The second the credits start to roll, she grabs for the remote and tracks back through the DVD to watch her favourite episode for maybe the third? No, the fourth time that night. It's late, it's Friday and it's just her and her cactus, Ichabod, alone in her one-bedroom flat. An empty pizza box lies on the floor next to the bed and she's in her jammies, cuddled up under the covers with a glass of red. In her defense, it has been a big week.
If all the Near and Present Future fans were surveyed as to their favourite episode, she knows for a fact that she wouldn't be alone in nominating this Christmas special from a few years back. But if pressed to provide a reason why, unlike the rest of America, she wouldn't even mention the inclusion of Tony Stark let alone the cut of his expensive suit, his dashing good looks or his impressively generous altruism. For her, it's all about the host – his unassuming cardigans, his comfortingly familiar accent, his piercing blue eyes, his staggering brain and his patently enormous heart.
At the start of the episode he walks to the front door of a modest suburban home, addressing the camera in the manner of many TV show hosts that have gone before him. But none of those others bounce with his irrepressible enthusiasm, none of them embrace the child's mother with such genuine warmth, none of them get down on the floor with the little boy, tell him jokes that make him giggle hysterically and zoom toy cars around him in such a way that you could almost fail to notice the child's missing limb.
No one else on TV can trade such quick-fire, funny and scientifically accurate banter with someone the stature of Stark. Fitz never misses a beat - out-argues and, in her humble opinion, even out-charms the playboy billionaire philanthropist leaving Stark looking distinctly impressed. As he introduces the little boy to Stark, his wide eyes fix themselves first on Fitz for reassurance, and it's Fitz's calming big-brotherly presence that brings the little boy right out of his shell.
Back in the studio, Fitz and Stark discuss the process of creating and fitting the extremely advanced prosthetic arm with an impressive team of experts. As usual, Fitz draws the best out of all his guests, refraining from making himself a feature and letting the others shine.
As always, Jemma sheds a tear at the end of the episode as Fitz wrestles playfully on the rug with the little boy and the family dog, the little boy's brand new bionic Ironman arm glinting in the sunlight.
To think, tomorrow she might get to feel what it would be like to have the intensity of that blue gaze fixed on her. This time, as the credits roll she turns off the TV rather than rewinds. Better get her beauty sleep.
ooo
It didn't seem to matter how many of these shopping mall appearances Fitz endured, his pre-show nerves never once showed any sign of abating. Even after five incredibly successful years as the widely beloved host of Near and Present Future – the popular science, innovation and invention show that all the networks were bidding to poach – he still felt like he was going to hurl just before he went on camera. Perhaps it was time to accept that while he stayed in the spotlight, nausea would be his constant companion.
After a couple of semesters as the best-reviewed first-year science lecturer at Columbia University, he'd been head-hunted for a job he never would have thought to actually apply for. Near and Present Future introduced ideas, gadgets and applications so ground-breaking that at the point of airing, the features had rarely mustered enough funding to be developed. However, as a result of a slot on the show, somehow the right backer would emerge from the ether. As a consequence, Dr Leo Fitz was one of the hottest properties of the academic world. His seemingly endless familiarity with the range of disciplines involved in any given feature as well as his boundless enthusiasm and insightful and entertaining conversational style put his guests at ease and enabled them to best communicate their often obscure scientific developments. As far as the networks were concerned, it also didn't hurt that he had a Scottish accent to die for and was very easy on the eye.
Whatever the reason, a local appearance from Fitz brought the people out in force and while he hid behind a pillar with the crew trying to hold down his breakfast, the ever-growing queue of fans snaked on for what seemed like miles. Some of them clutched a copy of the recently released Near and Present Future coffee-table book which profiled many of the show's featured inventions. Others held autograph books or photos of Fitz they'd cut out of magazines for him to autograph.
Of course, then there were always one or two awkward gushing fangirls who wanted him to sign some part or other of their actual flesh. Though he usually managed to give off at least the appearance of calm confidence, Fitz blushed and stammered his way through these experiences and Instagram held plenty of photographic proof of his evident discomfort. The gushing awkward fangirls found his bashfulness sweet. It had even become necessary on these occasions for Mack, his friend and assistant producer, to be relegated to the role of bodyguard. At first Fitz had worried that foisting that job on Mack was a waste of the man's talents though at each appearance it became more and more apparent that Mack thoroughly enjoyed himself. In an alternate universe, Mack was probably a cheerfully intimidating nightclub bouncer – Lord of the Ropeline.
Every time they did one of these appearances Mack reminded him of the other possibility that he'd offered to handle. Fitz always just laughed, unable to even imagine the circumstance in which he'd be so wowed by some admirer that he'd have to get Mack to keep her comfortable while she waited around for him to finish with the fans. The scenario just sounded so frankly implausible that now he cursorily dismissed Mack before the big man even started on the reminder. What sort of a woman would spend half the morning waiting around to have a coffee with some upstart from the telly? Fitz wasn't even sure that the sort of people who dedicated their entire Saturday mornings to gaining one of his inky scrawls on a piece of their property were exactly the sort he'd want to commit to spending any more time with than that taken to snap a selfie anyway. Besides, though it had been seven years or so since that fleeting encounter, somewhere in the reject basket of unlikely hopes stored deep in his heart, his "sort of people" seemed to be limited to only one.
Along with Mack, Fitz's entourage consisted of the rest of Near and Present Future's cast and crew. They didn't have to be there, none of the fans exactly came to see any of them, but such was their devotion to Fitz that they all prioritised being there for him in his suffering anyway. While their towering stylist, Bobbi, attempted to tame Fitz's curls, the producer, Phil, fetched them each one of those preposterously enormous American coffees. Their tech adviser, Skye, drooled over the hardware in an adjacent computer store window display and mentally readjusted her budget projections, while their incredibly talented machine specialists, Ward and Trip, cheerfully debased themselves by setting up tables and chairs on the pre-fab dais all the while deflecting the jocular harassment of the show's publicist, Lance Hunter. Last to wander into the mall and join them, silently relieving Phil of the gargantuan cup with her name on it, was the show's head of logistics, location scout and truck driver, Melinda May.
A frisson of excitement seemed to weave its way through the waiting crowd as the giant clock above them ticked its way towards eleven o'clock. Phil took hold of Fitz's upper arm with a grip intended to instill confidence and security.
"Ready, pal?" the older man asked kindly.
"As I'll ever be," sighed Fitz, fighting another wave of queasiness.
"You always feel like this at the start, remember?" Phil reminded him. "But it gets better, right?"
Fitz shrugged.
"Well, let's go meet Cambridge, Massachusetts. Man, are they out in force!" And with that, Phil propelled Fitz up the steps of the dais and led him to his seat behind the table Ward and Trip had set up for him.
Taking up the microphone that had been provided for them, Phil stepped up to warm up the crowd.
"Cambridge, Massachusetts!" Phil enthused to the loud applause and cheering of the gathered fans. "The cast and crew of Near and Present Future, and especially your host, my man Fitz, behind me here…" Fitz managed a cheery wave and a distinctly high-pitched collective squeal rose up from the multitude, "are delighted to be with you in this beautiful mall of yours!"
Another cheer.
"Fitz is really looking forward to meeting as many of you as he can but it looks like we've got a pretty huge crowd here today so we might have to limit each meeting to just a minute or two."
A collective boo.
Phil blithely soldiered on. "I hope you've come armed with your cameras and your books and posters and whatever else you might want Fitz to sign."
Fitz surreptitiously rolled his eyes at Skye who sat just off stage on the lounge chairs with the rest of the crew – far enough to be out of the way, close enough to provide at least a semblance of moral support. She offered him a not-particularly-encouraging suggestive wink in return.
"We have a few boxes of Sharpies to get through and my man here has plenty of charm and genius to go around so why don't I get out of your way and let you start meeting our beloved Dr Leo Fitz!"
The crowd roared and the front of the line surged forward. As predicted, after the first few selfies, Fitz's nerves started to settle and he slowly warmed up to his task, meeting and greeting and smiling for photos without any trouble at all.
It quickly became apparent why the crowd was so huge. The mall was on the edge of the campus of MIT. The students and academics in the science-related departments of the college would have been amongst the most avid viewers of Near and Present Future in the entire country. Many had come equipped with précises of their research grant applications and blueprints of designs to try and garner Fitz's enthusiasm. Thankfully, Ward and Trip had anticipated this possibility and encouraged Fitz to palm the overly enthusiastic scientists off toward them under the guise of taking their information for future contact in case there'd ever be a slot for them on air.
As it turned out, thanks to the proximity of such an illustrious institution, having so many motivated fans come at Fitz with their proposals rather than their autograph books was far more stimulating than the usual stretches of inane small talk. Cambridge, Massachusetts was fast becoming his favourite selfie town in the entire United States of America.
Right off the back of a particularly interesting conversation about super colliders, a young woman shyly approached the table. Her large honey-coloured eyes watched him shyly from under her long lashes. Fitz took in her pale skin dotted here and there with tiny freckles and her long chocolate brown hair pinned at the temple by a simple silver slide. She wore a navy blouse with white birds in flight scattered all across it. Fitz realised how badly he must have been staring when he observed that there was one little bird embroidered in red on the breast pocket that matched her red buttons. He hoped he hadn't fixed his gaze anywhere untoward.
"Dr Fitz?" she greeted him tentatively, snapping him out of his reverie with the surprise, and yet familiarity, of her accent. She laid a thick academic tome bound in navy blue canvas on the table in front of him and nervously traced the gold lettering with her forefinger.
"Please," he managed, waving his hand in front of him in what he hoped came across as a laid-back gesture. "Call me Fitz."
She gave him a nervous smile. "Fitz."
He grinned goofily back at her.
Taking courage she plunged on. "I finished my PhD last week and watching you… um… your show, I mean, has been my one source of escapism all this time."
Fitz's felt an odd swoop, low in his belly as she stammered on.
"I was wondering if you would maybe sign my thesis for me?" She gave a nervous little laugh and blushed prettily. "Truthfully, I almost feel like I should give you a writing credit, Dr Fitz, you've been that much a part of the process for me."
He gazed up at her, enthralled. It was true, it sometimes happened that women took these opportunities to admit to harbouring little crushes on him. Usually it was unbearably awkward. This woman hadn't actually confessed anything of the sort but she certainly wasn't shying away from hinting at it.
Fitz shook his head. He opened the cover of her thesis just to stop himself from gaping at her.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Determination, characterisation and visualisation for rapid identification of novel disease resistance genes."
Dr Jemma Simmons
A thesis submitted for Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Biomedical Science.
"Jemma," he read, hearing his voice sound much breathier and much less manly than he'd hoped. "Hang on. Dr Jemma Simmons?"
Assuming his shock was prompted by disbelief that anyone who already had one PhD would knowingly sign themselves up for a second round of that particular brand of merry hell, she merely shrugged. "I have a lot of questions about the world."
Fitz was staring at the words on the page in front of him, trying to make sense of what he thought his brain was telling him. How could this be? "Was your first PhD on neurotoxicity of human eosinophils?"
Jemma's jaw dropped. "How on earth could you possibly know that?"
"You presented a paper at a conference I attended." Fitz was mentally back in the last rows of that crowded lecture hall, palpably reliving the shockwave of admiration and attraction he'd felt for his fellow scientist at the podium. "Oxford wasn't it? 2008?"
She could only manage a nod in confirmation.
Fitz's brain was trying to tell him something again. He needed Mack to do the thing. The thing he'd never imagined he'd need Mack to do until this scientist that had become the stuff of his dreams had re-appeared in an American shopping mall and asked him to sign her thesis. This time he could actually see her face up close. And, just as he'd imagined, she was lovely.
Thankfully, Fitz's reaction to Jemma's approach had been observed, not only by Mack who was hovering purposefully near by, but by the entire cast and crew of Near and Present Future. Without saying a word to one another, they had each internally signed up to be Fitz's wingman.
All Fitz wanted to do was to keep chatting to Jemma though he couldn't help but let his eyes flit over her shoulder to the only somewhat diminished multitude beyond.
Her hands flew to her cheeks. "Oh, Fitz, I'm so sorry, I've been holding you up."
"No!" He panicked. The universe had brought her back to him despite the bounds of time and space. He couldn't lose another opportunity to get to know her. "D-do you have plans for the rest of the day?"
She shook her head with a musical little laugh. "My big aim at the mall today, besides meeting you of course, was to take home something other than beer and sirarcha to go in my empty fridge. I've finished my second PhD for heaven's sake. I'm all about tracksuit pants and television and not leaving the house for the next week."
Fitz thought it sounded blissful. He wondered if she'd give him the opportunity to angle for an invitation.
"See that enormous guy over there?" he managed to control his voice enough to ask.
Mack had stepped forward perceptively making friendly eye-contact.
Jemma nodded.
"That's my friend, Mack. I don't suppose you could just have a quick chat to him about how I, umm… how I could maybe get in touch with you when I'm done here?"
Jemma gave him a little smile and nodded emphatically.
His eyes widened. "Really?"
Jemma's grin broadened. "Fitz, honestly, I'd love to."
Fitz just grinned at her like an idiot for a moment before realising he still had her thesis open in front of him. "Oh, hey. I'd better sign this for you first."
"Yeah," she laughed. "Seeing as you're truthfully the only reason I came all the way out here. It's amazing how long you can survive on beer and sirarcha when you have to."
He gazed up at her. "So, can I write anything I like?"
Jemma beamed back. "Of course!"
Fitz, who didn't believe in astral projection, sort of watched himself from outside of his own body as he leaned forward and whispered "What if it's a bit, you know, flirtatious?"
Jemma flushed again as she leaned forward to whisper back, "A flirtatious message from Leo Fitz inside the front cover of my PhD thesis would make me even happier than receiving first class honours."
He grinned. The view from outside his body was highly satisfactory. At least he didn't seem to be making a fool of himself. It was frustratingly hard to tell. He'd never really tried flirting before, but if Jemma's reactions were anything to go by it seemed to be humming along nicely. Fitz took up a Sharpie and started writing, coyly shielding the words from her with a cupped hand. He suddenly snapped the cover shut and met her eye, looking pretty pleased with himself.
"You will go and talk to Mack, right Jemma?" he confirmed, trying not to sound too needy.
"Fitz, I'm half thinking that if he'll let me I'll just sit over there with him and stare at you until you're ready to come and talk to me some more." She suddenly laughed. "Don't go finding anyone more interesting than me in that queue, will you?"
Fitz cocked his head to one side doing a quick calculation. "Jemma, this is our forty-fifth shopping mall appearance in two years. I have never once wanted to spend any more time than strictly necessary with anyone I've met at one of these." He jerked his head in his enormous friend's direction. "Ask Mack. He's been kind of pissed off about it. This is going to make his day."
"Oh," she giggled. "That's okay then."
"Bye, Jemma," he whispered, unable to tear his blue eyes off her.
"See you soon, Fitz," she whispered back and he watched her walk all the way down the steps and over to where Mack stood waiting.
"Ahem," coughed the next fan in line.