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Each of her teammates comes and knocks on the door, one at a time. She keeps it locked and keeps the music playing, ignoring them as long as she can. Even Fitz and the soft whir of his wheelchair.
After nearly forty-five minutes, the latch clicks and the door slides open. Jemma turns around, ready to reprimand Skye and Fitz for hacking the code. She comes up short when she finds Melinda May standing in the doorway. “Hello, Agent May.”
The older woman crooks an eyebrow, arms crossed over her chest. “What are you up to, Simmons?”
Jemma shrugs, scratching at the back of her neck. “Just taking some time to myself. Cleaning.”
May steps further into the room and shuts the door behind her. “Hm. Looks like you’re getting rid of things.”
There are two trash bags on the floor, boxes open and piles of things all over the place. Jemma shrugs again. “Some things I have no desire to keep anymore.”
“Ward’s things.”
Jemma turns back to sorting instead of looking at the other agent. “Among other things, yes.” She scoops up a folded t-shirt and shoves it into one of the garbage bags a little harder than necessary. “I don’t need them anymore.”
“You never did.” At Jemma’s slightly surprised look, May hooks her hands together behind her back and tilts her head to one side. “You didn’t. You’re still the same person you were before this happened, and the same person you were before you ever met him. He couldn’t change you if he tried. You’re stronger than that.”
The biochemist bites her lip before turning back to the bed. “I just need to get rid of all these pictures. I need them to go.”
May helps her pack them into one of the boxes, then picks it up and gestures toward the hallway. “Incinerator?”
She’s not sure where Fitz and Skye have gotten to, but they don’t run into them. When they pass Coulson, May tells him they’re doing some cleaning. He looks them both over for a moment, but nods and lets them pass.
“You really want to get rid of all of these?” May asks, pulling a stack of pictures from the box. “I’m not trying to change your mind; I just want you to be sure.”
Jemma nods, flipping through a few of them slowly. “I don’t need reminders around. I think about it enough as it is.” She barely manages to keep herself from smiling at a shot of her and Grant kissing on the beach. When the split second of adoration passes, she’s left with a rolling sense of nausea. “They can go.”
May is flipping through her pile too, at a much quicker rate. “This one’s all four of you.” She holds up a photograph of Jemma, Grant, Fitz and Skye in front of the Trevi Fountain.
She’s between Skye and Fitz in the picture, but Jemma still can’t stomach it. “I don’t need it.”
There are a few minutes of silence as she starts to pull some little knick-knacks and souvenirs from the box, until May speaks again from the other side of the lab table. “Simmons.”
When Jemma looks up at the sound of her name, she swears her heart seizes up in her chest. She thought she’d thrown that out, she thought she’d torn it to pieces and thrown it away, oh no no no.
But there stands Melinda May, face impassive as ever save for raised eyebrows, holding a tiny little sonogram picture. “Simmons.” She says again, a little more sternly. “Are you pregnant?”
Chewing at her bottom lip and wishing she could curl into a ball and hide from everything for the next three years, Jemma instead takes a step back and exhales. “No.”
May seems to understand. “When?”
Jemma swallows roughly against her very dry throat. “I miscarried. When we… After the box. After the ocean. There was too much trauma, probably emotionally as well as physically. It didn’t really stand a chance.”
There’s quiet again, and May’s voice softens. “You want to throw it away?”
“Please. And I’d like to be alone for awhile, if you don’t mind.” The even thud of boots moves away, until Jemma stops her again. “Don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want them to know. Coulson’s already watching me like I’m going to have a break down, and Fitz and Skye will be even more furious, I just… Please don’t tell anyone.”
The pilot nods.
“May.” She stops again, in the doorway to the lab, turning her head back. “He doesn’t know. He never knew, I never got around to telling him before… everything. I don’t want him to know about it. He won’t ever forgive himself, and he’s already living with the consequences of his mistakes, as he should be. I won’t add this to his sentence, though, and if I find out someone else has, it’s you I’ll be coming for. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
Melinda May leaves Jemma Simmons alone in the lab to drop the sonogram into the incinerator.