Hello loves! What you are about to read could be a trigger to some people, so, if you are triggered by PTSD, panic attacks, mentions of suicide attempts, heart attacks, and/or severe nightmares, then I would suggest you turn around now, otherwise please read and review! This fic is rated T for some adult themes, and of course the things mentioned above. Thank you. I do not own Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.
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For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea – E. E. Cummings
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For Whatever We Lose
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"Earlier this year, as many of you know, there was an attack on the United Nations," the news reporter began, his chirpy voice bleeding out of the television and into the kitchen.
Jemma stopped the whir of the electric mixer, grabbing a spatula covered in cookie dough and settling it in between her teeth. Walking into the dark den, she perched herself on the edge of the brown leather sofa.
"… The mayor of New York City…"
The wickedly familiar clanking of a wheelchair entering the dinning room opposite of her overruled the noise of the television.
"… There will be a memorial in place for the many who perished in this catastrophic event. The seventy-two names will be carved onto a marble stone that will be placed outside of the building for the public to see."
"Jemma!" a gruff Scottish voice called.
Fleeing her place on the sofa and sitting the spatula on the coffee table, she sprinted toward him. With expert hands she maneuvered him through the doorway and onto the tan carpet. The silence that followed tore at her soul.
"Do you want to sit on the sofa, love?"
He nodded stiffly, and she carefully moved so that she was in front of him.
His eyes captured hers in a look of fear, and she leaned forward to capture his lips with hers, and he tangled his arms in her brunette hair. Pulling back after a few seconds, she adjusted her hands so that they were situated around his waist.
"You don't have to do this Jemma," he said, an arm reaching out to cup her porcelain face.
Her only response was to pull him upwards as gently as possible.
"Jemma…" he croaked.
Her hands fumbled so that she was supporting his back and incapacitated legs.
"Fitz, I'm just about to put you down, you can do it; you can do it." She added the last part for her benefit.
She laid him on the sofa, quickly pecking his lips before whirling about to place his wheelchair in the closet.
"I'm baking you cookies for tonight, Fitz," she said, a smile gracing her features as she moved to stand in front of the television. She handed him the remote, allowing him to change the channel.
"Do you have to go?"
His voice is a mere whimper and she has to bite her lip in order to keep it from quivering. She sat on the carpet, her left hand reaching out to enclose one of his.
"Fitz you know I have to go back to work. It's been six months." She hummed lightly, her hand lazily tracing patterns on his. "Besides, Skye will be here." She smiles at him, and he can't help but smile back.
"I know Simmons. It's just… the night is when it's the worst."
She leaned forward to kiss him, anxiously sucking on his bottom lip. When she releases him minutes later, her amber orbs are laced with water.
"Believe me, I know."
~(~
Four months had passed since she had started work again, and things had been going as good as they possibly could. She only received calls of Bobbi unable to get him to eat his dinner, or Skye asking if she could call Antoine to help her lift Fitz to his bed.
She smiled as she carried the beakers into her lab, the glass clinking together as she turned on her heel, nearly running into her assistant, Mack.
"Hello!" she exclaimed, her always-bubbly personality rising to the surface as he smiled across the room. "How are you?"
"Fine, thank you."
She forced a smile back at him, her eyes wandering to look at the microscope at hand. While she was friendly towards Mack, he could never replace the man who was lying on her sofa at home.
"Dr. Simmons?"
She turned, nearly spilling the contents of the beaker in her hand.
"Yes?"
She had never seen the man before, his dark suit and tie gave way to a man who looked like he was in his mid forties.
"May I come in?"
She nodded vigorously, her hand discreetly pointing Mack outward.
Clearing her throat, she looked up at him. "Can I help you with something?"
"Yes, I am a psychology professor at NYU and I came here to ask about the chances of speaking a seminar for me."
She smiled lightly at him. "I'm sure you have the wrong department, I do not specialize in the brain. Perhaps if you try the neurology department, I think it's on the fifth level…"
"I'm not asking for you to speak," he interrupted.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Oh. Then who?"
"I would like your husband to speak for us."
Her eyes widened in alarm, and she carefully stepped backwards.
"No."
Her tone was definite, and it would have been irrational for anyone to argue with her when she was in a state like this.
"I'm sorry, Dr…."
"Coulson," he added.
"Dr. Coulson, but there is no way he is going to speak for you."
Her eyes dropped to the surgical knife lying on the table.
"Why not?"
She suspected that he wasn't trying to pry, but it did not stop the anger that began to pump through her veins.
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave Dr. Coulson. It was wonderful to meet you sir, but I have appointments that need to be followed up on. I'm afraid that you are going to have to be escorted out."
He smiled at her, but it didn't take a genius to notice that it was forced.
"Well, you can at least take my card."
She opened her mouth to refuse, but he placed it on the table.
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Fitz."
When she was sure he left, she locked herself in the storage room and cried for two hours.
~(~
"Fitz!" she cried as she walked into the kitchen, placing the grocery bags on the counter.
"Simmons, get in here I have a feeling that this is going to be the best game of the year."
Rolling her eyes, she lightly padded into the living room, launching herself onto the sofa with a rather unruly squeal. He groaned at her impact and she snuggled herself into his arms. He pressed a feather-light kiss to the nape of her neck, and she rolled over to face him.
"You say that before every game Fitz," she said, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.
"Well I'm usually right aren't I?"
She rolled her eyes yet again, and kissed his cheek.
"Skye and Antoine are coming over in an hour to watch the game with us. Do you want me to invite Bobbi and Lance over? I think I have enough meatballs for them."
He shook his head violently. "Simmons, you would never."
A mischievous glint in her eyes, she pressed her nose into his neck.
"Bobbi is nice, I like her a lot…"
He snorted. "Well Lance can shove himself up his arse, it's a wonder Bobbi allows him to brag, bloody git."
She would never let him know, but she was silently amused with him, his accent tended to get stronger when he raved about something.
"He is an author…"
"I'm pretty sure he uses that title for his wife to allow him to write porn for a living."
"Leopold Fitz!"
He groaned in response, and she leaned away from him.
"After this I am definitely inviting him over! You need to be nicer if you want to maintain relationships," she chided, her head slightly shaking.
"Jems I have an excuse," he muttered, low enough that she wasn't sure that she heard him correctly.
"Oh Leo…"
Leaning forward, she kissed his head.
"You are so much more than that."
~(~
Skye whined from her perch upon the kitchen counter, leaning across Jemma to grab a warm cookie.
"But I don't want to, after Grant went all crazy psycho, I thought I'd take things slow with Antoine."
Simmons raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
Skye sighed, her shoulders settling in satisfaction.
"Okay so we might have done some stuff…"
Simmons continued to stare at her.
"Alright! Fine! But still!" Skye whined.
Simmons laughed in success, casually grabbing a chocolate chip cookie off of the tray. "It's not like you would give up a free opportunity to go lingerie shopping anyway, we all know about it Skye, you can't hide from us forever."
Skye threw her hands in the air. "So what if I was a hooker in college, somebody had to make money before we went bankrupt and even though my dad was the most twisted son of a bitch to roam this earth, I loved him then." She shivered in disgust. "Until junior year when I found out what he actually was practicing if you know what I mean."
Jemma nodded in agreement. It was common knowledge that Skye's father was a murder. When his wife was slaughtered while he was visiting America, leaving the poor baby to nearly die, he went crazy, claiming revenge on whoever killed her. Luckily for Skye, it was not super obvious that he murdered at night, and she grew up relatively normal, except for her passion for computers from a young age.
"Come on…." Jemma begged, a longing glint in her eyes. "You know you want to go shopping."
Skye rolled her eyes.
"It doesn't have to be lingerie!"
Skye looked at her in disbelief. "Trying to spice up your sex life much, Miss too good for your bad girl shenanigans?"
Jemma's cheeks turned crimson.
"Where is Mr. Hot and bothered anyway?" Skye asked, her eyes glinting with mischief.
Simmons rolled her eyes. "He's resting."
Skye's tone turned to a serious one, her face contorting into a look of pain.
"How is he doing?"
She bit her lip in contemplation, and Skye could see the hesitation in her eyes.
"He's getting better. He gets full nights of sleep now, and the nightmares are far and few between… I want to take him to a physical therapist so that they can help him get the leg muscles to work again; it's just that I'm not totally sure that he would want to do it. He told me that I wouldn't want to shag a cripple the other day, and I just need him to realize how much I love him."
She rested her hands in her hands, her fingers gently kneading the knots from her hair.
"I just never thought it would be him. He was always so… good. Sure he could be rude but even when Grant started to give in to his medication he still thought…"
She had not even realized that she was crying before Skye touched her shoulder.
"I just wish that he had not given up on himself this easily, it's killing me to see him like this."
Skye gently wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close to her chest.
"Oh, you are getting way too old Jemma. You may not look a day over twenty-eight but you have dealt with much more than that of your age. You don't deserve to spend day by day pushing him around in a wheelchair, you deserve to be with someone who can protect and nourish you."
She sniffled lightly, her hands clinging onto Skye.
"I love him so much."
Skye smiled down at her, and the look the younger woman gave her chilled her to the bone.
"I know."
~(~
"Dr. Simmons!"
Jemma groaned, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. Plastering a smile, she turned around to face the man.
"Yes, Professor Sitwell?"
All she had wanted was a hot chocolate at the bakery on the corner. Her flat was nearly a block away, and living in downtown Manhattan normally allowed her to blend in with the millions of people constantly roaming around the island. She wanted to try leaving him home alone for an hour, she promised that she would be right back, and as the hour had neared it's close, she decided to stop for hot chocolate for the two of them. She was nearly out the door when a former professor had spotted her.
She hated him. She had never meant the word before him, and he truly was the exception. He had hit on her throughout her two years of college, even though her arm was wrapped tightly around her lab partner's.
He smiled at her, a suggestive gleam beginning to appear in his eyes. "Do you mind if I ask what you are doing this evening?"
She pursed her lips in annoyance, but masked it to be a look of contemplation.
"Unfortunately I am occupied tonight," she responded.
His eyes sunk in disappointment. "That is… most unfortunate. How about tomorrow evening?"
"Mrs. Fitz!"
She internally thanked God, and waved the owner of the voice over.
"Donnie!" she exclaimed, leaning forward to hug him. "How are you?"
"I'm fine ma'am, how are you?"
She smiled at the sincerity of the boy, and released him.
"I'm doing okay," she said honestly.
He nodded. "That's good." He paused for a moment, looking to his right. "How is Mr. Fitz?"
Her smile turned into a pained one. "He's getting better."
Donnie opened his mouth to say something, but was abruptly cut off.
"You're married!?"
She normally would of maintained her composure around Donnie, the poor boy was eight years old, but she was unable to hold her tongue. Her hands flew over Donnie's ears, pressing his lobes to her hands to make sure he heard nothing.
"No shit!" she exclaimed. "I've been married to Dr. Fitz for five years, and I've known him for ten!"
"But-"
"Go and leave me in peace, Professor Sitwell," she droned. "It's been a weary year as it is."
"Just remember," he said. "Remember that beautiful women like you shouldn't be caged with cripples like him. I will have you Jemma Simmons, but I have a feeling that you will be crawling to me sooner than you think."
She bit the inside of her cheek, holding onto Donnie with a firm grasp.
"And lose the collars, Miss Simmons, it makes you look like the housewife you are."
Looking down at Donnie, she slipped her arm into his tiny hand.
"Where are we going Mrs. Fitz?"
"Come on Donnie, I'm taking you home," she stated, dragging him out the door of the bakery.
"But why?" he groaned, his shoulders slumping.
She sighed, her grip on the little boy's hand tightening. "Mr. Fitz has been left alone too long, Donnie. You know what happens when he goes too long without food."
Donnie nodded in agreement. "When is the next time I can come over, Mrs. Fitz?"
She sighed. "Darling, I don't know."
~(~
After dropping Donnie off, she quickly ran to her flat, valiantly flinging open the door, and setting her purse on the counter.
"Fitz!" she called, while raising her cup of hot chocolate up to her lips. "I brought you some hot chocolate!"
Her calls were met with silence.
"Fitz?" she tried again, slowly moving down the hall towards their bedroom.
He had taken to sleeping during the day, his sleeping schedule revolving around when she would be home. He didn't want anyone else to know about his nightmares. She worked the night shift at the local hospital, devising a plan to spend as much time with him as possible, for her shift went from eight to two, and a six-hour shift was all she could manage. She hated the thought of staying away from him for longer than that.
"Fitz!" she tried once again, her hand enclosing on the door handle. "This isn't funny!"
Turning the handle, she stepped inside, her hands shaking.
He was lying on the floor; his legs sprawled out in awkward positions. He looked to be unconscious, and the blankets were strewn about the king sized bed, a tiny bloodstain on the white sheets.
She choked on a sob, her eyes quickly filling with tears. She sprinted to his side, crouching down to look at his head, making sure there were no wounds; he didn't need any more injuries. After discovering the cut on his left arm, she ran into the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom, grabbing gauze and a cotton square to wrap around the wound. It wasn't big, a simple Band-Aid could of sufficed, but Jemma Fitz tended to go overboard when it came to her husband's health.
She stripped the bloodied sheet off of the bed, replacing it with one from the linen closet down the hall.
Bending over, she grabbed him by the stomach, gently lifting him onto the bed, propping his head up on the surplus of pillows.
She sighed, when she was finished, her fingers running around his jawbone. She stayed with him for a few minutes before moving to the kitchen to get an ice pack and glass of apple juice. Her mum had always told her that there was nothing in the world apple juice couldn't fix.
She really wanted to punch her mum in the face for that.
Setting the glass on the dark wood of the nightstand, she returned to lying next to him, snuggling into his warmth. He woke minutes later, his stained yawn sounding like a plea for help.
"Leo," she murmured, her hands carefully hovering of his head.
He didn't speak for a while, motioning to the glass beside him whenever he wanted to drink.
"How do you do it, Jems?" he asked after nearly half-an hour of silence.
She abruptly sat up. "What do you mean?"
His good hand began to toy with her curls, perfectly done in the fashion that she enjoyed most. "How do you put up with me everyday, even though dropping me off at an assisted living home and running off to fuck another man would be much more simpler?"
Had he not of fallen, she would have slapped him across the face.
"Leo Fitz," she began, her hand firmly grasping his chin. "I fell in love with you while we watched plenty a documentary, watching you make connections between space and your family enchanted me. I did not fall in love with you because you could walk. I fell in love with your soul. I love you so much that I can't even begin to breathe when you get like this. Only an idiot would choose not to love you, Leo Fitz."
"I'm a mess," he said quietly.
"You are my mess," she corrected.
Rolling onto his back, she barely heard his response.
"Just make sure you don't cut yourself on my pieces."
~(~
The clang of the bell was drowned by the music that was continuously blasting throughout the building. Jemma adjusted the positioning of the wheelchair while Bobbi held the door, sighing in frustration as the left wheel bent at an awkward angle. Bobbi kicked a rock underneath the door, and proceeded to help Jemma with the wheelchair.
"You won't be needing it," a woman's voice said.
Looking up as a strand of hair fell in front of her eyes with her eyebrows furrowed, she said in a questioning voice, "Do you want me to walk him in?"
She didn't wait for an answer, instead her arms firmly gripping his torso as she pecked a kiss to his left cheek, carefully lifting him into a standing position. Leaving one arm around his waist, she adjusted herself so that he was leaning on her.
"Stop," the woman said, as Jemma began to take her first step.
Her eyes widened. "Excuse me?"
The woman shrugged. "If you want him to gain strength, he cannot rely on you."
She squeezed his hip in apology and hesitantly dropped her hand.
His legs gave out immediately and he swung his body to collide with her, her arms automatically surrounding his waist.
The woman clapped, and Jemma took a look at her for the first time since they entered the building. She was petite, and Jemma guessed that she was her size if not one inch taller then her. She looked to be a middle-aged woman, her Asian features betraying her strong American accent. Her face seemed to be set in stone, as if she hardly expressed any emotion at all.
Walking over, the woman extended her arm.
"I'm Melinda May," she said casually as Jemma shook her hand.
"Jemma Fitz," she responded. "And this is my husband Leo."
Leo nodded in response, his grip on Jemma tightening considerably. Melinda seemed to notice.
"I think I'll take him from here," she said, her arm extending towards Leo. Jemma glanced sideways at her husband, quickly pecking his forehead before transferring him over to Melinda.
"One hour, correct?"
Melinda nodded, and began to move away.
Bobbi opened the door for her, and she glanced over her shoulder, hesitantly calling out, "I love you!"
She barely heard the "And I you," before Bobbi ushered her out the door.
The pair chatted meaninglessly, stopping in a few shops as they made their way up and down the avenue. After a while they found themselves seated by the window in a small café a few doors down from the physical therapist, Jemma cautiously eyeing the clock as their hour drug to a close.
"He'll be fine," Bobbi said with authority as she took a bite of her salad.
Jemma did not look convinced.
"Look, May and I go far back, we both worked in the army for quite a while. She may look rough on the outside, but May would never do anything to harm him, and I think you know that."
Jemma nodded, her eyes traveling downwards to her barely touched sandwich.
Bobbi smiled at her. "Come on, I know you trust me. And get something to eat; Leo would kill you if he found out that you were not eating because of him. He worries about you, Jemma. I've wanted to tell him about your behavior after the accident, but I was afraid of how you would react to him knowing."
Jemma continued to stare ahead. When he had been hospitalized, the doctors had not been too enthusiastic. He had been near the heart of the explosion, and his legs had already been broken beforehand by some man behind a mask. She had slowly gone insane while he was in the coma, the doctors had to drag her away from his side, even giving her an iv after a while since she refused to eat. On one specific day, and Bobbi remembers it well, the doctors told her that he had a twelve percent chance of living, and she went home and stuck a knife in her leg. Her plan had been to let herself bleed out, but Bobbi had wound up stopping by to check on her. She immediately called the hospital when she found her passed out on the floor of her kitchen, and when Leo woke up three weeks later, no one had the heart to tell him that his wife nearly killed himself.
"I'll tell him when I'm ready," Jemma, said, her eyes moving towards the clock once again.
Bobbi rolled her eyes, anticipating the frown that she knew would soon consume Jemma's lips.
"I think we should go," she said, quickly grabbing the dark purse off of the back of her chair and heading to the door, leaving Bobbi nearly behind in an anxious whirl.
Bobbi silently shook her head. She knew what grief could do to people, and even though Jemma had been handling it rather well so far, she knew she was not going to enjoy this hour of loneliness three times a week.
Bobbi sighed, and tried to catch up with her.
~(~
The steady rise and fall of his chest provided the best pillow she could have ever asked for, the only blessing that she had ever wanted. Even in the early morning, she tended to sleep with him, her body curled into his as a constant reminder that he was in fact alive, and not just a figment of her imagination.
She smiled as he buried his face in her hair, a sure sign that he was on the verge of waking up. She let her left hand wander over to his arm, slowly brushing it. He pulled her closer into him, and she couldn't help the childish squeal that escaped her lips.
"You like that, don't you?" he responded in a gruff voice, nearly causing her to swoon in his arms.
She giggled in response, her laughter ringing throughout the room as it might have before the bombing. Her right arm happened to come in contact with her feet, and she came to the revelation that they were ice cold. Grinning manically, she slipped her feet into his nightshirt, her feet pressing against his stomach.
"Jemma!" he growled as she started to laugh harder.
"What's wrong love?" she asked innocently, pressing her feet into his side harder.
"You're lucky that you are so damn lovable Jem," he said grouchily.
She merely laughed in response.
Mustering up the huskiest voice she could use, she said, "Well then I guess you are going to have to punish me…"
"Jem…" he groaned, cut off by the ringing of the phone on the nightstand.
"Hello?" he answered.
Jemma rolled her eyes. Their young and in love chemistry had worn off after the attack, and though it was starting to come back Jemma missed the constant touching and stolen kisses while taking walks throughout the city. She missed the impromptu shags in the storage room at her lab, and most of all, she missed the never ending flirting that was always brought upon when the pair worked together.
"Yes this is him," Leo said, as Jemma inched towards him for warmth that she was apparently lacking.
The speaker on the other side of the phone dragged on in response, and she stiffened in his arms, her senses picking up on his nearly untraceable flinch that she was accustomed to.
"What is it?" she asked, her face moving closer to his.
He waved her off by pointing to his ears, her indication that he couldn't hear. His hearing had been off since the bombing as well, something that the other survivors were also plagued with.
She silenced immediately, bringing one of her dangling arms to tangle his curls in a way that she would have when they were innocent and in love. The idea seemed so foreign to her now.
"I actually would be interested," he said eagerly after another moment passed, Jemma immediately perking up in his arms.
"When is the date?" his arm that was dangling around his lover reached for the nightstand, fumbling for a pen.
"Ah, yes. And the time?" he scrawled the numbers on a piece of paper, a tiny smile playing at his lips when he set the pen down.
"Thank you for calling, Professor Sitwell, tell Dr. Coulson that I would be delighted to attend. It was such a pleasure to speak to you."
Jemma froze instantly at his words, her one hand trembling as she took in deep shallow breaths. She felt Fitz's free arm wrap around her immediately, and she began to sob into the material of his sleep shirt, her strangled sobs as quiet as a mouse.
"Uh huh, thank you, goodbye." He hung up the phone immediately, setting it on the nightstand. Turning to face her, he cupped her face in his arms, thumbs desperately trying to wipe away the tears that were streaking down her face.
"What's wrong, lass?" he asked, his term of endearment for her one that she personally loved, but hadn't used it since after the attack. The term broke her, and she sobbed for a good five minutes, her arms latched around his body.
"Sitwell," she choked, her breaths staggering in pace. "He-he was my biology professor during our run in college," she murmured. "He tried to seduce me multiple times, I can't bear the sight of him."
She sniffled again. Her panic attacks had never been too extreme, and compared to her husband's screams while he slept, it seemed like nothing.
"But that was ten years ago," he said, his arms rubbing circles on her upper back. "What makes you think he would be like that now?"
She gulped. She hated hiding things from him, something that they had limited when they first met, and honesty was the biggest reason why their marriage had never had any real issues.
"Remember when you fell?" she asked, her body trembling as he rubbed her back.
He nodded stiffly. Even though it had been two weeks ago, she had taken a leave off of work and blamed herself for his fall, something that hurt him more then the nightmares he vividly re-lived every night. She hardly left his side now, she showered when he showered so she could hold him up, she ate when he ate, and slept when he slept. They had always been inseparable, but she was relying on their bond more than ever, and he had a feeling it was more for her sake then his; she had been unraveling in the past few months.
She inhaled as a few sobs escaped her, and he pressed a kiss to her nose, another one of their many rituals since they started their romantic relationship, seven years ago.
"Speak to me, lass," he said quietly.
"I was getting us hot chocolate," she began, desperately trying to string together the words. "And when I was about to leave the bakery, he flagged me down."
She let out another sob.
"He was advancing on me, and had Donnie not of seen me, I probably would have been indisposed."
His jaw clenched in a wave of wrath and jealousy, his arms tightening around her torso.
"You'll stand with me," he muttered.
She whimpered. "What?"
He raised his voice. "You'll stand with me," he said again.
She raised an eyebrow. "You want me to hold you up?"
He nodded with finality.
She bit her lip in concern. "Are you sure?"
He stared at her with an intensity that set her heart ablaze. "Oh, Yes."
~(~
As Fitz shuffled to reach a standing position, his arms firmly latched onto the walker that she had rolled over to his side of the bed, she stared at the calendar. They had circled the date in a thick, red circle, and as she sits on the corner of the bed, clad only in her jeans and bra, she found herself wanting to throw up.
She got up swiftly, forcing the uncanny thoughts down as she opened the tiny closet, her hands hovering over the luscious wardrobe. In the end she chooses a floral collared sweater; the colors are natural and it helps her breathe. She turned around; a button down fused with the same colors of the collar on her sweater with a gray tie held firmly in-between her arms.
"Fitz," she said, handing him the clothes.
He smiled at her in return, slipping the button down over his undershirt, opening his arms for her. She stepped forward, standing on her tiptoes to lightly kiss his lips, her hands closing the open button down below. She pulled back after a few seconds, her hands suddenly becoming occupied with the task of buttoning his shirt. When she's done she fastens the tie around his neck, swiftly tying it perfectly.
He kissed her in response, his hands exploring her hair as she sucked on his bottom lip. She pulled away after a moment, her eyes widening in delight.
"Aha!" she exclaimed while running across the room to open the closet door, grabbing a cardigan the color of his tie.
He laughed at her as she returned, sweeping her into his arms with a grin on his face.
"I knew the outfit was missing something," he responded, chuckling as she made a scene with putting the cardigan on, his arm twirling her in delight.
She kissed his nose in response. "One of the many attractive traits that you maintain," she began. "Is that you have a very attractive clothing taste. Men who wear sweaters, cardigans, and button downs…" her eyes rolled back into her head in fake ecstasy. "Take me now. In other words…" she leaned forward, her voice bright as she whispered. "You had me at hello."
She giggled as she pulled away, making it her task to clear an aisle way as he used his walker to get to his wheelchair.
"Simmons I'm pretty sure that's Tom Cruise," he responded, with a mock irritable tone laced into his words.
She hummed in response, batting her eyelashes as he sat down in the wheelchair, casually kicking his walker to the side of the room and wheeling him out.
"Remember what May said Fitz," she chided.
"I know, yeah? It's been two months Simmons I'm pretty sure I can stand up without your help now."
She rolled her eyes in response, grabbing her blazer and purse before pushing open the door and wheeling him down the hall and into the elevator.
"Now Fitz, Dr. Coulson said that he would be meeting up with us at the entrance to our building where we will drive together to the lecture, okay?"
He turned around to face her, his right arm covering hers.
"Stop worrying about me Jemma, I'll be fine."
He raised his hand to cup her face, fingers sweeping away a lone tear.
"Stop."
"It's in my nature to worry, love," she said painstakingly.
A sad smile etched its self across his face.
"I know, lass."
~(~
They sat together in the auditorium, hands clasped as Dr. Coulson walked over to the microphone, Bobbi sitting proudly in the back with a video camera.
Fitz would not let her see his speech, he had wanted it to be a complete surprise for both women, and he could tell that his wife was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He tightened his hold around her hand, the audience quickly quieting as Dr. Coulson began to speak.
"Good Evening," he began, his voice slicing through the room like a knife slicing through bread.
"You are all training in the illnesses of the brain." He paused, carefully folding his hands folding over one another.
"You want to consider yourselves experts. However, no one is an expert except for the people who live in the shadow of an illness themselves."
Fitz swallowed in response.
"Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia, all is something that we cannot understand unless we grasp it ourselves. Though many of you will never touch these horrendous diseases, you will work with them. We have had speakers come to us, describing their journeys throughout life, and I decided I wanted to change that. PTSD is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated mental illnesses in the world, yet perhaps one of the most common ones. Over half of women and men experience PTSD after they experience a traumatic experience, and quite frankly that is alarming."
He breathed in, his eyes focusing on the couple sitting in the front left row, their eyes slowly consuming one another's.
"Today, I would like to introduce to you, a speaker that has faced hell and beyond, and is still breathing. Today we will learn about the UN bombing from a victim that was in the heat of it all. Ladies and Gentlemen I proudly present to you Leopold and his lovely wife, Jemma Fitz."
The couple hundred pairs of hands clapped as Jemma wheeled her husband to the podium, carefully pulling him up to a standing position while Dr. Coulson swiftly disposed of the wheel chair. He gripped Jemma for support, his other hand securely wrapped around the microphone. She smiled at him, her hand tracing patterns on his shirt. He smiled back at her, and began to speak.
"Good Afternoon," he began, his legs slowly wobbling as his wife clutched him closer.
"I used to be like you," he said, his eyes searching the crowd for a face to focus on.
"I went to a prestigious university, studied hard to do well in the world, made friends." He glanced over at Jemma, his face softening. "Fell in love, even."
He cleared his throat, his eyes returning to gaze at the students before him.
"I did well, too. I graduated way before I was supposed to, and I landed a job in a secure agency as a rocket scientist. She came with me, and we shared a lab for years, naïvely thinking that those glory days would never end."
He shook his head as a small chuckle escaped him. "I got married then, and for four years everything seemed like a dream; it was almost too good to be true."
She readjusted her grip to hold him tighter.
"I had escalated in the agency much quicker than my peers, save one, and I was to give a debrief about the hazards that the rockets Iran contained towards our society. The day that it happened was like any other. I woke up, made tea for the both of us, Jemma even made me a sandwich, but you know, you an never appreciate what you have until you lose it."
He inhaled.
"She kissed me goodbye at the lab, and I walked to the UN that day, I was in need of some sunshine and there was this coffee shop that I liked, so I thought, what the hell and walked. Looking back on it, it was probably one of the best decisions of my life."
He paused for a moment as his breathing increased.
"I debriefed in the chamber, and I was on my way out when I heard the first scream."
Jemma bit her lip, gently squeezing his hand as encouragement to continue. He had never relayed the incident to anyone but her, and she wanted to kiss him for doing so well.
"I had been on the phone with Jemma, and when I turned around the first bomb went off, incinerating everything in its path. I remember running, and on my way out I stumbled across a security guard, and paid him no attention. Within the next couple minutes my legs were broken and I was screaming for help, my screams drowned out from the wretches of the dying. The next thing I remember is the darkness and fire, and how they nearly consumed my soul."
He sighed. "I woke up to the sleeping face of my wife and the disappointed look of a doctor's. It took a while for him to convince me that I was crippled, and after a good cry with Jemma I realized that the fire had burned away the nerves as well as the receivers to bones. The bones would heal, I was reassured, but they were not sure if I would be able to walk again. The months that followed were full of traumatizing nightmares. I nearly killed Jemma while trying to protect her in a dream."
He risked a glance at her to wipe away a lingering tear, his eyes returning to the audience.
"I do not want you to pity me, I have received more pity in this lifetime than many will receive throughout multiple ones, but I want you to realize something. I represent the broken population of The United States, my wife, the shattered population. We are working on it, but it will take a lifetime to piece ourselves back together. When you have patients who have seen hell, do not ask for them to return to the way they were before; in fact, do not wish for them to return to the way they were. To return is impossible for we are changed. We are not the same beings that we were yesterday, nor will we be the same tomorrow. All I'm asking you is that you get to know your patient. See them as house at night for there are not a large number of truly broken people. Take the time to learn all of their nooks and crannies. Those funky decorations that can only be described as you. And then, when you are done memorizing their floor plan, do not hesitate to swing open the curtains and let in the light."
With every last inch of willpower he could muster, he finished his speech. "You may think that what I'm saying here is unimportant. But know that I have dwelled in the valley of the shadow of death and I have witnessed things that you will never believe, and I have lost things, terrible things that many of you will never understand. Remember where you come from; remember that everyone is worth saving and that no person deserves to be in a position of pain. And when you find yourself in a position of power over someone else, ask yourself, is this what you would want?"
He inhaled. "We have to live with the choices we make," he began, a raw emotion coming from his voice, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to finish.
The feminine voice of his wife finished the blow for him. "But sometimes we have to die with them too."
She turned the microphone off and they were escorted to their seats without a word.
~(~
The girl approached them after the rest of the kids had filed out. Her short ginger hair was unevenly cut, and her luscious lips were pressed together in a thin line. She resembled a model from a high-end magazine, her clothes screamed wealth.
"Mr. Fitz," she said, her chirpy voice shockingly weighted. "Mrs. Fitz."
Leo gave her his hand and she shook it.
"I'm Amelia. Amelia Jackson."
"Nice to meet you Amelia," Leo said, a genuine smile appearing on his mouth.
She didn't ask for an invitation.
"You look sad," she said, pointing at Jemma. "You look sad when you think he can't see you."
Jemma chuckled as a defense mechanism.
"So you watch Sherlock too?"
Amelia rolled her eyes.
"That's not the point. Something happened that you weren't telling us about. I'm a clever girl; I've got an IQ of 167. But I'm also a behaviorist. I've been alone all of my life and just recently I found a guy who is compatible with me. His name's Michael and he's great but that's not the point."
She looked defeated as she stared at the two of them.
"I'm screwed up, okay? I've been to more therapists then many people go to their entire lives. I had a social worker live with me at one point because I was so low. The point is, I don't want to dampen Michael down. Hell I'm not even in this class. I graduated a year ago with two PhD's in thermonuclear astrophysics. So I'm going home now, and I'm telling my psychologist fiancée that I'm a depressed, suicidal, bitch. And I hope that you solve each other too because if you two can't then there's no way in hell that I can."
Jemma bit he lip and flung herself at Amelia, her arms tightening around the girl in astonishment.
"You are brave and kind," she whispered in her ear as Amelia pulled away.
"No," she responded with a smile. "I'm a bitch. And bitches wound up dead in allies and hotel rooms or get lost and never found."
~(~
They were together on the sofa, her chest bugging her considerably as he lay on her chest, her fingers stroking his curls. He had fallen asleep an hour ago and she was too reluctant to move him. The speech had taken place a month before, and Amelia had called them to tell her that Michael had taken her into his arms when she had confessed to him her underlying conditions. She and Bobbi had visited the girl, Bobbi giving Amelia a copy of the speech that she was watching now. Looking at Fitz, she was glad to know that her speech had saved someone. She traced his jaw with her fingers, each movement rapidly slowing as she felt a pang in her right arm. Rubbing her thumb on his cheek, she retracted her hand in a gasp.
It was too cold.
She ignored the pains in her chest, naïvely flipping him in her arms, as the pain erupted into a flame.
She gasped in pain, as her chest exploded in pain, clutching his body as she checked him for a heartbeat.
She was not satisfied with what she found.
She wailed as pain crashed over her, her eyes squeezing shut as she grasped his corpse like a lifeline.
"We have to live with the choices we make," his gruff Scottish accent exclaimed over the television as she let out a small scream.
"But sometimes we have to die with them too," the recording finished as her last breath escaped her lungs.
~(~
Thank you so much for everyone who read this, and I hope you all enjoyed it. I'm planning on writing another AU like this, with Fitz being the police commissioner of a corrupt city married to his brilliant wife Simmons, the daughter of their nemesis. I'm drafting ideas as we speak and I am so excited to share this with you. Please review so that I know what to do better next time around as the concept of writing AUs like this is something that I have not been dealing with for too long. Thank you so much! xoxo