The letters are upbeat and positive in the weeks leading up to her visit, remarkably insulated from the events he hears on the wireless and reads in the paper every night. There is nothing about the surrender of U.S forces in the Philippines, the bombing of Exeter, or the round the clock carnage in Malta. Instead she tells him in a letter how she heard a pipe band on the wireless that reminded her of him and made her excited for her trip. In the next she recounts her trip to Scotland as a girl and tells her all that she remembers, the stillness of a loch and a quaint cottage outside Crieff. He can gather she hasn't returned to the north since then. The captivating thought of spending more than a few hours in her company after what years of letter writing makes it difficult for him to sleep each night.
Imagining the input that Jemma could have on all of his projects in a few short weeks, he starts working with a new gusto. Major Coulson can detect the shift in his behavior in the week before she arrives.
"These are pretty ambitious projects." He looks at the schematics and prototypes Fitz has laid out. "What even is this?" Coulson picks up the nearest weapon.
"That's an automatic grenade launcher," Fitz informs proudly.
"Automatic grenade launcher? For what? smoke grenades?"
"Smoke grenades, fragmentation, any 40mm round," Fitz shrugs like it's nothing.
"You could really make that?"
"I could try." He can try if Jemma is here with him. He knows a chemist as skilled as her could help him calibration the necessary pressure in the two chambers.
"And I see you're still working on the night optics."
"Yeah, I think I'm close if I just - I think maybe adding silver to the photocathode will do it. I don't - I'm not sure what the light amplification will be, but - " He's sure Jemma can help him figure that out too. "But I'm close."
"And you're still working on those amphibious mines?"
"The drifting mine or the rising mine?"
"Both." Coulson smiles at his eagerness.
"I finished both. I'm working on an influence mine now."
"An influence mine?"
"Yeah, one that would load acoustic signatures into fuzes."
"Meaning?" Coulson smiles.
"Meaning it could be programmed to detect a single, highly distinctive signature as a target."
"You can really do that?" The look of wonder on Coulson's face just grows.
"I'm working on it." He has a hard time keeping a smile from forming on his face as he speaks the words. He won't be working on it. They'll be working on it together.
He tries to imagine her surprise when she sees all the designs. He can't wait to show her. For months his letters have been vague allusions to doing work that he enjoys. While he's sure she's pieced together that he's working on engineering something, he's left her mostly in the dark. Soon he won't just be able to tell her. He'll be able to show her too. She'll be able to work right alongside him.
By Friday afternoon, he's sure he's hallucinating her voice while he works on the influence mine he was talking to Coulson about. He shakes his head. Tomorrow. He'll see her in twelve hours tomorrow. But then he hears the pleasant pitch of her voice again. It's not his imagination; it's coming from the shop.
"Is there a soldier in here?" He hears her voice again, only now he hears his supervisor's voice too.
"Aye, there's a Jock back here," the Commodore laughs. "Who's askin'?"
"I thought you weren't meant to come until Saturday?" Fitz stumbles in from the back workshop before Jemma can answer the Commodore.
"We left early." She bites her lip at the admission and Fitz can't help but wonder how much of leaving early had been her idea.
"Well now, is this the lass you're always writing, Fitz?" The Commodore laughs and claps him on the back. "You didn't say she was English!"
"This is Jemma," he admits sheepishly, hoping that will suffice as far as introductions go.
She's looking at him funny and he realizes it's likely because he has a rubber apron on and goggles atop his head. It's the first time she's seen him in something other than full battledress in the entire time they've known each other.
"Where are you staying?" He's not sure why that's the first question out of his mouth. He pulls the goggles off his head and runs his hand through his hair, which is longer than she's probably ever seen it. It's longer than it's been the entire time he's been in service. Part of the perks of not having weekly inspections.
"Just over in Dumbiedykes. With my friend's family."
"Dumbiedykes?" He knows the working-class neighborhood is likely not quite what Jemma expected for a holiday. "That's right next to the King's Park and Radical Road." He can tell she has no idea what he's talking about. Just speaking the words, all he can think about is taking her to those places. They'll climb Arthur's Seat and take walks in the park. All the romantic things his classmates had done with their sweethearts back at University when he'd been holed up in the library and the lab. Except, he has to bring himself back to reality, Jemma isn't his sweetheart.
Noticing the way she casts an eye to the back workshop, he can't help but smile at how eager she likely is to know what he's working on. Instead she inquires about when he finishes work.
"I'll be off for lunch in an - "
"Go ahead and skive off now!" the Commodore laughs and gives a dismissive wave.
"And be back by - "
"Be back by Monday."
"But sir - "
"If Clarke asks, I'll tell him you're out scrounging for parts."
"If Coulson - "
"And if Major Coulson comes I'm sure he'll be pleased you've taken the afternoon."
"Right, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Fitz nearly walks out the door without pulling his apron and goggles off, which makes Jemma laugh.
As soon as they exit the shop, she seizes his arm and begins peppering him with questions. They settle into a rhythm, walking and talking like it hasn't been four-hundred twenty-six days since he's last seen her.
She's grown more beautiful somehow in the time they've been apart. He's caught between the desire to just gaze at her and the desire to catch her up on all the things he hasn't been able to put in a letter. Embarrassed that she might catch him staring, he starts from the beginning. How first he began modifying his rifle and that extended to a Bren Guns and sidearms. Then soon he was converting weapons for the Home Guard. Now he's doing all of that and designing weapons for Major Coulson. She's curious about Major Coulson and how he had visited Fitz before the Americans had even officially entered the war.
"He doesn't act like an officer," Fitz tells her. "Doesn't make me stand at attention. Hates when I salute."
"What do you think he was doing at your camp?"
"Getting a tour of the defenses, I reckon. Said he'd been all over the perimeter of the island."
"And he comes and sees you every month?"
"At least once a month. Brings me designs to work on, projects, asks what I need. You should see some of the prototypes he brings in sometimes." He tells her about the tank engine Coulson had brought to him last week from the desert. He'd challenged Fitz to figure out a way to combat the combined problems of dust particles and high ambient temperature that makes operating in the desert so difficult.
He can't answer all her questions and the ones he can just seem to generate more questions. Wishing he'd brought the schematics with him, he tries to describe his designs as best he can. Fortunately, she seems as content as he is to continue walking about the city. He knows the port of Leith isn't nearly as scenic as the rest of the city. The damage from the air raids is a bit more significant here. There are piles of rubble to pick around and windows they walk by that have been blown out. She handles seeing it all with more poise than when they'd had to pick through the rubble in Cambridge years ago. He knows the war has changed everyone and, aside from the victory at Tobruk, the last year seems to have been nothing but loss and defeat.
He asks after her parents and she tells him they still ask after him.
"Can you believe it's been nearly a year since then?
"Since we last saw each other? Yes, it's been...a long time." He doesn't dare tell her how often those few hours in her company have sustained him over the last year. "They're well, I hope? Your parents?"
"As well as can be expected."
"I suspect that's all of us," he remarks.
"Well, you seem to be doing quite well. Your own workshop, your own designs, complete freedom to work as you want." Fitz wonders if there's not a hint of frustration behind her words.
"It's far from perfect. I never have enough aluminum alloy to work with and the Commodore's always blustering in and he talks all the time about the most innane- "
"It's not being shot at in France," she interrupts.
"I never really got shot at." The admission marks only the second time in two years they've ever truly talked about his brief time overseas. Somehow it feels like a distant memory. He remembers little but the nervous apprehension beforehand and then the chaos of their retreat. "Someone shot in our direction, but not...at me. Not directly."
"You were bombed."
"Our battalion's position was bombed, but we didn't - "
"Why do you do that?" She stops in her tracks then and he can see her lips pursed together.
"What?"
"Downplay what you did? Where you were? You did it with my parents too." There's an irritation in her voice he didn't expect. She's mentioned this before in letters, but this isn't something he can pick up from words on a page. Hearing her say it, seeing the way she purses her lips together in annoyance, is something else entirely.
"Because we didn't...do anything." His self-derisive laughter only serves to set her further on edge.
"How can you say that?"
"Because we didn't, Jemma. We showed up and we rode to the front, we sat there for three days and then the moment they fired in our direction we...ran all the way back home."
"You came under attack - "
" - and we retreated! We ran away!" There's a tremble to his voice he wishes weren't there.
"You survived! What's wrong with surviving?" she challenges. He's not sure what's brought this out of her, but it seems she's held it in a long time.
"Nothing, I guess failing means you're playing, right?" he mutters the phrase his mum had so often repeated to him as a child.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," she remarks and he can see her mouth begin to form another word before she swallows it. She's not angry, but he can detect an obvious frustration with his behavior. He'd felt it when he'd last seen her in Sheffield too, after she'd questioned his motivations for being an infantry soldier and talked about wasting talent. "Most people .as clever as you - " She pauses for a moment and licks her lips. "They'd take the first opportunity they could to avoid fighting in a war. I know. I work with them." For a brief moment, Fitz wants to task if Milton is one of the people to whom she's referring. "Enlisting when you did and doing what you did...it's..." He's not sure what she intends to say because she doesn't finish her sentence.
There's a long and uncomfortable pause he's not used to having with her. He wants to tell her the men she works with are the smart ones. That sometimes he doesn't even know why he enlisted and most days he regrets it. Instead he asks her if she wants to do the Telegraph puzzle. She agrees, but insists it's only so she can further solidify the lead she has.
"You mustn't have gotten my last two letters because I'm clearly ahead!" They bicker then over who is leading in the competition that's been taking place for nearly two years. He finds it hard to believe they've known each other that long. At the same time, he finds it increasingly difficult to remember what his life was like before he'd met her. Life before this war feels like ages ago.
He's not sure whether he should be embarrassed of the fact that someone he's known primarily through letters, who he probably hasn't even spent twenty-four hours with in total, is the best friend he's ever had. For the majority of his life he'd always preferred the solitude of a laboratory to any attempt to socialize with his peers. But she makes him not want to be alone anymore. He imagines what it would be like to have her working beside him every day. To share lunch and do a Telegraph puzzle and walk along the water as they have been for the last hour.
He wishes he'd taken her into the city instead of down to the shipyards, but she hardly seems to mind. She sighs and looks out at the stillness of the water contentedly.
"It's been so long since I've seen the sea," she remarks in such a dreamy state Fitz wonders if she's perhaps recalling a holiday with her family. He doesn't bother telling her that the Firth of Forth isn't quite the North Sea. "I should bring Bobbi here."
"To the docks?" Fitz snorts. The industrial port here with its shipyards and cargo ships, is hardly a scenic outing. He's not even sure how they ended up here. They just kept talking and walking until there was no room left to walk.
"Yes, and the river we walked along too. What did you call it?
"Water of Leith."
"Water of Leith," she repeats to herself with a smile. "Sounds quite magical."
"Magical?" He laughs again in her ability to find beauty and wonder in every small thing they've seen so far. She hadn't paid attention to the rubble where an air raid hit a tenement last year or the military equipment being unloaded in front of them. Somehow she looks out on it all and sees something else.
"Yes. I should bring her here."
"There's better places to see than Leith," he laughs. "Why - er - why aren't - why did she not come with you - you know - today?" he stammers over the purposefully prying question about why she'd immediately come to see him on her own.
"Well, she knows, you know, that it's - just that it's been quite a long while since we've seen each other." She suddenly seems to stammer over her words too.
Neither say anything. Fitz isn't quite sure what to do with the knowledge that her friend has purposefully left them alone together.
"Dinner," he blurts out boldly.
"Fast approaching, yes," she remarks, looking around at how dusk has now settled over the city.
"There's not many restaurants, but I've - er - I've been saving my wages," he admits. He'd been saving nearly everything since she'd told him she was coming north.
"Are you asking me to dinner?" He can't sort out whether the high-pitched tone of surprise is a good thing.
"Just - well - it's - er - it's getting late and - and we've been out a while," he stammers lamely.
"We have." She speaks the words with such wonder, like the mere fact they've been able to spend hours on end together is a miracle. "I really should be going though. Nancy's mum is making supper and I did say I'd be back before dark."
"Right. Yeah," he tries to act like asking her to supper hadn't required him to summon all the courage he had. "I'll walk you back."
"You don't have to do that," she dismisses.
"I know," Fitz admits with a shrug and a smile. He knows she's clearly capable of navigating the city on her own, but walking her all the way back to Dumbiedykes will mean at least another whole hour in her presence.
He's pleased to see their friendship is as effortless as he remembered. Despite nearly a year apart, neither seem to have missed a beat. He decides halfway through their walk home, somewhere between their lengthy discussion about the Fibonacci series and its recurrence in nature and the news from the latest war bulletin, that he's going to be honest with before she goes back to England. It's only been six hours, but there's already been far too much today for him to continue like their relationship hasn't moved somewhere beyond the plane of friendship. He's not sure whether it's the knowledge that her friends have purposefully left them alone together or that her parents still ask about him.
For a moment, he thinks about just telling her now. How his pitiful attempt to ask her to dinner had been more than just an inquiry over whether she's hungry. That he wants to spend their time here doing much more than the Telegraph puzzle. Instead when he arrives at the close to Nancy's flat, he simply takes great delight, as he has all day, in saying he'll see her tomorrow. The sheer notion hardly seems real. They have the entire weekend in front of them and three more days on top of that. He can hardly believe how many days stretch in front of them. He'll tell her before she leaves.
They have five days after all.