Disclaimer: No, I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

A/N: I've been toying with the term "Elephant in the room" around my head for the past few weeks and this is what came out. My first attempt at a FitzSimmons fic (and a multi-chapter, sort-of).

Probably OOC (just a warning).

Channelling Skye's POV. :)

Skye looked up from her laptop just in time to see Simmons walking out of the lab, fists clenched, brows knitted together, jaw rigid, and eyes welling up and staring hard at the floor. The hacker turned her gaze towards the aforementioned girl's lab partner who was staring at her retreating back, wearing the same facial expression, his hands gripping hard at a new weapon prototype. He was still for a while, long after the lab doors have closed.

Skye frowned. She watched as the engineer shifted his gaze from the door to the prototype in his hands, evidently not really seeing what he was holding, his eyes betraying the fact that his thoughts were a million miles away. Well maybe not a million miles away but just a floor above the lab. He took a deep breath before putting down his invention on the table and sinking into his chair.

This has been the third time that Skye had witnessed the scene that just played out before her. Simmons storming out of the lab leaving Fitz looking upset, frustrated, and...sad.

"Hey." she called out.

Fitz looked up.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Yeah." he replied. "Just a little tired." he added. His facial muscles, in Skye's opinion, working hard to force a smile on his face.

"O-kay." Skye said, not really sold but she figured if either of the scientists wanted to talk about it, they'd do so when they were ready.

She turned her eyes back on her laptop, pretending to be back at work. She glanced at her friend's direction every now and then. He still looked upset. He was leaning back on his chair, his eyes closed and his right hand pinching the bridge of his nose, brows furrowed.

An hour has passed since the lab drama and it seemed that Simmons had no plans of coming back. The day was about to end anyway.

Skye sighed.

There was an elephant in the room and it was getting bigger and bigger with each passing day.

"What really happened down there, Fitz?" Skye asked when for the fifth time that week she saw Simmons leaving the lab obviously upset and an equally upset Fitz watching her storm away. She closed her laptop to look up at the engineer. He was frozen at his seat, staring at the now-closed lab doors.

She'd had enough of the drama and it hurt her to see her friends hurting. Hurting each other, actually. She figured out that whatever the problem was, it had something to do with their underwater near-death experience.

Fitz, caught off-guard, snapped his attention towards her. He opened his mouth to speak but when no words came out, he closed it and then opened it and closed it again. Skye thought that on a different day—on a better day—she would have found it funny. He seemed to have lost his voice and cleared his throat. She sensed that he was going to deny anything and beat him to it.

"I know something happened down there. Something that's making you and Simmons act weirdly around each other ever since you woke up from your coma." She crossed her arms before her and raised her eyebrow, as if daring him to deny it.

Fitz didn't speak.

Skye stood up with a huff. "You've been avoiding each other. You don't make eye contact. You look embarrassed when you realize you're finishing each other's sentences. You stop finishing each other's sentences. You flinch when you realize you're in each other's personal space. You try to keep as much distance between you here in the lab. You treat each other as though you're a bomb that could blow up at any moment!"

She was shouting now. She didn't care if the whole BUS heard her. She knew they were all on the same boat. They were all concerned for Fitz and Simmons.

"And don't even dare try to deny that something's wrong. You guys are not acting like the FitzSimmons I know! Not at all!"

She stared hard at Fitz after her rant and noticed that he had tears welling up in his eyes.

"What happened down there, Fitz?" she asked again, voice softer this time. She walked towards him and gently touched his arm. She wondered if he would pull away, knowing how uncomfortable he was with physical contact, and was a little relieved when he didn't.

He took a deep breath and then looked at her.

"I told her."

It took Skye about three seconds before she understood what Fitz said.

"Oh." She squeezed his arm gently.

Fitz took another deep breath before setting his gaze firmly on the floor.

"We-she-figured out a way on how we can get out of the med pod. As we were setting it up, I realized that only one of us could actually get out of there alive. The oxygen canister only had enough for one breath. It had to be her. She had to live. Ever since we joined the team I..." he paused. Skye could sense that he was struggling to say what he wanted to say. She put her hands on his shoulders, trying-hoping-to lend him strength.

He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead on his hands before he continued.

"I hated myself for how I could never save her from anything. It was that bastard Ward who saved her when she jumped out of the BUS. It was her and her bloody heroics that actually saved us from that dendrotoxin grenade and even though we found out eventually that it was just dendrotoxin, I couldn't help but think that what if it wasn't and feel useless because then I would have watched her die in front of me. And then the siege at the Hub and what if Hydra found her and she was killed and I was no where near her and then I think that even if I was what could I have done? I was a bloody, spineless coward."He sobbed. Skye rubbed what she hoped were soothing circles on his back. She was having trouble holding in her own tears.

"And then...that situation we found ourselves in in the pod...I thought that that was my chance. My chance to truly be her hero. Because she said before that I was but I guess I never truly believed her. To prove that I wasn't the coward I've always thought myself to be." He sniffed.

"I really had no plans of telling her how I felt. I...was going to die with that. I had made peace with that. It was enough for me that I would die knowing that I saved her. But...you know how stubborn she could be. She wouldn't accept the oxygen. I told her I couldn't live if she didn't. She said she felt the same way. She said she would never leave me behind...I was her bestfriend in the world and before I knew it the words were out of my mouth. 'You're more than that', I told her. I was going to die anyway so it didn't matter to me anymore that she didn't feel the same way. What mattered was that, at least, she knew why I was willing to die just so she could have the chance to live. I needed to show her I love her."

For once in her life, words failed Skye. She could almost hear her own heart breaking with his.

"I was supposed to die." Fitz said, breaking the silence that hung over them. He turned to look at her finally, and she could see through his tears the pain and sadness reflected in his eyes.

"I wasn't supposed to live and come back to just being her bestfriend."

A/N: So...there. Any thoughts?

Constructive criticism is highly appreciated :)