was pregnant with his child would be a lot to worry about. He was a good man, but he was a good man in a dangerous line of work. A baby could either motivate him to get his jobs done faster so he could come home, or he would just fight harder, with less regard for the humanity of the person in front of him, just so he could lie to himself and say that this was really making a difference in his child's future. When dodging bullets and diffusing bombs were a part of the territory, it was really a damper on anything resembling a love life. Skye knew he and Jemma had happened by accident, neither of them were focused on anything but their work in the beginning, yet they ended up gravitating toward each other in a way that almost made their relationship inevitable. It did however throw into relief the risks of Grant's job, now that he had someone on the other end, waiting for him to come back safely. Nobody hassled them about protocol since the team itself was so far past against protocol the rulebook had been burnt, Coulson had just taken them each aside and spoken to them about professionalism and responsibility.
Looking at the woman carrying Grant's child made her want to get up and yell at him for choosing to do what he did, frequently she had yelled at him for taking unnecessary risks but that had been because for the first time Skye had felt like she had a real family. He was her tall, scary, over protective, stern, and amazing big brother and she wanted him to come back whole. Now she wanted to tell him that it didn't matter whether or not it had been intended, if he and Jemma kept the baby, that meant that he'd have to learn to step back and think hard about how he addressed his work from now on. His kid shouldn't have to grow up without a dad, not when he could be so amazing at it. Jemma deserved to have a partner in life who would be as supportive and amazing as he was, and to allow her to work and learn, and do everything she wanted to but not be threatened by her accomplishments. Any kid of theirs would not only be obscenely smart but an absolute handful, and two parents would be ideal, if not necessary.
"Hey Jem, you're not going to have to tell him by yourself if you don't want to. You won't have to do any of this, no matter what it is, by yourself. I might not be able to physically kick his ass but I can be kind of mean instead if he gets stupid about it. You two are amazing together and this doesn't need to change anything, even if you decide you don't want to keep it. He won't take off on you, Fitz would kill him if he tried. Remote bombs and everything." A watery laugh emerged from the pile of sweaters that was currently Jemma Simmons and she lifted her head to smile up at Skye, happy that she'd been able to come by. Fitz probably would have immediately planted something remote and undetectable in Grant's room as soon as he found out, had she gone to Fitz first.
"He does have those little plastic discs, loaded up with C4. Bit worrying really. He won't tell me what they're for when I ask about them. Not that he'd blow another hole in the plane, I think it might just be for when we touch down at the Slingshot, just to see how effective they are. I know Grant wouldn't leave but you know how he is. For all intents and purposes he's already raised kids, and neither of us are really that good at the dating thing." Jemma stood up, making a point of not staring at the test, and went into the bathroom she was now intimately acquainted with to clean herself up.
"I can castrate him you know. Grant, I mean. Not Fitz, though I would probably have an easier time with him. If you want. Not that this kid won't be super adorable if you decide you want it, but I mean aren't you on birth control, so this doesn't happen?" Skye thought she knew about when the thing was conceived but she wasn't going to just ask, she didn't want to know too much about Jemma and Grant's sex life. She'd heard enough on her own, and had run into Jemma coming out of Ward's room more than once. The look on her face each time explained in more detail than words might, just how happy they were.
"You don't need to castrate him. As for how it happened, i'll admit that when we all started out here I wasn't all that consistent with making sure I applied it because there were corpses to examine, and fun alien substances to analyze. Then Grant and I happened and while I was certainly more careful, work kind of overshadows things like eating, sleeping, and other basic human functions alongside Grant showing up in the lab and Fitz running off to give us some space. We were always safe, but after the Romania mission just that one night we weren't thinking too clearly." Jemma said, coming out of the bathroom, still looking pale but no longer on the verge of death by exhaustion. Her eyes were still red and puffy but that could be attributed to illness instead of crying if anyone asked.
"Again with the obvious here, but telling Grant seems kind of important. I mean obviously not right now, but maybe in a few days or a week, hopefully you'll feel up to it. He's getting kind of grouchy since you two can't do the having a ton of sex thing, which apparently you can since you really only have morning sickness but he doesn't know that. He really kicked my ass today and i'm not just saying that. The dude is seriously frustrated." Skye grumbled, flopping back onto Jemma's bed. Her whole body hurt, she wasn't made for doing pull ups. Running was fine, but things that required upper arms strength kind of made her want to cry. Jemma took up the space on the bed that Skye hadn't stolen and yawned, she appeared to be done vomiting for the time being and the idea of talking to Grant was daunting enough as is. She didn't want to do it right now when her whole body seemed to be begging her to sleep.
"Well, he can either stay frustrated if he doesn't like what I have to tell him, or we can work it out, if I like how he responds. Either way, i'd like it if you were there, maybe so he doesn't immediately go into crisis mode. For now, i'd really love to nap." Jemma said, feeling slightly guilty, because she knew she was lying. This was still a huge problem, but having her friend here to talk it over with her was a step toward making things easier. Skye stood up, squeezed Jemma's shoulder and found that strolling came easier to her now, as she stood at the door. "Alright, when you wake up let Fitz know. He's re-calibrated a few of the dwarves and wants to show you how the upgrades are holding with the adjustments. Sleep well." She waved, and left. After about five minutes of staring at the test, Jemma managed to fall asleep. Rest seemed to be more important now than it had been previously.