The Father's Return

Interference

She stood frowning at the tracker, and hit it against her hand. Coulson put a hand on her shoulder as they stopped walking down the hallway.

"What's wrong? Have we lost signal?"

"I don't know Sir. It keeps glitching like there's an interference of some sort." She hit it again and it flickered, grainy lines dancing across the screen; then it focused and she could see the map and the three dots positioned almost in the centre of the building.

"Ah! Lovely, this way," she smiled and led them on.

They took the next left and came to a set of stairs, with a door partly opened at the top. Jemma stopped and looked blankly at the map.

"What's wrong now?" asked Coulson standing opposite her. Jemma couldn't think of what to say or do, without appearing to sound stupid.

"Umm, it's appears we've got a slight mishap. There are a flight of stairs in front of us, right?"

"As plain as day, yes. What's the problem?" replied Coulson looking at the stairs behind him.

"Well, oddly enough, these stairs don't appear on the map. They're just sort of, not there." Both of the agents observed the map, as Mike held onto May in his arms. He sensed something was wrong, something in the air wasn't right, but he wasn't quite sure what.

"Coulson," May muttered in her sleep and shivered in his arms. Mike looked over to the man who stood trying to find out whether the tracker had created a minor fault.

"Coulson," Mike called him over and Coulson looked even more worried as he looked down at her.

"This is taking too long. We have to get out of here before she falls into..." Mike trailed off.

"Don't say that," Coulson whispered, "We're doing the best we can to find our way out. She will not fall into a coma, and she will not die."

There was a heavy silence between them both and sad thoughts tugged at their hearts. To loose May would be the last straw, for Coulson in any case. In the months leading to now, Jemma had jumped off a plane in order to save her team from certain death, Skye had been shot trying to save Mike, Ward had betrayed them by tricking them into a fake identity, Fitz was in a critical coma from saving Jemma from drowning, and now this; if anything was going to happen to her, he wouldn't be able to live with it.

May mumbled his name again and he placed his hand on hers. He smiled.

"It's ok, we'll be out of here soon," he tried to sound positive, but if she'd looked up into his eyes she would've seen his uncertainty.

Meanwhile, Jemma was busy detecting the stairs before her and slowly approached them, looking down at her tracker to see if there was any change, though there was none. Something about that area wasn't right, she was sure of it. Taking a couple more steps she suddenly felt a tingling sensation all over her body as she stood at the base of the stairs. She frowned as if in a daze, and turned around.

Coulson and Mike both turned in sync, watching in horror as the stairs and Jemma seemed to vanish in a worm hole.

"Simmons!" Coulson cried, running towards her, but she was too dumbfounded to move. It was too late, she was gone. He huffed and puffed, scared out of his wits at the event that had just taken place.

"What the hell was that?" asked Mike, walking slowly over to him as they both stared down the hallway in which the stairs had once stood.

"I don't know," replied Coulson, raising his hand to his forehead.

"Simmons!"