better to burn out than fade away/ out of the blue and into the black (into the black, the chromatics)
Compression, blood, and complete and utter watery darkness…one, two, and three, Ignore the sharp shooting pain radiating down his left arm; he already knows that it's broken…It's not important, just shallow air in and out of his lungs… Take a deep breath …assess the situation…figure out possibility of survival…Low… it's low…Oh, God, breathe, Leopold, calm down… Blink the fear away and, hopefully, the light will shine through that underwater abyss threatening to devour him into its blackness…Just breathe and find Jemma…Find Ward…Make sure that they're both okay and get back to the surface…if they can.
"Jemma…Ward!" Fitz yelled, not being able to keep back the pure, white hot panic from wrapping its slithery entrails around his heart, gripping and squeezing tenfold. He's already lost so much today… Coulson…May…his team to Hydra…to the fucking inhumans…and he couldn't handle losing the both of them too. He couldn't lose Jemma…He just wouldn't survive it.
But soon that rope-tight panic turned to overwhelming joy when Jemma's unmistakable voice rang out in the darkness, "I'm here…" she said. "Don't move so much; your arm's broken. I set it while you were out."
"Are y-you okay…? Is the—?" He asked instead. He wasn't worried about his arm…it was his head that was bothering him…The throbbing headache from the fall into the bottom of the ocean was pulsing through his forehead…leaving him dazed and unable to focus like he wanted to.
"We're okay…T-t-he baby's fine, I think…"Jemma answered him, and Fitz breathed a deep sigh of relief. Nothing else mattered now…the losses…the fails…the falls…he could figure a way out of all of that. There was no doubt that they would survive now…He'd make sure of that …because there was no way he was losing Jemma and the baby to this hell. He wouldn't lose the miracle that had keep the team fighting against the beast longer than they probably would have without something to live for.
And Ward—Fitz's thoughts skidded to a halt at Ward's name. Where was he?! He hadn't heard him…and that didn't make sense. If Jemma was down here with him, then Ward had to be too…Ward's protective nature wouldn't allow him to be too far away from Jemma and their baby.
"W-ward?" He asked, panic stowing away into his heart again…No… don't let it be true…Please let him be alive. "Jemma, where's Ward?" The silence that met him was even more deafening than before…In it he remembered the truth.
"Fitz…" Jemma choked out, her voice small and young…scared and heartbroken. "He's the reason we're down here… Don't you remember?"
"Leave her, Fitz…She's dying anyway… We have to leave before Ward finds us…" Jemma said, breaking through the haze of Fitz's memories of a life long ago like a sharp ice pick to a block of solidly frozen ice…shattering them to pieces chuck by chuck. Her monotone words, tainted with fear ghosting over his frayed mind… floating to him from a million miles away…swirling around the membrane like a poison, destroying everything that he was…burning to ash all of the precious memories that he hid, harboring deep down within his soul of souls…
He blinked, closing his eyes against the sudden, overpowering rush of vertigo …a double sense of déjà vu...An overload of nebulous memories washed over him again and again. Was it seven years ago?—"Hi, I'm Grant Ward. I guess we're going to be roommates." "I'm Leopold Fitz…So do you want the top or bottom bunk?"—or the present? Had he pulled a peter pan act and stayed twenty-two…forever sealing his fate to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean—"Fitz, no! Don't think it…" "Jemma…There's only enough supplies in this metal box for one…and you have the baby to think about…and I won't lose either of you…"—or was he a twenty-nine year old man going on thirty, staring into the nearly lifeless eyes of—himself looking in— a young inhuman girl who'd seem to have risked everything in her life to save them and his daughter...
He could feel Jemma's cool, apathetic gaze staring down at the dying girl, its cold glare baring on his soul… like a chill trickling down the back of his spine, pulling him violently back into a reality he didn't quite want to face yet. Fitz tried desperately to shake off his wife's baleful words…wanting the vile letters to fall and shatter on the ground before him and intermix with the dried blood staining the blacktop. He wanted them to be meaningless…unimportant…he didn't—couldn't—make them matter because acknowledging that the words had come out of his compassionate, wonderful wife's mouth…the woman who, along with her daughter, made up his entire world…would send him into a tumbling whirlwind…the subtle, yet monumental change in her confused him, often made him feel stupid.
He sometimes forgot that hidden change…that barely noticeable shift…because, despite everything that had happened to them in the crazy rollercoaster that they've called their life, they led a pretty happy existence. Simple, compared to the unpredictable hurricane that was life on the bus with May and Coulson. They had a smart and beautiful young daughter, whose love for biology had bled over from her mother—and her habit of getting into mischief from her father. They owned a quaint little house in a suburban cul-de-sac…and they lived…smiled… loved. They were the typical American family that Fitz always grew up wishing he had as a child, all sunshine and rainbows over the horizon …nothing murky waiting in the water to spoil the American dream hiding underneath…except…
Wasn't there always an underlying storm cloud hanging over all the happiness in their lives… a sense of impending doom wanting to come up and meet them head on…a torrential downpour rolling, overcast, thundering with the threat of shattering their little American slice of paradise to tiny pieces in the form of a six foot six inch pure inhuman male hiding in the background? Grant Ward…Wasn't he the monster they all needed to be saved from…the interloper who would never, ever leave, forever lurking in the background?
Grant Ward…
"I'll always protect you and Simmons…" Grant spoke out in the imperfect darkness of their bunk, his voice grave, yet soft around the edges as he whispered, "No matter what happens to us, no matter where I go…" Ward's arm tightened as he continued, the darkness hiding Fitz's tears. Jemma's sleeping form moved closer as Ward went on. "You and Jemma are my home. You- I love you, Fitz. Okay?"
"I love you too, Ward."
Fitz shook his head.
That didn't matter…not now… not when they both needed saving…him from his memories…and the nameless inhuman girl from a giant gash slashed across her stomach…but it wasn't himself that he intended on helping. Fitz was beyond help when it came to his nebulous memories…but he'd be damned if he repaid this gorgeous, young woman by leaving her—broken, bloody, and bruised— lying alone on the blacktop in front of his house…bleeding to death. He wouldn't … Not without doing whatever he could in his power to save her.
He's seen enough spilt blood in his lifetime…
"Fitz…We have to go…" Jemma's voice came to him from far away, her hand on his shoulder breaking through the haze of his brain, startling him back into reality once again. Right, he thought, shaking his head as he let go of the dying woman's hand. He knew what he needed to do.
He shook his wife's hand off from his shoulder, blood staining the front of his shirt as he turned toward his daughter. "Rose, baby…go into the house and get our go-away bags. You know where they are…"
Rose didn't acknowledge what was said, still staring into the eyes of the dying woman lying on the ground, holding her limp hand as tears rolled down her youthful cheeks. Fitz's heart broke for his daughter…She was still so young for this…to know how cruel the world was to inhumans. He leaned over, cradling her head in both of his hands, his thumb wiping away the tears streaming down. "It will be okay, Rose…She'll be okay…" He whispered. "I promise…now, do as I say."
"Alright, Daddy." Rose nodded, doing as her father told her to.
"Fitz…" Jemma said in the background, her voice seeming a million miles away…unimportant as he continued to process the scene before him. Leo reached out to touch the dying girl's hair, swiping it away from her beautifully pale face…cradling her blood soaked body in his hands. God, even drained and dying before him, the woman was gorgeous.
He sighed, raising his left hand to touch her cheek and instead seeing blood…her blood…for the first time. Really processed it, as he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. God, it was everywhere…touching every surface. So much of it… So much—
"Leopold Fitz!" Jemma shouted, roughly grabbing his chin, forcing him to pay attention to her…bringing him back. "Talk to me!" She pleaded, kneeling down beside him on the hard, blood soaked pavement…both of her soft hands framing his tear-streaked cheeks, her touch comforting and familiar. He leaned into it, seeking the warmth of her. His wife…his love…his entire world; just her and a beautiful young girl who wasn't his, were his alone, to have and to hold.
"Jemma, I love you..." He held her close, his forehead against hers. He took his bloody hands and caressed her cheeks, leaving behind streaks of blood on her face. "My, God, I love you so much sometimes that it hurts to breathe with the amount of love I hold in my heart for you..." He said, breathing in her scent…reluctant to move away from Jemma's warmth and let the noise rush back into his every sense. He kissed her, so intense and beautiful…her lips pink and ready for him…a welcoming escape to the madness swirling around in his head. He knew what needed to be done…what he had to do. It was time…
Fitz broke away, looking Jemma in the eye, steel in his bones and heart. There was no room for mistakes now…He couldn't be misunderstood…What needed to be said had to be firm, with such finality that it left no room for argument. Because he refused…...refusedto sit back and let this girl bleed out in their front lawn, not in front of Rosie…not ever…
"I'll get the car and you go get your medical kit…" He said with purpose, daring her to challenge him. Hoping that he could convey what he felt deep down in his soul to her. Wishing that the link woven between them wouldn't fray around the edges due to his unrelenting conviction…he just couldn't—he wasn't letting this girl die…
"Fitz…" Jemma whispered, her tone shaken and cold. Her fear was palpable in the air around them…threatening to choke the life out of him. He kissed her cheek, letting his lips linger…tasting the intermixture of blood, sweat, and tears on her face. God, he loved her…
"I hope you know what you're doing."
He didn't…
TBC...