WARNING: Spoilers for S2E10. I read that there would be no more AOS on my telly til MARCH. I got cross. I threw a thing or two. Then I took a deep breath and sat down to channel my emotions into this.
You may have already read a lot of this in another story of mine called By My Side but I decided that nine chapters and growing justified its own story!
It started so organically that none of them could quite put their finger on it. Every night now for weeks, maybe months. If they'd let themselves prod at it, poke at it, analyse it, they'd have been able to trace it back to the night they lost Trip and the night Skye received her "gift". But it was too precious for prodding and poking and it felt too fragile for analysis. No one dared to mention it or even to make assumptions about it continuing in the privacy of their own mind. And yet, every night, on and around the couches in the The Bus lounge, they would gather. Sometimes May, rarely Coulson, but always Mack and Fitz, Skye and Jemma, Bobbi and Hunter. They would trickle in, provided their wasn't a mission, any time after ten and just sit. Sometimes they'd sit in companionable silence, nursing a drink, sometimes there'd be rowdy arguments or raucous laughter. But always they gathered to be together, like a family connecting over an evening meal.
For Mack, it was a chance to unwind. It helped Bobbi and Hunter to keep seeing one another as human beings, softening them towards one another. For Skye, it was balm to her hurting heart – these people were safe and they loved her and knew how much she needed them to show it. For Fitz and Jemma, it was a daily sighting of the other, sometimes with the added bonus of an exchanged glance or even a brief conversation now that they worked in separate settings. For all of them, including May and Coulson when they could be there, it was the calm at the end of the day that interrupted the pressure or the urgency or the fear or the intensity of focus and allowed them the possibility of eventually falling into sleep.
Fitz, still feeling awkward and uncertain about exactly how he fitted into the team these days, had stumbled into the habit of hanging back, pottering in the garage a little longer than really necessary in order to be sure that a quorum had gathered before he would show his face. Things with Jemma were easier than they had been for a long time but he still felt unsure of his footing – uncertain if an attempt at more contact between them would be entirely welcome to her. As irritating as he found it, his movements around her were still a source of deep anxiety.
Usually he'd wander in once conversation was well-established, make a beeline to the kettle and then plonk himself, tea in hand, next to Mack where there always seemed to be a spot for him. From the safety of that position he would tentatively enter into the banter or observe the argument, stealing occasional glances across the lounge that went unnoticed by no one. But one night, having been summoned to Coulson's office for a late night engineering conversation, Fitz found himself standing with the director at The Bus' galley kitchen far earlier than he found entirely comfortable. He was safe on one level – Coulson kept up a steady stream of questions – and yet on another level he felt utterly at sea. How would the evening progress? How would he know how to choose his seat? Should he make his excuses and duck back to the garage for another half hour? Coulson didn't look like he'd let him get away that easily, so Fitz busied himself with dangling a tea bag into a mug while he fielded the increasingly complex queries. He could have laughed out loud at his own brain, effortlessly distilling staggering complexities into layman's terms for Coulson, while simultaneously running a constant stream of self-deprecating self-analysis and playing host to a vigorous anxiety attack.
Why can't I just channel all this into being a normal chap for once in my life? he mused to himself while drawing a diagram to aid Coulson's understanding. Behind him, Jemma and Skye wandered into the lounge. Skye saw that Coulson had made an unexpected appearance and took the opportunity to grab him for a second, to ask for his input on a recent 084 development the team had been monitoring. And, just as he'd feared, Fitz was left with only his tea bag to focus on.
Jemma walked directly up to him. "Hi Fitz," she said chirpily. "How are you?"
Fitz scratched the back of his neck. "Err, fine thanks." He looked up to find her looking stunning as usual. He took a moment to recover his breath before stammering, "Um.. you?"
"Actually," she began conspiratorially, "I'm glad to find you here. I need your advice about something."
"Oh?" Fitz brightened. "What can I help you with?"
"We've hit a roadblock with our analysis of The Diviner," Jemma sighed. "We're using that modified spectrometer that we built back at the academy but something's off with one of the sampling accessories. I'd really love your input."
"Go ahead," Fitz agreed readily.
To the untrained ears of the team, who wandered unnoticed up to the bench around them, the conversation had descended into rapid-fire unintelligible scientific lingo. The intimate audience of observers exchanged meaningful glances across the lounge behind them. To Skye, Coulson and May, this was the sound of the early days on The Bus, Fitzsimmons in full swing. To Mack, Bobbi and Lance it was a revelation, none of them had yet seen Fitz communing with Simmons over science like this.
Oblivious to their eavesdroppers, Fitz and Simmons thrust and parried theories, counter theories, tests and solutions off the top of their heads at a speed that made the others' heads swim. At last it seemed they came to an agreement on a course of action for Jemma and the lab team.
"Thanks, Fitz," she sighed. "I knew you were the only one who could help me work that through."
Fitz quickly turned his attention back to his dangling tea bag.
Jemma reached into the overhead locker for a mug of her own. "Remember those pots of tea you used to make us when we had to work through the night?"
Fitz laughed. "And the one for early morning, the one for morning tea," he counted on his fingers, "the one with lunch, the afternoon tea one, the pre-dinner pot and the one for before bed?"
"Goodness!" replied Jemma, surprised. "You used to make us that much tea?"
"Well," said Fitz, focusing his attention on pouring milk into the mug in front of him. "It just seemed to help you whenever we got stuck, remember? We'd hit a wall, I'd make a pot of tea, you'd just hold the cup in your hands and think for a moment and suddenly you'd have solved it." He bent down to put the milk back in the fridge. "Truth be told, I'm not sure I ever saw you actually drink it!"
"Of course I drank it," Jemma laughed, nudging him with her elbow as he straightened up. "And of course it helped. I've told you before, there's something about the way you make a pot of tea. It's…"
"Pretty ordinary?" interjected Fitz.
"No! It's positively… medicinal," she breathed.
Fitz looked quietly chuffed.
"Maybe one of these nights you could make us a pot?" she asked, almost shyly.
Fitz nodded, smiling. "Anything you say, Simmons."
