A/N: I'm not crying over AoS, you are. No, jk, I'm totally devastated after that last episode. This is just a nondescript speculation scene for how the team gets out of the Framework. Disclaimer: as much as I love FitzSimmons and want them to be happy, I was not about to pass up on an opportunity to write this story since the dialogue and the characters lend themselves so easily to this (admittedly cliché) trope. That and I am actually digging Evil!Fitz (am I the only one?). Hope you guys enjoy (as much as you can given the content).
Across the Universe
Radcliffe stands before Fitz with a loaded gun aimed and ready to fire. He's distraught with exhausted, hateful red-rimmed eyes and trembling lip. Normally Madame would do something - get rid of him - but she's frozen in place. Fitz's first instinct is to protect her. He would die for her. He would cross the universe for her.
But where have you heard that before?
"You killed the woman I love. Allow me to return the favor."
There is no time to react.
The earsplitting sound of the gunshot feels like a shockwave sent down his spine, like the trigger was being pulled into his memories, breaking the seal that kept the past away. Pieces of himself come trickling back at first, and then in a wave. A huge tidal wave that crashes over him and when everything falls back into place it feels like he has come up for air. He breathes in the truth and the pain and the hurt and he feels as if he could vomit. Knowing that it's all fake doesn't change what he's done - oh God…what you've done - but it can change he does next.
AIDA trusts him. AIDA needs him. He can use that against her. Use that to get them all out if she isn't already reduced to pieces of scrap metal and wire.
But when the ringing stops it is not Madame Hy-AIDA who is lying on the floor.
It is Jemma.
In the heat of the moment, he never even registered she was standing close by. Now she sinks to her knees, mouth left open in a small 'oh' as she clutches the rapidly-growing spot of red on her abdomen.
Fitz doesn't think. He runs.
You've always been running. You've run through The Academy and labs and quinjets and crossed the universe itself to get to her.
More gunfire surrounds him, shreds Radcliffe and AIDA and a dozen other HYDRA agents to pieces, but he doesn't register any of it. The rest of the world doesn't even exist. Not when his world is lying pale and still on the ground in a puddle of red.
"No no no no no stay with me. Stay with me Jemma," Fitz pleads, his voice high pitched and frantic as he gathers Jemma in his arms. She whimpers as he jostles her. He can feel her chest rising and falling, yet not nearly as steadily as he'd like. She's still alive though, and Fitz clings to that like a lifeline. "You're gonna be fine, alright? You're gonna be fine, just stay with me."
Except she isn't going to be fine. Not at all. Radcliffe may not have had any training with a gun, but he managed to stick one devastating shot. She is bleeding profusely from a hole in her side, the HYDRA bullet lodging shrapnel in what Fitz can only assume are multiple vital organs. Her skin is cold and clammy; her pulse jumps out from under her wrist, while her breaths come in shallow, uneven pants. All signs point to death. He remembers something vaguely, about how death in the mainframe equates to death in the real world. It only increases his panic.
Jemma is going to bleed out on this floor before anyone can get to her, and there is nothing even the great Leopold Fitz can do to stop that.
That doesn't stop him from trying. That doesn't stop him from ripping his jacket off and pressing down on the wound hard in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. All it does is act like a sponge, soon wet with sticky crimson, and he curses. He has no idea what he is doing, and every second he wastes is a second he cannot get back. They called him The Doctor in this world, in this twisted HYDRA fantasy, but Jemma has always been the real doctor. All he knows is machines. Machines that end up hurting and maiming and killing those closest to him and it just makes him so sick…
His heart is pounding in his throat, tears burning at the corners of his eyes but he does not dare stop because if he stops then Jemma will die even quicker and maybe there's a chance, a sliver of a chance that if he just holds on long enough someone will come and -
"Go," Jemma says in her strongest voice, cutting through the storm of his thoughts.
"No I've gotta stay here. I've gotta stay with you. Gotta make sure you're safe. Make sure you - "
"Fitz…" she breathes, voice heavy as if talking takes too much out of her, and damn it if that doesn't break his soul. "You have to go. You have to make it out of the Framework. Daisy…she's waiting…"
"No," he refuses, tears held back now freely falling. How could she even suggest leaving her behind? How could she even think he would leave her here in this horrible, terrible place? "I won't leave you. I can't - "
"I came all this way to get you…" she trails off, eyes wet and sparkling as she smiles. "I want you to be safe. I want you to go."
He didn't care what she wanted, not this time. She came all this way to get him, and like hell was he going now. Not when she was bleeding. Not when she was injured and needed him most. Not when he had a thousand sins to atone for. Not when there were a million things to say and too little time to say them. Not when they had a plan so carefully laid out and so long fought for. The rest of their lives…It seemed like such a long way away…such a beautiful, wonderful dream.
They had been through too much to give up now. They had suffered too much to let it end like this.
"I can't… I-I can't leave you. I can't leave you!" Fitz cries, clinging onto her so tightly, as if that could stop what was bound to come next, what he refused to believe was coming next. "J-Jemma we have our whole lives ahead of us. Remember? W-we were going to find a house, start a life…together. I can't do that without you…I can't…"
" 'S thermodynamics Fitz…" she slurs her words. "I'll always be with you."
Fitz squeezes his eyes shut and fights the urge to scream.
Of course she would say that. Of course she would.
This is all too real, all too much too fast and he isn't ready. He's losing everything all over again and he just got her back. He just got her back from AIDA, from HIVE, from across the universe, from her mission at HYDRA, from that underwater box. An endless cycle of retrieval that she was going to break now because she was headed the one place he could not follow.
"I love you," Fitz gasps through sobs working their way up his throat. "I love you so much Jemma."
She smiles and her eyes flutter closed. A moment later, her entire body goes slack, like someone has cut a string and let her fall.
"Don't do this. Please don't do this Jemma. Please," Fitz begs, shaking Jemma, trying to get her to open her eyes. "Don't go Jemma…please don't leave me."
But it's too late. She's gone, and there is no amount of running he can do to bring her back. He places a kiss on her forehead, burrowing his face into her hair to mask his tears. His heart crumbles to pieces, the shards sticking into his chest like knives. With the break comes an empty feeling, like a black hole eating away what's left of him until there is nothing but a shell left in his place.
He can't live without her. His life is meaningless without her.
"Fitz!" he hears Daisy call from the other side of the portal. It's the first time he's noticed it, the shining blue mass in the center of the room, the very thing Jemma was headed towards and he and AIDA were working to close before Radcliffe went rogue. "Fitz come on!"
Daisy doesn't know what happened. Daisy was on the other side before…before…but she knew now. Jemma's body was on the other side of that portal just as cold and lifeless as the one he was holding. Nothing was going to change. Nothing was going to get better if he stepped over the threshold into the real world.
His entire body shakes with an incredible rage, making him think that the monster AIDA created in the Framework was lurking somewhere under his skin. It was terrifying, but also electrifying the way the anger and the pain worked their way through his bones. His body demanded retribution. His aching soul demanded revenge for the broken remnants of his heart. Whoever did this, whoever was responsible for the Framework, whoever was left…they were going to pay for this.
They were going to pay with their lives.
And while the thought was horrifying, while he never believed he had that kind of violence in him, it didn't stop it from consuming him.
He thought he knew who he was. But who was Fitz without Simmons?
Maybe he didn't know himself at all.