"What did I miss?"
"Just trust me."
Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham
o-o-o
Jemma entered the kitchen, hoping that the last two slices of bread hadn't been eaten since the morning. She was thinking of jam, spread on warm toast, and when she caught a whiff of it in the air and at first she thought that it was in her head but she quickly spotted Fitz, hunched over at the table as he worked in between munching on his supper.
He turned around when he heard her come in, his mouth lifting into an easy smile that made it feel like springtime.
"Hungry?" he guessed.
She nodded, smiling fondly back at him. "I haven't had supper yet."
His plate scraped across the table as he pushed it towards her, nodding his head towards it. "You can have one if you want, it's strawberry jam, the way you like it. It's not a full meal of course but it should hold you over until you've made something more.. uh..." He tossed a hand in the air, digging up the end of his sentence. "Something more substantial."
She shook her head. "I couldn't take your supper away," she objected, though she was warmed by the offer, opening the pantry instead to take out a can of soup.
His eyebrows rose. "You think this is my supper? I just wanted a snack while I… I uh…" He gestured down towards the array of brightly coloured paper in front of him.
Her head tilted to the side curiously and she drifted over to investigate. "You're making origami?" she asked, catching sight of a paper butterfly perched on the table beside his elbow. She lifted it gently, admiring the way the paper creased and slanted to form the beautiful winged creature. "Fitz this is wonderful," she chirped.
He blushed, rubbing the side of his neck. "It lets me work with my hands when I don't have anything else to… um… to…"
"To tinker with?" she finished, smiling when he nodded.
"Yeah." His gaze meandered between her and the butterfly for a moment. "If… if you really like it you can have it," he told her. "I have quite a few already- if you want." His blush deepened and he tugged at the corner of his current creation, flattening the paper between his fingers.
That caught her by surprise. A gift, easily offered as if they were back at Sci-ops, or on the Bus before Hydra and Ward and everything else that had torn them apart. The rosey pink flush was new but not at all unwelcome and it made her heart swell with affection.
His offering would certainly brighten up her room, act as a cheerful reminder of their rekindling friendship. And she did like butterflies.
"I'd like that," she answered happily. "Thank you."
He shrugged, accepting her thanks silently, though the corner of his mouth quirked up in a small grin and his eyes sparkled. In that moment, he had her, all of her, pulled towards him like a magnet to a metal post, a bumble bee winding towards a dandelion.
"What's this then?" she asked, taking the seat beside him and poking at the paper half folded in front of him. "Another butterfly?"
He shook his head, lifting it up between them. "Nah, this one's going to be a frog."
"A poison dart frog?" she mused, noting the bright blue colouring. They were some of the most toxic creatures on the planet, gorgeous, but deadly.
"Well, I wouldn't want anyone taking him for a midnight snack would I?" Fitz joked. "I think Hunter said he likes frog's legs."
She chuckled, shuffling closer to him with the pretense of getting a better look at the frog, when really she was crashing into him, pulled into his orbit like a doomed asteroid. She could only hope their collision wouldn't be quite so devastating for both of them. She'd burn up in the atmosphere before she let herself hurt him again.
"Can you teach me?" she asked, heart fluttering for a nervous moment before he nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah, yeah of course, I'll just find you a paper." He snatched up a few squares, holding them out in front of him. "Pick your poison," he kidded.
She didn't think she could begin to explain to anyone how happy it made her that he wanted her to stay, that he hadn't moved away even though their shoulders were now only inches apart. Her Fitz was coming back to her, slowly, but steadily and it was more than she would have dared to hope for a few weeks ago.
"I'll make a golden dart frog," she decided cheerfully, accepting a bright yellow one. "They may be the most poisonous animal on earth. No one's going to be using my frog for a snack."
He shook his head, grinning in amusement. "Of course you had to one up my blue frog," he teased.
She tsked at him. "Oh Fitz, there's no need for that, your frog is perfectly lethal."
"I don't see any frogs yet," he laughed.
"That's because you haven't shown me how to make one," she shot back playfully, nudging him with her elbow.
It still amazed her that she could do that, that she could touch him, joke with him the way they used to. It wasn't the same, not exactly, and it wasn't nearly as easy. She could feel the tension between, still taught even if it wasn't threatening to snap anymore, but sitting beside him, talking and laughing as he showed her how to transform her paper square into the world's deadliest frog, felt good. It felt right.
"This looks more like a tie than a frog," she commented halfway through, looking over to see that he was already a few steps ahead and his creation was showing a far stronger resemblance to the hopping tetrapod than hers. She held it up to her neck, narrowing her eyes. "What did I miss?"
"You missed the next step," he replied, skidding his chair closer to point towards the center line down the middle of her 'tie' where the two sides of the paper met, brushing their arms together as he did. "Just trust me, it's going to be a frog."
"Of course I trust you." She smiled. "What possible motive could you have for tricking me into making a tie instead?"
Something changed in his expression, only for a moment, brief enough for her to wonder if she'd even seen it, and then he was smiling again.
"Nothing, there's no reason for me to have you make a tie instead." His eyes drifted to the toast, as if he had forgotten it was there and he pushed the remaining slice towards her. "You should eat," he suggested. "Have some toast and I'll make your soup."
He stood up, weaving around her chair and making his way towards the stove, his hand draping over the back of it as he passed by.
"Fitz, you don't have to do that," she called, sliding around to face him.
He shrugged, already searching for a can opener. "I want to. You're my…" His eyes narrowed and he paused, but this time neither of them found the word he was looking for. He shrugged again. "I want to. If that's alright with you…" He glanced over at her, his hand hovering over the open drawer.
She nodded, wishing she could hug him, or hold his hand, or kiss his cheek but knowing instinctively that any of those things would be stretching their string too far, risking a break.
The unasked question hung between them, smoke in the air, and she wondered 'What exactly am I to him?' Surely they were friends, or else they wouldn't be doing this together would they? Was he asking if they were something else too? If they could be?
Did she know the answer to that question?
'Yes,' she realized with a start. 'Yes, I do. But I'm not ready. We're not ready.'
So instead she turned her attention back to the easier question. Did she want him to make her soup?
"Only if you'll share with me," she told him. "I couldn't eat a whole can by myself."
He grinned at her, pulling out the can opener, and she hoped it didn't show that she was staring.
"Deal."
o-o-o
The next day they were together again, going over the footage that had been collected of lady Sif's fight with their mysterious suspect.
"That guy took a dive," Fitz commented, pointing towards the edge of the screen where they were going through the fight, frame by frame. "I hope he's OK."
"He gets up after a few more frames," Jemma assured him. "He seems fine." She leaned her head back against the headrest, exhaling in frustration. "We've been at this for hours and we've found no new information. Meanwhile..." she flicked her hand towards the man on the screen. "Whoever that is is loose out there, free to harm more innocent people."
"Maybe we just need a break," he suggested, noting her worn out demeanor with concern. "Give our eyes a something else to look at, yeah?"
She sighed wearily, turning her head towards him, and he smiled encouragingly, scooching forward so that he could reach the table.
"We can race again," he suggested, holding up their frogs and dancing them in front of her. "Give our o-ribit-gami another test?"
She rolled her eyes. "I don't understand the names you come up with sometimes," she mused, shaking her head while she shuffled forward to take her frog, the bright blue poison dart frog.
They'd traded them, after they'd finished, like friendship bracelets, only instead of bracelets they were paper in the form of deadly animals.
Fitz didn't mind his new frog in the least. It's bright, cheerful colour reminded him of Jemma, a ray of sunshine that always managed to reach its way to his heart, however thick the fog grew between them, and he liked the familiarity of her neat folds, as unique to her as handwriting or fingerprints.
"Alright," she said, lining her frog up beside his on the table, hovering her fingers above it so she was ready to use the folding design to bounce it forward. "Get ready."
It was actually really clever, the way it was designed, the back half accordioned into a spring. Fitz liked the ones that moved, that had a greater purpose even if it seemed silly.
"One," he started.
She grinned. "Two."
"Three."
"Go!" They exclaimed together, bouncing their frogs at the same moment.
They shot forward, colliding with each other before landing with the blue frog's snout sticking out in front.
"I'm claiming interference," he complained goodnaturedly, scooping up his yellow frog and dropping it onto his lap. "Your frog pushed mine."
"Technically, yours pushed mine forward," she objected, leaning back to smirk at him and he made a face at her that started her giggling, music to his ears.
They beamed at each other before going back to analysing the footage and he thought with satisfaction that her shoulders seemed just a bit less weighed down.
Whatever was going on between them, she was his friend. He was going to look out for her the best he could and it made him glad that he'd been able to lift some of her burden, if only a little. Besides, bringing out her laughter was a welcome change to the unhappiness he'd been bringing her lately. He was hurt, but he'd never wanted to hurt her.
"Look," he exclaimed after a few more frames, shooting to his feet to point. "What's that there? Coming… coming out of him."
In his excitement, he forgot to mind the table and his knee crashed into with a thwack knocking over his glass of water.
"My frog!" Jemma cried, rushing forward to rescue it from the dangerous flow of liquid, too late lifting its dripping body off the table. "Oh no, it's soaked," she moaned. "Poor thing."
"Did I break it?" he wondered, rubbing his leg as he retrieved his own frog from the floor. He watched guiltily as she used a tissue to pull the water out from the paper, blotting it carefully against so as not to tear it. "Ah, Jemma I'm sorry. I should watch where I'm going."
"It should dry off, but the paper will be warped," she sighed. Then she smiled at him, shaking her head dismissively. "There's no need to apologize, it was an accident. I'm just glad you didn't dive over the table and hurt yourself." Her gaze flickered back to the screen, eyes lighting with pride. "And you might have just found our next lead."
"What do you think it is?" he wondered, gathering more tissues to soak up the mess, pausing for a second to squint at the image.
"It might be blood," she ventured, setting her frog gently down onto another table to dry.
"Maybe," he agreed.
Their eyes met, hers shining and he felt his heart twist around inside his chest. He still loved her, even after everything that had happened, and deep down he knew he always would. It might not be the right kind of love, the one she wanted him to feel, the one that would make their relationship easier, and maybe he wasn't the person she wanted him to be anymore. But he was beginning to think that they could get past that, that she could learn to accept him the way he was and he could forgive her for how badly she'd hurt him when she left.
Maybe they didn't have to lose each other to the things that had changed them. Maybe they still had a chance after all.
Maybe, they were going to be OK.
o-o-o
Jemma was in the lab, once again doing analysis on Raina's blood, trying to find the mechanism of the horrific transformation. What exactly had made Raina transform when the others… didn't…? Where was the gene that the mist interacted with?
"Jemma?" Fitz's voice sounded through the com in her ear and she smiled, fluff rising her chest like dandelion seeds caught on the wind.
"Are you there already?" she asked brightly. "Is it nice? I hear the weather is lovely today."
"Nah, we're still driving to the scene of the crime," he told her. There was a short pause. "It does look nice outside though. I wish you were here- because… because of the weather," he added quickly. "Not that I don't… I mean… not just the weather… because of me… too." He made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a grumble, irritated with himself, and she did her best not to let him hear her chuckling at him.
"I'm glad you're enjoying it," she said.
"How's your frog?" he asked. She wished he wouldn't sound so guilty. It really had been an accident.
"He'll live, but he won't be winning any more races," she told him. "He's going to enjoy a nice, long, competition free life, underneath my butterfly."
"I didn't know we could have pets," Hunter chimed in. "Mack, why'd you tell me we couldn't have pets?"
"We can't," Mack answered.
"It's a paper frog," Fitz explained.
"Fitz made it for me, it's wonderful," she couldn't help adding.
"You should see the one Jemma made," Fitz told them, refusing to outshine her. "It's her first one and it's perfect."
Her cheeks flushed and she was glad they couldn't see her. "Oh, ha…well it's not perfect-"
"It is," he insisted softly.
Her face heated and she was certain that her stomach had grown wings. It wasn't about the frog, but the compliment itself. She'd done something that made him happy, that he was proud of and it made her feel like she could fly.
"Not to interrupt… whatever is happening," Hunter finally said, snapping her out of her pleasant haze. "But we're almost there."
"Yes. Right." She shook herself, taking a deep breath. "Keep in touch?"
She could hear the smile in Fitz's voice when he spoke. "Of course."
o-o-o
That night, the string snapped again, jolting Jemma out of her delusion that they were on their way to mending things between them, that Fitz could possibly forgive her for what she'd done to him.
She was finally alone, in her room, with the door locked tight, sitting on her bed, legs hugged against her chest, pushing her face into her knees in a feeble attempt to keep her tears from spilling out as Fitz's word came back to her.
OK, so now we're even.
It was pointless, they were coming whether she wanted them too or not. Every time her heart broke it felt like she was getting closer to losing the pieces and she worried that one day they wouldn't fit back together again. She didn't think that she could prevent that either and she wasn't looking forward to finding out what she'd become when it finally happened.
… I was your friend, and then I changed? How did you handle that?
How had she deluded herself into believing he could forgive her? Of course he was still angry, of course he wasn't her friend. Who had she been kidding? She didn't deserve him and now she knew that he knew it too.
She'd messed up, broken his heart as hard as she'd tried to avoid it. She'd made the wrong decision and now she had to pay for it, there was no out for her, no forgiveness, no hope.
She'd lost him, forever, just as she'd realized that that was how long she wanted to keep him. It wasn't fair.
The tears came, along with a series of sobs that wracked through her, booming inside of her like thunder through a rainstorm, searing her like lightning.
It wasn't fair, any of it. It wasn't fair that they'd been dropped, helpless and trapped, to sink to the bottom of the ocean. It wasn't fair that there'd been only enough oxygen for one of them, that he'd made her take it, that she'd needed to pull her unconscious friend up to the surface with her, strong and filled with oxygen as he suffocated. It wasn't fair that he had suffered alone because she hadn't known how to help him, that her leaving had been the only way, that it had broken his heart. She should have known how to help him, she should have been there, the way he'd been there whenever she needed him. She should have known what to do.
She shouldn't have been so damn useless.
Without warning, the butterfly tumbled from where she'd hung it on her wall, bouncing onto her dresser with a soft clack that made her jerk her head towards it, breath hitching.
The quakes must have shaken it loose and it had finally slipped off the nail.
She couldn't leave it lying in the middle of her dresser, that wasn't where it was suppose to be, so she stood up, tears continuing to stream past her cheeks and walked numbly over to replace it.
As she gently hooked it back onto the nail, the frog caught her eye, staring up at her from beneath its winged friend, and she lifted it up, debating for a moment before bringing it with her back to her bed.
Sitting slowly down on the edge, she sniffed, rubbing the frog between her fingers, taking in the cool, soothing feel of the paper and admiring the marks the water had left across the left side, creating ripples of dark and light. The blues reminded her of Fitz, of his eyes and the calm, steady reassurance of his presence. There was something decidedly blue about the way he made her feel. Safe like the dark edges of the ripples, excited like the bright blue inside and something else that was in the blue in between that she couldn't find a name for.
He made her sad too, yes, the way he was now, but that blue wasn't in the frog. It was only trust and joy and she found that the small object was wonderful, exactly where its journey had taken it. Maybe if the water hadn't spilled onto it, it would still be able to hop and the paper on its left side would be crisper, but then it would only be one shade of blue.
It was wonderful and it was theirs, both hers and Fitz's, even if he'd given it to her, he'd created it and his mark would be folded into it always, the way it was folded into her.
Maybe that was why it hurt so much to think that she was losing him, especially now after she'd thought she'd been so close to getting him back. There'd always be an echo of his voice in her head, bouncing off the walls of the hollow space he'd once occupied.
She wondered miserably if she'd ever have a chance to tell him how much he meant to her, that she loved him. Remembering their argument she wondered with a sharp jab to her heart if he'd believe her if she did.
o-o-o
Just down the hall, Fitz lay on his bed, staring at the golden frog he held over his heart, doing his best not to cry as he remembered his latest argument with Jemma.
He wanted her back. He wanted his friend beside him again, for real and forever. He'd do anything to mend their broken bond.
But she had left him, abandoned him because she couldn't handle the way he was. How could they ever go back to being so close if she couldn't accept him? How could she be his best friend if she didn't love all of him? If she wanted him to be someone else?
How was he suppose to fix this?
There was a story, that his mum used to read to him when he was a child, when he still halfway believed in things like magic, about a girl who'd kissed a frog and turned him into a prince.
Jemma wasn't a frog, but she was a princess, smart and kind and brave and beautiful like the ones in the fairy tales, only better because she was real and because she was the knight too. And the queen and the dragon and the whole bloody kingdom.
o-o-o
When she was a little girl Jemma had owned a book of fairy tales, stories that she'd known even then were impossible but that had filled her young mind with hope and wonder. She remembered a story about a frog, and a girl who'd kissed it, turning it into a prince.
Fitz was a prince, more than that, he was king. And a knight, and all the magical creatures in the imaginary worlds of her childhood combined.
o-o-o
Fitz pulled the frog closer, thinking of Jemma. Her smile and the way her laughter filled his heart with light. For just a moment, he let himself believe in magic again.
o-o-o
Jemma lifted the frog to her face, thinking of Fitz, of his heart wrapped around the people he cared about, protecting them, of the way his eyes lit when he smiled. For just a moment, she let herself pretend that fairy tales were real.
o-o-o
He brushed a kiss onto his golden yellow frog.
o-o-o
She lifted her dazzling blue frog to plant a kiss onto its face.
o-o-o
Then the spell broke and he leaned his head back against his pillow, heart aching, as he remembered the rest of the story.
o-o-o
The fantasy shattered and she lay back down, staring at the ceiling miserably as one more detail of the story made its way back to her.
The girl in the story had been a princess, royalty.
o-o-o
The magic hadn't come from the frog, but the girl. She was the special one. He'd gotten it wrong, he didn't fit the story. Jemma might be his princess but-
o-o-o
Fitz might be her prince but-
o-o-o
He wasn't her prince.
o-o-o
She wasn't his princess. Not anymore.
o-o-o
Thank you to notapepper for checking over my chapter and making some useful suggestions
The Quote at the beginning is from the Fringe episode 1x12, the No Brainer. In the episode Peter is trying to protect his father from a meeting with someone from his past, believing that they're going to hurt him (emotionally not physically) and Olivia continues to object and say that she should let his father confront them. A bit like the way Fitz wouldn't let Skye tell the team about her new found powers. The quote is just Olivia telling Peter to trust her about a suspect, but I thought it fit the chapter too, because Simmons did trust Fitz (that he was telling the truth) and he did the same for her earlier in the season (which he is still clearly sore about).
The O-ribit-gami joke is from the website I got the design off of. Look up hopping origami frog and it should be one of the first results.
The story is, of course, the princess and the frog. Which (at least the one I read as a child) is about keeping your word and doing what you say you are going to do.
