Timeless

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to go through a monolith with no plan how to get back, mate? Fitz, even I think that’s reckless, and we both know that common sense is not my strong suit…” Hunter’s exasperated voice was the last thing he took with him as he stepped forward to hurl himself into the unknown.

I’ve done the math, it should work in theory, he thought. Then again, after losing his work, his friends, his love and himself in one fell swoop, what else did he have to lose? As his whole world has disintegrated in the span of a week, he was stripped of all attachments. All that was left was the cold machine of his mind in pursuit of a single objective – find her or die trying. This world that didn’t have her in it was not his home anymore.

The portal was different– instead of being sucked through a hole punched through the universe, this time he felt suspended, frozen in time. He thought for a moment that he saw the contours of a spaceship, but was blinded by a white flash, which was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.

****************

When he opened his eyes, and saw the tubes connected to his arms, his first thought was that he must have made an error and instead of the future, he ended up in the past, just waking up from his coma – back when he was still a good guy, back in a place where a future together with Jemma was still a possibility. He thought back with derision to that guy with the brain damage who felt so sorry for himself, who thought he had lost everything. You had no idea, boy, what it is to have nothing left.

That’s not how time travel works, he chided himself. Then again, who really knew how time travel worked? As a quantum physicist he knew of course the theories, but the engineer in him preferred tests and experiments. He noticed that something was strange about the tubes – they didn’t quite look like anything they poked him with during his long hospital stay. There were no needles, the tube looked almost like a living being – some kind of creepy-crawly creature attaching itself to his skin with long yellowish tentacles.

He tried to sit up but hit an invisible barrier. He craned his neck trying to orient himself. The room was mostly white and looked oddly like a lab – it had a trippy space movie quality to it with strange looking gizmos.

“Hello – can anyone hear me?” Fitz called out. “I’d like to sit up.” His bed suddenly raised itself into an upright position and bended seamlessly into a chair. He could not see any controls or anyone operating them. He was sure there was someone watching him, though he could not see any video cameras in the room.

“Thank you.” he said anyways. He tried to take off the wires but they seemed to dig into his skin more as he pulled on them. He hissed from the stinging pain.

“You cannot remove those yet.” a distorted computer-voice said filling the room.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am the one asking the questions here.” the voice said. “Identify yourself.”

“My name is Fitz. I am looking for my team. Coulson, Mack, Daisy, Yoyo, May and Jemma. Have you seen them? Are you keeping them here too?”  

“What are you?” the voice demanded.

“What do you mean?” Fitz wondered. “I am a scientist.  I’m an Agent of SHIELD. “ 

“Are you human?” That was a strange question. Maybe in the future, humans had to deal with alien spies?

“Yes, of course, I’m bloody human. What else?” Fitz was starting to lose his patience with his captor.

“How is it possible? All humans have been destroyed.”

“What do you mean?” Fitz’s mind raced – how far into the future did he travel?

“There was a cataclysmic event. The planet your people called Earth was destroyed.” the computer voice continued matter-of-factly.

“What event…What happened?” he felt disoriented.

“Let me show you…”

Fitz looked in horror at the hologram projected in front of him, showing the Earth ripped apart as it had been blown to pieces from the inside.

“I don’t understand. It wasn’t a meteor or comet…” he wondered out aloud.

“We don’t know exactly what happened.” the sound said. “Our telescopes picked up the images.”

“Who is we?” Fitz asked. “And how do you speak our language?”

“Our race is very old and we are dying. But the blood of humans sustains us, it keeps us alive. We need to keep your kind to survive. So, we have been studying your kind for a long time. Collecting tissue samples and harvesting blood.”

“Oh, so you are parasites then?” Fitz knew that it wasn’t exactly a smart move to anger his captor, but he was beyond caring.

“I prefer the word symbiosis. We peacefully co-exist. How did you survive?  Are there more?” the voice demanded.

“No, I came through a portal, from the past, I suppose. Before it all happened.” Fitz replied.

“I see. Then you have to go back and change the future.” the voice urged him.

“That’s absurd. The future cannot be changed.” Fitz said dejectedly. The last of my kind he thought and felt a terrifying loneliness.

“Maybe not in this universe, but there are many worlds, and in those, you can change what happens. Every moment is a spiderweb, with infinite outcomes. It is true that you cannot change this particular thread of the web, but there are many more worlds you can save. Sometimes the threads cross again in a single point. You have to change things, Mr Fitz. For the sake of your race and mine. We will help you.”

“If you want my help, then let me out of here. Do you have a name?” Fitz asked as the tubes fell away from his arm.

“Call me Enoch. Where do we start?”

“Well, then Enoch.  Before we can change the past, we need to figure out what happened. We need survivors who can tell the story.”

+++++++++++++++++++

Jemma’s mind was organized, just like her room and her lab. Every piece of information had its place. Neat rows of files, organized by date, time, subject matter; colour coded for fast retrieval. There was only one corner; the cottage as she liked to call it, where she let herself roam free. It was their place; a place where she could let her emotions flow free, where spontaneity ruled.

After they arrived through the portal, she was at first relieved when she realized that Fitz wasn’t there. He was back home, safe (at least relatively) and he could work on a solution. It was just a matter of time before he would find them. She wouldn’t give up on him, not this time she resolved.

But when she realized that they didn’t travel through space, but through time, she felt empty. Fitz always said that the future couldn’t be changed – so if he wasn’t here it meant that he moved on or died trying but never managed to change their fate. My future with Jemma is dead. His words came back as ghost to mock her. He was talking about something else, of course, but turned out to be right again. Maybe they were cursed after all. They would forever remain separated by the labyrinth of time.

The thought was unbearable and Jemma locked the cottage in her mind with all her feelings, memories, hopes and dreams in it so she could focus. If he couldn’t change the future, maybe she could find a way back to the past. She needed to focus and thinking about Fitz was sure to lead to breakdown, which was a luxury she couldn’t afford.  She got through her captivity with Kasius by shutting down all her emotions until she was finally reunited with the others.

+++++

When she got the postcard from Coulson, all those shut down feelings started to rush back. Staring in disbelief at the familiar handwriting on the back of the faded postcard and in the notebook, she opened the door of that cottage in her mind. Sparking blue eyes looked at her, so you finally found it, Jemma. She wanted to shake him. I don’t understand Fitz, what does it mean?

He looked at her with a strange gleam in his eyes. Don’t’ you get it?I left that message, because I believe we can change things. We promised we wouldn’t let anything rip us apart. Not space, not dimensions, realities. Certainly not time. Are you with me?

But you said we cannot change the future. She argued with him.

Yes, we can, maybe not here. But we can find a universe out of infinite universes, the one we need to save. We can fix it, together, Jemma.I don’t trust anyone else, but you know how it works. We need to be careful. We need to…”

”…change the past to change the future.” She understood now. The postcard wasn’t just a where, it was a when. Time and place. A rendezvous point.

“Are you OK, Simmons?” May’s worried voice broke her inner conversation.

“Yes. I think I know what I need to do. I need to find Fitz.” she said.

“You know how to get us back?” Daisy looked at her hopefully.

“No, not yet. But we’ll figure it out together. I just need to find him first.” she repeated.

“Shouldn’t we all go together?” Coulson asked.

“We can’t. If there is one thing we learnt from the Framework is that the tiniest change in the past can affect the future. “

“Like the butterfly and tide thing?” Daisy interrupted.

“Exactly.” nodded Jemma. “The more of us go, the more changes we affect. And it will become more and more difficult to figure things out.”

“So you want to go alone.”  

“Yes, and I know where the Kree keep the monolith. I saw it. I just need to go through these calculations, I think I can figure out how the monolith is supposed to work. We will come back for you – you know that.” she looked at them.

“Where are you going?” May asked.

“Well, of course to Lake Ontario. And to the time they started to build this place.” Jemma said. “If Fitz shows up in the meantime, tell him to stay put.”

“As if it was possible to reason with Fitz when it comes to you…” quipped Mack.

“Do you know how to get back here?” Coulson asked.

“I am sure there will be a clue on the other side.” she said. There had to be something.

“Good luck, Jemma.” Daisy hugged her.

 “I’ll come back for you. I promise.” she said.