It started easy enough.
Fitz had repaired her phone and Jemma had decided to listen to the recordings, both because she felt it might give her some sort of closure, nothing left related to her time 'there' apart from that, and because she hadn't always been lucid and was curious to hear what they sounded like now that she was relatively stable.
She could also collect some data from the things she had described - the battery had lasted longer than a regular one, perks of being so close to a genius engineer and a hacker who knew all the tricks.
The first ones sounded confident, if a bit hysterical, her faith in Fitz finding her being expressed over and over in each one of them; and she had been right, of course. Just wrong on how quickly it could make it happen.
The euphory from the first hunt, saving herself from starving to death.
And then she had gotten hurt. The pain in her voice reminded her of the scars on her back. The horror, the fear, made her realize it was a bad idea to listen as soon as she started to speak of the creatures that had attacked her at night - she had woken when one had started bloody eating her, leaving the marks on the side that Fitz had seen, injecting some sort of toxin that would have kept her from noticing if she hadn't been lucky - but by then Jemma couldn't stop, any pretense to be writing down new data gone, and she heard her past self sob about not being able to take it anymore.
She mentioned the plant holding her wrist too, and how she had almost started cutting her hand off to free herself but another creature had arrived and gotten eaten first, making the vines let go, her voice shaking but resolute, harsher.
And then, of course, the despair.
"This is hell..."
Closing her eyes, she heard herself beg for Fitz to come after that, more or less delirious by then, and barely remembered those first words to be caused by the blood loss, the last wounds she had gotten all over her abdomen, the rest of the registration nothing that she could recall saying: pleading to die, pleading to be saved, pleading for Fitz because she didn't want to go like that, she was scared and wanted to go home. Promising - bargaining - that she wouldn’t disappoint him anymore, that she wouldn’t hide things from him, that she would do things right if he could just get her out of there. Apologizing, because it was all her fault. Getting mad at herself, at the Monolith, at Coulson, at that planet. Laughing, because what else could she do? And then afraid, because it was getting even darker and the creatures would come and she had to move, drag herself away from there.
More lucid, short recordings, her voice tired, until the last one, in which she sounded almost normal.
“The battery is almost... over. This is it. I don’t think you’ll ever hear these messages, which is probably for the best... but in the event of anyone ever finding this phone, Fitz... I love you. I really do. I am so sorry... I wish we had had more time... I really wanted to go to that dinner... But hey, talking to you like this... it kept me going. You always made me want to keep fighting, you always gave me hope... you are my hero. My best friend. More than that. And I know you won’t give up on finding me easily, but I still hope you’ll find in yourself the strength to move on, live life for me too. I want you happy, Fitz. More than anything. And I love you. I love you.”
A click and it was over.
Jemma didn’t even realize she was crying again.