A/N: We can never get a break with the FitzSimmons guilt, can we? Here's a little introspection into Fitz's.
Spoiler: for 4x21 The Return.
Disclaimer: I got two hands, but I own neither love nor the rights to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Ever since he had awoken from the nightmare that was the Framework, he had been highly aware of his left hand, his bad hand. In fact he had been clutching it constantly, and every time his thoughts had gone straight to Jemma. What would she think of him now?
He wasn't the same man anymore. He had done those terrible things. Just like Ward he had let an overbearing father figure program him into being a ruthless killer. Someone who betrayed people. People he loved. He had done to Simmons what Ward had done to all of them. If she felt anything like he had done after being deceived by Ward, she would never be able to look at him the same or even stand being in the same room without feeling physically sick.
Then there was Ophelia. One of the first things she had done as a human was help save Mack. A redeemable action. She had called it 'the best moment of her life'. It made him clutch his hand again. He understood that sensation, the best moments in his life had been helping other people, and Jemma especially.
So they could blame Aida, but Ophelia was not her. She was like a child discovering the world for the first time. Learning to use her senses and deal with different emotions. With the team as her teachers she could learn to be good eventually. She wasn't an android anymore. She possessed empathy. They could forgive her. For him it was a different story, he had been aware; it had been his own choices. They wouldn't forgive him for those, if they did, they shouldn't. He had done too many horrible things as the Doctor.
The guilt was crushing. The once unknown and insignificant subversive woman that had screamed at him when he shot that woman, Agnes, was now a very clear memory in his head. Jemma's broken expression was permanently imprinted on his retina. One action and one reaction. Cause and effect. He had ruined everything.
That's why he kept touching his bad hand, because that was at least some kind of physical evidence for the fact that he had been good at one point. A good person who had risked his life for hers. No one could take that away from him. And he knew that no matter what happened with him and Simmons, if she hated him now he wouldn't blame her, he at least had this memory that he could treasure. The act might have caused him harm at the time, but even if he could he wouldn't change a thing. He had saved her then and that had been the main thing, and besides he deserved all the injury he got from it because of what he had done now. A sort of backwards poetic justice.
He had come out of the Framework with an entire life worth of memories. He now had all the facts and a choice to make. It was an easy one. There wasn't room in his heart for two people. There was only room for her, for Jemma. It wasn't because he had loved her first, he had loved both women with great intensity, that was just who he was. But Jemma had always been the light; she had inspired the good in him, whereas Ophelia's love had turned him into a ruthless monster. It was really no competition. He didn't want to decorate a house with Ophelia, he didn't want domesticity, to make a home. This place was nothing like what he and Jemma had once dreamed of. Ophelia talked about sentimental attachments and all he could do was shy away from her touch.
As soon as he had remembered reality he had known. His love for Jemma would never fade; he knew that without a doubt. Even if what they had been to each other could never be repaired, if their relationship would forever remain as something spoken about in the past tense, and if their future together were dead, killed by none other than himself. None of that would make him choose Ophelia over Jemma though. He wasn't that desperate. Real love was not something you could simply pick and select out of preference, that was not how that worked.
In hindsight it might not have been the smartest idea to tell Ophelia all of that. As a new human coping with so many different emotions in such a short period of time handling this too couldn't be easy. There was a reason with the whole being born and growing up, learning as you went along, instead of just coming out of a pod as an adult and then getting smacked in the face with everything from sensory perceptions, emotions, urges, ethics etc. all at once. People are not machines; you can't just plug them in and expect them to be a certain way. So Ophelia's reaction was not entirely unexpected, although a bit on the violent side.
Fortunately they managed to escape her, for the time being, but loosing even more people along the way. The loss of their lives adding weight to his guilt. Adrenaline faded. They could breathe for a while. The white pod prison seemed like a fitting place for his dark thoughts. Piper walked out, the others walked past, but Jemma walked in. He couldn't look at her. Not after all the hurtful things he had done. She sat down next to him. He turned his torso away from her. She hesitated for only a split second, then she put her hand on his shoulder. It loosened something inside of him, and he broke down. He couldn't believe it, but Jemma still had some compassion left in her for him. But was he was still capable of loving and being loved? On top of everything else he felt confused. He wasn't sure anymore if what he'd done in the Framework was his choice or not, free will or programming, but he was free now, free to do the right thing, to make his own choices. He had been so scared that he had finally lost her after everything, that he had let fear take over. But love still existed. He could believe that now.
They were crying together. He reached for her hand, and she slid hers lower until they connected. As soon as he felt her touch, the mental shakes of his bad hand that he had felt during this ordeal, the ones that he had unconsciously tried to still this whole time, disappeared. They simply evaporated into thin air, just like that; with a touch. That's when he knew that he was loved, and dared to believe it.
A/N: I noticed that Fitz was clutching his bad hand a lot in this episode. So I thought I'd analyze it a bit, I'm no psychologist or anything like that, but I hope you liked it.
In my fic for epi 4x20, before this episode, I was going to make Fitz think he was as bad as Ward. But I didn't write that because I thought that would be too cruel. But then they go and make that same comparison. Poor Fitz has been through enough, and him likening himself to Ward is just too much self-torture. We need some serious happiness in the finale!