The contact number is crumpled in Fitz's hand. He's been turning it over for hours now, and the ink has long since faded into a blur on his fingertips. It doesn't matter; he's already memorized the number. Ten simple digits, ten sequential numbers; they are like any mathematical formula he's ever worked with. But somehow, this number seems to control the fate of the very universe itself. It isn't only that Director Coulson himself had given Fitz this number. The importance of this number revolves around who it is a direct contact to.

"Jemma," He barely chokes out her name as he dials the number blindly onto an easily disposable cell phone. He doesn't know where she is or what she's doing, and the fact that he's been granted permission to speak with her is almost too good to be true. He needs to speak with her. Maybe he won't speak - he hasn't been very good at that as of late - but at least he'll be able to listen. He'll feel the vibrations of her words shivering down his spine like high-charged electrodes.

He waits. The dial tone goes on. It's empty, expansive, listless, broken. He feels an odd sense of connection with the dial tone, of all things.

"Hello?"

His heart lurches in his chest. That voice. That quirky and hopeful and shy and inviting British accent. He hasn't heard that voice in all of its genuine clarity in ages.

"It's me, Jem. I'm just calling... ah," He pauses. Why is he calling? Would it be weird to tell her that he wants to hear her voice? Would she understand if he reinstated what he felt towards her - what he's always felt towards her?

"Oh Fitz, you have no idea how elated I am to hear from you."

Elated. He tries to find the word in his memory banks. Elated means happy, but that isn't a strong enough explanation. Happy... happier than happy... what is a word that expresses happy in a different way? She is happier than happy to hear from him. She is excited to hear from him.

Finally, he gives up trying.

"I know. I mean, I am. I am, too."

"How are they treating you? Are you feeling any better?"

He pauses. He doesn't want to tell her the truth. Not her. Not Jemma Simmons, the sweet, happier than happy, loveable girl who deserves more than a pity party from him. She doesn't need to know that he's only just starting to win back respect that was so easily thrown to waste. But she is his other half, and she needs to know.

"It's all okay over here." He says. "We completed... ah, no, we... see, there were these, ah, bad guys, and they wanted the plane to go boom. We..."

"You prevailed against them, didn't you?" There is a smile in her voice.

"Yes!" It's amazing how well she knows him. "Yes, we prevailed. We did that. And I... am okay. Mack talks to me, but I'm still lonely. It's just not the same." He feels the sudden need to tell her something. "They changed our lab."

"I'm glad to hear that you're all right." Relief leaks through her tone. "As for being lonely, I can relate entirely. My mission - well, I can't tell you what exactly it is that I'm doing until I come back home - is rather dreary. While I am able to work in a lab, it's just not ours." She huffs. "As for ours, we'll have to fix it back up again when I return."

She wants to come home. Suddenly, Fitz is injected with a large dosage of positivity.

"How are you, Jemma?"

"Oh, you know, getting on. Missing my other half." She chuckles at this last part, as if it's a joke. But Fitz knows her too well. He knows that she means what she says.

"Right. I mean, I know. Me too. What I mean is, you need to come back. What's the word... um... fast. Come back fast, okay?"

"I will come home as soon as I can."

There is a silence that stretches throughout the air. The only sounds they hear are the low, rhythmic pulses of each other's breathing. Fitz knows that there is one more question he has to ask her. He's terrified to do it, yet at the same time, he feels like he'll die without the knowledge this question will birth.

So he asks.

"Jemma, did you leave because of what I said?" The words come tumbling out, blurted out, as ungraceful as a monkey in the ocean.

He can't see her expression. He wishes he could see her expression. If only there was some hint of what she was thinking; what she was feeling. It was like the sensation of hypoxia all over again.

"What did you say, Fitz?" She answers him, slowly, as if she isn't quite sure she knows what he's talking about.

"D-down in the pod. I said something. I don't know if I should have said it or if it made you go away." His voice cracks ever so lightly, and the guilt of causing pain to his best friend started pounding on his heart like a metal-plated hammer. "Please... ah, please... speak it."

Her voice is low and soft and vulnerable. "Fitz, nothing you could ever say would ever drive me away from you. Nothing. I mean, you've said... you've said things that could be taken as detrimental jokes, but then again, we both have. Why would something so heart-wrenchingly honest make me leave?"

He freezes. What does she mean? Heart-wrenchingly honest. Never leaving. Under normal circumstances, he would be able to decode her words, uncover her true meanings. But he can't. He tries, and he can't.

"Because," he says. "Because we didn't talk about it. Because I was... um, I was... the word is gone." He grits his teeth and snaps his fingers. "Damaged. I was damaged."

"Leo, stop it. I don't care what the others are saying. I don't care what the doctors say you are, or what Hydra says you are, or what the team says you are. You are absolutely brilliant, and anyone who can't see that is ridiculous. The thing is, you have to learn to see it again."

"I'm trying. They say I'm getting better. I just... I miss you. I wish you could be back here."

"I do too, Fitz. Our ten minutes are almost up. I'm really glad you called."

He nearly smiles. "Yeah. I'm glad, too."

"Sometimes, it's like you're all I have. I will come back. I didn't mean to... I don't know, to leave without an explanation. Especially when I didn't explain to you."

"Yeah, I know. I mean, it's okay. I know now."

"And you're okay?" She asks tentatively.

This time, he smiles for real. "I'm talking to the most important person in the world. I'm okay."

"Me too." She pauses, and so does his heart. "I have to go now, Fitz."

"Come back soon."

"We'll fix the lab the moment I get back."

The call ends. Fitz sits down and twirls the phone around in his hands. Jemma is okay. She hasn't forgotten him. She is still the same old concerned, beautiful, smiling, uplifting Jemma.

Please leave a message after the tone.

He doesn't know if she'll even check the messages on her phone, but he can't leave the words unsaid. He opens up the voice mail options attached to her ten-digit number.

"Jem, I forgot something. I love you."