Implosion.
Jemma Simmons would have been fine without the word implosion in her life.
In fact,
They all would've been just fine.
Without the building imploding.
Without the Fitz imploding.
Daisy walking in on the middle of May and Simmons' discussion of Andrew, her face a red blotchy mess, her voice cracking as she spoke,
"This is Fitz..." Was all she said, as she held the golf ball sized glob out to Jemma.
Immortalized.
She found a way to preserve her boyfriend. To make golf ball Fitz last longer than real Fitz had. She had it in her pocket now. It was heavy, it weighed her down. She had never thought she'd admit any part of Fitz weighed her down.
She sobbed when she thought of it.
His organs.
His brain.
His perfect blue eyes.
That worried smile.
All of it!
Gone.
Well, not gone.
But not living.
Something dead, small, unmoving, that fit in her palm. Not her Fitz anymore.
The day. The Funeral.
She wouldn't let go of what was left of her Fitz. She couldn't.
So little time since they'd "lost" Agent Morse and Agent Hunter and now they were back again for the Funeral.
They buried things that reminded them of Fitz.
A night night gun, his goggles. Old Yeller on DVD. The pictures he'd used to cut out of magazines to show to Jemma, "We're getting that." He'd say. She had no doubt that if he were still alive he would stay true to that promise. She brushed a tear away, and then another. They began putting stuffed monkeys in the casket and she turned away to cry. Bobbi hugged her and May held her up so she wouldn't fall, but when Daisy got close she glared.
"This is your fault!" She hissed, turning back to Fitz' casket, gently fingering all that was left of him, which rested heavily in her coat pocket. Daisy stepped back, shocked.
"Jemma, I'm sorry-"
"All you do is kill! You and your powers! Trip, and now Fitz..." Jemma melted over the casket, unable to contain her sadness.
Later, she apologized. When the casket was full of pictures and tears, and all the love this world could hold a million times over. Their little family was in shards due to the loss of Fitz, but he wasn't really gone.
They still talked to him. Jemma knew when to pull him out. When things got hard and they needed him.
They needed him a lot.
She needed him.
She got a little apartment afterwards, and took time off. She pinned up her remaining pictures of Fitz, and would wake up every morning with nestled against her alarm clock and goggles.
To distract herself she did science. Experimental little things. Juvenile really, stuff you would find at a middle school science fair. She wasn't going for the breakthroughs, just anything that would distract her long enough so she didn't sob all the time.
An agent would call, no not an agent, a friend.
She was talking to Daisy again, though a bitterness lingered, this was her fault, her and Hydra. When Daisy would call she was candid but not impolite. Daisy never really called to talk to her anyway. She called to talk to Fitz. She'd set the phone next to the little ball of organs and love. For an hour or so anyone of them would just talk and talk, and Jemma wouldn't even listen, it wasn't her place. These words were for Fitz.
She often wondered where Fitz was.
If there was an afterlife.
If anything mattered.
She wanted to go the way he did.
Implosion. So they could be buried together in a tiny casket, just the two of them, little golf balls of love.
It was an odd thought, but there it was.
She looked forward most to Bobbi's calls.
Bobbi, who was Ex-Shield and yet trying to convince her to come back.
Eventually she did, throwing her all into it.
Science was all she was good at.
Fitz was glad to be back in the lab.
When she broke down she'd hold him.
As usual, he kept her strong.
Daisy still apologized every time they saw each other, not much since Jemma was good at avoiding her problems.
Simmons never said I forgive you, though she would've in a heartbeat, if it weren't for Fitz.
There was no moving on.
She held her issues in her pocket.
They, he, motivated her.
But he held her back.
She just couldn't let go.
She'd lost it.
Lost it all.
And was just waiting until she too could implode.