Author's Note; After taking about a week to recover from the socking horror of feels that came along with the season finale, I resumed my usual therapy of writing.
This is just a kind of extended Fitz POV from the submerged scenes in the med pod.
Anything that you recognise will be pulled from the show. It's not a very original piece, per se, but its just my feels being put on paper. Please keep in mind, as well, I am not a scientist. I do not understand science babble except for the basics. Anything wrong with the science-y stuff is most likely me mishearing what was said on the show, okay?
Let me know what you think?
Fitz felt Jemma begin to stir at his side, shuffling before slowly pushing herself up.
"You looked very peaceful sleeping; didn't want to wake you, but I'm glad that you're up."
"What's happening?"
"Spent the last hour trying to figure out why we sank." He paused at her startled look before giving her a grim smile, "We're at the bottom of the ocean. In case you missed that bit." Leaning his head back against the equipment crate he was propped against he closed his eyes briefly against the pain throbbing in his head and radiating up his arm. He didn't have to look at Jemma to know that she was starting to panic (he could hear it in the slight increase in her breathing), which caused him to go on auto-pilot, to explain. Rational explanations, no matter how awful they were, helped to calm her. "These pods are built to be compatible with all SHIELD aircraft, submarines and spacecraft. On impact the atmospheric adaptation must have tried to compensate. We slowly sank as it increased the density of the outer walls. I measured the rate that the water rose on the glass, did the Math. We're at least 90 feet down. You can't see the surface." The last addition was pointless, she'd be able to see that from where she was now craning her neck to look up and out the window.
"How did we survive the fall?" She asked, totally bewildered.
"Plane must have been in vertical flight mode, flying low. Managed to strap us to one of the back boards before we hit." Well, he'd managed to strap her and he'd just laid on top of her and clung on in hopes of shielding her with his body from the dangerously falling equipment. "And I broke my arm. Same two places I broke it in second grade... which is strange."
"I thought we were dead, for sure, Fitz. We're so lucky! Now we just figure out a way out of here."
He couldn't school his features quickly enough to not alert her that something was wrong (at least, something more than someone who he had previously considered to be one of his closest friends releasing their pod from an aircraft to certain death, which hadn't come quickly as anticipated, and he had done the Math, like he said; there was no way out of here).
"We'll find a way out of here, right?" She asked after noticing the way he looked down, half-heartedly trying to hide his eyes from her. She'd always said his eyes gave him away. But he couldn't ignore her. He couldn't lie to her. Not now. So he didn't.
"And then we'd be in the middle of the ocean with the bends and no floatation, and no one looking for us. I already spent an hour trying to rig the wireless signals on the EKG to send out a weak distress call before remembering that it's a SHIELD frequency, and no ones listening. And that's not the problem. The problem is that there aren't many supplies left in here, so, I've already done the Math, that we-"
"Enough with the Math. What are you saying?"
He couldn't answer her. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go.
"There is no way out." She answered her own question, her mind trying to puzzle through all the equations and scenarios and coming to the same conclusions he had. Once again he found himself looking away, but this time it was because of the look of realization on her face. She'd always been smart, a genius, but for once he found himself wishing she wasn't, wishing that she could allow herself the naïvety that they could get out, they would survive. "We're going to die down here."
"Are you scared?" Her timid voice was welcomed in the oppressive silence. He glanced up from where he had shifted to the opposite wall of the pod so he could face her where she'd taken up residence by the window. He didn't even have to think about his answer – he'd spent the last 20 minutes doing nothing but thinking about how scared he was, but he wasn't scared for himself. He was scared for her. Scared that she would die down here. That she wouldn't get to live the life she had dreamed for herself. She'd told him about it one late night at the Academy.
It was sometime in the odd hours of the morning. Both he and Simmons had been awake for roughly 67 hours, puzzling through the time-sensitive project they'd been given for the inter-discipline paper. Currently, the two young geniuses were sitting on the floor of their shared lab, backs against the equipment cabinets, just relishing the fact that they were finished, that they could go back to their dorms and sleep for the next 48 hours. It was a strange feeling, being too exhausted to move, but too wired still to sleep.
"Is this where you always thought you'd end up?" Simmons' question had come out of nowhere, breaking the peaceful silence between the two of them for the first time in an hour.
"What?" He asked, too tired to try to keep up with her thought process the way he usually would.
"When you were little," she explained, bringing her knees up to her chest, "When you were little did you ever think you'd end up here?"
"You mean as a scientist working for a sort of secret international government agency in an undisclosed location?" He drawled, not caring that the sarcasm could come off as being sharp – he knew Jemma wouldn't take offence.
"Well, when you put it like that..." She turned her head towards him and smiled tiredly, rolling her eyes. "I guess a better way to phrase that would have been 'when you were little, what did you want to be when you were grown up?'"
"Grown up? Is that what we are?" He joked. Him and Simmons were the youngest cadets at the Academy by a good few years and it seemed to be a running joke to all that they were also the smartest (and quite possible the most mature – apparently that had something to do with their 'Britishness', a term which caused both of them to bristle).
"You know what I mean," she sighed, nudging him with her shoulder.
"Yeah, I know. To answer your question, I dunno, really. I mean, I always thought it would be cool to be an astronaut."
"Now you're just a rocket scientist," she giggled, shaking her head ruefully. He let out a huff of laughter. That never got old.
"Yeah, I suppose I am. How about you though?"
"Well, I never expected to be here." She sighed, shuffling slightly in her position, "Quite frankly I thought that at 19 I would be at university. Maybe doing something in English; I loved books. My parents couldn't keep me away from them."
"And now your a scientist working for a secret international government agency."
"And now I'm a scientist working for a secret international government agency." She repeated, standing slowly and stretching.
"Where are you off to?" He frowned up at her, unwilling to move just yet.
"I'm in desperate need of a cup of tea," she smiled, holding out her hand for him to take. He allowed her to pull him up, and then joining her in shrugging out of his lab coat and collecting his things.
It was cold outside as they made their way towards the 24/7 cafeteria. When they got there, they deposited their things in a table in the middle of the mostly vacant room before making their beverages (her tea, him coffee despite the late hour and her disapproving look). As they sat at their table the silence was back, he picked up their conversation from the lab.
"So then if that's where you imagined you'd be at 19, where did you think you'd be at, say, 25?"
"25? You know, it's funny, when you say it it almost feels like it's forever away, but then it's not actually that far off, is it?"
"It's still 6 years, Simmons." He said, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Yes, but 6 years will go in the blink of an eye," she quipped before taking a sip of her tea and making an appreciative noise which almost caused him to flush, "But anyway. At 25 I hoped to have been out of uni for at least 3 years, hopefully with a job, maybe as an English teacher? I would have a man I loved very much, maybe even engaged? Looking to settle down anyway. And then I always imagined I would eventually marry, have children, maybe work, maybe just stay at home to raise my kids. I don't really know. It was so naïve." She blushed, ducking her head and curtaining her face with her hair.
"You were a child, Jemma. You were allowed to be naïve," he reassured her, nudging her knee with his under the table which caused her to look up at him.
"How about you? You ever imagine growing up and getting married and being a dad?"
"Not really," he sighed. His own father had died when he was young, and there hadn't been an uncle, or grandfather, or even a close family friend really to provide him with a father figure. "Like I said, I wanted to be an astronaut, so by the time I was 25 I wanted to be half way to the moon."
"Well, you never know; you could still make it there." She smiled, a brilliant smile which captured him. From the moment he'd seen her he'd thought she was pretty. But in that moment she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.
"You could still have yours too, you know. Maybe not an English teacher by 25, but the rest of it, the married with kids, you could still have that." He knew that the man that ended up married to Jemma Simmons would be the luckiest man on Earth.
But now here they were, trapped in a submerged pressurised container, with oxygen levels slowly dwindling, and she was asking if he was scared.
"Yeah. And I'm hungry, too." He didn't mean to tell her he was hungry. But he was. Hopefully it would give her just a glimpse of normalcy in their last moments.
"Me too. Scared, not hungry. What do you think it's like?"
"Death?" She nodded, focusing all her attention on him for what felt like the first time in forever, "Well, I dunno. Depends on the method really. Drownings supposed to be quite pleasant in the end. Apparently once the water fills up your lungs-"
"I mean after."
"Oh. Yeah, well. My mum always said that you shouldn't be afraid because it's just like the way life was before you were born." He couldn't help the small smile on his face as he thought of his mother, always so kind and loving, even when she didn't understand him, "It wasn't that bad, was it?"
"That's sweet." Jemma smiled, and for a moment Fitz had the strangest thought that coming from anyone else it would probably be condescending. "Though apparently I was miserable before I was born; upside down, umbilical cord all wrapped around my head."
"Yeah, well she meant pre-conception."
"I know. I'm joking."
"Yeah, I know you're joking. That's fine."
There it was again. A little moment where before all this Hydra mess they would have been on the exact same page, but now there were crossed wires and reassurances where previously there hadn't needed to be. An awkward silence descended on them, but Jemma ploughed through it, talking once more.
"I like to think about the first law of thermo-dynamics. That no energy in the world is created,
"But neither is it destroyed." They finished together, a peaceful smile on both their faces. He glanced up at her where she was gazing out the window, looking towards the surface with that same smile. She was so beautiful (always had been, but she was especially beautiful with the way the reflections from the water were playing over her, making her seem ethereal. She was speaking again and he was held captive by her sweet voice, speaking the words that he was drinking in like they could replace the oxygen they needed to live.
"That means that every bit of energy inside us, every particle, will go on to be a part of something else. Maybe live as a dragon fish, or a microbe. Maybe burn in a supernova ten billion years from now. And every part of us now was once a part of another thing. A moon. A storm cloud. A mammoth."
"A monkey," he murmured without meaning to, temporarily breaking the spell she was casting over him.
"A monkey," she confirmed, smiling at him so brightly for a moment, before it faded to a more resigned look of longing. And just like that, Leo Fitz fell even more in love with the incredible woman in front of him. He had always loved her, had known he was in love with her for a long time, but this one time he wished that he was capable of hating her, because this was cruel. The way she spoke about their energy giving life to something else, some other entity in the entire cosmos, was so achingly beautiful.
"Thousands and thousands of other beautiful things that were just as terrified to die as we are. We gave them new life. A good one I hope." He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her the words that he desperately wanted to, but she carried on before he could.
"It's fitting we're down here together, Fitz. This is where all life began, on our planet anyway. Just outside that glass."
"Jemma," he said, tears already clogging his throat. He had to tell her. He couldn't die down here and not. He couldn't let her die without knowing how he felt.
In a second he recalled all the moments over the months they'd shared on the Bus with their team that he could remember falling a little more in love with her.
When she'd looked up at him on that first mission after checking Mike Peterson's vitals and realising they had not failed, that they had saved the day.
Just before they had implemented that hair brained scheme to blow a hole in the plane and he had been telling her this was the moment that they'd regret (but that he couldn't quite believe himself because he could see the excitement in her eyes, even if it was coupled with fear and anticipation).
When they'd had a 'team moment', as she'd called it, sitting on the cargo ramp drinking beer and watching the 0-8-4 being blasted up into space (or so they'd thought), and he'd looked over at her across the ice box and the wonder and appreciation on her face had captivated him so completely it had taken Ward nearly pushing him off the ramp to regain his attention.
Her worry over Doctor Hall, when they had found a quiet moment to themselves and she had just leant her whole body into him, not wrapped her arms around him in a hug, just leant on him and trusted him to keep her upright. Her quiet words about not being able to understand what had happened, why their treasured professor had done something so out of character.
The way she relaxed every so slightly for the first time in weeks, just an involuntary reaction to being back home (as close as they'd been in months) when the team were back in Greenwich after the latest Asgardian clusterfuck of an invasion.
When they'd shared a quiet drink in the intimate bar of their Dublin hotel, just the two of them separate from the team in their own little booth and a lovely older gentleman and stopped by his table when Jemma had ducked off to the loo and said to him "She'd a beautiful lady you've got yourself there, lad. Be sure to never let her get away from you." He'd just nodded and smiled his thanks before the gentleman disappeared again. When Jemma had returned to her seat he couldn't help but be entirely self-conscious of the image they were presenting to those around them (other than the team). Did people really see them as a couple on a getaway? And more importantly, why did he feel his chest become instantly lighter at the thought?
The way she had joked with him all the way back to the bus after they'd been gathering data at the particle accelerator lab with the DWARFs about him enjoying the power trip of being able to order agents around and being called 'Sir'.
And then everything with Coulson and the TAHITI project and Mike and Centipede and everything he'd taken for granted was beginning to crumble and the only thing that kept him sane was Jemma. Her and her quiet compassion towards everyone, including the Centipede soldiers despite the fact that they could kill with a punch, the way she would never overtly push him, but if she noticed he hadn't left the lad in hours she would take his hand and pull him up the steps behind her to the kitchen and sit him down for a cup of tea and a sandwich, only letting him return to work when she was satisfied he was fed and watered and rested enough.
But then his personal foundations had been shaken when they'd returned to the Academy. Watching Donnie, seeing his room, talking to him, it was impossible not to notice the parallels between the young cadet and himself at his age. When Donnie had mentioned not having friends and how enviable his relationship with Simmons was Fitz was only focusing on helping the teen see that it wasn't as bad as he was thinking, that it gets better. When he realized that Seth had 'befriended' Donnie only to use him all he could think was how easily that could have been him. Jemma had come to find him that night (he'd sequestered himself in his bunk, feigning exhaustion as an excuse to get out of games night). She'd sat on the end of his bed - despite the fact that he was curled in a ball under his sheets facing the wall and pretending to be asleep - and chattered about nothing, about anything she could think of; what she had in the lab for her next lot of experiments, what she was planning to cook for dinner tomorrow, anything. She just kept talking until he rolled onto his back and nudged her gently with his foot. "Thank you," he'd said quietly, knowing she would be able to pick up on what he meant. "You're welcome," she'd whispered back, getting up to leave only to pause and lean over, her hair coming down as a curtain around their faces, and kissed his forehead, hovering for only a moment before retreating from his bunk completely.
Of course there were thousands of moments in between, when they'd been in the lab, just the two of them (occasionally Skye as well), and he'd looked over at her working through a problem, scrunching her nose, squinting through a microscope, typing on the computer at her station, sometimes talking to him animatedly about a discovery she'd just made, and it would hit him all over again. He loved her. He was in love with her. His best friend. His could-be-something-more-but-he's-too-afraid-of-change-to-try.
There were the big moments too.
When she was ill and had jumped out of the bloody plane to save them (after dazing him with the fire extinguisher), the way she looked at him before leaning back and letting the air flow take her out of the cargo hold. And afterwards when she'd come to his bunk and told him he was the hero.
When he and Ward had to go on their mission in South Ossetia and she had sat in his bunk, worrying, while he packed, handing him an anti-venom pack and his favourite sandwich. She'd stayed his hand when he went to pick something up and he knew in that moment that she wanted to hug him and not let him go, but she wouldn't.
The first night after Coulson disappeared and she had panicked in their lab, crying that she didn't know where to start and he had taken her upper arms in his hands and forced her to stand still and look at him for a moment. Neither had said anything, just looked at each other, before she sighed and nodded, moving more calmly and began talking through their predicament rationally.
And then the whole Italian job fiasco. He didn't like being separated from Jemma, but knowing she was with Coulson eased his mind somewhat. But then the Cybertek agent burst in on him and Skye and that would have been scary enough if she didn't leap on top of a bloody grenade. He could swear his heart literally stopped when he saw the blue flash, causing him to freeze. When Skye jumped over and checked her vitals, telling him she was alive, he could no longer support his own weight, leaning heavily against the cargo rack next to him and sinking to his knees. There had been too many close calls in his opinion, and this was one of the most terrifying. He hated leaving her there, even with a night-night gun, but they had no choice. Skye getting shot and everything after was a blur in his mind, he couldn't remember where one event ended and another started. The only moment of clarity he had was when he went after Jemma after getting Skye on the plan in the hyperbaric chamber, and wrapping her in his arms as she broke.
After the Hydra bomb exploded no one knew where to stand, what to do, who to answer to, and all of a sudden he couldn't keep up and didn't know what to do, and for the first time since he'd met her, Jemma wasn't there. Jemma couldn't help. He became aware of just how dependent he'd become on her.
And now here they were. On the bottom of the ocean. Dying. Because of Ward. His friend. Someone who was quickly becoming something of a brother. Ward, who had told him if he had something he needed to tell Jemma, to tell her before it was too late. This was kind of the definition of too late.
Before he could let the fateful words tumble from his lips he saw the light of an idea flash over her face, even as she turned away from him, running her fingers over the seal.
"What?"
"The glass." She reiterated, "Fitz, the glass!"
"Yeah, its bulletproof, pressure resistant," he said, trying to remember the specs written out on the blueprints rolled up in his locker in the lab.
"But the seal is four hydroxy four methal two pentathol! Surely-"
"Yeah, I know what you're thinking," he interrupted, hating that he had to shatter another hope of hers that they may live, "But the flashpoint is too high for it to burn."
"But medical ethanol has a low flashpoint and it burns in-"
"Water." He finished, already seeing the improvised explosive rig in his mind, "We could use the defibrillator as an ignition source-"
"And build a compressed explosive-"
"To burn out the seal and the outside pressure-"
"Will blow the window in!" They finished together, both on their feet now, and the excitement was clear. This was it. They had a way out. They could do it. She started laughing as he began to cheer, bouncing up and down together for a moment before the pain from his arm registered with a vengeance and he sat back down.
"And this really hurts my arm."
"Okay," she said from behind him, her hands on his back to help ease him down, "Well, now we know that, there's a whole new set of problems, but where do we start?"
"Alright we need to hurry. We have to do this soon. There has to be-"
"To be enough oxygen to ignite, yes," Jemma finished in a way that no one else could. Things had been so off kilter recently that this easy completing one another's thoughts and sentences was the only thing keeping him going right. That, and knowing that he was about to save Jemma.
"Okay," he sighed as he clipped the last little bit onto the improvised explosive and moved back, pulling Jemma along with him gently. He heaved another sigh before looking into her eyes and explaining the final part of the plan to her, the part he knew she wouldn't have thought of yet.
"Now, when I press that power button-"
"The window will blow in, and water will rush inwards."
"Yeah, which is going to be like a hundred punches to the stomach. Okay? The wind is going to be knocked right out of us." She was nodding along with him, a look of determination on her face. It was a look he'd seen many times before and this time he was hoping that it would save her life. He turned away to retrieve the small oxygen cylinder that he'd jerry-rigged with a mask whilst she had been sticking the medical ethanol to the window seal. "Now this is near empty but I've rigged it to let out a burst at very high pressure. It should force a breath into your lungs, but you have to hold onto it, okay? Hold onto it tight. It should be enough to get you up the 90 feet or so." He pressed, trying to get her to focus on his words and not what that meant for him. She was nodding, but at the same time he could see her turning his words over in her head, and realizing the exact thing he had been hoping to avoid.
"One breathe. But there's two of us." She stated, as though his genius had missed the obvious issue.
"Yeah, I've done the Math." He paused to look at her, "That's why you're taking it. You're the better swimmer anyway." He rationalised, praying that she would see the logic in his reasoning.
"No," she said, as though he'd just made the stupidest suggestion she'd ever heard.
"Jemma." He started, but she wasn't done.
"No. I'm not leaving you here. That's ridiculous! We need a new plan."
"No, we're not discussing it, okay?" He said. This was it. This was the plan. There was no time left to make a new one anyway, "You're taking it. End of story. I couldn't live if you didn't." He tried, thinking that maybe she would take pity on him and do as he said.
"Well, I feel the same way! There has to be another way!" She cried, and he could see that this was not going to be an easy fight to win.
"You're taking it." He stated quietly, even as she continued to shout at him.
"Why- Why would you make me do this?! You're my best friend in the world!"
"Yeah, and you're more than that, Jemma." He said trying to keep his voice even as he finally told her what he should have said months ago. She looked flawed, as though she had never seen it coming. Her shoulders lifted as her breath hitched and the tears began filling her eyes. He let out a heavy breath, lowering the oxygen and mask and tearing his eyes away from her stunned ones, trying to gather his thoughts before proceeding, "And I couldn't find the courage to tell you. So please," he begged, looking back up into her beautiful hazel eyes, not caring that his own were brimming with tears as well, "Let me show you."
He saw the first tear fall as the first sob made it's way out of her chest. He desperately wanted to touch her, but didn't know how she would react. This is why he hadn't told her. This moment of agonizing terror at not knowing what it was she was thinking. A strangled noise escaped her and then she was clutching him to her and he didn't care that his broken arm was crushed between them, he just cared that he hadn't made her hate him in their last moments together.
"It's okay," he tried to reassure her as she sobbed, bringing his free arm that still held the oxygen around her back, trapping her against him. Her first protest shattered his heart, but then when she continued to cry 'no' and turned to kiss his neck he felt a tear escape his own eye and a strange sense of peace filled him. It wasn't like before, when he had come to terms with the fact that they were going to die down here at the bottom of the ocean together. This was different, and he knew it was because he'd finally told her. He may not have said that he loved her directly, but he didn't have to. She knew. As she pulled back he murmured that it was okay again, but that her hands were cradling the back of his head and she was pressing hot, wet kisses up his neck, across his cheek, over his forehead, his temple, his other cheek, his jaw, and then her temple was pressed to his jaw for a moment before she hid back in his neck, still crying that pitiful word.
"Jemma. Jemma, please, come on, we have to hurry up." He reminded her, unwrapping the arm from around her back, and trying to push her away gently, but she clung to him, shaking her head as more sobs rent the air. "Take it, Jemma." He tried again, even as he revelled in the feel of her in his arms. He felt her pull back and he pushed the cannister into her shaking hand as he murmured, "Take it."
"No!" She cried, even as her fingers closed over his that were holding their only lifeline.
"Take it." He said finally, turning away from her slightly and pulling in a deep breathe. This was it.
She was still sobbing, one hand holding onto his shoulder, but as long as the other had the oxygen, that was okay. He smiled at her, hoping that it would give her some reassurance. He was going to die, but he wanted her last memory of him to be him a smile, the smile he reserved for her and her alone. With a final nod he turned quickly and hammered the power button.
"NOO!" He heard her scream over the explosion and then that was it. The last thing he felt wasn't the air being forced out of his lungs, or the feel of water filling them. Instead, it was fingers carding into the curls at the back of his neck.
I love you, Jemma.