This is based off of the song Forever and Always by Parachute. I strongly recommend you listen to it before/during reading this. It will still make sense if you don't, but it will make more sense if you do.

I felt this deserved a special disclaimer because I used a song...Disclaimer: I don't own the song or AOS.

There is a point in everyone's life when you know things are going to change. You may not know how, but you know nothing will ever be the same again.

He hadn't come home from the lab yet. I had left early to surprise him with his favorite dinner; buffalo mozzarella cheese with prosciutto and a hint of pesto aioli. I hadn't worried at first because he had probably gotten caught up in his latest experiment and had simply forgotten about the time. But after I had made the sandwiches, cleaned the house, done the laundry and he still wasn't home, I started to get a little worried. He was supposed to be here two hours ago.

I thought about calling the lab, but since it was super-secret I wasn't supposed to call from my cell phone just in case someone was tapping the line. And Fitz had the only secured line phone-at the lab.

So I just sat at the kitchen table, tapping my finger-tips against the wood. Then I got fidgety and couldn't sit still, so I started pacing around our small apartment. Eventually I realized that something must be wrong. He never got this lost in his work, especially this late at night.

To distract, I thought of the beautiful month of December. When he got down on one knee and asked me the question that changed my life. I started to twirl the ring on my finger as I replayed the memory over and over again.

I had just calmed myself down, when I got the phone call that would forever change my life, and it wasn't for the better.

I picked up the phone from its cradle against the wall. Fitz always made fun of me because one of the most important things I wanted in our apartment was a landline because I was always losing my cell phone. But now I hated it with all my heart. It was the thing that brought me the worst news of my life.

I tried to listen to the lady on the other line, but I could only pick up random words and phrases. Car. Drunk. Driving. Terrible accident. Terrible accident. Terrible accident. It was a drum beat in my mind. I couldn't stop hearing it. It was a repeating phrase I wanted erased from my vocabulary. The doctor side of me wanted to ask if they were doing anything about the concussion he was sure to have, and of course internal bleeding was a problem they had to address. The doctor side was very methodical about what to do first about the injuries. The scientist side of me wanted to take a look at the drunk driver and see what his BAC was. That side just wanted to figure out what went wrong. The researcher side of me wanted to make a correlation between how high his BAC was, and how grave the patient's injuries were. That part wanted to write a paper about the dangers of drunk driving. But the girlfriend side of me just wanted to know if he was going to be okay.

The four sides battled with each other as I drove to the hospital. As I walked in the doors of the hospital it seemed like it would be the doctor side. But when a bland nurse saw me and somehow knew who I was there to see, because I didn't remember telling her my name, I realized that it was Fitz in here, not some random patient I had to treat, and he could be dying. And here I was, worried about the BAC level of the drunk driver, or the connection between alcohol and car accidents. I was ashamed of my initial reaction to Fitz's accident.

As I thought that word, accident, it suddenly hit me that I might never be able to talk to Fitz ever again. I might not be able to glance over and see him immensely concentrated on an experiment, or immersed in a book. We might never eat those sandwiches that were still sitting on the dining room table back at the apartment.

I tried to push those thoughts out of my head, and followed the nurse through a maze of hallways. Eventually we stopped outside a door. It didn't look any different than any of the other doors. It was white, with a gold doorknob, and it had a folder in the little bin on the wall that held records and such. The folder was blue.

The nurse reached for the blue folder. I couldn't take my eyes of that damn blue folder. It was distracting me from the tragedy that had infiltrated my life, and I couldn't be more grateful for it.

She must have noticed that I wasn't paying attention, because I felt her take my elbow and lead me through the door. I was quite content to just stay outside, where I would sit in my little bubble of denial and never have to face whatever lied behind that door, but she had other ideas.

She dragged me through the doorway and placed me in a chair. It was also blue.

The chair was placed strategically next to the bed, angled so you could see the pillows as well as the door.

I locked my eyes on the foot of the bed, where I could see the outline of two legs.

I forced myself to lift my gaze up, up, up to the pillows.

I wished I hadn't.

He was pale. That was my first impression before my breath caught in my mouth when he opened his eyes. They were blue. Bluer than I had remembered them being this morning.

He tried to pretend that nothing had happened. He talked to me about the new house we wanted to buy across from the water. He mentioned the fact that it had a landline, probably wanting me to laugh or smile at our little inside joke, but all I could think of was terrible accident. My eyes filled with tears, and he scrambled to backtrack and fix his mistake. So we talked about work. Work was safe. No feelings or sadness or unexplainable things in work. There weren't any surprises, or unknown variables that had to be accounted for. Everything was precise and everything had a solution.

We talked for what seemed like hours. The conversation flowed from work to a book he was reading, and the movie we both wanted to see at the movie theater, to Doctor Who. Soon I forgot where we were, and that he was hooked up to an IV, and that the beeps on his heart monitor were a bit slow.

Then he mentioned a plan to go out for drinks with some friends and it all came back. Car. Drunk. Driving. Terrible accident. Terrible accident. Terrible accident.

I couldn't put our lives on hold because of this terrible accident. I had an idea.

I called in the nurses and brought in a chaplain. The couple next door were only too happy to lend their rings to us. The chaplain says a few verses and Fitz and I share probably the most awkward kiss ever, with me bending over his bed, and him straining to meet me halfway. Everyone's laughing, even though tears are streaming down my face.

I finish the vows that I made up on the spot, but the beeps are getting too slow. His voice is almost a whisper as he says;

I love you forever, forever and always. Please just remember even if I'm not there, I'll always love you, forever and always.

My breaking point was when I saw those two sandwiches on the counter top.

Hope you liked this! There will be another one-shot about Bobbi and Hunter in the same scenario.