Drastic Changes

Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, except for Suzy Therese, I suppose.

The woman, who entered Ward's office (as in place of work), was a complete stranger, rather reminiscent of Salma Hayek of all people, just somewhat more voluptuous – and short. Suzy Therese, who had only seen Salma Hayek on TV (mostly in the various movies), was impressed and told the newcomer so, before adding:

"So, are you here for daddy's job?"

The woman blinked. She had been staring oddly at Suzy Therese as soon as when she had entered, but that was okay: Suzy Therese was sitting in daddy's chair, after all. "Yes," the newcomer finally exclaimed, "I am. Possibly. I mean, I am here on regarding the job ad-"

"Ok," Suzy Therese nodded sagely, picking her cue from daddy, who had appeared behind the woman and was giving Suzy Therese cues from his position. "I like you! What's your name?"

"Jemma Simmons!" the woman said, before pausing. "Uh, that is-"

"It's Dr. Jemma Simmons, Suzy Therese, and I'll take it from here," daddy said brightly, startling Dr. Simmons, but for a good reason – this was daddy, after all. "Dr. Simmons? Let us sit down. Suzy – you still have your homework to finish, remember?"

"Yes, daddy!" Suzy Therese said cheerfully, and ran off – but not before adding:

"Doctor Jemma? I like you – you remind me of mommy!"

And then she was gone.

/

The two adults stayed, looking at each over with various degrees of awkwardness. "Is it too late to pretend that I am not, well, myself?" Jemma (for it was actually her) broke the silence first. "Ever since the 0-8-4 had released me, I found this to be very easily."

"I'd rather not," Grant Ward (for that was actually him too) shook his head. "As far as I have remembered, you were a rather remarkable and formidable woman, and the fact that you seem to have finally gained some muscle upon your bones doesn't change it-"

"Muscle?!" Jemma snapped incredulously, "muscle? It is not muscle – it's, it is technically flesh, Ward! Not only I look like someone else, but this someone else is also fat!"

"Then considering that the job ad was for a secretary, which is a sedentary job, why are you here?"

Jemma opened her mouth, closed it, and then spoke once more: "Ward, what the Hell is going on-"

"It's Palamas nowadays, for conspiracy's sake," it was Grant's turn to interrupt. "And please, call me Douglass – for the same reason, plus it's also my name, you know?"

Jemma took a deep breath – her gaze was no longer soft and pitiful, as a wounded rabbit's would be, but had some old steel in it, at least for a moment – and tried yet again:

"What is going on, boss? Yes, I was eaten by a mammoth rock of 0-8-4, but when I came back – it all had fallen apart. Hunter and Morse are obsessed with having revenge on you – that I understand. Coulson is in a perpetual attitude – that I have some glimmer of an idea, yes. But Skye has become completely unlike herself, the Cavalry's gone-"

"You've gone to the wrong man, Simmons," Ward shook his head. "Your boyfriend's Leo Fitz, not me-"

"Leo Fitz is with Mack," Jemma said bitterly. "Apparently, some time after I got eaten by the rock, Leo decided that fate was against him and me as a couple, so he could give Mack a chance – and vice versa." She paused. "Rejection bites, hah?"

"Simmons. I have been obsessed with Skye, and not in a very good way, so it is actually for the best that it is over. I have been in love with Kara Lynn, but I did not to recognize it until it was too late. Now I'm raising her daughter and am generally trying to do whatever it is that I am trying to do."

"To lead Hydra," Jemma half-stated half-suggested.

"No," Ward shook his head. "I'm leading a Hydra cell, perhaps, but I'm trying to break free of the Hydra matrix, shall we say? Considering that Hydra internal structure was already chaotic, it is not as hard as you think that it is." A pause. "As a consequence, if you're following some sort of an infiltration plan and assume that working for me would give you a great opening into Hydra, you're just wrong. Sorry to have wasted your time-"

"I'm not here for that – not this time!" Jemma snapped. "Wait, how did you know about my time as a spy?"

"Past experience and training. I do not know why Mack and Morse did not help Fitz connect the dots when you were gone the first time around, but I did. Connect the dots. And I would rather not have you waste your time and mine, trying to see things that either are there already, or just aren't at all."

"This isn't right," Jemma said quietly, shifting on her seat: her new shape was more bottom-heavy than her old one; before she was swallowed by the 0-8-4 Jemma Simmons was a typical S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, a blend of field agent and lab scientist; now, after she was spat out, it's evident, that she'll need to hit the gym a lot to get into a proper shape even by the S.H.I.E.L.D. cadet standards (but Ward doesn't care: Jemma Simmons' most dangerous asset was her mind, and it wasn't changed so drastically, if at all, he suspects).

"This isn't right," Jemma is saying meanwhile. "Ever since I came back, my friends – they weren't really my friends, not anymore. Hunter and Morse are with their own team – the S.T.R.I.K.E.; Fitz is with Mack; Coulson and Skye appear to have become almost parodies of their old selves – bad, unfunny parodies – and May is gone, gone for good."

"Actually, she has gone back to her civilian husband, albeit for good," Ward replied. "They live not that far away from me and my daughter; if you'll decide to stay, you'll run into them sooner or later-"

"Ward? Why are you trying to pretend that things are like how they were on the Bus?"

"I'm not pretending to be anything or anyone," Ward shakes his head. "On the contrary, I'm honestly trying to be my real self." A pause. "You, Skye and the others were right – I was pretending to be someone else on the Bus, and it seems that my creation was more realistic than I have thought; and now I'll be paying for this for a long, long while-"

"Did you care about us back on the Bus?" Jemma addresses the elephant in the room; maybe Fitz had asked this question once, but right now she does not know nor care.

There is a pause. "Yes, yes I did," Grant nods. "But, but I was told that feelings were a weakness to be overcome, and overcome it I did – to everyone's loss."

"I see," Jemma nodded sagely. She then proceeded to walk over to him and punch him in the shoulder:

"Ow!"

"There! Now we are even! Want to start over?" she asked her interlocutor.

"..."

"We were friends, we were enemies, we were allies," Jemma continued, a trifle shyly. "But we've been always there together, in the midst of things. I- I do not want to lose that. I don't want to lose the last person who remembers just who I was?"

"A doctor of biochemistry?"

"Among other things, as opposed to Salma Hayek's cousin or someone like that," Jemma acknowledged with a grimace. "Fitz's avoiding me, Skye and Coulson have their own issues with the past, the others – there's only you, really – Melinda's gone, remember?"

"Actually, she and Andrew will be over for dinner in a couple of days. If you want – you can meet her then," Grant said helpfully. "Maybe she can help you get back into shape, too?"

"Would she?" Jemma said acidly, but not as acidly as one would expect. "I accept, I guess."

"Good."

There was an awkward, ugly, uncomfortable pause. "Jemma," Grant said gently. "Let's be honest. The man that I was on the Bus – that was fiction. But a really good fiction, to the point where it became, possibly, better than the real man. I know that I can never go back to being someone like that. I, however, would like to be a good man all the same-"

"You robbed three of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s bases! Three! Two in the north, one near the Playground!"

"I don't think that I will be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent ever again – this is highly unlikely," Grant didn't sound too abashed, "and frankly, S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't a too fun place to be around – not with Skye currently realizing that her boyfriend number three has her own agenda, again, Morse being herself, and Hunter being her bitch, for example."

"Lincoln doesn't have his own agenda-"

"His primary alliance is with the InHumans and Li Shi, unlike Skye's. Skye is devout to S.H.I.E.L.D. They will resolve their differences – if they want to," Grant said simply, in a voice that did not have any strongly negative emotions in itself.

"And you're fine with that?"

"Skye has moved on; so have I. If Kara Lynn was around, Suzy Therese might have been a big sister by now," Ward shrugged. "Skye herself isn't pregnant, is she?"

Jemma twitched. "I didn't get to do her physical; I was busy stabilizing my own genes. And once I did that, I realized that the others were more interested in me being genetically unstable, then vice versa. Maybe if I had developed any useful skills, like Lincoln or Skye, it would be different, but since I hadn't? It is all business and the labs. I... I don't want that anymore."

"So instead you decided to be a spy in my midst," Grant nodded sagely. "I'm sorry to disappoint you-"

"Actually," Jemma said quietly, "I was honestly looking for a new life. Cavalry – I mean Melinda – was supposedly living in the neighbourhood and so I started to fish around, deciding that if I am to start a new life, maybe it would be easier with a familiar face around-"

"Well, now you got several, plus a new one – Suzy Therese's," Grant shrugged. "You've read the ad, you know-"

"I do, and this is why I accepted it," Jemma shrugged. "I honestly expected to meet a different man – a complete stranger – when I answered the ad." She paused, thinking over her next words, when Ward interrupted her:

"And so you have. I am not the man pretending to be on the Bus; I am not the man that John, or Coulson, or even I once thought that I was. I am finally free to be my own man, however, flawed he is, and I will not exchange that for Coulson's oh-so-generous offer of T.A.H.I.T.I. Honestly, the man is many things, but Obama isn't one of them."

"..."

"Only the president of the US is able to pull-off this sort of high-handed generosity, and that is why he's the president, and not Coulson," Ward clarified further.

"Ah," Jemma nodded. "Well, he's the director – that's also cool, yeah?"

Grant shrugged. "Let's get down to business, shall we? Here's the business contract and a list of your duties, and I don't expect you to shirk them."

"That's fair," Jemma nodded, as she looked over the paperwork. "What's the catch?"

"The obvious. You are not in the loop, so to speak. I am not Hydra, but I am not S.H.I.E.L.D. either, and I don't trust you with that sort of information." He paused. "I will trust you with Suzy Therese, though, so don't start complaining-"

"You will?" Jemma blinked. "Ok, I won't – complain." She paused and signed the paperwork. "There. All done. Now what?"

"Daddy, daddy, I'm done with homework!" Suzy Therese yelled, as she ran into the room. "Can we have dinner?"

"Yes we do – I mean that we can," Grant shook his head. "Do you want to stay?" he asked Jemma. "We're having sausages in bread-"

"I don't want to impose-"

"You won't."

"Well, ok," Jemma nodded. "I'll stay."

And the three of them had dinner together – the first of many.

End