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At first she’d read all of their emails. The updates from Skye that had come almost daily once she’d been gone a couple of weeks. The occasional message of friendly concern from Trip - each slightly more concerned than the last. That one message from Fitz that had come exactly one month after she’d left, asking her to tell her parents he’d said hello.
Fitz had already known she wasn’t coming back. Trip had given up within a few weeks. Skye had taken a lot longer.
Eventually, Jemma had stopped reading them. The emails had tapered off after that, until they’d stopped coming altogether.
So it gave her pause when she turned on her SHIELD-issued tablet for the first time in weeks, to take another look at a formula she’d been working on, and saw the little number “1” beside her email icon indicating she’d received a new message.
She knew it would do her no good opening it. She also knew exactly who it would be from.
It only took a moment for her resolve to crumble.
She wasn’t surprised to read Skye’s name on the message dated two days prior, but the lack of a subject line was unusual. And the email appeared to be blank, except for an attachment titled watch.
It’d been months since she’d used this tablet’s 3D functionality, and its sudden activation startled her so much, she nearly dropped the tablet.
“Hey, Simmons,” said the full-body holographic projection of Skye that materialized in front of her - or rather, above her. “Um, this might work better if you put your tablet on the floor. For the record.”
Gaping slightly, Jemma obliged. The holographic Skye stood at roughly her regular height now, but Jemma remained totally taken aback.
“Yeah, I know,” said the projection of Skye, as if reading her mind. “Pretty realistic, right? Little something I was working on before...before you left.”
Somehow an awkward silence seemed to grow between them, even though Skye wasn’t really there.
“Okay, I’m never the clingy friend,” said the holographic Skye. “Mostly because trying to hold on to people has usually only made things harder for me. But you know, whatever. It’s in the past now...for the most part.”
She paused, and sighed. Jemma realized she’d been holding her breath.
“I guess I just...don’t get it,” the hologram continued. “Maybe I haven’t known you that long, I don’t know. But the Jemma Simmons I know wouldn’t run out on her friends, or her team. And we did make a pretty good team, didn’t we? I mean, I might still be learning that that word means, but you’ve always seemed like a pretty darn good team player to me.”
Jemma wasn’t so sure about that, recalling how she’d dragged her reluctant partner out into the field, only to get them thrown off a plane. Her fault.
She couldn’t seem to help him any more, now. But she could do this. She could be here.
“Look, I don’t know if you think we’re better off without you, or what,” said the hologram. “But we’re not.”
Skye took a deep breath. One she’d already exhaled two days ago, or whenever she’d recorded this, thought Jemma. And her heart clenched a little.
“Please come back,” said Skye. Her eyes darted away a moment, nervously. “I’ve never said that to anyone before. But please...come back.”
The projection promptly came to an end, and Jemma’s stomach lurched. It unnerved her how quickly Skye had been there, then disappeared again.
(Skye, she realized, might’ve known a thing or two about that feeling.)
~
It had proven useless trying to sleep that night, no matter how safe Skye felt with Jemma next to her. Ward had only left a few hours earlier, and everything that had happened recently was weighing on her mind. She was feeling a bit scrambled about everything else, but Jemma was simple. Asking her to stay the night was easy.
But after a couple of hours, Skye quietly extricated herself from her blankets and tiptoed out of her pod with her laptop. Everything Ward had said about her parents was still bouncing around in her head, right next to the images of what her father had done. She thought about Hydra out to get them all, and she thought about what was happening to Coulson. But as she sat down on their couch and flipped her laptop open, all that was only background noise. There was something else on her mind.
She’d been busy chasing her father down when the message was sent, but Jemma had been busy, too, escaping Hydra. Skye hadn’t seen it until later, once they’d all returned safely home. Days later, she still hadn’t made sense of it.
The email was from Jemma’s SHIELD account. The subject line read (Automated Message), and the body of the email was blank - save for an attachment.
watch she read again, frowning at her screen as she’d been doing since she’d first noticed the message in her inbox.
Her cursor hovered over the attachment as Skye chewed on her lip.
“You received it,” came Jemma’s sleepy voice from behind her. Skye turned, almost guiltily.
“I haven’t watched it,” she said simply. “I thought maybe it got sent by mistake...wasn’t sure you’d want me to.”
Jemma placed her hands on the back of the couch, close to Skye, but not quite making contact. “You should watch it,” she said softly. Skye felt as aware of their proximity as she was of the remaining distance between them. She wasn’t sure why Jemma was still hesitant to touch her when they’d just been sharing Skye’s bed, but Jemma stayed put.
Wondering at that, Skye turned back to her screen, opened the attachment.
“Hello, Skye,” said Jemma in the video that began to play. She’d recorded this on a webcam, apparently on a sunny day, and her hair looked just slightly shorter than it was now. “If you’re watching this, you probably already know that I’ve infiltrated Hydra, and I’ve been sending intel back to Director Coulson. It’s also probable...that I’m dead.”
Skye sucked in a breath, uneasy.
“Which is okay, really. Alright, it isn’t, but I’m trying to be...reassuring. And brave.”
The Jemma in the video paused to draw a nervous, shaky breath, but the Jemma standing behind Skye remained silent. And Skye didn’t dare turn to look at her.
“I’ve received all of your messages, and I’m ashamed to say I stopped reading them after a point. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, Skye. I was just afraid that I would be too tempted to reply, and I couldn’t possibly put you in that sort of danger. If you were hurt again...I couldn’t bear it.
“But I encrypted this as best I could. You’d be proud, I hope. I just couldn’t bear it, Skye, if I died without you knowing how much I care about you. Possibly more than I’ve cared for any woman before. Which was really only scary for the briefest of moments before I realized how very safe it actually feels. Given time, I might even come to call this feeling...love.”
Both Jemmas gave her a moment to let that sink in. Skye could practically hear her heart pounding in her ears.
“I needed you to know that, Skye, if anything were to happen to me. You had to know that I would never just abandon you. Ever.”
She looked right into the camera for a long time, and Skye felt the truth of her message - of everything that was happening between them, right there and then - sear itself onto her heart. “Goodbye, Skye,” she said at last, with a sad smile, and ended the recording.
Skye put down her laptop and walked around the couch to stand in front of Jemma.
“I set it up to be sent to you if my status was changed in Hydra’s system. Didn’t believe I’d stand much of a chance in that scenario. It went through automatically when Raina uploaded that picture,” Jemma quietly explained. “There was one thing I forgot to say, though. You do know me, Skye. Better than anyone else, perhaps.” She huffed out a small laugh. “Not really sure how you say goodbye to someone like that.”
“But it wasn’t goodbye,” said Skye. “You’re here now. Alive.” The word tasted sweet on her tongue. She could see the glimmer of recognition in Jemma’s eyes; it hadn’t been that long since she’d brought Skye back to life.
“I am,” she all but whispered. “And so are you.”
Skye could tell they were standing on the edge - just about to fall.
“Did you mean all that?” she asked, surprised her voice even worked. And in the middle of the dark night, Jemma’s smile was like starlight.
“Every word.”
Skye took a tiny step forward. “And your feelings...have they...progressed?”
Jemma stepped forward, too, until they were toe to toe. Something in her smile flickered wickedly. “I may need to run a few tests...just to be sure.”
Slowly, tentatively, Skye wrapped her arms around Jemma’s waist.
“In that case,” she said, the beginnings of a smirk on her lips as Jemma’s arms rose to wrap around her neck, “need a lab assistant?”
“Hmm, yes,” Jemma cooed. “That would be most helpful of you.”
“I live to serve,” Skye breathed, and then there were no more words left to speak.