She's waiting for May at the entrance of the hallway.
"How did it go?" Jemma asks, darting her eyes from May's face to the beer bottle gripped in her hand.
"Good. I think." May says.
"Good." Jemma replies.
She stares at May, and May stares back.
"Go to him." May finally says in a quiet voice, gesturing with a nod of her head.
(He needs you, is what she doesn't add)
It's okay.
She doesn't need to say it.
(Jemma already knows.)
He looks so… small.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over with his head bowed. He looks up when she enters the room, and she catches a glimpse of his tear-stricken face before he quickly casts his gaze back down.
He looks so… tired.
She plasters a smile and walks towards him, pausing for a moment when she's close enough to touch him.
She wants to— touch him, that is.
She wants to wrap him in her arms and hold on tight and never let go. She wants to press her lips against his forehead, cheek, neck, lips, and remind him that she's still there, and will always be.
She wants her love to help him outrun everything he's trying to leave behind.
Instead, Jemma inhales and exhales, inhales and exhales, and sits on the other end of the bed, her hands lying neatly in her lap.
He looks so… broken.
Small and tired and broken and she wonders for a moment that if this is how he looks, what does she possibly look like?
(When will they ever stop picking up their broken pieces off the ground?)
She watches him for a long time before she figures out what she wants to say.
"So," Jemma glances down at the space between them. "You talk to May?"
"Yeah."
"And how did it go?"
"Good." Fitz answers. "I think."
Jemma laughs, because it's funny, really. "That's exactly what she said."
Fitz shifts his gaze from the floor towards her, blinking slowly. "Really?"
"Yeah."
The corners of his mouth turn upwards, and she wonders if for a moment he might smile. But he just scrunches his nose, clears his throat, and looks down at his hands.
They're beginning to tremble.
Jemma swallows, and begins to run through all the things she could possibly mention.
She misses his smile terribly, she thinks.
I miss you terribly, she wants to say.
"I hope she helped you with whatever you're still thinking about." Is what she actually says.
He scoffs, turning his head away from her. "I'm thinking about everything."
"I know." Jemma lets the words roll around on her tongue. "I am too."
They sit in silence for a long, long time.
"May says it would be a good idea for me to talk to you." Fitz whispers.
"Well, May's very smart." Jemma adds.
He finally looks at her and shakes his head, lips quivering. "But how can I tell you how sick I feel? How you can touch me and I know it's you, but a part of me thinks it's her? How I can't stand it how I can't stand the thought of it? How disgusted and dirty I feel?" He begins to blink rapidly, his trembling hands reach up to cover his face and whole body trembling with. "How you deserve more?"
She doesn't know what to do.
She's been looking for answers since she was 16 years old but she's sitting here, besides him, this other piece of her that she doesn't know if she can live without. And her love is enough to fill an ocean and galaxies but now her heart is pounding and tears run down her cheeks, and she doesn't know what she can do to possibly help him.
She settles for trying to close that gap between them, and when he leans away from her she pauses.
"Fitz." Jemma whispers.
"She manipulated me- I know, but I can't forget. And I lie awake at night and the memories haunt me, just as she haunts me. I didn't want her to die, Jemma." He says, rambling, rocking back and forth. "She—she abused me, and I still didn't want her to die. Why? What is wrong with me?"
"Fitz." Jemma says.
"Daisy said that everyone forgives me, but I can't forgive myself. I can't forgive myself and sometimes I can't breathe. My left hand trembles constantly. All my demons are catching up, Jemma, and I feel like I'm drowning, over and over and over again and I wish-"
"Fitz!" Jemma screams.
He immediately stops, sucking in a deep breath and watching her with wide eyes.
"Enough."
"W-what?"
"Enough. Enough of this."
"Jemma-"
"Don't fucking 'Jemma' me." She shifts in his seat towards her, and he lets her. "How dare you? I dragged you up from the bottom of the ocean and you dove through a hole in the universe and you're just gonna— you're just-"
Jemma's voice cracks, and she reaches out towards him, inhales shakily, squeezes her eyes shut and instead wraps her arms around herself.
"You're a part of me, Fitz. Just like how I'm a part of you. And when you hate yourself and hurt yourself, you hate and you hurt me."
She opens her eyes and meets his.
"Stop hurting me."
He's crying again, and so is she.
And he closes that space that still between them, tilting forward and opening his arms.
(She falls into them with ease.)
They stay like that for a long time, breathing each other in, afraid to let go. He's still holding her when he leans slightly back, and rests his forehead against hers.
"I'm sorry." His voice cracks. "I'm so, so sorry, Jemma."
She knows he is.
That isn't the problem.
"I'm tired of apologies, Fitz." Her voice cracks. "I don't want them."
"What do you want?" He whispers, and in another time, another world another universe where they're happy, she would've answered differently.
But here, just she holds on to him, and she holds on tight.
"I just want you."