Timeless

Fitz woke up back in the same white room as before, but this time, he wasn’t alone. A tall bald man sat in a chair across from him.

“Where am I? So it worked?” Fitz asked, disoriented.

“No, it is me, Enoch.” he replied.

“You look remarkably human.” Fitz observed sarcastically.

“This is just a costume really. We don’t show ourselves to other races.” Enoch replied calmly.

“So why didn’t it work?” Fitz wondered.

“You have to go back and check what happened. Maybe there was another disturbance, another ripple that caused an anomaly.”

Fitz nodded. “I’m getting used to this time-hopping anyways. So tell me, how does it work? Could I go back to a time when I am alive?”

“Theoretically yes, but it wouldn’t be the same universe. You would make a new spiderweb. Fixing things will get more and more complicated as more variables enter into the equation.” the alien explained.

“What happens if I die?” Fitz asked.

“Well, you will be dead I suppose.” Enoch replied dryly. Bloody aliens with their sarcasm, thought Fitz.

Then he clarified “I meant can you turn back time?”

“You couldn’t. But someone else could thread back to the fork and with a different choice, in a different universe, you could live. But the path you died on will be lost for you forever.”

“OK, so I need to go back and check on the construction. And we’ll take it from there.” Fitz concluded.

“That’s right.” Enoch said.

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

Peggy Carter was the last one again to leave the base, as usual. The secret underground construction was going well, but it consumed a lot of her time. She walked out to the parking lot. As she looked for her key, a figure stepped out of the shadow.

“We meet again, Ms Carter.” he said with a small smile.

“I wondered when I would see you again after I was paid a visit by Jemma Simmons.” Peggy replied.

“Jemma was here? When?” Fitz asked, heart beating fast.

“About a year ago.”

“How did she know to come here?” he wondered in amazement.

“She said something about a clue you left for her to lead her here.” A clue?I need to make sure to leave it, Fitz made the mental note.

“Have you started the construction?” Fitz asked her.

“Yes, like we discussed. Your girlfriend made some changes to your plan though. She said you wouldn’t mind.” Peggy replied. Maybe that was the problem, Fitz thought.

“Can I see it?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. It’s in my office. Follow me.”

Fitz opened the notebook. His heart was racing. Maybe this was the way to find her again; leaving breadcrumbs that lead to each other, until they end up in the same bloody universe out of infinite parallel universes. He didn't like the math on that one. He looked through the pages, her neat writing correcting little details. Most of them were irrelevant things, they would not affect the structural integrity or the functionality of the construction. Why would she do it? Unless… of course…she saw the place. Which means whatever future she was in, the plan worked.

On the next page he saw an annotation “Water purification!!!”. On the last page he found another cryptic line: maybe2100? See you there. Be careful, roaches and Kree.

Fitz thought for a moment and turned to Peggy: “Did she say anything else?”

“Not really. She was worried like you that revealing too much information could result in drastic changes. She said that the plan worked and this place saved part of humankind.”

Fitz nodded and thought for a moment. She came back because he left a clue – so this what he was supposed to do. His eyes fell on a couple of postcards from Lake Ontario on Peggy’s desk. “Can I borrow one of these?” he asked.

“Yes, of course, you want to send it to the future? I don’t know if the postal service is quite that reliable.” Agent Carter quipped.

“Not exactly send.” Fitz replied. He scribbled “Working on it – Fitz” on the postcard. He also took a small notebook and started to fill it with numbers and coordinates, equations to show how to control the monolith. When he was done, he put the postcard and the notebook into a tin box, then he turned to Agent Carter “I need to hide this in the construction. Can you take me there?”

They went to the place and Fitz marvelled the scale and vastness of the bunker; the foundations were ready and some of the piping. He went into the lower level, where he found a vent hole and he hid the box inside.

When he was finished, he went back to find Peggy. “I need to leave now, Ms Carter. Thank you for everything. I’m not sure we’ll see each other again.”

“Good luck!” Peggy took his hand and squeezed it. “I hope you’ll find her in time.”

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

Jemma stepped through the portal, luckily entering an empty room. She heard footsteps and hid behind the door. As the footsteps receded, she carefully stepped out of the room and made her way down to the lower floors to find her friends.

She looked around the sea of people, huddled in corners, dressed in rags. The place looked the same, but still different. People were dragging themselves around aimlessly, but no one seemed to be in charge. Any semblance of organization was missing. I must have made a mistake, thought Jemma and ended up at the wrong time.

She heard a scream, and pushed her way through the crowd to see what was happening. A woman was cradling a small girl who was bleeding from the leg. Jemma kneeled next to them. “I’m a doctor, I can help.

She applied pressure to the bleeding wound and yelled "Quick, give me a belt, alcohol and some clean cloth." Someone gave her a belt and some dubious looking rags. "This is all we have – medical supplies are long gone." said the man apologetically. Jemma stopped the bleeding and dressed the wound as best as she could.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” she asked the girl.

“Lucy,”

“Stay with me, you will be all right, Lucy.” Jemma said and gently stroked the child's dirty face.

“Who are you?” the girl asked in amazement.

“My name is Jemma Simmons. I am an agent of SHIELD. Me and my friends will come to help you, I promise Agent Coulson, May, Daisy, Mack and Yoyo – we will come back for you and help you. But I need to go and find them.” She told the girl softly.

“You cannot go up to the surface, it is too dangerous. Nobody can survive there.” the mother interjected.

“What happened to it?” Jemma asked.

“There was an attack, some 20 years ago, I was just a child. It started with earthquakes, more powerful than anyone has ever seen. Continents stated to drift apart, tides came in from the ocean and swept away great cities and then finally the core of the planet started to crack and Earth crumbled away in a matter of days. Only this bunker survived.” The woman replied as the child listened to her with eyes wide open.

“What caused the earthquake?” Jemma turned to her.

“There was a lot of chaos that day, so nobody knows what happened, but from what I heard, it was the inhumans. They attacked us, nobody knows why. Something made their powers grow. And now all we have left is this wreckage. With no hope.”

“There is always hope.” Jemma replied. "You will find a way" she smiled at them.

I can't cause more ripples, Jemma thought and she slipped away quietly into a corner. She waited until the activity in the bunker subsided as people started to lie down to sleep. She creeped through the dark corridors; back to the secret room with the white monolith. She sat on the floor with the notebook and jotted down new calculations, hoping that this time she would end up back with the others.