Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1. pretty girl is suffering (jemma)

A/N: First, before I forget, title comes from "Pretty Girl" by Sugarcult. And credit to sapphireglyphs for connecting the song with this story, because it really is perfect. All chapter titles will come from the song, as well.

Second, this _will _be multiple chapters. How many, I haven't decided yet. I guess we'll see. Chapter one is a drabble I posted on tumblr a while ago, with some minor edits. All subsequent chapters will be new.

Third, I'm trying something a little different with this one. Namely, alternating POVs. This chapter is from Jemma's POV, the next will be from Grant's, and the one after...we'll see. Each chapter's POV will be clearly marked in the chapter title, and hopefully the text will make it obvious as well.

I think that's it! Except to mention that this story was spawned by a prompt from anonymous, who requested "angsty biospecialist amnesia au"-so take that as you will. Oh, and this story _will _contain **spoilers** for recent episodes.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review.

* * *

><p>Jemma's head is pounding when she wakes.<p>

That's the first thing she's aware of: the pure agony in her skull. The second thing she's aware of is the steady beeping coming from somewhere nearby, which does absolutely nothing to lessen the pain. The third thing she's aware of is Skye.

"Oh, good. You're awake."

"Skye?" Jemma croaks. She cracks one eye open and instantly regrets it, as the bright light shining in her face causes a spike of pain. She squeezes her eye shut again with a moan.

"Sorry, sorry," Skye says hastily. There's a click, and the light seeping through her eyelids dims. "I meant to turn that off."

"What happened?" she asks, and risks opening her eye again. This time, the room is dark, and she opens her other eye.

She's clearly in a hospital room of some kind, although it's not one she's ever seen before. Actually, it strikes her as being rather makeshift. Skye is sitting next to her bed, looking pale and exhausted. There's no sign of Grant or Fitz. All of these things are worrying, to say the least.

"How's your head?" Skye asks.

She's about to answer when she processes exactly what she's seeing, and she frowns. "Skye…what have you done with your hair?"

"What?" Skye asks. Her eyes go wide, and she leans forward slightly. "Simmons. What's the last thing you remember?"

Jemma tries to think past the pain in her head, which isn't easy. She does wonder what happened, but she has the feeling that she won't be getting any answers until she answers Skye's question, so she does her best to focus.

"Canada," she says finally. "We were…in the woods. Following coordinates from Coulson's badge."

Skye's eyes go even wider, and she springs to her feet.

"Okay," she says, in a tone which falls rather short of comforting. "Okay, that's…okay. You should, um. You should rest, and I'm gonna go get Coulson."

"Coulson?" Jemma asks. "Why…?"

She trails off as Skye hurries out of the room. She frowns after her. Why Coulson? It seems an odd response. If Jemma has lost part of her memory—which is what she presumes has happened, based on Skye's reaction—wouldn't a doctor be more appropriate?

She knows that Skye erased all of their identities earlier today—or, not today, apparently, but at _some_ point in the past—which might make visiting a hospital problematic for one of the others, but it shouldn't affect Jemma. After all, she knows for a fact that Grant has created several false identities for her to accompany his own. He thinks she's not aware of it, the silly man, but she is.

There's no reason Jemma shouldn't be in a hospital, but, looking around the room, she's fairly certain that she isn't. This looks more like a bunker than anything else, and it's slightly concerning. Add that to Grant's continued absence, and it becomes downright worrying.

Not to mention the lack of Fitz—the last time she was hospitalized (after the regrettable Bellhop Incident of 2012), he literally had to be sedated before they could remove him from the room. His absence here is just as surprising and worrying as Grant's, if not more so. After all, the last she knew, Grant was away—accompanying Hand and Garrett to the Fridge—but her last memories involve Fitz standing right next to her.

All of the signs point to something truly terrible happening, and Jemma strains to remember more. And, unfortunately, fails. She's aware of the memories, can feel them just out of reach, but can't connect to them. It's just like when a word is on the tip of her tongue and just as frustrating.

Between the pain and the frustration, she's near tears by the time Skye returns, accompanied by Coulson and May. Neither one of them looks injured—nor, she notes, does Skye—so whatever's happened, it doesn't seem to have involved them.

"Sir," she says as soon as Coulson crosses the threshold. "_What_ is going on?"

"Simmons," Coulson says. "I need you to stay calm."

"That would be easier if I had any _answers_," she informs him, a touch desperately. "Please, what's happened? Where are Grant and Fitz?"

May, who's standing at the side of the bed, makes a motion like she's about to touch Jemma, then stills. Skye looks away. Coulson frowns.

"I'll answer all of your questions," he promises. "But I need you to be calm about it. Are you in pain? We've got the good drugs, if you'd like them."

His levity rings false, and it worries her even more.

"I'm fine," she says. "And I'll stay calm, I promise. Just _please_ tell me what's going on."

"Okay," Coulson says. He sinks into the chair on the other side of the bed. "But if you need me to stop at any point, just tell me."

That…is not encouraging. Jemma is gripped with dread as Coulson takes a deep breath. And her unease only increases when she notices Skye slipping out of the room.

x

Some time later, Jemma's head is reeling with everything she's been told. Grant is a traitor. He tried to kill _everyone_. Including her and Fitz, which is why the latter isn't here—because he received brain damage when Grant tried to kill them, and the team tries to avoid upsetting him. He's not here because he doesn't know she's injured.

She asks more than a dozen times whether they're _really_ sure that Grant is a traitor. She's positive that there's some mistake. It simply isn't possible. She _knows_ Grant. She loves him. He is _not_ HYDRA. He can't be.

Skye returns during Coulson's explanation of exactly how Jemma was injured—_she_ went undercover in HYDRA? Really? Whose idea was _that_? Jemma _can't lie_—and silently hands over a tablet.

"What's this?" Jemma asks, looking down at it. It's displaying a paused video, so she hits play.

And instantly regrets it.

She watches, in horrified silence, the proof of Grant's betrayal. The video is a security feed of some kind—from the Cybertek building, she assumes, remembering Coulson's earlier account—and it shows, in full color and audio, Grant threatening Skye and fighting May.

She's crying by the end of it.

"We'll, uh, give you some time," Coulson says awkwardly. "There's an intercom there. Let us know if you need anything."

He leaves quickly, and Skye follows him out after a sympathetic look. May hesitates, then sits down on the edge of the bed and rests a hand against Jemma's back.

They've never been particularly close—in fact, she's always been somewhat intimidated by May—but Jemma folds into her at once, sobbing into her shoulder. May doesn't offer any words of comfort, for which Jemma is absurdly grateful. There's nothing she could possibly say to make this better.

All May does is hold her and let her cry.

x

After she's done crying—which does take a while—she asks if she's allowed to leave the room.

"Should be okay," May decides. "You want to go to your room?"

"No," she says, swinging her legs to the side and sliding to the edge of the bed. "I want to see him."

"We can't let you see Fitz, yet," May says, in what Jemma suspects is deliberate misunderstanding. "Not until we have time to break the news to him."

"That's fine," Jemma says, although it really isn't. She doesn't appreciate being kept from her best friend. Still, the last thing she wants is to make his condition worse, and she'll have to take Coulson's word for it that she would. She makes a mental note to request access to his medical file—she'd like to know the particulars of his injury. "Because I want to see Gra—Ward. I want to see Ward."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" May asks mildly, moving forward to steady Jemma as she stands.

"No," she admits. "But…it's something I have to do."

May watches her for a long moment, and Jemma does her best to return the steady gaze. Eventually, the older woman nods.

"This way," she says. She pauses to grab a cotton robe off the back of the door and offers it to Jemma. "It's pretty cold in the base."

"Thank you," Jemma says, and slips it on. She's wearing scrubs, not a hospital gown, but they're fairly thin, so she does appreciate the robe, which is nicely warm.

"You want to stop by your room first?" May asks. "Get dressed?"

"No, that's all right," Jemma says. She needs to get this over with, before common sense asserts itself and she changes her mind.

May nods and says nothing. Jemma has the feeling that May knows exactly what she's thinking. Oddly enough, it's not unsettling at all. In fact, it's almost comforting.

The base appears deserted. They walk through countless corridors without encountering a single person. Jemma wonders if it's simply lacking personnel—Coulson mentioned a few unfamiliar names, but not many—or if the corridors have been cleared on someone's order.

"It's pretty late," May says, as though in answer to her thoughts. "Everyone's asleep. He might be, too."

Jemma honestly isn't sure whether that would be preferable or not, so she simply nods. Then she winces, because her head is still throbbing. Perhaps she should have taken up that offer of painkillers after all—but no. She needs to be clear headed for this.

Eventually, they come to a stop outside a door marked Vault D. Jemma is briefly distracted, wondering whether there are Vaults A, B, and C, and, if so, whom they might hold, but pushes those thoughts aside for later.

"You want me to come in with you?" May asks.

"No, thank you," she says, although it's tempting. "I need to do this alone."

May doesn't look surprised. "I'll be right out here, watching." She holds up a tablet. "If things get out of hand, I'll come in."

"Thank you," Jemma says. She takes a deep breath and reaches for the door handle.

"There's a tablet outside the cell," May tells her. "It controls the room."

"Good to know," she says. She starts to open the door, then hesitates. "How much does he know? I mean, did he know that I was going undercover?"

"He doesn't know anything," May says. "He never even knew you were gone."

"Good," she says. Then, before she can second guess herself again, she pulls open the door. "This shouldn't take long."

"Take your time," May says kindly.

Jemma nods (carefully, this time) and enters the Vault. It's dark, and she pauses as the lights slowly flicker on, revealing a staircase. She keeps her eyes on the steps, dreading what she might see if she looks around the room.

Coulson mentioned that Grant—that _Ward_ was briefly suicidal, and that the toll it took on Jemma to repeatedly save his life was one of the main factors that led her to request an off-base assignment. She wonders whether it was here that she treated him, or if he was brought up into the main base for it.

She imagines it must have been here, as bringing him upstairs would be quite the security risk. She tries to picture having to rush down these stairs to save the life of a traitor—a traitor she used to love—and shudders.

No wonder she left. At the moment, she's rather regretting that she ever returned—and not just because it resulted in amnesia.

Eventually, she reaches the bottom of the stairs, and she can stall no longer. When she looks up, her eyes are instantly drawn to the cell in the center of the room. Or, more specifically, the man standing in the cell in the center of the room.

There's a yellow line painted on the ground, which Jemma assumes denotes the location of the barrier, and Grant—_Ward_—is standing right at the edge of it. He's staring straight at her, and it takes her a moment to gather the necessary courage to approach the cell.

There's something very off-putting about his gaze. And she doesn't think it's just the new knowledge of his true nature. There's something different about him, now.

He's sporting a beard, and she has the irreverent (and irrelevant) thought that it doesn't suit him at all.

"You're hurt," he says quietly. "What happened?"

Reflexively, she lifts a hand to the bandage on her head. Then she drops it and folds her arms against her stomach. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't know what there is to say. Honestly, she has no idea what she's doing here.

As far as she remembers, the last time she saw this man, he was kissing her goodbye. She tried to comfort him about Garrett, tried to convince him that it wasn't necessary to go with the security detail to see him locked up, and he…

She swallows, remembering how shattered he looked. He was all but drowning in guilt for not seeing the truth about his mentor.

Or so she thought.

It's hard to accept that it was all a lie. He portrayed the emotion so convincingly—she never once doubted him, even knowing how close he was to Garrett. But then, he made a career out of undercover work.

She supposes this is just what she gets for sleeping with a spy.

The pain in her head, the exhaustion she's been feeling since she woke up, and all of the emotions that seeing him cause in her are overwhelming. She drops into the chair in front of the cell and just looks at him.

"You changed your hair," he says, after several long moments. "It looks nice."

For some reason, that's the final straw. She puts her head in her hands and laughs until she cries.

The man she loves is a traitor. Her best friend has brain damage, which was caused by said traitor, and she has no idea how severe it is. Her _other_ best friend can apparently barely stand to be in the same room as her. Her parents, by all accounts, have every reason to believe she's dead. She has _amnesia_.

And now she's just been informed, by the aforementioned traitor, that at some point in the drama of the past few months, she changed her hair. And he likes it.

"Jemma," he says. "_Jemma_. Calm down. Take a breath."

His voice is steady, comforting, and despite herself, she responds to it. It's the tone he uses—used—with her after nightmares, and at this point it's reflex to obey as he talks her through slowing her breathing. It works just as well as always. And even though she's no longer on the verge of hyperventilating, it somehow makes everything even worse.

As far as she's concerned, she loved this man less than six hours ago. She has no idea how they went from that to _this_—to being separated by a force field for her own safety.

"Feeling better?" he asks quietly.

"Why?" she asks, looking up at him. Before he can answer, she clarifies, "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Any of it," she says. Her voice is a little sharp, but she's too exhausted to actually snap at him. "You betrayed us. Why?"

"I was loyal to Garrett first," he replies, voice soft and apologetic. "And it was just supposed to be a fact finding mission. I never meant for any of you to get hurt."

_That_ gives her the energy she needs to snap, "You tried to _kill_ us!"

"No, I didn't," he says urgently. "Jemma, if I had refused to kill you, Garrett would have just had someone else do it."

"And you thought that killing us yourself would be _better_?" she demands.

"No," he says. "I knew that if any of Garrett's men got their hands on you, you were dead. Getting you off the Bus was your only chance. I know Fitz got hurt, but at least you both survived. If I hadn't done what I did, you'd be dead. Or worse."

It's impossible to argue with him. She doesn't know the circumstances well enough to mount a reasonable counter-statement. Coulson's description of that particular event was vague and very, very quick.

"Even _if_ I believe that," she says. "There's still _everything else_ you did. You helped Centipede ruin countless lives, you kidnapped and tried to kill Skye, you_ actually_ killed…"

She falters. She knows that Coulson told her the name of the agent Ward killed at their original base, the one whose corpse _she_ performed a post-mortem on, but she can't quite think of it, at the moment. She's positive that it started with a K or a C, but…

She's silent for too long, and his eyes narrow.

"It's been months," he says slowly. "And you've never come down here to ask for an explanation. Why now? Why tonight?"

Before she can decide what to say, his eyes lock on the bandage at her temple.

"Just how bad is that head injury?" he asks.

"It's nothing," she dismisses. "Just a bump."

But something in her tone must give her away, because he steps even closer—causing the barrier to become visible, a grid of golden light flaring into view. He takes the slightest step back, just enough that the barrier fades again, and pins her with a look that she can't even begin to interpret.

"You don't remember," he says, his tone just as unreadable as his face. "Do you?"

She's a terrible liar. There's no point in trying to deceive him. "No. I don't."

"How much did you forget?"

"All of it," she admits. "The last thing I remember is walking through the woods, trying to find…" She hesitates, unable to recall the name of the first base. This one is the Playground, she's certain, but the other…She sighs and gives up, incapable of thinking past the ever-present pain in her head. "Trying to find the base in Canada."

"So you have no idea what happened," he says. She wonders if she imagines the triumph in his tone.

"Yes, I do," she disagrees. "I may not remember it, but they told me everything."

"And you believed them?" he asks, hurt.

She has to quash her instinctive need to apologize and comfort him. He's a murderer and a traitor, and the hurt he's displaying is only an act—as was everything she ever saw in him. He's simply attempting to play her, to take advantage of the circumstances. She knows that.

Still, it's difficult, and she has to swallow before she can speak again.

"No," she says. "Not at first. I was so sure there had to be some mistake."

"So you—"

"And then," she continues over him. "I saw the video."

He pauses. "Video?"

"Apparently Cybertek had an absurd amount of security cameras," she says. "After everything that happened there, the team kept the feeds. I watched them earlier. It was quite the show."

"Jemma—"

"Jemma's still alive," she quotes. She's surprised by how steady her voice is. "And once I've crossed off you and the rest of the team, I'll have plenty of time to _convince_ her to see things my way."

The words—_his_ words—are burned into her memory (for the second time, she presumes). As is the look that was on Skye's face when he said them. She doesn't know what was on _his_ face at the time, since the camera showed only his back, and she's pathetically grateful for it. The words are bad enough. Knowing his expression as he said them could only make it worse.

He's silent for a long time.

Finally, expression soft, he says, "I wanted you on my side. I wanted you with me. Is that so bad?"

She's wasting her time, here. She doesn't know what she was expecting. An explanation? Even if he offered one, there's really nothing he could say to justify the things he's done. And he _hasn't_ offered an explanation—or an apology. All he's given her are excuses and deflections and more lies.

"I see now why I haven't been down to visit before tonight," she says quietly. She stands. "And it seems I had the right of it."

"Wait," he says, jerking forward. The barrier flares again, and he makes a frustrated noise as he steps back. "Jemma."

"This was a waste of time," she says, mostly to herself. "There's nothing you can say to make things right."

"You love me," he reminds her, tone slightly desperate.

"For the moment," she agrees. "But once my memories return, I'll stop."

"And if they don't?" he asks.

"I got over you once," she says. (She has to believe that she did. She has to believe that it's possible to let go of him. It may take her another six months, but she can move on.) "I can do it again."

"You don't _need_ to," he says. "Jemma, I lied about a lot of things. I admit it. But my feelings for you were real."

"No, they weren't," she snaps. "I was simply a _strategic move_."

He pulls back a little, obviously (or pretending to be) caught off guard. Those aren't his words. They're Garrett's. Jemma didn't see any feeds of Garrett, but Coulson gave her a _lot_ of detail about the confrontation he had with the man before Mike Peterson killed him.

Including the part where he called Ward's relationship with Jemma a_ strategic move that really paid off_.

"I'll admit," he says. "It started that way—as an in with the rest of the team. But it didn't stay that way for long."

She can't listen to this. Her entire world has been shattered tonight. She can't stand here and look at him for a single second more. This man—this man, whom she loves and trusts and has never had any reason to doubt, until tonight—is a traitor and a murderer. Nothing he says has any value at all.

She turns away and heads for the stairs. Her legs are slightly weak, her steps unsteady, and she doesn't know whether she's overdone it—this was rather a lot, so soon after her injury—or if it's simply her emotions overwhelming her again. Perhaps it's both.

Either way, she's going upstairs and straight to bed. In her room, she thinks, wherever that might be. She's sure May will be willing to show her the way. She'll go to her room, and she'll lie down, and she'll pretend that all of this has been nothing but a horrible dream.

In the morning, she'll have to grieve—both what she's lost and what she now knows. But she thinks she can allow herself one night to hide from the truth.

"I fell in love with you, Jemma," he claims. "I loved you then and I love you now."

"You're lying," she says. She continues towards the staircase. Just a few more feet…

"I won't lie to you," he says. "Never again. I'll be completely honest with you for the rest of my life."

_That_ stops her, and she turns to stare at him, incredulous. "You won't _lie_?" She shakes her head sharply, then grimaces as it makes the world spin a bit. "You're a traitor and a murderer and you caused my best friend _permanent brain damage_. Your lies are the _least_ of the problem."

"I understand why you feel that way," he says, holding up his hands. "I've done horrible things, it's true. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life making them up to you."

"No," she says. "You're not." She takes a deep breath and turns away, walking the final few steps to the stairs and starting up them. "Because this is the last time you'll ever see me."

"If you say so."

Something about the words, and the placid tone he says them with, makes her shiver. It's only through sheer force of will that she keeps from running up the last few steps, and when she reaches the door, she doesn't hesitate in opening it.

"Goodnight, Jemma," he calls lightly.

She steps through the door and lets it fall closed behind her, then slumps back against it. May is still waiting in the corridor, as promised, and Jemma's eyes are abruptly filled with tears again as everything hits her at once.

"It's really true," she chokes out. "Isn't it?"

"Yes."

Her legs give out from under her, and she slides down the door to sit on the ground. She pulls her knees to her chest, ignoring the accompanying pain in her torso (the wound to her head is the worst of her injuries, but it isn't the only one), and buries her face in them.

He says he still loves her—that his feelings for her weren't a lie. She doesn't believe that at all. How could she, after everything he's done? She doesn't believe him.

But—and this, out of all of the terrible things she's seen and heard and realized tonight, is the absolute worst—she wants to.

So she sits there, slumped against the door, and hides her face in her knees as she sobs. May silently sits down next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and though Jemma curls into her willingly, it really only makes things worse.

The man she loves is downstairs in a cell from which he, with any luck, will never be released. Her best friend is God knows where, with brain damage so severe that she can't even see him, for fear that her current condition will make him worse.

In the span of just a few hours, her entire world has fallen apart. And the only person offering comfort is a woman she would have, before tonight, sworn only barely tolerated her.

Things can't possibly get worse than this.


	2. be aware of evil men (grant)

A/N: First of all, thank you for all of the comments and kudos! I'll be responding to your comments presently; I just wanted to get this up before tonight's episode.

Second, this chapter is from Grant's POV. Please keep in mind two things: one, he's an unreliable narrator; and two, his thoughts and opinions do not necessarily reflect my own.

Third, please be aware that this chapter in particular has **spoilers** up to and including "The Writing on the Wall."

I think that's it! Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review.

* * *

><p>Grant knew that Jemma was gone. No one <em>told<em> him—not verbally, at least—but he knew. Coulson is an expressive man, and he gives away more than he thinks he does: in the tone of his voice, the shift of his eyebrows, and the intensity of his glare alone.

So he doesn't know where she was or what she was doing—or even exactly _when_ she left—but he knew she was gone.

And now, he knows she's back.

It changes things. Before, when Coulson came down to the Vault with questions about HYDRA, Grant would either answer them or refuse to speak, based mostly on whim. He didn't ask for anything in return or make any demands, because frankly, Coulson couldn't give him anything he wanted—aside from his freedom, but he knew _that_ was off the table.

Now, though, there's something he does want.

Jemma.

Not in the sense of wanting her as _his_, although of course he does. _That_ is a long way off, after the way things went down after SHIELD fell, and in any case, Coulson can't give him Jemma. What Coulson _can_ give him is _time_ with Jemma.

He's wanted it since the beginning, but had to do without, because she wasn't around. Now she is.

So when, the morning after Jemma's visit, Coulson comes down to the Vault with questions about HYDRA, Grant makes it clear: he'll speak to Jemma or not at all.

Coulson refuses, which is pretty much what Grant expected. After the months he's spent going back and forth, Coulson has no reason to believe he's going to stick to this. It'll take a while before Coulson realizes he's serious.

That's all right. He's got nothing but time.

Once he gives Coulson his demand, he lies down on his bunk with his back to him. Coulson stays for a while, but eventually accepts that he's not getting anything from Grant today, and leaves. Once he's gone, Grant rolls to his back and stares at the ceiling.

Two days ago, he would have said that it would take _years_ to make up the ground he lost with Jemma when the truth came out. Now—well, it still won't be easy, and it still won't be quick, but his time table has been moved up significantly.

She has _amnesia_.

He has no idea how she got the head injury that caused it—or her other injuries; he suspects a broken rib at the very least, based on the way she was favoring her side last night—but he can't be anything other than grateful for it. Oh, he hates to see her injured, of course, and if he ever finds out who hurt her there will be _serious_ retribution, but…

She doesn't remember what happened. She's been told, but that's not the same as living it. More importantly, she only knows what Coulson can tell her, and there's a lot Coulson doesn't know.

The last memory she has of him is their goodbye at the Hub. He can use that.

Jemma is vulnerable right now. Her memories are from less than three days after SHIELD fell. A lot of things have changed since then, and it will have her off balance. This base, the people in it, the way the world at large views SHIELD (not kindly, if the swiftly deepening lines on Coulson's face are any indication)—all of it will be a mystery to her.

He can use that, too.

It will take time and patience and very careful planning, but he can win her over again. Turning her against the rest of the team might not be possible, but he can—at the very least—undo the damage that Coulson's little share-session caused.

It will take time, but he's got plenty of that. All he needs is to be able to speak with her.

He'll get that, too. Maybe not right away, but eventually, something will happen. _Something_ will make Coulson desperate enough to send Jemma down to get answers about HYDRA. And when he does, Grant will be ready and waiting for her.

He can win her over again. All he needs is the opportunity.

x

Coulson comes down several times over the next few days, and each time, Grant ignores him. He doesn't speak a single word or even make eye contact. Watching from his peripheral vision, Grant can tell that the silent treatment is starting to get to Coulson. He puts on a pretty good show, sighing and making light-hearted comments about Grant's childishness, but the furrow between his eyebrows grows deeper and deeper.

He's starting to consider it. Grant can tell.

Then things get complicated, as they tend to do.

x

Six days after Jemma came to see him, Grant is just finishing up his morning workout when alarms start to blare in the base above. In his cell, they're muted, but still audible, and he looks up. In the nearly eight months he's been down here, he's only heard that alarm a handful of times. Whatever's happened must be big.

Big enough to require his help? He hopes so.

Not because he's curious about what's going on—although, honestly, he kind of is—but because if it's big enough to set alarms off for, it's big enough to push Coulson into sending Jemma down. It's strange, how he's been itching to see her. In a way, it was easier when she was away. Knowing that she's in the base, only a few floors above him, and he has no way of getting to her—it's driving him crazy.

The Spartan nature of his cell doesn't really bother him. He's been in worse places. The lack of activity is starting to wear, a bit, but he's fully capable of keeping his mind occupied. Even being contained in such a small space isn't that bad.

He's lasted more than half a year here, and the past six days have, without a doubt, been the worst so far. Even when he was playing crazy and attempting suicide, trying to convince Coulson he was harmless, he was never this antsy.

He _really_ hopes they need his help with whatever's happened.

They do.

A few hours after the alarms cut out, the door at the top of the stairs opens, and Jemma steps in. He stands and approaches the barrier as she descends the stairs, drinking her in. She doesn't look as pale as she did last week. That's good, but it's just about the only thing that is. The bandage that was on her temple then is gone, revealing a very nasty, well-stitched cut surrounded by even nastier bruising. It looks painful, and is unquestionably going to scar.

Also, she's definitely thinner. He thought it might have just been his imagination, last week—just the effect of the scrubs and oversized robe she was wearing, hospital attire making her look even tinier than usual—but no. She's definitely lost weight.

Whatever she was doing while she was gone, it apparently didn't involve taking care of herself. He frowns.

Just like last week, she keeps her head down until she reaches the bottom of the stairs. It gives him plenty of time to center and compose himself; by the time she looks up, he's able to greet her with a calm, friendly smile.

"Jemma," he says. "You look better. How are you feeling?"

She ignores the question. "We need to talk about your brother."

It's not what he's expecting, and his brain kicks into high gear. What could have happened, involving one of his brothers, that's bad enough to make Coulson send Jemma? Bad enough to set off an alarm for?

Thomas is a trauma surgeon. Somehow, Grant can't picture him being involved in anything big enough to merit this kind of response. Christian, however, is a senator. Grant's been reading increasing stress on Coulson, lately—could there be some kind of legislation putting whatever remains of SHIELD at risk?

"Which one?" he asks, mostly to buy himself time to think.

If Christian is a threat to SHIELD, it opens some interesting possibilities. It could be the chance he's spent months waiting for, and a week ago, he would have jumped at it. But now…

"The older one," Jemma says. She has a white-knuckle grip on the tablet she's holding, which belies her casual tone. "The senator."

"Christian," he says. It's not a surprise, but it's good to have confirmation.

He steps away from the barrier and turns his back to her for a moment, mind racing. He needs to think fast, decide how to play this. If he's going to take advantage of this opportunity—if he's going to use this—he needs to start building on it now. He can't change his mind later. However he reacts now, he won't be able to take it back. Whichever decision he makes, he'll have to follow through.

He can use this to escape. Say the right words, play the right emotions, and it'll be child's play to plant the idea in Coulson's head that he should be handed over to Christian—to federal custody. And escaping from federal custody will be even easier than getting put into it.

He could get away. It's beyond tempting.

He's been locked in this cell for nearly eight months. It's not _too_ bad—he's been in far worse places for far longer—but it's still not exactly a good time.

A week ago, he wouldn't have hesitated. But now…

Jemma is vulnerable right now. This—talking to her—this is the way to take advantage of that. If he gets away, he won't be able to do this. He needs to be a constant presence, a constant _influence_, in order to make use of the opportunity her amnesia gives him. He can't win her over if he's not here.

Of course…he can't _initiate_ contact from a cell. Down here, he's dependent on _her_ whims—or, more accurately, Coulson's. Any manipulation, any attempt to influence her, will be entirely dependent on Coulson sending her down here. He'll only be able to work her when things like this happen—when Coulson is desperate enough to turn to him for answers.

If he's free, though…if he's on the outside…

He could contact her as often as he wants. And she would answer—be _ordered_ to, most likely—in the hopes of using the calls to track him down and recapture him. His timetable could move up yet again if he weren't dependent on Coulson's permission to speak to Jemma.

Escape it is, then. Which means he needs to play up his fear and plant the idea of Christian finding out where he is.

"Why?" he asks, letting his voice shake the slightest bit. He rubs at his beard, projecting unease. "What happened?"

For a moment, Jemma's face is soft with sympathy and concern, and she opens her mouth—preparing to offer comfort. He can _see_ the moment she remembers, the moment she shuts her instinctive reaction down and reminds herself that he's a traitor.

She's had six days to hear all kinds of stories about the terrible things he's done. Apparently, they still haven't sunk in yet.

That's a good sign.

She closes her mouth and looks down at her tablet for a second. When she looks back up, her eyes are cool.

"We just need basic information," she says calmly. "Habits, the places he frequents, that sort of thing."

He takes a deep breath.

"You need to stay _away_ from him," he says. He approaches the barrier again. "He's _not_ what he seems. He _always_ has an _angle_." He lets the tremor in his voice increase, lets the unease he's projecting solidify into something closer to fear. "And if he thinks you can lead him to _me_—"

"This isn't about you," Jemma interrupts.

"Isn't it?" he demands. He takes another step closer and lowers his voice. "I've told you about him—what he did to me." He modifies his tone, slipping panic in alongside the fear. "He gets joy from _one thing_—hurting people."

His voice breaks on the last two words, and Jemma meets his eyes steadily. Her face is blank, but her eyes clearly show her uncertainty. She's not sure whether his reaction is real or not. It's only been a week; she doesn't carry the same instinctive distrust of him the rest of the team does.

Coulson was the same, those first few weeks. He'd forget that Grant was a traitor and take him at his word. It didn't last long, but while it did—well, Grant can admit that he probably had a little _too_ much fun with it. He did himself no favors there.

He is doing himself a favor here, though. Jemma's reaction (although gratifying, in that it's further confirmation that she hasn't been turned entirely against him, yet) isn't the point of this. Coulson's is. Grant's playing this for him—in order to plant the idea of handing him over to Christian.

He needs to push it farther.

"So, tell me, _please_," he says, inhaling shakily. "Does he know I'm here?"

"That isn't how this works," Jemma says, in a tone that falls somewhat short of stern. She's shaken by the show he's putting on. "I'm not here to answer your questions. You're going to answer _mine_."

"And I will," he promises earnestly. "I told you already, I'm never gonna lie to you. I'll always tell you the truth. But if Christian knows I'm here—"

"If you're going to tell me the truth, then do so," she interrupts. "So far all you've done is _deflect._ I need _answers_, not distractions!"

Her tone is suddenly a lot sharper and, while she's nowhere near shouting, a lot louder, as well. He raises his eyebrows and dials back the act, because this looks like an excellent opening for the _other_ angle he needs to work.

"That wasn't about me, was it?" he asks gently.

"Of course it's about you," she says unconvincingly. "I need information about your brother, and you're not sharing it."

"Everything going okay up there?" he presses, ignoring the second half of her statement. "Eight months…a lot can change. You must have a lot of questions."

"As I've said, yes," she agrees. "I need to know about your—"

"About Fitz?" he suggests.

Jemma's hands spasm around the tablet, and she takes half a step back. _That_ hit a nerve.

He thought it might.

"What would you know about Fitz?" she asks, quiet and angry. "Other than what _you_ did to him?"

"He came down for a visit while you were away," he answers. "It was enlightening."

In more ways than one.

Jemma's eyes go wide. "How—"

She's cut off as the barrier solidifies, going completely opaque and leaving Grant closed in once again. Safe from observation, he allows himself a brief smile. Jemma's hands were nowhere near the controls. It wasn't her that did that.

It was Coulson—who Grant absolutely saw lurking at the top of the stairs, even though he didn't acknowledge it. And Coulson would only cut off the interview like that if he thought he had what he needed from Grant.

He took the bait. The idea has been planted. If all goes well, Grant will be out of here soon.

He has a whole list of things to do once he's free. There's Jemma to deal with, of course. There are things he set in motion before the debacle at Cybertek. Actually, there are things he set in motion before he was even placed on the team. He needs to see to those.

And, as he's just been so strongly reminded, he has some unfinished business with Christian.

That's going near the top of the list. After all, his brother is going to be his means of escape. It's only right to thank him in person.

x

It takes another session with Coulson, and a very convincing (if he does say so himself) show of desperation, but less than two days later, Grant is brought out of his cell for the first time since being shoved into it. (He's also given shoes, which feel a little strange after so many months of being barefoot.)

The _method_ by which he's leaving is…interesting. There's a whole squad of foot soldiers in riot gear, all heavily armed and obviously on high alert, which suggests caution. On the other hand, all they do is shackle his ankles and his wrists—his hands aren't even cuffed _behind_ him. It's honestly a little insulting.

He was expecting to be sedated for the transfer, but apparently Coulson's very, very confident in the ability of the transport team to keep him under control. He's a trusting kind of guy.

You'd think he'd have learned by now.

Grant adjusts his escape plan accordingly as he's led up the stairs. It's a shame, really; they've taken all the fun out of it. After months' worth of inactivity, he was looking forward to a challenge.

Well, whatever. He's got plenty of fun ahead of him.

They lead him through the base, which is another interesting decision. He thinks it's supposed to be some kind of walk of shame, judging by the way there are people standing in all of the doorways they pass, watching him walk by in chains, but really it's just stupid. He memorizes each new face he sees, filing them away just in case, and takes careful note of the route.

If he ever comes back here, he's going to know his way around at least a part of the base. Coulson's not just trusting, he's cocky. Arrogant. He obviously hasn't even considered the possibility that Grant might escape.

Sloppy.

Eventually, the reason for the whole production becomes apparent, as he's led past what's obviously the lab. Trip, Fitz, and Skye are all present, and they all watch him go with hate in their eyes. He thinks of saying something, making some crack to set them off (and they're all clearly on the edge, though Trip and Skye more so than Fitz), but decides against it. He doesn't really care enough to rile them up.

There's no sign of Jemma or May.

As they reach the end of the hallway, one of his escort shoves a hood over his head. It's too little, way too late, but…at least they thought of it eventually?

Presumably it's to keep him from seeing the way from this base to the point where he's being handed into federal custody—because he'll undoubtedly be questioned, upon arrival at whatever federal facility he's being taken to, and Coulson doesn't want him to be able to give away SHIELD's location.

It's a _reasonable_ precaution, but…it's kind of insulting, too. As if Grant needs his _eyes_ to keep track of where they're going.

Seriously, he knows he lied to them about pretty much everything, but they do realize that he's _genuinely_ a specialist, right? His personality, his history, his emotions—those were faked. His training, not so much.

As such, he easily keeps track of how far they go and the turns they take. He'll be able to work his way back to the base if he needs to. He doesn't intend to—not anytime soon, at least—but it's good to know that he can.

The drive isn't very long—less than an hour—and soon enough, he's being pulled out of the van he was transported in and led across what he suspects is some kind of parking structure, judging by the way their steps echo.

"Do not give him _one inch_," he hears Coulson say.

It's kind of hilarious. Coulson's already given him a mile.

The hood is pulled off of his head, and he blinks against the light for a few seconds. As he does so, his SHIELD escort steps back and a few men in FBI camo riot gear approach. One of them grabs his arm, and he allows himself to be led to another prisoner transport van. He could kill everyone here before any one of them got a single shot off, but it would be counter-productive. He needs to wait until they're away from here and he's solidly in federal custody.

Escaping from SHIELD custody wouldn't suit his purposes.

Escaping from federal custody, however, does. Very nicely.

It takes him less than five minutes.

x

He's feeling more than a little exposed, at the moment. Part of that is because he's wearing scrubs, which is the kind of thing that makes a man stick out. Another part is because he's got no idea where the hell he is. The biggest part, he thinks, is because he's been in that tiny cell in that fairly small basement for months now. Being out in the open is, at this point, unfamiliar and unsettling. Too bright, too colorful, too _loud_. It's kind of overwhelming.

But he doesn't have time to be overwhelmed, so he sucks it up and steals a car.

It has GPS, so he knows where he is. And a quick look at the map shows him where SHIELD's base is, too. He makes careful note of the location, burns it into his memory, and then sets all that aside. He needs to worry about his next step.

SHIELD is going to be after him, of course. It won't be long before they find out that he's escaped, and they'll be on his trail as soon as they do. Which is, after all, the whole point. He has a destination, both for himself and for SHIELD. It's just a matter of choosing how to get them there.

He has twenty hot boxes in the immediate area. SHIELD knows about eleven of them.

It's tempting to just go to the nearest one—he really wants out of these scrubs—but that would be a mistake. He can't make it too obvious that he's playing them. The…_precautions_ he has available will make it clear that he planned ahead, but they need to think he's making mistakes, or his plan won't work.

He decides on Philadelphia, just because. He checks the nav screen, orients himself, and pulls away from the parking lot he's been idling in. As he drives, he picks up the cell phone that's sitting in one of the cup holders, which was the whole reason he chose to steal this car over the others that were on the street. And not just because it means it will take the owner that much longer to be able to report it missing, although that's a nice bonus.

No, he has some calls to make.

SHIELD will be on his tail any minute now. It's time to invite HYDRA to the table.

x

He leads SHIELD on a nice little chase. Civilians make excellent shields (ha) when the enemy is led by a man like Coulson, and Grant has a million opportunities to get away clean. It's a little sad, really. They're trying so hard and they have no idea how badly they're failing.

He lets them know he's made the blonde, because he can tell she's good (actually, she looks kind of familiar; he thinks they may have shared a class or two at the Academy) and he doesn't want to risk giving her an opening. The guy in the cowboy hat he lets tag along, partly because really? A cowboy hat? But mostly because he needs SHIELD to know where he's going if this plan is going to work.

Dealing with HYDRA was much more straightforward, of course. There's a bar—conveniently located in Boston, which fits nicely with some of his other plans—that he used to use for meeting with other HYDRA agents on Garrett's order, and he's arranged to use it again.

The calls he made were _very_ informative. He knows a lot about the state of things in HYDRA at the moment, and he's about to use that information to his advantage. This guy Bakshi wants face time with Coulson? Grant is just the guy to make it happen.

He double-checks that his SHIELD tail is still present (he is, and he's lost the cowboy hat) before entering the Goldbrix Tavern. Again, he has to feel a little sorry for SHIELD (and HYDRA, actually). They really never had a chance.

Everything is going according to plan.

x

It continues to do so right up to the point that he crosses off the bartender and Bakshi's escort and trades clothes with Bakshi. It's as he's tying Bakshi up that he gets thrown a curveball.

"Treachery," Bakshi mutters. "I might have known. Did you learn it from Miss Simmons, or she from you?"

…That had better not mean what he thinks it means.

"Actually, I learned it from HYDRA," he corrects casually as he finishes taping Bakshi's legs to the chair. Then he stands and smiles down at him. "Treachery's kind of my job. You really _should_ have known."

He pulls another chair over and turns it around, straddling it and propping his crossed arms on the backrest. Now, how to get him to explain that comment about Jemma without giving away how important she is?

Bakshi eyes him. "I suppose this is the part where the torture begins?"

He's calm and completely unimpressed. Grant has to admit he likes this guy's style.

"Torture?" he asks, with blatantly false surprise. "No, no. Just got a couple questions for you, that's all."

"Such as?"

"Well, as you know, I've been out of the loop recently," he says. "You know how it is. Locked in a cage, no outside contact…I didn't even get cable." He shakes his head, regretfully. "So I missed a lot. All I need is some help catching up."

It's a lie, since he got caught up pretty well before arranging this meeting, but it's a convincing one.

"And if I don't provide it?" Bakshi asks.

"Well," he shrugs. "_That's_ when the torture starts."

Bakshi sighs. "What would you like to know?"

Grant really likes this guy. He's practical.

"I've got a long list," he says. "But let's start with you explaining that crack about Simmons."

"You didn't know?" Bakshi asks, face expressing mild surprise.

"Out of the loop," Grant reminds him. "I haven't seen her since I tried to kill her eight months ago." He smirks a little. "I guess it didn't take."

"No," Bakshi agrees, grimacing slightly. "And had we known about _that_…"

"Yes?" he prompts.

"Shortly after the fall of SHIELD, Miss Simmons applied for a position in our science department," Bakshi says.

It's only years of training and a decade of practice that allows Grant to keep his face blank, and even then, it's a close thing. Jemma went undercover? _Jemma_? What the _fuck_ was Coulson thinking? Jemma _can't lie_, and she's the _last_ person who would switch sides.

_That_ was an op that was doomed from the start, and that Coulson pulled it when his specialist was in a cell in the basement, leaving no one to pull Jemma out when things inevitably went wrong…

Grant's got a sneaking suspicion he knows where the injuries that caused Jemma's amnesia came from, and suddenly he's feeling a lot less charitable towards this guy.

"We knew, of course, of her relationship with you," Bakshi continues, unaware of Grant's emotional reaction. "As your exemption to the fraternization regulations is still part of her file. She claimed you had helped her…see HYDRA's truth, before your disappearance."

"And you believed her?" Grant asks, incredulous. Seriously?

Apparently SHIELD aren't the only ones scraping the bottom of the barrel these days. If the HYDRA recruiter Jemma spoke to honestly _bought_ that…

"She has an impressive resume," Bakshi says. "We took a chance. Admittedly, to our later regret."

"I'll bet."

He listens in silence as the rest of the story unfolds, struggling with his temper in a way that he hasn't since the day he touched the berserker staff. This time it's even harder to control. Then, he recognized the alien influence and was able to compartmentalize it to a degree. This time, it's pure emotion, and much harder to put aside.

It sounds like Jemma nearly died at least three times while undercover with HYDRA. And, of course, the third was the most dangerous. It turns out Grant owes the blonde he ditched at the bus stop (Bobbi Morse—he knew he recognized her) a favor or two, because apparently she crossed off four guards and bodily carried an unconscious Jemma out of the HYDRA base they were undercover in after Jemma's cover got blown.

At least _someone_ was watching her back—albeit not very well, if the guards had the chance to inflict _amnesia_ before Morse got to them.

Morse isn't the only one he owes something to. Coulson sent Jemma undercover—into HYDRA, of all places—and by Bakshi's account it wasn't long after SHIELD's fall. Which means there can't have even been time to give her a decent grounding in undercover work.

She was sent, alone and unprepared, into the single most dangerous organization currently operating, with nothing but a half-assed cover story and a woman she didn't know to watch her back.

Oh, yeah. Grant owes Coulson _something_, all right. And a bullet won't cut it—that's far too quick.

Once Bakshi's finished recounting Jemma's time in HYDRA—and once he's sure he can keep his anger out of his voice—Grant asks a few more questions. Just some basics, double checking the information he's already received, that kind of thing.

He barely listens to the answers. He's doing some quick restrategizing. This new intel on Jemma's actions while he was in that cell changes things. His earlier plan is no longer acceptable.

He thought he could trust Coulson and the team with Jemma's safety. Obviously, he was wrong.

Eventually, he's gotten all he needs (or wants) from Bakshi. He's also got a new plan—which is very similar to the old one, actually, just with some minor adjustments. Bakshi isn't one of them, though, so Grant thanks him for the information and then knocks him out.

To show his appreciation, he does it with one blow and as little pain as possible.

Before he tears off a piece of duct tape and sticks it over Bakshi's mouth, he scrawls FOR COULSON on it with a marker. That should give SHIELD a moment of pause. So should the hood he pulls over Bakshi's head. Wearing Grant's clothes, slumped over, and with his face obscured, he could—at first glance—be Grant himself.

The deception won't last more than a few seconds, but a few extra seconds is all he needs.

x

The first thing he does, upon renting a room, is take a very, very long shower. His cell had shower facilities, after a fashion, but they were nowhere near as nice as the one in his hotel room. Not that it's particularly nice, either, technically, but after eight months? It's paradise.

Once he's showered and shaved (and if the shower wasn't paradise, finally getting rid of the beard _is_), he checks the time. He thinks it's been long enough, now, that Coulson will have handed Bakshi's cell phone over to Skye to see what she can dig up.

He grabs the old Nokia (no GPS, no 3G—harder to trace) out of his go bag and dials Bakshi's number. Then he puts it on speakerphone as it rings. He's running a little behind schedule—he wasn't expecting to actually _interrogate_ Bakshi, just tie him up and leave him—and a bit of multitasking can help him make up the time lost.

He's just pulling on Bakshi's shirt (which fits surprisingly well) when Skye answers.

"Hail HYDRA," she says.

He has to smile. It doesn't surprise him in the least that she would decide _that_ is the best way to answer a captive HYDRA agent's phone.

"Hey, Skye," he says.

He can hear her inhale sharply, and her voice, when she speaks, is a little uneven.

"Where are you?"

"Just wanted to make sure you got my present," he says, ignoring the question. "I did promise him a face-to-face with Coulson." He finishes buttoning his shirt and reaches for Bakshi's tie. "Probably not exactly what he had in mind."

Skye is silent as he finishes tying the tie.

"I'll be sending a few other gifts your way now and then," he adds.

"What, like a cat bringing in dead birds?" she asks. "No, thanks."

"Well, at the very least, there'll be a few for the blonde," he says. He straightens the tie, then picks the suit coat up off the bed. "I hear I have her to thank for Jemma's life."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Skye says flatly.

"I'm talking about Coulson sending my girlfriend undercover as a HYDRA scientist," he explains helpfully. "And the new recruit—the blonde one, not the one in the hat—saving her life when things unsurprisingly went wrong. Although she didn't do a great job of it, did she?"

"Simmons is _not_ your girlfriend," Skye snaps. (Like _that's_ the most important part of what he said. Honestly.)

"Not for the moment," he agrees. It's unfortunate, but not surprising. The whole HYDRA reveal went about as badly as it possibly could have. "But give it some time. I'll win her over again."

"No, you won't," Skye says. The unease is gone from her voice, replaced with a sharp anger. She's feeling protective.

Good.

"You're not gonna see or _speak_ to her again," she continues. "Not ever."

"Won't I?" he asks.

Skye pauses. "Unless you tell me where you are. Then we can talk about it."

"You know, it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that SHIELD can't be trusted to take care of Jemma." He manages to keep his tone light and conversational, despite the anger that's still burning in him, but it's a struggle. "At all."

"What?" Skye asks. "Yes, we can." She pauses. "And what do you care?"

"I care a lot about Jemma," he says. He checks his appearance in the mirror and readjusts the suit jacket he's wearing. "Certainly more than Coulson does."

"You're insane," she says. "You tried to _kill her_."

"And Coulson sent her undercover into HYDRA," he counters. He's getting pretty sick of that whole incident being brought up. "Also there's the amnesia to consider. Say what you want about me, but at least I always had Jemma's back. Coulson obviously doesn't."

Skye starts to respond, but after a glance at his watch, he cuts her off. He's out of time.

"Sorry, Skye," he says. "Gotta go. I have a few personal matters to attend to." He picks up the phone. "Tell Jemma I'll see her soon."

He hangs up before she can answer and tosses the phone back into the bag. For the moment, Jemma and SHIELD will have to wait.

It's time for a family reunion.


	3. the way that he's in your mind (jemma)

A/N: Let me start by apologizing for the long wait, because wow. Wow. In my defense, this chapter fought me a LOT. I've literally never been through so many drafts of a single chapter in my life. It's ridiculous. I also abruptly changed my plans for the course of this fic after I saw where canon went, which certainly didn't help speed things up.

I can't promise that the next chapter will be any faster, but I'll do my best.

One more thing: please keep in mind that Jemma is not as reliable a narrator as she thinks she is. Thanks to her amnesia, she's missing a lot of information and, more importantly, context. Just because she THINKS something is true, doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Okay? Okay.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

* * *

><p>It's not that Jemma expects her week to get <em>better<em> after waking up with amnesia and learning that the man she loves is a murdering traitor who caused her best friend brain damage. It's just that she doesn't expect it can get _worse_.

Somehow, it does.

It doesn't take her long to realize that she's missing something more than eight months. Things are different among the team—relationships and dynamics have shifted drastically, leaving her off-balance and very confused.

It's more than eight months and a betrayal and the addition of at least a dozen new recruits. It's more than amnesia and brain damage and the monster in the basement. There's something she doesn't know, some unspoken _thing_ hanging over every head, lingering in the awkward silence between words, and she has no idea what it might be.

There's something no one's saying, and whatever it is, it's making things even harder.

And they're hard enough already.

Beyond the obvious problems—namely, her injuries, her amnesia, and the traitor in the basement—she has more than a little difficulty navigating her interactions with the others on base. Of the many new faces, only four have truly been taken into Coulson's confidence, and she's avoiding all of them.

Two of them—Hunter and Mack—seem to dislike her on sight. It's nothing obvious—they're both perfectly polite—but she can tell. She has no idea _why_ they dislike her, without a single word being exchanged, but they do. So she does her best to avoid them, because even though they never _say_ anything against her, she can feel their enmity in the awkward silence that descends upon them every time she enters a room.

She has a bit of sympathy for them, however, because the third recruit (or, more accurately, the first) rubs her entirely the wrong way. Agent Koenig is cheerful and mostly friendly, yet something about him sends her skin crawling. Perhaps it's because, as she's been told, he's the identical twin brother of the man who died at the first base—the man Ward killed and whose post-mortem _she_ performed. It's possible that her memory of the post-mortem is particularly close to breaking through, and she associates his visage with that of a corpse. Or it might be simple guilt that his brother died at the hands of the man she loves. (Loved.)

Either way, she does her best to avoid him, as well.

The fourth recruit is both completely different and more of the same. Bobbi Morse is wonderful: funny and friendly and _amazingly_ brave, and also just happens to be the woman to whom Jemma owes her life. Apparently, they were undercover at the same HYDRA base (and that will _never _not be bizarre, that things were apparently so bad that sending _Jemma _undercover was actually a _better _option than sending no one at all), and when Jemma's cover was blown, it was Bobbi who fought off the guards who had taken her into custody and got them both out of there alive.

(She's very apologetic that she didn't get there in time to stop the guards from hurting Jemma at all, which is, of course, ridiculous. A touch of amnesia is a small price to pay for her life, and Jemma tells her so repeatedly.)

(Most times, she even means it.)

Bobbi is lovely, and Jemma likes her at once. She makes Jemma laugh and lightens the weight on her shoulders, at least for a moment or two. But spending time with her is also painful, in its way. Bobbi is a specialist, and it shows. Jemma can see her training in her—in the way she walks, the way she stands, the way she sits (always angled towards the door)—and it hurts. She used to pick out the same behavior in Ward, used to tease him about doing a study on the ingrained habits of specialists and their inability to let them go, even in the safest of places.

(Of course, as it turns out, the Bus was _not_ a safe place for him. Just another mission. She tries not to think about it, but, well…she's never had much luck with _not_ thinking.)

So, even though Bobbi is wonderful and amazing and exactly the sort of person Jemma would like to have as a friend, she avoids her, as well. The familiarity she feels around her is just too much to bear, on top of everything else.

And the new recruits aren't the only ones she's avoiding.

She avoids Trip for the same reason she avoids Bobbi: because he is every inch the specialist, and it shows so clearly. He's so very sweet and amicable, with his broad grins and his friendly quips, but it's just not enough to outweigh the pain his every movement brings her. So, for her own sake, she avoids him as often as possible.

The last two people (the most _important_ two people) she avoids are a different story.

It only takes a few awkward, stilted conversations with Skye to realize that something there has shifted. The woman who was once her closest female friend—something akin to a sister, even—undoubtedly hates her now. It's not difficult to guess the reason, and Jemma can't hold it against her at all.

By all accounts, Skye suffered terribly at Ward's hands. It's not surprising that she would blame Jemma, as the person who spent the most time with him, for not seeing him for what he was—for not _stopping_ him. As much as it hurts not to have Skye's friendship (especially in light of everything else she's lost), Jemma can't resent her for it.

She blames herself, too.

She does her best to make things easy for Skye. She learns the places that Skye likes to spend time and avoids them whenever possible. On those occasions on which she _can't_ avoid them, she pretends not to notice that Skye is present, giving her time to slip out before the proximity forces them to converse. And she makes sure to be up and in her office by five every morning, to avoid any awkward encounters in the showers or the kitchen.

It's a touch depressing, really, but it's the least she can do.

Also depressing is the fact that she has an _office_. Or, well, the office itself isn't depressing so much as the reason for it. Namely: her desperate desire to avoid Fitz.

That's what hurts the most, really. Not the pounding in her head or the ache in her ribs. Not the awkward tension she feels around Skye. Not even the knowledge that the man she loves is a serial killer—because, after all, although she loved him truly and deeply, she's only known Ward for fourteen months (and she's forgotten eight of them).

Fitz has been her best friend and partner—the other half of her brain, really—for ten years. Their love has never been anything but platonic, but for all that, it's no less deep than her love for Ward, and they've shared it for considerably longer.

Which is why it just _kills_ her that things are awkward with him, too. Things aren't supposed to be difficult with Fitz. They never have been. Ever since the moment they realized that they were smarter together—ever since they let go of their silly, pointless rivalry—friendship with Fitz has been as simple as breathing.

It's not his injury, not really. His condition is more of a sign of how badly wrong things between them are than anything else. She's seen how he deteriorates in her presence, how speech and actions which are relatively easy for him when he's not aware that she's there suddenly become nearly impossible as soon as he notices her.

The problem is that same awful, unspoken _whatever_ that she feels hovering everywhere she goes. Maybe it _is_ the awful whatever: maybe the thing that everyone knows, which she doesn't, has to do with Fitz.

It's possible it's something to do with the incident which caused his brain damage—she's been keeping herself occupied (in her awful, empty, not-a-lab, Fitz-free office) by looking through the various reports that have been filed over the last eight months, starting with those about the events immediately following her last memories, and she's discovered that the reason Coulson's account of that particular incident was so brief was that her _report_ was that brief. It's barely two paragraphs long, and incredibly short on details.

Unfortunately, she has no way of filling in _those_ blanks. The only people who were present for that particular incident are either a) amnesiacs, b) traitors (and therefore unlikely to be honest), or c) Fitz.

And she can't ask him. Not when her presence has such a negative effect on his condition. Not when he can barely even look at her.

Whatever the problem is, it's obvious that being around Jemma _hurts_ Fitz. And so she gives Fitz the same courtesy she gives Skye, and avoids him as often as possible. She keeps to her office instead of the lab—filling up her days with old reports, going over the data from the hard drive full of information she apparently recovered from HYDRA, and occasionally Googling techniques to regain lost memories (searches which have, thus far, been entirely unfruitful)—and takes advantage of her SHIELD-issue laptop's connection to the base security feed to make certain that he's not anywhere else she needs to go.

It hurts, terribly. Everything is different and awful, in this new world she's woken up in, and she thought, when she first learned of it, that she would at least have Fitz to cling to. It would be easier to bear all of this if she could lean on Fitz—if she could still have him, her partner and best friend, the gaping hole in her chest that is everything else she's lost wouldn't hurt so much.

But her presence hurts him, and she won't cause him pain to soothe her own.

So she avoids him. She avoids Skye. She avoids Trip and Bobbi and Koenig and Hunter and Mack. In point of fact, the only person she's _not_ avoiding is May. (And Coulson, but he spends most of his day locked in his own office, avoiding _everybody_.)

May has become the only bright spot in Jemma's day: the only person she can spend time around without awkwardness or pain. It's odd, because before, she would have sworn that May didn't even like her. Now, she appears to be quite fond of Jemma, and frequently seeks her out to check on her. She's always willing to fill in the blanks in the reports Jemma's reading, and doesn't seem to mind going over the same ground over and over again as Jemma tries to understand the new way of things.

Additionally, she has a slightly off-putting but mostly reassuring tendency of always knowing when Jemma can't sleep, and joins her in the kitchen to offer silent comfort. She doesn't judge or question or reprimand Jemma—she simply sits beside her and lets her rant or cry, depending on which emotions are overwhelming her at that particular moment.

But as lovely as May has been, and as nice as it is to have such a solid, unfaltering shoulder to cry on, it's more than a bit depressing that there's only one person on base she can truly call a _friend_ these days. Jemma is, at heart, a social person, and being forced into semi-seclusion, as she has been, doesn't do anything to help her with her grief over everything that's happened in the past eight months.

Her only solace is that—faced with the prospect of eight months of memories lost, a traitor for a lover, seven people she's avoiding (two of whom used to be her best friends), and only one person that _doesn't_ evoke uncomfortable, guilty feelings in her—things can't possibly get worse.

Once again, she's wrong.

x

She's half-expecting to be sent down to Vault D from the moment May tells her about the attack on the UN. She knows, from one of the two conversations she's had with Coulson in the past week, that Ward has been refusing to speak to him. He's been demanding her presence, and Coulson, thankfully, has refused. But this is huge—much bigger than any minor questions recent missions might have given rise to—and it becomes that much more urgent when Ward's older brother appears on television, talking about legislation he intends to propose which will essentially declare open season on SHIELD agents.

But expecting to be sent down to the Vault doesn't make it any easier when she actually is.

Coulson closes the barrier on Ward's revelation that Fitz came down to visit him, and when she whirls on him, his expression is sympathetic, but his words are stern.

"You can't trust him, Simmons," he says. "I know things are bad between you and Fitz right now, but nothing Ward can say will help with that."

Her anger drains away just as quickly as it sparked, and she sighs, dropping into the chair in front of the cell. There's no harm in sitting, now—not when Ward can't see the way she winces as she does so. She didn't want to show any weakness in front of him, but standing like that for so long was hell on her ribs (to say nothing of the pounding in her temples, which hasn't let up even once since she woke with amnesia a week ago).

"You're right," she says. "I know. I just…"

"Give it time," he advises kindly. "Things'll work themselves out."

"I hope so, sir," she says, although she rather doubts it. She looks down at the tablet in her lap and tucks her hair behind her ear. "Shall I reopen the barrier?"

"That won't be necessary," Coulson says. "We got what we needed from him."

She looks up at him, confused. "But he didn't give us anything."

"He gave us more than he thinks," he disagrees. "Now, come on. May is gonna kill me when she finds out I sent you down here."

"She really is," Jemma agrees, standing carefully. Her ribs ache as she does so, and she thinks that unless Coulson has anything else for her to do, she'll go have a bit of a lie down. "She's become much more protective in the last eight months."

"Not really," he says, watching with visible concern as she approaches the stairs. "She's just less subtle about it now. Are you okay, Simmons?"

"Oh, I'm fine, sir," she says. "I've just overdone it a touch, is all."

"Right," he says, sounding unconvinced. "Still, maybe you should get some rest."

"That was my intention," she tells him as she makes her way up the stairs to join him on the landing. "Unless you've another task for me?"

"Nothing urgent," he says, opening the door and gesturing her to precede him out of the Vault. "Take as much time as you need."

"Thank you, sir," she says. "I think an hour or two will be plenty."

"Take your time," he reiterates. "I've got an errand to run; I'll let you know when I get back if there's anything you can do."

Something about the tone with which he says _errand_ tells her that he won't be open to sharing the details, so she simply nods.

"Good luck, then, Director," she says.

"You know," he muses. "I think it finally might be."

x

Her lie-down turns into a three hour nap, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) it's not a terribly restful one.

The problem with having amnesia—or, one of the problems, rather, as there are several—is that she doesn't have any bad memories of Ward. Intellectually, she knows he's done terrible things, to her and the others and to no end of complete strangers, but _emotionally_, she's finding it hard to absorb.

Seeing him like that, so clearly distressed, and not offering comfort felt wrong. It itches at her, a little nag in the back of her mind as she makes her way to her room. She tells herself that he doesn't deserve comfort, that he probably wasn't even upset—Coulson warned her beforehand that Ward is a master manipulator and an expert at faking emotion—but it doesn't help at all.

All she can think about, as she lies down, is the day she nearly died of the Chitauri virus, when she threw herself from the Bus and he caught her. They spent nearly two hours in the ocean, treading water, she with her head throbbing and her limbs made heavy by exhaustion, and he was so desperate to keep her awake…

They'd been dating for less than two weeks at that point, and hadn't really made it past the basics of getting to know one another: favorite foods, favorite films, that sort of thing. But he told her all sorts of things, there in the Atlantic, trying to keep her awake long enough for their rescue to arrive—personal things, things he admitted he probably wouldn't have told her otherwise. He made a game of it, trading his secrets for hers, and after she shared her own familial woes, he told her about his brother.

She remembers the hitch in his voice—which he tried to pass off as breathlessness from the exertion—when he talked about being terrorized by Christian, and how he brushed off her attempts at comfort. Was that faked, as well? Was he manipulating her even then?

She falls asleep still pondering it, and the thoughts follow her into her dreams.

She dreams of drowning, of falling and falling and falling with no one to catch her, and, then, of being caught and watching Fitz and Skye turn away from her for it. It's nothing particularly awful—it has nothing on some of the other dreams she's had this week—but she's still crying when she wakes.

Things will get better eventually. She has to believe that.

In the meantime, though, she's given up on thinking they can't get worse.

x

She's been in her office for hours, back to work on reading reports (her constant headache means that it's been slow going; even though she's spent all week on them, she's barely made a dent in the files she has access to), when Coulson seeks her out again. He enters the room without knocking, closes the door behind him, and stands behind one of the visitors' chairs with his hands folded and his face set.

"Sir?" she prompts, when he doesn't say anything. "Is…everything all right?"

"May's on her way back," he says. "There was an ambush in Brussels. We lost six agents."

The blunt statement knocks the air right out of her, and she presses a hand to her chest for a moment.

"Oh," she says helplessly. "I—I'm so sorry, sir." She breathes in slowly. "Was it HYDRA?"

"It was." He sighs and unfolds his hands in favor of resting them on the back of the chair. "May, Morse, and Hunter took the HYDRA team down, but…"

But that won't be much comfort to the loved ones of the agents killed, who most likely will never know what actually happened. She looks down at her tablet, giving Coulson a moment of privacy; he's obviously struggling with his composure, and it feels the thing to do.

"HYDRA blindsided us," he says eventually, and she looks back up at him to find his face set again. "We got sloppy. I was distracted and I didn't see it coming. We can't afford to fight a war on two fronts, Simmons."

"Sir?"

"We can't fight the UN _and_ HYDRA," he clarifies, which is not actually the part of his statement she was confused about. That part is a bit obvious. "Which is why I met with Senator Ward earlier today. We've…worked out a solution."

"Well," she hesitates. "That's…good, isn't it?"

His face suggests otherwise, and something tells her that she's not going to like the solution in question.

"In his speech to the UN, the senator will publically condemn HYDRA and state that SHIELD is gone," Coulson says. "We'll be able to continue operating covertly, without needing to worry about the world trying to hunt us down."

_That_ is quite a victory for SHIELD; only a public statement of support would have been better, and it's hardly a surprise they didn't get one—in the current political climate (or what she knows of it, anyway), it would be beyond foolish for the senator to endorse SHIELD. This is really more than they could have hoped for.

It is also, however, a very sudden turn-around.

"And in return?" she asks slowly.

"In return," he says, and pauses.

Jemma's mouth goes dry. Something about his expression sends dread creeping up her spine, and she steels herself. Now she _knows_ she's not going to like this.

"In return," he repeats. "His brother will be transferred into federal custody and eventually publically tried as a traitor."

She stares at him. "I'm sorry, sir?"

"We're handing Ward over," he reiterates. "In exchange for the senator's support." He shrugs. "The senator gets a bump in the polls by proving how tough on crime he is—putting his own brother on trial for treason—and we get spared both a witch-hunt and the cost of Ward's upkeep. It's the best possible solution."

"Is it really?" she asks. She's not entirely certain why she does; it's not as though she—as though _any_ of them—owes Ward anything. For some reason, however, she simply can't let this pass without argument. "Ward is _terrified_ of him, sir."

"Is he?" Coulson counters. "Or is that just what he wants you to think?"

And, having wondered the same thing herself, she has nothing to say to that.

She still has to try, though.

"Even if he isn't…" She rubs her fingers between her eyebrows, where she can feel _another_ headache building—a stress headache to accompany the one induced by injury. "If he's put on trial for treason, sir…that means…"

"He'll most likely be executed," Coulson acknowledges. "Yes. But Simmons…" He hesitates. "We can't keep him in Vault D forever. If we don't hand him over…sooner or later, we're gonna end up executing him ourselves." Despite the blunt words, his tone is apologetic. "At least this way he'll get a fair trial."

She has her doubts about how fair the trial will be, but she has to admit that everyone within SHIELD itself is far too biased to remain objective. Perhaps a public trial is for the best; he'll be allowed to have his say, should he so choose, and his fate will be left in the hands of someone far more qualified to make that sort of decision than anyone here.

She still can't say she _likes_ the idea of handing Ward over to his brother, but she has no idea how much of that is actual objection and how much is her lingering emotional attachment to him. At the very least, she has no further logical arguments to pose.

"Okay?" Coulson asks when she remains silent.

"Okay," she nods—albeit unhappily. "When…" She clears her throat. "When are you transferring him?"

He checks his watch. "Just as soon as the transport team is ready to go." He gives her a sympathetic look. "If you don't wanna see him, you might wanna find somewhere else to be."

"Thank you, sir," she says. She can't bear the way he's looking at her; she looks down and busies herself with gathering her things. "I think I'll do that, then."

"Simmons," he says softly.

His tone makes her throat tight, and she blinks a bit, trying to hold back the tears that suddenly threaten. She is _beyond_ sick of crying, and in any case, she has no reason to do so right now.

"Yes, sir?" she asks, once she's certain she has herself under control.

"…Nevermind," he says, after a long moment. "Just—I'll let you know when it's done."

"Thank you, sir," she says quietly. She keeps her eyes locked determinedly on the surface of her desk as he sighs and leaves the room. Only when she's certain that he's gone does she relax, slumping forward to bury her face in her hands.

She has _no reason_ to cry. No reason at all.

x

She takes Coulson's advice and returns to her room. It doesn't have a desk or anything of the sort, but then, she doesn't really need one—it's not as though she's looking through paper files. Resting her tablet in her lap as she reads works just as well as resting it on a desk.

She spends a few hours like that, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her tablet in her lap and her back against the wall, but accomplishes very little in the way of work. She finds it difficult to concentrate on the words in front of her; her mind wanders, again and again, to the man no longer in the basement.

She keeps going over all of her memories, picking apart every interaction they've ever had, wondering how many of his words and actions were lies. It's awful and painful and all she's doing is making herself miserable, but she can't stop herself—like prodding a sore tooth, it's impossible to help the impulse.

Her little cycle of misery is eventually interrupted by someone pounding on her door, and she nearly jumps right out of her skin.

"Come in!" she calls, setting her tablet aside and sliding to the edge of the bed to stand. Whatever's happening, it's obviously urgent.

The impression is reinforced by the fact that when the door opens, it reveals Skye. If her presence—after spending all of the last week avoiding Jemma—itself wasn't enough to worry about, her appearance is also telling. She's looking a bit wild about the eyes and more than slightly frantic. Jemma freezes and mentally upgrades the situation from _urgent_ to _disastrous_.

"What is it?" she asks. "What's happened?"

"Ward escaped," Skye blurts. "He slipped his cuffs, killed his federal escort, and disappeared. We have _no idea_ where he is."

Jemma sits heavily on the edge of her bed as her legs give out. For a moment, she can't speak—or even breathe. She opens and then immediately closes her mouth, unsure of what she would say even if she _could_ speak. She's not sure there's anything _to_ say.

"What," she finally manages. "What's being done?"

"Trip's gone out to start the search," Skye reports. "May, Hunter, and Bobbi are diverting to join him. They know where the transport was when he escaped, so they're gonna comb the area."

Somehow, she doubts it will be that easy. Ward, after all, is one of the best. "And if that doesn't work?"

"Coulson's on it," she says. "He's assigning some of our field agents to stake out Ward's drop boxes." She meets Jemma's eyes resolutely. "We're gonna find him."

"Of course," she agrees. She doesn't know that she believes it, but she appreciates the attempt at comfort anyway.

Silence stretches out awkwardly between them, and Skye takes a step back, resolve disappearing.

"So, yeah," she says. "Coulson just…wanted me to tell you. Which I have…now done. So. Bye."

She flees—there's really no other way to put it—without waiting for a response, and Jemma stays where she is, staring after her. It hasn't stopped hurting, yet, that Skye finds her presence so intolerable, but for once the sting is outweighed by everything else.

He escaped. Why didn't she think of that? She never even _considered_ the possibility that he might escape during the transfer. She should have. He is—was—one of SHIELD's best specialists. Of course a federal transport team wasn't enough to hold him. They likely had _no idea_ what—who—they were dealing with.

She's trembling, she realizes, and isn't entirely sure why. She doesn't know what she's feeling. Fear, anger, grief—they've all become her constant companions in the last week, and she can't pick out which of them is strongest right now.

She closes her eyes and takes a few moments to breathe through the storm of emotion in her chest. Once she's—if not calmer—more settled, she stands, crosses to the door on slightly shaky legs, and closes it. Then she returns to her bed, picks up her tablet, and pulls up every available report regarding Ward's betrayal.

Know thy enemy, as the saying goes, and she knows now that she never knew him at all. Months-old reports are a poor source of knowledge, but they're all she has.

She won't be caught unaware. Not again.

x

She doesn't have much time to worry about the hunt for Ward. She doesn't _forget_ about it—that would be impossible—but she soon has other concerns occupying her immediate attention. The death of a woman in New York leads to the revelation that Coulson was not, in fact, the first person to be treated with GH-325. Furthermore, she's told, he was actually in _charge_ of the project in its initial stages—before, that is, he shut it down and declared it not worth the risk. Those memories were wiped during the procedure that saved his life, and in order to stop whoever killed the woman in New York, he needs them back.

It is—whether fortunately or not—possible to retrieve them, because for some reason, the memory machine Raina used on Coulson last December is being stored at the Playground.

The whole thing is horrible from start to finish; she's forced into working in close contact with Fitz, Skye, _and_ Mack, the machine's effects are _visibly_ painful and deteriorative, and Coulson ends up locking Skye in Ward's former cell and disappearing.

It all ends (mostly) well, but it's a very tense and unpleasant experience in several different ways. And it doesn't help to learn—once they resume contact with May and the others—that in the mean time, Ward has managed to escape _again_. This time, he's left something more than corpses for them—a HYDRA agent named Bakshi is left alive, tied up and waiting for them with the words FOR COULSON written on the duct tape over his mouth.

And what _that_ means, exactly, no one can say.

Things don't get any better from there. Suddenly they're caught up in a mess of massive proportions: the strange symbols Coulson's (apparently) been carving everywhere are a map of an alien city, and they need to find it before HYDRA (who, it turns out, are working with _Skye's father, _of all people) does.

With all the chaos, it's probably not a surprise that it takes them several days to hear the news of what Ward's been up to in the meanwhile—namely, framing Christian for murder-suicide, with their parents as the other victims.

It's horrifying. It's _beyond_ horrifying. That Ward could murder anyone, let alone his own family (no matter how deserving), in such a brutal way—it's sickening. Jemma can barely get her head around it, that the man she thought she knew—thought she _loved_—could be capable of such atrocity.

But she hasn't the time to absorb it.

Things go from bad to worse, and all they can do is follow along as events lead them, inexorably, into disaster.

x

Jemma leaves as soon as the dust settles.

It's wrong of her. She knows it is. Skye has been exposed to some manner of alien artifact. Mack was literally _possessed_ by an ancient alien city. Trip is _dead_.

The last thing the team needs is to be down yet another member. Jemma absolutely should not leave.

But she can't stay.

Ward is dead, too—at Skye's hand. Jemma can't blame her for it, knows that Skye had every reason to do it and that he even deserved it, but she also can't quite make eye contact. No matter how justified the act, Skye is responsible for the death of the man Jemma had not yet managed to stop loving.

She's been avoiding Skye all this time anyway, but now she's doing it for her own sake. Somehow, this way is even worse.

And that's not at all. There's an oppressive layer of grief for Trip hanging over the Playground, and for Jemma—who feels her own sort of guilty grief, because she hardly knew Trip at all and regrets, now, how ardently she avoided him—it's unbearable on top of her undeniable grief for Ward.

Especially as she's alone in that last.

The others don't grieve Ward. In fact, they respond to his death with an almost vicious relief—with satisfaction, almost, as though they feel that if they had to lose Trip, at least Ward is gone, as well.

Again, she can't blame them for it. She _knows_ what trouble he's been, the horrible things he's done and how much of a threat he presented to them. She _knows _it.

But she can't feel the same.

And she can't face the others. If the eight months she lost were before an insurmountable obstacle, they are now an unbridgeable gap. Nothing can fix this.

She can't stay. She knows she can't stay.

So she leaves.

Coulson is disappointed in her, but understanding. He promises that she will always be welcome back—that the moment she changes her mind, she need only call, and he'll send someone to bring her home at once. (That's what he calls it—home—and it kills her a little inside.)

May is likewise sympathetic, and makes no attempt to talk her out of leaving. In fact, she offers to arrange a job interview for her—apparently she has friends in Stark Industries; who knew?—and, when Jemma politely declines, simply nods and makes her promise to check in every week.

She, too, says that Jemma will always be welcome back. It rather makes her want to cry.

Jemma doesn't say goodbye to the others. She's still avoiding them, and they her; there would be no point. She simply packs her things and leaves.

It's easier that way.

x

For the first few weeks after leaving the Playground, she doesn't do much at all. She gets a hotel room a few states away and lets herself simply get lost in the city. She can't bring herself to look for a job, as she intended, or even to contact her parents, though she knows she should. (The one good thing to come of this mess is that Coulson and the Air Force general who's been chasing them have reached some sort of agreement, and the team are no longer fugitives from justice.)

She just…wanders.

And grieves.

Until one day, her routine is abruptly interrupted.

She's at a café a few streets away from her hotel, waiting for her waitress to return with a refill for her drink. She's finished lunch already, but she likes the ambience of the café—likes the constant, low level of noise, the feeling of being alone without truly being lonely—and intends to linger for a while.

She has a copy of the community newspaper, which is full of such banal news as an upcoming church festival and a proposed change to a local neighborhood's deed restrictions, and it's all so dull that she finds it absurdly comforting.

There are no aliens, no mysterious deaths, and no talk of treason. It's a lovely newspaper.

She's halfway through it—and still waiting on her drink—when she sees May approaching from the corner of her eye. Her casual, unhurried gait suggests that this is a social visit, rather than an emergency request for assistance, and Jemma chews on her lip as she stares down at her newspaper.

She's a little annoyed—because she made it very clear that she needed time to herself and she expected May to respect that—but mostly, surprisingly, she's relieved. Her guilt about leaving the team in such a critical state has been building to unbearable levels, and that May can apparently take the time to visit Jemma suggests that things have calmed down, which eases it somewhat.

Additionally, she _has_ been worried about the team. Her check-ins have been perfunctory, a mutual assurance that nothing else terrible has happened, and she has several concerns that she hasn't dared voice over the phone—about Skye and Fitz, especially.

In person is an entirely different matter.

So as May approaches, she's already preparing questions to ask about Skye and whether she's been negatively affected by what happened in the city. There's a friendly greeting on the tip of her tongue as May takes the seat across from her.

Which is why, when she realizes that the woman across from her is not May, but instead the brainwashed agent who wears May's (damaged) face, she's caught entirely flat-footed.

"Don't worry," Agent 33 says at once. "I'm not here to hurt you."

The voice and the face are May's, but the tone, the inflection, and the expression are all completely wrong. It's…disconcerting.

But Jemma, for all that she's felt untethered and entirely useless for some time now, is still a SHIELD agent. She can handle this.

"What are you here for, then?" she asks calmly, setting her newspaper aside.

"I need you to come with me," is Agent 33's answer, and Jemma scoffs.

"Why? So you can take me to HYDRA? No, thank you."

"I don't work for HYDRA," Agent 33 says. "I never have."

Jemma…does not know how to respond to a lie that blatant.

"I mean—I'm not—" Agent 33 makes a frustrated face, something far more vulnerable and uncertain than anything that's ever appeared on the real May. "I worked for Whitehall, not HYDRA. Now that he's dead, I don't take HYDRA's orders."

She sounds sincere enough, but Jemma has been fooled by sincerity before. She doesn't relax. "Whose orders do you take, then?"

"No one's," she claims, and she looks so uncomfortable with the words—like they're a confession of some great crime—that Jemma can't help but believe her. "It's been…difficult."

Jemma sympathizes. It must be horrible, to be so accustomed to following orders—to be _forced_ into following orders—and then find yourself cut off from them abruptly. It's like a twisted reflection of her own circumstances: Agent 33 is set adrift and aimless, and Jemma finds her suspicions much harder to hold on to.

"All right," she says, letting go of her previous accusatory tone in favor of something softer. She expects it's been a long while since Agent 33 experienced anything remotely resembling kindness. "Then what do you want with me?"

"I need your help."

Jemma blinks. "What on earth could you possibly need _my_ help with?"

"You're a scientist, aren't you?" Agent 33 asks. "You fix people?"

"I," she swallows and looks down at her empty plate, suddenly unable to maintain eye contact. "In theory, yes. But I'm afraid it's been a long while since I fixed _anything_."

"You're lost, too," Agent 33—and this is terrible, Jemma really should ask her name—says, and tentatively reaches out to touch Jemma's hand. "I understand. But you're the only one I can ask. No one else can fix this."

Jemma looks back up at the other woman, wondering what _this_ she's supposed to fix, but her eyes fall on the unsightly scar on the left half of her face, and she thinks she understands. She assumed when Agent 33 first sat down that she was still wearing May's face so that Jemma would recognize her, but is it possible that the damage the mask took has rendered her unable to remove it?

Jemma doesn't know whether she'll be able to fix it—whether it's even possible or, if it is, if she has the necessary skillset—but, suddenly, she wants desperately to try.

"Do you promise not to hurt me?" she asks.

"No harm will come to you," Agent 33 says. "I promise."

This is perhaps the stupidest thing she's ever done (aside, that is, from going into the field, which is really the gift that keeps on giving, as far as mistakes go), and she knows it.

But she's going to do it anyway.

"Very well, then," she says, and digs a few dollars out of her handbag to serve as a tip for the still absent waitress. "After you."

"Thank you," Agent 33 says, face lighting up with a relieved smile. "Truly."

"My pleasure," she says.

She hopes she won't regret it.

x

It occurs to Jemma, as she follows Agent 33 (who, she's learned, has no idea what her real name is) into the apartment she's been led to, that she really should have _asked_ what her help was needed for, rather than making assumptions.

This is because it is immediately obvious that she was very, very wrong.

Ward is stretched out across the couch, apparently asleep. He's shirtless, revealing that his torso is swathed in red-stained bandages, and—if the flush to his otherwise pallid skin is any indication—at least slightly feverish.

But he's _alive_.

She freezes right there in the doorway, gaping. Agent 33 hovers anxiously beside her.

"He said he could fix himself," she says. "And I helped. But something's wrong, and I don't—I don't know how to make him better."

Jemma can't tear her eyes away from Ward. Her heart is racing wildly in her chest, and she doesn't know whether she wants to throw herself on him in relief or run away in terror. He's _alive_. How is he alive? Skye _shot him_.

Apparently she wasn't as thorough as she believed.

"Please," Agent 33 says. Jemma can feel her eyes on her, but is still helpless to look away from Ward. "Will you help him?"

It takes her two tries to speak. She just has no idea what to feel right now. "Why me? Why not a real doctor?"

"He talked about you," Agent 33 answers. "He said you're kind, that you care about people and want to help them. I didn't know who else to ask."

This could be a trick. Ward was field-med certified; certainly he should be able to take care of minor wounds and, more importantly, recognize which wounds are serious enough to require actual medical assistance. That he should miss something—or mess something up—badly enough to put him in this state is highly unlikely.

It could be a trick. In fact, it probably is.

But he's _alive_, and while her tangle of emotions toward him is just as confusing as ever, thinking him dead did make one thing clear: she doesn't hate him. Whatever else she feels, she can't deny that.

And she doesn't want him dead.

"All right," she says, and takes a deep breath. "What sort of medical supplies do you have?"

This, she's_ certain_ she'll regret.


End file.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Angst, Drama