and in that stillness there was a freedom
Jemma Simmons has been away from the S.H.I.E.L.D. base for some time now, having surprised everyone and actually taken the medical advice that counselled indefinite leave, space and quiet after the events of Maveth. She's healing but she desperately misses Fitz and is impatient to begin their next chapter.
This is for recoveringrabbit because she is super delightful, she has helped me SO MUCH with my stories and I know she loves a bit of domestic FitzSimmons. (If you are somehow unfamiliar with her work, LOOK HER THE HECK UP!) I was writing it anyway but I happened to notice that it ALSO fits with one of thefitzsimmonsnetwork's inspired and inspiring monthly prompts for January – quiet.
If the geography of this sounds odd to you, that's coz it's set in #straya on the property where I just spent my holiday in the wifi-less wilderness (and if you're like "dude, here you go again with that avenue of trees!", that's because this place has the REAL avenue of trees, planted down both sides of a long driveway, that was my inspiration for what I was trying to describe in that other fic that seems to consume my very existence).
And yes, I confess, within me it seems there still lurks an angsty 90s teen who names her fics with lines from Sarah McLachlan songs. For shame.
Jemma woke alone to the sound of fat raindrops falling intermittently on the corrugated tin roof above her. In the unaccustomed quiet of the countryside, even raindrops made an impact. She tossed her covers aside and clambered out of bed to throw open the curtains.
Green. Lush green, as far as the eye could see.
What had initially sold her on the spacious fully-furnished house and farm – once a family home but now the landlord's last surviving remnant of children grown and his wife lost to cancer – was the isolation. She loved that she could see for miles in every direction, yet apart from the rare car traversing the road on the opposite river bank, she saw no one. She loved showering in the enormous tiled bathroom at one end of the house one day, and the next day, if she felt like it, taking a leisurely bath in the other white-washed wood-panelled bathroom at the opposite end. She loved walking the long hallway, her foot falls resounding in the empty house, relishing all that space to herself. She loved waking to the sound of ducks calling on the river or cows lowing from the back paddock. She loved having her time and so much space all to herself for the first time in as long as she could remember.
But recently the isolation had started to grate.
She dressed slowly, selecting the long-sleeved gauzy white top she most treasured and shrugging Fitz's silver-grey cardigan that she'd stolen over the top. She padded down the long corridor to the kitchen in search of tea.
The kitchen – all dark wood and creamy English tiles – had been another source of delight. How she loved filling the kettle at the kitchen sink as she watched birds flit from branch to branch, her eye occasionally drawn by the flash of a silvery fish leaping from the deep green waters of the river below.
She'd established a subconscious routine – breakfast that bled into morning tea on the back deck looking over the river, lunch inside at the round wooden table with matching chairs (so rough hewn and "country" they must have been purchased from some hokey local furniture chain), and out into the covered front veranda for afternoon tea that bled into dinner, the time when the mosquitos grew fierce and predatory.
For now, this rare special occasion, the routine was broken. Setting her laptop up on the table under the enclosed veranda, she found his contact photo, poured her tea, took a deep breath and clicked on the little green handset icon.
It didn't even ring through once before the call connected.
"Jemma!" Fitz cried, and before she could get a good look at him, drink him in, three curious heads appeared over his shoulder to greet her.
"Hi, Fitz," she said warmly. "And Hi, Bobbi! Hi, Lance! Hi, Daisy!"
The chorus of enthusiastic greetings caused a buzz of static on the line.
"I'm going to find somewhere quiet," Fitz announced to the disappointed whining of his companions, and her view of the familiar lab suddenly turned on its side as he got to his feet.
"Is that rain I can hear?" he asked as he made his way down the corridor, carrying his laptop in front of him, the inset camera focusing on the stretch of rust-coloured stubble spreading across the underside of his square jaw.
"Mmm," Jemma sighed, glancing up over the top of her laptop at the misty tree-covered hills in the distance, rising loftily behind the lily-covered dam that stretched across half of the front paddock. The mid-north coast farm would be excellent desktop-background material. "It's beautiful here, Fitz."
"And are you doing everything Dr Morrison said?" he asked earnestly. "Are you eating well? Exercising? Getting enough rest?"
"I am," she nodded dutifully. "But…"
"But what?"
"It's so lonely here."
Fitz nodded, ceasing his walking at last and collapsing onto what she recognised as his bed in his bunk at the Playground.
"There's not another soul for miles around," she complained, "Unless, of course, I want to join the middle-aged bikers at the pub across the river."
"I thought the solitude was part of the appeal."
"It was, but… I miss you, Fitz."
"God, I miss you too, Jemma," he replied, scrubbing his hand across his face.
"You know how you'd offered… You know, you said maybe… when you felt ready…"
His eyes widened. "You want me there?"
She bit her lip and nodded. "But it's too soon, isn't it?"
Fitz shook his head vigorously. "I thought I needed space. I thought maybe I needed some time, you know, to figure things out. And I wanted to give you time, to be sure you want-"
"Fitz," she interrupted. "You know what I want."
He smiled uncertainly. "I guess I just struggle to believe it."
"Believe it," Jemma insisted. "I want you, Fitz. Forever. I've got no doubts left at all."
He laughed wildly. "So I should just quit then?"
She shrugged. "I took indefinite leave. Dr Morrison had recommended it for me anyway, not that he thought I'd ever take it."
"Right," Fitz nodded. "He recommended it for me too, which thrilled Coulson no end. I guess I could just do the same." His eyes began roving intently across another part of the screen.
"You're looking up flights right now, aren't you?" she asked, a cautious hope bubbling within.
His blue eyes darted back to the little camera embedded in the top of his screen so that it seemed they bored right into hers, regardless of the thousands of miles between them.
"I am. How does Friday sound?"
Jemma burst into tears of happy relief.
…
It was still raining five days later when she caught a brief glimpse through the kitchen window of the little red hatchback motoring along the road on the other side of the river. She imagined him turning off, a few miles further down, and driving inland to meet the bridge that would bring him ever closer to the property she'd started to think of as home.
He'd made his GPS coordinates available to her on his phone so she'd been tracking his movements ever since he got off the plane. Buying himself a car had been his most time-consuming errand but after that, texting her a selfie leaning against the red bonnet as proof of purchase, he'd headed off quickly, stopping only at service stations for petrol and sub-par coffee to help him push through his jetlag. Now the little map in her hands showed him turning off the sealed road at last. In only fifteen more minutes, he'd arrive.
She wandered back into her room, phone in hand, and glanced at herself in the mirror. As soon as he'd ended their last Skype call in order to book his flights, she'd taken off the treasured white top and washed it carefully, setting it aside for this longed-for moment. This was the top she'd been wearing that first and only occasion on which he'd kissed her and somehow, just shimmying the gauzy fabric over her head reminded her of what it felt like to have Fitz hold her in his arms.
She boiled the kettle, tipped a teaspoons-worth of leaves for each of them (and one extra) into the cavity of the floral teapot, poured milk into a battered enamel jug and laid out two cups. Then she remembered that this was Fitz she was catering for and hastily dug out the sugar bowl as well as tipping the whole tin of chunky chocolate-chip biscuits she'd baked in preparation for his arrival onto a plate. She carried the tray out onto the veranda from where she'd made all her calls to him, her hands trembling with anticipation.
She glanced once more at her phone. He was almost unbearably close. She shrugged on his cardigan and strode out, through the rain, to the little covered gateway from which she could watch the long dirt driveway without getting wet.
The first flash of red disappeared into the mouth of the tightly planted avenue of liquid ambers, glistening emerald green in the rain. It wasn't long before the car re-appeared at the bottom of the drive and she could see Fitz, leaning forward in his seat to look for her through the repetitive back-and-forth motion of the wind-screen wipers.
The minute he sighted her he yanked on the hand-break, disregarding the fact that he'd parked the car right in the middle of the lawn. The driver door flew open and there was Fitz, half-jogging towards her, his arms already reaching for her. It seemed foolish to leave the shelter of the archway and meet him in the rain when he was only meters away, but she was powerless to choose restraint.
"Jemma," he breathed as she ran into his arms and they closed around her, pulling her tight against him.
"Fitz," she sighed happily. "It is so good to see you."
They laughed together as they brushed the rain out of their hair and off their clothes, kicking off their wet shoes at the screen door.
"Sit down," Jemma instructed him, gesturing towards the tea things. "I'll just fetch the kettle."
Fitz shook his head, following her doggedly into the house. "It's been seven weeks, Jemma, only broken by occasional grainy glimpses of you on Skype," he said. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."
She grinned as he slid his arm around her shoulders, padding across the floorboards to the kitchen by her side. She flicked on the kettle to boil it once more. "Let me get the tea brewing and then I'll give you the tour."
Fitz peered out the kitchen window and noticed the road at the top of the opposite bank. "Isn't that where I've just come?" he asked.
Jemma nodded. "I watched you drive by."
He looked down at the green-grey river below. "Can you swim in it?"
"When the weather's right," she replied. "On a hot afternoon it's perfect."
"And you get those?" he asked doubtfully, eyeing the steady rain.
She laughed. "Most of the time, yes. This isn't the UK, remember?"
"Tell me that again when it's not drizzling in a manner fit for Scotland."
He caught the kettle just as it boiled and followed her back out to the veranda, pouring the water over the tea leaves and fitting the ragged crocheted tea cosy over the pot to keep it warm.
"Alright," Jemma announced. "The grand tour." She held out her arms. "So, this is the front veranda. As you can see, the view is pretty spectacular."
Fitz gave a low whistle, appreciating for the first time the undulating hills rising in the distance, the tire-swing hanging from the giant fig tree, the white lilies gleaming like beacons from the picturesque dam, the silver mist drifting through the far-away treetops of virgin rainforest.
A cultivated garden surrounded the immediate house, garden beds hemmed in by smooth river stones, that soon gave way to wide green paddocks, dotted here and there with grazing brown-and-white cows.
"Do you have to do anything for the cows?" Fitz asked.
Jemma shook her head. "Laurie, a farmer across the river, just rents the fields to run his extra cattle on. Apparently he pops by to check on them every now and again but if he's done it since I moved here, he's been very subtle about it."
"Sounds like you wouldn't have minded if he'd stopped in for a chat," he observed.
She looked back at him sheepishly. "Sometimes the silence here drives me batty."
"Not now that I'm here," he declared. "So, what's next on the tour?"
"You saw the kitchen-"
"Crucial first stop," Fitz laughed.
She led him through the front-door with its beautiful lead-light windows and into the front hall. A tall wooden hat-stand held horse-riding helmets, broad-brimmed straw sunhats, beanies and scarves amidst fishing rods, scruffy badminton racquets and butterfly nets. On the wall hung large paintings of rural scenes and the polished floor boards were covered by a lush Persian rug, soft and springy under their socked feet.
The formal hall led to a perpendicular carpeted corridor from which heavy glass doors led into a comfortable looking lounge room with a large fireplace. The embers still glowed in the hearth from Jemma's fire the previous evening. Out the large windows on either side of the fireplace they could see out onto the river once more.
The lounge flowed into a formal dining room furnished with a dated glass-topped wicker dining suite.
"Wow," Fitz commented. "You don't see many of these around anymore."
"Since when have you paid attention to eighties home décor?" Jemma asked laughing.
"My mum used to yearn for a dining suite just like this. She had magazine clippings and everything," Fitz explained. "And I've never actually seen one in the flesh."
"In the wicker?"
"In the wicker," he chuckled. "Precisely."
Jemma led him back through the kitchen to the living room where another wood stove gave off a pleasant warmth. The more casual round wooden table stood at the other end of the room lit by a low-hanging light.
"Perfect for poker games," Fitz commented. "Hunter would approve."
"If he weren't more than seven thousand miles away," observed Jemma wryly.
"True."
"Now, as for bedrooms…"
"Just show me which one's mine," Fitz said, "and I'll pull my stuff out of the car."
Jemma turned to face him in the dim corridor, chewing at her bottom lip. "I sort of thought… maybe you might want to-"
"Jemma, I do want to share a room with you," Fitz said, earnestly seeking her eyes. "I do want us to share a bed."
She gazed back at him, fully aware of the vulnerability in her expression but utterly unable to do a thing about it.
"But we're not in any rush are we?" he asked gently. "We both have indefinite leave from S.H.I.E.L.D. and – how long's your arrangement here?"
She shrugged. "The family that owns it doesn't use this farm at all. But they can't sell it for sentimental reasons. They said I could stay as long as I wanted. Years even, if it appeals."
"Then we have years," Fitz said, taking both her hands in his. "Let's just, I don't know, play house for a while. Get used to one another. Get used to just us."
Jemma gave him a tentative smile.
"Trust me, Jemma," he said, reaching up to touch her cheek with his fingertips. "I'm not going anywhere. I know what you said you want. It's all I've wanted for as long as I can remember."
"What if I've maybe been dreaming about falling asleep in your arms?" she whispered, looking up at him from under her lashes.
Fitz grinned. "Just because I'm starting off with my own room doesn't mean you're not allowed into it, Jemma. Besides," he admitted, his smile softening, "I sort of spent the whole flight over here dreaming about the same thing."
She smiled softly back at him, then led him back out to where the teapot sat waiting for them. With Fitz's casual embargo in place, she didn't try to kiss him the minute they sat down. Instead she poured the tea and let him catch her up on the news from the team, sensing his need for them to talk their way back into an easy banter before things could progress any further.
"Alright," he said when the pot was empty and the plate of biscuits had been reduced to crumbs, clapping his hands together, suddenly business-like. "Brace yourself for me taking over the kitchen. I'm making you dinner tonight."
Jemma insisted on helping him bring his bags in first.
On her arrival at the farm almost two months before, she'd moved into the master bedroom at the far end of the house, the one with the king-sized bed. She hadn't anticipated his flying out to join her back then, she just liked the idea of all that space to spread out.
Though she sort of hoped Fitz might at least choose the room with the double-bed right next-door to hers, he opted instead for the queen room at the opposite end of the house, making the large tiled bathroom with the shower his most obvious choice. It made her inexplicably melancholy that he wouldn't even be resting his toothbrush next to hers for some time to come. Hadn't it been long enough?
He dumped his bags, commanding her to wait right where she was, and momentarily shut her out of his room so that he could change his clothes after the long drive and the even longer flight. Jemma had offered him the option of showering before dinner but he shook his head, reminding her with a tender but fleeting kiss to her cheek that he wasn't ready to leave her side for that long just yet.
She opened a bottle of red and poured two glasses, settling herself on a stool at the sturdy butchers block in the centre of the kitchen to watch him work.
Fitz had stopped at her nearest supermarket, forty minutes drive from the farm, and picked up not only the items on the grocery list she'd e-mailed him, but also the ingredients to his one culinary triumph – the bachelor's bare-pantry speciality – spaghetti puttanesca. He'd splashed out on a generous wheel of local washed-rind, a wax-wrapped blue vein and a slice of deep orange quince paste from the little delicatessen.
"That washed-rind smells like an old sock, but trust me, it'll taste amazing," he said, and he was right.
Together with the other half of the container of olives he needed for the pasta sauce and a sleeve of crackers, it was a veritable pre-dinner feast.
Fitz had also proudly displayed the fresh sour-dough loaf, the carton of eggs, two packets of bacon, truss tomatoes and plump avocados he was putting aside for the following morning's breakfast.
Jemma smiled to herself. She'd always be well-fed living with Fitz.
The little smile kept returning at every moment she experienced a hint of the cosy future she'd begun to doubt they'd ever share. She loved the way he laughed and clinked his wine glass theatrically against hers every time one of them attempted a joke. She loved the way he boldly kissed her cheek in thanks for the parsley she'd chopped or the capers she'd measured out at his request. She loved the way he found Counting Crows on the old iPod she'd plugged into the ancient amplifier and hummed along to himself in the rare moments they weren't chatting. She loved sitting down with him in front of the wood stove he'd stoked up for them, plates piled high and glasses filled full, settling back against the plump lounge cushions, shoulders and thighs touching as they talked and ate and drank into the night.
And when the jet-lag and the effects of the red finally caught up with him, she even loved gently taking his empty glass out of his grasp, guiding him carefully down to rest his head on the cushions she'd placed at one end of the lounge for him, and slipping off his shoes at the other end, covering him with a warm blanket from his bed and placing a soft goodnight kiss to his forehead before she padded away.
…
Jemma woke with a smile to the sounds of clanking about in the kitchen and the distinctive aroma of bacon. A fry-up was Fitz's other area of gastronomic expertise.
"I thought the smell of bacon hitting the pan might get you out here," he observed wryly.
She slipped her arms around his waist while his hands were occupied with cooking and pressed herself against his back. "I'm going to like having you around," she murmured against his shoulder-blade.
"So I haven't worn out my welcome yet?"
Even now, Jemma could hear the tell-tale echo of anxiety underlying Fitz's self-deprecating humour. She resolved to combat it at every turn.
"I never want to be without you again, Fitz," she replied sunnily. "We're stuck with one another for good, you and I, cosmos be damned."
Fitz turned in her arms, leaning back against the kitchen bench so that he could find her eyes.
For the first time since he'd arrived she saw that look of Fitz's that she'd come to interpret as the equivalent of a worshipful oath of fealty. She'd seen it at the bottom of the ocean, she'd seen it when she'd finally made her reply a year later, she'd seen it when he'd first learnt of her Perthshire fantasy, when he'd first kissed her, when he'd finally returned to her from Maveth and so many times in between. But this was the first time she'd seen that look of love and been in a position to freely and leisurely answer it with looks and caresses and declarations of her own.
"I love you, Fitz," she said, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "I love you as much as you've ever loved me. I want our future to be together as much as you do. You've spent far too much time thinking of yourself as unrequited."
He snickered in acknowledgement and she smiled.
"You have to give all that up now, Fitz," Jemma whispered playfully. "This is not what unrequited love looks like."
"Let's plant a vegetable garden," he suggested with an unexpected urgency, gathering her more firmly into his arms. "Let's get a dog. Let's buy a beer-brewing kit and start reading the whole Harry Potter series out loud to one another from the beginning."
Jemma's brow creased in confusion. "I was sort of thinking you might just kiss me?"
Fitz grinned. "Oh, I will," he replied earnestly. "Don't you worry about that, Jemma."
Something about his smile and the ragged way he breathed her name caused a tickling warmth to begin building deep within her.
"But can we do some of those things? All of those things? Please?" His blue eyes pleaded with her.
"Sure," she laughed. "If you want, Fitz. But why?"
He shrugged, keeping his tight hold of her. "I just want to start something with you that we have to see through together. Something long term."
There was a poignancy in his insistence that Jemma immediately detected. "Fitz, do you think I'm just going to pick up and go one day, just leave you behind?"
Fitz let out a long breath, avoiding her eye. "It happened, didn't it?" He went to loosen his hold of her, trying to step away, to get back to safer ground, but Jemma wouldn't let him. She grasped both his arms by the wrist and pulled them back around her waist, lacing her fingers with his to hold him there.
"You think I might not have been sucked into a portal if it meant missing the next chapter of Harry Potter?" she asked incredulously. "Or perhaps I might not have been kidnapped at gunpoint by HYDRA if I had a dog to walk or some heirloom tomatoes to harvest?"
"No," he mumbled. "But if we'd been here none of those things would have happened." He seemed emboldened by the statement, raising his eyes to meet hers. "So this is my new plan, Jemma. We stay here, we keep away from portals, we keep away from HYDRA. We stay safe. We live boring, anonymous, under-achieving lives with book-reading and tomato-growing and dog-walking and, heck, let's get our very own sour-dough starter while we're at it."
Jemma released his hands and walked away to the fridge contemplating him thoughtfully over the open door.
"I'm in trouble now, aren't I," he murmured, folding his arms across his chest and venturing as close to her as the butcher's block in the middle of the room. "You're still on about excitement and seeing the world and making a difference and all that palaver."
"That's not why you're in trouble."
Fitz sighed. "Come on, then. Put me out of my misery."
"Do you really think it would be boring living here with me?" Jemma asked, trying to hide the foolish hurt she couldn't help but feel.
Fitz blinked a few times at the unexpected swerve in the conversation.
"I mean," she continued. "I think it could be quite thrilling to get a dog. And can you imagine how satisfying it would be to make a salad with tomatoes we'd just picked from our very own garden? I'd love to drink home-brewed beer, I think the boot-room behind the kitchen would be a perfect place for it, and your idea about establishing our own sour dough culture is inspired," she rambled. "It's been over ten years since I read any Harry Potter – I can't wait to hear you reading it aloud to me of an evening, maybe as we cuddle up in front of the fire or in bed, you know how much I love your accent."
Fitz narrowed his eyes. "Am I being trolled here, Jemma?"
Jemma blinked innocently, sidling back towards him. "You don't want to do all of those things? They were your ideas."
"I thought you were going to be all about going back to S.H.I.E.L.D. as soon as we could."
"Well," she replied, wrapping her arms once more around his waist, "I don't hate the thought of remote-consultation. We could maybe get a lab built when we feel up to it – it'd be fun to design it to our unique specifications again. I mean, a bit of lab work when it suited us could still be compatible with dog-walking and tomato-farming, wouldn't you agree, Fitz?"
He nodded earnestly, not quite able to speak.
"That way we could be based anywhere. We could stay here for now and maybe later we could have a little look around for, I don't know, perhaps a cottage or something in somewhere like-"
"Perthshire?" Fitz laughed.
She nodded guilelessly. "I did try to tell you I was serious about that."
"You did. But I couldn't let myself believe it," he admitted.
Jemma rolled her eyes and yanked him by the hand over to the lounge in front of the wood stove. She had to find some way to convince him.
"Alright, Fitz. It's full disclosure time. I'll start. Everything I say now is the honest truth and you have to believe every word, okay?" She waited expectantly for him to acknowledge her question.
"Okay."
She took both of his hands in hers and looked intently into his eyes. "Since we went out into the field I've learnt so much. But the upshot of all I've learnt is that I'm no longer certain about what to do with what I know. I have skills, sure, and some preposterous-sounding experience, but nothing like what I need, which is understanding. I can see myself staying with S.H.I.E.L.D. and acting decisively but making catastrophic mistakes. You saw me almost go there after Trip died, Fitz. You had to protect Daisy, from me! And that's only the tip of the iceberg."
Fitz went to interject but Jemma wouldn't let him.
"It's true, Fitz. You know it is," she said, anticipating his argument. "But you were different. The more I learnt about you, the more I saw how right you always are. You look at complexities and, where I get bogged down in logic, you manage to cut straight to the heart of the issue. You always see the right thing to do. You instinctively know how to be a good person and you just get on and do it. But you have a weak spot too. And your weak spot is me."
"You're not a weak spot, Jemma," Fitz argued exasperatedly. "I'm in love with you."
"I know," Jemma replied, her breath catching at his sincerity. "But S.H.I.E.L.D. can never have you at your best if I'm not there and they can never have you at your best if I am."
Fitz huffed out an impatient breath. "Is it my turn yet?"
"No." Jemma shook her head. "Not until I'm convinced that you've got what I'm trying to tell you."
"Go on, then."
She chose her words carefully, trying to build her case. "The one thing I understand is that while S.H.I.E.L.D. might think that they need us, I know that we're a liability. You're my weak spot too, Fitz, because I'm in love with you. I heard myself helping HYDRA with their calculations to get the Inhuman back from Maveth because I was trying to make sure you came through that portal. Nothing else in the universe mattered more than that I had you back safe."
Fitz looked back at her doubtfully and whether or not he really was thinking what she immediately assumed, she couldn't help herself. She rocketed off the lounge leaving Fitz's hands empty. "I never loved him like I love you!" she exploded. "I'll never love anything the way I love you!"
"Okay, Jemma," he said placatingly. "I get it."
"You don't," she said fiercely, burying her hands in her hair as if she were about to tear it out. "You don't at all." The tears threatened to spill over and once they started, she doubted she'd ever stop them falling.
"What can I do?" Fitz asked helplessly. "I just want to be here with you."
She whirled around to face him. "That's it, Fitz! You'll have to let me show you." She stalked purposefully towards him, her finger extended accusingly. "I have to prove to you that I can be satisfied with just you, that you're all I want. We're staying here and working on all those ideas of yours until you do get it! I'm going to prove to you every minute of every day how much I love you, Fitz. And then, once you finally get it, we have to stay even longer so that we can both enjoy our life here finally knowing how much we love one another. If it takes years, so be it!" she declared, flicking her fingers flippantly into the air. "I have forever!"
At first it was just a little smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Then his lips twitched and curved unmistakeably upwards. The briefest of chuckles escaped. And then he collapsed back into the lounge cushions in irrepressible tears of laughter.
Jemma stared back at him incredulously.
Once he gathered his composure enough to speak, Fitz choked out "Jemma, did you just threaten me with my fantasy existence?"
She mentally tracked back through her aggressive declaration of only moments before and immediately saw the humour. Her laughter fed his, and the tears she had been worried might fall in grief leaked out in merriment instead.
Only the smell of burning from the kitchen had the power to snap them out of their giggles.
Fitz leapt to his feet and quickly rushed to tend the bacon.
Jemma followed to survey the damage.
"First lot sacrificed in the name of our future," Fitz declared mock-seriously. "But I don't think it burnt for nothing, do you?"
She smiled falteringly back at him, hearing in his words an unwitting echo of the other man who'd tried to give his life for her.
She picked up the second packet of bacon and handed it to him. "I'll make us some tea."
Padding on bare feet over to where the kettle sat, she pulled it out of its cradle to fill it at the tap. Just as she set it back down and flicked it on to boil, she felt Fitz's arms sliding back around her waist.
"Don't worry," he said in a low voice at her ear. "I haven't put the bacon on yet."
She turned to face him, leaning back against the sink with a sly smile. "That sounds like bad news to me."
"It's just that, well, before you seemed pretty insistent about kissing me, and then we sort of got derailed by everything."
"Oh, yes?" Jemma asked, innocently raising an eyebrow.
"I mean, seeing as you were raving on about proving how much you loved me and everything," Fitz replied, "I thought I'd just assure you that I've long regarded kissing as a really excellent means of communicating one's love."
"Have you now?" She grinned wolfishly.
Fitz stepped closer so that his whole body pressed more firmly against hers. "Would you agree with that assessment?" he enquired.
"I think we'll just have to try it and see," she whispered, sliding her hands over his chest and up to his face, just as she had that day in the lab. The scruff on his jaw was wiry soft against her fingers and she could feel the thud of his heartbeat reverberating in her own chest.
Those lips that had fitted so perfectly against hers proved themselves yet again. The firm arms that had pulled her closer followed the same instinctive script. This kiss was familiar in all the best ways and yet utterly new in all of the expansive freedom it stretched into.
Their first kisses had been stolen. This kiss was a promise.
Jemma leaned into the soft pressure of Fitz's mouth on hers, pressing in to him, yielding to him, trying to imbue the movement of her lips against his with all of the love she felt.
In return, his languid open-mouthed replies left her melting and weak.
When he pulled away at last, he was apologetic. "Remember how you were saying we had forever?" he asked.
She could only blink repeatedly.
"It's just that, well, there's bacon," he explained ruefully. "And I'm famished."
"Fitz!" Jemma laughed, shaking her head.
"It would be a shame if we were in the middle of a really romantic moment and my stomach were rumbling," he muttered.
"And here I was thinking that we were in the middle of a really romantic moment!" she exclaimed.
Fitz's expression grew serious. "I don't want to rush anything with you, Jemma, alright? We have all the time we want. If I keep kissing you like that, before we've talked about anything, I know where we'll be in ten minutes time." He reached up to stroke a loose strand of hair away from her face. "I don't want you to read this as me pushing you away," he said insistently. "I need you to understand that I want to appreciate all of this. I want us to come together slowly. I want to enjoy each little step we take. If we were still on the base we'd be pulling one another into storage closets and frantically throwing our clothes back on again afterwards while we caught our breath."
Jemma wanted to ask if that really sounded so very bad but she held herself back.
"But we're not there, are we?" he went on. "We're here, Jemma. I've wanted you for years and loved you for far longer than that. If I can drum up the self-discipline, and I'm determined to, couldn't we take it slow enough that each next step is a decision we make together? Something we can anticipate and celebrate and savour?"
That it wasn't because of the bacon caused her to breathe out in relief. That it was because he wanted to savour her, relish each and every new step they took, treat her carefully, wonderfully, worshipfully – that made her weep.
"Oh, god, Jemma," he cried, brushing away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. "I've bollocksed it all up again, haven't I? I didn't mean to hurt you. I just don't know how to expla-"
"Shhh," Jemma interrupted when she could find her voice. "I love you, Fitz. And now that I understand it, I love the sound of that plan."
He looked back at her sceptically.
"I do!" she insisted. "I think I sometimes forget that we don't have to just grasp at every moment. It might take me a while to adjust to this new pace. You might have to remind me now and again."
"Is there a way I can do that without making you think I'm pushing you away?" he asked, his tender concern deeply apparent in his gaze.
Jemma smiled. "I liked what you said about celebrating each new step. Maybe you could just remind me to savour where we are in each moment."
Fitz nodded. "Of course."
"And if you're going too slow for me, I guess I'll just have to think of my own set of signals."
He laughed and then shook his head. "Just talk to me, Jemma. I know we've never been any good at it but that full disclosure policy you mentioned is just what you and I need. We have to find a way to put all we feel into actual words and then find the courage to actually say them to one another."
"Instead of grand self-sacrificial gestures?" she asked, somewhat archly.
"Exactly," said Fitz. He placed his palm over his heart. "I promise to talk to you instead of hurling myself into the face of danger."
"And I promise to let you eat your bacon unmolested," Jemma declared, holding up her hands and keeping them where he could see them.
"Thank you," Fitz replied with a little bow. "And then seeing as I'm still horribly jet-lagged and we have nothing else pressing to attend to, maybe we could have another go at that plan of falling asleep in one another's arms?"
Jemma grinned and waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Your bed or mine?"