By My Side

S2, E3 SPOILERS: Now that Fitz has encountered Skye's asset, there is no doubt in his mind as to the identity of Coulson's mysterious source within HYDRA. Being underestimated by everyone has its advantages. No one imagines him capable of finding her. (This is all because I am NOT COPING with Fitzsimmons being apart. Holding it together by writing copious amounts of Fitzsimmons fluff for anyone else in the same boat!)

...

Utterly failing to keep dry under the recently purchased carton of milk she held uselessly over her head, Undercover S.H.I.E.L.D Agent Jemma Simmons sprinted back to her apartment through the heavy rain that she felt sure ten minutes previously there had been absolutely no sign of. Meteorology had never been her field.

After soggily navigating lifts and corridors, keys and locks, she stood for a moment, catching her breath and dripping silently into a puddle on her parquet floor.

Then she heard it. A fortnight ago she would have reached for her Icer and flattened herself against the wall. Now she just smiled to herself. Finally, a chance to talk to someone she didn't have to lie to, and over a decent meal at that. And if she played her cards right, maybe this time she could get Coulson to finally give her some real information about Fitz.

Since she left the team, the only thing she really wanted news about was Fitz. He was in the back of her mind all day at work, and in her total social vacuum without him, all her leisure time was spent researching the effects of hypoxia and planning a recovery program that she hoped one day soon to be able to administer to him herself.

It was in the moments of darkness just before she fell asleep each night that she found herself confronted by the extreme frustration of knowing herself to be in love with someone who knew himself to be in love with her and having all of the circumstances of their existence making it futile, or perhaps even a liability, for her to even let him know.

…

In Jemma's kitchen stood a man who was not S.H.I.E.L.D Director Phil Coulson. He blinked hard at the large photograph affixed to her fridge door with a sparkly red love-heart magnet. If the inhabitant of this apartment lived a normal life, a visitor like himself would have assumed the man with her in the photo was her boyfriend. But the man in the photo was him.

In the moments since he'd seen Jemma leave, Fitz had let himself in, jemmying the window with a shaky hand, and taken himself on a tour of the apartment he wasn't supposed to know existed. He'd found all of the medical journals spread across her bed, the hypoxia recovery case studies so highlighted and annotated that the original text was barely legible. He had lifted her swathes of hand-written notes to his chest and almost embraced them. All over the pages, dotted here and there throughout her notes, in her scientist's scrawl, Jemma had written his name. He felt teary and so deeply gratified, to be here in her space, where he had imagined himself to be simply absent, and find himself such a tangible presence. Just the knowledge that she hadn't abandoned him, that she made so much room for him in her thoughts and in her emotions, brought a peace to his mind that he hadn't felt since the day she'd left. He knew now that he could go, that he could be satisfied not to know any more. He knew now, with a beautiful certainty, that however long it was that they had to be apart, Jemma would come back to him. He turned back to the window through which he'd come. Then he heard the key turn in the lock. He froze.

"Hi, Sir!" he heard her call cheerfully. "You haven't brought me more kale, have you? I smiled politely last time but I don't think I can face it again!"

Fitz had gotten out of the habit of making witty comebacks. His moment by moment struggles to even name objects right in front of him had made good punch lines hard to come by. But Jemma was suddenly in earshot, standing just out of his line of sight and the fog in his brain had all but gone.

"I find anything can be improved by just a hint of pesto aioli," he replied, and before he'd even finished his sentence she was there in his arms, squeezing him so tightly around his neck, he could barely breathe. "Hang on, hang on," he laughed. "This brain needs more oxygen than most, remember?"

"Oh, Fitz," she sighed, stepping back to look into his eyes. Even though she was dripping wet, and she wore the warm smile he had so keenly felt the loss of, he could determine the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"God, I've missed you, Jemma," he whispered.

And then somehow, before he exactly knew how it happened, she was in his arms again and she was kissing him and he was not complaining, not one little bit. He had never anticipated his little break-and-enter to head in this direction.

"How long do we have?" she asked, somewhat breathlessly, her forehead pressed against his.

"I have no idea," he shrugged, struggling to catch his breath too. "I just walked out and came to find you." He grinned. "Seems it was worth my while."

"Then let's not waste any time," she whispered, taking his hand and heading through the apartment towards her bedroom.

Fitz's eyes widened but he dutifully allowed her to lead him wherever her heart desired. It was straight to the bed. She indicated for him to sit by smiling coyly and applying gentle pressure to his shoulders. Fitz's eyes grew wider still as Simmons knelt on the floor in front of him and began slowly undoing the buttons of his shirt.

He had a million things to say but words failed to form themselves into anything coherent. At least this time he knew that hypoxia had nothing to do with it. He closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. His shirt felt like it was all the way undone. What next? Surely he was dreaming. He opened his eyes to check.

There was Simmons, adjusting the headset of her stethoscope and giving the chest piece a brisk polish before she applied it to his skin. Fitz let out the breath he'd been holding.

"How have you been?" she asked, sympathetically.

He almost laughed out loud. "Jemma, my brain is a bit unreliable these days. Were you or were you not just kissing me a second ago?"

She smiled at him sweetly. "I was kissing you a second ago. It was very nice. I should have taken that up a long time ago."

"I heartily agree!" Fitz nodded. "But then you asked me how long we had," he counted on his fingers. "Led me to your bedroom, sat me on your bed and unbuttoned my shirt!"

Jemma blushed furiously as she slid the cold chest piece over Fitz' sternum. "Ahh, I can see how you might have got the wrong end of the stick there."

He gestured towards her headset. "To be honest, this feels much more you."

Jemma smiled, still focused on the stethoscope. "Don't be too quick to rule anything out."

Fitz's face conveyed his return to the state of surprise. "No, let's not do anything hasty."

She looked up to find his eyes with hers. "I hadn't worked it out yet… when we were at the bottom of the ocean…" Her voice trailed off.

"Worked what out?"

"That I'm in love with you too, Fitz." Without warning, she pressed her lips once more to his, dropping the stethoscope and placing her warm hands against his bare flesh.

A second became a minute, a minute an hour, then two, then three, then more. Before either one of them gave even a thought to the time passing, they found themselves lying still in one another's arms bathed in the moonlight that streamed through the window and across Jemma's bed, illuminting the clothes, journals, notes and the stethoscope strewn across the floorboards.

In the moments of darkness just before she fell asleep, Jemma found herself confronted by the extreme delight of knowing herself to be in love with someone who knew himself to be in love with her. She lay in his arms, her ear pressed to his chest, the sound of his heartbeat reassuringly robust.

Fitz was ever so quietly finding himself to be the happiest man alive. Jemma was where she had always been whenever things had been right with him, and she was now, in a different and even better way, exactly where he wanted her to remain forever.

By my side.