What most people don't know about the universe is that it hears everything, from the muttered curses of a woman being dragged from her van, to the soft pleas of a man who just wants to die, to the hushed promises between a pair of lovers in the dark.
It hears all of these things but is rarely moved to action, because it does not need to. These things, they happen for a reason, and if the universe is anything, it is meticulous in its planning.
The woman loses her van but gains a bus and a team and the power to move mountains, the power to save the world. The man embraces life and nurtures his team into a family and finally finds peace among palm trees and blue skies and warm sand beneath his feet. The lovers make promises to each other and they keep them, and they change the future more than once, but more importantly, they change each other's lives, and they are happy, and it is enough.
So the curses, the pleas, the promises – the universe hears them all, but in the same way you hear white noise or conversations going on around you or music coming from down the hall. It hears these things in the way that you don't really hear them at all.
That is not to say that the universe is infallible. No matter how brilliant or carefully constructed its plans, it is not perfect. Nothing is.
Sometimes, very rarely, it makes a mistake. A piece falls out of place. The white noise becomes piercing static, a familiar name suddenly pops up in conversation, the music pulses loud enough to shake the walls.
Sometimes, even more rarely, the universe stops.
And it listens.
...
When a man nearly drowns at the bottom of the ocean and wakes with his brain irrevocably damaged, the universe hears his despair and frustration but does nothing to lessen his pain. Because it alone knows what the man does not, that his trauma and suffering are shaping him into the person he is meant to be.
That is not a mistake.
When a woman is dragged through a hole in the very fabric of space and emerges on another planet, the universe takes note of her fear and desperation but does nothing to bring her home. Because it alone knows what the woman does not, that her time spent on that alien world will set her on the path she is meant to take.
That is not a mistake either.
It comes later.
Later, when they leave each other's side, when he runs headfirst into danger and she stays behind. Later, when he takes his final breath, unaware it's the end but in the presence of friends. Later, when she remembers their last kiss even as the smile freezes and dies on her lips.
This is the mistake – their separation, yet again. It feels so familiar, but it cuts just as deeply as the first time, when the water crushed their lungs and the ocean threatened to drown them.
If it were any consolation, the universe would offer its sincerest condolences. But it would do nothing more. The universe very rarely makes mistakes, and it's even more rarely that it fixes them.
So as the woman packs up her things, as she slips his ring into her palm and lays him to rest, the universe turns and churns and moves on to the next thing.
It doesn't get very far.
The woman picks up a pocketknife, a small thing that exists as proof of a future that has since changed, of a world that he died to save. Her lips don't move, but the universe hears her words all the same, as clearly as if she had shouted into the void.
I will find him again, she thinks. And by all the bloody cosmos, you will give him back to me.
If the universe is shocked by her audacity, or perhaps frightened by her determination, it doesn't show it.
Instead, it stops.
It listens.
It obeys.
And 255 days after she buries him, Jemma Simmons finds her husband again.
...
She reaches him in late spring, not that anyone would know it. There are no flowers here in space, no blossoming trees, no birds chirping. But she knows it. Down on Earth, it would be a day much like their wedding day – sunny with a light breeze.
(They're not married here, not yet. But they will be.)
The ship is larger than she expected, positively spacious considering it presently houses only two, and she runs her hand along the wall, imagining the warmth of familiar fingers passing over the same spot.
The Chronicom, Enoch, leads her to a small room, and he is easily one of the most fascinating beings she has ever come across and simultaneously the least interesting thing in the world at the moment. Her attention is focused solely on the sleek metal chamber and the person sleeping inside.
She approaches it slowly, as if it might be startled, as if it might sense her anticipation and bolt off into the dark, taking with it her entire heart.
But she needn't have worried. It stands there, unmoving, unchanging, as she places a hand on the window and looks down at the face on the other side.
He looks so young, unblemished by time, by guilt, by life itself. She has to remind herself that he is only sleeping, that he still lives and breathes and dreams.
She can still remember the last time she saw him like this, eyes closed, silent and still.
It's something she'll never forget.
...
The universe has done its part.
It has given the man back, and seeing the past, present, and future, it knows how their story will end.
But it makes no move to leave.
Not just yet.
...
For all her advanced degrees, Jemma isn't entirely sure how the device works. After all, engineering was always his specialty, not hers.
(Was? Is.)
Enoch adjusts the timer as much as he can, but by the end of it, there are still 12 hours left. She is vaguely aware of him beginning to explain the technology and its limitations, but it's all just buzzing in her ears. Her focus is on her husband, right there, in front of her, finally within reach.
I can wait with him, if you like, Enoch offers. I'm sure you must be tired. His expression is stern, unsmiling, but perhaps that's just his face.
She shakes her head, eyes never leaving the stasis chamber. You've done enough for him, she replies, I can take it from here.
4,722 hours she once waited, just to be with him again, just to see him again. What's another 12? It is but insignificant, a mere speck, a tiny drop in a sea of all the time they will soon have together.
So Jemma sinks into a chair.
She leans her head against the cool metal.
And she waits.
...
The universe waits too.
It already knows how their story will end, but that does not make it any less captivating to witness.
...
Sometime after he dies and sometime before his death, Leopold Fitz wakes up to the face of the woman he is sure he will marry.
She smiles at him so brightly he forgets the cold that has seeped into his bones, and when the lid opens with a soft hiss as his name falls from her lips, everything else becomes irrelevant.
Her arms are around his neck and his face is buried in her hair, and he doesn't know how long he's been sleeping, but he knows it's been worth it.
When they finally break apart, she runs a hand down his cheek.
Oh, Fitz, she murmurs. I have so much to tell you.
He is only too happy to listen.
...
She doesn't tell him everything, not yet.
He is still exhausted – physically, mentally – and in no shape to learn about the dirty details, the shameful secrets, the things they did, the sacrifices they made.
Instead, she tells him about how she proposed, about their wedding day, about the daughter they'll eventually have and the grandson they miraculously got to meet. She tells him how he saved the world, how she lost him, how she found him again.
She tells him they're invincible.
And he believes her.
...
The day after the two lovers are reunited, the universe finally moves on. It is content in the knowledge that it has righted this wrong, and the pair soon fades into the background, along with the rest of creation.
But perhaps the universe has grown sentimental, and perhaps it has turned into a romantic, because many years later, it returns and leans in close, just as a man and woman tuck their daughter into bed.
Tell me again, the little girl exclaims to her mother, how you and Daddy met!
The man laughs, looking at his wife expectantly. Oh, go on, he says with a grin. You tell it so much better than I do.
And the universe lets out what could only be a satisfied sigh.
Of all the billions of stories it has heard in all the billions of years it has seen, this one is still one of its favorites.
Well, the woman says, it all started with a conversation about dielectric polarization...
...
Many years after that, in another time and another place, in a future that is different but familiar all the same, the daughter has become a mother herself.
She tucks her son into bed, and settles in beside him, unaware of how different their life might have been.
Have I ever told you, she asks, how your Nana and Bobo met?
The boy shakes his head, eyes wide, curious and eager, and the woman smiles in response, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
In the hallway, a retired biochemist and a retired engineer stop just outside the door and listen.
Well, Deke, their daughter tells their grandson, let me tell you a story.
…
Fin