A/N: I thought up this particular story after watching the season premiere. I was trying to imagine what could possibly lead Jemma to decide leaving Fitz was a good idea. I came up with this and I hope you enjoy it. Text in italics is a flashback.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Marvel. Although I would not be averse to a Coulson action figure.
Jemma had waited nearly a solid month to see Coulson after making her decision. It hadn't been easy, keeping it a secret from everyone. She knew she had been acting somewhat oddly. Fortunately, they all chalked it up to the ongoing stress of working with Fitz, trying to help him without actually making him feel helpless.
Coulson had been gone a little longer than usual this time around. Not even May knew where. The new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. clearly felt it was better that way, although the new team leader clearly disagreed. Jemma understood May's frustration. Although Coulson had always been above them in rank, so to speak, they had all eventually formed a team.
Now everything was splintered. Ward was imprisoned, of course. Other than Fitz, Skye was the only one who hadn't seen their former teammate since coming to The Playground. Jemma had gone down once. The day Fitz regained consciousness. Ward had still been incapable of speaking and apparently past the point of trying to hide his own emotions. There was a hint of relief in his eyes when she told him Fitz would live, but Jemma refused to pay attention to it. She had begun to tell him of the damage Fitz had sustained, how the Scot's brilliant mind may never recover and it quickly dissolved into ten solid minutes of screaming at Ward.
May had eventually shown up and taken her out of the room. The next day, she found herself in a hand-to-hand combat training session with both May and Skye. Although Jemma was reluctant to do such a thing, May merely pointed out that sometimes it was better to focus anger than to bottle it up.
While the base of operations for the new S.H.I.E.L.D. was The Playground, Director Coulson was rarely there for more than a few days at a stretch. And when he was on site, there was a distance between himself and the others that hadn't existed since the very early days of the team. Skye, past her initial rage at Ward, tended to lock part of herself away these days. So Jemma felt a little distant even from the woman she considered her best friend.
Trip remained the same for the most part, although he was a little more guarded. The only person Jemma felt the least bit closer to was May. The same event that had erected some walls around other members of the team seemed to have put cracks in the walls May already had. She was quicker to smile at Jemma, quicker to give praise. Perhaps something in her felt she had to be the one to boost morale now that Coulson's own burden was so much heavier.
And Fitz. Fitz was the reason she was currently making her way to Coulson's quarters at the moment. With every step she took, her mind screamed at her to go back. It wasn't too late. No one knew what she was about to do and no one ever had to know.
But Jemma's heart was too heavy. Fitz's outburst a little over a month ago had been the final straw. He had, understandably, been short-tempered since regaining consciousness. The entire team gave him their full support and, physically, his recovery had been swift. Fitz's mental processes, however, were far below what he had always been accustomed to.
At first it hadn't been too bad. With the team cheering him on in their own ways, he remained optimistic during the first couple of weeks. His first day back in the lab had brought an abrupt end to his patience, though. Names of instruments he could handle in his sleep escaped him. As his frustration grew, so did his tendency to be snappish. They all got the sharp end of his tongue at one time or another and all of them understood the reasons and waved it away.
For Jemma, who was with him the most, it had been a roller coaster. She had grown so accustomed to the two of them finishing each other's sentences that it took her by surprise when he yelled at her one day for doing just that.
"I'm not a bloody idiot, Simmons. I can finish my own sentences!"
She had stammered out an apology which Fitz accepted silently. But she had been unable to stop herself from doing the same thing just an hour later and was stunned when his response was a smile.
It went on like that for two months. Back and forth, up and down, some days were better than others. Sometimes the bad days just kept coming with seemingly no end in sight. Those were the times when Jemma found comfort in her training sessions with May and Skye. If the other women noticed she pushed herself a little harder on those days, they never mentioned it.
Through it all, Jemma had to tell herself to be patient. Fitz WAS getting better. It was a very slow process and she did realize that his mind may not work at the same exact level it used to. But she saw small signs of improvement almost every day. She just wished Fitz could realize it as well. So a month ago, when he grew frustrated with an experiment he was trying to put together, Jemma tried to offer words of hope.
"You need to be patient with yourself, Fitz," she told him softly, coming up behind him and laying a hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. "You're almost there."
He rounded on her so quickly that Jemma actually took a couple of steps back.
"Patient?" he ground out. "It's been months, Jemma! And all you can tell me is to be patient?! Do you have any idea what this is like for me? Any idea at all? No, of course you don't. Why didn't you listen to me? Why did you have to save me?! You should've just let me drown!"
Silence rang through the air as Jemma processed what she was hearing. The tears that she usually managed to hide until she was alone in her quarters sprang to her eyes.
"Fitz…Fitz, you can't mean that."
"I would rather be dead than have to be dealing with this right now, Jemma."
He turned away from her with that pronouncement and Jemma could only stand there in stunned silence. She wanted to shake him, to scream at him, to hug him close to her and beg him not to think in such a way. She wanted to do all those things, but she felt as though she was frozen to the spot. And then it got worse.
"I never wanted to be on a field team," he said quietly, his back still to her. "I never wanted this."
He had given voice to Jemma's own darkest thoughts. She was the reason they joined Coulson's team. He only came because she wanted to. Because he loved her. Yet another fact that she had yet to deal with head on simply because there was just too much else for her to shoulder at the moment.
She had dragged him into all of this. And now he was permanently injured in the worst way possible for Fitz. Had he lost the ability to walk or even lost sensation from the neck down, Jemma was certain he would've struggled through recovery and eventually come out on top. Possibly even making jokes about his wheelchair and having Jemma help him engineer tools to assist him with his work. But it was his mind. His beautiful, glorious mind. And she had destroyed it.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Jemma wasn't even sure he heard her. She didn't wait to find out. When she left the lab, she went straight to her quarters and didn't emerge until nearly noon the next day with her mind set on a course of action.
She had to leave the team.
Fitz had apologized profusely the next day, something that was rather rare these days. She had accepted it and they slipped into something of a normal pattern. Bad days were still an occurrence, but never to the extent of that particular episode. Jemma told no one of the outburst. It wouldn't do anyone any good.
Since the rescue, she had always blamed herself for Fitz being in the position of getting hurt simply because it had been her idea to join a field team. It was a feeling of guilt she tried to keep locked away because she knew it wouldn't help Fitz get better if he thought she felt responsible. The revelation that part of him blamed her, too, was just too much. If he blamed her, then perhaps her presence was a reminder of why he had to go through this. Perhaps, if she was gone, his recovery might be easier.
The weeks she had to wait between making her decision and actually speaking to Coulson had done nothing to weaken her resolve. So when she finally found herself standing in front of his door, Jemma knocked firmly and entered with her head held high when he gave her permission to come in.
A/N: There will be more coming. Hopefully this evening before the second episode premieres. I live for reviews, so please feel free!