Jemma sits in the front row of the now empty classroom where she has her last class of the day. She slowly pulls out the papers she will need as her fellow students hustle through the hallway outside.
"And of course he's late" she whispers to herself as she checks her watch. Her meeting was supposed to start promptly at 2:40 and it is already 2:50.
A few more minutes pass before she can finally hear the sound of his voice growing louder from outside the door.
Her partner is one of the few people from her classes that she doesn't know. He is always quiet in class, often seeming to be off in his own world.
"Finally" Jemma sighs as he steps into the doorway and her eyes catch his.
"Sorry" he huffs, dropping a stack of books and papers on one of the desks. "We got to talking about one of our designs and well-"
"And you lost track of time. I do understand." She pauses a moment while he pulls some things from his pile and slides into the chair next to her. When she is able to catch his eyes again, she continues. "But please do try not to be late in the future. I take my academics very seriously."
"You think I don't" he asserts, turning in his chair to face her.
"Well…" she trails off, looking around. "Let's just get started, shall we? It's Leo, yes?"
He looks down and pushes his hand through his already messy curls before he speaks.
"Technically, yes it is Leo. But I go by Fitz. Jemma, right?" he asks, looking down at his stack of papers suddenly.
"Correct. Now like I said" she continues, her pace growing quicker. "I take my academics very seriously. I don't know what your usual standard of work is but my standards are quite high and I do not intend to compromise them just because we are being forced to work together."
"Actually, Jemma…" he trails off when she meets his eyes.
"Yes?"
"Well it's just that, I'm actually- Well I take school seriously too, ok?"
"Of course you do" Jemma says, not moving to meet his eyes again for a moment. "I'm sorry Leo. Oh I mean Fitz."
Jemma flashes Fitz a shy smile and reaches out to place her hand lightly on his arm.
"So" Fitz says quietly, "how do you suggest we get started on this whole thing?"
"Well we have to pick up the simulator right after school tomorrow and then after that, well to be quite honest I'm not entirely sure what we should do."
Fitz pushes his chair back toward the door slowly, the legs scratching loudly on the floor. He pulls a paper from the pile in front of him and studies it carefully.
"Well it says here" he sighs pointing to a paragraph near the top of the page "that we're supposed ta treat it as a real baby, feeding, changing, the whole deal."
"How do you want to handle it, though? Do you want to spend most of the weekend together or take shifts?"
Jemma pulls her hand back from where it now sits on his desk and sits up straighter.
"Well" Fitz muses. "It does say that we should aim for the real parenting experience so I suppose we should work together."
"You're right. Of course. So your house or mine?"
Fitz's head snaps up from his paper at her question.
"What?" he asks, straightening his papers nervously.
"Your house or mine? Where should we spend the day tomorrow?" Jemma clarifies.
"Oh yeah right" Fitz mumbles, his hand pushing through his curls again. "Um… perhaps yours might be best. My mum's had a lot going on lately."
"Alright" Jemma smiles. "So tomorrow right after class, we'll pick up the simulator and then we can walk back to my house. It's not far."
"Yeah sounds good" Fitz hurries, looking over his shoulder into the hallway at the sound of someone dropping a book to the floor outside the door.
"Do you have somewhere to be?" Jemma laughs quietly.
"Well it's just that, if we're done here, that is, I'd like to get back to work on these plans" he mumbles quickly, gesturing to stack of books and papers on the desk beside him.
"Oh of course" Jemma says with a start. "I think we're quite alright for the afternoon."
"Right then" Fit huffs as he pushes himself to his feet. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow" Jemma smiles quickly before Fitz finishes collecting his things and turns toward the door.
Jemma hears a loud crash from the living room followed by Fitz's voice.
"Jemma!"
"What do you need Fitz?" Jemma yells back. "I'm still trying to clean up the mess in here!"
"I can't make it stop crying and I dropped the bottle behind the couch! Please help me!"
"I'll be there is just a moment Fitz!"
Jemma sighs as she moves the last of the dirty dishes atop the pile in the sink.
"How in the world can something that's not even really alive make such a mess?" she whispers, resting her elbows on the counter and resting her head in her hands.
"Jemma!" Fitz calls again.
"Oh I'm coming Fitz" she answers, pushing herself back up.
Jemma makes her way into the living room to find Fitz crouched on the floor with the baby simulator in one arm and his other arm reaching underneath the couch.
"Can you please help me with this?" Fitz sighs, his eyes darting toward the simulator. "You see… I'm a bit stuck."
"Oh Fitz" Jemma sighs. "Give it to me."
Jemma takes the simulator from him and Fitz maneuvers so that he can free his other arm. He then pushes himself off the floor so that he can settle on the couch instead.
"You know what I've been thinking?" Fitz muses.
"Oh do tell" Jemma laughs slowly as she begins to gently bounce the baby on her hip.
"Well… if I could just open up the back of that thing, I could probably reprogram it so that it would stop crying for more than five bloody seconds."
"You know you can't do that, Fitz" Jemma says as she starts to walk back and forth across the room.
"But why not? Just think about it Jem. It would be quiet and we could actually have a chance at enjoying the rest of our weekend."
"As nice as that would be" Jemma sighs "it would also be cheating. And cheating does notfit within my standards."
"I bet I could do it without leaving a trace."
"No Fitz" Jemma says with a whisper as the simulator finally quiets.
"Much better" Fitz whispers, leaning back into the cushions.
Jemma stops pacing and slowly settles on the front edge of the armchair next to the couch. A moment after she sits down, the simulator starts crying again.
"It's like it has a bloody altimeter on it" Jemma sighs, exasperated.
"You sure you don't want me to try and fix it?" Fitz asks, a smirk forming on his face.
"Ask me again in an hour" Jemma sighs, returning to her feet.
"Jemma, Leo, please bring me your simulator."
Jemma and Fitz rise from their seats and make their way to the front of the classroom.
"Here you are, Ms. Weaver" Jemma sighs as she places the simulator on the desk next to their teacher.
Ms. Weaver opens the back of the simulator and connects it to her computer to download the data.
"Oh my" Ms. Weaver exclaims quietly as she examines the data on her screen.
Jemma sighs quietly and takes a step back from the desk. She hears a barely audible "this is it" from where Fitz stands behind her.
"It seems you two had quite the weekend, didn't you?" Ms. Weaver asks, looking first at Fitz and then at Jemma.
"We tried our best, Ms. Weaver. Really, we did." Jemma's words tumble out more and more quickly as she continues. "But no matter what we did, it just would not-"
"And you see I wanted to, well" Fitz says over Jemma. "But Jemma wouldn't let me because she said you would know and-"
"Oh stop, you two. It's quite alright. This exercise was so that everyone could see just how hard parenting is. From what I can see, you both learned that lesson well. Well done you two."
Jemma looks back at Fitz. His eyes lock with hers and he smiles slowly.
"We didn't fail" Jemma whispers in disbelief as she begins to make her way back to her desk.
"And I didn't even have to cheat for us" Fitz laughs as they sit down.
"But I certainly do not want to do that again, at least not any time soon" Jemma whispers as she leans across the space between them.
"Well I wouldn't mind doing some parts of it again" Fitz whispers, his face growing redder.
"Oh yeah?" Jemma ask with a smirk.
"Well spending the weekend with you was nice."
Jemma's face starts to mirror his at this and she moves her hands to cover the spreading blush.
"Well my mother did mention that I should invite friends over more frequently" Jemma laughs quietly. "Are you free this weekend? Maybe you could come over for dinner."
"I'd like that" Fitz smiles but straightens as Ms. Weaver stands.
"If you two don't mind" she says causing Jemma and Fitz to turn back to face the front of the class.
Jemma pulls a piece of paper out of her notebook once Ms. Weaver is once again consulting with another team and scribbles something on it before folding it and passing it quickly across the aisle to Fitz.
Fitz unfolds it to see a question scrawled across the top of the paper.
So Friday then?
He puts the paper into his notebook before turning back to Jemma and responding to her question with a simple nod.