Summary: There are three ways this can go. Post-egg.
Warning/Spoiler: Spoilers through 1x19, plus possible spoilers for a scene in the finale. Major character death in a part, plus violence.
Rating: T/PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Fitz/Simmons

Author's Note: Technically a sequel to egg, but can definitely be read alone.

Rock

There are three ways this can go.

one.

Fitz takes her hands and squeezes.

"I love you, you know," says Fitz, deliberately watching her fingers slide between his and keeping his voice light. The thin air swirls around them, walls closing in, but the space between her thighs and his knees is too far. The sharp corner of the room frames them, with Jemma's knees tucked into her chest and his crossed-legs tapping repeatedly against the hard floor.

"Oh Fitz," she says, whispers sticking to concrete walls and dripping onto their heads in tiny puddles. "You know I love you too."

When he finally looks at her, studies her, her eyes are still dim and her face is still soft and her smile still lingers between genuine and forced, twitching on top her nose. "I mean - " he says, and her lips flatten, "I - I love you, Jemma."

This she doesn't know, doesn't expect, and she blinks several times. Jemma doesn't move her hand, or her face, or her legs, but she's still and processing and Fitz swallows when she closes her eyes. "Oh Fitz," she says, slowly meeting his gaze, swirls of blue and amber in her deep brown. His heart claws against his ribs when she squeezes his hand and when Jemma pulls back, the claw in his chest runs a single fang down his sternum.

"It's okay," he says, and it's not but maybe it will be.

Jemma shakes her head and Fitz crosses his arms over his chest. "I'm so sorry, Fitz - "

Fitz smiles, sadly, slowly, the light in her eyes dancing behind tears. "I still love you," he says and hopefully she understands the quirk of his lips and the twitch in his fingers - but of course she does, because she hugs him then, tightly and completely, and if it wasn't for the darkness hovering around them, he'd let the tears fall faster.

"I'll always love you the most, you know," she says later - maybe five minutes later, maybe an hour, time passes in circles and squares, twisting around the awkward silence that replaces the space between them. She's still around him, with arms and heart, but he's curled into himself. Fitz holds his heart between his own fragile bones but having Jemma's skin touch his own makes it all a little better.

"I know," says Fitz. He does.

two.

Fitz takes her hand and squeezes.

"I love you, you know," he says, watching her finger twitch in his grip. His thumb runs across the back of her palm, but she gently pries her hand lose. His heart pauses, cold and still, as she disappears behind the solid door, the tiny flap between them snapping in absent space.

He can hear her breathing, sharp inhalations that echo in her small room. The space around him is suffocating in comparison, because while he stretches his legs out, willing himself to ignore her continued silence, she's huddled in little space. Slowly, because his chest aches in time with his pounding temples, he slides his hand towards her again. "Jem?"

"I love you too," she says, softly and quietly and if his ears weren't hugging the thin wood between them he may not have heard. Her hand rejoins his, intertwining easily and he lets her pull him closer. When she squeezes his hand, hard, his knuckles run across her chest. "Oh, Fitz - " she stops, voice stuttering under unshed tears that crowd between words.

"I know," he says. She squeezes harder.

His hand is warm. Too warm, probably, because sweat pools on her wrist but she refuses to let go. Not when this is all she has of him right now, locked behind grey walls and steadily decreasing oxygen. But Jemma tries not to think about that, because the texture of his knuckles against her lips raise goosebumps on his arms and she smiles.

"Do you think they'll come?" he asks, after several hours - or has it been minutes, or days, she really doesn't know without the shadows of the sun to tell her. His fingers loosen around hers for a moment, before his grip tightens again. "Of course they'll come. They'll be here."

A tear lingers in the corner of her eye. She uses her free hand to wipe it away. "They'll be here," she says. Although all she sees is black and slivers of brown, she can imagine his flat lines pulled in determination and the gentle wash of his eyes. Where she is light, he is warmth, and Jemma curls up further into their interlocked hands.

She feels him stiffen before she hears the noises.

"In here," says the gruff voice, and Fitz draws a singular heart with his thumb in a tiny squeeze when he pulls away. Even if she only had his hand, she slips further without an anchor to hold onto. She floats now, in the sea of blackness, especially when she hears the rough laugh break through her haze. "Are we sure you don't need him?"

"Boss said kneecaps, remember," says a second voice, softer but perhaps darker. Her mind screams before her voice can but her attention is magnetized to Fitz - his voice, the scrap of his boots against the floor, the unspoken promise hovering between his lips.

"I'm not going to help you." He does not cry, and Jemma suspects it's because those tears dried in the back of his throat much earlier. "You might as well kill me." Her sob escapes her without warning, a heave of her chest as the monster in her heart pounds against her ribcage, struggling to get free. No no no no no no no no, the mantra yells, each syllable in sync with another punch. Fitz probably smiles. "And if you kill me, I can think of at least one person who'll make sure you all suffer."

And despite her shaking hands that yearn for his once again, Jemma smiles.

The first shot vibrates her very core, and the room, and a loud thud follows. A deep shadow covers her only source of light, and Fitz grits his teeth. She can see him bleeding out his mouth even if the biology has not quite caught up yet. "I told you, you're going to have to - "

Another shot and this time Jemma finally screams. "Stop it - stop it - "

Fitz's groans drown out her anguish and she resists the urge to reach out for him. His back is right there - the tears on his shirt leaving silver skin exposed -

Before she can move, his body is dragged by muscular arms. Fitz yells and fights, she know he does, but only when the third bullet screams in the hallway, echoing through an empty room all the way to her, does she curl her fist and punch the floor.

Jemma watches the blood drip down her hand and onto her wrist. She pretends the air between her outstretched fingers are filled with him instead.

three.

Fitz takes her hand and squeezes.

Jemma bites her lip, watching his thumb draw lazy circles on the back of her palm. When she finally looks up, past metal bars and through the tiny mirror stationed across from them, she finds Fitz staring right back at her.

"I love you," she says before he has a chance to. His jaw slack, he tries to speak, but Jemma shakes her head, scooting closer to the concrete wall between them, positioning her arm around the bars and closer to him. Her elbow stings but her fingers feel on fire. "You know that, right?"

Fitz doesn't say anything. Instead he kisses her knuckles, the cool metal of the bars on the skin of her wrist clashing violently with his warm mouth. Jemma closes her eyes, inhales, and then straightens.

"You know we can't, right? Not now - I wanted to," she says, smiling sadly, remembering the time Fitz agreed to be her lab partner, and when they made a breakthrough on the first ICER, or when she thought flinging herself from a plane would be the only way to save him - "it's not - "

"It's not the right time," he says, scooting closer, and he squeezes her hand again. His voice is soft, almost disappointed, but firm. There may be a slice of rock between them, but Jemma feels his heart in her mind and his soul in her hands. "I can wait."

And Jemma laughs. "I've been waiting, Fitz."

"I'm sorry," he says, and Jemma clenches onto his hand so hard, "I love you."

"I know," is all she can say, because she does and they both know there's nothing they can do about it.

So they lean against the wall, hands joined, and wait.

So there are three ways this can go.