Skye sighed tiredly as she walked into the basement-like room to stand in front of the engineer who hadn't left in three days.
"Coulson got pizza in for lunch, do you wanna come out of your cave for a bit and eat with everyone?"
When all she got was a head shake she nodded and sat down beside him on the cold floor, matching his cross legged pose staring at the rock that swallowed everyone's favorite biochemist. She knew he was going to say no because he had said the same thing every time someone tried to get him to leave the rock. They even dragged a bed down here because he refused to leave and wouldn't have slept otherwise.
Fitz appreciated Skye's company but he was too exhausted to really respond to anything she was saying. He had spent the past three days desperately searching for any way to get Simmons back.
The night the alien rock swallowed her he had waited for her for half an hour before checking on her and discovering the alien rock's door open and the biochemists tools scattered on the floor.
Knowing she would never treat her tools with such disregard he immediately searched for her and found no sign of her anywhere in the base. After looking at the security camera footage they all knew what had happened. Mack had laid a hand on the engineers shoulder and said how sorry he was for his loss. His loss? Simmons wasn't a loss. She was everything and Fitz was determined to get her back.
So for three days he sat in front of the mass of grey, that stupid alien rock that had taken his best friend but he was still left with nothing. No explanations, no leads, no Simmons.
Skye looked at the scruffy face of her scientist friend and realized that his habits of the last few days reminded him of someone.
"Did you know that when you were in your coma Simmons did the same thing you are?"
Leo scrunched his forehead a little in confusion and turned to Skye.
"What?"
"She sat at your bedside refusing to move because she was sure you were going to wake up at any moment. She would read your charts over and over and constantly check the monitors, it was a little irritating actually. She talked to you about some of your projects and read you your sciency magazines and she even held your hand whenever she thought no one was looking."
Fitz' cheeks tinted red at the last part as he stared down at his empty hands.
"But after a few days, she went all quiet. She stopped checking your charts because they never changed and she stopped talking to you because you weren't awake to finish her sentences. She never left your room though. She sat beside you waiting for nine days."
Fitz sniffed and ducked his head trying to hide the tears that made it hard to see.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Skye took a shaky breath before continuing, hating to see Leo without their friend.
"Because sometimes there's just nothing we can do but wait. Jemma new what all the brain scans meant and she knew what every one of those squiggly lines on your monitor were for but sometimes it's not up to us to fix it. Sometimes we just have to wait and see what happens."
Fitz looked up at the alien stone with teary eyes. "I just want her back. I need to have her here, safe, with us."
Skye's own tears rolled down her cheeks and she had a hard time talking through the lump in her throat.
"You tried everything Fitz, you've done everything you know how to do. But now it's time to move on."
The engineer looked at Skye angrily.
"So you think she's gone? You think we should just give up on her and move on with our lives like she's important?"
Skye shook her head making her tears drip from her chin and onto her lap.
"We can't do anything more to get her back and I'm not saying that we should give up on her but we need to carry on with our lives so that we still have lives when she comes back. You cant stay in this room forever and the team needs you to keep saving people because people still need saving Fitz. Simmons might come back and she might not but either way there are still people that need our help. We can't help Simmons but we can help others and that's what Simmons would want us to do."
Leo still felt like Skye was talking about Jemma as if she were dead but he held on to one statement.
He needed to carry on with his life so that he had still had one when Simmons came back into it. He needed to keep going and Skye was right, Simmons wouldn't want him to waste his time on something he couldn't fix.
Fitz wiped his eyes and cheeks and stood up, reaching a hand down to help Skye up.
"Simmons would be furious if I'd accomplished nothing while she was away. She asked me to fix the trigger mechanism on our latest I.C.E.R rifle a week ago and I still haven't finished."
Skye took Fitz hand happily and carefully wiped her face on her sleeve.
"Good. How about some pizza first though, you've been drinking nothing but tea for the past three days I bet your hungry."
"God, I'm starving." Fitz took one last look at the ugly mass of grey that held his friend and shook his head. Simmons would be back. They had a date after all.