runningred | OOM: Travelling with Jemma.

Jay jumps down from the back of the truck, laughing as Rápido runs over to Chill for a pat and then to Jemma, sniffing her on the hope she's carrying food.

"Let me show you to your room." Chill nods towards to door. "And don't mind the animals - this is their place, they have free reign here."

Jemma shows a remarkable lack of self-preservation instinct, crouching to get a better look at the cheetah's array of whiskers.

"Oh, right, room!" She realizes belatedly that at least part of that was addressed to her and perhaps maybe she should pay attention.

Rápido has other ideas and sniffs at Jemma's cheek, licking her playfully before trotting inside.

Chill follows the cheetah, showing them around the facility. The sanctuary is part vet clinic, part research centre, part make-shift home for the staff here. Birds and animals roam through the buildings, relaxed and unafraid.

Jay stops at an open window, looking out at an albino chimpanzee who is sitting in the branches. The chimp studied Jay just as hard as Jay studies him. Something about him makes Jay frown.

Jay almost loses Jemma to the research lab - she's about a half-step away from pulling on gloves and glasses and diving into whatever needs doing when she realizes he's frowning at something. And really, she needs to pay attention if there's trouble.

Maybe it's nothing. Hopefully it's nothing. (He still may lose her to the lab, sorry).

"Jay?"

Jay doesn't hear her at first but then his attention snaps back and he blinks as if coming out of trance. "Huh? Sorry what did you say?" He shakes his head as the chimp vanishes into the trees.

"You looked a bit pre-occupied - are you well?" She asks concernedly, fishing through her pack for a pen-light. 'Unexpectedly dazed' doesn't often translate to good things in the world of SHIELD, no, so she already has a list of worries (undiagnosed head trauma, toxin/sedative, sleep deprivation, 0-8-4 exposure), and her demeanor switches from giddy scientist to working science agent.

"It's nothing." He shakes his head again. "It's okay. Just... realised something. Something I don't expect. Don't work about it."

Chill watches Jay from the other side of the room, his expression intentionally blank but clearly knowing. "This way." He leads them to a room off one side of the research centre. It's not much - just a big bed and a table but the balcony looks out over the valley, a Peregrine Falcon preening himself on the rail.

Jay coughs softly. "Jem, you okay sharing a bed tonight or shall I ask for an extra cot. I can sleep on the balcony if you like?"

He may say don't worry, but she's got him on her radar now. He'll be dodging watchful looks all night.

Well.

Once she gets done focusing on the falcon. The falcon is really cool.

"Hmm? What? Oh, no, it's fine, I'm sure it's fine, people do it all the time and... definitely fine." She babbles, internally wondering how she can be from the country that supposedly produces the like of James Bond. That... that was the opposite of cool and collected. That was a mess.

Chill smiles, "Hold your arm out, he'll come to you." He turns to Jay, letting Jemma enjoy herself. "I'll let you settle in. Feel free to wonder around. Just don't touch any of the animals in the cages. Mostly they're here because they're hurt or sick so be careful. Dinners on the deck just up the hall in about an hour. And if you like I'll take you to visit the two vervets you rescued later. I'm sure you'd be glad to know they're doing really well here."

Jemma is delighted when the falcon swoops onto her arm - seriously, that's some grade-school giddiness going on. She can't quite bring herself to pet the bird - she is pretty sure the amount of pressure that beak can apply in pounds per square inch vastly exceeds the amount her fingers can withstand, but Lord it is gorgeous up close.

"Thank you!" She calls (slightly belatedly) when Chill leaves. "You didn't tell me you were rescuing monkeys."

Jay stashed his stuff in the corner and washes his hands, trying to tame his hair a bit. "The job I did on the Ivory Coast. The guy had two young monkeys he'd kept as pets. Poor things were half starved. One of my contacts recommended this place as a sanctuary that might be able to look after them. Now I can see why."

The falcon flaps a little to steady himself and goes back to preening his feathers, happy to treat Jemma as a branch.

"Some people really ought not have pets." She huffs, careful not to disturb the falcon. She's notably not anti-pet-monkey. After all, she's pretty much resigned herself to the fact that some day Fitz is going to get a monkey, and she's going to end up helping care for the monkey, as his go-to biology specialist.

...

"Err, how do you convince a falcon to be elsewhere?" She'd happily stand and be the falcon's perch all night long, but she's supposed to be getting ready for supper. These two things are not exactly activities that can be performed concurrently.

"No, some people shouldn't be allowed to breathe." Jay growls softly under his breath, coming over to very gently take the falcon from her and carrying him out to the balcony. "I'm just glad they could find a home here."

"It does seem like the perfect spot." She's giving him one of those looks again, the one that could be subtitled 'no I haven't forgotten that I'm a bit worried about you right now'. But she hides it (mostly) under the guise of finally removing the biking gear (hallelujah, glory be, get it off). "It must have been quite the arrival."

"Yeah, perfect really is the word for it." Jay mutters, almost distractedly as he sheds his jacket and fishing through his bag for a fresh clothes.

"I don't know. I wasn't able to bring them here at the time. One of the sanctuary's people collected them. This is the first time I've been here myself."

"Oh good, then I won't be the only one doing the touristy rubber-necking thing." She grins - sort of. She doesn't know it, but it's an expression Fitz would recognize as Simmons in her Fitz-managing mode, keeping a careful eye out while letting the day pass by normally.

She's also found a hair brush and is attacking her hair ruthlessly while digging for the hair pins she knows she has in this pack somewhere. Best to pin it up before it decides to become a frizzy wreak.

"Oh no, I'm as rubber-necked as you. Thought I was going to shit myself when the cheetah jumped me." Jay chuckles, quickly changing his shirt with his back turned to Jemma. His rather scarred back. "Shall we take a look around before dinner?"

Jemma's caught sight of the scars before, though usually her attention is more on how disastrously the upcoming 'sparring' session is going to go. She's not entirely surprised by the scars - after all, she pegged him as someone who'd be most comfortable in Operations quite a while ago, and they all seem to come with a vast array of scars (some more willing to show them than others).

She does take the opportunity to also change her shirt - after all, it's a very good idea and worth copying.

"That will be brilliant - they really are very well set up here."

He may, even now, lose her to that research lab.

"Very." Again that distracted edge to his voice. He doesn't look as she changed, a perfect gentlemen like that.

He offers her an arm and happy to walk with her to the research lab. The research team greet her as an equal as soon as they work out she knows her stuff. Jay finds a quiet corner to watch from, happily bemused by her antics.

Once it's discovered that they all speak the same language (science, with strong accents of biological sciences), the notebooks come out. Everyone's got a notebook, the place you put the equations and formulas and ideas that don't really fit into what you're working on at the moment but shouldn't be completely ignored, either.

(Jemma's notebooks have taken over one of her lab's closets. They're ridiculous, and she always feels a vague sense of embarrassment when she adds a new book to the stack.)

Not too much longer after that, they're having a five-way simultaneous argument about how best to place electrodes to monitor seizure activity in one of the monkeys under observation (and which wiring method will produce the cleanest results), complete with multiple diagrams (all being sketched and re-sketched and written over and highlighted and erased all at the same time by five pairs of hands).

And someone has unearthed the lab stash of candy. There's always a lab stash, for situations much like this. The world just runs better on sugar, caffeine, and natural theobromides.

There may be gesturing with kit-kats involved, we're just sayin'.

Chill comes over to join Jay, watching them with raised eyebrows. "I think they've adopted her. You may never get her back. Dinner's almost ready but it always takes a while to get them out of the lab."

"I think I can help." Jay walks over to join them, plucking the kit-kat from Jemma's hand. "Notebooks down. Dinner time. Now." He's gentle but firm, trying not to engage even thought he can see a much better way to wire the machine.

He very nearly gets ignored when one of the researchers produces a mock electrode net they had been toying with earlier and it's very much like introducing a brand new squeaky toy to the middle of a dog park populated by golden retrievers - everyone wants a piece of that action.

But Jemma's short a piece of candy, and her mulish 'but science!' expression shifts to one of 'oh yeah, food is good huh'. The expression gets more sheepish once she realizes how much time has passed.

"Err. I hope I haven't been holding anything up."

"You're all holding us up!" Chill laughs, clearly this is an argument that happens often. He yells something in an African language which is answered with a hail of candy from the other researchers and playful grumbling.

Dinner's a fairly informal affair - a buffet of both local and more European foods with everyone helping themselves and sitting wherever. Chill seems to be the local den mother, nudging and where needed, shoving chattering researchers to get them to at least sit down with their food.

Judging from the size of the table, there's at least half a dozen people missing from the group.

Chill raises a glass. "Ladies, gentleman - a toast to Mr Todd and Miss Simmons for their generosity. Because of them, we can afford the Maasai Mara expedition to Kenya."

There is a lot of cheering and more than a few hugs and slaps on the back for them both.

That sets off a round of 'no really I haven't the faintest idea what he's done oh well if you insist you're welcome no really' from Jemma while she attempts to at least somewhat gracefully accept thanks for something she had no part of. It's helped that she can usually sidetrack people into talking about said expedition, which requires a whole lot less cover-story-creating on her part.

This is always a good thing.

She tries to keep an eye on Jay throughout the meal - she's gotten the impression that whatever's bugging him is more than just a passing whim. However, she also has a problem of her own. Here, she's just Jemma Simmons - usually when she's in a research-based setting, she's half of the FitzSimmons team. This leads to more than a few awkward moments as the night wears on when she forgets and is jarred by the fact that Fitz isn't right there, already finishing her thought and launching into one of his own. Eventually she retreats out onto one of the balconies, away from the lights and the noise.

Getting people to talk about the trip is easy. Getting them to shut up long enough to eat is a challenge. There's another much smaller sanctuary in Kenya that some of them hope to study at and bring back some animals they're unable to look after there. The safe transport being the most massive cost drain for the trip and the source of serious logistical debates.

Jay is lost in conversation on the other side of the table. Some of the rangers seem to be talking him into coming on run out to help release an injured gorilla back into the park in the morning.

When she drifts out onto the balcony, the albino chimp is waiting for her, watching her with gold eyes. Very intelligent eyes.

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