Chapter Text
A blast of heat hit Jemma as soon as she stepped off the Bus, and she immediately began sweating. Dust filled the dry air, making her cough as it lined her throat and nose.
Coulson, May, and Ward brushed past her looking cool and unconcerned by the sweltering heat, even though they were wearing the same dark clothes they wore everywhere. Jemma suspected it was something they learned in the Academy. There were probably entire classes on how to confuse the enemy by never appearing to be touched by the elements.
She exchanged a glance with Fitz, who looked as uncomfortably warm as she felt, and hefted her pack higher on her shoulder before setting out to follow the other agents.
Fitz grimaced and said, "They're unnatural. Inhuman."
"Just well-conditioned," Jemma said. "They're human. I checked."
"Hmm."
"Hey, wait up," Skye called.
Jemma paused and turned to see Skye running down the ramp, still trying to put on sunglasses with one hand and sling her small pack onto her back with the other. The last time Jemma had seen her, Skye had been sitting in the lab, scowling at her computer. She'd mumbled something about a special project and Quinn, which was enough information for Jemma to back away quickly, even though she itched to ask questions.
"I thought you were still playing hacker," Fitz said.
Skye pushed her glassed up her nose, hiding her eyes, but Jemma was sure she rolled them. "You know how dated you sound, right?"
"To be fair, you've used the word a few times yourself," Jemma said.
"And I used it ironically almost every time." Skye shrugged. "Anyway, I've got a few things running but it's going to be a couple of hours before anything comes back, so I thought I'd tag along on your field trip."
"This isn't a field trip," Fitz said, looking affronted. "It's a mission."
"We're just picking up an artefact," Skye said. "How much trouble can we get into doing that?"
Jemma winced. "Our last artefact blew a hole in the side of the Bus because it was made of evil."
"OK. Yeah. But apart from that."
***
The dig they were heading for was half a mile away. Jemma was ready to collapse in a puddle of sweat by the time they got there. Ward, at least, looked slightly pink from the heat and exertion, but Coulson and May still appeared to be completely untouched. It was unfair.
"Why didn't we drive?" Skye said.
Her cheeks were flushed and she'd stripped down to a baggy sleeveless tank top and tied her hair off her neck in a messy knot. Tiny wisps of loose hair fluttered against her neck in a distracting way that Jemma was trying to ignore. It was difficult when her eyes seemed to make a habit of drifting back to Skye, even if she wasn't looking dishevelled and appealing.
Coulson ignored Skye and the wilting scientists, and stepped forward to greet a young archaeologist who was walking rapidly toward them. She was coated in dust and deeply tanned. Fitz brightened up immediately, and Jemma elbowed him in the ribs, which produced a muffled squawk that everyone ignored.
"Hi, I'm Doctor Philips," the archaeologist said. "You must be the team from SHIELD?"
Coulson shook her hand firmly and introduced himself. "I understand you have an artefact for us, Doctor?"
"Anna, please," she said with a warm smile. "Follow me."
There was an amused smile twitching at the corner of Ward's mouth. Jemma wondered what that was about for a moment, before being distracted by the dig they were walking through. They passed close to a young woman carefully brushing dirt away from what looked like a large bone under the supervision of an older colleague. Further away, a man with a weather-beaten, deeply lined face was sitting next to what looked like a giant mandible that had been partially uncovered. A digital camera hung around his neck, but he was sketching the mandible anyway.
"Is anyone getting Jurassic Park vibes, or is it just me?" Skye asked, in a low undertone.
"It's not just you," Fitz said.
"Jurassic Park would never happen," Jemma said. "It's impossible. Nobody would be that reckless."
Two pairs of incredulous eyes met hers and she winced. Yeah, OK, if there was any way for Jurassic Park to be scientifically plausible, someone would do it. And then wonder why they were being eaten by velociraptors.
"Oh, shut up."
Skye and Fitz snickered, and Jemma pretended to ignore them.
Doctor Philips--Anna--led them to a tent in the middle of the dig. Ward and May wordlessly stationed themselves outside, while everyone else followed Anna inside.
Jemma's eyes widened as soon as she saw what was resting on the table that ran down the centre of the tent. "Oh, wow. Is that it?"
Anna smiled proudly. "That's it."
Coulson gestured for Jemma to take the lead, and she shot him a quick, pleased look before following Anna to her treasure. It was slightly smaller than a rugby ball, and its mottled blue shell almost seemed to glow under the bright spotlights someone had placed over it. Jemma itched to reach out and touch, but she didn't give into temptation.
"Where did you find this?" Jemma asked.
A map lay on the table next to the object, set out with gridlines drawn across it and coloured stickers marking finds. Anne pointed to a blue spot. "Here. At first we thought it was an Allosaurus egg. We're fairly sure what we're excavating here is a new subspecies, and no complete eggs have been found, so it was very exciting."
"But it's not?" Jemma said.
"I can't say conclusively that it's not, obviously, but..." Anna plucked a stethoscope off the table and held it out. "Just listen to it and tell me what you think."
Jemma fumbled with her straps as she stripped off her pack and dropped it on the floor with a clunk. Fitz made an unhappy sound but she ignored him. Nothing in the pack should have been breakable. She rummaged in a side pocket for some latex gloves before taking the stethoscope. It was an old, well-used set that should have been useless for listening to a dinosaur egg, but it was probably the only thing they had on the dig and...
Thu-thump. Thu-thump.
It was faint, a soft, fast swooshing in Jemma's ears, but the pattern was familiar.
"A heartbeat," Jemma said, in a tone of soft reverence. "It's definitely not a dinosaur egg of any species."
"We finally dated the deposits we found it in yesterday. Five hundred years old: definitely not dinosaur."
"No," Jemma said. "It's alive. There's something living inside this egg."
"Is it safe to transport?" Coulson asked.
Jemma straightened up and handed the stethoscope back to Anna. "Probably."
"Probably?"
"Well, it's been sitting in a rock deposit for five centuries, so it's probably stable, but there's something alive in there. I can't guarantee anything."
Skye rolled her eyes. "This is totally turning into Jurassic Park."
***
"You don't like the heat much, do you?" Skye asked. "I noticed back there at the dig. You looked ready to melt. Or maybe faint from heat exhaustion."
"I'm English," Jemma said. "I'm good at cold and damp, not cook an egg in two minutes on the car kinds of heat."
"You probably would have been cooler if you'd unbuttoned a little bit."
Jemma raised her head from the microscope she'd been peering down for the last five minutes to shoot Skye a withering look.
"What?" Skye said. "You were wearing a shirt, a tie, and a sweater vest. Don't tell me that's the English uniform for hot sunny days, because I'll know you're lying."
"How?"
"I've seen the photos of people lying around in Hyde Park in their bikinis as soon as the sun appears. I know the British aren't as tightly laced as the stereotypes."
"Mmm." Jemma turned her attention back to the microscope. "I've never worn a bikini in the park in my life."
"What about a bikini on the beach? Have you ever done that, or do you wear one of those sports one-piece things that hides everything? I bet you wear shorts and a tankini, or one of those big floppy shirts."
"Skin cancer is very unpleasant, and I prefer not to expose myself to any more harmful rays than I absolutely have to."
"So you've never worn a bikini?"
"No."
"That's too bad."
Jemma felt her cheeks warm, and she refused to look up, even though she'd now stared at the fragment of dull brown rock for so long she'd forgotten what she was looking for. She was intensely aware of Skye's presence in the corner of the lab, although that was nothing new. If she was completely honest with herself, she was always too aware of Skye and had been for months.
After a long pause, Skye said, "You could have just taken your tie off and unbuttoned your collar. That wouldn't have hurt."
Jemma opened her mouth to reply, but she was saved from having to think of something witty and sarcastic by the lab doors opening.
"Is it safe to come in without a hazmat suit?" Coulson asked.
Jemma straightened up and gestured to her lab coat and Skye's t-shirt. "It's safe. Fitz is just a bit--"
"Paranoid," Skye said. "He's afraid the egg will infect him with something."
"Could it?"
"It sat in the middle of a busy dig for a week and nobody's sick yet," Jemma said. "I think we're safe. I'm ninety-eight...ninety-five per cent sure we're safe."
"Only ninety-five?"
"It's not an exact science," Jemma said. "I've swabbed and cultured the surface, just in case."
"Huh." Coulson obviously decided to take a chance and stepped into the lab, letting the doors swish shut behind him. "What have you been able to find out so far?"
"She's very excited," Skye said.
Jemma abandoned her microscope and moved over to the egg, which she'd put on a bench in a spare box lined with a soft towel. She patted the egg gently with a gloved hand, feeling the warmth radiating from it.
"There's definitely something alive inside," she said. "I don't know whether it's viable, but I've confirmed the sound it's emitting is a heartbeat."
"Could it hatch?" Coulson asked, looking alarmed.
"Maybe?"
Skye grinned. "She's got her fingers crossed, but it's been lying inside a rock for five hundred years."
"I don't have my fingers crossed!" Jemma protested.
"Yeah, you do. You're a terrible liar."
Jemma ignored the comment with all the dignity she possessed, pretending not to see the face Skye made. Instead, she activated the screen on the wall and pointed to the scans she'd taken.
"As you can see, the shell is made from something that protects the contents from most scanning techniques, so I don't know what's actually inside yet. But that gives us some clues that whatever this is, it's probably not from Earth. Obviously I'll need a sample of the shell to analyse, and we can't have one until we've confirmed it's not going to hatch into anything, but there must be minerals in it that reflect most kinds of radiation. That alone is very exciting."
"So it's alien?" Coulson said.
"I'm fairly sure it is, yes. I think it was dormant while it was buried and the excavation woke it up."
"What makes you think that?"
Jemma highlighted one of the readings on the screen. "The surface temperature of the shell has risen by 1.7 degrees Celsius in the four hours since I began monitoring. It's now three degrees above ambient room temperature, so whatever is inside is emitting heat and getting hotter."
Coulson frowned. "How certain are you that it won't hatch?"
"Not certain at all," Jemma said. "Isn't it exciting?"
"Not really. Exciting usually leads to shooting in my experience. Will you have any warning if it does?"
"I should do. I'm monitoring it with heat and motion sensors. The shell is quite solid so it will probably make a loud noise if it begins cracking."
She couldn't quite resist patting the shell again gently. Through the thin layer of latex, the surface felt pitted and uneven, and she wondered whether it would be safe to try to get a scraping from it.
"Keep monitoring it," Coulson said. "Send an alert if anything changes and get out of here. I don't want you trapped with it if something does hatch. May is flying us to a facility where it can be contained."
"Oh, but sir--"
Coulson's smile was sympathetic. "I know that it's fascinating, Simmons, but we're not equipped to keep it. Someone else will have to do the heavy lifting on this one; we're just the transport."
"Yes, sir."
Coulson briefly squeezed her shoulder and nodded to Skye as he left.
"Too bad," Skye said. She was standing closer than Jemma remembered, and her hand was warm when she squeezed Jemma's wrist for a moment in solidarity. "Maybe they'll let you keep the next cool but terrifying remnant of the dinosaurs."
"They probably won't," Jemma said. "That's the sacrifice I made to come out in the field."
"And look how much fun you've had," Skye said with a grin. "How many times have you nearly died now?"
Jemma chuckled. "It's been a bit more exciting than I ever expected."
"And you've loved every second of it."
"Not every second. But a lot of it."
"Yeah." Skye bumped her shoulder companionably and Jemma refused to lean into it. "I'm going to get some sleep. Try not to burn your eyes out studying that thing, OK?"
"I'll try," Jemma said. "Goodnight."
She was already hunting on her bench for a scalpel when the lab doors closed behind Skye.
***
Jemma had been working steadily in the lab for a couple of hours. Fitz had left his post outside the doors not long after Skye went to bed, so she was completely alone. Apart from May in the cockpit, Jemma suspected she was the only person still awake on the plane.
She'd always liked working late into the night. When the labs were quiet and everything was in shadow except her work area, that was when she often did her best work. Most of her first thesis had been written in the corner of a lab in Cambridge, huddled over her laptop with notes and slides on the bench beside her. Jemma had a lot of fondness for those memories. Writing her second thesis at the SHIELD academy hadn't been the same.
The work she was doing now was almost as frantic as writing a thesis. There wasn't time for a detailed analysis of anything, but Jemma was determined to capture as much as she could in the short hours before they landed. Even if she couldn't gather everything, she already had a couple of papers planned out just from what she had.
Not that she could publish, but she had a growing collection of papers she'd written with the intention of publishing one day. When some of the work she was doing was no longer classified.
Jemma looked up at the screen and noted that the shell's surface temperature had risen another 0.2 degrees over the last thirty minutes. She made a note and turned her attention back to analysing the scrapings she'd taken from the surface.
Something broke her concentration. Jemma froze and listened, trying to isolate the sound that had disturbed her. A soft beep caught her attention, and she turned slowly to face the lab door.
Skye walked into the car bay. She was wearing a loose grey Henley and striped pyjama pants, and her hair was messy from sleep. There was a faint frown on her face and she seemed to be looking for something. Or maybe, listening for something was more accurate.
Jemma put down the beaker she'd been stirring and watched, waiting to see what Skye would do next. It was possible Skye was restless and wanted company, but Jemma wasn't sure. There was something in her eyes that made Jemma hesitate to call out to her.
Skye paused by the SUV for a moment before shaking her head. She trailed a finger along the bonnet as she left it and moved back to the lab. The door slid open at her touch and she stepped inside.
"Skye?" Jemma said.
Skye didn't seem to hear her. All her attention now seemed to be locked on the egg and she padded directly to it. Jemma noted that her feet were bare.
"What's wrong?" Jemma asked. "Are you--?"
She broke off as a loud cracking noise echoed through the lab. At the same time, Skye reached out and placed a hand on the shell.
Nothing happened.
Jemma had half-expected some kind of strange light show or an explosion, but Skye stood by the egg with a hand resting lightly on it and that was all. The strangely disconnected frown was fading away from Skye's face, replaced by fascination.
"It feels alive," Skye said, in a tone filled with wonder.
"Skye..."
"I don't think it's going to hurt me."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
Skye smiled. "Yeah, you are. But I'm fine. Look, my hand is fine."
She lifted her hand and waggled her fingers to prove it. and Jemma could see that the flesh was unmarked.
Another quiet crack distracted Skye, pulling her attention back to the egg. She touched it gently again.
"What does it feel like?" Jemma asked.
"Warm." Skye looked thoughtful, rubbing a thumb over it absently. "It's kind of...pulsing. I think there's something moving inside."
Jemma's breath caught. "It's hatching?"
"Um, maybe?"
"Right, I have to call someone and we need to leave."
"I'm not leaving," Skye said. "Can you hear it?"
"I can hear the shell cracking," Jemma said. There was a spider web of fine lines covering the surface now, and she thought it rocked slightly against Skye's hand. "If it's hatching, then we need to get out."
"No, that's not what I can hear," Skye said.
Oh. Oh no. Jemma felt a cold lump of fear settle in her stomach. This was bad.
She was torn between staying and leaving, between doing the right thing according to protocols and abandoning Skye. It wasn't really a choice. She tapped a few commands into the tablet on the bench beside her. The lab door sealed with a buzz, and a comm link to Coulson and Ward opened up.
"Skye, you need to move away from the egg," she said, doing the exact opposite and inching closer. "We don't know what's in it."
"I'm not leaving it," Skye said again.
Jemma stretched out and put a hand on Skye's shoulder. "I know you're not. But maybe if you just stepped back a bit. OK? Just in case."
"But--"
"I'm sure it won't need you to help it," Jemma said, trying project calm reassurance in her voice. "We can watch from over here, that's it. Come on."
Slowly, Skye pulled her hand away from the egg and moved back, one step and then another. Jemma let her hand drift from Skye's shoulder down to the small of her back. Skye didn't shrug her away, so she kept it resting there. They watched as the egg rocked against its bed of towels and the cracks widened.
A small fragment broke away from the top and something dark and shiny poked through for a moment. It withdrew and the rocking increased, as though whatever was inside was having to fight to break free. Another, larger fragment fell away, and something battered a few more pieces so furiously they flew through the air.
Out of the hole it had created, a slim head emerged. Neck and shoulders followed. The creature peered around the lab looking wobbly, as though its head was too heavy for its neck. Jemma had to stifle a giggle at the sight.
The creature seemed to gather itself and then burst out of the shell, sending pieces flying through the room to hit instruments and walls with soft tinkling sounds. It was covered with dark brown scales and a whip-cord thin tail lashed the air. On its back, two wings fluttered and slowly stretched out, knocking a beaker off the bench. The membrane that stretched over the wings shaded to a deep, stunning red at the edges and they almost seemed to glow in the light.
"You're beautiful," Jemma murmured.
It cast around, its head turning on its thin neck as though it was looking for something. Skye made a soft sound and moved over to the bench before Jemma could stop her.
The creature lurched toward Skye, and Jemma could hear someone--Coulson? Ward?--shouting outside the lab as it skidded across the smooth surface of the bench. Her heart was in her mouth as the creature tumbled against Skye and...stopped.
It looked up and rested one tiny foreclaw against Skye's arm. Skye tentatively stroked a finger along the ridge on the creature's head, and its golden eyes fluttered shut with a low sigh.
"Raisha," Skye said. "Her name is Raisha."