The sun was just peeking over the horizon as they sped down the empty highway, dark road surrounded on either side by bushy early summer trees. The birds would be waking up, filling the dawn with their overlapping chorus, and Jemma still had dewdrops on her shoes from cutting across the grass in front of their building. She watched it, glimmering in a slanted golden ray, clenching her jaw as she listened to what Fitz was saying beside her. A song was playing on the radio, the drumbeat pounding in time with her head.

"I just don't see why they need you on site," he was muttering. He kept his eyes on the road although his mind was clearly someplace else. "They could send samples back-"

"That would take too long," she protested edgily.

He blew a breath between his teeth, gripping the wheel. "I'm sure someone else could send you the analysis-"

"Someone else could muck it up," she countered.

She watched him from the corner of her eye, prickling at the slight shake of his head, the deepening of his frown.

"I just don't see why-"

Her eyes flared as she whipped around to face him. "No, that's the problem Fitz, you don't see-" she snapped.

"-why you need to be putting yourself in so much danger-"

"Because it's my job. I'm the one who knows how to do it, not you, not some half trained kid already frightened out of their mind-"

"-you aren't even bringing your own hazmat suit-"

"-this is our exit-"

"- how do you know they won't be running out of the proper safety equipment-"

"-you're going to miss it-"

"-And what if their suits aren't-"

"Fitz you're missing the exit!"

The car lurched to the right, Fitz muttering curses under his breath, and she was glad there was no traffic that morning because she was sure if there was he'd have cut someone off.

She leaned back in her seat, shaking her head and they spent the next couple minutes stewing silently as a cheerful woman chirped on about a sunny weekend. Then the story changed and the same woman suddenly sounded entirely different.

In other news, residents of Westfield are lining up around the quarantine barriers, families begging military officials for safe passage out.

Fitz's expression darkened, the air between them thinning until she had to press herself up against the door to stop from feeling so exposed.

Safe housing is being provided as they await test results, but so far no one has been confirmed free of the virus to be let out. Meanwhile ailing residents are urged to report to the Central Hospital to receive care. Doctors and scientists are working around the clock, but the death toll has already reached eighty five.

Jemma punched the dial to turn it off, unable to stand the mounting tension any longer, and curled herself into the passenger side window.

"Do you think if I can't hear it I won't know it's happening," Fitz questioned dryly.

Anger burned up her throat. "Did you think I wasn't listening to the radio every time you were called out?" she said icily. "But I let you go didn't I? I didn't complain-"

"I actually remember quite a bit of complaining," he objected stubbornly.

"But I never tried to talk you out of it," she insisted, refusing to give him an inch. "For six years you've worked for the bomb squad. For six years I was the one left wondering if you were going to come home or if you… if…"

He mimed an explosion with the hand closest to her, complete with the sound effects, and her eyes narrowed.

"It isn't funny."

"I wasn't joking. And we weren't even living together for the whole six years," he criticized. "You only figured out you-"

"We only figured out-" she corrected automatically.

"Yeah fine, we," he conceded with a huff. "We only realized what we wanted two years ago."

She scoffed. "Oh please, as if that mattered. I still wanted you to come home whether you were sleeping with me or not. And don't you dare pretend that makes what you do any different from what I'm doing now."

They'd reached the airport, Fitz shifting his attention to steering the vehicle as he wove his way into the parking lot. The airport wasn't as crowded these days as it used to be, but the early morning flights still drew in a decent flock of drivers, confused by the overcomplicated parking scheme.

"Just drop me off in front of the door," she muttered. "I'm already running late."

He did as she'd asked and she jammed in the button to release her belt, eyes glued to the window until her hand was on the door handle and she felt his gentle fingers curl around her wrist.

"Don't leave like this," he begged. "Jemma I'm sorry I… I just…" His breath hitched and when she turned, snared by the wobble in his voice, he was looking at her with those eyes that could melt through a glacier. They flickered away when she met them, moistening his eyelashes, and he seemed to have sunk into himself. "I'm just scared," he whispered. "I'm not… I don't think I can I live in a world that doesn't…" His mouth snapped shut and he stared down at their hands, miserable.

It had him terrified, she realized, that she could die out there. After the long week she'd spent battling her own fear, she hadn't realized how much his had consumed him. He hadn't said a thing until today, not one word, but now she was leaving and it was real and maybe this truly was the last time they'd be gifted with each other's presence.

Thawed now, she found her heart ached more than her head did, and she pushed up on his wrist with her palm, twisting her hand around his to hold onto it. "So am I," she told him. "But I'm far more frightened of what's going to happen if I don't do anything." Her mouth tugged up in a small smile. "Does that sound familiar?"

He smiled back sheepishly. "I said that."

"You did," she whispered. Her other hand came up towards her chest, worrying between her fingers the dulled metal that hung above her heart on a silver chain, metal that had once been deeply embedded in Kevlar.

"They're going to be lucky to have you," he said earnestly, gliding his thumb over the tops of her knuckles. "But… " A shadow passed over him and his smile faltered, fingers gripping her hand tightly.

"Come back to me Jemma."

It was his turn to parrot her, repeating her well worn phrase that had sent him off on dozens of missions. They'd known her turn was coming, that with the spread of the new virus the country's leading expert in virology was going to be called to work in the field soon enough, but they hadn't expected how fast things had escalated. They hadn't expected quarantine zones to pop up so quickly, for the death toll to rise into the hundreds before spring turned to summer. She understood his fear, it was her fear too, but she also needed his courage to bring with her on the long flight across the country.

Her hand pulled his over the shrapnel, sandwiching it against her heart. "Tell me again," she asked softly, "what your grandmother told you about being brave."

She could lose herself in the ocean that stared back at her, be lost beneath its waves for the rest of her life and she'd still never be able to fathom the power that it held over her. He tucked a stray lock of hair back into place behind her ear and she leaned into his palm, unable to look away.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear," he said. It sounded like a song, the way he spoke.

Her body relaxed and she slid her fingers through his hair, pushing her forehead into his and closing her eyes. Time stilled for them as they drank each other in, as he took a piece of her to know she'd be OK and she took part of him so that she'd remember what home felt like. Then his head tilted up, their lips melding together to steal a few more precious seconds and when they pulled away, the exchange completed, both of them were smiling.

"I'll see you in two weeks," she promised.

/-/-/

Thanks to Notapepper for betaing this chapter :D

Also a big thanks to memorizingthedigitsofpi for making me a great poster for this story :D

She is going to Westfield in reference an early fic I did called Welcome to Westfield which is a reference to the Fringe episode of the same title. It's a reference in a reference

I think I'm going to try to name the chapters after song lyrics. Could be fun. And there are so many lyrics how hard could it be?...