"Fitz, have you seen my research? I could have sworn I'd left it at my work station." Jemma's voice rang out in the lab, a cross between frantic and needy. It seemed she was always misplacing things since she'd come back. Fitz was worried she'd misplaced more than just physical things now though.
He didn't speak, only looked weakly in her direction, unable to meet her eyes properly. He knew what he would see if he did; lies, confusion, madness. Whatever had driven Jemma to this point, Fitz wasn't sure he could handle learning what had really happened.
When he didn't meet her gaze, Jemma paused her search and looked at him with a different kind of panic. She took a step closer, but her movement seemed shaky. Fitz lifted his gaze up and finally looked at her. The moment was a flood of different feelings for them both. This was what it had all been building up to. From the moment Fitz had jumped through the damn monolith to find her, this was where they would both end up, trying to answer all those questions they both needed to ask.
"I took it. I won't give it back." Fitz confessed quietly as to her question of where her research had gone. He watched Jemma's expression turn to something of betrayal.
"Why would you do that?" Her voice was growing high-pitched, like she couldn't really believe him.
"Because this is wrong. You don't… You can't… I can't give it to you." Fitz fumbled over words, unable to communicate when he needed to most.
"What about Will? I can't believe you would do this to anyone. Leave someone stranded… No matter the relationship." Jemma was laying on the guilt but she couldn't know what Fitz knew. She couldn't know how he might counter such statements.
"You're right, I couldn't." Fitz started, but Jemma was just staring at him with this incredulous look.
"What do you mean?" She asked him outright, incredulity transforming into confusion.
"There's no one to rescue." Fitz told her in a murmur. He didn't want to say what he was saying, but she had to know. "Will's not real, Jemma. He never was."
The look on her face was the worst thing Fitz had ever encountered. She was crushed and questioning everything happening inside her own head. It was like she had become one of his machines and he was watching gears tick and turn inside her, revealing pain that he himself had once felt as well. If machines could cry out in distress, it would sound like the small choking noise that came from deep inside Jemma as she slipped down to her knees, touching down on the floor of the lab. Fitz wasn't sure where this went now.
He thought back to days riddled with medication and a fabricated mental version of Jemma Simmons telling him about side effects when he couldn't quite realize that was all she was, a side effect. Was that what Will had been? A side effect? But instead of medication, it came from Jemma's panic? Her stress levels? If she hadn't been so eager to go plunging back through an alien portal, Fitz may have let her go on believing Will had been real just because then she wouldn't have to question herself like this. This heap of a person on the floor was so much more heartbreaking than any fantasized romance would ever be.
"I'm… I'm so sorry." Fitz stammered to her, his voice lost to the sound of her shaking breathes. He stepped forward slowly to kneel down beside her and reached out a tentative hand toward her shoulder. It felt like trying to touch a volatile creature in the wild. He had no idea what to expect. He was greeted with no movement, no acknowledgment. This nothing she offered in return was worse than if she'd slapped him. He'd just broken her so much more than those months on that planet had. At least then, she'd perhaps been more sure of herself.
"Please say something." Fitz pushed weakly, trying to get something out of her, trying to coax a reply from her. Her shoulders shook and he caught a glimpse of tears. She was crying.
"Maybe I'm wrong, maybe..." Fitz was trying so hard to give her something to hold onto, to help her feel sane. She tipped her head up to look at him then, not with hope that he was wrong but with something closer to shame.
"You're not wrong." Jemma croaked, tilting her head down again because she couldn't look at him now.
"I'm sorry, what?" Fitz was due to feel confusion as well now. He kept his hand firmly on her shoulder and tried to process what she was saying. She knew she'd been wrong? She had known Will wasn't real.
"It was that thing, Fitz. It gets into your head. I thought it would stop when I was back on my own planet, but it's still there. It can't leave me here. It owns me now." Jemma's confession was a spill of words into the air. She was wholeheartedly convinced of what she was saying.
"What does that even mean?" Fitz tried to understand, but this was all very unscientific, very hard to believe.
"I never really believed in souls before, or hell. But once the sand gets into your mind, it won't let go of you. Don't you see? I am not my own person anymore. It can put things in my memory. It can change what I think. It doesn't matter how much I fight. I thought Will was real because it wanted me to come back. This thing was smarter than me, it wanted to bring me back to it and it knew how weak I was." Jemma was rambling her words, her eyes wide and her tears smudged away by the back of one of her shaking hands.
"Part of me knew it was a lie, but that thing it stays in the back of your head, moving things around, changing what you saw." Jemma covered her face with both hands then, trying to block everything out. Fitz didn't know how to deal with this confession. How could he assure her that her mind was her own? How could he be certain that it was? How could he fix this? Memories, thoughts, complicated mind tricks. This was all too much for one person to take on. And he couldn't help but notice Jemma had been bearing this weight for who knows how long? All those months on the planet? All the weeks since she'd come home?
"We can handle this. We've handled alien stuff before. And this time, we're not even on a plane you can jump out of." Fitz tried to sound reassuring rather than lost. The result came out as half humor, half desperation. He removed his hand from her shoulder and began to pace, his hands going to his hips and his posture slouching.
"We have to tell the others. We can't do this alone." Fitz started. He brought one hand up to his forehead, thinking of what steps came next. "Tahiti. That machine… Or something similar… I could build something." Fitz was already starting to plan inside his head but paused his line of thinking when he looked down at the woman on the floor just a few steps from him. She'd stopped crying and was looking upward now, but Fitz saw an emptiness there that he couldn't just idly stand by and let her feel. This was Jemma. This was the woman he'd gone to hell and back for.
Fitz brought himself back down to her level. He was on his knees once more, but this time he was facing her. He lifted both of his palms up and brought them to cup her cheeks gently. He looked into her eyes with determination and tried to see past the emptiness. Something glimmered, a slight movement in her eyes, and she met his with a crinkle to her features. She was afraid. Fitz could tell that she was truly scared. He had watched her perform acts of bravery that few he had known before would ever tempt. She'd jumped from a plane, covered a bomb with her body, swam through a sea so deep neither of them stood much chance. She'd faced Hydra when they were all hiding underground recuperating from the overtake. This reckless, fearless, noble woman wore fear that was so deep rooted in her that she couldn't trust her own thoughts. Fitz wanted to fix it, to fix everything. He just had to get her to hang on a little longer so they could find a solution.
"I won't let this thing stay." Fitz promised, still locked on her eyes with his own. "I will do whatever it takes to help you be your own person again. This thing can't own you." Fitz was trying to sound reassuring once more but his voice was so serious. His words had the intended effect as a spark of hope could be found in her expression. She'd stopped shaking as much and seemed a little stronger now.
"It can take my memories, my thoughts, everything; but it can't take my faith in you." Jemma whispered. She leaned forward and let her forehead rest against Fitz's. They were still for a moment, neither ready to move away from the other. After a long pause with two scientists on their floor with their heads literally put together, a knock sounded in the doorway to the lab. Bobbi stood there, glancing down at the two of them like she'd only just realized she was interrupting something.
"Oh, uhm, you guys are busy… I'll come back, I guess." Bobbi stepped backward apologetically shooting Fitz a concerned glance.
"I'm so sorry. The lab is yours. I'll just..." Jemma started to say, shifting to her feet sheepishly. Fitz followed suit and felt Jemma's hand slip into his before they could exit the lab.
"What's going on?" Bobbi asked, one brow rising, concern still present. She had asked both of them, but she was looking at Fitz for the answer.
"We're, uhm, not looking for Will anymore." Fitz started, not sure how to put this without upsetting Jemma again.
"What? Why?" Bobbi asked. This question, it seemed, was going to be asked a lot in the near future.
"He's not real. He was an illusion." Fitz said it quickly, ripping off a band-aid. He saw Jemma wince slightly as if he really had ripped off a band-aid. Bobbi's eyes widened and she met Jemma's gaze. Before anyone could react, Bobbi stepped forward and hugged Jemma, the embrace saying more than her words would.
"I'll tell the others." Bobbi told them. Fitz was thankful that he wouldn't have to go around repeating it, answering questions. Jemma looked ashamed. Fitz would have to help her get through that. It wasn't her fault.
"Thanks." Fitz told Bobbi before she went down the hall and he and Jemma headed in the other direction toward the sleeping quarters. Jemma was such a mix of emotions, Fitz felt like he was disabling land mines each time they spoke. It was worth every sentence though.
"I didn't want to hurt you. I know how you feel. Or, felt." Jemma started, but Fitz gave her a look that said she didn't need to keep going.
"Feel." He clarified. "My feelings haven't changed. Probably never will." He glanced down, afraid this was the part where she said her feelings before couldn't be pursued after everything she'd been through. That would be entirely understandable, even if painful.
"My feelings are… Much more confusing now. But you've always been important to me Fitz. I've always..." Jemma paused and stopped in the middle of the hallway. She caught his gaze and gave him a very meaningful look. "I've always loved you. In many ways. And it's only grown stronger the longer we've known one another." Jemma told him with sincerity. He wasn't sure what to say. She loved him. And he loved her. And they had always, always been complicated. He realized that they had spent so much time trying to decipher each others feelings that neither of them knew what to do when they learned to read the other.
"I love you too Jemma." Fitz decided on what to say, speaking it like a promise. He thought it would be much too forward and stressful for her if he kissed her so, he held back. He didn't want to startle her or upset her. It was a bit of a shock when she made the first move instead, tentatively stepping up on her tip-toes to place a shy, delicate kiss on his lips. This was the biggest moment, the land mine one, the one where a bomb would either explode or their lives would be spared. Fitz was riding metaphoric adrenaline and he was receiving his first real kiss from the woman he loved and he wasn't doing a damn thing and he was very afraid she would think kissing him was a lot like kissing a wall so, he leaned in and let his lips apply more pressure to her own. It became a little less shy and a little more, well, them. That was the best word Fitz could describe it as. It was like all the years they'd known each other had been recorded and stored in a digital time capsule and now, they were watching the tape on fast forward and converting it into one emotion: love, them, FitzSimmons. If people could bottle feelings, Fitz would bottle this one and get drunk off it every night for the rest of his life.
They pulled back after what had been only seconds but felt like something that existed outside the idea of time. They met each others gazes, looking for regret or shame or guilt and finding nothing but a mirror of their captivation with one another. This was what they had both been looking for; they'd finally found it.