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[protect_and_survey]

The front door opens, and allows in a drowned rat.

Well, no.

Just a human wet enough to impersonate a drowned rat.

A pale human, with heavy shadows under her eyes, absolutely sopping wet, clutching a plastic-wrapped pack to her chest and generally looking like she's having the worst sort of day.

"Bollocks." Jemma groans, with deep feeling.

Comments

[imthepilot]

Bodhi is just carrying a large pot from the kitchen, vegetables sticking out of it at all angles. He spots her come in and frowns worriedly. Putting his pot down on the Bar, he fetches a towel and offers it to her. "Are you alright?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Well. Yes. Now. I suppose. I mean, it must have worked, no one..." Jemma reins in what has been a building full on panic!babble for the last couple of hours by sheer strength of will and drags up what she fondly hopes is a reassuring smile because This Fellow Isn't SHIELD.

It's a ghastly expression of exhaustion and nerves and about a million questions no one has seen fit to answer.

"Better, anyway, I'm better, so that's... good. Um. Hello."

[imthepilot]

Panic. Yes, Bodhi knows what that feels like. "You should sit down." He says gently, fetching her a glass of water.

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma sits, landing with a thump, setting the plastic-wrapped package aside to fitfully attempt to dry her hair. She's good at obeying direction, she likes direction, frankly this day could have used a little bit more of that and a lot less making it up as she went along.

"Sorry, usually I'm a bit less..." Frazzled, off-balance, out of sorts, "Damp."

[imthepilot]

"It's a weird feeling. Being wet." Bodhi muses, getting a second towel to clean up the puddles. "Do you like tea?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh, yes, rather, that would be lovely, thank you." Her smile eases at the edges at the offer. She gives up her current plan as a bad job and starts pulling out the elastics that held her hair up in the first place - there's no sense pretending it won't all need to be re-done anyway. If the dip into the Atlantic didn't put paid to any attempt at neatness, the hoses the extraction team used to wash them down certainly did.

[imthepilot]

Bodhi orders a pot of tea and a plate of his own dried fruit biscuits for her. "This should warm you up. I'm Bodhi, by the way."

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh, lovely, thank you very much. I'm Jemma. Jemma Simmons." She offers in return, along with the offer of a friendly handshake - manners before tea, after all, no matter how good it smells. "Have you been here long?"

[imthepilot]

"A bit over a year now." He pours them both some tea and orders himself some biscuits. "I... I died, in a battle. And found myself here."

If you've got room?

[wayward_sun]

"You really should get out of your wet clothes," the well-dressed, well-groomed, charming man in the expensive suit says, smiling.

"You might catch a cold."

He takes a sip of his drink.

(Very British, very smiling. Like, really very smiling.)

Of course!

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma narrows her eyes. It's only the thought that Agent Coulson is already in quite a temper that keeps her from unleashing a rant about common misinformation about viral diseases.

It is rather difficult. It has been a very long day, after all.

"That was the plan, but I seem to have taken a detour." She replies with that careful politeness of someone hanging on to their patience with their fingernails.

Re: Of course!

[wayward_sun]

"Well, let's get you a towel, shall we?" he says, all helpful attention.

(He can totally pull that of. He is a very helpful kind of guy. For certain values of helpful).

Re: Of course!

[protect_and_survey]

"That... would be helpful." The Ghost of Coulson Present is, almost immediately, proved correct and Jemma can't regret not giving a lecture on viral spread.

...

She adds this to the list of things to Never Tell Coulson Ever. It's a short, but growing list.

"Thank you very much. Um. I'm Jemma, Jemma Simmons."

Re: Of course!

[wayward_sun]

"Hello Jemma. I'm Lucifer Morningstar, " Lucifer replies cheerfully, as he asks for - And gets - a towel to hand her.

Re: Of course!

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma freezes with her hand on the towel. She comes from a world that's just recently discovered that not only are the gods from some religions real, they can be absolute assholes.

"....um."

Welp.

If he has a magical glowstick of destiny she is so out of here.

[wayward_sun]

He beams at her.
"Yes, yes, really. The one and only. But don't worry, I'm actually a very reasonable fellow."

[protect_and_survey]

Well, he hasn't casually read her mind or declared his manifest destiny yet, so... all in all, things could be said to be going well.

She takes the towel.

"Is this something people worry about a lot?" She's not really up on the source material, sorry.

[iprotectyou]

An armorless giant of a man is at the bar, polishing off a bowl of lentil soup. He spots her at the door, and immediately orders a towel. Bar provides that, and a blanket, which he folds over one arm.

At first glance, the most obvious thing to notice about this man is that he's big, but if one looks closer, one can clearly see that he's used to his own strength and approaches her cautiously. He's also hunching slightly, as if to appear smaller.

"Hello! May the Force of others be with you! I'm Baze Malbus. Would you like a towel, a blanket, or both? Bar seems to think you need the latter," Baze yammers on, ambling over peacefully, with the towel held out.

[protect_and_survey]

Being large is sooooo not a problem. Large and overtly threatening, yes, that is a big problem that she has absolutely no solution for because the Night-night gun is back on the Bus and it's going to be some time before she can get back to the Bus and heavens knows her marksmanship with any other weapon is a bit iffy at all times but considering that's not her specialty that's... well, becoming less okay by the day but still.

"I will take either, honestly, thank you." Jemma takes the offered towel, setting her packet (no one likes SHIELD-issued decon clothing, NO ONE, it itches and never fits right on anyone) aside and pulling her ponytail out so she can work on trying to wring out her hair some. "I'm Jemma, Jemma Simmons."

[iprotectyou]

Oh, she's not afraid of him! Yay! Baze spreads the offered blanket out, holding it up for whenever she wants the dryer-warmed cloth.

"Pleasure to meet you, Jemma Simmons," Baze says cheerfully, grinning down at her. She's so tiny!

"Do you prefer Jenna, or Miss Simmons? And why are you all wet? Provided you're up to talking about it, that is."

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh, it should really be Dr. Simmons, so I think Jemma would be better, I'm not working here, so." She rambles as she gratefully takes the blanket as well, snugging it around her shoulders. "As for all of this, well. Um."

She's entirely sure that her bosses would prefer she come up with some sort of story but... well. Absolutely nothing comes to mind. The truth takes up the slack and fills the silence instead.

"I sort of fell out of a plane. Into the ocean. It... seemed like a good idea at the time."

[iprotectyou]

"Oh, Dr. Simmons," Baze says, nodding exactly once. He's about to ask her what profession she's a doctor of, but then she explains what happened to her.

"You what? Oh, this won't do at all. You need tea."

Baze turns to lead the way to the bar, glancing back to see if she follows.

"How did this happen? Why was it a good idea at the time?"

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma greatly approves of tea, she doesn't understand at all why a thermos of tea wasn't provided when they were fished out of the ocean, honestly. They really dropped the ball on that one.

"Well, it was either that or stay on the plane and potentially risk the lives of everyone on board, I was a bit out of options at the time. Or I thought I was, anyway, it got a bit jumbled at the end." She explains, a bit incoherently. She's not really used to explaining things to people who aren't Fitz and who already knows much of what's going on already, yet.

[iprotectyou]

Baze settles on the barstool where he'd previously left his soup, and Bar provides two cups of passion fruit tea. He picks his up and inhales the fragrant steam before gulping some down.

"Mmm. How did your staying on the plane mean everyone else was in danger? And do you need another towel?"

[protect_and_survey]

"There may have been a teensy chance the virus I'd picked up would release an EMP pulse that would disable the plane." Her fibbing is horrible. There was a 100% chance that she was going to die and take the plane with her, and it didn't look like either of the two senior agents were too keen on taking her out first.

Not that she's ungrateful or anything, but that does lead to some difficult choices.