Vienna was quiet at night. At least the part of town where they had booked their hotel. Skye never thought that she would enjoy silence this much. The last few weeks had been filled with too much screaming, too much yelling and way too much crying in her opinion. Now all she could hear was her own breath and an occasional laughter that escaped from a window of an apartment building on the other side of the street. She could see shadows dancing behind the curtains when someone walked by it. The roof had been her escape whenever the company of the others had been unbearable and the emptiness inside her had been too much to handle. All those times she had stolen away trying to think and just be for herself for a while. She often remembered how much she had loved being in the bus with the others talking, laughing. She missed those days. Days when everything had been okay. Before everything went downhill. Days before Ward and Hydra, before her mother and father, before the temple and Raina. When her friends were her family and all she needed was working and being besides them. But it would never be like that again. Those happy and easy days were gone.
The more she reflected on it even those days had been directed by Hydra. But it was different, or so she tried to convince herself. Because now breathing was too hard, talking and laughing exhausted her and looking into the faces of her friends didn't fill her with happiness anymore. There was just this sting in her chest, this dark mass trying to swallow her and she was afraid that one day it would win and she would drown in this hole inside her. She desperately wanted to cling to the happy memories she had of that time, but whenever she closed her eyes her brain started to overflow with the pictures of the security camera
Behind her she heard the door to the rooftop open and close, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps noisily disturbing the gravel in their approach. “Skye?” Bobbi's voice reached her ears and she knew that her time alone was over.
Letting out a sign she turned around towards the blonde woman.
“Yes?” To her own surprise Skye could see tears glistening in the corners of the eye of her friend.
“I... I... just talked to Coulson. It's...” Bobbi’s voice cracked and the tears were now streaming down her face. “It's Jemma.”
-
One month earlier
A part of her was happy for her dad. Now he had the chance to start anew. To live a life that wasn't just filled with his search for her. He didn't even know that she existed. She tried to tell herself that it was for the best. But once in a while the sadness slipped through her hopeful thoughts. Had she just found her biological family, now both of them were gone again. With her mother dead and her father’s memory gone she felt this sting again, that tried to tell her that she was all alone. She had always thought that once she knew where she was from, this feeling of belonging somewhere would just kick in. But now she knew that she had found her place a long time ago. She belonged to SHIELD or at least what was left of it. She belonged besides her friends. They were her family. And meeting her parents had opened her world to a whole new family. The Inhumans were now a part of her just as SHIELD was. With her mother gone they now had the chance to live protected by SHIELD but she knew that it would be a long way to a peaceful coexistence. Her mother's fear and mistrust towards SHIELD was still strong in the minds of some of them.
Coulson he had ordered a meeting in the commando bridge after they returned from visiting her dad. She was now standing in between Fitz and Bobbi, waiting for the meeting to start as Coulson walked in together with Mack. After the death of Gonzales, he and Bobbi had been re-invited to join SHIELD under Coulson's direction, an invitation which both had accepted without a second thought. Mack was now leading the construction teams that were trying to fix the damage that the attack of the Inhumans had caused to the ship that. Coulson was looking around the room, checking if everyone was accounted for.
“Where is Simmons?” He asked his assembled team.
“She was working in the lab on the Kree stone, Sir.” Fitz voice had stopped cracking as often as it used to and Skye believed that the fight with the Inhumans had brought some of his old self back. Skye really hoped that someday he would be like the old Fitz again. She missed the little grin that used to play around the corners of his mouth.
Coulson turned to one of the guards and ordered him to get Jemma. Simmons was never late to a briefing and Skye could feel a worried frown slowly creep on her face. Jemma had spent a lot time in the lab after it had been repaired. A lot of the machines still had to be replaced, but the brunette had made it her new mission to find out as much as she could about Inhumans and the stone. Now she had more than Raina’s and Skye’s DNA to work with. And as much as Skye loved to spend time with her, the constant poking and ripping of Jemma's relentless blood and hair sampling had been starting to annoy her.
Coulson's voice ripped her thoughts away from the brunette.
“The repairs on the ship are all according to plan. We should be able leave the harbor in a few days. The planning of the Inhuman-recruiting team is...”
In that moment the guard who had been send to get Jemma returned and another guard that usually stood guard in front of the room with the stone accompanied him.
“Sir? Agent Simmons was not present in the lab, but according to the guard she and agent Fitz had entered the lab, but only agent Fitz has left the lab. The door of the cage of stone was wide open if that's of any interest to you, Sir.”
“What?” Coulson gestured the men to follow him into the corridor. Through the glass door Skye could see both of the guards gesturing and Coulson's face darkening with each word. The men then reentered the room. “The meeting is over. Everyone back to work. Mack. Agent Morse. My office, now.”
The three of them left the room and the other agents went bickering back to work. Skye turned to Fitz and saw his face scrunched with worry, think that this was probably the same look she had on her own face.
“What... What did he say? Jemma entered the lab but never left?” Her own voice was filled with worry.
“We went into the lab to check if the machines were... working properly. I left because I wanted to take... a shower before the meeting. Everything was... fine.” Fitz had a confused expression on his face as he tried to remember.
“You two. Back to work.” Hunter was walking towards them. “Stop worrying. Jemma will be fine.”
The three of them had been order to clean a series of rooms in the back of the ship where someone had smashed every window and the pieces of glass were everywhere. They worked quiet which gave Skye the opportunity to keep wondering about Jemma. She felt that her worry grew with every sweep of the broom in her hand.
After a while of quiet cleaning, Mack entered the room they were currently working in. “Fitz? Coulson wants to see you.”
Her friend looked like a lost puppy as he leaned the broom to the wall next to the door and left the room.
“Mack? What’s happening? Where is Jemma?”
The man stopped in his step and turned slowly towards Skye. “I don't know. But we are trying to find out.” With that he followed Fitz outside and didn't look back no matter how often Skye yelled what this was supposed to mean.
“She will be alright. She probably got lost in the ship somewhere. I know I do that way too often.” Hunter’s thick British accent hung in the air and she knew that it was supposed to sound reassuring but all it did was worry her even more. Jemma didn't just get lost she was way too smart for that.
The rest of the afternoon they spent working in silence, Skye's panic growing with every minute that went by without Fitz coming back or a word from upstairs.
When the clock finally announced the end of their shift, Skye practically ran back towards Coulson's office to finally find out what was going on, only to be told by two agents standing guard that the director wasn't seeing anyone right now.
After a while of walking back and forth like a madwoman and trying to talk the guards into letting her through she decided that if no one wanted to tell her what happened she needed to get the information herself.
With quick steps she walked back to her bunk, picked her tablet of off the table which was lying next to the file about the inhuman team and sat down on her bed. Her fingers were practically flying over the keyboard as she hacked her way through the firewall that was supposed to protect the security camera feeds. She made a mental note to remind Coulson that it was way too easy to get in, but right now she was thankful for the lack of security. When she finally found the feed from the camera in the room with the stone, she re-winded the stream to the point when Fitz and Jemma had entered the lab. She could see how Jemma immediately started fumbling on the machines surrounding the glass case containing the stone, how Fitz was leaning against the glass while his hand slipped, followed by his exit and how he closed the door behind him. Jemma, then alone for a moment before she noticed something and turned towards the glass door. In that moment the stone liquefied and swallowed the brunette as she was trying to get away.
Skye’s insides went numb. There was just nothing. Then suddenly she started to shiver and mumbled: “No. No. No. No.” Over and over and over again. Unable to keep her hands steady she re-winded the tape again. Jemma turning towards the cage, the stone melting and its dark mass closing around the girl only to return to its position as if nothing happened. Skye could feel how her shaking started to affect her surroundings. The water in the bottle on her nightstand started to from little waves until the entire bottle and the nightstand itself were shaking. She somehow managed to speed up the video to check if the stone had spat out Jemma after but the next movement the camera had captured was the guard Coulson had sent to get Jemma. She was trying desperately to keep her powers in, the pain in her wrists that she used to experience from before she could control her ability crawled back into her bones. In one movement she was out of her room, running towards the lab where the stone was kept, only to be greeted by the same agents that had guarded Coulson's office before which again refused to let her through. But now she wasn't able to just keep quiet about it and her powers were still acting out, causing the floor to vibrate.
“Coulson! Please. What did that stone do to Jemma?” The desperation in her voice was clearly noticeable. She didn't even care that now he would know that she'd hacked SHIELD again. All that mattered was Jemma. Skye remembered all too well when Ward had tried to kill her and Fitz, but she had only been told what had happened after it was clear that both of them survived and were on their way to a SHIELD hospital. This time was different. This time they didn't tell her that she was alright, they didn't tell her anything. Coulson had known for the entire afternoon and yet he said nothing.
Once again she yelled from the top of her lungs. “Coulson!”
As a response to her scream the door of the lab was swung open and Bobbi walked out of the room. Her face was as stoic as ever but her eyes bore a painful expression. With firm steps she walked towards Skye and slowly started to push the brunette out of the corridor. Skye had lost her self-control again. The thought that she might have lost Jemma had crawled back into her brain once more. After a long flight of stairs and long metallic hallways she noticed that Bobbi had led her back to her room. The blonde opened the door for them and after Skye had scuffed in the room she closed the door behind them.
“What happened? What do you know?” Skye tried to put some strength in her voice but failed miserably.
“Nothing. We don't know what happened. We have watched the camera feeds as I gather you did too.” The blonde pointed to Skye's tablet which was still playing the camera feeds. “The door to the case has been closed again. Coulson won't let anyone near it.”
“What? But how... how is he planning on finding out what happened if no one can run any tests? How will he get her out of there?”
“Skye.”
“He is not planning on getting her out of there, is he? He just wants to prevent that anyone else gets... absorbed. Why was the door of the cage even open in the first place? Jemma didn't open it.”
“It seems that Fitz accidentally opened it when his hand slipped.”
“Fitz, but... No, No.” The part of Skye that had held her on her feed finally caved under the pain that Jemma’s disappearance had caused, Skye's knees gave up underneath her and she dropped on the floor. She covered her face with her hands, shaking her head and kept mumbling, that this couldn't be happening. Not now. Not now. Now that everything was going to be fine again.
Much to her surprise she felt a hand on her shoulder that started to carefully stroke across her back. Slowly she lifted her head and found herself staring into Bobbi’s eyes. The blonde had sat down next to Skye and her face was no longer stoic. It was now wearing a painfully twisted expression.
“Coulson is trying his best to find out what happened to her.”
-
When Skye woke the next morning, for a second she thought that all had been a bad dream. Jemma disappearing, just a bad dream. Then it all rushed back to her and her heart felt that ache again, that made it hard for her to breathe. A noise on her nightstand caused her to open her eyes. For a moment she was blinded by the light in her room and she had to blink a few times. The water in her bottle that was standing on her bed table had started to tremble. And with every wave hitting the wall, the bottle itself started to shake until it fell onto the floor. Signing she closed her eyes again and tried to concentrate on keeping her powers in. However the pain of losing Jemma overpowered her from time to time and she couldn't help but to watch more of her things find the way to the floor.
After spending hours looking at the ceiling a knock on her door ripped her out of her thoughts.
“Skye?” Fitz's voice caused the rest of her books to fall of their shelf.
With a swift motion she pulled her blanket over her head. The pain in her chest was swallowed by a wave of anger. It was his fault that Jemma got sucked into that weird stone. The last person she wanted to see was the engineer in his sweater vest. In her head she yelled at him that he should go away, but she didn't dare to open her mouth fearing she would loose the last bit of control she had over her power. As angry as she was she didn't want to hurt him.
After a while she could hear his scuffed footsteps outside walk away, but not five minutes later a firmer sounding set of feet stopped in front of her door. Said person didn't bother knocking and just entered her room.
“Skye.” Bobbi’s voice sounded muffed through the blanket that she had still pulled over her head. “You need to eat something.”
After a few moments without a response from Skye, Bobbi placed something on her nightstand and left the room.
The curiosity won over after a few seconds and Skye crept out of her blanket. Now she could see what the blonde had put on her bed table, it was a plate with two sandwiches and a mug with something that smelled a lot like her favorite tea in it. But then the fact that this also was Jemma's favorite tea and the feeling of hunger in her stomach was replaced by a deep sting numbing everything else.
For the next hours all she did was stare at the ceiling, clinging to the edge of the hole in her chest that was threatening to swallow her.
Jemma. Her name echoed in her head and was the last piece of hope that kept her from drowning.
Jemma. When she closed her eyes she could picture the brunette in her lab-coat with goggles on her nose in the lab. Her happy place.
Jemma. Twice already she had believed that she had lost the scientist. First when Jemma jumped out of the bus, but that crushing feeling had lasted only for a few minutes. From the moment the last mouse died and they were talking new plans, to Jemma lowering the cargo hold, to her jumping. Fitz’s screams still ringing in her ears, watching Ward jumping after her. A few minutes later when he called in saying they both made it safe to the ground. Jemma not being infected anymore, that the antidote was successful.
Jemma. The second time she almost lost her she didn't even know until she was save again. They had lost contact to Fitzsimmons after they went onto the bus to spy on Ward and Hydra, but the rest of the team didn't know what Ward had done until it was already clear that both of them were alive. Hurt, but alive.
The thought of loosing her had hurt back then, but now it was different. It was no longer just hurting. It was killing her. Just one thing kept her going. Jemma.
---
She must have fallen asleep at one point because the next thing Skye noticed was that her nightstand was empty again and her watch now announced that it was already the next day. Her muscles were itching to move again after spending the entire last day in bed. With a quick movement she swung her legs out of the bed and stepped into something cold and squishy. A look on the floor revealed her that the mug and the plate must had fallen off the bed table. The tea had spilled all over her floor and caused the sandwiches to get soggy.
After she cleaned off the mess she felt in desperate need of a shower, but soon as the hot water was running over her body her strength to stand broke. Looking back on it, she didn't remember how long she had been sitting on the floor, crying.
It took her a long time to get herself dressed. She felt even more exhausted than she did before the shower.
Skye dragged her feet all the way to kitchen, where she started to prepare a tea for herself when the noise of the door opening caused her to spin around. Fitz was coming into the room and as soon as he laid eyes on her, he let go of the mug he was holding which fell onto the floor and shattered into pieces.
“Skye. I... I... I am sorry. I didn't know you would be here. I...” He was stuttering as he knelt down and with shaking fingers started to pick up the broken fragments of the cup. The blonde must have cut himself on a sharp edge, because it seemed to her as the world had slowed down when she saw a drop of blood fall onto the floor. Before a second drop had the chance to follow, Skye felt herself move. With a quick movement she grabbed a paper towel, sat down next to Leo and wrapped it around his finger. She then picked up the remaining shards, threw them in the trash can and got a first aid kit out of the cupboard. Seeing the box in her hands caused the thought that Jemma had always been to one who had attended the wounds of the team to bubble up and her heart ached painfully. Yet she managed with swift fingers to disinfect and place a patch onto the small cut in Fitz’s hand. Her own hand was still holding the one of the engineer as she dared to really look at him for the first time ever since he came in. His face was puffy and new tears were already forming in the corners of his blue eyes. Seeing him this sad and broken caused her built-up anger to evaporate and Skye could feel herself starting to cry again. She pulled him into a hug when she started to realize that Fitz not only missed Jemma just like she did, he also felt responsible for her disappearance.
“It was an accident. But she is not dead. She will come back to us.” Skye said, trying to calm Leo, but as the same time she was trying to convince herself.
-
After Fitz’s and her afternoon of crying in the kitchen she didn't cry again. No more tears were left, but the anger stayed. Not particularly angry at Fitz or anyone else. Angry at the universe that it just let it happen. That it took Jemma from her. And angry at herself for not knowing how to get her back. She spent every waking hour training in the gym trying to build off the anger scared that she would loose control and someone else got hurt. Quite often Skye would pass out in the gym and awake in her own bed, Bobbie sitting next to her every time. Skye loosing consciousness resulted in her having nightmares and the loss of her self-control, causing her to wake up drenched in sweat, her bed trembling.
After a while her power started to stop acting out but the nightmares stayed. There was one dream that she had almost every night, in which she and Jemma were standing in the middle of a field surrounded by thousands of blooming floors, their scent filling the air. Her hand was holding Jemma's and she could feel the fingers of the brunette stroking gently across her the back of her hand. Then suddenly everything around them was darkened by black clouds and Jemma was pulled away from her. For a moment she could hold onto her hand but then her fingers slipped out of hers and the scientist disappeared in between the dark fog surrounding them. Jemma. She heard herself cry out but no response ever reached her ears. Nothing but silence in the middle of the darkness.
A week after Jemma’s disappearance Coulson decided that Skye needed to get away from the ship and the stone. He had made it the mission of every available scientist he could get to find out what happened with the stone. The quakes caused by Skye didn't help their work, so he assigned her the mission to find and index other Inhumans. Lincoln, Bobbi and a few other agents he sent with her.
They spend a week in Chile tracking down a girl who could make plants grow in the blink of an eye and sent her together with a team of scientists to Brazil were they were supposed to slow down the deforestation. The following days they spend in Indonesia searching for a pair of twins who could morph into one man with super strength. Not shortly after they flew to Vienna where according to rumors a small group of people with powers lived. They had been able to find a few members of the group but they were still looking for their leader.
The rest of the team spent their evenings in a communal room of their hotel, but Skye couldn't stand the talking. She needed silence. In silence she could hear Jemma's voice and remembered how she vibrated. Everything in the universe was giving out a different vibration that Skye could feel and Jemma's had always been her favorite. But now it was gone and Skye felt so lonely without it.
-
“I... I... just talked to Coulson. It's...” Bobbi’s voice cracked and the tears were now streaming down her face. “It's Jemma.”
Bobbi's voice was still ringing in her ears. It had been a week since the blonde had gotten a call from Coulson in which he told them that the stone had spat Jemma out. She had been unconscious, but alive. She still looked like Jemma but they weren't sure if she hadn't changed in a way like Skye did and had put her in isolation to run tests on her.
Skye had left not a minute after Bobbi had told her this. She had to get away from everything. The last month had turned her entire world upside down and hearing this crushed the last pieces of it that were still standing. With one of the cars they had rented she drove deep into the mountains and booked a small room in a motel. During her stay in Afterlife she had learned that when she let her guard down in the mountains their strong vibrations made it almost impossible for her to hear her own thoughts. On her second day she checked her emails and saw that Coulson had send her an email saying that Jemma was awake and no test had given any indication that Jemma had been altered somehow. The brunette was asking for her and like everyone else she wanted to know when she would return. This caused Skye to start to think about why she fled in the first place. All she had wanted to hear for last few weeks was that Jemma was alive. But now she was alive and Skye had started to run in the opposite direction, away from her. She was glad to hear that she was still alive and she did want to see her. But she wasn't sure if she would be able to have her in her life again as just friends. Almost loosing her this time had opened her eyes to her own feelings. That she didn't just like and miss Jemma as a friend. She loved her. And she missed her as someone had cut out of her heart. She had missed her as someone who had just lost their other half. Skye was ready to have Jemma back in her life again, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to not have her.
-
The ship had left the harbor after her team had begun their search for the Inhumans and now she was stepping out of the Quinjet that had brought her to the ship's new location. Coulson was already expecting her on the landing spot.
“Skye. Please follow me to my office.” His voice was strict and she didn't dare to answer. Her disappearing from the team had surely angered him.
Yet once they had reached his office and the door was closed behind them the words were sputtering out of her. “Coulson. I am so sorry I just left. I don't know what came over me and...”
With a hand gesture he noted her to be quiet. “Skye. You don't have to apologize for just leaving. A head's up would have been nice, but it's alright. I understand. The last few weeks have been hard on all of us.” His face was wearing a friendly expression.
“How is she? Can I? Can I see her now?” With her question Coulson's expression changed into a sad one.
“Before you go, there are a few things I need to tell you. Agents Simmons was put into quarantine after her return and it turns out that was a good decision. All the tests in the lab were showing that she was still her old self, but there was an incident in the lab and a sample of her blood got into contact with a sample of blood from an Inhuman. Jemma's blood started to destroy the Inhuman blood. In a following test we found an unknown enzyme that degrades the part of Inhuman-DNA that the Kree spliced in. This causes the DNA to be destroyed.”
“What... what does that mean?”
“When Agents Simmons comes into contact with Inhumans it could kill them.”
The very familiar feeling of desperation crawled back into her bones. She had just gotten her back, but she was no longer her Jemma.
“You can see her though. Just... don't touch her.” Coulson must have noticed the painful twist in her face. ”She is alive. And we will find a way to help her.”
Deep breath in. Long breath out. Skye was shaken with nervous jitters as she stood in front of the door the room that contained Jemma. It took all her will-strength to turn the door knob and enter the room. With stiff steps she walked towards a glass wall with a door and a hatch embedded into it that split the room in the middle separating the people who entered from Simmons.
The brunette was lying on a bed which was surrounded by papers and files spread on the floor.
“Skye!” Jemma had turned her head and recognized who had stepped into the room. With a quick motion she jumped out of the bed and walked towards the glass wall. A sheepish smile was crawling on Skye's face now that she could see that Jemma was alive and the weight that had been crushing her heart for so long slowly began to lift.
“Hi.”, was all she can manage to get out, before the first tear out of relieve started to leave her eye.
“I've missed you, Skye. Where were you? They said you… ran after you got the message that I was… back.”
Skye was full on crying now. “Yes. And I am so sorry. I didn't mean to run. I just needed some time to think.”
“I am glad you are here now.” Through the glass Skye can see how the scientist slowly lifted her hand and pressed it against the wall. As soon as the skin hit the glass Skye could feel her vibrations, muted but there. It took her a moment to understand that these belong to the brunette, because they no longer felt like they used to.
“You feel different.”, she mumbled without thinking under her breath. As a reaction a dark shadow fell over Simmons face like she just remembered something and she removed her hand from the wall. Her vibrations disappeared again.
“Sorry.” Skye placed her hand on her side of the glass were Jemma's had been just a moment ago.
“I am different. My blood chemistry changed and so did my DNA. I am no longer… me.” Now Jemma was the one in tears.
“Yes. Yes you are. This is the same thing that happened to me.” Cursing the glass between them Skye wanted nothing more than to hold Jemma.
“You changed, yes. And now I changed. But you are not deadly by touch, Skye. You can't compare that. I am... deadly to Inhumans. I am deadly to you. Can you... can you please leave? I don't want to hurt you. I can't have you here.”
Her feet felt like they were glued to the floor. “Jemma. But...”, she heard herself beg.
The brunette interrupted her. “Skye, please leave. I don't want you here. I don't want to see you. Go away.” With a quick motion she turned away from the girl and let herself fall down onto her bed. Skye could see her shoulders moving and quiet sniffing reached her ears through the glass.
When Skye awoke a few hours later in her bed, Fitz was sitting next to her.
“Coulson told me what happened.” After Jemma's brutal and crushing confession Skye had run back to Coulson's office in tears, yelling at him that they needed to find something to help Jemma. She had broken down then and there and he had just held her until she had passed out from exhaustion. “We are trying everything to help her, Skye. We have a lot of ideas. We just need some time to find the right one.”
“She said she didn't want to see me.”
“She is lying. She is afraid that she will hurt you. Just like you were scared that you would hurt anyone after you changed.” Fitz was wearing a comforting expression on his face.
They were quiet for a while after. Skye was lost deep in her thoughts while Fitz was just watching her.
“You love her.” It wasn’t a question, it was simply a statement.
“Yes.” She could barely hear her own voice. The tears were now streaming down her face again and Fitz gave her a tissue.
“She is alive. She will be okay. And so will you.”
“Without her… I don't know if I'll ever be.”
“She is scared. She think that pushing you away will keep you save. One day we will find a solution and she'll realize that that wasn't the right decision.”
“When did you get so wise?”
Fitz's face lit up as she pulled him into hug.
-
She stayed on the ship for a few days after, but she couldn't bear to go visit Jemma again.
One afternoon she was training in the gym beating up a punching bag when Fitz walked into the room. She nodded to him, inviting him to join her, but he just quietly sat down and watched her for a while.
“She knows you know.” His voice echoed through the room in between one of her punches.
“Who knows what?” For a moment she stopped.
“Jemma. She knows you love her.”, Fitz said without any expression in his voice.
“And she still doesn't want me around.” The punching bag was now receiving especially hard hits.
“Yes. Because she loves you too.” This caused Skye to miss and she tripped.
“What?”
“She loves you.” He stated dryly.
“How would you know that? Did she tell you?” Skye pulled her hands out of the boxing gloves, grabbed her water bottle and sat down next to the engineer.
“She didn't have to. Remember when she gave you your Hula girl back after she saved it from the Bus?” One of his eyebrows was lifted cockily.
“Yes. I remember. What about that?”
“She shakes.”, he quoted himself.
“My Hula girl. Yes, she shakes.” Skye was getting more and more confused.
“No, Jemma shakes. When she is around you. And so do you.”
“I don't understand.”
“And I thought I was the one with the brain injury. She loves you. You love her. I thought you were going to realize it sooner though. She had to die first for you to notice.”
-
An Inhuman with Banshee like powers was causing mayhem in Egypt which resulted in Skye and Bobbi's team being sent out on the field again.
On her way to the Quinjet she stopped by Fitz’s room.
“Fitz?” Skye entered his room where he was reading a book with the very, very thrilling sounding title ‘Chromed sockets – Genius invention or our downfall?’ “Can you give this to Jemma once we are gone?” She placed her Hula girl on his desk. “And please tell her that as long as she shakes for her, so will I. “
She skyped with Fitz every day until they got back, but she never dared to mention Jemma. Just once, two days before they were supposed to return, he said that she missed her, that she asked about her every time he visited and that he was not supposed to tell her this, but he couldn't stand seeing the both of them this miserable.
That night when she laid in her bed his words still rung in her ears. ”She misses you, you know? She looks sad when I tell her that you still haven't returned. Then she takes your Hula girl that she is holding the entire time and she shakes it. It makes her smile.”
The day they returned started with the best news that Skye had heard ever since they announced that Jemma was alive. Someone in the lab had managed to prepare an enzyme blocker that was supposed to neutralize the harmful enzymes in Jemma's blood.
This was how all of them found themselves in front of the glass wall that was ensured Jemma's quarantine. A lab assistant was on the inside together with Jemma and injected her with the drug.
“How do you feel?” Bobbi's nose was practically pressed against the glass.
“Very well.” Jemma nodded. “Now we just need to know if it worked.” The brunette turned to the assistant and mumbled something that the people outside couldn't understand.
Said lab assistant then poked into Jemma's finger with a needle and caught the drops of blood that were forming on her skin in a petri dish. He left the glass cage and walked over to where Skye and Fitz were standing. Fitz then pulled up her hand and allowed the assistant to poke her finger.
“Ouch!” Skye cursed from the sudden sting. The engineer then applied pressure around the tiny hole in her finger causing a drop of blood to fall into the petri dish.
All were staring into the glass dish, but nothing happened. No degrading of Skye's blood, after a while the usual clotting of blood with different blood groups.
“So I guess that means that the test was successful?” Skye asked carefully.
“Seems like it. There have to be more tests, but for now it worked.”
“Can I touch her now?” Skye could feel herself blush because of the question, but she needed to know.
“Yes, you can touch her now.”
Most of the team had started to leave the room; only Jemma, Fitz and Skye stayed behind.
Jemma's face wore a huge smile and Skye guessed that she probably looked at lot like her. With goosebumps all over her body and shaking fingers she managed to press the button that opened the door. Far too slowly it slid to the side, but once there was enough space for her to go through her feet weren't obeying her anymore. Fitz had to give her a push to make her step through the opening. With insecure steps she walked towards Jemma only to stop around two feet in front of her. The brunette slowly lifted her hand and offered it to her. Carefully Skye raised her hand and placed it inside Jemma's.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good, really good.”
Something was itching inside her nose. She lifted her hand and rubbed it against it. Once she lowered it again she could see that it was now smeared with blood. A stinging pain in her chest caused her to gasp for air and she had to let go of Jemma's hand. Her knees were getting weak and she let herself fall onto the floor.
“Skye?” Jemma's voice was filled with so much desperation that it almost broke Skye's heart. The scientist knelt down next to her. “Fitz. Go get help. Skye? What's wrong?”
“I...” Skye could feel how her lungs were desperately aching for air but she couldn't breathe.
Next to her Jemma had started to cry. “No. Please. I am sorry. We should have waited until all the tests were done. I shouldn't have let you touch me.”
“Jemma.” Her voice was barely audible, but she wanted to say her name at least one more time. The pain from her lungs had now spread all over her body. Gathering all of her strength she managed to lift herself up just enough to turn to Jemma and pressed a light kiss on her lips. How long had she dreamed of feeling her lips against hers, dreamed about how it would feel. But all she felt was that pain blinding her and the thought that she might never see those hazel eyes that were filled with so much hurt right now again. Skye could feel her senses disappearing and everything around her darkened. The last thing she could make out was Jemma's face looking so broken that her heart ached even more. Then everything faded to black and the pain was gone. It was peaceful black and nothing hurt.
-
After a while the black that surrounded her slowly faded into grey, then into white. And then without a warning the pain came rushing back. It wasn't as excruciating as it had been before but still numbing all of her senses. She only slowly realized that the beeping in her ears was her own heartbeat. Then her nose caught the smell of disinfectant and flowers. Daises. The light in the room was blinding her at first, but once she managed to open her eyes without squinting too much she looked around the room. She could make out a bouquet of flowers on her nightstand. Her nose had been right, it were daisies. Then her eyes fell onto a tangled web of brunette hair attached to a girl sleeping on a chair next to her bed. She then tried to move her body only to notice that every movement hurt. The curses that she had mumbled under her breath must have disturbed Jemma who was now waking up in the cutest way that Skye had ever seen. She scrunched her nose and stretched herself which then was followed by a small champ.
“Morning.” Her voice was more of a croak than actual sound but it caught Jemma's attention.
Her eyes flew open and as they found the source of the rasping sound, her entire face lit up with a smile. “Skye. You're awake.”
Pictures of her own hand smeared with blood and Jemma's face twisted painfully rushed into her head. “What happened?”
“I... I almost killed you. You touch me and you were dying. Not all the enzymes were neutralized yet. I am so sorry. I did this. I almost killed you.”
“Why am I not dead?”
“Well you were slipping away. I couldn't loose you. I injected you with the same enzyme blocker they gave me and it worked. The enzymes hadn't damaged too much of your DNA. That is why you are not dead.” The brunette didn't dare to look her in the eyes.
“So first you tried to kill me and then you saved my life?” Skye tried to joke.
“Skye, this is not funny. I could have lost you.” With a playful clap on her leg Jemma wanted to show her the seriousness of the situation but that only caused Skye to smile. “We didn't know if you were ever gonna wake up. But after a bit, things started to shake around you again. I never doubted you wouldn't come back.”
“Wait!” Skye realized something. “Not neutralized yet? Does that mean that now they are?”
“Yes. I am not longer deadly to Inhumans.”
The smile on her face grew even bigger. Slowly she lifted her hand up and offered it the Jemma just like she had the first time they tried it. Simmons blushed and only hesitatingly took her hand.
“Thank you. For saving my life.” She tried to get Jemma's attention, but the brunette's eyes were locked on their hands. “Could you please look at me for a second? Now that I can touch you again, I want to try something else that didn't really work when we first tried it.”
The blush on Jemma's face turned into a deeper red and Skye was sure that her face had probably a similar color. But this didn't matter to her right now. Carefully she pulled Jemma arm towards her who then finally looked at her. Her eyes were looking at her insecure, but Skye's thumb gently stroked across Jemma's hand and the look in her eyes turned into an expression that Skye hadn't seen before.
In a swift motion Simmons got up from her chair and reduced the distance between them. For a second she stopped her motion to look into Skye's eye probably searching for a sign that told her to stop. But Skye didn't allow her to find any doubt and closed the space between them. And now her lips felt just right. Just like she imagined kissing Jemma must feel. Only better.