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It was raining that hazardous way only Costa Rita could, incessant and ferocious, the air gallingly sultry it hurt to just inhale. Jemma Simmons shoved her phone into her pocket, the hair clinging to her damp neck as she flew down the narrow stairs two steps at a time to reach the apartment below hers.
The door swung open at her hurried knocks. Still in his PJs, Leo Fitz stifled a yawn and ran a hand through his unruly hair, his features thrown into sharp relief by the hallway’s yellow light. He exhaled at the sight of her. “What is it, Jemma?”
“Sorry to wake you up, but Director Coulson called,” she answered in a placating tone. A sleep-deprived Fitz was a cranky Fitz. “Night patrols detected some, ah, anomalies just beyond the outermost perimeter. We’re needed at the Park.”
“At five in the morning?”
“Some people do wake at dawn, Fitz,” she reminded him. “Now come on. A boat is heading to the mainland right now. We have to be at the dock in twenty minutes.”
She got that imploring look in her eyes that she knew would get him all wrapped around her finger, and he groaned in defeat. “Bloody dinosaurs have no regard for my sleep schedule,” he grouched, and her smile was triumphant but it was also vaguely sad.
-
Considered a madman trying to play God during his time, John Hammond suffered innumerable condemnation from the public after The Incident that nipped his dream park from the bud. Still, among ambitious venture capitalists, he was a visionary, with just enough crazy in him and a whole lot of resources to build a theme park with – of all things – gargantuan prehistoric creatures. Really, which kid didn’t grow up dreaming of pet dinosaurs and make-believe fights between the hunter and the hunted? It was a market just begging to be explored.
Simmons had been six when de-extinction happened, and when you’re six, you don’t care if some rich men are trying to capitalize on your childhood dreams. You get a chance to visit a park full of dinosaurs, you take it. Which was why she had been brooding ever since the park’s premature closure following The Incident, and why she leapt at the job offer when, more than twenty years later, SHIELD Enterprises were foolishly brave enough to open up Jurassic Park once again.
So she packed her bags, dragging Fitz – college friend, disgruntled but compliant accomplice to all her endeavors – with her to tropical Costa Rica, where they breezed through the ranks with their combined three PhDs. Now she spent most of her waking hours as the Park’s chief geneticist, while he led the Technology Division.
-
The rain was just beginning to let up when they reached Isla Nublar, the sky nothing but splatters of sluggish gray clouds and wan early light. Waiting for them by the chopper was Melinda May, head of Security Division and deputy Park director, looking solemn as ever on this dreary morning.
“Motion sensors on the northern perimeter went off last night,” May explained as she maneuvered the chopper through a narrow passage. “Security footage didn’t catch what it was, but it did leave footprints.”
“Could be just wild animals,” Fitz supplied.
May shook her head. “Preliminary inspection suggests the prints resemble those of a dinosaur. Carnivore, most likely.”
“The northern perimeter is close to some of the outermost enclosures. Maybe one of ours escaped,” ventured Simmons. “Did you check with Asset Containment?”
“I did. All assets are accounted for.” May paused. In the back, Fitz squirmed in his seat and twisted the cord of his headset uneasily. “That’s why we need to bring you in, Simmons. We need to figure out what the hell we’re dealing with.”
“Great. There’s a dinosaur on the loose, and it’s not ours,” Fitz drawled, throwing a sideway glance at his friend. His tone was dripping with sarcasm. “Remind me again why I’m here on Isla Doomblar?”
“Actually,” May interjected, “you’re here to evaluate the perimeter for vulnerability.”
“Vulnerability?” he huffed indignantly, and Simmons rolled her eyes; the perimeter was his design, after all. “It’s a ten-meter fence with lethal electrical charge and tactical high-energy laser defense system. I hardly think there will be any issues.”
-
Simmons stared at the ground, and a crater the size of a small garden pond was staring back.
Whatever that thing was, it made a T-Rex look like a puppy.
Fitz took one look at May and ducked his head, “I’ll have them mount some automatic artillery shells on top of the fence for extra precaution.”
She smirked, then turned to Simmons, “So, any idea what species this thing is?”
“Not until I can study it up close,” the girl replied. “Do you think I can commandeer a Jeep to follow the tracks, get a better look at the animal in its natural habitat?”
May fixed her a look that was part appalled, part horrified, tilting her head to the side in exasperation, “do you have a death wish? Have you not seen the size of its footprints?”
Her shoulders sagged. “Guess not then?”
May heaved a sigh. “If you really want to go, I can pilot the chopper, but I will not let you near that thing.”
“The northern part of this island is so dense,” Simmons frowned, “aerial view will offer nothing of use.” It was true. Unless she could get some tissue sample or bodily fluid, there was no way of knowing precisely what kind of dinosaur it was, and how to deal with it.
“Uhm, guys?” from behind, Fitz piped up, a pen tucked behind his ear, restless hands fidgeting with his notepad. All heads swiveled in his direction. “Someone will probably be upset, but I think I have found a way to safely approach this animal.”
-
“You want to do what with my raptors?”
Lance Hunter dropped the clicker into his breast pocket as he skipped down the metal steps of the raptor enclosure. Whether the ex-Royal-Navy-turned-raptor-trainer was irate or amused, it was hard to tell. Simmons supposed this wasn’t the first time someone had pitched him an outrageous idea involving his raptors; rumors had it some company had been trying to get them weaponized for military use.
Fitz wrung his hands and shuffled from foot to foot, abashment lined deeply on his otherwise soft features. “Look, your raptors are the only way to scout the northern area. I’ll hook them up to my new head-mounted cameras, get us a live feed. I’ll even add some remote-triggered rockets on them if you’re worried.”
“Spare no expense?” Hunter raised an eyebrow.
Fitz nodded fervently like he was thrown a lifeline, but Hunter just snorted. “You can arm them with all the fancy tech that you want, mate. Doesn’t change the fact that these are wild animals. Dangerous ones. They slash at you with their 6-inch claws, and your organs turn into haggis. They simply can’t be controlled.”
“That must mean you’re going to get sacked, then,” Simmons sniped, stepping in front of Fitz to come face to face with Hunter, who tried his best to stare down at her imposingly, all five feet and nine inches of him towering over no one. It was rather comical, if she was being honest.
Still, her expression softened. After all, she was about to send his animals into hostile territory. “Your raptors are highly intelligent pack hunters, fast, agile, and best of all, they listen to you. They’re our best shot at finding out what kind of dinosaur is roaming free in the woods,” she reasoned. “Please, Hunter, I’m asking you to see this through.”
“No.”
She crossed her arms and glowered at him. “Let’s be reasonable here, Lance. Or do you want me to deflate all your footballs and throw them to the Mosasaurus? Or worse, call your ex-wife Bobbi in to convince you instead?”
Behind her back, she could hear Fitz whisper to May, “Hunter was married?”
“Occasionally,” came May’s reply.
The man in question glared pointedly at them, before turning back to Simmons. “Fine,” he sulked. “But I have two conditions.”
“I’m listening.”
“One: I want full drone and tactical support from ACU. Two,” he paused, pursing his lips. For a moment he looked but a child, “let me go with my raptors. Please.”
-
“All units armed and ready,” Fitz informed Simmons as he hopped out of the chopper to join her on the landing pad behind the lab. “May’s quarterbacking the mission from Control Center. ACU Commander in Chief is joining Hunter and the raptors. I don’t know why, but she insisted.”
The sun was just beginning to set over the mountains. Red waves tumbled down the lashes of his tired eyes and splintered off his bristly cheeks, reminded her of late afternoon classes and long-gone autumns, when there had once been joy to be found in dusk and dying light.
She tamed her heart and looked away. “Bobbi just wants to watch out for him, that’s all.”
He hummed in response, holding out two takeout cartons from a restaurant down Main Street. They sat on the edge of the landing pad and ate their dinner in silence. Beyond vast stretches of greenery, the resort glimmered silver and crimson under the last of daylight. The boy beside her poked his food around with a pair of chopsticks, grinning easily when he caught her looking. In this second, everything existed to her like a mirage, a magician’s sleight of hand.
“What do you think it is?” she wondered aloud, and the illusion dissipated to make way for reality.
“What? The rogue dinosaur?” he asked, to which she nodded. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I don’t think it’s friendly.”
“Can you imagine if it wanders into the resort? God, twenty-two thousand lives on this island, Fitz,” she breathed. She sounded almost disbelieving. “Twenty-two thousand lives.”
Fitz set the carton down and turned to her. “Hey, don’t be so pessimistic. No matter what kind of freak creature it is, we’ll never let it go much further south. Wouldn’t want a repeat of The Incident now, would we?”
“Promise me you won’t let it hurt people?”
His lips parted for a reply, but it was cut short when his phone buzzed. Skye’s name flashed across the screen.
“One of your DWARFs picked up massive thermal signature in sector five. ACU is heading there right now,” said the head of Control Center. “You and Simmons might want to be here for this.”
-
Hushed, anxious whispers cut through the otherwise stilled air of Control Center like a knife. On the giant monitor, four raptors were zeroing in on a shadowed shape just beyond those thick canopies. The creature stirred when it sensed the raptors’ approach. Its labored breathing rattled nearby branches.
Simmons instinctively clutched Fitz’s shirt sleeve.
Somewhere off-screen came Hunter’s low voice. “Do not engage. I repeat: do not engage. Let my raptors herd it to their kill zone.”
The raptor named Echo glided to the left and craned her neck. The camera on her head shifted, and whatever it was she saw, the whole of Control Center saw as well: a grotesque monster the size of a two-story house, silhouetted against a backdrop of ever-lush Guanacaste trees and blood red sky. Its hollow eyes followed Echo with crazed curiosity, the spike-covered, blotchy off-white skin shuddering with each inhale.
May glanced at Simmons, wide-eyed, as if expecting an explanation, but Simmons had none. In all her years studying, creating, modifying dinosaurs, nothing had ever come close to this atrocity. When it came to playing God, humans never did surpass nature.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered.
The creature opened its rugged jaw, lurching forward shrieking and snapping. Echo staggered back before she ducked to the right. From behind, Delta jumped onto its back and sank her claws down, but it shook her off like she was but a feather, unleashing a bone-chilling roar as it did so. Delta flew headfirst into a tree and writhed in pain.
Hunter grumbled, shouldered his shotgun, whistled.
Immediately, Echo double backed and aimed for the throat, while another raptor, Charlie, leapt out from a bush and tackled its side. It swung its body left and right, and Charlie was slammed into a rock. She whimpered. Echo unfolded herself from the creature, retreating slowly into the shadow.
“This is never going to work.” Beside Hunter, Bobbi hissed. “All units, fire at my command.”
The thing turned its head sharply, staring in the direction of their hiding place, glazed over with insatiable ferocity. Saliva dripped from its jagged teeth.
“Fire!”
A flurry of silver-blue flooded the monitor as all ACU guards closed in. The dinosaur shrugged off those bullets and sank its teeth into one guard who was standing too close. He flatlined in a corner of the giant monitor. The ringing noise cracked the tense atmosphere in half.
Fitz marched towards May in three strides. “ICERs? You’re going after a monster with non-lethals?” he nearly shook with rage. “Those people are going to die!”
Across the room, Simmons couldn’t move. She just stared blankly ahead as more and more names went dark on the screen. Lee. Miller. Craig. Ellis. Each unlit name was a shackle she had to bear. Something salty dewed on her lips.
May’s mouth formed a hard line as her gaze flitted to Simmons. Finally, she turned to Skye. “Skye, those artillery shells Fitz just mounted on the northern perimeter, are they hot?”
Skye punched a series of code into the mainframe. “They are now.”
“All units, fall back,” May barked, over the ground-quaking rumble of the creature. “I’m lighting that damn thing up.”
“Wait!” Hunter’s cry tore through the comms. “The princess, she said she needed some tissue sample or fluid or something, right?”
Before anyone could reply, a series of clicking sound rose above the cacophony of snapping jaws and futile gunshots and blood-curling screams.
One second. Then two. Then three.
The raptor Blue surged into view. In the space between one heartbeat and another, she had hopped onto the frenzied dinosaur’s back, biting into its neck and tearing out a chunk of flesh.
“Fall back!” Bobbi ordered the remaining guards. Then, to May, she said simply, “light it up.”
The rest was swift and easy: Skye locking in the coordinates, May slamming a button, the dinosaur bellowing out its last, woeful cry, the world fracturing into hot blinding light.
-
It was around ten in the evening when Bobbi Morse strode in through the double door.
“The last ferry is leaving soon,” she informed Simmons, who was pacing the length of her empty lab, her computer whirring softly in the background. “You should go home and get some rest. Your work will still be here in the morning.”
The girl managed a rueful smile. “I can’t. I’m almost done running analyses. We’ll get some answer soon enough.”
“What about Fitz? Is he leaving?”
Simmons motioned to her office. Beyond those half-drawn blinds, Fitz was dozing off by her desk, his face buried in the cradle of his folded arm. One of the earbuds had fallen out, blasting what she was sure to be some obscure music that he loved but she had always hated. Here in the depths of slumber with the light down low, he looked so young, like a piece of tranquility plucked out of her stashed-away dreams. There was a subdued ache somewhere in her chest that she refused to tend to.
“I told him to go home, but he insisted on staying,” she explained.
A muscle along Bobbi’s jaw ticked. Something like amused understanding. “Ah,” she responded simply.
Silence stretched on in the bleached white light. Eventually, it was Simmons who broke it. “I never did get a chance to say thank you, by the way,” said she, toying with the hem of her lab coat, “for bringing back the sample, despite... everything.”
“You’re very welcome,” Bobbi smiled. “I’m just glad that meager bit of flesh Blue managed to bring back was enough to be of use. And it was Hunter’s idea, anyway. I was just there to make the hard calls.”
“And to keep him safe,” quipped Simmons, the soft teasing tone tugging at her lips, but not quite touching her eyes.
“Much like that boy who’s sleeping at your desk right now.”
The girl’s gaze flickered to her office before she came to stare at the ground. “I suppose the circumstance is a bit different here.”
“But the sentiment is the same,” Bobbi hastened to add. “He loves you.”
“We’ve been best friends since college. Of course he loves me,” she said. The room was empty and the shadows were too long, and she sounded strangely sad. Just not in the way I want to be loved.
Bobbi’s features softened under the harsh fluorescent light, but she felt it was superfluous to add anything, so she just nodded towards the clock, “well, I’m catching this last ferry home. At the very least, you should get a few hours of sleep, Simmons.”
She had not yet turned to leave when the whirring noise stopped. Simmons’ computer beeped incessantly.
“Ah, looks like results from the DNA analysis finally came back,” the girl exclaimed, and Bobbi rushed to her side, ears all perked up.
They huddled close to the monitor, brows furrowing and hearts hammering a staccato as they pored over the animal’s DNA strands together in the fretful silence.
Bobbi was the first to look away. “This genetic code, it’s pure,” she muttered. “Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park have always had the gaps in their genome filled with DNA of other animals. This creature doesn’t share many similarities with our dinosaurs, or any known animal, for that matter.”
Simmons stared at Bobbi, amazement rippling across her face. The rumors were true then, ACU Commander in Chief was secretly a science buff, after all. “You’re right,” she cleared her throat.
“Then how is this possible?”
Simmons felt the blood pounding behind her ears and swallowed hard as she answered, “either this dinosaur belonged to an undiscovered species...” Which they both knew was unlikely; every squared meter of Isla Nublar had been scoured before the Park’s construction. Bobbi inhaled sharply and waited for the other shoe to drop. “... or it was not from this planet altogether.”
“Surely there must be a logical explana– ”
Bobbi’s response was halfway out when Fitz, face ashen and wiped clean of sleep with alarm, burst into the lab from Simmons’ office clutching a tablet to his chest.
“The DWARFs are picking up three thermal signatures and counting, all identical to the one Skye received this afternoon,” he wheezed, pointing at the patches glowing an angry red on the screen. “They’re heading south, Jemma. They’re heading to the resort.”
-
For all the years they’d been working at Jurassic Park, Fitz and Simmons had barely interacted with Director Coulson beyond clipped phone calls and brief, impersonal staff meetings, but it was enough to know the man truly lived up to his title. A director wasn’t always the same as a leader, and Simmons doubted Coulson could care less about the difference. To him, democracy was overrated, but she wasn’t in the habit of questioning authority when there was no need to.
Now, however, with giant monsters roaming in the woods and thousands of overnight guests sleeping in oblivion just a hair’s breadth away, all because Coulson insisted on handling things quietly, Simmons was determined to knock some sense into his too-large head, ranks and protocols be damned.
“Sir, you need to evacuate the island,” she said, not for the first time in the last fifteen minutes.
They were all in Control Center, with Coulson on quarterbacking duty, since May had gone home for the night and was just now summoned back.
Coulson crossed his arms and stared at the wall-sized monitor, his mouth pressed into a hard line. He was not swayed in the slightest. “There’s no need to disturb the guests. All ACU mainland units have been mobilized. We can take care of this.”
“With all due respect, Director, wake the hell up,” Skye rubbed her temples and looked up from her screen. The head of Control Center had no patience when it came to Coulson and his bureaucratic stupidity. “Have you not seen the footage from this afternoon? You might as well kill them if you’re sending them near those things.”
“Skye is right, Sir,” Fitz interjected, a bit more pacifying, but the utter horror in his storm-tossed eyes couldn’t be masked. “Non-lethals and even some types of live ammo won’t work on them. Our priority must be to save lives first. We can worry about containment later.”
As if on cue, from her station across the room, Bobbi spoke up, “Coulson, we managed to take two down with Fitz’s remaining artillery shells, but we’re running out of ammo. One of them has reached the northernmost part of the resort.”
There was a painful pause.
“How many have we lost?”
Bobbi didn’t answer. She just looked on, wrecked and simply tired, as the life count on the giant monitor slowly dropped. Human beings, reduced to mere numbers, yet somehow it didn’t make things any easier.
Coulson lowered his head and stared at the inoffensive pattern of the carpet. A beat. Then two.
Simmons cleared her throat. It caught Coulson’s attention, and he turned to her, something frantic vibrating from his very bones, shattering the stoic illusion.
I can do this, she wanted to scream. Yours the battle, mine the lives.
“Okay,” he heaved a sigh, an odd mixture of both relief and defeat, gusty and tremulous all at once. “Okay.”
-
Fitz loaded two Bambinos – the last in their armory – onto the chopper, along with two accompanying ACU guards. May was beside herself when she heard Coulson was going to pilot it; he was not used to his biomechanical hand after losing his real one in an accident. Still, with May not yet present and the Park incredibly short-staffed, Coulson saw no other choice, and at last his tottery chopper lurched into the quivering dark.
The remaining guest had all been herded onto Main Street, waiting for the ferries to evacuate them off the island. Simmons set up a makeshift infirmary by the gift shop to tend to the wounded, but most people only came in with minor injuries sustained while fleeing: sprained ankles, broken arms, those sorts of thing. Those who had had their brush with the monsters usually ended up an indistinguishable mess of crushed bones and severed flesh. At least that was what Simmons was assuming; she tried not to think of them too much, anyway. Soon thinking would become caring, and soon it would start to hurt.
Fitz’s tablet continued to light up with new thermal signatures, the dots glowing blood red as they moved across the screen to lay their waste. He paced the length of the infirmary, eyebrows drawn together, his taut features cast in a half-shadow from the streetlight, as Simmons popped a guest’s shoulder back in place.
“They keep on coming,” he mumbled. “I don’t know how, but they keep on coming.”
“I don’t care how many of them there is, as long as they don’t continue to head south,” replied Simmons impatiently.
Down the street, some of the staff members were wheeling in another guest, this time with a part of his leg chomped off, leaving a trail of blood behind. She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed, “let’s just hope Coulson is able to hold them back till everyone is off this bloody island. In one piece.”
He bit his lip, nodded, and she lingered on a second too long before turning back to the whimpering, bleeding guest. Fitz was squeamish at the sight, but he chose to stay nonetheless, hovering just a few steps behind her while she cauterized the man’s wound, the air charged with his scream and sizzling flesh. Sweats dewed on her forehead as she whispered encouragement into his ears with a reassuring smile, her skin almost translucent under this light, and Fitz allowed himself a soft exhale. Maybe, just maybe, if she walked with him to the gate of hell, then dying wasn’t so bad.
Somewhere far off, artillery fire rattled the night.
“I thought you were not a medical doctor?” he quirked an eyebrow playfully when she was finished. The guest was now stabilized, distraught but very much alive.
She peeled off the bloodied gloves and discarded them, smiling a little. “In the absence of miracles, people make do.”
-
Coulson’s chopper lost control and crash-landed in sector four, where it self-destructed and took down two rogue dinosaurs with it. Coulson and the two ACU guards managed to scramble out of the explosion only a little battered, though they could not salvage the Bambinos. Unarmed and lost, they wandered the woods until they came across a DWARF, and a recently arrived but thoroughly exasperated May picked them up with her Jeep. She chided Coulson and his one-handed recklessness all the way back to Control Center.
New dinosaurs stopped popping up around two a.m. The remaining two didn’t meander far down south, and – grounded as they were – May decided to hold off on the attack until more backup arrived in the morning.
A ferry came to bring the injured back to the mainland. The rest of the guests were huddled together on Main Street under Fitz and Simmons’ supervision, falling in and out of a restless sleep awaiting the morning ferries.
He found her wide awake around two-thirty, the moonlight in his hair like flecks of wispy silver, shadows heavy on his eyelids. “Won’t you walk with me awhile?” he asked.
They strolled down Main Street without words, the silence accentuated by only the occasional dismal cry echoing from deep in the woods. Against her will, she ached for these lost creatures, dumped onto an island so far away from home by some freak accident, struggling to find out where and what they were in this strange new world.
“We should give them a name,” said Simmons all of a sudden.
“How about,” Fitz mused, “’Indominus Rex’?”
“’Indominus Rex’? Don’t you think it’s all a bit penny dreadful?”
“You should try saying ‘Pachycephalosaurus’ or ‘Saurornithoides’ in a Scottish accent without people laughing at you,” he pursed his lips.
He meant it as a joke, but neither of them ended up laughing. She distinctly remembered the early days of college, how lonely, how unwanted they both had felt, before they found comfort in each other. The wound wasn’t fresh, but it throbbed sometimes, like a bad knee when the weather turned vicious.
The Lagoon was empty of people when they reached it, its sole occupants – a pair of Mosasaurus – slumbering on in the dark depths. They sat on top of the tribune overlooking the water that coalesced into stretches of land just beyond the hedge, the hazy landscape running boundless until it reached a shimmering horizon where the earth kissed the sky.
For a moment, she allowed herself the luxury of fleeting oblivion, wherein it was just them and this moon shattering itself on the water surface and the rest of reality hung suspended in the distant night. She breathed lightly and let her head find a home on his shoulder.
“I am so tired,” she mumbled against his flushed skin.
The corner of his mouth twitched, but it wasn’t enough of a smile. He turned and pressed a kiss on her forehead instead. “I know, Jemma,” he sounded sad. “I know.”
Before them, miles and miles of just land and water and sky lay still, indifferent in all their celestial vastness. Then a roar ripped through all that green and all that night.
Shuddering at the noise, she wound her arms around him and buried her face deeper into the crook of his neck. “Tell me it’s going to be all right in the end.”
He hummed, but he didn’t answer. His shoulders just sagged.
It was easy for her to catch on. “What’s wrong, Fitz?”
He bounced his knees, clenched and unclenched his fists. “I sent a DWARF to scour sector five, the one where all thermal energy originates from.” A pained look rendered his features more severe. “And I think I know why the dinosaurs keep coming.”
A raised eyebrow. Two bated breaths.
“There’s a breach, Jemma,” he murmured. “I flew the DWARF straight into it, but I lost control of the DWARF the moment it got to the other side.”
“Did it manage to stream anything to you?”
“Not much,” replied Fitz. He fished out his tablet and held it out for her. “But it did record a few seconds of footage before it went out.”
He pointed to the screen, at the two suns poised high above a purple sky.
Oh hell.
Swallowing thickly, he continued, “I’m not an astrophysicist, but I’m pretty sure this breach is a portal. That must mean those Indominus Rexes –”
Oh bloody hell.
“– fell through the breach from another planet,” she finished for him.
They fell into silence, the implication hung heavy in the air. Somewhere out there, the woods were churning with those creatures, sharp teeth and sharper claws, terrorizing the island because they didn’t know anything but. It wouldn’t be long now before more followed through the breach.
“We should destroy it,” Simmons blurted out. “The breach. Just fly a bomb through it. Once it collapses, the dinosaurs shouldn’t be able to cross to our planet, right?”
He chewed on his lower lip as he thought things over, but in the end just shook his head. “The bomb has to be remotely triggered, but we know electronics won’t work on the other side.”
The solution was clear, they both knew that. Somebody had to carry the bomb through the breach and detonate it manually.
“Now, getting it into the breach should be easy,” he mused.
“The problem is how to detonate it and escape before it goes off,” she supplied, cringing a little at the thought.
“Exactly. We only have a narrow window of one minute before all the electronics are fried. By my calculation, passing through the breach takes about fifteen seconds –”
“ – leaving just thirty seconds to detonate the bomb, which will start the auto countdown, and fifteen seconds to get back.”
There was a prolonged pause after that, the dread palpable in each stuttering second. When he spoke again, his voice was airy, almost like a ghost. “We need someone who’s an expert in weaponry to operate that fast.”
He didn’t say the words, but she knew. She always knew. It was kind of their thing, this mental synchrony, but she had never imagined a day when it came to hurt. Blood pounded behind her ears, the sound of savage waves hurling themselves against rocks.
“No,” she paled. “No, no, no! Surely there must be another way around this.”
“Jemma, relax,” he held out a hand. “Nothing is going to happen. I go in there, I press a few buttons, I get out. It’s so simple even a monkey can do it.”
“Don’t go, then! Let somebody else do it!” she all but begged. Allow me this selfish pleasure of loving you.
“They won’t be fast enough.”
“It’s a suicide mission!” she snapped.
“It’s worth a try.”
His hand found hers then, in the tremulous dark of night, in all its frailty and its terrible disarray, brushing against the coolness of her skin, stilling the tremor on her fingertips. She thought bitterly, as her immaculate argument stuttered to a halt at his touch, dissolved in his beseeching eyes, that he did not play fair.
“You asked me to promise that I would not let anyone get hurt,” he continued. Her thought flitted to a sun-drenched landing pad beneath a saffron sky. It seemed a lifetime ago now. “Please let me keep my promise to you.”
She cast a glance at his profile, saw the resolve willed into steel behind its gentleness, and she knew she had already lost. Stupid, she cursed to herself. Stupid, brave boy.
-
To destabilize and destroy the breach, a dispersal of energy greater than its own was required, which proved to be a challenge when the Park’s armory had been all but wiped out in the previous night’s attack. So when Skye showed up to the emergency meeting with one of her outrageous ideas, nobody really knew how to object. Besides, Coulson was desperate enough to try anything.
That settled it, then. They were going to steal a bomb from Hydra.
Hydra was the advanced weapons and defense technology company that Nick Fury didn’t even know he owned. The man was so diversified he had lost control of his investment funds. Inevitably, Hydra just one day popped up in his portfolio alongside SHIELD Enterprises and became the biggest thorn in everyone’s side, refusing to budge with its extensive network and obnoxious employees.
The current head of Hydra was Grant Ward. A former raptor trainer working under Coulson’s authority, Ward was revealed to be stealing trade secrets for Hydra’s bioorganic weapons program. After leaving Jurassic Park, he began working for Hydra full-time, using years’ worth of the Park’s classified information to swiftly climb the ranks.
Ward’s betrayal left a crater on everyone’s heart. Fitz was upset because he lost a friend. Skye was mad at herself for liking that traitor. And May? May was just annoyed by his general existence.
Simmons found herself sharing May’s sentiment, and normally she would like to ignore the fact that Ward had ever lived, but some things were worth more than her distaste for that man. So she swallowed her bile and followed through with it.
The plan was simple: Simmons would work the floor with Ward as her mark, appealing to his interest in weaponizing the dinosaurs to steal his prints for an access code. Fitz and Skye would run backup from a van outside, helping Bobbi and May break into the facility to retrieve the bomb.
May found the idea of leaving Simmons alone with the enemy particularly repulsive, so in the end Bobbi had to drag Hunter in on the whole thing. The raptor trainer was not so keen on breathing the same air as Ward, what with all of Ward’s botched attempts at convincing him to field test his raptors, but he took one look at Simmons and just heaved a resigned sigh.
“Alright,” he huffed. “I shall take it upon me to protect the princess for you.”
May simply nodded. Fitz clapped him on the back, a grateful half-smile on his face, “when all of this is over, remind me to buy you a beer.”
Hunter laughed, but it was a sad kind of laugh. “Just don’t die on me first, mate.”
-
The man in front of Simmons sat on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms, eyebrows drawn together in pensive rumination, though there was something so sickeningly sarcastic about the mere gesture.
“Let me get this straight,” Ward drawled. “You’re offering me a chance to experiment on your assets?”
“Hey, those are real animals, not assets. Have some bloody respect,” came Hunter’s retort. “And besides, we’re not here to talk about my raptors.”
Ward’s eyes narrowed at Simmons, confused. He disregarded Hunter completely, looking at him like he was nothing but dirt beneath his boots. She took it Ward didn’t cope so well with being replaced, but now was not the time to dwell on his unresolved psychological issues.
“Jemma,” Skye whispered into her earpiece. “We need his prints to access the vault. Show him your thing.”
Simmons straightened up and marched to Ward, handing him the tablet.
“What is this?” asked Ward.
“Go on, press play.”
He did. His fingerprints went straight to Skye’s computer.
That was easy. Simmons let out a breath she’d been holding as Skye whooped and high-fived Fitz loudly in her ears.
On the screen, footage of the Indominus Rex obliterating an entire squad of raptors began to play. Ward remained impassive, but the crazed, enthralled look behind his eyes was hard to mask. He blinked slowly as he returned the tablet, fixing her an expectant stare.
“We call it the Indominus Rex,” she enunciated each word, watched as different expressions flickered across his face. “Bigger, stronger, deadlier than a raptor can ever be. How’s that for weaponization?”
“And what is it made of?” Ward was skeptical, understandably so. If he was to expend resources on this creature, he ought to know what he was dealing with.
Hunter gave Simmons a look, and she counted her heartbeat to keep calm. One. Two. Three. “The base genome is a T-Rex,” she bluffed. “The rest is for the lab to know.”
Ward mused this over. The raptors were reliable, cooperative, he knew as much, but this creature? He was simply not convinced. “Sorry, Simmons. There are just too many unknown variables. How do I know it won’t turn on me?” he shook his head, his lips contorted into an impish smirk. It made her want to hurl.
“Don’t let him show you out!” Bobbi gasped. “We’re not done yet. Stall for time, Simmons. Just sprout some pseudoscience crap he wants to hear.”
“Selective breeding,” argued Simmons. “We’ll terminate the rogue, promote only the loyal bloodline. Look how we’ve domesticated wolves to do our bidding!”
“That took thousands of years.”
“They didn’t have the technology that we do now.”
Ward fell silent, squinted at her. She could tell he was starting to sway. Inhaling sharply, she leveled her eyes with his and delivered the final blow, “think about how many boots on the ground it can replace. Think about it Ward: your own army of dinosaurs.”
The whole thing was preposterous, really, but she had worked together with Ward long enough to know how much he craved to be in power. Of course, by tomorrow there would be no more Indominus Rex left, the whole of them bombed out of existence, but what Ward didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Hunter made a noise in his throat that sounded suspiciously like muffled snickering, and she glared at him before turning back to Ward. “What do you say?”
The man in question stood up and began pacing, each step measured and cautious. “I just don’t get it,” he sounded contemptuous as he inched closer to Simmons.
By instinct, Hunter pushed her aside and threw himself in front of Ward, lips curled back, a snarl on the verge of escaping.
Ward just continued, unfazed, “your boy over there’s been refusing to partake in our bioorganic weapons program for months. Now you yourself show up and practically beg me to get involved? What’s going on, Simmons? Why are you really here?”
She averted her gaze, and it fell upon the Hydra paperweight on Ward’s desk, all hollow eyes and twisted tentacles, reminded her of death, reminded her of destruction and everything that she stood against. Something stirred in her chest akin to courage, and she met his scrutinizing eyes without blinking. Steady heart, steady heart, you were born to fight.
“I saw an opportunity to do the right thing, so I took it,” she answered.
Ward eyed her up and down before giving an imperceptible nod, but he didn’t say anything else. Then May announced the bomb was in their possession, and Simmons understood it was her cue to leave.
-
By early afternoon, Isla Nublar had been successfully evacuated. Coulson’s voice filtered through the PA system as he urged all essential personnel to converge in Control Center for further instructions, and for their own safety too. The number of Indominus Rexes had exceeded a dozen. Beyond the northern perimeter, grotesque masses roved without aim and bulldozed everything in their path.
May found Simmons alone on the landing pad behind her lab. It was drizzling, but the sun was up high, a million sunbeams fracturing in the mist. Simmons pulled the hood of her raincoat further down and turned to May, a dry smile heavy on her lips.
Without a word, May produced two beers and handed one to her. They toasted and drank quietly, each chasing their own thoughts. The silence stretched on, companionable.
“I’ve always hated sunshowers.” Simmons was the first to speak. “It’s like the universe is stuck in ambivalence, and it’s stupid. Either you laugh or you cry. You can’t do both.”
“It’s not always so black and white,” May chuckled at this little tantrum. Sometimes it was easy to forget how young the girl actually was. “A situation can be good and bad. You just gotta take what you can get and run.”
Simmons hummed, not sure how to respond. May wasn’t wrong, and May of all people understood the consequences of a decision, all its ugliness and all its virtues. She’d survived Bahrain; she knew how it felt to sacrifice the few to save the many. Still – Simmons thought sourly as she picked at the label on her bottle – it was not a good enough reason for her to rejoice in Fitz’s suicidal mission because it might save people from an alien race of dinosaurs.
May watched her carefully, then took a swig from her beer. She didn’t press on, and for that Simmons was thankful. Some demons were yours and yours alone to suffer, she suspected May knew just as much.
“Well if you hate this weather,” May changed the subject, “then why are you here and not in the lab?”
“He doesn’t need a distraction,” she shrugged.
Fitz was rewiring the stolen bomb to set up a 15-second timer, enough for him to get out of the breach without the electronics getting fried by breach energy. Knowing him, it probably wasn’t a strenuous task, but she decided to leave anyway. The confine of the lab made it hard for both of them to breathe.
May cocked her head in Fitz’s general direction. “Seems like he can use one, though.”
“And what should I say to him, May?” Simmons sighed. Her gaze was trained on two raindrops racing down the length of her bottle, gleaming emerald like the glass. “Unlike him, I don’t have the option of dying. You live, you die, your energy gets recycled, that’s it. The universe can’t care less. It doesn’t gain or lose a gram. But the memories you leave are heavier than the largest of stars. It’s the people left behind that have to bear them, May. I have to bear them!”
“Have some faith in him,” May frowned. “Not everything is all chaos, all the time, Simmons.”
“No,” agreed the girl, blinking back a few stray tears, “but you have to entertain all possibilities. It’s Murphy’s Law, May. I have no doubt in Fitz’s ability, but –”
“No buts. You’re overthinking it. Everything will be just fine.”
“What if it won’t be?”
“Then I will bear the memories with you,” May answered, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And maybe to her, it was.
Before them, the rain was starting to let up. May knocked back the rest of her beer, and stoically, Simmons breathed away the ache.
-
Fitz flexed his fingers, engrossed by the red-and-yellow robotic hand repulsor that would be used to propel him back from the portal in zero gravity. On the other side of the room, Skye sat with Simmons, eyebrows drawn together as she absentmindedly chewed on her thumbnail.
“Inbound chopper, Jurassic 616. ETA 10 minutes,” one of the operators announced.
“So May’s just going to fly him there and drop him off on site?” Skye piped up, dubious.
Simmons swallowed thickly. “That’s the plan. That way we can avoid roaming dinosaurs.”
“Great,” Skye nodded, but her expression belied her answer. “What about the dinosaurs on site? How is he supposed to get into the portal when there are a bunch standing in front of its entrance?”
That gave Simmons pause.
Oh.
Almost in unison, they sat back and muttered some off-color words at this new development. Simmons looked at the boy across the room, at his glassy-eyed tenacity, his soft contours and childlike hope.
Forgive me. Find it in your heart to forgive me.
“I have a plan,” she said at last, level and void of feelings. In her own way, it was a method of coping.
“Uh oh,” Skye just shook her head. “I can see where this is going, and I don’t like it.”
“I haven’t even told you anything yet!”
“If I know you – and I do – you’re going to pull some self-sacrificial stunt and we’re going to worry sick.”
Simmons had the audacity to look affronted. “What? No!”
“Jemma.”
-
To no one’s surprise and everyone’s general distress, Skye was right.
The thing was that her plan would work. DNA analysis and the previous night’s incident had shown the Indominus Rexes could sense thermal radiation. If they were anywhere near the portal, then Fitz was a warm body just begging to be attacked. What he needed was a distraction, a larger source of heat that could lure them away.
“Are you insane?” Fitz threw his head back, hands on his waist. He was visibly trembling. He couldn’t even look at her. “You can’t just hold up a flare and run around being their bait like that!”
Oddly enough, she was composed in the midst of his rage. It was the storm to her calm, the fire to her smoke. She breathed and sought to hold his averting gaze. “I think I’ll live, Fitz. It’s an easy job, really.”
“If it’s so easy, then why don’t you just let someone else do it?”
She leaned back against a desk, an imperceptible vestige of triumph ghosting her features. “Did you listen to me when I said the same thing to you?”
Stunned, he gaped at her for a full five seconds before shaking his head. “No, but that’s because I know what I’m doing,” he hastened to add.
“And I don’t?”
“You do,” conceded Fitz, “but there are many people who are better suited for this. May, Bobbi, Hunter.” He paused to gulp a shaky lungful of air. “You’ll die, Jemma. I can’t let you do that.”
She laughed a little. It was dry and mirthless. “Oh, you can’t let me? Since when did I need your permission to do things?”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jemma, I beg you, please be selfish, just for once.”
How dare he ask her to be selfish when she already was? Loving him, it was the most selfish thing she had ever allowed herself to.
It had taken her so much to maintain the calm façade, pulled her apart, stretched her thin. And now came the inevitable snap.
“You yourself are going on a suicide mission anyway! Why does it matter whether I live or die?”
“Because I care about you!”
At that, she had no response. Instead, she chased the flecks of silver in his blue eyes through the peaks and valleys of each trudging second. His shoulders relaxed a little, and when he looked at her again, he was no longer angry. He was just at peace.
“I care about you,” he spoke softly, like the words themselves were delicate, “more than I should, more than I thought I could. I’m not thrilled at the thought of dying without you, but for ten years I’ve known the miracle of being alive with you, and it’s magnificent. If it’s all I have when I go, then it’s more than enough, Jemma.
“So I can’t let you be reckless with your life. That would be a disservice to the universe, letting it churn on in its miserable eternity with you no longer in it.”
There was inexplicable gentleness behind his solemn expression, and she knew she was supposed to reply with something of equal gravity, but right now all she wanted to do was take off his shirt, touch his shoulder blades, see if they were wings.
“That’s scientifically incorrect,” she settled for an airy laugh, stepping closer to him. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed. In some shape or form, I will always exist.”
“Yes, but I’ve grown rather attached to this particular cluster of stars.”
She lowered her gaze to hide the blooming blush, and he reached out a tentative hand to tuck away a stray lock of her hair.
Yeah, maybe they were going to be just fine.
-
The new chopper mainland ACU had just flown in was the most graceful one the Park had ever owned, all matte black and graphite under the sun. In just half an hour it would take to the air, loaded with people and the weight they all had to carry: May to pilot it, Hunter and Bobbi to gun down the dinosaurs, Fitz and Simmons to... well, play dice with death.
But for now it stood motionless on the landing pad behind the lab with no passenger, save for Bobbi, who was fluttering about for one last inventory check of their ammunition. Simmons hovered nearby, the tactical vest she had donned chock-full of flares. Somehow they weren’t what made her steps heavy.
Bobbi heaved a sigh and turned to Simmons. “Hey,” she gave a reassuring grin. “You’re wearing a groove on the ground. Don’t worry. You’ll be safe. Maybe there won’t even be any dinosaur on site and you won’t have to go in at all.”
The little nod and infinitesimal upturn of lips Simmons could manage were unconvincing.
“Really, Simmons, trust me. Check out these babies,” Bobbi patted one of the new Bambinos. “Once you’ve lured the dinosaurs into our kill zone, we will light them up. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“’We’? Are you and Hunter co-parenting me now?”
Bobbi shot her a withered look, signaling the end of that discussion. Simmons just wiggled her eyebrows and smiled, before turning away with a sharp exhale. “It’s not that.”
Shoulders sagged, Bobbi tapped her with her clipboard. “Then what is it?”
“I’m just,” she divulged, “second-guessing every decision I’ve ever made, that’s all. Killing those poor animals, risking everyone’s life. If only I didn’t come here to resurrect dinosaurs and defy the laws of nature in the first place.”
“Okay, first of all, are you honestly feeling bad for killing in self-defense? Simmons, shockingly enough, it’s okay to do things for yourself once in a while.”
She winced. It wasn’t the first time today somebody had chastised her for that.
“Besides,” continued Bobbi, “laws of nature get broken all the time. If spaceships can escape the pull of gravity then dinosaurs can live to see de-extinction. Even you and I, and everyone around us – just by existing – have broken those laws. Do you know how unlikely it is for everything to come together just right and make you, you? We are a statistical improbability.”
Someone behind them clapped, and they both turned. Simmons’ stomach twisted at the sight of Grant Ward, just an arm’s reach away. She never could see him coming, raptor trainer or Hydra’s head.
“Moving speech, truly,” he remarked. “But I’m here to talk about the statistical probability of a bomb going missing right after you paid me a visit.”
Oh that’s just fantastic.
Simmons swallowed hard and stared him in the eyes. “We don’t have it.”
“I see your lying skill hasn’t improved much since I left,” observed Ward, a smirk playing on his face. She wanted so badly to claw it off. “But you can keep it. I don’t care. All I want to know is whether or not you lied about weaponizing the Indominus Rexes. Or whether or not they’re real, for that matter.”
“They are.”
“And we’re about to destroy every last one of them,” Bobbi interjected.
Despite herself, Simmons allowed a rare smile. There was in her a kind of sadistic satisfaction in not giving Ward what he wanted.
Ward narrowed his eyes. “I thought we had a deal.”
Simmons watched the blue tributaries of veins as they throbbed underneath his skin. He looked betrayed. Of all the people who were entitled to, he was the one who looked betrayed, the bastard.
“And I thought we were friends before you went and sold all of us out," she answered slowly, relishing each word.
Something rippled across his face, fleeting but evident, before he assumed his usual impassivity, but she caught it nonetheless: she had wounded him. She ran her tongue over the inside of her teeth, deliberate, gratified, and continued to bite. “We’d rather have the animals die a swift death than hand them over to you to be enslaved for your bloodlust.”
Ward leaned forward, one arm slightly raised in a silent threat, but she just lifted her chin tauntingly, hands balled into fists. “Take one step closer and I will strangle you.”
“You’re not tall enough,” he sneered.
“You’ve sunk low enough for me to reach.”
He threw his head back, barked a derisive laugh, and lurched at her. Simmons knew he wouldn’t actually strike – even Ward had his standards – but her instinct screamed for her to cower anyway.
Before she could do anything, however, there was a bone-chilling, delicious crunch, and Ward staggered back holding his nose. A hint of blood seeped through his shaky fingers.
Bobbi shook the impact off her hand. The languid, savoring smirk on her face was borderline malicious.
As Bobbi towered over her in a protective stance, Simmons could only stare wide-eyed at Ward. He spat his blood on the ground like it was venom and shot them both a vicious leer, but in the end just walked away, gritting his teeth as he went. She suspected it wasn’t over quite yet, but for now any little victory would count.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Bobbi said as she held up an expectant hand. Her easy smile was crispy and golden and so inherently Bobbi, it lodged warmth deep inside Simmons’ chest.
Effortlessly, Simmons high-fived her back.
-
“It’s confirmed,” May announced solemnly after she had hung up the phone. “The DWARF picked up one thermal signature in front of the breach. Simmons has to go in after all.”
The landing pad was now teeming with people rushing about to prepare for takeoff, but only three turned to Simmons. Bobbi and Hunter and their sympathetic gaze, she could handle, but Fitz? She tried not to look at him as she swallowed the lump in her throat, the way people refused to look out the airplane window in search of a familiar skyline they had left behind.
May’s expression softened. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We can always find someone else.”
“I can do it.”
“I don’t doubt that,” May replied. “My question is: do you want to?”
Did she?
She wasn’t so sure anymore. She was a scientist. She was wired to create, not to kill. And now she found herself trying to eradicate an entire alien species, the joy of discovery shoved aside by fear of the unknown. It took a few days, but the realization finally hit her then – twisting and turning as it snaked its way beneath her ribcage – just how viciously ironic they were, the choices she never knew she would be making in this line of work.
She came to Costa Rica holding her wide-eyed hope like a ball of glass, and she ran with the kind of vivacity only found in ungrazed knees, only to have it shatter across the floor and leave her there to bleed.
She came to Costa Rica dragging him with her. He who had followed her halfway across the world. He who would have followed her to the gate of hell and back again. And he who was about to put his life at stake in a gamble with God, to go to the one place she could not follow.
The choice was horrifyingly clear.
“I want to.”
See, the thing was that this wasn’t some ancient drama where she was the altruistic protagonist swooping in to save the world. Nobody told her to say these lines and perform these acts. No, Jemma Simmons wasn’t trying to play the hero. She tore a piece of her heart out and handed it to the world, and she considered it bliss.
It was only natural, then, that she wanted to do this for him. It was her simplest pleasure to keep him safe. To choose him, over and over, in the selfish and brutal tenderness akin to love.
The only thing that made her reconsider was this: a Jeep that came to a screeching halt next to their chopper. Then Coulson with his tight-lipped smile and reassuring nod. Then Skye. Then a tackle-hug that was more desperation than warmth.
Skye reeked of coffee and she looked like hell (they all did, actually. It was an inevitable side effect of trying to cancel Armageddon). But Skye’s tears were seeping through the fabric of her shirt, and Simmons thought, for a brief and forlorn moment, that if she had her ways with the universe, she would never be the first one to let go.
“Please be okay, Jemma,” was all Skye could manage.
But it was enough, anyway.
-
May dropped Bobbi and Hunter off first at their kill zone. From there, it only took less than a minute to fly to the breach, but the specialists needed time to set up for their ambush, so May had to circle the chopper around for a while until it was time to bring Fitz and Simmons on site.
Anxiety hung heavy in the silence as the dreaded inevitable approached. Beyond those windows, the sun was just starting to dip lower, and dusk trickled across the gilded horizon in its own unhurried way. Fitz’s profile was silhouetted against a backdrop of emerald forest, of amber and sapphire, his eyes an impossible shade of sadness and sky. He was slowly beautiful, and in even in its grief, even in so much disarray, so was the setting sun.
But Simmons knew for a fact it would rise again tomorrow, with or without them. This unending cycle, this languid carelessness in the motion of the universe, was strangely comforting. It made it all right if they couldn’t have today. Perhaps tomorrow, then, or a million years from now, when all their atoms had spun their course, there would be another him and another her standing beneath the same watercolor sky, and this time they would actually make it.
She reached for his hand and refused to let go.
-
“When you’re finished,” May instructed as the chopper made its descent. When, not if. For that, Simmons was grateful. “Just radio in with your coordinates and I will come to pick you up.”
“Copy that.”
They both moved to take off their headsets, but May turned around. “And hey,” she added, “come home in one piece for me, okay?”
There was in her voice the tremulous quality of a dam on the verge of bursting. She turned away before they could see those quivering lips, those glassy eyes, but if they saw anything, they chose not to speak up. The world was ending, far be it for them to decide how people said “I love you.”
“See you soon, May,” they murmured. We love you too.
May paused for a second, looked at them. The corner of her mouth twitched infinitesimally. Then she nodded and pulled the chopper skyward.
-
The first move Simmons made was to turn off her comms. “We need to talk. Alone,” she began.
His eyes widened. “Now is hardly the time, Jemma.”
“Please, Fitz.”
There was something maddeningly desperate behind her tone that gave him pause, and he reached for the mute button on his earpiece.
That was it, then. Now it was just him and her and the humming forest. She counted her heartbeat, felt it flutter against her ribs like a caged bird, and looked at him. “I’m sorry.”
He blinked. “What?”
There was a sharp inhale as she scrambled to find her words. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess. I’m sorry you have to go on this suicide mission. I’m sorry the world is unkind,” she spoke quickly, the words themselves like blood spilling out of an open wound.
And maybe they were. Maybe this was meant to be her story. Some people fell in love with fragile things on a Saturday night by the kitchen counter, the light dimmer and the spin of the Earth slower. She crash-landed into love with teeth bared and nails sharp, kicking and screaming in the midst of a warzone.
Either way, she’d take it. Kitchen counter or warzone, in the end, we all sought for a place to fall apart. And she chose him.
“So please,” she continued, “don’t be mad at me for choosing to put myself at risk. I owe you that much. I’d gladly do it for you.”
“For me?” he repeated, sounding a little dazed. “So you’re saying you’re being dinosaur’s bait not because of some savior complex, not because you want to prove yourself, but because of me?”
“It was a bit of everything, actually,” she huffed. She was, after all, Jemma Simmons, and a part of her would always try to extend her tiny arms and hug the world. “But yes, I want to keep you safe. I thought you already knew that?”
Fitz heaved a gusty sigh. “Jemma, your heart is bigger than you can carry. But you can’t just put everybody’s needs ahead of yours and call it love.”
“What constitutes as love to you then?”
“Sacrifices,” he answered, “and the occasional selfishness.”
Deep in her gut, she had a feeling they were talking about different kinds of love, but light was waning and their borrowed time was nearly up and she was so, so tired, so she did the one thing she could think of: she grabbed him by the collar and brought his lips to hers.
He froze at first in surprise, but soon he was kissing her back, and soon their mouths spoke to each other in the language of hymns. She carved her tongue against his teeth like she was sculpting something holy. She swallowed confessions and savored the prayers in his breath. She touched the wings on his shoulder blades and undressed him one feather at a time.
This is mine, she thought as she melted into him. The world can take the rest, but leave me this moment.
When they broke apart for air, he touched his lips like they had just brushed against multitudes of stars. “What was that?” he asked, confused, awed. Loved.
Her finger trailed along his jawline, drinking in the soft contours, the rough stubbles, the eyes that glimmered with all those years never spent apart. She drank it all in, because she could allow herself that much, because there just might be no next time. At last, she replied, “the occasional selfishness.”
Then she drew a flare from her tactical vest, lit it up, and ran.
-
The dinosaur in front of her blinked lazily at the sight of her flare. It looked bored, almost. She tried not to be offended.
In her ear, she could hear Hunter mumble to Bobbi, “I told you it was a bad idea to let her do this. Bloody dinosaur must be amused by her sheer comical puniness, it doesn’t even bother to move! I should’ve taken her place!”
“Fellow small English person, please kindly shut up,” Simmons gritted her teeth. She knew Hunter meant well, but it was hard not to be annoyed at him sometimes, especially when there was a dinosaur lounging right in front of the breach and blocking its entrance. It had to move somehow, or else Fitz could never get the bomb inside. Of all the possible scenarios they had chalked up involving roaming dinosaurs, immobility was indeed a nasty curve ball.
Simmons scowled at it and lit up another flare, testing the water. This time, the dinosaur perched up.
“Come at me, you gorgeous monstrosity,” she raised her chin, bite in her words, as if the animal could understand a taunt.
Whether or not it did, however, made no difference, because if there was one thing a predator understood, it was how to hunt.
The Indominus Rex shook the ground as it got to its feet, unleashed a threatening snarl, its hulky body eclipsing what was left of the sun. She held up the flares, watched the rise and fall of its chest, the narrowing of its beady eyes. She knew it was about to lurch forward. And so, over the roar of her heart, she forced herself to run.
Some distance away, Fitz collapsed against the trunk of a tree, whispering “be careful, Jemma” to the ache in the silence. Then he shouldered his backpack and headed for the breach. He did not – could not – look back once.
-
Simmons ran, through the roots and vines of the woods, pushing on until her lungs were set aflame. She ran, because it was the only thing she could do for them both, because as much as she wished another them in another lifetime were enough, she wanted – more than anything – this here and this now, with him. Always with him. She had to run so they could live.
Beyond her path came distant footfalls and labored breaths. Low branches rustled under the force of some presence looming in the dark.
A low curse escaped her mouth.
“There’s something else in the woods,” panted Simmons. “I thought there was only one dinosaur on site? What the hell is that?”
“Distraction,” Hunter answered. There might just be a grin in his tone, but she was too preoccupied to double-check. Stinging sweats in her eyes, she dared to turn around to see the source of the noise.
Sources, to be correct.
Four dinosaurs plunged into view from the bushes. She should be terrified, but she wasn’t. She knew them. Charlie, Delta, Echo, Blue.
They were Hunter’s raptors.
The raptors hurled themselves at the great beast, clawing and snapping. They were ferocious, yes, but unlike the Indonimus Rex, there was strategy behind their rage. They jumped and slashed and bit two at a time, while the other two diverted the predator’s attention. Tiny splatters of blood arched off the tangle of bodies, landed silently away from the chaos. There was a sort of frenzied grace to the whole thing, and she felt compelled to stand and watch as it unfolded.
It was Bobbi that broke her trance. “Simmons, what are you doing?” she squeaked. “Keep running!”
“Come on!” urged Hunter. “My raptors are weak for their previous fight. They won’t be able to hold it off for long.”
So she did. Steady feet, steady feet, repeated a voice in her head. You were born to survive. She clutched the flares tighter and willed her legs to work, feeling like there was ash in her lungs.
Behind her, the monster had shaken loose its distractions. The rumble of the ground underneath its feet drew closer, the distance between them shrinking rapidly. Pulsing blood hammered behind her ears. Her mind screamed for her to move forward, but everything else begged to cave in. It ached just for her to breathe.
Simmons threw a glance over her shoulders; she was a safe distance away from the breach.
Well, there could be worse ways to go.
Her pace began to slow. She breathed out a shaky, accepting breath.
“Jemma?” came a third voice. His voice. “Jemma, don’t give up.”
The voice crackled, trying to fight off the ever-growing static. Then an explosion that rattled the entire island. Then sonic echoes and trails of smoke curling upward from the blazed treetops. Then radio silence.
The bomb had been detonated but where was he? “Fitz? Fitz, are you there?” she called for him, frantic.
Still nothing.
The giant dinosaur opened its vile mouth for a thunderous roar before blundering her way. Dumbfounded, numb, she held up her arms uselessly, as if they offered her any protection. As if it mattered.
Out of nowhere, Blue threw herself in front of Simmons, into the way of the beast. The raptor pounced onto its back, protracted a claw and slid it across the beast’s throat. Blood sputtered out from the cut, and the Indominus Rex unearthed an agonized scream.
It was the wakeup call Simmons needed. Her feet glided over fallen leaves as she continued to sprint. Behind her, the predator had shaken Blue off once again. The injury seemed to only piss it off further, but Blue was insistent. She slammed her head repeatedly into its windpipe, targeting the open wound.
While the monster reeled back, momentarily stunned, Blue turned around to look at her, and Simmons thought she caught something akin to recognition. Blue, the raptor with a strange colored stripe along her body. It was her fault, this DNA anomaly. She had been too green then, just a young geneticist freshly hired, and Blue was the first dinosaur she had ever made. The dinosaur that she had waited day and night for just to see a tiny arm crack open the eggshell.
The realization hit her then, and she wavered in her steps.
Blue had imprinted on her.
The raptor bowed slightly to her and resumed her attack. As Simmons ran, the trees began thinning to make way for more and more light. The edge of a clearing emerged into view. The kill zone.
“Hunter, Bobbi,” she called out in between breaths. “Get ready. I’m almost there.”
Angry, heavy footfalls reverberated behind her back. Simmons turned to see the monster bulldoze a few outermost trees in a haste to get to her. The blood was still dripping from its neck. Blue limped along just a few steps behind, clearly exhausted.
“Clever girl,” Simmons murmured. “You’ve done enough.”
Then, she raised her arms and threw both of the flares away. They somersaulted, graceful arches of a startling red superimposed against the sky, before landing in the middle of the clearing. On instinct, the Indominus Rex lurched at the source of intense heat, baring rows of rugged teeth as it dove to the ground.
There was the familiar sound of the Bambinos firing up. Simmons whipped her head around. She had to see this. She deserved this much.
Blinding, deafening yellow beams sliced the air. The great beast snapped up at this commotion, but it didn’t even have time to react.
Two shots, one in its head, one in its chest.
It wailed, one last mournful time, and crumbled to the ground for good.
That was when Simmons allowed herself to collapse.
“You okay, princess?” Hunter rushed to her side. Bobbi shouldered the gun and followed suit.
“Yeah I’m okay. Just,” she mumbled, feeling like her body wasn’t hers anymore to dictate. “Fitz?”
Bobbi crouched down to her eye level, holding out the tablet. “We no longer pick up any breach energy. I think he detonated the bomb successfully,” she said quietly. “But we haven’t heard back from him. The blast must have destroyed his comms.”
“Do you think he’s okay?” Simmons asked. It was almost an automatic response, because right now she just felt numb. He made it he made it we made it, she chanted, as if saying it repeatedly would make it come true.
Hunter squinted as he tried to see past her shoulder. “I don’t know,” the corner of his mouth twitched. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
She saw it then: a figure staggering towards them from the edge of the clearing. Simmons forgot to breathe at the sight; she would recognize those gangly limbs, that endearing and awkward way he held himself, even in her most nebulous fantasies. Fitz was battered, he was so, so battered, but he was alive. In the light of dusk he made her nostalgic for all the future memories they would make.
“Welcome back, mate,” Hunter patted his back. Bobbi dumped her Bambino unceremoniously on the ground and hugged him tightly. He grinned a tired, gentle grin against her shoulder, and she grinned back.
Finally, he looked at Simmons. Without thinking, he sank to his knees in front of her and rested his head in the hollow of her collarbone. “Home,” came his simple whisper. Like a prayer, almost.
She wound a hand into his hair and breathed lightly. Underneath this watercolor sky, today and all of tomorrows, we have finally made it, you and I, she wanted to say, to kiss away the ache and to murmur the words into his mouth. He hummed, and her gaze on him was impossibly soft. “Yes, Fitz, I’ll radio May. We can finally go home now.”
“No,” he said, against her skin, in her arms, his heart by her heart. “Home.”