Chapter Text
Boom.
She awoke with a start. Sitting up in her bed, Jemma Simmons looked around the darkened bunk room.
“Skye…?”
Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she scanned the room. Not a soul. Turning to her bedside, she saw Skye still asleep. A faint snore pierced the silence, a tiny mumble after that. Tiredly grinning, Jemma rubbed her eyes and noticed something else.
Alarm klaxons were going off. The red hazard light in the hallway illuminated the crack under their door.
“What is going on…?” She grabbed Skye’s shoulders and hoisted her up.
“Skye, WAKE UP. Something’s happening....Wake up!”
“Mmm…”
“SKYE. I’m serious!”
“Mmm ok, ok…what is it…?”
“Listen.”
Jemma’s gaze stayed on Skye as her senses came to. Alarms at this time of night were definitely unusual. Skye lifted herself off her bed and opened the door, peering around the hallway. The corridor lights were all off. Jemma got up and stood behind her, peering over Skye’s shoulder.
She couldn’t see a thing. Far down the hallway, she could hear shouting. A moment later, the unmistakeable sounds of gunshots. Not good.
“Hello?”, Jemma called out. Not a thing. Skye turned to her and closed the door.
“We need to find out what’s going on. What if the others are in trouble?”
Jemma nodded. The others. Coulson. May. Ward. Fitz. She felt a pang of guilt sneaking away from the group the night before to be with Skye; instead of working with the team on refitting The Bus, she had run off to a far-flung residential area of the Triskelion to be with her still-secret girlfriend. It wasn’t merely a purely physical relationship they had; Jemma could live without sex. Of course, she wasn’t above enjoying private time with her lover, and they had a few times before.
The close intimacy they shared was what she treasured most; what made Jemma most enamored with Skye. It was a constant welcome relief from Jemma’s work, and of course she jumped at the opportunity for some real quality time with Skye, being able to hold her hand, take naps with her, chat freely with her without the fear of someone overhearing. But now, Jemma knew that regardless of where they were, they had to find the others.
Something had happened.
As the pair walked down the corridor, the hallway became very quiet as the alarms died down. The lights had come back on, a faint dim from their usual brightness. The shouting had disappeared, and all the only sound they could hear was the industrial humming of the building. Jemma happened upon an opened emergency call box, the phone swinging by its cable as if somebody had made a call in a hurry and left.
Picking up the phone, she listened to nothing but static. Dead.
“Great….I know there’s a security office down the corridor.” Skye nodded silently, stepping further down the hallway.
Following behind her, Jemma couldn’t help but admire Skye’s strength in the moment. The hallway was a literal scene from some bad horror movie, and yet Skye’s composure remained strong. She was a true field agent in the making. How lucky was she? She couldn’t believe that her quiet scientist self had stumbled upon her.
Before her musings continued, Jemma was stopped by a figure standing down the corridor to her left. She reached out to Skye and pointed down the hall. Taking the lead, Skye approached the figure. Jemma felt uncomfortable as the silence of the hallway continued.
She could hear the figure laboriously breathing, standing erect. She wasn’t sure, but she noticed a slight sway in the figure’s stance.
Skye moved closer to the figure. “Hello…?”
No response. She tried again, reaching out to tap the figure’s shoulder.
Almost immediately the figure turned around, and the pair screamed.
Jemma was a mix of horrified and fascinated. The figure was a man, a SHIELD strike team soldier. His face held a blank expression, his cheeks sunken in like a living skull. His mouth was open, a flash of red running down the corner of his mouth. He had a firm grasp on Skye, snarling at her with a deep rasp and reaching out to her with his gaping jaws.
His eyes were filled with a primal violence, almost as if he was trying to…
“Jemma, HELP ME…!”
Skye’s shout spurned Jemma into action. She grabbed the soldier from behind and pulled him back away from Skye as hard as she could. His strength was immense, almost inhuman. He pushed Jemma back with ease, throwing her back. Skye fell to the ground with the soldier snarling over her.
Reeling from her impact against the wall, Jemma came to and jumped on the soldier’s back, pulling his head away from Skye. As she heaved him back, she felt his head turn. A sharp, digging pain shot through her arm as the soldier dug his jaw into her forearm. She yelped as she felt her muscles rip apart, the bones in her arm fracturing with each bite.
As her eyes filled with tears, she saw through the blur Skye grabbing the soldier’s head and snapping it around. The squelch of snapping vertebrae echoed in the hallway as his figure fell motionless to the ground. Jemma fell with him, her arm slipping from his now-limp jaws. Fire was coursing through her body, and she let out a moan as she began to shut down. As consciousness began to flutter from her, she could hear Skye’s muffled cries.
She felt herself being lifted up. Her mind was like a racing cloud; filled with thoughts but unable to form a single word for Skye to hear. She felt another pang of pain, this time like she was being bitten all over again. She felt her throat fill with another scream, and heard Skye’s voice again telling her it was going to be ok. At the rate things were going, she was sure that things weren’t ok. She felt more tightness in her arm, followed by a wave of numbness.
Finally, it all stopped, and she fell into darkness.