A/N: This ended up being way longer than the one-shot I had intended it to be, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. This first chapter is a lot of exposition and flashback stuff, but, after that, things get happy and sweet and fun, which is really the point of this fic. The rest of this will definitely be up within the next week or two since it just needs to be edited.

I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., obviously, and the title come from "She's Got You High" but Mumm-ra (which is a super adorable song that I definitely recommend listening to).

Thanks for reading!

Agent May sighed as the small jet approached its destination. With a mission like this, the May of years past would have been steely faced and the picture of composure, but, in recent months, May had slowly begun expressing her feelings more as she and Andrew worked on their relationship. The month away from S.H.I.E.L.D. and life-and-death situations had been good for her, but, even with this recent development, it was the nature of the mission, more than anything, that was the reason for May's sigh.

It had been nearly four months since the team had seen any sign of Agent Simmons, and everyone on the base had been giving up hope little by little. By the time May had come back to the Playground, the search for Simmons, and, more specifically, for information on the stone, the Kree, and alien artifacts in general, had been in full swing. Skye was in charge of finding Inhumans to recruit them or at least let them know that S.H.I.E.L.D. was an available resource should they need assistance, but the younger woman also used the opportunity to fish for any possible information on the stone that could be useful to Fitz back at the lab. May had occasionally gone out to gather information on the stone for Fitz, but most of her time was spent helping Skye with Inhuman recruitment and training.

Fitz, for his part, had been holding up when May returned. She knew things hadn't been good during the first few weeks after Simmons's disappearance, but the Fitz that had nodded at her in greeting when she and Coulson walked into the room that had become his new workspace had been unsmiling but not unhinged. Mack, who had been working with him at that particular moment, had welcomed May back more enthusiastically, despite the fact that Fitz definitely knew her better. May had offered the larger man a half smile and a sympathetic glance at Fitz to which Mack had just shrugged, turning back to the stone that dominated the room as if to say that they were still working on it.

Some part of May was glad that she had been away when the tragedy occurred. She and Andrew had been flipping through the channels lazily on his sofa as May reveled in her first real day off in years. The pair had been doing a lot of talking, which May was gradually getting used to, since her default for so long had been silence, but it was these little, comfortable moments between her and Andrew that she had really missed. There had been some moments like this back on the Bus with Coulson and the rest of the team, but with them there was always some threat in the background – Centipede, Hydra, Ward. With Andrew, there was nothing to worry about.

Until the phone rang.

When she first heard her cell go off on the coffee table between her and Andrew's feet, she was tempted to ignore it, but Andrew picked up the device first.

"It's Coulson," he said, his brow furrowed. "You've only been gone a day. What could he need?"

The relaxed smile that had been on May's face all day slipped away at Andrew's words. She took the phone from him wordlessly, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She knew Coulson would only call if something bad had happened.

"Coulson?" she answered the phone, her tone even, though she couldn't help the worry that seeped into her words.

"I'm sorry to call you like this, May," Coulson replied. She could hear voices and echoes all around him, and she braced herself for the inevitable tragedy, knowing that a flurry of activity accompanied by a phone call like this could only mean bad news.

"What is it?" Her words were slightly less even.

"It's Simmons," he said.

May inhaled sharply.

He continued. "That Kree rock she was studying. Something happened and the door got open somehow and, you know how it turns liquid sometimes? Well, it did that, and it swallowed Simmons, and we really don't know how to get her back. Skye says she can't even feel her inside the rock now. It's like she's gone."

That had not been what May was expecting. "Oh my God."

Coulson sighed. "I know. We only just found out. Fitz couldn't find her anywhere, and then Skye checked, and we saw it on the security tape."

May sat back on the sofa as Coulson mentioned Simmons's best friend. "How's Fitz?"

Coulson didn't speak for a moment. "Determined," he said finally. "Heartbroken, but determined. He just ordered around half the base without a second thought." May could hear a note of pride in the director's voice.

"Do you need me to come back?" May asked, glancing at Andrew who was watching her worriedly from the other end of the sofa. She didn't want to leave him, but she hated the idea of her team having to deal with this without her.

"No," Coulson said firmly. "You need a break. We have practically the whole base working on this right now, and Skye and Mack are in with Fitz. We'll be okay. You take care of yourself, and I'll keep you posted on the situation here. Hopefully I'll be able to call with some good news soon."

May felt like arguing, but she knew Coulson was right. There really wasn't that much good she could do by being back, and with any luck Simmons would be found sooner rather than later. Fitz was one of the smartest people May had ever met, even without his other half. If anyone could figure out how to bring back Simmons, it would be him.

"Okay," May said simply. "Call me as soon as you find out anything."

Coulson confirmed that he would and then May hung up the phone.

Andrew stared at her, worry in his eyes. "What's going on, Melinda?"

For once, May had been glad to have someone to talk to.

After May had returned to base, two more months had gone by without any real leads, and Coulson had begun trying to encourage Fitz to work on other S.H.I.E.L.D. projects, to take a break from the stone and try to clear his head. Fitz had resisted Coulson's attempts for the most part, but occasionally Mack or Skye had been able to lure him out of the room with the stone to get his help with some task meant to divert his attention from what was beginning to look like a fruitless search. The longest one of these diversions had lasted was the entire day that Fitz had spent modifying the prosthetic hand for Coulson that Mack had created. But when he'd finished his work, it was right back to Simmons and the monolith. The same old information over and over again.

But then it had happened: a lead. In a rare mission away from the base, Fitz had been able to track down a scientist who specialized in alien artifacts, and the man had given the team their first new information in months: specific geological conditions that were often the result of exposure to extraterrestrial life, Kree extraterrestrial life in particular. Fitz, with Skye's help, had begun scanning, and they had soon compiled a list of sites that matched the conditions the scientist had described. At least one site was examined per day, with one agent heading the mission, a couple more, often from Skye's Inhuman team, providing backup, and one med-officer waiting on the ship in case Simmons was found and needed attention. Fitz worked his way onto every mission he could, but on occasions where more than one trip took place in a day or when Coulson ordered him to stay behind and get some rest, Fitz was grounded and spent the day pacing or tinkering with Mack in the garage just for something to do.

Everyone had been hopeful in the beginning, but, a month in, they'd had no luck. The list was long and grew longer every day. Occasionally there seemed to be evidence of alien activity at a site, but even with this confirmation that their scientist lead had at least some idea of what he was talking about, the apparently telling geological conditions seemed to be naturally occurring more often than not. Each mission that returned to base empty-handed made the faces of the team sink lower and lower, and May wondered whether Coulson would shut the operation down. Fitz, however, maintained the appearance, at least, of hope. He would cross off location after location, remarking to anyone nearby that they were one step closer to finding her. Those around him would nod, trying to share his optimism.

And so May found herself in charge of this mission. She had been on several of these already, and each one just made her realize more and more the futility of their search. This was almost their fortieth location, and, though May would never admit it to anyone except Andrew, she had very little hope left that Simmons could be found, much less found alive. It was just too unlikely.

May turned around to check on her passengers. She had been lucky enough to nab Skye on one of her free days back at the base, and the younger girl had understood that May wanted someone with her that she knew well, just to help the inevitable disappointment go down easier. Seated beside Skye was Lincoln, Skye's number two in her Inhuman operations. May respected the kid and was glad that he was usually there to watch Skye's back.

Seated further away from the Inhumans was a med officer named Henry that May knew had been around the base a decent length of time. He had said before takeoff that he had known Simmons fairly well. Unspoken were the words that could be found behind the eyes of anyone who had known Simmons at the base: we miss her.

Fitz, naturally, had wanted to join them on the mission, but Coulson had ordered him to stay behind, since he had been on five missions in the past five days.

"You have to take a break, Fitz," Coulson had said, trying to reason with him. "May and Skye can handle this, you know that."

Fitz had finally nodded and returned, dejectedly, to the room with the stone, adding locations to list and trying to look for similarities that could differentiate the naturally occurring conditions from those of alien origin, which would allow him to cross more locations off the list.

May sighed again as she picked up her comm to talk to Coulson. "We're making our descent, over."

A second later came the reply. "Copy. Good luck, May." Coulson's voice echoed the lack of hope that May felt.

She replaced the comm and prepared the plane for landing.

Coulson stood up from his desk after May hung up her comm. He had been trying to stay positive for Fitz and for the rest of the team, but four months of nothing was getting a little hard to take. While everyone on the base wanted to find Simmons, comments had drifted up to him from agents and others who didn't know her wondering why Coulson was putting so much effort into an increasingly futile search for one scientist. Sometimes Coulson didn't know himself. If this lack of progress continued, he was going to be forced to shut down the missions. Coulson didn't even want to think what that would do to Fitz. In giving up the search for one half of Fitzsimmons, Coulson thought it was likely that he would lose the other half too.

Coulson sighed and headed down to find Fitz and tell him that the team was about to reach the destination. It was part of their agreement that anytime Fitz was required to stay back from a mission he would be privy to every update Coulson received from whichever agent was currently leading the mission.

Fitz was holding up well, but Coulson could see the cracks in the façade. It was nothing like it had been at the beginning, but the months without Simmons were starting to wear Fitz down as they had the rest of the team.

Things had really been bad for the first few weeks, with Fitz not sleeping or eating unless he had been forced to, and even then he sometimes had sneaked out of his room in the middle of the night leaving Mack or Skye to find him in the morning curled up asleep on the floor beside the stone, his laptop open and taking readings. After a month without Jemma, Fitz had started remembering to eat and most nights he actually made his way to his bunk, though finding Fitz asleep at his desk in the room with the stone because he had stayed up too late working was still a fairly common occurrence. He had been constantly going through any resources they had, sending, with Coulson's authority, any available agents out to meet with scientists and specialists to find any scrap of information regarding the stone, all while he stayed in the same room where Simmons had disappeared.

For those first few weeks, Coulson had tried to keep someone with Fitz at all times to prevent him from doing anything drastic, like jumping into the case containing the stone himself. But Coulson also wanted to make sure that Fitz didn't drift away and start talking to himself like he had when Simmons had gone undercover at Hydra months before.

Luckily, Coulson's worries had never born fruit. Fitz was focused, driven, even obsessed, but he was stable. Every so often Coulson could see the same look of utter hopelessness that had been on Fitz's face when he discovered what had happened four months before. Coulson was certain that he had never seen someone look so broken as Fitz had when he first saw the security footage of the stone swallowing Simmons up like a wave reclaiming the sand. Coulson knew that Fitz and Simmons's relationship hadn't been the same since they were rescued from the middle of the ocean, but, whatever had happened between them, Coulson was certain that none of it mattered to Fitz anymore. All the young engineer cared about was finding Jemma and bringing her home.

As okay as things had been, Bobbi and Hunter's decision to take a step back from S.H.I.E.L.D. while Bobbi was healing, while understandable, had still hit Coulson hard, especially when it was grouped with Simmons's disappearance and figuring out his new prosthetic hand. The loss of the couple brought their previously close-knit group at the Playground down to just him, Fitz, Mack, and Skye, so Coulson had been thrilled when May called him after a month and told him that she was returning the following day.

Coulson and Skye had gone to meet May as she walked back in to base and, immediately, Skye had pulled her in for a hug. With as hard as the situation was for Fitz, Skye had been forced to put on a brave face and work on her and Coulson's Inhuman initiative, despite that fact that the missing scientist was one of Skye's closest friends. Coulson still saw right through her, and he tried to help her every chance he could. He had found Skye crying in her room the day after Simmons went missing, and then later in odd corners of the ship whenever things were too much. His heart broke every time. But May's return was definitely a good thing. Coulson knew that having her S.O. back would really help Skye, who had long ago become the closest thing to a daughter Coulson had ever had.

When he stepped up to welcome May back to base, she had nodded at him, her eyes silently asking if there was any news about Jemma. Coulson had shaken his head and then asked if she wanted to go see Fitz where he always was in his make-shift work station in the room with the monolith.

All these months later, Coulson still expected Fitz to be in that horrible room, but, to his surprise, he found the engineer in the lab arguing with one of the other scientists, apparently over new developments that were being made to he and Simmons's ICERs.

"I don't care if this new design's 'more powerful,'" Fitz said, angrily, using air quotes to emphasize his point, "it throws off the balance. Just stick to what we had before unless you actually have a good idea."

"As if that were a possibility," Fitz muttered to himself as the other scientist moved away, clearly ashamed.

Coulson hid his satisfaction at seeing Fitz acting like his old self, just for a moment, and approached the younger man. "Fitz."

The engineer looked up and stepped toward him eagerly, though his eyes seemed wary.

"The team's about to reach the site. We should have a report in the next ten or fifteen minutes."

Fitz nodded, letting out a breath. "Good."

Coulson nodded back, dismissing him, and then left the room. As he rounded the corner, he turned back to see that Fitz had started pacing the length of the lab, one hand on the back of his neck and the other fidgeting anxiously. Coulson just wished that he would be able to, for once, give Fitz some good news.

Skye turned to Lincoln as the plane touched down. "You ready?"

Lincoln nodded back, seriously.

Both Inhumans had been on a decent number of these missions already, and they knew how to handle them. Particularly, they knew how to deal with the inevitable disappointment that would come when they, most likely, were unable to locate their missing scientist.

Jemma had been one of Skye's closest friends ever since she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. back what felt like a lifetime ago. Fitz and Simmons had always been there for Skye through everything that life had thrown at her. When Quinn had shot her, it was Simmons who had taken care of her, doing everything in her power to save her and then to make sure she got better, and Fitz had been the one person who had kept her secret about what had really happened to her in that alien city. Skye had known for a long time that she would do anything to protect her friends, and this certainly fell in that category, but that didn't mean that their lack of progress wasn't disheartening. Really everything during the past four months had been pretty hard to take.

Skye had been the one who pulled up the surveillance footage that horrible afternoon when Fitz came by Coulson's office during a meeting frantically asking if anyone had seen Jemma.

Skye wanted to cry as they watched the stone liquefy and swallow up Jemma over and over, but one look at Fitz's face told her that she needed to be strong, at least for that moment. Fitz instantly moved into action, sprinting down to the room that Simmons had disappeared from, while Skye and Coulson trailed in his wake, Coulson calling out for Mack and Hunter to follow them.

They found Fitz screaming Jemma's name at the alien rock. The door to the case was still wide open, but the rock remained solid. Before anyone could stop her, Skye approached the rock and held out her hands, trying to move it or at least sense Jemma's presence inside it. But there was nothing. She couldn't move it, and, worse, it was solid the whole way through.

"I can't feel her inside it," Skye said, half to herself. "She's not in there."

"Move away from there, Skye," Coulson said, coming up beside her, his face set. "We can't lose you too." He closed the case firmly as Hunter and Mack appeared in the doorway.

The dull thud of the glass shutting caused Fitz to collapse onto the ground, his head in his hands as he repeated Jemma's name over and over. Coulson had stepped back to explain the situation to Mack and Hunter, while Skye knelt down beside Fitz, wrapping her arms around him.

Sobs wracked his body, and Skye knew that she would have to keep it together for a little while longer. "We'll get her back, Fitz," Skye spoke softly to him. "We'll find her."

Fitz stayed curled up on the floor as his sobs subsided and his breathing grew more regular. Skye didn't let go, for her benefit as much as Fitz's. She knew that as soon as she was left alone with her thoughts, everything was going to fall apart.

Finally Fitz sat up, and Skye moved back from him. Fitz's eyes were bloodshot and there were tear tracks all over his face that he quickly rubbed away.

"I'm gonna find her, Skye," he said, his voice not hopeful but rather committed. There wasn't the slightest bit of doubt in his words; this was definite. Fitz would find Jemma and bring her home.

Skye nodded her belief in him, not confident in her ability to speak.

Fitz stood and turned to address the room, which now included more scientists and agents, minus Hunter who Skye assumed had returned to Bobbi.

"Get me everything you all have on this rock, on the Kree, on alien artifacts in general," Fitz ordered, his eyes flashing, warning everyone in the room not to interrupt him. "We're going to find out what this God-forsaken rock is, what it does, and, most importantly, we're going to figure out how to get Simmons back."

Everyone stared at him. Skye saw a few eyes dart to Coulson as though to ask if Fitz had the authority to do this. Coulson said nothing.

"Move!" Fitz yelled, and the entire room burst into life, as everyone hurried to the archives and the lab to find anything that could help Fitz.

Skye and Mack moved in toward Fitz warily, as Coulson stepped out of the room with the others.

"What can we do, Turbo?" Mack asked, his voice calm, only his eyes betraying how worried he was.

"Help me sort through this," he gestured to the data that Simmons had been collecting when the rock took her. "There must be something helpful in here. Jemma-" Fitz's voice broke as he said his best friend's name. He took a deep breath. "Jemma had already gotten some good readings."

And that was how the rest of that first day passed. Every so often an agent or scientist entered Fitz's new makeshift workstation with some scrap of information that Fitz took note of, trying to piece together the puzzle that was the Kree stone. Coulson returned after a few minutes to help, telling Skye in a low voice that he had called May to tell her what had happened, but that he had insisted that she still take her leave of absence. Skye nodded, still saying nothing.

Hours passed, and the base grew quiet. As it neared 2AM, Mack turned to Coulson and Skye. "Get some sleep, I'll stay up with him." He nodded at Fitz whose eyes were glued to Jemma's computer screen.

Coulson thanked him and said he would try to get someone else to come in soon so Mack could sleep too.

Before Skye left to head to her bunk, she walked over to Fitz and threw her arms around him.

Fitz seemed startled by her presence, but he quickly returned the hug, sniffling slightly.

"I'll be back first thing in the morning," Skye said softly. "We'll get her back Fitz, I know we will."

Fitz only nodded and turned back to the screen.

Outside the room, Skye looked over at Coulson. So guarded with his emotions since Simmons's disappearance had been discovered, Coulson suddenly seemed to deflate now that he was out of Fitz's sight.

"We're gonna find her, Coulson," Skye said, knowing even as she spoke that she sounded far less confident than Fitz had only a few hours earlier.

"I hope so," Coulson replied, and Skye couldn't resist pulling him into a hug. He wrapped his arms protectively around her and sighed. "There's nothing we can do now. Go get some sleep."

Skye nodded and headed to her bunk.

As soon as she closed the door, every emotion that Skye had been holding inside all night burst out of her. She collapsed onto her bed, shaking and crying and pounding her fists into her pillow. How could Simmons deserve something like this? She was one of the best people Skye knew, one of only a very small number she considered family. She could be gone. That rock was supposed to be dangerous to Inhumans. If it could hurt someone with powers, Skye shuddered to think of what it could do to Jemma.

Skye cried into her pillow until she felt like she couldn't cry anymore. Not even having the energy to change out of her clothes, she turned off the lights and crawled into bed.

That night was the first of many fitful nights Skye tried to sleep through on the base, and that new day brought its own challenges. She spent hours trying in vain to get Fitz to eat something, to take a nap, to leave that awful stone for one second. She had to fight back tears when she passed the lab, knowing that Jemma should have been there. When she went to grab her jacket from her locker, she had to pass by the locker that belonged to Simmons, and it took her more than a few moments to collect herself before she returned to the room with the stone.

When she finally slipped out and went to her bunk, just to have a few moments alone, she spotted a picture stuck to her wall: one of her, Fitz, and Simmons from back on the Bus before they had even started dealing with Hydra, let alone the alien rock. Just seeing Jemma's smiling face in the photograph was too much for Skye. She pulled the picture off the wall and slid down in front of it, her arms curled around her knees as she cried into them. After a couple minutes, there was a knock on her door, and it slid open hesitantly.

"Skye?" It was Coulson.

Skye let out a sob in response, so Coulson stepped in further, moving to sit down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"It's okay," he said softly, feeling more like a father to Skye at that moment than anyone ever had. Skye knew that if her real father had been here, he would have done the same, but Cal didn't even remember that he was her father anymore, and Skye really just wanted Coulson. She wanted her entire Bus family (minus Ward, obviously) back together: safe, happy, and not encased in alien stone.

Coulson sniffed, and Skye realized he was crying too.

"I'm so proud of you," he said finally, and Skye looked up in surprise, unsure what he could possibly be proud of her for. "You've been holding it together so well for Fitz and for the rest of the team. All this uncertainty is so hard to deal with, but you've just been there helping out and being a shoulder for Fitz to lean on. I think you're probably the person Fitz is most comfortable with opening up to right now, and you've been so great with him already. Thank you."

Skye turned slightly so she could give Coulson an actual hug. "I just need us to get her back, Coulson," she said, between choking breaths.

"We'll do whatever we can," was all he said in response.

The days had turned to weeks and Skye had developed a routine. She would get up early after what was almost always a fitful night full of tossing and turning and bad dreams, and then she would go find Fitz who was invariably already looking through documents or taking readings in the room with the stone. Sometimes she would find him curled up on the floor in front of the stone wrapped in a blanket that Skye was fairly certain belonged to Simmons, having apparently slipped away from whatever agent Coulson had asked to stay with him that night to make sure he got some sleep. Skye would gently shake him awake, and he would always stare up at her, confused, before understanding what had happened and where he was. Some days Skye would stay with Fitz, neither of them doing much talking, just being there for each other, but increasingly Coulson had sent her and a team to go meet with other Inhumans to try to recruit them for S.H.I.E.L.D. or at least get to know them. But, without fail, she always asked for information on the Kree monolith, praying that one day one of these Inhumans would just so happen to be an expert in Kree artifacts.

Lincoln had started joining her on these missions fairly quickly. He was still a bit wary of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he trusted Skye and the pair made a good team. Plus, May seemed to like him, which was a definite plus in Skye's book.

Skye had sensed the sadness in May's voice when she had asked her to come on this mission the day before. It was clear that May wanted someone with her who had known Simmons for as long as she had, someone who she could sit with in silence and solidarity on their return trip that Skye feared would be empty-handed, like every mission the team had gone on so far. Since Lincoln was free too, Skye had grabbed her friend and asked him to come with her. At the very least, the pair could use the flight to work on their plans for their next Inhuman mission.

May lowered the ramp, and the agents headed out, leaving Henry behind to wait with the plane. Lincoln carried the bag that contained Fitz's specially designed scanning equipment, while May walked all around the area to make sure they were alone.

They had landed on the edge of a plateau that was surrounded by cliffs and mountains in all directions. Skye remembered the report saying that the specific conditions Fitz's scientist had described could be found on the plateau's rockiest edge. One section fifty feet or so back from where they were seemed promising, a large pile of rocks resting precariously against the cliff.

Leaving May looking down the other side of the plateau and Lincoln scanning the ground closer to the plane, Skye ran over to the rocks and knelt down by the edge, setting her palms face-down against the earth and closing her eyes. With her mind clear of anything but the plateau and rocks around her, Skye was able to listen to the earth and feel the space beneath her. She could move the rock pile if she wanted to, or crumble the edge of the plateau, but Skye was focused on something else. Instead of the deep, solid rock she had expected beneath her, there was a space, some sort of cave, but it didn't feel quite like any cave she had ever encountered.

"Lincoln!" Skye called, looking up, but still keeping her hands pressed against the rock of the plateau.

Her friend turned around.

"Come over here for a second," Skye said, trying not to sound hopeful. Just because there was an unnatural cave didn't guarantee anything about Simmons. "It's not completely solid under here."

Lincoln hurried over with the equipment. "You mean there's a cave or something?"

"Or something," Skye replied. "It doesn't feel like a cave exactly though. It's small, and I can't get a sense of there being any water down there to have formed it. It's almost like a room rather than a real cave."

Lincoln furrowed his brow and started scanning, walking up and down the area. Instantly his eyes lit up. "There is something down there. Rectangular, almost. And it's giving off some weird kind of energy." He moved closer to the edge of the plateau. "It looks like there should be some sort of entrance down there." He pointed to where the rock pile was.

Skye immediately jumped down to the rocks and was glad when they held her weight. Above her, Lincoln called for May to come over to see the readings.

Skye climbed down several large boulders, secure in the knowledge that she could hold the rocks in place if they started slipping.

"It looks like you're about there, Skye!" Lincoln's voice called down to her.

"Okay!" Skye called back and turned to start looking for this entrance.

The side of the cliff was solid rock, no cave, not even a small opening, but Skye paid that fact no mind, as she moved over on the boulder she was currently standing on. One part of the rock face had strange markings on it, ones that Skye had never seen before. "Alien," she breathed, running her hand over the rock. She could feel that the rock here was very thin, with what had to be the cave area behind it.

"I think there's alien writing down here!" Skye called up to Lincoln and May. "This must be the entrance, but there's still a wall here."

"Wait a second Skye," Lincoln's voice came and thirty seconds later, he had scrambled down to look at the writing for himself. He quickly took some samples and pictures and scanned the rock, confirming that the cave area was just behind it, but also that the rock was incredibly old and that the markings were just as ancient. Skye knew of no previously studied ancient peoples that lived in this particular area.

"It's got to be alien," Lincoln said, as though reading Skye's thoughts.

"I can bring down this wall," Skye said, looking at her friend for confirmation.

Lincoln looked at the cliff skeptically. "I know you can, but what if that causes any structural damage to the cave? There's definitely something weird going on there energy-wise. It's almost like electricity." He shook out his hands, flexing his fingers as though he could feel the power flowing through them. "Can you break it down and then stay out here and make sure nothing collapses?"

Skye nodded. "Piece of cake. And then you and May can come down and check it out."

"Maybe just May," Lincoln said, checking his readings. "It looks like it might be tight, and I would trust her in their more than me."

Skye smiled slightly at the modesty of her friend. "Okay, suit yourself." She turned to face the wall. "Now get back up there before I accidentally hit you with something."

As soon as she saw Lincoln was safe back on top of the plateau, Skye took a deep breath and held out her hands, bringing the wall crumbling down in front of her. She felt a wave of some sort of energy wash over her, but then it was gone. The remaining sides of the cave's entrance shifted slightly, so she immediately took a stance, keeping the walls from caving in. "Okay, there was definitely some kind of energy thing, but it's gone now. May, I've got it. Come down!"

Much quicker than Lincoln, May was beside her almost instantly, Fitz's scanner in hand. "Coulson," the older woman said into her comm. "I'm heading in."

Fitz paced back and forth in the lab that he had barely worked in during the past four months. He could sense how uncomfortable the rest of the workers were as they kept glancing up at him from their benches, but Fitz couldn't care less.

Almost every mission so far had been touchdown and then fifteen-or-so minutes later a message saying that nothing had been found. Every so often the gap between messages was smaller and instead of saying nothing had been found, whoever was in charge, most likely Fitz himself, would inform Coulson that there was something different, something alien. So far none of those alien locations had resulted in finding Jemma, but that didn't mean that every time another alien location was found that Fitz's heart didn't race and that he didn't let himself get his hopes up. Today's mission was no exception.

When May had radioed in fairly quickly that Skye had found some sort of underground room with alien markings on the outside wall, Coulson had come down and informed Fitz and then remained with him in the lab, standing off to the side, not pacing, but staring at the ground, apparently deep in thought. Fitz did the whole staring off into space thinking about Jemma thing a lot these days, but at times like this, he had to stay busy, his hands fidgeting as he walked in circles around the room.

It was rare that Fitz wasn't on the mission for one of the alien spots, and he felt the smallest twinge of annoyance at Coulson for forbidding him from going on this one, though that was mostly made up for by the fact that Coulson was still allowing him to send teams on the missions in the first place. And Fitz knew that Coulson had good reason to keep him here– Fitz had been off base for five straight days and since Fitz could never bring himself to eat on a mission, his diet alone was concern enough, let alone his sleep schedule.

Since Jemma had disappeared all those months ago, Fitz had been living in a constant state of near-exhaustion. He had barely been able to sleep those first few days, nightmares of Jemma being ripped from him haunting him every time he closed his eyes.

When Jemma had been gone for three days, Fitz had snuck into her room to try to see if his best friend had left any notes or research lying around there. There was no information anywhere in her room, but what Fitz did find was more important to him. He had never been to Jemma's room at the Playground, and he was surprised to see that pictures of the two of them and the rest of the team (but mostly of the two of them) still lined the walls as they had in her room back on the Bus. Beside her bed was a single framed picture, the one of her and Fitz after their graduation from the Academy. Simmons had invited he and his mum down to her house during the couple weeks they both had at home before they headed off to SciOps. His mum had insisted on taking the picture and framing copies for both of them so they would always remember "where it all started." Fitz had his copy in his room too. They both looked so young, so innocent, so ready to take on the world. Tears had dripped down his cheeks as he stared at the photograph. "I'm gonna bring you home, Jemma," he had said softly. "I promise."

As he set the frame down, he had noticed Jemma's favorite blanket folded at the bottom of her perfectly made bed. It was deep midnight blue with tiny white stars stretching over the expanse of the material. Jemma had had it since before she started at the Academy, and it had become extremely threadbare. Fitz had actually thought that she might have retired it since he hadn't seen it in a long time, but apparently he had been wrong.

Without thinking, Fitz had picked up the blanket and wrapped it around himself remembering all the nights they had spent talking and watching movies under that blanket in the near decade that he and Simmons had known each other. Fitz had held the soft material up to his face and inhaled deeply. It still smelled like her. Tea and cinnamon and some kind of flower that he couldn't place except for that it smelled like Jemma. And then there was the smallest hint of a smell that Fitz could only ever really describe as science: some combination of chemicals and antiseptic that Fitz found comforting in its familiarity.

After a few minutes sitting on Jemma's bed, he had heard footsteps in the hallway and decided that he needed to go. He had looked down at the blanket wrapped around him and knew that he definitely wasn't leaving it behind, so he had crept back to the room with the stone and sat down on the floor with his laptop, the blanket resting on his shoulders, which was how Skye found him when she woke him up the next morning.

He had started going to bed willingly after a couple weeks, always wrapped in Jemma's blanket, needing to keep her with him, but any sleep he did get was fitful at best. His thoughts were constantly with his best friend in the world, the beautiful woman who had literally just agreed to go on a date with him before the horrible monolith pulled her inside.

If only Fitz hadn't been so distracted that he messed with the locking mechanism on the case. Fitz still didn't know what had happened to make the door completely open, but he was certain that the clumsy slip of his hand down the case's door had something to do with it. He had watched that security footage so many times that he knew every second of it perfectly. If he had just stuck around for a few more seconds, he could have saved her.

The only part of the video that didn't hurt Fitz was the few seconds between his departure and the rock swallowing up his best friend, in which a small smile was clearly visible on Jemma's face, telling him that she really did want to get dinner with him, somewhere nice. He could only hope that she would still want to when they found her. Because they were going to find her. Fitz had made that promise to Skye, and to himself, after he fell apart that first day in front of the Kree stone, and he didn't intend to break it. Nothing, not Hydra, not a coup, and definitely not an enormous alien monolith, could prevent Fitz from being with the woman he was completely and totally in love with.

Fitz hadn't really confided in anyone about the date and his feelings for Jemma, but Skye had asked him why Jemma was smiling in the video a week or so after the event, when they were alone one night watching at the clip over and over looking for clues.

"We were just talking about…" Fitz had paused, not really wanting to share this with anyone except for Jemma, "dinner," he had said finally.

Skye had given him a weird look, but she'd left it at that.

"Copy that, May," Coulson said into his comm, pulling Fitz from his thoughts. "Skye broke through the wall, and May's heading in," Coulson informed him.

Fitz nodded, wringing his hands. "Good thing May got Skye to go on this one or they'd have had to wait for backup."

Coulson offered Fitz a half smile at his words before dropping his eyes back to the floor.

Fitz resumed pacing, trying to prepare himself for the all-too-likely possibility that this mission was just another dead end, but he was unable to stop the seed of hope that was blooming in his mind. Maybe they would find her. Maybe he would get Jemma back today.

As he passed by Coulson, the director gripped Fitz's arm reassuringly.

The pair locked eyes, and Fitz nodded at him, both waiting for May's report.

After hearing Coulson's affirmation that he received her message, May turned to Skye who was clearly concentrating on preventing any cave-ins. "You good?"

Skye nodded stoically. "Go ahead."

May pulled out a flashlight from a holster around her waist and took a step into the cave, aiming the light in front of her with one hand and holding the scanner out with the other.

As the darkness swallowed her, the scanner began flashing, indicating that something was alive down there with her. May just hoped it was a bat rather than a bear.

She shined her light all around, seeing nothing, before she noticed what was almost an alcove, hidden slightly by a column of rock that jutted out from the wall. May started to step around it cautiously, her flashlight illuminating her path.

Suddenly, a noise came from in front of her, stopping May in her tracks. It sounded almost like a gasp, like someone was breathing heavily, searching for air.

May moved around to look fully into the alcove, and her flashlight fell on a small mass curled up on the ground, moving slightly.

As the light hit it, the mass stirred, stretching out and forming into the shape of a human, a woman.

"What? What's happening?" the woman on the ground spoke, her voice raspy from apparent disuse, but the accent unmistakable.

May almost dropped the scanner. "Oh my God."

"Agent May?" the woman on the ground said, groaning as she moved to sit upright. "Is that you?"

May shook her head, staring, not daring to believe her eyes. "Oh my God," she repeated. "Simmons."