I'm not english, so I'm sorry for the possible mistakes here.
Please, please, pretty please leave a comment, even if not positive. I want to know what you think about this.
S.
Waves
The first time Fitz gave a timid pat on her shoulder - or was it the third? - Bryce Cooper, by the end of the corridor, whistled and shouted: "You can't pick up a girl with a pat on the shoulder, Fitzy. Try a little 'further down."
Leo's cheeks had turned purple, his eyes bright with anger and a touch of shame.
Jemma, who, when Fitz had touched her shoulder had not felt any embarrassment, stiffened instinctively.
It really was the impression they gave to others? The two greenhorns in love? In fact, Jemma was more congenial to the idea that the, to others, they appeared just as two child prodigies, maybe a little 'too wary of the others to expand their circle, or rather their duo.
Not that this bothered her , really. It did not bother her that they thought this of them. Just ... she had never thought about this. Bryce's comment was only a further confirmation of his infinite stupidity. Some human cases provide scientists with incontrovertible and easily perceptible data. Bryce was a stupid, everybody could understand it.
But Fitz was too busy to let be devoured by feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment to think of the most obvious thing, that Bryce was an inept, to be precise.
- Oh Fitz. - Jemma sighed, placing her hand on the boy's one, at the exact moment when the latter was about to turn away his hand from her shoulder. - People underestimate the pats on the shoulder. - she later admitted, as she continued to read the file that she kept distractedly with her free hand.
Fitz's answer was barely audible, a moan not very convinced. At that point, Jemma had completely diverted attention from her sheets, focusing her eyes on the blue irises of Leo. - I'm serious. - She insisted, nodding and raising her lips in a motherly smile. Fitz soon found himself staring at an imprecise point of the floor.
- Yes, they serve to encourage others. - Jemma had continued, with a voice perhaps too acute because her words could be taken seriously.
- I do not do it for ... well ... you know, I do not do it for ...-
- Picking me up? – Simmons had completed, mimicking Bryce.
Fitz nodded, a shy smile on his face, his cheeks still red in contrast with his milky skin.
- I know, Fitz. - She had reassured him, barely tilting the neck. - I know. - she repeated, placing her hand on the boy's shoulder, comforted by tje contact with the soft wool of his blue cardigan.
I know, she wondered, when Fitz, first uncertain, then casually, had covered her slender hand with his own.
The pats on the shoulder had become less and less "pats on the shoulder," with time. They were simple caresses, light contact, pleasant warmth. They were not mere gestures of encouragement, support. They were silent presences at times when words are not enough, nor served.
Waves that were propagated from the body of Fitz to her, and vice versa, and pervaded them to the tips of their foot. And when the one covered the other's hand, as if to seal the sacredness of their habitual gesture, the waves stopped, everything became distant. It was as if each limb which was not involved in this action fell asleep. Remained only their hands.
Anchors.
The waves disappeared. Everything was balanced.
Up to two seconds before Fitz made the capsule on the seabed explode, Jemma held her hand firmly on his shoulder. And Fitz really wanted to complete their ritual gesture, but it would have meant too much to do it at that time.
It would mean "everything will be fine."
And yes, Fitz knew that everything would be fine, at least for Jemma. The blast would push up, then she would swim for a few meters. She would have been saved. Fitz had attended her swimming competitions at the Academy. As if being an absolute genius in biology and chemistry wouldn't be enough for her.
Yes, Jemma would be okay. But part of Fitz knew that, if he died, something in Jemma would be turned off. For one month, three, maybe a year. But then she would start again, right?
However, covering Jemma's hand with his own, for - and Fitz knew well - would mean something that he could not afford. It would be a tacit promise.
I will not die.
But he knew that?
So no, he could not. Not this time.
Jemma, battered by the waves and deflected by the current, gasped to keep herself afloat, but mainly to keep Fitz on the surface. She thought that the waves were too strong and that the human being is stupid and that ships should have more than one anchor, because she could not cope alone. She was not strong enough to keep afloat both. And she prayed that God, whom scientists are taught to be wary of, not to let Fitz sink, because the sea was angry and she could also continue to be the lifeline for both, but not forever.
Not forever.
Not forever.
Please, please, do not forever.
Sometimes Fitz feel slight movement of air behind him. Almost always it's because the drafts sneak in the garage. But in his head, in his mind of the person damaged, delayed, always a step away from being enough that he is, it is simply Jemma. Jemma who tinkers with a microscope. Jemma transcribing on a folder the result of the examinations. Jemma sipping carefully a bit 'of cinnamon tea, oblivious to the fact that it has now cooled. Jemma who takes his hands and steady them, because they tremble, tremble all the time.
They tremble too much.
Sometimes Fitz looks around him, the illusion that the shadow over the counter is a projection of her body and not a strange play of reflections and fantasies. Sometimes Fitz searches her, always on that point on his shoulder, where she has always been, and where there is now only one of his wool cardigan, wich "are all the same, Fitz!"
Sometimes Fitz hears her . And he would really like that hallucinations and voices and everything end. But But he can not, because, because ... what if he forgets the sound of her voice and the exact color of her eyes and the perfect shape of the small dimple at the corner of her mouth when she smiles?
Jemma has brought him to the surface, metaphorically speaking a thousand times, once in the true sense of the word. And Fitz, in the shadows of the garage, he wonders if perhaps he become a dead weight for her.
That's why she left?
Jemma hears footsteps behind her. If she did not know exactly who they belong to, she would turn suddenly, ready to defend herself against any threat. She is accustomed to that. Hypervigilance. Nobody has diagnosed a similar disease on her, or better trend. She found it by herself. Hypervigilance, lack of appetite, moments of estrangement from the world. It is normal to experience certain feelings after a traumatic event.
But Jemma knows.
Because has never been known for his gracefulness, here, and because, as she has memory, he has this awful, awful, but at the same time identifying habit of crawling his feet against the floor when walking.
Jemma does not turn around. She stiffens her back, ready to the debate that surely will rage within a minute. Already thinking about the answer to give, the tone to use in order to not seem too hurt or angry or offensive or insensitive or anything that might annoy Fitz, which recently it is almost everything she does. You can not blame him, not really, because from Fitz's pespective she ran away, dumped him there, with its motor and brain deficits.
Jemma is about to turn around, when a hand touches her left shoulder and her muscles, for a natural reaction to the silent and comforting presence of Fitz, relax even before her brain could order them to do so.
The waves continue to bump them, especially at night, when the nightmares find more doors open to their subconscious. And Fitz continues to slip from her grasp, carried away by the current. And Jemma is a hallucination, a perfect, realistic, false, false hallucination. At night, the waves have fun to make them die and be born and die and be reborn over and over again.
But here, now, when Jemma covers Fitz's hand with her, the waves subside.
And everything is balance. Everything is perfect. For a moment, everything is still and lose importance.
And then, only then, she realizes that she has begun to breathe again, because her anchor is slowly driving her to the surface. Salty tears pinch the corners of her eyes. Jemma lets out a sob. It is much easier if Fitz can not see her, but only hear her.
- People underestimate too much pats on the shoulder. - Fitz says, in a barely audible whisper.
With a slight puff, Jemma smiles, wet trails rolling down her cheeks.
- I know. -