Fitz woke up struggling to breathe, covered in cold sweat, heart beating fast. That in itself was not surprising; nightmares had been his constant companions for quite a while now. There were the greatest hits, most of them featuring Jemma. Falling out of the plane, him jumping after her, only to get to her a few seconds late, her body breaking on contact. Then there was the one where he got to Maveth only to find her dead body, decaying – the message on the phone saying, why didn't you save me Fitz, I believed in you? Another variant on that theme finds her rotten flesh possessed by Hive as she crawls towards the portal – looking at him as he stands over her with a flare gun – Don't do it, Fitz, don't you know I love you?
The nightmares had become more frequent lately, which he figured was normal. Keeping AIDA secret from her weighed heavily on his conscience. He felt he couldn't risk Mace shutting down the program, though before its potential was revealed – it was so promising. An elegant solution to end all the nightmares.
His most recent nightmare however didn't feature Jemma. He saw himself running towards Daisy, who was surrounded by Watchdogs. She was trying to keep them off, but she got weaker and weaker. In a last attempt to quake them, he heard her bones break into a thousand pieces, her arms hanging useless. When he got to her, she was dying, the light in her eyes slowly fading, Too late, Fitz, it's all too late.
He slipped out of bed quietly, trying not wake Jemma. He didn't want to add his nightmares to her worries – she had enough trauma of her own to deal with. He headed to the kitchen and made some tea, all the recent events – the ghost box, the guy with the flaming head, the haunted look on Daisy's face, Mack's hurt silence on the way back about Yoyo's betrayal – spinning in his brain. You need to fix it before it's too late, he thought.
He felt overwhelmed by it all, but then he remembered what his first lab supervisor used to tell him "Don't try to do it all at once, Fitz. Focus on one piece at a time. And if you can't find a solution, just sleep on it." He couldn't shake the feeling that the dream was somehow important. Then the idea surfaced suddenly and he headed over to the lab and turned on the holotable to capture it before it flew away.
He looked up when he heard footsteps. Jemma was standing in the doorway looking at him "What's going on, Fitz?" she asked. They hadn't had a chance to talk – she was already asleep when he got back last night. "What is that?" she noticed the design. She stepped closer to look at it and turned to Fitz "You've seen her, haven't you?"
Fitz nodded. "She was so – she had this haunted look in her eyes and her arms were so hurt – Jemma. If she doesn't come back, I think she'll get herself killed eventually."
"Did you tell her to come back?" Jemma asked.
"Of course, I told her to come back. Mack and me, both of us. I told her that she shouldn't turn her back on us, that we could help." then he grimaced "Actually, I was mostly yelling at her. But that's not… right – is it? To just walk out on people, you're supposed to care about. Who does that?" Your father, that's who. He hated that his voice sounded like a petulant teenager's. The angry kid, he thought he had left behind a long time ago.
"It's hard when people are pushing you away." Jemma noted sadly, and Fitz wondered if this was somehow a veiled reference to their own past drama when he was hurt and kept pushing away everyone. Well, at least I didn't leave, he thought to himself.
He continued "And she is doing all the wrong things – including convincing Yoyo to steal the bone-healing pills behind Mack's back. I mean he is beyond pissed – you could cut the silence on the way home."
"Rightly so. Poor Mack, must be hard, a betrayal of trust like that." Jemma said and Fitz thought again guiltily at the android. He keenly remembered those days of stony silence when he kept Daisy's transformation from her. Another secret like that could destroy them. Still, they were so close with Radcliffe, AIDA was almost ready to test and then he could finally tell her. Jemma's gaze unnerved him as he wondered if his guilt was written all over it.
"Well, he'll probably get over it eventually." Fitz said hoping that was the case. Mack and Yoyo had clearly something good brewing, and he was happy for his friend. "It just feels like everything is going to hell again and there is hardly anything we can do to fix it."
"I hear you. May got infected with the ghost stuff, so there's that." she said sadly. Fitz looked at her shocked. He bit back a comment about his own encounter with the ghost.
"But you can help her, right?" he looked at her questioningly.
"It's out of my hands – Mace decided that she would be treated somewhere else." she said in a voice that implied Mace was an idiot. Well, nothing new there.
"Where did he send her? I mean who better than you to find a cure…"
Jemma averted her gaze with a grimace. "I can't tell you. It's classified."
"But you disagree." Fitz noted and she only nodded. "You see – this is what I am talking about. We all keep these secrets – and slowly trust erodes – and for what? He is just making us weaker. And I can't do a damned thing about it." he felt riled up. Mace was as good a target for his impotent anger as any.
"But you are still making new gloves for Daisy." Jemma smiled at him. "You know, this amazing ability of yours of rising above petty grudges – someone hurts you and instead of sulking you sit in the lab in the middle of the night trying to figure out how to make something for her. I love this about you, Fitz."
He felt his cheeks get pink from the compliment as he muttered. "I just want to make sure she's OK. She's our friend and it feels like we somehow let her down. And for the record, I did sulk all the way home."
Jemma laughed and turned her eyes back on the design. "Can I take a look?" she asked and started to turn it around. "This is quite brilliant, Fitz. I still have the data from the time I've made the first gloves. Would it help you with the simulation?" she asked.
He felt his anger dissipate replaced by the excitement he felt that Jemma liked his design – that feeling never got old, "Sure, let's take a look. I actually was wondering how to protect better the radial bone. It seems that it's somehow more affected than the ulna…"
They looked at the biometric data together. Then Jemma started to have that heureka look "Fitz, I think we just need to add a layer of absorbing insulation material – the hard shell gives the stability…"
"…of course, and the insulation will absorb the micro-resonance. That way it's not absorbed in her bones." He finished the thought excitedly. "Would you know a chemist to pinpoint the right material?" he smiled at her.
"I may have some ideas." and she started to input different compound data.
"You know… I miss this. Us. Like this…The good old basics. Somehow we always did our best work together." Fitz looked at her as they moved in perfect sync around the holotable.
"I know. I miss it too." she said with a hint of regret. "But for now, it is what it is."
"Just look at that – it seems perfect…" he looked at the last gauntlet design satisfied. "I'll start building the prototype tomorrow."
"You think she will come back." Jemma stated.
"Yes, I think she will. Because we are her family. And hell, if she doesn't I'll send it to her through Yoyo with the next shipment of stolen drugs. I just want her to be safe."
"I know." Jemma wrapped her arms around him. "Come, let's go back to the room – we might get a reputation if people see us in the lab in the middle of the night prancing around in our pyjamas."
"Oh, no what will we do if some of these numpties think that I have a fetish involving shagging the Special Advisor in the lab." Fitz rolled his eyes then grabbed Jemma's waist and lifted her onto the holotable. "Don't you think our excellent collaboration deserves a celebration?" He started kissing her neck. She closed her eyes for a second, clearly considering the proposition, then she pushed him away gently.
"Still – let's take this party somewhere more private. Remember last time we tried to make out in the lab." she stroked his cheek gently.
"OK, I take your point. It was just a wee bit embarrassing." He took her hand as they headed back to their room "Still you'll have to make good on that fantasy someday…"