Jemma had woken early to find the sun streaming in through the double doors to their balcony. Despite the enormity of the vast hotel bed, their two bodies were so tightly entangled with one another's that they might as well have been inside the one sleeping bag. Fitz snored gently against her and for a moment she lay still to take in his serene expression and watch the rise and fall of his bare chest in amongst the rumple of gleaming white sheets.
She gently extricated herself from his embrace and got silently to her feet. She found Fitz's navy shirt exactly where she had slid it off his shoulders and let it fall to the gleaming floorboards the night before. She picked it up and slipped it over her bare form, calling to mind every film scene in which she'd seen something similar done. Those women always seemed to make it look like they gave it no thought at all, but given that she'd always treasured the privilege of donning Fitz's soft old Proclaimers t-shirt, this felt monumental. She watched him sleep for a lingering moment as she did up the buttons and resolved to try and start every future day by slipping Fitz's shirt from the day before over her naked body and being grateful that he was hers, that they could share this blissful intimacy.
Padding out onto the balcony, the untapped city seemed to beckon to her from below. She quietly closed all the blinds to darken the room so that Fitz could sleep on and then scrawled him a note on the hotel stationery. She placed it in an unmissable spot on the pillows and placed his phone on top of it so that he wouldn't even have to get out of bed to find her. She unbuttoned his shirt with a contented sigh, laying it neatly over the back of a chair and shimmied into a pair of denim shorts and red t-shirt. Grabbing her straw trilby and sunglasses she made sure to slide her phone and wallet into her pocket. She quickly brushed her teeth and eased on her tan leather sandals before slipping out of the room, swinging the Do Not Disturb sign onto the door handle.
Stepping out of the palatial hotel, Jemma felt the unique thrill of being alone and free in an unknown city. And she had a few specific goals for the morning that she wanted to achieve. Firstly, she wanted to find a dress. Secondly, she wanted to find a church. Thirdly, she wanted to buy a specific item she'd mentioned to Fitz. And then, if after that she still had time, she wanted to buy the tackiest and most outrageous South American souvenir she could find as a gift for Skye.
At least with the church she had a lead. She remembered picking up a National Geographic years before in the dentist's waiting room and reading about the San Francisco church of Valparaíso, affectionately known as Pancho. It had come back to her because of one fact that seemed to resonate with her and Fitz and Emily Dickinson. The church had been built by the Franciscan community with construction ending in 1846. But right up until the early 20th century, because it was the first recognisable sight of the city, the spire of the church had served as a lighthouse to vessels on the ocean. She loved the idea that she and Fitz would commit themselves to one another under a beacon of safety to ships at sea. For them it just seemed right.
As for the dress, she felt less certain, though she had the vaguest image in her mind of the Chilean national costume – a fitted bodice, puffed sleeves and swathes of full, petticoated skirts that fell to just below the knee. She imagined it might be difficult to find in a traditional white but she was feeling extremely open-minded.
The air felt close but it was a dry heat and so she moved through the shaded alleys and paved streets quite comfortably. At last, a cobbled street she stumbled upon in the historic quarter looked extremely promising, one dress shop after another with strings of exactly the dresses she envisioned festooned across the shopfronts.
One particular dress caught her eye – canary yellow in colour with a subtle matching lace around the square neckline, sleeves and frothy hem. It sang to her. And, she thought to herself, If I can drag Fitz out of the bedroom and down to the beach, by the time I actually put it on for him, I might even be able to have a little bit of a sun kissed glow. She shook her head, exasperated with herself. It was appalling that an entire lifetime in science failed to inoculate her against the British obsession with tanning. However, it didn't stop her from spending the next hour shopping for just the right swimsuit.
ooo
Fitz woke and found himself alone in their enormous bed. He stretched his shoulders, raising his arms above his head and, in doing so, unexpectedly brushed his knuckles against a piece of fancy parchment-weight paper emblazoned with the logo of the hotel. He raised himself up on one elbow to see what it was all about.
In Jemma's unmistakeable hand he read:
Wild nights, Leo, my love. Wild nights! And, in the name of securing us a future of such perpetual luxury, I'm off to find the perfect spot and the perfect frock in which I can make you mine for keeps. Sleep in, order breakfast, read the paper, go out exploring – enjoy the next few hours without me (if you can!) but don't forget your phone and I'll call you with somewhere to meet me for lunch when I'm done. Oh, and, so that you can mentally prepare yourself, while I'm out, I'm going to buy my first ever bikini in an attempt to lure you down to the beach with me. Ooh la la!
Fitz collapsed back against his pillow with an ecstatic grin on his face. Jemma had made it clear she was relishing their newfound intimacy just as much as he was, but the note also held the promise of an extremely appealing afternoon at the seaside. He wiled away a pleasant hour just dozing and daydreaming – imagining, amongst other things, a sultry bikini-clad Jemma walking towards him across shimmering sand.
He smiled around the suite at all the unmistakeable evidence that he shared it with a lover. Jemma's gown once again lay in an emerald-green puddle on the floor, her intriguingly lacy underwear hung draped over the bedhead and the room seemed full of the intoxicating scent of her. But before long, Fitz being Fitz, his stomach made its insistent and significant requirements known. He staggered to his feet, pulled his last clean pair of shorts out of his bag and threw a pale blue button-down shirt over the top, rolling his sleeves back to the elbow.
He hadn't yet said it aloud to Jemma but from the minute they'd driven into the urban areas of Chile, Fitz had been unable to dismiss two persistent cravings that he'd been introduced to since crossing the pond – empanadas and churros. If he'd experienced good empanadas and churros in the United States, surely the authentic article would be amazing. Tucking his phone and wallet carefully into his pocket and being sure to grab the keys to their room, Fitz the hunter-gatherer went out in pursuit.
Three...