Jemma Simmons is a terrible liar (needanewplan) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-01-18 13:24:00 |
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Coming to terms with the fact that she was dying? Not the easiest thing in the world, yet she still had kept quiet because she didn’t want people to worry. Especially with the holidays. No, Jemma had remained quiet, maintained her generally cheerful demeanor and continued to work as if nothing were wrong. She had been trying to find a way to reverse the effects, had been analyzing the DNA bomb for any sort of answer. But whatever they had done? It was beyond modern medicine.
All things considered, she was exhausted. She kept going, but she was so tired. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. It was draining to make sure none of the cracks were showing. She’d already done it before, following the pod, going undercover at Hydra and the stress and isolation from all of that. It meant she knew how to mask it. But it didn’t change the fact she was exhausted.
The good news was that it seemed Cosima seemed to be doing better, but she still worried about her girlfriend and what could come next. It seemed their dreams were still alternating between when one bad thing struck one, the other had a reprieve, and then… Though considering the fact she’d been infected (it was the only explanation despite her initial conclusion) when Cosima had lashed out in the lab. The pattern did still hold though.
Getting up from her desk in her office, Jemma headed into the lab. She needed to update her file to note the degeneration of her cells, trying to get an estimate on how much time she had left. The dreams had made it clear that there was no answer. At least not in the timeframe she had there. She didn’t want false hope and despite the fact she usually was the hopeful one, Jemma could feel that as well. Which meant running another test. Thankfully it was a relatively slow day so most of her staff were busy doing other things and not around.
It had definitely been difficult working through Kendall’s death. Cosima had imploded both here and in the dreams. Actually, everyone had imploded in the dreams. Both her and Sarah had gone off the deep end. At least here, Cosima hadn’t tried to insert the bot into her cheek to save her life. She’d instead thrown herself headlong into her dissertation, which she’d fallen off-schedule for. At least until Felix had taken her out for drinks. That had definitely helped.
It also helped that her dreams seemed to be giving her a reprieve for her getting over the trauma as much as she possibly could. She also wasn’t certain how to process the fact that Delphine was probably still alive, but that was the least of her problems. Kendall’s death was the bigger problem, but it was evening out now, thankfully. Enough so that she’d managed to get back on track with her dissertation work, and she was able to function without lashing out at people like she had before Jemma had sent her home. And now that her head was mostly on straight she could work without getting distracted by her emotions.
Cosima was busy doing some work in the lab. She was getting some results from tests she’d run earlier and was reading over them, her brows furrowing a bit as she got some unexpected results. She’d been running tests on the bot she’d gotten from Leekie’s head to get a better understanding of it. Best to understand it in the event Sarah ended up with hers so that Cosima could help take it out of her without killing her.
No one dying because of one of Leekie’s bots would be a good thing. After all, they didn’t know if it would show up in Sarah’s cheek or not, so Jemma had cleared the research happily. Then again, they had already discussed it when the head itself had shown up. Best to be prepared.
Having taken a sample, marked it as Patient X as her files had for this case, her case, Jemma put the slide under the microscope to see the rate of degeneration in order to work backwards. Or at least, that was the plan. Having been making markings on the file to note degeneration rate in order to put it into a formula, she felt like everything was closing in around her. No. Not closing in around her. Just… vision going black.
And just like that, Jemma collapsed at her work station, file pages falling to the ground around her as she hit the ground unconscious.
This was one of the things Cosima had fallen behind on. She’d wanted to better understand the bots and the technology so that the Agency could better protect against it if any Neolutionists ever showed up and tried to instill their crazy science into the masses. She’d already put it through several tests, learning what caused it to kill its host, learning its parameters, so on and so forth. They were at a point where Cosima felt they could attempt to make their own bot to see if they could replicate it.
However, any thoughts she was having were dispelled when she heard a thud. Looking up, she was confused at first, but the sound of some papers fluttering in the air drew her attention further. She saw the scattered papers, then she saw something else.
“Jemma?” She asked as she got up and discarded the papers in her own hands. “Jemma!” She cried as she saw her girlfriend unconscious on the floor. Cosima ran to her and knelt down. “Hey, Jemma, can you hear me?” She asked, trying not to flip out. She first checked for a pulse.
And that was just it, wasn’t it. There would always be a testing phase. Especially as they all knew any threat could cross over, so Neolution? There was nothing that would necessarily stop them. All they could do was be prepared, which was thankfully the Agency’s specialty.
Not like Jemma had much say of anything at the moment. Unconscious, her pulse was weak.
After a few minutes, the petite biochemist began to regain consciousness, groaning some as she sat up, palm to her forehead as if that would somehow manage to keep the room from spinning. She felt weak. Well, okay, that wasn’t all that peculiar a feeling for her these days, but it was more noticeable than usual. Which of course, she was on the floor.
It was only after she sat up and the room stopped spinning that Jemma realized she wasn’t alone.
“Oh. Cosima. Hello.”
Right. Because that was perfectly calm and collected as if nothing at all had happened and she wasn’t surrounded by the fallen medical files that she’d been working on.
Helping the Agency prepare for any situation was one reason Cosima enjoyed her work here. The other reason was because she got to study a lot of science that tended to be straight out of science fiction sometimes. And she loved that, learning new things and figuring out how to best turn them to benefit people. At least the things that weren’t weapons, anyway.
But right now, she was way more concerned with her girlfriend. The weak pulse frightened her, and she did a preliminary check to see if Jemma had injured anything else, like cutting her head or something when she’d fallen. Then she was about to call Martha when Jemma came to.
“Whoa hey, take it easy,” Cosima said when Jemma sat up. Concern was written clear across her face as she knelt beside her. “Are you alright? You passed out, and your pulse is weak. Do you want me to call Martha?” Martha came to mind first because she knew them, and it would be way easier than taking Jemma to the hospital or something.
There would have been no physical signs of injury that were visible given Jemma’s perchance to wear long sleeved blouses, on top of her labcoat. Still, it took her a bit to resettle, holding her head briefly to regain her balance, despite the fact she was only sitting as opposed to standing. The fact that she had passed out was definitely not a good sign.
“I’m… it’s nothing.”
Understatement of the year. And she doubted that Cosima would let it go, especially given the next thing she had to say in regards to calling Martha.
“No, it’s fine. She won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Which technically might not be true. But given the advanced bioengineering of the bio-bomb, the rate at which her cells were degenerating, the lack of any sort of treatment because of how advanced it was…. Jemma was pretty sure she was just going to have to accept it. Had already begun to accept it since she had seen the results while doing her test at the genetics lab at UC Irvine.
Cosima definitely wasn’t going to let it go. She wasn’t a medical professional, but she well knew that passing out was always a bad sign. Yes, she might somewhat overreact to the situation because it was Jemma and she cared about her, she was doing well to keep the overreaction inside.
At the comment about Martha not being able to do anything about it, Cosima narrowed her eyes a bit. She was confused, but the statement said a lot. It told her that there was something wrong with Jemma and that Jemma knew it. After all, it was one thing to say something was fine, it was another to say a doctor couldn’t do anything about it. Which meant that Jemma knew something was wrong with her and wasn’t saying.
“Martha can’t do anything about what, exactly? Is there something wrong? Are you sick?” Which was totally not fair if Jemma was sick. She tried to swallow her sudden fear that this was intensely serious if a doctor couldn’t do anything about it.
Probably shouldn’t have said that, which was even more proof that Jemma wasn’t as okay as she had been presenting herself to be. Because she usually was much better at masking being sick or at least revealing that something was desperately wrong. But between the results she was getting, the dreams, and the whole passing out thing… well, she was a bit jumbled, which crossed over into her revealing more than she had wanted to.
So instead she just nodded at the question on if she was sick or not.
“For a few months now.”
Sighing, Jemma looked around at the scattered medical file around them. The answers were all in there.
“I thought… foolishly really, that I would be able to find an answer. But the results continue to come back the same.”
Even if in the dreams she had been able to say the words I’m dying, I only have a week left, Jemma wasn’t there yet. She had really only just come to terms with the results from UC Irvine. The results that were once again verified by the test she had just been running.
“I needed to be sure, I didn’t want to have false hope.”
At the admission, Cosima felt a swell of emotion within her, but she did her best to hold it back. Jemma didn’t need her throwing emotion at her right now, and Cosima needed to remain as rational as possible to listen to her. But it still wasn’t easy to hear that someone she loved was sick like this. And this must have been what Jemma had felt like when Cosima had fallen ill with her own illness.
“Is it something from your dreams or something from here?” Because that was important. If it was dream-related there had to be something here that they could do. And even if it wasn’t from the dreams, there still had to be something they could do.
“What are you sick with?” She wondered if she’d missed any signs before this moment, but Jemma always tended to stay strong despite anything else she might be going through. So in that respect, she wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t known before now. Still, she wanted to do whatever she could to help.
There were reasons Jemma hadn’t wanted to say anything. She had been in that position with Cosima, the roles reversed, everything Cosima was already dealing with, the fact that she was always the one who was supposed to fix things no matter how impossible, so just work on that and go with it. To not be able to fix it, well… it went against who Jemma was.
“Dreams. I was hit with a bio-bomb.” Which her father in the dreams had ties to. That was something she did her best to not think about as it was something she couldn’t change. “Woke up, thought it was just a concussion at first, but after it had been a month I decided to run tests.”
Closing her eyes, Jemma took a breath. It was a lot to take in and she’d had months to deal with it, even if it had only been a few days when she had to accept the truth. This was beyond her abilities to fix.
“Advanced cellular neurosis. Sub-cellular macular degeneration. The rate of degeneration has been slower than it was in the dreams. But the science behind the bio-bomb is far more advanced than known science here.” And yes she had done some digging at Stark as well, just to see.
There might’ve been some anger that Jemma hadn’t mentioned this illness before, but it was lost amidst the other emotions she felt and the fact she was trying to think more rationally about this. She’d be a mess later when Jemma wasn’t around, but for now, she needed to be strong.
“Holy shit,” she said, which was kind of a useless statement yet also somewhat summed this up rather well. “Essentially, you’re dying unless there’s a way to reverse the cell neurosis.” And summing that up so Cosima could wrap her brain around it.
“There has to be something that can help. I mean, this is the Agency, there’s got to be some science somewhere, whether it’s in this world or from someone’s dream world, that could help.” So switching into science mode it was. “Is it attacking all of your cells or just certain types?” For the moment, thoughts of using the bot from her own dreams had fallen by the wayside. But perhaps knowing if all the cells or only certain ones were being attacked could lead to potential methods of treatments.
Jemma wasn’t good at asking for help. Especially when surrounded by people who were already stressed out. It wasn’t Cosima’s fault on that, she had needed to get her dissertation done, on top of her dreams. Jemma would never add to that. So instead she would just focus on the questions at hand as she started to gather up her files.
“Precisely.” Something she hadn’t put into words until the previous week once she had seen the rate of degeneration and available technology and sciences she had, “I’ve looked at everything that’s available here.” And given she ran the department, it meant that she wasn’t exactly locked out of anything. Everything that she had come across? None of it had worked.
“It seems to be all the cells. It’s all in the file.”
Because of course Jemma had a meticulously kept file. There were her medical files and findings. The different rates of degeneration. Estimated date of infection based on dream and arrival of the bio-bomb. Every test she ran to try and find a way to reverse the effects. The science behind the bio-bomb, tests she had used to try and reverse engineer it.
At least Jemma was meticulous and kept good records. There had to be hope somewhere in her notes about the tests she’d run. Even as Jemma said that she’d looked into everything, Cosima wasn’t ready to lose hope. She was the hopeful one, the one who always looked at the brighter side of things and thought something better had to come along. That had been put to the test and the breaking point in her dreams, but here? There were better things here.
“Everything?” Again, not helpful, but Cosima was trying to get it all through her head. She also started helping Jemma pick up her papers that had scattered. That’s when her brain clicked. “What about the bot technology from my dreams? There’s research that still needs to be done, but those things are built to be tailored to a specific thing. Such as Leekie had cancer and his bot was fighting off cancer cells. We could build one aimed to fight off your sickness until we find something better?” Because no way was Cosima going to leave a bot in her girlfriend forever.
“I nearly stuck a bot in my cheek in my dreams as a last ditch effort during a breakdown to try to cure myself.” That had not been a fun dream to experience.
When Jemma lost hope, it was a bad sign. She just also happened to be pragmatic and enough of a realist to know that some things were beyond her. This was one of those situations. At least until Cosima mentioned the bot. Which….
“Just how safe would it be. If ruptured…” Given the things she did with Natasha, the ones Cosima didn’t ask about but they both knew… she wasn’t exactly just hiding away in the lab. “I mean it could feasibly be used as a temporary reprieve to even slow the degeneration rate….”
She was worried. But it wasn’t like Jemma wanted to die either.
“Well that was reckless, though as it was during a breakdown then that makes sense.”
It was always bad when Jemma lost hope. The same could be said of Cosima. That was another thing they both had in common, the seemingly endless hope, and when they lost it, that meant things were really bad. At least Cosima had some hope left, especially as it seemed Jemma hadn’t seriously considered it.
“From what I know, it won’t rupture unless forcibly removed. It seems like there’s some remote electronic capabilities that allows someone to rupture it from a distance and kill the host. But I think we can build a safe version of it. Or at least a safer one. It shouldn’t take very long to develop one with the technology we have here. I think the longest part would be programming it to your illness.” Cosima explained. “It’s something that should give us some time to figure out a better solution.” She sure as hell wasn’t going to be leaving that thing in her girlfriend’s cheek for longer than necessary.
“Yeah, it was. I was convinced it was the only way I would survive after Kendall’s death. But Felix stopped me.” Felix was basically their guardian angel. “I didn’t try anything like that here, for the record.” She’d been pretty messed up emotionally, but instead of acting out like she had in the dreams, she’d simply thrown herself overboard into her dissertation to make up for lost time.
At least Cosima’s dissertation was over so she wouldn’t be dealing with this on top of said dissertation. Jemma would never forgive herself if she had interfered with that. Okay, so Jemma rarely forgave herself for anything even when it wasn’t her fault. So if Cosima could still have some hope, the least she could do was try to muster it in herself.
“Well, I suppose it can’t hurt.” Even if didn’t work. At least they could say they had tried, which… wouldn’t have much impact on Jemma if she still died, but at least there was that. They had tried, it would be something. She didn’t have much faith in it herself, especially with how rapidly her cells were dying and how all the cells were targeted but at this point, it really couldn’t hurt to try.
“I’m glad to hear that.” Because if she had missed that in her quest to figure out how to take care of herself…. Though they had managed to defeat Cosima’s illness so she supposed it made sense that similar actions wouldn’t be taken. Why would they be when that particular stressor was no longer an issue. “Though Felix does seem good at being at the right place at the right time in your dreams. So I’m glad he was able to stop you.”
Having the dissertation done was definitely a positive. Cosima could breathe now and not feel like she was stretching herself too thin. She was more than happy to dedicate her time to helping Jemma figure this out. They could build a bot. With all the scans that had been run, it wouldn’t be difficult to come up with something in a relatively short period of time.
And Martha would probably need to be brought in at some point. Though Cosima at least knew how the bot was attached and could detach it, thanks to having been there when Sarah had gotten her bot taken out. And even if this didn’t work, Cosima could try and hold onto the fact that they had tried. But she wasn’t wanting to entertain that outcome just yet because it would make her way too emotional to think about.
“Okay, we can look over everything about the bot and your illness. It should be relatively simple to construct. And I know how to take it out without killing you in the process. Though Martha should be in on that part as well considering she’s a doctor.” Cosima would leave it up to Jemma to tell Martha the why, but she did think it was important for a doctor to be there when it was being implanted.
“Yeah, Felix is definitely the glue that holds us together sometimes. I’m grateful that he called.” And she was. Cosima was just relieved that she wasn’t sick here, otherwise she probably would have gone to the extreme of trying to put Leekie’s bot into her own cheek in an effort to save herself. But as it was, her self-destruction had taken a far less drastic turn here. Which was for the better for everyone.
Closing her eyes, Jemma leaned her head against the leg of the lab station she’d been working at before the whole collapsing thing had happened. It was exhausting trying to appear completely put together, like nothing was wrong. Each day became progressively more and more difficult to get through because every day, more of her cells were dying.
“That’s useful. But yes, Martha should probably be in the know.” As much as it pained her to have to bring others in. With Peggy out on maternity leave, Natasha needing her for some horrible submarine mission, it was clear she couldn’t keep this quiet any longer, not now that Cosima knew. Which she also knew was a good thing, it meant someone else might have an idea, and yet….
“I can see why.” And at least he’d been there for Cosima when Jemma apparently could not be. Which made sense, she couldn’t fix everything, no matter how hard she tried.
This wasn’t going to be easy, but Cosima was going to stay strong. Working on the bot would help keep both her and Jemma focused on doing something other than thinking about Jemma’s illness. It may not work, but they wouldn’t know if they didn’t try. And they both were scientists, and it wouldn’t sit well if they didn’t try something to fight this.
Reaching out, Cosima set her hand on Jemma’s shoulder and squeezed it. “I’ll let you tell her when you’re ready. But for now, let’s get you up if you think you can stand, and we can start going through the data we have and get started on the bot, okay?” It was one of the ways Cosima was saying she was there for Jemma through this, no matter what the ultimate outcome may be.