AN: So I had to write something after 3x08. Consider it a fix-it that doesn't totally throw out canon.
Don't Say You're Giving Up (Baby, We're Almost There)
Fitz is burning slowly. He's a conflagration of missed chances, a star on the edge of going supernova and ripping a hole in the universe.
"You dove through a hole in the universe for me!"
The bloody universe can kiss his arse. He and Jemma are cursed, and fate is cruel, and Fitz … well, he just can't carry the overwhelming weight of his injured heart any longer. He can't keep dragging it through the flames that lick at his insides almost constantly now.
Fitz disappears after he and Jemma brief the team about their recent "NASA is actually linked to Hydra" discovery. Often, being around his friends helps when his brain won't shut off, but not now. Now he can't bear to be in their presence when the strings that hold him together are unwinding so rapidly.
He can't bear to withstand the memory of Jemma's kiss, the pressure of her body against his, the smooth texture of her lips … he can't think about that now. He is a fire, and she is gasoline; it's better to run away than explode.
Fitz moves quickly through the halls. He pays little attention to what's in front of him. His hands are shoved in his pockets and his eyes are on his feet, which is probably why he doesn't see the other person until he's smacking into them. The concussion of their bodies and the thud of a body smacking the cement snap Fitz right out of his thoughts.
"I'm sorry," he says quickly, and then blinks owlishly. There's a woman on the floor, her hands splayed out behind her to arrest her fall and a cell phone near her feet.
The woman lets out a huff, in surprise or pain Fitz isn't sure, and the sound catalyzes him into action. He whips his hands out of his pockets and helps her to her feet, retrieving her phone while she rubs the dirt off her butt. The screen on the phone is cracked.
" … It's pretty damaged, but I kept it with me as a memento," Jemma's voice echoes in his head. Fitz shoves the memory away.
"I'm so sorry," Fitz says again. He waves her phone through the air in front of him to draw her attention, "I think I cracked the screen. I wasn't paying attention, and … I can order you a new one."
"Oh, I don't want a new one."
She's young – his age, give or take a few years – and pretty in the ways he doesn't always notice. Her hair is in a ponytail, but it's long and faintly red; the fall has knocked a few wisps loose around her temples. Fitz has never noticed her before.
"You don't?" he replies, perhaps stupidly.
"No. There's nothing wrong with this one. I'll just replace the screen and it'll be good to go. But thanks, Mr. … Dr. Fitz."
"Mr. Dr. Fitz?" he repeats, and, wow, he's really not firing on all cylinders right now.
The woman laughs, and the sound is so relaxed and easy that it nearly drives a stake through Fitz's heart. When was the last time there was laughter in his life? When was the last time he heard Jemma laugh?
No, he's not thinking about Jemma right now, because if he thinks about her then he has to think about them, and … no.
"I know how finicky you PhD types can get when someone doesn't address you the right way."
"Uh, well, that's … most people just call me Fitz."
"Alright then. Thank you, Fitz, but I don't need a new phone."
She starts to step around, headed on her way no doubt, and Fitz stops her. "I'm sorry, I don't … I don't know who you are."
"Oh. I'm Rose, one of your lab assistants." She extends a hand for him to shake and doesn't look at all perturbed by the idea that someone she works with – one of her bosses – doesn't even know her name.
Fitz shakes her hand, chastened. He is, admittedly, not great with the lab assistants; still, he's just knocked this woman down and shattered her phone screen, and though he apparently works with her he doesn't even know who she is.
To make himself feel better – and make up for the incident – Fitz says, "tell you what, order a new screen and bring it to me when it comes in. I'll replace it for you."
"Really, Dr. … Fitz, that's not necessary."
"Please. It's the least I can do for being careless."
Rose weighs his offer a few seconds and then nods. "Ok, deal. See you in a few days."
Just like that Rose is on her way again, down the hall and around the corner out of sight. Fitz stares at the spot she's disappeared from and wonders: why couldn't it be Rose? Why couldn't he be in love with Rose, or someone like her, someone that the universe or whatever powers that be aren't determined to keep him from?
Fitz shakes his head and turns back to head in the direction he was originally going. His room is somewhere at the end of that path, but he's not ready to go back there and be closed in yet. He detours to the kitchen and common area; maybe he'll make some tea. As fate would have it, May is there and standing alone at the counter. There's a plain white mug in front of her, but she's staring off into the distance instead of drinking whatever is within. Fitz doesn't address her. He briefly considers turning around and leaving, but reminds himself that this is May: the woman barely talks outside of mission briefings, and with everything she's been through lately it's probably a safe bet that she won't be particularly loquacious now.
He's retrieved a mug when he realizes that the only tea in the room is in a tea bag, and that won't do – which is actually okay, because it turns out he doesn't really want tea anyway. He wants … everything he's apparently missed every chance of having. He wants to throw his mug at the wall and watch it shatter into satisfying pieces.
Fitz doesn't know that he's been standing, silent and immobile in the open area behind May's turned back, until she speaks.
"The bottle under the sink."
Her words catch Fitz off guard. He turns his head to look at her: her posture has changed and she's not holding herself as stiffly, but she hasn't turned to look at him.
"What?"
"Under the sink," she repeats.
Fitz goes to the sink automatically. When he opens the cupboard the sight of a single glass bottle greets him, three quarters of the way full of honey brown liquid. The label declares it to be whiskey. Fitz stares at the bottle for a beat and then rises to deliver it to the spot on the table next to May's white mug (which, he now sees, is empty).
May doesn't say anything as she twists off the top. She pours two fingers of whiskey into her mug, then takes the mug from Fitz's hand and sets it down in front of him to pour two fingers into his as well. Fitz watches the waterfall of liquid without comment. When she's done, May sets the bottle aside and finally looks at Fitz with a raised eyebrow.
Fitz wraps a few fingers around his mug and tips his head slightly in a silent salute. They toss back their whiskey in tandem, and the burn in Fitz's throat feels good because it's different from the one in his chest. He contemplates that for a bit and only belatedly realizes that though she hasn't said anything, May is waiting for him to speak. The senior agent is watching him in that terrifyingly shrewd way she's perfected. Fitz stares at her; parts his lips like he's going to speak, licks them, and closes his mouth again.
May must find some kind of answer in his silence, though, because she pours them both another two fingers of whiskey. Fitz has knocked the shot back before it occurs to him to find this situation odd: not only is he taking shots with May, but they're doing so in silence. Usually May's preternatural stoicism unnerves him, but it's just what he needs now. Her steadiness is reassuring.
Fitz doesn't look closely at her; he doesn't ruminate on the shadows under her eyes, or the tension in her shoulders, or the fact that they're drinking together in the middle of the day. He checks his watch; okay, so it's not the middle of the day anymore, but it's early evening and that's close enough.
Then Jemma's voice breaks through his memories like it so often does, and Fitz hears again, "Sorry, I just feel so bad for May. I don't know how you get over that."
Fitz knows how you get over that: with silent anguish, and sleepless nights, and a bottle of whiskey, and by not really getting over it at all. There's no getting over it, just learning how to live with a new anchor around a heart that beats asymmetrically.
There are too many ways to lose the people they love, and not enough ways to keep them.
Fitz wants to acknowledge this truth, to acknowledge just for a moment the loss that May has suffered. He thinks he understands the awful fire that simmers below the burn of the alcohol in his stomach now, and he wants to acknowledge it as well; he just wants one moment to face it all. One moment, and then he'll take a page out of May's book and push through it.
Only, Fitz doesn't know what to say. He can't find words heavy enough to convey the weight of all that's happened.
In the end, all Fitz has to offer are three paltry words. He raises his eyes to May's face; she's watching him, and their gazes lock. Evenly, with quiet conviction Fitz says, "I give up."
They aren't the words he wanted; they aren't reassuring, or sympathetic, or anything else they should be. They're true, though, and that'll have to suffice.
May's surprise is evident only in the sudden hike of her eyebrows.
Fitz moves to put his empty mug in the sink, and then he leaves without another word. He has nothing left to say.
The only thing Jemma knows better than science is Fitz, which is why she knows immediately that something is wrong. After that moment in the lab, after his outburst and their first (and second) kiss, he withdraws again. It's a little like it was when she came back from her time in Hydra, only in place of the anger that had followed Fitz last time, now there's a grim sense of defeat about him.
Fitz doesn't avoid her, but he doesn't seek her out anymore; not without reason. He dodges or outright refuses her attempts to draw him out: no, he doesn't want to take a break; no, he's not hungry (even though Jemma honestly can't remember the last time she saw him anywhere near a plate of food); no, he doesn't need help. Jemma's heart hasn't been whole for years now, ever since the person they considered a friend dropped them into the ocean and nearly killed Fitz, but what's left of it fragments a little more with each successive brush off.
Four days; for four days Jemma tries to rebuild and sustain the bridge that connects them, and for four days Fitz resists. Jemma replays their disagreement in her mind: hears again the way his accent thickens as he gets more worked up, more agitated. You think I'm not angry? Fitz yells again and again in her memory, we're cursed!
Four days after that moment in the lab, Jemma strides in to that same place with a heart full of determination. We don't have the courage to talk about it, Fitz had posited, and while he's not wrong she has been doing her best to change it. They're going to talk about it, damn it; they're going to claw and crawl their way out of this hole, this mess – they're going to do it, somehow.
Only she's stopped short when she rounds the corner and is greeted by the sight of Fitz seated at his desk, an attractive woman with strawberry blonde hair by his side. He has his back turned to Jemma so she can't see what he's doing, but he's clearly working on something. The blonde is smiling and talking as she watches him.
"It's not a big deal," she's saying, and Jemma recognizes her as one of the lab assistants that Jemma privately thinks of as new. She hadn't been part of the lab scene before Jemma was sucked into the monolith.
"Neither is this," Fitz answers. "Almost done."
Jemma's heart fragments again, unexpectedly. She stands a few steps inside the doorway, a silent observer, and feels her breath hitch in her throat. Fitz shifts in his chair and the object in his hand is revealed: it's a cell phone. Jemma's mind immediately goes back to her own phone, the one that Fitz had modified; the one that she had clung to for six months because it was her last link to her home, to her life, to Fitz. Is he modifying the lab assistant's phone the same way? Will she appreciate it, will she even recognize what she's been given? Will it sustain her at the end of the world?
You gave each other hope at the edge of nowhere. Fitz's words reverberate in Jemma's mind, and she hates them now in a way she didn't before because she was too busy then to realize what he was implying. She was too caught up in the moment, the confusion and pain and passion, to correct him.
Yes, Will had given her hope there at the end of the line, but Fitz had gotten her that far. Fitz doesn't just give her hope at the end of the world, the edge of nowhere: he gives her hope at the bottom of the ocean, and thirty thousand feet in the air, and everywhere in between.
No, he doesn't give Jemma hope, he is her hope – and he has no idea.
Now he's working on – repairing? – a phone for one of the lab assistants that he's so awful about dealing with. He'd nearly bitten an assistant's head off just the other day, and insulted him, all over a simple accident; now here he is, and Jemma … she aches.
I'm sick to my stomach, Fitz had yelled, and she rarely sees him eat anymore so it must be true. Jemma is sick to her stomach too, but it's rooted somewhere else, somewhere higher: it's a searing pain in her chest that grinds its way into her heart with every inhalation.
Tears spring to Jemma's eyes. They love each other, and it's so cruel because they're just hurting each other; they're making themselves sick. She knows now beyond a doubt that she and Fitz are in love – universe hopping, gravity defying, and end of the line in love – and yet …
Jemma is a mess. She's confused, and regretful, and so many things – she cares about Will and Fitz deserves to know because he deserves the truth, but seeing him talking to someone else is like a bullet to the chest. Fitz doesn't look defeated in this moment. Jemma has to face the truth: she is succeeding where others have failed, because she is single handedly driving them apart. That stupid rock, and that stupid planet, and her stupid heart …
Maybe Fitz is right and they're cursed.
"Good as new," Fitz says, turning and looking up as he hands the woman back her phone. Jemma can't even remember her name.
The woman takes it and then notices Jemma, who is still motionless. Her pretty brow furrows. "Dr. Simmons?"
Fitz turns quickly in her direction and for just a moment their gazes lock; it's only under the weight of his gaze that Jemma comprehends the heat of tears on her cheeks.
She spins on her heel and disappears down the hall. Her chest is tight and it's like that first week on the planet, when her lungs had to fight twice as hard to pull in oxygen; maybe she'll learn to live with this gravity too. Only it's not just gravity pulling her down now, it's the constant and pervasive knowledge of what she's forcing Fitz to endure; it's the weight of arms that have held her a thousand times wrapped tightly around her waist; broad hands pressing insistently against her hips; it's the ways she's tearing them both apart with a love that might be too late.
Jemma navigates the Playground without being aware of her destination. Every step falls heavier as anger blossoms in her breast and heats her veins. What bloody good is love if all it breeds is misery?
She's in the loading bay of the Bus without any memory of ending up there. The cargo ramp thuds in a dull, familiar way as she paces; the lab, their lab, is no longer recognizable as such, but the spiral staircase is still in the corner. Jemma's insides heave and shake as though she's coming apart. Her anger grows as she takes in her surroundings and faces, once again, just how much they've lost.
They keep losing. Why do they keep losing?
"I wanna go back," Jemma whispers into the emptiness.
"Jemma?"
She huffs and chokes on the thickness in her throat. Now he seeks her out, at the worst moment, when she has nothing but anger and guilt and grief to offer. Jemma rounds on Fitz; his blue eyes are wide, his sweet face concerned.
Jemma is so angry. "I wanna go back," she says again. "I want it back." She motions wildly at the plane around them. "I want it all back. This plane, our lab, everything. I wanna go back."
"Jemma …"
"Please, Fitz. Please, just … let us go back." The tears won't stop coming and Jemma feels more frantic with every passing second, and everything inside her is rioting. "You were right, we never should have left the lab. I regret it, Fitz."
The words slam into her and twist, an invisible key in a lock, and she means them so fully – so entirely that it leaves her breathless.
"I would give anything to take it back," Jemma sobs, and they're the words she'd started to say four days ago. "I wish I could change it. I regret it, Fitz, so much …"
It's like the restaurant all over again. Jemma loses the tenuous grasp she's maintained over her emotions and hunches her shoulders in an attempt to curl in on herself, to push it all back inside her and contain it again. Fitz is there then, because he's always there except those hellish six months when he wasn't and everything fell apart … but he's here now and he pulls her into his chest with steady hands. Jemma is hurting him again, pigeon holing him into a role that has always been his and can do nothing now but hurt him; she knows that and can't stop herself.
Jemma wants this. She wants to stop hurting them both; she wants to rewind the clock and wake in her bunk on the bus, full of wonder; she wants the comfort and reassurance and love that she's always associated with Fitz.
She wants Fitz. Forever and ever, in this life and this universe and every permutation thereafter; she wants a cottage in Perthshire and a future where their love doesn't make Fitz curse the cosmos.
It's a moment of clarity amidst her latest breakdown. Jemma can't go back or change any of it: not leaving the lab, not getting too close to the monolith, not losing hope on a sunless planet. No matter how much she wishes it, she can't find a way out of this situation without hurting someone she cares about.
She can save Will, though, because no one deserves to be alone for fourteen years; she can give Fitz space, or time, or truth, or anything else he needs; and she can prove to Fitz that they aren't cursed.
Jemma forces herself to let go of Fitz and take a step back once she has a hold of herself again. He's been quiet and there are dark circles under his eyes, and when he looks at her his expression is gentle. These things give Jemma the strength to follow through with the plan forming in her mind.
"I'm all right now," she tells him. "Go on. I'll stop following you around."
Fitz's face contorts at her words. "Jemma …"
"It's fine, Fitz. Really. I understand."
He sighs and hesitates, but finally starts to turn away. Jemma doesn't want him to go – part of her wants Fitz to insist that he doesn't want space, that he doesn't want any more time without her, but she knows that's not logical. She knows that's not good for either of them. Still, it hurts to watch him leave.
"Fitz?" she calls before he reaches the end of the cargo ramp.
Fitz doesn't answer, but he partially turns to make eye contact and let her know that he's listening.
"We're not cursed," Jemma says with certainty.
Fitz says nothing. He studies her face for a second and then leaves, and Jemma knows that he doesn't believe her. That's okay, though, because she's going to prove it to him.
Fitz knows that it's counterproductive, but he can't help it. Despite his self-imposed distance from Jemma, she's never far from his thoughts: her voice echoes in his mind, her lips a phantom taste that encroaches on him at odd intervals. In a heavy moment alone in his room, full of grievous anger at the situation and with her words taunting him – what do you think we should do about it, and I'll always be with you, Fitz, and a place where you and I could've – Fitz pulls up a search on his phone's web browser. He tries to talk himself out of it, but knows that his heart isn't in it. It'll make him feel worse, but he needs just a moment of hope: he needs a visual reminder of all that they could have had, all that Jemma had wanted with him (even if she doesn't want it anymore).
The results are instantaneous. Fitz clicks on the first option and there's a flare of anguish in his chest. There are more cottages for sale in Perthshire than he'd anticipated, and as he scrolls through the pictures tears prick at his eyes. He keeps scrolling.
One finally catches his eye, an older building with a stone façade and vines growing lazily up one side; the windows are pristine white and the interior has been entirely redone. The cottage faces the street but is set back a safe distance, a long stretch of green grass and a cobble walkway leading up to the front door.
Fitz hates it. He hates the cottage, and the warm embers of hope that flare up against his wishes, and the cosmos, and their timing …
Jemma has respected his silent request for space for a week, and it's been awful. No matter how painful it is to know that he's not alone in her affections, it's even worse to willfully shut her out – especially when the memories of the six months he'd thought he'd never see her again are still so fresh. Especially when Fitz knows that she kissed him back, that she dreams – dreamed? – of settling down with him.
His life is a mess.
He saves the picture to his phone and resolves never to look at it again; it'll have to be enough to know that it's there.
It's not.
Jemma finds him alone in the lab later that day. Fitz is sitting at his desk, his gaze alternating between watching his computer run a logarithm on some of their latest finds and staring at his locked phone screen while telling himself not to look at the cottage again.
"Fitz?" Jemma calls softly.
Fitz spins in his chair. Jemma is standing just behind him, her tablet tucked at her side.
"I … I'd like to show you something."
Fitz doesn't know what to do about the charged air between them, the knowledge that they're stuck but so close to something.
"Right," he says as he pushes himself out of the chair. "What is it?"
Jemma hands him her tablet. Her expression is a strange conglomeration of emotions: uncertainty, determination, hope. Fitz looks down at the image on the screen warily, and for a moment he can't make sense of what he's seeing: a stone cottage with white windows and vines crawling lazily up one side.
"You asked me if I loved Will …"
"Jemma -."
"You asked me if I loved him, but you've never once asked me if I love you."
Fitz's heart swoops and expands until it presses against his ribcage. His eyes shoot up from the picture, the impossible picture that is a larger version of the exact one on his phone, and she's watching him openly. Fitz is on the verge of panic.
He knows that Jemma loves him because she's always loved him, just as he's always loved her, but that's not what she's saying and he can't … this love isn't that love, and if he asks he might not like the answer, and there'll be no going back.
Jemma understands him better than anyone, though, and they both know it. She smiles at him, tentative and sweet, and says, "I do, Fitz. I love you. And I don't want to hurt you, you know I don't, but I'm not going to stop trying to figure this out, okay? I'm not going to give up because things are messy. I just … I'm not giving up."
Fitz doesn't always have control over his impulses, and this one gets away from him but it's different than last time. This time when he closes the gap to kiss her it's less desperate; sweeter. He sets down her tablet and puts his hands on Jemma's hips to pull her closer; he kisses her with tender but passionate intent, sliding his arms around her back to hold her tightly as he does so. His heart aches, but it's so much more than pain.
He can't be full of hope, but he doesn't have to be full of despair either. Jemma is here, and they'll do what they always do: they'll fix it, together.
Fitz is the first to pull away, but he doesn't release Jemma. He focuses on breathing, on the angles of her body pressed against his – on the knowledge that she loves him.
Jemma leans forward and Fitz tips his head down until their foreheads rest against each other. It's similar to their first kisses, but also wildly different: Fitz doesn't feel like he's saying goodbye anymore. He doesn't feel like he's losing something.
"We're not cursed," Jemma whispers. She raises her head to focus her gaze on his face, and her hands come up to press lightly over his heart. "And I'll believe enough for both of us if that's what it takes."
Fitz kisses her again. He shouldn't, because he shouldn't keep giving in to these impulses when everything is so uncertain, but her lips are insistent and eager against his.
Then again, maybe things aren't as uncertain as they seem.
When Jemma pulls away this time Fitz sighs. He can't quite find a smile, but he hopes she hears the warmth in his voice when he says, "I love you too, Jemma."
She must, because she smiles in a way that Fitz hasn't seen in longer than he wants to contemplate.
Someone clears their throat in the doorway. Jemma and Fitz don't exactly jump away from each other, but they do break apart. May is standing in the doorway and there's nothing in her face to suggest that it's not completely normal to find them wrapped up in each other in the middle of the lab.
"Not giving up then?" May asks.
Jemma is confused, but Fitz just shakes his head. "Bad day."
May arches a brow. "Good. Meeting in ten, Coulson's office."
May leaves. Fitz hands Jemma her tablet and retrieves his phone so they can make their way upstairs. They're quiet as they travel, but it's not an uncomfortable kind of silence. There are probably more of those moments in their future – more messes and missteps and uneven ground – but they'll figure it out because they've always been better together.
Then, Fitz breaks the silence by saying, "Before I forget." He unlocks his phone screen and the last thing he was looking at auto populates. He hands it to Jemma.
Her smile upon seeing the cottage warms Fitz in a way no fire ever could.
The cosmos be damned.