He waits until she's awake a couple of days, and then he lugs his backpack over his shoulder, heads to the room Jemma has set up, and knocks softly on the door.
It's Mack that opens it, and Fitz isn't surprised.
"Hey, Turbo," Mack lightly says, his face still touched with black and blue. "Come in."
Mack opens the door wider, and Fitz passes through.
Elena's propped up on the bed, her hair plastered to her forehead and the pillow behind her. Her shoulders are bandaged neatly, and Fitz can almost see Jemma gently, expertly, wrapping them. She's pale. Quiet. Unmoving.
And she looks so, so small.
Her eyes are on his as he walks into the room, and she musters a small smile. "Hello, Fitz."
Fitz waves. "Hi, Elena. How're you doing?"
Mack grips the arms of the chair besides the bed as he lowers himself into it, and Elena gestures to her right shoulder with her head. "I've been better," She says. "But I'm doing okay, I guess."
Mack reaches over and brushes away the hair that's stuck to her forehead, tucking it behind her ears. "Yoyo, Fitz is gonna check you out, so he can make you prosthetics."
Elena turns to look at him. "Are you not going to help make them?" Mack shakes his head and shifts back into his seat, folding his hands together on his lap. "Nah. Fitz made Coulson's, and I need to be right here, to take care of you."
Fitz notices the way Elena blinks, notices the way her jaw clenches. He notices how her mouth sets in a thin line, and how quickly she changes it into a smile.
He notices, and he makes sure that when he places the backpack on the floor, it makes a sound.
Mack and Elena focus on him.
"Mack, if you want to take a break or something, you don't need to be in here." Fitz kneels and unzips the bag. "It'll just be, like, ten minutes."
"I'll stay. But thanks, Fitz." He hears Mack say.
There's a pause.
"Actually, Mack, I'm feeling hungry." Elena replies, her voice light but firm. "Maybe you could get me something to eat?"
Fitz stands up, holding a square box. Elena smirks, and says, "I think I can handle Fitz."
Mack sits silently for a moment, and then he unlaces his fingers. "Of course," He says, nodding, standing up quickly. "What would you like?"
"I'm not picky."
Mack places a hand on her cheek and kisses her on the lips, and then on the forehead. He rubs her cheek with his thumb once, twice.
"Okay. I'll see you soon."
Fitz and Elena watch as Mack closes the door gently behind him without looking back.
And then it's silent. Deafening. They hold each other's gaze, and Fitz thinks that this is really the first time he's ever been alone with Elena, and he's not sure what to do, what to say.
(He only knows that he remembers what it's like to wake up in a bed with white sheets in a white room with no windows. And he remembers what it's like to wake up with something missing from him, too.)
"Fifteen dollars says he's going to get Coulson to make that chicken soup." Elena finally murmurs.
It takes a moment for Fitz to process what she said, and then he laughs. "Deal. Coulson's busy sparring with Daisy and May right now, and who knows if we even have all the ingredients for Coulson. Do you not likehis chicken soup?" He cradles the square in his arm, reaches down and picks up the bag with the other.
Elena shakes her head. "I actually love it. Better than Mack's, and he knows it."
Fitz reaches the side of the bed and once again places the bag down. "I've had Mack's soup. It's not that bad."
Elena glares at him.
"Okay, maybe it's a little bit salty."
"A little bit?"
"… Very. Very Salty."
Elena laughs. It's short. Curt. She laughs and then she seems to remember that she's lying in a bed with phantom limbs, and she stops. But it's a laugh, and Fitz can't help but smile, just for a little.
(He decides he likes her laugh, and he decides he wants to hear it again.)
He presses the side of the metal square and it unfolds, over and over again until it becomes flat.
Elena stares at it, her eyes narrowing.
"Something I came up with to measure Coulson, when he lost his hand." Fitz pauses. "It doesn't hurt, Elena, I promise."
Elena quickly glances back at him. "I trust you, Fitz."
He turns away because he doesn't have an answer for that, really.
And he washes his hands and puts on his gloves and begins to slowly, softly take off the bandage.
She doesn't make a sound, even when her injury is exposed to the air, and he knows from experience that wounds like that, hurt. Jemma's stitching looks clean, and although it'll scar, he thinks it'll heal pretty well.
(But the other wounds? The wounds that steep inside you and stay forever, with scars that are jagged like they were made with glass? Those never, ever, heal well)
Fitz reaches for the flattened square, and holds it up to her wound. It beeps. He loops his foot with the leg of the chair and pulls it around so it's facing the bed instead of besides it. Another beep. He takes a seat. Elena closes her eyes.
Beep.
"When it stops beeping, it means it's done." He offers.
Beep
"Okay." She accepts.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
"Jemma and I are getting married," he says, and he doesn't know why. It just seemed like something to say when there was nothing else to say.
Elena opens her eyes and tilts her head towards him. Smiles. The skin around her eyes crinkle and Fitz wonders what kind of jokes she likes, and what kind she doesn't.
"That's great, Fitz." Elena replies. "Really. That's really awesome."
He shrugs, blushing. He faintly hears a beep.
"We don't know when, or where." Fitz laughs. "We don't even have rings."
Elena shakes her head. "Eh. Those are not so important, are they?"
He knows what she means without her having to say it. "No."
She nods.
The small room falls back into silence.
Beep.
"Are we friends, Fitz?" Elena asks.
Beep.
"Yes." Fitz replies.
Beep.
"Can I tell you something." It's not a question, and it doesn't need to be.
"Of course."
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
"Have Mack help you. To make my arms."
"Well, the ones now are only going to be temporary until—"
"I love that man, Fitz. So, so much. Just how much as I imagine you love Jemma. But he is driving me crazy." She cuts him off, inhaling deeply and closing her eyes. "I feel like I can't breathe. It's too much. And the way he acts… the way he looks at me… it's like—"
"Like you're broken." Fitz says.
Elena pauses, opening her eyes and meeting his. "Yes. Like I'm not the same as I was before."
He shifts in his seat, and changes his focus from her to his hold on the small, beeping device.
"I didn't lose my arms," Fitz begins, trying to figure out how to piece together the pieces that had shattered long ago. "But I had a brain injury. Ward had dropped Jemma and I at the bottom of the ocean, and there was only enough oxygen left for one of us."
Beep.
"It was a declaration of love, when I gave her the oxygen. It was sacrificial. It was me, thinking I was finally the hero I had always wanted to be. It was saving my best friend and the girl I knew I loved, even if I had to die to do it." He grips the machine tightly. "It was selfish."
Beep.
"Jemma had to drag me up from the bottom of the ocean, and she had to figure out how she felt with what I had said. For her, it felt like was losing her best friend. I used to blame her, I used to be angry with her silence and her grief. But she did what she thought was best, and she left."
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
"She had pulled me up from the bottom of the ocean, and, for a long time, I wished that she didn't."
Fitz looks at Elena. "Everyone treated me differently, because I was different, but it felt like they were all looking at me with pity, and afraid—"
Fitz stops abruptly. "I think it stopped."
"What?"
"The beeping. I think it's done."
They both pause, waiting to hear the sound. When it doesn't come, Fitz places the machine on the bed and stands up, going over to the cabinet to pull out fresh bandages.
"Fitz?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you... fixed, now? Cured?"
He sprays the stitches, and begins to wrap up her shoulder. "No. I still have hypoxia. I've gone through a lot of rehab to get to where I am now. Sometimes, if I'm tired, if I'm scared, my left hand shakes like it used to, and the words don't form as smoothly. But it's who I am, and I don't think any part of me has to be fixed."
He goes around the bed, dragging the chair with him, leaning over and beginning to take off the bandage.
"So, when Daisy changed, I knew in a way how she felt. What it was like to suddenly be different, and to know that people were going treat you differently. It was all new and scary, and she thought there was something seriously wrong with her."
Fitz shrugs, taking the last of the bandage off her left shoulder and holding up the device. "It was kind of nice, then, that I was there for her when she needed someone. To tell her that it was okay, and there's nothing wrong with being different."
Beep.
"Who was there for you?"
Beep.
"What do you mean?"
Beep.
"Who was there for you when you woke up?"
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Fitz stops.
(He remembers waking up. Remembers the light being too bright. Remembers that when his eyes had finally adjusted he saw the chair in the corner, and how it was empty.)
"No one." Fitz finally says. "Jemma had just stepped out to go to the bathroom, so she was supposed to be there, but no. She wasn't there when I woke up."
"No one was there for you. You should say it like it was. I'm sorry that no one was there, Fitz. But I'm glad you could help Daisy, and now you're helping me. I don't want one day this to happen to someone else, but if it does, I'm going to be the someone that you are."
There's a beep, but it's faint. Elena's hair has moved from behind her ears to fanning the pillow behind her again.
She's missing a part of herself. He thinks she still looks beautiful.
Fitz tells her that.
Elena laughs. "Thank you, Fitz."
Beep.
Beep.
"Mack is Mack. You know this: he only means the best. You can either let him take care of you, or tell him to take it down a notch."
Elena nods. "I know."
Beep.
Silence. But this time, it's comfortable. He doesn't mind it as he takes the device away and presses a button on the bottom, the machine flipping itself over until it's back into a square.
As he's finishing bandaging her back up, taking off the gloves and throwing them in the trash when there's a knock on the door. Mack comes in, holding a tray, steam from the bowl rising into the air.
"I got Coulson to make his chicken soup." He raises the tray slightly. "Is that okay?"
Elena laughs. It's not short. Not curt. It's real, and rises like the steam and she laughs, and laughs, and laughs.
"You owe me twenty dollars." She says, still cackling, to Fitz.
He remembers it being fifteen, but it doesn't matter. He digs into his bag, pulls out a twenty, places it on her bedside, and smiles.