InsaneJournal

Who: Jemma and Natasha
What: Dream fall out
When: January 18th 2021
Where: Their place
Warnings: Low
Status: Log | Complete

Memories. Memories that were locked away. Jemma had told them, she’d told them that the more they searched her mind and memory for the location of where Fitz was, that the further he would hide. She didn’t know specifically how - part of the memory blocker and all - but she knew that to be the truth. No matter what the chronicoms did, they would fail.

She didn’t want to forget.

A chance at a normal life (well normal in the living on the Zephyr and in space) while they solved the issue of time travel. Of how to save the others.

Knowing she had to forget and not wanting.

A hollowness in her heart. Something important.

And finally she was released. Basics. She knew basics. But there was so much she had lost. Names. Faces. Feelings she knew. A scent. But why couldn’t she remember a name? A face?

Waking up, the biochemist looked around before noticing a wedding ring. But no one in bed. Okay. Getting up, Jemma went through some paperwork she had in her room, a name. She needed a name.

Cosima.

She had a name, so going to her phone she pulled up the name and called. Only to be told the two had been divorced and was everything okay, was it a dream thing? A dream thing? Why couldn’t she remember? But it felt like the correct answer was yes, it was a dream thing, nothing to worry about, she was just momentarily confused. Reassuring the stranger who had once been her wife, Jemma sighed and went to make tea. That was something she remembered. And maybe things would fall into place in the process.

One thing was certain, this was all very inconvenient and annoying.

Nat's dreams had pretty much left off with the world ending, and while she was sure that would somehow get resolved, she'd yet to dream anything past that. But she'd understand memory issues, from watching it happen with Logan, from those times she'd suffered herself. It was never easy. But at the moment she had no idea what was going to happen, as she sat in Jemma's kitchen, wearing just a long shirt with the shield logo on it, drinking coffee.

Listen, sometimes it was still way easier to crash at Jemma's place than get her own, which she really should, but she kind of liked it here. It was lowkey, plus her cat liked Jemma. Win/win.

"Morning."

Hearing a voice, Jemma jumped before looking at Natasha, trying to place her.

Nothing. She had nothing. A vague sense of maybe she was familiar but that was about it.

“.....We’re not married, are we?”

It was a valid question. If she and this Cosima woman were divorced, but she was wearing a wedding ring and Natasha was there and well, she clearly had married another woman.

Even so, she hadn’t found any paperwork to signify another wedding so Jemma wasn’t sure. Which meant just asking. At least her tendency to be blunt remained.

"Only in my daydreams," Natashas teased, leaning back in the chair as if contemplating what kind of cereal to eat. She kept one eye on Jemma, trying to get a read on her; that question hadn't even been a sarcastic one and ... well this was Orange County. The ring was even more concerning, "Did you elope and forget to tell me?"

Jemma’s brows knit forward at the comment about Natasha’s daydreams. She felt like it should make sense. That it was a joke or whatever. She felt that she should know in general what was going on but she didn’t. There was so much that was a blur.

The ring question brought her attention back to what was going on. So it was not a recognized thing. And yet…

“Maths is my faithful husband…”

It meant something. But what?

“As in Algebra?” Natasha’s head tilted to the side, though she made no other move, looking suspiciously like a spider eyeing prey. “Because I don’t think I can picture you with a man.”

Ever.

Did things like a person’s gender even matter? Jemma didn’t remember much of, well, anything. Specifics she definitely didn’t remember. But if she formed a strong enough bond…. But she wasn’t even sure what that meant. So instead she just gave a helpless shrug.

“Yes? No… I don’t know. It means something. I know it means something…”

She really was not a fan. At all. She at least wasn’t running for her life or having to save the world while like this. In the waking world at any rate. Not like she even could remember specifics at the moment of the non-waking world.

Nat pushed out from the table and got to her feet. She studied Jemma for a moment, “You don’t recognize me at all, do you? Do you remember your name? The last thing you did before waking up? Any bad dreams, lately?”

To her credit she managed to make it not sound like an interrogation.

At the question about not recognizing Natasha at all, Jemma just shook her head, “No. I don’t…” As for the rest of the questions? “Jemma Simmons. And I remember...making tea and going to read something…”

There were so many blanks but routine, nondescript, those at least remained. Her interest did pique at the question about dreams.

“I don’t remember… but when I called Cosima, she asked if it was a dream thing that I didn’t remember getting divorced… I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t actually remember her either…”

Natasha pursed her lips as she listened, grimacing a little and then nodding. “She’s probably right then. It sounds like you’ve got some form of amnesia. I’m Natasha, your boss and friend. You’re a scientist, biology, chemistry and related. Does any of that sound familiar?”

“Being a scientist sounds familiar…” But that was about it. Which was frustrating. Why couldn’t she remember friends and co-workers? The fact that she’d been married and divorced. And what did maths as her faithful husband mean? Clearly it wasn’t here but it meant something.

Sighing in frustration, Jemma sat down at the dining room table, holding her head in her hands.

“There has to be a way to remember…” Before it became a serious problem.

There was the uncomfortable thought of just how much she relied on Jemma in a crisis, and thus a need to diversify. Nat felt a little bad even thinking about that right now.

“You’d be one of the people we’d turn to, most of the time.” Nat hesitated a moment, then put a hand on her shoulder, “But we have some other people who could help. If it’s science, or magic, we can figure it out.”

Jemma wasn’t sure how she felt knowing she was the one turned to most of the time in a crisis and all she could do was nod some. Though the comment about magic? That had her look up and quirk a brow.

“Magic doesn’t exist. It’s science we just don’t understand yet.”

In the Dreams, she’d always maintained that. Living in Orange County and its particulars made it so she had to accept magic was real. But with her memories all but gone in regards to specifics - like why she moved in the first place even - she was right back to that.

So in some regards, memories or not, Jemma remained Jemma. Just with a lot of holes in her memories.

“Yeah.” Natasha had expected that answer, and while on some level she agreed she’d also spent way too much time dealing with Magical Bullshit. It was real, and it was a real pain in her ass, “Hope you don’t have to reassess that again any time soon.”

She straightened, standing up at the table, “Would you like to come down to the lab?”

Things had made so much more sense when magic wasn’t real. When it was only science that had yet to be to be understood. A simpler, more innocent time. Not that Jemma currently remembered what she had endured in the years since showing up in Orange County. The trauma. So for a moment, she was as she had been. Okay admittedly very frustrated at the moment because she knew something was wrong but she couldn’t remember. But everything that had weighed her down?

Still. She wanted answers. She wanted to remember. So instead when Natasha asked about the lab, she could only nod.

“Yes. Definitely.”

Labs didn’t change. They were a constant. She understood a science lab no matter what she was currently missing within her memory.