Author's Notes: HAPPY AOS TUESDAY! This is just a little FitzSimmons-y piece that popped into my head and wouldn't leave, but that's okay because, really, there can never be enough FitzSimmons!
I wanted to get it done BEFORE the new episode aired over here on the East Coast, but apparently brain decided not to brain fast enough. Oh well!
She was standing by the kettle, waiting for the water to boil. Tea was in order, that was what Fitz had said and Jemma hadn't found herself immediately rejecting the idea. That was progress at least, she supposed. She hadn't been up to doing much of anything at all since Fitz and the others had rescued her from the nightmare planet. She hadn't even really wanted to leave her room. She knew that there was nothing to fear, that she was safe now, but she was still terrified. Jumpy, on edge. Everything unexpected left her heart in her throat and her hands seeking out a weapon, and with the Playground being made up of so many corners and dark nooks and when everyone inside walked like cats, it was especially easy to startle her.
Fitz was with her most of the time, though, and the short spans of time he wasn't, someone else was – usually Bobbi or Skye. (Daisy, she reminded herself.) That was helpful. Their presence was enough to at least allow her to breathe.
However, while she felt a deep relief in not being left alone, she also felt… well, childish. Stupid and useless. Weak. Helpless. They all assured her that they were happy to be there, to be with her, but she couldn't help but feel that she was a burden. There were moments, though extremely brief, where she even thought that perhaps it would have been better if they hadn't rescued her. At least then her fear would have been legitimate and she wouldn't be jumping at shadows like a frightened child. At least then she wouldn't have to watch her friends try to hide just how broken they thought she was from their eyes whenever they were in the same room with her.
She couldn't decide what was worse – when it seemed they were holding their breaths, waiting for her to meltdown, or when she'd grasp hold of a moment of normalcy and catch that tentative, but oh-so-hopeful glint in their eyes. It was almost as if they were hoping it was all a joke and that the old Simmons would suddenly reappear, but ...well, she wasn't that person anymore, didn't think she ever would be again.
Jemma watched as the steam began to slowly curl out of the spout and absently listened to Fitz shuffling things about in his search for proper tea. "None of that Twinings nonsense," he'd assured her, then had paused, looking at her and grimacing, "or worse, Lipton." He'd almost seemed to shiver at the idea of such an atrocity. Yorkshire Gold, he'd promised, or at the very least, PG Tips. If he could even find them, which, at the moment, Jemma wasn't holding out too much hope for.
The pair of them had always had a secret stash of tea just for them, but they'd both taken to moving it around a lot (as secret stashes kept in a single location didn't remain secret for long in a facility full of people trained in spycraft) in hopes of keeping it out of the clutches of those who couldn't quite appreciate the majesty of proper tea. "Who in a place of more-not-British-than-British people would even care to jack your tea?" Daisy had once teasingly asked, but then, of course, had become one of the biggest tea-nicking culprits after Jemma had mistakenly introduced her to the delights of British tea made right.
It seemed that Fitz had kept up the practice while she'd been gone and that seemed to be exactly the issue. Before it had mostly been her who had relocated the stash each time because often when Fitz would move it, he'd then forgot where he put it… or at least that was how he'd been seven-or-so months ago.
She frowned absently down at the kettle. She still couldn't believe that was all it had been. Almost 197 days, Fitz had told her. 4,722 hours. It seemed a large enough number on paper, yes, a long enough time, but it had felt so much longer.
If she was truthful, Jemma would say that she still wasn't fully convinced she'd actually returned, wasn't convinced that all of this wasn't just simply a construct of her sad, lonely, desperate mind. She had spent quite a lot of time over there in hell fantasizing about being back home, about seeing Fitz and everyone else again, about not being alone anymore, but this seemed too good to be true.
But then, at the same time, it didn't. In all her fantasies, she had returned whole, joyous and so relieved to be back with the people she loved. She'd never been this, not this broken shell. Surely that meant it was real, right? It wasn't perfect, she wasn't whole.
Fitz was muttering to himself things that sounded vaguely like complex equations of some sort, something he did sometimes to help him remember. She was at the point where she was about to tell him to forget it –really, she didn't think she remembered the difference in teas anyway– but then he made a pleased little 'Aha' sound. He turned to her and triumphantly held out a box of Weetabix (why there was a box of Weetabix in the Playground at all, she didn't know). "Victory."
She blinked at him, but then he reached inside, pulling out a Ziploc full of tea bags, and she understood. The stash. Perfect timing, it seemed, because just then the kettle began to trill. It was an electric one, so all she needed to do was pop the on/off button upward to get the sound to stop.
Fitz dropped the tea bags onto the counter and turned to the collection of mugs on the shelf above the coffeemaker. He shuffled things around, pushing all the generic ones as well as the Grumpy Cat mug Coulson had adopted as his own to the side so that he could reach into the back and pull out a very specific one – the disappearing TARDIS mug.
He placed it on the counter and with a tentative smile, pushed it toward Jemma. She just stared at it for a few beats then raised her eyes to meet his. He swallowed, fiddled with his fingers. "No one has used it since…"
No one would have, besides the two of them. It was their "victory mug". Whenever one of them bested the other in whatever, whether it was some sort of challenge in the lab or a simple game of roshambo, they got to use the TARDIS mug. It was just one of the silly things they'd done… before…
She returned her eyes to the mug and frowned slightly. "I haven't won anything," she whispered after a few moments.
"You're alive," was all he said, voice equally as soft, before he dropped a tea bag into it as well as into one of the generic white mugs. He turned away, murmuring about the sugar having been moved.
Jemma looked back up and stared at Fitz's back for a few beats, swallowing hard at the lump in her throat before she grabbed the kettle. She began pouring the boiled water into the victory mug, watching as the TARDIS decal slowly disappear on the streetside picture as the ceramic heated up. She knew it had "reappeared" in the outer space picture on the other side of the mug without even turning it to see. It was one of those heat-sensitive decals that changed with the temperature.
She paused. Disappearing from home and ending up on the other side of the galaxy. It was stupid, she knew, but her chest clenched just at the thought. When she'd undergone the lie detector test to get her lanyard at Providence, she'd told Eric Koenig that the thing inside of the box was the TARDIS, but she now realized how very idiotic that was. Not because the TARDIS was fictional, but because how could she have possibly thought that there could have ever been any force more powerful than the bond between her and Fitz? He'd literally figured out how to open a portal to another planet just to rescue her. He'd fought to find her, never giving up, and he'd figured it out. No Doctor, no superheroes. Just Fitz. He'd done it all, just for her.
The thought stole her breath, but she didn't notice her hands shaking until steaming hot water sloshed out of the spout of the kettle and over her bare fingers. She hissed suddenly at the searing sensation and dropped the kettle onto the counter.
Fitz was at her side immediately. "Jemma!"
His tone was so urgent, so inordinately worried that she felt her heart seize agonizingly in her chest, clenching so tight she thought for a moment it might rupture. The pain and fear in his eyes – that was because of her. She'd hurt him, she'd hurt him so many times.
The weight of the realization was sudden and far too much.
It came out of nowhere, the panic. The clenching in her chest worsened and she suddenly felt hot, too hot. Her heart began to race and her sight began to tunnel-vision, her fingers tingling and her head buzzing. She felt herself sinking toward the floor as her shaking legs turned to jelly. Fitz caught her before she could collapse, however, and lowered her the rest of the way down.
She'd had panic attacks before, but never so many as she'd had since returning from hell and none so severe. These ones were all-encompassing, overwhelming her senses. They gripped her tight and held her under until she was absolutely sure she was going to die.
But then they would ease, slinking back slowly into her subconscious where they would wait for the next unknown trigger to trip so that they could set upon her once again.
She'd found though that having Fitz around helped to… well, maybe not lessen their intensity, but shorten their duration. He would sit nearby and talk softly to her, drawing her out of her head, out of the panic, and back to the present where it was safe… or at least safer.
This time was no different. She heard his soft murmuring and followed his voice back to the surface. She found him kneeling in front of her, pressing a cool, damp dishtowel to the back of her neck. She lifted her head and met his eyes. The pain and fear from before was still there, but also a tentative hope that almost broke her heart more than the other emotions.
"Hi there," he said softly as he brought the dishtowel around to press against her flushed cheek.
She just stared at him for a long moment, a deep sadness welling up inside her for this sweet, daft, breathtaking man who she adored so, so much. All that had been done to him and all he cared about was her. She didn't deserve him.
A hiccuped sob suddenly escaped her throat and she threw her arms around his neck, clutching tightly to him. "I'm sorry," she whimpered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
He seemed startled because it took him a second before he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Hey, hey, shhhh," he tried.
She continue to apologize over and over and Fitz grew more frantic in his attempts to calm her. Eventually he pulled back away from her and gently grasped either side of her now red, splotchy face. "Jemma, Jemma! Hey, shh-shhhh, stop," he said, shaking his head when she whispered "I'm sorry" yet again. "No, stop. You don't have anything to be sorry for."
"I do," she gasped, tears leaving hot, sticky trails behind them as they fell, "I do. Don't you see, Fitz? There's so much. So much."
He shook his head again, brushing her hair back out of her face. "No, Jemma–"
She gripped his forearms, trying to still his movements, his attempts to soothe her, but he wouldn't stop. "I left you, Fitz!"
The exclamation had him freezing in place, then his hands slowly dropped.
Another sob got caught in her throat and hiccupped out. "I left you," she repeated in an anguished whisper. He had once accused her of giving up on him and while that wasn't true –she could never give up on him– she had left him. She'd abandoned him when he'd needed her the most, and for what? Why? Because it had been too hard?
She'd told herself that it was because Coulson needed her to infiltrate Hydra, that her being there was imperative for the success of SHIELD's mission. She'd told herself that it was her duty.
She'd told herself that Fitz would be better off without her there to remind him of everything that had happened to him.
But the truth, the real truth, was that she'd been scared and she had run. She had abandoned her best friend, but she hadn't been able to fully grasp what that had meant until now.
She'd been alone on that planet, so alone. She understood now what that pain felt like, that cold, biting, overwhelming agony, that desperate, ceaseless longing, and she had done that to Fitz. Yes, he had had the others around, but with his communication troubles, he'd still been very much isolated from everyone else.
They had all treated him differently, set him apart from them because he wasn't the same, made him feel broken and useless. It was the same thing that a lot of them were doing with her now, but at least she had her best friend (or whatever they were) with her. That was something Fitz hadn't had.
It made her feel nauseous with guilt. When he'd been alone, she'd left him there, but when she'd been alone, he'd never stopped trying to get to her. How was the right? How was that fair? How could she even claim to be his friend, let alone anything more?
"You never gave up on me," she sobbed, "and I left you."
"Jemma… Jemma." He ducked his head a little to catch her eyes, but she shied away. "No, hey, look at me, look at me."
She struggled for a moment, but finally, sucking in little choppy, unhappy breaths, managed to meet his gaze.
"You left me," he said to her, "twice." Her face began to crumple again, but he caught it between his hands and kept her level with him. "It was the worst– When you were–… I didn't know... I-I-I can't even…" He shook his head, at a clear loss for words, but then he blinked back the tears that had welled up suddenly in his eyes and took a breath. "You left me twice, but…"
Jemma found herself holding her breath, terrified of what he might say, but also painfully hopeful.
"You came back," he breathed. "You came back and that's what matters."
The weight of his forgiveness, of his love, conveyed through both his words and expression, sank deep into her chest and warmed her in a way that nothing ever had before.
"And," he continued, still cupping her face, "no matter what, Jemma Simmons, I will never give up on you." He gave her a small smile and leaned in a bit closer, whispering, "Just like I know you never have and never will give up on me either."
The relief of his absolution left her dizzy and she leaned forward, pressing her face into his shoulder. His arms immediately wrapped around her, holding her close. The two of them had never been very good at words, at least not ones tied to emotions, but they had somehow always known what each other was thinking and feeling. Fitz had once told Jemma that Daisy had called them "psychically linked" and at the time it had seemed laughable, but now she thought that perhaps their friend had been right and this moment seemingly only served to prove it.
Fitz had known what she'd been feeling, her fears, her regrets, her pain. He'd known what she'd been trying to communicate to him, the depth of her sorrow, and instead of letting the weight of all her insecurities and anguish overwhelm him and force him away, he'd understood and he'd stayed right there in it with her, beside her.
She realized right then that that is where he'd always been. Even when separated and alone, she'd never really been alone. He'd always been there in some way, in her head, her heart, guiding, reminding, reprimanding, protecting. And something told her that somehow she'd always been there for him as well, even when she hadn't been.
Similar to how it felt to have his arms wrapped around her now, Fitz was a warm, constant, familiar weight inside her that never left and no matter what, they would always be together.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed!
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