A/N: This is a little dark fic for our heroes, but yeah... sorry.
Spoilers: for everything up to and including 4x16 What If...
Disclaimer: Don't worry; I remember that I don't own the rights to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
It had taken charm, trickery, and a lot of spy smarts to get this far. To be able to be in the same room as him. Fitz. Or rather The Doctor. But here she was. And they were alone. Finally. This was her chance, maybe her only one, to get him back.
She had come in, closed the door, and now they were having a staring match. It didn't last long, but it felt like it.
He was the first one to speak. "Jemma." He said with just the right mix of surprise and expectation to make it a balanced sound.
And with it a little piece of dread dropped from her heart. He knew her. But he was still different, just like Coulson had been, not only in his physical appearance, but in the way he carried himself, the way he talked, the look in his eyes. She noticed that a few of his mannerisms were still his. It gave her hope that she could bring him back, make him remember. He had to be in there.
"Fitz." Her voice was shaky, as she asked. "Do you know me?"
xXx
The easy answer to that question was; yes. He knew her. But did she know him? It didn't look like it. If she did, if this was the Jemma he had known, she wouldn't have come back here, if she was smart enough – and he knew that she was – she wouldn't have wanted to have anything to do with him. He knew her well enough to know that.
Ever since agent May had told him; had shown him her file. He had wanted to find her. To make sure that this was really happening. That she was really alive. Because she couldn't be. There was absolutely no way. It was an impossibility.
When Shield had fallen he had been the one. The one to pull the trigger. He had looked her straight in the eye and shot her twice, right in the heart. She had refused him and she had refused to join Hydra. There had been no other way. She hadn't begged for her life. But she had been crying. The disappointment clear in her eyes, she had been let down by him. There had been no other way. That's what he had kept telling himself. Not to ease his conscience. He hadn't felt any guilt, had had no remorse.
There had been no hope left for Shield back then. The only reason he had joined, was because Hydra had lived in the shadows, and it had been the only way to infiltrate the flawed organization that Shield was. He was a legacy, his father, and his father before him had all been Hydra. It was his place to follow. This life he was leading now, out of the shadows, and into the light, this was his birthright. And he felt no regret for anything that he had had to do to get this far.
There had been a funeral. He hadn't gone. Why should he have? He had cared about her sure, but it was all fake anyway. There had been no body to bury. She had ended up in one of the many Shield mass graves, which only a handful of people knew about, him included.
Yet here she stood, in the flesh. He was pretty sure she wasn't an inhuman, but he had of course never had the chance to test her.
xXx
"What are you doing here? What do you want from me?" He asked keeping his voice cold and neutral.
She looked at him as if searching for something, when she couldn't find it she said. "I want you to remember, Fitz."
"And what exactly is it that you want me to remember?" He was curious as to where this was going to go.
"Us. I want you to remember you and me. We've been by each other's side since we met. Please remember, you've been right beside me this whole damn time."
Yep Fitz thought, this clearly wasn't her, or otherwise she didn't remember what had happened to her in her last moments. "There are no us. We went to school together. You died. End of story."
"No. That's not what happened. This..." She gestures around her. "This world isn't real, it's virtual."
He didn't say anything but he looked at her like she was insane.
She continued. "Shield never fell. We won. The world is not perfect, but it's better than this. We've had our challenges, you and I, but we still have each other. You can't by any free will want to live in this hell. I know that this world seems real; it really is made to look flawless. But this persona, this isn't you Fitz. You wouldn't hurt anyone, not like this. You would never use science to hurt people."
Who was she to go around and accusing him of such deeds? "I'm not hurting anyone. I'm helping."
"What about the inhumans?" She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him with furrowed brows.
He didn't budge. "What about them? They're the ones that are destroying us; all I'm doing is unmasking them so they can't hide from us anymore."
"Can't you see how cruel all of this is? How inhumane!" She was on the verge of tears. "I know you made this technology, the dwarfs, Aida, the Framework, all of it, but the way it's being used is misguided. You said you wanted to protect me. You might think it's for protecting humanity, but it's serving the exact opposite purpose."
She had definitely gone crazy. None of what she said made sense. "You should leave now." He used his most assertive voice to underline the statement.
"Please don't throw me out. I don't want to be without you. I can't do this much longer, not by myself. I need you; we have to fix this together, like we always do. I need you to come back to me! I need you to wake up; to remember me!" Desperation had started to leak into her words.
He had listened to this madwoman long enough, and he really didn't care if she was the real Jemma, an imposter or an inhuman. This was too much. "That's it! If you don't leave I'm calling security."
"Fitz, you can't do this." Now she was begging.
His hand reached for the landline on the table, he pressed a button, and a male voice came on asking how he could help. "I need someone to come up here and escort someone out of the building." Fitz said and added. "No need for the cavalry, she'll go peacefully." His eyes never left her as he said it. He must have assumed – correctly – that she wasn't a threat to him. She could never be.
Shaking her head dejectedly she said. "I should have known that it was inevitable. With all that we've been through. I should have believed you; the Universe really doesn't want us to be together."
"The Universe doesn't want anything." He said nonchalantly. Her heart sank a little as she heard her own words being thrown back in her face.
"You were always the hero, Fitz. Now look at yourself."
"I'm no hero, Jemma." He looked down in a momentary flash of shame. Then he looked straight at her. His cold eyes sending chills down her spine. "Do you want to know how you died?" He asked.
She was briefly shocked by the question. Then she faintly nodded her head yes.
"I shot you." He said like it was no big deal. He could see in her eyes that she refused to believe him. "You held on to your weak Shield beliefs." He spit out the word weak with spite in his voice. "There was no convincing you otherwise. You were supposed to be the smart one; we could have revolutionized the world, you and I. Instead I had to shoot you." He said accusingly laying the fault on her shoulders.
"No, that can't be true. You would never intentionally hurt me. Aida must have programmed this memory specifically, to...to… I don't know... to have a hold over you, wash away your humanity, or something." Simmons didn't know the precise reason; it was hard to say how that robot brain of Aida's worked, but she could think of a few different reasons why Aida would have wanted to eliminate her from Fitz's life.
Fitz's face was blank, unreadable. "I remember it very clearly. Two perfectly aimed shots. Right here." He said and put his hand over his heart.
She couldn't say anything. What more was there to say? What more was there to do? It was a hopeless endeavor. She was losing hope, giving up. She should just go. There was no point in waiting for her escort. Crestfallen she headed for the door. With her hand on the doorknob, she half turned to face him one last time. "Fitz, even though you don't believe me, I just want you to know that I don't blame you, it's the programming and this fake world; it lures you in. And if I can't help you realize that, I just want you to be careful. You once said to me that you weren't strong enough to live in a world that doesn't have me in it. Well, I guess we both have to be strong now. Just remember that who you really are that's not programming, it's something way beyond that." She opened the door. "Bye Fitz." And then she walked out.
For a few minutes after she left he just stared at the closed door. Then it was as if the light broke into his mind, and one word shone through.
"Perthshire."
A/N: I made it; I got it up before the next epi. :)
Sorry for making Fitz so mean. But hey it's the Framework. It's not the real Fitz. I'm blaming all of it on bad programming, and Aida.
Is it just me or does two rounds to the heart not seem personal, they could have shot her anywhere else and she'd still die.
Let's just hope there's a little light at the end of the Framework tunnel.