Chapter Text
It had been a long day. A long few months if she was honest with herself. That’s the only thing she can think as the tears come pouring out right there in the kitchen. Jemma curls her arms around herself and lets her head fall forward to meet the cool steel of the fridge she’d just been closing.
“Hey, you okay?” Comes from the doorway and she startles. In the dark, she sees a hand move to the switch and she calls out a soft.
“Please don’t.” She hadn’t even noticed she’d left the lights off, but now the last thing she wants is her tears to shine under the bright harsh lights of the base’s kitchen.
“Okay, it’s okay.” Jemma had thought she’d been crying silently, but now, with Bobbi coming up to hold her, squeezing tightly, little sobbing gasps have started to escape. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
And it’s as if a damn has burst within her.
The tears flow more freely. Breath harder to catch, but she wants to get this out.
“Did you see her?” She gasps.
Bobbi looks confused. “Her? Who?”
“Her arms. The bruises,” Simmons continues to sob out.
“So, this is about Skye?” Bobbi asks, pushing Jemma back by the tight grip on her biceps to look at her fellow scientist’s face.
“Yes,” Jemma hisses out. “She’s been through so much already. She’s been hurt so much lately. Why can’t she catch a break? She doesn’t deserve this!”
The taller woman pulls her in again, hushing out, “Hey, hey. She’ll be alright. She’s got us.”
“No,” Jemma shakes her head, the tears heavy enough that some fly off her cheeks. “No, Bobbi. The things I said…”
“You were scared, she knows you didn’t mean it.” Bobbi tries.
“You don’t know, Bobbi.” She insists. “I broke something. Fitz saw it. Fitz was there for her. And I, I told her she was something we needed to eradicate.”
“No,” Bobbi pushes.
“I did. I did it. I said this to her while she was going through all of this, terrified,” Jemma sobs out harder now. “She apologized to me as she was being hunted, Bobbi. I did that. I made her feel like this was all her fault.”
“Jemma, this isn’t on you. Fitz and Skye lied to us.” The blonde kept pushing, her own guilt making it sound less firm than she would’ve liked.
“Because we made them feel like they had to!” Jemma…well, she doesn’t scream. But it’s the loudest she’s been yet, and they both freeze, ears pricked in case they caught anyones attention. After a moment passes, Simmon’s whispers, “She shot herself, Bobbi.”
For this, Bobbi Morse has no response. She too had been stunned when the others briefed them.
“And now,” Simmons continues. “Now, it turns out that she’s still hurting herself because she’s too afraid to let us know she needs help. Seventy-five fractures, from clavicles to fingertips, on both her arms. And I, all I keep doing is making her afraid, hiding her, find ways to—I don’t even know what I’m trying to do anymore. Don’t know how to help her. But she—”
Footsteps. She stops speaking immediately, looking to the darkened hallway. Then suddenly, she’s blinking and ducking her head into Bobbi’s high shoulder to block out the light.
“Oh, uh, sorry.” Skye.
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. What did she hear? Jemma’s brain panics. She lifts her head up to catch Skye’s eyes, but the other girl’s gaze seems locked low, and Jemma follows it. At some point, Bobbi’s arms had dropped waist-level low to pull her in closer in attempt to offer comfort. Jemma pulls back, and the arms fall away easily.
When she looks up again, Skye is no longer looking at them, but her jaw is visibly tighter than before. “No, please. Don’t let me interrupt. I just, well, I just wanted an icepack.”
“Skye,” Jemma starts, reaching out a hand but the former hacktivist pulls back.
“Jemma, please.” She’s never seen Skye look so defeated before. Eyes dropped to the ground, arms encased in compression microfiber casts lifted. “I just want some ice, then I’ll get out of your way.”
But Jemma can’t move. It’s Bobbi that finally reaches behind them to open the freezer and pulls out two frozen solid ice packs and hands them over.
Skye takes them with a mumbled, “Thanks.” And turns.
But Jemma can’t help herself. “Remember, no more than twenty minutes at a time!”
Skye’s purpled fingers give a two-finger salute over her shoulder, and she vanishes into the dark once again.
Jemma’s eyes don’t leave her back, and then, the spot where she disappears, even after she’s gone.
It’s the soft “You love her, don’t you?” from Bobbi that finally gets her to drop her head.
She doesn’t say it, but her, “I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose her,” is more than confirmation enough.