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The first thought she has when they hit the water is relief.
They did it. She and Fitz have cured an alien virus. She’s alive. Somehow, unbelievably, gloriously alive.
Also, she’s pretty certain she wet herself on the way down, so she’s quite glad to rinse that off with some salt water, thank you very much.
The second thought seems to hit her and Ward at the same time. She’s faster on the draw, though.
“What the HELL were you thinking?” She doesn’t have to yell to be heard, but it feels good. And she just almost died, so she’s gonna go with it.
“I was thinking I had a job to do,” he says.
“If that anti-serum hadn’t worked…” She takes a wave to the face and sputters. Ward is carefully cutting them free of the parachute.
“If it hadn’t worked, we’d both be dead.” He doesn’t look up, doesn’t acknowledge the enormity of what he’s just said. “At least I brought a chute.”
“Well, that… that was absolute bollocks.” Bollocks is one of Fitz’s favorite words. Oh, god, Fitz. His face when he’d watched her fall, she’d never meant for him to see…
“Fitz was coming after you if I didn’t,” Ward says, finishing his work and meeting her horrified gaze. “He was half in the parachute.”
She swallows hard and looks out at the endless, undulating blue. She can feel Ward watching her, and finally says, “He and I, we’ve been a team for so long we don’t always know where Fitz stops and Simmons begins.” Then she laughs, and corrects herself. “No, that’s not true. He stops when organic matter starts decaying. Sensitive nose.”
Her adrenaline is fading as the threat of imminent death slips further away. With it goes her energy. Every stroke seems harder, and she’s swallowing a lot of salt water.
“How, uh, how long do you think we’ll be out here?” Her question sounds scared even to her own ears. Ward must hear the same, because he digs into the parachute bag for the life jacket and throws it to her.
“I didn’t save your life just to have you get tired and drown,” he says warningly.
It’s one of the airplane style ones with a cord and a tube for back-up. She pulls the cord, but nothing happens.
She’s about to try again when something brushes her foot.
Jemma is many things. PhD twice over, classic dresser, terrible impersonator, and decent karaoke plant. But she has never, not once, been an open water swimmer.
“Oh god. Something. My foot. Just, I know the waters off Morocco aren’t shark central or anything, Great Whites just migrate through, but exactly how long are we planning to tread water?” Her voice rises with each attempted thought, ending on an undignified squeak.
“I need you to relax, Jemma.” She notes his complete avoidance of the question. “Any shark will start with a test bite, and I’ll scare it off then.”
“Mmmm, not helping me relax, actually.”
"Look, that was my foot, there’s no shark," his matter-of-fact tone is oddly soothing. He strokes closer to her, and takes the useless life jacket from her hands. Somehow staying afloat with just his legs, like the superagent she knows he is, he slips it over her head and offers the tube.
“Blow up the life jacket.”
“I happen to be busy treading water. I can't actually do both.” She glares at him, but there’s no heat behind it. She’s doubtful she’ll ever be properly mad at him again.
He sighs, and pulls her in with one arm. He bends his own head to the little red tube and starts slowly inflating the flotation device. She can feel the puffs of air on her neck, and much sooner than she expected, she’s sitting higher in the water. He gives her a little smile and then reaches back into the pack, pulling out the waterproof GPS.
And just like that, it hits her. She just fell from a plane. 30,000 feet. On purpose. Her life over.
She’s shaking so hard she bites her own cheek hard enough to draw blood.
Ward looks up and his eyebrows come together in concern.
“Jemma, what is it? Are you too cold?”
She’s gasping, trying to force air into her lungs.
“Ok.” He catches on fast, and pulls her back to him. “Breathe. You’re ok.”
That’s how the search and rescue team finds them, half an hour later: Ward holding her against him with one arm, treading water as she just breathes in and out.