A/N: As Jemma's memories begin to resurface, she unknowingly rekindles old relationships and strengthens new bonds, but will it be enough to help her cope with her traumas once again?

I am so sorry. I've been trying to get this chapter written literally for months now but I kept struggling to get the words on the page.

Maybe it's too late to finish this story now that we are well into season three, but I can't let it go. With all the Jemma/Will nonsense that we're getting now, I would rather imagine a scenario where the monolith brings Fitz and Simmons together and forces them to deal with their issues instead of giving them a whole host of new ones on top of everything they still haven't discussed.

Truthfully, I'm still waiting for season three to reveal that Will was a figment of Jemma's imagination. There are just too many things that don't add up from the first five episodes, and some odd bits in the fifth episode that I still can't reconcile.

Anyway, I have three more chapters planned though I may try to condense that into two. I hope you'll join me on the journey to see how this might have all played out if I had my say. Thanks so much for being patient. Hopefully, I won't take nearly as long to get the next chapters out to you.

Chapter 5

True to his promise, Coulson does his best to secure the technological odds and ends and other materials Jemma requests. He even grants her two days to work uninterrupted before drawing her back into the team. He wishes he could give her more considering what she has endured for all of them, but the threat of the unknown looms, and he needs her help to ensure they are prepared when it arrives.

For those two days, Jemma pushes herself harder than she ever has before. She barely stops working long enough to eat, and she refuses to rest for more than a handful of half-hour catnaps, convinced that she can solve the puzzle of the Theta machine if she just concentrates long and hard enough. Fitz realizes early in the process that recreating the machine will take them years of research, but he gives her every bit of his focus and considerable mental power, and he will continue to do so until she decides this route is no longer worth pursuing. That being said, every few hours he does attempt to talk her out of her manic pace, but she completely ignores his pleas and warnings. He watches in frustration and mild panic as her efforts drain what little reserves she has. By the end of the second day, she looks like little more than a ghost, skin so pale it almost seems translucent and eyes filled with a mania that frightens him at times.

Still, she presses on, even when she reaches a point of utter exhaustion and its clear that their research is at a standstill. She wants more than anything for science to be what cures her. She wants a machine that she knows for a fact can recover memories in their entirety, not a very likely scientifically unsound free-for-all of memory sharing with her colleagues. She wants facts and figures, hypotheses and variables that she can change and manipulate. Most of all she wants control. Control over the method of regaining her memories. Control over her life. Control over herself. Since waking, she feels more and more like a top spinning out of control, and she feels powerless to stop, so she ignores her better judgment and Fitz's increasingly impassioned appeals. She can't afford to give up hope yet. They are geniuses after all; if anyone can figure this out, it's the two of them. They've never faced a challenge they couldn't overcome together, and she's not about to let this break their perfect streak.

In the sanctity of his mind, Fitz is relieved that this attempt was apparently doomed from the start. Even through the distress of her memory loss and attempt to reconstruct the machine, there is a lightness to her that has been missing for over a year. In spite of the shadow of what she's experienced since waking and even as she works tirelessly to reclaim her memories, at least a few times each day she smiles and laughs and teases as she had before their world had changed forever. Her eyes, though weary, aren't haunted with the shadows of her experiences. Her lips don't quirk into that raw, tight grimace that had so quickly overtaken her once blinding smile. Her words don't sound forced and disingenuous even though they are a little panicked and anxious.

Only now that he can see the contrast does he realize what the last year had done to her and how much of that tension and unease he had caused. If he'd responded to her efforts sooner, could he have prevented or at least lessened some of what she had suffered? If he had listened, would she ever have become a shell of her former self in the first place?

He tries not to dwell on his guilt, but he feels it all the same. He feels it every time he is thankful that she doesn't remember the past year. He feels it every time she says his name with that inflection of exasperation mixed with fondness only she can manage. He feels it every time she crosses off another idea on their ever-dwindling list. He feels it every time she leans into him, taking comfort in his presence as their latest glimmer of hope fades like the final ember in a fire.

Out of the whole experience, what surprises him most of all is that she is affectionate in ways he never would have expected, and, while he knows it's selfish, he's pleased to be her pillar of strength. It's like she can't go more than few minutes without looking at him or resting her hand on his forearm, shoulder, or thigh. Every time she needs to read something, she curls up next to him, as if she can't concentrate without his company. He no longer feels inadequate in her presence, and it's a heady feeling given how often he'd felt useless and broken in the past year.

In a way he's right about why she seems more drawn to him than ever before. As the hope of regaining her memories via the Theta machine continues to fade away, she feels more and more adrift. He is the only thing that is truly familiar to her in this strange new world. Of course, she wants to be near him because she loves him, not just because he's familiar. In fact, most of her newfound fondness for his presence is a direct result of their shared feelings for each other, but she is self aware enough to know that she is also using him as a crutch. Even knowing it, she can't stop. In the moments when she wants to give up, she looks at him and knows with certainty that her memories of them over the last year are too precious to lose.

Unfortunately, given her self-imposed moratorium on any attempt to jog her memory, it is just as holey as it was the day she regained consciousness. What she hasn't told anyone, least of all Fitz, is that she has been getting flashes of what she assumes must be memories. None of them have been long enough to understand, and she might write them off if not for the almost unbearable emotions that seem to accompany each. She would be less hesitant to share if some of the feelings were positive. As it is, every flicker of a memory brings forth feelings of despair, anger, grief, and suffering.

She has no idea what to do when confronted with such a dismal cocktail of emotions. Surely the last year of her life hadn't been so traumatic that nothing positive had happened. Surely even if she and Fitz hadn't begun a romantic relationship, which given his continued amazement at her touch seems to be very likely, they had still been friends, still shared their always easy camaraderie. Surely he had helped her to make sense of whatever events had caused such an unpleasant frenzy of emotions. She can't imagine having to weather them by herself.

She hopes that he can't see how uneasy she is becoming in her own skin. The feeling of being an imposter has continued to grow each day. Her body still feels unfamiliar to her, and she can't seem to find any sense of stability unless she is safely ensconced in his arms. Only then does she feel like her disjointed pieces might meld back together into something whole.

They are both relieved when Coulson finally pulls her back into the fold: he because she can no longer spend every waking moment obsessing over a machine they can't recreate and she because, given her own lack of progress, Coulson's orders will allow her to set her mind on tasks where she knows there will be a positive outcome. She realizes almost immediately that Coulson was not overstating his need for her. More than a dozen projects, many of which she had apparently started, sit unfinished in the lab. What she doesn't know is that Coulson and Fitz have scoured her records and removed twice as many more in deference to her request to be told only as much as necessary to help. Neither man can imagine trying to talk their way around the Inhumans or the monolith, so they remove her access to those projects.

Beyond her assistance in the lab, she has some surprising responsibilities, well, surprising to her anyway. The woman who introduces herself as Bobbi, though Jemma feels more comfortable addressing her as Agent Morse, desperately needs to undergo the final surgery to attend to her lingering injuries.

Admittedly, Jemma is rather exasperated when Coulson tasks her with overseeing Agent Morse's care. She wants to remind him yet again that she's not that kind of doctor, but it's become increasingly clear to her that SHIELD has significant holes in its ranks. She's not formally trained, but she is one of the best options they apparently have, so she'll put aside her own worries for the time being and focus her attention on preparing to lead the operation and the remainder of Agent Morse's recovery.

Nevertheless, she would feel more at ease with this latest assignment if she at least had the assistance of someone with actual medical training, a point she brings up as she and Skye sit in Skye's room, spooning ice cream out of a large tub.

Though she's obviously grown in ways Jemma doesn't remember, Skye is like a breath of fresh air. In all the ways that matter, she is still the same fun-loving, prank-pulling, overly honest woman Jemma remembers, though there is a sense of angst to her Jemma doesn't recall. Like Fitz, being with Skye makes her feel like she hasn't lost touch with everything, and Jemma has come back to herself enough to know that she needs breaks even if all she wants to do is to keep working on a solution to her problem. She is no use to herself or anyone else if she collapses from stress and exhaustion.

Skye relishes the opportunity to reconnect with her friend; she's spent months walking on eggshells around Simmons, but she no longer has to now that her teammate is blissfully unaware of her powers. She finds herself wishing on more than one occasion that Jemma would remain in that state of ignorance. She can still hear her terror and self-blame in those days after the events of San Juan: "I should have be trying to terminate it, erase it from existence…The Avengers wouldn't have been necessary if we hadn't unleashed alien horrors! Trip was in fragments." Thankfully, Simmons's current ranting breaks Skye out of the painful memories before she can delve much further.

"I'm flattered that Agent Coulson thinks I am capable of performing such a complicated series of procedures, but surely there is someone more qualified!" Jemma raves, waving her spoon about as if to punctuate her point.

Forcing herself back into this moment with a Simmons who isn't afraid of her and what she can do, Skye responds teasingly: "Excuse me, Ms. Double Ph.D. in fields no one can pronounce, but I think you are way more qualified than anyone else we've got hanging around the base. I'm sure Bobbi's relieved that you'll be the one to put her knee back together."

"Honestly, Skye. You're telling me that in a year Coulson hasn't managed to find someone with actual medical credentials? And really, that's beside the point. We already have someone with medical credentials, so why isn't he leading this surgery?"

"Who? I'm telling you, we don't have anyone with more training than you. And, hey, you saved my life, so I think you're pretty qualified," Skye smirks.

"Agent Triplett, of course!" Jemma beams, confident that she's presented the perfect solution to at least one of her problems. Trip can lead the surgery and she'll assist. She wants to see Agent Morse free from her hospital bed as soon as possible, but knee surgery isn't anything to meddle with, especially with her faulty memory.

Her smile fades to a frown as she watches Skye's face pale in response to her statements. She only grows truly concerned when the younger agent's eyes begin to fill with tears. In her head, all Skye can here for a moment is a repeat of Simmons's tearful and grief-stricken cry: "Trip was in fragments!"

Lost in her memories and her feelings of responsibility for what happened to Trip, Skye doesn't hear Simmons calling her frantically at first: "What? Skye! What's the matter?"

"Jemma," she begins, her voice wobbling dangerously as she fights to hold back the tears. She needn't have made the effort. Perceptive as she is, Jemma understands immediately what must have happened based on that one mournful word, and her eyes immediately fill as well.

As the first tear slips out and trails down her cheek, she manages to breathe out one word: "When?" Too overwhelmed with grief, she spares no concern with what her quest for information will do to her possibly recovery. Knowing what happened to her teammate is far more important to her in this moment than anything else, consequences be damned.

Purposefully vague, Skye only whispers "About six months ago" through bloodless lips. Why does she, of all people, have to be the one to tell Simmons about Trip?

Jemma sucks in a ragged breath as grief overwhelms her. Contrary to what many people on her team might have thought, she never had any romantic designs on Antoine Triplett. He had simply cemented himself in her life as a kind of lovable older brother she hadn't known she needed. He was certainly a gorgeous man. Jemma would have to be blind not to notice. But more importantly, he had protected her during one of her most vulnerable moments, and he had been unfailingly kind to her at all times. He was one of the few bright spots in her memories of the Hydra takeover and the aftermath. To know now that his smiles and jokes had been forever lost cuts her deeply.

It takes her a moment before she can quiet her heartfelt sobs long enough to ask another question: "How?" Her grief continues to overshadow any consideration of the repercussions asking that question might bring. Now that she knows he is dead, she isn't willing to wait to see if her faulty memory will return to fill in the rest of the story.

In her mind, Skye can hear the warning Coulson had given them all the day after Jemma left the makeshift medical bay: "Tell Simmons only what she needs to know to complete her work. She doesn't want anything to interfere with her plan to regain her memories." Skye's parents, her powers, Trip's death, the Inhumans, and Simmons's undercover work, all of it was supposed to be off limits.

Staring into the face of her devastated friend, Skye's feeling of culpability for Trip's death crushes her. Despite her better judgment, Coulson's warnings, and Jemma's request, Skye begins brokenly relating at least part of the story, purposefully leaving out the details of her powers. She can handle Simmons's blame when she finishes the sad tale, but she can't endure her fear again.

"We were on a mission. Hydra was involved, and we were in an old, underground city. We were trying to stop them by leveling the place, but Reina was there, and I was stupid enough to follow her. Trip ran after me to save me, but he died and I lived. It's my fault. I shouldn't have gone after Reina. He shouldn't have been there. It's my fault. I killed him."

Even facing her own overwhelming grief, Jemma shifts over to comfort Skye. She's trembling under the force of her anguish, so Jemma gathers her closer to try to soothe her. She doesn't for a minute believe that Skye is responsible for Trip's death. She might have been present, but she knows with absolute certainty that Skye couldn't have killed him.

Skye doesn't share her convictions. All she can see is Trip's body crumbling into pieces as she shatters her chrysalis with her first burst of power. As if they are sentient and can tell that she is remembering her moment of rebirth, her powers break free from her steadily declining control. Suddenly, she isn't the only thing shaking in the room. The hula dancer, one of the few mementos she has of her life before SHIELD, rattles off her bookshelf as other personal items begin to vibrate with increasing intensity.

Thankful for her well-honed emergency survival skills, Jemma immediately reacts to what she perceives as an earthquake even as she struggles with her grief. She tries to pull Skye with her toward the doorframe, which must be the sturdiest part of the tiny room, but Skye immediately retreats to the corner opposite of the door. She tries desperately to force the vibrations to cease, but she feels as powerless to control her gift as she had during those initial days after the diviner revealed them to her.

Confused by her teammate's actions, Jemma crouches in front of Skye and attempts to pull her toward the safety of the door. Only when she reaches out to touch Skye, who flinches back violently, does she realize that Skye isn't afraid of the tremors; Skye is afraid of her, afraid of what Jemma will think of her being gifted, which must be true given what is happening.

Eyes wide due to her deductions, Jemma settles into a cross-legged position in front of Skye. She wants Skye to understand that there isn't anything to be afraid of. Try as she might, she can't keep the wonder out of either her tone or expression.

"It's you? It's you! When did that happen? Wait, no, don't tell me. I shouldn't have let you tell me this much. Oh, but I have so many questions. You're okay, right? It doesn't hurt you? Because if it does, we have to figure out how to mitigate that effect. You'll let me run some tests, won't you? It's just so fascinating. You can create seismic activity! How could I forget something this monumental? Oh, this is exciting!"

Skye watches in fascination, the image of Jemma blurring from the tears still gathering in her eyes. She'd expected immediate rejection and fear. She'd expected barely concealed disgust at what she had become. She'd expected something similar to Jemma's reaction all those months ago when she had just returned from gathering the shattered remains of their teammate.

The reality she experiences this time is not at all what she'd expected. Jemma is concerned for her first and foremost, but she's also giddy at the thought of Skye's new powers. She isn't afraid, she isn't disgusted, and she hasn't immediately rejected her and what she has become. She's looking at her in awe and amazement, as if Skye is the most wonderful thing she doesn't yet understand. Most importantly, she's looking at her as if she is still her fried above all else.

Jemma's first reaction to Skye's powers had been so much the product of what she'd been though, with Hydra, with Fitz, with their experience in the City, and with Reina and Cal. In hindsight, Skye can now see that Jemma's initial response to her gift was a much more muted version of the one she just received. Even then, more than anything, Jemma had been concerned for Skye, and she wanted to do whatever she could to protect her, but her fear and anger over what had happened to Trip and everything else that had happened up to that point had left a dark stain on that concern and twisted the possibilities Jemma could see and was willing to consider. Skye had carried the pain and lingering tension of that shadow with her, and her relationship with Jemma had never been the same. Fear and mistrust had driven them apart.

In the face of her friend's now obvious delight, Skye feels the piece of her that had felt broken since Simmons's harsh words after the events in the City finally start to mend. As much as she tried to tell herself that Jemma was reacting to the situation and not to her, that she would never want to hurt her and would never believe her to be dangerous, Skye couldn't believe it until this moment when her friend could have an honest reaction uncolored by the events of the past year.

Unwilling to allow her friend to continue cowering in a corner, Jemma reaches forward and gathers Skye back into a tight hug. Skye had always responded well to physical reassurance and affection, and Jemma can't image that such a fundamental part of her has changed over the last year.

As she runs a soothing hand up and down Skye's back, the vibrations radiating from her friend's form seem to shake some of Jemma's memories loose. They are nothing more than flashes, but she remembers the gut-wrenching feeling as she nearly plummeted to her death down a hole after being thrown through the air. She remembers holding a gun with unwavering hands and shooting at someone while dressed in a hazmat suit. Neither memory makes any sense. They are too short and out of context, but the fear and rage connected to them are almost unbearably clear.

Jemma is thankful that Skye is still too overwhelmed to notice the tension that has now taken hold in her muscles. She should feel relieved in this moment. Her memories are returning, even if only in bits and spurts, but relief is the last thing she feels. Confusion, disbelief, and fear are warring for first place, and Jemma finally begins to wonder if perhaps regaining her memories isn't the best case scenario for her after all.

After ensuring that Skye is calm and in control of her powers, Jemma retreats her to her room, needing the peace and quiet of the space to sort through her thoughts. Hugging a pillow close to her chest, she considers the snippets of memories she has remembered. She wants to hash them out with Fitz to help quell her anxiety. Her moment with Skye is proof that her memories will return to her if she can be patient long enough.

Pure, controllable science can't help her recover her memories since the Theta machine is clearly out of her grasp, so she has to develop a new plan. If she can wait a little while longer, she might regain enough of her memories that she won't feel too anxious about her teammates filling in the minor details or events she can't remember. If she can remember enough of her core memories from the last year, perhaps she won't suffer from the dissociation so prevalent among the subjects who consented to memory jogging. It's a shaky plan at best, but it's the only one she can convince herself to commit to, at least for the foreseeable future. If she doesn't continue to regain memories, she'll consider something else.

In the end, she decides not to tell Fitz anything. She doesn't want him to worry, and what little she has remembered probably won't make much sense outside of her head anyway. She doesn't mean to be secretive, but she also doesn't want to do anything to hurt the fragile but beautiful development in their relationship. They are already having to overcome so many hurdles as it is.

Every time she looks at Fitz, she can't help but feel a little bit anxious that she is going to wake up and everything will have been a dream. That he'll be gone and she'll be alone. Logically, she knows a year has passed and he's safe, but emotionally she is still trying to deal with the trauma of the med pod, which for her seems like it was less than a week ago. If she is interpreting the looks she sees Fitz giving her correctly, he has similar fears based off whatever she went through to end up in her current amnestic state. She doesn't want to drag him down with her worries and fears, so she keeps them hidden and forces herself to appreciate every moment she has with him right now, the past and future be damned.

Over the next several days, she splits her time between cuddling close to Fitz during breaks and after hours and reading everything she can about the procedures she is meant to perform on Agent Morse. What memories do return are equally fleeting as the initial ones, but they are thankfully less traumatic emotionally. One however, makes her smile whenever she thinks about it. She has no idea why she was tasked with sorting through old SSR files, but she is thankful beyond belief to remember passing a file to May that Agent Peggy Carter had not only held but also signed. After struggling to come to terms with so many dark emotions, the effervescent joy she remembers when that memory surfaces gives her back a sense of hope that everything will turn out alright in the end.

With a bit of bounce back in her step, she focuses her attention on Agent Morse. Her hands never falter and her stiches are as even and precise as they've ever been, but Jemma would be lying if she didn't admit feeling an overwhelming sense of relief when the operation ended. She's done what she can as a pseudo medical professional. The rest of Agent Morse's recovery will depend entirely on how well she follows the physical therapy routine Jemma is designing. Of course, she still has several days of bed rest ahead of her before they can contemplate even the most basic PT.

She still doesn't remember anything about Agent Morse, and Jemma can tell that it's wearing on the blonde agent. She tries to initiate conversations, and Jemma does her best to contribute, but she always feels more than a bit wary of the other woman even though she's bed ridden, and that anxiety makes her responses short and uncertain.

Based on how everyone, including Fitz, interacts with Agent Morse, Jemma wants to believe that her anxiety is completely unfounded, but she can't seem to overcome her feelings of unease and wariness. On the third day after Agent Morse's surgery, she learns why.

Having just popped by the lab to let Fitz know her plans for the morning, Jemma scurries to the medical bay to check on Agent Morse. There had been some slight inflammation around her stitches the previous evening, and Jemma wants to make sure that infection doesn't have even the slightest chance to set in.

"Hello, Agent Morse," she calls cheerfully, "How are you doing today?"

Bobbi is thankful to see a smile on Jemma's face, but she wishes she could convince her young teammate to call her by her first name. She understands that Jemma doesn't want to be rushed into remembering anything, but being called Agent Morse dredges up some memories that Bobbi would rather not think about at the moment. Her recovery is going slowly enough as it is. She doesn't need any more negative thoughts to crowd her already overtaxed and stressed mind when she can't resort to physical exertion or twirling her staves to work through them.

"I feel like a drugged up mummy," Bobbi answers truthfully. She's been swimming in a potent cocktail of painkillers, anti-inflammatories, and antibiotics for days, and far too much of her body is covered in gauze and bandages. She's completely helpless, and she hates it.

"Oh, well," Jemma pauses awkwardly, "We haven't gotten to the point of placing your internal organs in canopic jars yet, so maybe not too much like a mummy, I hope?"

Her attempt at humor is mediocre at best, but Bobbi can't help the small twitch of a smile that graces her face. She'd almost forgotten how endearingly awkward Jemma could be. It's been so long since her teammate had attempted a joke that even this poor effort seems promising.

Bobbi quickly loses what little humor she can find in the situation as Jemma continues to poke and prod her, calling her Agent Morse all the while. She knows that she shouldn't take her frustrations out on her, but she can't help snap a little when Jemma finally finishes examining her knee, which looks just as grotesque as the day Hunter and May rescued her, or maybe more so given the incisions and stitches.

"Good news, Agent Morse," Jemma chirps a little nervously. She can tell that the agent is frustrated, though she isn't sure if it has more to do with her faulty memory or the other woman's injuries. "If your injuries continue healing at their current rate, I think we'll be able to start your PT by the end of next week."

"You don't say, Dr. Simmons," Bobbi retorts dryly, stressing Jemma's formal title since Jemma seems determined to never use her first name no matter how many times she asks. She regrets allowing even that little bit of her frustration to show almost immediately.

Jemma had finally bucked up the courage to look the blonde agent in the eye when she had responded to her statement about PT. Whether it's the lighting of the room, the expression on Agent Morse's face, or the tone of her response, Jemma will never know, but something about that moment throws her so forcefully back into her memories that the tablet in her hand falls to the floor, clattering loudly as it lands.

At first, Bobbi thinks Jemma is just surprised and maybe a little clumsy as a result. As she continues to stare, at first blankly and then in horror, Bobbi realizes something much more serious is going on.

The memory is more than a flash this time. She finally gets a whole scene of her forgotten past, but she wishes more than anything that none of her memories had returned if this is what she had been doing for the past year.

In the memory, she is working in a lab, a huge lab at that, with dozens of other people she assumes to be scientists. As alarms ring in her ears, she stands and watches as a man and woman charge into the room, instructing everyone to move away from their desks while they investigate who has been ferrying Hydra intelligence to SHIELD. Though her hair is dark, the woman in her memory is unmistakably Agent Morse.

Light a deer caught in headlights, Jemma stands motionless as the rest of the memory washes over her. She remembers Agent Morse approaching her and reciting her career history and credentials. She remembers the menacing insignia flashing at her from walls, equipment, pins, and folders. She remembers stating emphatically, "My loyalties are with Hydra," and watching Agent Morse level her with a cool, unconvinced stare. She remembers the fear and anxiety of that moment.

What she doesn't remember is how she came to be at the Hydra lab or what she was trying to accomplish. She doesn't remember that she was undercover. She doesn't remember any of the details that would spare her the absolute panic that quickly overwhelms her system.

Unable to move more than a few inches due to her injuries and the slings stabilizing several of her limbs, Bobbi can only watch in horror as Jemma begins to hyperventilate. She tries calling her name a few times, but nothing seems to snap her out of the trance that has taken hold.

Seeing that her efforts aren't having any effect, Bobbi has the sense to press the call button on the wall next to her bed to bring in reinforcements. Fortunately, Hunter responds, and she directs him to get Fitz, Coulson, Skye, and May down to the med bay as soon as possible. Jemma has only seemed truly comfortable with the members of her original team, and Bobbi hopes that having them near will help Jemma calm down.

Once she ends the call with Hunter, Bobbi resumes calling out to her struggling teammate. She has just finished barking out "Agent Simmons" when Jemma snaps back to reality and the rest of the team arrives.

Still sucking in air ineffectually, Jemma meets the older agent's concerned eyes, though hers relay nothing except abject fear and panic.

"You're Hydra," Jemma wheezes out, though it's barely audible.

"What?" Bobbi questions, having not been able to make sense of the soft words under Jemma's labored breathing.

Louder, Jemma repeats, "You're Hydra," as her body begins to shake.

"No! Jemma, it's not true," Bobbi tries to reason, having no idea what interaction or conversation Jemma must have remembered while she was in her trance. Of course, it would be something like this. Of course she couldn't remember Bobbi saving her or any of the other positive moments they had together. It just had to be their undercover work at Hydra before Jemma knew she was SHIELD too.

"It is. I remember. The lab. The investigation. Oh, god!," Jemma cries out, her confusion and agony clearly apparent. "I'm Hydra?" She whirls around, meeting Fitz's troubled gaze.

"I'm Hydra," she confesses in anguish, suspecting that he must know this already. No wonder he looks concerned. She'd promised him. She vividly remembers him asking her for that assurance by the side of a pool after they discovered Ward's betrayal, and she'd told him with conviction that she wasn't.

Except now it seems that she was. How had her loyalties been swayed? What had happened that was enough of an incentive for her to abandon SHIELD? For her to abandon Fitz? In this moment, she feels like she'll never be able to trust herself again. What other horrors will her memory unleash?

Stunned, Fitz watches as Jemma breaks down. Less than an hour ago she had popped by the lab to kiss his cheek, a sunny smile on her face even if she did seem a bit peaky. Now, she has tears streaming from her eyes and an expression of utter confusion and distress on her face. As he puts the pieces together from her few words, his thoughts mirror Bobbi's. Of all the things from the past year that she could have remembered, why did it have to be that?

Unwilling to watch her suffer, Fitz moves quickly to pull her into a comforting embrace. She resists at first, too shocked by this latest revelation to feel that she deserves his comfort, but she eventually melts into his arms as the shock pulls the last bit of strength from her body.

Sensing her impending collapse, Fitz gently lowers them to the floor where she curls up, crying into his shoulder as her hand grips his sweater so tightly her knuckles turn white. "I'm Hydra," she continues to mumble, each time her torment increasing, especially when she finally voices the newest fear that has taken root: "I'm like Ward."

"No, Jemma, no!" Fitz shushes quietly but emphatically. "You're not. You weren't." He isn't such how much she'll be willing to hear given her request to be told only what is necessary to do her work, but he can't let her believe that she had betrayed them like Ward had.

Coulson comes to the same conclusion as he hears her tormented confession. Squatting just beside them, he places his right hand over her clenched fingers in an effort to soothe.

"Agent Simmons," he begins, before correcting his approach. "Jemma. Jemma, look at me, please."

It takes a moment, but she eventually turns her bloodshot eyes to him, and he winces at the pain he sees swirling in them, but he continues on.

"I know that you don't want to risk your recovery, but you need to know at least the basics of your connection and Agent Morse's to Hydra. I don't want you to continue suffering when a simple explanation could prevent it. Will you let me explain?" he pleads. He knows she will have a hard enough time coping with the rest of her memories. This at least he can fix if she'll let him.

They all wait on bated breath as she continues to cry softly and weigh her options. It's sooner than she would like, especially since this is the first substantial memory she has had, but she can't reconcile what she knows about herself and this memory anyway. Ultimately, she decides she is far more likely to pull away from them by not understanding what she has just remembered than she is if she allows Coulson to fill in some of the gaps.

Nodding tentatively, she murmurs, "Just the basics, please?"

Relieved, Coulson squeezes her hand before speaking: "You went undercover at one of Hydra's lab to gather intel for me. Bobbi was there too as the head of the security team, gathering her own intel and watching out for you. Neither of you were ever really Hydra. You were there as SHIELD agents. When your cover was blown, you both returned here."

There, he thinks, that should be enough for her to make sense of whatever she has remembered without giving too much away. He hadn't mentioned Bakshi, Whitehall, or the obelisk. He hadn't brought up Reina or Trip. Most especially, he hadn't mentioned her first interaction with Fitz upon her return to the base. Still, his meager explanation must have helped because he sees some of the tension drain from her form, though tears continue to fall every so often from her eyes. Gripping her hand one last time, Coulson moves away and ushers the rest of the team out of the room to give them as much privacy as he can.

"Thank you, sir," she manages to say as he retreats, before tucking her forehead back against Fitz's neck in an attempt to quell the lingering trembles running up and down her body. Coulson's brief statements have quieted the worst of her fears. She isn't a traitor at least. But his words have left her with more questions. Her inability to lie had become something of a joke between them after the catastrophe on the train and with Sitwell. Why was she suddenly trusted with undercover work? How long was she there? Why did she consent to go in the first place? She tries to ignore her need to press for more answers. Now isn't the time to throw herself headfirst into memory jogging. Nothing good will come of it if the rest of her memories are anything like this one.

For several minutes, the room remains silent other than Jemma's intermittent sniffles and the low, steady hum of Bobbi's monitoring equipment. When she finally feels like she'll be able to stand without collapsing, Jemma pulls away from Fitz. He's no stranger to her tears, but she feels embarrassed for falling to pieces. Eyes averted, she stands and takes in a few deep breaths as he also returns to his feet.

Sensing her unease, he grabs her hand before ducking down to try to catch her eyes. "Jem?" he calls softly. Unable to resist his tender entreaty, she lifts her head to look at him, one final tear falling down her cheek. He is quick to lift his other hand to gently wipe it away. He hates to see her in pain, and he fears that this moment of collapse is only foreshadowing the many more that are to come. He can only imagine what her reaction will be when she remembers the other events of the past year, including his treatment of her for most of it.

Nevertheless, he's been given a second chance to help her deal with those traumas, and he won't waste it. He'd pushed her aside and forced her to try to cope alone then, but now he'll be right beside her the whole damn time if she'll let him.

"We'll figure it out together," he promises sincerely, sense that she needs that reassurance most of all.

She gives him a watery smile before turning her attention to Bobbi. Pulling her shoulders back as if that will give her courage, she meets the gaze of her supposed teammate and fellow Hydra impersonator. If her grip on Fitz's hand turns painful as she struggles to maintain her composure, he shows no evidence of it. Other than Coulson's explanation, she has no evidence on which to base her opinion of this woman other than her memory. Still, she trusts Coulson, and if he says she is their teammate, she must be, and Jemma will do everything she can to help her recover even if she wants to do nothing but hide from her.

"I'll be by to check up on you later, Agent Morse," she promises.

"Bobbi. Please, Jemma. Call me Bobbi," Bobbi responds.

"Bobbi," Jemma says slowly, surprised when the word seems to feel so natural coming out of her mouth. Perhaps Agent Morse has had a point in her non-stop requests. "I'll be back later, Bobbi," she reconfirms before tugging Fitz out of the med bay toward his room.

"I know you need to work," she babbles as he opens his door, "so please don't feel like you need to sit with me, but could I just, please, stay here for a while?"

She's feeling suddenly shy and unsure now that she has to content with her first significant memory, but he takes it all in stride. He motions for her to sit on the bed as he rifles through his drawers. Plucking out a pair of flannel bottoms and a threadbare cotton shirt, he turns back toward her and presents his offerings.

"Why don't you change into something more comfortable while I go get you a cuppa?"

The soft smile that graces her face soothes both of them, as does the tender kiss he presses against her forehead as he leaves to go make her tea. As she swaddles herself in the soft fabric containing the barest hint of his scent, she feels another band of anxiety loosen. If she has learned anything today, she realizes that getting her memories back is likely to be as traumatic as finding out she had lost them in the first place. Still, with Fitz by her side, she feels like she might be able to make it through the experience, even if she is a little bruised and battered in the end. In the past ten years, there has never been anything they couldn't overcome together.

With that comforting thought drowning out the remainder of her anxiety and fear, at least for the moment, she settles into a more comfortable position to wait for his return. Once she sends him back to the lab after his almost guaranteed few minutes of fussing over her, she'll spend a few hours here, drinking tea and working from her tablet before facing the rest of the base again. Content with her plan, she wriggles down a little further, her movement releasing a scent that is purely Fitz from the bedding: a bit of his cologne mixed with the scent of clean laundry, a whiff of solder, and just a hint of the acrid tang that seems to permeate the lab no matter how attentively they clean it. It's the smell she most associates with being home, and it more than anything other than Fitz himself helps to calm her.

When he returns, the cup of chamomile sending soft swirls of steam into the air, he finds her fast asleep on his bed, her nose buried in his pillow and her limbs completely lax. In sleep, she looks more like herself than she ever does awake, even now that she isn't carrying most of her memories from the past year. Each day, there is a bit more tension in her face. He knows that she's trying to hide it from him, and he wishes she wouldn't. He'd happily help her carry whatever burden she is trying to manage alone.

Setting the tea down on the side table, he reaches out to brush a lock of her hair off her cheek, and smiles reflexively as she does when she feels his fingertips on her face. She doesn't wake, but she does shift a little as if chasing the fleeting feeling of his skin on hers. He obliges her unconscious request by pressing another kiss to her forehead before leaving her to resume his work in the lab, though not before jotting a brief note to her to come find him when she's wakes.

Despite the apparent ease she has somehow managed to find in this moment, he can't shake the feeling that today has just been the tip of the iceberg, and he is wary for what is to come. He only hopes that she continues to let him in as she had done today instead of shutting him out. Given what she has left to remember and how they both reacted to each other in the year she's missing, he fears neither of them will survive that level of emotional or physical separation again. Determined not to let history repeat itself, he starts planning a surprise for her. The tricky part will be convincing Coulson to let them both off base. Still, if anyone deserves a chance to make new, happy memories, it's Jemma, and Fitz won't let anything prevent her from doing so. He'll do anything to keep her brilliant smile on her face. Anything.

TBC

A/N: Ever since Jemma went off the deep in circa episode eleven in season two, I've been waiting for some kind of reconciliation between her and Skye. Honestly, so many of Jemma's story arcs from season two still aren't resolved and that bothers me. She and Fitz never talk about why she actually went to Hydra. She and Skye never find their friendship again. She never talks to anyone about killing Bakshi while going after Ward. And then, of course, she gets sucked into the monolith. I really just want her character to have some time to cope with all that trauma and find a sense of closure.

We still have some angsty bits to get through in this fic. We all know what happened in season two, so clearly most of what Jemma is going to remember for the rest of this story isn't going to be pleasant. She's going to get more confused and anxious as additional bits and pieces come back to her, especially when she starts to remember her interactions with Fitz. And Fitz is going to scramble trying to make things right. He'll get his due for being such a putz for most of last season, but I won't be too mean since he really is a sweetheart at his core, as we see clearly in this season.

Never fear, even though parts of this will probably be rough, as most of you know or could guess based on what I write, I am a diehard FitzSimmons shipper through and through, so our poor science darlings will be together and stronger because of it in the end.

Hope you enjoy.