It doesn't take five hours of flight time to get to California. In fact, almost as soon as they've gotten on the plane they're getting off onto a sunshine soaked stretch of tarmac. A car takes them into the city to meet up with FitzSimmons in a similarly warped fashion.

Then, without total knowledge of how she got there, Daisy is walking down a street lined with palm trees talking to Simmons about Mack.

"Did you know?" Simmons asks, after explaining the situation.

"No, of course I didn't know." Daisy says. She pushes a piece of hair back out of her eyes and stumbles into a stranger on the street, missing FitzSimmons' response.

"Sorry," she mumbles, stepping out of the way and jogging a few steps to return to the group.

Fitz has launched into some kind of scientific explaining that she doesn't understand so instead of listening Daisy watches Coulson – who has been dragged along unwillingly – and tries not to wonder what this new piece of information about her partner's life means. It could all just be made up, though she sort of doubts that.

"I've been kidnapped." Coulson tells a stranger, trying to peel off from the group, Ward corrals him back in. "I'm being kidnapped." He says slightly louder with an increase in panic. It draws the attention of a young woman, who peers at the group.

Daisy smiles at her. "Sorry, bad trip." She tugs on Coulson's arm and the woman makes a face, but moves along.

Daisy turns to May. "I wish you hadn't done that."

May shrugs. "He wasn't going to come willingly. You said we needed him."

Admittedly, it was faster than convincing him, and this Coulson doesn't seem to possess much physical prowess which doesn't make him particularly difficult to contain.

Simmons tries to fold her back into the conversation she's having with Fitz. More technical talk about what they're going to do after they've gotten Mack. The tentative plan is still to fly back to the east coast and get into the rendezvous point. But Fitz is trying to come up with something in case they need a backup plan, which honestly, when do they not need a backup plan. Not that Daisy really understands anything they're saying, it doesn't help that they're doing the half sentence thing, where neither finishes a complete thought on their own.

A tremble runs through the earth. It rattles the windows of the storefront and sways the leaves on the trees. A low earthquake, nothing to worry about, they are in California after all.

"Well it wasn't me." Daisy scoffs. She fights the useless urge to control the shaking, to rumble the earth back in protest or seek out the coming aftershocks.

The street is empty.

"That's not right." Fitz turns in a circle before his gaze falls onto Simmons. "Right?"

"No…" Simmons looks around too.

"What's going on guys?"

"The fault lines- to have a-"

The earth rumbles again, Daisy loses track of what Simmons was saying. It's a larger one this time. The row of palm trees sway dangerously.

It feels different. The first one did as well but she thought that it was just her, just feeling it normally instead of with her powers. But this one's definitely different. The shake doesn't come from the earth below them, it comes from everywhere. Like the breeze in the air is rattling rather than blowing across them. As if the buildings themselves are vibrating against a current.

"The rendezvous!" Simmons calls as the world tumbles. Daisy finds that she can't quite hear the words, or rather she hears them inside of her own mind instead of outside it. Like Simmons' voice is just one of her own thoughts, slightly louder than the rest.

Her own body loses its physicality. The sense of her limbs within the space leaves her, she becomes a cloud, floating within an non-existent space as a non-existent being. The ground under her feet is no longer under her feet but she doesn't fall, she's caught without gravity like in a cartoon, where the character runs off a cliff but waits a moment to tumble downwards. Then, her moment's up.

Simmons blinks and the ground has fallen out from under her. The setting shifts, changes, without even dropping her stomach like a roller coaster ride. Trembles run through the earth, the trees, the buildings, but they don't touch her any longer. She stands as a ghost in the scene.

The world set before her is obviously no longer California. Oaks replace palm trees, clouds cover over the pressing sunshine, and the taste of the air shifts to dampness.

"What the hell is going on?" Daisy says.

Simmons looks around and finds the whole group there as well, transported just as suddenly as she was.

"You're probably messing with the timeline of the thing." Fitz is looking at his hands like they're not real hands. Jemma feels the unshakable urge to do the same.

"What?" Daisy is definitely the most freaked out by this change in circumstances. Simmons figures she isn't so fond of the uncontrollable earthquakes.

"Think about it," Fitz continues, "if this framework is built off of our minds, is structured to give us everything we want, then the rest of it is just filler, all the other people are just avatars, existing to fill the illusion for those whose minds are inhabitants. So when the two of you came in and started making decisions as avatars, not as inhabitants - whose minds are woven into the Framework - it-" he throws his hands. "Well it messed everything up. And now we're seeing the damage you've caused."

"And why didn't anyone bring this up before?" Daisy's voice escalates through the question until it's ringing an octave higher than her normal tone.

"I was hoping that wouldn't be the case, that the Framework would be able to self-correct for any changes we made." Simmons puts her hand on Daisy's shoulder and finds she can feel neither the other girls t-shirt or the skin of her own palm. "Evidently not."

"Well what now?" Ward asks, still there, following Daisy, for what reason Jemma isn't particularly sure.

"The rendezvous. There's no time to get to Mack now, we just have to get out."

And as soon as she says the words, there they are.

Daisy hasn't been back to FitzSimmons' apartment since she lured Simmons there. She doesn't even know if FitzSimmons have been back recently, given how busy things have been around the base. But this certainly isn't how she last left it.

There's nothing there. It's a shell of a home, not fallen down, not in disrepair, more like it had never really been built. The interior walls are hollow, just the wooden framework in place, waiting still to be covered in plaster and paint. Floorboards remain bare, un-sanded, unfinished, and there are cracks in the ceiling that don't lead to the apartment above.

Daisy stares up into one, trying to discern anything in the bright blackness, waiting for her eyes to adjust to whatever light is there. Stars emerge. If she knew constellations she wonders if she would recognize any there, or if this is a different night sky than the one she's spent her life looking up into.

Another rumble shakes the building, but not the room they're standing in.

"What do we do?" Daisy looks to FitzSimmons, who are staring at each other in silent conversation, silent conversation that she definitely does not understand.

Fitz breaks away first.

"You should just be able to…" He waves his hands, makes a popping noise with his lips.

"Wish for Kansas." Simmons fills in.

Daisy rolls her eyes but is cut off from her response by another shockwave. This one does shake the room, and strips away the outer walls of the apartment. Beyond them is a darkness which is at the same time a brightness, the same one she was peering at through the cracks. But also, if she looks with half an eye, there is the street which the apartment block sits on, perfectly normal, as if they actually are on the East Coast. It hurts her mind to look at, both appearing but neither visible.

Instead she turns to the group, who seem to be making a similar choice.

"Where the hell did he go?" Fitz points to the gap in the space where Ward was a second ago.

"It doesn't matter, he's dead." Thankfully.

"What?" May cuts in.

"It's a story we don't have time for," Simmons answers. "We need to out of here before the whole thing collapses."

Fitz nods, opens his mouth to start spewing science before Daisy cuts him off.

"Just wish for home, right?"

He nods, then looks down at his hand, intertwined with Jemma's.

"See you soon," he whispers. Then Daisy watches as his hand fades out of view, and Jemma's palm grips around nothing but air.

Simmons opens her eyes back on the Zephyr. Beside her, Daisy also gasps awake. Elena sigh with relief, muttering something in Spanish and one of the red shirts actually claps.

It only takes another few seconds before one of the screens starts blaring, flashing red, announcing a non-secure message coming through. Everyone rushes past her to the screens.

Jemma's eyes fall shut, her heart adjusting back into its proper position in her chest and her breath renewing in her lungs. Oxygen seeps through her deprived tissue, reminiscent of the first breath after a deep dive. The others pay her no mind.

She sighs, "Fitz."

The End.

xx

Aaaand that's it! I just want to say a final thank you to everyone who's been reading and leaving comments throughout this fic, you all mean the world to me. Seriously, you've all been awesome and the response to this fic has been amazing. And sorry to get so sappy on you all at the end here, it's just that this fic has taken me through moving out on my own for the first time and to a new country so I'm unreasonably nostalgic.

And I hope that everyone enjoys the episode tomorrow! I've still got no idea how I'm going to watch it but I know it's going to be better than this fic lmao

Let me know what you think and as always I'm around on tumblr at sinkingsidewalks if you want to chat!