A/N- Don't get me wrong. Almost every single post-finale FitzSimmons fic I'veread has been both wonderful and completely heartbreaking. But lots have them just kiss and laugh and then get caught by like, Trip and get really embarrassed (don't be offended if you'vedone this- I'vewritten two of these) and I just wanted something where everyone just left them aloneand let them be happy for like ten freaking seconds (because god knows that's so hard) So, here it is!
Oh, and for anyone who was looking for a Snapshots update or just another story in general, they're coming. I've been too busy with real life, but I'm ready to post.
I have a season pass and a strange addiction to odd couples that contract strange alien viruses and fall to the depths of the ocean. So no, I don't own SHIELD.
For AM, who proves that the best things come in small packages.
She didn't think it would hurt so much until it, well, hurt.
After collecting her things (and a couple of his) from the Bus, she went right to his bedside like in a soap opera and just sat there.
She didn't cry. Didn't even sleep. Just sat there staring at Fitz like she was going to have to take a quiz on it.
By the second day, she would've passed with flying colors.
But after that he wakes up and Jemma can't do that anymore because it could be considered very creepy and the last thing she wants to do right now is creep him out because she's lucky he even remembers her.
It's surprising to even Coulson and May that he's isn't affected by the whole '100 punches to the stomach' thing. By the fourth day he's walking around the hospital wing with Skye, bored out of his mind.
So, to avoid creeping him out or just embarrassing herself in general, she keeps her distance. She hates it and feels like a coward and is just sad when she catches him looking in her direction with furrowed eyebrows.
She finds it maddening that it wasn't her to finally make a move.
It wasn't him either.
It's Ward, the idiot that traps them in a steel metal box and forces them to admit all these feelings, even days after Fitz has full clearance to work and she hates him, the stupid HYDRA agent because he robs her of it, the slow descension into them that she's been waiting on for years.
Coulson visits him days after becoming Director and the first big difference is the security change. Meaning that no one, not even Mr. 'I can take out your spleen with my pinkie' can escape his cell.
Coulson visits him and decides to poke the bear a little more than strictly necessary. No one's about to argue, especially May, who has his back the entire time. They don't let Fitz or Simmons see him. They don't even tell Skye.
But Simmons is pretty sure that Ward said something, because even May's looking a little angrier than usual when she storms into the cockpit and Coulson's been out of office all day, and the plane's so quiet Fitz jumps when Jemma walks into the common room, carrying her stack of DVDs.
His eyes open wide and he isn't sure whether to smile or to pretend to throw up or really throw up. Jemma's hair is all over the place and she's wearing pajamas and she's in the living room with him instead of obeying the imaginary restraining order like she has been for the past week.
"Mulan or Finding Nemo?"
He blinks.
"What?"
"I asked you if you wanted Mulan or Finding Nemo. It's Tuesday, isn't it?" She says abruptly and without eye contact.
Ah, Tuesday. Their movie night which he would've been excited for except the fact that he didn't think she'd ever look at him again, let alone watch a Disney classic with him.
"Jemma, we need to talk."
She cringes slightly, putting the movies down on the coffee table, suddenly finding the decorative rocks in the vase very interesting.
"Sure, yes, right. Talking."
Her accent gets thicker when's she's nervous and lately she's been speaking like the Prime Minister of England.
"About the pod thing- and what I said- I mean what I tried to say- I don't want it to-"
"You don't want it?" Her voice cuts through his rambling, clear as day and suddenly she's looking him in the eye with a hurt expression.
"No, I mean that I don't want it to hurt what we have- if we had anything- I mean our friendship. I don't want it to hurt our friendship." As he says this, he averts his eyes to anywhere but her, scared of her reaction and her rejection and just scared of losing his best friend in the world. And of course when he thinks of the phrase 'best friend in the world' he flashes back to hundreds of feet under the sea and the way she kissed his face and bloody hell.
She just stares at him and he can practically hear the gears spinning inside that big brain of hers.
"FItz, you're an idiot!"
He jumps a little when she raises her voice, and her thinking voice is gone, turned into her angry face. Fitz knows both of them quite well.
"Jemma-"
"No! No! When we agreed to do this, we promised we'd stick together and help each other and you almost died, Fitz! You wouldn't wake up and I was sitting by you, all alone and-"
"Remind you of anything?" He snarls back, cutting through her sentence like a knife. He's frustrated and of all the words they've spoken during their friendship they're doing awfully bad at actually communicating.
But his comment wipes that look right off her face.
"That was different." She says softly.
Now he's flashing back to a different near-death experience. Great. Before this, the most dangerous thing he'd done was mixed hydrochloric acid with metallic powder.
They both take a breath to let the memories wash over, from jumping off planes to plunging to the bottom of the ocean and everything in between.
"Fitz, I-"
"It's okay, Jemma. I know you don't feel the same way and that's fine. So I'm just going to go back into my room to sulk like a bloody seven year old and when I come out tomorrow morning everything will be back to normal."
With this he turns to walk back to his bunk, Jemma's mouth open and mouthing but not saying anything and she looks desperate enough to do something like-
Throw a pillow at him.
She grabs it off the sofa and chucks it right at the back of his head, coma patient with major concussion be damned.
"Fitz! I, what I came in here trying to say, what I mean is- I feel- you're confused and I understand why-"
In all her rambles, she steps closer and closer to him, right up until his green eyes pierce her brown ones and she wraps her arms around his neck, him doing the same to her waist and she kisses him.
To anyone else, it's small- not a ton of passion, not very dramatic. No one's dying (yet), no one's HYDRA or sick with a terminal illness. It's a lazy Sunday morning kiss, nothing important of noteable.
To them, it's fire and rain and drowning and flying and about a million other things but they're too busy getting wrapped up in each other to make a list. Her hands run through his short curls and he brings her waist closer to his and it's perfect and wonderful right up until the end when it's getting a bit hard to breathe for both of them.
They pull back and for just a split second he thinks it's going to be awkward when they smile at each other, both not quite letting go of the other just yet.
"It's a miracle Skye hasn't barged in yet," She says, smiling and leaning her forehead on his.
"I would've thought Coulson would be in any minute to tell us to pack our bags for Siberia,"
They both stay like this for a while, periodically leaning in but never quite getting the grin off their faces.
"Anything but Finding Nemo."