AUTHOR'S NOTE: Is this not the perfect song for Fitz's current predicament? A warning, this one is sadder, so I suggest staying away from this chapter if you're looking for something light and fluffy. Also, spoilers for episode one of season two.
"If I didn't hit it
Would you still say you needed me
Guess I walked right into it
Guess I made it too easy
If any word that you said
Could have made me forget
Would I get up off the floor
'Cause this is all in my head."
Bridges - Broods
CHAPTER TWO: Bridges
"Fitz." The voice is soft but surprisingly clear. He's been expecting someone to check up on him, but the person speaking is not someone that he's been anticipating to meet so soon, if ever again.
He's too scared to look up (what if his mind is playing tricks on him?), but he does anyway because since when has fear stopped him from doing anything? A lot of times, a tiny voice croons somewhere in the back of his mind.
But she's standing there in all her reserved beauty, with her hair tied up and she's dressed in an outfit that he's sure is significant, but he can't place where it's from because his stupid mind refuses to cooperate with anything he does or says. He stares for a long time, his gaze unwavering, burning through her like she's going to disappear. He's expecting her to disappear. But she doesn't, and it only confirms it when she gives him a ghost of a smile.
"You're.. you're not.." he manages to choke out, but she only blinks at him and reaches a hand out to him slowly.
"I'm here, Fitz. It's okay."
But there's something off-setting about the sadness in her gaze, and there's something about her outfit that he just. can't. get.
...
"I don't need a.. a.."
"A therapist."
"Yes!" He turns to thump his hands on the table in frustration, trying desperately not to focus on her disappointed face. "I can finish my own sentences, Jemma." He sticks to her first name, because as much as he hates to admit it sometimes he finds it difficult to pronounce her last name.
"I know, Fitz," she smiles gently at him. Strangely, he sees complete faith in her warm gaze, and for some reason it only makes his heart ache and his spine crawl with uneasiness. "You just need some more time. Try having your pills-"
He knocks the bottle from her before she can grasp it, a thick sort of terror bubbling up inside him and he hasn't got a clue why. "Don't call it that! Makes me sound like I'm... insane. Like I'm.." he searches for the word with another surface of frustration.
"Broken?" Simmons offers sadly. He wishes she wouldn't.
"Broken," he repeats, giving a tiny nod in agreement.
"It's okay," she soothes kindly. "Broken things can be fixed."
The words spring to life before he can help himself. "We'll fix it. Together."
Her silence only makes him wonder why the phrase is so horribly familiar.
...
"I want to see him." Even to his own ears, he sounds adamant. The others argue for a long time, but it's Coulson who concedes first, staring at him with sadness in his gaze.
"Let him go down," he says wearily, slumping back into his seat. In his hands is a phone, but he doesn't appear to be talking to anyone, even though it spits out static from time to time.
It's May who protests the most, glaring sharply at Coulson. "No, Phil. We can't afford to slow down his recovery anymore. It will break him."
Fitz wishes that they would talk to him, instead of around him. Skye sits solemnly in the corner, watching him with dark eyes. Simmons doesn't speak either, but she is a constant smiling presence.
They bicker some more, but it's Skye who finally stops them. "I'll go down with him."
There's silence in the room, and more of those sympathetic gazes that he can't stand. He wants them to stop. He's not broken. But they finally agree, and he walks off without another word, with Simmons at his side.
Faintly he hears noises from the other room, crackly, like it was coming through a phone.
"How is he?" And then he decides that it's most likely a hallucination, because the speaker of the voice is walking right beside him, her presence an ever-there comfort.
But he can't play off the next voice. Skye's voice, weary and.. scared. "We need you. He needs you. Come back."
Please come back.
...
Ward looks worse for wear. Bedraggled, with a beard to go along with it. His hands are raw and pale. Self inflicted pain. It makes Fitz sick.
"Fitz," the prisoner begins roughly. He's addressing the engineer, but his eyes dart towards Skye continuously. "I was waiting for them to bring you down to the slaughter house."
Fitz says nothing, so Ward continues, turning to Skye.
"And you, Skye. I didn't think you would bring him down here, of all people. I'm the big bad monster, aren't I? The one that hides under the bed, in the closet."
"Say one wrong thing and we're out of here," she snaps suddenly, glaring daggers at him. "I'm not here for you, Ward. I'm here for Fitz."
"Are you lonely?" It's the first question that springs to mind, but to his surprise Ward takes it all in his stride.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm lonely," Ward decides. He shoots Skye a meaningful look that he can't understand and Skye ignores. "Are you?"
It's then that Fitz frowns, shaking his head slowly. "No. It's always been me and Simmons. It's not any different now."
It's then that he notices the silence in the room, and Ward pulls his face up to the electric holding wall as close as he can. "Do you see her now, Fitz?"
He doesn't understand when Skye and Koenig pull him from the room, only Ward's words spinning in his mind.
Do you see her?
Simmons watches from the corner with a sad smile.
Do you see her now?
...
She looks pale. Her eyes are darker, the rings shadowing her expression. She still smiles and acts the same, but her movements are weaker, slower. It sends a punch to Fitz's gut, and he doesn't pull back when she reaches for him. For some reason, Simmons with her reddened eyes and pale complexion seems familiar.
"Fitz. What's wrong?"
"What's wrong with you?" He blurts out suddenly, wincing at the way that it had come out. "I mean.. are you okay?"
Simmons looks surprised, but her eyes hold something deeper when she smiles. "Of course, Fitz. I'm perfectly alright, there's no need to worry."
"Yeah," he mutters, his throat dry as he turns back to his work obediently. "But.. tell me if you don't feel good, yeah? It would kill me if you left me."
Her smile and nod doesn't soothe the pit of snakes writhing in his stomach.
...
"Don't touch them!"
But it's too late. She's already scooped up the container of pills, shaking them at him with a reprimanding smile. His hearts leaps up in his throat for no apparent reason.
She's holding the pills.. but they're still on the table, exactly where he'd left them. Terror boils over him and he blinks rapidly.
When he opens his eyes again, she's gone. The pills aren't.
...
She's deathly pale now, but he doesn't have enough time to worry about it, because they're out in the open on a field mission, and she's steadily advancing towards a cliff edge.
He jumps to his feet and starts running after her, but nothing he can do is fast enough as she advances slowly towards the cliff and spins. She smiles, and he can finally see the full extent of her sickness. Fitz suddenly understands what she's about to do (maybe he's known it for longer than he realises) and it tears his heart in half.
She teeters on the edge with a frighteningly familiar poise, her hair whipping in the wind, her sad smile the last thing he sees of her when she falls.
And then he's screaming, and she's gone, and then suddenly there's a hand on his shoulder, comforting and achingly familiar.
And then he turns, and it's as if he's fallen into a dream, because she's standing there. Jemma Simmons.
But it's the wrong Simmons. Her hair is short, her face is riddled in scratches and bruises and her gaze holds sadness, and most prominent of all, guilt.
Do you see her?
Ward's words echo in his mind, engrained from their brief conversation.
Do you see her now?