Jemma’s been back two weeks now, and she’s been cleared for lab work for one. She hasn’t left since. It had only taken a few days of begging before Coulson finally gave in — she needed to do something with her hands, anything, something to distract. Besides, her room is too empty, and she doesn’t like that at all.
It’s 2:30 am now, so the lab is mostly empty as well, but the lights are glaringly bright enough so it doesn’t feel like… And anyway, Fitz is still there, even though he’s at the other end of the room doing tech stuff while Jemma sifts idly through various glass slides. She’s got a cup of lemon tea sitting next to her because they discovered last Monday that she and the amount of caffeine in black coffee don’t exactly mix well together anymore.
Across the room, Fitz lets out a loud yawn, and Jemma winces. Neither of them ever had exactly normal sleep schedules, but she knows Fitz is here for her, mostly.
“You can go,” she says, words feeling too light on her tongue. “You need sleep. I’ll — “ and she swallows, but she’s getting better at lying, “I’ll be fine.”
Fitz gives her a long, careful look, before nodding slowly. “If you’re sure,” he says, a slight frown on his face.
“I am.”
“I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” he says, and she nods and watches his back retreat down the corridor before turning the corner.
She lets out a shaky breath. This is good, she tells herself, turning back to her desk and taking a sip of her too-hot tea. The liquid burns sour and sticky down her throat, sharp and scalding. This is fine. She’s always been good at pushing herself.
Besides, she wasn’t hurt — nothing really happened to her.
The buzzing of her computer is a drone in the background, constant and steadying, even as the air seems to tilt and grow hotter — which it shouldn’t, this is a lab, there is a set temperature — and Jemma feels like she’s suffocating. She’s being crazy, she knows. Her mind is playing tricks on her and in actual fact she’s in one of the safest places on Earth surrounded by her family.
Jemma reaches up to tighten her hair in its ponytail, tugging until her scalp feels that sharp ache, and forces the warm, stale air into her lungs. There was never wind, back there, even when she was running there was no wind. Not a single breeze. Just a hazy dry heat.
The busies herself with her slides again, not even looking for anything in particular. Just placing them under the lense, adjusting it to focus, shifting it around for a few minutes , before replacing it with the next, and the next and the next. Tries not to pay attention to how she’s alone and the room is utterly quiet save her computer and her breath and her pulse pounding too loudly in her ears and the empty, the utter lack of anyone else, seems to get closer and closer. The room is still and every one of her movements seems to echo on and get swallowed by the stillness at the same time.
Maybe it’s because she’s tired, and she hasn’t had more than three hours sleep this week, but when she turns around one of the shadows on the far wall shifts and the slide she’s holding drops from her fingers and oh god, oh god, oh god. It’s them, it’s them, how did they even get here how have they been following her and —
“Jemma?” And she jumps.
Skye— no, it's Daisy — steps across the threshold into Jemma's lab area and slowly makes her way over.
Slowly, everything fades back to normal and Jemma remembers she's in the Playground and this is real (but so were they, she thinks.)
“Are you okay? Fitz — I wasn’t asleep anyway — he sent me.”
Jemma doesn't think she can speak, she's only just remembered how to breathe, but she finds herself stumbling forward and into Daisy, eyes squeezed shut.
Daisy’s arms come up to wrap around her, holding her warm and tight. She's present and steady and smells like strawberry laces and caramel lattes and not like there at all.
“I'm here,” says Daisy softly, and a hand reaches up to stroke Jemma's head and Jemma feels herself lean into it. “I'm here.”
She's safe and Jemma is not alone and that's all that matters.