Long ago, Jemma had become addicted to reading. Once she had enough free time, she would anticipate losing herself within fiction every night. She'd read a lot of non-fiction when she was younger, but there's only so much one can read about a particular subject.

The imagination, however, allows for a lot more.

She was currently reading a new book, 'Apples & Knives', when her phone vibrated next to her.

A text from her husband.

'meet me in the garage when u can'

Under normal circumstances, Jemma would have carried on reading. Or at least finish her chapter. But the fact that Fitz was inviting her into a garage that she hadn't been in for over a year…

She didn't give it a second thought. Slipping her bookmark onto the page, she immediately made her way to their makeshift lab.

When she opened the door, she wasn't sure what she was expecting.

What she definitely wasn't expecting was to see her husband sitting on a white sheet surrounded by various circuit boards and metal parts. There were wires of many different colours strewn around. On the main table at the far end of the garage was a vaguely familiar piece of equipment that made Jemma begin to feel sick by just seeing it.

But Fitz himself looked far more broken than any machine.

"Darling…" Jemma said quietly, not knowing where to start. "What's this?"

Fitz looked up at her from his defeated position on the floor.

"I can't do it." He said. "I tried so hard because I wanted it to be a surprise… f-for you Jemma, but…"

Jemma shook her head in disbelief and she wished she could cover her ears.

"I'm stuck." Fitz continued. "It keeps beeping randomly and I can't figure out why. Last time we worked together, a-and we had Enoch, but if we could at least bring him home it would be worth it, right?"

"Is this what you've been doing all this time?" Jemma asked. "Trying to build it again?"

Sheepishness used to look endearing on her husband's face. Now though, it just made him look lost.

Jemma helped him back onto his feet. "You know that I can't help with this sort of thing, even if I wanted to."

Fitz turned to her, confused. "Y-You don't want to?"

Slipping her arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder, Jemma just gestured towards the poor state of the garage.

"It's been so long, darling. And we have our own Deke now, so who knows what paradoxes we'd accidentally create? As much as I want it, you know how well he manages to survive. I like to think of him as a tardigrade- he can survive anything, somehow."

"But we did that to him." Fitz countered. "If I could've just figured out how to trigger it remotely, then he wouldn't be stranded in the first place."

Jemma pulled back in order to look her husband in the eyes.

"Have you felt guilty about that this entire time?"

"Maybe."

She sighed. "Come on, we'll go back inside and I'll make you a cup of tea. You need to let it go, okay?"

He was still on edge. "I could at least make it so that it could transmit and receive messages like I've almost done just in case he-"

"No, dear. It wouldn't be fair on Baby Deke or Alya."

"Fine." Fitz sighed deeply, letting himself be led out of the garage. "Fine."

The garage door clicked with a sense of finality. The quantum device beeped again.