He's always been different. He's never really had friends and it had never truly bothered him. Studying in an accelerated program meant his peer group was always older. He had his mum, of course, but even she had difficulty relating to him sometimes. He'd never truly minded. He related to continuum mechanics and evolutionary computation and that was all he needed. But then he met Jemma and she related to science the same way he did. Even more miraculously she related to him.
She hadn't just been a friend. She'd been his constant. She'd been like a part of him. For years it had been that way. At the Academy, at SciOps, on the Bus. You couldn't say Fitz without Simmons. They were a single entity, a unit, a team.
And now she's leaving and he can't even tell her goodbye. His mouth can't even form the word, nevertheless articulate how much he needs her there with him to help him through this. He gropes for the correct sound, trying different positions with his tongue and jaw. She knows he's trying to speak, but all he can do is futilely attempt to produce different sounds. He knows none of them are right. He knows she's waiting for him to say something.
All he can manage is her name.
The doctor told him that would happen. That involuntary phrases would be easier to say. Her name is an involuntary sound from his lips, one of the few words that comes naturally. He still speaks mostly in nouns and stringing together more than a few words at a time is taxing. Still he should be able to manage something as simple as "goodbye". and he gropes desperately for the correct sound until she can't take it anymore.
She kisses him on the cheek and turns sharply from him to exit from the room.
Then he's alone.
His schedule is still ruled by trips to the doctor, constant EEGs, MRIs and transcranial magnetic stimulation, but he spends more time in the lab. Director Coulson gives him private hours where he can busy around, look through old designs, and toy with whatever problem he wants. He never has pressure put on him, which he hates more than he loves. They all expect nothing from him.
Skye is the worst. She knew him before better than anybody else that's still around. She knows how far he's fallen, how much of a shell of his former self he is. He can tell she avoids being around him. Whenever she does find herself in his presence, all he sees when she looks at him is pity. She lies all the time too, telling him how good he's doing and how much progress he's made.
He feels like a child. Like a monkey doing tricks. They all do it, give him simple tasks they know he can do so then they can pat him on the head and tell him what a good job he's doing. He think it's more to reassure themselves he'll be normal again soon than it is him. They never give him any work that promises to be too taxing. He misses the challenge of solving real problems. His problems now lie in remembering how to say simple words, making his jaw form the right way and forcing his tongue into the right position. He misses the other half of him that always used to help him solve problems.
He wonders if Skye wouldn't have to lie so much if Jemma was still here.
And then suddenly she is. She's finishing his sentences like always and he doesn't feel quite so alone anymore. She keeps him company in the lab. She says the words he can't make his mouth form. The others look at him funny, but he knows it's just because of the halting stunted way he talks. He feels better when she's around and not so alone.
Each day he wakes up he feels like a different person, changed from the one he was even the day before. Mack tells him it's the drug therapy. He's been on so many different regimens, fiddling around with what combination of pharmaceuticals will improve his speech patterns and apraxia. Some make him nauseous, Some give him splitting headaches. Others him make him more nervous and shaky than usual.
She offers her input on all the medication. She tells him that the increased dosages of a neuro enhancer might be what is causing the tremors in his hand to start up again.
He quickly replies that the nootropic has been helping him, as evidenced by his ability to actually form complete sentences now. He speaks much more coherently when he talks to her. He is still all stammers and stutters around anybody else, but with her he can communicate.
He spins through more theories with her to explain why he is still having trouble doing something as painfully simple as brushing his teeth.
"Maybe it's just the ideomotor apraxia manifesting itself again," he says the five syllable word without so much as a hesitation, "you know because I stopped taking the Tizanidine." His friend the biochemist smiles in approval of the logical deduction and he smiles too, proud of himself. He can still reason.
"Having a conversation with yourself again?" A voice sounds from the door and Jemma disappears.
"I just...I…" Mack looks at him with amusement and Fitz finds an odd relief that it's not pity on his face. "Therapy," he stammers, "speech therapy."
They invite him into mission briefings like he's a part of the team, even though he can't contribute anything. He has difficulty just following what's being said most of the time. People jump in and interrupt, constantly interjecting separate strands into the conversation. Just as he finds the words to contribute something, the conversation quickly goes in another direction. He says nothing.
He feels useless.
Hours in the lab just remind him of how different everything is. It's not even his lab anymore. He has nobody to talk to and they all look at him funny when he's in there. It feels a bit like those first few months at the Academy.
He can see now how each treats him in their own special way. Skye still lies, but Coulson is the opposite. Coulson acknowledges what happened to him all the time. He's so blunt Fitz can see he makes the other agents uncomfortable. May never really talked to him much before so her silence isn't new, but her sighs are. She is the worst of all of them at concealing her annoyance with his condition when he fumbles for words. He still can't speak to all of them as clearly as he can talk to Jemma. Trip treats him much the same way Skye does. He gets a lot of "hey, buddy" and pats on the back. It's all done in the same condescending manner that infuriates him.
He hates everything. Sometimes it scares him how angry he gets about it all. He hates the new lab. He hates the way people treat him. Mostly he hates his own uselessness. He hates all the things he can't seem to stop himself from doing, how he plays with his hands to hide the tremors and still sees Jemma everywhere. He hates how the only way he can contribute to the team is when people speak to him in closed sentences or gesture with their hands.
Mostly he hates that everything is different and the one person who used to ground him isn't really there.
He knows now she's not here.
He had hoped it was the meds that were causing the hallucinations, but the doctors tell him the dosage isn't strong enough to cause delusions.
He doesn't know where she is. It's been months since she went to visit her parents and nobody will tell him anything. Whether she volunteered for a mission that has kept her away or received orders from Coulson, he doesn't know. All he knows is she's not here.
He says the words over and over as part of his speech therapy, working on his word repetition alone in his bed.
"You are not here."
It takes great effort each time he says it, both to form the words and to make himself believe it. Because he feels better when she's there, when he can hear her voice in his head, finishing his sentences like always.
She talks about the combination of drugs that he's on and tells him it most definitely is the dopamine agonists causing him to see things that aren't there. She helps him increase his speech output and assures him how much progress he is making. He knows she's not really there, but he doesn't want her to leave. He doesn't want to be alone again.
He's never been a very good storyteller. Simmons used to finish whatever story he started to tell anyway. But Simmons isn't here. So he tries his best to regale Lance and Mack about when the bus got taken over in Peru and his mission to South Ossetia with Ward. When he tells the story he's at the center of it, disabling the device and kicking people's heads in. He describes how he fixed the electricity and befriended Marta. He doesn't even mention Ward.
"Then she uh….she…..pa - pu - per….poured," he finds the right sound and then just mimes taking a shot instead of fumbling and groping for another word.
"Drunk on a mission, Turbo?" Mack laughs.
"No, n-not…drunk."
"I got pissed on Calprinha on a mission in Brazil once," Hunter inerjects. "Before the mission actually."
"Why am I not surprised?" Mack laughs and tips back his beer.
Fitz laughs too. He likes the two agents. He doesn't feel rushed or pressured to speak with them. They don't correct his errors or try to finish his words for him. He is getting better. Gone are the days when he could only manage about five words at a time. He seems to have finally found the combination of medications that works for him. The headaches still come and he's hit with insomnia more than he'd like, but he's not so sure it's all from the medication anymore. He discovers he sleeps better when he leaves his bunk door open and when he doesn't think about her or what happened at the bottom of the ocean.
He misses her and wonders what she's doing. He wonders if she'd recognize him. Physically, he looks different. His motor skills still aren't where they ought to be and shaving and dressing himself still takes incredible effort. He's taken to not fastening his shirts or wearing ties and he keeps a permanent stubble on his cheeks to avoid the act of shaving as much as possible.
The way he used to live his life is gone. He still hasn't found a routine and everything is different. He drinks beer with men who tell him he's better off without her. He tries to get himself to believe it. He's never been much into video games, but he spends hours playing them with Mack. He doesn't say much and fortunately neither does Mack. He used to chatter on all the time about nothing and everything, but he finds now he likes the silence,
It's been too long for a normal mission. He knows now whatever assignment she is on is one of her own choosing. She chose to leave here. She chose to leave him. It makes him want to work harder than ever to recover.
Sometimes he accompanies Mack to the gym, working to strengthen his weakened right side and improve his balance. He spends hours by himself throughout the day working to increase his speech output, either verbally or written. The doctors told him writing was good therapy too so he's started doing it on a daily basis.
It's slow going. He's always preferred numbers to words, but he's desperate to continue improving so he puts pen to paper. He expresses different things when he writes. Starting off with what he ate for breakfast and the latest mission briefing and ending with how useless he feels when he sees other team members working to solve problems he still can't manage. Always he writes to her.
Despite the pleasant company of Mack and Hunter, he feels more alone than ever.
It's a simple question. One he knows he should be able to answer. He can speak now. It's not like last time. He doesn't stumble the way he did when she left, but the words still won't come.
"Fitz?" she says his name in question when he doesn't respond and steps closer to him.
He stares at her, unable this time not to form the words, but to know what word to even say. How has he been? His head spins through a million ways to respond. Miserable. Confused. Exhausted. Worried. Alone.
"Good." The lame reply is the biggest lie he's ever told her.
"Good." She rubs her arms, which are folded across her chest, nervously. "Yeah, me too."
He wants to say so much to her. All he's wanted these last miserable months is for her to be here with him in the lab. Now she's standing right in front of him and somehow all he wants is to be alone again.